20 Years in 27 Days: A Marriage in Music | Day #2: Secret Weapon—"Must Be the Music"

20 Years in 27 Days: A Marriage in Music Day #2: Secret Weapon—"Must Be the Music"by Mark Anthony Neal
Brooklyn Tech is huge. Located directly across from Fort Greene Park the school takes up an entire city block. Founded in 1922 as an all-boys school, the school had been coed for less than a decade when I got there in 1979. Drawing from every borough in New York City as one of the city's four "specialized" High School, the school is primarily known for producing engineers, though alums include Black Rock Coalition founder Vernon Reid and former congressman Anthony Weiner; there was a working foundry in the building when I was a student. The student population during the years I was there topped out at about 6,000 students, comparing favorably to the population of most four-year liberal arts schools. Hell the school's auditorium seated 3, 000.
 I spent a lot of time during the spring of 1982 in that auditorium. FP and I—still in the first decade of what would become a 40-year friendship—both had the same lunch period that semester and true to form, we spent little time in the actual lunchroom—a lunchroom that Spike Lee made famous when he filmed the video for "Da Butt," in it in 1987.
The job of patrolling the hallways was a guy named Xenakis (RIP)—one of those Dean of discipline types, who apparently lived and breathed to make sure his hallways were clear. FP and I were on the run from Xenakis one day when we happened into the auditorium, and who would I find there but "Peaches," who was on stage taking some kind of movement—couldn't really call it dance—class. Never asked her if she thought I was some kind of damn stalker, but the auditorium became my regular spot every lunch period—at least until Xenakis tracked us down. It was one those regular occasions of having to flee, that "Peaches" (and some of her classmates) realized that she had a regular visitor. Mission accomplished—I was in her head.
Favorite part of those visits was this dance routine that the class did to Secret Weapon's "Must Be the Music." Founded by Jerome Prister in the early 1980s, the group recorded for Prelude Records, one of those New York City indie labels that seemed to dominate New York City urban radio in the early 1980s. The label's biggest acts were France Joli ("Gonna Get Over You"), D-Train, and of course Secret Weapon. The song itself was forgettable (it reached 24 on the R&B charts in the spring of 1982) if not for the fact that it was an early example of the kind of R&B/Hip-Hop hybrid that would become popular in the late 1980s. Prister's lead vocals vacillated between a talky singing style and an actual rap late in the song. Can't imagine that Larry Smith (of Whodini fame) wasn't taking notes when he first heard Secret Weapon.
For me, some 29 years later, I can't hear "Must Be the Music"—seemingly a Friday favorite on Durham's local R&B station—without seeing "Peaches" do that little side step shuffle that she did as part of that dance routine in Tech's auditorium. It would become, at least in my mind, our first song.