Magic Mike’s Miami Bass Bombs
For years before the stripper movie Magic Mike stole his name, the DJ/producer Magic Mike was making the clubs bump and grind. He’s not that raunchy though. While acts like 2 Live Crew and Splack Pack pushed the boundaries of good taste and RIAA laws, Mike always brought a lighter and less ribald touch to the lascivious, low-end genre (though he did play all the dirty stuff in his DJ sets).
His hits like “Drop the Bass” and “Boot the Booty” are pure fun – backed by the signature booming bass and tight snare hiss of the Roland TR-808. The name Miami bass is misleading, as the genre was huge all over Florida (and the South in general) – though Mike was based in Orlando, he moved to Florida for a while in the 1980s to cash in on the action, and got big alongside acts like Dynamix II, Hydraulix and Bass Mekanik.
Mike lives in Orlando again, where he eats a lot of Italian food and goes to Disney World all the time. Gone are the Jeeps of his younger years – he now bumps mainly smooth house music in his Infiniti. While driving around Mickey Mouse-ville, Mike let us in on his favorite classic Miami bass tracks.
Magic Mike - Boot the Booty
“Creep Dog” was huge. That was our first song, then “Boot the Booty” came out afterwards. When we made “Boot the Booty” we were just up in the studio messing around, joking, having a good time. It wound up becoming a huge hit, but when I hear it, it just brings back the memories of recording the song and that era.
To have that song become so big, in all actuality, was just a joke. The song has no lyrics, you know, it’s just us messing around in the studio. I think that it just takes me back to a happy point doing the whole bass thing back in ’87. Clay D came up with the name. It was just something that didn’t make no sense, something dumb. The song was originally called “Clay D Get Funky.” “Boot the Booty” was the b-side of that single, but “Boot the Booty” became so big it became the whole single. “Clay D Get Funky” just kind of went into obscurity.
Freestyle - Don’t Stop the Rock
It’s just a feel-good song. From the first piano note, as soon as you hear that song coming on, you already know what it is. It takes you back to a good point. I don’t care what city I play at, there’s not a person that doesn’t know that song. Everyone enjoys it.
I never played with Freestyle, but I know Pretty Tony; he was the one that really came up with the song. I always equated the song with Pretty Tony because he wrote it and produced it. I don’t even think that Freestyle was doing the vocals – I honestly think it was Pretty Tony. Tony was main force behind a lot of the bigger – I want to say early ’80s, mid-’80s – songs. Debbie Deb’s “When I Hear Music” and “Look Out Weekend.” Pretty much all Freestyle’s stuff. Trinere’s “All Night” and “How Could We Be Wrong.” He started doing his own songs, with “Jam the Box,” and “Fix it in the Mix.” He was integral as far as the origins and where everything came from in Miami.
2 Live Crew - Head, Booty and Cock
They call it “HBC,” but it’s “Head, Booty and Cock.” That’s a 2 Live Crew song, but that’s pretty much all Luke. That was like, Luke’s song on the Move Somethin album. I got to hear the album before it came out and that was the song that I picked, like “OK, that’s my song.” They went with “Move Somethin’” as the single, but “Head Booty Cock” was my song. Luke and the boys crossed the line of being dirty the furthest, more so than anybody else that I knew of. It got to a point that nothing mattered at that point, it was like… you couldn’t get any worse. You just accepted it and you liked it, and you moved on.
Young & Restless - Poison Ivy
It was just a funny song, and then I liked [Eric Griffin]. It was the heat of the spark. In Miami, that song was huge. To see the response from people when that record come on – they took that riff from the real “Poison Ivy” song by The Coasters then ran with it. Trying to find the original version of that song is almost impossible.
Hashim - Al-Naafiysh
That was my trick song when I was on stage. That was my freestyle [DJing] song when it was my time to showcase on stage when we’d be doing our shows. You can just flip that song and rip it every which way except loose. Everyone knows the song, so it always went over well, the crowd was sprung, and I was kind of trickin’ it out and doing things to it. I know nothing about Hashim; he just put out a few songs and then all of a sudden he was gone.
Quadrant Six - Body Mechanic
I don’t think I can classify this as true Miami bass. It’s got the sample that 2 Live used in “Move Somethin’.” It’s just been sampled a million and one times in different bass songs – it’s been sampled backwards and forwards. Once again, it’s one of those songs that – as soon it plays and the crowd knows it – they lose their minds. It’s just that song, you know? If I’m doing a set of old-school bass hits, I can just base my music and what I’m doing on memories and it makes it easy for me to get through the set and play different.
Cybotron - Clear
That was Detroit, Juan Atkins. I would go out on a limb and say, in Orlando, I had to be one of the first people playing that song in the club. We would go to the record store every Thursday and get new music. The song came out… had to be ’82, ’83. It was at the store and I was like, “What is this?” I put the song on, and from the ‘Ready. 1, 2, 3, 4’ I was like, “Ooh.’” I put the song on that night at the club and I have been playing it ever since.
I wasn’t surprised to hear it was from Detroit. Back then you didn’t care where a song was from. All the big songs were from everywhere. There were songs from LA, there were songs from New York, there were songs from Miami. You just played the songs; if you liked ’em, you liked ’em. It didn’t turn to a big issue about the song being from some place until the mid-’90s. I remember we used to play “Egyptian Lover” to death. We had no idea where it was from. I’m sure there probably were people who thought he was from Egypt somewhere.
