Subtitles by explosiveskull www.OpenSubtitles.org M_I_SForEver
This dude in Portland was like,
"I do custom designs for Nike and Adidas."
He wanted to do a 89 Tec9 joint.
I was like, "That'd be dope, but that's the last film."
Like, "You need new shit."
Let's do the Rock Rubber 45s.
Yo, will I play like Kyrie?
What did you think about that trade, though?
I don't give a fuck.
- Yeah? - I just want to play ball, yo.
Basketball is my life. Music is my life.
Sneakers is my life.
I used to beat him
in basketball at West 4th all the time!
Oh, my man, he talking mad smack now.
I got my shorts on underneath. I'm ready for you.
- You sure? - I do, I do.
So you're capturing the movement,
and then we're not wide at that point.
We're, like, tight on... you still want to see
that it's a party
and everybody's having a good time.
I was like, "Yeah, I want to do a documentary about you."
It's funny, now he's doing one about him-fucking-self.
♪ Here we go ♪
You're a hip-hop legend and you're a renaissance man.
Legend, the legend!
From way downtown!
The man who wrote the first-ever article
on sneaker culture all the way back in 1991.
- Bobbito Garcia! - Ah! He got the magic!
He got the magic already!
And then Bobbito Garcia
I was a fan of you on "NBA Street."
Ooh-ooh!
Now, if someone were to do what he's doing,
you'd be like, "Oh, look at you
doing the Bobbito thing."
You know what I mean?
- 27 jobs on his resume. - Yeah.
Mm-hmm.
You know, I'm surprised that he's not Jamaican.
Y'all make some noise for Bobbito!
♪ Rock Rubber 45 ♪
♪ Rock Rub-Rubber ♪
♪ Rock, Rock Rubber 40 ♪
♪ 40, 45, yeah ♪
What does Bob do?
I am simultaneously a DJ, a ball player,
a TV and radio personality, a writer, an author,
an announcer, a coach, a filmmaker, a shoe designer.
- I mean, you've done it all. - My friend Bobbito Garcia,
Kool Bob Love, aka Cucumber Slice.
Oh, you guys know him? All right! Yeah!
DJ Cucumber Slice.
I still don't know why or what the fuck
a Cucumber Slice is.
Kool Bob Love, Cucumber Slice.
He's a hip-hop DJ and a street basketball legend,
just to name a few of his talents,
but though his skillset may borrow
from African-American culture,
Bob Garcia's a Puerto Rican who's embraced his Latino roots
and has been on a path of self-discovery.
My dad was born in Ceiba, Puerto Rico.
My mom grew up in Barranquitas,
which is in the middle of the island,
in the mountains.
I was a hillbilly, a real jíbara.
I drank hot milk straight from the cow.
So when we got here, the first word that I heard
in English was, "Shut up!"
My friend Annie said, "Oh, I want you to meet somebody.
Ramon, this is Ramona." Ramon and Ramona.
People used to act as if we were a dance team!
So I had three kids, and I ws happy with three kids,
and I thought I was never gonna have another child.
Six years later, here comes Bobby.
Bob showed up.
Thinking, "What do we do with this thing?"
I used to have to clean up after him.
At age seven, my sister took me to a record shop,
and I bought my first record.
It was a group called Brother To Brother,
a cover of "The Bottle" by Gil Scott-Heron.
♪ See that black boy over there, running scared ♪
♪ His old man in a bottle ♪
Truthfully, the lyrics meant nothing to me.
I was too young to even grasp the political nuances.
What was gained on me was...
just the presence.
♪ Hot peas and butter, come and get your supper ♪
It'd be like 25, 40 kids in the backyard with a belt.
So if you didn't get back to home base,
they whipped you with the belt.
It was a sadistic game.
I don't even know why we all played it.
You were the one that introduced me to hip-ho.
Hip-hop blew up in my section of the Bronx.
My whole summer was full of going from parks to parks
and following the music.
♪ A lemon to a lemon ♪
♪ A lemon to a lime... ♪
- ♪ Can't get the girls... ♪ - ♪ Off my mind ♪
- ♪ They call me up... ♪ - ♪ At 9:00 a.m. ♪
- ♪ Asking me, can... ♪ - ♪ We do it again ♪
- ♪ Yes, yes, y'all ♪ - What?
♪ You don't stop ♪
How the fuck do you remember that?
What?
I didn't really feel a great sense
of being Puerto Rican, 'cause I didn't speak Spanis.
I went to the island to visit family with my mom.
I went to go play baseball,
and I was playing with these kids.
He says, "Ma, ma, ma, I got a new nickname!"
and I said, "What is it?" He was all excited.
"I had so much fun, and they're calling me Gringo.
My new name is Gringo!"
Tell me about my dad's love for basketball.
He started playing basketball
in Puerto Rico on the beach.
Dad got an invite to play professional
for Los Cardenales de Rio Piedras.
That was his dream, but his parents had split,
his mom moved to New York, and she made that call.
"Mon, I need your help taking care of these kids."
My father lived with a lot of regret.
Part of that was on account of the split-up of his parents.
He arrives in the midst of tension,
in the midst of prejudice, the midst of ignorance,
particularly against Boricua. One thing he did to address
that was there was a night league in Joan of Ar.
Dad noticed that there was a lot of segregation
with the teams, and so he came up
with this idea to pull everybody together:
"We're gonna have one squad, Afro-Latino,
Afro-American, Irish-American."
Not only did they win the tournament,
but there wasn't one incidene of violence
that whole entire season. So Dad was a visionary
in terms of using basketball as a social tool,
but coming to New York, it broke him.
You know, Dad never drank in PR playing ball every day.
He started drinking when he came to New York.
Bob's father would often come in late
with all his musician friends,
and it was just like a live recording session.
I would get to the 11th or 12th floor.
Before we even got to the 13th floor,
and I could hear the music, and forget about it.
Once the elevator opened up,
it was like you were in a concert hall.
♪ ♪
Countless albums that could have been released from 13-I.
There's like a catalog of music in the walls.
Our upstairs neighbors used to bang on the floor:
"Ha, ya, ya!" and my dad used to be like, "Shut up!"
- "Shut up!" - He used to take
a hammer... bonk, bonk,
bonk... and then the plaster would fall in his face.
Yo, it was hectic.
Latin music had just a negative connotation for me as a kid,
'cause it was so connected to the smell of alcohol
and dudes smoking cigarettes in my face
and crazy musici... I remember there was
one of his musician friends
that literally, the dude was...
he might have been coked up.
Maybe he was hallucinogenic. I don't even know
what was going on or who that person is.
Yo, he picked me up...
Physically held Bob over the railings.
Dangling me over the handrail.
It wasn't a safe environment.
So this is the type of people that I felt
that I had to guard against.
I thought everybody lived like that.
My dad would bring, like, dudes off the street who had no home.
We have no background on them.
Yeah, we gonna share some liquor,
but doesn't mean you bring them up to your crib, you know?
So...
People are always like, "Yo, Bob,
you're a renaissance man," and I'm like,
"Yo, talk to my mom, see how many jobs she has."
Sewing and doing hair and crocheting, babysitting.
I worked on Wall Street! I used to interior decorate.
I did whatever I had to do to make money.
The more my husband partied, the more I worked. Get it?
From the time that I was let out the house
at nine years old, I was unsupervised quite often.
I had a lot of freedom. I was able to be independent.
My parents trusted me to do the right thing, because I did.
But, on the flip side, I fell in the space sometimes
of being around some older kids who were stronger than me,
four kids, like, "Yo, we gonna fuck you up
if you don't smoke weed right now."
Do I want to fight? Nah.
I think when Bob came on board,
he would have gotten immediate respect
just by virtue of our connections
and the protection that we would have provided.
Between school, between home,
all the hard rocks used to hang out in between the trains
and between buildings. There were two Puerto Rocks.
They'd be like, "Yo, you fucking white boy!"
"Uh, I'm Puerto Rican."
Between friends, I had stole the ball and did a layup,
and I missed it,
and I smacked fire out my face, blah!
Between family, between... I got so used to being smacked,
I even hit myself.
Between... I'm not saying
everybody bullied me, of course.
No, I don't think that he was ever bullied.
That whole, like, Christian, like,
turn the other cheek... I adopted that so hard
that when I started getting bullied...
"You want me to drink hard liquor
"when I'm 11 years old?
"I'll vomit afterwards. Do I have a defense?
No, because if I say no, I'm just gonna get fucked up."
So I fell in line,
and I started doing, like, stupid shit.
The worst of it was when it got to my body
and the violations of my person.
I guess the low point of my childhood is...
being in a situation where
I was about to be sexually abused,
and being at that point where so much had already happened,
like this whole fucking shit rolls downhill,
and not really knowing what was going on,
not really even knowing what...
taking my pants down
and bending over meant.
When the incident happened, I didn't really have
the wherewithal or the mind to be like,
"Are you fucking crazy? Fuck out of here.
You're not gonna take advantage of me like that."
As I got older and gained perspective,
that's when it really became a nightmare, you know?
Like, "Damn." Like I just...
♪ ♪
Pump, pump fake. Pump fake.
Head fake. Pump. Jab. Jab. Step back. Jump shot.
Yeah!
My whole family played ball.
Dad was very proud about the way he shot a basketball.
My brother Ray played in the Rucker.
You passed on your Holcombe Rucker T-shirt to me,
and that was like, "Ah!"
- My brother Bill played ball. - We were out there
until all hours of the day and night.
Fingers were cracking.
And all of a sudden,
that shit motherfucking clicked, yo,
and I caught the fever like nobody's business.
All the people who bullied me on the block,
they wasn't into basketball.
"Oh, word? Cool. So y'all keep on doing your shit.
"I'm gonna go fucking play ball, yo,
That's my safe space."
I sucked. I was whack, yo.
But there was a dude at the Goat.
We could see you practicing your dribble. It was like,
"Yeah, little Bobby on the sideline."
Little scrub.
While the big boys were playing on the A basket,
little Bobbito was over here on the B basket.
But the one thing I always appreciated about you
was that I knew you had a tremendous love for the game.
Whatever mistakes Bobby made, I'd be on his ass,
"Bobby, why you turning the ball over?
I'm over here, Bobby! Pass the ball!"
Over the years, you got better.
This asphalt right here charged up my mind so much,
I couldn't contain myself.
If you in this park,
you on the back of one of the biggest giants
that ever played the game, that's Earl Manigault.
Kareem once donned you the best guard
that he'd ever seen play in New York City.
He was calling it the way it is.
A lot of people say I'm the one that created
the epidemic of guys going in the air.
Earl Manigault's the guy wo could double dunk...
literally dunk the ball, catch it,
and dunk it again. Ridiculous!
You wanted to live up to what Earl Manigault represented.
I remember one time I caught a little fire,
and I stepped off the court, and Earl looked at me,
and he's like, "Nice jumper."
Oh, my god, Earl Manigault thought
that I had a good jump shot.
I'm playing ball at the park,
I'm playing ball at Central Baptist,
I'm playing ball at Stone Gym,
I'm sneaking into Riverside Church,
I'm sneaking into the McBurney Y
'cause the lady had poor eyesight,
and I used to hop the train,
and I used to sneak on the bus.
I can't do anything
without having a basketball in my hand,
practicing my jump shot,
waiting for the fucking light to change,
anything, anything to play ball.
"Yo, word? You playing ball in Bed-Stuy"
Everybody's telling me, "Don't go to Bed-Stuy.
That shit is do or die. In 1980? Homeboy, you crazy?"
No. I'm wearing some bummy sneakers,
'cause I don't want to go hoe in my socks and get vicked,
and I'm going to Bed-Stuy to play ball.
I was cutting school like a bandit.
I failed seven classes, yo.
And if I don't get my grades right,
I can't play for the team.
So, "Yo, get your shit together."
And all of a sudden, I meet Darryl Roberts,
who's older than me, who's bigger than me,
but doesn't want to bully me.
You went under your bed,
and you pulled out this sneaker,
and you had put color on sneakers,
and I remember it wasn't long after, people were like,
"Yo, Bobby, how did you get that color on your sneakers?"
You know? And you were like, "Yo, I painted it."
Lovely, lovely soul.
He puts me on to the ABC program.
It was a program that took kids
who grew up in our neighborhood,
who wouldn't normally have the chance
to go to a boarding school.
When you introduced the idea to me,
it was like, "Get me the f...- out of here, B!
Like, where do I sign up?"
When I got to Lower Merion, being in the context
of a predominantly white affluent student body,
whoa, I was fucking shook, yo.
There were kids coming to class in the morning
with, like, Rolls-Royces, Mercedes-Benz.
BMWs, $100 button-down shirts.
Coming out of these couple hoods, it was crazy.
We had the ABC house, where ten of us lived,
all students of color. I was very fortunate.
Pop singer, soul singer,
diva Patti LaBelle was my host parent.
I would go to her crib once a month,
and they would cook for me
and they would take me to the movies.
- I did feed you, didn't I? - Oh, yeah.
You were quiet, but you weren't shy,
and at that time, my home was your home.
When I got to Lower Merion, I had such poor self-esteem
from being bullied and being abused,
and I just felt academically inadequate.
That little break,
that little reprieve where I could go to the crib...
Giving you a better space in your head
with an even family environment.
I just wanted to do it. You had it going on.
When I started playing ball and getting good grades,
it was empowering,
and so my esteem and my confidence grew.
Wesleyan is the super hippie liberal college
everyone warned you about.
Wow.
I'm meeting people from South Africa.
I had never even left the country at that point.
But on the Latino side,
there was only seven in my freshman class,
so I was kind of like this loner trying to find my way.
You showed up on campus, b-boy, Gazelles, hat to the side!
I'm loving the campus, going to parties, having fun,
not really going to classes.
My second semester, wound up on strict academic probation,
and in the midst of all that, I try out for the team,
I get cut from varsity, and I get put on the JV squa.
I came to all the basketball games.
It was clear the coach was really
focused on a certain type of play...
classic passing, no boogie.
As your friend, but also as somebody who knew
how good of a player you wer, it was kind of painful
to see you not make the varsity.
From 1980 to 1987,
I played ball every single day with one goal in mind:
I wanted to play college basketball,
and it was deprived of me.
You might have been too good.
A lot of times, coaches are fearful
of being able to contain the New York ball player,
because New York ball players come with style, grace...
But more than anything, they come with attitude.
I get to junior year, I go out for the team.
I'm going hard. I'm playing great.
On the bulletin board, there was a sheet.
I'm looking for my name, I'm looking for my name,
I'm looking for my name. Nah.
Like...
If it was me, I would have quit,
but you love basketball. Like, that's what drove you.
Basketball was your thing, so you were like,
"I'm gonna play. I'm gonna play regardless.
If they don't see how nice I am, I'm going to play."
Spring break my junior yea, I came back to the Goat,
and that day I was killing! Hong! Hong! Hong!
And that's the day that you came up to me,
and you were like, "Yo, Bobby, I think you ready,"
and I was like, "Ray, what are you talking about?"
I got to a point where I realized,
"Wow, Bobby's good enough to play."
A month and a half later, I'm playing pro ball.
I'm getting free food in the morning,
rice and beans.
I was in paradise, B.
It was very competitive. At one time, was ranked
in the top six in the world as far as basketball.
And that was the first game that the coach started me.
And my father showed up drunk.
He was stumbling in the stands,
and we were in the middle of a huddle,
and I didn't speak Spanish back then,
so the entrenador was talking to me:
"Yo, Bobby,!"
And so I'm listening to the coach.
I don't know what he's saying.
I'm seeing my father like, "Robert Garcia! Robert Garcia!"
and I just... I couldn't concentrate.
I checked into the game, and Willie Melendez,
the starting point guard for the national team,
he was guarding me,
and I just pulled from 30 feet.
No. Yo, it missed the rim, it hit the backboard.
It's like it played in such slow motion,
because it was like, "Aw, man, I just blew it,"
and the coach subbed me out.
But, you know, he handled it great.
He realized he was only a kid then,
and he had to be professiona, and he was.
I just remember the smile, the passes.
Senior year, I'm like, "Yo, I just played
"pro basketball.
"You can't tell me that I am not
one of the top ten ball players in this school!"
After the second day of tryouts,
coach pulls me to the stands, and he said,
"Congratulations. You made the team.
"But I'm gonna tell you right now,
you are not gonna get any playing time this season."
In my head, I was like, "Yo, I just battled eight years.
You can't tell me I can't earn playing time."
So I was like, "Nah, coach,
I'm gonna play, I'm gonna be supportive."
You had made the varsity that year,
but you were at the end of the bench.
Early on in the season, we had an away game.
Seconds to go, call a timeout. Everybody gets in the huddle.
I'm like, "Yo, let's go, let's go, let's go, come on!"
And Coach says, "Shut up!"
It's not so much that it hurt physically.
He just did not like you.
For some reason, something about you set him off,
and that was just his moment to be like,
"You've been here for four years.
"I can't get rid of you. If this doesn't do it,
I don't know what else can do it."
The team talked about it for days,
"Yo, Bob's not quitting. This guy can't break Bob.
"He's trying to, and Bob is just like,
'I'm here.'"
I just got to stick around for the last home game, yo.
If I can make it to that,
I can finally get some quality burn.
So I call up my father:
"Dad, all the seniors are guaranteed to start.
This has been a 25-year tradition."
And now my father had never seen me play sober.
My father shows up and he's sober,
and I see him, and I'm like, "Yo!"
I'm on the layup line, I'm touching the rim,
yo, I'm clapping boards, triple slaps, reverse layups.
I was so amped up, I'm like, "Yo, I'm gonna start!"
The buzzer sounds:
"We want to congratulate
senior Robert James, starting center!"
"Yay!"
"Want to congratulate Brock Ganeles
"and the rest of the starting five,
Leroy Darby, Ed Googe, Pete Alberding!"
"Yay!"
I'm like, "Yo."
And we were all like,
"Why isn't Bob out on the court right now?"
Why did I not start that game, yo?
Why? Like, why, yo?
Yo, that shit killed me, B. That shit killed me.
The worst moment... I mean, I'll never forget.
I don't believe you played at all that game.
The next day in practice, I'm blocking people's shots,
I'm ripping whoever I'm guarding.
I'm not running any plays. I just went nuts, yo.
You destroyed us.
After the practice, I was hyperventilating.
I went to the stands, and you came up to me, B.
You gave me a hug, and as soon as you hugged me,
I started crying, yo. I was like, "Damn, man."
I was like... you know what I mean?
It's all good, man.
- I'm Puerto Rican. - Right.
A term of endearment that fathers
- call their sons is papito. - Yeah.
Y'all came to the crib and heard him
calling me papito, and then you...
Right, thought it was Bobbito.
So I'm coming out of college,
people are calling me Bobby Nice,
but now I'm hanging out with Pete Nice,
who's on Def Jam Recording.
And now for the prime minister, Sinister P.
Nice. Nice, nice, nice.
I'm like, "Yo, people are gonna think
"that I'm sucking him off, like,
oh, that's Pete Nice and my name is Bobby Nice."
I was like, "Kill that."
Like, so when y'all started calling me Bobbito,
I just ran with it.
I think I came up with two of your nicknames.
You did.
♪ Bobbito is the edge of king ♪
♪ The king of swing, doing everything ♪
♪ Ring-a-ling on the cellular phone ♪
♪ That means I got to go home ♪
♪ 'Cause my girl Chantel is gonna stiff this bone ♪
Chantel hated that line.
I remember being high as fuck.
I just remember going like this:
"Kool Bob Love. That's my man."
I remember it went in succession.
It was Bobbito, and then it was Bobbito the Barber.
He cut my hair, and he zeeked me.
He left me with one sideburn.
That was the last time he ever cut my hair.
His clippers were deadly. No joke.
Oh, yeah, I was giving you the lineup.
I still got the scar, kid.
Coming out of college,
I graduated, came back to New York,
and literally the next day after coming back,
I'm working at a bone store, you know what I'm saying?
- Like... - That bone store
used to freak me the fuck out.
I was so scared of that store.
You would take me back with the maggots
eating the brains and cleaning the skulls,
and I was like, "Yo, get me out of here!"
Welcome to Maxilla & Mandible.
Henry Galiano is the sole proprietor
of probably one of the most unusual businesses
you could imagine.
My cousin grew up in Spanish Harlem,
interned at the Museum of Natural History,
found a love for paleontolog, and then he took that love
and made it into a business without compromising himself.
That's a foundation lesson for me,
and yeah, I mean, you and Pete used to come by the store.
I had my wild hair.
Bob had, like, a Ben Franklin ponytail, straight up.
Dante started out at Def Jam Rush
as a messenger and quickly moved up the ladder,
and by the time I met him, he was doing A&R at Tommy Bo.
He pulls out De La Soul, "3 Feet High and Rising,"
unreleased, un-mastered cassette,
and yo, we sat there and were stunned,
and at that point the light bulb went on in my head.
I was like, "Yo, I need to do what he's doing."
I didn't share that with any of you, though.
I just kept that to myself,
'cause I never wanted y'all to think,
like, I was rolling with y'all
because I wanted to get on.
We had Russell and Lyor's ear,
so it was easy to say,
"My man Bob could really do something. Put him on."
They were like, "Yo, we're gonna pay you $5 an hour."
Crazy.
And boom, I started working at Def Jam.
- ♪ Def Jam ♪ - ♪ There you are, man ♪
♪ Damn it's public ♪
It was like us against the world,
'cause we were out to prove not only the label,
but the genre could actually stand toe to toe,
whether it was the pop world, the rock world.
We gonna be a spectacular thing
instead of a spectacle.
Chuck would always say,
"I got to tell the people what they want.
I got to tell them what it is."
- ♪ 1989 ♪ - ♪ The number ♪
- ♪ Another summer ♪ - Get down!
♪ Sound of the funky drummer ♪
♪ Music hitting your heart 'cause I know you got soul ♪
- Brothers and sisters! - Hey!
We went from a label to being a institution.
- ♪ Giving whatcha getting ♪ - Fight the power!
Fight the power!
I started working at Def Jm as a messenger,
and I took it upon myself
to just do whatever Def Jam needed.
So one day, Carmen hears me on the phone,
and I'm talking to somebody for mad long, 15 minutes,
and she's, like, ready to reprimand me, like,
"Yo, you supposed to be running errands."
And then at the end, I'm lik, "Yo, you got
"that new 3rd Bass record? Word... oh, you gonna play it?
"Oh, word! Those are my peoples,
and whatever you can do, push it. All right, cool."
Carmen pulled me into the office, she was lik,
"You know what, Bob?
You got a full-time job as a promotions rep."
I was like, "Oh, shit."
♪ Real sucker never played me ♪
♪ Off the mix don't you forget me now ♪
♪ Know where they from, when they cock 'em, I throw 'em ♪
♪ There's no sticking or ticking ♪
♪ Everything that my brother owes ♪
♪ Hard ♪
Radio formats, especially in New York,
had turned their back on hip-hop.
College radio's role was to fill in the blanks
and to fill the appetite,
and you built the radio aspect
of Def Jam to the real element.
I said, "Yo, I want to get Bobbito's job.
"That's the original guy.
I want to get his, the first one in the building, his job."
And nobody will ever do what you did.
You didn't know you were a pioneer.
You were just a fan of the music.
When Def Jam expanded to Rush Associated Labels,
I loved hip-hop too much to be on the phone with stations
and asking them about records I couldn't attach my name to.
- Right, right. - My head is not in this.
I can't do this just for the money, so let me step off.
I never looked back, Serch.
'93, I left,
and I've been freelance ever since.
When I left Def Jam, I was making $35,000 a year
with a $10,000 expense budget.
Damn, Russ. Why you think I left?
When I left Def Jam, I think I only quite honestly
made maybe $5,000 that whole year, period.
Like, struggling.
I didn't really care if I was broke or not.
I was living a life that I wanted to.
This is the second show me and Stretch ever did on KCR.
Thank god for the radio show.
And then over here I got all the freestyles.
I got Redman rhyming live in Springfield, Queens.
That blew up Redman.
At that point, me and Stretch
were crushing the airwaves.
You could tell when people came on
the "Stretch and Bobbito Show,"
it's not just a freestyle,
it's a fucking MRI scan,
'cause this word sparked thi, and it went to this,
and the dudes were mad open at, like, 3:00
in the morning on your show.
Like, that's the good shit!
♪ Ain't no limit on the ground I'll be breakin' ♪
♪ Unless it's sacred, then the land is forsaken ♪
♪ I don't need spirits basking in my dwellin's ♪
♪ Angry ghosts, they're like Mount Saint Helens ♪
So this is 89.9 FM, "The Stretch Armstrong Show,"
hosted tonight by Beep Beep Bop.
Beep bop
Goes, goes. See you.
We've been doing the radio show
for 3 1/2 years for no compensation,
but it's led to other things. Like, I host a lot of events.
This is the Nuyorican Poets Cafe,
and my name's Bobbito.
All these bohemian folks going into this place to sit
and listen to poetry with a three-piece jazz band.
That old illy ill shit, keep that mental in check,
you goddamn cockroach motel, boric acid...
And it was poets and rappers.
Fellas, hold on to your girls.
'Cause if you can do this with your mouth...
We have a special guest tonight.
I'll never forget this night, ever.
I was like, "Yo, we shouldn't be the Roots. Let's be..."
- Lesbian Sex Scene! - When you said it
to the audience, there was, like, no applause.
I was like, "No, guys, it's really, like, us!"
♪ Words get bigger that's word ♪
♪ Speaking at Nuyorican we going third ♪
♪ See, Bob, you can't do Puerto Ricans and blacks ♪
♪ Speak of the facts ♪
♪ This town is much deeper than whites ♪
Nuyorican, you got everything.
You got people doing poems in Spanish,
people doing poems in Hebrew, people singing they poems.
♪ ♪
You would go to All That
and see just the greatest voices.
♪ Old Man River knows my name ♪
♪ And the reason you were born is the reason that I came ♪
I'm cooling, I'm grooving, gots no need to gripe.
I just flicks my Bic and lights a damn pipe.
♪ ♪
It's one thing to get on an open mic.
It's another thing to get on an open mic,
and Bobbito's behind you,
and Bobbito's listening and meditating on your words.
It meant the world to do well in front of him, every month.
The Nuyorican Poets Cafe All That event
really created this foundation
for what becomes Def Poetry Jam.
Not your harem girl, geisha doll, banana picker,
pom pom girl, pum pum short coffee maker,
town whore, belly dancer, private dancer,
La Malinche, Venus Hottentot, laundry girl.
And I meet ten of the performers
who wound up winning a Tony Award.
Def Poetry Jam on Broadway.
I'll say, like, five or six of them come in, they're like,
"Yo, the first time I ever performed in life,
you brought me on stage."
And I'm like, "Yo, I didn't remember all them."
I was like, "Word? Dope, yo, good lookin'!"
For those who didn't know my poems off the top of the head,
good night and be safe
and thank you. Good night.
Basically we all came up
right in that building over there,
and this is the Goat.
This is also the Rock Steady Park.
You've ever seen how hip-hop took off,
it's because when we all migrated from the Bronx,
and we all started hanging out here,
and from here we took it around the world.
To you, it was the Goat.
To us, it was Rock Steady Park,
and to the drug dealers and tecatos
on the other side, I don't know
what they thought it was.
For the brothers that ain't here,
that passed away, brothers like Buck Four, Kuriaki,
and the rest, we gonna have a moment of silence.
This is the Rock Steady Crew's 16th anniversary.
Crazy Legs, my man right here, the president.
This is a celebration of hip-hop,
all facets of hip-hop,
and this is Rock Steady Park, yo.
This is where we grew up.
You came to me, "Yo Bob, help me book
"some of the artists that are popping on you
and Stretch's show, like Mad Skillz..."
♪ And get down with the king ♪
Step up, boy...
- "Organized Konfusion." - ♪ Crush, kill ♪
♪ Destroy, stress ♪
♪ Crush, kill, destroy, stress ♪
You can't touch that,
'cause there were 5,000 peope out there
who did not leave... it started raining...
and not only that, people kept on breaking!
Me and Ken Swift were doing a routine in there.
And we were dumb. We had a metal stage,
and we were like, "Keep going!"
And it's lightning happening.
Right here. Absolutely... right here.
'Cause all hip-hop right there.
You know what I'm saying?
All of us in here.
Bobbito and Stretch Armstrong
definitely be keeping it real in the hip-hop community,
and I remember the way you came to my attention
was a piece you had wrote in "The Source" magazine
about three, four years ago about sneakers.
Harvard University had a radio show,
and Jon Shecter and David Mays were the hosts,
and they thought, "Why don't we just put our top ten records
and maybe some interviews and some record reviews?"
And they did a four-page newsletter
that they used to photocopy. They called it "The Source."
We were actually quite a small company at that time.
Our whole identity was based around
covering artists and music.
Bobbito had a reputation, even back then,
for being a guy that knew more about sneakers
than almost anybody else.
There was a pair of Air Force Ones,
white upper and a chocolate brown swoosh.
I painted the upper burnt orange,
and what I did was I took a razor blade
and I cut the threads off the swoosh
and ripped them off.
Killed it.
Bobbito would be the perfect person
to write this article about sneaker culture.
Turned out that that was the first article
about sneaker culture in media history, period.
Without even realizing it,
we kind of kick-started a whole genre.
And that opens the door for all of sneaker media.
The toothpaste was out of the tube, basically.
Why did you hook up with Nike?
'Cause I think the Nike commercials are phat.
They heard about the "Source" article
I did a couple years ago,
and then it just so happened that a friend of mine
that I knew from around the way
from back in the day
started working at Nike.
It was my very first day at Nike,
and we're on conference call with Wieden+Kennedy.
I asked the team to go to New York
and start looking for people to interview.
There's a voice who says, "Yeah, there's this guy."
Bobbito Garcia.
"We should get in touch with him."
They started asking me about sneakers
and about basketball in New York,
and I just started dropping scientifics on them.
Our whole shit was always to have sneakers
that no one else had,
and if other people had the sneaker,
then it was to have it in a flavor
- that no one else had. - Right.
And if it meant painting our sneakers,
if it meant going on sneaker missions for, like,
two days, on a weekend,
all throughout the Bronx and Brooklyn and Harlem...
Bob had a wealth of stories.
The Iowa Hawkeyes used
to have their franchises
with a yellow stripe,
and on the back, it didn't say Nike.
It said Hawkeyes on the back.
You know how many heads in New York
were fucked up over that shit? I'm being dead ass!
- How do you sell them? - Put them in, like,
the mom-and-pop stores, right?
Do limited runs, limited editions.
Bobbito's video gave me the idea that he should be
our producer, my cultural DJ.
He should lead us to the people that he trusts.
I bet him $45 that I could dunk 30 times backwards.
Then I dunked 30 times...
And after I got my money,
I gave him six more. I gave him his money's worth.
This set of communications was about respect
for New York ball
and respect that this is
the church of basketball.
From 1994 to 1997, I did 40 Nike ads.
When somebody dunks, you can say,
"Oh, he boofed it, yoked, yummed it, yammed it on you."
I flushed it on you, money!
- I flushed your money? - No, no,
"I flushed it on you, money!"
I flushed it on you, money.
But those all mean the same thing.
- I flushed it on you. - Flush.
- Flush.
You didn't own a typewriter or a computer.
I didn't.
So you would hand in
your Sound Check columns handwritten,
and we would have to retype them.
Fucking annoying.
"Vibe" was founded by Quincy Jones.
His vision for this would be that it would be hip-hop,
but it would be R&B, and not just the music,
but the culture.
You're playing Ray Allen's girlfriend?
Mm-hm. Little chickenhead girlfriend
with yellow nails. Word is bond.
So basically, I'm gonna play this shit,
and however you want to respond.
Okay.
When I became assistant editor,
one of my responsibilities was the Sound Check column.
At first, it was presented to me like, "Yo, Bob,
"we want you to play records. You select whichever you want.
You interview whoever you want."
Yo! I interviewed Chaka Khan,
and she was acting wild diva when I walked in, like,
"What is this for? Oh, we got to take a photo?"
But the beauty of the column, I play her Rotary Connection.
That's Minnie Riperton's first group.
It disarmed her. She was like,
"Rotary Connection? I used to go to their shows."
The whole column foundation for me was to evoke emotion
out of the music that I shared with them,
and it didn't matter if they knew the title or no.
The pictures were always crazy.
My mom used to make fun of it, like,
"Yo, Bobby, can you just do a nice face?"
I'm like, "Nah, Ma, I got to..."
You were like, "Nah, that's part of it."
Yeah.
Oh, my god, look at my tits.
Oh, my god.
They're so supple.
- I'm gonna play you something. - God. Is this a Sound Check?
Do you know this song?
And just listen to it for a little bit.
- Okay. - Yeah, enjoy.
Is this when you played this for Michael Jordan?
Yeah. I have a lot to say about this moment.
You got me on this one.
I don't listen to rap at all.
It's a cat named Rakim.
He's basically your equivalet in the rap world.
- Oh, yeah? - Yeah.
- What's his name again? - His name is Rakim.
I remember being so personally heartbroken,
because as a diehard hip-hop fan,
here's this legendary athlete
who obviously has been so inspirational.
To find out that he wasn't a fan of hip-hop...
that was shocking to me.
I just remember thinking, "Oh, my God." I was just hurt.
This is the beginning of the end.
They started being like, "We want to enforce
in your contract that you hae to play top 40 music,"
And at that point, I was like, "Well, then you should
just get somebody else to do the column."
They didn't renew my contract, and I was happy.
"E.T.'s Boogie" by the Extra T's.
Busta Rhymes sampled that for... that song.
I forget the name of it, but you probably know, right?
I know you know it. You a digger.
This is my record collection. Not as big as people think.
I had a key to your crib for what, a decade?
"Money, you got a fucking thesaurus of music in here.
Why are you not DJing?"
This is my father, Ramon Garcia y Su Charanga.
And then this is rare. This is a dub plate
of a live Stevie Wonder performance.
And you were like, "Sometimes I find myself
being frustrated by my lack of technical ability."
Oops. I'm changing the beat.
What the hell is going on?
How you doing?
I'm failing my DJ test right now.
Spinning in New York was intimidating to me,
because I looked up to Stretch as a DJ.
Watching Stretch on a weekly basis and being amazed
by how fluid his blends were and how tight his cuts were,
and...
I couldn't help but be influenced by it.
Then I'm starting to get little gigs.
I want to announce a vinyl, Raida and Sinista.
- And Bobbito's DJing too. - I'm actually opening up.
I'm not DJing though! I'm just gonna play music.
And I'm on the same bill with Roc Raida...
Who's the DMC world champion,
and in the other room is Louie Vega.
And then the next time I'm spinning, it's Clark Ken.
Step with the join, Clark Kent.
It's been a long time.
I said, "All right, I'm gonna show you
"two simple drills.
Let's talk about this again in a week."
And you called me three days later and you were like,
"Yo, I got it! Listen to this!"
♪ ♪
Remember I said if you make out
at the door, you could get in free?
No, no, no, I came up with that.
- No, I came up with it! - No, you didn't.
♪ ♪
In '97, I got my first major residency
at a spot called 2i's.
Oh, my gosh. With the blue neon lighting?
August 2nd, 1997, I got a call
right before I was about to DJ.
Oh, maybe it was, like, the promoter calling me up,
whatever, whatever. It was my sister,
and my sister don't never call me,
so I was like, "Heidi, what's up?"
And she was like, "Bobby, Dad just died."
And, um...
and I was like... "What?"
She was like, "You have to I.D. him tomorrow,
'cause I'm blind and I can't do it."
So I was like, "All right, cool."
Thank you.
I was like, "Holy shit, what am I gonna do?
I got to DJ, and now I'm late." The phone rings again,
and I'm like, "Okay, maybe it's another family member."
I pick up the phone. Who is it?
Of course, Rosie Perez.
Shining light, you know?
Fashionably late, calling me up at 11:10, like,
"Yo, Bob, you need a ride?" Like, "I was supposed
to be there at 10:45, Rosie, but thanks."
I drove so fast over the bridge,
and all I kept thinking was what a brave soul you are.
I wasn't gonna call another DJ
at that point to be like, "Yo, can you sub for me?"
My father loved to party.
I couldn't do anything that night.
I wasn't gonna go to sleep anyway, so I was like,
"Yo, I'm gonna go play records, do what I love to do."
It was shocking, 'cause it was sudden,
but it wasn't surprising.
I'm thankful that my last words to him
were that I loved him, because I did, I loved Dad.
I mean, you know, we all had our issues with him,
and I had my issues with him drinking,
but in a weird way, like, it was almost a relief.
And there were people asking me what was wrong with you,
because you weren't social.
I remember telling everyone that you had your period.
I swear to God.
Do you remember what I said to you about your father?
- No. - I said,
"He would want you to do what made you happy."
Right now we're off to my store.
It's a central location for the hip-hop community.
Foot Work is just a physicl manifestation of Bobbito.
- It was, like, this big. - Yeah.
It was kind of incognito,
'cause you could easily walk by it.
You heard it was there, and you walked by it eight times.
Not just a sneaker store,
'cause you'd come up on the old vinyl.
All the graffiti magazines, markers, laces, fat caps.
If you're in hip-hop,
you need to go and get something from Bob's store.
That store became a cultural hub.
The vision of both stores in New York and Philadelphia
is to provide to a customer
who has a mindset of not looking like everyone else.
I was his first employee there.
Bob was the consummate small business owner,
very mindful of every single penny.
At that point, there were no sneaker boutiques.
If you went to a shop,
they had sneakers just thrown up on the wall.
I put my joints with floodlights and wood shelves.
Sound familiar?
Having a sneaker store myself,
the first person I would credit is Bobbito.
"Oh, you can do that? Oh shit."
This home video shows the scene outside the
Reed Space store on the Lower East Side yesterday.
Kids were piled up against the fence
like it was a soccer game.
Really, Foot Work was the precursor to my store,
Reed Space, to Mort on Eldridge, the A Life.
I had lost $60,000 between the two stores in four years.
Plus my dad had died two years before.
Plus me and Stretch had split up.
Plus "Vibe" magazine had kind of ran its course.
I mean, yo, it was like...
- Everything was falling apart. - Smack, smack, smack,
smack, smack, smack.
Like, and here I am, the one thing
that I was holding on to that I had made myself was closing,
with nothing I could do about it.
2000 came along, and it was time
to put the thinking cap on.
"Okay, how are we gonna move forward?"
We went through that last year of the 20th century
taking all these hits and damn near forgot
that this DJ machine is still rolling.
Amandla ngawethu!
The movement for ending apartheid at Wesleyan
was powerful because of the number
of South African students that were there...
people who were really giving us information
from their experience here at this point in 1985, 1986,
when massacres were happening,
just extraordinary violence was taking place.
People will no longer sit back while the oppressors get...
Amandla! Amandla!
That really led us into
some really dramatic actions on campus.
About 100 students were arrested.
I was one of those.
- What do we want? - Divestment!
No justice, no peace! No justice, no peace!
We needed people providing the support to those
who were gonna be sitting in. You were one of those.
We've only just begun! We've only just begun!
In 2000, I got invited to be the first
U.S. hip-hop personality to ever perform
in post-apartheid South Africa.
That momentous day back in 1994 when all South Africans
voted together as one nation, that was six years ago.
The result was the election of Madiba into power,
so to celebrate, Bobbito the Barber,
he's here tonight all the way live
from New York.
What can people expect tomorrow night, man?
Come expecting the unexpected.
- I bought a lot of records. - Give me one surprise.
I just want people to come with a open mind.
Come out to the dance floor. Come ready to jingle.
We get to the Metropolis, and there's 1,000 people inside.
DJ Blaze is playing, "I'm an African,
I'm an African, and I know what's happening."
The crowd is like this, B. I can't wait to DJ for them!
I'm walking up to the DJ booth,
and the promoter, he was like,
"It's 70% black and 30% white.
"This is the most integrated party that we have ever seen.
They're here for you."
I was like, "All right. Bet." I get on the mic, and I'm like,
"The whole root of hip-hop is the beat.
"It's the drum, which comes from Africa.
I'm not gonna play one rap record."
It's inherent if you down in hip-hop to be progressive,
so keep your mind open to everything.
I'm playing Afro-Latin, breakbeat,
some hard funk, Afrobeat.
So the next day, these two kids run up on the car,
roll down the window.
One of them grabs my arm, is like, "Welcome home."
I'm looking at them like...
Having protested apartheid
and seen the massacres and knowing education
wasn't available and this existed for decades,
you know, I always envisioned going to South Africa
and meeting hurt people,
disgruntled, upset, militant.
What I experienced was so polar opposite that.
It was like the warmest, most beautiful people
that I'd ever met in any country.
Tell me, how's it feel to e in South Africa, man?
The wealth and warm spirit
from every single person I've encountered out here
so far has just made it a really wonderful experience.
Come January 2001,
I get a gig at a new club
called A.P.T...
And the whole shit flips. No sign outside.
You even walked into the building
and you still didn't know if you were on the right spo.
"I thought you said it was on 13th Street, son."
The neighborhood was super derelict... prostitution, drug.
It's the Meatpacking District.
Once you did find it and got behind those closed doors,
you had stepped into another world.
Again, we appreciate the open-mindedness.
We love everybody coming down to A.P.T.
every Monday night, where it's free!
Opening night there, there's, like, 30 people.
I knew every single one of them,
'cause they were all my friends.
Second week, 50 people.
Fifth week.
You come on Wednesdays.
Now I'm getting 500 people on a Monday night.
Floating through a room tht only held 89 bodies legally.
A.P.T. was my favorite, favorite,
favorite, favorite, favorite, favorite, favorite.
I would change my flights around
- so I could make it there. - I mean,
the name says it all. I felt like
we were going to your crib or something.
Welcome to my party, Gary. Thanks for coming.
You are you, brah.
I mean, if you're spinning, we go. That's what it is.
The way he rocked the club... I say club;
it was like a little fucking spot.
Somehow people danced.
It was Mos Def, and he's coming to check out Bobbito.
It's like, "What the fuck?" It's like we're mind-blown.
It was just so fly it was disgusting.
I saw the group of DJs
that were watching what you were playing,
but then I saw a group of dancers
that were working the floor with the baby powder.
You'd play some obscure salsa stuff.
Afro jazz and jazz and funk and soul.
Sometimes it's house, hip-hop.
Rare groove, rock.
You'd play a certain jam, and the whole crowd would go, "Oh!"
Oh!
We had hard rock dudes
standing on the side of the wall singing all nigh.
He would take you on this ride,
and I would walk out of there talking about it,
and talking about it the next two or three days.
It was a goulash of music.
♪ Can bring you to the power ♪
We're gonna travel to the moon right now.
♪ And its glory to your mind ♪
Learning all these differet kinds of sounds, it's like,
"Oh, I get to feel different things
and move different ways."
As a dancer coming up in the city,
it was a place for me to discover how I moved.
Coming from a ballet and modern background,
I didn't have experience to discover
what the connection between the DJ and a dancer is.
Anyone could go to the hot, trendy party
at the trendy club and hear the hot record
that was on the Hot Five at Five at that time.
A.P.T. was about knowledge.
You had to know about that party.
You had to know that music.
Oh, my God, do you remember that time at A.P.T.?
I was so pissed off at you. Halloween night,
my friend, Bobbito Garcia, he was like, "Please?
"Oh, we're gonna be at A.P.T. Everyone's gonna dress up.
Please?"
Why did you put me on blast, yo?
Why? What?
I did not tell you to come to A.P.T. in a costume.
Yes, you did. Yes, you did.
So then I get to the club, I walk in, nobody's dressed up!
- You said it was a... - No. I would have said...
Bobbito Garcia, you're a liar!
- Yes, you are! - No, you fibbed!
Yes, you are! - You fibbed
- on national TV! - I did not fib!
And I'm going through the club like this:
"Excuse me, pardon me.
Excuse me. Pardon me." And I wanted to leave.
I was mortified. I couldn't dance.
Bob hollers out the window, "Yo, Ramon!
There's this Nike event."
- Boing bang bang. - Boing!
"They're giving away free sneakers."
I was like, "I'm there. Done."
Bob did dribbling... he would always do this dribbling
where he would dribble and then he would sit on the bal.
- This is Bobbito. - It was like his move.
He'd sit on the ball and would, like, try to play you.
He sits on the ball and he loses his balance
and falls... Feet go up in the air.
- And then you win. - That moment changed my life.
However, you lost.
One of the results of the Boing Bang Boogie
was that Nike decided to invest
in creative basketball.
Nike Freestyle... top three all-time
basketball commercial that we've ever done.
We shot in L.A., New York, Toronto.
We got the best ball handlers that we could find,
and Bob was actually one of them.
From the East Coast, West Coast,
cats in the league, male, female,
streetball legends, breakdancers.
Didn't matter. It was all good.
If you could play, we were looking for you.
Freestyle.
Anything that was coming out that was pushing the envelope
as far as creativity and moves
and making people look at basketball
in sort of a different way, I was all about it.
I don't think anybody knew just how profound
or how prolific this ad would be.
Because of Freestyle's success, you exploded.
All of a sudden, there was this whole phenomenon
of trick basketball.
It got so popular that we ended up
actually going on tour.
We got to the airport in Taipei,
and the passport agent couldn't speak English,
but started mouthing the freestyle commercial,
like...
and he was shaking his head.
You and I started doing shows
as the Nike Freestylers,
but real small.
We were basketball players. We weren't tricksters.
So we had to learn.
You were already a choreographer,
a professional dancer,
and then we were joined by playground legend...
- Yes. - Jack "Black Jack" Ryan.
We formed a crew, Project Playground, aka...
PPB!
- Are you boys ready? - Yeah.
- Oh! - Okay.
We did so many NBA arenas, so many colleges.
When I'm thinking of tricks,
I'm thinking of, like, a sport,
so I used to think of swimming..."Oh,
I'm going swimming!"
Then sometimes Ramon, he woud just start whipping it,
whipping it, whipping it.
We'd feed off of that.
He got a move, then I got to try to top tha!
We would be doing a show, and the NBA players
would either be coming out of a timeout or at a halftim,
and they'd be watching us.
Oh, I done known Bobbito for a while now.
Yeah, he know all them tricks and stuff.
Can he put a ball in a hole though?
That's the question. That's the question.
Dallas Mavericks brought us back for the playoffs.
The place was going bananas.
♪ ♪
I went out there and I stood on a chair
and I spun a basketball on my baseball cap.
♪ ♪
That shit was dope.
The camera people kept getting in the way.
That crowd was cool too, right?
Yeah, he got him standing up like this, yo.
- Word? - Yeah!
We would go back to the locker room like,
"Yo, we may not have made it to the NBA,
but at least we got the respect at what we do."
Scottie, I know you don't play ball anymore,
so if you throw the ball away, we won't be mad.
I'm still a good passer.
I played with Michael Jordan. He shot it all the time.
We all scrambling, the game was getting tight,
it was hard, bang, bang. Next thing we know,
the ball goes up,
I turns around, Bobby's running,
John is doing his slo-mo movement,
and he goes up, he catches it, and he bops it on my mans.
Boof! And he puts all of his jewels on my mans.
Like, like, it's like some cartoon.
Ugh! The whole crowd went, "Ah!" It's ugly!
- Ah! - That's probably the hardest
I've ever been dunked on in my life.
- It's beautiful. - I am a basketball veteran
of New York.
Bobbito, he shoots too many air balls.
Get you... he'll lay on...
Now see mark. See Mark.
I've never won any trips, I've never made any MVPs,
I've never made any All-Star. Meanwhile, anywhere I went,
your fucking ass was there to bust my ass.
How you doing? See you later. Have a nice day.
I played in all five boroughs.
I watched you embarrass so many people.
First thing we think, "Oh he's a little guard,"
so we didn't think you could dribble.
Man, you would shake somebody. Then you got that smile.
It ain't like your smile is heartwarming.
It's like, "What are you doing?"
- Cash! - Bobbito's good people.
Don't try to play him one on one in ball though,
because you'll pay a bad price.
Bobbito's mentality was every game, all the time,
on the court, every play. That's the love of the game.
We getting crowded up in the roof, boy.
Hi, up there! How are y'all?
All right! Whoa!
Richie Adams!
We grew up first generation of people who played ball well.
And wanted our sneakers to speak volumes
about what type of ball playr we were
and what type of person we were.
We just wanted to wear the sneaker that nobody else had,
so you could get that comment,
that sort of blessing on the train,
"Yo, my man, where'd you get those?"
And that became the title of my book.
Bob sent me a proposal for a book of poetry
called "Bugged Soup,"
and while I loved the poems, it was not exactly right.
In 2000, I was approached by a young woman
by the name of Dana Albarell, and she had this great idea
for me to write a book about sneaker culture,
and I told her, "Nah, you crazy, yo.
Ain't nobody gonna read a book about sneakers."
It was becoming its own culture,
and I knew he was the right person
to share that with a much larger audience.
Just recently, I finished my first draft of a book
that will be coming out next year on Testify publishing,
and it's on the history of New York City sneaker culture
from 1960 to 1987.
- Sneakers. - Yeah.
In the late '90s, early 2000s,
there was a lot of misinformation.
It bothered me, and I was like, "Okay, well,
"let me put forth a document that sets the record
straight for the dark ages."
The author of "Where'd You Get Those?"
an encyclopedia of sneaker culture.
Say hello to Bobbito Garcia.
These are those mighty moments right here.
He had every kick alive in here, man.
The attention that we paid to our shoes was weird,
and then he made it okay for the average kid
to be a little more enthusiastic
about shoes than regular.
It's the foot game almanac right here.
You know, he came off to us like a sneaker guru.
If I wrote a book about shoes, there'd be no writing.
I'd just put pictures, because he said everything.
- It was unmitigated success. - This is an amazing book.
It's really a classic book on footwear, on fashion,
on urban life, on hip-hop, on basketball,
and most importantly, on sneakers.
When I got into AND1 when I was 18...
The Professor!
I was introduced to guys like Taurian Fontenette,
aka the Air Up There.
Somebody threw him a full-court alley-oop, righ?
And he jumped, he hung, and, like, waited
for the ball to come to him.
It's like he waited, he took a nap,
he did all this in the air.
The AND1 Mixtape Tour at that point was at its height.
The viewership on ESPN was crazy.
Bobbito!
You got your shoes on? You gonna play some ball?
I'd like to, yeah. I got some sneakers in my bag.
You invited me to play in Puerto Rico?
This is my homeland!
They're like, "Yo, you want to run with us"
and I'm like, "Nah, you know what?
Let me run with Puerto Rico."
Lo dejó pegao, bloqueo, donqueo!
I'd rather play against the best.
♪ Oh, freedom ♪
♪ Yay, freedom ♪
♪ Oh, freedom ♪
♪ Ya-a-a-a-ay, free, free ♪
♪ Got to be free ♪
♪ Oh, got to be ♪
You did your thing that game.
♪ Oh, got to be free ♪
♪ Oh freedom ♪
♪ Said free, free, free ♪
♪ Got to be free ♪
♪ Oh freedom ♪
♪ Well ♪
♪ Whoa, oh, oh ♪
♪ Freedom ♪
- ♪ Yeah, freedom ♪ - ♪ Freedom ♪
♪ ♪
I grew up off that Bobbito and Stretch Armstrong.
I'm 40 years old playing defense out there
against dudes half my age, man.
For me, playing pro ball in my homeland,
that's one of my greatest achievements.
I would say, like, majority of my friends
who I've spoken to about it in confidence
were like, "Yo, you know what?
That motherfucking shit happened to me too as a kid."
I didn't tell anybody about it until I was 25.
Nobody knew. I got to the age of 40.
On my birthday I was like, "Yo, you know what?
"I don't want to carry this shit into my 40s.
"Like, I'm tired of waking up
"out of fucking nightmares thinking,
'Oh shit, this person's gonna take advantage of me.'"
I actually hit up the person.
I was like, "Yo, you know what? We gonna sit down."
And that shit took so much fucking mental preparation
to hit him up, to sit with him,
to give him a hug upon... you know, I mean, whatever.
He was a kid too, you know what I mean?
Maybe the shit happened to him.
How the fuck did he know how to do that shit at that age?
And the buggedest shit happened, yo.
He was like,
"Damn, yo, I've carried this shit my whole life,
and it's been a fucking burden."
And he was like, "Thank you. Yes, I'm sorry, but thank you,
"because you are way stronger than I've ever been,
to give me an opportunity for forgiveness."
And for a long time, I had forgiven him anyway,
but just in my head, and that's how it ended,
and ever since then,
I have not had a nightmare or dream or nothing.
It's like, yeah, I was mentally, physically,
and sexually abused as a kid. I stand on it.
Kool Bob Love, Cucumber Slice.
This is an unfair advantage. We grew up in this park!
Bobbito with the fancy pants.
Bobbito!
Three, two, one...
Hey!
What's your favorite sneakers?
In 2004, I founded
a playground basketball magazine called "Bounce."
Early on as editor in chief,
I was getting my hands on all these great stories,
one of which was a program called Hoops 4 Hope.
They're based in Zimbabwe and South Africa,
and they use donations of sneakers, basketballs,
and uniforms as a means to draw kids to their clinic,
where they teach them basketball skills,
life skills, and HIV prevention.
We strengthen their minds through playing basketball
so that they grow up to be what they want to be.
Two years later, started doing
a TV show on ESPN called "It's the Shoes."
This is the first worldwide exclusive TV program
about sneakers. Oh-oh!
They were fake Cons. We called them M.O.s.
M.O.s?
M.O.-tations.
I told the executive producer,
I'm like, "Yo, we're about
to go interview all these millionaires."
I used to tie my hand behind my back, my right hand,
and I used to dribble with the left,
dribble with the left, eat with my left,
try to write with my left. I was ready, man. I was ready.
I used to brush my teeth with my left hand.
And I didn't really want the show
to reflect "Lifestyles of the Rich and Famous"
through the lens of sneakers.
I wanted the show
to have some type of community giveback.
To own a pair of shoes, it's every kid's dream.
And so we decided to get
all the artists and personalities and athlets
that we interviewed to sign a pair of sneakers
that were auctioned for Hoops for Hope.
There's a word called ubuntu.
It is a term that is used in Africa to really mean sharin.
Tonight, we're gonna honor
a man who exemplifies what ubuntu means.
They raised so much money and had so many sneakers
donated that they actually were able
to erect a court in Harare, Zimbabwe,
and they dedicated it in my name.
I've never been there.
I've met players from Zimbabwe
that have told me
that the court is really hard
to shoot a jumper on,
so I'll be there in September.
In 2010, I finally had a chance to visit the court.
Mind you, I had been doing sneaker donating
to this program for, like, seven years.
Flew to Harare.
They picked me up, took the van to the court.
There was 80 kids there.
This real spiritual connection going on.
So I started giving my clinic.
Okay, next person, go!
Teaching them dribbling drils and jump shot drills.
One motion, shot. Crossover, crossover.
Okay, you guys try it without a basketball. Come.
Yo, when I looked down at one of the coaches' feet,
and I'm like, "He got on some hot sneakers."
And they looked so familiar, yo.
And then I realize, I'm like, "Yo,
those were mine."
I had donated them five, six years prior.
They got passed along, passed along, passed along,
and then he had worn them. And when I connected that,
here I'm on the other side of the world,
this dude has a pair of sneakers that I once boxe,
along with 15 other pairs,
and he's joyously coaching kids...
those are my favorite pair of sneakers.
Our living room was a musical heaven,
and in the middle of the living room
was the turntable and the records on shelves.
"Innervisions" was an album that I had heard my dad play.
He's talking love and world and living in the city.
♪ A boy is born in hard time Mississippi ♪
♪ Surrounded by four walls that ain't so pretty ♪
I'm just like, "Yo, you are my boy, Stevie."
Stevie's music brought me into manhood.
His messages represent the universal language.
Bobbito gave me a list:
the fundamental records for any DJ.
One night I was DJing and, I didn't have many records.
I told her, "You could spin a whole entire set
with just Stevie Wonder albums in your crate."
We just started playing Stevie Wonder back to back,
and people... the five people that were there...
were, like, really into it.
But I was like, "Yo, let's do a Stevie Wonder night,"
and it was a hit.
I mean, the place was packed.
Spinna and Bob were like, "Let's do this.
Let's really do this, make it happen."
And then the rest is history.
Keita, my wife, we decided together
to make this an event.
I remember there was a line down the block.
Okay, player?
It's 4,000 people in there, man.
Crazy good time.
Something... miraculous
happened that night during "As."
I came in with it at the height of the record
where he's like... ♪ We all know ♪
♪ Sometimes life's hate and troubles ♪
You took out all the bass.
You said...
And then, when the...
and then you started bringing in the lows,
lows, and you brought it in,
brought it in, brought it in, and by the time he was at... Oh!
♪ I'll be loving you ♪
♪ Until the rainbow ♪
♪ Burns the stars out in the sky ♪
♪ Loving you Until the ocean ♪
♪ Covers every mountain high ♪
♪ Loving you ♪
♪ Until the dolphin flies ♪
♪ And parrots live at sea ♪
Yo, honestly, it cracked my soul open.
I was like, "Huh," and I lost it, I hugged you, B.
I was like... I was like...
"Oh, Bob, I love you."
It was a international phenomenon.
You were constantly like, "Oh, that's my jam!"
and then two hours later, you were like,
"Oh, that's my jam!"
They kept that going the whole night.
Then you started playing, like, slow songs.
♪ Ooh ♪
Damn, only in movies in the '70s
did they just stop the fast song
to put a slow song on, and I was like, "Whoa."
Show up at the Hammerstein, it's a fucking zoo.
2,500 indoors, and you're like, "Yo,
Stevie Wonder is here."
And his daughter came out, and she was like,
"Yeah, so I got to go in the back and help Dad."
And I remember being like, "Err."
I had no idea whatsoever,
zero, he was coming that night.
Vince sees him, and he's like,
- "Oh, my God, oh, my God." - The energy in the room
shifted when he started walking through the crowd.
You felt it go like that.
All the coolest dudes we knew, draws off, like,
"Woo, Stevie!"
And he sang something about President Obama.
- Barack Obama. - Barack Obama.
♪ Barack Obama ♪
- ♪ Barack Obama ♪ - Yes.
What artist of that stature comes to a party
dedicated to them that has 2,000-plus bodies in it,
whether he was going to show or not?
As if you hadn't already changed the game
with the event,
now for the ill cherry on top,
ladies and gentlemen, Stevie Wonder is here.
♪ I need to do ♪
♪ All that I got to do ♪
People were taking dumps on the dance floor,
like, peeing on themselves. It was crazy.
It was crazy, man.
Wonder-Full was like the great voice.
I just did the Wonder-Full Party
for nine years.
Stevie Wonder just came to the party three times.
And that whole black, brown, all that kind of stuff,
that shit's got to stop.
That's got to stop. We family, you know what I'm saying?
I wanted to leave right
when it was at the height for me.
DJ Spinna, thank you for everything you've done for me.
Bobbito, thank you, man.
I left the Stevie Wonder party,
and I started making films.
Wow.
When I say "independently distributed,"
not like we got a distributor that's independent.
Like, we're booking the theaters ourselves.
Why don't you frame it a little bit tighter there?
There's so many legendary figures
and there's so many legendary stories,
and there's never been anything
done like this before.
He talked about the great players.
He had the average players in it.
- He had women in it. - You can keep up with a man
and you can get your shot off,
it'll be that much easier when you play the women.
He had gay people and straight people in it.
Everybody was in it,
but that's what basketball's about.
What's up, everybody?
If there were a time capsule
that would collect artifacts from a particular moment
in New York City in culture, that movie ought to be in it.
Win by all means necessary, you know what I mean?
That's what makes the playgrounds
of New York so tough.
Basketball's about the people.
It's not about the NBA.
It's nice to make it to the NBA,
but the NBA is not in your park.
I caught up with the curators of culture
at a screening for their new film,
"Radio That Changed Lives."
At that point in time,
your show was the most important show in the world.
For me and Stretch, our first time in Dubai,
first time in the Middle East.
Joining us to talk about their new documentary,
"Radio That Changed Lives," with the iconic
Stretch and Bobbito. Good morning, guys.
- Morning. - Oh-oh!
The Stretch and Bobbito doc got me right in my core.
Like, I was like, "Oh, shit."
That was the first spark.
From there, things start happening.
Now I've gotten more cynicl about hip-hop in general,
and it reminded me of why I fell in love
with it in the first place.
It was the puppy paste.
You must learn.
Wow. I'm kind of speechless.
It's emotional for me to be here, emotional for me
to be on this campus.
It was really, really painful to be here at Wesleyan
and playing ball, so...
So to be here today,
showing this film about basketball means a lot.
So...
Bob had this amazing smile.
He was one of the people on campus that,
like, literally, he would stop and say hello,
and his smile would make your day,
and no matter how bad you were feeling before,
it was like Bob just smiled,
and now something shifted in the universe.
I talk to my children about you all the time.
- Word? - Like, all the time.
There's only one person in the world, with much love,
that I respect more than Bobbito is my Dad,
'cause you just grind.
You're like, "This is the things I'm gonna do.
I'm gonna use basketball, I'm gonna use hip-hop,"
things you love, and you're gonna have fun with it.
I think you'd have become president.
I'm not laughing.
I'm kind of happy you did leave,
'cause it gave me the opportunity
to become president and CEO.
That's my man. You know.
So, thank you, Bobbito! Shout!
Really laid the blueprint for sneaker boutiques
as we know it now.
I always refer back to Foot Work
as the elder statesman, if you will.
It was ahead of its time.
Once we started embracing fashion,
it gave a whole new category
for the ad side of the company to go after.
"The Source" magazine became
the number one publication in music, period.
Advertisers were requesting to be opposite your column.
Businesses then copied what you did to make,
like, katrillions.
Oh, my God!
Check this: I graduate bottom 10% of my class.
Formal education is very important.
Informal education is the most important,
because what you can learn in high school or Harvard,
it doesn't matter. It's gonna be here.
But what you could learn from your friends,
what you can learn from your experiences,
from hindsight, from the mistakes of others, is here.
"Where'd You Get Those?" sold out
its first print run within about eight weeks.
It continues on its juggernaut of sales.
Readers keep rediscovering this book.
You ever seen him dance?
I mean, it's just like, "Yo, you don't care."
By the way, someone had told me
he was a lousy dancer, but he's a great dancer.
I had complete confidence in myself
every single step of the way.
I do not fear failure whatsoever.
That's not holding me back.
Que dice mi gente Boricua!
Soy Bobbito Garcia de Puerto Rico
y tambien representando Nueva York.
Que disfrutes la musica buen, y gracias por venir hoy,
un día especial.
I'm always gonna be considered an other
by all the communities around me,
including my own community,
because now I'm not even fluent in Spanish anymore.
I then embrace the thing
that is probably most American,
which is a uniqueness of identity,
an identity of one.
What you do a really great job of
is encapsulating New York as a part of who you are,
encapsulating Puerto Rico as a part of who you are,
and saying that's the only wy to really be authentic
is to truly be yourself and say,
"I identify with this and I take this."
You take the best of everything and you remix it
until you are who you are.
What you did at A.P.T. is a blueprint.
You were the first cat that I saw
that just broke DJ rules.
That was the blueprint, and I was just like,
"Yeah, that's what I want to do."
Whatever you play, whenever you play it,
for all the different artists that you play their music,
I give you the highest degree of respect,
so thank you very much.
A person that really grabbed me by my shoulder
and just thrust me into the DJ world
was this brother right here, DJ Rich Medina, so, yo.
How many of y'all used to come to the Wonder-Full Party?
My man here, we were doing it together.
Give me a hug, man. I love you.
♪ See ♪
I'm still someone who really pays attention
to spiritual presence on records
and how they speak to me and how they potentially
can speak to my audience.
To impart some wisdom onto you, just work ridiculously hard,
figure out what's missing, and fill the void.
Hopefully doors will open.
If they don't, then just rest assured
that, "Yo, I tried my best," and just move on.
I committed career suicide so many times,
and each time, I was like,
"You know what? I'm gonna renew myself."
And you did it. You did it. You didn't have a manager.
You didn't have an agent telling you,
"Oh, this is what you should do."
You didn't have a marketing plan.
You just followed your artistic heart,
and that was inspiring, and that was really big.
Wow.
Hopefully he passes in 67 years,
like a lot of motherfuckers will want to show up
and have a lot of good things to say about him,
'cause he's just, like... he's a giver.
Bobby, he's triple OG.
If you didn't have him involved with it,
and you talking about sneakers, it don't mean nothing.
He's the guy that changed
the way that you looked at the game.
Sometimes you do things with people in your life
and you say, "Oh, god,
that was a great thing that I was involved,"
and sometimes you say, "I wish I could have done better."
But with you, I'm so happy that I was involved,
'cause look at you now, and I'm the reason.
Psych!
No, no. You've come a long way.
You're a good person. You're a good husband.
You're a good father. You're a good son.
You're a good brother.
You're my little guy. You're my man.
- Thanks, Mom. - Yeah, I love you.
This is the court that raised me,
this is where I grew up, and this tournament
is now played in four continents, 20 cities.
One, two, three...
Full Court 21!
And in 2017, it comes to this.
The Incredible Hulk has the lead.
Oh!
Somebody put that into overtime!
♪ And I rock to the rhythm that don't dare stop ♪
♪ My man Jorge, rocking on the bongos, ha ♪
Oh. Oh, my God.
Oh!
Big Poland with it.
What you gonna do with it, Big Poland?
Oh!
This man has been playing basketball
before some of y'all.
People would look at you, and they'd go,
"Oh, you're freewheeling and wild,"
but there was some kind of meticulous planning nature
going on in there.
I always have had maybe not a plan,
'cause I haven't... where I've gone
hasn't always been chartered.
You've cobbled together 1,500 different things
into this amalgamation of,
you know, now what it is, which is...
- Still undefined. - Still undefined.
♪ said I'd never get it ♪
♪ To pop and survive but I'm alive ♪
♪ Ivy League Rock Rubber 45s ♪
♪ Stereotype never thought I'd break barriers ♪
♪ From the cocoa maybe you'll flow the crate carrier ♪
♪ Broke your favorite MC's career ♪
♪ Play various beats crack jokes for neighbors ♪
♪ Hilarious ♪
♪ But when it got tumultuous I rebuked the vultures ♪
♪ Embraced the culture from literature to sculpture ♪
♪ Polygamist who infused three loves to inflate me ♪
♪ Outlets power 45s for fast break beats ♪
♪ Shoes inspire beautiful grooves for the skate key ♪
♪ Without Kristi Yamaguchi crossover moves to make me ♪
♪ A whole lot of ankles got cracked ♪
♪ On the way to reaching my goal where my soul sits at ♪
♪ Check on the fact I'm the captain of the helm ♪
♪ And checking multiple realms just getting started in film ♪
♪ Still standing, uh ♪
♪ Yeah, I'm still here ♪
- ♪ Still standing ♪ - ♪ I'm still standing ♪
♪ I'm standing ♪
♪ Standing, yeah ♪
- ♪ Still standing ♪ - ♪ Still standing ♪
♪ I'm still, yeah ♪
♪ Standing ♪
♪ You're still standing ♪
♪ Still standing ♪
♪ Now I've seen some heartbreak in my life ♪
♪ And some burdens almost broke me down ♪
♪ Once or twice ♪
♪ But I held on ♪
♪ Onto my faith ♪
♪ And I would never change a thing ♪
♪ That brought me here today ♪
♪ 'Cause it helped me grow ♪
♪ And it helped me know ♪
♪ Which way to go and which way to not go ♪
♪ And I'm so grateful ♪
♪ Yeah, I'm so grateful ♪
♪ 'Cause I'm still ♪
- ♪ I'm still ♪ - ♪ Still standing ♪
♪ I'm still standing ♪
- ♪ I'm still standing ♪ - ♪ Still, yeah ♪
- ♪ Standing ♪ - ♪ I'm still standing ♪
♪ You're still standing ♪
♪ Still standing ♪
- ♪ I'm still standing ♪ - ♪ Yeah, yeah ♪
♪ You're still standing you're still standing ♪
- ♪ So grateful ♪ - ♪ Still standing ♪
♪ I'm still, still standing ♪
♪ I'm so grateful ♪
♪ Still standing ♪
- ♪ Standing ♪ - ♪ Still standing ♪
Some of you in here don't even know
I have a wonderful, beautiful wife
that I love dearly,
and a 2 1/2-year-old
who's about to be three, who's phenomenal, yo.
He loves basketball. He loves to wear my sneakers.
He can already cut, words to my mother, on beat.
That's more than you can do.
Oh, okay.
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