Ralph McDaniels didn’t need a stage or spotlight to command attention.
Holding a microphone on the after a show with Styles P and Millyz, the architect behind Video Music Box spoke with calm authority, exactly how one expects of someone who helped define how Hip-Hop learned to see itself.
“Uncle Ralph,” as he’s affectionately known, made it clear that the brand has always spoken louder than titles.
For many viewers, Video Music Box was their first real connection to Hip-Hop and the companies like BET (“Rap City”) and MTV (“YO! MTV Raps”) followed. The difference is, Uncle Ralph is still here and so is his creation.
Uncle Ralph said he gets stories from viewer that have grown up on VMB all the time.
“I get it all the time from all different types of people,” he told AHH’s SlopsShotYa. “People tell me, I learned how to dress watching Video Music Box. I learned how to talk watching Video Music Box. I learned about Nas. I learned about Jay-Z. I learned about Shabba (Ranks). I learned about Super Cat. Whatever it was, they tell me.”
Those visuals were often captured in unpredictable and sometimes volatile environments. When asked how dangerous the venues really were, McDaniels didn’t hesitate.
“Oh yeah, nah. You don’t realize it when you young, you in danger,” he said. “But I’ve been through many shootouts and all kind of stabbings and all kind of stuff. I mean, not me personally happened to me, but around me. And we went back and did it again the next day. It was nothing.”
Now, that history is being preserved piece by piece.
McDaniels confirmed that a massive archival effort is underway to digitize decades of footage. “If you go to videomusicboxcollection.org, that’s the whole site that we have for digitizing and getting it out there,” he explained. “So curating these type of things like the old shows or just a 90s show or 90s interviews or 90s performances or all the summer jams, we shot all of those.”
Select clips have also been appearing online. “My YouTube is Video Music Box 1,” McDaniels said, noting that some of the recent releases caught even seasoned Hip-Hop heads off guard.
“We recently put out some Jay-Z stuff that people hadn’t seen from the Reasonable Doubt album with Memphis Bleek and Foxy Brown,” he said. “People were like, yo… you never saw it. A lot of jewels and rare footage like that.”
McDaniels admitted he never saw Hip-Hop taking it this far.
Speaking on his early relationship with embattled mogul Sean “Diddy Combs, he said, “I know him as an 18-year old kid. He was my stage manager when I was doing Harlem Week.” Still, McDaniels remains optimistic about his former worker. “God will work everything out. I’ve seen situations where I thought that it was dark. It was too dark and then the light comes through.”
As he signed off, McDaniels gave an appreciative salute.
“Big shout out to all the people that have been following me back in the days from 1983 to now,” he said. “Just do your thing. Have fun.”
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