DJ Kool

A blend of upbeat go-go grooves and hip-hop’s foundational block-party energy propelled DJ Kool into prominence amid rap’s late-’90s revival of old-school styles. Long active on the D.C. go-go scene, he had served as warm-up DJ for Rare Essence throughout the early and middle years of the 1980s before entering the studio in 1988, where he sought to translate the spontaneous energy of live performance into recorded hip-hop. His debut full-length, The Music Ain't Loud Enuff, leaned heavily on call-and-response patterns reminiscent of both early hip-hop and go-go while also featuring the hip-house cut “House Your Body,” introduced by a strikingly precise spoken overview of house music’s origins.

He brought that same energy to a live setting with the 1992 mini-LP 20 Minute Workout, captured onstage in Richmond, VA, and issued on Steve Janis’ CLR Records. By the release of 1996’s Let Me Clear My Throat—largely taped before audiences in Philadelphia—word of Kool’s command of a crowd had begun circulating through the East Coast underground. American Recordings emerged victorious from a five-way bidding war and re-released Let Me Clear My Throat in early 1997; Funkmaster Flex and Mark the 45 King supplied remixes of the title track, the latter drawing on his own underground favorite “The 900 Number,” and the single rose to the rap Top Five. Mid-2000 saw Kool team with Fatman Scoop for a reworked version of Rob Base’s classic “It Takes Two.”