I Ascend:  As an Accomplished Innovator of Rap, can you please share the inspiration that steered you down this path to making hip-hop history?

Rahiem: I would attribute most of my inspiration to my mom. She was very inclined to music. She exposed me to all of the legendary artists that preceded rap music.

I Ascend: Congratulations on the induction to the Rock and Roll Hall Of Fame. Can you describe what that felt like to be inducted as the first Rap Group?

Rahiem: It was a tremendous honor, though I did not have the opportunity to put my signature on the wall the day that we were inducted. About a year later, I had the opportunity to visit the museum. While I was there, they took my signature and transferred it onto the wall that day.

I Ascend: What has the process of becoming on this journey been like for you?

Rahiem: Well, when I was growing up in the Bronx and New York in general, the Bronx was pretty saturated with gangs and gang activity. It was very difficult to navigate your way around being in a gang but I successfully did that. One of the biggest gangs in New York City from the Bronx was called the Black Spades. That was the gang that Afrika Bambaataa and the Zulu Nation derived from. They would come around my neighborhood, and they would rob everything and everybody. They did not rob me, because I was good friends with a boy named Davey Waters. Davey’s older brother, Steve, was from Bronx River projects, but they moved to the housing development I come from, which is Lambert houses. They did not rob me but the Baby Spades would punk me. They would ride their bicycles from Bronx River projects and they punked me, by making me fix their flat tires. The first time I resisted they threatened the whole gang would jump me. I thought it was best I start fixing their flat tires. (Light Chuckle) I fixed flats for two consecutive summers, from 1976 to 1978. It was in 1978 when I joined my first rap group which is also a legendary group, called The Funky Four; DJ Breakout, DJ Baron, and The Funky Four. We had the first female MC my sister, the legendary Sha-Rock. The group consisted of myself, Sha-Rock, KK Rockwell, and Keith-Keith, and we battled Grandmaster Flash and the Furious Four on May 11, 1979, at the Webster Avenue PAL.

Let me rewind back to fixing the flats. Right up until the point where I joined the Funky Four, we became popular pretty fast in the Bronx. We were in the North Bronx, and Grandmaster Flash and the Furious Four were in the South Bronx. There was a record shop called the Rhythm Den owned by a man named Richard T and he also owned a club called T-Connection, which we all performed at. He would record all of our parties, and would sell tapes of our parties on cassette out of his record shop. This is how early rap got around before recordings, this is how it got around New York City, and that is how it became trending.

When those tapes got into circulation, which was pretty quickly, one day the guys from the Baby Spades were on their way to my mom’s apartment to have me fix a flat. When they got off the elevator on the fifth floor, we had a pretty long hallway. They had a Boom Box with them which coincidentally was blasting a tape of my group, the Funky Four’s, last performance. It just so happens that by the time they got to my door, I was rhyming on the tape. So I heard it and I knew it was them. I opened the door, I was smiling and saying the rhyme along with myself on tape. They stopped the music and asked, “What do you know about the Funky Four and Sha-Rock, KK Rockwell, Keith-Keith, and Rahiem?” I responded, “That is me.” They replied with, “Your name is Todd.” I went on to explain that was my government name. They were in disbelief and said, “You are lying; you better say some rhymes right now, or we are going to beat your behind.” I had to lay down some Rahiem rhymes under pressure at that moment. (Light Chuckles) Luckily, I had written a good number of rhymes in a few black-and-white composition notebooks I had memorized. When I got through my first rhyme, about to say, my second, they were like, “You Rahim.”  Next, they were like, “You’re given a jam at the T-Connection in like two weeks, right? We are your security.” I responded, “Yes, that sounds about right.” I never had to fix a flat again. (Light Chuckling)

I Ascend: Congratulations on receiving a gold record for your solo work. What compelled you to write produce, and sing the R&B track “Does Your Man Know About Me?” found on the soundtrack of the Movie “Juice” in 1992?

Rahiem: I got signed by chance. I was sitting in a restaurant having dinner when Hank Shockley from Public Enemy and Bill Stefani approached me and asked if I still sing. They were like, seriously, we got a label distributed by MCA Records. We want to sign you, and we don’t need you to give us demos or anything, and the rest is history.

I Ascend: In your opinion, has the hip-hop culture been influenced by media terminology? Or has the culture remained relatively the same?

Rahiem: First, let me say that due to misinformation and the misuse of terminology, there is no such thing as hip-hop music. The music is rap music and there are different factions of rap music. You have drill, you have trap, you have boom bap and such but that’s all-rap music. Hip-Hop is the totality of the culture. There are facets to the hip-hop culture other than rap music, such as breakdancing, DJ’ing, The Human Beatbox, Graffiti, and Style and Knowledge. So, when we say hip-hop, we are talking about the totality of the culture. But when we specify, and we are talking about rap music, then we are talking about one facet of the culture of hip hop, which is rap.

I think that the culture has been influenced heavily by media terminology. The term hip hop was not coined to define the culture of rap. The term hip hop was actually a cadence that is called in the military. One of the members of my group, rest in peace to Keith Cowboy, had a friend who was going into the military. They were at a jam and Keith Cowboy was on the microphone and to give him a tribute vocally on the microphone. He said, “My man Gary is going away to boot camp, so in about two weeks he going be “Hip-Hop-Hip-Hop” in the sound of “Left-Right-Left-Right” when the soldiers march.  That is where the term Hip Hop derived from. A lot of the terms that we used came from media, but a lot of the terms were organically created through hip hop, like B-Boys and B-Boys breakdancing. Those terms are staple terms and were organically created by, DJ Kool Herc and the dancers that later became known as B-Boys and B-Girls.