The New Music Seminar Battle For World Supremacy: An Oral History

Tommy Boy Records founder Tom Silverman started the New Music Seminar in 1980 with three other partners as a music industry networking event. It quickly spawned the MC and DJ Battles for World Supremacy – a fertile showcase for rappers and DJs to make a name for themselves. Winners included DJ Cash Money, Mixmaster Mike, Supernatural and Melle Mel. The following is a selection of memories from some of the rappers who competed or were in attendance.

ORIGINS

Tom Silverman

The commencement [of the NMS] was 1980, it was a one day event that year. In 1981 we did it in a club venue and it became a two-day event. The place was called Privates, and for the first time we did an event, it was called “a DJ spinning exhibition.” We had a disco DJ, Jeff Broitman, show how DJ’s mix records in a normal club situation. Then we had a guy called Whiz Kid – who later made records for us at Tommy Boy – who was a quick cut DJ from the Afrika Bambaataa school of the Zulu Nation. He was one of the greatest masters of fast spinning. People were just blown away. Nobody had seen people cutting two bars back and forth between records before.

The battle might have started in 1983 at the New York Hilton Hotel. There was all kind of spontaneous hip hop things that were happening at the conference that year. People were breakdancing to a boombox on the second floor of the hotel, and I remember seeing picture of these kids lying around in a circle watching the breakdancing in the center and one of them was Mike D from the Beastie Boys, before they were the Beastie Boys. It was my idea to do this [battle], I came up with the idea of the counting clocks. It was just DJ’s for the first two years and then we introduced MC’s, which created the MC battle. We had a pro wrestling belt that I designed that was the award, so it became a big thing. We had celebrity judges and a whole team of people that just worked on this event.

MC Chill

I first went to the New Music Seminar in 1985 when I came to sign the deal with Fever [Records]. That was the time when Roxanne Shante and Busy Bee battled each other in the finals. Busy Bee won, but clearly Roxanne Shante actually won. Kurtis Blow was a judge, and I can remember him saying, “I’mma vote for Busy Bee because he’s from the old school!”

Tom Silverman

1985 was the year we moved into the Marriott Marquis. Busy Bee did his famous “Squirrel and the Nut” rap that day. King Sun D, who was signed to Profile as an artist, won one year too. Jazzy Jeff won, and when you talk to Will Smith today he considers the New Music Seminar the place where he got his start. We created the rules for the competitions, and then Tony Prince kinda took our model and did the DMC battles. He used to take a booth at the Seminar and sell their record bags and all that stuff.

Prince Paul

When I battled Easy G [Riockwell] in the Music Seminar in ‘86, I used the “LL – Cool – J – Is – Hard – As Hell!” cut to beat him. He was down with Original Concept. They were from Westbury in Long Island. Me and Easy G would turn out to be really good friends. He was the World Champion the year before, and I battled him to get into the semi-finals. That was my crowning moment. I was like, “I beat the guy who was the World Champion!” That cut was the icing on the cake – I was like, “Ah! I got him!” After I did that cut, I’ve heard it replicated a billion times, even on LL Cool J’s records! I’m like, [whiny voice] “I made that up! I invented that!” Then I heard Jazzy Jeff do it, but he did it way cleaner and way better. After that I just put my hands down, like “Meh.” I gave up DJing, and production was the natural progression.

RAP GLADIATORS

Lord Finesse

It’s like a Rome arena, because you’re battling against some of these dudes that’s supposed to be the most prolific lyrical dudes out, and then you battling within an industry setting. You’re being looked at by the best rappers and the best DJ’s in the game, all in one room, so you’re on a platform and you get to show how nice you are in front of some of the nicest. You was battling in front of Heavy D & The Boyz and Salt-N-Pepa and MC Lyte and Ice-T and Fab Five Freddy. Any industry dude that was somebody was in that battle. The vets from Caz to Jay to Red Alert to Melle Mel – everybody used to be at those battles! People probably just went to the Seminar to be at that battle. They wanted to see who was entering and who was going to win.

Tom Silverman

We tried to make sure it would be a few hours, which wasn’t always easy. [laughs] That’s why we had the countdown clock, so that we knew that each battle would only be 60 seconds and then they had to move on to the next one. It went eight to four to two. I’m pretty sure we started at eight, at least in the beginning. So we had to have twelve battles, and then there was time in between for the voting and the announcing and people booing and all that stuff! [laughs]

Mikey D

That seminar was the illest experience of my life, and the most memorable time of my whole career. All of my years of battling paid off at the New Music Seminar. Mantronik wanted us to get down with Sleeping Bag so he could produce [us]. Sleeping Bag signed us off Mantronik’s word and they asked me, “If I entered the seminar, did I think I could win?” So I went.

MC Chill

We started a whole Cleveland dominance in ‘85, because another beatboxer – Earl Hollerman – won. He beat Wise from Stetsasonic in the finals. That was the last year they had human beatboxing in the New Music Seminar. I said to [Dave] Funkenklein, “How can I get some people into the World Supremacy Battle? I got this kid named Bango, The B-Boy Outlaw.” They thinking Cleveland don’t stand a chance! Bang comes in and he’s doing real freestyles. You got cats doing writtens and then they add something at the end. He made it to the final four. He did such a good job that they said, “Next year your boy’s back in.”

Tom Silverman

The audience influenced the judges sometimes, but the judging panel was supposed to be judging things based on creativity, uniqueness, skill and then they held a number up just like the Olympics. Between the Olympics judging, the belt and basketball countdown clock, all this stuff made it really exciting. These were all the ideas that I had put together to create the format for the battle.

Mikey D

The first round was a preliminary match, I had to go up against one of my friends from Jamaica, Queens – Mr. Z. He did “We Drink Old Gold.” We went two rounds, I beat him, and then we had to come back the next day. We partied all night, ‘cos a lotta seminar events were going on. We didn’t get home until the crack of dawn, and then I had to come all the way back to the city. I didn’t get no sleep, and nobody from my crew woke up. Only me and Johnny Quest went back. I was exhausted, but the adrenaline rush from being around all of the celebrities and knowing I was about to battle knocked all of that tiredness and hangover stuff right out me. I was good! I must have gone six or seven rounds against different rappers. It was two rounds apiece until you got to the last round. I battled King Sun, MC Serch and a few others in between. Bango was the last person that I had to battle, and then I won the competition overall.

MC Chill

I thought that Bango clearly won, and a lot of people that was there thought Bango won. But if you’re from Cleveland you’re not gonna come up and win the New Music Seminar – not in New York and not in the MC battle.

THE OLD SCHOOL STRIKES BACK

DJ Johnny Juice

I was runner-up in the 1988 Battle for [World] Supremacy, behind [DJ] Scratch. That was fucked up, because my needles got stolen at that event, along with half of my records. That’s the night Mikey D battled Melle Mel. Melle came up on stage dressed like a World Wrestling Federation dude. He had these tights on and a dude with him who looked like a referee [Grandmaster Caz]. Dude was wearing a white and black striped shirt and the black pants. [Melle] said, “To be the man, you gotta beat the man! Whoever wins takes both belts home!”

MC Chill

Melle Mel just walked up on Mikey D with his belt from last year – the ’87 belt – basically saying, “Put your belt up against my belt!” Mike is like, “Ehh, I don’t know…” All the people are like, “Dude, don’t do it!”

Mikey D

He’s talking about [me], “He’s nobody! He don’t deserve this belt!” I said, “I’m not gonna battle you for the belt, ‘cos I just won this!”

DJ Johnny Juice

But the crowd was like, “What the fuck? That’s some bullshit! You gonna let him talk to you like that?” So Mikey was like, “Alright, fuck it! Let’s do it!”

Mikey D

He said his shit, and I liked it – it was pretty cute. But then it was my turn. Now this guy had the nerve to start doing push-ups on stage! I tell the guys with the SP-12’s, “Turn the music off!” I started goin’ on him, off the beats of his push-ups! The crowd went wild! That was round one.

DJ Johnny Juice

Mikey came back on his second verse and destroyed Melle. Mel came back and started doing a written rhyme – it wasn’t even a battle rhyme – and everybody started booing. In the middle of his rhymes he was like, “Fuck y’all motherfuckers! I’m takin’ the belts anyway!”

Mikey D

Grandmaster Caz picked both of the belts up when I had my back turned, and started walking off!

MC Chill

Then [Caz] gave it to Mel and they both walked out through the crowd like, “Somebody take it from me!”

DJ Johnny Juice

Mikey didn’t try to stop ‘em, and that pissed me off. I’m thinking, “Don’t let that motherfucker walk off the stage with your belt!” Mikey’s just standing there. I think he’s in shock.

Tom Silverman

Everyone in the audience was chanting, “Give back the belt! Give back the belt!” He was like the bad guy in wrestling. Every time I see him I say, “Melle Mel! When are you gonna give back the belt?” [laughs]

Mikey D

Big Daddy Kane was tryin’ to stop Melle Mel. He pushed Kane right down the stairs! He mushed Jackie Paul in her face! Jackie Paul, a main baller in the New Music Seminar! It was ridiculous, man. Grandmaster Flash came to me two days later, apologizing for Melle Mel’s actions. And what did Tom Silverman and them do? They made me a bigger and better belt. [laughs]

NEW BLOOD

Freshco

DJ Clark Kent said, “Fresh, you need to join the New Music Seminar.” That sent chills down my spine. Everyone that knew me knew how good I was, but the world didn’t know. I think Clark Kent was trying to say, “There’s a way to do this. Go into the Seminar and show everybody.” And that’s what I did. I think it was eight rounds, sixteen verses, so you went two verses against each person. That contest started somewhere around 9 AM and it wasn’t over until late that evening, so I was battling all day long. People said this was a contest that rappers who have records out were afraid of. If one of the big rappers entered the New Music Seminar and lost? It would be a problem for them. You don’t enter this thing if you are already out there, because it’s just too dangerous [for your reputation].

Tom Silverman

Some of the more established ones didn’t want to battle, ‘cos just like boxers they didn’t want to fight someone where they could possibly lose and it would affect their reputation. There were many people who turned it down.

MC Chill

The next year I got Serge in. Serge was an acronym for Serious Effects Rhymes Giving Education. Bang had hooked up with Ice-T, so by the time he came back next year, he was reppin’ Rhyme Syndicate. Serge’s first battle [was] against Masta Ace. I told Serge, “We better get in first while they don’t even know who you are. Ace probably think he got a kid from Cleveland and it’s gonna be a walk through.” Little does he know, he got a battle coming! Masta Ace kicked rhymes about who he was down with, how he was part of the Juice Crew and this and that, and Serge came and hit him in the head with, “If Run was your father and D was your mother, if somebody was your sister and so-and-so was your brother, if you went to school and KRS taught the class, I would still say a rhyme that would wax your ass!” The crowd went nuts and Ace never recovered from that.

Uptown

You get two turns to rap. One of my gimmicks was, “Alright, I’m gonna give everybody they turns, and I’m only gonna rap once!” When I started taking people out with the one rap, it was like, “Oh shit! He’s not playing!” That same year Masta Ace was in there, Lord Finesse was in there. I beat one of the guys from the Dismasters. I made it to the semifinals – it was me, Serge and Freshco. When we get into the final round, one of the associates of Tommy Boy comes up to me and says, “Freshco’s ‘4 at a Time’ is doing great right now, it would be real good if he won this contest.” I’m like, “What are you asking me to do?” While I’m talking to them, my time was running out. So I had to run on stage – if anyone has tape of that final, you’ll see I run on stage and tried to comeup with something real quick – and then Freshco kinda capitalized on it, “Why was you takin’ so long, are you scared of me / I don’t think you was prepared for me!” He said some real slick shit and he won that title.

MC Chill

There was a little break before the quarter finals, and Craig G – upset that his boy got eliminated – got on the mic during halftime and started going after Serge. So one of the coolest things during Serge’s battle is that when he got back he started rapping against the guy he was rapping [against] and then he said, “I gotta straighten out something first!” Then he dissed Craig G with a couple of verses in response while he was in the crowd, then went back to the guy who he was actually battling and beat him!

Freshco

These guys went into the contest with maybe a punchline on bar eight and a punchline on bar fourteen. I went into that contest with a punchline every two bars. It was like if somebody takes a razor blade and starts slashing at your face. There was nothing anybody can do! I went up against Mikey D and I beat him. Kool Moe Dee dissed Busy Bee back in the day, and every bar was a death blow. So when I went into the New Music Seminar I tried to do the exact same thing as Kool Moe Dee! I ate them all up!

Mikey D was supposed to be “the guy,” like no one could beat him. Before he went against me, he was thinking he was gonna eat me up, and I’m thinking, “You are not going to be able to survive this! Not with these little raps about garbage cans and all this stuff.” The guy that I battled in the finals was MC Serge from Cleveland. I think I did my best stuff against Serge. I was a fan of Serge after the contest. His style and performance were the smoothest thing ever. I still believe I rightfully won, because every other bar I was coming strong, and Serge kinda did a thing where every few bars you would hear something cute – but I was going for heads.

MC Chill

Serge made it to the finals against Freshco, and again I suggest that the Cleveland correspondent won that round. If you look at the tape – I hate to say that the fix was in, but in an MC battle, whoever gets to go last will probably win. MC Serch was the MC for the battle, and he did the coin flip. Serge actually won the coin toss, and then Serch said, “OK Serge, you go first!” I’m like, “What kinda shit is that!? Why did y’all make him go first?” Freshco was nice, and I’m sure that I’m biased, but most of the people there thought that Serge won.

MF Grimm

I was there for just about all of those battles. If you were an up and coming MC, there was no way you could not be in the Battle for World Supremacy and talk about how you’ve got an album coming out. People would not take you seriously! You had to be in that. There was one cat that went against Masta Ace, his name was Bango. Masta Ace was the favorite, but he gave it Masta Ace that year! Bango was a problem back then. Bango and Finesse both went to Rhyme Syndicate then. Lord Finesse battled Mikey D and Lord Finesse won.

Mikey D

I came back the next year and they put me up against Lord Finesse. They had judges this time, and they said Lord Finesse won. Unfortunately they said his rhymes were better than mine, it wasn’t the crowd’s decision.

Lord Finesse

I battled the champion from the year before, Mikey D. I made it through the eight and I was at the four and if I would’ve made it to the two it would have been me and Freshco. I battled the dude named Serge. The crowd thought I beat him, but the judges voted for him. I did stumble on a line, but the rhyme was so prolific that the crowd was like, “Yo, Finesse!” Not to take nothing away from Serge, he was dope. I felt some type of way because I wanted to win, but that was then. I’m not mad at nothing that went down.

THE CLEVELAND CONNECTION

MC Chill

At that point they like, “Chill, you got the golden ticket brother! Whoever you callin’ out from now on, you got an automatic in!” So I got this kid Dale – Chilly-D – this white kid. Serge, in my opinion, took the competition a little too lightly that year and he got eliminated in the first round, being a little too casual. He went to the first round thinking that he had a pass to the finals. I’m like, “Dude, you in a battle and you’re on stage drinking martinis like you’re in concert in Vegas! Dude, this is a frickin’ rap battle!” So he lost, fooling around, walking across the stage like he Bing Crosby or somebody. But Dale is still in, and I knew it was gonna be a trip ‘cos he was a white cat and I don’t think they was ready for that. So he took out this girl easily, and then he had to go against Treach from Naughty By Nature.

Freshco

This white guy, who was a friend of Serge, he was so comfortable – he talked about Treach’s du-rag. He was just funny! If some guy gets the crowd, that can be it for you. Treach did not lose because he wasn’t good enough. He lost because that guy was just comfortable at being able to roll with whatever the hell was happening. The crowd was like, “Oh my god, this guy has no fear!”

MC Chill

The most famous line of that whole battle, which is probably the only line that anybody ever heard – because after that they just went nuts – was actually a rhyme that me and Smooth hooked up in the back. The line was, “Fetch this Treach!” Then he grabbed his nuts. “I don’t care who brag / I’ll snatch that shit off your head and blow my nose on your durag!” He went out and said that and the crowd went nuts. There was no recovery for Treach.

SOMETIMES WHEN YOU LOSE, YOU REALLY WIN

Percee-P

We was with Steve D when he won his championship. As a matter of fact, the 1990 New Music Seminar – I was actually one of the MC’s that was in the battle. I didn’t win the championship, but I won placement, ‘cos to be in there you had to send in like three verse or four on a cassette tape. Ekim got in it, too. That’s where I met Maestro Fresh Wes.

MF Grimm

I only lost one battle, and that was against Supernatural in the Battle for World Supremacy, 1993. Puffy was the judge, so what does that really tell you? You might as well have got someone from a bakery to be the judge. Clark Kent changed the rules – it was supposed to be two rounds of 90 seconds, but it was switched to one round of 60 seconds. “Grimm Reaper, you go first.” It was a no-win situation to a degree, ‘cos it left me no room to respond to what he had to say. So he won. When you’re battling against someone that’s funny, there’s no way you can win, no matter how dope your lyrics are. It’s like a politician debating a comedian. Laughter will always win. From the moment I lost that battle with Supernatural, I dedicated myself to being a writer. No more battling. I’mma learn to be like Edgar Allen Poe.

Tom Silverman

Freshco and Miz won one year. Tommy Boy signed them and put them together as an act, but it didn’t work. It turned out that a lot of the battle rappers weren’t able to have hit records, because it’s a different skill. You need musical hooks, too. Battle rapping has nothing to do with the kind of rapping that can sell records or make a musical contribution. Why they can’t work together is something I’ve never really understood. I guess being creative and musical doesn’t win you a battle – talking about your momma wins you a battle. That’s entertainment. It got down to the lowest common denominator.

A.G.

It used to be a real big thing and I used to look forward to it for real, and then after a while it started getting watered down. It started getting really corny – the guys who were winning weren’t really supposed to be winning and the guys who lost went on to make hit records, so it was like, “OK, I’m not concerned with that anymore.” I was thinking about getting in it, because that’s my sport, but all the dope dudes who made the hit songs didn’t win.

The Battle For World Supremacy finished after 1994, when the New Music Seminar went on hiatus until 2009, when it was re-launched by Tom Silverman and Dave Lory and continues to operate annually to this day – minus the battles.