August 24, 2023 • 43 mins
New York was the epicenter of the 90s Hip Hop Renaissance and Funk Master Flex’s legendary Sunday night parties at The Tunnel, gave Hip Hop fans a home. From the phenomenal performances it hosted to the iconic songs it premiered, each night at The Tunnel was filled with cinematic scenes starring hip-hop royalty, making the club a vital cultural touchstone in the legendary 50-year history of Hip Hop.
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Speaker 1 (00:01):
You know how when you were growing up, there was
always that one kid who seemed older, cooler, and more interesting,
someone who went to parties and hung out with the
older kids, The kid who had everyone sitting on the
edge of their seats in homeroom as they gossiped about
what happened the night before. When Ferris Buehler, I know
(00:23):
what you're thinking, but no, not that one. When Ferris
was growing up in Queens, New York in the nineties,
he went to a high school called Thomas A. Edison,
and that kid who came back to school with stories
after every weekend was.
Speaker 2 (00:38):
A classmate of mine by the name of Kaiser.
Speaker 1 (00:43):
Kaiser was the cool kid.
Speaker 3 (00:46):
He was on a basketball team.
Speaker 1 (00:48):
He was only about fifteen or sixteen, but Kaiser was
already exploring New York's night life.
Speaker 2 (00:54):
He would go with his uncles and he would just
come back and tell us like, Oh, it was crazy
last night, but I was just in awe, Like how
did you get in?
Speaker 3 (01:04):
You know, I've never been to a nightclub in my life.
Speaker 1 (01:08):
Farris wanted to know which musicians Kaiser had seen, what
songs he'd heard, and if the club's Kaiser had gone
to were as exciting as the rumors about them.
Speaker 2 (01:17):
He was like educating me on what was happening, and
I was like very fascinated.
Speaker 1 (01:22):
And the spot that Kaiser talked about the most was
a club called the Tunnel. He had heard about it
on the radio two on Hot ninety seven to be specific. Yeah,
that's what I'm talking about.
Speaker 3 (01:34):
Let's take it to the Tunnel real quick.
Speaker 4 (01:36):
Okay, understand New York it gets no D in.
Speaker 5 (01:39):
This right here.
Speaker 1 (01:43):
Farris used to listen to the radio in the morning
as he got ready to go to school. He would
listen to funk Master Flex talk about the legendary Sunday
night mecca hip hop parties at the Tunnel.
Speaker 2 (01:54):
I would just hear the radio hosts talk about guests
and what it was like Monday morning, or just hyping
up the scene, and like who would shut down the Tunnel,
what records were the big records.
Speaker 1 (02:11):
It seemed like people who went to the hip hop
parties at the Tunnel were getting to experience something magical
that Ferris was missing out on. But eventually, after years
of hearing stories about the club, Ferris finally headed downtown
to check out the Sunday night party himself. Well kind of.
Speaker 3 (02:32):
I believe.
Speaker 2 (02:33):
The first time I was around the tunnel was for
a Memphis bleak.
Speaker 3 (02:39):
He had the.
Speaker 2 (02:41):
Coming of Age album and I was on the Rock
Fallers Street team at that time.
Speaker 1 (02:46):
On the street team, his job was to stick posters
up on the walls and help set up for concerts.
Speaker 2 (02:52):
I got to be inside where no one was in there,
and it was interesting to see like the space, you know,
just seeing the energy of the tunnel. So just getting
a chance to win this set.
Speaker 1 (03:04):
But at that time he was only around eighteen, and
unlike Kaiser, whose uncle snuck him in the bouncer's new
Ferris was too young to be there, so he had
to leave before the party actually started.
Speaker 2 (03:21):
So just hung out with some people outside just to
like really catch a glance of all the patrons. You
got to see all the clothes, all the people, all
the characters.
Speaker 1 (03:32):
He spent the night outside people watching and there was
a lot to see because on Sunday nights, hip hop
heads from all across the city would make their way
over to Chelsea. They'd speed down the West Side Highway
while playing Hot ninety seven and head over to Twelfth
Avenue where the nightclub stood. But they had to abandon
(03:53):
their cars and walk the rest of the way because
there was a long line all the way down the block.
To get in, you had to go through several security
checkpoints to even get close to the door.
Speaker 3 (04:08):
You felt the element of danger in the air.
Speaker 2 (04:11):
You felt like with the bouncers at the front of
the block before you walk all the way down the
cobble Stone Road.
Speaker 1 (04:23):
The energy outside the tunnel was intense, multiple security guards
searching people and checking their pockets for weapons. But the
reason behind all the tight security more about that later.
The nineties was the golden age of hip hop, and
the party mecca at the Tunnel was the club at
the center of it all. You see, the thing about
(04:47):
the tunnel was that while regular people went to the club,
the tunnel was also home to some of hip hop's
greatest musicians. One night, when Faris was spectating from outside
the club, he saw ripple of excitement run through the line.
The whole crowd turned their heads and looked over at
a light in the distance, and there he was jay Z.
(05:11):
He had just released his first number one album, Volume two,
Hard Knock Life.
Speaker 2 (05:17):
He's just on fire and he's like really ascending there
to just be the big guy.
Speaker 1 (05:24):
Everyone held their breath as they saw jay Z rolling
down the street and heading over towards them in a
luxurious blue Bentley. And I know what that must have
been like, crazy energy, just crazy.
Speaker 3 (05:37):
It was just a beautiful moment. That's that forever etched
in my mind.
Speaker 1 (05:45):
The whole crowd went silent. It was a majestic sight.
They were witnessing the entrance of Hip Hop Royalty.
Speaker 3 (05:54):
It just was like a calm, Like the guys there.
Speaker 1 (05:58):
And watching jay Z pull up in that Bentley, it
was like seeing everything he wrapped about, the luxury and
the money coming to life.
Speaker 2 (06:09):
Just seeing the guy in the car that's on the
cover of volume two, that's the guy, that's the car
that's like very much living what he spoke about.
Speaker 1 (06:23):
You never knew who was going to drive down Twelfth
Avenue and spend their Sunday night in Mecca at the tunnel.
And that's what made it so exciting.
Speaker 3 (06:32):
Seeing them in the element in the wild. It was spectacular.
It was a must if you're around during that time, just.
Speaker 1 (06:40):
A musk Legendary musicians would come to play a new
song to the crowd for the very first time. One
off performances would make the crowd go wild.
Speaker 3 (06:50):
If you wanted to be involved, you were there. If
now you were at.
Speaker 2 (06:53):
Home, sleeping in your bed, waking up and hearing about
it the night before and wishing you could have attended.
Speaker 1 (07:00):
Sunday nights at the Tunnel were legendary. The DJs behind
the booth were taste makers. Hip hop started in New
York and in the nineties, in the midst of its
golden age, it found a home Mecca at the Tunnel.
From London audio iHeartRadio and executive producer Paris Hilton. This
(07:24):
is the History of the World's Greatest Nightclubs a twelve
part podcast about the iconic venues and people that revolutionized
how we party.
Speaker 5 (07:35):
World.
Speaker 1 (07:38):
Some of the world's most legendary nightclubs were known for
the unique community they welcomed, others for the cultural movements
they started, and some for the musicians and DJs they
introduced to the world. The best nightclubs champion new music,
transformed lives, and provide an escape from life's pressures. One
more thing. This is the history of some of the
(08:01):
world's greatest nightclubs. Not a ranking of every club in
the world. It's an exploration of the spaces, people and
club nights that made a lasting impact on nightlife and music. Today,
I'm your host Alternate. I'm a singer, songwriter and musician
and I found my purpose in club culture. This is
(08:22):
Episode ten. Mecca at the Tunnel in New York, USA.
New York was the epicenter of the nineties hip hop
renaissance and the Sunday night Mecca parties at the Chelsea Nightclub.
The Tunnel gave the genre a home. The club host
at legendary performances, iconic song premieres, and its history is
(08:43):
filled with tales of cinematic scenes starring hip hop royalty.
It would become a huge success and a cultural touchstone
in the legendary fifty year history of hip hop, a
genre that would go on to influence art, culture and
music all around the world. To really understand the story
(09:09):
of Mecca at the Tunnel, you have to understand the
story of hip hop. Hip Hop was born fifty years
ago in the Bronx. It was the seventies and things
were tough for young people in New York. School programs
were being cut, crime rates were going up, and the
Bronx was burning.
Speaker 5 (09:26):
There were more than one hundred and twenty thousand fires
in New York City. Last year, two hundred and seventy
two civilians and seven firemen died. There are few things
that strike more panic in man than the destructive force
of fire.
Speaker 1 (09:39):
It belonged landlords were looking for an insurance payout, so
they got arsonists to set their buildings on fire. Over
the course of the seventies, two hundred and fifty thousand
people were displaced in Over eighty percent of housing in
the Bronx was lost to the fires.
Speaker 4 (10:02):
And you have Gerald Ford, who was the president at
the time. I think the federal government wasn't going to
give any type of assistance to the Bronx.
Speaker 1 (10:12):
That's Jonathan Abrams, a staff writer at the New York
Times and the author of The Come Up and Oral
History of the Rise of Hip Hop. So the Bronx
was burning, crime was going up, and there was a
general sense of disillusionment in the city, especially amongst the
young people living there.
Speaker 4 (10:31):
Kids basically have nothing to do and they're looking for
something to fill a void in their lives. And at
the time, disco is what's really popular as a musical genre.
Speaker 1 (10:44):
Like in so many eras before and after, I missed
everything that was going on in the world around them.
Young people found soulless in music, so at night, kids
from the Bronx would go to downtown Manhattan to listen
to disco. Remember how in the last episode we talked
about the echoes of disco music that played in the garage. Well,
(11:05):
by the mid seventies, disco's popularity was beginning to fade.
Young people were looking for a new sound, so they
started throwing house parties and going to the park to
listen to music on the radio. They were looking for
something to do and somewhere to belong.
Speaker 4 (11:20):
And along comes this DJ named cool Herk.
Speaker 1 (11:24):
It was August eleventh, nineteen seventy three, and DJ cool
Herk was DJing at his sister Cindy's back to school
party with his new signature style. He had just figured
out how to extend the breakbeats of popular disco and
soul songs to stretch out the music in between lyrics,
to give people space and time to dance.
Speaker 4 (11:46):
All these dancers, the big boys and the big girls,
they love this extending of the break beats because it
allows them to do their thing right. It allows them
to dance longer and to get down to the exciting
parts of the songs.
Speaker 1 (11:59):
J's across the city started looping tracks to create a
dance break in the middle of songs they were playing,
and the technique DJ Coole Hirk had created break beating,
formed the basis of a genre that was just beginning
to come to life.
Speaker 4 (12:16):
That's really what people consider the birth of hip hop.
Speaker 1 (12:20):
Another technique that would come to stand at the forefront
of both hip hop and how DJs around the world
performed today was scratching.
Speaker 4 (12:30):
So scratching is this technique that was discovered by Grand Wizard.
Speaker 1 (12:36):
Theodore, another DJ who grew up in the Bronx.
Speaker 4 (12:39):
And the story goes that Theatre's mother had asked him
to turn down the value of a record, and he didn't.
Speaker 6 (12:46):
Of course, he's.
Speaker 4 (12:48):
In his zone, in his element, getting down to the music,
and when she's storn back into the room to tell
him again, probably a little bit stronger to turn down
the music and try to stop it immediately putting pressure
on the record with his hand, and it created this
sound that we know is scratching. So essentially, it's a
(13:09):
technique where a DJ or a turntable list moves the
record back and forth on the turntable to produce the
sounds and effects that we today know is scratching.
Speaker 1 (13:22):
The Bronx originated break beating and scratching, but there was
one more technique to add to the trinity that would
become central to the sound and style of hip hop,
and one more DJ Push me cause I'm ghost to
the it. I'm trying not to lose my head.
Speaker 4 (13:45):
It's like a jungle.
Speaker 1 (13:46):
Sometimes it makes me wonder how about people going under.
Speaker 4 (13:50):
Grandmaster Flash is probably one of the most pivotal DJs
to ever walk this earth. He was a technician, He
was an innovator.
Speaker 1 (13:58):
He invented something called quick mix theory.
Speaker 4 (14:01):
Which was essentially being able to repeat on loop the
parts of a song that the dancers found most exciting.
In nineteen eighty one, grand Master Flash released The Adventures
of Grand Master Flash on the Wheels of Steel.
Speaker 1 (14:15):
The Adventures of Grand Master Flash on the Wheels of
Steel was pivotal to hip hop.
Speaker 4 (14:21):
Flash really depicted the DJ as another musician, and he
also helped introduce sampling into hip hop.
Speaker 1 (14:28):
Something new was in the air. Local kids were forming
crews with MC's DJs, beatboxers and producers, and then they
were staging rap battles in the park to the breakbeats
of disco and funk songs.
Speaker 4 (14:41):
Hip Hop had already been brewing for a few years
in the Bronx Harlem and pockets of Brooklyn, but a
lot of people still looked at it as a fad.
Speaker 1 (14:52):
Until one of the first great hip hop songs was
released in nineteen seventy nine, rappers Delight.
Speaker 4 (14:59):
It becomes us s sation that for many many people
it's their introduction in a hip hop You know who
can mess with that opening line of hip hop? Hibbity
hip hop?
Speaker 3 (15:08):
Hip hip hop?
Speaker 4 (15:08):
And you don't stop?
Speaker 3 (15:13):
I said again, don't stop the.
Speaker 6 (15:18):
Ripper to the band man like you say the rhythm
of the to.
Speaker 3 (15:21):
Me, now what you hear is not a chat dom
and the.
Speaker 1 (15:29):
Sugar Hill Gang, a rap trio named after an area
of Harlem, had taken the disco anthem good Times by
Chic rapped over it and created hip hop's first major hit,
Rappers the Light. Was the beginning of a wave of
hip hop songs that would elevate the status of the
emerging genre and lead it to become one of the
greatest musical sounds to come out of New York. It
(15:51):
was a really exciting time.
Speaker 4 (15:55):
It's fresh and new, and everything's different, and you don't
know what this is going to become, and it's interesting.
So the East Coast and specifically the Bronx in New
York had been the birthplace, the epicenter of hip hop.
Speaker 1 (16:06):
After rappers delight, hip hop swept across the country and
headed over to the West Coast, where groups and rappers
like NWA, Doctor Dre, and Snoop Dogg put their own
Californian stamp on it.
Speaker 4 (16:20):
It's that type of music that can be played on radio.
It set one, two, three into the four Snoop Doggy
Dog and Doctor Dre at the door, and people are
riding through the freeways in Los Angeles on sunny days
bumping this sound. And it's also at a time when
MTV is starting to play hip hop.
Speaker 1 (16:43):
Hip hop wasn't just a fad. It was becoming its
own musical universe as artists across the country put their
own spin on it. And of course, we can't talk
about West Coast hip hop without mentioning the one and only.
Speaker 4 (16:56):
I had grown up at a hip hop fan and
Yubak Shakor was I grew up on the West Coast,
and he was really the first artist who taught me
so much about being black and what that meant, everything
that came with it, and to be proud.
Speaker 1 (17:12):
By the nineties, hip hop had evolved and expanded and
it meant different things to different people. Hip hop was
finally getting mainstream recognition and being played on the radio,
which accelerated its growth. Remember how Faris used to start
his mornings listening to Hot ninety seven. Well, it's because
the new sound of nineties New York hip hop was
(17:35):
being broadcast across the city by radio DJs like funk
Master Flex. In the nineties, radio DJs shaped the culture.
Speaker 4 (17:44):
So funk Master Flex, he's a taste maker, he's a
king maker, and everybody knows if he drops a bomb
on it, it usually becomes a hit.
Speaker 1 (17:53):
Back then, it was the radio that catapulted songs into
the mainstream, and dj s took curating their shows very seriously.
Speaker 4 (18:01):
They're a conduit because they have they have their feet
in both areas. One foot in the street and then
they have another foot with the executives and the people
who are able to make these decisions on who gets
these lucrative recording contracts, so Flex was influential.
Speaker 1 (18:22):
At the time. Flex's manager was Jessica Rosenblum.
Speaker 6 (18:26):
She was like a nightlight person.
Speaker 1 (18:28):
That's Ross Gerano, a music journalist who wrote an oral
history of the Tunnel for Complex magazine.
Speaker 6 (18:35):
You know, she had started working the door at this
club called Nell's, which was like a really significant, like
downtown club in the eighties where a lot of like
the people from the burgeoning rap scene and the downtown
art scene and the graffiti scene. You know, folks like
Russell Simmons, Fab five, Freddie Like when you think about
(18:56):
those kind of like key players in New York hip
hop at the time, like they were all ming at
a place like Nels, and Jessica worked the door there.
She knew how to make a party, she knew who
did invite.
Speaker 1 (19:07):
So when Flex and Jessica started working together, they started
throwing parties across the city for Flex to DJ.
Speaker 4 (19:12):
At the nineteen eighties, they had a club called Latin Quarter,
which was really a place that incubated a lot of
the mid nineteen eighties hip hop talent Salt and Pepper, Schoolly, D,
L Cool J. And then the Latin Quarter eventually shut
down and for a while, New York City didn't have
(19:35):
that home, that epicenter, that heartbeat of a live place
where up and coming acts could come and make a
name for themselves and the crowd and the DJs would
be the taste makers who would either crown them and
let them know that they're ready for the big time,
that they're ready to ascend or not.
Speaker 1 (19:57):
So that's what punk Master, Flex and Jessic set out
to do.
Speaker 6 (20:01):
They started this party called Mecca, and it bounces around
to a couple different places, and then finally they get
this spot at the Tunnel.
Speaker 1 (20:15):
The Tunnel was owned by the club king Peter Geishan,
who owned and ran a number of prominent New York spots.
Speaker 6 (20:22):
His other clubs were like the Line Light, the Palladium,
and like all those clubs were kind of like notorious
and famous for different reasons.
Speaker 1 (20:30):
But his club in Chelsea, the Tunnel, was extraordinary. It
was an eighty thousand square foot space built in an
old railroad freight terminal, a tunnel shaped building with the
remnants of an old train track in the main room
and a long, narrow dance floor. It had multiple levels,
and each room in the long narrow building had its
(20:51):
own theme and decorative style.
Speaker 6 (20:53):
This venue's massive, so there's like a lot of potential.
Speaker 1 (20:56):
The Tunnel catered to different musical subcultures throughout the week,
but the people who went there were predominantly people who
belonged to the rock, pop and dance scene, arti kids
and club kids.
Speaker 3 (21:08):
There was a whole nother tunnel that existed during the week, but.
Speaker 1 (21:12):
The club had one empty spot Sunday nights. Nobody really
wanted to party on a Sunday night, but Flex and
Jessica saw an opportunity. They knew they'd been given that
night because it was the least popular of the week
and people didn't expect hip hop parties to be that successful.
But when funk Master Flex's Mecca parties at the Tunnel began,
(21:37):
Sunday nights took off.
Speaker 6 (21:42):
We're talking like over two thousand people and it's a
Sunday night. It's like what else is there to do?
You know, But just it takes on this life of.
Speaker 1 (21:48):
Its own because Flex started those parties during a unique
moment in history when hip hop wasn't just a new
sound that young people were playing in parks and house parties.
By the nineties, a whole industry was being built around
the genre and people were making a lot of money.
Speaker 6 (22:06):
Rock was becoming mainstream and was becoming like this commercial
giant that was producing powerful black entrepreneurial figures that must
have felt so new in culture at that time.
Speaker 1 (22:19):
Diddy had started bad Boy Records, jay Z had started
Rockefeller Records, and Deaf Jam was releasing hit album after album.
Hip Hop was making a lot of money. Be for
a while, there wasn't a major nightclub that the genre
could call home, which is why the Meca Party at
the Tunnel became so popular and quickly became the club
(22:41):
where all the major players spent their Sunday nights.
Speaker 6 (22:44):
There's no party that's playing hip hop like this for
a venue this big.
Speaker 1 (22:49):
The incredible success of those parties proved that hip hop
was a financial force to be reckoned, with the crowds
on Sunday Night at the Tunnel just kept on growing.
People would come to Mecca at the Tunnel to hear
funk Master Flex play the hottest new records, and then
the next day they would listen to him on the
radio to experience those songs all over again. Flex was
(23:13):
establishing both himself and the Tunnel as central to nineties
hip hop, so to close the loop between DJing on
the radio and DJing at the Tunnel, he started to
DJ live from the Tunnel, and.
Speaker 6 (23:28):
Then eventually he gets on the radio while he's still
throwing these parties.
Speaker 1 (23:32):
Here's one of the signature drops Flex used to play
during his radio shows. It came from a clip of
David Letterman talking about how hard it was to get
a ticket to a Funk Master Flex show Funk's Master Bleckslive.
That's when the real fun begins. Bunks Master blecksnud He Take.
(23:52):
There were dozens of radio stations that would have clamored
to get a first play of a new song, but
Flex was the DJ who some of the most influen
went musicians of the nineties wanted to premiere their songs.
He was a taste maker and highly respected in the
hip hop community, so major musicians who'd already made a
name for themselves would take their new songs to the
(24:14):
Mecca party at the Tunnel to see a crowd of
hardcore hip hop fans listen to them for the first time.
Speaker 6 (24:20):
It became like a phenomenon where you would do your
record release party there where instead of having the song
debut in the radio like an artist would want the
song to debut at the Tunnel. It just had a
level of a cultural cachet and that feels like impossible
to replicate now when it comes to like a physical space.
Speaker 1 (24:38):
And one of the musicians who valued the club's cultural
cachet was Ditty. Diddy was at the height of his career.
Bad Boy Records was one of the most influential labels
in hip hop, and at the time, Diddy had a
new song coming out called All About the Benjamins, which
I've danced to a million times. Instead of going to
(24:59):
the radio, todabut it, he gave the song to Funk
mast Flex to premiere at the Tunnel.
Speaker 6 (25:04):
The first time they played that at the Tunnel, they
played it for like an hour.
Speaker 1 (25:09):
And as that hour unfolded, the crowd and the tunnel
began to channel the energy of the song.
Speaker 6 (25:16):
And like somebody pulls one hundred dollars bills out of
their their pockets or whatever and starts like lighting them
on fire just because they were so hyped. And everybody's
like heard a song out and just felt like totally
transported and like out of their body and out of
their mind.
Speaker 1 (25:32):
You didn't have to be famous or work in the
music industry to get into the Tunnel.
Speaker 6 (25:36):
That's the part that I think is like really also
hard to imagine, is that like the moguls and the
artists would be in there mixing with the crowd. Like
there was no VIP section there, and it was like
a great leveler of people. So like you were a kid,
You're a nineteen year old coming in from Brooklyn versus
your Dame Dash or your Puffy Like you're all kind
(25:58):
of like on the same playing field. They're all in
the same space. Nobody's like flording over someone in some
corded off the IP aream.
Speaker 1 (26:06):
And seeing that a sent up close at those Mecanites
at the Tunnel as a regular hip hop fan was inspiring.
Speaker 6 (26:14):
You can see the ways in which like, oh rap
is like money now it's big money.
Speaker 1 (26:19):
It was a club where regular people like Faris could
party with hip hop royalty and feel perfectly at home.
There weren't cloud chasers running around to get photos and autographs.
Speaker 2 (26:30):
I think people wanted to share that experience of just
even just feeling that energy and seeing what it is
and it's exciting to know, like, hey, I'm in the
same room as a jay or a puff for whoever.
You know, like just allowing to be in the room,
like Okay, yeah, we're partying in the same spot.
Speaker 3 (26:51):
I'm in the right place.
Speaker 1 (26:52):
It was less a sense of look, who's here and
more of a sense of I'm exactly aware I'm supposed
to be. The Tunnel was a unique space where fans
and musicians could congregate to listen to great music together.
It was a joyous space to celebrate and be celebrated,
but outside things were a bit more complicated. You can't
(27:21):
understate the influence that rap had on hip hop in
the nineties. It was about people speaking to the reality
of their lives. Musicians like Biggie Doctor, Dre and Jay
Z were making music about their experiences, rapping about their upbringing,
their neighborhoods, and what it was actually like to grow
up in places where drugs, gangs, and crime were a
(27:44):
part of their everyday lives. But rap music and gang
culture became synonymous, at least in the eyes of the
city and the police. Here's an ABC News report from
nineteen ninety three.
Speaker 7 (27:57):
And if you look in the category of hot rap single,
and there are fifty of them.
Speaker 1 (28:02):
Many of the titles.
Speaker 7 (28:03):
Suggest violence, sex, drug use, and profanity. In fact, I
can't even say some of the names of the songs
on television.
Speaker 1 (28:13):
In the nineties, New York was in the midst of
a crack epidemic and experiencing record levels of crime. The
mayor at the time, Rudy Giuliani, saw hip hop as
a contributing factor, so clubs that played it immediately had
a target on their back.
Speaker 6 (28:32):
Giuliani's administration is all about cracking down on like those
you know, those like minor offenses and like a really
aggressive way. It created an atmosphere that was highly suspicious
of like gatherings of black and brown people for sure.
Speaker 1 (28:45):
The administration was also clamping down on crime and nightlife
in general as part of Giuliani's Quality of life campaign.
Speaker 6 (28:53):
There was all this anxiety around, like the drug trade
happening in the clubs. The NYPD and the city was
just like a very very aggressive in their treatment of
night life, but.
Speaker 1 (29:05):
They were even more aggressive when it came to policing
the Mecca night at the Tunnel. Nineties, hip hop was
all about glamour and money and since a few of
the major labels and crews were associated with New York gangs.
The police had a negative perception of the culture surrounding
the music. They thought it was volatile and dangerous, provocative
(29:25):
and transgressive.
Speaker 6 (29:27):
If you know, this isn't like Barry Gordy in Motown
where everything is like super polished.
Speaker 1 (29:31):
So there was a long security line to get into
those Sunday night parties.
Speaker 6 (29:37):
But you know, one of the things that's like aggravating
that I think is that like there was a constant
police presence there, which is just like raising the temperature
on everything because there's so much surveillance.
Speaker 1 (29:48):
And it started way before people even got into the club.
Speaker 6 (29:52):
You know, people talk about like how walking the block
to the club, which was a twenty seventh and twelfth
a felt like walking through like militarized zone because of
all the police barricades and stuff that you'd have to traverse.
Speaker 1 (30:06):
The tunnel was open all week, but that extra level
of heavy intense security only applied to Sunday night hip
hop parties. People had to take off their shoes, have
their pockets searched for weapons, and have their photos checked
against mugshots. It was some of the most aggressive club
security in the city.
Speaker 6 (30:25):
The people compared it to the kind of like search
that you would receive, like if you were going to
visit someone who was incarcerated. It's really showing like how
the establishment was still viewing rap music as this like
very foulatile, like potentially dangerous thing that has to be policed,
like quite literally.
Speaker 1 (30:44):
They treated people like they were constantly under suspicion and
harassed them before they could even step into the club.
But most people just complied. They didn't really have any
other choice. Arguing about it or causing a scene could
be dangerous with them. However, it cast a dark shadow
on the start of each night, reminding each person who
(31:07):
went to the Tunnel excited to celebrate and listen to
their favorite musicians of all the assumptions the police, security
and the city made about them just based on the
color of their skin and the music they listened to.
But by that point, hip hop fans were used to
the extra level of scrutiny they experienced everywhere they went.
(31:28):
People didn't go to mecca parties at the Tunnel looking
for trouble. They went to have a good time. That
the tunnel did have a reputation for theft. It's something
Farris remembers from the nights he spent waiting in the
security line to get into the club.
Speaker 2 (31:45):
They said, do not tuck your chine, put it in,
take it off and put it in their pocket. And
they were just security eyes, just letting people know, like, yeah,
like look, there's a chance you may get robbed tonight.
Speaker 1 (32:00):
Once you got into the party, you forgot about what
was going on outside because inside the tunnel, the music
was turned all the way up, the dance floor was packed,
and the energy inside the club was intoxicating. Despite security
warning them not to, people did come into the tunnel shining.
(32:20):
Nineties hip hop was all about designer clothes, sportswear labels,
and icy jewelry.
Speaker 2 (32:29):
People dressed up and yeah, Vasaco Skino was just you know,
people just trying to show out.
Speaker 5 (32:35):
You know.
Speaker 2 (32:35):
It was a like a post biggie era, so everyone
wanted to show that they had money. But the energy
of the Tunnel was just different. It was different, man.
It was so street.
Speaker 5 (32:48):
It was just so.
Speaker 3 (32:50):
Like hood luxury. Yeah, it was just so raw.
Speaker 2 (32:54):
It was it's beautiful or raw diamond.
Speaker 3 (32:57):
It was just hard.
Speaker 1 (32:58):
Everyone was on the come up and they weren't afraid
to show it. There's this line in the song More Money,
More Problems by Biggie that goes, throw your rollies in
the sky, wave them side to side and keep your
hands high.
Speaker 2 (33:11):
And I remember just being a kid at house parties
and Queens and Roosdale to be exactly, we being like
little basement parties. None of us had watches, but we
knew to throw our wrists up and like wave them
left to right, like just like the videos. So people
would do that in the club, but that was like
(33:34):
a signal to show who had to watch, you know.
Speaker 3 (33:37):
It's almost like a way of like knowing who.
Speaker 2 (33:40):
Had it, and then that guy would probably get his
buloved watch taken later that night.
Speaker 3 (33:47):
That's what it was. It was just crazy. It was hectic.
Speaker 1 (33:51):
Yeah, sometimes there were fights, and not everyone who walked
in with a Rolex left with a Rolex. But Mecca
Knights at the Tunnel were spectacular. Walking around the club
felt like stepping into a nineties hip hop music video.
You'd have these incredible immersive moments listening to funk Master
de Flex premiere new songs on the dance floor, and
(34:12):
then you'd catch a glimpse of the person who'd made
that song. You'd make sure to keep your chain tucked
in your pocket, but you'd look around to see people
wearing fresh timbulins. I still wear my times. And it
wasn't just the dance floor that you couldn't pull your
eyes away from. At the Tunnel, the bathrooms were a
thing of legend.
Speaker 6 (34:32):
There's this big unisex bathroom at the Tunnel that everybody
likes to talk about.
Speaker 1 (34:36):
You know how the girl's bathroom feels like a hollowed place,
the place to tell your secrets and strategize your night.
The bathroom at the Tunnel kind of felt like that too.
It was a huge space with green tiled walls.
Speaker 6 (34:51):
It was like an event to go there. It was
like a wild scene and people were selling drugs and
doing drugs there. People were having sex like it was
you know, it was like the even more intense version
of probably what was happening when on the dance floor.
Like I remember talking to Jada Kiss and Jada and
was telling me that like when he went to the Tunnel,
he'd always spend like about an hour in the bathroom
(35:12):
because they had a bar in the bathroom too.
Speaker 1 (35:14):
It was an unconventional space. The DJs at the Tunnel
were taste makers, but the Mecca crowd at the Tunnel
was just as influential.
Speaker 6 (35:24):
That was really kind of like the definitive rap party
in New York. And it kind of like breaks my
brain when I think about it, because I just I
just can't imagine like the level of excitement that that
kind of a confluence of things would have created. Like
you were, I mean they called it Mecca, right, and
like you really were in the mecca of hip hop
at that time.
Speaker 1 (35:46):
Nights at the Tunnel had an almost cinematic quality to them.
It was a space that symbolized a unique moment in history,
the golden Age of nineties hip hop, and you can
see its influence in so many key pop culture artifacts
from that era.
Speaker 6 (36:02):
So the thing about the Tunnel is, even if you
don't recognize the name, like you've actually encountered it.
Speaker 1 (36:07):
Ll cool J filmed the music video for his song
Doing It in the bathroom of the Tunnel. A scene
that took place in the club was recreated in the
film Straight out of Compton. ONYX wrote a whole song
telling the story of a night spent at the Tunnel
and The opening scene of the Hype Williams film Belly
was filmed there too. Mecca at the Tunnel embodied a
(36:29):
unique moment in hip hop history, and even back then,
people could sense that their nights there would become legendary,
and so they wanted to capture the unique thrill of
the moment they were living in. A couple of years ago,
Ross interviewed DMX before he tragically passed away about the
(36:49):
impact the tunnel had on his career.
Speaker 6 (36:51):
He was just so excited to talk about the tunnel
and so excited to like reminist about this point in
his career, where he described it as kind of like
his entry into into hip hop. The music video for
get at Me Dog, which is his first single, in
his first music video, they shot it at the tunnel,
and like they shot it basically live.
Speaker 1 (37:08):
Like on a regular night, DMX's crew brought their cameras
in and began to film what was going on around them.
Speaker 6 (37:14):
They went in there on a Sunday night when it
was packed with regular people, and they shot the video
based on him performing it at the tunnel.
Speaker 1 (37:21):
The videos black and white, but you can feel the
energy through the screen as DMX performs to a crowd
filled with people.
Speaker 6 (37:28):
He'd heard that the like from Flex and those guys
that like the song was like blowing up the club,
but he'd never been there before. He went to shoot
the video, and he shoots the video and he's just
like he's just in awe at this rapturous reception he's receiving.
Speaker 1 (37:41):
That moment meant everything to DMX.
Speaker 6 (37:44):
It like just like stamps his career in kind of
a permanent way.
Speaker 1 (37:48):
Performing his first major single live from Mecca at the
Tunnel was a thrilling experience and as one of the
most influential rappers that music video carries, Wait the Tunnel
was a key landmark in music history and captured a
(38:08):
unique era when hip hop was on the come up,
when its songs were becoming national and then international hits,
and the genre was cementing its place as a central
pillar of American music. That golden age of hip hop
its influence it was legendary, and Mecca at the Tunnel
(38:30):
gave it a home. Twenty twenty three marks the fiftieth
anniversary of the birth of hip hop, and it's had
an extraordinary journey. Here's Jonathan again.
Speaker 4 (38:43):
For me, hip hop is the greatest come up story
of all because it was, like I said at the beginning,
it was this thing that was started just to give
kids self esteem in the Bronx in the mid nineteen seventies.
They had nothing and they invented this musical genre that's
the most dominant, most popular in the world today. And
(39:06):
to me, that's just a remarkable story of turning nothing
into something.
Speaker 1 (39:11):
It's had a lasting influence on almost every genre of
contemporary music.
Speaker 4 (39:16):
You see hip hop and pop, you see hip hop
and Neil soul, you see tons of hip hop and
R and B. I mean, I don't even know if
there's a musical genre that hip hop hasn't touched by
this point. One of the interesting components about hip hop
is that you look at hip hop's roots and it
takes things from so many different genres. Right, hip hop
(39:39):
was influenced by jazz, by disco, by soul, by funk.
Hip Hop started by absorbing all these other musical genres.
Now it's producing them and giving it out. I mean,
it gives clubs bangers, right.
Speaker 1 (39:54):
But while it's one of the most influential genres of
our time, there aren't as many big budget documentaries, books,
and films about it.
Speaker 6 (40:01):
As other genres, Rap history isn't documented and treated with
the same sort of esteem that like rock and roll
history is like if you walk into a bookstore or
something like, you can find so many books on just
like rock music in the sixties, But.
Speaker 1 (40:21):
In fifty years it's become not only just one of
the cornerstones of contemporary music, but one of the strongest
pillars of American pop culture. It reflects what's happening in
the world, and the fingerprints of its influence can be
seen everywhere.
Speaker 6 (40:37):
It's like one of the most important contributions to the world.
And like American history, it's like jazz and rap, and
they deserve to be documented with the same sort of
rigorousness that you know Bob Dylan's every move is documented.
Speaker 1 (40:53):
After fifteen incredible years, the Tunnel closed in two thousand
and one. The club's owner was deported to Canada on
a tax evasion charge, and, like so many of the
clubs we've talked about in this series, as a new
decade began, the musical landscape changed. Even good things don't
(41:18):
last forever. But while the Tunnel was open, it played
an incredibly vital role in the nineties hip hop renaissance.
Those Sunday night Mecca parties gave musicians a place to
play and premiered their music to some of the most
ardent hip hop fans in the city. Funk Master Flex
catapulted iconic songs into the mainstream. It was a space
(41:40):
for rappers, musicians and fans to celebrate hip hop and
imagine a vision for all that it could still become.
Mecca at the Tunnel was right at the center of
it all.
Speaker 8 (41:53):
It is like embedded in hip hop history, and you
just got a chance to partake in for something beautiful
that I honestly don't think will be replicated. It's possible
to replicate, and I'm sure at the time is also
impossible to predict, like the way that all these these
pieces would align to create this magnificent, really memorable, sometimes
(42:14):
really volatile night of partying in New York.
Speaker 1 (42:22):
In the next episode, we're going over to Germany to
one of the sexiest and most exclusive clubs, Bergheim. The
History of the World's Greatest Nightclubs is produced by Neon
Hum Media for London Audio and iHeartRadio for London Audio.
Our executive producers are Paris Hilton, Bruce Robertson and Bruce Gersh.
(42:44):
The executive producer for Neon Humm is Jonathan Hirsch. Our
producer is Refiro, Faith Masarura, Navani Otero and Liz Sanchez
are our associate producers. Our series producer is Crystal Genesis.
Our editor is Stephanie Srano. Samantha Allison is our production manager,
and Alexis Martinez is our production coordinator. This episode was
(43:08):
written by Rufio Faith Masarura and fact checked by Katherine Neuhan.
Theme and original music by Asha Ivanovich. Our sound design
engineers are Sambert and Josh Hahn. I'm your host, Ultra Nate,
and we'll see you next time. On the history of
the world's greatest nightclubs.
You know how when you were growing up, there was
always that one kid who seemed older, cooler, and more interesting,
someone who went to parties and hung out with the
older kids, The kid who had everyone sitting on the
edge of their seats in homeroom as they gossiped about
what happened the night before. When Ferris Buehler, I know
(00:23):
what you're thinking, but no, not that one. When Ferris
was growing up in Queens, New York in the nineties,
he went to a high school called Thomas A. Edison,
and that kid who came back to school with stories
after every weekend was.
Speaker 2 (00:38):
A classmate of mine by the name of Kaiser.
Speaker 1 (00:43):
Kaiser was the cool kid.
Speaker 3 (00:46):
He was on a basketball team.
Speaker 1 (00:48):
He was only about fifteen or sixteen, but Kaiser was
already exploring New York's night life.
Speaker 2 (00:54):
He would go with his uncles and he would just
come back and tell us like, Oh, it was crazy
last night, but I was just in awe, Like how
did you get in?
Speaker 3 (01:04):
You know, I've never been to a nightclub in my life.
Speaker 1 (01:08):
Farris wanted to know which musicians Kaiser had seen, what
songs he'd heard, and if the club's Kaiser had gone
to were as exciting as the rumors about them.
Speaker 2 (01:17):
He was like educating me on what was happening, and
I was like very fascinated.
Speaker 1 (01:22):
And the spot that Kaiser talked about the most was
a club called the Tunnel. He had heard about it
on the radio two on Hot ninety seven to be specific. Yeah,
that's what I'm talking about.
Speaker 3 (01:34):
Let's take it to the Tunnel real quick.
Speaker 4 (01:36):
Okay, understand New York it gets no D in.
Speaker 5 (01:39):
This right here.
Speaker 1 (01:43):
Farris used to listen to the radio in the morning
as he got ready to go to school. He would
listen to funk Master Flex talk about the legendary Sunday
night mecca hip hop parties at the Tunnel.
Speaker 2 (01:54):
I would just hear the radio hosts talk about guests
and what it was like Monday morning, or just hyping
up the scene, and like who would shut down the Tunnel,
what records were the big records.
Speaker 1 (02:11):
It seemed like people who went to the hip hop
parties at the Tunnel were getting to experience something magical
that Ferris was missing out on. But eventually, after years
of hearing stories about the club, Ferris finally headed downtown
to check out the Sunday night party himself. Well kind of.
Speaker 3 (02:32):
I believe.
Speaker 2 (02:33):
The first time I was around the tunnel was for
a Memphis bleak.
Speaker 3 (02:39):
He had the.
Speaker 2 (02:41):
Coming of Age album and I was on the Rock
Fallers Street team at that time.
Speaker 1 (02:46):
On the street team, his job was to stick posters
up on the walls and help set up for concerts.
Speaker 2 (02:52):
I got to be inside where no one was in there,
and it was interesting to see like the space, you know,
just seeing the energy of the tunnel. So just getting
a chance to win this set.
Speaker 1 (03:04):
But at that time he was only around eighteen, and
unlike Kaiser, whose uncle snuck him in the bouncer's new
Ferris was too young to be there, so he had
to leave before the party actually started.
Speaker 2 (03:21):
So just hung out with some people outside just to
like really catch a glance of all the patrons. You
got to see all the clothes, all the people, all
the characters.
Speaker 1 (03:32):
He spent the night outside people watching and there was
a lot to see because on Sunday nights, hip hop
heads from all across the city would make their way
over to Chelsea. They'd speed down the West Side Highway
while playing Hot ninety seven and head over to Twelfth
Avenue where the nightclub stood. But they had to abandon
(03:53):
their cars and walk the rest of the way because
there was a long line all the way down the block.
To get in, you had to go through several security
checkpoints to even get close to the door.
Speaker 3 (04:08):
You felt the element of danger in the air.
Speaker 2 (04:11):
You felt like with the bouncers at the front of
the block before you walk all the way down the
cobble Stone Road.
Speaker 1 (04:23):
The energy outside the tunnel was intense, multiple security guards
searching people and checking their pockets for weapons. But the
reason behind all the tight security more about that later.
The nineties was the golden age of hip hop, and
the party mecca at the Tunnel was the club at
the center of it all. You see, the thing about
(04:47):
the tunnel was that while regular people went to the club,
the tunnel was also home to some of hip hop's
greatest musicians. One night, when Faris was spectating from outside
the club, he saw ripple of excitement run through the line.
The whole crowd turned their heads and looked over at
a light in the distance, and there he was jay Z.
(05:11):
He had just released his first number one album, Volume two,
Hard Knock Life.
Speaker 2 (05:17):
He's just on fire and he's like really ascending there
to just be the big guy.
Speaker 1 (05:24):
Everyone held their breath as they saw jay Z rolling
down the street and heading over towards them in a
luxurious blue Bentley. And I know what that must have
been like, crazy energy, just crazy.
Speaker 3 (05:37):
It was just a beautiful moment. That's that forever etched
in my mind.
Speaker 1 (05:45):
The whole crowd went silent. It was a majestic sight.
They were witnessing the entrance of Hip Hop Royalty.
Speaker 3 (05:54):
It just was like a calm, Like the guys there.
Speaker 1 (05:58):
And watching jay Z pull up in that Bentley, it
was like seeing everything he wrapped about, the luxury and
the money coming to life.
Speaker 2 (06:09):
Just seeing the guy in the car that's on the
cover of volume two, that's the guy, that's the car
that's like very much living what he spoke about.
Speaker 1 (06:23):
You never knew who was going to drive down Twelfth
Avenue and spend their Sunday night in Mecca at the tunnel.
And that's what made it so exciting.
Speaker 3 (06:32):
Seeing them in the element in the wild. It was spectacular.
It was a must if you're around during that time, just.
Speaker 1 (06:40):
A musk Legendary musicians would come to play a new
song to the crowd for the very first time. One
off performances would make the crowd go wild.
Speaker 3 (06:50):
If you wanted to be involved, you were there. If
now you were at.
Speaker 2 (06:53):
Home, sleeping in your bed, waking up and hearing about
it the night before and wishing you could have attended.
Speaker 1 (07:00):
Sunday nights at the Tunnel were legendary. The DJs behind
the booth were taste makers. Hip hop started in New
York and in the nineties, in the midst of its
golden age, it found a home Mecca at the Tunnel.
From London audio iHeartRadio and executive producer Paris Hilton. This
(07:24):
is the History of the World's Greatest Nightclubs a twelve
part podcast about the iconic venues and people that revolutionized
how we party.
Speaker 5 (07:35):
World.
Speaker 1 (07:38):
Some of the world's most legendary nightclubs were known for
the unique community they welcomed, others for the cultural movements
they started, and some for the musicians and DJs they
introduced to the world. The best nightclubs champion new music,
transformed lives, and provide an escape from life's pressures. One
more thing. This is the history of some of the
(08:01):
world's greatest nightclubs. Not a ranking of every club in
the world. It's an exploration of the spaces, people and
club nights that made a lasting impact on nightlife and music. Today,
I'm your host Alternate. I'm a singer, songwriter and musician
and I found my purpose in club culture. This is
(08:22):
Episode ten. Mecca at the Tunnel in New York, USA.
New York was the epicenter of the nineties hip hop
renaissance and the Sunday night Mecca parties at the Chelsea Nightclub.
The Tunnel gave the genre a home. The club host
at legendary performances, iconic song premieres, and its history is
(08:43):
filled with tales of cinematic scenes starring hip hop royalty.
It would become a huge success and a cultural touchstone
in the legendary fifty year history of hip hop, a
genre that would go on to influence art, culture and
music all around the world. To really understand the story
(09:09):
of Mecca at the Tunnel, you have to understand the
story of hip hop. Hip Hop was born fifty years
ago in the Bronx. It was the seventies and things
were tough for young people in New York. School programs
were being cut, crime rates were going up, and the
Bronx was burning.
Speaker 5 (09:26):
There were more than one hundred and twenty thousand fires
in New York City. Last year, two hundred and seventy
two civilians and seven firemen died. There are few things
that strike more panic in man than the destructive force
of fire.
Speaker 1 (09:39):
It belonged landlords were looking for an insurance payout, so
they got arsonists to set their buildings on fire. Over
the course of the seventies, two hundred and fifty thousand
people were displaced in Over eighty percent of housing in
the Bronx was lost to the fires.
Speaker 4 (10:02):
And you have Gerald Ford, who was the president at
the time. I think the federal government wasn't going to
give any type of assistance to the Bronx.
Speaker 1 (10:12):
That's Jonathan Abrams, a staff writer at the New York
Times and the author of The Come Up and Oral
History of the Rise of Hip Hop. So the Bronx
was burning, crime was going up, and there was a
general sense of disillusionment in the city, especially amongst the
young people living there.
Speaker 4 (10:31):
Kids basically have nothing to do and they're looking for
something to fill a void in their lives. And at
the time, disco is what's really popular as a musical genre.
Speaker 1 (10:44):
Like in so many eras before and after, I missed
everything that was going on in the world around them.
Young people found soulless in music, so at night, kids
from the Bronx would go to downtown Manhattan to listen
to disco. Remember how in the last episode we talked
about the echoes of disco music that played in the garage. Well,
(11:05):
by the mid seventies, disco's popularity was beginning to fade.
Young people were looking for a new sound, so they
started throwing house parties and going to the park to
listen to music on the radio. They were looking for
something to do and somewhere to belong.
Speaker 4 (11:20):
And along comes this DJ named cool Herk.
Speaker 1 (11:24):
It was August eleventh, nineteen seventy three, and DJ cool
Herk was DJing at his sister Cindy's back to school
party with his new signature style. He had just figured
out how to extend the breakbeats of popular disco and
soul songs to stretch out the music in between lyrics,
to give people space and time to dance.
Speaker 4 (11:46):
All these dancers, the big boys and the big girls,
they love this extending of the break beats because it
allows them to do their thing right. It allows them
to dance longer and to get down to the exciting
parts of the songs.
Speaker 1 (11:59):
J's across the city started looping tracks to create a
dance break in the middle of songs they were playing,
and the technique DJ Coole Hirk had created break beating,
formed the basis of a genre that was just beginning
to come to life.
Speaker 4 (12:16):
That's really what people consider the birth of hip hop.
Speaker 1 (12:20):
Another technique that would come to stand at the forefront
of both hip hop and how DJs around the world
performed today was scratching.
Speaker 4 (12:30):
So scratching is this technique that was discovered by Grand Wizard.
Speaker 1 (12:36):
Theodore, another DJ who grew up in the Bronx.
Speaker 4 (12:39):
And the story goes that Theatre's mother had asked him
to turn down the value of a record, and he didn't.
Speaker 6 (12:46):
Of course, he's.
Speaker 4 (12:48):
In his zone, in his element, getting down to the music,
and when she's storn back into the room to tell
him again, probably a little bit stronger to turn down
the music and try to stop it immediately putting pressure
on the record with his hand, and it created this
sound that we know is scratching. So essentially, it's a
(13:09):
technique where a DJ or a turntable list moves the
record back and forth on the turntable to produce the
sounds and effects that we today know is scratching.
Speaker 1 (13:22):
The Bronx originated break beating and scratching, but there was
one more technique to add to the trinity that would
become central to the sound and style of hip hop,
and one more DJ Push me cause I'm ghost to
the it. I'm trying not to lose my head.
Speaker 4 (13:45):
It's like a jungle.
Speaker 1 (13:46):
Sometimes it makes me wonder how about people going under.
Speaker 4 (13:50):
Grandmaster Flash is probably one of the most pivotal DJs
to ever walk this earth. He was a technician, He
was an innovator.
Speaker 1 (13:58):
He invented something called quick mix theory.
Speaker 4 (14:01):
Which was essentially being able to repeat on loop the
parts of a song that the dancers found most exciting.
In nineteen eighty one, grand Master Flash released The Adventures
of Grand Master Flash on the Wheels of Steel.
Speaker 1 (14:15):
The Adventures of Grand Master Flash on the Wheels of
Steel was pivotal to hip hop.
Speaker 4 (14:21):
Flash really depicted the DJ as another musician, and he
also helped introduce sampling into hip hop.
Speaker 1 (14:28):
Something new was in the air. Local kids were forming
crews with MC's DJs, beatboxers and producers, and then they
were staging rap battles in the park to the breakbeats
of disco and funk songs.
Speaker 4 (14:41):
Hip Hop had already been brewing for a few years
in the Bronx Harlem and pockets of Brooklyn, but a
lot of people still looked at it as a fad.
Speaker 1 (14:52):
Until one of the first great hip hop songs was
released in nineteen seventy nine, rappers Delight.
Speaker 4 (14:59):
It becomes us s sation that for many many people
it's their introduction in a hip hop You know who
can mess with that opening line of hip hop? Hibbity
hip hop?
Speaker 3 (15:08):
Hip hip hop?
Speaker 4 (15:08):
And you don't stop?
Speaker 3 (15:13):
I said again, don't stop the.
Speaker 6 (15:18):
Ripper to the band man like you say the rhythm
of the to.
Speaker 3 (15:21):
Me, now what you hear is not a chat dom
and the.
Speaker 1 (15:29):
Sugar Hill Gang, a rap trio named after an area
of Harlem, had taken the disco anthem good Times by
Chic rapped over it and created hip hop's first major hit,
Rappers the Light. Was the beginning of a wave of
hip hop songs that would elevate the status of the
emerging genre and lead it to become one of the
greatest musical sounds to come out of New York. It
(15:51):
was a really exciting time.
Speaker 4 (15:55):
It's fresh and new, and everything's different, and you don't
know what this is going to become, and it's interesting.
So the East Coast and specifically the Bronx in New
York had been the birthplace, the epicenter of hip hop.
Speaker 1 (16:06):
After rappers delight, hip hop swept across the country and
headed over to the West Coast, where groups and rappers
like NWA, Doctor Dre, and Snoop Dogg put their own
Californian stamp on it.
Speaker 4 (16:20):
It's that type of music that can be played on radio.
It set one, two, three into the four Snoop Doggy
Dog and Doctor Dre at the door, and people are
riding through the freeways in Los Angeles on sunny days
bumping this sound. And it's also at a time when
MTV is starting to play hip hop.
Speaker 1 (16:43):
Hip hop wasn't just a fad. It was becoming its
own musical universe as artists across the country put their
own spin on it. And of course, we can't talk
about West Coast hip hop without mentioning the one and only.
Speaker 4 (16:56):
I had grown up at a hip hop fan and
Yubak Shakor was I grew up on the West Coast,
and he was really the first artist who taught me
so much about being black and what that meant, everything
that came with it, and to be proud.
Speaker 1 (17:12):
By the nineties, hip hop had evolved and expanded and
it meant different things to different people. Hip hop was
finally getting mainstream recognition and being played on the radio,
which accelerated its growth. Remember how Faris used to start
his mornings listening to Hot ninety seven. Well, it's because
the new sound of nineties New York hip hop was
(17:35):
being broadcast across the city by radio DJs like funk
Master Flex. In the nineties, radio DJs shaped the culture.
Speaker 4 (17:44):
So funk Master Flex, he's a taste maker, he's a
king maker, and everybody knows if he drops a bomb
on it, it usually becomes a hit.
Speaker 1 (17:53):
Back then, it was the radio that catapulted songs into
the mainstream, and dj s took curating their shows very seriously.
Speaker 4 (18:01):
They're a conduit because they have they have their feet
in both areas. One foot in the street and then
they have another foot with the executives and the people
who are able to make these decisions on who gets
these lucrative recording contracts, so Flex was influential.
Speaker 1 (18:22):
At the time. Flex's manager was Jessica Rosenblum.
Speaker 6 (18:26):
She was like a nightlight person.
Speaker 1 (18:28):
That's Ross Gerano, a music journalist who wrote an oral
history of the Tunnel for Complex magazine.
Speaker 6 (18:35):
You know, she had started working the door at this
club called Nell's, which was like a really significant, like
downtown club in the eighties where a lot of like
the people from the burgeoning rap scene and the downtown
art scene and the graffiti scene. You know, folks like
Russell Simmons, Fab five, Freddie Like when you think about
(18:56):
those kind of like key players in New York hip
hop at the time, like they were all ming at
a place like Nels, and Jessica worked the door there.
She knew how to make a party, she knew who
did invite.
Speaker 1 (19:07):
So when Flex and Jessica started working together, they started
throwing parties across the city for Flex to DJ.
Speaker 4 (19:12):
At the nineteen eighties, they had a club called Latin Quarter,
which was really a place that incubated a lot of
the mid nineteen eighties hip hop talent Salt and Pepper, Schoolly, D,
L Cool J. And then the Latin Quarter eventually shut
down and for a while, New York City didn't have
(19:35):
that home, that epicenter, that heartbeat of a live place
where up and coming acts could come and make a
name for themselves and the crowd and the DJs would
be the taste makers who would either crown them and
let them know that they're ready for the big time,
that they're ready to ascend or not.
Speaker 1 (19:57):
So that's what punk Master, Flex and Jessic set out
to do.
Speaker 6 (20:01):
They started this party called Mecca, and it bounces around
to a couple different places, and then finally they get
this spot at the Tunnel.
Speaker 1 (20:15):
The Tunnel was owned by the club king Peter Geishan,
who owned and ran a number of prominent New York spots.
Speaker 6 (20:22):
His other clubs were like the Line Light, the Palladium,
and like all those clubs were kind of like notorious
and famous for different reasons.
Speaker 1 (20:30):
But his club in Chelsea, the Tunnel, was extraordinary. It
was an eighty thousand square foot space built in an
old railroad freight terminal, a tunnel shaped building with the
remnants of an old train track in the main room
and a long, narrow dance floor. It had multiple levels,
and each room in the long narrow building had its
(20:51):
own theme and decorative style.
Speaker 6 (20:53):
This venue's massive, so there's like a lot of potential.
Speaker 1 (20:56):
The Tunnel catered to different musical subcultures throughout the week,
but the people who went there were predominantly people who
belonged to the rock, pop and dance scene, arti kids
and club kids.
Speaker 3 (21:08):
There was a whole nother tunnel that existed during the week, but.
Speaker 1 (21:12):
The club had one empty spot Sunday nights. Nobody really
wanted to party on a Sunday night, but Flex and
Jessica saw an opportunity. They knew they'd been given that
night because it was the least popular of the week
and people didn't expect hip hop parties to be that successful.
But when funk Master Flex's Mecca parties at the Tunnel began,
(21:37):
Sunday nights took off.
Speaker 6 (21:42):
We're talking like over two thousand people and it's a
Sunday night. It's like what else is there to do?
You know, But just it takes on this life of.
Speaker 1 (21:48):
Its own because Flex started those parties during a unique
moment in history when hip hop wasn't just a new
sound that young people were playing in parks and house parties.
By the nineties, a whole industry was being built around
the genre and people were making a lot of money.
Speaker 6 (22:06):
Rock was becoming mainstream and was becoming like this commercial
giant that was producing powerful black entrepreneurial figures that must
have felt so new in culture at that time.
Speaker 1 (22:19):
Diddy had started bad Boy Records, jay Z had started
Rockefeller Records, and Deaf Jam was releasing hit album after album.
Hip Hop was making a lot of money. Be for
a while, there wasn't a major nightclub that the genre
could call home, which is why the Meca Party at
the Tunnel became so popular and quickly became the club
(22:41):
where all the major players spent their Sunday nights.
Speaker 6 (22:44):
There's no party that's playing hip hop like this for
a venue this big.
Speaker 1 (22:49):
The incredible success of those parties proved that hip hop
was a financial force to be reckoned, with the crowds
on Sunday Night at the Tunnel just kept on growing.
People would come to Mecca at the Tunnel to hear
funk Master Flex play the hottest new records, and then
the next day they would listen to him on the
radio to experience those songs all over again. Flex was
(23:13):
establishing both himself and the Tunnel as central to nineties
hip hop, so to close the loop between DJing on
the radio and DJing at the Tunnel, he started to
DJ live from the Tunnel, and.
Speaker 6 (23:28):
Then eventually he gets on the radio while he's still
throwing these parties.
Speaker 1 (23:32):
Here's one of the signature drops Flex used to play
during his radio shows. It came from a clip of
David Letterman talking about how hard it was to get
a ticket to a Funk Master Flex show Funk's Master Bleckslive.
That's when the real fun begins. Bunks Master blecksnud He Take.
(23:52):
There were dozens of radio stations that would have clamored
to get a first play of a new song, but
Flex was the DJ who some of the most influen
went musicians of the nineties wanted to premiere their songs.
He was a taste maker and highly respected in the
hip hop community, so major musicians who'd already made a
name for themselves would take their new songs to the
(24:14):
Mecca party at the Tunnel to see a crowd of
hardcore hip hop fans listen to them for the first time.
Speaker 6 (24:20):
It became like a phenomenon where you would do your
record release party there where instead of having the song
debut in the radio like an artist would want the
song to debut at the Tunnel. It just had a
level of a cultural cachet and that feels like impossible
to replicate now when it comes to like a physical space.
Speaker 1 (24:38):
And one of the musicians who valued the club's cultural
cachet was Ditty. Diddy was at the height of his career.
Bad Boy Records was one of the most influential labels
in hip hop, and at the time, Diddy had a
new song coming out called All About the Benjamins, which
I've danced to a million times. Instead of going to
(24:59):
the radio, todabut it, he gave the song to Funk
mast Flex to premiere at the Tunnel.
Speaker 6 (25:04):
The first time they played that at the Tunnel, they
played it for like an hour.
Speaker 1 (25:09):
And as that hour unfolded, the crowd and the tunnel
began to channel the energy of the song.
Speaker 6 (25:16):
And like somebody pulls one hundred dollars bills out of
their their pockets or whatever and starts like lighting them
on fire just because they were so hyped. And everybody's
like heard a song out and just felt like totally
transported and like out of their body and out of
their mind.
Speaker 1 (25:32):
You didn't have to be famous or work in the
music industry to get into the Tunnel.
Speaker 6 (25:36):
That's the part that I think is like really also
hard to imagine, is that like the moguls and the
artists would be in there mixing with the crowd. Like
there was no VIP section there, and it was like
a great leveler of people. So like you were a kid,
You're a nineteen year old coming in from Brooklyn versus
your Dame Dash or your Puffy Like you're all kind
(25:58):
of like on the same playing field. They're all in
the same space. Nobody's like flording over someone in some
corded off the IP aream.
Speaker 1 (26:06):
And seeing that a sent up close at those Mecanites
at the Tunnel as a regular hip hop fan was inspiring.
Speaker 6 (26:14):
You can see the ways in which like, oh rap
is like money now it's big money.
Speaker 1 (26:19):
It was a club where regular people like Faris could
party with hip hop royalty and feel perfectly at home.
There weren't cloud chasers running around to get photos and autographs.
Speaker 2 (26:30):
I think people wanted to share that experience of just
even just feeling that energy and seeing what it is
and it's exciting to know, like, hey, I'm in the
same room as a jay or a puff for whoever.
You know, like just allowing to be in the room,
like Okay, yeah, we're partying in the same spot.
Speaker 3 (26:51):
I'm in the right place.
Speaker 1 (26:52):
It was less a sense of look, who's here and
more of a sense of I'm exactly aware I'm supposed
to be. The Tunnel was a unique space where fans
and musicians could congregate to listen to great music together.
It was a joyous space to celebrate and be celebrated,
but outside things were a bit more complicated. You can't
(27:21):
understate the influence that rap had on hip hop in
the nineties. It was about people speaking to the reality
of their lives. Musicians like Biggie Doctor, Dre and Jay
Z were making music about their experiences, rapping about their upbringing,
their neighborhoods, and what it was actually like to grow
up in places where drugs, gangs, and crime were a
(27:44):
part of their everyday lives. But rap music and gang
culture became synonymous, at least in the eyes of the
city and the police. Here's an ABC News report from
nineteen ninety three.
Speaker 7 (27:57):
And if you look in the category of hot rap single,
and there are fifty of them.
Speaker 1 (28:02):
Many of the titles.
Speaker 7 (28:03):
Suggest violence, sex, drug use, and profanity. In fact, I
can't even say some of the names of the songs
on television.
Speaker 1 (28:13):
In the nineties, New York was in the midst of
a crack epidemic and experiencing record levels of crime. The
mayor at the time, Rudy Giuliani, saw hip hop as
a contributing factor, so clubs that played it immediately had
a target on their back.
Speaker 6 (28:32):
Giuliani's administration is all about cracking down on like those
you know, those like minor offenses and like a really
aggressive way. It created an atmosphere that was highly suspicious
of like gatherings of black and brown people for sure.
Speaker 1 (28:45):
The administration was also clamping down on crime and nightlife
in general as part of Giuliani's Quality of life campaign.
Speaker 6 (28:53):
There was all this anxiety around, like the drug trade
happening in the clubs. The NYPD and the city was
just like a very very aggressive in their treatment of
night life, but.
Speaker 1 (29:05):
They were even more aggressive when it came to policing
the Mecca night at the Tunnel. Nineties, hip hop was
all about glamour and money and since a few of
the major labels and crews were associated with New York gangs.
The police had a negative perception of the culture surrounding
the music. They thought it was volatile and dangerous, provocative
(29:25):
and transgressive.
Speaker 6 (29:27):
If you know, this isn't like Barry Gordy in Motown
where everything is like super polished.
Speaker 1 (29:31):
So there was a long security line to get into
those Sunday night parties.
Speaker 6 (29:37):
But you know, one of the things that's like aggravating
that I think is that like there was a constant
police presence there, which is just like raising the temperature
on everything because there's so much surveillance.
Speaker 1 (29:48):
And it started way before people even got into the club.
Speaker 6 (29:52):
You know, people talk about like how walking the block
to the club, which was a twenty seventh and twelfth
a felt like walking through like militarized zone because of
all the police barricades and stuff that you'd have to traverse.
Speaker 1 (30:06):
The tunnel was open all week, but that extra level
of heavy intense security only applied to Sunday night hip
hop parties. People had to take off their shoes, have
their pockets searched for weapons, and have their photos checked
against mugshots. It was some of the most aggressive club
security in the city.
Speaker 6 (30:25):
The people compared it to the kind of like search
that you would receive, like if you were going to
visit someone who was incarcerated. It's really showing like how
the establishment was still viewing rap music as this like
very foulatile, like potentially dangerous thing that has to be policed,
like quite literally.
Speaker 1 (30:44):
They treated people like they were constantly under suspicion and
harassed them before they could even step into the club.
But most people just complied. They didn't really have any
other choice. Arguing about it or causing a scene could
be dangerous with them. However, it cast a dark shadow
on the start of each night, reminding each person who
(31:07):
went to the Tunnel excited to celebrate and listen to
their favorite musicians of all the assumptions the police, security
and the city made about them just based on the
color of their skin and the music they listened to.
But by that point, hip hop fans were used to
the extra level of scrutiny they experienced everywhere they went.
(31:28):
People didn't go to mecca parties at the Tunnel looking
for trouble. They went to have a good time. That
the tunnel did have a reputation for theft. It's something
Farris remembers from the nights he spent waiting in the
security line to get into the club.
Speaker 2 (31:45):
They said, do not tuck your chine, put it in,
take it off and put it in their pocket. And
they were just security eyes, just letting people know, like, yeah,
like look, there's a chance you may get robbed tonight.
Speaker 1 (32:00):
Once you got into the party, you forgot about what
was going on outside because inside the tunnel, the music
was turned all the way up, the dance floor was packed,
and the energy inside the club was intoxicating. Despite security
warning them not to, people did come into the tunnel shining.
(32:20):
Nineties hip hop was all about designer clothes, sportswear labels,
and icy jewelry.
Speaker 2 (32:29):
People dressed up and yeah, Vasaco Skino was just you know,
people just trying to show out.
Speaker 5 (32:35):
You know.
Speaker 2 (32:35):
It was a like a post biggie era, so everyone
wanted to show that they had money. But the energy
of the Tunnel was just different. It was different, man.
It was so street.
Speaker 5 (32:48):
It was just so.
Speaker 3 (32:50):
Like hood luxury. Yeah, it was just so raw.
Speaker 2 (32:54):
It was it's beautiful or raw diamond.
Speaker 3 (32:57):
It was just hard.
Speaker 1 (32:58):
Everyone was on the come up and they weren't afraid
to show it. There's this line in the song More Money,
More Problems by Biggie that goes, throw your rollies in
the sky, wave them side to side and keep your
hands high.
Speaker 2 (33:11):
And I remember just being a kid at house parties
and Queens and Roosdale to be exactly, we being like
little basement parties. None of us had watches, but we
knew to throw our wrists up and like wave them
left to right, like just like the videos. So people
would do that in the club, but that was like
(33:34):
a signal to show who had to watch, you know.
Speaker 3 (33:37):
It's almost like a way of like knowing who.
Speaker 2 (33:40):
Had it, and then that guy would probably get his
buloved watch taken later that night.
Speaker 3 (33:47):
That's what it was. It was just crazy. It was hectic.
Speaker 1 (33:51):
Yeah, sometimes there were fights, and not everyone who walked
in with a Rolex left with a Rolex. But Mecca
Knights at the Tunnel were spectacular. Walking around the club
felt like stepping into a nineties hip hop music video.
You'd have these incredible immersive moments listening to funk Master
de Flex premiere new songs on the dance floor, and
(34:12):
then you'd catch a glimpse of the person who'd made
that song. You'd make sure to keep your chain tucked
in your pocket, but you'd look around to see people
wearing fresh timbulins. I still wear my times. And it
wasn't just the dance floor that you couldn't pull your
eyes away from. At the Tunnel, the bathrooms were a
thing of legend.
Speaker 6 (34:32):
There's this big unisex bathroom at the Tunnel that everybody
likes to talk about.
Speaker 1 (34:36):
You know how the girl's bathroom feels like a hollowed place,
the place to tell your secrets and strategize your night.
The bathroom at the Tunnel kind of felt like that too.
It was a huge space with green tiled walls.
Speaker 6 (34:51):
It was like an event to go there. It was
like a wild scene and people were selling drugs and
doing drugs there. People were having sex like it was
you know, it was like the even more intense version
of probably what was happening when on the dance floor.
Like I remember talking to Jada Kiss and Jada and
was telling me that like when he went to the Tunnel,
he'd always spend like about an hour in the bathroom
(35:12):
because they had a bar in the bathroom too.
Speaker 1 (35:14):
It was an unconventional space. The DJs at the Tunnel
were taste makers, but the Mecca crowd at the Tunnel
was just as influential.
Speaker 6 (35:24):
That was really kind of like the definitive rap party
in New York. And it kind of like breaks my
brain when I think about it, because I just I
just can't imagine like the level of excitement that that
kind of a confluence of things would have created. Like
you were, I mean they called it Mecca, right, and
like you really were in the mecca of hip hop
at that time.
Speaker 1 (35:46):
Nights at the Tunnel had an almost cinematic quality to them.
It was a space that symbolized a unique moment in history,
the golden Age of nineties hip hop, and you can
see its influence in so many key pop culture artifacts
from that era.
Speaker 6 (36:02):
So the thing about the Tunnel is, even if you
don't recognize the name, like you've actually encountered it.
Speaker 1 (36:07):
Ll cool J filmed the music video for his song
Doing It in the bathroom of the Tunnel. A scene
that took place in the club was recreated in the
film Straight out of Compton. ONYX wrote a whole song
telling the story of a night spent at the Tunnel
and The opening scene of the Hype Williams film Belly
was filmed there too. Mecca at the Tunnel embodied a
(36:29):
unique moment in hip hop history, and even back then,
people could sense that their nights there would become legendary,
and so they wanted to capture the unique thrill of
the moment they were living in. A couple of years ago,
Ross interviewed DMX before he tragically passed away about the
(36:49):
impact the tunnel had on his career.
Speaker 6 (36:51):
He was just so excited to talk about the tunnel
and so excited to like reminist about this point in
his career, where he described it as kind of like
his entry into into hip hop. The music video for
get at Me Dog, which is his first single, in
his first music video, they shot it at the tunnel,
and like they shot it basically live.
Speaker 1 (37:08):
Like on a regular night, DMX's crew brought their cameras
in and began to film what was going on around them.
Speaker 6 (37:14):
They went in there on a Sunday night when it
was packed with regular people, and they shot the video
based on him performing it at the tunnel.
Speaker 1 (37:21):
The videos black and white, but you can feel the
energy through the screen as DMX performs to a crowd
filled with people.
Speaker 6 (37:28):
He'd heard that the like from Flex and those guys
that like the song was like blowing up the club,
but he'd never been there before. He went to shoot
the video, and he shoots the video and he's just
like he's just in awe at this rapturous reception he's receiving.
Speaker 1 (37:41):
That moment meant everything to DMX.
Speaker 6 (37:44):
It like just like stamps his career in kind of
a permanent way.
Speaker 1 (37:48):
Performing his first major single live from Mecca at the
Tunnel was a thrilling experience and as one of the
most influential rappers that music video carries, Wait the Tunnel
was a key landmark in music history and captured a
(38:08):
unique era when hip hop was on the come up,
when its songs were becoming national and then international hits,
and the genre was cementing its place as a central
pillar of American music. That golden age of hip hop
its influence it was legendary, and Mecca at the Tunnel
(38:30):
gave it a home. Twenty twenty three marks the fiftieth
anniversary of the birth of hip hop, and it's had
an extraordinary journey. Here's Jonathan again.
Speaker 4 (38:43):
For me, hip hop is the greatest come up story
of all because it was, like I said at the beginning,
it was this thing that was started just to give
kids self esteem in the Bronx in the mid nineteen seventies.
They had nothing and they invented this musical genre that's
the most dominant, most popular in the world today. And
(39:06):
to me, that's just a remarkable story of turning nothing
into something.
Speaker 1 (39:11):
It's had a lasting influence on almost every genre of
contemporary music.
Speaker 4 (39:16):
You see hip hop and pop, you see hip hop
and Neil soul, you see tons of hip hop and
R and B. I mean, I don't even know if
there's a musical genre that hip hop hasn't touched by
this point. One of the interesting components about hip hop
is that you look at hip hop's roots and it
takes things from so many different genres. Right, hip hop
(39:39):
was influenced by jazz, by disco, by soul, by funk.
Hip Hop started by absorbing all these other musical genres.
Now it's producing them and giving it out. I mean,
it gives clubs bangers, right.
Speaker 1 (39:54):
But while it's one of the most influential genres of
our time, there aren't as many big budget documentaries, books,
and films about it.
Speaker 6 (40:01):
As other genres, Rap history isn't documented and treated with
the same sort of esteem that like rock and roll
history is like if you walk into a bookstore or
something like, you can find so many books on just
like rock music in the sixties, But.
Speaker 1 (40:21):
In fifty years it's become not only just one of
the cornerstones of contemporary music, but one of the strongest
pillars of American pop culture. It reflects what's happening in
the world, and the fingerprints of its influence can be
seen everywhere.
Speaker 6 (40:37):
It's like one of the most important contributions to the world.
And like American history, it's like jazz and rap, and
they deserve to be documented with the same sort of
rigorousness that you know Bob Dylan's every move is documented.
Speaker 1 (40:53):
After fifteen incredible years, the Tunnel closed in two thousand
and one. The club's owner was deported to Canada on
a tax evasion charge, and, like so many of the
clubs we've talked about in this series, as a new
decade began, the musical landscape changed. Even good things don't
(41:18):
last forever. But while the Tunnel was open, it played
an incredibly vital role in the nineties hip hop renaissance.
Those Sunday night Mecca parties gave musicians a place to
play and premiered their music to some of the most
ardent hip hop fans in the city. Funk Master Flex
catapulted iconic songs into the mainstream. It was a space
(41:40):
for rappers, musicians and fans to celebrate hip hop and
imagine a vision for all that it could still become.
Mecca at the Tunnel was right at the center of
it all.
Speaker 8 (41:53):
It is like embedded in hip hop history, and you
just got a chance to partake in for something beautiful
that I honestly don't think will be replicated. It's possible
to replicate, and I'm sure at the time is also
impossible to predict, like the way that all these these
pieces would align to create this magnificent, really memorable, sometimes
(42:14):
really volatile night of partying in New York.
Speaker 1 (42:22):
In the next episode, we're going over to Germany to
one of the sexiest and most exclusive clubs, Bergheim. The
History of the World's Greatest Nightclubs is produced by Neon
Hum Media for London Audio and iHeartRadio for London Audio.
Our executive producers are Paris Hilton, Bruce Robertson and Bruce Gersh.
(42:44):
The executive producer for Neon Humm is Jonathan Hirsch. Our
producer is Refiro, Faith Masarura, Navani Otero and Liz Sanchez
are our associate producers. Our series producer is Crystal Genesis.
Our editor is Stephanie Srano. Samantha Allison is our production manager,
and Alexis Martinez is our production coordinator. This episode was
(43:08):
written by Rufio Faith Masarura and fact checked by Katherine Neuhan.
Theme and original music by Asha Ivanovich. Our sound design
engineers are Sambert and Josh Hahn. I'm your host, Ultra Nate,
and we'll see you next time. On the history of
the world's greatest nightclubs.
Host
Ultra Naté
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Decisions, Decisions
Welcome to "Decisions, Decisions," the podcast where boundaries are pushed, and conversations get candid! Join your favorite hosts, Mandii B and WeezyWTF, as they dive deep into the world of non-traditional relationships and explore the often-taboo topics surrounding dating, sex, and love. Every Monday, Mandii and Weezy invite you to unlearn the outdated narratives dictated by traditional patriarchal norms. With a blend of humor, vulnerability, and authenticity, they share their personal journeys navigating their 30s, tackling the complexities of modern relationships, and engaging in thought-provoking discussions that challenge societal expectations. From groundbreaking interviews with diverse guests to relatable stories that resonate with your experiences, "Decisions, Decisions" is your go-to source for open dialogue about what it truly means to love and connect in today's world. Get ready to reshape your understanding of relationships and embrace the freedom of authentic connections—tune in and join the conversation!