Malcolm McLaren and The World Famous Supreme Team
“Buffalo Gals” (Island)

New York DJ Larry “Sedevine” Price and rapper Ronald “Just Allah” Larkins were hosting their own show on WHBI as the World Famous Supreme Team when associates of Malcolm McLaren recruited them to make a record in London. The resulting “Buffalo Gals” marked a culture clash between British pop aesthetics and hip-hop style, and utilizes Trevor Horn’s famed production edits — chopping up bits of Supreme Team radio broadcasts — as well as Anne Dudley’s keyboard arrangements. Notorious “culture vulture” McLaren handles the concept and hook, but it’s the two Five Percenters who give this classic its flavor. Adding scratches and cuts as well as B-boy harmonies, the duo helped create one of the essential portraits of hip-hop’s evolution from local phenomenon to global movement.

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