Michael berrin biography

SOUL SERCHING
An interview with MC Serch
BY ADAM MANSBACH

MC Serch, a.k.a. Michael Berrin, was not the first white rapper, but he was the first whose skills and pedigree were unquestioned: a hip-hop acolyte who paid his dues, honed his chops, and earned respect well before the culture was mainstream-accessible or financially rewarding.

In the mid-eighties, New York was hip-hop’s epicenter, and a young Serch (Harlem’s High School of Music & Art, Class of ’85) did his best to be anywhere it was. He roadied and ghostwrote for Whodini, braved trial by fire on legendary Manhattan stages like the Rooftop and the Latin Quarter, chauffeured DJ Eric B to the far reaches of Long Island to pick his brain, cut demos with Grand Wizard Tony B, and occasionally recuperated with fifty straight hours of sleep at his parents’ place in Far Rockaway, Queens.

As the boisterous, bespectacled, B-boyish half of the hip-hop duo 3rd Bass (a sartorial contrast to Prim