30 JESUIT PERSPECTIVES • SPRING 2020
The
Hip Hop
Historian
Dating back to his days at 4701 N.
Himes Ave., ��������������������������������
knew he loved hip hop. He
supplemented his high school studies
with records by Run DMC and Slick Rick.
He obsessed over the budding genre, so
much so that he performed breakdancing
routines as halftime entertainment at
Tigers football games.
Now, more than three decades later,
as an executive for Universal Music
Enterprises and co-founder of the highly
regarded music magazine Wax Poetics,
Torres continues to follow his hip hop
passion.
His path to success wasn’t always
direct. When Torres matriculated at the
University of Florida, he found another
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study engineering, quickly realized it
was not for him, and switched majors to
architecture. When he took a ceramics
elective, Torres became enthralled with
the feeling of being in an art studio.
As he pursued his college degree, he
kept his heart close to hip hop. He also
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at UF, writing a couple of articles for
a Jazz magazine called JAZZIZ, and he
began collecting records.
“I kind of started this obsession with
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ples that these producers (were) using to
make hip hop tracks,” Torres said.
After graduating, his pursuit of painting
took him to New York City, which also
was the center of hip hop culture. He
started working at the Metropolitan
Museum of Art, but as his record
collection expanded, his focus began to
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He began taking samples of records and
making beats with a friend. Their beats
caught the attention of a New York label,
so Torres and his friend produced a few
tracks under the names Black and Blue
and Sub Hash.
As Torres familiarized and immersed
himself in the New York hip hop scene,
he also started working for an IP Tech
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World Trade Center’s north tower,
investing his income into more records
and production equipment.
“I wasn't necessarily professionally
looking to be a musician,” Torres said,
“but I was collecting tons of records.”
His collection wasn't just hip-hop albums,
either. Torres had funk, jazz, R&B,
soul, rock – wide-ranging works from
both famous and little-known artists –
much of which was sampled and given
new life by hip hop producers. As the
online realm began its rapid expansion,
Torres found the Internet as a helpful tool
to research and buy vinyl from around
the world.
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LiCalsi lent himself to many different
interests in high school, becoming
Student Council President in addition to
performing with the Masque and writing
for the school newspaper. But he said
he especially connected with the Jesuit
mission of becoming “Men for Others.”
“Being of service was always an ideal
(at Jesuit) and always has been important
to me,” LiCalsi said. “As a lawyer, having
clients who put their trust in you, and
having had the formative experiences
that I had in high school, you carry it
with you.
“They also taught me how to write a
paragraph, which still serves me well.”