The TR 808 Is Coming
I remember being put on the spot in 1987 while in the recording studio with DJ Scott La Rock. Scott had just completed a track using a sample from an old Three Dog Night record called “Mama Told Me Not To Come” and decided that the track would be used as my DJ Red Alert radio promo. Now imagine this, I was 16 years old at the time and I had never written a lyric in my life and here I am being put to the test. How’s that for pressure. I sat in the studio for 1 hour and came up with a song called “The TR 808 Is Coming”, which at the time I thought was cool but listening back to it now, I sound absolutely ridiculous!
Most people never understood what the TR 808 was and why that became my moniker. Well, initially I started out as the human beat box for the group on a song called “The P is Free”. The TR 808 was an old drum machine that produced the 808 kick drum which is still one of the most widely used drum sounds to date. Being that the 808 kick drum was so powerful, Scott felt that the name was suitable for me. I became D-Nice The Human TR 808. To be honest with you, I hated it! It reminded me of an unknown Marvel Comic superhero.
Anyway, after doing some research on the web, I found a copy of the original version of “The TR 808 Is Coming”, featuring the intro by DJ Scott La Rock & KRS-ONE straight from the Red Alert radio show. How crazy is it that my very first demo became a staple on the Red Alert radio show for almost 2 years?
Comments
Yo ! I can remember the promo and song - I was living in St. Albans Queens at the time and my folks let me listen to the radio on fri and sat nights. I was 10 at the time and just sterting to realize what hip hop was - but this was one of my favorite joints.
Posted by: bigbadblazer | March 9, 2007 08:02 AM
whats up d? its amazing to read all the comments on the song that ifluenced all of us in some way.....thank you for the memories. when u makin your comeback man? fan for life.
chris
Posted by: chris | March 4, 2007 01:03 PM
1980's music is still the best even now!!
Posted by: matty | September 16, 2006 11:45 AM
yeah, good shit, beats all the crap out there by jay z and that shitty james dupri
Posted by: dingle | August 28, 2006 09:27 AM
After puttin this litle gem in my ipod and spinning it amongst my other tunes, I found that I started looking forward to the clip even though I also have the clean version from the Call me Dnice LP. the flavor is so fresh, even today the beat is still NASTY. D-Nice rhymes with confidence even though the lines are fairly simple. i even use them in my day to day convo!! "i drink amaretto on the rocks cuz it cools me off..." "the girls love it" how true this is... i remember seeing Dnice visit one of his fans on the hip hop show Pump It Up with Dee Barnes. i still wish i was that girl :)
BDP is the freshest, my fav part from this clip that is not available on the album version is when KRS starts off, "well bust this..."
Posted by: Remi | July 26, 2005 01:26 PM
Wow, this version of the 808 is very great.
Ofcourse I never this demo version!!
BO BO BO!
Just saw KRS perform in The Netherlands 2 times and it remembered me just of 1988/1989.
I am 30 now and still love Hip-Hop!
Posted by: Sander Romein | July 15, 2005 04:25 PM
"he's coming" Yo. I am from Flatbush, Brooklyn, but live in SC. Right now, I have classic WRKS FM radio tapes that have the hissing, been taped back together, etc. That radio promo for the Red Alert Radio Show was 'the liveiest promo on radio, suckers!!!!! That's hip-hop
Posted by: Dj L-Boogie | June 2, 2005 04:28 PM
I remember back in 1986 I was 16 and I went to New York I would listen to kiss 98.7 and I heard D nice The TR 808 Is Coming and I was like yo. Madd bass for that time of era. I recorded the DJ red alert show, but the d nice joint stood out the most. The kids love that one to. It may not stack up to hip hop standards for today but that song was popping back then. Ironically I was thinking of that song last week and wanted to get a copy. I went to www.msn.com and seeing d nice on the front page, I now knew i had a chance to get or just listen to The TR 808 Is Coming. I got one of the missing links to some of the old joints i loved to hear when i was a kid. You got to remember not to many songs back then had bass drops like The TR 808 Is Coming had, and the Three Dog Knights guitar sample even mad it more appealing. So yo D thanks for providing The TR 808 Is Coming. Its the same lyrics on the joint "D Nice Rocks the house" on the tribute to Scott La Rock. You know I'm old school.
Tyrone
aka MyAMeE
Posted by: Tyrone Walker | May 26, 2005 10:46 AM
Yo, did you get the mp3 off the cokeblunts board? I kopped it off there a few months ago. LARGE tune, cant believe it was never expanded on and released !!
Posted by: doog | May 20, 2005 10:33 AM
Hey Jack, trust me, I'm not ashamed of my music at all.
Posted by: D-Nice | May 18, 2005 06:45 AM
Dude, that shit right there is classic!!!! Nothing to be ashamed of. Reminds me of when BDP ruled the world!!!
Posted by: Combat Jack | May 17, 2005 11:38 PM
"Ya put me in the wildest crowd and I will rock it."
I had this on a WKYS tape, and although it was on your first LP, it's not the same without the tape hiss and Red Alert promos. Hotness!
How about upping the rest of Red's show? There's nothing like a 89 Red tape to get me going!
The J
Posted by: The J | May 17, 2005 01:48 PM
Wow...1987 seems so far away. I am from Kentucky...we live behind an iron curtain but I spent my summers in New York (Strong Island). When I first heard "808" I had found my theme music....back here in Kentucky we hadn't heard anything like that and all I knew was I wanted more. I came back that summer with all the radio tapes(you remember how we used to do) I could afford. I even bought a second (or 3rd or 4th) hand TR 808. Dang that seems like forever ago... Now I am a mom and a business woman but if you ever get to step into my Mini Van when the kids aren't with me....you just might hear some of your stacks playing and in my mind I am 15 again and D-nice is my personal DJ. Thank you
Posted by: Candy | May 16, 2005 09:24 AM
Damn...
As soon as I read the title I could hear the whole "I'm dnice the 808, this is not the time but the music that I make" in my head.
That was the first hip hop tape I had, I played that thing constantly until the tape died. I bought it again on CD a few years later. And then again when that got stolen.
It's amazing what that tape lead to, from the music I listen to, the art I appreciate, to the clothes I wear all started there. I don't think thats ever hit me until I heard that clip.
You can get away with dissing the song. But I still love it.
Thanks.
Posted by: josh | May 13, 2005 06:34 PM
You must have been the first (and only?) rapper to say "the beat is groovy". Dope. No one ever talks about KRS' singing. I don't think there would be any singing ODB or Ghostface without KRS doing it first.
Posted by: bse | May 13, 2005 05:32 PM