“A woooooorld premiere-miere-miere-miere …”
Hip-hop radio was a completely different animal in the early-to-mid 1980s. This was before music video channels like MTV and BET were even acknowledging rap music. This was before urban R&B radio stations would even acknowledge rap music. The early rap radio DJ was in a unique position to break artists and influence the music and culture. And in those early days as hip-hop was just beginning to experience its vastly popular second wave, nobody in New York was fiercer than John Rivas, aka “Mr. Magic.”
Hosting the first hip hop radio show to be aired on a major station, “Rap Attack” on New York’s WBLS-FM, Mr. Magic was one of the seminal figures in hip-hop’s influential “second” generation of the mid-1980s. The “Rap Attack” was hosted by Magic and featured a young DJ named Marley Marl, who would go on to become the legendary super producer and founder of the Queens’-based “Juice Crew.” The collective, (which included Big Daddy Kane, MC Shan, Masta Ace, Kool G Rap, Biz Markie, Craig G and Roxanne Shante) took their name from one of Magic’s nicknames — “Sir Juice.”
His most notable rivalry was with WRKS-FM’s DJ Red Alert. Mr. Magic was known for breaking new artists but he could be notoriously tough on up and coming acts. Many of these artists would find more favor on Red Alert’s radio show. He dismissed young rap group Public Enemy, and the group immortalized his disgust for them. A clip of Magic exclaiming, “No more music by the suckers!” (made after he smashed one of their singles into pieces live on the air of his radio show) was sampled and used in the opening for the “Terminator X to the Edge of Panic” track from their acclaimed, multiplatinum sophomore album, It Takes A Nation of Millions to Hold Us Back.
Magic died suddenly of a heart attack on the morning of Oct. 2, 2009. In the Internet age, rap radio no longer is the starmaking vehicle it once was in the days of “Rap Attack,” but Mr. Magic will forever be remembered as one of the voices on the airwaves making a place for hip-hop music when no one else wanted to play or hear it.
Mr. Magic’s legacy was cemented by the numerous references
to him and his show on songs by notable rappers.
“Every Saturday, “Rap Attack,” Mr. Magic, Marley Marl!”
–Notorious B.I.G. “Juicy”
“Cause then Magic went on the radio …”
–Whodini “Magic’s Wand”
“I got to have it, I miss Mr. Magic”
–Nas “Halftime”
“Mr. Magic might
wish to come and try to save ya …”
–Boogie Down
Productions (KRS-1) “The Bridge Is Over”
“I remember Mr. Magic, Flash, Grandmaster Caz …”
–2Pac “Old School”
–todd williams
