DJ Tony A made his name by making mixtapes with the stars of the early West Coast rap game. In an episode of Unique Access, Tony A tells Soren Baker how he fell in love with the artform of deejaying at the age of 11 after seeing his brother spin at a Crip club in Long Beach. From there, he created a legacy that is acknowledged by hip-hop heads across the country.
“I didn’t know it was going to be a business,” he shared. “I didn’t know from ’87 to ’88 that my name would be out there in the street, that I would be considered ghetto fabulous, that people would tell me, ‘Man, you’re the guy on the mixtape?’ Even to this day, at 50 years old, I go to Arizona, I go to Albuquerque, I go to Colorado, go to New York and people say, ‘You’re that mixtape guy.’ And I’m still shocked, even to this day.”
He met many of his collaborators, including Dr. Dre, Eazy-E and Sir Jinx at the Roadium Swap Meet. A record stand owned by Steve Yano served as the headquarters for the local music scene and Dr. Dre made several mixtapes that Yano sold, including 85 Live and 86 in the Mix. At one point, it got to be too much work for Dre to handle on his own, so he asked Tony A if he wanted to help out.
“I’ll be honest with you I was honored,” Tony A said. “Hell yeah to have a guy like that pass the baton to me and say pretty much you wanna take over the mixtapes?”
He kept the business running with the same crew and actually ended up making more tapes than Dr. Dre did. When N.W.A was gearing up to go on tour, Tony A needed to tap new talent to keep the mixtapes going. He met a then-17-year-old Hi-C at the Swap Meet through Yano. At first, Tony A wasn’t impressed with Hi-C’s rap style.
“He had a rap called ‘I’m Hard’ and I’ll be honest with you I didn’t think it was that hard,” he laughed.
But Hi-C won him over with a live show at Centennial High School in Compton, so Tony A worked with him, having him rap over all sorts of beats in order to find his personal style. He really found his groove on a song called “I’m Not Your Puppet” on a mixtape named after Hi-C so that he could get his name bubbling.
“Steve would tell me later on that that tape actually went gold on the streets,” he shared.
Soon after, a man came to the Roadium Swap Meet asking who did the tape. Yano quickly directed the attention to Tony A because he thought the newcomer was trying to bust him for selling bootleg tapes. It turned out the man was from Disney’s new record label, Hollywood Records.
“They signed us for $140,000 off of a mixtape,” Tony A said, “and I didn’t even know how to produce.”
Once they got the backing of Hollywood Records, Tony A and Hi-C got to work on Skanless, one of the most influential records of West Coast rap. Tony A ended up producing 9 of the 12 songs on the project, which has become iconic for its lighthearted nature. But before it hit the streets, they had a back-and-forth with Disney executive Michael Eisner over the content of the album.
“He calls us in and he heard a song called ‘2 at a Time,'” Tony A recounted. “On the original version, it says, ‘Can you take two dicks at a time?’ He’s reading us the lyrics and he says, ‘I don’t like these lyrics.’ I said, ‘Why? What’s wrong with them? That’s just us.’ He said, ‘Well, when I’m reading it, I’m envisioning a porn. This is Disney.’ And I said, ‘Well, that’s just us.” He said, ‘Well have you guys ever done this?’ That’s what he asked us. And I said, ‘Yeah. We’re just writing what we’ve been through.’ He said, ‘Well, I have $80,000 to change what I want changed.’ I said, ‘ok.'”
Watch the full interview of Tony A speaking on early mixtapes with Dr. Dre and making Skanless with Hi-C below.