Groove B Chill’s 1990 LP Starting From Zero makes for a decent time capsule, but it probably doesn’t make anyone’s list of important Golden Era LPs (despite contributions from prime-era Prince Paul and Pete Rock’s first production credits). Where the group—which consisted of future actor Daryl “Chill” Mitchell (then known as Chili Dog, currently starring in Fox’s Brothers); fellow rapper Eugene “Groove” Allen; and DJ Belal Miller—quietly put their stamp on history was with their proto-New Jack Swing turn on the pre-”Symphony” posse cut “Uptown Is Kickin’ It,” and the first truly commercially successful hip-hop movie, House Party. The Hudlin brothers based the Kid ‘N Play vehicle on real stories shared with them by Daryl and Belal, and all three members were given roles in the film they were originally meant to star in. As heard on this 1985 recording at Wyandanch High School, back when Rakim was still Kid Wizard, Belal—then Grandwizard BMC—was often in his corner, with Biz Markie in tow. (It’s worth noting here that the recent emergence of this recording online is a result of this conversation with Belal, who reminded me of its existence, and the homey Oxygen’s possession of it. Once again, respeck to Ox for the upload.) Currently, Belal can be heard every Monday night on Long Island on WUSB’s “Soul-Glo Bistro.”

JS: Tell me about your involvement with Rakim.
Belal: Before I started deejaying, back in ‘83, I used to be an MC in a crew called the Almighty 5 MCs. That was my first crew. But I couldn’t MC, really. I tried doing my little rhyming thing but they were so good. Rakim was in there. He had to have been about 13. I’m a few years older than him, and I was still in school. When I say he was a child prodigy, he was a child prodigy. He didn’t act his age. We called him “Pop” because he always acted older. He was saying, “I take 7 MC’s put ‘em all in a line” when he was 13. Like how in the city they had their crews, we had ours. We just didn’t know we was just good as them. ‘Cause nobody came to Long Island. The only people that came to Long Island back in the day is Mike and Dave was doing shows with Biz, Doug E. Fresh, and Dr Jeckyll and Mr. Hyde or Masterdon Committee at the [2002] skating rink out [in Sayville]. That’s how I met Biz. I didn’t know who he was, and he came to one of my parties in Wyandanch talking about [in Biz voice], “I got Grandmaster Flash outside.”

Flyers courtesy: Oxygen

JS: Was Chill in the group with you?
Belal: No, it was different. The Almighty 5 MCs kicked me out, then I was doing a little beatbox thing [Laughs]. I ended up being with another crew called High Power 3 MCs. Then I just started deejaying. As the older guys in the neighborhood was coming out, I ended up being the cat that everybody came to. Ra would be down in my basement practicing, and Chill. We’d all do jam sessions in my basement. Ra was in another group called the Love Brothers that was a carbon copy of the Cold Crush Brothers. They’d do their routines at my man Snake’s house. We was all bouncing from house to house, where our parents would let us rock at. But that was all over L.I. Each town had that.

Prince Paul, before he was with Stetsasonic, was like my nemesis. Amityville was saying he was the best, but Wyandanch was saying I was the best. Same with Brentwood, and Diamond J. And Midnite Express, the crew Biz used to rock with. Parrish Smith’s brother, Smitty D, came from that clique. In Coram, you had Mechanic, who was big out there that Biz used to rock with. I’m forgetting another part of Long Island, North Babylon, where you had Freddie Foxxx. He was part of Royal Nation, and then they came out with a little record as Supreme Force, which was guys who used to be part of Royal Nation. Everybody broke off from their little crews and started doing they own thing. So, me and Chill were by ourselves doing parties, but when battles came up I’d ask Biz and Ra to rock with me. And that’s what you hear on the CD that Oxygen and Biz have, of us all rocking at the [Wyandanch] high school.

JS: Were you performing together just in Wyandanch, or all over?
Belal: I remember being in Brentwood at a little house party and Smitty’s group, the Rock Squad came down. From Wyandanch, it was just me and Ra and some people who weren’t MCs. And Ra tore them up by himself. He did the whole “Seven MCs in a line” routine then. His whole style was so different. The moment I knew how good he was was when Biz took us to [Harlem] to a battle. Doug E. Fresh and Rob Base was there. Doug E was Biz’s nemesis. He used to totally diss Biz. And he did it that night. They said, “Y’all know this beatbox called Biz?” and he said, “The ugly kid.” Biz used to go from school to school. I mean, he was known everywhere in New York before he did a record. But they would treat him so bad.

Me and Ra got so mad when [Doug E. Fresh] said that. We were like, “We’re gonna kill these fools,” and we did. Ra did his [lyrics from] “Check Out My Melody.” And they were still on that “bawitdaba” shit. Their jaws just dropped. Doug E. and them, to this day they still remember that. And Ra will tell you that was the first time he knew he was good. And that’s when I found out I was good, because I was as good as Barry Bee with the tricks. That gave us a lot of confidence when we left. We were like, “We can’t be touched, if we only could be seen.” I met Eric B. at my house. Eric came out here on some “I’m the man, I’m with WBLS.” Yeah, he was with WBLS alright. He was a phone guy with BLS! But he was fronting like he was BLS. He came to [close Rakim associate and future EPMD bodyguard] Alvin Toney, and asked him who was the best around here.

JS: So did you have an actual group with Biz, Ra and Chill?
Belal: Chill was more of a hype man before hype men was out. He’d hype up the crowd and say, “Here come the cavalry.” And that would be Ra and Biz. And it was a done deal. I was the DJ rocking behind all these dudes, doing the quick cuts before cats was doing them around here. Like Chill said, Long Island stabilized hip-hop. We wasn’t the first ones, but when those little cliques started coming out like EPMD, De La? With Ra, it happened so quick. Eric used to come to my parties with his white leather jacket and these tight Lee pants. We looked as him like an outsider. All the sudden, he started hanging with Ra. Ra used to play baritone sax in the Wyandanch high school band. I played the bass drum. The producer Nate Tinsley, too, we all was in that band together. Our band director was from Southern University so he taught us their stuff that was unprecedented for Long Island. Ra’s brother used to be one of the band teachers.

JS: Which brother was this?
Belal: We just called him Mr. Griffin, I think his name was Ronnie? Ra’s other brother, Stevie Blast, played the keyboards on most of Paid in Full. When Ra first got his records for “Eric B. is President,” he came running to the band bus like, “Yo I got my records.” And we was like, “What? How?” He gave me two, and I still got one of those originals. We were sitting there going, you and Biz? Cause Biz had just done one with Roxanne Shante. When Biz was saying, “I made my record,” we was like get outta here. Cause Biz was known for lying all the time.

JS: So was that the end of your working with Ra?
Belal: I was deejaying for Ra for about a year, fairly recently. But, I used to be the DJ at this club Entourage in Bay Shore, and I asked him to come and do [”Eric B. is President”] that week it came out. But the following week, it was a done deal. They played the record on Mr. Magic’s Rap Attack. Me and Eric got into it that night. He wanted to get paid $1,000. We only making $400, so I said, “I’ll give you $250.” Nobody knew the record yet, for another week. Eric had beef with me and Chill for the longest. He almost got jumped at Wyandanch Day messing with me. I felt bad in a way ’cause Ra was young. Eric was older, he knew the game a little. I know Ra didn’t make the money he was supposed to, like publishing money on [Paid in Full]. He was driving a Mercedes, but Eric was driving a Rolls. At first, people wasn’t even giving Rakim credit. DJs and people were saying that’s an “Eric B.” record. In Wyandanch, we were like what are you talking about?

JS: Rakim and Eric B.’s relationship ended badly. So you’re saying it was always like that?
Belal: Ra never liked Eric. He couldn’t even have a full conversation about him. Eric was arrogant, and Ra is quiet and cool. People don’t know, Ra used to deejay. Eric didn’t do no cuts on Paid in Full. Well, the stuff that don’t sound good, that’s the stuff he did. If it sound good, Ra did it. Eric was just the guy that put Ra out there. He gets credit for that. But I remember going to concerts with Ra, and Eric’s on the DAT tape, fronting like he’s cutting on stage. That was unheard of back then. Now, you can get away with that Milli Vanilli shit.

JS: Why did he come to Long Island? There were plenty of nice rappers in his own backyard in Queens…
Belal: I dont know why. Man, we was gullible. If somebody came from the city, we gave ‘em respect. All Ra did on [Paid in Full] was take the beats he used to rock with me and these guys, Cool Breeze and Teddy. We used to rock “I Got Soul,” “Funky Penguin.” “Don’t Look Any Further” was Ra’s favorite record. All he did was say, “This is what I’m used to rocking with”, and they built the album. He had all the rhymes already. When we heard the album, we was like, “This is the same stuff he’s been doing.” We didn’t realize he was so ahead of his time. We wasn’t thinking he was better than Kool Moe Dee.

JS: You were about to tell me before how you hooked up with Biz…
Belal: Biz was one of my best friends. As a rapper, he used to bite at times but it was his delivery. That night we went to that battle in Harlem, this guy Kid West was there, and Biz will tell you he didn’t bite off of Kid West, but he did. But when it came to the beatbox, Doug E. Fresh couldn’t touch Biz. He would literally blow your speakers if you didn’t have good ones. His voice had so much bass. He can’t do it like that no more. Biz is the first person I ever seen do the beatbox, actually. When he came to Wyandanch Day. We thought he was retarded. That had to be about ‘84.

JS: So how did Groove B Chill come to be?
Belal: At first, we wasn’t called Groove B Chill. We was called the Rock Squad. Groove was in that group with Parrish Smith. Parrish wasn’t rhyming, he was a DJ at the time. Groove saw me at Wyandanch Day, and said, “Come rock with the Rock Squad.” I knew they had the record on Tommy Boy, which is one of the worst rap records of all time. That wasn’t even a rap record, that was a TKA type record. In Brentwood, Groove was supposed to have been known as an MC. I’ll be the first to tell you, when I heard him, I didn’t think he was nice. But then Rock Squad broke up. I never really met all of them. Groove and Smitty D got into it, and he didn’t want to do the group no more. I was rocking with Chill already and I told them any opening, I’m gonna put you down. He ain’t the best rapper in the world but I knew Chill was a great hype man and good with thinking up ideas. He was the idea man. He thought of all the hooks on our album. Groove wrote up the rhymes, but Daryl did all the concepts.

Little Joe’s Pizza. Incredible slice.

JS: You were still called Rock Squad?
Belal: At first. But Smitty started another Rock Squad, and we couldn’t use the name. We were figuring out what we wanted to do, and started going to Nate Tinsley, who did the first demo for Rakim. Nate did the original “Eric B is President” and “My Melody.” All they did was take it to Marley Marl, and he beefed it up but Nate didn’t get credit for it. Before Cool Vee, Biz asked me to be his full-time DJ. I went with him to check out Cool Vee, actually. Biz will tell you, [In Biz voice] “Belal, didn’t I ask you to DJ for me?” So I went to Groove, if we ain’t happening, I’m ready to go to the left. But we caught a break. We didn’t know Nate was working on the <em>Uptown Is Kickin’ It project. Andre Harrell didn’t have the deal with MCA yet. He heard our tracks “Why Me” and “Dragon Breath.”

JS: That was when?
Belal: About ‘85. We thought of “Groove B Chill” on the way to Chung King studio. Daryl had said “fart” and “poop” on that record “Why Me,” and someone called and complained and that killed that record. But Uptown Is Kickin’ It had “Why Me” on the album. I did the cuts on [the track] “Uptown’s Kicking It.” We was on Uptown for nearly five years before House Party was even made.

JS: Talk a little about the party scene in Wyandanch, and Wyandanch Day…
Belal: Wyandanch back then was like a baby Harlem in a sense because we was giving the livest parties. We grew up hearing these old school DJs like Pleasure and Maniack. DJ. When they started dieing down, we took over. On Wyandanch Day, we had different crews one and three or four DJs all rocking at the same time, all night on the basketball court, the tennis courts. It’s nowhere near what it used to be. If you were able to get out there in the park and show your skills, you was the man. LL [Cool J] used to be behind the rope trying to get on. He never touched that microphone. You had to be elite to get on. You couldn’t just come out of the blue.

JS: When I interviewed Chill a few years ago, he told me House Party was based on the parties you guys used to throw in Wyandanch. How did they get such a rep?
Belal: After I got kicked out of those crews, I went down into my mom’s basement for six months, and really learned how to deejay. For some reason when I came out the basement, I was better than than everybody else. Don’t ask me how. I used to take drum cadences and turn them into cuts, ’cause I was a bass drummer. I could do that with my hands. To get equipment, I used to give dollar parties down in my basement. I’d be in the corner deejaying, Ra would come down, Biz, everybody. I’d make damn near $1,000 a night in one-dollar bills. That’s how many people used to come.

Andre Harrell put us in something called the Black Filmmakers Foundation, which was headed by Reggie and Warrington Hudlin. We was doing some improv, acting like we were at a party. I guess a bell went off in their head. And they started asking me about my parties. They’d ask Chill, too. Groove didnt have stories like we had. A lot of the movie came from me and Chill. When Martin Lawrence was waiting with his equipment, for Play to come in the car? That was me waiting for my man Michael Mitchell, and he had three or four girls in the car, and I’m like, “Where’s my equipment gonna go? Cursing everybody out. That happened just the way it did in the movie. We didn’t realize they was actually doing a movie script. We was just talking about the time we did this or that. One day, they came up to us and said, “Here’s the script, tell us what you think.” They were gonna call it “Cold Ways.”

JS: What’s that mean?
Belal: We don’t know, and we didnt care. We were like, “Yo this is a movie for real”. When they started shopping it, nobody was interested because Tougher than Leather had flopped. People were scared about hip-hop movies. Me, Chill and Groove were actually going around with them to meetings, shopping that movie. Groove and Chill went to a reading of the movie at New Line Cinema, and they loved it. But we didn’t have no record out. Nobody knew who we were. So they were like, “Who can we find that’s known?” Kid ‘N Play was big and Martin Lawrence was on What’s Happening Now at the time. But they had to have us in the movie cause we were the backbone. They kept Chill and Groove’s names. I didn’t audition that day because I had work, so they were like pick from these seven characters. I picked Herman, the guy sleeping all the time ’cause he had the most scenes. I was on set every day, setting it up, putting the equipment where it was supposed to be. I told them exactly what to buy to make it look real.

JS: How much of Martin Lawrence’s character Belal was based on you?
Belal: He was DJ Belal, of course, and I’m DJ Belal. And some of his mannerisms. Not the dragon breath stuff but that idea came from our record, “Dragon Breath.” The characters of Play and Kid, you know the darkskin one was Chill and the lightskin one was Groove.

JS: Did you show Martin how to deejay?
Belal: I tried, but he couldn’t. He had no rhythm, son. Me and him roomed together on the set. If you notice, they never show his hands. They only did that movie with a million dollars, but it made $28 million. People don’t realize that was the movie that sparked Menace II Society, Boyz N The Hood. It showed Hollywood that urban movies could make money.

JS: Coincidentally, Kid ‘N Play had gotten chased out of Wyandanch on Wyandanch Day a couple years earlier.
Belal: I was right there playing on the basketball court when it happened. That was the same night me and Eric got into it. I remember them coming out, and it only took one bottle to fly. If you wasn’t nice, and came with that corniness, you would get stoned. And that’s what happened. How you got good back then was playing in hostile environments. As a DJ, I had to be better than Cool Breeze or anybody else out here. I just happened to get lucky and was rocking with the best dudes out of Wyandanch, and that made me look even better. That’s why the parties popped off. People knew Ra and Chill would be there. And then, after [”Uptown’s Kicking It,”] now Heavy D gonna come to the party, Finesse and Synquis.

JS: You had Prince Paul producing tracks on the Groove B Chill album. Did that partnership come from out of your rivalry on L.I. back in the day?
Belal: To be honest, Prince Paul wasn’t even thought about until Puffy came into the picture talking about he didn’t hear the hit on our album. Puffy had just come to Uptown and, all of the sudden, he was the A&R director. We had already finished the album, and didn’t want to spend more money. Because it was coming from our pocket. Puffy convinced Andre that we should use other producers. He wanted to use Prince Paul, Howie Tee, and Pete Rock. He was young, and he didn’t even have the Pete Rock sound yet. When we first met Puff, he was an errand boy. He was getting coffee for the artists. We was coming off of House Party, and we had our deal finally. We wasn’t with Uptown as far as our record label, we were with Uptown as management. We had our deal with A&M. The movie was gonna come out, and [Andre Harrell] was like, “Give them this production deal and lets have this movie out.” But our single, “Hip Hop Music” was the original demo from Nate’s house. We just did it over in the studio.

GROOVE B CHILL “HIP HOP MUSIC”

Puffy felt we should use Paul because of De La Soul. I didn’t want to, because the sound was so different from what we were doing. He thought we was a comic group. But we didn’t want to be no comic group. We was trying to be serious. Yeah, we was funny but our vision of Groove B Chill was like a Run DMC, not no flower children. But the record company just ran with that. They put us in these bright colors and had the album looking like De La Soul, and we wasn’t that. To hear Puffy talking about he couldn’t hear the hit, I wanted to break his neck all the time. They had to restrain me. We went over budget doing that, just to come out with something that me and Nate and Chill did already. We was tight with the production. We gave Prince Paul $30,000 to do three tracks, “Top of the Hill,” another one [”Let It Roll”], and another that didn’t make the album.

JS: So the group never worked together again after that?
Belal: We knew we wasn’t the best group but we thought we could come out with two or three good albums. But when our album came out, we had already missed our window with House Party. The album came out in ‘90 and the movie came out in ‘89. And that’s when Chill started acting, and there was a jealousy thing between Groove and Chill. Before the record came out, Groove and Daryl decided they wanted to leave our deal with Uptown, and that was the worst mistake. Then we had a record out with no push behind it. The record came out when we broke up.