We did consider doing a follow up to our ‘History Of Hip-Hop Sampling Michael Jackson’ but realised we’d pretty much covered the best records, our only notable omission being Jay Z ‘Izzo’.  We’re sure you can live without us posting that little nugget. Instead we opted to mine for obscure stories on how Michael influenced Hip-Hop in perhaps a more unorthodox manner. Our man Aaron Fuchs at Tuff City Records, a walking fountain of musical knowledge, came at us with a really interesting angle, basically how the Jackson Juggernaut inadvertently prevented Tuff City’s then CBS imprint moving up the ladder at Epic Records right at a time when Thriller hit a home run and then some.

FL: How did your CBS imprint get affected by Michael Jackson?

AF: Being swept up in Michaelmania definitely had an effect on Tuff City’s history. To take it from the top I was an Apollo Theatre junkie. I went to that shrine of soul music a hundred to a hundred and fifty times from the early 60’s to the early 70’s. Sometime in the mid 60’s I saw the Jackson Five perform at the Apollo without a deal, I can’t tell you exactly when, those years were druggy, but this was the only time I ever saw this happen. This was THE show. Not amateur hour, in fact, I saw artists like Linda Jones who did have deals and were relegated to doing amateur hour, that’s how good they were. Fast forward to 1983 and I’ve made my first record deal, a 12″ singles deal with CBS, Epic’s subsidiary and I walked smack-dab into the teeth of Thrillermania. This was the wrong time and the wrong place to be breaking into the business, much less with rap records that were outre even by rap ’s standards, like ‘Punk Rock Rap’ by the Cold Crush Brothers and ‘One for the Treble’ by Davy DMX.

FL: How did Tuff City get treated?

AF: The mighty Epic Records was veritably Michael Jackson’s handmaiden and while Rick Rubin and Russell Simmons were upstairs in the Columbia half of CBS getting hundreds of thousands of dollars to launch Def Jam, I allowed myself to be played for a fan, mollified by stuff like tickets to the Jackson’s Victory tour and Michael’s white glove presentation at the Museum of Natural History.

FL: How important was MJ to Epic at the time?

AF: When I first got on board in early ‘83, I took home a promo of the Thriller LP and played it in all its immaculately pressed glory. By the end of the year I needed another promo and when I played this one at home I was surprised at how much more degraded the pressing was. I went to a CBS manufacturing executive to ask him what was up. Do you know what he told me? “We have sold this album to every single person in America with a record player. We are now reaching the consumer who hasn’t bought a record in 5-10 years and they’re dragging some piece of ancient record playing equipment from their basement or attic that couldn’t tolerate a modern pressing.” He was that big.

So, as the short lived Tuff City imprint ground to a halt, leaving behind only a three record legacy, Tuff City went back to what it was best at, being an independent. Perhaps if Thriller hadn’t fun-crushed Aaron’s dream at the time, they wouldn’t have gone on to be the label we love to this day. In case you’re interested and aren’t familiar with the Tuff City CBS imprint, allow us to enlighten you as each record was highly significant on many levels.

The first of the three singles was Spoonie Gee’s ‘The Big Beat’. Just imagine what a rapper of that raw talent could have achieved at that time within a major label system. Forget Kurtis Blow, Spoonie could have taken over the game. There may never have been an LL Cool J. Perhaps a ‘Billie Jean’ remix featuring Spoonie could have been the first R’nB / Rap collabo. Needless to say, Spoonie never got that break and the rest is his story.

Second was Davy DMX’s electro classic ‘One For The Treble’. With a killer bassline, hard as hell drums, revving car engine and the British female hook, this is up there as one of the best slabs of hip-hop history. Interestingly enough, Davy DMX was picked up by Russell and Rick at CBS’s Def Jam label situated in the same building as Aaron at the time. He became a solo artist on Def Jam and released his album alongside DJ Hurricane (Pictured with Davy D) who Rubin later nabbed to DJ for the Beasties.

Finally, and probably most significantly, was ‘Punk Rock Rap’ (audio below). Cold Crush, alongside Spoonie were Fuchs’ favourites. Again, supremely talented and largely unsung, but this record in particular contained a sample that inadvertently catapulted them into hip-hop history after being used on Doug E Fresh’s ‘The Show’. ‘Punk Rock Rap’ was not the Cold Crush’s greatest musical moment, but that female sample 20 seconds in will, in one way or another, ensure their legacy lives on. We’re sure Caz could enlighten us as to how that one panned out.

Cold Crush Brothers ‘Punk Rock Rap’