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: Cli-n-tel

: World Class Wreckin Cru

: Scratching in 1984

: Press Photo

: 2004

COLD ROCKIN CLI-N-TEL

Born:
Real Name: Marquette Hawkins
Artist Name: Cli-N-Tel

Cli-N-Tel a.k.a Marq Hawkins, is an actor, writer, musician and producer. He was born in East Los Angeles and raised in the South Los Angeles and the Compton area. He attended Vanguard Middle School where he first met Andre Young a.k.a Dr. Dre. They quickly became friends and played on the basketball team together. He began acting when a drama teacher at Vanguard saw him walking down the hall one afternoon and asked him to audition for a school play. She gave him a script and asked him to come in and read from the script. Because of his photogenic memory Cli-N-Tel went to the audition without the script and recited all of the lines. He was immediately cast in a major role in the play. He went on to win a best supporting actor award in the city-wide acting competition. He then tried his hand at rap when he first heard the song “Rappers Delight” by the Sugar Hill Gang and memorized it after hearing it only once.

Along with his cousin Richard Davis (a.k.a D.J Clout/Richie Rich) and his friend Roderick Wilson (a.k.a Midnight) he formed a group called “The Three Rappa-teers”. They performed at clubs, parties and in contests in the L.A. and Compton areas. While performing at a contest in the Ujima Village Child Care Center, they were approached by Disco Daddy from the famed duo Disco Daddy and Captain Rap. Disco Daddy became their manager and mentor. After a stint with this group, Cli-N-Tel went on to form a rap/DJ crew called “The Invasion Force” and a production company called Diamond Star Productions with the world famous DJ. Joe Cooley. Cli-N-Tel, Joe, Carlos, and Nick spun records in the Compton and L.A areas for several years and they would frequent the club called “Eve after Dark" and watch acts such as Curtis Blow, Run-DMC, Davy D., DST, Grand Master Flash and the Furious Five perform no less then three feet from the stage.

These groups were major influences on Cli-N-Tel”s style of hip-hop. The EAD would frequently hold rap contests to see who had the best rhyming skills. While at the EAD one weekend Cli-N-Tel was asked by a friend to sign up for a rap contest. He did and won. He was then approached by Alonzo Williams a.k.a Grandmaster Lonz and was asked to join the Wreckin Crew. Cli-N-Tel noticed that his buddy Dr. Dre was also in the group so he agreed. While still in the crew he attended California State University, Fullerton and earned a B.A. In the mid eighties after helping to discover Ice Cube, Cli-N-Tel officially left the crew and began a solo career. He met W.C. (Low Profile/Westside Connection) at Washington High School and signed him to his fledging production company. W.C. became Cli-N-Tel’s protégé and “Dub’s” brother Crazy Toones became his deejay.

They toured the L.A area and performed in various clubs and on station KDAY. Cli-N-Tel recorded songs with Techno-Hop Records such as “Big Beats” (The Organization), “2030” (Cli-N-Tel) and was an uncredited shadow producer on the song “Six in the morning” by Ice Tee. Cli-N-Tel’s voice is also featured in the song “Boys in the hood” (NWA). Also in the late eighties he reunited with Joe Cooley and wrote and produced the single “It Aint Mine” for Sutra Records. He then went on to write and produce two more singles for Sutra called Ling-o-istic and It’s Time to Jam (co-produced by D.J. Slip of Compton’s Most Wanted/X-Men fame). In the nineties Cli-N-Tel turned his attention to producing other acts and screenwriting. He resurfaced on the “West Coast Dynasty V.I” album and then on the album entitled Dr. Dre: Concrete Roots, where he wrote and co-produced the title track and several other tracks with Unknown D.J.

In the late nineties Cli-N-Tel signed a deal with Blue Dolphin Records, a Japanese based label, and wrote and produced the Album “Shinin on the Funk” with Unknown D.J. He stationed himself in Japan and produced several J-Pop and hip-hop albums with Blue Dolphin Records, Hiro Kuretani of Deisel Workshop and Fastforward. He then came back to the U.S where he continued producing and writing screenplays. He also attended the University of Phoenix where he earned a M.A. degree. Cli-N-Tel has worked with artists such as Dr. Dre, Ice Cube, DJ Unknown, Zapp, Egyptian Lover, and Ice T. Cli-N-Tel has been featured in stage plays such as A Raisin in the Sun (Walter Lee) and A Soldier's Play (Captain Davenport)and Sistah Girl (Clayton). His feature film credits include Surviving Paradise, Frost, Grab Tha Mike, Brothers On A Corner, Trapped by Love and Finding the Boom Bap.

In 2001 his was featured in the MTV Documentary "The Journey of Dr. Dre" as Cli-N-Tel. His screenwriting credits include "Creepin On a Come Up", "The Right Game", "Nzinga", and “Jamaican Dust”. Cli-N-Tel continues to partner with various companies in the entertainment industry to produce, music, film, and television projects.

Interview Cli-N-Tel 2001
Author Jeff Garcia

If the name don't ring a bell man, the music will, the music will.
That’s right

That song right there, "Juice" , now how were you involved in that particular joint right there?
Oh man, oh man, you know the little vocoder voice in there, that’s me. All that type of stuff, the bass line, you know all the beat type of thing. You know with me, Dre, and Lonz, and DJ Yella. You know what I’m saying?
That’s right man, old school World Class Wreckin’ Cru.

I mean you guys are definitely west coast legends man. And I’m looking at the cover and it’s just so funny seeing you all in the sequins and all that good stuff.
[laughs] Yeah, yeah, the sequins, and the make-up.

A lot of our younger listeners think that Dre first appeared when he brought The Chronic, but I mean people don’t know that ya’ll were around in the early, early, early 80’s man.
Fo sho’ man, I mean we were like pre-N.W.A …and actually N.W.A’s whole concept kind of grew out of what the Wreckin’ Cru had started. You know, we were like just some brothers from Compton trying to do our thing. You know we’re trying to make music, doing stuff we love doing. And it wasn’t about the money for us; we were just trying to have a good time. You know what I’m saying? Rockin’ the house, DJ-ing, you know doing that whole thing.

Doing all the skate-land and all those places.
Yeah, skate-lands, Dudo’s, Eve After Dark, Studio East. I mean we were just doing it man. Putting up the big conventions, bringing in all the big equipment. And just having these huge, huge parties man. And being entrepreneurs, you know what I’m saying man?

Right…and back in your day, the early 80’s, I mean that’s before KDAY’s time really, you know it was just a few cats doing it.
There’s some funny stories too about that man. Because it’s true it was way before K-DAY. And we were like just putting together our DJ crew. We had two turntables, we had speakers, we had a little club that we were doing out in a place….and we were bringing in people from New York like Run-D.M.C., Kurtis Blow. They were coming in and performing like right in front of us. So we were like, “Wait a minute. If they can do it, we can too.” We were like, “Let’s put our own thang together.” And we just start bumping it from there making records, selling them out of the backs of our trunks. Riding around from the different record shops, swap meets. And just doing it ourselves. And sell them to our cousins, and friends, and all of that.

Any place to make a dollar, right?
That’s right.

So what have you been up to in the interim man?
Man, I’ve been doing a lot of things. I’ve been working in the film industry, doing some stuff there. I’m writing some screenplays. I’ve been doing some music; I’ve been touring in Japan. Doing a lot of stuff over there, really just influencing the hip-hop over there. Because believe or not, hip-hop around the world is really so large.

Yeah it is unbelievable - I got a CD in my hand right now. It’s Cli-N-Tel - Shining On The Funk. Now where can people pick this up at?
Let me give you the website. Address is www.dolphinrecords.com. And you can pick yourself up a CD. It’s dope, I’m telling you, it’s happenin’, it’s Cli-N-Tel – Shining On The Funk baby. You know what I’m saying?

Very good... how would you describe it? Is it new style hip-hop, or do you bring some of the older elements in there as well?
My style man…I have a range, I do have a musical background. You know, I play guitar, piano, keyboards all that type of stuff. And I also was one of the original (KDAY) Mix Masters even though I don’t get credit for that…but I’ll just say that! You know, I have a wide variety of stuff that I do. I mostly lace a lot of the stuff with funk, and of course the westside/west coast sound.

Definitely. Alright, what we’re going to do is get to a record you probably haven’t heard in a minute or two, it’s “Surgery” , Dr Dre. Now you did the rap in there right?
I sho’ did. I wrote it. Funny story about that man. When I joined the Wreckin’ Cru, I was in a contest, and that’s how they discovered me. So I won the contest and Lonz asked me to write a song for this DJ that was up there. And I looked up and it was Dre. I went to junior high school with him; you know what I’m saying? I saw him mixing, he had his little Dr Dre (outfit on), so I was thinking about "Surgery" , and how I could put that whole thing together. And it just came out; you know what I’m saying? “Dr Dre in "Surgery" …two turntables…a microphone…a mixer”. All that stuff just came to me. You know, and that’s how we put it down.

Alright, let’s take a listen to that, and we’re going to play a classic from World Class Wreckin’ Cru too, with “Turn Off The Lights” …soul classic.
And on that Mother’s Day note, I know a lot of babies were made off of that record. [Laughs]

Would you consider that Surgery was the most popular World Class Wreckin’ Cru song?
You know it’s a trip because it’s a slow record. We actually had another slow record before that called “Lovers”. And I remember when we first came up with the idea to do it. It was like me and Lonzo, we was like, “Man we ought to do this slow record”. And Dre and Yella, “Nah man we rappin’, we ain’t doing slow records”. When we did it, it was like the first hip-hop record on the west coast that had actually been played on FM. Because it was so clean, and the track was so cool, and it was so unique and so different. And the next thing you know, when the FM picked up on that, then people started really, really listening and trying to figure out who the Wreckin’ Cru was. And incidentally we had people who had come around like Ice Cube. A matter of fact I remember when I first saw Ice Cube. We went to his backyard because Jinx is Dre’s cousin. So Ice Cube just started rapping; and I pulled Dre to the side and said, “Hey man, that dude right there got a little something. We should just take him under our wings and do something with him.” There’s another story about W.C. He came up to me one day, because I saw him at a party or something. And he was like, “Man, how do I get known?” I was like, “Dude, just hang out with me.” So there’s a lot of old school artists that had basically spring-boarded from that whole Wreckin’ Cru concept. If you trace the history, it’s kind of like “wow”. You know, all the people that came through the camp with Lonz, and that whole N.W.A thing with Eazy and stuff like that, it’s amazing.

That’s why it’s a pleasure to have people like you in here, because you lived it, we just listened to it, but you lived it. You know what I mean?
I kind of consider myself one of the unofficial/official members of N.W.A because on the “Boyz-N-The-Hood” record, a little trivia, a lot of people don’t know, my voice is actually on there. They actually took a track that we had done on the flip-side of “Juice” . And they scratched a lot of cuts with from my voice on that record…I lived it, and still living it. I love it. It’s kind of like being a lion in a cage that has been fed morsels over the years, and is ready to just BOOM, just release.

Speaking about releasing, you have a new record out; we’re going to play a track off there.
Track number two, is a track I did, that deals with the opposite of smoking, but it’s actually kinda saying smoking, but not smoking, but it’s called “Never Learned To Smoke”