Bust a Move

Today's guest is Michael Ross, a Los Angeles native, former DJ, record producer, and the co-founder of Delicious Vinyl, the independent label that helped prove hip-hop could dominate the pop charts.

Delivering crossover hits like Tone Loke's Wild Thing, Funky Cold Medina, and Young MC's Bust a Move, the label built a roster including The Far Side, The Brand New Heavies, Master Ace, and the legendary J Dilla.

Described by Variety Magazine as influential, improving hip-hop's pop crossover potential, Michael helped create the blueprint that the industry still follows.

This is Mixed and Mastered with Michael Ross.

And he was in

the movie, but he didn't really want to rap and you know, it all worked out best the way it went down.

What I wanted to ask you too is like, you can correct me if I'm wrong, but I feel like like Wild Thing and Funky Comedina and Bust a Move and some of those records are some of the first records I remember being like heavily, rap records anyway, being like heavily synced in commercials and TV and stuff like that.

Can you talk about that a little bit?

I know.

I kept getting texts from you saying, they're playing Bust a Move.

It was the best.

Hey, Bustamoo.

Yeah.

Basically, look, I told this story on the foreword of the delicious vinyl book, Bust a Move, I believe it's called, right? Yep.

It saved my life in the way that when Mello was working on his first album, I was still actively gangbanging, right? And they knew I was decent with the pen.

I wasn't necessarily great at doing the, you know, at rapping yet.

I think that people who play this game still love this game.

And you can actually have a great time on YouTube looking up Buster Move because you're, Buster Groove, sorry, it was called Buster Move in Japan.

You can actually see dancers doing YouTube shorts or even just YouTube videos of them copying the moves.

from the Buster Groove dancers.

I loved it, you loved it, let me know in the comments.

It crossed over at the end of the 80s like no other song, Bust a Move.

It was that catchy sing-along rap that everyone dug.

But did you know that it was one of three songs that Young MC wrote in the time that it would take for us to watch a movie? The three hits he wrote were Bust a Move.

He wrote that for himself.

He wrote Wild Thing and Funky Cold Medina for Tone Loke.

They were so impressed they ended up showing up at his dorm room with a recording contract in hand.

And Young MC used his prowess in economics to write those three hits in less than three hours.

chantelle okay back to you chantelle Is it

Bust a Move Young MC? That's correct.

1.8. 1.8.

We're a draw, girls.

was it like that's what they you offered or were the bands just kind of pick

yeah they had like three or four songs that we could pick from and so it was just like oh that's the one dude like i i grew up listening to that you know it's kind of but like all that was on mtv here you know and like we liked hip-hop but like we could only get certain things so we didn't have a record store we didn't have like any hip-hop heads kind of directing us where to go but like obviously the music with like we grew up listening to run dmc and the beastie boys and stuff and Bust a Move was like, oh, that's cool.

And it's like, Bust a Move, like, kind of like, seemed like, kind of like tied into hardcore, you know? Like, a lot of bands say bust, you know? Like, so, yeah.

But that's, yeah, that's funny.

Funny thing is, like, that Rolling Stone did a review of that record, and they said that our song and Stretcher Armstrong's were the best.

Dude, I fucking loved Puzzle Bobble specifically.

Bust a Move, they eventually called it.

Oh yeah.

I think, um, no quake 1996, uh, software game quake.