“Video Music Box” host Ralph McDaniel's interview

Ralph McDaniels made the shout-out popular.

His show Video music box 1983 debut Wnyc-TV on the New York television station and still broadcast on WNYE TV, which makes it the longest running music show ever. It was also the first to broadcast hip-hop music videos on television. “Nobody ever said that, apart from me when I said it on TV,” says McDaniels about the on-air shout-out. “People said:” How is that possible? “I think: 'Because that was a hip-hop concept and I just said it on TV.' “

The legendary VJ, the DJ, the music video director and the hip-hop archivist have always been ahead of the curve, even with its youngest undertaking, which has turned part of his 20,000-hour reserve from film material into a YouTube channel. In 2010 he started the VideoMusicbox1 channel with classic film material from appearances, interviews and documentaries, including a video about the groundbreaking “Self Destruction” video, a “Stop the Violence” Prack with stars. The most viewed video on the channel is a freestyle in the mid-nineties, which the man described as “uncle Ralph”, says that it is a unique piece of rap history.

“The crazy part is that it is not a song,” he says about Zoom. “It's a freestyle when ODB makes a beatbox. I don't think what Gza says ever came out [on a song]. It's a freestyle, and that was it. “He says he recorded them in a club bath. I am a hip-hop type. I was there,” he says.

For 20 years, YouTube has been used as a hip-hop standard digital archive instead of physical rooms. The access freedom of the platform means that everyone can upload (provided that it fits the terms of use), which means that the audience can explore a reserve of music videos that have not been broadcast for decades, mixtapes that are nowhere available anywhere else, old music -oriented television programs and a variety of other rare content.

In 2022, the digital archivist Claudio Abreu Film material from Jay-Z's legendary Hot 97-Sommer-Jam uploaded to its HipHopvCR platform and offered a graphic for a moment that had previously only existed through mouth listings (although McDaniel's classic film material has an in-the-zone-z-pormance). YouTube-based internet platforms such as ZachtV created by the late Chicagoan Zach Stoner are a valuable chronicle of the first chapter of the Drill scene of the Chicago Drill scene. Many of the people with whom Stoner spoke are no longer alive or free to give interviews. Recently published the former Drug Kingpin Demetrius “Big Meech” Flenory has a myth that inspired Rick Ross' “BMF” song, several documentaries and a TV show. Much of this aura is thanks to a notorious appearance in the Smack DVD, which was based in New York, which was uploaded on YouTube and achieved millions of prospects.

Hip-hop fans can search the service to get an introduction to or a memory of previous hip-hop epochs. There is no other place to hear a clip by Famed Radio DJ Mr. Magic from 1986, who says the fans of Jay-Z: “You could see a star of the future” or an interview with Tupac from 1989 during his time as a Nu African Panther. TV and radio stations are not often broadcast old content again, which means that interviews and television programs from yesterday are in the safe– to what is it somewhere.

At the age of 66, McDaniels' life fell together with hip-hop birth and worldwide expansion. He grew up in Brooklyn and moved to Queens at the age of 11, where he studied communication at Laguardia Community College and worked on the Wnyc radio station in 1983. Soon afterwards he created Studio 31 dance partyinto which he finally turned Video music box In addition to co-moderator Lionel Martin.

To Video music boxThe two wanted to present hip-hop videos and performances. “I would go to places and see how these groups appear, take them professionally and put them on TV,” he says. “The artists said:” Yo. We didn't know that it would be so “, whereby we refer to the quality of the video.” I said: “Yes. I work for a real television station.”

His genre spanning vault of the film material served as the basis for “You can see video music box“A 2023 Showtime documentary that appears its effects on hip-hop culture. The documentary was written by Steve Rivo and Andre Wilkins and staged by NAS, whose first solo music video” It is not difficult to tell “by Illmatic, was staged by McDaniels. (“I sometimes work with NAS and NAS:” Yo, how did you know that it was important? “I said:” I just knew “.) McDaniels also staged videos for Roxanne Shante and Mc Lyte.

At some point in the early nineties, McDaniels began working on the venerable New York radio station Hot 97, where he recorded every hot 97 Summer Jam from 1994. He says he is still trying to find out what to do with the film material. It was at Hot 97 when he realized that the relocation to digital content occurred – the station created a YouTube page in September 2006 – and he realized that he also wanted to be present on the platform.

McDaniels says that all of his archive work “is about teaching” and adds: “Young people will find shit themselves. They will search for it and they will find it.” He says that the account will be carried out on instinct for the time being. His daughter and brother help him coordinate the side. They also serve as partners of his non-profit organization with video music box. “We have just set up things by chance,” he says, “I will go for some reason”, let's put a big play on words or 'let's put a big professor.' It could be an interview that was only dope. “He says that copyright problems and the people who wipe his content have slowed down his latest edition, and he still strategies how new content can be uploaded.

He recently supported his vault of the ligaments during the quarantine period of Covid-19 and collected donations through his non-profit organization for “high-end archivists”, which looked through his VHS bands and created digital copies. Now he is considering his next steps, including potential cooperation with YouTube managers Lyor Cohen and Tuma Basa, to strengthen his film material reserve.

No matter which platform McDaniels works with, it is firmly defined using the video music box mission. “We have a story to tell,” he says. “There are many stories that have not yet been told in hip-hop, and I have the film material. If you tell a story, someone wants to see it. I most likely have it.”