Photo courtesy of DJ Kenny Parker
In part one of The Real Hip-Hop’s interview with Kenny Parker we spoke about his book, My Brother’s Name is Kenny, producing Takin Mine for Heather B and KRS-One’s various battles.
In part two of my conversation with DJ Kenny Parker he talks about the origins of his YouTube channel, the coastal rap wars, why he no longer deejays for KRS-One, and his friend, the late, great, Biz Markie.
TRHH: Why’d you stop going on the road with KRS-One?
DJ Kenny Parker: That’s really a KRS question, honestly. A couple things happened; I had been deejaying for BDP from late 89-90 all the way to 2000. That whole ten year run I was the DJ. Then KRS took a job while he was still recording with Warner Brothers. He became A&R of Reprise Records in the rap department. They were trying to put rap back in Warner Brothers and they hired KRS to be the guy to bring groups. They threw him a truckload of money! Like, “We’re going to make you an offer you cannot refuse.” I remember that Jive was mad because their artist is working at Warner Bros. But KRS’s attitude was, “Y’all didn’t offer me any kind of position.” They probably was like, “We didn’t even know you wanted a position,” but he took the deal.
Part of the deal was he had to move to LA. The offices were in LA., so he moved out to Cali in like ’99. So, now everybody else in the crew is based in New York, KRS is now based in California. So, when it’s time to do shows logistically it became a problem because we have to fly you from here and you from here to meet KRS. It became logistically a problem. We were doing it for big dates, but for smaller dates he would get some DJ from somewhere and they would do shows. So, into the 2000s that started being the thing. I started deejaying some dates – bigger shows where there was a budget for people to come out. Hence, KRS only lasted at Warner Bros. like a year [laughs]. He was like, “I can’t sit behind a desk. I’m outta here!”
He just broke out. He left the money. He said, “I can’t do it.” Knowing him, I can’t see KRS getting up and being in the office every day, I can’t see it. But he gave it a shot, it didn’t work out, but he still was out in LA. So, part of the dynamic was logistically, and then his young son, shout out to Pryme, his son started deejaying. He moved his son into doing some deejaying for him, which I think is beautiful. Sometime around 2010ish his son became the permanent DJ for KRS. Once that happened, that’s it, that’s his father. I was no longer traveling. But from time to time he might call me like, “Yo, we’re doing this, you wanna jump on?” I’ll say yeah, but for the most part his son is the DJ.
TRHH: I’ve seen him, he’s good.
DJ Kenny Parker: Yeah, my nephew is the DJ and I can’t be more happy for that situation. I can’t be like, “Well, damn!” Hey, man, that’s his seed. Rock out, man.
TRHH: How did The BDP Album come about?
DJ Kenny Parker: Right around the time when I was last deejaying we went on a European tour in 2010 and that was supposed to be a mixtape. KRS did like eight songs. I was going to put it on a CD and sell them, like a mixtape at shows or whatever, sometimes we’d throw some out to the crowd. It was going to be a straight mixtape. Logistically we never ended up doing it because we were never in one place long enough to even set up. So, we came back home and I had these eight songs. One of KRS’s managers struck up a deal with an independent label that was looking to put out a KRS album and they wanted to put something out. I’m like, “Well, I got these songs – this mixtape. I’m gonna go find some other songs that we have, make it like 10-11, and make it a whole project.
It was supposed to be a mixtape and I turned it into a project with just me producing and KRS on the mic, so I called it The BDP Album just because it was me and him. This independent label came with a nice chunk of money and they put it out. It was supposed to be a mixtape that turned into an independent album. A couple songs on there have like one verse because it was supposed to be like that – bam, one verse and moving on, and give a little shout out in the middle! This was the time when mixtapes were really hot like 2010-2011. It was supposed to be the BDP Mixtape and turned into the BDP Album.
TRHH: You’re still doing deejaying gigs; what types of music do you spin when people come to see you perform? Does it depend on the venue?
DJ Kenny Parker: It depends on the venue. I DJ anywhere. I deejayed in Brooklyn outside of the place that used to be Albee Square Mall and I played all 45s of funk, breaks, and stuff like that. I also deejay for the young people like 23 and 24-year-olds. Sometimes people call me to do a college party and they’re into all the new stuff, so I gotta stay abreast of what’s new. Half of the songs I don’t even know what they’re saying. I can play a song literally fifty times and on the fiftieth time I will be like, “Oh, shoot. He said bat and hat.” I’ve heard this song fifty times and I did not know that he said this word and this word.
And I hate sounding like that old guy, but it’s almost like incoherent to me. I don’t understand what they’re saying, but if the crowd likes it, they’re hiring me to make these kids dance, so, if you like it, I love it! Here it goes, I’ll throw on these records that I have no idea what they’re talking about, but I know they’re hot! I’ll throw them on. But for me, Kenny, I more enjoy the throwback stuff when I do the classic parties. That’s really me, but I’ll deejay anywhere.
TRHH: How do you know what’s popping when you do the young kid parties? How do you stay on top of that?
DJ Kenny Parker: That’s a good question. After COVID a lot of things changed. What it used to be was a combination of things. Requests; A lot of DJ’s don’t like requests and I don’t really like them either, but I’ve learned to take some requests because people are telling me what’s hot. Remember that Lil Nas X record “Old Town Road”? People kept telling me to play Old Town Road. Enough people kept telling me to play Old Town Road so I was like, “Okay, this is a big song. I have to play this record to get this party rocking.” Listening to requests is one way that keeps me abreast of what’s going on. Second, I study the charts a lot. These young parties are called Top 40 Party’s. Really, it’s Top 10. It’s the hits, play the hits, I look at Billboard and study the Billboard charts and I see the records that’s moving.
There’s a correlation between the records that stay on the Billboard Top 10 or 15 for two or three months and what these young people would like. So, I’m watching the Billboard chart. If you see a record like a Drake record that’s been on the charts for 20 weeks in the top 10 I’m like, “This record is sticking. You need to play this because this record is sticking.” Some records go in and out. They’ll come in at number seven, and next week number twenty, following week number eighty, gone! Those records didn’t stick, but certain records stick. When I see a record stick I’m like, “Okay, I need to play this,” mixed with people telling me, “Play this.” So, I kinda use those two formulas and it kind of keeps me abreast of what’s going on.
TRHH: You also continue to make beats and people can get a Kenny Parker beat off of Beatstars. Why’d you decide to start working with Beatstars?
DJ Kenny Parker: This is just recently, maybe a month ago. I do a YouTube live every week on Tuesdays and Fridays 8 PM Eastern Standard time. We talk about Hip-Hop, we talk about sports, and people kept saying to me, “When you gonna play some beats on the SP-1200? Play some beats!” This is like two years of people saying this. I’m like, okay, I’m gonna dig up a bunch of old disks that I have from the 90s and early 2000s. These beats are like 25 years old and I don’t even know what’s on them. I’m just going to stick them in the SP-1200, press play, and whatever comes out you guys are gonna hear it.
So, I started playing some beats and a few people were like, “Yo, I like a couple of those. How can I get that? I wanna buy that!” My experience in the music business is that you hire Kenny Parker to produce a song for a record company. It cost thousands of dollars to hire a producer, go in the studio, produce, the track cost blah, blah, blah. These are not record company people. These are people that are listening, probably making a demo, or just want the beat to play around the house or whatever. There are people that sell beats online for people like that. I did some research and said I’m gonna go on Beatstars, I’m gonna take some of the beats that I was playing, throw some other stuff on and just put ‘em up. If people want to buy them they’re real cheap people and a hundred people can buy the same beat. It’s really licensed.
A hundred people can buy the same beat if they want to, do whatever you want, go head! I started just throwing beats on Beatstars and each week I’m just gonna throw a beat on. I started with old stuff from 25 years ago, so the stuff that you hear me play now that’s on my channel and on Beatstars I made it 25 years ago. I just never had a chance to play it for anybody, and then I’m gonna start playing some newer stuff. So, that’s why I’m on Beatstars, just for people that want a Kenny Parker beat. Now, if I was producing for an artist that’s a different story. That’s not me licensing a beat, that’s let’s go into the studio and really do it!
TRHH: I really enjoy your YouTube channel. You go in depth about important stories in Hip-Hop; what made you decide to do a YouTube channel?
DJ Kenny Parker: Thank you so much. Another excellent question. It was a combination of things; first, after I wrote the book I was saying to myself that I was right there for most of KRS-One’s whole journey. The whole story, the shows, and all the behind the scenes stuff, I was literally standing right there. Not only working with him, but just hanging out. I was literally right next to him. Even though I’m 6’6” I’m invisible when KRS is there. You don’t even see me because there’s KRS, so I’m not even there, but I was there! I saw a whole bunch of things that to me are funny, amazing, scary, the whole gamut. If I don’t tell it when I’m gone these stories are gone. I said I want to tell some of the stuff that I saw being with BDP for all of these years that people don’t know, because Hip-Hop has not really been documented that much.
Nowadays you have social media where you know what the artist is doing each and every single day. I look at what’s out there even in my group; you probably know 15% of the amount of things that happened in the 90s with just my group, that you can look up. It’s probably like 15% and that’s the 90s. The 80s is probably like 8% and the 70s is probably like 2%. So, if people aren’t telling the stories, they’re gone. So, I said, I’m going to get on and I’m going to tell some stories that I saw. Plus, there’s a lot of misinformation out there and I see some people tell stories about my group and I’m like, “That’s not what happened.” Or that’s a piece of the story, but it’s so much more that happened.
So, I have to tell you what really happened because I was standing right there. The PM Dawn incident, I’ve seen a bunch of people tell parts of the story and they’re telling it like it was a fact, and the people are taking it as a fact like, “This is what happened because I know.” That’s not what happened. I know the story from before, during, and after. Other than KRS-One nobody knows that story better than me, let me tell the story. So, that’s why I started the channel just so I can tell people things that I saw. Then I started doing it weekly, interacting back-and-forth, I started doing interviews, and it just grew. But it started for me just wanting to tell people what I saw.
TRHH: You just made me have a thought; in the book you talk about Scott La Rock, you talk about Biz Markie. They are two important figures. The stories you told about Biz especially hit me because you don’t hear stories about this guy. I’ve seen some negative things about Biz over the years. But here’s a guy who told you I’m coming through and came through! Biz was a special dude. I never met him but you could tell this guy was a special dude. What are your memories of Biz in a nutshell? What was it like hanging with Biz Mark?
DJ Kenny Parker: There’s two things about Biz, maybe three, that I would say in a nutshell. One, he is the singular funniest person I’ve ever met. If somebody asks you who is the singular funniest person you’ve ever met in your life? You might be like, “My boy from eighth grade?” This is the funniest dude I’ve ever bet. Biz Markie is literally the funniest person I ever met in my life. He is non-stop jokes, at all times, in all circumstances he is making jokes.
Two, he had photographic memory. Biz could tell you your phone number from decades ago. Biz would come up to me like, “Remember when you had this number, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah.” I’m like, “What? I had that number for like an hour 30 years ago!” He remembers every phone number, every break beat, every time you hear a sample he’ll go, “That’s the record that had the three girls in the blue dresses singing on the front.” He knows the album, what’s on the front, like he has that kind of memory.
Third, he was like a kid. He collects video games, sneakers, and original food stamps. One time we saw Biz and my man Will was laughing at him because Biz had on a diamond chain, a Rolex that probably cost $50,000, and a pair of Pro-Keds [laughs]. So, you have on $80,000 worth of jewelry probably, and ten-dollar sneakers from back in the day. And they were crispy too! “Where did you even get Pro-Keds? I’m not even going to ask you, Biz.” He was that kind of guy. He was like a big kid and he loved Hip-Hop. He is like the common denominator to a lot of people. I didn’t know him and Rakim used to hang out and he used to bring Rakim all over the place before his name was even Rakim. He used to hang with Slick Rick, and he used to hang with EPMD, Redman, and he brought Kane into the game.
He is the common denominator to a bunch of legendary artists that we love. Everybody talks about how, “We used to hang with Biz,” and I was fortunate enough to hang with Biz for many years and that’s my memory of him. Just fun. I don’t know what negative things that people would say, I’ve never had a negative experience with Biz. That was my guy. I love him and I miss him. The last time I spoke to him I was supposed to go to his house and he had some 45s that I needed. He was like, “I got you! Come to my house, I got you!” Like a month later he was in the hospital. I didn’t even get a chance to speak to him. He was in the hospital for a long time, and then he was gone. I miss him dearly.
TRHH: Hip-Hop misses him. We know about his music and him as an emcee, but he’s the best DJ I’ve ever seen do a show. The best! He was incredible. He was a Hip-Hop renaissance man. He could do anything.
DJ Kenny Parker: I remember Biz when he first started learning to deejay. We used to go to clubs and he would come to the booth and tell the DJ, “I just want to throw on one record. I just got this one mix I wanna do and I’ll leave you alone.” They’d be like, “Alright, Biz.” He’d just mix two records that he liked and we’d leave. That’s all he wanted to do was mix this and this. It evolved into a whole thing. People say some people are like somebody like, “I know this guy, he’s sort of like this guy,” there’s never been a person like Biz. There’s nobody you could say, “Biz is like so and so.” He is the most unique person I’ve ever met, in every way.
TRHH: I want to briefly touch on the Dope Jam Tour. I went to the Dope Jam Tour.
DJ Kenny Parker: Wow.
TRHH: Yeah, I was 12, man. To this day it’s the best rap concert I’ve ever been to.
DJ Kenny Parker: Amazing, amazing.
TRHH: I always tell people, you have no concept of how great this show was. Everybody on that bill is Hall of Fame talent. I was the least familiar with BDP at the time. I knew everybody else, but BDP had some songs I knew. That was my introduction to BDP. I didn’t know Criminal Minded.
DJ Kenny Parker: Most of the world that was their introduction.
TRHH: Ice-T, Biz Mark, BDP, Kool Moe Dee, Doug E Fresh, Eric B & Rakim — it was just such a good show. Do you know if you were at the Chicago show because in the book you said you stopped at a few dates?
DJ Kenny Parker: Not sure I was at the Chicago show. I know I went to Milwaukee, Indiana, along that trail.
TRHH: So, you might have been.
DJ Kenny Parker: I might’ve been. I’m not sure. It was coming towards New York because we did Philly and then New York, so it was going east. They went all the way to the west and then came all the way back to the east by the time I got on. I got on in Ohio I think, and then we did Milwaukee, Indiana and Philly. My Memory is vague, but I was at like ten of those shows.
TRHH: Amazing.
DJ Kenny Parker: Amazing.
TRHH: At the same time Run-DMC and the Run’s House Tour was going on, which I didn’t get a chance to see, but Chuck D talked about EPMD, DJ Jazzy Jeff and the Fresh Prince, Public Enemy, and Run-DMC having camaraderie, but the people on the Dope Jam tour were fighting with each other, but he never elaborated. Do you know anything about beef on the tour?
DJ Kenny Parker: No. It was a 50-city tour. I came at like city 40. So, whatever happened before city 40 I don’t know. If there was beef it wasn’t with BDP…
TRHH: I think I heard it was between the crews of Ice-T and Rakim.
DJ Kenny Parker: It could have been because BDP is very close with Ice-T and the crew, Biz and the crew, Kool Moe Dee was on that tour – very close, Doug E Fresh – very close. Rakim and KRS are cool, but Scott La Rock and Eric B were like best friends. I don’t know how close KRS and Rakim are. I know they’re cool, when we see Ra it’s all good, but I don’t know if they had the same camaraderie that Scott and Eric had, I don’t know, so I’m not going to say.
I didn’t see any tension or anything like that, so I don’t know what the story is with Eric B & Rakim. I personally didn’t see any tension, they didn’t treat me any kind of way. The rest of the groups hung out together, we played ball together. Biz and KRS used the same turntables. D-Nice and Cool V used the same setup because Biz came on right before BDP. Biz would come off and D-Nice would jump right on the same turntables. Ice-T and Biz shared a bus. They were all together, so if it was Ice-T and Rakim I don’t know.
TRHH: I think I heard Chuck D say there was friction. I think I heard someone else say it was those two, but I can’t confirm.
DJ Kenny Parker: I didn’t see it. I will tell you this about Chuck, I mentioned in the book how I met Chuck and it blew me away, but that show in Philly Spectrum was when It Takes a Nation of Millions was at its peak! I remember they had this whole promotional thing in Philly that Flavor Flav was lost in Philly. They couldn’t find Flavor Flav and they were saying on the radio that they didn’t even know if he was going to be at the show. Public Enemy comes out, they probably do one song and out of nowhere you hear, “Yeeeeahhhh Booyyyyy!”
It was 20,000 people screaming just off of that! Then they did “Terminator X to the Edge of Panic” and when it said “Terminator X-it, go, go, go, go!” yo, the roof came off the Spectrum!!! I was standing there like, “Yooo!” I couldn’t believe it. As a Hip-Hop fan that I am these are moments I’ll never forget. Seeing Public Enemy during It Takes a Nation of Millions when it was at its peak and seeing them right there, crazy!
TRHH: I’ve seen Public Enemy plenty of times, but not on that tour. With my mother it was like, “Okay, you can go to this concert or that concert,” so I picked the Dope Jam tour.
DJ Kenny Parker: P.E. was a special guest. They weren’t on that tour, but they were a special guest just in Philly.
TRHH: Right, but they were on the Run’s House tour at the same time. My buddy from school went and he said Public Enemy and Jazzy Jeff & the Fresh Prince were the best two. I was like, “Better than Run-DMC?!?!?!” That can’t be! He was like, “Trust me.” Wow.
DJ Kenny Parker: I’ve never seen Jazzy Jeff & the Fresh Prince. I’ve seen just about everybody, and I’ve never seen Jazzy Jeff & the Fresh Prince perform live.
TRHH: And you’re both Jive connected?
DJ Kenny Parker: Both Jive connected. We used to do Jive showcases where all the groups on Jive would do promo stuff or whatever. It would be BDP, Tribe, E-40, R. Kelly, but never the Fresh Prince.
TRHH: I got to see them in ’91 around the time “Summertime” was hot and the Homebase album. But it was one of those big stadium shows and they only did like three songs. It didn’t seem appropriate for a group of that magnitude but it was, Public Enemy, Naughty By Nature, Geto Boys Latifah, Kid ‘N Play, A Tribe Called Quest, Jazzy Jeff & Fresh Prince and Oaktown’s 357. Remember Hammer’s group?
DJ Kenny Parker: [Laughs] Wow, yeah. That’s a wild bill!
TRHH: A crazy bill. I remember I told that story to O.C. and A.G. and they were like, “Man, that’s mad different flavors!”
DJ Kenny Parker: Yeah!
TRHH: Hip-Hop used to be like that. When did it get so one-sided? It’s something for everybody on that show.
DJ Kenny Parker: I think Gangsta Rap, into party rap made it one-sided, in my opinion. Dollars and cents. When Gangsta rap started selling you either switch up or you’re out! And then when the Puffy/Versace shirt era came, if you wasn’t putting on a Versace shirt you was out! A lot of artists refused to put on the shirt and their careers winded down.
TRHH: [LAUGHS]. That’s so true, man. I’m born in ‘76 and I often tell the story that my first introduction to Hip-Hop was my mother having Rapper’s Delight and The Breaks. Run-DMC and LL was my jam, but everybody on the Dope Jam Tour, that was like the skies opened up for me. Rakim, KRS-One, Slick Rick, Big Daddy Kane, that’s everything to me. I liked N.W.A. a lot, but when a lot of people start copying them it got bad and I stopped listening to Hip-Hop. This was the Grunge era in the early 90s, so I got into Pearl Jam and Nirvana. To me it had that Hip-Hop energy and newness that I remembered. I still listened to KRS, I still listened to Cube, but I didn’t get back into Hip-Hop until I heard Wu-Tang. Their stuff reminded me of Big Daddy Kane and them! It sounded like that stuff to me and I’ve been hooked ever since, but that era of clones, I couldn’t listen to it. It rubbed me the wrong way.
DJ Kenny Parker: It was the watered-down versions of it. I’m not so much into the conspiracy theory about Gangsta Rap being put there to hurt the black man. I’ve heard Ice Cube even say this, and I would never argue with Ice Cube, I think it’s math. If you look at 88-89-90 rappers were going gold. Gold was the mark, if you sold gold that was putting up R&B numbers. The artists that were going gold for the most part – Kane, Rakim, Slick Rick, KRS, P.E., LL, you had to be exceptional to be a conscious rapper or that style of rapper and go gold. You have to be Hall of Fame worthy to do those numbers. Then N.W.A. comes out and sells two million. They sell four times what a Kane or a Rakim or a KRS would sell. Then they figured out that if you take another group that doesn’t even have to be that good, but if they talk gangster talk, they can sell one million records.
I can take a C-level Gangsta rapper and he would out-sell a Hall of Fame conscious rapper – double – so, why would I waste my time looking for the next Rakim? I can grab any old dude, put a bandanna on his head, say ‘say this’ and we’ll sell a million records. And no radio play. You had to fight to get radio play with these guys, Gangsta Rap needed no radio play at all! It was a gold mine. So, record companies were like, “Okay, we want more of this!” I’m not trying to scour the world to find the next KRS or Slick Rick, I want some more of this! There was a Seismic shift. The whole industry just went, boom, hardcore. To me, that’s my opinion of why there was a big shift. I don’t think it was so much a conspiracy, it was just math.
TRHH: Money.
DJ Kenny Parker: Money. The money. A weak Gangsta Rapper is two times a great conscious or lyrical rapper. I’m over here with the money!
TRHH: I think there’s a revisionist history about Illmatic. Great album, but it was considered a failure.
DJ Kenny Parker: At first, yes.
TRHH: At first. This was like the second coming of Rakim, right?
DJ Kenny Parker: They were literally calling Nas “the new Rakim.”
TRHH: But Illmatic came out when Snoop and 2Pac were the biggest thing in the world.
DJ Kenny Parker: Murdered! Hold up, Spice 1 was platinum, Quik, Compton’s Most Wanted, I could go down the list. Not saying they’re wack, but they were not on the level of N.W.A., Ice Cube or 2Pac, they were a notch down and were still million selling records. Spice 1 sold more than two KRS-One albums combined. Pick any two of your favorite KRS-One albums combined and Spice 1’s album sold more than two of those.
TRHH: That can’t be.
DJ Kenny Parker: Pick two! Two gold albums is one platinum!
TRHH: I thought Criminal Minded went platinum eventually?
DJ Kenny Parker: It did sell a few million records, but it was underground. It’s a lot of paperwork bullshit with B-Boy Records. They finally admitted after 30 years that it went gold. So, for them to admit that it went gold…
TRHH: It went triple platinum [laughs].
DJ Kenny Parker: Right. Exactly. But the other albums that are on Jive are certified through the RIAA. KRS would do 600-700,000.
TRHH: I thought Edutainment went platinum eventually?
DJ Kenny Parker: No. As far as I know, none of those albums. Edutainment was close. It was probably like 800,000, but I don’t know if it ever squeaked over the hump.
TRHH: 35 years later, it probably did.
DJ Kenny Parker: We would have seen it. I have not heard that, because I would get a plaque. I should get some new hardware. These other groups – Quik – a million seller. This dude did not get any radio play from a whole chunk of the country. I don’t need New York, Philly, none of that. Just one half of the country he sold a million records.
TRHH: I have the privilege of being in Chicago where we like everything. Because we’re in the Midwest, we take inspiration from everywhere. That’s why when you look at Chicago We got Twista, we got Common, we got Chief Keef.
DJ Kenny Parker: [Laughs].
TRHH: You can’t pin a Chicago style. We borrow from the south, the east, and the west coast. Everybody you’re naming, that’s all I heard at some point — DJ Quik, MC Eiht, Spice 1. I was a big Geto Boys fan and they’re from the N.W.A. tree.
DJ Kenny Parker: New York is very segregated when it comes to Hip-Hop. We are elitists. You like the Geto Boys, as far as New York is concerned Geto Boys has one song, “My Minds Playing Tricks on Me.” Forget the rest of their catalog. We like Scarface solo, but Geto Boys has one song. Who is Ice Cube’s boy? Mack 10! Mack 10 is platinum, but Mack 10 wouldn’t get arrested in New York. When the east coast/west coast beef was happening, I was confused because the artists that were mad at New York were the artists that get played the most in New York – Ice Cube, Pac. They love Ice Cube and Pac in New York. Now Mack 10 got a problem? I’m with you Mack 10, you should say, “Fuck New York!” Fuck them. I’m with you Mack 10, ‘cause you don’t get nothing! And platinum!
TRHH: Right. I think Pac had an issue with certain people that became a New York thing.
DJ Kenny Parker: That’s what it is, but Cube was really heavy in the whole thing and I’m like, “Cube, they love you!”
TRHH: I think he was riding a wave.
DJ Kenny Parker: He might have been. I’ve seen Ice Cube at the Apollo three different years body New York City! Body! With Jheri Curls! Body New York! Why are you so mad? That’s always been my argument. I wish I could talk to these people. Certain people have a beef, but certain people I don’t understand why you’re mad because you get played like you’re from here!
TRHH: It was fishy.
DJ Kenny Parker: It was trendy.
TRHH: It was unfortunate and something that put gas on the fire for something that was the ugliest time in Hip-Hop.
DJ Kenny Parker: The ugliest time. It’s funny you say that, if you could pick one time and say “this was the ugliest time” that was it. I don’t think Hip-Hop ever recovered from Pac and B.I.G. and that whole situation. That was the ugliest time.
TRHH: And we lose sight, man. I’m sitting here and I’ll be 50, God willing, in about six months. We’re talking about a guy who was 24 and a guy who was 25.
DJ Kenny Parker: That’s crazy! Their whole life ahead of them.
TRHH: Whole life ahead of them and taken out, I won’t say they were killed because of music, but it was the…
DJ Kenny Parker: Atmosphere.
TRHH: It was the atmosphere and we got robbed.
DJ Kenny Parker: We got robbed! Absolutely, we got robbed!
TRHH: And their families. It was just an ugly, terrible time, man and it didn’t have to be that way.
DJ Kenny Parker: You know what’s funny, the narrative around that time was Suge was the villain and poor Puffy all he wants to do is make you dance and Suge is just starting all of this shit. Now it’s all coming out that they both was really…
TRHH: I kind of always had that feeling. There was a time where Puff attacked Steve Stoute . That’s not a nice guy move [laughs]. That’s strange.
DJ Kenny Parker: Later on that day he was on Ralph McDaniels or MTV and they said, “We heard that Steve Stoute got attacked, do you know anything it?” and Puffy was going, “Really? Oh, this is terrible! This is horrible! Wow!” and he was the guy. I remember that interview.
TRHH: I would put them on similar levels, one guy is just undercover about it.
DJ Kenny Parker: Here in New York we heard little rumors about Puff doing a lot of stuff, but Suge was out there like, “I am gang banging, I’m with my Piru’s and this is how we’re moving.” Puff was moving a certain way, too. He changed the narrative to, “Woe is me, woe is Bad Boy,” compared to Death Row, but now we’re seeing that that’s not necessarily the case.
TRHH: You’re working on an audiobook of “My Brother’s Name is Kenny.”
DJ Kenny Parker: Been working on it for a couple of years.
TRHH: When can people expect to hear that?
DJ Kenny Parker: I’m almost like a chapter away. It’s really cleaning up the audio. I’m just adding a couple of voices and cleaning up the audio to make sure it sounds clear without pops and crackles. You gotta go through everything to make sure. So, I’m like a chapter away. It’s really cleaning up the audio. I would say end of September I hope to have it up and ready to go. I think it turned out really well. It’s me telling the story in my voice, everything that happened. I’m very happy with how it turned out, I just gotta clean it up and make sure it sounds nice.
TRHH: I have so many questions about your mother and sister, also the BDP years, and more. Will you write another book that chronicles your life over the past 35 years?
DJ Kenny Parker: That’s a good question. I don’t know if I’ll write another book. I might just tell it visually. What I’m finding is a lot of people are more visual than readers. People are on me like, “I want to read your book, when is the audiobook coming?” I don’t know if they have the attention spans to sit down and just read it, but they’ll listen to it, or if I do a visual, they’ll definitely watch it. In order to get the story out to as many people as possible I think I would more tell it — like a visual. Not like a visual book, more like this, just talking.
TRHH: What do you want people to take away from My Brother’s Name is Kenny?
DJ Kenny Parker: One, it doesn’t matter what situation you’re in, you can rise out of that if you believe you can. My brother taught me about belief because I didn’t believe it was possible to make a record. I didn’t believe that people like us could be on the radio. I wrote in the book that my brother wanted to make a record and be on the radio, I’m like, “Are you crazy?” Regular people don’t make songs! Michael Jackson, Diana Ross, Marvin Gaye, these people make records. You are a high school dropout, you can’t make a record! He taught me to believe that anything is possible if you believe it’s possible, that’s one.
I also wanted people to get a different perspective on not only KRS the artist, because we see him and he’s had an amazing career, but I wanted people to know that it’s even more amazing that you think it is. It’s almost improbable how he went from this to this. You think it’s incredible? Now, let me tell you, I literally witnessed a miracle. My life is a miracle! Me, Kenny, my life is a miracle, but where he took it to was mind boggling. I wanted people to get an inside perspective on KRS, on Hip-Hop, how hard it was for Hip-Hop to come up, and how hard it was to get in the game. KRS had to practically invent a genre –battling – to get into the game. He had to literally battle his way into the game. I wanted people to get that experience. Hip-Hop and KRS, I want you to understand that experience from behind the scenes.
And belief and destiny — I talk a lot about are things supposed to happen? Is it predestined for things to happen or do we have free will? No mere mortal knows the answer, but I try to ponder it in the book. Certain things that happened in our lives it almost seems like it lined up in a way that it was supposed to go this way because it lined up this way. Any little thing changed would’ve changed the whole story. It almost seems like its destiny to end up this way, but then that means there was no free will, that means everything was already written. I struggle with that like most philosophers from thousands of years ago – is it free will, is it destiny? I wanted to show that it seems like it’s a combination of the two, I don’t know, but I wanted to put that out there as well.
Purchase: My Brother’s Name is Kenny: The Greatest True Hip-Hop Story Ever Told