Yes yes y’all… Crotona Park Jams are here – bringing nearly all of hip hop’s most important founding fathers to the plate for free. If you care at all about this music, particularly the sounds and details of its 1970s genesis and early 1980s climb, it’s 100% worth a trek to the beautiful Bronx.

Today’s bill is a living museum of hip hop culture. Grandmaster Caz, the Casanova Fly himself, one of hip hop’s first DJs (1974), but best known as both the Adam and the Shakespeare of early MCs, and a later a Cold Crush Brother, is rocking this party. While its an established fact that Sugar Hill Gang tore off a substantial chunk of the Fly’s trademark rhymes word-for-word in what is arguably the genre’s first 7-inch “Rapper’s Delight” (1979), there isn’t one rapper to this day that doesn’t at least have a little of Caz’s DNA somewhere inside. Kool DJ AJ Scratch, party rocking behind the wheels of steel as early as 1977, when he started spinning with Love Bug Star-ski when the art form was primarily a Bronx-based social affair, eventually became Kurtis Blow and Busy Bee’s DJ in the era when the rap map, on its way towards becoming a multi-billion dollar industry, expanded to include recording and touring (remember Blow’s song “AJ Scratch?”). Original Herculord, Imperial Jaycee and the Mott Haven Projects’ Mean Machine Crew’s Rockin’ Rob will also be behind the tables. And last, and certainly not least, New York Night Train is excited to catch T-Ski Valley for the first time – the man whose superb “Catch the Beat” (1980) is finally giving him a bit of a well-deserved recognition since its inclusion on recent compilations like Big Apple Rapping, Hip Hop Essentials, etc.

Crotona Park Jams: Kool DJ AJ Scratch, GrandMaster Caz, Rockin’ Rob, T-Ski Valley and Imperial Jaycee at Crotona Park today (details)

Check out these in-depth Jay Quan interviews to get to know some of today’s stars:
Grandmaster Caz
AJ Scratch
T-Ski Valley

Next week’s jam includes Cold Crush DJ Charlie Chase, the Zulu Nation’s Original Jazzy Jay, Philadelphia DJ Cash Money, and the legendary and inimitable ChiefRocker Busy Bee (details).