#GetToKnow Man Parrish! The Founding Force behind Electronic Dance Music. A great sit down & ta

Man Parrish was one of early hip hop and electro’s most eccentric characters. One of his biggest hits was composed to soundtrack a porn film called Heatstroke. When he performed at Studio 54, he was lowered from the ceiling. (Madonna was his opening act.) The song that got him started, “Boogie Down Bronx,” was created in the attic above his parents’ house in Brooklyn. In this episode, both reminisce about the tune, while Parrish breaks out the 808 that made it happen.

A native New Yorker of Italian descent, Parrish was a member of the extended family that converged nightly at Studio 54. His nickname, Man, first appeared in Andy Warhol's Interview magazine, and his early live shows at Bronx hip-hop clubs were spectacles of lights, glitter, and pyrotechnics, which drew as much from the Warhol mystique as the Cold Crush Brothers.

His premier release was "Hip Hop, Be Bop (Don’t Stop)" issued in 1982, which was featured in the film Shaun of the Dead, the video game GTA: Vice City, and was sampled in Sway & King Tech's 1991 song "Follow 4 Now" from their second album "Concrete Jungle." He eventually signed with Elektra Records but was dropped from the label in 1984 when it decided not to release the album he had recorded for it.

As of the 2010s, Parrish is on Pink Biscuit Records and was scheduled to release a record via Southern Fried Records, the label owned by Fatboy Slim.

beat:repeat NYC is a celebration of iconic New York City anthems and the drum machines that underpinned them. Thank you Red Bull Music Academy