My Cousin Howie Tee Didn't Just Discover Me — He Helped Build the Entire Foundation of Hip Hop
I've told people for years that my cousin Howie Tee discovered me. That he produced my debut album, believed in me before the world did, and put me on a path that changed my life. That part of the story is well known. What is not nearly well known enough is what else Howie Tee was doing at the exact same time — and what it means for the history of this entire culture.
Let me give you the facts. In 1986, Howie Tee produced "Go See the Doctor" for Kool Moe Dee — one of the very first rap records in history to directly address sexual health and the AIDS epidemic in the Black community. Years before America Is Dying Slowly. Years before public health campaigns found their way into hip hop. Howie Tee and Kool Moe Dee were saying what needed to be said when almost nobody else had the nerve. That record was revolutionary. And my cousin made it.
"I grew up watching Howie Tee hear things in music nobody else could hear. He didn't just produce records — he produced moments. The kind that shift the entire direction of a culture."
And it doesn't stop there. Howie Tee also produced for Heavy D & The Boyz in their earliest days — one of the most beloved acts hip hop has ever produced. Heavy D was joy personified. He was swagger with a conscience. And the sonic foundation of where he started was built in part by the same man sitting across the Thanksgiving table from me every year.
1986 Production: Kool Moe Dee — "Go See the Doctor" - One of the first rap records to address sexual health. Culturally groundbreaking. Produced by Howie Tee.
Early Career Production: Heavy D & The Boyz - Laid the sonic foundation for one of hip hop's most beloved and commercially successful acts.
1988 Discovery: Chubb Rock — Self-Titled Debut - Produced and introduced his younger cousin to the national hip hop scene.
1990 Masterwork: The One — Three #1 Singles - Produced the album that generated "Treat 'Em Right," "Just The Two of Us," and "The Chubbster" — all #1.
Here is what I want people to understand. When you talk about the producers who shaped hip hop at its most formative moment — the mid-to-late 1980s when the genre was deciding what it was going to be — Howie Tee belongs in that conversation. He was producing records with a social conscience before that was a widely understood concept in the genre. He was building artists' careers with craft and intention at a time when the industry was still figuring out the rulebook.
And he did all of that as my cousin. The man who looked at a Brown University dropout from Brooklyn and said: I hear something in you. Let's build. That's not just a family story. That's hip hop history.
— Chubb Rock | The Chubbster
