In hip-hop, the first half of the 1990s is known as a golden era, and for good reason. This is the time that hip-hop stalwarts like the Wu-Tang Clan, Nas, Jay Z, Fat Joe, Busta Rhymes and more all began their illustrious careers, and all of whom appeared on the Stretch Armstrong and Bobbito Show before they had record deals. The documentary Stretch and Bobbito: Radio that Changed Lives will be shown tomorrow as part of the Urban Nomad Film Fest.
HUMBLE BEGINNINGS
The Stretch Armstrong and Bobbito Show was a college radio show located on a hard place to find at the very end of the dial at 89.9. The show was as real as keeping it real got because it was in a dank basement with equipment from the 1960s. Hip-hop was still fairly new then, so Stretch and Bobbito were given the graveyard shift of Thursday nights from 1am to 5am. For most people, this would be a deathblow, but for Stretch and Bobbito, it only added to the legend because people had to stay up to hear the rap-a-palooza.
Photo courtesy of Matt McGinley
Each show featured new music as well as artists coming in for interviews in the studio and freestyling for as long as they could ride the beats. This show became so influential that artists would get signed to record deals just on the strength of their live freestyles, which happened to Ol’ Dirty Bastid from the Wu-Tang Clan.
“We never knew who would be huge, that’s what made listening to the show compelling,” Bobbito Garcia told the Taipei Times in an e-mail interview. “You just never knew!”
TAPES, TAPES, TAPES
Photo courtesy of Bobbito Garcia
“The ‘90s was an incredible era of music and me and Stretch were right there to help push it forward,” Garcia said.
The radio hosts realized that their show was becoming influential when tapes of it started popping up all around the globe. Rapper Busta Rhymes in the documentary explained to them in an interview that he didn’t want to deal drugs in high school, so he was bootlegging their tapes to make money before he was a high profile rapper.
When making the documentary on himself and Stretch Armstrong, Garcia was surprised to learn a lot of things, especially how they became star makers.
“The most mind blowing thing was when we did research on statistics. We featured 300 unsigned artists on our show in eight years back in the ‘90s. Since then, they’ve collectively sold in excess of 300 million records,” Garcia said.
LOSING MONEY, GAINING IMMORTALITY
Like all good things, Stretch and Bobbito’s partnership came to an end in the late 1990s. There was even a time when they didn’t talk to each other. Eventually, though, the dynamic duo reformed and did a 20th anniversary show from the same basement they made history from.
Towards the end of the documentary, Stretch and Bobbito are talking with Fat Joe, and tell him that they actually lost money over the period they did the show.
“Naw, what you two did was priceless,” Fat Joe said.
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