In 1987, New York had a weekend ritual. You found 98.7 Kiss-FM on the dial, pressed record on the tape deck, and let Kool DJ Red Alert take it from there. The two cassette rips below bring back around two hours of that ritual: the records, the mixing, the shout-outs across the Tri-State area and that unmistakable “YEAAAAaaaaaah!” that Red says he borrowed from Foghorn Leghorn.
Neither tape came with notes, so we can’t give you exact broadcast dates or full tracklists. What we can give you is the story of the man behind the decks, and of why tapes like these travelled all over New York and far beyond it.
Tape #1
From Harlem to the Zulu Nation
Red Alert was born Frederick Crute in Antigua and grew up in Harlem. The nickname came from his school days next to Rucker Park: “Red” for his reddish hair, “Alert” for how sharp he was on defense on the basketball court. At 19 he was going to downtown parties and taking in disco DJs like Grandmaster Flowers and Pete DJ Jones, and on Saturday nights he headed up to the Bronx for Kool Herc. Later came Grandmaster Flash, Kool DJ A.J. and Afrika Bambaataa, though his favorite was Grand Wizzard Theodore.
He taught the basics of DJing to his cousin Jazzy Jay, who returned the favor by introducing him to Bambaataa. Red joined the Universal Zulu Nation and picked up Bam’s open-minded approach to records: rock, reggae, disco and new wave all had a place in the crates. Basketball had earned him a scholarship to Hampton University in 1976, but after three semesters he came home to Harlem to DJ full-time for Bambaataa, playing the Bronx, Long Island, Connecticut and New Jersey.
Kiss-FM
In 1982, while Red was DJing at the Roxy, he met Barry Mayo, program director at WRKS 98.7 Kiss-FM. Mayo made Kiss the first station in the US to put rap in regular rotation, starting with Run-DMC’s “Sucker M.C.’s.” On Bambaataa’s recommendation, he hired Red for the station’s “Kiss Master Mix Party” in October 1983, following Zulu DJs Afrika Islam and Jazzy Jay into the slot. For the first three months, Red worked without pay, doing a show every other week and alternating with Tony Humphries.
By 1987, the show aired as the “Kiss-FM Saturday Night Mastermix Dance Party,” a name that tells you Black radio still wasn’t sure what to do with Hip Hop. Red was sure. He became Kiss’ top DJ, and he’s credited as the first mix-show DJ to bring dancehall to mainstream radio in the mid-’80s, so don’t be surprised when a reggae record turns up between the rap tracks.
Battles on the Dial
Over at WBLS were Mr. Magic and Marley Marl, and Red sat firmly on the other side of that rivalry. In the Roxanne Wars he spent two years DJing for Sparky D, whose “Sparky’s Turn (Roxanne, You’re Through)” went at the Juice Crew’s Roxanne Shanté. In the Bridge Wars, he broke Boogie Down Productions’ “South Bronx,” the answer to MC Shan’s Marley Marl-produced “The Bridge,” on his Kiss show, and his reputation grew with it. He did club dates with BDP, and after Scott La Rock’s death in 1987, he toured with them as a hype man rather than a DJ. When Red was on the road, the fill-in on his show was often a young Funkmaster Flex.
Why the Tapes Survived
Red’s name spread through cassettes. Listeners across the Tri-State area recorded his show, then dubbed and traded the tapes, and the Universal Zulu Nation and the Rock Steady Crew carried them around the world. Stretch Armstrong, who grew up taping Red, Marley Marl and Chuck Chillout, has written that more people heard these shows on tape than live. Collectors know of several 1987 broadcasts, including June 13, August 15, and September 5. Our two rips could be any of those, or another night entirely.
After 1987
In the late ’80s, Red ran Red Alert Productions, which managed Native Tongues acts the Jungle Brothers (Mike Gee of the group is his nephew), A Tribe Called Quest, Monie Love and Black Sheep. He brokered the Warner Bros. deal for the Jungle Brothers’ Done by the Forces of Nature. You can hear him on record too: BDP’s “Jimmy,” the Jungle Brothers’ “Jimbrowski” and “Beyond This World,” and A Tribe Called Quest’s “Pubic Enemy.”
He stayed at Kiss for more than eleven years before moving to Hot 97 in December 1994. Later came a run at Power 105.1 and a return to Kiss, where he played his final mix on April 29, 2012, before the frequency switched to ESPN Radio. He is the only Hip Hop DJ with a display in the radio section of the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame, and since 2003 he’s had a sign on the Bronx Walk of Fame.
Signing Off
On November 2, 2026, Red announced in a video on his social media that he’s saying farewell to radio, after getting to “share the airwaves with the community for over four decades.” His last broadcast is set for November 30: a four-hour farewell on WBLS 107.5, where he’s been since 2012. It closes a radio run that began at Kiss in 1983, within a DJ career of around 50 years. The records aren’t going back in the crates, though. Red plans to keep DJing special events and community celebrations.
The send-offs have already started. On November 9, SiriusXM’s Shade 45 handed its Mixtape Mondays slot to Red, airing his 1990 tape Let’s Make It Happen Part 3. On November 24, Sony Music Hall in Manhattan hosts “The Red Alert Experience Gala.” It was first announced in July to mark his 70th birthday and now doubles as a retirement party, with Teddy Riley co-hosting and DJ Jazzy Jeff, Kid Capri, DJ Spinna, and Rashad “Ringo” Smith on the decks. That makes this a good moment to go back to where it started.
Press play, turn it up, and hear what New York heard on a Saturday night in 1987.