Speaker 1: Quest Love Supreme is a production of iHeart Radio.
Speaker 2: Congratulations people, Yes, indeed, Award Supreme.
Speaker 3: We got hardware.
Speaker 1: Yes, we did the damn thing.
Speaker 3: We gotta tell him what award do we win?
Speaker 1: Yeah, he tells me what we won here.
Speaker 4: Wet The award is I Heeart Music Podcast of the Year.
Speaker 5: Shout out to Norri, You're great, but not as great.
Speaker 6: Thought first, we ain't hardly the first beat between podcasts.
Speaker 3: Yeah, that's love.
Speaker 1: Love to everybody in the category. It's all love.
Speaker 3: You know.
Speaker 2: It goes without saying that our Guest Today is an
Speaker 2: absolute legend, with a Grammy to boot, multiple Golden Platinum
Speaker 2: albums to his credit. He actually pinned one of hip
Speaker 2: hop's first memoirs, The Ice Opinion.
Speaker 1: He pinned classics like you.
Speaker 2: Know, Six in the Morning, Colors, New Jack, Hustler Og,
Speaker 2: Original Gangster. He's collaborated with everyone from Quincy Jones to
Speaker 2: Tupac to Cube to Quell, Keith the Slayer, and you know,
Speaker 2: I will basically say that our Guest Today is one
Speaker 2: of the first stars of our culture to really parlay
Speaker 2: and pivot from just hip hop to other venues of expression,
Speaker 2: be it film, television. His metal band body count one
Speaker 2: of the first hip hop legends to be a dominant
Speaker 2: voice on social media, and he's using that same wisdom
Speaker 2: as that he kicks on Twitter to offer his daily game.
Speaker 2: Definitely worth a following. I mean you should be following
Speaker 2: if you're not. But basically, what can I say? We
Speaker 2: have the legendary Ice Tea on Quest Love Supreme today, Sir, Wow, Wow.
Speaker 3: It's crazy. Thank you man, thank you think come on.
Speaker 1: Dog, you know you legend done y'.
Speaker 2: Also, it doesn't age you like drank for the family
Speaker 2: youth did Ice team Man.
Speaker 3: I like to always preface it with living legend, you
Speaker 3: know what I'm saying, as you should. A lot of
Speaker 3: times people don't get they flowers till it's a rap,
Speaker 3: you know what I'm saying. So I'm still here. But
Speaker 3: it's funny though, Quest I'm right now. I'm working on
Speaker 3: a project that's a compilation of all my story rhymes.
Speaker 3: You know, I like to tell stories, and the title
Speaker 3: of it is the Legend of Iced Tea Crime Stories,
Speaker 3: because legend is part fiction, you know. Legend is like
Speaker 3: a tale, you know. So it was a night I
Speaker 3: was in the club and I got in a fight
Speaker 3: and I knocked the guy out, but the legend says
Speaker 3: I knocked five guys out. You see what I'm saying.
Speaker 3: Now you become legendary. You got to live up to
Speaker 3: some of these legends that aren't really the truth. But
Speaker 3: I kind of let people believe what they want to believe,
Speaker 3: you know what I'm saying. So that's why we called
Speaker 3: the record the Legend Device Team. But thank you very much.
Speaker 2: I was going to say, you know, I didn't know
Speaker 2: whether or not to. I'm certain that this ain't the
Speaker 2: first time that you've heard, especially based on your name,
Speaker 2: that cats might call you the Iceberg Slim of hip hop.
Speaker 2: I'm sure a lot of that is also just due
Speaker 2: to the fact that not on Ryan Page, but I
Speaker 2: think on Power, I remember you close inside too with
Speaker 2: kind of a storytell I think it's Soul on ice
Speaker 2: the closing song on Power, of which back then I
Speaker 2: was wondering, like if that was going to be your
Speaker 2: not that I was seeing a pivot back in nineteen
Speaker 2: eighty seven or eighty eight, like did you ever have
Speaker 2: any goals or aspirations to actually start writing fictional books
Speaker 2: on that level?
Speaker 3: Now, the true story is I'm named after Iceberg, Slim,
Speaker 3: and I named myself after Iceberg Slim. When I was
Speaker 3: in high school, you know, you I went to Crimshaw,
Speaker 3: So you had the gang bangers and then you had
Speaker 3: the players. The players were the cast, the ward tailor maids,
Speaker 3: and they would shake, always shooting dice. And you know,
Speaker 3: I ended up migrating from the gangsters to them, and
Speaker 3: that's when you see me. And I had the perm
Speaker 3: and the Fela and all that. But these cats would
Speaker 3: hang out and they would carry around Iceberg Slim books
Speaker 3: and Donald Going books. You feel me. So I wanted
Speaker 3: to know what that was. So I started reading Iceberg
Speaker 3: Slim and I was fascinated with it. So I was
Speaker 3: in eleventh grade. I was able to quote Iceberg Slim
Speaker 3: to the girls, and they thought I was the fly
Speaker 3: shit in the world because I'm quoting a forty year
Speaker 3: old pimp to them. I mean, I could quote you
Speaker 3: want to hear some Iceberg Slim? You want to hear? Yes?
Speaker 5: Please? Yes please.
Speaker 3: I needed three way winch that'll play Jasper and extension,
Speaker 3: take them around the horn. No Gene or John. This
Speaker 3: whole couldn't con because that trick was never born. She
Speaker 3: would be a good shot broad and the acid, fraud
Speaker 3: and drags. She'll play like a vet, She'll stuff like
Speaker 3: an ace, never lose a case, and leave many a
Speaker 3: mark in debt. She'll be rated the best in the
Speaker 3: East and the West. When a boosting hands goes down,
Speaker 3: she'll still knots out of knees and fidos fleas. This
Speaker 3: bitch is still out many a town. Now. I heard
Speaker 3: hoes cry about the wind being high and the law
Speaker 3: being on. They tail about snowing, sleep being ass whole deep,
Speaker 3: and the tricks can go to hell and some greasy
Speaker 3: spoon or juke saloon, you'll find them killing their time,
Speaker 3: crying hard luck tears and sucking up beers. And the
Speaker 3: pimps ain't getting the dime, turning half dollar tricks just
Speaker 3: to get a fixed because their pussy is doing the pimping.
Speaker 3: That is ruining the name of one hell of a
Speaker 3: game because they pimps is doing the simping.
Speaker 1: I see you on the next question of supreme leaders. Joke.
Speaker 3: I'm saying that at the eleventh grade to girls, and
Speaker 3: I'm not telling them it's iceberg slim. They like this,
Speaker 3: who is this flyer?
Speaker 4: And you don't even know what the fuck you're saying
Speaker 4: half of it.
Speaker 3: This sounds fly right. That thing you said is how
Speaker 3: can I be down with this ass motherfucker? So so
Speaker 3: ice Berg ice tea is short for Iceberg tea. Quest
Speaker 3: you're right, and my boys call me Berg, my boys
Speaker 3: call me Burg. So now the song you heard was
Speaker 3: my homage to Hustlers Convention. Remember that album they had
Speaker 3: out called yeah, like was it Lightning Rod? And yeah? Yeah?
Speaker 3: So I was in that vein. But really, honestly, truthfully
Speaker 3: quests all my music is Iceberg slim like, my music
Speaker 3: is more like literature that it was not meant to
Speaker 3: dance to. It's like, you know, straight up nigga or
Speaker 3: some of y'all niggas's bitches too, or I'm the Pusher
Speaker 3: high Rollers. It's definitions of certain things. So that was
Speaker 3: my way of writing books, was writing music, And I
Speaker 3: honestly used music that you couldn't dance to intentionally so
Speaker 3: that you'd have to to make you listen.
Speaker 1: I see, I see, you're right on the plank.
Speaker 2: So for a lot of our listeners that don't know
Speaker 2: of your history, I mean maybe it's maybe ten or
Speaker 2: fifteen years ago that I was shocked when I first
Speaker 2: found out that you were actually born in Jersey.
Speaker 1: Yes, you know, where in Jersey did you live?
Speaker 3: I was born in Newark, New Jersey. I lost my
Speaker 3: mom when I was in the third grade, and I
Speaker 3: moved to Summit, New Jersey, which a predominantly white suburb.
Speaker 3: There was like one black street called Williams Street, where
Speaker 3: mostly all the black people live. And then I lost
Speaker 3: my father when I was in the seventh grade and
Speaker 3: I was excuse me, shipped to Los Angeles to live
Speaker 3: with his sister. So even though I was from the
Speaker 3: East Coast, I hadn't really kicked up no dust. I
Speaker 3: was a kid kid, you know. So by the time
Speaker 3: I actually got active, I was in LA by that point.
Speaker 3: But yeah, I'm from I'm from the East Coast, born
Speaker 3: out there.
Speaker 4: Just for perspective, I'm just curious, where are your people's from, Like,
Speaker 4: where was your mama's peoples from?
Speaker 5: Where was your daddy's people from.
Speaker 3: My mother was a Creole from New Orleans, and she
Speaker 3: was so light skinned. Back in the fifties, they said
Speaker 3: she could pass. You know, you know that term. I mean, yes,
Speaker 3: the pass is white. And my father was quest color.
Speaker 3: So they were considered an interracial marriage to a lot
Speaker 3: of people. So that's where I was. I learned earlier
Speaker 3: about racism that that was not something to tolerate, how
Speaker 3: stupid it was. My mother was able to hear white
Speaker 3: people talk about black people in front of her because
Speaker 3: they thought, oh yeah. And one of my first moments
Speaker 3: in racism was I had a white kid that thought
Speaker 3: I was white and was talking about another black person
Speaker 3: in front of me. But yeah, that's and my father,
Speaker 3: I think he was from Virginia, so you know, that's
Speaker 3: why I'm a light skinned brother with hazel eyes. And
Speaker 3: people know that the history of Creole is black and French.
Speaker 2: I guess fish out of water situation wasn't for you
Speaker 2: in LA at the time, Like how old are you
Speaker 2: when you're in LA?
Speaker 3: How old are you in his seventh grade.
Speaker 1: Twelve twelve.
Speaker 3: I didn't like it first because you know, when you
Speaker 3: move up through a kid, he doesn't have any friends.
Speaker 3: So I got shipped when my father died. Both of
Speaker 3: them died in natural causes, you know, but my father
Speaker 3: passed away. I was in school and they ship. They
Speaker 3: took me home and then that summer they just sent
Speaker 3: me to l A like for the summer. Then all
Speaker 3: my clothes came and I was moved out there with
Speaker 3: his sister. I didn't I didn't like it because I
Speaker 3: you know, and that's how I'm living. I said I
Speaker 3: didn't like la. I didn't have no friends to I've
Speaker 3: got and then got bussed to a school blacks and whites.
Speaker 3: I guess this shit was cool, you know, but it
Speaker 3: was weird, man, because my aunt didn't really want me.
Speaker 3: She had two kids that had already graduated out of
Speaker 3: high school and they were ready to go on with
Speaker 3: their life, and in comes this kid now in the
Speaker 3: junior high and it was it was rough on me.
Speaker 3: I left her house when I was seventeen years old,
Speaker 3: and I've been on my own ever since. I've never
Speaker 3: dealt I have no living relatives, no sisters, brothers, aunts, uncles, cousins.
Speaker 3: I've been ice. Tea's been on his own ever since. Dola.
Speaker 1: Wow, seriously, yeah, shit man.
Speaker 4: Not even a mentor, like who was your first male
Speaker 4: in your life then?
Speaker 5: In that way?
Speaker 3: Just friends, you know, friends. I have one friend that
Speaker 3: I looked up to. He died early, and uh, nobody.
Speaker 3: That's how kids get involved in gangs. Gangs are like
Speaker 3: surrogate families, you know, masculinity. Like, honestly, when I got
Speaker 3: around the gangs, I never was in a gang, but
Speaker 3: I was affiliated with the gangs. Because see, you're not
Speaker 3: in a gang, you're from a gang, you know, So
Speaker 3: you have to be in a neighborhood. That neighborhood is
Speaker 3: a gang. So if you're from the sixties, you're in
Speaker 3: the Rolling sixties, you're from the eighties, you're in the
Speaker 3: eight trays in La So I was living in a
Speaker 3: nicer area in View Park. So when I went to Crenshaw,
Speaker 3: you had Harlem crips, Hoover Cripts, all kinds of crypt gangs.
Speaker 3: So I knew all the shot callers. But I you know, honestly,
Speaker 3: being around my homeboys, that was the first time I
Speaker 3: ever heard somebody tell me they loved me, you know,
Speaker 3: since my parents passed. You know, we love. And the
Speaker 3: thing of it is is the gangs to love is
Speaker 3: different because they mean it, you know when they say
Speaker 3: if something happens to you, because it's on and they
Speaker 3: meant it and they really and it's kind of like
Speaker 3: what you wish your father was. Like, like, you know,
Speaker 3: like I always say, if somebody shot me, my last
Speaker 3: words wouldn't be peace to beget those motherfuckers, you know,
Speaker 3: So that's embedded in me, you know. But no, I
Speaker 3: don't have family, just friends. And I've found out that
Speaker 3: having sometimes that type of family is better because you
Speaker 3: can choose it.
Speaker 2: I know, oftentimes when people are thrust it into situations in.
Speaker 1: Which they lose.
Speaker 2: I had like one or two conversations with James Brown,
Speaker 2: and you know, his whole thing was like, you know,
Speaker 2: my mom and my dad gave me away, and he
Speaker 2: said that that made him well, he was saying like,
Speaker 2: basically that made him stubborn. But I think he was
Speaker 2: basically trying to tell me it was really hard for
Speaker 2: him to trust anybody, anybody, you know, like when your
Speaker 2: parents leave you then even through death or through you know, circumstances,
Speaker 2: then you know, it's kind of hard to open your
Speaker 2: heart to like, Okay, that's my friend and that's my
Speaker 2: friend over there. But were you social like that or
Speaker 2: were you like a hermit in the beginning or no.
Speaker 3: I kind of like became I guess what you would say, violent,
Speaker 3: But it's not like I was beating on people, but
Speaker 3: I put on a violent persona because now here you go,
Speaker 3: you got a light skin kid in La Rap surrounded
Speaker 3: with the gangs. I got hazel eyes. My fucking name
Speaker 3: is Tracy. I don't have any relatives, right, so you're
Speaker 3: gonna be predator or prey. Fortunately I'm six feet you know,
Speaker 3: I always was always around two hundred pounds. You know,
Speaker 3: even in high school, I was always healthy enough to fight.
Speaker 3: So I ended up putting on this energy that you
Speaker 3: guys know today is nice tea. I'm a nice I'm
Speaker 3: an as Ice. I'm a nice guy. But I think
Speaker 3: fifty Cents said it best. It ain't how my mama
Speaker 3: raised me. It's how the hood made me. So I
Speaker 3: just had to learn. Like one of my buddies said,
Speaker 3: Ice is a nice dude, he just doesn't back up well.
Speaker 3: I don't back up well. So once you once you
Speaker 3: issue me like it's going to you know, if you
Speaker 3: tell me da da da da da or else, I'm
Speaker 3: not backing up because where am I going to back
Speaker 3: up to? Where can I go? You know what I'm saying.
Speaker 3: So I became you know, I had a lot of
Speaker 3: fades and a lot of fights, and but I had
Speaker 3: nowhere to go. Request It was just, you know, I
Speaker 3: had no options and still don't was that when you
Speaker 3: because at one point you joined the army or at
Speaker 3: one point didn't you. I joined the army because it's
Speaker 3: seventeen years old. I hadn't had a lot of sex
Speaker 3: like I was. I wasn't getting no sex. Tenthly, I
Speaker 3: don't believe it. No, tenth I didn't get sex till
Speaker 3: twelfth grade.
Speaker 4: The game wasn't right. It was the presentation was good,
Speaker 4: but you ain't handle game.
Speaker 5: Is that what it was?
Speaker 7: Nah?
Speaker 3: The girls was dating forty year old niggas like I was.
Speaker 3: I'm in high school. I'm talking to girls all day.
Speaker 3: Didn't when they go out and see them at the
Speaker 3: end of the night. They getting picked up in low
Speaker 3: riders niggas. Yeah, kids, and you know that. You know
Speaker 3: the drill. So I until I made it to senior,
Speaker 3: I had no leverage. I had no leverage, you know,
Speaker 3: I couldn't. I had nothing to offer them. I had
Speaker 3: enough to offer them to entertainment at school, but not
Speaker 3: outside of school, not out of school. Guys know this drill.
Speaker 3: You know the drill, the girl, the cheerleader flirt.
Speaker 2: In high school all yeah, all the bad joints were
Speaker 2: dating way older dudes.
Speaker 5: Was looking at the wrong girls.
Speaker 1: That's all in high school like that, Like that's what
Speaker 1: it was. They wasn't looking at us now.
Speaker 3: So when I finally made it to senior, I got it.
Speaker 3: I had a girl from the tenth grade. I had
Speaker 3: a little leverage on her. But now I get out
Speaker 3: of I left my aunt's house. I got two hundred
Speaker 3: and fifty dollars social Security. I told her I bailed.
Speaker 3: She said, you'll never make it. I took one hundred
Speaker 3: dollars and got an apartment. I had another one hundred
Speaker 3: dollars I spent on food. I had fifty dollars. That
Speaker 3: was free money, right, And I found apartment and the
Speaker 3: guy was like, you're too young. I said, well, I'm
Speaker 3: gonna have to check sent to you. You take my
Speaker 3: rent out and then you give me the difference. So
Speaker 3: the landlord would give me one hundred and fifty dollars cash.
Speaker 3: That's how he knew he was gonna get paid. And
Speaker 3: uh what happens. I got my girl pregnant. Now I
Speaker 3: got on my own pad. When I'm in the twelfth
Speaker 3: grade and you talking about popular shit, I was killed.
Speaker 3: But I didn't know. I didn't know they could get pregnant.
Speaker 3: That easy. You know what I'm saying. I ain't busted
Speaker 3: enough nuts to know the drill.
Speaker 1: And there you have it.
Speaker 3: That's our clip. And I'm and I'm and i'm uh,
Speaker 3: you know, I'm old. I was graduating in nineteen seventy six.
Speaker 3: It wasn't like condoms was around you. Damn Eve needed
Speaker 3: to go to the pharmacy to get a condom, like
Speaker 3: you thing like you had to get a prescription to
Speaker 3: get a condom back then. You know. So I'm busting
Speaker 3: nuts and she said she pops up pregnant, and uh,
Speaker 3: being an orphan, I wanted the baby, right, I don't
Speaker 3: got nobody. And so I went in the military based
Speaker 3: on that, Like, I'm like, I gotta get some responsibility,
Speaker 3: and I joined the army. I did four years at
Speaker 3: the twenty fifth Infantry Division.
Speaker 1: What was that like?
Speaker 2: Like that level of discipline, especially when I would assume
Speaker 2: that if you're saying that you have to have this
Speaker 2: persona in la where.
Speaker 3: Just back up off me, just back up off me
Speaker 3: type shit.
Speaker 5: You know.
Speaker 3: Okay, you know how that work?
Speaker 5: That don't work well in the army.
Speaker 3: Yes it does, Yes, it does. See, the being in
Speaker 3: an army is kind of like joining a football team.
Speaker 3: If you don't want to be there, it ain't gonna work.
Speaker 3: If you want to be there, it's gonna work. You
Speaker 3: gotta want to be there, you see what I'm saying.
Speaker 3: I made the decision to do it, so I was
Speaker 3: ready to go. Like if you see Gi Jane, they're
Speaker 3: like ring the bell, ring the bell. Quit quit the
Speaker 3: armies like that, like if you can't hang go, But
Speaker 3: now you're much the other alpha and you like, I
Speaker 3: ain't no punk, I'm ana shuts. It's a place for
Speaker 3: alpha males, That's what really is. It's for motherfuckers that
Speaker 3: really want to get down. They want to go to war,
Speaker 3: like these motherfuckers, so they they hunt cats like you.
Speaker 3: But now they take the gang the street shit out
Speaker 3: of you. I remember the first time I went in
Speaker 3: the gas chamber. They put you in a gas chamber
Speaker 3: and say what yeah, well, they put you in this
Speaker 3: thing called the gas chamber and let.
Speaker 5: You you've seen Private Benjamin, you know.
Speaker 3: They put gas in there and they make you take
Speaker 3: your mask off so you can have see. The trip
Speaker 3: with military is. They want you to go through things
Speaker 3: so that when it happens, it's not the first time
Speaker 3: it happened. So you know you're gonna march twenty five miles,
Speaker 3: so if you have to do it, I've done this before,
Speaker 3: So they tell you to take it off. So what
Speaker 3: I did is I squinted it and I just held
Speaker 3: my breath. And I was able to hold my breath
Speaker 3: a long time, and so when I came out, everybody
Speaker 3: was coughing and shit like that. I was able to
Speaker 3: pull the mask off and it didn't look like it
Speaker 3: fuck with me. And the drill start was like, see
Speaker 3: that's that same shit they throw itmorrow on the block.
Speaker 3: He's used to that ship off the block. They were able.
Speaker 3: They would tease the street cats like, you know, y'all,
Speaker 3: motherfucker's not a break of M six. So you got.
Speaker 5: Respect off the jump. Then in a way, well.
Speaker 3: If you tough in there, they gonna let you be tough.
Speaker 3: They're gonna let you. I remember one time I was
Speaker 3: there and they and I had a sergeant arranger he
Speaker 3: named and he was like, who thinks they can whoop
Speaker 3: my ass? Right? And I hated this little motherfucker, and
Speaker 3: I knew I could knock him out, so I put
Speaker 3: my hand up in his other brother uh named go
Speaker 3: Van and another white dude named McGary stuck their hands up,
Speaker 3: and I thought we was gonna get the fight. And
Speaker 3: then he brought us up in front of the squad
Speaker 3: a platoon and said, who think they could beat me
Speaker 3: and my two three friends up? You got you guys
Speaker 3: are the squad leaders. So he I want to see
Speaker 3: who thought they had heart? Yeah, And that was the
Speaker 3: biggest mistake in my life. Ever since then, I never
Speaker 3: wanted to be in charge of shit. I'm your guy
Speaker 3: to ride shotgun. I understand the position shotgun is much better.
Speaker 3: You know, fuck to being the boss, the boss fucked that.
Speaker 4: It's brave to say that shit because I ain't mad
Speaker 4: at you.
Speaker 5: But it's brave to say it.
Speaker 4: But that you not that you don't want to be
Speaker 4: the boss, and you ain't mad at not being the boss.
Speaker 5: Like everybody, some people will feel like, well, what you mean?
Speaker 5: I see like you and g.
Speaker 4: You should be the boss at the top of everything
Speaker 4: that you know producing.
Speaker 5: But I see what you're saying, and.
Speaker 3: Those people have never been the boss. See a lot
Speaker 3: of things you want because you have never gotten them.
Speaker 3: Once you get them, you go got it pass. I'm
Speaker 3: good on that.
Speaker 4: There, so, so Jennifer Lewis taught us that lesson. She
Speaker 4: said to us one day, she said, you know, somebody
Speaker 4: offered me a show once, and then I realized. I
Speaker 4: thought about how I look at Tracy Ellis Ross and
Speaker 4: Anthony Anderson walk in, and I was.
Speaker 5: Like, I don't want that. That's not my life. And
Speaker 5: that's what that made me think of.
Speaker 3: Listen, if Quest is the boss and I'm as lieutenant,
Speaker 3: I might need more dangerous than him, you feel me,
Speaker 3: and I might, and I might be I might have
Speaker 3: much more power. When you went to school, you more
Speaker 3: afraid of the principal or the vice.
Speaker 1: Principal, right vice pressman. She was crazy.
Speaker 3: I was terrified, even like Law and Order. Like when
Speaker 3: I'm on Law and Order, I have a job. I
Speaker 3: show up, I do the job, I get paid. It's cool.
Speaker 3: When I'm on tour, I gotta run all them niggas.
Speaker 3: I got all this ship I gotta handle. I got
Speaker 3: a budgets. Quest knows I'm on budgets and tour buses
Speaker 3: and all that stuff. I would much rather not do
Speaker 3: that and just go on tour and get the bag.
Speaker 3: I don't want to do it. So at some point
Speaker 3: you realize. But they say the head that wears the
Speaker 3: crown sleeps the heaviest, and it's not necessarily for everybody.
Speaker 3: I am the boss in certain aspects of my life.
Speaker 3: Let's put that like that. When we did the Grammys,
Speaker 3: they made Quest the boss.
Speaker 1: Oh yeah, I talk about it.
Speaker 2: When I landed in New York, my tooth fell out
Speaker 2: and I went straight to surgery. That's the that's the
Speaker 2: level of stress that I was under.
Speaker 3: Stress.
Speaker 2: Tooth stress, man talk for real, like new teeth for real.
Speaker 2: When I stress out, body parts just go awry.
Speaker 3: So now now let's let's since we're doing this now, Quest,
Speaker 3: even though you got all the praise, was it.
Speaker 1: Worth we ever talked about this fully? Yet we did too?
Speaker 1: Let's go.
Speaker 2: I'm still trying to decide. I'm still trying to decide
Speaker 2: if that was a victory or not.
Speaker 1: I'll say I'll say this much.
Speaker 3: It was a victory for me. Thank you? I was it?
Speaker 4: No?
Speaker 5: For real?
Speaker 2: You like one of five acts that literally gave me
Speaker 2: zero headaches? Nothing, No, no, no, It's gonna be worth it,
Speaker 2: I guess I can. I can say that something even
Speaker 2: bigger is gonna happen in August and it's not just
Speaker 2: like a special one. Tell yes, we we already said
Speaker 2: that something's going to happen, but something on top of
Speaker 2: that is happening. And now that that's been greenlit, I
Speaker 2: feel that is It's It was way worth losing the
Speaker 2: tooth over and having to lay on an operating table
Speaker 2: for two hours.
Speaker 5: Oh my god, I mean, is worth it?
Speaker 3: You did? You pulled that shit together like two weeks.
Speaker 3: That's the crazy part.
Speaker 2: Like now the thing was and you know, they kind
Speaker 2: of hit me in like after Thanksgiving, like this is
Speaker 2: what we have planned.
Speaker 1: Are you interested? And I was like all right, cool.
Speaker 2: And then I let like three weeks go by Christmas
Speaker 2: or whatever, and I guess after Christmas, I hit them
Speaker 2: up like okay, so what's the plan. And they were
Speaker 2: looking at me like yeah, what's the plan. And I'm like, wait,
Speaker 2: I have to put this together. Like I'm just thinking,
Speaker 2: like let me show up and drum and y'all tell
Speaker 2: me who I'm backing. And they were like we were
Speaker 2: kind of hoping you put it together, so you know,
Speaker 2: I gave my wishless and then they looked at me
Speaker 2: back like okay, do you know these people?
Speaker 1: And I was like wait, I got to call them too,
Speaker 1: So that's.
Speaker 5: Worse than question of supreme See that ain't right?
Speaker 2: No, I mean you know so pretty like with the
Speaker 2: exception of maybe one of the acts that abandoned.
Speaker 1: Us and Glorilla.
Speaker 2: Maybe, yeah, Like I pretty much just called everyone from
Speaker 2: my telephone and I see, yeah, I pretty much went.
Speaker 2: I scrolled down my entire phone book and I I'll
Speaker 2: say that ninety five percent of everyone that you saw
Speaker 2: was me hitting them up, like, yo, you mind doing this?
Speaker 1: I mean the only two people.
Speaker 2: That couldn't do it was Cube and Cuba shooting something
Speaker 2: and Stup was coaching, uh, one of the teams for
Speaker 2: the Pro Bowl.
Speaker 4: So so I see, was the long was it? You
Speaker 4: were a loane like representation.
Speaker 3: Me and hello me and too short?
Speaker 5: You're too short? Excuse me? So north and South.
Speaker 2: I decided it was wiser because people off the nest,
Speaker 2: like why'd you as big Daddy came, why do you
Speaker 2: ask case one? The thing was we thought it was
Speaker 2: first of all, we only had twelve minutes, and twelve
Speaker 2: minutes goes by like that when it's it's this level
Speaker 2: of ensemble. So we just wanted one representative of each right,
Speaker 2: each territory.
Speaker 4: So wait, okay, so a mere so I see you
Speaker 4: get the call. A mere calls tell us from please,
Speaker 4: what's you on your mind?
Speaker 5: What happens?
Speaker 3: Why are you saying, hey, I can't do it?
Speaker 4: Why not?
Speaker 5: Why you can't do it?
Speaker 3: Because I'm in law and order and they shoot Mondays
Speaker 3: and super Bowl and Grammys are always on Sundays, so
Speaker 3: I can never go. You know, I got a call
Speaker 3: time sometimes, you know, seven am on Monday. So he
Speaker 3: calls and I'm kind of like, I don't know, you know,
Speaker 3: it's the Grammys. I was, I didn't really know the
Speaker 3: magnitude of it, you know. And then he just said,
Speaker 3: he said, ice you don't want to miss this. This
Speaker 3: is going to be legendary. This is gonna be epic.
Speaker 3: And then in my brain I thought about it and
Speaker 3: I said, am I going to be the guy that's
Speaker 3: sitting home watching this? I had a call to do that,
Speaker 3: and people like you lying, motherfucker. Ain't nobody called you?
Speaker 3: You know? So and then I said I knew he
Speaker 3: had ice Cube on speed doll. I'm like, you know what,
Speaker 3: I'm not turning this down. This is the Grammys, and
Speaker 3: it's it's it's it's second to the Super Bowl as
Speaker 3: far as people see in live performance. And I said,
Speaker 3: I called Law and Order and I told them and
Speaker 3: I said, you know, I need to be off on Monday.
Speaker 3: They said, you got the whole week off because you're
Speaker 3: getting the Star next week, and we and we had
Speaker 3: this episode. It's off for you. So it just was
Speaker 3: a natural it was. And then then you know, I
Speaker 3: got the track. And when I got there for the rehearsal,
Speaker 3: that's when it dawned on me, because it's like, you're
Speaker 3: seeing everybody. You know, I'm seeing method man, I'm seeing
Speaker 3: all my friends. It was it was of me and
Speaker 3: ll cool Ja. Who know, people haven't seen a picture
Speaker 3: of me and him ever.
Speaker 2: I gotta admit that was my one slight worry. I
Speaker 2: was like, wait a minute, because the thing was, by
Speaker 2: the time I got to you again, I went in
Speaker 2: alphabetical order, right, and you're in the middle of the
Speaker 2: alphabet already, you know, with the least the first fifteen
Speaker 2: people I called, their first question was who else going
Speaker 2: to be there? And the thing was, is like I
Speaker 2: wanted to undersell it. One I'm very much known for.
Speaker 2: Even my hyperbolic statements are over exaggerated.
Speaker 1: So I kind of wanted to.
Speaker 2: Downplay this a little bit because for a lot of
Speaker 2: the younger generation, like i'll call Tyler the Creator up
Speaker 2: and his first reactions like, man, it sounds corny, you
Speaker 2: know what I mean. Like, so in my experience and
Speaker 2: depending on what generation I'm talking to, right, I figure
Speaker 2: if I just undersell it, it'll be safe.
Speaker 1: And what's funny is.
Speaker 2: For the people that were just like nah, I'm good,
Speaker 2: like that sounds whack. All them like the next week
Speaker 2: were like, yo, man, I wish you would have told
Speaker 2: me the magnitude that this thing.
Speaker 1: Was going to be. And I was like, well, I
Speaker 1: don't know, yeah, like how right right?
Speaker 2: I think just to some generational people, it's you know,
Speaker 2: that's what like my whole thing is like, oh that
Speaker 2: must be nice, Like you could just shrug your shoulders
Speaker 2: like Motown twenty five.
Speaker 1: Oh I don't need that.
Speaker 3: Me was the gangster rappers, right, you know, because I
Speaker 3: used to we don't get invited to shit, you know.
Speaker 3: So when he said scarface, when he said pe, when
Speaker 3: he said wu tang mefod, when he said too short,
Speaker 3: I was like, yo, I remember when Prodigy was alive.
Speaker 3: You know, Prodigy is my favorite rapper for mob dB.
Speaker 3: He's like, I used, we don't do red carpets. They
Speaker 3: don't let us in. But see, you got to understand
Speaker 3: the people like myself, Snoop and Q, we take pride
Speaker 3: in being outcasts. We take pride in not being allowed
Speaker 3: into their shit. I remember when Snoop got the was
Speaker 3: doing the Super Bowl. I'm like, you know, they hate
Speaker 3: seeing you up there. He goes, I'm about to crip
Speaker 3: harder than they ever seen, he said, because don't you
Speaker 3: love it the fact? You know, So when you got
Speaker 3: the Outlaws in there and you had he quest had
Speaker 3: too short yelling bitch, you know, I'm like, yeah, you know.
Speaker 3: And it was funny though, because at the sound check
Speaker 3: I was doing, I was just singing all the words
Speaker 3: with the ships and the fucks in it. So right
Speaker 3: before the show I got a little text from whoever
Speaker 3: the piece is Ice, this is gonna be live TV.
Speaker 3: Could you dial it back? I was like, Okay, I
Speaker 3: was just testing the water. I didn't you know, but
Speaker 3: I well, you know what I figured it. You know
Speaker 3: what I said. I said, I'm not gonna curse because
Speaker 3: they're gonna They're gonna bleep it and they're gonna bleep
Speaker 3: it wrong, and it just won't it won't flow, you know.
Speaker 3: So I just changed sucking for nigga, you know, I
Speaker 3: just but I was so concerned during that show of
Speaker 3: the queue, see, because it was a tape going right now,
Speaker 3: Scarface is wrapping mind playing tricks on me, and then
Speaker 3: under this thing comes in, dud. If you miss your queue,
Speaker 3: it was gonna be a rap because the crack was
Speaker 3: gonna keep going. You were gonna be offbeat in front
Speaker 3: of millions of people. I was wedding like this is
Speaker 3: not no, I can't and ic concert. I could suck up.
Speaker 3: I could be we'll bring that bracket, you know, I
Speaker 3: could right, this is gonna this is a fucking train
Speaker 3: that's going. They put the things in my ear and
Speaker 3: I never think. I don't think I've been that focused
Speaker 3: in a long time.
Speaker 2: So I had to have a live slate just you know,
Speaker 2: because the thing was that the graphics that we were
Speaker 2: performing like that had to be on automatic time. So
Speaker 2: initially I wasn't going to do a live graphics. I
Speaker 2: was just going to do it like a normal thing,
Speaker 2: like okay, we're banned, we'll just you know, do it
Speaker 2: like normal, But they were like, no, you gotta do
Speaker 2: it to a slate so that way, when the lights
Speaker 2: and all that stuff change, it'll be automatically and whatnot.
Speaker 3: So how did you guys, did you know who was
Speaker 3: going to pull out at the last minute?
Speaker 1: Yo?
Speaker 2: Yo, all right, So look when Bad Bunny was opening
Speaker 2: the show, we were on in seventy five minutes, and
Speaker 2: what wound up happening was when I got worried that
Speaker 2: one of our acts definitely had left the building and
Speaker 2: went back to his crib in Calabasas. Then it took
Speaker 2: us thirty seven minutes. Because the thing is the show's
Speaker 2: happening live, so it's not like the light guy can
Speaker 2: look at me and say, okay, so what are we
Speaker 2: gonna do? Like he still has to do the show.
Speaker 2: So basically, we're using musical performances and commercials to go
Speaker 2: to nine different people. You got to tell the person
Speaker 2: that's doing explosions, the person that's doing the lights, the
Speaker 2: person that's doing the choreography. You now got explained to
Speaker 2: the twenty dancers who were there for that one thirty
Speaker 2: eight second segment that we don't need your services anymore.
Speaker 2: So it took about thirty seven minutes for our first
Speaker 2: dropout to happen. Now, when the second dropout happened, it
Speaker 2: was twelve minutes left before showtime, and the second dropout
Speaker 2: was our top person, our headliner, who wanted more explosions,
Speaker 2: more dancers, more smoke, more like. Each each request was
Speaker 2: like it was almost like a negotiating arms or whatever like.
Speaker 2: And when they left at the twelve minute mark, when
Speaker 2: our headliner had totally dropped out, I yo, man, I
Speaker 2: just I thought it was a rap. I thought, man, great,
Speaker 2: you always wanted to trend on Twitter and now you
Speaker 2: destroyed hip hop and you broke it. So I had
Speaker 2: no clue that Uzzivert got my message to just bum
Speaker 2: rust the stage when he heard his song. I literally
Speaker 2: didn't knowase Like I said a text, Yo, you're gonna
Speaker 2: hear your instrumental bum rust the stage when you hear
Speaker 2: that shit, and my phone went dead, So I thought
Speaker 2: he didn't get that message.
Speaker 1: So I'm fucked.
Speaker 2: And it wasn't until I got off stage, because even
Speaker 2: when all of y'all were on stage at the end,
Speaker 2: it took the roots to explain to me in the
Speaker 2: dressing room that little UZI vert came out.
Speaker 1: Came out. I didn't know that until I was changing
Speaker 1: my clothes backstage.
Speaker 2: So that's why I can't take credit like, oh, it
Speaker 2: was a victory because even when off stage, I was like,
Speaker 2: I explained this point. You remember how when Prince stormed
Speaker 2: off stage on Purple Rain because he thought nobody was filled, right,
Speaker 2: that was me. I was like, oh, man, I destroyed
Speaker 2: shit fuck And everyone's like, what are you talking about.
Speaker 1: We're turning on Twitter right now.
Speaker 3: What I'm saying, Hey, look, it's even more it's even
Speaker 3: more important that you were able to pull it off
Speaker 3: with all that. That's like you had people booby trapping you,
Speaker 3: bailing out at the last minute of a live show man,
Speaker 3: and uh, you.
Speaker 1: Know what I love though I don't think anybody missed him.
Speaker 5: No, we did not, We did not.
Speaker 1: It's still came off.
Speaker 3: It came off.
Speaker 4: And let me ask you all this because I talked
Speaker 4: to Jazzy Jeff after after this, and he said, you know,
Speaker 4: it was a moment where we all knew that we
Speaker 4: were there. We've never been invited and we won't be
Speaker 4: invited back.
Speaker 1: Yeah, there won't be a fifty first exactly.
Speaker 4: And you said, but we were there for hip hop,
Speaker 4: like did you feel that too icy?
Speaker 3: Like something mean, I've been going to the Grammys. I
Speaker 3: want to Grammy for rap back in the day with
Speaker 3: Quincy Jones back on the block to block me, Mail
Speaker 3: CuMo D and Kane, and we kind of felt Quincy
Speaker 3: snuck us in the back door the Grammys. You know
Speaker 3: what I'm saying. It's like they about a wrap award,
Speaker 3: but it's really Quincy Jones. So we were like, Okay,
Speaker 3: I got it. I broke it in a video when
Speaker 3: I was on my iced T bullshit, and then I
Speaker 3: said I missed it and I got another one replace it.
Speaker 3: So I do have one, but one of my videos
Speaker 3: like the.
Speaker 2: Girl, they replaced them because they're telling me, nope, yeah,
Speaker 2: this iss crazy glued.
Speaker 3: There's a charge. You can get one. It's like a
Speaker 3: gold record. If they know that you're you got it,
Speaker 3: you can get it in place. But I also went
Speaker 3: to China and got some some maid to give out,
Speaker 3: like with body Count one they only give out for
Speaker 3: the number of people in the group, but there's so
Speaker 3: many people involved. I got some replicas made to give
Speaker 3: to my boys and my crew. So I got that.
Speaker 3: Then a couple of years ago, I was nominated body Count.
Speaker 3: That was weird because we you know, they have another
Speaker 3: they have another Grammy ceremony that comes on before the
Speaker 3: Grammar the pre so we performed in that. I got
Speaker 3: nominated for Black Hoodie and we performed. After that, they
Speaker 3: take us backstage and they got the cameras on it.
Speaker 3: So I'm like, we won this, motherfucker, we won this.
Speaker 3: Mother We're standing there and they go Masterdon and they won.
Speaker 3: And the dude took the camera and wrapped that shit
Speaker 3: up and dipped and left it. And then when we
Speaker 3: got to our dressing room it was locked. It was
Speaker 3: like they left for dead. I was like, damn. So
Speaker 3: then the next year when we got we won for
Speaker 3: Best Metal Performance. I was sitting right here because we
Speaker 3: did it over the internet, right, so I might beat on.
Speaker 3: I probably will be the only person ever to get
Speaker 3: a rap and a medal Grammy. That's what's up categories.
Speaker 3: But you know this is awards. Somebody explained your award.
Speaker 3: This is awards, Like, this is how motherfuckers are about awards.
Speaker 3: Fuck the awards, Fuck the Grammy. Man. Fuck I'm nominated, right,
Speaker 3: That's how people are. I mean, I don't give a
Speaker 3: fuck about that bullshit. What So that's how people are
Speaker 3: nobody really Yeah, but once you get nominated, you want
Speaker 3: to win that ship. You're like, fuck this every time.
Speaker 1: Okay. So since you're in LA before the ding.
Speaker 2: Of of what we know is hip hop, Like, how
Speaker 2: did that culture reach you out there?
Speaker 1: Like what it.
Speaker 3: Reached me in the army?
Speaker 1: Oh?
Speaker 3: Because I'm in the army and it's cats from where
Speaker 3: are you? I'm in Hawaii. I'm in twenty fifth Infantry.
Speaker 3: So the cats in my unit were from New York
Speaker 3: and from all over Florida. You know, it's a mismatch
Speaker 3: of people from the United States. And I was hip
Speaker 3: to first generation hip hop, which is what I call
Speaker 3: unrecorded like tape hip hop before they made records. So
Speaker 3: they're playing me all this, you know, the beatbox records
Speaker 3: and all that kind of stuff, and hip hop is
Speaker 3: intoxicating you hear it. You're like, that shit is dope,
Speaker 3: and you know, I'm saying iceberg slim. I already think
Speaker 3: I know how to rhyme, you know what I'm saying,
Speaker 3: But I'm like, I never heard it done over beat,
Speaker 3: you know. And then they were trying to break dance
Speaker 3: and stuff at and I was just like, this shit
Speaker 3: is dope as hell. And then I saw the New
Speaker 3: York City Breakers on a show called That's Incredible, and
Speaker 3: I was like, Yo, this is dope, you know. So
Speaker 3: by the time I came back to LA, LA had
Speaker 3: a techno sound. LA was Egyptian lover in them No
Speaker 3: and Uncle Bobby, Jimmy and the critters. I used to
Speaker 3: call it aerobic music, right, you know, and that's what
Speaker 3: LA was banging off of. And I was just the
Speaker 3: first person out there to try to rap like New
Speaker 3: York rappers, like rapping over breakbeats. Evie and Henng from
Speaker 3: New York City spend masters with my DJs, and we
Speaker 3: used to take records before they had instrumental records and
Speaker 3: actually catch the brakes, and I taught myself how to rap.
Speaker 3: I came home from the military with the intention to
Speaker 3: be a DJ because Uncle Jams and then were making
Speaker 3: a lot of money throwing parties for between you know,
Speaker 3: sixteen under twenty one Big Bi they doing an LA
Speaker 3: Sports Arena. The whole Uncle Jim's concept was they were
Speaker 3: in LA, well anywhere you can't get in the club
Speaker 3: till you're twenty one. But there's a whole gang of
Speaker 3: kids that want to go out, you know. So they
Speaker 3: started throwing parties and they basically created the first like rage.
Speaker 3: They with these long extended parties and uh, they were
Speaker 3: able to do the La Sports Arena multiple times with
Speaker 3: no acts, no acts, So you're talking about five thousand
Speaker 3: kids dancing and in the entire stadium on the floor
Speaker 3: of the stadium.
Speaker 1: Okay, on the floor. Okay.
Speaker 3: I'll never forget. Egypt had a drum machine at eight
Speaker 3: oh eight, and I'll never ever forget it, you know,
Speaker 3: because we hadn't seen drum machines. Right at a moment
Speaker 3: where they're like they put the drum machine on and
Speaker 3: they mixed it in and they go Uncle Jim's Army
Speaker 3: was about to go live, and they played the drum
Speaker 3: machine and he would take the records and hold the
Speaker 3: records in the air so you could see he wasn't
Speaker 3: playing any records, and the crowd kept dancing, and it
Speaker 3: was a moment like yo, like yo, this is live
Speaker 3: ship up here saying they were changing the beat. And
Speaker 3: I was the first one they would let rap, you know,
Speaker 3: they would let me wrap in front of that crowd.
Speaker 3: And stuff, and yeah, that was how I got I
Speaker 3: ended up in this club called the Radio. The Radio was, well,
Speaker 3: see that's why you got me here. I'm gonna give
Speaker 3: you the drill. Thank you. The club was called the Radio.
Speaker 3: It became the Radio Tron when they decided to make
Speaker 3: the movie and they didn't want to pay the guys
Speaker 3: who started the club, so they just flipped the name
Speaker 3: and stole the name. But the real club was the
Speaker 3: Radio Club, and it was owned by a couple of
Speaker 3: guys that were like graffiti artists by way in New York,
Speaker 3: but they were Europeans. One was Russian, and they they
Speaker 3: had Malcolm McLaren there. People it was like trendy white kids.
Speaker 3: Adam Ant would be up in the Motherfucker And it
Speaker 3: was in MacArthur Park And I actually put Madonna on
Speaker 3: stage in that club because I went there. They found
Speaker 3: out I had a record out I went there. I
Speaker 3: became kind of like the stage manager, and if you
Speaker 3: wanted to wrap, you had to wrap to me downstairs,
Speaker 3: and then I go up and do the introduction. Okay,
Speaker 3: quest Love just got here as helicopter just land in
Speaker 3: the parking lot. You better be good, nigga, and then
Speaker 3: and here it goes and pown and you would just
Speaker 3: be on stage getting it off. So they bring this
Speaker 3: girl in, they go, her name's Madonna, and I took
Speaker 3: her downstairs and she had this record called Physical Attraction.
Speaker 3: I'm like, I never heard of you, you know, but
Speaker 3: you got a record. And I let her perform and
Speaker 3: she performing during the show, she was touching me like
Speaker 3: use me as a prop. And I had a black girlfriend.
Speaker 3: Oh that did not go well that night.
Speaker 1: And this before y'all were label mates.
Speaker 3: Yes, yes, Madonna had just came out. She was with
Speaker 3: Jellybean Benitas back in the day. Yes, and uh, you know,
Speaker 3: so that's the history. So that's where you know, the
Speaker 3: radio was where we were performing. And then the people
Speaker 3: came in. They saw the scene. They go, you'll be
Speaker 3: the rapper. You guys will be the dancers. And Glove
Speaker 3: was the DJ. You know the history the glove. Glove
Speaker 3: was carrying the equipment into the place. And the owner
Speaker 3: of the clubs like we needed DJ and gloves, like
Speaker 3: I could DJ. They go, you got a DJ name,
Speaker 3: he goes Nah, and the nigga had on gloves. You
Speaker 3: could be clubs and they'll caught on gloves and now
Speaker 3: he was the house DJ at the Radio, but when
Speaker 3: it came out on the movie, it became the Radio Tron.
Speaker 3: But the real name of the club was the Radio.
Speaker 2: All right, So can you talk about the coldest rap?
Speaker 2: One of our best episodes ever was with Jimmy Jam
Speaker 2: and he explained how for the two people that have
Speaker 2: not heard the six hour Jimmy Jam episode, you know
Speaker 2: Jam basically the anthology, Yeah, theology of tell me jim
Speaker 2: you know. He explained that, you know, after they left
Speaker 2: Prince that they were basically worked for hiring musicians. But
Speaker 2: I mean at the time, it wasn't like you went
Speaker 2: and said, oh, let me get those two dudes from
Speaker 2: the time to do a track for me. You were
Speaker 2: just buying tracks from anyone or nah nah.
Speaker 3: So I used to get my hair done at this
Speaker 3: spot called Good Fred right just when I had to
Speaker 3: perm my shit was more wavy than the ships in
Speaker 3: the Navy. You know what I'm saying. I had to
Speaker 3: out match the girls. You know what I'm saying, That's
Speaker 3: what a player has to do. You gotta look better
Speaker 3: than these chicks. So they understand, they got they got
Speaker 3: to get together to get what you dig it so
Speaker 3: my hair to get together. And I would say these
Speaker 3: rhymes right my walking around rhymes like you know, I'm
Speaker 3: the pimp to play at the Woman Layer, the Holy Doula,
Speaker 3: the whole house ruler. I just pimp poors and slam
Speaker 3: Cadillac doors. So I'm saying this. And this guy named
Speaker 3: Willie Strong, who owned VIP Records, the very famous record
Speaker 3: store that Snoop is standing on and in his first
Speaker 3: U you know, a Boogog video, they came to me
Speaker 3: and they said, you want to make a record, and
Speaker 3: it was just like a run, you know. They threw
Speaker 3: me inside the Cadillac and the chauffeur drove off and
Speaker 3: he never came back. So they it took me from
Speaker 3: the the beauty parlor, the salon to a studio and
Speaker 3: there was they had this track with Jimmy jam and
Speaker 3: Terry Lewis. They owned the track and it was some
Speaker 3: chicks singing on it and they cleared it. And they say,
Speaker 3: rap rappers that haven't made records have a million rhymes.
Speaker 3: They're ready to go. You know what I'm saying. You
Speaker 3: never rule one. If you're a well known rapper, never
Speaker 3: battle an unsigned rapper. I had a bunch of rhymes, right,
Speaker 3: So I went in there and they were like, say
Speaker 3: a rhyme, So I had to write a hook. I
Speaker 3: knew I needed a hook, so I wrote, you know,
Speaker 3: I'm a player, That's all I know. In the summer day,
Speaker 3: I play in the snow meaning cocaine from the wound
Speaker 3: to the tomb. I run my game because I'm cold
Speaker 3: as ice, and I show no shame. So that's all
Speaker 3: I That's all I needed. And once I did that,
Speaker 3: I just went in there. You know, the ladies say
Speaker 3: that I'm heaven sent because I got more money than
Speaker 3: the US meant. I ride ragtop rolls, rocks on my hand, Mysarati's, Mercedes,
Speaker 3: Benz ocean Liners, private jets, bel Air Bookies placed my bets.
Speaker 3: I own islands off the coast of France, and I
Speaker 3: wear design of shirts and pants. Honey. When I was
Speaker 3: brought into this world, my mama never asked if I
Speaker 3: was a boy or a girl. Because I rolled over
Speaker 3: to it and gave her a kisses. She said, Yo, Daddy,
Speaker 3: don't rock me like this, all right, So this is
Speaker 3: the code. So I say this shit right off the
Speaker 3: head off the dome, and that's my first record on
Speaker 3: Saturn Records, produced by Jimmy jam and Terry Lewis, and
Speaker 3: I made two hundred dollars. Wow.
Speaker 2: So how was that parlay into when we first met
Speaker 2: you nationally with Breaking?
Speaker 3: Well, that was my first experience with records. And when
Speaker 3: you want to make a record, you want to make
Speaker 3: a record more than get paid. You just want to
Speaker 3: make a record. So I made that record. That records
Speaker 3: what led me to the radio tron see me saying
Speaker 3: they they heard I had a record, and they booked
Speaker 3: me to come and and and I was at the
Speaker 3: radio tron when the movie Breaking came in. When the
Speaker 3: movie Breaking came in, they said, we said, can we
Speaker 3: make a song for the album? Me and Glove made Reckless,
Speaker 3: which Eminem says the first rap record he ever heard.
Speaker 3: And that was like, you know, reckless when platinum?
Speaker 1: Right.
Speaker 3: So I had got a bag, but I hadn't. I
Speaker 3: didn't have a record deal or anything. And then I
Speaker 3: was connected to this other DJ in La called Unknown
Speaker 3: and he we made.
Speaker 1: It was he Unknown from Cotton was wanted down with them?
Speaker 3: Yeah? Yeah, he had a record a label called Techno
Speaker 3: Hop and Compass. Most Wanted was on there and Uh.
Speaker 3: He was like, come on, Ice to make a record
Speaker 3: for me. Fuck that, you know, And I said, okay,
Speaker 3: So I made a record call you Don't Quit. And
Speaker 3: then the second one was Dog and a Wax with
Speaker 3: six in the Morning on the B side. And as
Speaker 3: Chuck D said, when that, yeah, my identity was was connected.
Speaker 2: I mean, but at the time, were you conscious of like, Okay,
Speaker 2: I've been party rocking, now how can I pivot to
Speaker 2: reality rhymes?
Speaker 1: Like what was your mind? Stated with that?
Speaker 3: I was trying to be a rapper. I was rapping
Speaker 3: like meling them. You know, I'm drinking, I'm wearing spikes
Speaker 3: and shit. You know, I thought, you know, this is
Speaker 3: what you gotta do, and I'm trying to get in.
Speaker 3: You know, there's nobody in LA to look at.
Speaker 1: And yeah, but six in the Wrner was pretty serious
Speaker 1: at the time. So but that came.
Speaker 3: From Schoolly D. Thank you. You know what, I'm always
Speaker 3: telling you the truth because my boys told me, they said,
Speaker 3: I he's never lie because motherfuckers ain't going don't believe
Speaker 3: the truth, you understand, So this give them the truth. No,
Speaker 3: I'm saying these rhymes to my boys. I'm saying that
Speaker 3: gangster shit, you know, strolling through the city middle of
Speaker 3: the night, niggas on my left, niggas on my right,
Speaker 3: yelling cut cook cup rip to everybody. I see, if
Speaker 3: you're bad enough, come fuck with me. So I'm saying
Speaker 3: these kind of rhymes for the gangs, but I didn't.
Speaker 3: I was like, that's negative shit, like people don't want
Speaker 3: to hear that. So I'm saying certain reps to entertain
Speaker 3: my friends. And then I'm then I'm saying party rhymes
Speaker 3: for hip hop. You feel me. I know the Iceberg
Speaker 3: slim type shit, but I don't know what translates. So
Speaker 3: then I hear PSK and it blew my mind. I
Speaker 3: was in Santa Monica and I heard first the track
Speaker 3: came on. The track sounded I never done Angel does,
Speaker 3: but the track sounded like Angel does a bunch of
Speaker 3: ye I'm like, And then Schooley came on. PSK.
Speaker 7: We making that green people what we say now? At
Speaker 7: that time, everyone was yelling on records, who is a
Speaker 7: fly nigga? You know, one by one, I'm knocking out he's.
Speaker 3: For the way my DJs cut, you know, put my
Speaker 3: pistol up against his heads and sucking ass. I was like,
Speaker 3: then I researched it. PSK's Park Side Killers. He's repping
Speaker 3: a set. It's okay, feel me. That was the green light, Like, oh,
Speaker 3: they want to hear this kind of ship I got
Speaker 3: all day, you feel me?
Speaker 5: Yeah?
Speaker 3: So we go in and we do six in the
Speaker 3: morning and six in the morning. I took the Remember
Speaker 3: I remember the Beasi Boys had a record called holding
Speaker 3: Out hit It, yeah, hold it down where the record
Speaker 3: kind of stopped and then took off again. So I
Speaker 3: wanted that for six in the morning. So that's where
Speaker 3: like the record, then boom it starts again. So holy
Speaker 3: now I hit it was the genesis of that track.
Speaker 3: The beat just a basic beat kind of something with
Speaker 3: eight away and then I come in on the same
Speaker 3: exact cadence as schooly d PSK. We're making that green
Speaker 3: six in the morning, police Fuel Fresh indeed to squeak
Speaker 3: across the bathroom floor back and that is it was
Speaker 3: more graphic and deeper. Now wasn't gonna hit I don't know.
Speaker 3: So I get a call from the Fillmore West in Frisco.
Speaker 3: We like you to do a show up here. I'm like, sure,
Speaker 3: you know, boom bam. Five days later they call me back,
Speaker 3: we want you to do a show up here. I said,
Speaker 3: I already booked the show in that same place. They
Speaker 3: said that sold out. Well I'm not on LA radio.
Speaker 3: But they start playing me on km EL there in
Speaker 3: the Bay and was on and then later on you
Speaker 3: want to track the movement? Cube did the record? Boys
Speaker 3: in the hood are always hard, right, which he's said
Speaker 3: with Six in the Morning Part two. But it's all schooly,
Speaker 3: these cadence. It's all schooly, these cadences. So a lot
Speaker 3: of times rappers are jack cadences and you won't even
Speaker 3: know the credit. Well, thank you. You know, players love
Speaker 3: to give credit. You know what I'm saying. It's like,
Speaker 3: you know, you wouldn't know if I didn't tell you.
Speaker 3: Like Colorsrestill get this Colors comes from Mythological by King's Son. Colors.
Speaker 3: Listen to King Son when I get ill, it's a
Speaker 3: reason because it's duck season, Hunter of the Front, right,
Speaker 3: that was That's how myth the mythological mythological rappers. You
Speaker 3: got a lot to learn that record.
Speaker 2: I've not heard that record, Mythological Mythological by King you
Speaker 2: know King Son, Yes, of course I'm King son.
Speaker 3: Yes, well, that's how it comes on. When I get ill,
Speaker 3: it's a reason because it's duck season, Hunter of the Fronter.
Speaker 3: I am a nightmare walk walking talking right, if I'm
Speaker 3: a jungle just a gangst to stalking, so you know,
Speaker 3: you can. I think all of us are influenced by
Speaker 3: other people. And if it's done well, because hip hop
Speaker 3: is all samples and stuff, if it's done well, you'll
Speaker 3: never know. You'll never know because it's done well. But
Speaker 3: I always try to give a shout out to the
Speaker 3: people that inspired those particular songs.
Speaker 2: You know, I've been friends with Seymour about eleven twelve
Speaker 2: years now because I'm also in the Rock and Roll
Speaker 2: Hall of Fame committee.
Speaker 3: Seymore signs of genius man.
Speaker 2: He literally says, you know, and he's had like health
Speaker 2: is used and all that stuff in the past ten years.
Speaker 2: He's like he is not going six feet underground until
Speaker 2: he gets you in the rock own Hall of Fame.
Speaker 2: And literally every year it's in case you don't think
Speaker 2: like you're even thought of or in line or whatever,
Speaker 2: but Seymour, like you're always We get two votes each
Speaker 2: as a committee member on who gets nominated. When I
Speaker 2: was first there in two thousand and seven to now, like,
Speaker 2: trust me to tell you my Seymour Seigins story. Yeah,
Speaker 2: tell me Seymour signs. Seymour Stein, the president of Siah Records.
Speaker 3: Who signed it, Talking Heads, Madonna Ministry, Uh, you know
Speaker 3: Ramones yep. So I have Six in the Morning out
Speaker 3: and it was getting energy off from the in the
Speaker 3: East coast. Scott lod Rock was playing it and Africa
Speaker 3: Islam was somebody who I met at the radio who
Speaker 3: was very intrigued with me because the New York rappers
Speaker 3: would come out to LA. I already had to push
Speaker 3: the jewelry, the money in the girls, and at that
Speaker 3: time nobody had made any money on rap. Niggas hadn't
Speaker 3: bought cars yet, you know, so they like, why do
Speaker 3: you want to rap?
Speaker 1: You know?
Speaker 3: But what I was doing, the warranty was about to
Speaker 3: be up, all right, So I want to rap. I
Speaker 3: like rapping, and my friends were going to prison, penitentiary,
Speaker 3: blah blah, getting shot, this, that and the other because
Speaker 3: we was active active. So Islam liked me, like he
Speaker 3: just liked me. And so he's like, they won't play
Speaker 3: your record in New York unless you come to New
Speaker 3: York because what you're talking, they need to see you're authentic.
Speaker 3: So I came out to one hundred and fifty six
Speaker 3: and ten in South Bronx, and I was out there,
Speaker 3: so I met Scotland rock and but by it being
Speaker 3: African Islam, I met New York from the top down.
Speaker 3: It was like, what was.
Speaker 5: Your look at the time.
Speaker 4: I'm sorry, I'm trying to picture this because like you said,
Speaker 4: I like you had to hair.
Speaker 5: You had to so you went to the Bronx.
Speaker 3: Look, I have fela on and jewelry and a.
Speaker 5: Prim Okay, okay, make sure them.
Speaker 3: Niggas just thought I looked like a pimp. But I
Speaker 3: was rapping my West Coast shit. You know, a player
Speaker 3: plays the whole bubble, from the pineapple to the big Apple,
Speaker 3: from the snowflakes to the earthquakes. You understand me. Wherever
Speaker 3: I touched down, I'm gonna make it my town. So
Speaker 3: I had the chrism and the gift the gap that
Speaker 3: all the New York niggas liked me. I was different,
Speaker 3: but they liked me. They knew I wasn't no bitch,
Speaker 3: so they liked me. So is is by being a boss,
Speaker 3: I meet Red Alert, Chuck, Chill Out, Scottland Rock, I
Speaker 3: meet all the bosses I didn't, so I'm hanging out.
Speaker 3: There was a guy named Ralph Cooper Junior. You know
Speaker 3: that is quest do not know? Raoper was the one
Speaker 3: of the Apollo cats that like Rand Apollo from back
Speaker 3: to his son. Okay, So Ralph Cooper Junior was like
Speaker 3: trying to be an agent and he connected me and
Speaker 3: Mellie Mel and we did a record on Spring Records.
Speaker 3: And I was in the studio with Melly Mel and
Speaker 3: Caz like these idols of mine and uh he took
Speaker 3: a compilation and to see Seymour Stein okay with Melly Mel, Grandmaster,
Speaker 3: Kaz Donald d from the Bee Boys that had the
Speaker 3: song stick Up Kids and Girls, myself and a kid
Speaker 3: named Bronx Style Bob. Oh wow, this was the compilation.
Speaker 3: Kaz was still connected to. Kaz had a thing with
Speaker 3: Tough City a deal, Mel had something with sugar Hill,
Speaker 3: Donald had something with entertainment. I was free and Bob
Speaker 3: had never made a record, Okay, So Seymour just said
Speaker 3: I'll take ice tea. And he wasn't hip hop enough
Speaker 3: to know that you couldn't rap if few from the
Speaker 3: West Coast. He was his ignorance was like, fuck it,
Speaker 3: I'll take ice tea. I'll never forget me. And Islam
Speaker 3: went up to Sire Records to meet with him, and
Speaker 3: Seymour was dancing around in his socks and looking me
Speaker 3: in the eyes and said, you have such beautiful eyes.
Speaker 3: And I was like, oh shit, this is that part
Speaker 3: where they want me using day shit. And Islam was like,
Speaker 3: stay down, he's gonna sign the check. Stay down, just
Speaker 3: hold you down. So then he said, you sound like
Speaker 3: Bob Dylan, and I knew Bob Dylan was a subterranean
Speaker 3: homesick blues He's rapping on that. I'm like okay. And
Speaker 3: then Seymour said the most genius shit to me. He said,
Speaker 3: do you understand the music from Trinidad? This stuff they're
Speaker 3: singing about, the Calypso music. I'm like no, he said,
Speaker 3: there sing about the problems here in the islands. He says,
Speaker 3: but just because you don't understand it does not make
Speaker 3: it invalid. It just means you don't understand it. And
Speaker 3: the same way I might underderstand hip hop, but it
Speaker 3: doesn't make what you're saying any less valid. He says.
Speaker 3: I don't understand it, but I know you're saying something.
Speaker 3: So he gave me. He gave me forty thousand dollars
Speaker 3: and we made the first album. We went out and
Speaker 3: bought an SB twelve, a nine O nine and a
Speaker 3: gold chain. What else do you need?
Speaker 1: Starting hit at one on.
Speaker 3: One, the whole album in secret sound studios, mixed the
Speaker 3: whole album in one night, no automation back in them days.
Speaker 3: And Ryan pays now is platinum, so uh, forty thousand
Speaker 3: dollars budget, and Seymour was just he was smart enough
Speaker 3: to say he didn't know. I'll never forget. Here's another story.
Speaker 3: There's a lyric in this record I did called I
Speaker 3: Love the Ladies where I go, guys grab a girl, girls,
Speaker 3: grab a guy. If God wants a god, please take
Speaker 3: it outside. So Seymour goes aes, what it? This is?
Speaker 5: Gay man?
Speaker 3: I said, Seymour, I'm not gay bashing, but if you
Speaker 3: could say you're gay, can I say I'm straight?
Speaker 5: Oh?
Speaker 3: Right? And then I said has your daughter listened to it?
Speaker 3: And she said yeah. I said, what does she say?
Speaker 3: She loves it? And then I go I said, Seymour,
Speaker 3: that tension you feel that might be money, and he said,
Speaker 3: Touchet hung the phone. That that that tension is the money.
Speaker 3: That's the money right there.
Speaker 2: You know, used marketing to the hilt, and it was like,
Speaker 2: just based on your album covers alone, we were going
Speaker 2: to buy your record. You have never ever ever heard
Speaker 2: a note or anything like that.
Speaker 3: Take it quest this is what the deal was, right.
Speaker 3: I was never going to get on the radio, right.
Speaker 3: I had already determined that because we would. We decided
Speaker 3: we were outlaw music. So me Luke too short, ghetto boys.
Speaker 3: We were cursing, and at that time I refused to
Speaker 3: do a radio edit. That was like selling out to me.
Speaker 3: Fuck that. This is how the shit is now. There
Speaker 3: was a time where you could get people to buy
Speaker 3: records because they had stickers on them, like people wanted
Speaker 3: that forbidden shit, right. So what I did as far
Speaker 3: as marketing does, I hired Glenn Freedman.
Speaker 1: You know Glenn, Yes, legendary Glen Freeman.
Speaker 3: Yes, he did LL's cover, he did Runs cover, He
Speaker 3: done bec Boy covers. So I'm like, I need my
Speaker 3: cover to be at the same quality as them, so
Speaker 3: it sits right alongside of them. You gotta have the
Speaker 3: palm tree. You got the Porsche you got the girl,
Speaker 3: you cannot look like New York. Then I had a
Speaker 3: meeting with my team because I was the first rapper
Speaker 3: signed to Warner Brothers, I was there before. I was
Speaker 3: the first rapper signed to a major really, and that
Speaker 3: was before Cole Chilling came over there and uptown over there.
Speaker 3: But I took a map and I said, okay. I
Speaker 3: circled the Tri state area and I said, okay, this
Speaker 3: is New York. This is Philly. You know, this is Jersey,
Speaker 3: this is hip hop. Right, that's the East coast. But
Speaker 3: dig this, the West Coast starts right here, right on
Speaker 3: the outside of Philly. I just wiped the whole map, right,
Speaker 3: I said, because anybody that's not from that try state
Speaker 3: doesn't give a fuck because they're not from either. So Detroit,
Speaker 3: we want Detroit, we want Chicago West what that? We
Speaker 3: just called everything from Philly the West Coast because the
Speaker 3: was holding it so tight. We're like, we just take
Speaker 3: the rest of this shit. So and it still stands today.
Speaker 3: If you're not from New York and you're from Oklahoma,
Speaker 3: you don't give a fuck. If you're you don't care
Speaker 3: because you're not either. So Luke had that same science.
Speaker 3: They were down in Florida getting a bunch of money,
Speaker 3: Sir mix a lot got a bunch of money from Washington.
Speaker 3: So New York kind of shot themselves in the foot
Speaker 3: early in the game by being so regional that hip
Speaker 3: hop's gonna grow. Hip hop is a virus. It's gonna
Speaker 3: grow whether you or not.
Speaker 2: Yo, So okay, with There's one of your legendary shows
Speaker 2: is still in its complete form on YouTube. There's There's
Speaker 2: a show of yours live in Vancouver nineteen eighty eight,
Speaker 2: eighty nine. Yeah, and I was shocked at how heavy,
Speaker 2: like you know by this time your third album, Just
Speaker 2: Watch what You Say Freedom of Speech is out and
Speaker 2: based on your intro loan with the shut Up You're
Speaker 2: Happy Joan, your show was so high powered it was
Speaker 2: almost like a rock show, even before body Count the
Speaker 2: body count thing starts. So at what point are you
Speaker 2: pivoting to that level of energy in your live shows
Speaker 2: where it's almost like a rock show, even though it
Speaker 2: is you and evenly like on stage just rocking together.
Speaker 3: You know what it is? Quest? I always thing was like,
Speaker 3: if you're coming to see a show, what are you
Speaker 3: coming to see? So if I'm coming to see the
Speaker 3: fat Boys. I'm coming to see three fat boys. If
Speaker 3: I'm coming to see Curtis Blow, it's Curtis Blow. You know.
Speaker 3: It's like, you know, so what is ic? And my
Speaker 3: thing was, I'm gonna take you into the darkness of
Speaker 3: South central Los Angeles. I'm gonna give you I'm gonna
Speaker 3: set up this energy, this dark and sinister and stuff.
Speaker 3: So we had to catch with the best song early
Speaker 3: in the game and all that kind of stuff. The
Speaker 3: metal influence was just darkness to me. You know. We
Speaker 3: tried not to do happy records, even though we did shit,
Speaker 3: you know, let's get butt naked and fucking stuff like
Speaker 3: that was always an intention to keep it still to today.
Speaker 3: Like Chuck will say, Ice is one of the most
Speaker 3: theatrical rappers because I like to bring everything down and
Speaker 3: just put a spotlight on me and just let let
Speaker 3: me take you there on my these these adventures like
Speaker 3: a midnight you know. But that was just a choice
Speaker 3: because Caine's dancing, right, I ain't got no motherfucking dances,
Speaker 3: you know what I'm saying, Dougie Fresh, because our first
Speaker 3: tour we went out on, we went out on a
Speaker 3: dope Jam Tour. It was us KRS one A Boogie
Speaker 3: Down Productions, Uh Kumode, Dougie Fresh, Eric being Rock Kim
Speaker 3: with somebody Obizmarck and we're to open and act. So
Speaker 3: how do you I'm from the area of Request where
Speaker 3: you gotta be different, like you can't be like everybody else.
Speaker 3: So we had a police car out there and we're
Speaker 3: throwing money before making rain. We had cell phones, big
Speaker 3: old big phones, and we were giving you that energy.
Speaker 3: So I just didn't want to be the guy that
Speaker 3: comes out on the stage and it's, you know, looking
Speaker 3: cool and trying to wrap. I want to set a tone,
Speaker 3: and that's what that was all about. It still is
Speaker 3: when you go see Ice t show.
Speaker 2: All Right, this is the question I always wanted to
Speaker 2: know and have answered, and I can't believe it's taking
Speaker 2: me this long to answered. Okay, I do not know
Speaker 2: the history of the story, So break it down like
Speaker 2: I'm in kindergarten.
Speaker 1: What was now?
Speaker 2: As we talked about earlier with the Grammy thing, my
Speaker 2: one concern was, are you in LLLL going to be
Speaker 2: cool with each other? Because I don't know if you
Speaker 2: guys amended it or made up or whatever. Can you
Speaker 2: please tell me what the genesis of the beef between
Speaker 2: you two, because you know, when I heard pushing man
Speaker 2: and simple you push a man rejected ll I was like, whoa,
Speaker 2: what was that about?
Speaker 3: It's simple all right? I started it, and you know
Speaker 3: ll LL was I'm the baddest, I'm the greatest, I'm this,
Speaker 3: I'm that okay. Llll was actually out before me, so
Speaker 3: he was like the eminem or he was the dude
Speaker 3: you gotta get. I'm coming out of LA. I got
Speaker 3: the whole West Coast on my back. I don't got
Speaker 3: the crips and the bloods. I got the Crypts and
Speaker 3: the Bloods and Bay Area everybody on my back. Ice Tea.
Speaker 3: It's just what it is. You got. I gotta take
Speaker 3: off on this nigga. I gotta let him know, like
Speaker 3: you might, thank you the best fuck that you know.
Speaker 3: And that's just part of the culture. That's just what
Speaker 3: it is, you know, Because I can't come out from
Speaker 3: LA and say about a ll cool J right now,
Speaker 3: not when I'm trying to come out like she was
Speaker 3: trying to be in a boss. I'm yo, you gotta
Speaker 3: set it with this nigga like so I set it
Speaker 3: off right, and he came back. He got at me
Speaker 3: on the break of dawn and I was gonna reply.
Speaker 3: I had a record called Open Contract and Bam bothering
Speaker 3: them stepped in because l was trying to be down
Speaker 3: with Zulus. There was a legendary meet up with me
Speaker 3: and him at a Flavored Flave party and we squashed
Speaker 3: it before it got hectic, you know, but we were
Speaker 3: just the date. It was one of those things. He
Speaker 3: was battling Kumo d he was battling a bunch of
Speaker 3: motherfucker yes, yes, but it was me. I started it,
Speaker 3: and I did it. I did it as an act
Speaker 3: of war, like I did it because it was time
Speaker 3: for Ice Tea to step up and say fuck you,
Speaker 3: you know now.
Speaker 1: So it was business, not personal.
Speaker 3: I don't know. L cool J. Yeah, it's business. But
Speaker 3: it's like it's kind of like that's what hip hop was,
Speaker 3: you know, like you know, you you challenged the nigga
Speaker 3: whoever is the boss at the time, and he was
Speaker 3: the boss and I'm never at no point was it.
Speaker 1: Like, yo, let me be down with this dude.
Speaker 3: Like, no, I'm from la I'm from the I'm from Gangland,
Speaker 3: you know what. I'm saying we don't get down like that.
Speaker 3: We we go we take You know, you gotta set
Speaker 3: it like that's that's that's what my coast expected me
Speaker 3: to do.
Speaker 5: Yet I'll handle it before it got physical too, though,
Speaker 5: right that.
Speaker 3: Wasn't a days nobody was getting shot. This is pride
Speaker 3: and all that. This is just rap shit. You know.
Speaker 4: I'm just letting the record show because some people don't
Speaker 4: even know that there was a word.
Speaker 3: I don't think we didn't threaten to tell it. Tell
Speaker 3: ll nigga you can't come to La. We we was
Speaker 3: on the bullshit, but it got squashed early. And so
Speaker 3: what me and him agreed to do was not necessarily apologized,
Speaker 3: but just not talk about it. It okay. So we
Speaker 3: never talked about it, and that was it. And I
Speaker 3: never held anything against ll But the crazy part of
Speaker 3: the story quest me and LLL bumped into each other
Speaker 3: twenty five years later in Monte Carlo. Of course, we
Speaker 3: were at we were at a television a convention, and
Speaker 3: I walked up to L and extended my hand and said, man,
Speaker 3: me and you have never talked dotty dotty do I'm
Speaker 3: want to let you know, like you said, wasn't personal.
Speaker 3: It was only business. You know, I had to come
Speaker 3: at you, man, you was the guy to come at
Speaker 3: and he was like Ice, it was a culture and
Speaker 3: that was it. And then he called me up. He said, Ice,
Speaker 3: I need you to help me out on Rock the
Speaker 3: Bells radio. And since then me and him have podcasts
Speaker 3: together and all that. You know, it's like his rock
Speaker 3: sand Chante is still mad. You know. It's like right
Speaker 3: part of the game back.
Speaker 2: Then, in your prominence and in your rise as you're
Speaker 2: making these records for people that are watching you, like
Speaker 2: is art imitating life? Because I know that once you
Speaker 2: rise up in stature, then.
Speaker 1: Damn near the whole West Coast is willing to ride
Speaker 1: for you.
Speaker 2: Now, I can't imagine that everyone is wishing you well,
Speaker 2: wishing you good luck or whatever. Like again, you said
Speaker 2: that you're a reluctant leader, So how do you know
Speaker 2: who to weed out, like who's good for the organization
Speaker 2: and who to weed out, who to avoid, who's going
Speaker 2: to kill the money, who's.
Speaker 1: Going to drop the bag on you?
Speaker 2: Like, how are you navigating in terms of knowing which
Speaker 2: right team to have on your side in terms of
Speaker 2: stopping your bag so to speak? By having the wrong
Speaker 2: people associated with you.
Speaker 3: Now, God, remember I got put on by Zulu nation, right,
Speaker 3: so I would I admired the Zulu nation, how they
Speaker 3: had tried called quests and busting all these cats together
Speaker 3: and they were all going in the same direction. I
Speaker 3: really admired that whole Zulu thing. So I went to
Speaker 3: back to La. Now I studied gangstas, right, so I
Speaker 3: will reading up on Lucky Luciano and mar Lansky and
Speaker 3: all these cats, and Lucky Licio created this thing called
Speaker 3: the Commission, which kept the five families from killing each
Speaker 3: other because they created sit downs. So I created something
Speaker 3: in La called the syndicate, the rhyme syndicate, which was
Speaker 3: a group of groups with a common goal with no boss.
Speaker 3: So Cypress Hill that's a crew, DJ Aladdin and dub
Speaker 3: C low Profile, that's a crew. So all these different groups, everlast,
Speaker 3: that's a group. Each one of these cats had a
Speaker 3: group of people, and we made an agreement before we
Speaker 3: would beef, we would sit down and talk. And that's
Speaker 3: why you've never heard of a West Coast beef ever,
Speaker 3: because anybody that wasn't syndicate was either nw A or
Speaker 3: Delicious Vinyl, which was just Tone Low and Young MC.
Speaker 3: It was kind of like Syndicate too a little bit.
Speaker 3: Now nw A had a beef, but that was a
Speaker 3: family feud and everyone had to step back because it was.
Speaker 1: A family's blood you got.
Speaker 3: But the Syndicate is still alive. And King T was
Speaker 3: part of it to the alcoholics, because I created something
Speaker 3: that said I'm not in charge each one of you gang.
Speaker 3: Each one of you cells are separate, but together we're powerful.
Speaker 3: And that's what I did. I created an organization. People
Speaker 3: say you created your own gang. I did, and inside
Speaker 3: of it there was no gang bang. So if you
Speaker 3: were Syndicate, you no longer as crippled blood. When we're
Speaker 3: in the studio, we're all part of the same shit.
Speaker 3: And I just taught them all like, look, man, we
Speaker 3: all going in the same direction, and ain't no reason
Speaker 3: to be hating on somebody unless you're a bitch. So
Speaker 3: all of us should help each other. And that's how
Speaker 3: the producers start to getting waved and all the different
Speaker 3: stuff like that, and Dre and them understood, and it
Speaker 3: was just love. I got a good sense of you
Speaker 3: know who's around me and shit like that. But you
Speaker 3: got to keep that your whole life got to keep remembering.
Speaker 3: I'm an orphan, so I'm hyper sensitive to everything that's
Speaker 3: going on around me. I'm hyper sensitive.
Speaker 2: So but as an orphan, did you feel like the obligatory?
Speaker 1: All right, I gotta take you all with me. I
Speaker 1: got to take care of all of you.
Speaker 3: Or early I did, Early I did when I first
Speaker 3: got got some bread, legit bread. I never felt that
Speaker 3: way with illegal money, you know, with illegal money, nigga,
Speaker 3: I got this is mine like nigga, like you know.
Speaker 3: I never felt charitable or any of that shit, you know,
Speaker 3: because I'm taking pen every tensory chances for this. But
Speaker 3: when I start getting legit money. The first time I
Speaker 3: got it, I couldn't hold food down. I would actually
Speaker 3: throw my food back up because I and I went
Speaker 3: to a gastrologist and he said they thought I had
Speaker 3: ulcers and they're like nah, And they sent me to
Speaker 3: a word psychiatrists. And this is a guy that helps
Speaker 3: people hit one hundred miles an hour fastballs while are
Speaker 3: going through one hundred million dollar divorce. And he said,
Speaker 3: tell me your problems. I talked for about a half hour. Quiet,
Speaker 3: quiet guy. Well dog, he said, tell me your problems.
Speaker 3: And I talked and then he gave me a prescription
Speaker 3: quest He pushed you to me, and it said no.
Speaker 3: He said, you just talked for an hour half hour.
Speaker 3: You didn't tell me about any of your problems. You
Speaker 3: told them about all your friends problems. He said, there's
Speaker 3: a guilt that goes along with success, and now the
Speaker 3: fact that you're successful, you feel guilty that your friends
Speaker 3: aren't doing well. But you got to learn how to
Speaker 3: say no, because when you say yes, you take someone
Speaker 3: else's problem and turn it into yours. Damn, I had
Speaker 3: to learn how to say no to a lot of people.
Speaker 3: But know's a great word. It'll test the temperature of
Speaker 3: any relationship, even your woman. See, you got to have
Speaker 3: like we talking about the daily game, you got to
Speaker 3: have limits because take takers have no limits, they'll ravage you,
Speaker 3: you know, So you got to set a limit. You know,
Speaker 3: I use my gut, but I've been fortunate. I've been betrayed.
Speaker 3: I got set up by my boys, almost got killed.
Speaker 3: I've been through it.
Speaker 4: Have you got to the point where you have to
Speaker 4: protect your energy as well? Now too, like where you've
Speaker 4: understood that as well?
Speaker 3: Yeah? Yeah, well I had it gave me high blood pressure,
Speaker 3: so now if you try to if me and you
Speaker 3: were friends and you try to aggravate me, my brain says,
Speaker 3: I'm not gonna let you kill me. You ain't gonna
Speaker 3: kill me, right, you got to go. So I learned
Speaker 3: how to. You know, I can just connect from people
Speaker 3: real quick. And it's a known fact. So the people
Speaker 3: that are in my circle, no Ice is not the
Speaker 3: nigga's name is Ice. I don't want no stress. Everybody
Speaker 3: better keep it calm and I will excommunicate you, like,
Speaker 3: don't bring it. My boys will call me up and
Speaker 3: it be like this to be like, yo, what's up Ice?
Speaker 3: No drama? No drama right right? You know, no drama,
Speaker 3: No drama, you know, because what my life is. You know,
Speaker 3: I'm in a different place right now. Man, Like you look,
Speaker 3: I got fish, aquar ams and pump. I'm not. I
Speaker 3: spent my time on the front line. I'm cool. Like
Speaker 3: niggas is like I'm outside, I'm like I'm inside.
Speaker 1: So I let me ask.
Speaker 2: So you know, there's a period between eighty eight, eighty
Speaker 2: nine to ninety and which, like I will say that
Speaker 2: you became the go to pundit or voice to politically
Speaker 2: speak on behalf of you know, rap music, or like
Speaker 2: you're on Donahue this week and you're on you know,
Speaker 2: Ted Coppo this weekend, like you How exhausting was it
Speaker 2: like having that weight placed on your shoulders? Because you know,
Speaker 2: there was a point where and I don't know if
Speaker 2: you remember this, I think back in eighty six run
Speaker 2: DMC and them did a show and either at Anaheim
Speaker 2: or Long Beach or something, and you know, this is
Speaker 2: the first time we're hearing about like violence and rap
Speaker 2: music and all that stuff. And suddenly it's like you
Speaker 2: were the chosen and spoke like mouthpiece for.
Speaker 1: All of these like talk shows. How exhausting was that?
Speaker 3: I kind of wanted to smoke you.
Speaker 1: Did so you wanted to play the outlaw and just no,
Speaker 1: I wanted.
Speaker 3: To play the person that could could could intellectualize it
Speaker 3: and break it down for these people. You know, like
Speaker 3: my whole life has almost been explaining to the squares
Speaker 3: what the streets it is thinking, and explaining to the
Speaker 3: streets how the squares are thinking. Like I've been that
Speaker 3: translator in between, because even though I am hood, I'm
Speaker 3: also well read and relatively intelligent, So I could I
Speaker 3: spoke in front of Congress and you know, I can
Speaker 3: break it down, you know, for what's going on. So
Speaker 3: when they were coming at me about free speech or this,
Speaker 3: that and the other, I was like, yeah, I'm ready
Speaker 3: to go. I mean, at the end of the day
Speaker 3: was me, Chuck and Chris who kind of like would
Speaker 3: have and even still today, man George Floyd comes up,
Speaker 3: my timeline blows up like ice, and I'm like, it's
Speaker 3: honestly a damn shame that there's no youngsters, you know.
Speaker 3: I mean, Killer Mike is out there, but it's a
Speaker 3: damn shame that there's no real young people that can
Speaker 3: really speak for the culture.
Speaker 4: Damn.
Speaker 3: You're right, you know. I mean, Kendrick doesn't speak that much,
Speaker 3: but there's nobody out there on the front line speaking
Speaker 3: about shit, you know. So they keep going to me,
Speaker 3: and like I always tell people, I say, I'm gonna
Speaker 3: put it out there. If what we need right now,
Speaker 3: we need a twenty year old public enemy, some little
Speaker 3: bad motherfuckers who would go head up with all the
Speaker 3: bullshit and let them know what's up. And a rebirth
Speaker 3: of a young Lauren Hill.
Speaker 1: Hm your mouth to you guys, heres.
Speaker 3: Man, you know, because those things are lacking right now.
Speaker 3: In hip hop, you know, and that those voices are needed.
Speaker 3: And you know, the kids ain't gonna listen to me.
Speaker 3: I'm their grandfather, you know what I'm saying. So they
Speaker 3: not listening. But some little twenty year old cats coming
Speaker 3: out popping that shit and letting motherfuckers know you bullshit
Speaker 3: and you worried about this Gucci shit. You over here
Speaker 3: fucking up da da da da blow what Public Enemy
Speaker 3: did for us. We need another group to do that
Speaker 3: for the youth.
Speaker 1: A sure, exactly.
Speaker 3: Yeah. I wanted to ask you about og original gangs
Speaker 3: then recording that out. What happens is hip hop doesn't
Speaker 3: have a name for what we're doing. They don't have
Speaker 3: a name for the music yet, so they're trying to
Speaker 3: call it reality rap. They don't really know what it is.
Speaker 3: And I'm for a minute, I called my stuff reality rap,
Speaker 3: but that wasn't true because it's not everybody's reality. It
Speaker 3: was my reality. So CBE comes out straight out of Compton,
Speaker 3: Straight out of Compton dropped. I was already on my
Speaker 3: third album when they dropped. They it felt like Godzilla
Speaker 3: had landed, Like they came out like WHOA. I was
Speaker 3: like yo. And the first lyrics straight out of Compton.
Speaker 3: Crazy motherfucker named ice Cube from the gang called niggas
Speaker 3: with attitudes, so they referred to their rap group as
Speaker 3: a gang. The press said gangster rap. That's where the
Speaker 3: term gangster rap came from. The press coined it from Cbe.
Speaker 3: Now I've been doing it for two years, so I said, okay, Well,
Speaker 3: if it's gangster rap, I'm the original gangst feel me. Now.
Speaker 3: OG is a term that gangs have been using in
Speaker 3: LA for decades. It just means first generation of the set.
Speaker 3: So if Questlove is OG roots, he's there might have
Speaker 3: been people to change members, but he's OG. He's one
Speaker 3: of the first members. So here comes this word original gangster.
Speaker 3: And I do an album that had twenty four cuts
Speaker 3: on it and they had just stopped making vinyl and it,
Speaker 3: you know, it was supposed to have been a double album.
Speaker 3: And I always like to do first. I was always
Speaker 3: into doing first. I'm like, I was like, you you
Speaker 3: can always argue who is better, but you can't argue
Speaker 3: who is first, you know, so I want to be first,
Speaker 3: and Chuck says. Chuck says, iced Tea is the only
Speaker 3: person he knows that does things that totally jeopardize his
Speaker 3: entire existence to stay away. You know, just just fuck it.
Speaker 3: Everything's going good, fuck it, let's just try it a
Speaker 3: different way. So that's it the OG album, and it
Speaker 3: was a big megalong album with a lot of different
Speaker 3: lenses and a lot of different energy.
Speaker 1: All right, y'all, that's it for Part one.
Speaker 2: Ice TV Gate Team and Supreme so much game on
Speaker 2: this episode that we had to make it a two
Speaker 2: part So make sure y'all check out Ice tea daily
Speaker 2: game podcast with weekday words of wisdom. Give him a listen,
Speaker 2: you know, stay tuned for QLs Part two with one
Speaker 2: and only legendary Iced Tea next week, where we talk
Speaker 2: about his TV and his film work.
Speaker 8: All right, Babs, we'st love. Supreme is a production of iHeartRadio.
Speaker 2: For more podcasts from iHeart Radio, visit the iHeart Radio app,
Speaker 2: Apple Podcasts, or wherever you listen to your favorite shows.