Duke Bootee

Elizabeth, New Jersey based Beauty & The Beat Records, founded by Ed "Duke Bootee" Fletcher released several classic singles throughout the mid 1980's, which helped define the drum machine era, and solidified Fletcher as a proficient Hip-Hop producer. Fletcher, a musician with Sugar Hill Records played percussion on several of the labels hits including "Apache" , and "8th Wonder" by the Sugar Hill Gang, "Disco Dream", by The Mean Machine, and "Freedom" by Grandmaster Flash & The Furious 5. Additionally Fletcher wrote and performed on 1982's game changing single, "The Message" credited to Grandmaster Flash & The Furious 5 featuring Melle Mel and Duke Bootee.

The English Inspiration

In a 2005 interview Fletcher shared with me how the influence of independent labels in the UK greatly inspired him to launch his label. "We (Skip McDonald, Doug Wimbish, and Keith LeBlanc - his Sugar Hill Records band mates) were going to the New Music Seminar, which was really the Disco Convention back in the day, originally," he explained.

"These guys like Adrian Sherwood would come over from England and they had their own labels. At that point, the most we thought we could be was producers. That was the ultimate thing. We would see these guys with their own companies and wonder, 'Damn, how did they get their own companies?' I planned to go to England because I felt if they had their own companies, then I could have mine."

Fletcher then explained the difference in label ownership in the U.S. versus England. "With distributors in England and Europe there are no returns. They order 500 records, they pay for 500 and they own 'em no matter how many they sell. In America they can order 1000 records, and send you 500 back as returns, and you get collectibles and receivables, and there's a big gap.

In England you had all these independent labels, and guys would cut one record, and sell enough to cut the next. It was an attitude that we didn't know about, because the actual way that the business is structured, it's more conducive to independent labels. We went over there, started spending time over there, and I came back to Jersey and there was a guy who owned Vogels record store named Jeff Sturman, who I eventually partnered with. When the word got out that I wanted to make a Rap record, everywhere I went all the young kids were talkin' about this DJ Cheese."

DJ Cheese

"They said every time Cheese threw a party it was packed wall to wall," Fletcher said. "I went to see him. A friend of mine who worked at the record store took me to Cheese's mother's apartment in the projects. He had his shit set up in the closet - it blew my mind. He was in the 10th grade at the time, and keep in mind that I had worked with Flash at Sugar Hill and other big time DJ's, and this boy was better than anybody. He blew me away, he was a monster."

Fletcher shared that the New Music Seminar and what would become the DMC DJ competition was just starting, and that he called Tommy Boy Records CEO Tom Silverman to get Cheese into the contest. "He killed everybody. Jam Master Jay and everybody was there to check him out. He won that, and I wound up taking him to England, and he won internationally - killed 'em in England too.

But let me go back before that. I went to a talent show and these two boys came out and all the girls went wild, they were called Word Of Mouth. I was gonna hook them up with this kid in Elizabeth, named Vaughn who wound up being Biz Markie's cousin, Cool V. What you saw on Biz Markie's video for "The Vapors" with Vogels record store is a very true story. Vaughn wanted to get down with us, and I was gonna use Vaughn, but then I found Cheese, and I would use Vaughn as a backup for Cheese.

Cheese was just a motherfucker, there's no other way to say it. I hooked him up with Word Of Mouth and we made a couple of records. I connected them, but Cheese was a phenomenon by himself. He had what you would call a following. I used to promote parties when I had a little teenage club, and as long as Cheese was DJing, we were making money. We used to promote dances, and we'd make money until the fight broke out. That's part of 'The Vapors', Biz used to come to those parties."

King Kut

Three years after "The Message" changed rap music forever, and one year after Bust Me Out, Duke Bootee's 1984 solo album released on Mercury Records, Fletcher's Beauty & The Beat Records released their first single, "King Kut" by Word Of Mouth featuring DJ Cheese. 12 inch singles were still the main vehicle to release, promote and distribute rap recordings, and the record covers rarely contained a picture of the artist, instead there was simply a generic image of the label logo.

Everything about the record cover for "King Kut" screamed independent, with an almost low budget feel. Pictures of DJ Cheese with his DJ set up were literally cut out and pasted to a plain white record cover, along with pics of his MC's - KMC and Original G. The rawness of the music very much matched the independent tone of the record cover, very much on purpose. "Most of the Beauty & The Beat stuff was pretty stripped down," Fletcher explained. "I just wanted what I called the essentials - drum machines and scratches. I really wanted the records to sound home made".

"King Kut" featured some of the biggest drum machine beats and the sharpest cuts and scratches committed to record. "I was primarily using the DMX drum machine, but I was also using a lot of effects like reverb on my drums," Fletcher revealed. "I was listening to a lot of Reggae records like this kid named Scientist who was using a lot of reverb. D-Train changed the whole game with that shit on 'Keep On' and 'You're The One For Me' . They used lots of reverb and digital delay on the voices, percussion and everything."

"King Kut" contained several scratches from Run-DMC's 1984 sophomore single, "Jam Master Jay". The song caught the attention of Profile Records (Run-DMC's label) co founder Cory Robbins who planned to sue for the unauthorized usage, but he instead proposed that he license the record, and re release it on Profile. Profile would also release Word of Mouth & Cheese's second single "Coast To Coast", which Fletcher called his favorite production.

Funky Fresh From Baltimore?

In 1985 it was rare, if not non-existent for a Rap act outside of New York or California to release a recording with national distribution. It was even more rare for that recording to be released by a record label in the tri-state area. Enter Baltimore, Maryland's Z-3 MC's. "One of my best friends was a guy named Thornton Daniels from Baltimore. I had released the record on Cheese and them, and Thornton came up with the idea for a talent show in Baltimore to see if we could come up with an act," Fletcher explained.

"We went down and gave a talent show at this roller skating rink. We made a few dollars off the talent show, and these boys won. i thought that they were interesting, and their Human Beat Box was phenomenal. They were young kids, ninth or tenth graders."

"Triple Threat", the lone release by The Z-3 MC's contained what was becoming Fletcher's signature percussion heavy, big beat production and a familiar keyboard tune for the hook, just as "King Kut" did. "If you go back and listen to all those Beauty & The Beat records, they all have a vocal or rhyme hook, as well as an audio hook," he said. "Like 'King Kut' used one of those kingly themes from England, 'Coast To Coast is the Marines theme.

If you remember back in those days a lot of the Rap records were using a lot of cartoon shit, so you had all these melodies that the kids were familiar with, almost sub consciously." "Triple Threat" particularly its intro has been sampled and or scratched by Erik Sermon, NWA, Slum Village, Nelly Furtado, and Kool Keith, and more than 100 others.

The Point Blank MC's

The Point Blank MC's are the only act on Beauty & The Beat to release more than one single on the label. Both released in 1986, "What The Party Needs" and "Hard To The Body" contained the labels signature heavy percussion with "What The Party Needs" using the melody from "Auld Lang Syne" and cuts and scratches from DJ Finesse on both cuts. "Point Blank MC's were from Elizabeth," Fletcher said.

"They were younger guys who used to come around Word Of Mouth, and they were from the same projects. They had a following, so I put them out. They were real street kids, and some of them went on to do good things. Shimrock became a minister and did some outreach work in Africa. My mother was a 3rd grade teacher, and she taught the DJ of the group, Finesse. When he came to my basement recording studio, he'd have to talk to my mother before he could record."

The Yo Culture

In addition to Rap records, Beauty & The Beat released an array of R&B and alternative, experimental records. Tululah Moon's "If You Want Love" was in the vein of "Take A Chance" by Vikki Love, Shannon's "Let The Music Play", and other dance records of the day.

"One of my favorite songs is 'Funky Broadway' by Dyke & The Blazers," Fletcher says of his 1986 Beauty & The Beat release 'Broadway'. "It was a chance for me to release a song as an artist, and I thought that it came out pretty good." "You're The Only One" credited to Wooly Reasonable & The Yo Culture was another dance record, with drum programming from Keith LeBlanc, Fletcher's bandmate from his Sugar Hill Records days.

Fletcher defined "The Yo Culture" as a nickname that he assigned to Hip-Hop and the street culture of the 1980's. "The kids use the word 'Yo' a lot, and it's just a name that I use to describe the kids in that sub culture," he explained. The Yo Culture is also the title of Fletcher's first self published novel.

MC Crash

One of the last records released from Beauty & The Beat was "Life On The Street" by MC Crash. Complete with scratches by Cutmaster Cool V and Fletcher's big beat drum machine programming, "Life On The Streets" is a tale of urban survival, which chronicles street life, much like Fletcher's writing on "The Message" five years previous. Beauty & The Beat Records had a short run as a label, but the influence of its artists highlighted the brilliance of some of New Jersey's best Hip-Hop artists, as well as Duke Bootee as a musician, producer, and visionary.