Hip Hop's Outlier - Uncle Ralp McDaniels Interview Part III

Video Music Box’s 6 day, 60 minute edutainment programming grew in popularity the old fashion way: through word of mouth.

Cats would come home from school, turn to Channel 31 habitually, craving that days video line up and live footage of the bourgeoning Hip Hop culture, and call their friends to recap the happenings.

Rap radio was still limited. DJ‘s Mr. Magic and Marley Marl (WBLS) and Chuck Chillout (98.7 Kiss FM) hosted competing urban radio shows on Friday and Saturday nights only. Hot97 as its known today would not exist until the late 1980s.

There were no other avenues. All roads pointed towards Video Music Box.

VMB was the only place to find daily Hip Hop content. Uncle Ralph knew the show was big, but wouldn’t know exactly how big until he televised the first Hip Hop concert, Fresh Fest, in 1985.

“I went to Russell [Simmons], who by that time was managing all the groups, and said look I wanna tape Fresh Fest, because this was the first Hip Hop tour with all of the big names on it. Run DMC. Whodini. Grandmaster Flash and the Furious Five. LL [Cool J] was an opening act because he only had one or two songs. Russell was like no problem, speak to my assistant Lyor Cohen (who now is the Chairman of Warner Music Group). So, I taped the whole show backstage with one camera. I’m literally finishing up an interview then rushing front stage so I could get the next act coming on so I could get all the songs — because this is the first time people will see them performing live other than in the clubs.

I was on the camera too for that show, so people recognized me, and thats when they realized that I was part of that show. People started coming up to me going yo, that show that you did for Fresh Fest was crazy. And thats how people began to really get on to the show because it was the first time a Hip Hop concert was aired on television.”

Uncle Ralph shared VMB hosting and production duties with his childhood friend, Lionel C. Martin, better known as The Vid Kid. The two grew up together, DJing as teenagers throughout The City.

“The Vid Kid was in a Pre-Law program at City College and at the end he wasn’t sure what he wanted to do. So I was like, why don’t you come over here and mess with me with this TV thing because its just like how when we were DJing, man. Its the same thing except its video. So he started getting involved in producing the show and hosting it.”

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Hip Hop’s Outlier – Uncle Ralph McDaniels Interview Part II

In 1982, when Uncle Ralph first pitched his show idea to WNYC-TV (Channel 31), music videos were still revolutionary.

MTV launched in August of 1981 with completely Rock focused content. Acts like The Buggles (“Video Killed The Radio Star”), Pat Benatar (“You Better Run”), Rod Stewart (“She Won’t Dance With Me”) dominated the fledgling cable channel’s rotation. Except for the occasional clip from Tina Turner, Donna Summer, Eddy Grant and Musical Youth (“Pass The Dutchie”), videos by black artists were seldom broadcast. Michael Jackson didn’t break MTVs self imposed color barrier until 1983 when “Billie Jean” became the first video by a black artist to receive regular airplay.

Keep in mind that cable was brand new technology. Manhattan Cable Television (where Uncle Ralph interned) was the nation’s first cable company and did not reach outside of Manhattan. The four remaining outer boroughs still relied on VHF and UHF signals. Anyone living outside of Manhattan likely would not have access to MTV — or any other cable channel — until the late 1980s.

At the same time, Hip Hop itself was still little more than an urban movement championed by rebellious youth. The Culture existed in parks and parties and could be seen bombed on subway trains winding through The City infrastructure. It wasn’t on radio. It certainly wasn’t on television.

It wasn’t the mainstream. It was the alternative.



So when Ralph McDaniels pitched his idea for an “edutainment” video show to the station where he worked, not surprisingly he was met with resistance.

“We pitched it as a video show. People didn’t know what that was because…MTV existed, but nobody saw it because there was no cable. Nobody had cable. My sell was edutainment. We wanted to educate kids to whats going on in New York City as well as entertain them with the videos. They’re not going to listen unless you give them something they like, and this is something that young people are in to. They are in to music videos.”

WNYC-TV rejected the idea initially but agreed to try it as part of a broader fundraiser. The fundraiser proved to be successful. Too successful.

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Hip Hop's Outlier - Uncle Ralp McDaniels Interview Part I

In his best selling book, Outliers, Malcolm Gladwell argues that world changing success has just as much to do with circumstance and opportunity as it does with hard work and determination.

The story of Uncle Ralph reads like something straight out of Outliers.

Ralph McDaniels was born to Caribbean parents in the Bed Stuy section of Brooklyn. His uncle introduced him to the Motown sound at an early age. His mother’s first cousin, Geoffrey Holder, was a successful Broadway and film actor (most notably for this writer, as Punjab in the movie adaptation of Annie). His family was always supportive. Music was always in the air.

In the mid-seventies, during Hip Hop’s infancy, Uncle Ralph began DJing.

“I’m in Queens by this time, so you know, the whole DJ thing is becoming really popular. We’re out in the park doing our thing. Break beats are starting to evolve. The commercialization of Hip Hop is starting to happen.”

After completing high school, while still DJing, he attended Laguardia Community College in Queens. There, during an internship at Manhattan Cable Television (the founders and operators of the America’s first urban underground cable system), his interest in film and television was officially ignited.

“Nobody around me had ever seen cable before. I hadn’t seen it before that time because nobody had cable here — in New York — and I don’t think anywhere else. I think that must’ve been around 1980, so this was the beginning of the whole cable television explosion. And that was what sparked my interest because I always wanted to combine the visuals with the audio. I was into the audio already from DJing and being around certain artists…but now I had an opportunity to get involved with the video side of it.”

From that rarified experience — interning at the United State’s first cable company right on the cusp of cable TV’s communications takeover — Ralph not only honed in on the ultimate path that would define his legacy, but began learning the tools to bring his vision (combining the audio with visuals of New York’s musical revolution) into fruition.

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Two Buffalo Gals Go Round The Outside...

While fact checking my upcoming Ralph McDaniels interview, I stumbled across this uber classic video by Malcolm McLaren...



Uncle Ralph states in this interview with Kixinthecity.com that, out of the thousands of videos he's played on his ground breaking TV Show, Video Music Box, "Buffalo Gals" was his favorite.

Not surprisingly.

"Buffalo Gals" looks like Hip Hop circa 1983. Genre bending, racially inclusive, scratch-tastic boom bap bass line, B-Boys, B-Girls, graffiti, New York City...you name it. Even the Hip-Hop-Ho-Down dancers somehow fail to feel out of place.

"Two Buffalo Gals go round the outside, round the outside, round the outside."

So that's where Eminem got this from: