The Wake

Illustration by Dixon Bordiano

College freshmen tend to bring something familiar along with them to campus, to keep in touch with their roots. Some people bring favorite movies or a warm pair of slippers. Travis Lee brought hip-hop. In the 1980s, the University of Minnesota was an important place in the Twin Cities’ budding hip-hop scene for Lee and others.

In 1981, the young Brooklyn native moved to Minnesota to attend his first year of college at the U of M. But it was more than a large metropolis he left behind for the Midwest. Hip- hop culture, including rapping, DJing, breakdancing, and graffiti, had been born in the Bronx half a decade earlier and was an exciting way of life for New York youth. Lee had witnessed record scratching, rap freestyles, and break routines first hand and taken it all in, loving every bit of it.

“I really wanted to do a rap career,” Lee says. “We were just about to sign a contract… But my family said, ‘you ain’t doing that, you going to school.’”

Lee’s uncle, Ollie Shannon, had attended the U of M and played Gopher Men’s Basketball in the early 1970s.So it was that Lee wound up here, a world away from Brooklyn and the music he loved.

When Lee arrived in Minneapolis, he desperately searched for a similar hip-hop culture in the Twin Cities. “I was bored out of my mind,” he laughs.

Though Minneapolitans were partying like it was 1999 to Prince’s funky grooves, hip-hop had not yet penetrated this far into the Midwest. “I thought I was in a time warp when I first arrived,” Lee told Peter Scholtes from City Pages. “New York was maybe 10 years ahead.”

Lee soon realized that if he wanted to have hip-hop in Minnesota, he would have to bring it here himself. Under the stage name DJ Travitron, Lee began traveling around campus with his equipment and playing at parties. But his style wasn’t what University students were used to. “I’d start scratching and people would be like, ‘what the hell are you doing?!’ Cause that was exactly what you weren’t supposed to do to a record!”

As a black kid from Brooklyn, Lee initially found it difficult to blend in at the University of Minnesota. “We felt real isolated as African Americans,” he admits. Lee and his friend Travis Mitchell decided to start a campus organization that would promote the U of M to young black students in the Twin Cities. The Socialites’ main mission, Lee explains, was “to try to integrate the U of M into the greater community.”

Their philosophy was, “if we could make opportunities for young people to come on the campus to see the University, they might be more inclined to go to the University.” Lee insists it was never a mandate. He and Mitchell just wanted a little more cultural diversity.

Lee realized he could combine his two interests and invite area youth to campus while bringing hip-hop to the people. The Socialites hosted the first All High School Throwdown in 1981 at Coffman Union’s Great Hall. Local radio station KMOJ helped promote the event at all area high schools. 700 kids showed up at the event featuring cutting-edge local DJs, breakdancers, and rappers like the TNT Breakout Crew which included Lee, Mitchell, and female MC Sugar Tee.

“A lot of people saw their first rap or scratch routine at Coffman Union in 1981,” Lee boasts. “The walls were sweating. The mics were literally wet,” he reminisces. “It was just incredible.”
With the influence of DJ Travitron’s parties, hip hop’s presence in the Twin Cities spread. “Travitron was the godfather. If you had a party on the night Travitron had a party, then your party wasn’t getting packed,” DJ Disco T said in a City Pages interview.

It wasn’t only students who were attending Lee’s parties. “I could not believe the range of people that came,” he admits, crediting the U of M’s central location for the diverse crowds that came from as far away as Edina.

DJ Travitron also attracted the attention of bigger names. Lee proudly references a prized photo of himself shaking hands with Grandmaster Flash in 1982. In 1983, Jimmy Jam showed up at one of his parties and asked him to play Prince’s new record “1999.” “I was just 19 years old! I couldn’t believe Jimmy Jam was coming to one of my parties!” Lee laughs. When breakdancing hit Minnesota, Lee started The International Breakers, who went on to battle the famous New York group Rock Steady Crew at First Avenue in 1984. As for Lee’s local importance, his work has influenced everyone from Rhymesayers founder Brent Sayers (aka Siddiq) to B-96 DJs.

“I’m the tree that everybody else branched from. I can honestly say that,” Lee claims. He transplanted everything he’d witnessed in New York’s budding hip-hop culture into “the middle of nowhere.”

“Hip-hop was fun, it was new, everybody was into it,” Lee recalls. “It was a fun time. The music was fun, the music was innocent.”