Frankie Crocker visited both the Loft and Paradise Garage, was friends with David Mancuso and Larry Levan. He broke the music played in these clubs on the air on New York's WBLS-FM, a black station highly attuned to the disco sound.
One of the most spectacular discotheque records in recent months [1973] is a perfect example of the genre: Manu Dibango's "Soul Makossa." Originally a French pressing on the Fiesta label, the 45 was being largely undistributed by an African import company in Brooklyn when David Mancuso brought it to the attention of DJ Frankie Crocker. Crocker broke it on the air on New York's WBLS-FM, a black station highly attuned to the disco sound, but the record was made in discotheques where its hypnotic beat and mysterious African vocals drove people crazy. Within days, "Soul Makossa" was the underground record and when copies of the original 45 disappeared at $3 and $4, cover versions (many unlicensed and one a pirated copy put out under another group's name) were rushed out. Atlantic Records stepped into this confusion, bought the U.S. rights and had both the single and an album out on their own label days later . . . .
“We were so close to Frankie Crocker (the programmer at WBLS, a big black station) that we could have had so much publicity out of it,” adds Depino. “But we didn’t. Sure Frankie used to talk about it, but only from a personal viewpoint something fun to do because he actually went himself. And even then Michael Brody used to get so mad about it. He’d be like, ‘Frankie, please don’t talk too much about the club. I don’t want people just coming because they hear about it on the radio.’” --David Depino of Paradise Garage