PappaWheelie is the nom de plume of a music journalist, music producer, and DJ, perhaps best known as the Miami Bass historian. Despite being mostly known for this one genre of music, he is an accomplished music historian on all fronts, known in some circles for his extensive music archive arranged by era and genre, all in chronoligical order, with recordings dating back to 1877. However, his career did start off as a Miami Bass producer and rapper.
Pappawheelie was born in the early 1970's in Albion, Michigan, a small town on the I-94 Interstate between Detroit and Chicago. There during the late 1970's, he began patroning the African-American roller-skating rink, introducing him to the Detroit flavored underground Black music before he was ten years old, which led to his becoming part of the local mixtape circuit. Shortly after Electro became the hot music movement in his area, he moved to Florida in late 1983 to discover a different regional sound of Electro. There, he became a drummer in school, shaping his aspirations with music.
While attending high-school in Florida, he was part of a half day art school program while collecting Hip-Hop and Miami Bass records. People began asking him to play his records at house parties, sparking his DJ career. He was more interested in making the music for rappers rather than playing others' records, but during the late 1980's, the role of producer was not as touted as it is today, and bedroom studios were near non-existent. He was forced to learn about the function of producer by studying records, and he created demos using nothing more than pause mixing with cassette decks, overdubbing loops and sounds with the Casio SK-5 toy sampler, and performing vocals on a microphone stashed in a walk in closet.
Although he did not live in Miami, he knew the bulk of the music he created was Miami Bass, so he chose the name Miami Boom Productions for his soon-to-be production company. While desiginging the outfit's logo in art school, he met members of the local defunct rap group 5 Tymes the Rythm. Reforming the remaining members into the duo Nasty Boyz (later changed to Smooth & Naste), they recorded their first demo in his bedroom before a chance meeting with producer Kareem Mills (of 69 Boyz fame) ushered them into the local studio known as TWC. At this time, PappaWheelie was also in a loose collective of rappers known as J.A.M. Alliance, and eventually, Miami Boom Productions picked up a juvenille rapper named Kid MC, as well as an accomplished rapper named J.A.M. (not to be confused with J.A.M. Alliance).
After a disastrous concert in Hollywood Florida held by The Box/Video Jukebox/Peter's Records owner Steve Peters, PappaWheelie decided to restructure Miami Boom Productions with B-Naste of Smooth and Naste, and himself in one rap group named "The 2". Leaving the other rappers and TWC studios behind, they began recording with Jacksonville, Florida rap music icon Mamado, of Attitude Records.
The 2 began working on tracks for their never finished album in 1992. Initially only having two songs recorded, they chose to drive to Miami to unviel thier new identities by seeking radio play at Power 96. However, they weren't sure if the 2 songs recorded were enough, so they pondered for days on what the third song could be. While listening to a song entitled 'Da Mad Scientist' by Bass Patrol, they heard a vocal sample they could not identify. Mocking the cadence of sample over and over led to the phrase "who let the dogs out", which prompted them to make that the chorus of their new song. They took a stack of tapes to South Florida for radio play, club play, and to shop for a record deal. Eight years later, B-Naste heard the Baha Men's version on the radio, which has begun an intense investigation by the group.
After many conultations with many lawyers, and plenty of research on the evolution of the song, it was discovered that there was not much of a case. It is legal for two song-writers to write the same song; however, it is illegal if one writer hears the other's prior to writing theirs. The key is proving the second writer heard the first's. Anslem Douglas is the credited writer of the song, and Anslem was proven to have lifted the chorus from Patrick Stephenson and Leroy Williams in 1995 before performing the song in Tinidad in 1998. One of The 2's tapes was taken from Florida to Canada during the 1990's, which is how it circulated among these Tonronto based songwriters. The owner of S-Curve Records convinced The Baha Men to cover the song in 2000, making it a worldwide hit.
Over time, PappaWheelie discovered the original sample was a Stevie B song recorded in 1986. The line was the intro to a song which says "who's runnin' this dog house, hoo-hoo, hoo".
It is rumored that PappaWheelie was the original lead vocalist for the band Limp Bizkit; this is an extreme exaggeration.
After the Miami Bass scene morphed into "booty music", PappaWheelie took an indefinite hiatus from recording as 'The 2'. Taking a special interest in vintage Jazz, he began patroning a local coffee house that specialized in Jazz performances. There, he met an employee named Wes Borland, and another Jazz fan named Jon Otto, who became the drummer of the band-to-be. After the venue closed in the early mornings, they'd collectively go to breakfast with other local musicians. Casual conversations would occur about forming a band. Typically, most of the people having this conversation were fans of a type of hard rock they called "heavy groove", but some knew "Joe" was a one time rapper. Some members of these impromptou sessions would jokingly say on rare occasion that he would become the lead vocalist, a role he never accepted.
Eventually, the venue closed down, PappaWheelie parted ways with that crowd, and when he bumped into one of them again at a later date, it was explained that the band was formed, and they found a tattoo artist named Fred Durst who did agree to rap for them. This story was told from a member of these conversations who did not become a member of the actual band, and many others tell the formation of the band in a different way.
By 2000, Miami Bass had gone from being underground club music to suburban car audio music to booty dance competition music to the butt of jokes within music circles to completely forgotten. Feeling nostalgic for the 1980's underground Bass scene, PappaWheelie setup the Miami Bass History Yahoo Group for the subject, but it remained very inactive initially. Deciding to take the bull by the horns, he announced he was beginning the process of writing the book on the subject, which is when artists and industry people came out of the woodwork to share their stories. Subsequently, he forged friendships with many of the artists, aiming to get their story told as South Florida's urban music scene was left out of the journalistic process prior to now. As a result of his efforts, Miami Bass has become a popular phrase for new school musicians to cite as inspiration.
After beginning the Miami Bass History movement, he befriended many artists. One such was Neil Case aka Bass Mekaink. In 2001, Neil wanted to release new school global electro to a Floridian market on his Pandisc subsidiary BassMekanik Records. Neil hired PappaWheelie to compile and license material from around the world, and music was culled from acts such as I-F, EdDMX, Kitbuilders, AUX 88, etc. However, before any product could reach the market, BassMekanik Records closed up shop leaving PappaWheelies Electro series on the shelf with the possibility of Pandisc Records releasing the project(s) themselves. So far no such progress has been made.
Speaking about Miami Bass all the time became a mixed blessing to him, so he formed a nationawide collective known as the ElectroDiscoPunks in 2002, aiming at the grey areas between Electro, Disco, and New Wave music. After PappaWheelie coined the term ElectroDiscoPunk (or EDP), Larry Tee, a minor member of the collective, made a move to abandon his trademarked Electroclash term and replace it ElectroDiscoPunk. After some discussion between the two men, Larry dropped use of it, although his photogrpahy conspiritor, Conrad Ventur, has reportedly published a book with the title.
PappaWheelie relocated to New York City in 2003. Immediately, he found the underground DJ scene embraced him as many were already familiar with his public music archives and his writing. He was invited to join the AllDisco camp focusing on music of the Paradise Garage, which led to his formation of The Beat Club, a large weekly dance party in Williamsburg, Brooklyn named after a Miami Bass group that had a hit in the famed Hacienda club. He also occasionally researches and writes for the VH1 music history related show Driven, which ironically, featured an episode on Fred Durst before PappaWheelie was employed in this position.
PappaWheelie continues to reside in New York City where he is working on new music in addition to his writing and DJ'ing.
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…shrink me down again