LargeUp Interview: On the Loose with Red Fox

Words by Jesse Serwer, photos by Ashley Sebok—

You can’t talk about dancehall in New York City without the name Red Fox. The rough-voiced deejay’s combination tunes with Screechy Dan (“Pose Off”) and Naturalee (“Down in Jamaica”) and performances during what some might call the “Biltmore era” are definitive artifacts of an time when NYC, and BK in particular, was carving its own lane within Jamaican music. And his collaborations with people like Brand Nubian and DJ Premier reflect a moment when the exchange between hip-hop and dancehall was at its most fruitful.

After some years on the the sidelines, Red has been particularly prolific in 2013—having dropped numerous singles, not to mention a third child, born just a day before our interview —so we thought the time was right to re-introduce him to those who of you who haven’t gotten the memo. Our man in Sweden, DJ Shirkhan of Safari Sound, brought the Fiyah Fox concept to us, and executed the mixtape with a combination of freestyles (like “We Run the Party” feat. Screechy Dan), dubplate versions, and brand-new material.

Download Fiyah Fox here, and read on for the full Red Fox story from front to back. Pull up a chair and fix yourself a drink, cause this isn’t your ordinary dancehall artist interview. Red goes in on everything from his conflicted youth in JA to his Chris Rock-like high school experience in Brooklyn, to parenting and the meaning of life itself. Catch up to him if you can.

LargeUp: Where did things begin for you?

Red Fox: I was born in Jamaica, UC Hospital. My mom migrated to the States, to New York, when I was probably three, and my father dropped me off in this place called Brown’s Hall in St. Catherine, way up in the bush. I was there until I was maybe 13 then I came back to Portmore and when I was 16 came to the States.

LU: Was it in Jamaica or in Brooklyn that you began making music?

RF: Well, I was always dancing. People used to watch me dance. I was so little and skinny and I used to whine up myself a lot. When I was about 10, I was a big, big fan of Yellowman. Because I have such a light complexion people used to call me “Yellow.” So I used to imitate his songs. One evening, I and this kid called Gibbs were hanging out, and singing some Yellowman songs, and I twisted the song in my own way—put it in my own words. I felt like I wrote something, so I was excited. We were actually in a clash and he killed me [because] he knew all of General Echo’s songs [and] was singing the songs like it was his—I didn’t know any of the songs. I was amazed by the lyrics, so I got even more interested. I started to write rhymes, and I got two of my classmates involved and then that’s how it started.

LU: Were there any artists or musicians around you?

RF: My grandmother had a grocery store, and across the street was the primary school I attended, Brown’s Hall Primary, so whenever they keep a dance, that’s where the dance will keep. It was literally a couple seconds for me to get there. They used to have all of the big sounds like Metromedia, Black Scorpio. That would be Easter, Christmas..and Independence Day, so three dances. And the community people [would] make sure that I get the microphone early in the evening to spit whatever I wanna. My first artist really to watch to get the real feel of it, on a big scale, was Peter Metro.

Continue reading here.

LU: What was the experience of coming to New York like?

RF: It was a mixed emotion for me because my mother came to the States [when I was three] and my father died when I was five, and I was always told I was coming to the States, so I spent my entire youth thinking that I’m coming to America. I never really focused on what was going on in Jamaica because I was like, I’m not gonna be here. Then, year after year, I’m still finding myself in Jamaica. All my siblings were here [in the US]. I was the only one left. I gave up hope to come here anymore, so I started thinking about becoming a jockey. I was five feet, 80 pounds. The trainers loved me because I was a high school graduate—they wanted somebody like me to school. Then when the papers came through for me to come here, I was unsure because I felt like I was left behind in Jamaica. But I came. In Jamaica, you’re almost told  there’s gold lining the streets of America. You come with this idea of this lavish place…

LU: But you’re coming to Brooklyn in the 80s!

RF: When I got to Brooklyn and I saw the building that I’m going to on Nostrand Avenue, I wasn’t so impressed. I was really miserable for, like, two years. It took me two years to start liking America. The name Red Fox was really popular in St. Catherine High School, I’m used to all these girls, this entourage around me—I had a whole crew back home called Arrows Posse—so I’m trying to figure out how I’m going to fit in.

It took me six months to even figure out how to talk to a girl because all these Italian girls [at New Utrecht High School in Bensonhurst] came with all these diamonds, flossed out. They looked expensive. I had a bushy, red fro, and I wasn’t getting any attention until I got a high-top fade, and bought myself some clothes because I got a job. I came back to school that Monday morning and started getting girls. Eventually I met up with the rest of the Jamaican guys that were going to New Utrecht, and they happened to be LP International, the sound system. I was actually booked to sing on a sound called Magnum and I was gonna clash LP. So we went to the clash and, you know, it was interesting. I came in and mashed up di place on the sound that I was on, but the other guys didn’t want to give me back the mic. LP saw the opportunity to grab me and say come over to our sound. I said, fuck it, and started singing for them and clashing against the sound that I came to help.

LU: Whoa. How did you link with the rest of the Ruff Entry Crew?

RF: I met Screechy Dan first, at Club Callaloo on Eastern Parkway. When I just came to Brooklyn somebody took me to Starlight Ballroom, and Screechy was hot in Brooklyn. He reminded me of Professor Nuts. But the first person I started to hang with tight was Shaggy. Shaggy’s the type of dude that finds who [he] need[s] to hang with to get somewhere. I had “Come Boogie Down,” a hit record at the time, and “Down in Jamaica,” and I started taking him around to shows. Sting and I started the Signet label with Ben Sokolov, and I brought Shaggy there and then Screechy, and Screechy brought Nikey Fungus and Baja Jedd. Ben Sokolov came to do a compilation album at HC&F studio and I liked the way Ben went about doing the business and I wanted to have my own label where I do all my work. I called Ben and said I would like to work with your label— Sting [International] and I, so he said sure, and Sting started his production then.

LU: How did you start to make inroads into hip-hop?

RF: Sting and I started to experiment and we did a track, Naturalee and I, called “Lets Chill.” We did over the song that Guy did. Red Alert started to push that song on Kiss FM at the time, really hard. We started to experiment with some more hip-hop/reggae-type stuff and, performing at the [Greenwich Villlage club] Underground, Brian Nubian used to check me out. A lot of hip-hop artists used to come to the shows to check me out—even Mike Tyson sometimes. I used to really, really, pack it, and a lot of celebrities used to come but I had no knowledge of it. These girls told me, Lord Jamar from Brand Nubian is looking for you to do a record. And we did one called “Black Starliner” on their In God We Trust album. The guy who was managing me, Erskine Isaac, booked hip-hop acts, so whatever show those guys are doing, he would put me on. He started to link me with all the hip-hop producers like [DJ] Premier and all dem, trying to get me in the hip-hop market.

LU: Was that something you were into at the time?

RF: In the studio, if you have a hip-hop track, if you have a reggae track, it doesn’t matter to me. You could have a country and western track, if I feel like I could come up with a song, I’m gonna come up with a song, that’s just what I like to do. Whatever sounds good, I’m with it, so it’s not something I thought about, it’s just something that happened.

Continue reading here.

LU: How come the other songs that you were doing at the time that were dancehall hits that were with other artists, like say, “Pose Off” didn’t end up on the album?

RF: Good question. I think Red Alert put “Pose Off” and “Let’s Chill” on an Epic album – I remember that they licensed it. I think, and no disrespect to the management, but I had an American manager and I don’t think he understood the history of where I was coming from, and what needed to be done because really, and truly, those songs needed to be put on the album, but we didn’t do it.

LU: Were you consciously doing combination tunes since you had so much success with songs like “Down In Jamaica” and “Pose Off.”

RF: I like combinations songs for the fact that, [people] who don’t understand patois, could sing along with [what] the vocalist is singing. They can catch the chorus, and figure the rest out later. Me singing a record in pure patois, sometimes to the foreigners, it’s like listening to a French song, and you don’t speak French, or listening to Spanish stations. I was well aware of that, and I like melodies. When you have a singer doing the hook and you have an nice little melody, it gives you something nice to work around.

LU: There was a phenomenon in the ’90s, where you had all these Jamaican dancehall artists getting signed to major record labels, and the labels not really understanding the market. Almost everybody, with the exception of Shaggy and Shabba, did one album, it didn’t sell much, and that was the end of the deal. We could list dozens of artists, and you were one. Did that slow down your ability to make music?

RF: I wouldn’t say slow down, but it was a major transition I had to make because, before I got signed, I was just used to making show money. When I got signed— I think I got signed at the time for $150,000 with a $10,000 bonus, with a $50,000 publishing deal from EMI— I have all this money overnight. After the deal, I was trying to figure out where do you go from that point. There’s a lot of lessons I learned because I was like a baby when I got signed to Elektra. I had no knowledge of anything. I don’t know what my manager’s supposed to be doing. Once Elektra dropped me, I started to try to put things into perspective and order, and I ended up doing an album spur of the moment with Philip Smart, Face the Fox, for VP Records.

I was trying to figure myself out as a person. It never had anything to do with the music at that point. I had a lot of thing to figure out as far as my broughtupsy, my mother leaving when I was three, my father committing suicide, all these dysfunctions. I wanted to get my mind right more than anything else. I wasn’t really thinking I need to have a hot song right now, killing the place right now, I wanted to fix myself, give myself therapy, figure myself out, so I could have a healthy state of mind and make sense of what I was doing. Through that process, I ended up touring with Maxi Priest. I did like a 10-year tour with Maxi Priest, and that’s what took me away from doing a lot of recording. I was just on the road, and I liked being on the road. I was away from all the drama in Brooklyn, I was away from everything. I just felt at peace when I was touring, I wasn’t thinking like, Oh shit I don’t even got a recording done.

LU: Around then, your friend Shaggy was becoming this major artist. Were you around for that?

RF: Shaggy and I weren’t talking for probably 10 years. He was the one who told Maxi Priest to bring me on the road to add something to his show and, even when he did that, we weren’t even talking. We just had a lot of falling outs and it became really ugly at one point. When he did Hot Shot and sold like 12 million, I had to live that everyday in the streets of Brooklyn. Wherever I go, someone is coming to me like, Yo! Bwoy teef yuh style! ‘Im teef yuh diss, ‘im teef yuh voice! I gotta live that every single day. I had to keep telling people listen, he didn’t steal anything, we used to hang together, I brought a lot of things to the table, he learned a lot from me, and he’s doing well, Be happy for him.

Listening to that on a daily basis, when you’re going through struggles, you can eventually start buying into it. I wouldn’t say I bought into it, but there were moments where Shaggy might have done something that pissed me off that made me lean over to whatever negativity they were saying in the streets. It became really sticky and ugly, and I felt I needed to kill that drama so I called him up, had a long, long talk with him, and he invited me to his studio and we started chillin’, and slowly built back our relationship to the point where we’re at right now.

LU: Good. It seems like you are working together a lot now.

RF: Yeah, definitely. He came up with the Ranch label lately and I do a lot of work over there. That’s the studio I use to do all my tracks right now.

Continue reading here.

LU: What did you learn from Shaggy’s success?

RF: The first conversation — before we even can talk about that — we were in Jamaica before we had the falling out and I took him to Jollies Restaurant in Portmore to eat some fish. I had just got signed and he was signed to Virgin. I was telling him I want to sing songs to fight the struggle, to help the people, and he was like Well, I want to sing happy songs, I want to sing nice songs, I want the mansions, I want the beautiful life. He got all the things that he was dreaming for, and I pretty much got what I was dreaming about. What I’ve learned is, he’s the type of dude that is very disciplined because he was in the Marines for four years. He went to war. He’s drilled, well-trained. They teach you to keep your eyes on the target regardless of what is going on. I’m the type of person that my mind is all over the place. So I’ve learned from him staying focused and disciplined at your craft, and not getting distracted by irrelevant, unnecessary things.

LU: Were there any people in your career who gave you valuable advice?

RF: Beres Hammond. I did a couple tours with Beres, and we always share the same tour bus. I get to sit down and listen to his advice all day. Whenever he sees me, he treats me like his son because he feels like I’m this dude that is so talented but I eff around a lot and he tries to make me do what I need to be doing, like my daddy you know? Yeah, Beres Hammond. Johnnie Ringo use[d] himself as a example for me not to ever use drugs. He told me he came to America and became a drunkie, and I should stay far from drugs. Super Cat told me after “Jamaica Nice” came out that I should not over record myself and become stale. I should just try and balance myself in middle because once you’re on top you only fall to the bottom.

LU: What are some things you would recommend to an artist coming out now trying to do dancehall, to distinguish yourself.

RF: It’s a different time now. Technology has changed the whole recording scene. Before, when we went to studio, we had to sing a hook, four or five times. Now you have to sing the hook once, and they fly the hook. If you’re off key back in the day, you had to find the key or go home, and study how to hit back that key. Now there’s a machine to put you on key. There’s no development for the artist now because of technology, and that’s something that will never come back. Dem days days is done, now it’s digital. It is what is it is.

The only thing you can tell an artist right now is to practice his craft. Train yourself to develop your vocal skills. Develop a passion for the music. I find they don’t necessarily have a passion for the music, they have a passion for the business, the image, and they have a passion for the profile, but they don’t have a passion for the music itself because it’s all popcorn, digital, computerized. They don’t even know what real music is supposed to sound like. You have a memory of it, they don’t. They think this is what it’s supposed to sound like, and what you’re talking about they’re like “Oh, you’re just old guys.” Back in the day when I just started, the older guys were telling me, “Ah, your music is rubbish,” and I was like whatever, too. They would have to go and listen to all the old veteran artists, listen to what they were doing, and learn something from it, because that’s the only way.

LU: What have you been doing since you stopped touring?

RF: Having kids [laughing]. I always wanted kids so when I came off the road, I knew I needed to have some kids. I feel like if I’m just performing and having all this success, and I ain’t got no kids, I’m empty. I need to sow a seed and watch that seed grow to actually motivate me within this time, because you need something to motivate you. I never used to be that motivated because I had no kids, I was just living for me. I might not go [to] the studio, I might not wake up until 3 o’clock in the afternoon and sleep the day away, because I ain’t got no mouth to feed but my own. You have kids, you’re really motivated. I’ve recorded this year more than I have my entire life, because of my kids. I’m driven by my children, I have to feed them and they motivate me. I have more things to sing about, I have way more substance than before. So I’ve been doing a lot of recording.

LU: Had you done a mixtape before?

RF: I’ve done dancehall cassettes, like working on soundsystem and stuff like that but, as far as a mixtape, this is my first one.

LU: What will people find on the Fiyah Fox mixtape?

RF: What I try fi do with this tape is: there’s a style that we create here in Brooklyn, between Screechy Dan, myself, and probably a few other artists—a certain flow, because we flow! In Jamaica, they DJ. We DJ here, but we are very in tune with flowing, like rappers. We can deliver Jamaican patois like a rapper rapping in America, so I try to do a couple hip-hop tracks presenting that kind of style, and getting involved with singing all the cultural, life issues, reality stuff and gangster stuff, girl stuff. If someone follow Red Fox, [I] never just sing about one thing, I sing about so many different things. I could be singing about killing somebody today, then peace and love tomorrow. I express myself in many ways, because I feel like this is who we are. I don’t want to go around carrying an image as if I’m holier than anybody else. I try to express myself on this mixtape in a way that says this is what we do as human beings, this is how we live, this is how we think.

Continue reading here.

LU: Talk about some of the specific tracks…

RF: I’m normally more passionate about my reality/cultural music. Out of all the music I do, I feel like that’s what I’m about. If I’m supposed to sit and talk with someone, the conversation that I would have is about life.  I have this song called “Truths and Rights” where I’m giving a youngster a guideline as far as what you need to be doing to achieve. There’s a segment on the mixtape that is addressing life in general, songs like “My Worth” with Gramps Morgan, songs that just uplift the people spirit, so that’s the part I probably tell people to pay attention to. I went to the studio and recorded nine songs in one night just for this mixtape. Just flowing over popular beats that’s already out there. [For] the bonus track, me and Screechy did something on Method Man’s [“Bring the Pain”]. A real sick flow.

LU: The Ruff Entry Crew, with you, Screechy Dan, Mr. Easy, Shaggy, Rayvon, Baja Jedd, were kind of the dancehall Wu-Tang Clan. All these solo artists who came together. As far as the evidence of the group for people who weren’t in Brooklyn in 1992, there’s only your song “Dancehall Scenario” from your first album. Is that the only song you all did together like that?

RF: Since I came into this game, I always try to bring somebody with me. If I’m doing a show, I gotta bring somebody. I always have a passion to break other artists. I love to see a discovered new talent and watch them grow and become big. I get such joy out of seeing it. So doing “Dancehall Scenario” and getting everybody on the track was just a joy to do.

LU: Was that inspired by Scenario from A Tribe Called Quest?

RF: It could be. We were influenced by hip-hop in some form because Screechy Dan had been here for a very long time, I’ve been here for a long time, Shaggy—all of us. We grew up part time in Jamaica, part time in Brooklyn. We might go in the studio and do something influenced by both music, but do it without even thinking.

LU: Would you ever do a Ruff Entry Crew album?

RF: Shaggy, Screechy and I have attempted to, we actually have a couple tracks that we started with already but it never really manifested most of the times. So hopefully one day we’ll probably get it together. I see a lot of groups, like broken up groups try to, but that chemistry, that magic is so..

LU: ..So far gone

RF: Yeah. Its so hard to bring back that vibe, you almost have to evolve to something else. I’m the type of person, I don’t like to go back. Never did, never will. I’m just always moving forward, always trying to evolve, not trying to recreate what once was because we’re all different people now.

LU: What do you do in your spare time?

RF: Cook! I cook everything. I been cooking since I’m 13 years old so it’s my favorite thing to do. And I play FIFA, that football game on the iPad. I play online against people I don’t know. I’ll play for two hours before I go to sleep. All of the countries that I’m playing, I keep them in mind, not just on a football level, but musically, if I’m gonna play Brazil against Portugal, or Italy against France, I keep these countries in my head.

LU: Being on the road have you ever found yourself in some strange part of the world and realizing how far Jamaican music has come that you’re even there?

RF: There’s one thing I’ve learned about Jamaican people: they’re explorers. There’s not one part of the world I’ve been that I haven’t seen a Jamaican. I go to Dubai, and I see a Jamaican guy pop up in the party. If I’m in Australia, in a party chillin’, I see a Jamaican guy seh Yow, wahpm man? And I’m like, what is this dude doing here? Everywhere. Another thing I notice, reggae music is the least-selling music, but the most popular music. It’s embraced by every nation, but, just because we cannot get it together, it cannot get to the point it needs to get. There’s an R&B A&R guy who told a reggae artist, I‘m so happy that you guys can’t get it together because the day you do, we’re all in trouble. The music is so powerful, but because it has no structure, it’s just nothing but hustlers and bloodsuckers, it cannot get to where it needs to go. I don’t know where in the world they don’t listen to it.

Continue reading here.

ESSENTIAL RED FOX

Red tells the stories behind his most essential recordings

Down in Jamaica (with Naturalee) (1989)

I did “Down in Jamaica” in ’88. I was still going to Utrecht but I was recording and by now I’m getting a little popular within the local scene, girls are coming for me, so I kind of started checking out of high school.

It’s not a big record in Jamaica. We had a strong little community within New York to break records here and Jamaica was a whole different marketing strategy. My song actually came out before Aswad’s song. I heard the Aswad song after. I just came to New York and I didn’t like New York and I was trying to [tell] my friends in Jamaica that this [place] is not how you think it is. If you listen to the lyrics, I’m talking about how cold it is, how people have to get up early and go to work, how they tax your money… Then I went to do a dub for LP and Naturalee did a dubplate singing [the “Down in Jamaica” line from Stephen Bishop’s “On and On”] and we put the two together.

Naturalee used to sing songs from LiteFM, he was singing nothing but those types of songs, and that’s where he got it from. [The record] really got hot after I began performing at the Underground in Manhattan. When I’m performing the song, I do this jog and it developed into something massive. When everyone heard the song, they would wait for my part to come in to start doing this run that I do on stage and that’s when the record really turned. [Years later] Bounty Killer went on it, and the riddim got hot again, and they re-released the record, and that’s when the riddim got the name Sick. When it went to Jamaica they said this riddim is sick.

Crab Louse (1992)

I did a record called “Crab Louse Man” for Philip Smart. [Then] I did it over. When Shaggy did “Oh Carolina,” I was like the guy at Signet [Records] and they would bring the track to me, and I didn’t like [the riddim]. If you notice] [I[ wasn’t on the riddim. Sting [International] made something similar and I did the song called “Jessica,” and “Crab Louse” over. Actually, the melody came from this song [sings] Long haired freaky people need not apply, No wan’ no Rastafari. I took the melody and started singing about a crab louse. So it’s not that I got [crabs], those days were just about those types of lyrics, comedy-type stuff.

Pose Off (with Screechy Dan) (1993)

It was Eastern Parkway where we string up the sound on Rogers and President at Crown Heights, the girls were walking by in their little pum-pum shorts and that Spanish song [“Lambada”] was hot at the time so Screechy was just mimicking the melody and singing about these girls. I [played] back the cassette of what we did for the day and I heard Screechy just playing around with the melody. I saw Screechy in Biltmore [Ballroom] and I was like Screechy, remember that little thing you was joking around with? Well I got something for it.

The producer Philip Smart didn’t necessarily like Screechy singing the record, he thought it needed some voice like Wayne Wonder. Sting [International] was the DJ on KissFM every Sunday, and when he played it, everybody was at SuperPower record shop the next day looking for it. [Smart] had to put it out because it was an instant hit.

I gotta big up John “Gungie” Rivera because he started to promote me in the Latin clubs like Florida in Spanish Harlem, Octagon in Manhattan. He took me to Puerto Rico and I started doing all these Latino clubs because of “Pose Off.” “Pose Off” is probably one of the biggest reggae songs in the Latino market. When I go to sing that song, just because of the [hums melody of “Pose Off”), the drum track is right up their alley. Jennifer Lopez came out with [“On The Floor”] and people were calling off my phone like Yow! Jennifer Lopez touch your song, and I’m like, its not our melody.

Bashment Party (with Rayvon) (1996)

Before I did “Bashment Party” on the Showtime riddim with Dave Kelly, he produced two songs on my album, As a Matter of Fox, “Ghetto Gospel” and “Born Again Black Man.” I requested him because at the time he was hot with Buju and Terror Fabulous, Wayne Wonder, all dem, so I requested to go and work with him in Jamaica and we did two tracks and, maybe five years after, we did “Bashment Party.”

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