Ahead of his sale of curated vinyl from the collection of the late P.M. Dawn founder and producer – and prodigious record enthusiast – Prince Be, Egon created a series of Instagram posts reflecting on digging for records in the 1990s, specifically the legendary conventions held at New York City’s Roosevelt Hotel, and the legendary dealers and hip hop luminaries that attended them. They are all collected and collated here.
All photos you see were taken between 1993 and 1995 by John Carraro’s sometime assistant 88-Keys. Some of these previously appeared in a piece Carraro wrote about his time at the Roosevelt for Waxpoetics.
One of John Carraro’s legendary wall displays at the Roosevelt Record Convention.
These reflections are prompted by the late Prince Be, the late P.M. Dawn co-founder, hip hop producer, musical catalyst and deep record collector. So, the words here are about Be are also, generally, about collecting records in the 1990s. It really was a marvelous time to collect records.
By the time I was 15, I knew that old records were the sample sources for my favorite rap records: my parents loved the HAIR soundtrack, and I knew “Where Do I Go,” and so I knew what record Pete Rock sampled for Run DMC’s “Down With The King.” I’ve been collecting records since I was a kid, and I was deep into rap vinyl by the time I was 13, and I had a rudimentary DJ set up by the time I was 14. It was in 1993, maybe 1994, that I really wanted to know more.
Then, as with anything that was culturally insulated, you needed an embedded mentor. They weren’t easy to come by, and more difficult still to impress. Dooley O, a New Haven graffiti artist, producer and rapper, told me, as he played Mortal Kombat in a New Haven hip hop shop called 10 X Dope, that what I was searching for were “breakbeats” – and there was nothing as confusing as going into a record store with a dance section in the mid 90s and asking for breakbeats. I remember a kinder clerk at Rock N’ Soul in Midtown Manhattan pointed me towards the bootleg 12” section, the one with the Danny Krivit edits of James Brown tracks on red labeled 12”s or the disco edits of “Bra,” and with few of the original artist’s names listed.
Dooley became my first mentor, and what great fortune it was to be in his presence and able to ask questions. He told me that you found the original copies of the records I was searching for, most easily, at conventions, as in record conventions. How do you divine where record conventions are held, when you’re 16, and you’ve no clue who to even ask about such a thing except for the guy in front of you? Dooley said that the Roosevelt Convention, held at the Roosevelt Hotel in Manhattan, was the absolute best.
For me, going to NYC’s Roosevelt Record Convention in the early ‘90s would have been like going to the moon. Dooley described the entrance ritual – it sounded like a dark labyrinth, populated by weird dealers with eccentric rules and guarded by the hip hop heroes I had that I’d already heard enough of to be scared of. Going there on my own? Not a chance.
But there were plenty of places to buy the types of records that were the fodder for all of the best rap records back then, and it was a matter of chance to find something deep in some random store somewhere. If the record was a known thing, like James Brown’s Black Ceasar soundtrack, it might well be $200. If it was an unknown thing, like The Stark Reality Discovers Hoagy Carmichael’s Music Shop, and you were lucky enough to stumble upon it in some shop’s children’s section, it might well be 50 cents. That latter record was sometimes found for few bucks as late as the mid 2000s, or at least that’s what Cut Chemist said he saw DJ Shadow buy it for in the new arrivals section on one of their trips.
As I got a bit older, and read the fine print on more hip hop records, and heard more rumors, record collecting heroes emerged. Locally, there was a collector and hip hop producer named X-Tra, who had enough dough to own that Stark Reality album, back when, at around $500, it was THE most expensive rap-adjacent record. It had yet to be sampled by Large Professor, or the Main Source, but the word had already come down from on high that Pete Rock himself considered it worthy of that price tag. Just to hear a record like this, to look at it, consider it, know it existed, was a mystical thing.
T-Ray, John and Jacqui Carraro.
Of those Roosevelt collecting legends, T-Ray was always mentioned, and I knew his name well from so many records I loved, those by the likes of Percee P and Cypress Hill. He had methods, and they were quirky and required real dedication. If I recall correctly, he was with John when John first offered up the Power of Zeus record, the drums from which went on to become a sample staple so ubiquitous that most won’t even know they were, at one point, unknown. And there were the Digging In The Crates founders, like Buckwild, Lord Finesse, Showbiz and Diamond D. I’ll never forget the first time I met Diamond, and brought him a copy of the George Benson record with “Footin’ It” on it, telling him that he was the only person to know that that record could have made a classic. I probably got 15 seconds of his attention that day, but I got an autograph, and I still believe that “Freestyle” is one of the best records from that era: I’m glad that on the first pair of 1200s I got, from a house music and cocaine loving DJ whose dust covers were clouded by straight-razor marks, gave me my first copy of Diamond’s 12”, when that sort of thing was still hard to find, and my friend Rob almost got us caught trying to boost the vinyl from the Strawberry’s on New Haven’s Crown Street.
Buckwild, Diamond D and John Carraro.
When Emile Haynie, a year or two younger than me, but cut of the same cloth, and precocious when he was young, and always about that perfect record, saw that we were selling part of Prince Be’s collection at Rappcats in 2022 he messaged, incredulously to confirm that these was, indeed, records from the collection from the King of the Roosevelt Convention. And indeed they were. And indeed, Be was the King of that Convention, attested to by most everyone that was there and knows of that place’s legend.
Joe Mansfield, hip hop producer since the 1980s, the reason Ed O.G. and The Bulldog’s first album had so many deep samples, sold at the Roosevelt Convention alongside “Boston” Bob Gibson. Besides John, Gibson’s table offered some of the best records at the Convention, and everyone knew that. Chris Veltri, of San Francisco’s Groove Merchant, and I went through Gibson’s personal collection about 20 years ago, after Gibson sold it to Michael McFadin, and a semi full of records arrived at Michael’s spot in Costa Mesa. Chris went through the LPs and I went through the 45s and we both assessed it to be the best collection of its type that we’d ever seen. This was the first time I saw Del Jones’ Court Is Closed album and the Papa Bear and His Cubs 45, amidst thousands of equally exciting and obscure records.
Joe saw this picture of Prince Be digging next to Pete Rock and Diamond D at the Roosevelt and noticed a plaid-shirted arm in the photo as his own. He called me to relay Be’s unique stature there. Long before anyone carried a cel phone, when even the wealthiest might only have one affixed to their car, Be had one, and he gave it to an assistant to carry with him to the Roosevelt when he couldn’t be there. Joe recalled a time that Be’s assistant showed up and handed Joe the phone, so he could play Be his latest discoveries. Be apologized he couldn’t be there in person – he was in the studio with Burt Bacharach.
Prince Be and Pete Rock at John Carraro’s table at the Roosevelt Record Convention.
This was back around the time that people were still sampling Dennis Coffey’s “Scorpio,” but at the Roosevelt, the Coffey record people wanted was his much heavier, much more psychedelic, much rarer Hair and Thangs. Joe found one, and Q-Tip snuck in alongside of him, offering the dealer far more than the asking price, before apologizing to Joe for snaking his purchase. Prince Be, of course, already had it.
There were times when you might get fucked up over a record, and Dante Ross told me a story of Lord Finesse finding a record Be wanted and Be making an offhanded remark – probably in jest – and Finesse snapping on him. Be was a big dude, but his presence was gentle. Back then, everyone involved in rap music had heard of the time KRS One “threw” Prince B off stage, which reads as pretty ridiculous in 2022. The point is, back then, anything could happen, and I’m going to bet there was a lot of jealousy directed at this hit making producer who was in a different circle – and tax bracket – than most all of the people who would be considered his peers.
Mr. Walt, Evil Dee, 88-Keys and John Carraro.
At a beat-battle at LA’s Root Down, when Thes One went up against will.i.am, around the time that Will was on the cusp of something far bigger than all of us around him, and when members of the Black Eyed Peas still came to hang and drink cold Sierra Nevadas with the rest of us at Club Gabah. On that still non-descript corner on Melrose, Will ended the battle by picking up the mic and saying something like, and I’m paraphrasing: this has been fun an all y’all, but I got a session with Justin Timberlake, so I’ve gotta go.
That was Prince Be in the mid-90s. ““You are a huge influence on me and so many,” wrote Timberlake,” after Be’s death in 2016. And on Kanye, and Drake and T-Pain and so many more.
I met Georges Sulmers through Wes Jackson, who was working in promotion for Georges’ Raw Shack Records, right around the time they were issuing J-Live’s second single and, if I recall the story correctly, when Mark Ronson was moonlighting as a producer for the label. Georges lived in Park Slope in Brooklyn, and when you entered his lofty apartment, you saw towering stacks of records, both LP’s and 45s. In 1997, this was the best collection I’d ever seen in person, and Georges let me rifle through it. I asked him about samples used on the J-Live record and he showed me his Stark Reality and the Mulatu of Ethiopia album.
The collector Dante Carfagna once described finding the Astral Navigations album in Thomas Boddie’s Soul Kitchen studios as akin to finding a microwave in King Tut’s tomb. That’s the level of incredulity is what I felt when George needle dropped that Mulatu LP.
(The sales price of that Mulatu album, between John’s picture and Georges showing it to me, adjusted for inflation – around $200.)
One of John Carraro’s Roosevelt Record Convention wall displays, a work in progress before it was unveiled.
I asked Georges about all of the most important record collectors, and Georges held respect for all of them, especially Chairman Mao and Prince Be. I asked Georges to introduce me to them both and, in the way he laughed about most all of my requests back then – that he swap me his Tony Alvon and the Bel Airs 45, that he consider my beats for rappers signed to Raw Shack – he did eventually introduce me to Be. I’ll never forget the meeting, and what it felt like to stand in his presence, as the questions fell upon themselves in my mind and I blurted them out. I remember Be having plenty of time for me, and his confirming the rumor that he had, somehow, a copy of the Skull Snaps album autographed by the drummer, whose opening beat on “It’s A New Day” was already an indelible part of hip hop history, passed from New Haven’s Mrs. Brown’s collection to my mentor Dooley O to Stezo to Paul C. to DJ Premier and so many others.
By the end of 1997, armed with the information I’d first gotten from Dooley-O and augmented by the time I spent with Georges Sulmers, I was busy driving from Nashville to whatever part of the South or Midwest on any weekend I could. My mentors soon included Matt Weingarten, Dante Carfagna and, by proxy, DJ Shadow, Phillipe Lehman and Chris Veltri and I was even able to glean bits by winning over, record by record, NYC’s post-Roosevelt gate-keepers like Aldo, Romain, Steve, Rob and Jared from A-1 and later The Sound Library. It was mind boggling how many records we found. Georges was always a phone call away – when I showed up at Jim Russell’s World Famous Used Records in New Orleans and saw a bin card for the Chuck Carbo 45 on Fireball, I called Georges and asked him how many I should buy. “All of them,” he replied. But they are $12 each, I said, and I only have a few hundred bucks and there are records everywhere! “Who can you call, and how much can you borrow?” was what George said. And he was right. I only wish I’d paid more heed: I’d have storage units like DJ Shadow does. (I’m a decent, dedicated collector, and a horrible, hesitant seller.)
Another example of one of John Carraro’s Roosevelt Record Convention wall displays.
You could still buy from mailing lists back then, and still find incredible and obscure records if you were one of the first to reply to Craig Moerer or Lew Stanley or David Forman, after their newsprint catalogs arrived in your mailbox. Soon digital digging – on long, poorly coded databases offered online by stores, and then the more organized Gemm, and then eBay – changed things forever. At one point in the mid 2000s, Madlib and I spent an entire day at Japee Records and Tapes in Miami, and I remember, hacking from the dust and with blackened fingers, bringing Japee a hundred or so records to price. He took his time and told me he would sell me ten of them – and he thanked me for bringing him the rest to auction on eBay.
Joe Mansfield:
“Me, (“Boston”) Bob Gibson and this other guy Michael Smart would pitch in on the table at the Roosevelt and leave super early from Boston to get there at 5 am and set up. The only thing with Bob was that he kept a lot of records in his personal collection and for the ones he did want to sell, he would take phone calls and sell records to people before the show started. So – our table was good, but John’s was better than ours.
John would do this unveiling – and it was the craziest thing at the show. He would have his display wall covered with a sheet. Everyone who paid to get in early would be there for this. He would wait until he was ready and then unveil it – and it was always great. He could have Stark Reality, a library record no one knew about or the Surprize album Keep On Truckin.’ That was rare then and it’s still rare. It was incredible!”
Joe, “Boston” Bob, John and other dealers from that era –“Jazzman” Gerald, Michael and Jodi McFadin, “Cool” Chris, Aki and so many more – were creating culture and developing a language still being explored and augmented today. They were intrepid musical explorers, cartographers, discographers – when few cared.
88-Keys with John Carraro.
The collections amassed by those like “Boston” Bob and Prince Be will never be assembled again, because the way that they bought records was based on availability, instinct and utility. “Boston” Bob bought for education, enjoyment and, out of necessity, for sale; Be, for the former two things and for creating music. Drum breaks that Be paid hundreds for were evened out in his collection by records now classified as Spiritual Jazz that, back then, were called something else and sold for a fifteen bucks. Most of those collections have now been dispersed, separated, like the drums from the groove, from their essences as the sustained statement of the person who assembled them.
John Carraro died in New York in 2009, aged 52. You won’t find an obituary online – you might find the article he penned for Waxpoetics about his experiences at the Roosevelt if you kept stock of the journal, all online links are now gone. You will find a video interview of him talking with DJ Soulero in 2004, looking more gaunt than he does in the pictures you’ve seen here, but brimming with enthusiasm as he talks about the records he discovered and shared with his pals, as he called them: the upper echelon of New York’s hip hop producers of that important era in the city that changed the path of popular music.
Prince Be died in New Jersey in 2016. You will find a lot of information about Be and PM Dawn online, and you will even find a passing reference to one of his great passions in his New York Times’ obituary: “He was also a well-regarded record collector.” Anyone reading these posts will agree how underwhelming an assessment that is.
Prince Be, with John and Jacqui Carraro.
Be, John, “Boston” Bob and others – and the spirit of the Roosevelt in general – were what I was thinking of when I envisioned what our series of LA record events we once hosted at Rappcats – and now wind down at Now-Again – would look and feel like. The legacy of those events, and the legacies of those that made them legend, still inspire me. And the loving touch of those personal moments that went beyond collecting and commerce, like the note John wrote for Be on the gift of the incredible – and always rare – Sassy Records issue of the Frankie Beverly “Love (Your Pain Goes Deep) 45, that Be’s widow Mary has kept and always will… those are, and always will be, what matters most.
-Egon. May 2026.