A Few Things to Ponder: How the West Was Won By Davey D We got a chance to sit down with two of Hip Hop’s most influential yet over looked figures-The Egyptian Lover and the Arabian Prince. Many people don’t realize that these two guys were part of a much larger LA deejay/ Hip Hop seen that was coming into prominence during the late 70s early 80s. Egyptian Lover along with fellow pioneers like Roger Clayton and Uncle Jamm’s Army were working four turn tables, doing all sorts of deejay tricks and adding a whole lot of showmanship to their craft. They were throwing huge parties at places like the LA Coliseum and laying down the building blocks for what would later be Cali’s vibrant Hip Hop scene. It’s important to note that Egypt started out as a deejay and not as a rapper. Egypt explains that like his east coast counterparts Grandmaster Flash and Afrika Bambaataa, he too was working the early drum machines/ beatboxes and making record specifically to enhance his booming parties. Egyptian Lover talked to us about the early days of LA and how cats grew up and were influenced by artists like Prince and Kraftwerk. His love for Prince is what influenced the sexually charged music. That’s why he did songs like ‘Girls’, ‘My Beat Goes Boom’ and ‘Freak-A-Holic’. His love for Kraftwerk is what moved him the direction of what we now call Electro-Funk. This admission is eye opening because many folks outside of Cali automatically assumed that Egypt and Uncle Jamm’s Army came up trying to be like Afrika Bambaataa who introduced us to Electro-funk via his classic song ‘Planet Rock’. Egypt noted that such was not the case and that he has met him once and wished that the pair had teamed up to do music because they would’ve developed an entirely new sound. LA had it’s on thing going. The Egyptian Lover gives us the run down in this interview Less