PIRATE RADIO: PIONEER UNCLE AL

“[Uncle] Al was a couple years older than me. He was in the same graduating class as my sister in high school. You know how it is in Miami, there’s a thousand and one DJs. Everybody started up their own little DJ crew. Al was in the Sugar Hill crew and I used to have a group called Bay Funk DJs. We started off battling each other, and we ended up hooking up. It’s sad that Sugar Hill isn’t a big name like it should be, because Al did a lot for Miami as far as music is concerned.

I used to live with Al. That was my mentor. We used to go on the road together, we went all the way from Miami to Georgia to North Carolina in a U-Haul truck. I got a big picture on my wall in my living room with Al on it. That man taught me everything I know, and I’m sure a lot of people could say the same thing. He was basically a humble guy and a good DJ. Al was like Miami’s Funkmaster Flex. He could scratch, mix, everything.

Al used to love doing stuff for kids. We called our jams Peace in da Hood jams to promote peace in our community and stop all the black-on-black violence in our own projects. It blew up and got so big that everywhere we went, they called us the Peace in da Hood DJs. We used to do it every Sunday. It was lovely. Al got so big that we started taking it to different projects in Miami. We’d give away stuff for the kids, give away money on the radio station. We’d have the kids calling up to do little spelling bees on the radio, give the kids tickets for the concerts. The police department took to it, the city of Miami took to it, and we started doing more things with the fire departments and police. A lot of DJs down there didn’t like that, because the police usually shut DJs down. Since we were on the good side of the law, we got passes to do things that other people weren’t allowed to do. Al was just such a good guy. He didn’t drink, smoke, or even jaywalk. The man was just a good person, so the community just took to him.” - Krunch One

“Uncle Al’s death was a case of mistaken identity. Somebody’s transmitter had been stolen, but it ain’t have nothing to do with Al. [The annual Peace in Da Hood Festival] is almost 100,000 people. They shut down 63rd Street all the way from 12h Avenue to 17th Avenue. It’s in remembrance of everything he did for us. He paved the way for a lot of things and always kept our Miami identity. Everybody loved Al. I respected him cause he pulled me to the side once and said, ‘I don’t care if you’re Cuban, black, whatever, but you rep Miami so I respect you.’ A lot of DJs ain’t respect me cause I was a white Cuban, but Al embraced me right away.” - Pitbull

“Uncle Al used to run underground radio. He was a hometeam favorite because he supported nothing but the hometeam. His whole set would be from Miami, even if the shit was whack. He was such a great guy, man, they don’t make guys like that anymore. He’d always give people complements instead of hating. He did all the community stuff – the parks, the hoods – he was real big in the hood, man. I looked up to him. I salute him.” – DJ Khaled

“Uncle Al was Miami’s Funkmaster Flex. He had at least three underground stations. Al was all about peace in the hood, he was all about unity. He wanted to make Miami a force in the country. When he was younger, they had the SugarHill DJs. They had big jams on the weekends on 15th Avenue, one of the biggest drug areas in Miami. They’d be out there jammin’, just trying to create peace. They were trying to make people come out and party instead of gunplay. He started doing that when he was twelve, thirteen years old. It was always about Peace in Da Hood. He was shot over underground radio. Somebody he was working with went and cut off another radio station. They came lookin’ for that person and mixed him up with Uncle Al. Nobody was ever charged, though, his murder is still unsolved.” – Teddy T