The Original Flavor Unit: An Oral History

The original Flavor Unit is best known for launching the careers of Naughty By Nature and Queen Latifah, but at their creative peak, The 45 King’s team of New Jersey MC’s could hold their own against the best from Brooklyn, Queens, the Bronx and Long Island. Sophisticated lyricists such as Chill Rob G, Lakim Shabazz and Latee displayed strong voices and even tougher vocabularies, backed by the irresistible horns and basslines of The 45 King.

Unfortunately, much like their more famous contemporaries the Juice Crew, it wasn’t long before record label politics, egos and money issues saw them splinter, leaving Queen Latifah and her partner Shakim to re-assemble the crew into two subsequent incarnations [Roll Wit The Flava in 1993 and 100% Hater Proof in 2002] and carry on the name as a film and television company.

In this oral history, many of the crew’s original members look back at this hugely creative period.

THE BASEMENT

Chill Rob G

I was friends with Apache and Latee. We went to high school together out here in Jersey City, and then they moved to Irvington, and that’s where they met Mark [The 45 King]. Mark had just moved to Irvington from Queens – he was living in Hollis.

Markey Fresh

I was born and raised in the Bronxdale projects. Afrika Bambaataa used to come through there all the time, playing his music outside on the basketball court, and I just got consumed by that.

We moved to New Jersey when I was about 16. I went to school one day and this guy brung a tape in. I was like, “Man, where’d you get that from?” He said, “From this guy named Mark. He lives around the corner from the school.” I went straight over there into the basement, and I was there every day after that, because he was the only one in New Jersey playing hip hop – everyone else was into house. He would have all the breakbeat parts and I would just rhyme over it. I used to kill “Impeach The President.” I was the first one down in that basement, and after three years that’s when everybody else came out of the woodwork, because Mark started becoming known.

Double J

Me, Apache and Latee – we went to school together. I wasn’t really into writing rhymes ‘cos I’m trying to raise a kid real early. When the music wasn’t giving me no checks, I’ve still got to put milk on the table and [buy] Pampers. So I had to keep living the street life and rhyme every chance I could. Meeting with Mark in ‘86, I heard everybody speaking of the basement, but when I started out we were in the attic in East Orange. Mark had the microphones screwed into the wall, like four mics lined up, and everybody used to come up there, rhymin’. We started to make so much noise he had to leave. Then we went down to the basement where we continued making the noise.

Lakim Shabazz

When I first met Mark it was through this guy Abdul that was managing me. He had let Mark hear my demo – it was called, “Girly, Girly Girl.” I had actually did a Grover Washington [“Mr. Magic”] beat with my mouth, I beatboxed the whole beat. This guy I used to hang out with named OP used to go up to Mark’s basement. Eventually he took me up there and we would sit around in 45 King’s basement and watch videos of him spinning and Tito from the Fearless Four rhyming. I had to be around the 11th grade at this stage. I graduated from high school in ‘86, I started hanging with Biz [Markie], and around 1988 Biz was working on the “Vapors” album [Goin’ Off] and he was telling me I need to wait for him. [But] I was an eager beaver and I had met 45 King.

Markey Fresh

I met Latee, then he brought in Apache. Then Latifah came down, and everybody looked at her as the girl that wanted to be on the baseball team, but didn’t think she could hit any home runs. But we let her try out, and she killed it! She became a member.

Chill Rob G

I met Latee at a party, he told me he knew this guy who did beats and I should come by the crib. So I went down there one night, and Mark put a beat on and everybody started rhyming and they just passed the mic to me and I said a couple of rhymes that I had written – I always just wrote rhymes just for the hell of it. He asked Latee for my phone number and called me up like a day later, and was like, “Yo Rob, what you were sayin’ in the basement was kinda dope. I wanna make the record with you.”

The 45 King

The turnstile? It was in front of somebody’s house that lived down the block from me, on Stuyvesant Avenue. It was there every night when I used to come home from work, I’d walk by. One day I caught him outside and I said, “Ay, why don’t you sell that to me?” He gave me some crazy-ass price, and I said, “Man, I coulda stole the shit! The shit’s been out here for weeks. I coulda came and took it, and you gonna sell it to me for some crazy-ass price? How ‘bout this – I give ya 20 dollars and you help me carry it down the block!”

Markey Fresh

I hated that turnstile! When I first went down there, it was just a bunch of crates filled with records, two turntables and a microphone. That’s all I needed to see.

Lakim Shabazz

He has that same turnstile in his [new] home, it leads from the studio to the bathroom. Mark is real creative when it comes to that. In his living room now, he has a booth that you would see in a restaurant that you can sit in and eat. When he was living on 43rd Street, his microphone booth was an old glass telephone booth. That’s what we recorded in. Mark is a technical genius.

The 45 King

Puffy been through that – Biggie, Tupac, Busta. Jay-Z been through this turnstile – a lotta people, man. Q-Tip used to sit on the turnstile!

Lord Ali Ba-Ski

Chill Rob or Latee used to have to be the ones that asked him to throw some music on so we could freestyle. We used to be down there for hours, like a golf round. Be down for three or four hours straight, freestylin’. Everybody with mad material. I don’t think anybody had more verses than me, Chill Rob and Lakim. When they said all they could say, we was still goin’ back to back. Mark’s still got all them old freestyles, he used video some of them! He don’t throw nothing away.

RADIO DAYS

The 45 King

I wasn’t pressing up any rap records, because nobody was finishing ‘em. You had to have a finished song instead of just a freestyle. So I just kept the MC’s off and I really didn’t have too many problems [selling records].

Chill Rob G

I was one of the later members to come along. It was Latifah, Apache and Latee – just those three. Mark used to give Red Alert beats for maybe a year before I even met him, and Red Alert would just play the beat on the show when he would interview people – but nobody would rhyme to it!

Lakim Shabazz

I had been hearing his name on the radio through Red Alert on 98.7 KISS. They used to be playing all these different joints with this “45 King Special!” I asked Biz to give me his number, I called Mark and he remembered me and I went over to his house a few times and kicked some rhymes for him. Eventually I met the rest of the original Flavor Unit members and we developed a family structure where we would all come to 45 King’s house and we would vibe to beats.

The 45 King

Red started to play a little demo that I made with Markey Fresh. Red Alert put me on – he was the first person on the radio that took interest – and then I knew Chuck Chillout also. I grew up with Chuck Chillout up in the Bronx. I can’t forget him.

Aaron Fuchs

Red Alert was a DJ of rare honesty, he played a record if he liked it. You didn’t have to pay him. He was partial to The 45 King, so making records with The 45 King wasn’t rocket science. The whole Flavor Unit thing was something that grew hugely because of the politics of radio in New York City. Mr. Magic was a silent partner in Cold Chillin’, he had a share of the records that he played, Marley was his DJ. They were able to make the record that they had a share in and promote it on the airwaves. Combine that with Marley’s excellence, Red Alert had to fight back! So Red Alert developed his “golden children,” if you will, that he could get exclusives with. The 45 King was one such artist, Boogie Down Productions was another.

THE ORIGINAL UNIT

Double J

At the beginning, we’d be all in the basement and we was wondering what should we call it. Should we call it the “Flavor Posse”? It was already the Juice Crew, so we couldn’t use the “Flavor Crew.” I think it was Lakim Shabazz that said, “Let’s call it the Flavor Unit.” Ever since then, that’s what we rolled with. The word “Flavor” was Latee from “This Cut’s Got Flavor,” ‘cos that was the first record outta the crew that was poppin’ on the radio.

Lord Ali Ba-Ski

That whole name was created by Latee. That whole idea was his from the beginning.

Markey Fresh

Latee got his single deal first, then Latifah got her album deal, and then Lakim got his album deal and then I got my single deal. When Latifah got her deal, that’s when it became the Flavor Unit. Before that, everybody was just doin’ their own thing.

Lakim Shabazz

The original Flavor Unit consisted of me, Double J, Lord Ali Ba-Ski, Apache, Latee, Nikki D, this guy named Taheed, another guy named Jamaheed – that was his brother – 45 King and Queen Latifah. Everyone else came later. Markey Fresh would come around, but he didn’t hang with the Flavor Unit members like that. He was Mark’s man, but he didn’t do a lot with us..

Markey Fresh

We were still down in the basement together, but as they got their deals and went on tour, they seemed to not remember who I was for some reason. I don’t feel like I was ever a part of the Flavor Unit, because when they did things they didn’t call me, like, “C’mon Mark, let’s go!” They just left without me. I was like that black sheep of the family. The whole group would go, and I would stay. But I was doin’ my own thing.

Lord Ali Ba-Ski

Apache and Latee, they my first cousins. They pretty much pulled me in the game. They was goin’ over to East Orange, New Jersey – to Mark’s house – and they asked me to go one day. I used to be in there, sipping on my 40s while they was doin’ their thing, and then just outta the blue one day I shocked all of ‘em and said something that I had written, and they was all on the ground rollin’ and laughin’ and cracking up! After that it was one verse after the other, it never stopped. All it did was get better.

Chill Rob G

The Flavor Unit was a lotta MC’s, so the competition was really healthy and it was always present, so you don’t want to waste no time or appear like you don’t know what you doing! Other rappers is watching you, man! You got Latee and Apache standing right there! And they nice! Mark would try to gas you up when you were in the booth, “You know Kool G Rap gonna hear this shit. Don’t be no sucker in there!” He’d walk off and you’d be like, “Yeah, Kane and them might listen.” And you’d try to bring it to make sure you don’t sound wack when they hear it.

THE ASSASSINATION SQUAD

Lakim Shabazz

The Juice Crew had just dropped “Symphony.” We were rivals, but we were all cool – like I said, I knew Biz. We wanted to give everybody a posse song that can possibly run neck and neck with “The Symphony.” It was fun doing “Flavor Unit Assassination Squad.” Mark found the beat, one day we came over his crib, he was like, “Yo, listen to this James Brown loop! I want all of y’all rhymin’ on it for this compilation album.”

Chill Rob G

When we was in the studio they were like, “We might have to clear this with Stu Fine [owner of Wild Pitch Records]. We don’t wanna deal with Stu Fine!” So me and Latee was off that record. We was both there – before they recorded, we were just whylin’ in the booth. We should have recorded that, that woulda been a hot record!

Aaron Fuchs

I contributed to the creation of the Lakim Shabazz persona. Listening to hip hop shows, so many dedications came from prison – people with Islamic names – so MC La Kim became Lakim Shabazz. All due respect to his legitimate involvement with his Islamic faith, but we played it up. At that time, I believed that the wall of a record store called Music Factory in Times Square was an international communications medium. I knew that European tourists shopped there too, so I made the Lakim Shabazz album just so I could put him in a picture with a kufi and a dashiki. We couldn’t use the whole body [on the cover] because there were Levis and Pro Keds sticking out from under the dashiki!

Lakim Shabazz

I got knowledge of self when I was 13 and I didn’t get signed to Tuff City until I was 20, so travelling to Africa was always a dream of mine. Never in my lifetime did I think I’d be doing a video there [“The Lost Tribe of Shabazz”]. I presented the idea to Aaron, and before you knew it I got a call saying I was going to Egypt! To this day, I’m grateful. I think I’m the only rapper to actually film a video there. There’s no props, I’m actually floating down the Nile River. I was there for a week, I stayed in different parts of the country. I was in Luxor, Aswan and Cairo. It was a beautiful experience.

Dante Ross

45 King came up to me at the Latin Quarters. He put headphones in my ear, on a fuckin’ Walkman, and said, “Yo, listen.” It was some crazy promo he used to have on Red Alert. He played me beats, I was like, “Oh my god! You’re incredible!” I’d never even heard nothing like that, I was just so impressed. I was like, “You have any groups?” He was like, “I got my whole Flavor Unit. I’ma come play you shit.” He called me with Fab Five Freddy on the phone and he started playing me artists. He played me Queen Latifah, and I was like, “She sounds dope!” He brought her to meet me, then we played basketball down the block from Tommy Boy with my man Latee. I ended up signing her and I was there when we made the first two singles. It’s the thing that my mom’s most proud of I ever did.

TEAMWORK

Lord Ali Ba-Ski

Anything you hear with 45 King where he’s rhyming on a song? Either I wrote it or Lakim Shabazz wrote it. I didn’t get no royalties or nothing for it – I just did it for him ‘cos that’s my man. If you look at Latifah’s first album, I wrote a song on there for her too, and I wrote his verses. That shit was hot, for a duo. It had the vicious horns on there!

Lakim Shabazz

Out of all the MC’s in the Flavor Unit, I developed the closest relationship with Apache and Latee, because they were brothers. Me and Apache were real tight. Apache would stay on you to be the best that you can be. He brought the beast out of me, lyrically, and I did the same for him. What a lot of people don’t know is, a lot of the rhymes that they hear on Apache’s album – I wrote – and a lot of stuff that you hear from me – he wrote. Or he would give me certain ideas and I would give him certain ideas. You’ll hear our influence on Latifah’s album. I wrote a song, it’s called “Queen of Royal Badness.” Some of her lyrics on “King and Queen Creation” I wrote. Some of her lyrics on “Ladies First” I wrote – me and Apache.

CHANGING OF THE GUARD

Lord Ali Ba-Ski

Me, Latee, Chill Rob and Lakim – everybody learned from our mistakes. Apache just waited everything out to see how this game was gonna go. Latifah had the first, best deal, and then Double J had a chance with 4th & Broadway, and then Apache got the next deal when he brought “Gangsta Bitch” out. Then came all the new Flavor Unit people – Naughty By Nature, Black Sheep and all them cats. They learned from our mistakes not to jump in the fire like that.

Lakim Shabazz

How Naughty By Nature got down with the Flavor Unit? We used to go over to Mark’s house and chill. One day he showed us a video tape of these guys from East Orange, and it was Treach and Vinnie. Their name was The New Style. They were rhyming, and after we listened to it I said, “The other guy is okay, but I’m really feeling the guy with the braids.” That was Treach. Apache was like, “Yeah, I like him too.” So that was that. Me and Apache started taking Treach out with us to all the little industry parties and, before you knew it, we had Treach in the MC Battle for the New Music Seminar. We were taking him to meet Latifah and Shakim and they got a deal with Tommy Boy.

Chill Rob G

I was on the road somewhere at the time, and when I came back, Latee and Mark and Apache were in the basement and they were talking about how Latifah and Shakim came and told them that they incorporated the name Flavor Unit. I said, “Word? So what did y’all say?” They said, “We’re gonna rock with it, cos it’s gonna end up to everybody’s benefit. They gonna have the company name but we’re all gonna share the profits.” I was like, “Did everybody sign deals that said that?” They like, “Nah, we didn’t get to that part yet.”

Lakim Shabazz

Latifah was the one who became the most successful. She had the finances to incorporate the name and to build a brand around it. We sat down as a unit and discussed this, and everyone came to the agreement that it was okay for her to do that. So she incorporated the name and they got Flavor Unit Management, and eventually they built the label and the movie company and the rest is history! At one point in time, we had a family-knit circle, but as they say, money changes people.

DUSTED

The 45 King

I was fuckin’ up my career by smokin’ angel dust, and the word got out that I was doing all types of drugs. So people didn’t want my beats as bad as they did at the beginning.

Markey Fresh

I was upset that he allowed himself to do that. Warner gave him a recording deal and a budget for $250,000 and he acted like he had seven million – he got three apartments in one building, only lived in one. One was supposed to be for the office and one for the studio. That was a waste of money – he could have bought a house and put everything in there. People started coming out of the woodwork! I’d never seen them in my life, and he’s just giving them money. I’d say within a year all of that was gone and he had to move back into his mom’s house – back in the basement. You know how some people win the lottery and just go crazy? That’s what happened to him. I guess he thought it was gonna last forever. The guy that gave him the deal dropped him like a hot potato.

Lakim Shabazz

I don’t think Mark was able to handle the fame and the fortune the way it had came in like that. I stayed by his side through all that turmoil. He carries a lot of pain from what he did in the industry, and he lets those little demons and ghosts follow him.

PARTY’S OVER

Lord Ali Ba-Ski

Apache got the biggest shine – not including Naughty By Nature and Latifah – as far as the original Flavor Unit cats. He had a $250,000 budget with his label [Tommy Boy]. Apache did show after show after show. He used to get anywhere from seven G’s to 20 G’s a show! He went through some money. This guy used to get so high and drunk – his whole thing was a big ‘ol party. Then he bloated all the way up to 300 and something pounds, and mind you he’s like only five foot nine. The guy’s almost bed-ridden from getting so big.

Lakim Shabazz

Once his album had came out, [there was] excessive drinking, excessive smoking – and his eating habits had gotten outrageous. His death was because of heart failure. When he died, a part of me died, because that was my man through thick and thin. He would make you stand up and be the best that you can be, lyrically, and I loved him for that. He’ll always be my man, for life.

Chill Rob G

The Flavor Unit was a beautiful thing when it happened, but it’s over. The Juice Crew was great when it was jumping off, that’s done. We were all trapped in that little bubble right there and blew up out of it. Great memories and good friends left over. It was cool.

Lakim Shabazz

The music industry can put a whuppin’ on you. If you don’t have nobody in your corner, striving to direct you in the right direction? It can get you! I’m speaking from experience. I’m not gonna sit here and kick Latifah’s back in, however if we were still a tight family, we should be under her umbrella. It’s not like we wanna be rich, you should put us in a situation where at least we’re all working under the Flavor Unit umbrella. Knowing that Latifah and Shakim are multi-millionaires – no way, shape, form or fashion should 45 King be worrying about how he’s gonna pay his rent! However, I wish Latifah all the success in the world. I don’t have nothing but love for her and Shakim.

Latee and Queen Latifah were not available for comment. Apache passed away at the age of 45, on January 22, 2010. Mikey Fresh died in May of that same year.