I remember being a lil kid listening to Red Alert every Saturday on Kiss FM, and hear him talking about DJin at the Latin Quarter and Union Square. And I would always be mad, not being able to go (since I was no older then 9/10 at the time) and seeing my older cousins getting dressed and leave from here in Jersey to go to the city and see Red play. And they would come back and tell me all the stories that happen that night. When the Tunnel came around, I was happy to finally have a weekly club for me and my dudes to go to and live and tell our stories to the kids that were coming up after us. The energy, atmosphere of that place can never be duplicated, especially in this day of age. You had rappers mixing it up with the people in the crowd. Everyone was equal. Records were being broke. Certain songs you could play at the Tunnel you couldn't play at any other club. What other mainstream club you know where DJ's like Flex and Big Kap were playing songs like nikkas Done Started Something, Reservoir Dogs, Banned From TV, Get At Me Dog, Where I'm From, etc? When you hear Flex now on the radio and when he has an exclusive and stops and plays it 100 times. He got that from DJin at the Tunnel. Because before the Tunnel, he would just DJ regular on the radio and at the clubs. But when certain records started to ring off heavy (like The Benjamins, Put Your Hands Where My Eyes Can See, Phone Tap, Get At Me Dog, Superthug, Hate Me Now etc) He use to stop and play the record 20 times and work that 1 song for about an hour and everybody would go crazy! Then the next day on Monday, Flex would come on Hot 97 and say "This was the hottest record at the Tunnel last night" and play it. This was the birth of the "Tunnel Banger". I was at the Tunnel the night DMX and Hype Williams shot the video to Get At Me Dog. It was NBA All Star Weekend when the All Star games were being held at Madison Square Garden that year. I remember seeing Shaq, AI, Penny, and a few other players that night. Onyx came on the stage and performed (this was when they had just dropped Shut Em Down) DMX was there and performed Get At Me Dog about 20 times in a row, cus Hype was shooting the video to it. The Lox, Irv Gotti, Dee and Waah and others were on stage. I remember seeing Lyor Cohen, Russel Simmons, and Kimora Lee chilling the cut with the goons lol. Cam'ron came on stage and him and X performed Pull It for the first and probably only time. When they performed Pull It, everybody lost their god damn mind! The Tunnel defined an era. Hands down the best times of my life as a youth!
