Abogados de Inmigracion

“ My career started in the early 70’s. I brought the first Disco into the Bronx. I actually opened a Disco before Studio 54 opened. It was pretty successful; I was about 19 years old. I had the eye for talent and I had the intuition to know when something was going to change or when something trendy was going to come in. When I saw the Disco thing happen, I was the first to have one in the Bronx and it went over well.”

As one of the original outlets for bringing Hip-Hop from the streets to the market, Sal tells about his role concerning that period. “I started noticing Hip-Hop music which at that point in time was not known as Hip-Hop. It was MC’ing or rhyming. I saw that every time we had a DJ at the Fever till 3, 4 in the morning, the crowd would be reacting tremendously for the guy talking on the mike.”

“I started looking for the talent because I thought there was a youth movement and I was relating it back to Disco and Motown. So I went out and found Grandmaster Flash. I brought him indoors. I did this for ten years. Run DMC, LL Cool J. Russell Simmons was a customer. Kurtis Blow did his first show there, LL, and Doug E. Fresh, most of the big rappers got their start at the club I called “The Fever”.

The Fever was coming to an end in 85’. It was really getting mainstream and universal. I started hitting Manhattan and the Fever was getting played out. They made a movie about the Fever called “Krush Groove” LL even mentioned to me recently, “You don’t know what you mean to Hip-Hop.”

The impact of young Hispanic teenagers moved Sal to take a notice of another movement. “ I noticed a growing population of Hispanics in the Bronx and Manhattan. I was doing concerts with one of the legends, Eddie Rivera, and in the cleanup parties and I had all my rappers there, Sweet 6, Love Boat, Starsky, and I had this young Latina, Nayobe, who was 15. I had discovered her at one of the skating rinks in the Bronx called Skate Fever. She was very talented. An 18 year old kid brought me a Demo and I heard it, we played it in the Fever and everyone thought it was cool. It sounded like rap with a Latin Flavor. The song was “Please Don’t Go.”

“I put them in the studio because I see lightning hitting again with this music as it did with Hip-Hop. There was a movement, a teen movement, If you have a movement in music it has to come from teenagers. They set the trend. What happens in the culture, the dancing, etc.”

“It was a case of second generation Latinos. They found their own music other than their parents or grandparents. It was going to be their sound that they discovered in America. I put the record out and it was an instant hit. At the same time Lisa Lisa put out a record called “I wonder if I take you home.” We had these two Latinas exploding on the scene very young. I had this Latin Club where Tito Puente and Tito Nieves performed. It wasn’t doing well. So I changed it to a dance club with this music. My thought was that this is going to be like Hip-Hop and it’s going to start all over again. Sure enough I needed to find a DJ. I went into the streets and the name Little Louie Vega was the word. We put him in the club and the whole scene blew up. I pandered to those who were in the streets and the park and gave them a venue. The drinking age then was 18 so you know there were 16, 17 year olds drinking. All these young entrepreneurs started popping up with little independent labels. It just started blowing up. I opened up the club and that’s when everybody got to showcase, TKA, La India, Brenda K. Starr, Sa-Fire, the Cover girls, Information Society, and Nayobe among others did their first show there. You knew this was going to another level. The club lasted for two years because they changed the drinking age from 18 to 21. The groups started maturing and I got more involved with the record companies. I put out the Cover Girls. They were discovered at the Devil’s Nest at a talent show. I found the producers the Latin Rascals who were my customers and they started producing for me.”

Sal was at the forefront of many of Freestyle’s successes but more important when Freestyle was no longer the flavor of the month, Sal was responsible for keeping his artists in the public eye. “I have been doing this music since 1984, that’s 22 straight years. I kept promoting it. In the early 90’s the major labels started grabbing all the freestyle artists because they saw this as the next Hip-Hop. The major labels then tried to turn them into Pop acts and it didn’t work. They tried to change the sounds and the producers and it was one album and out. The music died in ’92. It was a case of as the music was growing the sound wasn’t. We didn’t get that second wave of writers and producers that would have taken it to another level. In ‘ 93 it just got played out.”

The return of freestyle which leads us into tonight was possible by radio station KTU and
Others.“KTU opened its doors to the music in ’94 and ’95. In ’95 they started playing that music heavily, because they were still young. They were too young to be over. KTU kept the music alive. This is the only music in history that never died. It never went away to come back. Every once in a while someone made a record. Lil’ Suzy made a record, TKA had Maria, but never could they string two or more together. I think radio had given up on the sound but they never stopped playing the old hits. All these years people have living off the old sound.”

Going into the current decade Sal made it a point to keep things going for these young artists. “In 2000 I noticed a lot of the artists had trouble drawing on their own. But when I put five or ten of them together, it would draw numbers. I had a birthday party in 2000 at Club Exit and three to five hundred people showed up. I started doing it at the Copa. Then I started seeing resurgence. I think the music started reaching the classic stage. For fifteen years the freestyle artists were working, never disappeared all these years. Why, because no music took freestyle’s place. Freestyle is loved by white people and as well as Latinos every year. I did Memorial Day and Thanksgiving Day shows and drew four thousand people. Adam Torres came to watch the shows. I told him that this is ready to blow up as classic now, Nostalgia. The older crowd stopped going to clubs but they went to venues. Since no music took its place, there’s a demand for it. The thing about the Freestyle community, the artists was true role models, no drugs, no drama, no killing, and no negativity. These are the nicest people that also have children. I know all of them I’ve met their kids. It took twenty-two years to get this music heard at Madison Square Garden.”

“People wanted to hear Hip-Hop, young music. No one was promoting it as nostalgic. When Ralph Mercado and Adam Torres and Arty Pavon saw the numbers I was doing at the Copa. They saw that there was a market for it. They went to a place called the Palace in Connecticut. They sold twenty-nine hundred seats in two weeks. They were in shock. They went to the Mohegan and sold Ten thousand. I said the Paramount, they said no the main arena. They thought that they could fill it. I’m so happy for them that they made it. This is the ultimate especially if you live here to play the Garden. It’s like making it to the World Series or the Super Bowl. Even though it was a long wait it was well worth it. When they get to the stage it will be the highlight of their lives.”

As we approached the event Sal had final thoughts, “ They stuck by me through all these years until somebody noticed. I think a lot of the young Hip-Hoppers have been at the shows. If this music comes out now, it would be their music, too. Its dance music, its positive, its Boyfriends and Girlfriends, its about times in a teenagers life, going to clubs, dating somebody, loving somebody.”

I asked Sal about the legacy of this genre, “Going through four genres of music, a pioneer of freestyle. Freestyle never had that second breath. Can you name music that was on top for five years and for thirty years thereafter never had a dead period? The legacy is the Longevity. The music looks like it’s going to be forever. Its everlasting this music.”

The tour continues throughout the country and on May 28,2006 Sal will have another Memorial Day Super card at the Copa in New York City on May 28, 2006 as La India, “The Princess of Salsa”, will return to her roots singing freestyle for the first time in many a year. Little Louie Vega will return as well. Safire will return as well as Corina, Judy Torres, K-7, Fascination, Soave, Manny, and Nayobe.

The Freestyle Extravaganza Reunion Concert

FreeStyle Expresses itself at Madison Square Garden