Egyptian Lover Revives Classic Sounds at JDC Records Performance
On Jan. 3, old-school hip-hop fans packed out the JDC Records to hear the Egyptian Lover on the turntables and his 808 drum machine, an event starting to become an annual New Year’s tradition.
The age demographic of the fans that showed up matched the demographic the West Coast legend has always catered to — his own. As hip hop approaches 60, stories abound of artists who were hot in the ’80s and ’90s no longer wanting to perform the music they created in their youth.
And not because they are embarrassed, but because it doesn’t speak to where they are now.
The jet-setting DJ and producer whose stage name is Egyptian Lover, who also goes by Greg Broussard, performed sets from his albums 1986, 1985, and 1984. But his San Pedro performance came just ahead of the release of his latest album, 1987. The albums are named so following his album 1984.
He called this series of albums starting with 1984 because he went back to the studios he used to back in 1984.
“I went back to the same studios I went to before, and produced the album the same way, with the same equipment, to get that same sound as I did in 1984,” Broussard said. “And they worked.” Broussard did the same with the albums 1985, 1986, and 1987.
When Random Lengths caught up with him a week before Christmas, the Egyptian Lover, whose stomping grounds as a young artist in the early 1980s were the South LA and the LA Harbor cities, had no such compunction regarding his music. He continues to eat off his old music and the new music based on the original flavor that brought him fame. He had just returned from a tour in Europe and when he returned he was on grandpa duty with his grandchildren.
“I’m living the dream far beyond even my wildest dreams,” the legendary DJ said.
Back in the day, when the Alpine Village was an epicenter of hip-hop in the South Bay and Los Angeles Harbor Area, the Egyptian Lover was a part of the scene created by Uncle Jamm’s Army, a funk/hip-hop collective that evolved from putting on parties at Alpine Village. It drew large crowds from Carson, San Pedro, Gardena, Westchester, Compton, Los Angeles and Harbor City, bringing a generation of hip-hop under a groove.
The West Coast elder statesman of hip-hop noted that in the early days of Uncle Jamm’s Army, Rodger Clayton from Uncle Jamm and Alonzo Williams from the World Class Wrecking Cru were doing shows together — a time that represented the golden age of West Coast hip-hop to Broussard.
“They were both DJing and I was up there as a dancer, dreaming that one day I’d be up there with them,” Broussard said. “But then they got mad at each other and broke up.”
But Rodger Clayton of Uncle Jamm’s Army and Alonzo Williams of the World Class Wrecking Cru were competing that whole time. “But when they were together, it was amazing. They would play nothing that you would hear on the radio. I would just choose stuff from off of their albums,” Broussard said.
“Roger was the one who picked the songs to play. He passed away on Oct. 10, 2010, he was the master programmer for the night. And there were times he would play, Nobody Walks in LA, Hey Mickey You’re So Fine, we would play Flamethrower by the J Geils Band and a lot of different cultures would come to places like the Sports Arena to see us party. Even though most of it was hip-hop, rap, dance music, rock, and electro. We had all kinds of music, all kinds of people, and most importantly all of us got along.
“The gangs would fight against the gangs once a night, then break it up then go back to partying. When the gangs did start fighting, Roger had the idea to put on Flashlight and they would actually stop fighting and start dancing, doing their C-Walking and B-Walking and all that,” Broussard explained.
Uncle Jamm’s Army disbanded by 1988, giving way to gangster rap. But recently rapper Snoop Dogg, a legend of a later generation than Broussard, formed Uncle Snoop’s Army, an entertainment management firm that references Uncle Jamm’s Army.
“Snoop Dog is a businessman and everything he does, it’s about business. He’s always putting himself out there and I love it,” Broussard said. “He’s keeping the West Coast alive but just keeping his face out there.”
Broussard isn’t like a lot of aging artists in hip-hop, wondering if they still have anything to say, either to their demographic or younger ones. This is why he’s continued to not only play the music he created going back to the 1980s but continue to create music with those same sensibilities.
“These are kids who’ve never seen an old-school DJ. So I’m doing it the old-school way. No using CDs or USBs. I’m using vinyl records like how we did back in the day so they can learn how we did it,” Broussard said.
