bad boy from philly – Schoolly D

Well here I am riffing off of someone else’s blog post again, but I just got done reading Christopher Porter’s post on a new book called Rakim Told Me, which delves into 21 different classic old school rap albums, including, among others, Eric B. & Rakim, Too Short, Ice T, Public Enemy, and Schoolly D.

I read an excerpt on Schoolly D’s Saturday Night album, and was compelled to plop on the headphones, turn the volume up to 11, and relive my younger days. Schoolly talks about the making of “P.S.K. What does it Mean”, with the aid of a “massive reverb chamber”: “big f** plates, they took up a whole room. It takes like 3-4 people just to move them around”. Schoolly was pioneering “gangsta rap” in Philly back in the mid 80’s. He and his DJ Code Money would get together with a Roland TR-909 drum machine, a couple of turntables, and an ample amount of alcohol and weed, and they’d see what came out of it. As a 15 year old kid in Wisconsin, I didn’t know how they were putting these tracks together, but I sure liked ’em!

Schoolly D: P.S.K. What Does it Mean?