The Legendary Tale of Toddy Tee and Mixmaster Spade

The Legendary Tale of Toddy Tee and Mixmaster Spade

By: Vince Wilson

The year 2023 is the year of the ever-evolving culture and music we call Hip Hop. Born in 1973 in the borough of Bronx, New York, Dj Kool Herc threw a party that would become the inception of today's most popular form of music around the world. Hip Hop would eventually spread throughout the states, and make its way to a small town on the West Coast in California called Compton. I’m talking about Toddy Tee and Mixmaster Spade.

Mixmaster Spade

Before becoming pioneering West Coast MCs, Toddy Tee and Mixmaster Spade met in grade school as dancers and pop lockers who liked each other's style and the friendship grew from there. In the 70s when Mixmaster would visit his grandmother in New York in the 70s, he would bring back tapes from The Treacherous 3 and The Crash Crew. He would see the DJs throwing block parties in the park and be inspired to come back to LA to get his first DJ set and mixer, inevitably making his mixtapes in 1983. Mixmaster Spade was known for pioneering the sing-rap style that would become more common in the 90s with artists like Nate Dogg and Bone Thugs N Harmony.

Toddy Tee would first gain notoriety around Compton and South Central LA as a teenager making tapes and parody raps. Taking popular rap songs of the time, Like ‘Roxanne, Roxanne’ and flipping it to Roc Man Roc Man or flipping, ‘I need a beat’ to ’I need a b*tch.’ Their mixtapes would go platinum in the hood as Toddy Tee and Mixmaster Spade would push them throughout the city and swap meet shelves as their tapes became bootlegged throughout California to the Bay.

Toddy Tee

Hearing Toddy Tee, Leon Haywood a soul and funk artist and producer scoured the Compton streets searching for young rappers like Mc Serch, looking for Nas in Queens Bridge. Leon Haywood's name probably doesn't stand out much, but you know his music, with his 1975 song “I Want'a Do Something Freaky to You’, which would be sampled by Dr. Dre and become the foundation for ‘Nothin' But A G Thang’. He would sign Toddy Tee to his label EveJim, produce and master his local hit, which would become his biggest song to date, the Batteram. The catchy chorus and hypnotic beat would set Kday airwaves on fire in 1985.

The Batteram was LAPD's new weapon of choice, a tank-like vehicle used to bash down doors and houses in predominantly black and brown Los Angeles neighborhoods. The Batteram was military weaponry, a product of Reagan’s ‘War on Drugs’ in the 80s and a budget that ballooned for police and mass incarceration in the coming decades. Toddy Tee was rapping about what was going on in his neighborhood, something pre-internet and social media, there wasn't any way to know unless national news picked it up or word of mouth. Batteram is the West Coast version of The Message, becoming an example that hip hop can be more than just party music and have a more authentic meaning to depicting black life.

Toddy Tee and Mixmaster Spade would continue to release songs in the mid and late 80s including local favorites like ‘Genius is Back,’ ‘Gangsta Boogie,’ and ‘Do You Want to Go to the Liquor Store.’ They would team up to release their second biggest song post-Batteram in ‘Just Say No.’ Also released a video, Just Say Now an anti-drug record during a time when crack was consuming inner cities around the nation. The duo would continue to release music throughout the 80s and early 90s as a more raw form of gangsta rap would gain ground causing Toddy Tee and Mixmaster Spade to eventually fade out of relevancy rather fast.

Toddy Tee Ft. Mix Master Spade - Just say no (1986)

Toddy Tee and Mixmaster Spade’s impact was undeniable as the first of their generation, inspiring a wave of West rappers that would take over the next decade, while also helping usher in a new crop of West Coast talent, including King Tee, Compton Posse, and super producer Dj Pooh under Mixmaster Spade’s label imprint LA Posee. Toddy Tee would influence a young Eazy-E to rap and before he was with N.W.A., Toddy Tee had a young Dr. Dre produce a couple of tracks for him after seeing the young DJ spin records. The West Coast trailblazer would even bring block parties to Compton like Mixmaster witnessed in New York.

In Hip-hop's 50th, there has been a lot of reflecting on the greats and pioneers of the storied history of the culture, and Toddy Tee and Mixmaster Spade are essential to that story. Toddy Tee and Mixmaster Spade ignited West Coast rap. They deserve their flowers.

Rip Mixmaster Spade.

Toddy Tee & The Bateram Crew-L.A. Is A Jungle

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