During a block party in New York City last month commemorating the 50th anniversary of hip-hop, Peter Gunz stepped on the stage, grabbed the microphone, and addressed his native borough, the Bronx.
“Let’s see if y’all remember this one,” the M.C. born Peter Pankey told the crowd assembled at Mill Pond Park along the Harlem River in the West Bronx. The site lay less than two miles from the so-called birthplace of hip-hop: 1520 Sedgwick Avenue, where, on August 11, 1973, an 18-year-old DJ Kool Herc used two turntables to loop beats while spinning funk records for his little sister’s back-to-school party.
Over the block party’s P.A. system came the unmistakable opening clavinet figure of Steely Dan’s “Black Cow,” which Gunz and Lord Tariq sampled for their 1997 single, “Deja Vu (Uptown Baby).” The song was a one-hit wonder but has proved to be a durable anthem of Bronx pride, a head-bobbing declaration of the boogie-down borough as the cradle of hip-hop.
“If it wasn’t for the Bronx, this rap shit probably never would be going on. So tell me where you from,” rapped Gunz, wearing a backward baseball cap, sunglasses, and a muscle tee. He extended the mic to the audience, who raised their hands to the sky in response: “Uptown baby! Uptown baby!”
Not long ago, Gunz says, he couldn’t stand to hear “Deja Vu,” let alone perform it with conviction in front of a crowd. At that time, by his own admission, he was hurting for money and had kids to feed. He grew bitter thinking of his only high-charting song, and the life-changing riches he’d forfeited.
In order to clear the use of “Black Cow” that would allow Columbia to release “Deja Vu,” Gunz and Tariq (born Sean Hamilton) agreed to the only deal presented to them. It included signing away 100 percent of the publishing royalties to Walter Becker and Donald Fagen, in addition to paying a fee of $105,000.
“You always think that, Yo, I’ll just make another [hit]. Yeah, it’s not that easy,” says Gunz, who in recent years has transitioned to work in television on the reality show Love & Hip Hop: New York and as a host of Cheaters. These days he’s able to screen out the sorrow. He can’t cry anymore, so instead he chooses to snicker at the cosmic joke of Becker and Fagen being the only credited writers on a song that includes the lines, “Friends call me Gunz, sons call me trife. ’Cause I’m quick to slide off and slide this dick up in your wife.”
Over video conference from New York, the 54-year-old opened up about the tumultuous history of “Deja Vu,” why he and Tariq took such a lopsided deal, wrestling with bitterness and regret, and how he’s come to appreciate his lone hit as something of a life preserver.
