Abstract
In this 2025 interview, Kevin Heard (also known as MC Chill), discusses growing up in the Lee-Harvard neighborhood, his involvement in Cleveland’s hip-hop scene in the 1980s and 1990s, and his career path as a journalist. He talks about playing little league baseball in the neighborhood with now prominent Cleveland politicians and figures, taking martial arts classes, and attending Cleveland public schools. He then describes becoming Cleveland’s first national rap recording artist, signing a record deal, and how his involvement in hip-hop led to his career in journalism. At the end of the interview, he discusses how growing up in Lee-Harvard and in Cleveland impacted him throughout his life.
Interviewee
Heard, Kevin (interviewee); Jordan, Mikel (participant)
Interviewer
Carubia, Ava (interviewer)
Project
Union-Miles
Date
1-27-2025
Document Type
Oral History
Duration
47 minutes
Recommended Citation
"Kevin Heard interview, 27 January 2025" (2025). Cleveland Regional Oral History Collection. Interview 483015.
https://engagedscholarship.csuohio.edu/crohc000/1359
Transcript
Ava Carubia [00:00:02] So we’re recording now, and I’m going to read my script, which is. Today is January 27th, 2025. My name is Ava Carubia, and I’m here at Sports One on Harvard in Cleveland, Ohio. Interviewing Mr. Kevin Heard for the Cleveland Regional Oral History Project. I’ll also say that my co worker Mikel Jordan is here, and she might chime in as well throughout the interview. Thank you for agreeing to be interviewed today.
Kevin Heard [00:00:28] Thank you for having me.
Ava Carubia [00:00:29] And can you please state your name, your birth date, and where you were born for the record.
Kevin Heard [00:00:32] Kevin Daniel Heard, also known as Kevin “Chill” Hurd, as my byline, also known as MC Chill from my old school rap name. I was born, raised in Cleveland, Ohio.
Ava Carubia [00:00:51] Perfect. So I want to get started with your early life. Can you talk about where in particular you grew up in Cleveland?
Kevin Heard [00:00:58] Yeah, my early, early, early, early days. I grew up in the Cedar-St. Clair area. We lived on 93rd and St. Clair until I was like, 4 or 5. And then we moved to Lee Harvard on the southeast side of Cleveland.
Ava Carubia [00:01:16] So when you moved to Lee-Harvard, what year was that?
Kevin Heard [00:01:20] This was 1966.
Ava Carubia [00:01:23] Okay. And can you describe the area at that time?
Kevin Heard [00:01:27] You know, to me, Lee-Harvard was going through a renewal. This is. This is all kind of adjacent to a lot of activities happening in Cleveland. It’s the same climate as the Hough and Glenville riots, the election of Carl Stokes as the first black mayor of a major city. So this is all kind of coalescing around that climate. And Lee-Harvard was a location that Black people were aspiring to move to. That was still Cleveland, not to the level that they were moving into the Heights, like Shaker Heights or something like that, but within the confines of Cleveland proper, Lee-Harvard was a destination for Blacks looking to build a better life. We had ownership, which was something new. In Lee-Harvard, Blacks owned businesses. It was kind of the beginning of that in the area. So it was Blacks were dentists, was doctors, owners of clothing stores. My father was a manager for a loan company, Beneficial Finance. He was the first. One of. The first, certainly the first Black manager in Cleveland, might have been one of the first Black managers of a major national loan company in the United States. So a lot of people were moving to that area from closer the inner-ring, inner cities, inner city part of Cleveland, to the outskirts, south, southeast side, and looking to build on a better life for their families.
Ava Carubia [00:03:23] So is that why your family moved here?
Kevin Heard [00:03:27] Moved to Lee-Harvard?
Ava Carubia [00:03:28] Yeah.
Kevin Heard [00:03:29] Yeah, my father had graduated from Central State University. He and his brother were probably the first college graduates in the family. First generation college graduates. He graduated from Central State University, HBCU, went to the, did a stint in the service. He had a business degree and he came out and he started working for some business agency, but he ended up getting the job as manager of the Lee-Harvard branch of the so he moved here for the job. Because the loan company was in Lee-Harvard. It was in the area of the Lee Harvard Plaza. Matter of fact, a lot of the business that later on became businesses got a loan from my father to even start. I meet people today, “So your father gave me a loan to start my business” 50 years ago. 60 years ago. 50 years ago. So yeah, so he moved here and my mother was a schoolteacher and so. But they moved here because of my father’s job.
Ava Carubia [00:04:49] And so growing up, what are your memories from the area?
Kevin Heard [00:04:55] Obviously, my friends in the neighborhood playing little league baseball. We had a famous league that played primarily during my time in the area of south Miles and the Elliot, where. Elliot. It’s the area where the new John F. Kennedy is at now, off Miles. But I played little league baseball with lots of people in the city. The current mayor of Warrensville, Brad Sellers, played the league baseball. Former city councilman Zack Reed played the league baseball. The mayor of, Ben Holbert, is what’s the that town that he’s the mayor of Woodmere Village. He’s the mayor of Woodmere Village. He played little league baseball and we still maintain those folks. So playing little league baseball and just growing up and seeing a lot of Black male faces doing good things was important to me, I’m sure impactful to me growing up on the southeast side of Cleveland. And then later on I started taking martial arts, which took up a lot of my time as a, as a young, young man.
Ava Carubia [00:06:20] So where did you go to elementary school?
Kevin Heard [00:06:23] I started off at Gracemount Elementary School until they built Adlai Stevenson. And then so I went to, I went in kindergarten, I went to Gracemount Elementary and then I went to Adlai Stevenson from first through sixth, after they built the school.
Ava Carubia [00:06:43] And then where’d you go to junior high?
Kevin Heard [00:06:45] I went to Whitney M. Young Junior High School. Obviously they today. Well, it’s not what they usually now they call them middle schools, but it was junior, junior high school and yep. Whitney M. Young.
Ava Carubia [00:07:01] And then what about high school?
Kevin Heard [00:07:02] The mighty Fighting Eagles of John F. Kennedy High School. I loved my, my, my high school experience. My friends, we’re still real close today. So John F. Kennedy High School.
Ava Carubia [00:07:20] So it sounds like your experience there was positive. Did you feel that way about your other education experiences, like elementary, middle school, too?
Kevin Heard [00:07:28] I loved my experience at elementary school. I still have friends. I have friends that I went all the way through, through elementary school, middle school, high school and college with some of the exact same people. So we’re like this humongous family that still keeps in touch to this very day. So my experience in elementary school was, was beautiful. Junior high school for a lot of people is a transition. Middle school is a transition because you have all these people that you went to elementary school with for literally five, six years. Then all of a sudden you’re involved in this influx of people from other schools and kind of the deck is reshuffled. What’s the hierarchy? You know, who are the cool people who are not cool, the nerds who are. Who are the tough guys, who are the cute girls? So, you know, the deck is kind of reshuffled. You got to kind of find your way again in middle school. But we had a Black principal in Whitney Young, Daniel Drake, a humongous man. I guess the rumor was he played football. He definitely looked like somebody you didn’t want to deal with, but he was not just a large, imposing Black man, but always well dressed every single day. So again, we had a role model, strong Black role model in middle school. And then I went to, of course, John F. Kennedy.
Ava Carubia [00:09:00] And can you talk more about why your experience at John F. Kennedy was so good?
Kevin Heard [00:09:04] Again, it was a continuation of family. And now we’re older, we’re moving into the, you know, the teen years, progressing towards, you know, college age. But now we’re more independent on our lives and what we do, how we express ourselves. You now have the opportunity to determine your path whether, you know, some of my friends became criminals and thugs and bullies. Some of my, you know, classmates became doctors, lawyers and mayors and council members. So it was a time to kind of find your lane in life. And I think that Kennedy, and not that it was a suburb school, but the community kind of lent a hand into helping guide what you will become now. They would lend a hand. The community would lend a hand. If, you know, your lane was to be, you know, go to college or become an entrepreneur, but the community also lend a hand. If you wanted to be a criminal, you could find that type of action from adults in the neighborhood as well. But, yeah, it was a time to kind of solidify what lane you were going to choose for life.
Ava Carubia [00:10:35] And what year did you graduate?
Kevin Heard [00:10:37] ’79. 1979.
Ava Carubia [00:10:39] And then what did you do after graduation?
Kevin Heard [00:10:41] I went directly to Kent State University. I was scheduled, I had a full four year scholarship, it was an endowment scholarship and I could go to any college that I got accepted at. They were going to pay for tuition, housing, books, whatever the cost would be, they would cover it. And if I could get accepted at the school it would be paid for. I initially was going to Central State to follow in my parents’ footsteps. I was announced at graduation as going to Central State. And somewhere in between graduation and then into graduation I changed my mind and let some of my friends talk me into going to Kent State University.
Ava Carubia [00:11:32] And what was your experience like going away?
Kevin Heard [00:11:35] Well, you know, it was cool. Well, Kent is, you know, college is now you’re responsible for yourself 100%. There’s nobody, no parents there telling you to clean your room, make up your bed, get up and go to school. You know, if you want to sleep in and not go to class, that’s to you in your own scholastic detriment. But you know, you have autonomy now over your own life. And so you know. And it also helped me that I came to Kent State university with about 20 people from my graduating class. It was, we just kept the party going from high school and the relationships and like I said earlier, it was people that I went to Kent State with that I went to elementary school with. So it was a familiarity for me. I was comfortable even in a different setting. I was still comfortable because of the Lee-Harvard and southeast side community people who I then also matriculated to college with. Now it was a transition, to. And I can’t say I left Kennedy with the best work ethic to say. I know I have to study these many hours. I have to get up and get to my 7:45 class. I can’t say I had to best work ethic leaving high school but it was definitely, I was set towards a learning experience. And Kent, thank God offered me a path that was unique to Kent State University and that was their Black Studies department. It was my, it was my, I call it my gift and my curse to be that heavily involved in Black Studies, Pan African Studies, Africana Studies, whatever the different variations. But I tell people as far as my understanding of Black culture and Black community, I was, it was born, I was born at Kent State University, which is odd because I meet people from HBCUs, Historically Black Colleges and Universities and you know, when I first heard the term PWI, Predominantly White Institution and it was assessed that I was from a PWI, I took offense to that I’m like, well, my learning and understanding of Black culture, I can’t be out-Blacked. I don’t care what college you went to. Kent State was on the cutting edge of Black Studies. And so that is a course that changed my life forever.
Ava Carubia [00:14:34] Did you major in Black studies or you just participated?
Kevin Heard [00:14:38] It would seem that I majored in Black studies. No, I majored in political science. And also call it the curse, because I was informed through my benefactor, my endowment scholarship benefactor, that if I took one more class with the word black in it, that my scholarship would be in jeopardy. And so I took for my language, after getting the warning for my language, I took Swahili. And what really baffled them, I took English Literature and grammar in the Black Studies department. So they. They asked my mother, is he. Is he taking Black English? Because I’m clearly taking. But in the way they had it set up, you could take English, and it’s obviously English lit or English grammar is, you know, you’re using. You’re learning participles and commas, and, you know, it’s no bBack grammar. It’s, you know, it’s. The rules of. The rules of English are the same regardless of the building that you take it in. Now for grammar, I mean, literature, instead of studying, like Shakespeare or something of that nature, we’re reading Richard Wright, where we’re reading. What’s that?
Mikel Jordan [00:16:23] Toni Morrison?
Kevin Heard [00:16:24] Yeah, well, yeah, Not Toni, Toni Morrison was more of a. It’s funny because, you know, at that time, she was more of a. So we’re reading classic Black literature. So, you know. But writing a short story or doing a book review is the same principles, whether you took English at the Black Studies department or at. I don’t even remember what the actual building was at Kent State where they taught English, but it’s the same process. So it’s not like we were learning black English like the people asked my mother, is he taking Black English? So, yeah, but I think the Swahili was the one. But the point was it still. Those classes, still, they weren’t electives. If you took English, you still. It was. It was still part of your requirement. And so my. You had to have two studies of language. So the Swahili counted for my language just as if I had taken French or Spanish. So it still counted, but my benefactors didn’t see it that way. And I lost my scholarship.
Ava Carubia [00:17:40] Wow.
Kevin Heard [00:17:43] But I would trade that. I would not trade that for anything.
Ava Carubia [00:17:48] I want to pause just for a second because I see Mikel is writing things down. Do you want to chime in at this point? Do you have questions?
Mikel Jordan [00:17:57] One was just kind of personal because this guy has a tendency to critique how advanced my vocabulary is, but just used words like coalescing and "to his scholar scholastic detriment.
Ava Carubia [00:18:15] So that’s what you were taking notes on.
Mikel Jordan [00:18:16] On and to remind him about Ken Ferguson.
Kevin Heard [00:18:19] She’s getting some get back on me.
Ava Carubia [00:18:21] Okay, so then what year did you graduate?
Kevin Heard [00:18:25] I did not. I left Kent State to go basically to become a journalist. And the irony of it is that I got a call a couple years later, within the last five, six years, telling me, do you know that you only have three more classes at the time? I only have five more classes to graduate. And they said we were going through everybody’s records and. Because yours were not digitized, because they didn’t do that at the time, you know, we come through these handwritten or typed records and we’re calling people who went to Kent close to graduation and we realized that you only five classes from graduating. I was like, man, I wish I would have told me that a long time ago. But since then I’ve taken three classes and I have two more to take, trying to figure out how I can work my way on not taking a math class. So as soon as I figure that out, they say, better late than never.
Ava Carubia [00:19:33] So you left to become a journalist. Can you talk about that?
Kevin Heard [00:19:36] Yeah, well, there’s a couple of things that happened in between that. While at school, I signed a record deal and became obviously Cleveland’s first national rap recording artist. Probably for all intents and purposes is Ohio or even the Midwest, first national recording artist. And I had already been a pioneer of the Cleveland rap scene prior to that. It was probably one of the most known rappers in Cleveland prior to anybody having records. But when I signed the record deal with a New York based label, I was became a national, well, I won’t say national celebrity, a nationally-known, well, actually internationally-known recording artist. And my hip hop lane led me to journalism. I confronted the editor of a rap magazine, then a new rap magazine, Source Magazine, which became one of the largest national rap magazines there was. And always being a Cleveland supporter, I’m in New York really on the editor’s, on his neck about how come they don’t have Cleveland representation writing for the magazine. And so he says, well, you know, write us something. If Cleveland has something to talk about, write us something and we’ll see how it looks. And I was not necessarily talking about me. I was just saying I wanted Cleveland representation. But, you know, I’m a college educated student, unbeknownst to me, five classes away from graduating, but certainly I had made the best of my education. And so I went home, wrote a story with an attitude. And when I say wrote it, I mean with a pencil in a. In a spiral notebook. Tore that out, faxed it. And I get a call back from New York saying, hey, we like this. Can you write for us every month? You gonna be our regional correspondent from Cleveland. But can you get a computer though? Like don’t send us, you know, a handwritten story that you tore out of a spiral notebook with the. And faxed it to us with the still frayed rings on the side. They said, we love your writing. And once I started, so I started appearing in a national magazine before I started, you know, doing local stuff. But because, now, I’m MC Chill and I’m a national journalist, then other platforms are now coming to me asking, can I write for them? And then I come across the Call and Post, which is now a hundred year old, one of the oldest, the oldest black newspaper in Ohio. They come to me and want me to write. And that starts my journey, which oddly enough now kind of brings it full-cycle. I end up being the president of the Greater Cleveland association of Black Journalists. And the first three weeks of my presidency, I find myself in Miami pitching to get the national convention here in Cleveland. And the national convention will be here in Cleveland in August. But this was four years ago when I pitched it and we won. And people were still upset about that. Other cities were like, how did Cleveland get this? And I was a little mad that it was seeming that it was going to be four years away. But then this was in 2019. 2020. COVID happens. So we don’t have a convention in 2020. We don’t have a convention in 2021. ’22, we have like a hybrid. It’s kind of Internet and some people there. So 2025 ended up being phenomenal. And so yeah, so. And not many people have become the president of the journalist association from a rap career. Like not many people become a journalist even for a historic newspaper. 100-year-old plus newspaper like the Call and Post. And I later became. I came in as they wanted me to do rap reviews. I quickly just started doing movie reviews, play reviews. If it was a dead body under the bridge, they would send me out if I need to go to City Hall. So I end up covering everything, not just arts and entertainment. And I became the managing editor of the newspaper. And then I became what they were calling the general manager. I would laugh and say that that’s technically the president of the paper. They were just afraid to call me president, so they named my position general manager. But that’s a. To me, that’s an honor. And that’s a long shot from starting out as a hip hop artist to be given that responsibility to be the caretaker of a 100-year-old newspaper started by the man who created the traffic signal and the gas mask, Garrett Morgan. So I am proud of my post-collegiate life. It’s gone in so many different directions from, from hip hop to activist, community activist, to educator. I teach at Case Western Reserve. I have to go there when I leave here. Hip hop history for the last three summers, and this will be my fourth summer also teaching hip hop history at Case. So I’m happy with my scholarly outcome. But I’m. I promised my mother I will, I will get those two classes done.
Ava Carubia [00:26:00] Well, oh my gosh, I don’t know if we’re even gonna have time for everything that I want to ask you.
Kevin Heard [00:26:05] Let’s keep rocking, let’s go.
Ava Carubia [00:26:06] But I. I have to go back and ask you about the start of your hip hop career. How did you get started in that?
Kevin Heard [00:26:15] I think I’ve learned to do this quicker than usual. I am a freshman in college. Myself and this other person that became one of the pioneers of Cleveland hip hop, Ernest Collier, better known as DJ Cochise. We’re freshmen together, by the way. Down the hall from me was Kevin Conwell, who’s now the councilman of the Glenville area. He was also a freshman. But anyhow, we hear Rapper’s Delight, and it’s the first time I’ve ever heard this thing that was called rap music. And it was. To me, it felt like the earth stood still. Gravity, all of a sudden was something different. And I felt a connection. And then when I heard more and more rap songs, it was engaging, it was hypnotic, and it was something that I could do. I was a natural storyteller and writer, and I didn’t have to be able to sing. And so I gravitated towards it. I was good at it. And I became one of the preeminent rappers in the early days of Cleveland hip hop. I tell people there’s nobody in Cleveland rapping before me. They might have been rapping with me, but nobody was rapping before me. And that’s before I get a record deal. So I find myself one thing, and there’s a documentary out right now called “216 Legends of the Land” that tells the story of how I get my record deal at an iconic, iconic New York City South Bronx label. Again, to my benefit, it’s not just a record label, it’s a record label in the birthplace of hip hop, the South Bronx. And so I’m now thrown into the ground zero of this art form. I’m meeting founders, the creators of hip hop. And that wouldn’t have just happened if I’d have signed with Columbia or Sony, but I signed with Fever Records, which is the home label for the club, which is based in Ground Zero in the South Bronx where hip hop started. So even for New York, that was something new. To have a non-New Yorker on a New York rap label. New York was the epicenter of hip hop and they weren’t known to share in those days. It was their game, their ball. And I was kind of the predecessor to other cities because there was no Atlanta, there was no Detroit, there was no Miami. Now they might have had, obviously they might have had hip hop community cultures, but not nationally accepted out of New York City. So I kind of opened the door to let New York City know you don’t actually have to be from New York to have respect and talent of this culture. So not only was I the first in Cleveland, but in New York I also opened doors for them to know that you could be from somewhere else and still have respect and talent for what this hip hop art had to offer.
Ava Carubia [00:29:39] So you were at Kent and then you moved back to Cleveland?
Kevin Heard [00:29:43] I moved back to Cleveland. Well, when I was performing I was still living in Kent. And soon after that I started writing for the Source Magazine. And then not long after, and I was also starting, excuse me, I hate to leave out that I was rap- I was writing for Johnny O’s magazine, It’s A Rap. But initially started writing under a pseudonym and then I became managing editor of It’s A Rap Magazine. And then I started working for the Call and Post and that became my full time employment. I call that my first real adult job working at the Call and Post newspaper. So eventually, I moved back home and I started working for the Call and Post.
Ava Carubia [00:30:34] When you’re talking about the Cleveland hip hop scene, how would you compare that to New York or to other cities?
Kevin Heard [00:30:40] You talking about at the time?
Ava Carubia [00:30:42] At the time. And then also just like the legacy of it.
Kevin Heard [00:30:46] Well, at the time of which I tell the story in the documentary and I tell it, you know, to everybody. I want Cleveland to have respect for. I want them to be respected for our talent and creativity in the elemental portions of hip hop. Because right now people just know hip hop as the rap part. But hip hop at its basic level is four elements, and that’s rapping that they call emceeing, DJing, turntablism, aerosol art, graffiti, and breakdancing or b-boy. We were accomplished in all four of those elements at a high level. So it was easy for me when I show up in New York to relate to the culture itself because not only did I know it, but I had a deep respect for it. And I think that showed, other than New York, they thought I spoke funny because everybody in New York think you talk country, air quotes, country. And I was like, have you never heard people from like, Mississippi or Alabama if you think I sound country, what would you think they were? So, you know, so I had to break that barrier as well. They thought everything I said was funny. “Did you hear him say he wanted some pop?” You know, it’s the pop soda thing. But yeah, so it was an easy transition for me because I was already firmly grounded in hip hop. And if anybody goes back, just think I started literally rapping for real in 1980. I don’t get a record deal until late ’85. I was about to get out of the game. So my very first song, “Bust This Rhyme”, which came out in late ’85, early 8’6. So now we’re right on the 40th anniversary of that. At the beginning of the song, I say “My name is MC Chill and when they told me I could make a record, I thought to myself, it’s about time.” I say that at the beginning of my very first song, which tells you that I’ve been doing this for a while before I got the record deal. So, yeah, but we in Cleveland, we had. We were fully immersed in all four of the basic elements of hip hop at an early time.
Ava Carubia [00:33:08] Can you describe more, like paint the picture of the scene at that time?
Kevin Heard [00:33:13] The early scene, everything was new. And I tell the story of, for instance, when I get a record deal and I’m going to record in Cleveland. Literally nobody has showed up at a recording studio trying to rap. So it was a brand new thing I’m breaking. Everywhere I went, I was breaking barriers. And I’ll show up at a recording studio that has never recorded a rapper. Plus the fact I have a DJ who’s going to scratch records, they have no idea how to. How to, you know, link that up. Then I have a human beatbox who’s making beats with his mouth. They really don’t know how to record that. So it was a new experience. I brought the experience of hip hop to Cleveland and to Cleveland recording studios. And to top it off, when we needed someone to make the music. Today, its producers all up and down the street. At that point, I didn’t know of any hip hop music producers. I went and got somebody who was more doing synth music than hip hop music. And he was kind of new to this synthesized music. It’s like that a lot of keyboard, keyboard sounds that were prevalent during that time. Not necessarily. It wasn’t hip hop. It was kind of funk, funk, post disco. But Mike Chapman, he was a young guy at the time and had just graduated from Shaker Heights High School. So we tracked him down at Ohio State and always tell the story about, we went to our state to find him. No cell phones. We just at Ohio State campus saying, we’re looking for Mike Chapman and we find him and we talk about making music. But. So the scene was new. Like everything you did was new. It had never been done. And then there was groups that came after me that kind of also started doing it, but nobody. I don’t even know if we were thinking about making a national record. Cause it had never been done before. We were coming from a thing where DJs. Even hip hop started, with the DJs. So even in Cleveland, the DJs were the big thing. The DJs had the turntables, the speakers, the sound system. They bought the records. The rappers were just the cats that said, can I get on the microphone while you’re DJing? The rappers didn’t even get paid. The DJs got paid. You’d be happy if the DJ gave you $20 for rapping, but. So all of that was, was new. And by the time I get a record deal, they, they refer to that as the golden age of hip hop. That’s. That’s when it starts to become big. You talking about Run DMC, LL Cool J, Whodini, Beastie Boys, and all of them, by the way, I think, are inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame. So we also need. I need to talk to. I need to have a conversation with the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame that is in my city and does not have anything that bears anything of me in it today. So that’s a problem for me. But yeah, it was a magical time to be a hip hop artist because everything was so new and it’s hard to see history when you’re living in it. Now everybody wants to hear all the old stories from me, but at the time I’m going through it you don’t actually see that you’re living in history as it’s happening.
Mikel Jordan [00:36:54] And as a young fan, because I didn’t know him personally yet, like it was just. So hip hop for me started in the park, you know, and then moved to the clubs when they started having kiddie nights where you could get in and party younger than 18. So while I didn’t see the technical side, I see how the clubs and the radio stations weren’t ready. Like it kind of got pushed on me.
Kevin Heard [00:37:28] Radio stations. I started, I’d say I was born. MC Chill was born at a radio station at FM 108WDMT. They had a club style show where hip hop was literally born Cleveland-wise at this radio station where on a Saturday night they would let young Black men come into a commercial FM radio station and rap and spin records. What made the program director, Dean Rufus ever let that happen, I do not know. But it changed the whole complexion of what became the hip hop movement in Cleveland. I was born at that radio station. I later did my own show at WZAK, which a lot of people remember as one of the forerunners of what became, you know, prominent in the Cleveland hip hop scene. The show I did called the Rapper’s Delight Show at WZAK. So, you know, and again I was playing rap records at WZAK where Cleveland radio was not playing rap records. And a couple of times, I broke records that was so requested that people heard from my radio show, my Saturday night radio show, that they’re calling the radio station during the day requesting records that the radio station never heard of. Because also I’m doing a radio show and I’m still a recording artist and I’m on a New York label. So I’m back and forth in New York and I’m bringing back records. I saw Run DMC perform “My Adidas”, which led to, you know, their crossover appeal right before they did “Walk This Way”. And I remember we’re at in the Bronx looking at them like, are they singing about their tennis shoes? And it was like a strange thing. And we’re like, oh, we all know how that’s gonna work out. And you know, it became the forerunner to one of their biggest, one of the biggest rap records there ever was. But I’m there the night they performed “My Adidas” and we’re looking like, they’re rapping about their tennis shoes. And then that becomes a mainstay in hip hop. And sneakers, as they call New York “sneakas”, of which I always died because in New York they call a record a “reckett”. Said, what’s your reckett? But anyhow, it’s just, it was amazing to be there during that, that time that hip hop on a national level was born. And I’m, I’m not just in Cleveland when it happens, but, but I’m in New York as it happens as well.
Ava Carubia [00:40:23] Well, it is 4:22 and there’s so much. But I guess one of the questions I have is like how did being from Lee-Harvard, being from Cleveland maybe influence your music or just influence the way you went through the world and all these different things?
Kevin Heard [00:40:36] Well, one of the main, and I saw Kel had it written down. One of the main influences. One of my great, greatest role models through life was a man named Ken Ferguson. He was much more than a martial arts instructor. Grandmaster on the United States Karate Team 10, 12 years in a row. He became this famous, well known, internationally known martial artist. But to us, his original, I was one of his original students. Before he even had a karate school, he taught us at the John F. Kennedy Rec center for free. And those young men, those original kids, they went on to become national champions, myself included. I was three times national junior karate champion. The study of martial arts and just being mentored by Ken Ferguson, I mean he not only taught us karate, he taught us how to drive a car. He gave us life lessons every single day. And confidence in ourselves and in our friends, our brotherhood with each other. So that confidence that I already had from my parents and from, from my dad, but the confidence of a younger, I mean he’s older than me, but he’s not a parent, he’s not parental age. The things that I learned about life and attitude and confidence and self esteem from Ken Ferguson. Again, not just martial arts and karate, but life, has stayed with me through school, through hip hop, through journalism. One of the major influences on me, and he is well known in the Lee-Harvard, I mean he’s deceased now, but he is well known in the Lee-Harvard area. Since then, since me, he opened up a karate school and he probably taught thousands of children martial arts. But me and my guys, we always remember, we were the original students who studied at a recreation center and became national karate champions at a rec center. But that’s the kind of guy and influence that Ken Ferguson had on me. And I do want to add that my hip hop knowledge, my rap writing knowledge made it an easy transition for me as a journalist. I would always tell people, I always knew how to tell a story with interest, with a beginning, a middle and ending. To me being a journalist was easier because I didn’t have to make the words rhyme. I’m like, wait a minute, this story don’t even, the words don’t even have to rhyme. Oh man, it’s gonna be a piece of cake. So me coming from the hip hop world as a rhyme writer and I, I looked at, looked at myself as, as a preeminent. My pen game was, if I could be honest, was always excellent as far as writing rhymes. I wrote a song called “Prophecy” that people talk about today in the UK as a predictor of what hip hop would look like today. And this is a song I wrote in 1986 called “Prophecy”. And it starts with me saying “The state of the art is out of control/ Chaotic, melodic, simplistic woes/ As the father I’m brokenhearted and I gotta come finish what I have started/ I was there at the beginning and I’ll be at the end/ And it won’t come back unless I start it again/Deaf ears will hear/Blind eyes will see/ The making of my music and the prophecy.” People talk about that song still, like chill. You predicted the future of hip Hop in 1986. So to go from that type of rap writer to a journalist was relatively easy for me.
Ava Carubia [00:44:53] Well, I have one last question and this is what I ask everyone, which is what is a message you’d like to leave for future generations?
Kevin Heard [00:45:00] Man, future generations is. I told one of my best friends, I said, “Give this information to your son.” he’s in college right now. I said, everybody, and it’s the nerd in me that will reflect to superhero stories, the Avengers. I said, tell your son to act like he has the Infinity Stones right now that he can, instead of being able to go back to the past to correct things and put yourself on the path of where you want to be in the future, act like you’re doing that right now. Look to the future. And that’s part of the problem. When I was doing what I was doing, we had no understanding of the future or that we were living in something that would be our legacy decades later. So I would tell everybody, think about a legacy. Think about the future, not just of you, but your family and your community. You want to leave a direction, a blueprint behind. And I would tell anybody, be cognizant of the things that you do will affect, affect not just your life, but others lives from what you did, right or wrong. So plan your legacy and how it will affect you, your neighborhood and your community as a whole.
Ava Carubia [00:46:45] Perfect. Well, I want to thank you so much and I’m going to end the recording now.
Kevin Heard [00:46:49] All right thank you.
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