The man with more alias and job titles than rare soul 45’s in his record collection, Bobbito Garcia has been a New York Nuyorican household name for damn near three decades. A break dancer with the legendary Rock Steady Crew, a professional NBA baller representing Puerto Rico, a halftime announcer for the New York Knicks, one half of the esteemed Bobbito and Stretch Armstrong radio show (1990-1998), author of “Where’d you get those?” sneaker book, the personality behind ESPN’s televised show “It’s the Shoes” and a nationally-recognized globe trotting DJ who started the Stevie Wonder themed party “Wonder-Full” in homage of his musical idol, Garcia’s list of accomplishments make us regular folks look like sloths.

One evening highlight included the young man who trekked to Portland from Alaska to see Bobbito spin. He’s kind of a big deal.

WW: What were you doing last year for New Year’s?

New Year’s eve, 2007, I was in my bed like I have been for most of the New Year’s Eves for the last six or seven years. I’m not really fond of spinning on that night. I’m the type of DJ that really commits to music heads and that night brings out a lot of people that particularly want to drink and may not so much go out on a regular basis to hear progressive music but more like to you know, [makes drunken sound effect]. Ughhh! Look at this! So I’ve never had really good experiences doing it. It’s funny you ask because this New Year’s Eve is the first time I’m spinning in a long time—it’s going to be at the Delano Hotel in Miami for Giant Step, which I’ve had a relationship with for probably 10 years now, if not more. I used to do their end of the year toy drive charity parties. That’s how I started spinning events for them. They’re going to have me in Miami, pool-side. And the Roots are actually performing in the same hotel in a little small intimate, 200 capacity lounge. So, they’ll be inside and I’ll be outside. I’m looking forward to that.

Any 2009 resolutions?

I’m not a believer of resolutions at all. I lead a life of daily resolutions, always thinking about how I can improve my ways with others. I definitely don’t subscribe to the notion of waiting until the end of the year to figure out how to improve. That’s my way. It works for others who feel like they may need a marker to say “Oh, let me start from this point on,” and honestly—and this is not to come out the wrong way—I lead my life exactly how I want to. I’m 42 and I think I’ve figured it out by now. I’m strengthened by the people I have around me and their support and love. I don’t even tell people Happy New Year’s really. People tell me that and I’ll be like, thank you, because I know it comes from an honest place in their heart but I don’t really subscribe to that.

2009 Prediction: The Roots band on the Jimmy Fallon late night show? [Bobbito had no idea that the Roots have been commissioned to be Jimmy Fallon’s in-house band since he never watches television but he did have this to say -Ed.]

I used to do college radio promotion at Def Jam from ’89-’93 and one of the DJs from Drexel, in ’92 maybe, sends me this CD and says, “Yo Bob, you’ve got to check this out.” It was Organix, the Roots’ first unreleased and independent album. And now years and years later, they’re still really dope. A lot of people don’t realize how difficult it is to have tenure and longevity in hip-hop.

Word Association: Crazy Legs from the Rock Steady break dance crew

He’s one of my closet friends, we bug out. I think of him and I just start smiling because he’s a trickster, he’s a prankster, he’s a snap, he just likes to have fun and he knows how to do it well. And I’ll tell you something else about Legs that a lot of people may not realize about him from a friend level is that he’s one of the most loyal, I-got-your-back dudes that you’ll ever meet. Once you get down with Rock Steady Crew, he’ll just go out of his way for you. Other funny shit is that a lot of people mistake me and Legs for each other. There’s only so many Puerto Ricans in the hip-hop world that I guess have gotten our level of exposure so I’ll be a spot and somebody will come up to me and be like, “Yo Legs!” and I’ll be like, “Nah.” And funny enough, even though he’s been in the limelight way longer than I have, more people come up to him thinking he’s Bobbito than come up to me thinking I’m Legs.

Crotona Park

My love affair with the Bronx really goes along the lines of basketball, which is a huge part of my life. I did get to DJ in Crotona Park summer of 2007. I opened up for an artist named Joe Bataan who is a wonderful human being on this earth. He’s half black and half Filipino. He grew up in Spanish Harlem, in El Barrio, made a lot of beautiful music, coined the term “Salsoul” and made a great career from doing Boogaloo to Latin ballads to Latin funk so that was dope to open up for him.

Super Pro Keds

Very cool. Big part of my childhood. For more information about that you can go to Where’d You Get Those? New York City’s Sneaker Culture: 1960-1987—that’s the book I penned in 2003 and it covers a lot of the history of Pro Keds and actually, the brand approached me and we might be potentially collaborating in 2009 because they realized what I did for them by not even trying, just by virtue of the honesty behind my words and my memories of my childhood.

Air Force Ones

The funny thing is, I grew up being such a fiend, because I played ball and when Air Force Ones came out, they really revolutionized comfort. For the early ’80ss, the idea of having air in your shoes when you play ball on concrete, 75 percent of the time, there just wasn’t a lot of indoor courts or places like that as kids. So 25 years later, when they had the anniversary, I mastered design and having shoes with my likeness on them and my name on them, Kool Bob Love, people would be like, “Is that a dream come true?” and I’m like, “Nah, it’s not because I couldn’t have even fathomed that happening.” In the ’80s, there was no such thing as a Puerto Rican kid from around the way consulting Nike. There were no industry tastemakers or anything like that. Nike had their ear to the street only but so far as that they knew their retailers but beyond that, in the ’90s when I started consulting with them, it was something really new for them and for me too and I feel blessed that I had done enough to get noticed by them by ’93 because I way early on that curve.

The D.I.T.C. crew [Diggin’ In The Crates crew, a hip-hop collaborative that had many members who were featured on Bobbito and Stretch Armstrong’s radio show from 1990-1998 before they hit national notoriety. -Ed.]

Any mention of D.I.T.C. you’ve got to first say rest in peace to Big L. And for me, the freestyle that’s endured the most from me and Stretch’s radio show was the Big L./Jay-Z freestyle from ’95. The reason I say that is because Big L. came up to our radio show like four or five times and as good as that performance was, he had other performances that were way better. And shout out to Lord Finesse. A lot of people don’t even realize that Big L. appeared because of Finesse. Finesse put Big L. on the remix of his “Yes, You May” on Giant Records and Big L. had a lot of people talking about him more than Finesse. To overshadow Finesse during that time was very difficult, in terms of punch-line rhyming. And I remember Fat Joe when he was going to clubs in the Bronx and I’d b up there just seeing this dude who was kind of intimidating and not that friendly and then once he became an artist, me and him got mad cool, both Boricua, showing love to each other and our friendship has endured for 15, 16 years now. I have my show on ESPN, It’s The Shoes, and was able to get him on as a guest in 2006. And Showbiz and A.G.—all those dudes showed me and Stretch ridiculous amounts of love.

Notorious, the new Notorious B.I.G. movie that’s scheduled to be out in theaters early next year

I’m imagining it’s good and I look forward to seeing it in the theater. It seems like there’s a lot of money being put into it and they made sure that they had some very strong acting in it. I’m just hoping it delivers, that’s all.

The Portland Trailblazers

I’ve been a Blazers fan for a long time. I remember when they won the ’77 championship. I was born in 1966 so Geoff Petrie, I remember when he had on the Nike Blazers (shoes). In the mid-’70s I was always the kid that had my eye on who had the ill sneakers. So that meant that I liked players more than I liked teams. I’m down with the Blazers—Maurice Lucas, your man Damon Stoudamire was stupid nice, J.R. Rider was nice with the Blazers, Lionel Hollins, Bill Walton was a beast, Clyde the Glide and that group, Percy Harvin, Buck Williams was my man because he played for the Nets before he played for the Blazers. Terry Porter—I played Division III and Terry Porter was out of Division III, University of Wisconsin, Stevens Point, playing in the NBA so that was a pride for all Division III players. I give the Blazers love, always.

The Incredible Bongo Band

When “Apache” came out, I remember hearing it just by virtue of walking on my streets in the neighborhood. This was not when people had booming systems in cars, I wasn’t going to park jams at that point, I was 11-years-old but people used to put their speakers on their windowsills and turn them facing out and I can distinctly remember hearing “Apache,” “Dance To The Drummer’s Beat,” joints, joints that are really dear to me in the mid and late-’70s.

Hipster Hip-Hop

I play vinyl so a lot of the new stuff that comes out, I don’t get to hear it because I’m not on the net, downloading MP3s. I go to the record stores. Whoever’s putting out vinyl, that’s who I’m up on. I bought a Cool Kids 12-inch that had a B-side that was funky, that I liked. Pacific Division I discovered because I mentored a kid from LA for the past couple summers and he knows them so he told me about them. There’s another label out of New York that’s run by a former mentee of mine named Sucio Smash—he took over my radio show after I retired and started High Water Music and he’s got some really cool hip-hop coming out too. Those kids Blu and Exile—I hear about those kids. I feel like I can only respect an artist that takes stock in learning the history of rhyming. At least to have an open mind about what came before them because it shows in their music when they are.

What was the first pair of kicks you kept in a box on dead stock and didn’t wear?

I never had a pair that I never thought I’d wear.

In past interviews, you’ve mentioned there being a difference between sneaker connoisseurs and sneaker collectors.

A collector will buy a pair of sneakers and very well think not to wear them, which to me, maybe it’s a generational thing but I grew up in a time when sneakers didn’t have any re-sell value. The only value they had was to be seen in them. I may put a sneaker on ice for the simple fact that I want to bust them out at a time in the future when no one else has them anymore. But I never buy a pair of sneakers thinking like, I could never wear these. That’s totally foreign to me. I respect it, but it’s foreign to me.

Do you think the current economy will affect the collection of limited edition sneakers?

I think we’re talking about an international market so there’s always going to be someone in some country that could afford it. For as bad as the economy gets globally, there’s still a lot of cats out there that might not fully understand the culture but they realize, “Yo, I could re-sell this shit for a lot of money.” They’re just smart businesspeople. Again, that’s not my schtick but I respect it.

If you could only have one album to listen to for the rest of your life, what would it be?

Talking Book by Stevie Wonder but my favorite Stevie Wonder albums always switch every couple months so you ask me this next year and it could be totally different.

You’ve said in past interviews that you can’t come to the court with a nickname that you gave yourself, that nicknames have to be given to you. Who coined Cucumberslice and Kool Bob Love for you?

I think as a DJ, you can give yourself your own nickname so I actually just gave myself a new nickname, DJ Mango Tango. I just have fun with my nicknames. It gives people a chuckle and that’s what it’s all about, nothing too serious.

Links:
Bobbito Garcia’s space
bouncemag.com

Photo courtesy of Bobbito Garcia