Born: May 14, 1971, in Queens, New York
Died: March 28, 1999, in Queens, New York
Member of: Lost Boyz, 134 Allstars

Like the blues, hip-hop’s ethos is to create something from nothing, makin’ a way outta no way, and it’s not surprising that a lot of hip-hop’s brightest came from the front lines of urban decay.

Take New York City’s E Line to the end and get off at Jamaica in the South Queens borough. In the early nineties rappers threw down hip-hop jams in Baisley Pond Park there. One of the young men who made a name for himself was Raymond Rodgers who called himself by Freaky Tah.

Tah’s high school buddies DJ Spigg Nice, Pretty Lou, and Mr. Cheeks were there too, and the crew began to jam as a unit. The Lost Boyz appropriated its name from The Lost Boys (a teenage vampire movie that featured Echo & the Bunnymen’s version of The Doors‘ “People Are Strange” on the soundtrack).

The Boyz slung drugs to get by but quit after another dealer they knew was shot. The Lost Boyz soon debuted the single “Lifestyles Of the Rich & Shameless,” and it climbed up Billboard’s Hot 100 thanks to its hypnotic creed “some died wit the name, some die nameless, it’s all the same game, all the same pain.” Based on the single and the promise of more party jams, Uptown Records added the Lost Boyz to its roster. “Renee” followed and was included in the spoof movie Don’t Be A Menace To South Central While Drinking Your Juice In the Hood.

“Cheeks and Freaky were the star players on the team,” Pretty Lou says. Freaky Tah’s throaty voice was the response to Mr. Cheek’s call, the story’s chorus, the adlibbing backup—the hype man. “He was that big spark that started the engine,” says his brother Tito. “He loved his fans and loved being on stage.” Like Public Enemy’s Flavor Flav, Tah’s role in the group was irreplaceable. Tahleek’s deep rasp is found all over their ’96 debut Legal Drug Money; he even rocked the mike on “1,2,3.” The record is part contemplation and part celebration of the Queens they emerged from. Even the song titles speak collectively of a greater story with “Get Up,” “Music Makes Me High,” “Jeeps, Lex Coups, Bimaz & Benz,” “All Right,” “Straight From Da Ghetto,” “Da Game,” and so on.

The album commanded the top spot on the rap/hip-hop charts and climbed to number six on the Billboard 200, going gold in the process. Several cuts from Legal Drug Money charged up the singles charts, such as “Music Makes Me High,” which outsold LL Cool J, Outkast, Jay-Z, and Mary J. Blige in November ’96.

The Lost Boyz managed to stay out of the East Coast / West Coast beef that claimed the lives of Tupac Shakur, Biggie Smalls, and many others. In an otherwise bling-filled scene, the Lost Boyz pioneered plain white tees as part of the hip-hop uniform.

Tah never forgot about who he was and where he came from and invested time in prepping kids from his hood in the rap game. His crew was known as the 134 Allstars and included 50 Cent.

When Tah wasn’t hanging with his crew, he might ride the bus so he could sign autographs or pass out CDs and t-shirts. He was in the street all the time, and on his birthday he’d throw a BBQ for the south side of Queens. “That’s why 95 percent of everyone knew who Tah was,” Tito says.

In 1997, the Lost Boyz followed up with Love Peace & Nappiness and Tah stepped up on two of that album’s essential tracks “Why?” and “Get Your Hustle On,” while “My Crew” paid homage to their hood. The album went gold, and the single “Me & My Crazy World” placed in the middle of Billboard’s Hot 100 chart.

March 28, 1999, the Lost Boyz entourage celebrated Mr. Cheeks’s birthday at the Sheraton Hotel in Queens. Well after midnight Tah said goodbye and left the party. As he walked through the main doors of the hotel, a man on the street shot him in the head and escaped in a car that sped off.

Freaky Tah was pronounced dead at 4:20 a.m.; the incredible hype man was only 27 years old.

In 2001, Kelvin Jones pleaded guilty to murdering Raymond Rogers and received fifteen years to life, while driver Raheem Fletcher was sentenced to seven years for chauffeuring the getaway car.

The socially conscious Talib Kweli pays his respects in “Good Mourning” off Reflection Eternal’s 2000 album Train of Thought. He raps “Freaky Tah, rock rock on.”

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Born: May 17, 1941, in Butte, Montana
Died: October 30, 1968, in Chicago, Illinois
Band: Spanky and Our Gang, The New Wine Singers

Thanks to Spanky And Our Gang’s ’67 hits “Sunday Will Never Be The Same” and “Lazy Day,” the group is remembered as a mid-sixties pop sensation in the same vein as The Mamas and the Papas, but that was only one of the many flavors this Chicago-based band could concoct. Our Gang was studio-polished yet put on an entertaining act in that old-timey way, all while dazzling audiences with its display of sublime musicianship.

Elaine “Spanky” McFarlane and Malcolm McHale, the group’s principal members, spent 1962-64 as The New Wine Singers, a fantastic quintet that mixed jug band, folk, barbershop a capella, show tunes, and Irish standards. “We were eclectic as hell and loved every minute of it,” Spanky says today. “We did anything we wanted and there was a lot of cornball comedy.” “Malcolm had charisma and a rubber face that never stopped, he was right in there,” she adds.

The New Wine Singers put out a few LPs, including two live recordings, which capture the ensemble’s entertaining live show. Once that band fizzled out they formed Spanky And Our Gang. “Malcolm was such an integral part of the group,” Spanky says. “Very talented, but totally underrated, well, almost not rated at all.” Malcolm Hale wrote and arranged most of the tunes, played lead guitar, trombone, and sang. Still, since Malcolm spent every sixth weekend with the Army Reserves, the rest of the group learned to play occasional gigs without him.

Over the course of 1967 and 1968 the group placed five singles on Billboard’s Top 40 and made coveted TV appearances on the Tonight Show, the Dick Cavett Show, Hollywood Palace, and so on. Spanky And Our Gang’s most notorious gig was The Smothers Brothers Comedy Hour where they performed “Give A Damn,” which was banned in several states for its un-kosher title (never mind that the song had a positive message; to give a damn about “your fellow man”). CBS received a flood of complaints after the show, one of which purportedly came from Richard Nixon. See, “damn” was not an appropriate word during 1968’s “family viewing hours.”

That October Malcolm Hale didn’t show up for a gig in Boise, Idaho, but the band set up his guitar amplifier on stage; they figured he might show up a little later. Mid-set, the amp screeched uncontrollably, disrupting the set. As soon as the band walked off stage they learned that Malcolm Hale was dead. The 27-year-old multi-instrumentalist had gone to bed drunk at a girlfriend’s place in Chicago (Spanky says he was quite the multi-dater), and even though the band called her to rouse him up, she refused to do so. After 28 hours of “sleep” the girlfriend discovered that he was dead. Malcolm Hale died of monoxide poisoning due to a faulty space heater. Spanky And Our Gang played the rest of the year to fulfill their obligations and called it quits. “I was devastated and cried every day for a year,” Spanky says.

The group’s hits keep popping up on various CD box sets, most recently on the three-disc Summer of Love: The Hits of 1967. To really figure them out you’ve gotta seek out their records. “It’s not about the hits. It’s about the album cuts and we had that going,” McFarlane adds.

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