I first met Ricky Powell - world famous photographer, ego trip contributor, and legendary New Yorker - when I briefly worked at this clothing store the size of a closet on St. Mark's Place in the early '90s. I had a cassette of some funk and soul records from my collection playing on the shop's stereo when Ricky and his girl came in. She asked how much some item for sale was; he asked, "How much for the tape?" And the rest, as they say, is history.
I didn't get cable TV till around 1995 so I missed the initial years of Ricky's classic public access show, Rappin' With the Rickster. But soon after I got familiar. Ricky would interview famous, not-so-famous, and/or infamous folks he rubbed elbows with downtown on some off-the-cuff man-in-the-street type ish, keeping the tone light and the snaps lively, and before you knew it a half hour had elapsed. The time he shared herbal party favors with Eazy E circa '93 remains one of the program's illest moments. Also variously featured from week to week: shots of Ricky's cats, his '70s basketball card collection, and women walking in public possessed of, ahem, assets.
By '96-'97, Ricky was writing his column, "The Rickford Files," for ego trip, and we'd hang out together on Saturday afternoons co-hosting the "Across 110th Street" radio show with Danny Rudder and Frankie Inglese (of Soul Kitchen fame) up at WKCR at Columbia University. Ricky would always have his video camera handy, so we'd intermittently find ourselves enjoying little cameos on his show, the tunes we played over the airwaves as the soundtrack.
I feel like I've been hearing about a Best of Rappin' With the Rickster DVD comp since forever. In the mean time Seinfeld went off the air, the Red Sox won the World Series, the world economy collapsed, and America elected itself an African-American POTUS (all possible harbingers of the apocalypse depending on where your allegiances lay). But at long last Ricky's TV anthology is official. We'll be celebrating its arrival on Tuesday evening at the Lost & Found crew's weekly soiree at Savalas in BK. Edan and I will be sitting in on the set alongside the homies JBX, Chris, Pablo, and Honeydripper. We don't care who goes first or who goes last but whatever we play it gots to be funky. If you're in the vicinity, join us!
1 comments:
Wurd! that was a dope night.....music was slamming non stop....I was one of the english fella's up in the set....I always try & drop by the Lost & Found if in NYC but that was the best one yet...many thanks & respects form the UK.
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