Interlude: Mr. Avery's Basement

Remember Rap City in the basement? Ever wonder whose basement they were in? Yeah, me too! 

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SPEAKER_04 0:01

You know how you hear a song or an album and it has that magic on it, that thing that teleports you back? It's the soundtrack of your life if you think about it. I'm a bicentennial baby. I grew up listening to records. Those records turned to tapes and tapes to CDs, and now we just stream it all. But I have to say, I'm a bit vinally. I'm part of a subculture of audiophiles who evolve with the times, but every now and then, the occasion calls for wax. Have you ever wanted to talk to your favorite artists and ask them about the albums they love and why? Yeah, me too. I'm Annika Young. Welcome to Vinally, a podcast where your favorite artists dissect the albums of their favorite artists. You know, this feels like a very important moment in black music history. Specifically, you I mean it does. So John Avery. I have been around. Lord knows. Listen, y'all, John Avery, no BS, basically launched Rap City in his basement.

SPEAKER_02 1:36

To be honest with you, Rap City started actually in uh the studio, studio A in uh the building we're in now, where uh Office Cape of Television is, and it was just a fence and a bench. And uh Chris Thomas was doing the show, and it was just a fence and a bench. And then they decided to uh take it out in the field. So we shot in around the city. And at some times there was days when we couldn't shoot because of the rain or the weather, and they had to find someplace to do it. And we suggested one time, I think the first time we did it was in my apartment on uh near North Capitol Street in DC with the graveyard as my backyard. And we had uh actually it was uh DJ Jazzy Jeff and the Fresh Prince. Wow. Right when uh the Fresh Prince show started. And uh they drove up, uh we set up the cameras in my living room, my camera, because it was my camera. They drove up in this huge limousine, and all the neighbors were peeking out the windows trying to see who it was, and it was uh Will Smith and Jazzy Jeff.

SPEAKER_04 2:48

Listen, so part of my coming of age is Tigger in that basement and to later meet you and uh learn that you had something to do with that, you know, you're part of my um my afternoon routine.

SPEAKER_02 3:03

I'm gonna tell you now. I was a uh RB house music uh rock fan. So this new thing, rap, was very new. And I have to say I wasn't very into it. Not at all. Because I'm old here. These kids were running around going, oh, yeah, so on the other. I was like, child, put put some Gladys Night on. Where's some Stevie Wonder at? So when we started shooting it, we were very nonchalant, and management management was also. So they could care less where we shot the Rap City owned, long as the show aired.

SPEAKER_04 3:32

As long as it aired.

SPEAKER_02 3:33

As long as it aired.

SPEAKER_04 3:37

So here's the one of the most interesting things about John Avery. I don't have do you know how much vinyl you owned in the inventory?

SPEAKER_02 3:45

I own about 7,000 pieces of vinyl. Oh. About about 12 to 13, maybe or more, uh pieces of CDs. I have um I have uh uh at least a thousand forty-fives. And I have uh um thousands and thousands of uh uh DVDs and Blu-rays. Even got a good number of like old Disney VHSs that I've hold held on to because I know that they'll be worth some money in the future. Oh my gosh, you're a record store. I'm a record store, I'm a record and video store.

SPEAKER_04 4:23

Yeah, but also just the archivist of music. What are the genres mostly represented?

SPEAKER_02 4:28

I grew up in Nashville, Tennessee. So I grew up around blues, country, gospel. And I loved all three. I'm a huge fan of blues, I'm a fan of gospel. I'm a huge fan now, and I have been quietly for years. I would never tell anybody. Okay country. I always loved country music.

SPEAKER_04 4:50

Why are you popping out of the closet now about that?

SPEAKER_02 4:52

Because I've been fighting ever since I started the crates, a few years ago, well, I think in five, six years now, I had been wanting to do a country show. So my first year I did a country show, all the little country stuff I liked, and now it went over pretty well, with me at least. And then I started trying to there were other black country artists. I met a few when I was younger, but I mean, it was no big deal. But then I found these younger country artists. And these guys were out there doing, and they sounded as good or better than the artists on this radio now.

SPEAKER_04 5:26

So you had amassed enough vinyl to be able to do this show?

SPEAKER_02 5:29

Like you used your own vinyl? I use my own vinyl, but I transferred all my vinyl to CD and then transfer C transferred the CDs to the computer.

SPEAKER_04 5:36

So I So the whole collection is now digital?

SPEAKER_02 5:40

I oh just about. I have at least, at this point, uh about sixty, fifty-eight thousand songs on my computer. That is astonishing. I am music runs my whole exact life. Everything.

SPEAKER_04 5:55

Everything. Um let's go back to the basement for a second. There is a a famous freestyle that happened in that basement. I'm gonna play it.

SPEAKER_01 6:06

Shit. Here we am the man. I'm swinging and singing and bringing the line of the mic. Again, together whatever endeavors are always the veil. Well, whatever the one of your thing, the paneling, the parenting, Jay-Z, the baby. You come a master, bring it around the master, nigga, the master Jay Z Rom, so you can say yum surprise.

SPEAKER_02 6:25

You didn't even know who he was. Did not know who didn't care. Did not care. Was trying to say, look, what do we do in lunch? Can we finish this shoot? Videographers always want to know when lunch. When can we do lunch? I had no idea.

SPEAKER_04 6:38

Was there anything impressive about him outwardly at the time? Not at all.

SPEAKER_02 6:41

It was Big Daddy Kane was there. Um, you know, and I knew Big Daddy Kane was. Right. Uh we shot his interview, and then he he even borrowed one of my Isaac Brothers album called Winter Take It All. Who borrowed your album? Big Daddy Kane. He said, I will return that album. Of course, you know, he never returned that album. To this day. I just recently replaced it about a year ago. This was back in the in the early 90s. I just replaced an album about a year ago. And so he said, I have this kid here that came with me who can really spit. Okay. And I was like, whatever, let's just go and hurry up. So this gangly, weird-looking kid sits in the chair and starts to spit. Whatever. Is the shoe done? Good done. I don't know, I don't know who this kid is. Like I said, I was into RB and hip-hop. I mean RB and rock and house. So this kid, about 25 years later, I'm watching a YouTube. Right. And uh and uh Prime, who was one of the hosts of the show, I think he was the host that day too, he put up a uh a post that said, Jay-Z's first TV appearance. And I've said, let me, I looked and I said, Oh, I looked at this. I hit it and I went, my God, that room looks familiar. Those are my pink walls. I said, Oh, those are that's my album rooms. I had the albums all around in the shelves in the room. I said, that that was Jay-Z? I had no idea that kid was Jay-Z.

SPEAKER_04 8:12

In your basement. In my record room. Live freestyle. Did not know. Goodness gracious. John Avery hosts uh an incredible show called Raiding the Crates, and that's exactly what you do.

SPEAKER_02 8:28

I Raid the Crates. I go, I every genre, uh I start from the uh early 60s or uh late 50s when I was born in 59, and I go up until today. But most of my stuff stays in the the 70s kind of uh area, because that's where, to me, that's why music was so much more important to my creation as a person was the 70s.

SPEAKER_04 8:51

And I want to talk to you about that. This season I'm focused on activism, social activism, civic engagement, and specific to those who had contribution to that in music. As a music collector, curator of music from every genre, how have you seen music change as a conduit for advancement for people?

SPEAKER_02 9:12

Well, music always did that. Even back in the 60s, there were uh certain artists that played. And then in the 70s you had uh artists like Marvin Gaye, of course. Uh, there was some stuff by Stevie Wonder in the early 70s. Yeah, just saying something. The temptations. Yeah. Norman Winfield wrote great put protest and and and reality songs for them. So it was always around. Uh and then we get into uh Gil Scott Heron and those guys. Yes. And then uh uh this it was there. So you just took it with uh a great of salt that there would be some kind of uh protest or or song like that on the radio. On the radio. And I was drawn to some of that stuff. So uh it wasn't until um when we first started doing Rap City that I understood, no, because rap started out as party stuff. Then there was this song by Grandmaster Flash and The Furious Five called The Message. So that to me that was the first uh uh protest societal hip-hop song that I heard.

SPEAKER_04 10:09

Right.

SPEAKER_02 10:10

And it was just amazing to hear that.

SPEAKER_04 10:12

You know, sometimes I like to say that I worked in news at a at a beautiful time, right before news turned into opinion journalism. I feel like you started collecting and carating music in a beautiful time for music.

SPEAKER_02 10:26

I I well I always my I I used to my as a kid, they told me that I would stand in front of the Vic troller and just watch the 45s. You know, they had the spindle and they had the 45s that were suspended in the air, and when one finished, the needle would raise up and then it would flip down. That I would just giggle and and just be giddy watching those singles flip down. And for me, that was when my love of music, to me, I thought happened.

SPEAKER_04 10:51

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 10:51

And my my father, my mother loved blues, B.B. King, Al Green. My father was a country fan, he loved George Jones. And so I rebelled. I listened to everything else. I was I listened to Alice Cooper. I went to Alice Cooper concerts, David Bowie concerts. I was into Barry Manilow, which I still am. Barry Manilow's voice is you know. He's a great writer. So I was rebelling for some stuff like that.

SPEAKER_04 11:18

Do you have any melee tour May?

SPEAKER_02 11:20

I have some melee tour may. You know, he wrote the Christmas song, Chestnuts Roasting on an open fire. That king goes song.

SPEAKER_04 11:27

You know, John Avery, you are a song. I will say that.

SPEAKER_02 11:30

I I try to live a song.

SPEAKER_04 11:32

You are a song.

SPEAKER_02 11:33

Everything I do is through music. I appreciate you. Can I raid your crates? You can raid my, you can't you can't borrow any albums.

SPEAKER_04 11:40

Big Daddy K messed it up for everybody. Everybody.

SPEAKER_03 11:44

Y'all. I ran into that young lady Mariah, like one. What's the thing my husband paid at me and for me to see a point of late little one to other things? No one. Baby hand.

unknown 12:18

I can't believe girls don't scare me. One by one, you can come and fit me. I'm just gonna let me, but you can't fix me.

SPEAKER_03 12:25

Because I'm not a young lady that's beautiful, but one that's most of me is more humble, and I'm the ones that make it simple.

SPEAKER_04 12:36

Engineered by Elon Reed, Johnny Foster, and Jessica Sturgis. Music for the podcast is brought to you by Jason Snacks.