Speaker 1: R and b's Money.
Speaker 2: Honey, we are.
Speaker 3: Think about it.
Speaker 4: We are the authority on R and B.
Speaker 3: Ladies and gentlemen. My name is Tank Valentine. This is
Speaker 3: the R and B Money Podcast, the authority. Do you
Speaker 3: you know things?
Speaker 1: If what are and be?
Speaker 4: Anything else that comes with music.
Speaker 3: You have to understand. Today's the day of reckoning. Yeah,
Speaker 3: we got a great and the motherfucking Bill's.
Speaker 5: Egg Any big dogs, super thinking, Yeah.
Speaker 3: Super I don't need a drink to make these hits
Speaker 3: for any body?
Speaker 1: Beat right it? Yeah? Melody? Hall of fame with it? Rap?
Speaker 4: Yeah halfaight, Yeah you didn't.
Speaker 1: Sain't a hall of fame. Man. I don't need to know.
Speaker 3: To Nixon all than man one upson right here with us, Yes, sir,
Speaker 3: and he had birds.
Speaker 1: Intro.
Speaker 4: He was a barn man too.
Speaker 1: With fock.
Speaker 3: Oh my god, Ladies and gentlemen, it's him. That's the
Speaker 3: best way I can say it. The mister Jermaine Jada,
Speaker 3: the pre and this month.
Speaker 1: Come on intro. God damn, Yes, sir, got to be right.
Speaker 1: You just got them. You are a ship, okay, bro.
Speaker 3: I remember the first time I met you when I
Speaker 3: was working with Jaggett in the studio late nineties. They
Speaker 3: was they was already cracking and they had rolled a
Speaker 3: little song for me on on on on the Beacock's beat.
Speaker 3: He was in the studio and you know, me and
Speaker 3: Brian was it was kind of cool. Brandon was giving
Speaker 3: me the superstar shoulder. You know, Brandon, you don't with nobody.
Speaker 3: I gotta get noticing. I know this nigga, I know, right,
Speaker 3: And so we were breaking the ice and and and
Speaker 3: and getting to know each other and like, yeah, you know,
Speaker 3: you know, we can go and do some hoop. I'm like,
Speaker 3: hoop hoop? Where at Jamaine sudio? It's Jamaine, wasn't that ja?
Speaker 1: Yeah?
Speaker 3: He's like, yeah, we're gonna go to Jamain. So I said, well,
Speaker 3: can I go to Jermaine's studio?
Speaker 4: Etiquette though, that's.
Speaker 3: Listen, He's Jermaine dupre right. You just don't pull up
Speaker 3: you No, I'm not pull up that mass three. But
Speaker 3: I don't know this nigga, right, No, I'm not nobody,
Speaker 3: No one listen.
Speaker 4: If you pull up as that nigga too, you always
Speaker 4: are remembered.
Speaker 3: As that that nigga, roll up in here and these
Speaker 3: snacks playing basketball. No, no, no, I said, y'all, y'all
Speaker 3: think it'll be cool. Now, it's cool, come with us,
Speaker 3: JAD super cool. Met j D for the first time.
Speaker 3: Fan man so dope Man I was on. I told
Speaker 3: him I was. I was on tour with with UH
Speaker 3: with Drew Hill, when I was singing backgrounds with Genuine
Speaker 3: and when that remix came on, that whole arena.
Speaker 4: So I hope against your guys. That's right.
Speaker 3: You know, some of the greatest singers, one of the
Speaker 3: greatest groups of all time. And and I and I
Speaker 3: kicked the ass.
Speaker 1: Hey, uh we wus, y'all gotta come here, come on,
Speaker 1: because I wasn't there, So I say, what happened waiting.
Speaker 4: In the test?
Speaker 3: I think I might were playing half court. I might
Speaker 3: have two dunks in a half court game. Oh god,
Speaker 3: they switched on me so many times. I didn't know
Speaker 3: who was checking.
Speaker 1: You dunked on my gym. Absolutely, Okay, that's that's pretty impressive.
Speaker 1: My rims is high. That's why I asked it. They
Speaker 1: are at higher than regulations.
Speaker 3: Yeah, that's the point of really the story. Some of
Speaker 3: y'all got studios, a couple of rooms, right right, maybe
Speaker 3: a pre production. You know what I'm saying.
Speaker 4: There, Yeah, you know what I'm saying. No board, ain't
Speaker 4: got no boards. Now you ain't got no board.
Speaker 3: Yeah, Jad's got a fully mixed master, Jim Hoop, massage parlor,
Speaker 3: Vegan ice cream distribution, strip club, strip club.
Speaker 1: I had to put a strip club in the studio.
Speaker 1: This was this was Nelly's request. We had a room.
Speaker 1: Nellie was like, hey, man, let's stop going to the
Speaker 1: strip club, so we'll stay in here and make music.
Speaker 1: Make that a strip club. And I was like mm
Speaker 1: hm m hmm. And then we figured it out about
Speaker 1: to say, you feel like an easy answer for you
Speaker 1: figure I like going to Magic. I like I love
Speaker 1: going to Magic.
Speaker 4: I like the wings. Come on, liv that's I really
Speaker 4: only go for the wings.
Speaker 3: The women are an added bonus shout out to Magic
Speaker 3: City and and and the women who adorn the facility.
Speaker 4: And it's the magic himself. We love you here.
Speaker 1: We need matter of fact. Matter of fact. Yes, I'm
Speaker 1: doing a documentary. The Magic City documentary is coming out
Speaker 1: in May. It's it's on Stars. I think I might
Speaker 1: be saying it's too early, but it is what it is.
Speaker 1: It's exclusive here and it's a documentary. So we do
Speaker 1: have to get magic on him. Yeah, you know the week.
Speaker 4: They having a party, are you well?
Speaker 1: Last year, last year we did I took We did
Speaker 1: a Magic City pop up a south By Southwest. That
Speaker 1: was crazy, So people been asking, we're doing it? We
Speaker 1: gonn definitely have parties, know that.
Speaker 4: Release Yeah, release parties. Yeah, release parties.
Speaker 1: You know.
Speaker 4: You need to be there to cover.
Speaker 1: You can't not be there, bro.
Speaker 3: You you you you go back. So I mean me
Speaker 3: bringing up the studio story was just I had never
Speaker 3: seen nothing like that, and I had been to you know,
Speaker 3: I had been to a few studios in my day
Speaker 3: and then noontime. I thought was just an incredible facility
Speaker 3: of while all those producers and writers were all in
Speaker 3: this space. But going to your studio was the first
Speaker 3: time I seem like a a compound. That was my
Speaker 3: intro to what a compound looks like, where whatever you
Speaker 3: need to get done, whether it be rehearsal, get in shape,
Speaker 3: you don't, you don't have to leave. The development is
Speaker 3: all right here. And I feel like that is a
Speaker 3: testament and a secret, not even really a secret, but
Speaker 3: just a secret to your success and that you were,
Speaker 3: you were instrumental in in the in the developmental process,
Speaker 3: like you're more of you're you're like in A You're
Speaker 3: like a genius A and R. Right, with all of
Speaker 3: these tools at your disposal, you can write it, you
Speaker 3: can do it, you can wrap it, you can got
Speaker 3: the melodies for it, you got the No, it should
Speaker 3: be about this, you got all of that and so,
Speaker 3: and then it's got to look like this and then no,
Speaker 3: you got to move like that, like you're doing all
Speaker 3: of that and you have the facility to do it.
Speaker 1: In Yeah, I mean, it wasn't always liked that. I
Speaker 1: think it's I I think I gathered that stuff that
Speaker 1: you're talking about from being young and not knowing people.
Speaker 1: I was too young to actually even have to know
Speaker 1: studio engineers in the first place. So you don't you
Speaker 1: gotta do it yourself, you know what I mean. Like
Speaker 1: I couldn't have nobody coming to my house. I was
Speaker 1: too young and I had no money, right, so I
Speaker 1: couldn't be like, yo, come over here and help me
Speaker 1: record this or whatever it is. It was just always
Speaker 1: less like even like writers. It's like now when we write,
Speaker 1: I see people calling writers somebody, and I might call me,
Speaker 1: like jad, who you want to write on this song.
Speaker 1: But even then, I ain't know no writers, with nobody
Speaker 1: to write. It was like, you got it. I want
Speaker 1: this song done. I'm gonna do it. I gotta do it.
Speaker 1: It ain't even not I'm gonna do it. I gotta
Speaker 1: do it because it ain't nobody else around here.
Speaker 4: Yeah.
Speaker 1: But it's like it's almost like a gift and a
Speaker 1: curse because it's like I was young. I was so
Speaker 1: young I couldn't I had no access to people. How
Speaker 1: young were you when I first started writing songs. Yeah,
Speaker 1: probably fifteen.
Speaker 4: He was making the beats and everything.
Speaker 1: No, I was actually making the beats on my head
Speaker 1: because I ain't have no money to get to the
Speaker 1: drummer scenes, right, so I would make I would completely
Speaker 1: like think about how I wanted this music to sound
Speaker 1: all the way in my head. And then I'd go
Speaker 1: to the studio and I try to tell somebody to
Speaker 1: do what I wanted them to do. And they used
Speaker 1: to be like, well, you can't do that. We can't
Speaker 1: take nobody's music, and and I'm like, man, like the
Speaker 1: age I was. If I would have, if they would
Speaker 1: have listened to me, I probably would have been like
Speaker 1: the first person to ever sample a full record the
Speaker 1: way I wanted to sample the record when I was fifteen.
Speaker 1: They was like, you can't do that. You can't steal
Speaker 1: people's music. This was the guys that these other studios
Speaker 1: telling me. And I'm like, well I don't. I mean,
Speaker 1: I'm not thinking I'm stealing, but I'm just like just
Speaker 1: what I want. I want to rap. And then they
Speaker 1: was like, well, no, we're remake, so we'll remake it.
Speaker 1: They start trying to remake it. That's when that's when
Speaker 1: the producer hunger came, cause it's like, I need to
Speaker 1: learn how to do this so I can do it
Speaker 1: because they're not listening to what I'm saying. It's not
Speaker 1: going the way I wanted. It's cool, but I hear
Speaker 1: it some other kind of way.
Speaker 3: And then what was your What was your first purchase
Speaker 3: as a producer.
Speaker 1: My first purchase was a I think it was a
Speaker 1: six twenty six rollin drum machine. It might have been
Speaker 1: a seven h seven, but one of them little. It
Speaker 1: was like, it wasn't no bigger than this, And because
Speaker 1: two I think it was two hundred and fifty dollars
Speaker 1: and I had to put it on lailway. What Yeah,
Speaker 1: I had nothing, you know what I mean. But I
Speaker 1: put it on lailway. I go cut people's grass around
Speaker 1: the neighborhood. It be like ten dollars, twenty dollars this
Speaker 1: then and the third, and I go back and get
Speaker 1: that drum machine. When I got the drum machine, it
Speaker 1: ain't have no It had all these whack rock sounds like.
Speaker 1: It wasn't like stock sounds. So once again I had
Speaker 1: to start imagining that this is gonna be the eight
Speaker 1: of eight. Just how the snag gonna sound. So I
Speaker 1: make the beat, but I wasn't thinking that it didn't
Speaker 1: sound like what you I kept thinking in my mind
Speaker 1: when we get to the studio, By the way, I
Speaker 1: didn't even know if this was possible because they and
Speaker 1: none of this stuff, right, that of thing. I didn't
Speaker 1: know it was possible. But I was just saying, like, okay,
Speaker 1: it gotta be a thing between what I got in
Speaker 1: the studio, right. So I kept thinking in my mind,
Speaker 1: when we get to the studio, I'm to tell the guys,
Speaker 1: take this kick, keep the pattern, but change that kick
Speaker 1: out and give me something, give me the money stuff
Speaker 1: the eight ways stuff.
Speaker 5: Yeah, they don't even have those sounds. There money, give
Speaker 5: me the stuff that.
Speaker 1: That I want, so that that hunger just from there,
Speaker 1: it just, you know, it just started unraveling, like me
Speaker 1: seeing them and me telling them like okay, and them
Speaker 1: showing me I could do it, and I'm like, okay,
Speaker 1: I got it. I just got to get to the
Speaker 1: equipment I gotta find. I gotta get to it. And
Speaker 1: once I got started getting so I produced the Silk
Speaker 1: Times Lever album and that didn't do great, but it
Speaker 1: did well enough for me to get fifteen thousand dollars.
Speaker 1: Right when I took that fifteen thousand dollars, I bought
Speaker 1: all equipment. You're how old at this point, six teen seventeen.
Speaker 4: Fifteen thousand, at sixteen yeah yeah yeah yeah yeah yeah yeah,
Speaker 4: you're a double and this was shit.
Speaker 1: Yeh.
Speaker 4: He takes six two thousands.
Speaker 5: As a teenage You're like, oh I got some brands.
Speaker 1: Oh I'm good, yeah, all the way good.
Speaker 4: And you went and bought all equipment.
Speaker 1: With that equipment, all equipment.
Speaker 4: And where you set up.
Speaker 1: I had my room looking like this, all equipment, your bedroom,
Speaker 1: my bedroom.
Speaker 3: Just that's what it said. That's the set up right
Speaker 3: there in the bedroom. And did you start having people
Speaker 3: come through like.
Speaker 1: Yeah, yeah, then people start coming through like JD got
Speaker 1: the studio, you know what I mean. J JD got
Speaker 1: a studio. That's like like when so what they didn't
Speaker 1: start coming through where they were they was coming through.
Speaker 1: It was like some local kids that was coming through.
Speaker 1: I had a four track, I had some turntables.
Speaker 4: DJing already too, yeaeah.
Speaker 1: I been DJing. I was DJing since like thirteen fourteen.
Speaker 1: Like once I went on the fresh Fest. I learned
Speaker 1: how to DJ from like jam Master J, Grandmaster D,
Speaker 1: all of these guys that was out there. They was DJing,
Speaker 1: showed me stuff and I just was like intrigued by
Speaker 1: the DJN too.
Speaker 4: So when did you drop out because you obviously ain't
Speaker 4: going No, damn.
Speaker 1: Yeah, I dropped that. I dropped out at school that
Speaker 1: like fourteen fifteen.
Speaker 4: So you never really went to high school. He was like, nah,
Speaker 4: this is this is school for me.
Speaker 1: Well nah, I didn't, but I knew that. Well what
Speaker 1: I'm gonna say it was like I was going to
Speaker 1: school then I went to the fresh Fest. When I
Speaker 1: went on the fresh Fest, I was twelve, thirteen fourteen. Yeah,
Speaker 1: so when I went on the Fresh fants at twelve.
Speaker 1: This is pre Atlanta music, Like, ain't no music scene
Speaker 1: in Atlanta when I'm going on tour, right, So the
Speaker 1: rules for a kid entertainer. Nobody in Atlanta don't know
Speaker 1: what that is, right, Like this ain't la right, this
Speaker 1: is like this is Atlanta, you know. So my mother
Speaker 1: and they don't know what you know, they don't know
Speaker 1: what they're doing either. My dad m you know, they
Speaker 1: hear about you can get tutors and this, that and
Speaker 1: the third. So we go to the school board and
Speaker 1: tell him that I'm going on tour and I need
Speaker 1: a tutor, and when I get the tutor, the tutor's
Speaker 1: gonna take my credits, and y'all gonna, you know, we're
Speaker 1: gonna make it work. And they said yes. But then
Speaker 1: when I came off tour, they was like, we can't
Speaker 1: accept those those credits, or we can't accept the grades
Speaker 1: and stuff that you was doing. And I'm like, whorlad,
Speaker 1: wait a minute, so you was actually doing the work. Yeah,
Speaker 1: I'm like, I've been doing all this work on tour
Speaker 1: and now y'all telling me you can't accept it. And
Speaker 1: that's the day I said, oh no, I'm good. My
Speaker 1: parents was basically just they was just joined in the
Speaker 1: whole decision. My mother wasn't with me doing nothing, Like
Speaker 1: she was trying to make sure I was going to school,
Speaker 1: me going on tour, don't she didn't know? Like who
Speaker 1: is all new about you? All new?
Speaker 4: Who was your guardian when you're going on tour?
Speaker 1: Well, my dad was was was like the production manager
Speaker 1: for the tour, so he was out with y'all. Yeah,
Speaker 1: my dad was out there, So that was that's that's
Speaker 1: how my mother went on and went along with it.
Speaker 1: But my dad was actually also working. He's also he
Speaker 1: was out there working as a you know, as a
Speaker 1: production manager. So so I was out there by myself.
Speaker 1: Yeah yeah, so.
Speaker 5: Would you would you say then that in a sense,
Speaker 5: Pops was the first identifier inn of like he got
Speaker 5: something different for my dad.
Speaker 1: Yeah, yeah, my dad was my manager. My dad was
Speaker 1: my manager for basically my whole teenage, you know, for
Speaker 1: a long time. My dad was my manager. And but
Speaker 1: once again that's that's also like me not knowing nobody.
Speaker 1: I know my dad, I don't know nobody else, right,
Speaker 1: I know my dad. Just what you want to do?
Speaker 1: I think this is what you want to do. I
Speaker 1: don't even know if this is what you want to do,
Speaker 1: but I'm gonna put you in it. I'm gonna put
Speaker 1: you in it, you know what I mean. So I
Speaker 1: saw my dad always as a as a manager type
Speaker 1: of figure, and when I created Crisscross, I called him
Speaker 1: and told him, like, I got this group, You're gonna
Speaker 1: be their manager. And that became my rollout.
Speaker 4: Man, I can't wait for Deuce to call me and
Speaker 4: say they found Chris Cross.
Speaker 1: I can't wait for myself to be like, Dad, I got.
Speaker 4: It when I created Chris Cross at what seventeen?
Speaker 1: What are you now see?
Speaker 3: Because somehow it's seventeen. Yeah, I know what the people need,
Speaker 3: I know what they want. I know what's gonna shake
Speaker 3: this shit up at seventeen. That's crazy, that's crazy. It
Speaker 3: speaks more to what I'm talking about.
Speaker 4: So do you do you go the regular route of
Speaker 4: let me just go try to get them a record deal?
Speaker 4: Do you say, let me try to go get me
Speaker 4: some kind of production label deal, or do you just.
Speaker 1: I don't know nothing, You don't know nothing, I don't know.
Speaker 4: You're just like I just want to get you.
Speaker 1: Want to make I've seen these kids at tomorrow and
Speaker 1: I saw people reacting to them, and I'm like, who
Speaker 1: the fuck are y'all? Who are y'all?
Speaker 4: Why?
Speaker 1: Why the girls at the cookie company give y'all free
Speaker 1: cookies and they ain't giving me shit? Like, what's going
Speaker 1: on right now? I thought I had walked into like Nickelodeon.
Speaker 4: You're not that much older than that.
Speaker 1: Yeah, No, I'm not that much older than them. You
Speaker 1: know they was eleven and twelve. Yeah, I'm seventeen. So
Speaker 1: I met we all at Green Brie and I'm like,
Speaker 1: what the fuck is happening?
Speaker 4: That's the head all too. People that don't know, that's
Speaker 4: the hood mall too. So to get that reaction, yeah,
Speaker 4: to get that reaction at the hood.
Speaker 5: Mall, that's in the bit. That's eats my mam. It
Speaker 5: don't exist no more. They shout up too many times.
Speaker 5: So if you get it cracking.
Speaker 1: There, the world know what I'm saying. So, so I'm
Speaker 1: watching little well, they ain't even little girls. These girls.
Speaker 1: They got jobs, so they're working. They're seventeen at least
Speaker 1: eighteen years old. They react, they looking, they're looking at
Speaker 1: these guys like they are superstars already. Wow, and they
Speaker 1: treating them like that and they they playing with it too.
Speaker 1: They running over there talking to the girl, run back,
Speaker 1: they doing all this, and I'm standing there in the
Speaker 1: middle of Themorrow watching this like and I'm like, don't
Speaker 1: nobody else see this? What's going on? So then I'm like,
Speaker 1: who the fuck are y'all? They was like, what you mean,
Speaker 1: who are we? And I'm like, okay, cool, y'all ain't
Speaker 1: no stars or nothing. They're like, nah, I said, y'all
Speaker 1: rap and darkskin Christians like rap like he said. And
Speaker 1: it's crazy because this is a time period when young
Speaker 1: niggas didn't want to rap. Rap was like for young
Speaker 1: people that wasn't a thing. Not that age like eleven
Speaker 1: and twelve, they want to think about rappers. So when
Speaker 1: I say you rap, they looked at me, like rap
Speaker 1: but niggas don't do that, Like that's how they That
Speaker 1: was their reaction. And I'm sitting there having this conversation
Speaker 1: with them in the middle of the marow and my
Speaker 1: mind just start going S JD. If you can write
Speaker 1: these little boys a song, they out of here. If
Speaker 1: you can figure it out, they out of here. You
Speaker 1: get it together, they out of here. They already got it.
Speaker 1: You get it together my mind doing all that in
Speaker 1: them all, I'm trying to figure it out right there
Speaker 1: in the middlettle more.
Speaker 4: By this time, you already got your studio, you got everything.
Speaker 1: No, no, no, no, no, Like that's what I'm saying. I
Speaker 1: had the Silk Times Leather, sul Times leather. They gave
Speaker 1: me the ability to get the equipment.
Speaker 4: But that's what I'm saying, you got you got that
Speaker 4: set up though there.
Speaker 1: Yeah, but it's still in my room. It's in my bedroom.
Speaker 1: And I just like I said, I got their number,
Speaker 1: I still ain't. Never I mean it never made no
Speaker 1: record though, right. I think the thing that got me
Speaker 1: that conversation was that in Jet magazine, I think they
Speaker 1: did an article on female rappers and they listed Silk
Speaker 1: Times leather and they showed a picture of them and
Speaker 1: dark skin. Chris Mom noticed the girl from the Jet magazine.
Speaker 1: So she made them realize, oh he really, this is ugit,
Speaker 1: it's legit because they was on some nigga trying to
Speaker 1: talk to us, right, So she made it where like
Speaker 1: y'all should probably may want to listen to them. I
Speaker 1: seen them in the book, So thank God to her
Speaker 1: because they weren't trying to hear me right, And for
Speaker 1: the longest, for like two weeks, I couldn't get I'm like,
Speaker 1: y'all gotta come over my house. And they was like,
Speaker 1: go over your house? You know what I mean. They
Speaker 1: thought I was like a predator or something like, because
Speaker 1: they had never been approached like that, Like and that's
Speaker 1: what I'm saying, And it's crazy. I'm telling them come
Speaker 1: to my house. That's where the music was at. So
Speaker 1: you gotta imagine a eleven twelve year old kid and somebody, oh,
Speaker 1: telling you you gotta come to your house. They're like, Nah,
Speaker 1: these little ghetto kids too, They like, fuck that, you
Speaker 1: know what I mean, We ain't doing that. So I
Speaker 1: had to break the ice with them. But and going
Speaker 1: I start, so I start doing stuff like I'm gonna
Speaker 1: pick y'all up from school on Friday whatever, and we're
Speaker 1: gonna go hang out blah blahlah. So I start doing
Speaker 1: stuff with them, and start hanging out with them, and
Speaker 1: I start playing music in the car like ice Cube
Speaker 1: or whatever was out and they singing the lyrics like
Speaker 1: they wrote it right. They know every word. They ain't
Speaker 1: never seen no lyrics or nothing. And that's when I
Speaker 1: started saying, man, if I could learn how to write
Speaker 1: songs good enough that they like it, discould work.
Speaker 5: So really, what you were doing was turning the consumer
Speaker 5: into the artists because they were really like you said,
Speaker 5: they were consumers. Yeah, so now and you know that
Speaker 5: they're your target audience. So if they like it, one.
Speaker 4: Of the kids around the world are like.
Speaker 1: It if they like it. And it's crazy because what
Speaker 1: I always hear people when jay Z told people that
Speaker 1: he didn't write his raps right, and people's like, people
Speaker 1: find that so crazy, right, even me, I did at first,
Speaker 1: but I never realized I was already doing it with
Speaker 1: Chriss Kruss before because that's what I wanted them to do.
Speaker 1: I wanted them to like memorize these words and stuff
Speaker 1: without seeing the paper and like you just feeling the song.
Speaker 1: This is gonna be y'all song.
Speaker 4: You like it?
Speaker 1: Hell yeah, like you know what I mean. Like I
Speaker 1: needed that energy. So it's it's it's a crazy process
Speaker 1: that that I learned about these kids. But it definitely
Speaker 1: that I had to get I had to get Sharper,
Speaker 1: I had to get better because I was writing songs. Yeah,
Speaker 1: I was writing songs at first, and they was just
Speaker 1: like you know, they was gonna do them. But it didn't.
Speaker 1: I didn't get that energy yet, right, And I had
Speaker 1: a song, the first song because I had left. I
Speaker 1: was living in my closet right at my house. So
Speaker 1: so okay, so listen, let's go I gotta go back.
Speaker 1: I gotta go back, all right, So listen, so Ian
Speaker 1: Bert shout out. I Burt was around this whole period, right.
Speaker 1: Ian Burke's the only guy actually know that I felt
Speaker 1: like was around Atlanta. I could trust him. He'd come
Speaker 1: talk to me, blah blah blah me and I got cool.
Speaker 1: In this time period. He started finding artists and he
Speaker 1: found this girl from Philly, a female rapper, and he's like, jad,
Speaker 1: I got this female rapper. I'm gonna bring it to
Speaker 1: your house. And now he was coming to these people
Speaker 1: start coming to my house like it was the studio.
Speaker 1: It's my mother's house. So he yeah, he brought Left
Speaker 1: Eye to my house. I heard her rap. I said, okay, cool.
Speaker 1: But she had no place to stay, you know what
Speaker 1: I mean. She was fresh up from Philly and my
Speaker 1: room was just twenty four seven. It was just twenty
Speaker 1: four seven. It wasn't no sleeping I'm like, you just
Speaker 1: kick your here. So for like a week, she basically
Speaker 1: was staying in my closet the house because my mother.
Speaker 1: I didn't want my mother to know what was going
Speaker 1: on in there. It wasn't nothing but music going on,
Speaker 1: but still my mother would have been like, why that
Speaker 1: girl was staying over here? You know what I mean? So,
Speaker 1: but she stayed, and in the midst of her staying,
Speaker 1: I thought I had found it. I was like, oh, ship,
Speaker 1: I'm a sample, the girl is mine Michael Jackson, Paul McCartney,
Speaker 1: and I'm gonna write some raps about Chris and Chris
Speaker 1: fighting over left eye. Hmm okay, yeah, but left I
Speaker 1: wasn't left out yet. She wasn't even in TLC. So
Speaker 1: she just was a girl that could rap. This was
Speaker 1: the vibe I was on. I'm like this gonna go
Speaker 1: and that song just wasn't It didn't come out. It
Speaker 1: didn't come out. I had to keep going, keep going.
Speaker 1: That ain't it, But ain't it. I had idea, but
Speaker 1: that wasn't it. I ain't know how to make that ship.
Speaker 1: That's I guess whatever, but it didn't work.
Speaker 4: Are you self auditing at this point or so?
Speaker 3: Are you are you got some some some trusted ears
Speaker 3: where you're playing stuff for him, like what you think
Speaker 3: and yeah your self auditing.
Speaker 1: Yeah, I go off of the light in your eyes.
Speaker 1: If you if I play you something you don't, you
Speaker 1: don't you don't do that. I automatically do like this,
Speaker 1: oh ship Okay, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. I don't need
Speaker 1: I don't need a bunch of people tell me. I
Speaker 1: could tell when it's when it's dead, when it's not.
Speaker 3: Yeah, you give me.
Speaker 1: Everybody give you that without even knowing that they give
Speaker 1: it to you. You know what I'm saying. I could
Speaker 1: play something right now, somebody come from back there and
Speaker 1: come in here. I'm like, oh we got oh ship, Yeah,
Speaker 1: oh ship. We need to pay attention to that. And
Speaker 1: I won't even say nothing. I won't even tell people
Speaker 1: that I saw that. I'll just go off of that vibe.
Speaker 1: That's where I'm going. That's the energy I started following.
Speaker 4: So how long does it take you to get to
Speaker 4: the hit? How long does it take? It makes sense?
Speaker 1: It don't even it's crazy because you don't. I don't.
Speaker 1: I don't have a time.
Speaker 4: Now I'm talking about oh for Chris Chriss, because.
Speaker 1: Now okay, yeah, so so two years oh ship. Yeah,
Speaker 1: I was seventeen when I found Chriss Crush. They didn't
Speaker 1: come out till I was nineteen. Artist development, yeah, artist development, producers, development, writers, development.
Speaker 1: We all had to learn. We was learning, we was learning,
Speaker 1: and yeah, once we got we started getting close. Chris
Speaker 1: came to the house and he had on this Djiebo
Speaker 1: jumper and it was so big, and I was just like, man,
Speaker 1: you should flip that shit around. And he was like
Speaker 1: for what. I'm like, I don't know, just flip it around.
Speaker 1: Let's just see what it looked like. He flipped the
Speaker 1: Jibo jump around. I'm like, that shit cold, huh? And
Speaker 1: they was looking at me like no. I'm like, I said, listen,
Speaker 1: let's go to Lindard Square with that with you jump
Speaker 1: on backwards. He's like why, so let's go to Linux.
Speaker 1: We went to Linux. He walking through the mall, he
Speaker 1: the only person with it on. He's walking through the
Speaker 1: mall with a Jibo Jumper backwards and the mall stopped
Speaker 1: and I was like, what the fuck just happened? Like
Speaker 1: people was like, what the where you get that from?
Speaker 1: Why are your clothes? Like? What is this? They don't
Speaker 1: even know this kid. It's people just coming up to
Speaker 1: him like where did you get this outfit from? And
Speaker 1: I'm like, what, it can't be this easy, it can't
Speaker 1: be this it's your regular jumper. I always wanted to
Speaker 1: tell people like, you can't be that. It's just you
Speaker 1: gotta jump on backwards. But I'm just like I'm watching
Speaker 1: it and I'm like, this can't be. This is crazy,
Speaker 1: and I'm like, we're gonna have to do. This is
Speaker 1: gonna be your thing. Y'all gonna wear y'all clothes backwards,
Speaker 1: and that's what.
Speaker 4: That's what.
Speaker 1: Then from there I wrote jump in twenty five minutes.
Speaker 4: Probably did you produce it? Yeah? So you don't have
Speaker 4: SoCal death at this point.
Speaker 1: Yeah, oh no, I don't have so so death at
Speaker 1: this point. This point, you don't have I don't have
Speaker 1: so death. You take the record the rough House. Chriscross
Speaker 1: is on rough House. The next Chriscross blows up the
Speaker 1: record number one. Then my birthday came around and I
Speaker 1: had a little birthday party at my house. Ian came
Speaker 1: to my house and he brought these girls another some
Speaker 1: more girls. The girls he brought to my house was
Speaker 1: escaped right. He had them sing Happy birthday to me
Speaker 1: after they saying, I'm like, I fuck with y'all. I'm
Speaker 1: gonna sign y'aut of my label. I don't have no label.
Speaker 1: I just said it. I said, i'ma sign you on
Speaker 1: my label. They like, for real, I'm like, yeah, i'ma
Speaker 1: sign you'll my label. I don't got no late White
Speaker 1: had no conversation. I was like, I'm gonna be able
Speaker 1: to do Yeah. I said, I'm gonna do it. And
Speaker 1: then like after I said that, I think two weeks later,
Speaker 1: Sony was like, you know, we want to give you
Speaker 1: a production deal if you can bring out some more artists.
Speaker 1: Can you bring more artists? And I'm like, yeah, I
Speaker 1: got this group already. I'm about to sign them because
Speaker 1: I called him immediately. Yeah, I'm definitely gonna sign y'all.
Speaker 1: And then I gotta ask, though, where's left eye? Oh
Speaker 1: so so if you if you y'all watched the TLC movie,
Speaker 1: they had a meeting with Pebbles and left I called
Speaker 1: somebody in VH one, but they cut me out. When
Speaker 1: she makes that phone call, she called me. When she
Speaker 1: called me, she said, they want to sign us. What
Speaker 1: you want to do and I was like, damn. And
Speaker 1: I was soaked into Crisscross that I was like, you
Speaker 1: know what if they signed, y'all just let me produce
Speaker 1: some songs on the album, y'all go ahead, And I
Speaker 1: just let him go.
Speaker 4: So they were actually signed to you.
Speaker 1: Oh. TLC was my group before they went to the
Speaker 1: face because once I mean Ian, so we jumping all
Speaker 1: over the place. But ian Ian found T Boys and
Speaker 1: then he put T Bo's and left out together. Then
Speaker 1: they started coming to my house and we started making
Speaker 1: I start making demos for them, and it was the
Speaker 1: first R and B music that I ever tried to
Speaker 1: write was for TLC. I never wrote R and V
Speaker 1: song ever. I tried it with T Bods.
Speaker 5: Yeah, so I heard this other thing. It's a rumor
Speaker 5: that you did the choreography for ABC before Criss Cross.
Speaker 1: I might have. I might have, even crazy, I might have.
Speaker 1: I might have. I can't take full credit, but I
Speaker 1: was around. I definitely was around. Yeah the word I got,
Speaker 1: I was around. I don't remember it to be that,
Speaker 1: but I was definitely around because the dude so because ultimately,
Speaker 1: you know, yeah, yeah that was part of the song.
Speaker 4: You know what I'm saying. With with ABC and BBD,
Speaker 4: you know what I'm saying. I mean, not BBD. I'm
Speaker 4: sorry with ABC and Chrisscross. They had they it was
Speaker 4: like a little and the fact that you would have
Speaker 4: worked with ABC as well.
Speaker 1: No, they are they from College Park. We all do
Speaker 1: them little homies. The only reason I this Chriss Cross,
Speaker 1: I mean, the only reason I this ABC on that
Speaker 1: song was that I was trying to establish Chrisscruss as rappers.
Speaker 1: And I was like, I don't I want y'all to
Speaker 1: let people know that y'all rappers. Just they what they doing,
Speaker 1: they singing, We rappers, We rappers. We might be young,
Speaker 1: but we rappers. And I just kept thinking, like, like
Speaker 1: I said, I don't listen to his ice Cube n
Speaker 1: w A. Yeah, matter of fact, no, Vasseline just came
Speaker 1: out and I know, so ice Cube going crazy, and
Speaker 1: I'm thinking, like, in rap, just the only way you
Speaker 1: get a people's attention, This is the only way you
Speaker 1: really get people's attention. And Jump actually became such a
Speaker 1: big song. People don't even pay attention to the fact
Speaker 1: that it's a disrecord.
Speaker 4: This record all right, So let's get back to Eska.
Speaker 4: Let's get back to ESCA. Let's back to KA. So
Speaker 4: now you got a deal.
Speaker 1: Yeah, now I got a deal and an R and
Speaker 1: B group and an R and which I never did before.
Speaker 4: It was just pure because you just like with him.
Speaker 1: No, it was purely because I had thought about this
Speaker 1: once chriscrust blew up that I didn't want to be
Speaker 1: pigeon held in rat And I didn't think I was
Speaker 1: the greatest rap producer. Okay, I didn't know what type
Speaker 1: of producer I thought I was, but I'm saying I
Speaker 1: didn't think that I could come right back with a
Speaker 1: successful rap yourself. Is that is? That's the key?
Speaker 5: Yeah, because most people don't know what they're good or
Speaker 5: bad at and won't be honest with themselves to say,
Speaker 5: you know what, I'm probably not as good doing that.
Speaker 1: Yeah, I mean, I'm I'm thinking I'm on the clock
Speaker 1: at this point too, So you gotta start thinking when
Speaker 1: you're on the clock. Okay, you got crisscrouss Dy number one,
Speaker 1: you know the records, you know it's gonna pass. And
Speaker 1: then once it passed, the height of who you are,
Speaker 1: what's going on, that's gonna pass, right, So I'm just
Speaker 1: like no, And then I'm like, let me. I don't
Speaker 1: want my label to be a rap label. I want
Speaker 1: my label to be all things right. So I'm just
Speaker 1: like ship, I'm gonna do an R and B group.
Speaker 1: Columbia didn't expect me to say I'm coming on. They
Speaker 1: like what an R and B group?
Speaker 3: Like?
Speaker 1: Yeah, and they like, what R and B have you done? No?
Speaker 1: So we just gave this nigga deal. Kid, go do
Speaker 1: some ship he never did before he can. One else.
Speaker 4: Was like, so you gave a kid? How much money
Speaker 4: he doing what with?
Speaker 1: Yeah? So yeah, I mean, you know, I win the
Speaker 1: studio escape. I mean, by the way, every just start.
Speaker 1: Things are starting to happen. So I don't want to
Speaker 1: make people think that. So an important piece of that
Speaker 1: puzzle was that this writer named Manuel Sill was looking
Speaker 1: for a home right and I got a call that
Speaker 1: he was looking for a home, and I, you know,
Speaker 1: once I had my label, people knew, okay, JD got
Speaker 1: a label deal. So once you say you got a label,
Speaker 1: you started tracting things. And I didn't know what the
Speaker 1: manual seal was. I didn't know. I didn't know what
Speaker 1: was going to happen. But I needed somebody to play
Speaker 1: for me. I knew that I needed that because we
Speaker 1: can I'm signing an R and B group. I can't
Speaker 1: sample my life away like this, right. So Manuel comes
Speaker 1: into my life and matter of fact, I go meet
Speaker 1: him at the hotel and when I walk in the hotel,
Speaker 1: he's playing the piano that's in the hotel killing that shit.
Speaker 1: It sounded like a concert, and I'm like, what the fuck?
Speaker 1: Who is this? He's like, yeah, I'm the guy that's
Speaker 1: supposed to meet with you. I'm like, oh shit, let's
Speaker 1: go right. I take him back to my house in
Speaker 1: College Park, me and him talk, I tell him what
Speaker 1: I want to do, and I started working on escape album.
Speaker 4: Is he from Atlanta to or from.
Speaker 1: He from Illinois?
Speaker 5: Maniel still is special. That brother is special. And y'all
Speaker 5: marriage y'all man the records that y'all have done together,
Speaker 5: it's top tier.
Speaker 1: And Mayel Manyel is Manuel is. When I met Mayel,
Speaker 1: he he could do anything. That's what That's what sucked
Speaker 1: me up, is that anything I told him to play,
Speaker 1: he could play it, or he'll play something that I
Speaker 1: didn't expect him to play. Whatever it was, he just
Speaker 1: was like he's probably one of the most musical guys
Speaker 1: i'd have met. Ever, so we start working on Escape album.
Speaker 1: I did a whole album.
Speaker 4: In two weeks, the Humma Coming at Y album, Yeah,
Speaker 4: two weeks, two weeks.
Speaker 3: At this point, ah, are you establishing because j D
Speaker 3: has a sound. I know j D drums anywhere. I
Speaker 3: know when I hear them. At that point making the
Speaker 3: Escape album, is that when you establish those drum sounds.
Speaker 1: I don't know. I don't know. I don't know if
Speaker 1: that album sounds like what you think JD sound like
Speaker 1: just kicking it. Yes, it sounds like it sounded like that.
Speaker 1: I don't know. I really don't know. I know that
Speaker 1: I got my drummer. Shoot, now I'm trying to make beasts.
Speaker 1: I don't know by the way I'm going into this,
Speaker 1: I don't know what's going to happen.
Speaker 3: Got you so you're not it's not a conscious thing.
Speaker 3: You just making the music.
Speaker 1: Yeah, But I'm writing the songs. I don't I mean
Speaker 1: you know what I mean? Like, I'm I'm really really
Speaker 1: trying to get this group out right, and I'm really like,
Speaker 1: I don't have that label. Ain't told me nothing. I'm
Speaker 1: just on this clock of myself and I'm like, man,
Speaker 1: let's go, I gotta go, and and and nothing about
Speaker 1: me thinking about writing the songs even popped in my
Speaker 1: head that I couldn't. I just started writing, and Mayo
Speaker 1: plays something and I'm like, nah, I wanted to go
Speaker 1: like this, And I was trying to make it so
Speaker 1: close to rap. That's why it's just kicking it sound
Speaker 1: like it's Sarah. And that's why it's called just kicking
Speaker 1: it because I'm writing it like it's rap, right, and
Speaker 1: I'm just and I'm starting to think about like, and
Speaker 1: I'm starting to fuck with girls too, right, So I'm
Speaker 1: fucking with girls. So I got a little little education
Speaker 1: of how niggas fuck with girls. So my first mindset
Speaker 1: was their man won a woman, they could cook him
Speaker 1: up a good meal, you know what I mean. I'm thinking, like,
Speaker 1: what what a nigga want from a girl, not what
Speaker 1: the girl want from So I wrote it from that perspective,
Speaker 1: and people was like, she talking from the man perspective.
Speaker 1: I'm like, yeah, that's that's how I wrote it. But
Speaker 1: I thought, you know, I didn't think that was gonna
Speaker 1: work at all. Come writing on them, not not big
Speaker 1: because I'm writing the songs and I know they don't
Speaker 1: have no I don't have no chops in the R
Speaker 1: and B. Right, you know what I mean. I'm just
Speaker 1: praying sparkle.
Speaker 4: In people's eyes.
Speaker 1: No, No, not at all. Escape was tough and it
Speaker 1: was a hard group because you know, people didn't think
Speaker 1: they was cute. Biggie had made dreams of sucking the
Speaker 1: R and B bitch and I fucked Paul before I
Speaker 1: fuck them ugly Escape bitches. That that was. That was hard,
Speaker 1: Like I'm out here dealing with this, right, So I
Speaker 1: took the stand that was like, Okay, y'all niggas think
Speaker 1: they ugly cool, find me somebody can sing better than them, right.
Speaker 1: I started acting like just going off of their talent,
Speaker 1: pure talent. But yeah, it was hard. It wasn't you know.
Speaker 1: In Vogue was out at the time, right, So Escape
Speaker 1: coming out when in Vogue is out, these little girls
Speaker 1: they look like hood bitches and this to the dirt.
Speaker 1: They don't that that that ain't flying. And Escape is young, right,
Speaker 1: It's another thing. Escape is a young group. I'm making
Speaker 1: R and B music, and R and B Radio told
Speaker 1: Colombia that the music sounded too young. So I'm almost
Speaker 1: in a space where it's like where I want the
Speaker 1: record to be. They're not even playing.
Speaker 5: It because I'm thinking of what those records sound like
Speaker 5: in relation to the other R and B at that time.
Speaker 4: Yeah, it was real, wasn't Yeah niggas wasn't singing, just
Speaker 4: kicking it.
Speaker 1: So adult radio what they call adult radio now, is
Speaker 1: where I wanted escape to live. I couldn't get them
Speaker 1: to live there for nothing. They kept telling, they told
Speaker 1: the pds, the record the radio guys, these songs sound
Speaker 1: too young. They don't sound like our stationed So that's
Speaker 1: why I say, like all that young shit, I'm the
Speaker 1: person who brought this to the music, to modern day music.
Speaker 4: And what broke that conversation for them?
Speaker 1: For h K it never I had. I had to
Speaker 1: keep I had to start dressing them, and I had
Speaker 1: to start trying to Like I think the second album,
Speaker 1: I wasn't trying anything. I went to Dyn Warren and
Speaker 1: got a song and let her write the song because
Speaker 1: I was just trying to figure I'm like, this group
Speaker 1: has to be.
Speaker 4: But you had success on the first album though, no.
Speaker 1: We had success. But I'm just saying as an R
Speaker 1: and B group, I knew where they had to be
Speaker 1: it's a home for them, their home. You can't be
Speaker 1: an R and B group chasing hip hop. And I
Speaker 1: was just like determined to try to get these girls.
Speaker 1: And I'm like, man, these girls can sing their ass up.
Speaker 1: They sing acapella. It's the best thing in the world.
Speaker 1: They sing the national anthem, it's the best thing in
Speaker 1: the world. Why y'all treating them like And I'm not
Speaker 1: knowing that I'm basically doing something from a younger perspective
Speaker 1: that ain't been done.
Speaker 5: That's crazy. I would have never thought that from outside
Speaker 5: of the outside looking in at that year. Is that
Speaker 5: ninety three, ninety four, somewhere around ninety four. Yeah, So
Speaker 5: I'm like fresh, look like it's all work going from
Speaker 5: middle school to high school. This feels like every young
Speaker 5: girl that I know, Yeah, yeah, you know what I'm saying, Like,
Speaker 5: that's why you're creating the music.
Speaker 4: For my life. At this point, float out, I'm in.
Speaker 5: The Bay, criss cross now Escape all this and it's
Speaker 5: and they're all.
Speaker 4: Around my same age, might be a little younger, you
Speaker 4: know what I mean. But I'm like, this is I
Speaker 4: see me, this is this is my reality right here.
Speaker 5: Escape looks like my neighbors. Those look like my girls
Speaker 5: in the bandger Homes and film mode.
Speaker 4: She looks just like her. So for me, I don't
Speaker 4: I don't see the difference.
Speaker 5: And what the obviously with the labels and what the
Speaker 5: radio is saying that the kids would.
Speaker 4: Want trying to manage.
Speaker 1: They don't. They're not even they not even they're not
Speaker 1: even focusing on kids. They focusing on twenty five and up.
Speaker 1: I think maybe thirty radio. Yeah, that's what they're they're
Speaker 1: they're paying attention to that, and thirty five and up
Speaker 1: radio stations weren't fucking with they.
Speaker 5: State that makes sense, that makes perfey sense. Though, it's okay,
Speaker 5: so now you got to you got to and then
Speaker 5: you get the brat.
Speaker 1: The brat comes. Chriscross got a show in Chicago, Ed
Speaker 1: Lover and Doctor Drake from MTV raps. They was on
Speaker 1: the tour as like the MC's this MC and Chris
Speaker 1: Cross concert and in between Chris and Chris coming on stage,
Speaker 1: they bring all these artists. They let people come on
Speaker 1: stage and do something, and they brought Brad on stage
Speaker 1: and she rapped in Chicago, light skinned. Chris called being
Speaker 1: right after that He's like, yo, man, this girl out here,
Speaker 1: she cold, and I'm like, female rappers they suck. Like
Speaker 1: I'm the first thing you said, Yeah, female rappers suck.
Speaker 1: Ain't nobody listening to that shit? I got off the phone.
Speaker 1: He's like, nah, man, you got to listen to it.
Speaker 1: She cold, and I'm like, we don't even live. I'm
Speaker 1: telling him, we don't listen to those female rappers. Like
Speaker 1: who getting ready to listen to female rap? I thought
Speaker 1: it was the worst idea in the world. I never
Speaker 1: was like Court and Bratt trying to get her to
Speaker 1: come to Atlanta. She started pushing her own buttons right,
Speaker 1: So she came to Atlanta. She called my phone and
Speaker 1: she was like, I'm here. I didn't know she was coming,
Speaker 1: so she came. She was like, I'm here. So I'm like,
Speaker 1: you know, and I'm trying. I'm trying not to be
Speaker 1: completely on the fuck that shit. I'm just gonna listen
Speaker 1: with the ear right. So I go pick up or
Speaker 1: I go to the hotel pick up and I got
Speaker 1: to stop and get gas because I live on the
Speaker 1: South Side. So I stop and get gassed. I go
Speaker 1: in there to pay the gas. She put the CD
Speaker 1: in the car and I get back in the car,
Speaker 1: turn the car and the shit come on. I'm like,
Speaker 1: who the fuck is this? Who touched my radio? And
Speaker 1: I'm like, who's that rapping? She's like, that's me? And
Speaker 1: I'm like, oh wait a minute, wait.
Speaker 5: You had he came to Atlanta. You don't even you
Speaker 5: hadn't heard nothing yet. Never You're just going off for
Speaker 5: Chris telling you that.
Speaker 1: She was good. I never heard of rap and she
Speaker 1: was so like, niggasistent, you gonna check me out. I'm like, okay, cool.
Speaker 1: I was taking her to go back to my house
Speaker 1: to do like a little audition. I guess basically she
Speaker 1: put the CD N. As soon as I hit it,
Speaker 1: that shit came on. I'm like, who is this rapping?
Speaker 1: She's like, that's me, and I'm like, oh maybe this
Speaker 1: maybe this might work. Yeah, I'm like, maybe this might work.
Speaker 1: And BRAT to this day was the hardest project I
Speaker 1: ever did in my life though, really yeah, because I
Speaker 1: never had it. I couldn't.
Speaker 4: I made it.
Speaker 1: I made two three songs a day and I never
Speaker 1: could They never was right for me.
Speaker 4: So you signed her, but you can't figure it out?
Speaker 1: Yeah, I can't figure it out.
Speaker 4: So how do you land on FUNCKTI five.
Speaker 1: I don't know two years we I mean it took
Speaker 1: two years for me to get functified out, like literally
Speaker 1: were making song after song every day, song every day
Speaker 1: every day. As a matter of fact, I think during
Speaker 1: the escape video, I pulled up in my truck trying
Speaker 1: to play a demo of a song that I did
Speaker 1: with Brat, and I ain't tell nobody. I just try
Speaker 1: to pull up to the video playing some loud music
Speaker 1: scene and ain't nobody giving me nothing, Ain't nobody come
Speaker 1: from behind the back room, Ain't nobody giving me shit?
Speaker 1: And I'm like, oh man, this ain't gonna work. I
Speaker 1: knew I shouldn't fuck with no fucking female rappers. That's
Speaker 1: how I'm feeling. And then one day me and Mayel
Speaker 1: in the studio were playing around out with the between
Speaker 1: the sheets and I start rapping, right, I start rapping,
Speaker 1: and then she jumped in and rapping behind me. We
Speaker 1: freestyling like oh, I'm like, no, I ain't thinking what
Speaker 1: it I'm not about. I'm not making no record, That's
Speaker 1: what I'm saying. I'm like, I'm not being a rapper.
Speaker 1: I'm not doing this, and She's like, yo, we should
Speaker 1: make a song like that you should rap, and I'm like, no,
Speaker 1: I'm not fucking rapping. I don't want to y'all. Put
Speaker 1: y'all out. She's like, nah, let's do it like this.
Speaker 1: So then I'm like, okay. I start thinking about it,
Speaker 1: and then I start writing the verse, like open up
Speaker 1: the doors, open up the doors, let the funk floor in,
Speaker 1: you know what I mean. I start writing my part,
Speaker 1: writing her part, and then I'm like this, how is
Speaker 1: gonna go? Then we're gonna do it like this, we
Speaker 1: do that song. I'm thinking this just for the car
Speaker 1: at this point, like, yo, we ain't putting this out.
Speaker 1: I put we do that song, We get that going.
Speaker 1: Niggas start coming in the room. What the fuck is that?
Speaker 1: What is that? I played the song a little louder.
Speaker 1: Everybody like, hey man, yeah, Jad, you're gonna rap. I'm like, fuck,
Speaker 1: I don't want to be no rapper right now, not yet.
Speaker 1: Yeah all right, but it just it forged me to
Speaker 1: do that, and that's that's how the song came. And
Speaker 1: then I want to say, somewhere in there they asked
Speaker 1: me to do usher.
Speaker 4: In the middle of you doing brad Well, I mean.
Speaker 1: I think in between you know, in between these projects Crisscross, Escape,
Speaker 1: Brad somewhere somewhere in there. It might've been at the
Speaker 1: end of the Funk to Fire, whatever it was. I'm
Speaker 1: not really knowing the dates. But in between there, that's
Speaker 1: when they asked me, you know, would you work on
Speaker 1: this Usher project?
Speaker 4: And did you know him already?
Speaker 1: Yeah? He came to the Criscross concert and he wanted
Speaker 1: me to sign him and I said no, hm hmm.
Speaker 5: But that answers the question because I was going to
Speaker 5: ask you, I'm serious, I had this in my head.
Speaker 5: I was going to ask you, where there're any artists
Speaker 5: that you had passed up on that became you?
Speaker 1: Yeah, Usher?
Speaker 4: And why did you say no?
Speaker 1: Because I was having conflict with Christian Chris's parents and
Speaker 1: I just was like, I'm not dealing with no more kids,
Speaker 1: Like I'm not fucking with no more kids because y'all parents,
Speaker 1: don't they not. They wasn't at the room with us.
Speaker 1: They didn't watch me talk to y'all, they didn't watch
Speaker 1: us talk. Now they ended they trying to get in here.
Speaker 4: I got to deal with it.
Speaker 1: So I was just like and it was like when
Speaker 1: I met him, it was right at the height of that, right. Uh.
Speaker 1: And we had a meeting where the parents had gotten
Speaker 1: into the Chris parents. They had gotten in an argument
Speaker 1: at the lawyer's office, and it was just like, this
Speaker 1: ain't what I signed up for, right. So, and when
Speaker 1: Usher came, he was a teenager once again, and I
Speaker 1: was just like, nah, because a j brought him. But
Speaker 1: I'm like, it's a mom somewhere. It's a mom somewhere.
Speaker 1: It's a mom somewhere. And I just was like, you know,
Speaker 1: I ain't had a capacity.
Speaker 4: Yeah, we don't put Yeah.
Speaker 5: But even understanding that though, I think because that's in
Speaker 5: this business, we see talent and sometimes we just jump
Speaker 5: at it even when we don't have the bandwidth.
Speaker 1: Yeah. Like I said, even with TOC, that's why I
Speaker 1: let TOC go. I didn't have a bandwidth.
Speaker 4: I didn't have a label, right right, But that's what
Speaker 4: I'm saying at that point, you don't got no.
Speaker 1: I don't have no label. When I'm talking to TC,
Speaker 1: I'm trying to get Crisscross sign and you know today
Speaker 1: I could do both, but back then I ain't had
Speaker 1: a bandwidth. I just was like I was giving Criscross
Speaker 1: all of this energy and I was kind of like
Speaker 1: giving Tiana left eye, like some little little energy. But
Speaker 1: they weren't getting the full play right, So I just like,
Speaker 1: you know, I started thinking as a producer, like, y'all
Speaker 1: make the album. Let me just do some songs on
Speaker 1: that album. I'll get some producer credits.
Speaker 4: What do you think prompts the call to do? Usher?
Speaker 3: What what nuance that you've created or what what piece
Speaker 3: of music did you you've done?
Speaker 4: What?
Speaker 1: They came? They came, They came, and they asked me
Speaker 1: to do a remix of think of You? So all
Speaker 1: you know what I'm saying. Yeah, l A was like,
Speaker 1: his voice is changing. We need but we need to
Speaker 1: make this song. I want to put a bridge in
Speaker 1: the song so people can start hearing his voice. And
Speaker 1: I didn't know what the bridge was. I mean, I
Speaker 1: think I thought I knew what the bridge was whatever,
Speaker 1: But I'm like, okay, cool, I.
Speaker 4: Hit records like he gonna figure it out, though.
Speaker 1: I did. I told him come over. I did a remix,
Speaker 1: and then I put the bridge in think of You
Speaker 1: and they got that back and Usher was like man,
Speaker 1: because I also I made Usher come to my studio
Speaker 1: and re sing his part. Right. That was the thing
Speaker 1: about remixes that. I was like, if you're gonna do
Speaker 1: a remix, come sing it. Oh, let's really make it remix.
Speaker 1: So he came and he sung that bridge part and
Speaker 1: I wrote the bridge and I sung the bridge to him,
Speaker 1: and he translated my terrible notes into what he what
Speaker 1: it was supposed to be. Uh and uh he translated
Speaker 1: it into what it was supposed to be and then
Speaker 1: it was just like uh. Brian Reid shout out to
Speaker 1: Brian re LA's brother, he was the an R at
Speaker 1: the time. He's like, man, we love this. We love
Speaker 1: this because you think you could go in the studio
Speaker 1: with him. And I'm like, I guess, you know. But
Speaker 1: they was like, you know what, we don't want to
Speaker 1: rush you. We want you to do what you did
Speaker 1: with Chris Kross. You want you to take him, take
Speaker 1: him in, dress him, make him your artist.
Speaker 4: Mm hmm.
Speaker 1: That's what they you know, And that's what I did.
Speaker 1: I took I took usher in. I started talking to him,
Speaker 1: I started training him, I start doing everything that I
Speaker 1: thought he needed to become.
Speaker 4: We is today, Wow, why so so? But what is
Speaker 4: what is Columbia saying though?
Speaker 5: Because that's not that's who your partner is so Sony
Speaker 5: Columbia is your partner?
Speaker 4: Are they like?
Speaker 5: Are they like at some point they're like, wait, that's
Speaker 5: not your that's not an artist that scientists so, but.
Speaker 1: They don't see it happening. They don't see it till
Speaker 1: it happened. I'm sure they would not have been happy
Speaker 1: wouldn't happen. Yeah, probably, But I mean I was I'm
Speaker 1: bringing you still do. I'm bringing groups. I mean, I'm
Speaker 1: delivering Escape album, I'm delivering Bratt second album. I'm giving them.
Speaker 1: I'm giving the product that they're you know. It's not
Speaker 1: like I'm not doing the work. So yeah that that, Yes,
Speaker 1: I get into the Usher record. I don't know anything
Speaker 1: about male R and B as far as writing songs
Speaker 1: and making it. I don't know nothing. I just know
Speaker 1: what I've heard, but I don't know nothing. And I'm
Speaker 1: just like, all right, we gonna try this. I don't
Speaker 1: know how this is gonna work out, but we're gonna
Speaker 1: try it, you know. And it's crazy because I wrote
Speaker 1: Nice and Slow the night before I was doing this
Speaker 1: test photo shoot for USh. So we're gonna do a
Speaker 1: test photo shoot where I went to like one of
Speaker 1: them good hardware good stores that like sporting good stores
Speaker 1: like Dix maybe right Pauls. And I went in there
Speaker 1: and I got all these shoulder pads and ship and
Speaker 1: I'm buying ship like dress Usher, like just all kind
Speaker 1: of I'm just trying anything. So we do a photo shoot.
Speaker 1: The day that we do the photo shoot, the day
Speaker 1: before that, I wrote Nice and Slow and I'm like,
Speaker 1: this the single.
Speaker 4: I'm telling you you have the track that stuff.
Speaker 1: Yeah, yeah, we know, we did it. We did the song.
Speaker 1: We did the song because I got I got Usher
Speaker 1: at my house, so we recording. We're trying to make
Speaker 1: we making my way and like I said, I did
Speaker 1: Nice and Slow. We're going to the photo shoot. I
Speaker 1: tell La at the photo shooter, like this the single.
Speaker 1: He was like, Nah, that ain't the single. Like this
Speaker 1: is single, man, this is it? Like this ship jam
Speaker 1: and like what are you talking about? He's like, it's
Speaker 1: all right. I drop my head, go a back. My god, damn,
Speaker 1: it's all right. And by the way, they only paid
Speaker 1: me to do They paid me to do four four songs,
Speaker 1: I think four to five songs, so I don't have
Speaker 1: you make me want to yet. I feel like I
Speaker 1: finished the project. Without You make Me Want. I go
Speaker 1: up to LA's office. I played Nice and Slow. I
Speaker 1: think I played my way one day You'll be mine
Speaker 1: and just like me these songs and I'm like, this
Speaker 1: is it. Let's go. You put the rest, put do
Speaker 1: whatever you want, do it. I'm good. And he sat
Speaker 1: there and he listened to them for songs and he
Speaker 1: ain't give me nothing like nothing, just like you think
Speaker 1: this is it. And I'm like, fuck, all right, go
Speaker 1: back to my house. I left his office. I went home.
Speaker 1: I said, man, we gotta do something better than this ship.
Speaker 1: You gotta make something. The idea I started making beat.
Speaker 1: He started playing little guitar riff. I'm like, oh yeah,
Speaker 1: think think think, think we're going he's playing the actual guitar.
Speaker 1: Think think he's playing it to the beat. I'm like,
Speaker 1: oh yeah, this sounded like it right, and this this
Speaker 1: is gonna be it. When I started writing a.
Speaker 4: Song you make Me Want, you wrote you make Me Want.
Speaker 1: Yeah, nice and slow one hundred percent.
Speaker 4: Point the situations out.
Speaker 5: Of I'm this man right here is out of control.
Speaker 4: Niggah.
Speaker 1: Yeah, but I mean make me want. It was like
Speaker 1: a rap song to me. That's but because that's what
Speaker 1: I started thinking. I started thinking that. I was like, JD,
Speaker 1: you're a rapper. You're trying to just because you did
Speaker 1: escape nigga. You ain't no R and B nigga. You
Speaker 1: better get back to that rap ship and do some
Speaker 1: rap ship. So then I start writing it like a
Speaker 1: rap You made me want to leave the one with
Speaker 1: the new relationship with you. This is what we do,
Speaker 1: think about the ring and all the things that come
Speaker 1: along with it. You make me, you make me. I'm
Speaker 1: writing it like a rap song. The same thing with.
Speaker 4: Yeah, yeah, yeah, Hurricane. I understand.
Speaker 1: Hurricane.
Speaker 3: That's that's what it is, all right, all right, you know,
Speaker 3: you know, you know, you know all the code for that,
Speaker 3: right man.
Speaker 1: Same thing with nice and Slow, right I stopped. That's
Speaker 1: why I thought nice and Slow was a goal because
Speaker 1: I put so much rap into it. Yeah, seven o'clock
Speaker 1: on the dot, I'm gonna drop top cruise in the streets.
Speaker 1: That's a rap song, right, And I'm thinking, like, I
Speaker 1: got this little niggas talking, he keep doing some ship,
Speaker 1: and the Pope Pimp Ship had came out around that
Speaker 1: same time, so I'm like, we're gonna take the little
Speaker 1: Pope Pimp Ship and we're gonna spell your name. You asked,
Speaker 1: H G R O M D. I'm trying to do
Speaker 1: what them niggas was doing. Poup pimp, just to add
Speaker 1: a little bit of that. I thought that was the one.
Speaker 4: It was the one.
Speaker 1: Yeah, it was the one.
Speaker 6: I it was as your first number one on to.
Speaker 1: It was it was his first number one hot number one,
Speaker 1: not Hot one hundred.
Speaker 4: How did that get up?
Speaker 1: It went number one R and B. But I don't
Speaker 1: know what it did on the Hot one hundred. But
Speaker 1: as far as his first one hundred record was nice
Speaker 1: and slow.
Speaker 5: And this is your first time writing for a male
Speaker 5: R and B artist, Yeah, nigga, you the cheat code,
Speaker 5: cheat cod B.
Speaker 1: I don't know if I'm the cheat. This nigga's on.
Speaker 4: Four at her master auditor. This is the nigga. That's
Speaker 4: that's crazy because these are all first for you.
Speaker 5: Yeah, it wasn't like you like were bumping your head
Speaker 5: on other projects that maybe did this or that. No, no, no, no, no, no,
Speaker 5: first R and B singer they send to you, You
Speaker 5: give them a number one hotred hot one hundred, number one.
Speaker 4: Come on, bro, Yeah, that's that's not normal. Well, that's
Speaker 4: not normal it's not normal.
Speaker 1: I don't know, man, I don't know. I don't, I don't.
Speaker 1: I'm not even paying attention to if it's normal or not.
Speaker 1: Like I said, I'm just trying to. I'm just trying.
Speaker 1: I don't even know what I'm doing. I honestly didn't
Speaker 1: know what I was doing with my Way album. I
Speaker 1: just was trying.
Speaker 4: Whatever, and that album ends up selling how much?
Speaker 1: I think five million?
Speaker 4: He was him? He was him.
Speaker 5: Yeah, that's when you start buying the Billies and ship.
Speaker 5: That's it started getting close, start getting close.
Speaker 4: And then have you brought outside yet? No hell about
Speaker 4: the studio?
Speaker 1: Yeah, this is all nineties. I I'm writing so much though,
Speaker 1: I'm writing so many songs, and I'm where I'm writing
Speaker 1: songs where I do like I'm gonna write a song
Speaker 1: for somebody, escape with whoever I'm working with. And then
Speaker 1: after I finished writing that song, I'm making dumb demos
Speaker 1: for me to just ride around to and listen to. Right, So,
Speaker 1: I'm not even in these dumb demos. These are not
Speaker 1: songs that I'm thinking gonna come out. I'm just doing
Speaker 1: it because I feel like I'm a song right So
Speaker 1: I'm in my you know, I'm in there taking other people.
Speaker 1: I mean even making full beats. I might take a beat.
Speaker 1: So I took to my deep record shook Ones, and
Speaker 1: I was like, oh, I like them jazzy hulls, making
Speaker 1: niggas in all my classes. I start doing the jazzy
Speaker 1: holes as a ride around me tape for me, like,
Speaker 1: I'm just gonna do this. I'm gonna listen to this
Speaker 1: ship in the car. I love that, and I'm just
Speaker 1: making this ship. I'm making mixtape songs just for me
Speaker 1: to listen to. I'm not even thinking about it. So
Speaker 1: then my homeboy Steve Prudon from here Yea, they heard
Speaker 1: my little mixtape one day in the car. They was like,
Speaker 1: what the fuck is this JD. I'm like, shit, this
Speaker 1: is I just be making just to be doing whatever.
Speaker 1: And them niggas starts singing the jazzy holes. They're like, man,
Speaker 1: you need to make an album. I'm like, nah, don't.
Speaker 1: I'm not fucking with that ship. I'm cool. I'm gonna
Speaker 1: keep finding I'm trying to stay away from it. And
Speaker 1: then they're like, nah, you need to make an album.
Speaker 1: So then people start pushing me make an album. So
Speaker 1: then I think it was the one of them movie soundtracks.
Speaker 1: I don't know what movie soundtrack. It was Me and
Speaker 1: Brat talks go ahead, Yeah, me and Brat put the
Speaker 1: party continues out right, and that the party continues was
Speaker 1: basically like it was me and Snoop record first, That's
Speaker 1: what it was. So it's me and Snoop. Me and
Speaker 1: Snoop had a song on the soundtrack. I took Snoop
Speaker 1: off and did a remix with the Brat of that song,
Speaker 1: and that song became my song. And it was basically
Speaker 1: like my first record that I put out on my album,
Speaker 1: Me Brat and I put Usher on the hook, right,
Speaker 1: and I started saying, up, got some I guess I'm
Speaker 1: gonna make an album, right, I guess I'm gonna make
Speaker 1: an album. And I'm getting a little courage because everybody's
Speaker 1: saying it. So I'm like I said, I pay attention
Speaker 1: to the energy. So people saying that, everybody tell me
Speaker 1: I should do it. So then I just start going
Speaker 1: full for us on trying to make my own album.
Speaker 4: Then that's what life in nineteen seventy two, ye.
Speaker 1: Like in fourteen seventy yeah, yeah, but I got a backtrack,
Speaker 1: got a backtrack, So I made it. I made just
Speaker 1: kicking it and just kicking it got the ears of Mariah.
Speaker 1: Just kicking it then, yeah, just kicking it got the
Speaker 1: ears of Mariah. She wanted a record that felt like
Speaker 1: that on her album. So you know, I got the
Speaker 1: all to go in the studio Mariah. I didn't know
Speaker 1: that that's what she wanted, but that's what that's what
Speaker 1: she was, that's what she was looking for, and we
Speaker 1: went to the studio. It was a different type of
Speaker 1: vibe for me. I had never been in the studio
Speaker 1: early in the daytime, leaving at like seven o'clock in
Speaker 1: the day at night, so I'm nervous as fuck. I
Speaker 1: don't know. I'm like, I don't know why I'm doing
Speaker 1: this project because I'm like, she's like a superstar, superstar,
Speaker 1: and I'm little nigga. I don't know, you know, I
Speaker 1: don't even know why I'm posing. I don't know why
Speaker 1: i'm here. I'm thinking they using different chords than what
Speaker 1: I'm on. We got that, Yeah, I think I'm thinking.
Speaker 1: I'm thinking, you know, I'm thinking they use it all
Speaker 1: different chords, they got different keyboards.
Speaker 5: That's when the music sounded like music like that that's honest.
Speaker 1: So so I'm thinking, like, I take man with me
Speaker 1: to New York, me and Man, you go to work
Speaker 1: with Mariah. I'm like, Man, I don't know what this
Speaker 1: is gonna be. Man, you know, just Mariah Carrey.
Speaker 5: Though, how is the fluss to the to the to
Speaker 5: the women when you say, yeah, you know I'm gonna
Speaker 5: be in New York, Man.
Speaker 1: Why not? I'm not. I don't even think about the women.
Speaker 1: I'm I'm one locked in like I can't fuck this up.
Speaker 1: But I'm feeling like I'm a fuck up. I'm believing
Speaker 1: I'm a fuck up because this is also the first
Speaker 1: project that I ever did outside of my studio. So
Speaker 1: I'm nervous.
Speaker 4: That is one thing you just you kept saying. I
Speaker 4: had them come to the house.
Speaker 1: It's the first time they had it. They had me
Speaker 1: coming to New York. And I'm like, oh, this ain't
Speaker 1: gonna work out. I ain't got my records, I don't
Speaker 1: just anything I might need. I can't take all that
Speaker 1: shit to New York with me. So I'm already feeling
Speaker 1: like this ain't gonna be it. This ain't gonna be it.
Speaker 1: And she started coming to the studio. She came in
Speaker 1: the studio and she was like, I want to make
Speaker 1: a record like this, and I'm like, what you want
Speaker 1: me to do with this? She said, I want to
Speaker 1: sing over this and it was cream Wu Tang Clan
Speaker 1: and I'm like, right, I'm like what who are you?
Speaker 1: I'm like, you want to sing over this? She's like yeah,
Speaker 1: did she played another record? I'm gonna sing over this one.
Speaker 1: I'm like, I'm looking around, like what the fuck is
Speaker 1: going like this one? Rian Carey? You want to you
Speaker 1: want me to make this for you. I'm not doing
Speaker 1: that because you I'm not gonna be the person. I'm
Speaker 1: not doing that. You're not good. They're not gonna do
Speaker 1: that with me. She's like, listen, this is what I
Speaker 1: want to do. And I was like, oh okay. So
Speaker 1: I start following her lead and she was like, you know,
Speaker 1: I need something like just kicking it, but I wanted
Speaker 1: to be pretty, but I wanted to have that ghetto
Speaker 1: ship on it that y'all got and just kicking it,
Speaker 1: so man, you'll start art playing. He started playing that
Speaker 1: on it and she's like, yes, change the key, change
Speaker 1: the key to what she wanted it. Then I put
Speaker 1: the eight O eights on there and always be my
Speaker 1: baby comes to life.
Speaker 4: Wow, Wow, just keep winning.
Speaker 1: And that's the beginning of me and Mariah's relationship. And
Speaker 1: that was absolutely enough what I'm saying. And this is
Speaker 1: the first session, I mean, your two records. It's the
Speaker 1: first one of the first one of two songs. We
Speaker 1: had a week in the studio where and that's that's
Speaker 1: what we came out of. I mean, we made the cream,
Speaker 1: but it didn't come out right. It didn't come out right.
Speaker 1: I wasn't I was also not completely dialed into Mariah
Speaker 1: yet as far as like putting her over type of cream.
Speaker 1: It didn't make it didn't make sense, make sense. It
Speaker 1: was like, I'm like, you not, I'm not. I'm not
Speaker 1: doing that. I'm not gonna be the guy to do that,
Speaker 1: not realizing that she basically was creating hip pop music.
Speaker 1: She's actually the creative that like, are you on the
Speaker 1: Grunde singing over something? Katy Perry singing over something? She's
Speaker 1: the person who created that sound. In her mind, she
Speaker 1: did this and she's still that person to this day.
Speaker 1: She wants to sing over street ship, hood and ship
Speaker 1: going whatever it is, hood New York ship, that's when
Speaker 1: she comes to the studio like she's the rapper. Yeah,
Speaker 1: I want here, this is what I want to sing over.
Speaker 1: It's been successful, it's worked. Yeah, so we do we
Speaker 1: do that. We do Always Be My Baby. I think,
Speaker 1: you know, by the way, it's a third single, so
Speaker 1: I'm thinking, whatever, my little Mariah Carey shit didn't work.
Speaker 1: It's cool. I'm on the album. She you know whatever,
Speaker 1: Always Be my Baby comes out as a single. That
Speaker 1: record goes number one on R and B, Trucks and
Speaker 1: Hot one hundred. I'm like, oh, okay, Dad is there.
Speaker 1: You know what I mean? So I'm like, shit, I'm
Speaker 1: gonna get you to do a song on my album.
Speaker 1: She caused me and tells me what she want the
Speaker 1: song to be. Well, if you're gonna do a song,
Speaker 1: it need to be this. She sent me Sweetheart, and
Speaker 1: I'm like, she's like, let's remake this. I'm like, all right, cool,
Speaker 1: what you knows? She's the artist that actually made me
Speaker 1: realize how lazy artists actually are. You know what I mean?
Speaker 1: Because she comes to the studio, she know what the
Speaker 1: fuck she want to do, she knows what it's supposed
Speaker 1: to sound like. She's she's she's She's very direct to
Speaker 1: what she's doing. And other artists come to the studio
Speaker 1: they don't do they don't. They just be sitting around
Speaker 1: like you know what I mean.
Speaker 4: Just waiting for you, whatever it is.
Speaker 1: They just don't have that. She she made me realize, like, yeah,
Speaker 1: it's another level to the artistry. Shit, Like yeah, it's
Speaker 1: definitely another level to it. So I did that. We
Speaker 1: did Sweetheart. I think I had Sweetheart first before one
Speaker 1: anything right, And Columbia's thinking that they gonna release my album.
Speaker 1: I got a Mariah Carey single. This seems like the thing.
Speaker 1: But like I told you before, I don't like to
Speaker 1: barter the energy from other people with my records. I don't.
Speaker 1: I don't. I don't really like that. And in the
Speaker 1: midst of me making life in fourteen seventy two, I
Speaker 1: listened to a DJ Clue take and jay Z had
Speaker 1: took the Drew Hill beat and rapped over it as
Speaker 1: a freestyle, and he said something he did my cadence,
Speaker 1: y'all wanted this. I'm gonna make you there he did.
Speaker 1: He did all of this right. So I'm a little kid,
Speaker 1: Well I'm not a little kid, but I'm a kid
Speaker 1: from college Park, Georgia, and jay Z's like this underground
Speaker 1: rapper that he supposed to be the one right And
Speaker 1: I'm infatuated rap music. So I'm like that nigga listened
Speaker 1: to me. That nigga fuck with me?
Speaker 4: Yeah, yeah, yeah, that means he.
Speaker 1: Know who I am. I'm doing record this nigga. And
Speaker 1: I seen him. We did a great day in Harlem
Speaker 1: photo shoot and I seen him out there and I'm like, yo,
Speaker 1: I want to do a song with you, and he's like,
Speaker 1: all right, what's up. I'm like, you come to Atlanta,
Speaker 1: Let's make a song. He's like cool. I get his information,
Speaker 1: get him a ticket to Atlanta. I go pick him
Speaker 1: up from the airport. On my way to pick him up, though,
Speaker 1: I'm listening to his album, I'm listening to Can't Knock
Speaker 1: the Hustle because I'm trying to get in jay Z mode.
Speaker 1: I'm trying to get rapper mode all the way. By
Speaker 1: the way, I'm in a Bentley too. I got my Bentley.
Speaker 4: I'm going to get over the bench. Yeah, I was going.
Speaker 1: That was a continental t that yeah yeah, yeah, yeah,
Speaker 1: a big dog. Yeah. So I'm going to get hold
Speaker 1: from the airport. I'm racing down Old National and I'm
Speaker 1: playing Can't Knock the Hustle, and I'm switching lanes and
Speaker 1: all this ship right, I'm trying to get there fast.
Speaker 1: I'm running a little late. Uh. And then I'm hearing
Speaker 1: the song. You know what I'm saying, so out of state,
Speaker 1: kicking up top game, Deep in the South, switching full lanes,
Speaker 1: screaming through the sun, roof money anything, and I'm like,
Speaker 1: I'm doing this, yeah, yeah, yes, you are just what
Speaker 1: I'm doing. I'm moving, I'm switching lane, I'm doing this.
Speaker 1: I'm in the car like this, like I'm right, and
Speaker 1: I hit rewind. I heard him say it again. I'm saying,
Speaker 1: why would this nigga say deep in the South. He's
Speaker 1: not from Atlanta, And that one word the South made
Speaker 1: me pay attention to that whole phrase. And I'm like,
Speaker 1: I'm gonna sample this. I'm gonna sample this part. That's
Speaker 1: gonna be our song because I don't have no song.
Speaker 1: He don't come into Atlanta. I don't have no song.
Speaker 4: I'm I'm never having a song.
Speaker 1: I don't have no song. I'm just trying to wing it.
Speaker 4: Get the song.
Speaker 1: That's dangerous, man, So my nerves be going crazy and
Speaker 1: I'm trying to be I know. It's like the artist
Speaker 1: is gonna be here, like a minute, what you got,
Speaker 1: I'm trying to I'm trying to find something. I can
Speaker 1: figure it out, so I'm doing this. I'm gonna pick
Speaker 1: him up. He get in the car, He's like, what
Speaker 1: you got? I'm like, shit, I don't really got nothing,
Speaker 1: but I was listening to this and I think we
Speaker 1: should make this the hook. He's like what, I'm like,
Speaker 1: this part right here, screaming through the sun, roof money anything.
Speaker 1: That's how I feel right now. He's like, all right, okay,
Speaker 1: And I'm not even paying attention to him. He wrote
Speaker 1: his REP without even hearing the beat. He's writing his
Speaker 1: REP as we riding to my house in his mind,
Speaker 1: his mind doing that. I'm like, what is this nigga?
Speaker 1: But I'm not really paying attention. I'm thinking he listened
Speaker 1: to the music. I'm playing whatever. We get to my house,
Speaker 1: I take the Weekend the Knees beat, I looped that
Speaker 1: shit started to do. I'm like, we're gonna do it
Speaker 1: on this beat. He's like, all right, what an engineer.
Speaker 1: I'm like, what, Look, we just got here. He's like
Speaker 1: I'm ready, I tell the engineer, I'm say he ready
Speaker 1: that nigga wanted to booth two minutes after we got
Speaker 1: to my house. Verse Lad, I'm like, when the fuck
Speaker 1: did you write this verse? Because, by the way, I'm
Speaker 1: not even realizing that what he did I do all
Speaker 1: the time already, but I'm still using. I'm still I'm
Speaker 1: writing on paper. I'm still believing that it's got to
Speaker 1: be on paper. And just the first time I seen
Speaker 1: him do this, this no writing ship. So I'm like, this, nigga,
Speaker 1: this nigga must have had a verse already, said give
Speaker 1: me an old lass verse, but I ain't say nothing.
Speaker 1: The verse was hot, right, So then I had to
Speaker 1: write my verse, and I'm like, shit, I got this
Speaker 1: nigga rapping, like he's really rapping. Jad you're gonna do this,
Speaker 1: you gotta goddamn rap. So then I had to start
Speaker 1: writing me a rap. I'm trying to write me a
Speaker 1: wrap that sound like I'm in I'm with this at
Speaker 1: least at least I'm writing around in there. So I'm
Speaker 1: trying to get that. I get my verse and then
Speaker 1: he give me a third verse. I ain't got no
Speaker 1: more lyrics than me that day. So the third verse
Speaker 1: he leave without hearing my third part on the song.
Speaker 1: But yeah, that's how the Money Anything came. So once
Speaker 1: we finished the song, all I wanted for my career
Speaker 1: was to be placed in the same space as real rappers.
Speaker 1: I didn't care if the records were number one. I
Speaker 1: didn't care if they was. I thought that was all
Speaker 1: for my artists. What I wanted I wanted people to
Speaker 1: respect me for where I came from. I'm a hip
Speaker 1: hop person, right. So I'm listening to DJ clue tape
Speaker 1: and I'm like, shit, if I put a rap record out,
Speaker 1: I want to be number one song on Clue Tape.
Speaker 1: I want him to play my record. This's gonna be
Speaker 1: the first song on the mixtape. That's all I cared about.
Speaker 1: So we finished Money Anything. I called a clue. I'm like, yo,
Speaker 1: I got one. I need this to be the first
Speaker 1: song on the mixtape. I sent it to him. He's like,
Speaker 1: you got it, you got one. I'm like, yes, I
Speaker 1: go to Columbia. I go to Columbia. I'm like, this
Speaker 1: is my first single. Hey looking. They said why hm?
Speaker 1: I said, ship, why not? It's jay Z?
Speaker 4: Yeah?
Speaker 1: They like, who the fuck is jay Z.
Speaker 4: No way, he not on the radar yet. What I'm saying,
Speaker 4: not on that radar.
Speaker 1: Yeah, he's not on the radar yet. I'm like, who
Speaker 1: the fuck is jay Z? I'm like, he the hottest
Speaker 1: little the hottest underground nigga from New York. What's going on, Jamaine?
Speaker 1: You have a song? Right, you have songs with this person?
Speaker 1: Why are you trying to make a song with jay Z?
Speaker 1: We don't even know who he is, but.
Speaker 3: You gotta remember, I'm in the d m V. Jay
Speaker 3: Z is a thing for us. Yeah, so when that
Speaker 3: song dropped.
Speaker 4: For sure, for the streets, for sure, we're talking about
Speaker 4: Riot carry also keeps the lights on it and your
Speaker 4: main you have a record with her, get it?
Speaker 1: Yeah, I get it. Y'all supposed to be coming with
Speaker 1: it four July. Yeah, I give them money anything. They
Speaker 1: don't have no real enthusiastic action for me. But I'm like, cool,
Speaker 1: I don't give a fuck. I'm on a clue tape.
Speaker 1: It's gonna be the first song on clue tape. Were good.
Speaker 1: That's all I cared about. And then you know, money
Speaker 1: anything came out and I feel like that's my that's
Speaker 1: my biggest non number one record. I feel like the
Speaker 1: record one. No what I'm saying, but by the way,
Speaker 1: it's a it's like a classic rap song, and I
Speaker 1: feel I feel like, thank you. I feel like for
Speaker 1: to have that, you gotta have some kind of you know,
Speaker 1: I'm not considered as like the poppy rap and they
Speaker 1: do might look at me like I'm a poppy rap guy.
Speaker 1: They look at these rap songs like they real raps.
Speaker 1: And that's that's all I wanted. That's all I cared about.
Speaker 1: So I was I'm completely pleased with that.
Speaker 3: Now that record worked. You come to d NB, that
Speaker 3: record work.
Speaker 1: The d m V oh yeah, oh yeah, it's definitely work.
Speaker 4: Let's let's get to the brothers. Let's get to the brothers.
Speaker 1: Okay. So in the midst of this yeah, Candy comes
Speaker 1: and says, I got a group I want you to see.
Speaker 1: I'm like, okay, cool, you they good. She's like, yeah,
Speaker 1: they good. They twins. I'm like, okay, cool. She bring
Speaker 1: the twins to my house. They get up in front
Speaker 1: of me and they saying and I'm like, I don't
Speaker 1: really know what to do with y'ad.
Speaker 4: It's just them too.
Speaker 1: No, it's a whole groupp Okay, yeah, but I'm you know,
Speaker 1: I never did a male group before, so I don't
Speaker 1: know what to do with them niggas. Only thing I
Speaker 1: could think about was that I said, okay, good, I'm
Speaker 1: gonna sign y'all. I signed them and we got the studio.
Speaker 1: Now me, I don't know what to do with them,
Speaker 1: so I start doing what I did with the skate right.
Speaker 1: Kate could come to my house and sing a cappella
Speaker 1: and I put a beat, scratched some from the turntables
Speaker 1: and put a beat under there. Jagged came to my
Speaker 1: house and the first session, I never forget this. The
Speaker 1: first session we got the biggest argument ever, and them
Speaker 1: niggas turned me into an R and B junkie based
Speaker 1: on that. That's when I became R and B guy.
Speaker 1: Like they singing and I try to put a beat
Speaker 1: under there, and Branding Bro was like, man, we ain't escaped,
Speaker 1: we ain't fucking escape. We want some chords, we want
Speaker 1: some up, we want some shit, And I was just like, damn,
Speaker 1: I don't know how to do that shit. Just what
Speaker 1: I know how to do? You know what I mean?
Speaker 1: And it's just like nah, man, And it was like
Speaker 1: we got an argument cause I'm like, Nigga, that's the
Speaker 1: shit that worked. I want to hear y'all niggas sing
Speaker 1: over this beatn that ain't R and B. Nick da
Speaker 1: ain't what we're trying to do. We were R and
Speaker 1: B group, and I was like, oh, okay, R and
Speaker 1: B group. So did I start doing my little studying
Speaker 1: And I started working with Jagged. We did the Way
Speaker 1: you Make Me Feel, the Way the Way You Feel,
Speaker 1: or something like I think that's the first song. I
Speaker 1: don't remember this, Yeah, And I put me in Brad
Speaker 1: on the song that's the first time they came out,
Speaker 1: and that song didn't work right. It got a little buzz,
Speaker 1: but it didn't work because I also was trying to
Speaker 1: figure out how do I market this record right? So
Speaker 1: I was thinking like, oh, I got to be able
Speaker 1: to put it somewhere where I'm gonna be able to
Speaker 1: put my hands on it and do it the same
Speaker 1: way things. So I put me in Brad on the
Speaker 1: song thinking that it was gonna go to that channel.
Speaker 1: It was lukewarm. It didn't do nothing. And then we
Speaker 1: shot a video for I Gotta Be Right. We shot
Speaker 1: a video for Gotta Be and it wasn't crazy yet.
Speaker 1: The video was just like a regular the video, but
Speaker 1: the song went to R and B radio and they
Speaker 1: came back and they it was like they liked this song,
Speaker 1: this song could work, but the video ain't good. Right,
Speaker 1: So then we shot another video for the song and
Speaker 1: put Desny Child in there. They got Deyonce and you know,
Speaker 1: we got got them because they they on Columbia, so
Speaker 1: they want to barter the energy and gotta Be took
Speaker 1: off and gotta be became jagged, first number one record
Speaker 1: that I But through this whole process, I'm learning chords.
Speaker 1: I'm learning, We're going, I'm going deep down in R
Speaker 1: and B. I mean I was already you know, Eddy
Speaker 1: Rides my idol, Quincy's my idol. I was there, but
Speaker 1: I'm still like so hip hop. I was like not,
Speaker 1: I don't like a lot of that shit. I don't
Speaker 1: like all them pretty ass chords and this, that and
Speaker 1: the That's that was my mentality. But them niggas, maybe
Speaker 1: I had to get into it. So I start we
Speaker 1: making records, were making records every day, you know what
Speaker 1: I mean. We did the the The Gap Band remake
Speaker 1: because them niggas sounded like you know what I mean,
Speaker 1: Charlie to me and we just started. I just start
Speaker 1: getting into R and B, just doing Manuel, come on,
Speaker 1: let's get some deeper cards chords, let's go, let's go,
Speaker 1: and Jacket they really the ones that got me, like
Speaker 1: on my R and B really did to be No, No,
Speaker 1: they wrote all the songs. Jagged wrote all these.
Speaker 5: Songs, and that that album that was really a wake
Speaker 5: up call to the industry about Jagged Edge though everybody
Speaker 5: was paying attention. Yeah, once that second album came out,
Speaker 5: it was like legit, Yeah, these these these guys.
Speaker 1: Yeah, yeah, I mean we're still it still was tough
Speaker 1: though that, like Keys to the Rains didn't really do
Speaker 1: what we wanted it to do. So I just so
Speaker 1: this is also me. I'm nervous because you know, me
Speaker 1: and Manuel did got to be so their first number
Speaker 1: one record was me and Manuel, Me and be Cox
Speaker 1: never did a record with them like that, right, So
Speaker 1: we end up working. I'm just nervous. I'm like, but
Speaker 1: they had success with a ballot. People fucking with them
Speaker 1: on the ballots. We got to make another ballot. The
Speaker 1: day before that, I had just gotten argue with my
Speaker 1: girlfriend about me working in the studio all late at night,
Speaker 1: and she's sending me messages like I hope the studio
Speaker 1: keep you warm at night. Niggas. You you know you
Speaker 1: you act like you're gonna be young forever. You ain't
Speaker 1: getting no younger, niggas, Let's get married, And I'm like,
Speaker 1: fuck out of here. Right response is hilario. I'm real.
Speaker 1: I'm like, nah, God.
Speaker 4: You don't know who you're talking to. I think I've
Speaker 4: seen that same text before.
Speaker 1: I'm like, I'm like, I get it. So we had
Speaker 1: the same reaction. So I'm like, I'm like, oh, girls
Speaker 1: want to be married, like I felt she she maye
Speaker 1: really believe that women wanted to be married. Yes, they want.
Speaker 1: Their destination is to get that ring. Right, I'm mad.
Speaker 1: I'm having this conversation. Brian started playing these chords now
Speaker 1: called jack we gotta do this song called Let's Get married.
Speaker 1: They like what I'm like, Yeah, they come, I got
Speaker 1: the hook and they fucking with it and they start writing,
Speaker 1: let's get married.
Speaker 4: Let's talk about this might as well line.
Speaker 3: That's the line minus a way wig and no young
Speaker 3: we might as well like depending on what city you in,
Speaker 3: minus well minus well on.
Speaker 1: Line.
Speaker 5: It's classic but it strikes this chord in women. Have
Speaker 5: you ever had a conversation with a woman about let's
Speaker 5: get married.
Speaker 3: I haven't because it's like might as well, because you
Speaker 3: don't understand that.
Speaker 4: Women don't get that. A lot of times.
Speaker 3: The man at that point is just folding, right, he's
Speaker 3: just fun holding under the pressure. He's got the text.
Speaker 3: He didn't answer. He wanted to keep his woman. It's
Speaker 3: I might as well ship.
Speaker 1: Come on, yeah, I mean that's what That's what it
Speaker 1: said to me. She said it, and from there that
Speaker 1: let's get married, and me writing what I got out
Speaker 1: of that conversation with her led me into like my
Speaker 1: writing style of today, and it just led me into like, Okay,
Speaker 1: I'm gonna start putting into life into the song.
Speaker 4: Yeah what you have?
Speaker 1: But you absolutely have my brother? Oh my god.
Speaker 4: Okay, so let's get married. It's going crazy.
Speaker 3: Yeah, what makes you say? This is how we remix
Speaker 3: this song?
Speaker 1: Man? Okay, so let's get This is wedding.
Speaker 4: Reception song.
Speaker 1: By the way, it's not a pretty picture for me
Speaker 1: because in the midst of this him Hicks caused me
Speaker 1: and said, I got this new group, and I'm like, cool,
Speaker 1: I'm not thinking about the group being competition the jacket is,
Speaker 1: but whatever, I'm just trying to do projects. He's like,
Speaker 1: I need you to do a remix. I'm like what.
Speaker 1: He's like, this group drew here. They got the song
Speaker 1: called Sleeping in My Bed, the song number one, but
Speaker 1: we need we need to up tempo remix. And I'm like, oh,
Speaker 1: we need something, we need something to keep you know,
Speaker 1: give us some more legs mix sure type of shit.
Speaker 1: And I'm like, okay, all right. I start going back
Speaker 1: to do what I do. I start messing with the turntables.
Speaker 1: I find a beat. I'm like, yeah, you need to
Speaker 1: fly them to Atlanta and we're going I'm gonna have
Speaker 1: them re sing it. And they flew. They all flew
Speaker 1: to Atlanta, but the only person came to the studio
Speaker 1: was Cisco. Huh.
Speaker 4: Interesting.
Speaker 1: So Cisco come to the studio and I'm like, where
Speaker 1: the rest of the group at. He's like, I don't
Speaker 1: need to do play the beat?
Speaker 4: That was the comment, LL give you a playat.
Speaker 1: Was I was? You know, I'm like, okay, it wasn't
Speaker 1: like a disc. It wasn't like it wasn't like a disc,
Speaker 1: but it was just like I got it I got it.
Speaker 1: I got it right. So I said, all we're gonna
Speaker 1: do it to this beat, and I started playing the
Speaker 1: boom boom, and he's like, and I said, you gotta chance,
Speaker 1: you gotta make lyrics go to this beat. So so
Speaker 1: I'm like, ship me and practically get on.
Speaker 4: This motherfucker m.
Speaker 1: All right. So everybody mad going. So we're going and
Speaker 1: we make a remix. Right this remix comes out, us
Speaker 1: should call me, why the fuck you give them that
Speaker 1: song like this? Cause I didn't give him a song.
Speaker 1: Now you gave them that beat. Get out of here, Okay.
Speaker 1: Ma USh is mad to this day about this song.
Speaker 1: This is gonna be You ain't have to give them
Speaker 1: that beat. Jagged comes to the studio while you get
Speaker 1: them niggas that beat. I'm like, what you're talking about
Speaker 1: that day that it's a competition and you're gonna help them.
Speaker 1: So I'm like, oh fuck, I'm like, y'all got a
Speaker 1: number one record right now? Nah funk that you gave
Speaker 1: them niggas that beat. So then I'm I'm I'm feeling bad.
Speaker 1: I'm feeling bad. I feel like I done let my
Speaker 1: guys down. You did, you did let me?
Speaker 4: Looking at it from the outside. Yeah, I'm giving I'm
Speaker 4: playing devil you did, okay.
Speaker 1: You gotta group who's in competition with another for a
Speaker 1: guid group. I didn't know that is mass though. I
Speaker 1: didn't know something. I'm just this point. I'm just doing.
Speaker 1: It's a remix.
Speaker 4: It doesn't matter, it doesn't.
Speaker 1: I don't know that. You don't know what that's gonna happen.
Speaker 1: It's a remix.
Speaker 4: Niggas called your man for a reason, brother.
Speaker 1: But it's a remix alright, So I'm not actually thinking
Speaker 1: that it's gonna translate into what it translated.
Speaker 4: Is.
Speaker 1: It starts turn it crazy, going crazy every club, every radio, stage,
Speaker 1: evers club. Then the song, the remix replaced the original
Speaker 1: in number one, So now it's really a hit like
Speaker 1: what it is, right, jagged. It's fucked up, man. Every
Speaker 1: time I see them, that's what the conversation is. That's
Speaker 1: fucked up. You gave them that song, gave him that song.
Speaker 1: So then I'm like, I gotta find it. I gotta
Speaker 1: remix one of these niggas records. I gotta do something.
Speaker 1: I gotta figure it out. I gotta make it. I
Speaker 1: gotta make them niggas a killer remix. We gotta do it.
Speaker 1: So we started getting in the studio, me and Marcus
Speaker 1: Jefferson Mark he put the run DMC. We ain't gotta
Speaker 1: change the lyrics.
Speaker 4: Make it.
Speaker 1: Oh wait, do it work?
Speaker 2: Yeah, Okay, I'm saying like, ah god, Yeah, That's why
Speaker 2: I said.
Speaker 1: I'm saying it because I'm like, oh, I got it.
Speaker 1: These niggas got it, uh see first of all these.
Speaker 1: So that's how the remix came about. I had to
Speaker 1: do it because they was on my head and I had.
Speaker 4: The fine, greatest remix of all.
Speaker 5: Time, really worked really well under pressure. Brother, Yeah, yes, yes,
Speaker 5: I don't know that those two remixes. Nobody has R
Speaker 5: and B remixes like that. It's only other, only other
Speaker 5: R and B remix that's even mentioned is the Jodasy remix.
Speaker 1: I mean with s WV Michael Jackson ship.
Speaker 5: Amazing, amazing. Not for the streets. It's not for the streets.
Speaker 5: That's not a street record, you know what I'm saying,
Speaker 5: Like this is literally these are R and B hip
Speaker 5: hop remix record real, you know what I'm saying. And
Speaker 5: Jodasy was the only one before that that had that. Yeah,
Speaker 5: that still gets played that I can think of now,
Speaker 5: you know, listen the comment section, go go crazy one.
Speaker 3: That was good, not in the same vein no, not
Speaker 3: the way that you did it, but that was that
Speaker 3: was kind of groundbreaking.
Speaker 4: R Kelly down.
Speaker 1: Low Oh yeah yeah, yeah, yes, yes, yeah, yeh R Kelly.
Speaker 4: But in going back to our original conversation.
Speaker 3: To this day, there's nowhere you can't go where somebody
Speaker 3: has just got married and that song doesness play. It's
Speaker 3: the reception record impossible. It's a reception, not a real reception,
Speaker 3: black white Latino age. I don't care what you want
Speaker 3: to play that playing that.
Speaker 1: So this song comes out jacks, aren't you know? It's
Speaker 1: a they ballot group. They having success more on ballots
Speaker 1: then stations like Power one, those six, han in l
Speaker 1: A pick Up, Let's Get Married, Got Run Reverend, Run
Speaker 1: on It, Jagged. The start doing interviews at probably one
Speaker 1: six they doing km yea. They start hitting these other stations.
Speaker 1: They don't want to make no more slow records.
Speaker 4: I respect that's what they said. Yeah, like no, no,
Speaker 4: now we've seen the world.
Speaker 1: Yeah yeah, we don't want to make no more slow records. Yeah.
Speaker 1: I'm like that's what y'all make. No fuck that.
Speaker 4: Respect, so they go back to the hip hop ship
Speaker 4: that you wanted.
Speaker 1: To do it. Yeah, okay, okay, I see you're going
Speaker 1: with you, JD.
Speaker 4: Your top five R and B singers, singers, singers, singers.
Speaker 1: Michael mm hmmm, Luther mm, Stevie, Yes, yes, sir, are
Speaker 1: Kelly and hush.
Speaker 3: Ye I gotta cover everything that we felt about covering. Yeah, yeah,
Speaker 3: cover the spectrum of okay okay got through to singers.
Speaker 1: I mean, I want people to know us just really
Speaker 1: serious about singing, like I you know, he really takes
Speaker 1: that singing ship serious, like he really be practicing, really
Speaker 1: doing like he really takes it just like you're just
Speaker 1: like from watching you do this for y'all to see
Speaker 1: him do that and make a song like that off top.
Speaker 1: That means he could write. He writes about anything. He
Speaker 1: never you never had writers black because you have no
Speaker 1: fear of just saying whatever's right on you at that time, right,
Speaker 1: And that's that's that's the that's a genius in writing.
Speaker 4: Your top five R and B songs.
Speaker 1: I'm gonna go with this one first because I've been
Speaker 1: thinking about it and be talking about it. This lady
Speaker 1: in my life, the Rolling Stone said, speak on it,
Speaker 1: speak on it. I don't know what you niggas talking about,
Speaker 1: first of all, but just the ad libs on that
Speaker 1: record is so R and B. The nigga might say,
Speaker 1: stay right here with me, stay right here with me,
Speaker 1: don't you go nowhere? That's people.
Speaker 6: Yeah, yeah, yeah, stay right here with me. Yeah, forever,
Speaker 6: all over and over. That song is like, it's the
Speaker 6: most R and B ship ever. I don't even understand
Speaker 6: how you can say that, but that's that's one of
Speaker 6: my favorite songs.
Speaker 4: That's all I can think of. They don't click.
Speaker 3: Somebody there believe that dumb ship should be reprimanded, and
Speaker 3: whoever proof Reddit, they should reprimanded them. To whoever printed there,
Speaker 3: we can find out the name.
Speaker 1: Oh yeah, now they have the name of my comments.
Speaker 1: They definitely told me. Then another Michael song is human Nature.
Speaker 1: These crazy songs.
Speaker 4: Mike, I got two of them in the time.
Speaker 1: My style of R and B, so I gotta go
Speaker 1: with like, make it last forever.
Speaker 5: Said, yeah, it makes perfect sense, It makes perfect.
Speaker 1: This is the type of R and B records I like.
Speaker 1: Top five it's hard but less Wait a while, Yeah, yeah,
Speaker 1: crazy song, crazy song, crazy song, like crazy Jim Lewis's musicians.
Speaker 1: They somewhere else for that technicition.
Speaker 4: Mm hmm the remix.
Speaker 1: Mmmmmmm. Usually I don't do this. It don't get no
Speaker 1: better than that. That's a motherfucking song right there. B, well, no,
Speaker 1: it's crazy to her hands through my So I've never
Speaker 1: I got this one thing I was gonna talk to
Speaker 1: you about that. I wanted to come here to talk.
Speaker 1: How do we get R and B on one accord?
Speaker 1: And why do you think it's separated? There's a certain
Speaker 1: group of guys. It's a certain group because another grides
Speaker 1: that don't actually coincide with each other, and don't I
Speaker 1: don't for the life of me. Rap is not like that,
Speaker 1: right if the rapper's over here, this rappers trying to
Speaker 1: get on the same space as this person. But R
Speaker 1: and B. We got these five artists on this side,
Speaker 1: on this side that don't really swing in this space
Speaker 1: of the artists that's on this side. And I feel
Speaker 1: like that's what dampers R and B from being successful.
Speaker 1: And I'm saying it more like with your challenge. The challenge.
Speaker 1: The challenge is where I believe I'm really seeing it
Speaker 1: because I'm like, Okay, so I see the people that's
Speaker 1: doing it, But which one of these guys that's on
Speaker 1: his left side gonna take this challenge?
Speaker 3: You're thinking, you were thinking the same thing I was thinking.
Speaker 3: I was like, I haven't added some people like.
Speaker 1: Yeah, so that's what I'm saying. Why what do you What
Speaker 1: do you think is what's the reason that it won't
Speaker 1: it don't happen?
Speaker 4: I think that.
Speaker 3: I think that R and B guys, most R and
Speaker 3: BIG guys aren't from a competitive space. RAP guys are
Speaker 3: from a competitive space. RAP is let's get this cipher
Speaker 3: and let's go at it on the street. Most of
Speaker 3: these guys, most of R and B guys, especially from
Speaker 3: where we're from, would just be the one plucked out
Speaker 3: of this place, one plucked out of this church, you
Speaker 3: know what I'm saying. Or maybe this this do wop
Speaker 3: group or whatever. But in in our arena, there is
Speaker 3: no specific space where we actually build a camaraderie competing
Speaker 3: against each other, and so that's what makes it hard
Speaker 3: for us to come together and collaborate.
Speaker 4: Right.
Speaker 3: And then the other nuance that I think is very
Speaker 3: very looked over is that a lot of R and
Speaker 3: B guys didn't play sports like me and him got
Speaker 3: close because we were ultimate competitors on the basketball court,
Speaker 3: and I was like, oh I rap this nig anywhere
Speaker 3: on a song, Nigga through the hood whatever. I know
Speaker 3: his level of competition, like what he what he bled?
Speaker 4: I bled? I always do whatever with.
Speaker 3: Him and guys that don't have that.
Speaker 4: He's all.
Speaker 3: He's my ultimate point guard. I don't need the ball
Speaker 3: if I know he got the ball, kill him, kills niggas.
Speaker 4: I'll run the floor, nigga, I'll play lockdown defense. I
Speaker 4: could never get the ball. I will never scream it.
Speaker 4: They like nigga go crazy, you see me, get it
Speaker 4: to me. But that's the.
Speaker 3: Team, you know, the gamesmanship that we're missing.
Speaker 5: We were never taught that R and B was a
Speaker 5: team sport, and it got it is and it's gotten
Speaker 5: even more water down that we don't even have groups, right,
Speaker 5: so you don't even see that camaraderie. You don't even
Speaker 5: see the guys in the group together. But I also
Speaker 5: blame it on you know, because yes, I come from
Speaker 5: the creative side, and I've done all these things on
Speaker 5: the creative side, but I also consider myself an executive.
Speaker 5: It's also the executives false because they've kept artists away.
Speaker 4: From each other. I don't get on that song.
Speaker 5: It's always a manager, it's always an executive. Maybe they're
Speaker 5: not always black. That's saying hey, no, no, no, no, no,
Speaker 5: this is your space.
Speaker 4: Yep.
Speaker 5: This this you don't share that light yep, instead of
Speaker 5: saying this is all of our life. We're stronger together, homies,
Speaker 5: even making phone calls, calling Tank, calling Usher, calling Chris,
Speaker 5: calling Trey, calling Rob when he was out, like literally
Speaker 5: making those phone calls and saying, hey, man, you know
Speaker 5: nigga I was I was with such after that nigga cooler,
Speaker 5: motherfucker bro y'all niggas need to We haven't really had
Speaker 5: that in the R and B space. I've lived in
Speaker 5: a rap space. I've done records, you know what I mean.
Speaker 5: I've had artist signed you of course you have. You know,
Speaker 5: it's a different world. Two R and B niggas aren't
Speaker 5: picking each other up from the from the airport ship
Speaker 5: you said earlier, A nigga is not taking the underground
Speaker 5: R and B singer who he thinks is on his
Speaker 5: way up and saying.
Speaker 4: I'm gonna pick that nigga from the airport we're gonna
Speaker 4: do a record together. I'm gonna fight my label.
Speaker 3: He gonna get the first single over the biggest artists
Speaker 3: in the world right now.
Speaker 1: But why why you think that is? Why you think
Speaker 1: they Why why you think that?
Speaker 5: Why you think it's learned behavior. I think it's learned
Speaker 5: behavior because that's just what it's been. It's just it's
Speaker 5: just what it's been for so long that now these
Speaker 5: conversations though of you saying why now opens up the
Speaker 5: floodgate for niggas to make those phone calls. You know
Speaker 5: what I'm saying, us having this platform where we talk
Speaker 5: about you know where James foin le Roy says he
Speaker 5: wants to work on the New Warrior project and then
Speaker 5: they do a project together.
Speaker 4: You get what I'm saying.
Speaker 5: Where now these these connected worlds and these conversations because
Speaker 5: what we say here goes out.
Speaker 3: But then you know that leadership also reflects that too,
Speaker 3: because whoever's back then, whoever was holding the mantle, kind
Speaker 3: of dictated how we operate. Yeah, you know what I mean,
Speaker 3: Like for take when Rob had to mantle what no
Speaker 3: other R and B nigga get none of that?
Speaker 4: Good luck?
Speaker 3: I am king and niggas who've stood on that I
Speaker 3: am king when I get the crown, when I get
Speaker 3: the crown, have always stood alone. The the first person
Speaker 3: that I've seen to operate like a full rapper and
Speaker 3: say let's get it in, send it, I'll send it
Speaker 3: back to you.
Speaker 4: Tomorrow's Chris Brown. He's the first person.
Speaker 3: I don't Nigga rap, afro beat, R and B Nigga
Speaker 3: country song said it.
Speaker 4: If I'm fucking with it, I'm fucking with it.
Speaker 1: I don't.
Speaker 4: I don't. I don't care if you need even signed.
Speaker 4: It's rock.
Speaker 1: I mean, that's and that's that's how it should be.
Speaker 1: That's what I don't n That's what I'm saying. I
Speaker 1: don't understand it. Like even like I said, with your
Speaker 1: challenge right now, I'm waiting to see one of these
Speaker 1: artists do it. I'm saying, I don't understand what the
Speaker 1: that come.
Speaker 4: A lot of that too comes from fear.
Speaker 1: What fear? Fear?
Speaker 4: What Singing is different from rapping.
Speaker 1: It is one you gotta you gotta know how to
Speaker 1: some like sound on here.
Speaker 4: Rapping has gotten to a point where.
Speaker 1: Anybody can do it. Yeah, everybody can't sing.
Speaker 4: Because it's some really good singers that don't sound good
Speaker 4: on that challenge. Listen. And then when Mario just did it.
Speaker 3: Got busy, he put he he puts some additional fear,
Speaker 3: ain't mess ain't messed with that. He did with that challenge.
Speaker 3: That's that challenge. But I'm looking for, like you said,
Speaker 3: cats at though, what cat's at?
Speaker 1: Yeah?
Speaker 3: Or it's like I don't want to do that's Chris Brown.
Speaker 3: I ain't trying, you know what I'm saying. Let him
Speaker 3: have that. No, it's us. It all contributes to the
Speaker 3: pot the bigger. This is the bigger we all are,
Speaker 3: which is what this challenge is showing you.
Speaker 1: Yeah, no, we need it.
Speaker 5: We needed conversations changed that because these conversations make people
Speaker 5: look at these things differently. Maybe it's not this specific challenge,
Speaker 5: but maybe it's the next one. Or maybe guys are like, Okay,
Speaker 5: you know what I'm in on that? Yeah, fucking with that.
Speaker 5: You know what I do, got a record that I need.
Speaker 5: We'll wop on and we should do some shit together,
Speaker 5: and we should tour together, and we should like the
Speaker 5: thing that you and your father created, the screen tour.
Speaker 5: The fact that it's still going this long, right, it's amazing,
Speaker 5: But it shouldn't only it shouldn't take artists twenty years
Speaker 5: to jump on these tours together. We got to have that.
Speaker 4: Now, bro.
Speaker 3: But why is the Superfest Drew Hill, Genuine, Aliyah, Mary
Speaker 3: j Bone, Thugs and Harmony, all platinum artists, all with
Speaker 3: number one records?
Speaker 1: Yeah, all of them. I mean that's soop fest though,
Speaker 1: that's what you know.
Speaker 3: But I'm just saying we got we need it, We
Speaker 3: need all summer, we need it.
Speaker 4: Where is the tour right now where it's not I'm
Speaker 4: the big artists and I.
Speaker 3: Got four little guys under me where it's really collaborative.
Speaker 4: Where at any night it's anybody's night, right and you who?
Speaker 4: And they don't care about who's closing, don't matter who closing.
Speaker 4: We can rotate this motherfucker if you want.
Speaker 1: To wet threat, we got a threat to. We gotta
Speaker 1: get to that space DVD. I'll be shure Bobby Brown
Speaker 1: that she was a tour right there? Come on, that
Speaker 1: was that.
Speaker 3: Was who gonna get it? Well, listen, I watched Bobby
Speaker 3: Brown go crazy right before a new edition, go nuts
Speaker 3: on their Heartbreak tour. Wouldn't lead a stage pants with
Speaker 3: the with the with the fucking thing down here. Hair
Speaker 3: shoot hair shoot pants.
Speaker 4: Yeah, we gotta get back to that. We gotta, we
Speaker 4: got to continue these conversations.
Speaker 1: Yeah, I'm gonna try to do my best, you know
Speaker 1: what I mean, i'mna try to do my part, keep
Speaker 1: doing my part, try to make it. You gotta get
Speaker 1: it back into the you know, make sure the R
Speaker 1: and B R and B gotta get back to the
Speaker 1: forefront for sure.
Speaker 3: Two more things from you. Let's make a volt trime man.
Speaker 3: Let's make your super R and B artist. Man, Making
Speaker 3: your super R and B artist Where you're gonna get
Speaker 3: the vocal from performance style styling, the drip of the
Speaker 3: artist who's gonna produce and rite for this motherfucker you're
Speaker 3: super R and B artist. One vocal that you would
Speaker 3: make that you would take to make your super.
Speaker 1: Artists Your voice would be r kelly mm hmm.
Speaker 4: Performance style.
Speaker 1: Yeah, the performance style would be.
Speaker 4: We see.
Speaker 1: Performance style. I'm gonna go with Michael.
Speaker 4: Hmmm, Rob Michael.
Speaker 1: A lot. He ain't gonna a lot of people don't
Speaker 1: go with that because they didn't really actually see him.
Speaker 4: No, what you mean a lot of people do go
Speaker 4: with that.
Speaker 1: Yeah, But I'm saying, majority of people don't they never
Speaker 1: really seen Michael.
Speaker 3: Actually like video of Michael is still it's still better.
Speaker 1: Live. I'm saying to be there. It's a whole different
Speaker 1: ball game.
Speaker 4: The styling of the artists, and she liked to put
Speaker 4: groups in Dickie suits. Yeah, whose style you're taken for that?
Speaker 1: Kanye mm.
Speaker 4: Risk taker Mmmm. He be a star. He be a star.
Speaker 1: Niggas start it, won't be a star you got you know?
Speaker 1: I mean, Kanye is one on one man. He's one
Speaker 1: on one. Don't niggas feel about him? One on one
Speaker 1: is who he is? Yeah.
Speaker 4: Uh, the passion of the artist, heart of the artists,
Speaker 4: who means it.
Speaker 1: I'm gonna go with print mm hmm.
Speaker 4: Yeah, that's a real passion right there.
Speaker 1: Matter of fact, I'm gonna go back to the beginning.
Speaker 1: The R N, R and B is Stevie Wonder, So
Speaker 1: that voice has to be Stevee. He is the voice
Speaker 1: of R and B. He's made every type of R
Speaker 1: and B record that we everyone and he's created. It's
Speaker 1: it's his everything that everybody does piece pulled from Stevie Wonder.
Speaker 1: So I gotta give Stevie that he's the voice prince
Speaker 1: with the you know passion, the passion.
Speaker 3: You gotta be really passionate to sit on the horse
Speaker 3: but naked, yeah, because that had to hurt.
Speaker 1: Well, you gotta be passionate. Just I mean, Purple Ring
Speaker 1: was a passionate movie man. The idea of what he
Speaker 1: was doing, the love for performing, the love for putting
Speaker 1: it all into the music and doing the way he
Speaker 1: did it. We ain't ain't. We ain't seen nobody black
Speaker 1: do that. Yeah, you know.
Speaker 4: And who's writing and producing for this.
Speaker 1: Artist, Quincy and Rod Templeton. Yeah, yeah, yeah.
Speaker 4: That's pretty nasty.
Speaker 1: That's yeah, them boys bad Rod Templeton, Quincon Finishy.
Speaker 5: So we come to the very very important part of
Speaker 5: the show. All Right, you tell us a story, funnier,
Speaker 5: fucked up? Are funny and fucked up the only rude
Speaker 5: to the game. You can't say no name.
Speaker 1: Yeah, so this story, you know, if the cameras was around,
Speaker 1: life would be so much different, if y'all would us
Speaker 1: artist just you know, a group of individuals that came
Speaker 1: the studio to play basketball. It's a group of individuals
Speaker 1: that I'm in the studio working with the basketball individuals.
Speaker 1: They out there playing basketball, they're not paying no attention
Speaker 1: to what's going on in the studio. But they are
Speaker 1: some kind of way, but they're not really, you know,
Speaker 1: and I don't know, Like me, for the first time,
Speaker 1: I let all these motherfuckers in at the same time.
Speaker 1: I don't know why for the life of me, but
Speaker 1: I did. I let them niggas go play basketball while
Speaker 1: I'm in the studio doing what I'm supposed to be doing,
Speaker 1: knowing that's not safe, that's not what you're supposed to
Speaker 1: be doing. And one of them found in the studio
Speaker 1: that the other one was out there, and then they
Speaker 1: had a meeting in the middle studio that was like
Speaker 1: the most I don't even know how to say. It's
Speaker 1: just it's just crazy shit. Ever, the things that was said,
Speaker 1: the disrespect, the unbelievableness about this, I was in complete
Speaker 1: shock in my own studio.
Speaker 4: Like so, you didn't know that they didn't rock with
Speaker 4: each other.
Speaker 1: I did, but I didn't because it's always competitiveness. It's
Speaker 1: a competitiveness. We know it's a competitiveness. But to hear
Speaker 1: what was being said in front of the person and
Speaker 1: they right there in front of each other, it.
Speaker 4: Was mind blowing.
Speaker 1: And I will never have enough. I will never allow
Speaker 1: that to happen in my studio again. Somebody is at
Speaker 1: my studio, you in my studio and somebody say they
Speaker 1: want to come by artists. I'm now it's closed.
Speaker 4: I try.
Speaker 1: I had to let everybody in. And this was this
Speaker 1: could have been really bad. This could have really got bad.
Speaker 1: And I'm just gonna leave it at that. Let people
Speaker 1: try to figure this out. But this ship was wow.
Speaker 1: But nothing happened. Nothing happened, nothing happened, just disrespect. But
Speaker 1: the level of disrespect it was on a hundred, like unbelievable.
Speaker 1: By the way, there's no way possible that you could
Speaker 1: say the things that was being said and get shot
Speaker 1: it right, because it's no way that it's true. One
Speaker 1: artist is higher than the other artists. Just y'all can
Speaker 1: know this is one artist that's that's a you know
Speaker 1: what I mean. So it's no way possible that you
Speaker 1: can say, Oh, I ain't, I ain't never fuck with you.
Speaker 1: How how is this possible? There you go, I gotta
Speaker 1: know what the is going on? Yeah, what's true?
Speaker 4: It was rough for you to make up new rules.
Speaker 1: Because I mean, like I said, I never really I
Speaker 1: I never thought that this could get to this space, right,
Speaker 1: you know what I mean? I just thought that. You know,
Speaker 1: of course, everybody's competitive, everybody's making music, everybody trying to
Speaker 1: be the start. Nobody's more competitive than bow wow, right
Speaker 1: bow wow. Once he's he beef with me. He's so competitive,
Speaker 1: like you don't It's like, right, so you have people
Speaker 1: I'm I'm I'm used to that level because that's what
Speaker 1: it is. Everybody around me is they all competing for time,
Speaker 1: my time record. So I'm used to it. But this
Speaker 1: was this was some other ship. I just didn't I
Speaker 1: didn't expect it, and I walked in into it and
Speaker 1: I was just like, wow, okay, well how we keep
Speaker 1: this from being somebody head getting splattered or something in
Speaker 1: my studio because I ain't trying to do that. It
Speaker 1: was like that. It was just definitely crazy like that.
Speaker 1: I don't know if that's the story. I'll want to
Speaker 1: I can't say no.
Speaker 3: I can't say, you know, well, hey, man, manage your
Speaker 3: studio space properly.
Speaker 4: Okay.
Speaker 3: It was done in rival gangs, rival artists, rival group,
Speaker 3: controy your space.
Speaker 1: Man, make sure you let everybody per j D. Everybody
Speaker 1: do what they got to do.
Speaker 4: Insurance is to cover the type of ship that can
Speaker 4: go down.
Speaker 1: Oh God, disgusting.
Speaker 3: Man, Brother j D. We are appreciative of your time
Speaker 3: as we are as we are fans. First, we are
Speaker 3: those who you've inspired. You are you have been our
Speaker 3: steady guide and material. You've you've you've you've been the
Speaker 3: voice and the soundtrack to our lives. You continue to be.
Speaker 3: Got that ship out and you're you are one of
Speaker 3: the greatest.
Speaker 4: Of all times.
Speaker 1: Thank you, appreciate absolutely. And you know, my brother, my gosh,
Speaker 1: what is one of this one fifty?
Speaker 4: Right?
Speaker 1: It's what you told me.
Speaker 4: It's one fifty.
Speaker 1: It's it's one fifty. Congratulations.
Speaker 3: We needed you, listen, we needed you.
Speaker 1: Graduations. I gotta be I'll be back. I'll be back
Speaker 1: because this year I'm putting I'm I'm planning to put
Speaker 1: out more records this year then I put out and
Speaker 1: probably the last twenty years.
Speaker 5: Really ship just this year, you're gonna put out more
Speaker 5: record Yeah, I plan Come.
Speaker 3: On, I feel good about that. Yeah, I feel good
Speaker 3: about come on back there.
Speaker 4: You know what I'm saying. I feel good about you.
Speaker 4: Get your week. I'm getting it.
Speaker 1: You gotta get it a week. I'm signing Division.
Speaker 4: Yeah. Yeah, we rock with Division. Yeah yeah, we need
Speaker 4: a vision on the podcast.
Speaker 1: Yeah, I'm I'm churning them out.
Speaker 3: About that collapse. I think I hit him about something too.
Speaker 3: I was like, man, you know, if you got something
Speaker 3: on them, y'all working, let me get on that. And
Speaker 3: he ain't hit me back, he hit you back.
Speaker 1: Yeah, there you go. See now I'm coming to you
Speaker 1: Division exactly. Yeah, gotta come on, y'alla make sign Yeah
Speaker 1: now I'm going. I'm going. I'm trying to go crazy,
Speaker 1: you know what I mean. Like I said, I have
Speaker 1: a I have a goal if I go something's happened
Speaker 1: to me. I want my music plays.
Speaker 4: I love that there.
Speaker 1: I love it like for I just think that you
Speaker 1: know you can't that's a That's the thing that I
Speaker 1: want to do. Try to leave a real soundtrack like
Speaker 1: my soundtrack that people you could just play this all
Speaker 1: this music. That's the thing.
Speaker 4: I got an idea. I'm gonna say it on.
Speaker 1: Here, okay, oh yeah, I'm doing the Quincy Jones Tribute
Speaker 1: to Essence. My Quincy Jones Tribute to Essence will be
Speaker 1: the one I believe that everybody's been looking forward to saying.
Speaker 1: I thought Queen Latifa was amazing last night doings on
Speaker 1: down the road. But what I'm gonna do at essence,
Speaker 1: it's different than anything that y'all seen as far as
Speaker 1: a tribute to Quincy. And it's gonna really tie in
Speaker 1: the young people and the older people to understand who
Speaker 1: Quincy Jones is and what he was to me as
Speaker 1: a musician. And uh, I'm excited about that because it's
Speaker 1: gonna be you know, I'm bringing out them. You got.
Speaker 4: On?
Speaker 1: Come on?
Speaker 3: No, yeah, okay, what it is, go go goot without them.
Speaker 1: Come on, it's gonna get.
Speaker 4: Secret guard.
Speaker 3: Come on, yo, hold on, come on, man, James better
Speaker 3: believe it.
Speaker 1: Man, all right, yeah, we gotta go this. I gotta go.
Speaker 4: I'm just sending my tapes under my reel. I'm gonna
Speaker 4: get my bar.
Speaker 3: I'm gett right, yeah yeah, you dollar held of the ball.
Speaker 7: Got out of the bar. Come on, man, you look
Speaker 7: like a the bar. What you know we always shout
Speaker 7: out bunny, come on, you looking like a bar.
Speaker 4: We thank you, brother, man. We appreciate you.
Speaker 1: And you're not pro Like I said, I'm pro, keep
Speaker 1: r and b alive. I'm glad that y'all got this
Speaker 1: I'm glad that y'all got you know that y'all getting
Speaker 1: everybody on the show. Uh, when I'm glad that people
Speaker 1: coming here, I saw La he didn't even know that
Speaker 1: y'all had the whispers on here, like, you know what
Speaker 1: I mean. I like the fact that y'all have y'all
Speaker 1: hitting all. Yeah, you know what I mean, y'all hear
Speaker 1: from all angles. That's dope.
Speaker 5: And I depend on people like you to make phone
Speaker 5: calls that we don't we can't make some times and say,
Speaker 5: you know what, you need to go down to the
Speaker 5: R and B Money.
Speaker 4: Yeah, sit down with the brothers like that.
Speaker 1: Yeah, I'll be back when I come back. We're gonna
Speaker 1: talk about the whole ten new records. That's my goal, Ladies.
Speaker 3: My name is Tank Valentine and this is the R
Speaker 3: and B Money Podcast, the authority on all things.
Speaker 4: Yeah, R and B.
Speaker 3: Yeah yeah for the last thirty years huh and.
Speaker 1: Still yeah yeah and the new and the new both.
Speaker 4: Of them our brother.
Speaker 1: Yeah, thank you. Yes,