In 1984 a sound emerged from Philadelphia that changed hip-hop. Schoolly D (Jesse Weaver) focused the creative urges that he developed in art school into music, and released his first 12" ‘Gangster Boogie’. That song, and those that quickly followed it, didn’t just bring a new sound to hip-hop, they brought a new sensibility. Schoolly D invented ‘reality rap’ the day he decided to tell the truth about what was going on around him in Reagan’s America, and gangsta rap the moment he embellished those truths and turned them into first person stories of violence, sex and madness in the Philly ghetto.

In the 15 years since his first record was released hip-hop doesn’t seem to have moved very far from a climate that produced tracks like ‘Gucci time’. Schoolly, however, has come a long way from the early days of Park Side Killers. And when he readily admits his life has changed, he still lives in Philly, he’s still making records and still rocking shows everywhere he goes.

What are you doing right now?

"A new album and single that should be out this summer (2000). I’ve been working with Chuck D, Chuck Chillout, Cash Money and a few others. And I’ve been doing some deejaying and building a studio up-buying all the computers, learning them all and trying keep up with technology."

How old are you now?

"I’m 35. My first record came out in 1984 and I’ve got another 16 years to go in business. I’m not going to say that I’m going to be the first 50-year-old rapper, but I am going to be in the business of music and entertainment, making film scores or deejaying. As far as being the first 50-year-old rapper on stage I don’t know. Who the hell wants to see that? I don’t. But Flavor Flave could be the first one-he’s in his forties and I’m still going to see him, so I guess that’s still possible."

How did you get into hip-hop?

"Hip-hop smoothly followed the funk era without anybody noticing. I didn’t notice that I went from being a funkateer listening to Bootsy Collins and George Clinton to a hip-hop head into Grandmaster Flash and the Sugarhill Gang. The lifestyle of a hip-hop head and a funkateer was similar. It was a particular language no-one else understood unless they were into it, a particular style of dress that nobody else wanted to do unless they were down with it. It took a couple of years for me to even realise that I’d gone from funk to hip-hop because they were so similar. The themes of hip-hop were the themes of life."

What was the firt rap record you heard?

"Listen to Bootsy Collins, George Clinton and James Brown and hear their lyrics- I would say that they were the first rappers. They were talking through the beats and the records. But the first official rap record I heard was the same thing everybody heard - the Sugarhill Gang. That was the first sound that reached Philly. I understood it right away, but that wasn’t the record that made me want to rap, that was ‘rapping and rocking the house’ by the Funky Four Plus One. That inspired me to do it myself."

At what stage did you start recording?

"I first got into making the music out of necessity. There were numerous deejays and rap groups I was involved with but it was frustrating because I wanted to hone skills. Everyone wanted to rehearse but the priority was for the deejays to rehearse and the emcees were on there to embellish them. I thought it should be more even, but nobody else did. One of the cats in the crew gave me the 909 drum machine. After I learned how to program beats I had a voice, I could say anything I wanted and do the kind of music that I wanted to do - I could duplicate and modify breakbeats and incorporated the guitar and bass I taught myself into the music."

How did you came up with your famous lyrics?

"They came from just hanging out. Other lyrics at that point in the ‘80s just didn’t correlate with what we were actually doing. There were plenty of people saying, ‘Say no to drugs’, but I knew it was a lie. Those cats were getting high just like I was. And then it was ‘Say no to guns’, and that was a lie too. I knew it was a lifestyle and somebody had to start talking about it. I wanted to keep it simple but make it funky at the same time."

What was the first song you recorded?

"My first tune was called ‘Gangster Boogie’. I recorded it in late 1983 and put it out myself in early 1984. The response was so good that some older cats from a local record company noticed it. That’s when I got my first taste of distribution deals, records deals and getting fucked over. I learned a lesson because if I’d taken advice from my family and friends I would have quit. I didn’t because this is what I was born to do. There’s no quitting; the only quitting is dying, that’s when it’s over. That gave me energy and in 1985 I did ‘PSK’."

At what stage did you realise you were born to perform?

"I realised that when I was about three. I was always the artist of the family, entertaining and into music."

So you were an artist before you were a rapper?

"All the fine arts - oil painting, sculpting, sketchin... I went to art schools but never went to music schools, I just taught myself. I was playing guitar in a band when I was nine. It was going to be one or the other and I chose music. The visual arts are the second part of my life. When I get bored of this I definitely go back to visual arts."

What was the reaction to your first record?

"The response was immediate and it was crazy. One day I was working at the shoe store and next I was travelling all over the United States, even though people advised me that it was never going to happen, it exploded on the west coast and it exploded in New York. Cats said ‘A motherfucker this good has got to be from New York’. It was a surprise to everybody involved, that was the beauty of it."

Had you anticipated such a response?

"I just didn’t know. How the hell was I supposed to know? I was a kid from west Philly making records. Not knowing there were hundreds of thousands of people all over the world feeling exactly like I felt."

How did it alter your life?

"Suddenly I could afford to buy a new car, I got more woman, I got more drugs, I got new clothes, I started getting my shoes made for me. Between 1985 and 1991 it was a dream come true, and it looked like it would never end. So for six years it was crazy, but I paid the price. I had to give it a rest for five years. Every artist goes through it. Michael Jackson, Whitney Houston...everybody has been through a time when nobody wanted to hear from them, nobody gave a shit. But the last five years have been the best for me."

What does the future hold for you?

"The beautiful thing about my career is that I can still do it, I still have energy and something to say. I’m going to transcend rapping, move into film, television and commercials and I’m going to be able to support my family for a long time."

Is it true you were broke in 1991?

"Yes. I spent it all. That’s the only way to learn your lesson, if you are left penniless and you have to move back home and look at your old neighbours and have them laugh at you. Now I appreciate everything that happens, every dime that comes through the door."

What did you do during the last five years?

"It was a spiritual cleansing, a lot of prayer. I’m a religious man, I was raised in the church. I believe it. I know cats who tell me that I did all this myself, but I just don’t think like that. The church has kept me sane and out of trouble."

What was live in Philadelphia like when you were a kid?

"In the mid-‘80s it was a crack explosion. Everybody had money, everybody was rich, everybody had cars with fat systems, everybody had fine clothes and the woman were beautiful, AIDS wasn’t even really a thought yet. You could still get a blowjob with a steak dinner - it was a good time. And between ’83 to ’90 it was a real good time. There were parties everywhere, we didn’t have a care in the world. All the rappers were getting money, and all their drug dealer friends were getting money. Everybody was hanging out, everybody felt like a star."

Were you part of the crack dealing scene?

"I was part of that but I knew I wanted to do music. Most people don’t know what they want to do. They just got into dealing, thinking the can make a living. People doing it aren’t evil, at least not at the beginning. We were kids; we didn’t know what was going to happen, we didn’t know it was going to become an epidemic. But I was alway foused on the music."

How do you feel about thug rappers now?

"If people are involved in drug dealing I don’t think they should talk about it. If you’re really hardcore you don’t talk about it. At first I thought it was good that I talked about those parts of my life, but now that music is so influential what’s the deal with it?"

So you think people shouldnt talk about it?

"It’s like when George Clinton. Everybbody knows that he gets high, but he rarely admits that in interviews, because he wants to talk about his music. I think rappers and deejays should omit it - you don’t know who you are going to inspire. If I’d read about Bootsy and George Clinton on drugs when I was a kid then I might have thought the drugs went along with the music. Kids who get into hip-hop should concentrate on the music. But now people think drug dealing is part of the lifstyle, kids are imagining that they have to get arrested to prove they’re down."

Have you given up drugs?

"I want to party a little bit and have some fun. That might occasionally involve some drugs and alcohol but that’s different."

Did you invent gangster rap?

"Soon I’ll be the grandfather of gangster rap. They came up with the name for my first album."

Looking back over your career what do you think of your past work?

"I’ve done ten albums in my lifetime, seven of the I like and three of them are bullshit. You’re going to have ups and downs. It’s all about inspiration, and sometimes you can really tell when you were inspired by the pay cheque, and you can tell when it was real inspiration and you wanted to say something."

What are you listening to right now?

"Dángela and Macy Gray, but I listen to everything. I was disappointed by TLC’s new record because I’m a huge fan. Also lost my record collection, so I’m spending my money rebuilding that. I had 5,000 records and I’ve got nearly 2,000 back but buying records today is a lot more expensive."

How did it happen?

"I don’t even want to talk about it, I left it with some friends of mine when I move back to Philly from Atlanta and they sold it."

And on that bombshell Schoolly’s gone - off to attend to the female visitor alraedy waiting for him when HHC arrived. Maybe somethings will always stay the same.

1983

Schoolly D (born Jess B Weaver Jr. In Baltimore) records his first singles ‘Gangster Boogie’ and ‘Maniac’with his deejay Code Money.

1984

‘Gangster Boogie’ is released while D is still working in a shoe shop.

1985

D releases ‘PSK-What does it mean’ independently. The acronym stands for Park Side Killers, a Philly gang Schoolly is affiliated with. Unwittingly he invents ‘gangsta rap".

1987

Schoolly D releases ‘Saturday Night: The album’through his own Schoolly D records.

1988

Jive release ‘Smoke some kill’and Rykodisc proffer the early but flawed retrospective ‘The adventures of Schoolly D’.

1989

D releases the landmark ‘Am I black enough for you?’ LP through Jive, with tracks like ‘Black Jesus’ incorporating a few more socio-political concerns than previous work. He also appears in the Abel Ferrara flick King of New York.

1990

He appears on the Phil Donahue Show to talk about ‘Money & Rap music’.

1991

‘How a black man feels’is released by Schoolly through a new deal with Capitol.

1992

Schoolly appears in another Ferrara film Bad Lieutenant, this time alongside Harvey Keitel

1993

More TV work as D appears on the Geraldo show that asks the stupid question, ‘Is rap music sexist?’

1994

Chris Schwartz’s Ruffhouse label release his comeback set ‘Welcome to America’, recorded with a live band that includes Chuck Treece (Urge Overkill), Joe ‘The Butcher’ Nicolo and Mike Tyler.

1995

Schoolly’s label, PSK Records, release ‘Reservoir Dog’. He continues to collaborate on-screen with Ferrara, appearing in and scoring some of The Addiction.

1997

Mekon, a UK big-beat act on Wall of Sound, releases ‘Skools out’ featuring Schoolly on vocals. He returns the flavour by joining them on a tour of the European festival Circuit.

2000