For years i only had Radio & Mama Said Know You out, this weekend i checked out Walking With A Panther! man what an album.

LL was hot back in the day, his rhymes and flow was great! the single Going Back To Cali with it's smooth flow and sax is a unique rap song and got me on to the album.

LL was just great back in the day and ultra cool

And of course him and Kool moe Dee made diss song's towards each other int he late 80's

Kool is a fantastic rapper, one of the bets old schoolers he was just very unique i got his Knowledge Is King album and fell in love with it, before that i only knew Wild Wild West & Let's Go[LL Diss]

Anyone else a fan of these 2?

Both were cool back in the day. If you thought Moe Dee's Knowledge is King

album was good you need to check the followup Funke Funke Wisdom.

Moe Dee put shit down on that album with the title track, How Kool Can One

Black Man Be, and Rise N Shine with KRS One and Chuck D. He also made

another LL diss on that album called Death Blow.

phunkdaddy said:

Both were cool back in the day. If you thought Moe Dee's Knowledge is King

album was good you need to check the followup Funke Funke Wisdom.

Moe Dee put shit down on that album with the title track, How Kool Can One

Black Man Be, and Rise N Shine with KRS One and Chuck D. He also made

another LL diss on that album called Death Blow.

Oh i heard death blow great track

I must say though... LL's stuff past Mama Said is very and i mean VERY hit or miss

phunkdaddy said:

Both were cool back in the day. If you thought Moe Dee's Knowledge is King

album was good you need to check the followup Funke Funke Wisdom.

Moe Dee put shit down on that album with the title track, How Kool Can One

Black Man Be, and Rise N Shine with KRS One and Chuck D. He also made

another LL diss on that album called Death Blow.

Agree

But Moe Dee won that battle with "Let's Go"

Their rivalry was legendary. I heard their disses. It's obvious Kool won the battle. LL's attacks weren't as vicious (but they were still damn good).

This is from a 2007 interview with Silver Fox, who discusses both of them. If you want to read the whole thing, it's here:

http://www.thafoundation.com/silfox.htm" target="_blank">http://www.thafoundation.com/silfox.htm

Interviewer: So who in your opinion was the best emcee between Moe, Mel and Caz?

Silver Fox: Mel was always the best in my eyes. Caz was second over Moe. Caz would freestyle and do things off the top of his head and talk about anybody. Let somebody try and diss him!

Well Moe would get down just like that also!

Yeah Moe would do it also, but I guess it was because me and Moe didn’t get along. (Silver Fox laughs.) The one thing I liked about Moe was he was very creative. I was very impressed when he made that fast rhyme style. Then everybody was trying it.

So you and Moe was never cool? You and him would see each other many times and just keep it moving?

Yeah we would see each other many times and we lived only a few blocks from each other but we were never cool. But back to my boys, because we will get back to Moe! Once I understood the art of rhyming I started hooking up with the cats around The Grant and Manhattanville projects as well as The Hill, (Home of the Treacherous 3 on 129^th street and Convent Avenue.) Such as Peso or Special K. Special K was bad, he was a real intelligent dude also. Everybody used to hang out in O.C.’s house which I was invited to also. I use to just sit up in the house and watch all these talented brothers trying to create. I remember O.C. and this brother Reg on the bass guitar trying to make something happen putting ideas together. I would sit there and say to myself, “man this is the life.”

Special K put me on to his brother T La Rock and the both of them used to come to O.C.'s house along with L.A. Sunshine. They were over by Convent Avenue and they use to cut through Grant and go to O.C.’s house which was on 124^th street between Broadway and Tiemann place across from Grant. I even met J.D.L. and Spoonie Gee over there. So a lot of cats use to come through to see O.C. even if it was just to hang out. But what I noticed about a lot of the guys in our area, (Harlem, West side.) they had a different style from the rest of the hip hop world at that time. A lot o f them were into the metaphors. Like,

“I am like a snow storm

and I hit you like a blizzard!”

I got you.

Stuff that that will make you go ah man!

So was Moe Dee coming over to O.C's. house a lot at that time?

Yeah he was coming around but he was singular. Even though he was a member of The Treacherous 3 he is like a very singular type person. He had his own frame of mind. .

What was the situation that jumped off that negative spirit between you and him?

(Silver Fox laughs’) I don’t really know but he made it known one day when I came to O.C.’s house with a young L.L., and soon as Moe seen us he wanted us to leave.

L.L. didn’t have a name in the hip hop industry just yet!

No, he hadn’t even made I Need a Beat yet. Moe was laying down a track or trying to create something and he didn’t want me and L.L. there. He didn’t know L.L. at the time so it wasn’t about him, it was about me. I was very upset, but O.C. asked me kindly to leave and come back later.

L.L. didn’t understand it, he was like, “this n----- act like he don’t know you!” I told him don’t worry about it I will deal with him later. And I have to say it did bother me, I tried to get at him on the rhyming tip but he didn’t want to see me.

*********************************************************************

So was there ever a time you Kool G and L.L. were ever on the mic at the same time at Joe Grants.

Yes maybe two times. I introduced them to each other and they were cool. But most of the time it was me and Kool Gee because he was always there. Me and him rocked the mic a lot until they were ready to switch the type of music for that night. They would put on some D- Train or some other type of R&B music, because after awhile we were saturating their brain with our hip hop.

**********************************************************************

So did you met L.L. Cool J before Manhattanville records or after.

I met L. L. at Manhattanville records. Manhattanville Records was a record shop it had nothing to do with making records. We actually recorded with Specific Records. The cats from Divine Sounds that made What People do for Money was on that label. Julio Guina who owned the record shop also had a club around the corner on 133^rd street and Amsterdam Avenue called The Family.

***********************************************************************

So now you told me L.L. came looking for you once your record blew up.

Right he was trying to get on my label. It wasn’t me specifically he was trying to find, he was trying to find any one connected to the label. But it was me that he found. The address to the record shop Manhattanville Records was right on the record. We put that address on there because that was the best way to get in contact with us for booking shows etc. We did the manufacturing and distribution. Instead of working out of a trunk we worked out of the record shop. In the back of the shop we had boxes and boxes of records.

Did you come off financially from the record?

Not really I get royalties today but back then I got a lump sum to make the record and then I really got paid doing the shows for the records. I didn’t get paid from the manufacturing or the selling of the record. So I really got jerked around as far as the record deal. Chico got the majority of that money. He passed away later on.

With L.L. he came right to the record shop in 1983 right after It’s your Rock blew up. That was how him and I met. He introduced him self as L.L. Cool J. I said what does that mean? He said Ladies love Cool J. I said oh yeah that’s too long. (Fox starts laughing.) I said, “I am going to call you C.J., all right?” After that we talked awhile about rap. Then I asked him was he good, can he rap! He then started to rhyme and he kept going and I was like, “oh man that’s pretty good.” Then we started going back and forth rhyming. He was real cocky and he thought he was the man, but then he can be very humble and polite as well. He didn’t smoke cigarettes or weed, he was pretty clean cut around me. I also have to say he was very articulate and he was very smart. He then let me know that he just wanted to get on and he came here on the train all the way from Queens to see us! He told me that everybody he talked to kept directing him to me.

After we finally met he didn’t come up everyday but he came up often. At this time he was with his grand mother. He would be around me so much that he would even come to my house and chill, eat or whatever. I wanted to sign L.L. but they didn’t want to. I took him to different spots such Joe Grants, Diamond Jay’s Lounge in White Plains upstate some outside jams. He was pretty good and he some what emulated a lot of my ways and so we would bounce off of each other and go on for days rhyming. He was a cool brother to hangout with, and he had to be about 15 or 16 years old. And the thing was it was his time and I knew it. I said it was time for a new resurgent. The old crews were just that, old crews! So it was time for a new thing to come in - a new face. I took him over to O.C.s house one day. Kool Moe Dee was there and he didn’t want me and L.L. there because he was recording. By this time I was hunting Moe down for a battle but he kept avoiding me. I was trying to get at him way back. See nobody would take on Moe, so I was like the great white hope or something. Moe was avoiding me like I had the flu!

What’s that all about, why would you want to try and challenge Moe Dee?

Well Moe was the best at battling everybody. But I felt I could take him and I had people up in Grant down for it. Tito will tell you I was like a Moe Dee hunter. I even went up to Convent to the basketball courts trying to find him, but he would continue ducking me.

How do you know he was ducking you?

Because he would never want to set it up. Troy I am telling Crazy Eddie, O.C., so of course they are getting the word back to Moe.

So what happened when you went up on the hill to the basketball courts looking for him?

I kept going up there on Convent, finally we seen each other and I stepped to him and he laughed that sarcastic laugh he has. (We both laughed.) There wasn’t any music playing out there but he was out there chilling with his boys and L.A. was there too trying to gas it up and sarcastic as well. You know L.A. always got jokes.

That sounds just like them.

Moe laughed Troy! I’m like come on man lets battle! Troy that would have put me on the map if he would have given me that battle! I knew that, that was why I kept trying to get at him. Just like Moe went off to college, I too was in college. I went to City College which was only blocks away from where Moe and the rest of his crew were from. (Special K was from The Bronx but his mother taught in the public school across from Nappy Red. And Mrs. Keaton taught D.L.B, L.A. Sunshine and so many others with love and pure discipline!) Soon as class was over I would walk right down the block looking for him.

***********************************************************************

So lets get back to when you were at O.C.’s house and Moe didn’t want you and L.L. there.

Right he didn’t want us there because he was laying down a track or practicing on something.. But usually when anybody else is there like Tito or other Fearless Four members are up in there practicing or rehearsing I can sit in even though they are sitting there making mistakes. But Moe is like one of those where he doesn’t want anybody to see him make a mistake. He don’t want anybody to see him vulnerable while he is creating something.

So it wasn’t really anything personal between the two of you he just didn’t want any one in there!

Nah it wasn’t personal but L took it that way.. He was like, “yo what’s wrong with that dude, he act like he got a problem with you.” I had to tell L.L. not to worry about that, its not that big of a deal. But L held on to that for a while.

How did you and L.L. end up separating?

He got on Def Jam because all the while while we were hanging out he was looking for a label and Rick Rubin scooped him up. He told me he was going to do something with Def Jam when we were sitting in the record shop. So we sat down and listened to T La Rocks Its Yours and started writing right there in the record shop. I was checking his stuff out and he started writing I need A Beat.

Which sounds similar to T La Rocks It’s Yours?

Yeah it does, but it had to be because that was what he was listening to when he started writing. So you figure It’s Your started off, “Commentating, illustrating, description giving adjective expert” But L’s thing was, “ my scenario for your stereo, beats on the rhyme, zero is the ratio (from Dangerous)......See he articulated and used words that other dudes weren’t using when they are going Yes Yes Yall. So I’m telling L cats ain’t going to understand that, he’s like, “they will understand, I’ll put it to a beat and they will understand it.” I said, “yeah alright”.

So once he got on with Def Jam did he try and get you in?

Nah, and on the low everyone that I knew that was doing anything in the business was like yo L.L. sounds like Fox!

Say word.

And they knew he was with me because many people knew I was taking him around. Even the Candy Jam and the way I dress that was my style. Even some of his beats were similar to what we used for our record Its your Rock.

It seemed like everybody wanted a piece of that.

Yeah even The Fat Boys. I was a judge over there when they got their contract with Sutra Records. But L. was still cool people with me and I put him on to Tito and Crazy Eddie and the rest of the Four, they were all cool with each other. They didn’t know him, he was just somebody from Queens.

HuMpThAnG said:

phunkdaddy said:

Both were cool back in the day. If you thought Moe Dee's Knowledge is King

album was good you need to check the followup Funke Funke Wisdom.

Moe Dee put shit down on that album with the title track, How Kool Can One

Black Man Be, and Rise N Shine with KRS One and Chuck D. He also made

another LL diss on that album called Death Blow.

Agree

But Moe Dee won that battle with "Let's Go"

For sure. Moe Dee crushed him with the L's. lower level, lackluster, lame, and lethargic.

phunkdaddy said:

HuMpThAnG said:

Agree

But Moe Dee won that battle with "Let's Go"

For sure. Moe Dee crushed him with the L's. lower level, lackluster, lame, and lethargic.

uh huh..

HuMpThAnG said:

phunkdaddy said:

For sure. Moe Dee crushed him with the L's. lower level, lackluster, lame, and lethargic.

uh huh..

He won that battle and indirectly killed him on "How you Like me Now" but LL might've won the war. I think Moe Dee was just well past his prime when Mama Said Knock You Out hit so he couldn't respond in kind. I came up more partial to Moe Dee but later grew to appreciate LL. They're both legends in their own rights and their "battles" on wax were probably the best.

HuMpThAnG said:

phunkdaddy said:

For sure. Moe Dee crushed him with the L's. lower level, lackluster, lame, and lethargic.

uh huh..

damned double posts

[Edited 2/21/11 23:51pm]

whodknee said:

HuMpThAnG said:

uh huh..

He won that battle and indirectly killed him on "How you Like me Now" but LL might've won the war. I think Moe Dee was just well past his prime when Mama Said Knock You Out hit so he couldn't respond in kind. I came up more partial to Moe Dee but later grew to appreciate LL. They're both legends in their own rights and their "battles" on wax were probably the best.

Didn't Kool leave his label when LL put out "Mama Said"?

Legendary, Legendary Battle. Thats when Hip-Hop was Hip-Hop! But clearly, Moe Dee won, I'm still a huge fan of both though.

MickyDolenz said:

It seemed like everybody wanted a piece of that.

Yeah even The Fat Boys. I was a judge over there when they got their contract with Sutra Records. But L. was still cool people with me and I put him on to Tito and Crazy Eddie and the rest of the Four, they were all cool with each other. They didn’t know him, he was just somebody from Queens.

I love these "hidden" stories.