In 1985 I formed a rap group (The Road Runners) with my friend Ronald McMillen and in 1986 we went into the studio with my big brother Chaz Wesley, (who was the lead singer and one of the lead producers and writers of my families singing group, THE FAMILY CIRCLE in the 70's) and put together a demo song called THEY WANT TO BE LIKE US. I wish I had that song today but I think it's been lost over time. I still hope somebody calls me and says they have it. About ½ a year later the hip hop classic album, CRIMINAL MINDED by BOOGIE DOWN PRODUCTIONS dropped.... and man did it hit the streets hard. It wasn't crazy to stand at a 4-way intersection and 3 of the cars were blasting a song off the album. I guess the man driving the fourth car was a minister or something, so he had his volume down low.  After rockin that joint for a while, we looked on the back of the cassette and there was the address for B-BOY RECORDS. We looked at each other and was like way not? So we hopped in my 1977 Chrysler New Yorker and drove over to the record company in the Bronx. We talked our way in and was told someone would listen to our song after the meeting, which was in progress. In the meantime one of the artist JERRY LEVI took us to a spot downstairs were we talked for a while, before we played our song. He was real cool, but he didn't like our song – he said it was too pop. So we talked for a while more and then started to leave. We were almost in the car when a guy asked us where we going from a window upstairs. Minutes later, we were inside and he started playing our song. I got a chill when he stopped the tape early into the first verse. He made eye contact with another person in the room. Then he played it again for another few seconds... stopped it again. He called someone in from the next room and played it again some more. They talked as it was playing so I questioned how much listening they were doing. I guess it was enough because a while later they gave us recording contracts off the strength of our one song and said we were going to be their RUN DMC. Mind blowing stuff. We brought the contracts back home and were in disbelief that we were going to be on the same label with BOOGIE DOWN PRODUCTIONS  and KRS-1. Well, if you know the story about the beef between KRS and B-Boy records, then you know why we didn't sign. If you don't... look it up.  (CONT)