“For really, what is the bedrock of all male aspiration, if it isn’t cunt and money?”
—Iceberg Slim
Evolving out of the adolescent fetishizing that spawned Star Wars Breakbeats, transplanted suburban kids are lovingly etching pop culture grooves with such elitist perfection they make Q from the Bond films look like a failed modernist. Of course, anybody can sample a line or two from a video and press it on vinyl, but when a movement of theme break records with Swiss precision hits the shelves and shows no sign of ever slowing down, it’s on.
Break Equations’ vinyl, for example, is flipping roller rink DJs across the country into oral-sex magnets way faster than any designer drugs could’ve. Their Pimp Breaks record is lewd and juvenile as fuck but it’s so smart and tightly engineered you’d think it was an Asian girl at M.I.T.
The Equations’ DJ Hooker and DJ C-lay met up with VICE at John Gotti’s old crib turned nightclub. Fitting, considering their legally dubious vinyl needs to be kept more underground than Hariett Tubman to avoid a “certain pocket-draining lawsuit.” Not that they have time to care. They’re presently putting together investment for a midget bar/studio idea and a ton of new albums are in the works. There’s the stripper album; uptempo hip hop originals that are, as Hooker puts it, “bout strippers on the pole, with samples from Atari’s Pole Position.” But that’s only the beginning. The weed-induced discography also includes an orgasmic scratch-fest called Porn Breaks and the soon-to-be-produced Hick Breaks, a whites-only mélange of Bo & Luke, monster trucks and bango loops. C-lay jumps in, “Listen to ‘Devil Goes to Georgia,’ that’s some fucking breaks!”
The LP that connected to our inner child though, was Pimp Breaks. Sampling the documentary Pimps Up, Hos Down, they fused a combination of entrancing mack-talk and big funk drops, layering different sounds. VICE fave Don “The Magic” Juan is all over it coast-to-coast just like the old days, and pimp-scholar C-lay is quick to tell us why. “I love his book. Beside every other page talking about him beating the shit out of women with coathangers and things of that nature, the funniest part of it is all these pictures of him and Mr. T partying and how that ended it all. Basically, one of the greatest pimps of all time, right up there with Iceberg Slim, stopped pimping because Mr. T stopped being his friend and it hurt his feelings so bad he had a life change.” On the vinyl a touchingly somber string tugs as Juan laments about the lifestyle and how he “just wuzent cut out for work.” Bringing a tear of injustice to one’s eye, you’d think the nigga was on about pickin’ cotton. Then a Kenny G. woodwind puts it over the top and we drift back into suburbia.
BYRON K
