RICHMOND, Va. -- For Brad Johnston, his journey into hip-hop began one day in 1979 when he heard "King Tim III" by The Fatback Band on someone's radio during gym class at Henderson Middle School.
"Everybody stopped what they were doing and just sat around and just listened to the radio. He was rhyming to the beat. And the beat was tight," said Johnston.
That journey was solidified later that year, he said, with the release of "Rapper's Delight" by The Sugarhill Gang and "Freedom" by Grandmaster Flash and The Furious Five.
"That was it for me. I've been stuck ever since. That's 1979. That's 42 plus years," said Johnston, who eventually settled on the DJ name "El Bravador" (a nickname a classmate gave him as a play on El Salvador) and became among the early trailblazers in Richmond's hip-hop scene -- noting when he got involved, it was still called "jams", not hip hop.
"It's not just me, you know. It was a lot of us. Madd Mixer, you had Kevin Bowman, who was Sweet B, and you had Barry Rodgers, who was DJ Plus One," said Johnston, who formed several groups including Junior Funk Machine and The Z Rock Crew.
Along with deejaying in hip-hop groups, Johnston said he also followed in the footsteps of his older brother and became a radio DJ on the hip-hop radio station WKIE (his brother is Chocolate Chip) and said he faced pushback at times.
"We went through a lot to do this. I mean, to where we were threatened on the radio," Johnston said. "I actually experienced an altercation coming out of the radio station one night where I was actually assaulted by five people. And never found out who it was, but it's because they said we want they wanted me to stop playing that rap music."
But he said despite opposition like that and others who said hip-hop would be a fad that did not last, the hip-hop genre continued to grow and Richmond became a known spot for it -- including being the starting city for the Def Jam '87 tour.
"That says something. The next year, they did the exact same thing," said Johnston. "People used to come from that up there down here to see what we were doing to check. Check it out."
Johnston still hosts an online radio show.
Another early addition to Richmond's hip-hop scene was JayQuan, who was part of the Too Def Crew and became friends with Johnston over their love of the music. They eventually became labelmates.
"There was always a kind of gumbo of influence with Richmond music," JayQuan said about Richmond's sound. "We're the northern-most southern state. So, because we're Mid-Atlantic and we, kind of, fall in the middle, we were always influenced. We did have our own sound, but we were influenced by some of everything."
JayQuan said his love of hip-hop started with poetry and transitioned when he heard "Christmas Rappin'" by Kurtis Blow.
"It had an instrumental on the record and it said 'Instrumental do it yourself.' And that's what I did. I flipped it over and I started writing my own very rudimentary rhymes," recalled JayQuan. "But, because I was into poetry it was natural for me. I felt like when I heard those records, I said, 'This is what I'm supposed to be doing.'"
And while both men were creating music, later in life they both began to focus on documenting the history of hip-hop.
JayQuan began posting about it online in the 90s and now works with a variety of groups including the National Hip Hop Museum and with LL Cool J's Rock the Bells.
"I've always been a historian at heart, even as a child, I'd never threw away magazines, I never threw away my records," he said. "I started putting up bios of these groups that existed before Run DMC in the first generation of these groups. And those artists started to reach out to me saying 'Thank you, you know, somebody remembers us.'"
Johnston released a documentary about 10 years ago on the history of Central Virginia's hip hop.
"The story has to be told. You can't wait for Hollywood to come to you. I used to call it Richmond-wood because we got our own stars, we got our own celebrities that need to have a story told. And I've always believed that," said Johnston. "We're not giving enough shine to our own and that was what my part is, is to try to do as much as I can to give a shine to us, you know, to everything that we've done and to tell the story right."
With the love of history and personal connection in mind, both men were on hand for last week's 50th anniversary of hip hop held at the Hippodrome, RVA Rapper's Delight. It celebrated the past, present, and future of the local scene and included a proclamation by Richmond Mayor Levar Stoney declaring August 11, 2023, as Richmond Hip Hop Day.
Among the artists who performed at the show was Noah-O, who said his earliest memories of hip hop were as a five-year-old when his parents entered him in a talent contest to perform Fat Boys' "Wipeout". As he got older, he said artists like Nas and Tupac spoke to him and it is something he tries to emulate in his own music.
"Really empower and uplift, encourage, you know, other kids, or kids who are maybe like me at one time or I see myself in them," said Noah-O.
Noah-O said Richmond was and continues to be a good incubator for artists.
"Richmond is at that stage, the art scene here, whether it's hip hop or visual art -- all types of creatives that are here and that's just now it's all, like, blending together," he said.
Noah pays tribute to one of the earlier trailblazers in his shop on Broad Street, with a painting of the artist, Kleph Dollaz, who died in 2012, but not before helping Noah early on in his career.
"He is a legend, at least in my eyes, he just gave me a lot of insight and how to navigate hip hop and you know, balance it all."
Noah-O is also a part of another avenue of history through his music.
His 2014 album, Monument Avenue, was selected to be in the new time capsule that was placed in the base of the Robert E. Lee Statue on Monument Avenue in 2021. The statue and its base were eventually removed, but city officials say the capsule was reburied in the ground.
And with the first 50 years of hip hop now in the past, all three men have high hopes for the genre in the next 50.
"Richmond's scene is just going to continue to grow. Like I said, now you have three generations, you have people behind the scenes that are in influential positions in the music industry that are advocating for us, and you have a lot of artists. I mean, there's hundreds, you know, probably thousands. of artists now," said Noah-O.
"Let's keep it going the next 50 years, let's keep the momentum going. Like this year, you got all these shows going on. Everybody's saying 50 years of hip hop," added Johnston.
"I wish that for the next 50 years people will remember that this is a subculture that includes the arts -- dancing, what they would they label breakdancing started out being labeled B-boys, the DJ, and then the MC, who was like the poet of it all," added JayQuan. "Going forward for the next 50, I'd like to see all the elements kind of respected on the same level."
Do you know about a good news story happening in your community? Click hereto email WTVR.com and the CBS 6 News team.
