The kids wouldn’t even be in the recording booth, they would just be in the control room and they would hit the mic. They would just record the reaction to the record by the kids. These were just the kids who were rolling with the kids that happened to be rappers. There would be like thirty to forty kids just running around the studio, this was before the entourage. They were the ones constructing the music and making sure that things got done. He was an old guy! So Frank told me it was really up to him as the engineer and Pumpkin as the lead musician. Bobby would always come in to see what was going on, but give him twenty, thirty minutes? He was passed out on the couch. Bobby didn’t get out of the record store until late at night, and Frank told me that they did these sessions from like ten pm until five in the morning at a music studio within Manhattan. Bobby Robinson’s been around since the doo wop days, and had a record store down in Harlem.
I spoke to an engineer named Frank Zellar who engineered all of those red label Enjoy Records. Now I don’t know if it was an annual thing, I don’t know if it was a once every month kinda thing, but there was definitely some money involved. Greg G from the Disco Four said that Pumpkin received $600 for him and his band over at Enjoy. Was Pumpkin getting paid what he deserved for his work at Enjoy? In the breakdowns you’d hear a lot of drums, a lot of patterns.
Fearless Four’s ‘Rockin’ It’ is actually Kraftwerk’s ‘Master Machine ’ ‘Heartbeat’ is a replay of the original ‘Heartbeat’ Fearless Four ‘It’s Magic’ is a replay of ‘Does A Dog Have A Doughnut?’. Pumpkin was able to replay anything he heard – whether it was a drum beat, keyboard, bassline. The actual drums is from Tower of Power, from that record called ‘Squib Cakes.’ The drummer of Tower of Power, his name is David Garibaldi, and he was actually a big influence to Pumpkin. There was another musician, who’s actually related to Spoonie Gee and Bobby Robinson. That’s how they did it, back in the day.ĭid Pumpkin play the congas on ‘Love Rap’? They had to record the tracks first, then the rapper’s rapped on them. The reason why a lotta those records say ‘Pumpkin and Friends’ is because Pumpkin knew a lot of musicians, so Bobby left it up to Pumpkin to gather musicians when necessary for these records, ‘cos he couldn’t play all the instruments at the same time. The Funky 4+1’s first record, ‘Rappin’ and Rockin’ The House,’ I believe Pumpkin replayed Cheryl Lynn’s ‘To Be Real’ to where it had a familiar sound but it kinda had it’s own feel. Back then, what sampling was for a guy like Pumpkin was replaying records that were out already. I may know about the bass guitar, the piano, but I’d rather be in a band.’ Pumpkin had a great idea for what hip-hop should sound like on wax. He was a band guy, he was more like, ‘Put me in a band. He was very young – when he got to Bobby he was at least sixteen years old. All those red label records from Enjoy, anything that does say ‘Produced by Bobby Robinson’ or ‘Music by Pumpkin and Friends’? Pumpkin was solely responsible for all that music. That’s actually how he auditioned for him. Somebody in the Funky 4+1 told Bobby Robinson, who was the owner of Enjoy Records, about Pumpkin and Bobby Robinson actually came to the Bronx to see Pumpkin in the garage. ‘You hear that beat that’s going on outside? That’s Pumpkin. As loud as the music coulda got? Pumpkin was just that funky. What was funny was there was a church across the street, and after a while the church people and the pastors just had no problem. Pumpkin used to always have a crowd of people watching him in the garage. They were like the first group on Enjoy, if I’m not mistaken, and he did their very first record, ‘Rappin’ and Rockin’ The House.’ They used to practice at his garage in the Bronx. Speed up to the late seventies, about ’77, ’78, Pumpkin used to practice with Funky 4+1. Drums happened to be his favorite instrument. They were all musicians, they all played some kind of instrument, but Pumpkin was able to pretty much master any instrument he touched. My grandfather had three sons – my father, another brother by the name of Mike and Pumpkin. When he was younger – from going to school and all that – he just loved music. Koolie Kookoo: I was born in ’86, but due to my research It’s almost like I was there. Robbie: What are your first memories of your uncle? Here are some of Koolie’s favourite memories and anecdotes of his uncle. Little is known about the legendary drummer/producer behind classic rap jams from Enjoy, Profile and Tuff City, so when his nephew Koolie Kookoo hit me up this past December I jumped at the chance to find out more about the great man. Filed under: Features, Interviews, Non-Rapper Dudes, The 80's Files