EXCLUSIVE: The Fearless Four Still “Rockin’ It” 40 Years Later: “We Back In The Studio”
Before Chuck D was the commanding voice behind Public Enemy, he was a promoter and radio DJ.
In the early ’80s, The Fearless Four—comprised of Microphone Wizard DLB, Mighty Mike C, Devastating Tito, The Great Peso and DJs Krazy Eddie and Master OC—were just young kids enamored with Hip-Hop culture. Chuck booked the burgeoning Harlem group at a roller rink called The Subway in Long Island, where they saw the impact of their 1982 Hip-Hop classic, “Rockin’ It.”
“It was one of the first times we performed ‘Rockin’ It,’” DLB tells AllHipHop. “It was Hank Shocklee and Chuck D’s promotions. Mike C touched this girl while we was doing ‘Rockin’ It’ and she fainted. I thought that was movie stuff that was fake. This girl fainted. And for whatever reason, they had a big bass bottom speaker out and we had to jump over the speaker to get to the stage. When we jumped over the speaker, I guess the crowd thought like, ‘Oh, it’s about to go down!’ And they lost their minds. I’m thinking to myself, ‘Yo, this is for us?!’”
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Despite their disbelief, the fanfare was for them. “Rockin It,” which samples Kraftwerk’s 1978 single “The Man-Machine,” was later featured in the iconic Hip-Hop film Style Wars, further extending the song’s influence.
“It happened overnight,” Mike C says of the song’s popularity. “As soon as it came out, it blew up. Mr. Magic started playing it first on WBLS.”
But not everybody was able to revel in its success right away. “I was 16 when ‘Rockin’ It’ dropped and I missed the trip to Boston to perform it because I was in the hospital having an appendectomy. I had the nurse kick Mike C out of the hospital room because he and Kool Moe Dee came in making me laugh and I busted my stitches.”
Surprisingly, there was a resounding “it didn’t” from DLB, Mike C and Tito when asked how the song changed their life financially, but what it did do was make them famous. It also led to them being the first rap group signed to a major record label (Elektra Asylum) in 1983.
“We would go to different venues and totally different states or whatever, and people would be singing along,” Mike recalls. “It was a hood song only known in our neighborhood, but now it was real. They were chasing us through the streets like we’re the Beatles.”
It also gave DLB the self-esteem he was lacking. As he explains, “I’m not speaking for everybody, it gave me a wealth of confidence.Truth be told, I was not a very confident teenager. Even when I was becoming DLB of the Fearless Four, I was still Mr. Freddy’s son. My name was never my name for me until Mike C scooped me up, along with Tito, and put me on the stage at our junior high school.”
It’s the same building in New York City where DLB is currently assistant principal. Now known as the Urban Assembly Academy for Future Leaders, it was called Junior High 43 back then.
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More than 40 years after “Rockin It” put them on the map, the original lineup had a chance to reunite for a performance at the Blue Gallery in NYC last month. It was admittedly an emotional moment for everyone involved.
“I love them and it never stops, right?” Tito says. “So my thing is, my last memory will always be like the beginning. When I see them again, it’s like that’s it. I’m in mode already. I seen them the day before and said, ‘Yo, this is what we’re doing.’ I never lost a step. Whether it be 50 years from the last time I seen them, it’s just the way I am. I stay connected.”
The reunion show was so powerful, in fact, it prompted them to get back in the studio.
“We’re back in the studio working on new material,” Mike C confirms. “A lot of people have been asking for us. Throughout the years, it’s always been, ‘We want to see the the original Fearless four members together.’ We’ve been getting that our whole career, so now is the time. It’s put up or shut up. Everybody been asking for us, we here now. We’re ready to do it. We got some good material to work on.”
DLB adds, “We’re already making plans, even if we have to do Airbnbs and whatnot for all of us to get together to pull this off. That’s what it’s going to look like. We’re going to have a little Fearless boot camp where, like I said, we’re going to rent us an Airbnb and throw these things together.”
Until then, revisit “Rockin It” above and check back with AllHipHop soon for Part II of The Fearless Four interview.