DJ Charlie Chase

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Carlos Mandes (born January 16, 1959), also known as DJ Charlie Chase, is a Puerto Rican DJ who established the Latino community as a contributing force in the Bronx's early hip hop culture. Hitting the hip hop scene in 1975, Chase was a founding member of The Cold Crush Brothers, along with DJ Tony Tone and members Grandmaster Caz, JDL, EZ AD. In 1980, Chase and Tone were responsible for forming the first MC convention in hip hop history.

Chase was born in Manhattan, New York on January 16, 1959, to Puerto Rican-born parents. Chase's family moved often and lived in different New York City neighborhoods, which were primarily Puerto Rican or Black. Chase began playing music as a bassist in bands at the age of 14, representing a variety of musical styles. Chase produced his first album at the age of 16.

In the 1980s, Chase DJ'd for WBLS alongside Funkmaster Flex. Chase received criticism from some in the Hispanic community for playing hip-hop music because at the time it was thought of as a distinctly Black form of music. He fused hip hop with salsa, among other music genres. In the early 1980s, Chase was the DJ for the New York group The Cold Crush Brothers, the first hip hop group to be signed by CBS Records, and also the first to go on tour in Japan. In 1981, Chase got his first movie role: he played himself in the film Wild Style, in which he had a small speaking part and performed with his group. Chase was inducted into the Technics DMC DJ Hall of Fame in 2003.^[1]

Chase was one of the only Hispanic artists in the early hip hop scene. He remembers not feeling welcome because most early participants felt that it was “a Black thing and something that’s from their roots…being Hispanic, you’re not accepted in rap.”^[2]

Chase was never quiet about his ethnicity, despite some backlash. “That was my way of opening the doors for everybody else to do what they’re doing now,” he said. “And being that I was there at the very beginning, that was the I way I had to do it, that was my contribution.”^[3]

When artists like The Mean Machine began to popularize Spanish-language hip-hop, Chase was wary that they were straying too far from hip hop's roots but, eventually, he recognized their new contributions to the genre and put his support behind what he deemed “cool and new”.^[4]

Chase's work influenced many artists that came after him, such as underground acts like Mellow Man Ace and Latin Empire, and mainstream rappers like Fat Joe and Big Pun.

• Flores, Juan, "Puerto Rocks," in That's the Joint! The Hip-Hop Studies Reader, page 71, eds. Murray Foreman and Mark Anthony Neal (New York: Rutledge, 2004)

• Latin hip hop