Dooley‑O’s Long Hip-Hop Trip Lives On

A song he recorded in 1988 let him put his name on a piece of hip hop history.

That song, ​“Watch My Moves,” jumps on its beat right away, a terrifically griity guitar and bass strutting over a beat impossible not to bob your head to. ​“Dooley‑O, what you got to say?” asks friend and fellow producer Chris Lowe.

As it turns out, a lot. ​“Set yourself up for the evening flow / got to go not slow / let the beanstalk grow,” Dooley‑O — a.k.a. Allen Jackson — starts, before unleashing his bars on the world.

“‘Watch My Moves’ was recorded in ​‘88 at Trod Nossel Studios in Wallingford,” Jackson said on a recent episode of WNHH FM’s ​“Northern Remedy.” Lowe, Jackson said, ​“was actually the master of that record as far as piecing it all together.”

There was no sampling unit in 1988, no computer to line it all up for them. Lowe and Jackson put the samples for ​“Watch My Moves” together by actually using tape, using a particular machine Trod Nossel had that let them put the music together seamlessly. The music was sampled from Ike and Tina Turner. The drum beat is ​“one of the most notorious, famous samples that’s been sampled all over the universe. It’s been in The Matrix. It’s called Skull Snaps,” Jackson said.

But back in 1988, it wasn’t part of the hip hop landscape yet.

“Me and Chris Lowe unearthed that record at Ms. Brown’s house, which was a neighbor of mine on Liberty Street.” The record was an obscure 1973 release from a band called Skull Snaps. The song was ​“It’s a New Day,” and the drums appeared right at the beginning, all by themselves, ripe for sampling 15 years later.

“The records we found at Ms. Brown’s house created my album and also created Stezo’s album,” Jackson said. ​“It just seemed like it was magic coming out of these one pile of records … she had a serious record collection.”

Stezo was Jackson’s cousin, Steve Williams, who also grew up in New Haven and became a dancer for hip hop group EPMD. He used the Skull Snaps sample for his song ​“It’s My Turn,” which turned out to be a hit. Unlike ​“Watch My Moves,” which had already mixed the beat with the Ike and Tina Turner guitar and bass parts, Stezo’s song let the loop run by itself for the first few seconds of the song, like it had appeared on the original Skull Snaps record. This meant that other hip hop artists could sample the drum loop from Stezo. And they did — from Ol’ Dirty Bastard, to Digable Planets, to DJ Jazzy Jeff and the Fresh Prince. The New Haven hip hop scene, in short, unleashed the Skull Snaps sample on the world. There were beefs about that — between Dooley‑O and Stezo, between both of them and EPMD. Meanwhile, the drum loop circled the world, and Jackson and Lowe can say they started it.

Jackson and his New Haven hip hop clique made that mark because by then, pushing 20, he had done a lot of musical homework, progressing from hip hop fan to creator. He was scooping up records left and right, looking for the next sound. ​“I’m going to buy a bunch of jazz records, I’m going to buy a bunch of soul records, and I’m going over to people’s houses and find out what’s going on,” he said. ​“At the time, there was a lot of good hip hop going on, so you kind of wanted to compete and you kind of knew you had to step your game up. But with us, we were just a tad bit different on what we wanted to do. Our clique was special. We had great rappers, lyricists. We had four or five beat makers that were really good as far as production was concerned. But the only one that really shined out was Stezo.”

Other people fell through the cracks. Jackson had to wait several more years for his shot. But in another sense, the unleashing of the Skull Snaps sample was an effort already about a decade in the making, starting back at the birth of hip hop — with Dooley‑O bearing witness.

You Don’t Stop

Jackson was born in North Carolina and raised in New Haven, in the Hill. ​“What caught me on hip hop,” he said, was that ​“I had family out on 113th and 5th Avenue” in Harlem. ​“As a child I saw the development of hip hop.” He went to a park in the back of the housing project where his aunt, uncle, and cousins lived and ​“I just saw somebody rapping.” It was maybe 1977 or 1978. The rapper had a DJ with him, and ​“it was loud, there was an echo.” Jackson loved it. ​“I came back home mimicking that dude. I wish I knew his name. I wanted to be that dude.” One, two, yo. Yes, yes, y’all. To the beat, y’all, you don’t stop, he would say. ​“My neighbors would be like, ​‘do that rap thing.’”

The Fatback Band’s ​“King Tim III” and Sugarhill Gang’s seminal ​“Rapper’s Delight” came out in 1979. Jackson heard ​“Rapper’s Delight” every five minutes on the radio because people kept calling in to hear it. Hip hop was in Connecticut within a few months. ​“It was like a nuclear explosion.” New York’s rappers came to New Haven to sell their records and performed in New Haven’s clubs, from Grand Avenue, to the Executive Suite downtown (which later became Gotham), to the Metro just off Whalley — to roller skating rinks, where Jackson, still a kid, could hear it. He saw Africa Bambaata do ​“Planet Rock” at Roller Dome when he was 10 or 11. A promoter called Reggie Reg put together parties that brought more music to New Haven.

As a kid, Jackson wanted to rap ​“because I saw my older brother rapping…. I wanted to be who he was.” He and his friends were ​“the coolest thing I’d ever seen in my life.” He was just starting to write his own material, at 12 or 13, when he met Chris Lowe on the football field. They were both students at Roberto Clemente. ​“We hit it off. We became best friends. He had turntables and I had a microphone. We just started playing around a few times over break beats.” Soon they were coming up with songs. They performed them in New Haven’s clubs and parties.

The scene, he was ​“was tight.” MCs, DJs and producers went out to see each other all the time, because ​“you can’t receive with a closed fist,” Jackson said. ​“Everybody was down together” — a scene probably about 100 strong. There was Mr. Magic. ​“He was the first to shout out New Haven” in a song. ​“He put T.C. Izlam out.” (Izlam would become part of Afrika Bambaata’s Zulu Nation, stepping down when news of Bambaata’s sex scandal involving the molestation of young boys broke in 2016. He was murdered in Atlanta in 2017.)

Jackson and Lowe decided they were going to get serious. ​“Let’s go into the studio,” they said.

Studio time was expensive. Friends of theirs in the neighborhood funded them, ​“the big homies in the hood,” Jackson said. ​“They were the dudes that had nice cars and had the money at the time. They didn’t want me to get the money in a bad way … they wanted to do good with the money they had.” They’d give Jackson and Lowe $500 to make a record. So they did. And one of those songs was ​“Watch My Moves.”

The Dream

When Stezo got his record deal with Sleeping Bag Records in 1989, initially it seemed as though he would take his entire crew with him in the possibe ascent to fame. But Dooley‑O also wanted to pursue his own music, and was having less luck than his cousin.

“Friendships are starting to get a little weird. The crew was doing the Stezo thing, so I felt left out at the time…. That gave me more juice,” Jackson said — to learn how to produce, to use studio equipment, to make the music he wanted to make.

His music then caught the ear of William Bowens — father of Alisa Bowens — who had a small record label. He made a string of introductions that led to David Hyatt of the Miami-based Tavdash Records. (Hyatt would later be arrested on drug charges and die in 2015 of prostate cancer while serving a life sentence.) Hyatt ​“wanted to put out ​‘Watch My Moves.’ He gave me $5,000 in cash — in 1988 — it was so much money going on in ​‘88. I finally get a record deal. I’m on my way. I’m coming.”

He tried to take all his friends with him. But Tavdash Records discovered R. Kelly. As Jackson and friends decamped to Florida to make an album. They stayed there for three months, making a record while the record label focused on Kelly, their rising star. Jackson knew Tavdash wouldn’t put the record out. He took the reel-to-reel tapes of his sessions and came back to New Haven.

In New Haven, he did odd jobs. He got into being a graffiti artist, and from there got a local TV show that featured graffiti art, rap, and breakdancing. He met other graffiti artists from Hamden, from Danbury. ​“Now I’m being more diverse,” Jackson said. He wanted to encourage fellow rappers to form a collective like Wu-Tang. And he met Eothen Alapatt, a.k.a. Egon, originally from Shelton, who was working with Stones Throw Records, founded by producer Peanut Butter Wolf. ​“They’re finding old groups that never got a chance,” he said. Alapatt moved to Los Angeles to keep working with Stones Throw Records. Jackson moved to California twice and got involved in the scene there. He started DJing parties in San Francisco, some of which were for Stones Throw Records. He knew how to get people to move on the dance floor, how to play just the right records at the right time. Jackson asked Stones Throw to put out his record. Stones Throw released ​“Watch My Moves” in 2000, and the rest of Dooley‑O’s record came out on Solid Records. He toured to London, Scotland, and Dublin, went to Brighton and Liverpool.

“This dream is becoming a reality,” Jackson said.

But in time, his album began to fade. He returned to New Haven, got married, had a child. ​“Nobody was calling for me,” he said. He needed to make some stability for his family. He put it together through DJing, art, teaching, and other jobs. He pieced it together. ​“My phone’s ringing constantly,” he said. ​“It’s a no-brainer.”

But the music industry called a final time, in 2015, the form of Sleediz Records, based out of France. They did a couple of demos; Sleediz offered $1,000 as an advance for an album and Jackson went for it. They decided to try for a tour. This is where the ​“true Hollywood” story comes in.

“I put out the album. We get booked for 13 shows in France,” Jackson said. His wife was three months’ pregnant. ​“You know that was a home issue. Thank God for Skype. It kept us close.” He arrived in Paris and had to get to Strasbourg, a full day’s of travel with ​“two big bags full of stuff” — merchandise to sell — only to discover that 10 of those 13 shows had been canceled.

“The music business will tear you up,” Jackson said. His return flight was three and a half weeks in the future, and it was too expensive to change his ticket. He spent three weeks ​“walking around France.” For the three shows he did perform, Sleediz took most of the money. He came home with $400 and a personal vow to never do it again.

“My rap record days are done,” Jackson said. ​“I still got the itch to do it again,” he added, but ​“if I do it, it’ll be for fun.”

But ​“everything’s coming full circle,” he said. He’s found success as a DJ, at Rudy’s for nearly 10 years, at parties all over the place. He’s giving a talk at the Bronx Museum on Dec. 6 about graffiti. He teaches at ACES. He’s working with Creative Arts Workshop. And ​“Westville has shown me a lot of love.” His art studio is at West River Arts. His daughter graduated from Syracuse University. Stezo is ​“still cutting hair, but he’s doing it down south.” Lowe is doing real estate and selling barber apparel. The crew he grew up with is mostly still in New Haven.

In the long arc of his time in hip hop, he has seen the genre explode out of New York. He feels lucky: He’s seen the East Coast-West Coast feuds. And he’s seen the center of gravity move south.

“Lucky for me, I came in through a golden era, and at the end of the golden era” — he meant 1999, 2000 — ​“I had my shot,” Jackson said. Now, he said, ​“I like to tell every rapper I meet, ​‘Just do what you do. Don’t do what these other guys are doing. Don’t try to mimic what’s going on down south.” The grassroots of hip hop are ​“flooded,” he said. ​“It’s sad because there’s a lot of great music out there, but people are so programmed that they just don’t get it.” And ​“everyone’s on their phones now.”

“To be an artist now, you got to be different,” he added. ​“You can’t follow the flock. You got to strike a nerve. And if you don’t have that to strike somebody’s nerve, you sound like everybody else, quit. Don’t waste your time. You’ll just beat yourself up.”

What might come after hip hop?

“Something’s going to come. It’s dying to come,” Jackson said. ​“I just think that if it does come, the youth will have it, and we won’t understand it.”

But meanwhile, he said, ​“I just want them to … elevate the music, make good music for people to dance to. All we want to do is dance and have a good time.”

Follow Dooley‑O on Instagram. To hear the full interview with Dooley‑O on WNHH’s ​“Northern Remedy,” click on the file below.