My Global Hustle » Archive » Red Alert: Hip Hop is Alive by Stanley Lumax

Red Alert: Hip Hop is Alive by Stanley Lumax

As a 10 year old sitting in my kitchen in Plainfield, NJ with my boom
box, I fell in love with hip hop. My parents were not letting me run
the streets after the dark, so at 9pm I was glued to 98.7 Kiss. I
might turn to BLS during a commercial, but Uncle Red and the BDP Crew
rocked with KISS. Being a huge KRS fan, there was no question where
my loyalty was.

For those of you who don’t know, Plainfield(the name says it all) is
a small town in Central New Jersey, about 20 minutes Â from Newark.
This meant there weren’t too many home-grown celebs in my generation
(Shout Out to Â “Da Famlee, DJ Cheese?”). Because of my geographic
location, and my parents’ tight reign on my freedom, the only time I
was in New York was to go to the African parties my parents’ friends
would throw.

This made the radio invaluable to me. Â No I wasn’t from the Bronx,
but my older brother grew up there, My sister lived in Tracy Towers
and I knew it was the birthplace of hip hop. Â I became a pupil of
this art form. No I was never lucky enough or even old enough to go
to the Rooftop, The Roxy, Union Square, Latin Quarters or even Skate
Keys, but listening to Rakim, Just Ice, Big Daddy Kane, Super Lova
Cee and Casanova Rudd, JVC FORCE, Â the Diss Masters made me feel like
I was right there. I became a student, and every Friday and Saturday
night Red Alert was the Professor.

Fast forward 20 years later, I’m living in Brooklyn (A whole
different Ft. Green then it used to Â be.) I get an email from out of
all people, the TR808 himself, D Nice talking about Red Alert’s 50th
Birthday party. Â $25 Bucks for moment of history. As, I stood there
in awe listening to Funk Master Flex, Mr. Cee, Q-Tip, Frank Jugga,
Chuck Chillout recreate what Red Alert did for me so many years ago,
I smiled. It made me realize why i loved this music, and after all
this time, here I was experiencing my own moment in Hip Hop History.

“And to earn a position to do hard work, you can ask Kool Herc or my
man Red Alert.”