Israel Joseph-I, I think it was, told me that Bad Brains were Ninja Turtles. The way we play, the way we do what we do, how the Ninja Turtles came about because of the spillage of some shit that caused mutations, that is the same way Bad Brains came about.
Back in the day we lived in DC, so there were a lot of research centers in the area. My father used to work at a place called Potomac Research—what they were researching, I have no idea. It was a government facility, and there were top-secret activities going on there at this time. This was the early 70s.
So he got me a job down there. I was supposed to take one screw and put it into a bolt and then put it into a Ziploc, then seal it and pressure-cook it and pressure-seal it. It turned out it was for a tank—if a tank needed a new gas meter, these parts were involved. The government had to have every little piece sealed individually, and God knows how much all that cost, to have somebody like me cleaning and sealing each individual piece for everything they were making.
Sometimes I’d put on a lab coat and grab a clipboard and go upstairs into the restricted area where I wasn’t supposed to go. At that time they were working on some sort of underwater project, this is when LEDs were first appearing so there were all these scrolling numbers and letters up on the wall and at different stations, I don’t know what any of it meant. Where the other guys worked they were researching new kinds of bombs.
They used to have this vat for cleaning circuit boards, it did some sort of vaporized cleaning. And I used to stick my hand in it. It was really weird because my hand would never get wet but it would start to sweat like crazy. I’d pull my hand out and it would be dripping from how hot my hand would get. I was fascinated with it. I don’t know what was in it.
Myself, Dr. Know, and Earl, we all worked at research centers doing that kind of stuff, so maybe that is when the mutation happened and the Bad Brains became the Ninja Turtles of rock. They might have dropped some shit on us to make us the hardcore Negros from the District.
Darryl Jenifer is the bass player of the Bad Brains. They are currently recording a new album.
