Comments

Part 1 of an oral history with Jimi Hazel, legendary guitarist and vocalist for South Bronx heavy metal soul band 24-7 Spyz, recorded on February 1, 2024, as part of the "Uptown Rumble: Heavy Music in The Bronx" project at The Bronx County Historical Society and shared with The Bronx African American History Project. The interviewer is Steven Payne, director of The Bronx County Historical Society.

In this first part of his oral history, Jimi talks about his family's background, his birth in Harlem and his move to the Mitchell Houses in the South Bronx at two years old, the incredibly supportive and close-knit community of the Mitchell Houses and other public housing in the area, the stability and pristine nature of the projects compared to the fire-prone older tenement buildings mostly outside the neighborhood, neighborhood stores and restaurants, his experience of public schools; the incredibly wide range of music he was exposed to early on from his parents, his grandparents (who lived in New Jersey), and his older brother, who first introduced him to Jimi Hendrix at age four; meeting Jimi Hendrix as a child in front of Mitchell Houses and on Randall's Island during the summer of 1970, receiving his first guitar for his birthday in September 1970, mourning the death of Hendrix and diving head-first into music, getting into Eddie Hazel and the other guitarists who made up his "Mt. Rushmore" of guitarists (Hendrix being the first), his first experience of synesthesia (Jimi sees colors while hearing music, especially in the lower registers), and the rich sonic environment of the wider neighborhood including the incredibly accomplished musical mentors he had as a child.

Jimi also shares his musical education from the many bands and live musicians that filled the projects in the South Bronx in the 1970s, the local DJs (like DJ Raul) and park jams including Hustle jams in the early 1970s and the emergence of b-boy culture later in the decade, his early experience playing with local R&B bands and the circumstances that led to his meeting P. Fluid (the original singer of 24- 7 Spyz), how he got to know Kindu Phibes and Rick Skatore (the original drummer and bassist), the formation of 24-7 Spyz and the kinds of sounds they were drawn to during their early years, replacing Kindu with Andrew Johnson on drums, some of the first shows they played and being embraced by the New York hardcore community in the Lower East Side, recording Harder Than You (In Effect, 1989) and the non-stop touring they did in the U.S. and Europe to support the record, the emergence of tension in the band starting with the writing of Gumbo Millennium (In Effect, 1990), becoming bigger and bigger with more non-stop touring after Gumbo Millennium, the tensions that continued to build in the band between P. Fluid and Andrew Johnson on the one hand and Jimi and Rick on the other, and P. Fluid and Andrew Johnson's decision to leave the band in 1990 at the end of a tour with Jane's Addiction before the band was supposed to begin a co-headlining tour with Suicidal Tendencies.

LINK TO VIDEO RECORDING: http://cdm17265.contentdm.oclc.org/cdm/singleitem/collection/baahp/id/124

Disciplines

African American Studies | Public History

Download
COinS