In 1979, a young college student from NY, who had spent his freshman year at Eastern Michigan University, met a fellow EMU student named Ruben Pierce who happened to be a drummer. This Ny'er, hailing from Hollis, Queens, was looking to go in a new career direction, as his bad knees and bad grades all but assured him his basketball hoop dreams had come to an end.
Music was always his passion since he could remember, as he joined a band at 14 with childhood friend Davy Reeves Jr, aka Davey DMX, DJ for King of Rap Kurtis Blow.
Now, he wanted to make a rap record himself, after making a few demos that weren't yet what he deemed a success, as he was teaching himself to produce records on the fly. He had met Vaughan Mason of "Bounce, Rock, Skate, Roll" fame, and gotten some production pointers. He now was in Michigan, and feeling a little homesick!
He wrote a rap called "Big Apple Rappin'", about his crime ridden, but beloved hometown. New York City.
The young college student's name was Duane Hughes, better known on the playgrounds of NY as Spyder! As he became a rapper, he added the D.
Spyder D, went in to the studio with Ruben the drummer, Wayne the guitarist, Earl the keyboardist, and the reluctant bass player named Billy Motley!
They created what is now considered an old school classic! One of the most bootlegged 12" singles in history! "Big Apple Rappin'" backed with a hellish instrumental that Hughes cleverly gave its own title "Rapple"!
See, not only was Hughes, Spyder D the rapper. He was also, Spyder D the producer and soon to be Spyder D the label owner and executive of Newtroit (for NY and Detroit) Records, becoming the first rapper to do so in the process!
Hughes got a $1200 loan from his Mother, Doris Hughes, to press up the first 1,000 copies of the recording. He signed a pressing and distribution deal with the pressing plant after reordering the record several times. Making him the first rapper to also do his own P&D deal as well. He then enlisted another college buddy, Tito Lewis of Detroit to help run the label. They hijacked a rental car and dashed off to NY to go meet Afrika Bambaata, who had made an appointment with Doris, who was so proud of being the Executive Producer of the single.
As for the rest of the band, they all ended up having very nice musical careers for themselves in one form or another. In fact, Billy Motley, is in fact Billy Wilson, president of the Motown Alumni Association.
Billy Wilson and Spyder D have reunited to reform Newtroit Records with some talent from both cities that the label was named after.
Spyder D says, "My Mom just recently passed on, and I want to dedicate the rest of my life to building Newtroit Records into a powerhouse label, as her first $1200 loan intended it to be! We were both naive of the record business then, but I am surely not now 30 years later. We are coming through with some very gifted young talent, including my good friend Cliff Ruffin, grandson of the legendary David Ruffin. Doughnut, who has the illest flow I ever heard out of Detroit! My last album is almost finished and I am featuring a lot of the legends I came up in the game with on the remixes. My son, Young 'Nique is featured on the first singles remix.
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