Just before the 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 renowned 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 jam-packed wall displays at the Roosevelt Record Convention.
These reflections are prompted by the late Prince Be, P.M. Dawn’s co-founder, hip hop producer, musical catalyst and deep record collector. Be’s prowess in the latter pursuit spread throughout the Tri-State area in the early to mid-1990s, which is when I first started digging. So the words here are about Be are also, generally, about collecting records in that last decade before the internet. It really was a marvelous time to love vinyl.
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, growing up in Connecticut. 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 about how the records I loved were made.
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 and the disco edits of Cymande’s “Bra,” 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. MORE
