Speaker 1: Of Course, Love Supreme is a production of iHeartRadio. This
Speaker 1: classic episode was produced by the team at Pandora Ladies
Speaker 1: and Gentlemen. This is part one of two.
Speaker 2: Part QLs classic with the Man We All Know and
Speaker 2: Love Kwame. One of those.
Speaker 1: Bugged out illicit stories in classic hip hop. Every story
Speaker 1: Kwame tells, I mean, he goes through it all man
Speaker 1: has to be heard to be believed without further ado.
Speaker 1: This is part one Kwame's interview on QLs from October third,
Speaker 1: twenty eighteen.
Speaker 3: Enjoy Supremo, Supremo, Ro Supremo, Supremo, Ro Suprema Supremo, Ro
Speaker 3: Supremo Supremo. Roll call.
Speaker 4: Yeah yeah, kitchen, Yeah, it was cool.
Speaker 5: Supremo roll So Supremo.
Speaker 3: Roll Call.
Speaker 2: My name is Fante. Yeah, Joe texts I got you. Yeah,
Speaker 2: my only question? Yeah, where's Tasha? Roll roll call Bremo.
Speaker 2: Roll Call. My name is Sugar. Yeah, I'm a sweet thing.
Speaker 2: Yeah like Hawaiian Punch, Yeah, kool aid or Tang Supremo,
Speaker 2: roll So Son Supremo, roll call Unpaid Bill. Yeah, and
Speaker 2: we've gone too far.
Speaker 6: Yeah.
Speaker 2: When quest love eats dinner, Yeah at an oatmeal.
Speaker 5: But come Supremo roll call.
Speaker 2: That was all talking about rolls. My name yeah and
Speaker 2: the mic is mine.
Speaker 6: Yeah.
Speaker 2: I've been a fan of Kwame. Yeah since eighty nine.
Speaker 5: Supremo roll call, s agreement something Supremo roll.
Speaker 7: I'm like em yeah Kwame, Yeah, thank God for him.
Speaker 8: Yeah, talking about some day roll.
Speaker 5: So Supremo roll Supremo son s Supremo roll.
Speaker 4: No, my name is Kuame, y'all see me while Yeah,
Speaker 4: Quest put me on this spot with this free style.
Speaker 5: Roll Supremo Supremo roll call, Supremo Supremo roll call, Suprema
Speaker 5: So Sun Subpremo roll called Suprema.
Speaker 2: So sure, okay, So Bill just out at me. Yeah,
Speaker 2: I was eating oatmeal for your choices. Man, that's great. Yeah,
Speaker 2: that's fantastic. I saw eat oatmeal and I ordered a
Speaker 2: chicken a grilled chicken salad. Wait a minute, we're healthy.
Speaker 6: Yeah yeah yeah I can. I can eat now, you
Speaker 6: know what I mean? He just puts clothes, told me
Speaker 6: your tooth still hurting?
Speaker 2: No? No, no, no, no not now. Yeah. Weeks ago when
Speaker 2: I was absent, my bambacay kicked. Then I'm good. We
Speaker 2: were having the all important cream of weed versus steel
Speaker 2: cut oatmeal question. Wondering what exactly the steel cut referred to.
Speaker 1: I just don't like the marketing steel cut like. There's
Speaker 1: nothing tasty or advertising about.
Speaker 4: It's not try to market steal cut like free range.
Speaker 4: You know what I'm saying.
Speaker 8: Fifty for some not for nothing.
Speaker 7: There's a frozen version of still cut oatmell. You can
Speaker 7: get it a trader jails. It's really good. You just
Speaker 7: mirk away for two minutes. It was that trader Joe.
Speaker 4: You go, you can't get it an MP.
Speaker 7: Still something, yes, man, they call Audas in the East Coast,
Speaker 7: the A M p ouds.
Speaker 8: These is the place.
Speaker 1: Town you got associated, you know, yeah, the only place
Speaker 1: where we could talk about super market and markets before
Speaker 1: we even introduced our guests. Ladies to tell me this
Speaker 1: is another episode of course Love Supreme Quest Love, Say
Speaker 1: what's up?
Speaker 2: Team Supreme Solid okay uh.
Speaker 1: Today we have a favorite, a personal favorite of mine.
Speaker 8: He don't get bailed.
Speaker 2: But bigger than everybody, yeah, you know, and on the
Speaker 2: low for all of.
Speaker 1: The no, but for for all the props that I
Speaker 1: give to Daylight transforming my life.
Speaker 2: If you really.
Speaker 1: Inspect a lot of photos of me between eighty nine
Speaker 1: and I will say that our guests had a big
Speaker 1: hen and life and fashion choices. Yeah, I proudly rock that. Actually, Yeah,
Speaker 1: Teka and I. At one point the the U when
Speaker 1: we were Black to the Future, we went to hats
Speaker 1: and the bell for you to buy those hats with
Speaker 1: the hind with a propeller on it.
Speaker 2: Because Kwame rocked it.
Speaker 1: Ladies and gentlemen, welcome the legendary yo yo yeah kwalm course, yes,
Speaker 1: the man we all know love.
Speaker 2: What's up?
Speaker 4: Brood Man? How are you? Thank you for having me?
Speaker 2: Man? Thank you for doing this. You know this, this,
Speaker 2: this is this is honor for all of us. Thank you. Yeah.
Speaker 2: So where'd you grow up? Where did you grow up?
Speaker 2: I grew up in now is that my? How you're doing?
Speaker 2: Where'd you grow up? Let's go back to the beginning.
Speaker 2: Let's go back to the beginning. Where are you from?
Speaker 2: I don't know where you're from.
Speaker 4: I am from East Elmhurst slash Corona, Queens, New York.
Speaker 1: So you started out as in New York? Yes, okay, okay,
Speaker 1: you were born.
Speaker 4: Born in Queens. My whole family is in Queens. When
Speaker 4: I got my deal, I was in Queens and in
Speaker 4: height Seeing.
Speaker 2: And Philly a lot because it was and.
Speaker 4: They liked me, so I would be here a lot.
Speaker 1: No, seriously, at one point I was just like, maybe
Speaker 1: he's from Yayden.
Speaker 2: No, you know what it is.
Speaker 4: My manager Dave, who's here, he's from Yayden. And Tap
Speaker 4: Money who's also from yad and he wanted to say
Speaker 4: he's from West Philly, but he's lived in Yden more
Speaker 4: than West Philly. But anyway, Tat, Tat Money, I forgot right.
Speaker 8: You saw the video and I was.
Speaker 4: Like, is that yeah, so Tat was. I met Tat.
Speaker 4: I met Tat, Steady B and Cool C before I
Speaker 4: came out. I was tagging along with Kidd and Play
Speaker 4: and Herbie love Bug and they had a show in Richmond,
Speaker 4: Virginia with Steady and the show got snowed out so
Speaker 4: we were stuck in this We couldn't even get to
Speaker 4: the hotel, were stuck in the venue overnight, and we
Speaker 4: all just got cool and Tat was real cool, and
Speaker 4: I was like, hey, man, you know I got this,
Speaker 4: And I pulled out the poster board of the mock
Speaker 4: up of my first album cover. Yeah, you know, about
Speaker 4: to be coming out. Hopefully I can get to do
Speaker 4: shows with you. Guys and everything and steady and cool.
Speaker 4: See they were all right, but Tat was more personable,
Speaker 4: and then we just hung out. We wrapped all just
Speaker 4: pretty much all night. And then when my original DJ
Speaker 4: B flat wasn't able to rock with a anymore, our
Speaker 4: first person I called was Tack, So that became my
Speaker 4: Philly connection. And then I got went, started hanging out
Speaker 4: and Philly with Tack, got very cool with Eest chuck
Speaker 4: nice what he would and we all just was a
Speaker 4: little click. They were all yep.
Speaker 2: Leading to doom.
Speaker 4: They were all coming to my house. They would stay
Speaker 4: weeks at my house. I would stay weeks to their house.
Speaker 4: My mother wud be like, okay, one of your friends
Speaker 4: going back to Philly because we were like sixteen, seventeen,
Speaker 4: eighteen years old. So that was that's y'all.
Speaker 2: Were you You guys were like our native tongues.
Speaker 4: Yeah yeah, yeah.
Speaker 2: So when you came and co.
Speaker 1: Signed Philly me, that's the first time I felt like, Okay,
Speaker 1: Philly can be cool. Because again, I mean, you're you're
Speaker 1: not saying what you really want to say about cool
Speaker 1: and steady, but.
Speaker 2: No, they were just they were post drug dealer cool,
Speaker 2: like you know, no.
Speaker 4: No, you know what it is, it's nothing. It's nothing
Speaker 4: to say good or bad about them. But they just
Speaker 4: weren't the kind of guys that I was. You know
Speaker 4: what I'm saying. You know, we're not from we didn't
Speaker 4: have the same way, so it wasn't I would never
Speaker 4: be hanging I would never hang out with them where
Speaker 4: Tat is cut from that same cloth. So you know,
Speaker 4: I would definitely hang with Tat and and you.
Speaker 2: Know, so that's how that's pretty explains why I saw
Speaker 2: you and Philly a lot. Yeah, okay, I just thought
Speaker 2: you have property and.
Speaker 4: I should have had Robberty if I was smart.
Speaker 2: Now I get it, not Philly. So in Queens, what
Speaker 2: was your what was your experiences of music?
Speaker 4: See my neighborhood. You know, you know everybody likes to
Speaker 4: really big up their neighborhoods, But for me, I think
Speaker 4: my neighborhood is a very special place in Queens and
Speaker 4: anybody can look it up. So if you go the
Speaker 4: history of East Elmhurst Corona, it's right next to LaGuardia Airport,
Speaker 4: so literally you can, like my grandmother's house, my house,
Speaker 4: I can walk to the airport and within that neighborhood post,
Speaker 4: I mean pre rap. You had el Fitzgerald, Harry Belafonte,
Speaker 4: Louis arm Strong. Uh, James Brown was in St. Albans,
Speaker 4: but but he wasn't. He wasn't in that. I'm sorry.
Speaker 4: I want to say Dinah Washington and a lot of
Speaker 4: a lot of influential blacks moved to this area of Queens.
Speaker 4: But then when you get into the hip hop era,
Speaker 4: you had kidd and play Herbie Lovebug, Eric b Cool,
Speaker 4: g Rap, Myself, Salt and Pepper. We were all within
Speaker 4: a three to five block radius. Nokay, No, it's closer
Speaker 4: to the city. So we're like fifteen minutes the most
Speaker 4: into New York City. So we're Northern Queens. Jamaica's Southern Queens.
Speaker 2: So how is on the lawn like?
Speaker 4: It's it's I would say the equivalent of Winfield maybe
Speaker 4: Winfield's slash, you know West Philly area. Yeah, but it's
Speaker 4: not Overbrook Farms. You know what I'm saying. It's not that,
Speaker 4: but it's pretty cool. And then you have some see
Speaker 4: East Elmhurst is more of the homes with front yards
Speaker 4: and backyards. I lived in a row home, so most
Speaker 4: like the Philly homes. My grandmother would have a house
Speaker 4: with a front and backyard. But then you have Corona,
Speaker 4: and that side is Northern Boulevard. You cross Northern Boulevard.
Speaker 4: Corona's a little bit more grittier than East Elmhurst. So
Speaker 4: I lived in between both neighborhoods, you know, my whole
Speaker 4: childhood pretty much. And so from there, my parents got
Speaker 4: a divorced I was fourteen. A couple of years later,
Speaker 4: my father got remarried and moved to Inglewood, New Jersey.
Speaker 4: So now I'm in Inglewood, New Jersey. And in Inglewood,
Speaker 4: New Jersey, my best friend was Redhead Kingpin, and so
Speaker 4: I had all of those Queen's guys next to me.
Speaker 4: And then my best friend that I first, first kid
Speaker 4: I meet when I moved to Inglewood is Redhead. And
Speaker 4: then you have Big bubb from today and Redhead introduce.
Speaker 4: He said, Yo, this lady's gonna give me a deal
Speaker 4: and you should come too, all right, who we go
Speaker 4: to Sylvia Robinson's house. So Sylvia Robinson offered me a
Speaker 4: deal at fifteen. So and it was so funny because
Speaker 4: at the same time I'm saving up money, I'm you know,
Speaker 4: I'm making demos. I'm trying to impress Herbie and he
Speaker 4: runs around with my demo.
Speaker 2: Sylvia.
Speaker 4: Here's the demo and the deals coming at the same time.
Speaker 4: But the difference between Atlantic Records, Sony Columbia then Sylvia.
Speaker 4: Sylvia's was like a one page note.
Speaker 9: And so, you know, just to you know, just to
Speaker 9: give a quick recap, those are like the different people
Speaker 9: I feel like, mister Rogers, those are the people in
Speaker 9: my neighborhood.
Speaker 2: Those so before the rabbit Hole nerd him right now,
Speaker 2: we're hanging on everywhere. So were you signed before Redhead
Speaker 2: or did he sign his deal?
Speaker 4: For Red Redhead and a group called New Style later
Speaker 4: known as Naughty by Nature, they decided to sign and
Speaker 4: they she wanted to change sugar Hill Records to Bone
Speaker 4: of Me and I was like, I don't even know
Speaker 4: that even sounds hip hop.
Speaker 2: You know, she owned Bone of Me Records. Yes, I
Speaker 2: remember that label.
Speaker 4: Yes, So she was boning me and New Style came
Speaker 4: out on Bone of Me. Red got out of it
Speaker 4: because he was underage and he lied about his age
Speaker 4: and he was sixteen as well, and he got out
Speaker 4: of it. I never signed then. We was we weren't
Speaker 4: good kids, you know, I'll be honest.
Speaker 2: With you.
Speaker 4: I'm not even an lie of you. We weren't. We
Speaker 4: were good kids, but we didn't always do good things.
Speaker 4: So we got in trouble, all of us. Like at
Speaker 4: the same time we were running around.
Speaker 2: In the street. Yes, we got, we got. It was
Speaker 2: like stupid, like stupidity.
Speaker 4: It's something I would never even talk about in detail.
Speaker 4: But it was me, Read and a couple other guys
Speaker 4: and we did something stupid. And at that point my
Speaker 4: father was like, some of the guys actually got into
Speaker 4: real trouble. Some of us didn't get thank god, didn't
Speaker 4: get into any major anything. But the thing was, you're
Speaker 4: moving out of Jersey. This is the wrong environment for you.
Speaker 4: Mind you, this was a very nice neighborhood. It wasn't
Speaker 4: anything grimy in the stretch. It was just board kids
Speaker 4: doing stupid stuff. Yeah, so he moved. I moved back
Speaker 4: to Queens. So now I'm in Southside Jamaica, Queens with
Speaker 4: my mother. And then in that neighborhood you have a
Speaker 4: different type of element. The block was cool, but then
Speaker 4: you had like you had you know, real killer drug
Speaker 4: dealers and you know, these type of people that were.
Speaker 1: That everybody was safer for you to be in that
Speaker 1: in Queens than it was to be an English.
Speaker 4: Well here's the other side. He decided to move to
Speaker 4: I have a farm in Virginia. He moved on to
Speaker 4: the farm. So when he moved on to the farm
Speaker 4: in Virginia, I was there was no way I was
Speaker 4: gonna move on a farm. I just got a record deal.
Speaker 4: There's no way I'm living on a farm.
Speaker 2: Said well you can.
Speaker 4: You can wrap from the farm and you just come
Speaker 4: to New York.
Speaker 2: When I was like, there's no.
Speaker 4: Way I'm doing that. So I ended up backing Queens
Speaker 4: with my mother. And like I said, that close area
Speaker 4: where my mother was was cool, but the surrounding, like
Speaker 4: everybody that like fifty cent raps about and all this
Speaker 4: kind of stuff. Those were people that came to my
Speaker 4: house that I knew like they were actually that part
Speaker 4: of Queen. So so it was a whole nother environment
Speaker 4: living there.
Speaker 2: And so, okay, Queen. There's such a folk glory about Queen.
Speaker 1: When so you're saying that there's multiple sections of Queens,
Speaker 1: like the tripod quest Queens versus the Rundiom Sea Queens versus.
Speaker 4: So I lived in the Quist. So my part of
Speaker 4: Queens was q Tip, Sweet Tea. We all lived in
Speaker 4: the same little section. Tip was a little bit further out.
Speaker 4: Tea was in between me and where Queue Tip was.
Speaker 4: So that section is south Jamaica, right where Rundium cll
Speaker 4: cool j Ja Rule. They're in Hollis. They're on the
Speaker 4: south side of jama but they're not the furthest south
Speaker 4: part of Jamaica. And if anybody needs to understand Queens,
Speaker 4: look at a map, look at Long Island. At the
Speaker 4: end of Long Island is Brooklyn and Queens. They're literally together.
Speaker 4: It's one thing. But then you have Northern Queens. So
Speaker 4: for example, you have parts of Queens and Northern Queens,
Speaker 4: say Flushing Queens. If I take any of you guys
Speaker 4: the Flushing Queen, knock you out and drop you in
Speaker 4: the street, you would think you were in Hong Kong.
Speaker 4: Hong Kong. If you've ever been to Hong Kong, you
Speaker 4: would literally it's the same thing, the exact same airport.
Speaker 2: Sometimes yeah, but go in.
Speaker 4: And when I was a kid, it was white, it
Speaker 4: was Italian and black. So flash forward, say thirty years,
Speaker 4: it's all one section Korean, one section Chinese, and then
Speaker 4: a small section Japanese. All the street signs are in
Speaker 4: Asian all the stores. It's one thousand percent. So that's
Speaker 4: that's Flushing Queens. But then you go further toward Brooklyn
Speaker 4: and you say you're in Richmond Hill. Richmond Hill is
Speaker 4: it was when I was a kid, predominantly all Irish.
Speaker 4: Now it's all South American, so it's Peruvian and stuff
Speaker 4: like so. And when I was my neighborhood, Corona, it
Speaker 4: was all black. Now it's probably thirty percent black, mostly
Speaker 4: South and Central American, you know.
Speaker 2: So it's Queen.
Speaker 4: Yeah, beet nuts are from Corona as well. So Queens
Speaker 4: is such a diverse area. And then there's a part
Speaker 4: of Queens that most Queens people don't even know about
Speaker 4: called Malba. Malba is if you know, the White Stone
Speaker 4: Bridge is right under the white Stone Bridge. If I
Speaker 4: take you to Malbury, you would think you were in
Speaker 4: bel Air or or Beverly Hill, somewhere off the water.
Speaker 4: For neighbor seas you're driving, the cops will be there
Speaker 4: in one point four seconds. If you are off of
Speaker 4: a darker shade. To me, specifically, there's no dark shaded
Speaker 4: people in that area. And that's by whites. That's that's
Speaker 4: next to the white Stone Bridge, and then you have
Speaker 4: other real diverse areas like Bayside and you know the
Speaker 4: city left Rack is left Rack is one neighborhood from
Speaker 4: mine that goes into mass Beth and mass Beth is
Speaker 4: another very diverse area. This it's it's crazy if I
Speaker 4: take you on a Queen's Toys because everybody that's a.
Speaker 6: Queen's Bridge, right, queens Bridge, Yeah, you know queens Bridge. Okay,
Speaker 6: where there's not and that's its Manhattan, right.
Speaker 4: Yeah, Queen's Bridges. You can walk to Manhattan from from
Speaker 4: queens Bridge. You can walk over the bridge. It'll take
Speaker 4: you five minutes and you're on fifty sixth Street and
Speaker 4: First Avenue. So you know, what were you?
Speaker 2: So?
Speaker 1: How did hip hop reach you at a young age?
Speaker 1: Because I'm almost certain that other boroughs were like another
Speaker 1: world to you, or another city of hip.
Speaker 4: Hop reached me. In nineteen seventy nine, I can remember
Speaker 4: exactly what I was doing where I was at. I
Speaker 4: was playing with Star Wars men on the floor with
Speaker 4: my best friend's name is Dak Carr, and me and
Speaker 4: Dak called blaming Star Wars and Rappers. The light came
Speaker 4: on the radio and from that point. Literally from that
Speaker 4: point begged my mother to buy the record. My you know,
Speaker 4: I'm six years old. I see the recognition of you know,
Speaker 4: sugar Hill the label. So anytime I go to a
Speaker 4: record store, anything that said sugar Hill was bought. And
Speaker 4: that's from six years old. Anything affiliated with sugar Hill,
Speaker 4: which was Enjoy Records was bought period.
Speaker 2: It was.
Speaker 4: I didn't have to hear it. I didn't know it.
Speaker 4: My favorite record to this day is Freedom Series five
Speaker 4: and eighth Wonder, the second and the third record I've
Speaker 4: ever bought, still have the exact records. So hip hop,
Speaker 4: but I never understood that hip hop was an actual
Speaker 4: It's weird, you know. It became a culture. It became
Speaker 4: what I was doing, what all the kids were doing.
Speaker 4: We were all breaking, we were all doing graffiti, we
Speaker 4: were all you know, everybody wanted two turntables, you know,
Speaker 4: everybody wanted the whole elemental aspect of hip hop. And
Speaker 4: then there was a guy on my grandmother's block, rest
Speaker 4: in Peace's name was Messiah, and Messiah was partners with
Speaker 4: Red Alert. So I used to beat box as a
Speaker 4: little kid. So I would go to Messiah's house and
Speaker 4: Messiah would put me on the phone with like uh
Speaker 4: Africa Islam or people like that.
Speaker 2: Look at this little kid beatbox.
Speaker 4: I had no I have no clue what it was.
Speaker 4: But it was just all immersing, you know what I'm saying,
Speaker 4: and and and you know, running around the neighborhoods looking
Speaker 4: for uh uh refrigerator boxes to break on, you know,
Speaker 4: tying or tying our jeans up with shoelaces and and
Speaker 4: putting on uh union Jack Katson and getting our our
Speaker 4: you know, the the what do you call those things?
Speaker 4: The press on letters on our sweatshirts and spiked spiked, very.
Speaker 1: Fable, even way before you have a record budget to
Speaker 1: even start.
Speaker 2: Oh no, I was.
Speaker 4: I was all into the gear everything, you know, getting
Speaker 4: your name belt, that was like that was one hundred
Speaker 4: percent life for us in the fifth, sixth, seventh, eighth grade.
Speaker 4: You know, that's that's what we did.
Speaker 7: So can I ask what your parents did because you
Speaker 7: mentioned your dad went to a farm and that just
Speaker 7: really threw me for a second.
Speaker 4: Well, my father, my father, you know, my father recently
Speaker 4: passed not even a month ago. So so my father
Speaker 4: was a very incredible person. My father, he worked for
Speaker 4: the light company Conditisent, but My father was like the
Speaker 4: weirdest hustler type dude ever, and we didn't understand it
Speaker 4: as kids. Just to give you a quick view of
Speaker 4: my pops. Pops used to push a seventy eight VW
Speaker 4: red and white van. It had no heat.
Speaker 2: Yeah wait here, I can see this.
Speaker 4: And no air conditioning. So in the middle of the winter,
Speaker 4: he would line the van with quilts and and plastic
Speaker 4: and put a kerosene heater in the middle in the
Speaker 4: middle of the van and would tell us, y'all hold
Speaker 4: on to that so it don't tip over and around.
Speaker 4: So and these are things that my father would do.
Speaker 4: But there's a reason that I didn't know at the time.
Speaker 4: So you know, it's gonna be a funny story that
Speaker 4: turns into a tragic story.
Speaker 2: So so it's one of those stories.
Speaker 4: So we would come home and it would be no
Speaker 4: phone service. So my father would climb up the phone pole,
Speaker 4: do some jiggery and be like, okay, look, if you
Speaker 4: pick up the phone, don't say nothing. If you hear
Speaker 4: people talking, just hang.
Speaker 2: It up now.
Speaker 4: If you hear two rings, that's your grandmother, and then
Speaker 4: you pick up the phone. If you hear three rings,
Speaker 4: that's your aunt, I'm like, wow, So but my all
Speaker 4: all is while my pops had a job. You know,
Speaker 4: it wasn't like he was on drugs or anything crazy.
Speaker 4: He had a job. My mother. I'll get into my
Speaker 4: mother in a second. So the reason why all these
Speaker 4: crazy things would happen all Like I remember one time
Speaker 4: we came home and the whole basement was ransacked, just wrecked,
Speaker 4: and we were like so my mother thought, mind you,
Speaker 4: I used to sneak my friends into breakdance. We all
Speaker 4: have breakdance battles in my basement. So she thought that
Speaker 4: that's what I did. And apparently my father designed some
Speaker 4: pipe to plug into the wall so we would get
Speaker 4: free gas like you would getting.
Speaker 2: So we were getting free gas for a whole year.
Speaker 4: He made some pipe, and the gas company found out,
Speaker 4: broke into the house and ripped the whole thing out.
Speaker 4: So I got in trouble because my mother thought one
Speaker 4: of my friends did this, Like she thought that I
Speaker 4: was responsible for somebody breaking into the home. So long
Speaker 4: story short. He was putting his mother his money aside
Speaker 4: because his sister was dying of lupus and he was
Speaker 4: paying for all of the medical bills. But we didn't
Speaker 4: know that, you know, and his sister was like, you know,
Speaker 4: pretty much a surrogate mother. Her kids were like my
Speaker 4: brother and sister. So you know, that was a weird thing.
Speaker 4: And it kind of like that was like the strain
Speaker 4: that kind of broke my parents' marriage up, because it
Speaker 4: was just like, look, man, I can't keep living like this.
Speaker 4: And my pops was like, well, look I'm trying to,
Speaker 4: you know. So then on my mother's side, my mother,
Speaker 4: my grandparents on my mother's side came from a different
Speaker 4: type of situation where my grandparents on my father's side
Speaker 4: were more blue collar. My my grandfather, he was a
Speaker 4: newspaper publisher, so he had a one of the first
Speaker 4: black newspapers in New York called the New York Voice.
Speaker 4: It was a New York Voice in the Amsterdam News.
Speaker 4: And he was from He was from Iowa. He lived
Speaker 4: on He grew up on an Indian reservation, actually Native
Speaker 4: American reservation. He worked his way. He was a porter.
Speaker 4: Then he became a roadie for Benny Goodman. So we
Speaker 4: started rolling with Benny Goodman and he started then he
Speaker 4: started rocking with I'm losing my plays, the vibes, I'm sorry.
Speaker 4: So he started rocking with Lionel Hampton, which gave me
Speaker 4: my first drum set. So my first my first instrument
Speaker 4: was from Lionel Hampton. But that's a whole, So that's
Speaker 4: a supreme thing.
Speaker 1: Yeah, everyone's grandfather always rolls with trickles down to the grandson.
Speaker 4: And he met my grandmother because my grandmother was a
Speaker 4: show singer. So so they met on the road and
Speaker 4: you know, he was the type of dude that you
Speaker 4: know when he met her. She was real pretty she
Speaker 4: and also my grandmother was the first black Pepsi model.
Speaker 4: So so he was the kind of guy that he
Speaker 4: bagged a bad chick, but then he wanted to do
Speaker 4: bad chick things anymore. So he brought to the queens
Speaker 4: and gave a bunch of babies and one of the babies.
Speaker 2: Was my mother.
Speaker 8: Wait what's what's name's name?
Speaker 4: Kryan Drew Kriyan Davis.
Speaker 2: And you're gonna look at that right now.
Speaker 8: I wanted to see her.
Speaker 4: Everybody else is listening, is I'm like so so you know,
Speaker 4: you know at that time, did you have you saying
Speaker 4: I can ramble so you can askage so so so
Speaker 4: that so and on my grand my father's side, my
Speaker 4: grandfather was a detective and my grandmother was a social worker.
Speaker 4: So it was just two different types of family and
Speaker 4: they all support it in a different way, you know.
Speaker 4: So like my grandmother has you know, both grandmothers have
Speaker 4: grand pianos in there in their in their house. So
Speaker 4: you know, I'm I'm teaching myself how to play stuff.
Speaker 2: You know.
Speaker 4: My grandfather very encouraging with music. Like I said, takes
Speaker 4: me to Lonel Hampton's house. First time I ever been
Speaker 4: to a house with a person had a butler. I
Speaker 4: was like, yo, the only person I thought would have
Speaker 4: a butler was like Bruce Wayne. And I get to
Speaker 4: this man's apartment which looks just like the building looked
Speaker 4: just like George Jefferson's apartment. We get up there and
Speaker 4: the butler comes with a tray and I'm like, where
Speaker 4: are we at? He and mister Hampton comes out and
Speaker 4: you know, and he just talks to me about music
Speaker 4: and I'm talking to him and I'm talking about run
Speaker 4: DMC and he's looking at me like what At this point,
Speaker 4: nine had to have been like eight or nine talking
Speaker 4: to about you know, like, hey, man, who do you like?
Speaker 2: Grant Master Flint fires five Man the message.
Speaker 4: He's like, what, yeah, you know, so he gives me
Speaker 4: the drums and the only thing I play on the
Speaker 4: drums is Planet Rock, Yeah, the message freedom, eighth wonder.
Speaker 4: And then because a lot of them had horns, I
Speaker 4: would go to school and learn how to play the trumpet,
Speaker 4: so all I would play was just I would just
Speaker 4: play the rap records.
Speaker 2: After I learned how to play Freedom.
Speaker 4: That I don't want to play the one anymore. I
Speaker 4: just stopped playing the trumpet, you know so, And even
Speaker 4: with the piano, it's like I heard the rap, different
Speaker 4: rap records or just different records in general, and I
Speaker 4: loved just playing that. And then but I hated lessons.
Speaker 4: I just hated the lessons part.
Speaker 2: But you know, so, you didn't want to practice that much.
Speaker 4: I wanted to practice what I made up. I didn't
Speaker 4: want to do scales. I didn't want to do fertile least,
Speaker 4: so I don't want to do none of that fingering
Speaker 4: all that.
Speaker 2: I hated that.
Speaker 4: And my teacher, Miss Punter, she was the type you know,
Speaker 4: you play and you use the wrong finger. Fingers, that's
Speaker 4: all she was saying. I would have to do like,
Speaker 4: you know, like piano recitals. It was probably the most
Speaker 4: nervous I've ever been in my Like my legs were
Speaker 4: shake hated it, hated it.
Speaker 2: You mentioned I dubbed that the Alicia Keys nock tune.
Speaker 1: Right, okay, I'll go no, I love you believe that
Speaker 1: was this one time when I seen the show, it
Speaker 1: was just going to start off real deep, like you know,
Speaker 1: all these all these courts and defense and they just.
Speaker 8: Lowse down, knocking down. I'm trying to help.
Speaker 2: It was like, you know, seconds and sudden audience. Yeah,
Speaker 2: we love you. I love that. Come on now, I
Speaker 2: love this ship. I'll leave you. That's what That's my home.
Speaker 2: So you're you're saying that a hip hop, I mean
Speaker 2: as an m C. When did you figure out this
Speaker 2: is this is my path?
Speaker 4: My well, first of like you know, just as a kid,
Speaker 4: I would write and compose things, but I knew I
Speaker 4: couldn't sing anything. So you know, rapping was like the
Speaker 4: best case scenario at that point. And you know, I
Speaker 4: loved Mellie mel I loved Tela Rock, you know I
Speaker 4: loved and then and then somebody came to my house
Speaker 4: with a tape said you got to hear this guy,
Speaker 4: and he put the tape in and it was Lotty Dotty,
Speaker 4: not the record, It was just Lotty Dotty somewhere in
Speaker 4: the park. And then it went into treat it like
Speaker 4: a prostitute, and I was like, what did I just
Speaker 4: witness just now? And then I started getting I started
Speaker 4: getting stuff that me and Rick are very cool, Me
Speaker 4: and dougle cool. I got stuff from Rick that he
Speaker 4: doesn't even remember. I was said, Yo, there's this one
Speaker 4: thing where you I say the whole rhyme to him
Speaker 4: and somebody's on a drum machine and he and it
Speaker 4: turns into like Indian what's the what's the song? Davy Crockett?
Speaker 4: So some of those rhymes Davy Crockett, I definitely do.
Speaker 4: I just gotta find them, but I definitely. But I
Speaker 4: just got so immersed into Rick and then on one
Speaker 4: end Rick, and then on the other end cool g
Speaker 4: rap and because I knew g it was just another thing.
Speaker 4: So so then you know, the sound immersions. It is like, Okay,
Speaker 4: you know, I'm starting to write stories. And the funny
Speaker 4: thing is I'm writing these stories and they're just dirty,
Speaker 4: just nasty, dirty stories. And I would do these rap
Speaker 4: battles and I would win with the stories and stuff,
Speaker 4: and it was you know, it would call me baby
Speaker 4: Rick and this that and the third and or you
Speaker 4: know I would I would definitely like I would interweave
Speaker 4: slick Rick and cool g Rap if that makes any
Speaker 4: kind of sense. So so, and then you know, being
Speaker 4: around her being and Dana Dane came around, and Dana
Speaker 4: Dane to me, was just as greatest slick Rick. So
Speaker 4: I started shadowing Dana all the time. And but I
Speaker 4: think the click was two things that happened.
Speaker 7: It was a.
Speaker 4: Place I wish it still existed called USA United States
Speaker 4: of America. In Queens. Every Sunday somebody would perform. I'm
Speaker 4: talking about Eric being rock Him this Sunday, New Edition,
Speaker 4: Next Sunday, l O Cuja next Sunday, Every Sunday Light Clockwork.
Speaker 2: It was the greatest breakdance place.
Speaker 4: If you ever watch B Street when they go to
Speaker 4: the Rocky and Battle, just picture that with just in Queens.
Speaker 4: It was that And that's why B Street resonates with
Speaker 4: me so much, because it was something that was actually
Speaker 4: real for me. And so we went to see Coolgie
Speaker 4: Rap perform. He had twenty two records. It's demo and
Speaker 4: I'm flying I'm Fly with the flip side, and that's
Speaker 4: only two records yet. And he got up there and
Speaker 4: to see the girls in.
Speaker 2: The that I in the neighborhood, can you curse? Yes,
Speaker 2: absolutely so.
Speaker 4: Girls in the neighborhood that wouldn't do nothing, would be like,
Speaker 4: I want to fuck him now hearing like the good
Speaker 4: girls that that I just go to school with, saying, wait,
Speaker 4: we see him every day.
Speaker 2: We used to call him Abdul. We see Abduel every day.
Speaker 4: And all of a.
Speaker 2: Sudden he come.
Speaker 4: He came out, I remember this in a dapper dand
Speaker 4: Louis suit. Now you know everybody had a Muslim. I
Speaker 4: never knew what, but we back in the days that
Speaker 4: he was.
Speaker 2: Up doing.
Speaker 4: Sorry g and and he came out in this. He
Speaker 4: came out in this uh Louis Vatan suit. You got
Speaker 4: a Gucci link on with some medallion, a head full
Speaker 4: of Jervy curls with a fade what gold teeth.
Speaker 8: But that was the thing.
Speaker 4: You don't believe he thought that was you know, she
Speaker 4: rapped with the curl and you know, and and and
Speaker 4: he's rhyming on fly.
Speaker 2: Then he throws out these dollars and then he threw out.
Speaker 2: Then he threw out roses and you all these.
Speaker 4: This is pre king. So we're like that, what the
Speaker 4: fuck and the girl, but it still didn't click. So
Speaker 4: then I asked my father. Then a couple of like
Speaker 4: in the summer, this was the winter, that summertime. I'm sorry,
Speaker 4: this was later. Second, the first thing that happened was
Speaker 4: I asked my father to take me to a Slick
Speaker 4: Rick Dougie Fresh concert at City College in Harlem. So
Speaker 4: my pops would take me anywhere anything music related.
Speaker 2: He was witted.
Speaker 4: He take me. We get in that bus, and he
Speaker 4: was witted. He bought me turntables. He was one thousand percent.
Speaker 4: I'll get into him, but you know, and I'm gonna
Speaker 4: tell the story. I know you can relate to this one.
Speaker 4: So we get into the store, we get to the
Speaker 4: City College and Doug comes on. He's doing his Dougie
Speaker 4: Fresh records. He had a couple of records before the show.
Speaker 4: Then he then a magician comes out.
Speaker 2: Wait what a hip hop magician? So the magician comes
Speaker 2: out and to.
Speaker 4: The beat, he's like throwing fire out his hands and
Speaker 4: all the crazy shit.
Speaker 2: So I'm like, all right, that's cool.
Speaker 4: And then the music stops and all you hear from
Speaker 4: the back is one two, one two, y'all the chicks win.
Speaker 4: Rick saunters out in this FeelA suit and ballys his
Speaker 4: his cano and shades, and he was just like, yo,
Speaker 4: what's up, y'all? And all the chicks was losing their brains.
Speaker 2: I was like, that is it. I have been sanctified.
Speaker 2: It's like Jesus touched me.
Speaker 4: At that one. I was like, fuck anything I want.
Speaker 4: I was going to school to be an illustrator.
Speaker 2: I was.
Speaker 4: I was in art school, and I'm like, I'm not
Speaker 4: doing no art. I was a science major. Also a
Speaker 4: fuck science touched by the devil. No way, I'm not
Speaker 4: doing this for a living for the rest of my life.
Speaker 4: There's no way. Rick she did, Lotty Dotty did the show.
Speaker 4: He bounced, chicks was losing their absolute minds. I was like,
Speaker 4: oh no, this this gotta be my life.
Speaker 3: Man.
Speaker 4: I can't. I can'tnot not do that. But like the
Speaker 4: touch on my post real quick. He this is how
Speaker 4: my father was. I'm a heavy Prince fan, and so
Speaker 4: you know, I'm like Prince Like. I relate to the
Speaker 4: musicality of Prince, but I relate to the style of
Speaker 4: Morris Day. So I'm all, I remember seven seven seven
Speaker 4: ninety three eleven. That's like one of my first records
Speaker 4: also that I ever bought, I bought. You know, I
Speaker 4: don't think my father let me buy Dirty Mind album
Speaker 4: because of him in the drawgs. No, but you know,
Speaker 4: like and I remember bringing Home nineteen ninety nine. It's like, yo,
Speaker 4: why is there a dick going to cover?
Speaker 2: Like? What is it?
Speaker 6: You know?
Speaker 4: So, so I was doing a talent show and I
Speaker 4: was gonna be It was a toss up between getting
Speaker 4: my boys together and be coming the time or just
Speaker 4: doing it alone and being prince. So my mother had
Speaker 4: a purple raincoat. Put the purple coat on, she had
Speaker 4: this blouse, put the blouse on, Put on my jeans.
Speaker 4: She had these purple suede boots. Put them boots on.
Speaker 2: Put this little thing around my hair.
Speaker 4: I had a bush and I'm downstairs practicing Let's go crazy,
Speaker 4: and my father walks in the baby.
Speaker 8: The fuck I feel like building and mir stories like that.
Speaker 2: So he was like, what the fuck are you doing.
Speaker 2: It's prince man, he said, Prince what the fuck?
Speaker 4: And I'm like, yo, it's Prince. So I show him
Speaker 4: purple Rain. He said this bullshit and come with me.
Speaker 4: He took me to the He took me to the
Speaker 4: video store. You know there was no Blockbuster. They took
Speaker 4: me to the video store and it's like, give me
Speaker 4: whatever you have on Jimmy Hendrix, James Brown and Little Richard.
Speaker 7: Wow.
Speaker 4: And he made me sit down and watch every documentary
Speaker 4: on those trees. Said, now there goes Prince. That's what
Speaker 4: you want to do, that's what you want to be.
Speaker 4: You got to know who these guys are.
Speaker 2: And so you know that was his thing. Wait, can
Speaker 2: we stop for all of you that are listening to
Speaker 2: this episode. This is why we do this episode.
Speaker 1: Parents, I want you to teach your children do exactly
Speaker 1: what he said. Musical punishments are great, John Coltrane.
Speaker 2: I wish I had musical punishments great.
Speaker 6: My parents knew you couldn't punish me with music. They
Speaker 6: said to then, okay, okay, yeah, give me more of that. No, dude,
Speaker 6: you know, listen to him. Two man got me John
Speaker 6: Coltrane for a month.
Speaker 2: So you know, it's like even with Mars Day.
Speaker 4: He saw Mars Day.
Speaker 2: He say, you like what he has on?
Speaker 4: I can take you to where exactly. You can buy
Speaker 4: every one of those things. We went to Stacey Adams
Speaker 4: I got, you know, and so my eighth grade prime
Speaker 4: I pretty much had with Marris Day had because he
Speaker 4: took me to the actual place. So so you know,
Speaker 4: that's the type of you know, pops he was. And
Speaker 4: I'm not saying my mother wasn't as encouraging, but my
Speaker 4: mom's was the type of person was like, stop doing
Speaker 4: that beat stuff with your mouth. It's gonna mess your
Speaker 4: mouth up. Your lips are gonna be distorted, it's not
Speaker 4: gonna look right. Tie your shoes. You're gonna get flat feet.
Speaker 4: You're not gonna be able to walk right. Stop moving
Speaker 4: your body like that. You're gonna get stuck that way.
Speaker 4: Your head is gonna break. Don't spin on your head.
Speaker 2: It will break it. We can't afford the hospital, you can.
Speaker 2: I ask? Are you the only child?
Speaker 6: No?
Speaker 4: I had a little brother.
Speaker 2: Oh okay, yeah, okay.
Speaker 4: So so you know so and that was cool because
Speaker 4: you know, I had a little brother and my little cousins.
Speaker 4: If I couldn't get like a record or whatever, I
Speaker 4: would like, look my brother's three. Tell them you want funk,
Speaker 4: you right on up. Tell them you want super rhymes,
Speaker 4: super but you know, so my brother would go ask
Speaker 4: for super rhymes while I went and got these are the.
Speaker 2: Breaks, you know what I'm saying.
Speaker 4: So so yeah, and then you know, then then we
Speaker 4: would do like we were the type we were like
Speaker 4: the Double Trouble or something. We would come out, we
Speaker 4: got to show for you, and then we put on
Speaker 4: the breaks and we would perform the breaks for you know,
Speaker 4: for dinner and stuff like that. So we were those kids,
Speaker 4: and yeah, you know, so so that back to your question,
Speaker 4: because I went around it that slick Rick moment, that
Speaker 4: cool Gie Rat moment, was like, all right, yeah, this
Speaker 4: is okay.
Speaker 1: So how far was it in the future until you
Speaker 1: were on stage for the first time doing your ship
Speaker 1: pre deal like pre.
Speaker 4: Deal immediately No no, no, no, no immediately.
Speaker 2: It wasn't you'll get your deal at sixteen, right, yeah,
Speaker 2: so so safe that was marketing. You were really sixteen
Speaker 2: when you did.
Speaker 4: I got my deal at sixteen. By the time Boy
Speaker 4: Genius came out, I was about to be seventeen. But
Speaker 4: I always did shows like you know, I hate saying
Speaker 4: it in front of you, but you know I used
Speaker 4: to kill the drums man like I'm seriously, I was like,
Speaker 4: all my things, so my thing I used to be
Speaker 4: good enough to wear my school would pimp me out and.
Speaker 2: Drum at the same time. Sometimes I would that would
Speaker 2: have been such a dope marketing angle for.
Speaker 8: You saying Anderson Park is the only person that has
Speaker 8: ever done that.
Speaker 2: What I'm saying is that was a joke when I
Speaker 2: was a kid.
Speaker 4: When I was when I was a kid, fifth sixth,
Speaker 4: seventh grade, and they got win that I did. I
Speaker 4: play like that. It would be just like showtime at
Speaker 4: Kwame's Apollo. They would just say, okay, today you're going
Speaker 4: to the fourth grade class and you're gonna play the
Speaker 4: drums for them, and they set up way planning rock.
Speaker 2: You need to get out of the fourth period. Yeah
Speaker 2: you know.
Speaker 4: So so you know, me performing that was like, that's
Speaker 4: what I love to do. So you know, when it
Speaker 4: time when it was time to rhyme, like literally, the
Speaker 4: teacher would be like, look, we're going to roller skating
Speaker 4: today and there's going to be a DJ and a microphone. Kwame,
Speaker 4: don't rap that that would be the prerequisite. And this is,
Speaker 4: you know, sixth seventh grade. So you know, the first
Speaker 4: time I was really like serious serious is that same
Speaker 4: place USA? There was a rap contest every month or something,
Speaker 4: and so the winner would get to go on tour
Speaker 4: to all the other USA's. There was probably four more,
Speaker 4: like one in Rhode Island, one in Boston, there was
Speaker 4: a Philly one there was, and you know, so it
Speaker 4: was like an East Coast thing and I was like, God,
Speaker 4: So just to give you the people in this contest
Speaker 4: was myself. I won one, Master Ace won the one
Speaker 4: before that. For the them, c won the one before that.
Speaker 4: I can't remember, super lovec casts and Overrudd won the
Speaker 4: one before that. So it was all it was four
Speaker 4: of us that would be out doing these USA shows.
Speaker 2: You know.
Speaker 4: So if say, if if it was the month that
Speaker 4: I was in my competition, the special guests would be
Speaker 4: Super Levec Father them See or Master Ace.
Speaker 2: You know.
Speaker 4: But we all, you know, we all got cool pretty
Speaker 4: much from the from that experience. And then you know,
Speaker 4: Suit got they got their deal first, and then you know,
Speaker 4: Ace got his thing with the Juice Crew, you know
Speaker 4: for them see he came after me. But no one
Speaker 4: got deals per se from it. But that was the
Speaker 4: performing experience, like the biggest, the most coveted thing that
Speaker 4: I have is the trophy from that USA. It's in
Speaker 4: my case I still have. It's broken. It looks like
Speaker 4: a piece of garbage, but you know, no one will
Speaker 4: know what it was. But you know, they're like, why
Speaker 4: is this thing sitting You got all these plaques, why
Speaker 4: is it sitting right?
Speaker 2: Yo?
Speaker 1: Man?
Speaker 4: That's that's my first award.
Speaker 2: What would you perform at that time?
Speaker 4: Story rhymes?
Speaker 2: It was like it was your own material. You just
Speaker 2: had a beat box. Yeah. I was gonna say, did
Speaker 2: you have a foil to do music for you?
Speaker 4: Or yeah?
Speaker 2: I had. I had the beat box, and then you
Speaker 2: should have drumming run I used to.
Speaker 4: I used to use this doctor rhythm drummers. I would
Speaker 4: make a beat and I, you know, if the beat
Speaker 4: box wouldn't come or I would have the doctor rhythm
Speaker 4: whatever the beat was, and then he would beat on
Speaker 4: top of it, and then you know, and then and
Speaker 4: then I would rhyme. But it was mainly like story
Speaker 4: nasty dirty story rhymes and get people.
Speaker 2: To go six years old.
Speaker 4: Yeah, and then to the point where I remember my
Speaker 4: father and mother found one of.
Speaker 2: The rhymes and this is after they they find the
Speaker 2: story book.
Speaker 4: Yeah, so they find around it fell out and it
Speaker 4: was just like pussy bitch, fuck o, you know, all
Speaker 4: this stuff and you know, being like trying to be
Speaker 4: like stick you know, always has like a song that
Speaker 4: is attached to it. You know, fun is so good.
Speaker 4: She was like dag old dad, so.
Speaker 2: So like that. But my min was the actual day.
Speaker 4: So so my father was like my mother and father
Speaker 4: sat me down and this is I can remember it
Speaker 4: so vividly because they were split up for a while
Speaker 4: and this was the one time they were together and
Speaker 4: they sat me down and said, would you say this?
Speaker 2: My mother's like, what you say this filth to me? Like, no,
Speaker 2: what you say it to your grandmother? No?
Speaker 4: And we're in my grandmother's house. Get your grandmother right
Speaker 4: now and read this time. So my grandma's like, what's
Speaker 4: going on? Like, sit down?
Speaker 2: The bitch was sitting on my lap and I began
Speaker 2: to rap what whatever in mine was.
Speaker 4: And my grandmother was like, she just got up and
Speaker 4: walked away.
Speaker 1: Let's hear it for hip hop humiliation, that's weird. I
Speaker 1: got it for honing it, got it right, you know.
Speaker 2: Did you so to get a record though?
Speaker 1: Did you finally feel like vindicated? Like, okay, now I'm this,
Speaker 1: this is paid off well before before I get to that.
Speaker 1: My rap name that was the big issue. Oh my
Speaker 1: rap name was sweet Daddy Jazzy k g Q. That
Speaker 1: was your whole, whole thing, whole name, Sweet Daddy Jazzy
Speaker 1: k GQ. Everyone's first name. What was your first rap name?
Speaker 1: Fante before Little Brother Fante?
Speaker 6: It was psychological that's not even that bad, but it was.
Speaker 2: But the real comedy called Yeah, you already know. It
Speaker 2: was p s y k A L O g I
Speaker 2: K A L with a question mark.
Speaker 4: Backward.
Speaker 2: Yeah it was. Yeah, it was horrible.
Speaker 4: Yeah, I remember, man, it was like being in the
Speaker 4: studio one time and Dana Dana Dane was like, look, man,
Speaker 4: I don't know how to tell you this, but that's
Speaker 4: the stupidest name I never heard. And I looked up
Speaker 4: to Dana so much. I was like heartbroken. I was like,
Speaker 4: for real, man, He's like, yo, I don't know anybody
Speaker 4: with the name Kwame. I don't anybody with that name.
Speaker 2: Just use your name.
Speaker 4: And Salt, which was WIBB, was in the next one,
Speaker 4: going yeah that's a stupid ass name. Yeah, so Sault
Speaker 4: and Dana killing me and Saul is like, you know you,
Speaker 4: we know what you're doing. We know when we go away,
Speaker 4: you coming here and you steal the drum machines and
Speaker 4: you make this music and everything. You like a little
Speaker 4: little boy genius. Why don't you just call yourself Kwame
Speaker 4: the damn boy Genius or something not sweet Daddy jazzy k.
Speaker 4: I'm like, and that's how the whole thing started.
Speaker 6: Honestly, man like really like you were one of the
Speaker 6: first nerds. Yeah, the first nerds. Like when I bought
Speaker 6: The Boy Genius, I mean that came in. I was
Speaker 6: like ten, I think and seeing you know Kuame, but
Speaker 6: then reading the credits and seeing your name was Kwame
Speaker 6: Holland that was one of the early times I saw.
Speaker 6: I was like, man, I could just be fante. I
Speaker 6: could just wrap under my name. The first Cats inspired
Speaker 6: me to do that. You were the first hip hop nerd,
Speaker 6: so that that's probably what it was.
Speaker 2: Okay, So there's an associate of.
Speaker 1: Yours that I've been dying to interview, and I really
Speaker 1: don't know that much about him.
Speaker 2: Okay, can you speak of.
Speaker 1: One of my hip hop idols as a producer, Herbie
Speaker 1: love Buf Yeah.
Speaker 4: Please. Herbie is the most elusive man on the planet.
Speaker 4: You do not know what country he is now. It
Speaker 4: could be anywhere. Literally, he's the He's the male Carmen
Speaker 4: san Diego. Like, I can text Herbie, where are you.
Speaker 4: I'm in Haiti. Where are you? I'm in France, Africa.
Speaker 8: Spoke to him.
Speaker 4: He was where Miami.
Speaker 1: Okay, that's that's one of my dreams, my personal top
Speaker 1: five interview goals.
Speaker 2: It is definitely Herbie Love. Yeah, I want to. I
Speaker 2: wanted Herbie too. Herbie.
Speaker 4: I'm telling you, Herbie is like to run into herb.
Speaker 4: It's just you'll run into Herbie in the weirdest places, like,
Speaker 4: for example, you know I keep in touch with you know,
Speaker 4: my old crew of Salt and Pepper, kidd and Play,
Speaker 4: Dana Danes Sweet Tea, and so most of us still
Speaker 4: keep in touch in some way, shape or form. So
Speaker 4: it'll be like.
Speaker 2: One.
Speaker 4: It was like sometime last year, I'm talking to Play.
Speaker 4: He's in La I'm in New York and we're talking
Speaker 4: on the phone and we're like, man, we should find
Speaker 4: Herbie and throw him at dinner, an appreciation dinner. I
Speaker 4: was like, yeah, if you can find him, It's like
Speaker 4: everybody has his number, but you just gotta find him,
Speaker 4: and I swear to you, like forty five minutes later,
Speaker 4: Play calls me up, yo, I'm walking down the fucking block,
Speaker 4: and here goes Herbie and he puts Herbie on the phone,
Speaker 4: and then I talked to Herbie for a minute. Play
Speaker 4: talks to him for a minute, and then nobody sees
Speaker 4: him again after that, just some It's like random. So
Speaker 4: I have not physically seen Herbie. The last time I
Speaker 4: physically saw him was when Viehron was doing these hip
Speaker 4: Hop honors and they were honoring Salt and Pepper and
Speaker 4: we were going down the the step and repeat and
Speaker 4: Herbie wasn't invited, but Herbie was on the in the
Speaker 4: press line with a camera crew and a and a
Speaker 4: microphone that said HTV. He's like, yo, you want to
Speaker 4: do an interview. I'm like, what the hell are you
Speaker 4: doing it? He was, yeah, you were there, he was there,
Speaker 4: and he said, I own a TV station.
Speaker 2: So that sounds about right.
Speaker 4: I'm doing I'm gonna do. I'm doing interviews. I was like,
Speaker 4: are you coming inside? And I ain't going in there.
Speaker 2: It's crazy.
Speaker 4: This is let me, Herbie is, let me, let me
Speaker 4: get you to understand Herbie. Herbie is the type of guy.
Speaker 4: He is the template for any ball out producer.
Speaker 2: He is the template.
Speaker 4: Like when I say the template puff Jermaine used to
Speaker 4: shadow Herbie all the time, you know, and Herbie is
Speaker 4: the only person I've literally like, Herbie would pick me
Speaker 4: up one time, like we were just hanging out. This
Speaker 4: is like in the mid nineties, we reconnected and we
Speaker 4: would just hang out every day for stupid stuff. Let's
Speaker 4: call get White Castle, let's do this, let's do it.
Speaker 4: And every single day a different brand new car would
Speaker 4: pick me up. It would be a Hummer, it would
Speaker 4: be whatever was hot at the time. But I've never
Speaker 4: met a person with forty cars. Like literally, no I'm not,
Speaker 4: I'm being literal. I've been in a garage that a
Speaker 4: friend of ours own and I was like nine eleven's
Speaker 4: bens is like like who he said, all this is
Speaker 4: this is what Herbie stores all his cars. But then
Speaker 4: go to La and see the same amount of cars,
Speaker 4: same amount of cars in La, you know it was
Speaker 4: didn't go to Miami and see the same I was like,
Speaker 4: what are you doing?
Speaker 2: But he was not.
Speaker 4: But when I say, when I say that, it wasn't
Speaker 4: like he was the type of person that would super
Speaker 4: blowers money. He would just come up on I don't
Speaker 4: know how he did it, and he made You got
Speaker 4: to understand Salt and Pepper has sold a lot of records,
Speaker 4: more than any female rapper. And they never want to
Speaker 4: say this, but like those albums sold five six seven
Speaker 4: million copies, and Herbie wrote all the rhymes and did them,
Speaker 4: did all the music. So you're getting one hundred and
Speaker 4: you're getting those that royalty. That's a lot of money.
Speaker 4: And then you have push it Pushes now a commercial song.
Speaker 4: So it's like and and he's the only producer that
Speaker 4: I know that was able to have say because there
Speaker 4: was some acts that people just never heard of anymore
Speaker 4: or heard of period. But he would have ten separate
Speaker 4: acts with ten separate deals, commanding ten budgets at the
Speaker 4: same time. Yeah, you know, and and and I think
Speaker 4: that the one thing that I, you know, always respected
Speaker 4: and he puts the battery in my back as a producer,
Speaker 4: you know, always respected him. As a producer. A lot
Speaker 4: of people think he produced my stuff, and that's that's
Speaker 4: for he never did. But as a producer, I had
Speaker 4: to give him so much respect for doing that, but
Speaker 4: I never understood why it never left his camp, Like
Speaker 4: you were secret, right, why didn't you produce a record
Speaker 4: for Madonna? You know, why didn't you produce a record
Speaker 4: for I remember he did a remix for R. E. M.
Speaker 4: One time, and you know, we thought that was a
Speaker 4: big deal. But it never went past that. But did
Speaker 4: it really have to because he had he had his
Speaker 4: own and and I never understood why if you were
Speaker 4: a captain of a ship, why not make everybody be
Speaker 4: on a record together. Everybody was so about themselves, including me,
Speaker 4: that we never figured that that switch out.
Speaker 2: You know what I'm saying, each other's videos.
Speaker 1: That's how you guys are down with each other because
Speaker 1: when you're debut you Yeah, my god, Tarik loss his
Speaker 1: mind when he first saw it's the man we all
Speaker 1: know love like because he was trying to describe I
Speaker 1: didn't have uh MTV in my part of town, so
Speaker 1: basically would recorded for me and then give me the
Speaker 1: tape on Monday, so he would describe it to me,
Speaker 1: and he was just like, Yo, this is is video.
Speaker 2: Malcolm Jamal warners in it, kidding plays in it.
Speaker 1: And he's he's re enacting being tired vidic like, so
Speaker 1: Tarik I had already from and he.
Speaker 2: Starts with the same street thing. One of these kids
Speaker 2: don't think he's like he's like.
Speaker 1: He basically said, it was like a cross between because
Speaker 1: like I was, like, you know, the premise of Class Act,
Speaker 1: the movie that was.
Speaker 2: Me and I was the nerve that new break beats
Speaker 2: was Duncan Penner hughes.
Speaker 4: Yes, I got a great Class Act. I want to
Speaker 4: hear it please, I'm in Class Act. You know you
Speaker 4: wouldn't get it was sleeping right, No, I got it
Speaker 4: was the worst best experience in my life. So I
Speaker 4: was supposed to be Dougie Doug's character. I got the role.
Speaker 4: I actually got the role. I flew to La to
Speaker 4: start shooting and play goes, what are you doing here?
Speaker 4: I'm here to work.
Speaker 2: He said, no, you're not.
Speaker 4: He we wanted him, so so they they chose Dougie Doug,
Speaker 4: which was a good choice.
Speaker 2: He's a comedian.
Speaker 4: I'm so not so that was cool. Yes, So they
Speaker 4: they lobbied for him that and so they said it
Speaker 4: had no idea that I even tried out. So they said, well,
Speaker 4: we will write apart for you. So they wrote a
Speaker 4: part called Squirrelly Kid. Yeah, I had to wear my
Speaker 4: own clothes. I wore my propeller hat and the the
Speaker 4: premise was the bully guy he I'm tired of him
Speaker 4: bullying me, so I pulled out a thirty eight real, yeah,
Speaker 4: and he's supposed to knock the thirty eight out in
Speaker 4: my hand, pick me up, throw me out the window.
Speaker 2: So he does that.
Speaker 4: So in rehearsal, instead of him knocking the gun he
Speaker 4: was supposed to knock the gun this way out, he
Speaker 4: does it to where the gun comes this way and
Speaker 4: it whole side of my face, like the blood everywhere.
Speaker 4: Everything was crazy. So they had to shoot me from
Speaker 4: one side. And then this random stunt guy was the
Speaker 4: do they threw out the window. But I was like
Speaker 4: it was like, you know, it's a mistake. They thought
Speaker 4: I was going to shoot the movie company. I was
Speaker 4: just so hyped to be in a movie. I was
Speaker 4: like whatever, And then you know, I had a busted
Speaker 4: lip for like two weeks and then kept it pushing
Speaker 4: and so you know, but you know, that was an
Speaker 4: example of how you could be in the same crew
Speaker 4: but yet you're still doing your your your thing, you know,
Speaker 4: because can't play a lobby for me to be in
Speaker 4: the movie. A little bit more, I could say that
Speaker 4: I'm not I'm not bitter about it, and we've talked
Speaker 4: about it, so it's nothing against them. They were on
Speaker 4: a path that they wanted to be on. But I
Speaker 4: can't understand, like why why wouldn't Salt and Pepper be
Speaker 4: to Sena Arnold and I mean Tisha Campbell and aj
Speaker 4: sunders like why why.
Speaker 2: Why wouldn't that be Salt and Pepper?
Speaker 8: Wait, because Harvey did it.
Speaker 4: But but I do know that story, that story was,
Speaker 4: that movie was made for Prince. No, it was originally
Speaker 4: written for Groove be Chill, but Groove be Chill wasn't
Speaker 4: big enough. They didn't they you know, they didn't think
Speaker 4: that was gonna be big enough to carry a movie.
Speaker 4: So then it was submitted to Jeff and Prince. And
Speaker 4: I don't know what that politic was.
Speaker 8: Okay, So real quick house party.
Speaker 1: You remember when Will and Jeff had their own Freddy
Speaker 1: song night Mare Online Street, Well, New Line Cinema had
Speaker 1: already designated who's the.
Speaker 2: Most popular rap group out there? Yeah, the Fat Boys.
Speaker 1: So basically Will and Jeff, Will and Jeff have basically
Speaker 1: messed up the Fat Boys Nightmare theme because their ship
Speaker 1: was way bigger than that. So New Line Cinema tried
Speaker 1: to sue Will and just yes, yep. And then this
Speaker 1: movie comes up because the Hutler brothers really want Jazzy
Speaker 1: Jeff and the Fresh Prince based on parents just don't understand, yeah,
Speaker 1: and so a bunch of irritate whatever, and you know,
Speaker 1: they're like, no, they're trying to sue us anyway for
Speaker 1: Nightmare Online.
Speaker 2: We don't want New Line Cinema. So then they went
Speaker 2: to kitt and Play.
Speaker 4: But but so what I'm talking about with grooveby Chill
Speaker 4: is pre all of that. It's the inception writing a
Speaker 4: script and with them in mind, I think it was
Speaker 4: like Groovy grooveby Chill and Finessence and Quiz like that
Speaker 4: was like the inception of the script from from what
Speaker 4: I was told. You know, I could be wrong, so
Speaker 4: you know, so so, but just imagine it was a
Speaker 4: salt and pepper kid and play movie or you know.
Speaker 4: And then another thing with House Party, that was my
Speaker 4: other movie failure. I guess I was. I went to
Speaker 4: l A. I went to live in l A to
Speaker 4: be in House Party. You know, Herbie gasped me up,
Speaker 4: you can make your second album, you can make music
Speaker 4: for the movie, and you beloud yeah, And then I
Speaker 4: get to the set, there's no nothing for me to do.
Speaker 4: But yet if you look at the movie, just like
Speaker 4: ten kwame look alikes in the house party, oh yeah,
Speaker 4: dancing and all the stuff, and I'm like, so I
Speaker 4: couldn't have done that, Like really, y'all couldn't have.
Speaker 2: Y'all couldn't said okay home and you can go.
Speaker 8: I can.
Speaker 4: I can dance, and you know I could have danced
Speaker 4: well enough for the movie. So so it was things
Speaker 4: like that, even if.
Speaker 2: Y'all were family.
Speaker 1: Are you saying that there was just in house competition
Speaker 1: with this is my Dodaine like, yeah, go get your
Speaker 1: don't use my platform, worm to so they couldn't see
Speaker 1: the bigger pictures.
Speaker 4: I think the biggest picture was Salt and Pepper, and
Speaker 4: Salt and Pepper's platform allowed everybody else to be on
Speaker 4: a platform. For example, that n W a movie that
Speaker 4: you everybody saw straight out of Compton, that tour that
Speaker 4: they were on. That was me n W. A easy
Speaker 4: kidn't play Salt and Pepper.
Speaker 2: That night I was on that tour. Yeah, so so.
Speaker 4: But but that took place because the power of Salt
Speaker 4: and Pepper was like, well, if you want Salt and
Speaker 4: Pepper on this tour, you gotta take Kwame and can play.
Speaker 4: But it was cool, you know, and the cool thing
Speaker 4: was that's how my my record sales grew because in
Speaker 4: the beginning of the tour they had no idea who
Speaker 4: the hell I was. By the end of the tour,
Speaker 4: you know, things were popping and that to honestly, the
Speaker 4: tour was only two weeks, week and a half.
Speaker 8: It wasn't even it was supposed to be two weeks
Speaker 8: or got yeah.
Speaker 2: No, no, no, that was it.
Speaker 4: But two weeks to a kid that doing something they've
Speaker 4: never done before on tour, it was so dope because
Speaker 4: it was like, you know, the ordinances, they're you know,
Speaker 4: no curse and no you know all these ordinances. So
Speaker 4: we would do things like all right, easy would come
Speaker 4: into our dress room, we'll all do things together. If
Speaker 4: anybody knows about tours, sometimes the closing acts always have
Speaker 4: the louder music, always have the better everything. But they
Speaker 4: did not want to do everybody had an equal sound,
Speaker 4: everybody at equal stage, free to rome. But the plan was, Okay, look,
Speaker 4: this is how we're gonna do it. Kwame, You're gonna
Speaker 4: go on and then you're gonna run off, and then
Speaker 4: Easy's gonna come on. Easy's gonna say all types of craziness,
Speaker 4: and WA's gonna come in. We're gonna say all types
Speaker 4: of craziness. And on the last song, Kidn't play, run
Speaker 4: on stage, Easy and them are gonna jump in the
Speaker 4: crowd and run out straight out the arena. And this
Speaker 4: is thirty thirty, twenty thousand Seed arenas every night, so
Speaker 4: that's too avoid that we were playing trickery on the
Speaker 4: local police. We couldn't, and it got to the point
Speaker 4: because of the police. It got to the point that
Speaker 4: we all no hotel within that city would accept us,
Speaker 4: so we would have to go to outlying cities and
Speaker 4: change our names. And it got even worse. Imagine a
Speaker 4: thirty thousand cedar no security because all the local cops,
Speaker 4: all cops boycotted, so they're like, look, y'all want to
Speaker 4: say fuck us, fuck y'all, hope y'all die in there.
Speaker 2: So we would have to get on.
Speaker 4: Stage and be like look, it was like local security
Speaker 4: guards with like yellow shirts and shit. And we would
Speaker 4: have to be like, look, they want us to kill
Speaker 4: ourselves tonight, so what are y'all gonna do? We know
Speaker 4: this gangs in here, we know, we know what the type.
Speaker 4: We know there's all types of people in here, but
Speaker 4: they want us to die. You know, Pe was on
Speaker 4: some of the shows, so you know, Chuck would get
Speaker 4: in and say what he had to say.
Speaker 8: I got to say that everybody speak.
Speaker 4: They piece like, yeah, but but but we we It
Speaker 4: was so cool because the cleaner acts did pick up
Speaker 4: for the for the quote unquote dirtier acts. You know,
Speaker 4: too Short was on the show, so whoever dirty comes on,
Speaker 4: has a clean guy gotta come on right after that.
Speaker 2: So it was just flash.
Speaker 4: But it was never it was never. It was never
Speaker 4: a thing where it was like I sold this mini
Speaker 4: record so I'm going on last or anything. It was
Speaker 4: nothing like that because we understood it was us against
Speaker 4: them at this point. So we're on this, We're on
Speaker 4: this crazy tour and you know, probably the best two
Speaker 4: weeks of my life.
Speaker 1: You know, imagine an n W A and Cann't play
Speaker 1: tour like I mean, I mean, it makes sense. But
Speaker 1: because hip hop got so divided, was before the early nineties.
Speaker 7: Yes, what about the fans who just came to see
Speaker 7: the good and fans who just came to see the
Speaker 7: There was no such thing the thing.
Speaker 2: The roots in future perform you know what I mean?
Speaker 4: But see you Gotta, you gotta.
Speaker 1: Was there any nervousness over territories? So like if you
Speaker 1: were I mean, you could be hitting in New York
Speaker 1: you know you played.
Speaker 4: It happened for NW like that. By the time we
Speaker 4: reached we did the spectrum in Philly, it was cool.
Speaker 4: But once we went past Philly kind of all bets
Speaker 4: was off a little bit for for well, at least
Speaker 4: too short n w A. It was a different story,
Speaker 4: but too short. Like them records never really reached the
Speaker 4: East Coast, but anywhere pre Philly, from l A to DC, Virginia.
Speaker 2: Two shows.
Speaker 4: Was the first rapper I've ever seen get on stage
Speaker 4: and never say a word. Thirty thousand people knew every
Speaker 4: line to every song and at the end of the show,
Speaker 4: what's my favorite work? And that was the end of
Speaker 4: the show.
Speaker 1: Okay, Now, oh god, Now I got someone that has
Speaker 1: been in front of thirty thousand people doing the classic
Speaker 1: hip hop era. My version of touring is very blue
Speaker 1: collar you know. I mean you've seen it, you know, yeah, Granola,
Speaker 1: cereal and oatmeal. Dave Matthews playing on the.
Speaker 2: K Mathew's playing on the PA system in between acts.
Speaker 2: What give me? Just give me life on tour in
Speaker 2: nineteen eighty nine, what's going on? So let me know everything.
Speaker 4: From women on down. It's like, I'll give you like
Speaker 4: my stories, man, I'm telling you these things are crazy.
Speaker 4: Like it'll be things like you pull up to a city.
Speaker 4: The reason why we were doing arenas because rap was
Speaker 4: so rap was like, I don't know if anybody's ever
Speaker 4: experienced a Mexican act that comes to like say Madison
Speaker 4: Square Garden or something like that, they don't because it's
Speaker 4: so compartmentalized. Everybody just goes to one place to see it.
Speaker 4: There were no clubs, you know, there was no club
Speaker 4: dates or anything. It was just like, all right, there's
Speaker 4: these rappers. How do we get everybody who likes rapping
Speaker 4: one place at one time? Do the basketball arena?
Speaker 2: You know.
Speaker 4: So it was like that. So we would get to
Speaker 4: town and it would be things like just personal experience.
Speaker 4: I got pull in and there will be a girl
Speaker 4: standing in front of the hotel where's Carmel, Like, who's Carmel?
Speaker 4: And we wearing the poke dot got the street, where's.
Speaker 2: Carmel and ready to put out It's literally literally it'll
Speaker 2: be something.
Speaker 4: Where my boy he's in the back of that bus
Speaker 4: and by the time she got to the back of
Speaker 4: the bus, she was butt naked, like butt naked, big
Speaker 4: three hundred pounds. I want to Carmel where he had
Speaker 4: rotten now and see and it would be like it
Speaker 4: would be weird things like that, or I'll give you
Speaker 4: a Milwaukee story.
Speaker 2: So so the smaller obscure towns are the more craziest.
Speaker 4: Yeah, Calama Zoo, Madison, Wisconsin.
Speaker 2: The craziest place the Calama Zoo. That way, Michigan. So
Speaker 2: like in.
Speaker 4: Milwaukee, imagine like you know, we weren't in the fly hotels.
Speaker 4: We didn't get boutique hotels or anything. We were in
Speaker 4: holiday inns and Best Westerns or whatever. So the only
Speaker 4: people that could even match up with rappers at the
Speaker 4: time were drug dealers. Where you have like, say you know,
Speaker 4: you come to a say a Root show, you'll be
Speaker 4: have actors there, You'll have athletes there. At this time,
Speaker 4: we weren't necessarily cool to like Michael Jordan would never
Speaker 4: show up better rap show.
Speaker 2: Malcolm Jamal Warner would yeah, yeah.
Speaker 4: But he was our aide, so it doesn't count. But
Speaker 4: Michael Jorgan somebody like a baseball player, basketball player, an actor.
Speaker 4: For the most part, the biggest person that would ever
Speaker 4: show up to anything would be Bobby Brown and Mike Tyson,
Speaker 4: So you know that those guys would be the ones
Speaker 4: that would run with us. But anybody else we were
Speaker 4: like those nasty ass rappers they hudlums in so so
Speaker 4: so we weren't ever any in anything posh. So we
Speaker 4: would get to like say the holiday in and the
Speaker 4: only people that would be around us were the local
Speaker 4: drug dealers. So you know, like we knew them all,
Speaker 4: we were friends with them all. So those are all
Speaker 4: of them, all of them, Jay Prince, everybody you just
Speaker 4: run down the line. Whoever was hot at the time
Speaker 4: was popping. Everybody who was popping, and they were young
Speaker 4: enough to like rap.
Speaker 2: Very well. But see.
Speaker 4: You know, but that's when we go to Houston, that's
Speaker 4: who who took care of everybody? You know, that's not
Speaker 4: see I don't want to stand this is the before
Speaker 4: I get into the story. I don't understand the the
Speaker 4: the flashing lights over the name J Prince, I don't get.
Speaker 4: I don't personally understandstand because he was just homie when
Speaker 4: we got to He had the Rolex hookup, he had
Speaker 4: the club hook up, he had the girl hookup. He
Speaker 4: would show you know, you know, uh Scarface, he was
Speaker 4: the man in Houston. Yes, Scarface would come. He would
Speaker 4: be at every show before he was Scarface. Scarface and
Speaker 4: Bushwick Bill. We would know them because they had a laminate.
Speaker 4: They used to rock lamin. It's from every single show
Speaker 4: that ever happened in Houston. Ever, they would always be in.
Speaker 4: You know, Dana used to live with J. Prince, so
Speaker 4: you know, I don't. Yeah, so so you know, and
Speaker 4: Dana would call it, man, this dude got elevated in
Speaker 4: his house like for real. So so you know, and
Speaker 4: all we knew was JA Prince had rap a lot
Speaker 4: records and you know, like, Okay, So I don't I
Speaker 4: personally don't understand.
Speaker 2: Prince.
Speaker 4: Yeah I don't.
Speaker 8: That's good that you don't because it might.
Speaker 2: And it's maybe I don't. I don't. Yeah.
Speaker 4: No, No, I'm saying as maybe my lack of my
Speaker 4: my ignorance and research I can only go I can
Speaker 4: always you know, go back and see. Okay, what do I.
Speaker 8: Maybe you was a dude everybody loves, But it's just
Speaker 8: it was just.
Speaker 4: Never a situation. You never had to check in with
Speaker 4: anybody when you got to a certain time. You never
Speaker 4: it was just everybody. So I'm saying the people that,
Speaker 4: so to add.
Speaker 1: On to that or ask going too that, when did
Speaker 1: you lose that feeling? Like when did hip hop suddenly
Speaker 1: become a foreign city to you? Like, oh wait, what's
Speaker 1: going on here?
Speaker 4: Like I wanted to tell my Milwaukee story. No no, no, no,
Speaker 4: no no, but that's scond that's so Milwaukee. So so
Speaker 4: we're all in this holiday inn and it's nothing but
Speaker 4: the local hustlers in the hotel with us. So imagine
Speaker 4: you have one side of a hall and all the
Speaker 4: rooms are connected. So it's my room here, Tasha, who
Speaker 4: sings only you here, tap money here, you know, everybody
Speaker 4: and all of and how we usually do it to
Speaker 4: a bus leaves at six in the morning. If you
Speaker 4: missed the bus, you left, and so flavor, flavor, somebody
Speaker 4: will always be on our bus because they would always
Speaker 4: miss But we have these connecting rooms and so at
Speaker 4: some point all of us could be in one room
Speaker 4: and the other four rooms could be empty. So I'm
Speaker 4: in my room packing. Tasha's in one of the rooms.
Speaker 4: She comes back to my room. She goes back to
Speaker 4: her room and she starts crying, what's happening. Bought this
Speaker 4: brand new Louis Vuitton bag and my shit is gone?
Speaker 4: Like how who could have gotten into your room? But basically,
Speaker 4: somebody went into one room, got and started robbing room.
Speaker 4: So the hotel manager brings her license up. They found
Speaker 4: the bag and the license on the ground in the lobby,
Speaker 4: so they bring it back up. She puts the bag away,
Speaker 4: goes like a dumb ass, goes into another room. They
Speaker 4: come back into her room, steal the bag again.
Speaker 2: Oh shit.
Speaker 4: So we're like, all right, we gotta find his back.
Speaker 4: She's hysterical, her mother gave her his bag, blah blah blah.
Speaker 4: So we start knocking on every door. Mind you, there
Speaker 4: was a guy that would come knocking on the way,
Speaker 4: Man where the party at? Man where the party at?
Speaker 4: So he was the scout. You know, nobody's paying attention.
Speaker 4: So we're knocking on the doors and we opened one
Speaker 4: door and I see the scout dude, and I'm like, yo, man,
Speaker 4: you was in my room and so little me, I'm
Speaker 4: popping shit. He don't know that I got like twenty
Speaker 4: dudes in the hallway behind me. So I bust open
Speaker 4: the door and her bag is hanging on the on
Speaker 4: the door on the side door.
Speaker 2: So I say, you got my shit. You came in
Speaker 2: my room. You violated.
Speaker 4: I'm doing all this New York shit.
Speaker 2: He's like, man, you better back up.
Speaker 4: I said, if anybody comes to me and punch him
Speaker 4: in the face. So one guy comes up, whoop knock
Speaker 4: him and all I hear they had a suite. All
Speaker 4: I hear is.
Speaker 2: There you go?
Speaker 4: I kid you not like seven dudes came out of
Speaker 4: this back bedroom with guns.
Speaker 2: But this is the the click speedos on wait what speedos?
Speaker 4: Cowboy booth, oh god, and the cowboy hat and sub
Speaker 4: automatic machine guns.
Speaker 2: Yeah, I'm like you. I was like, what yo. Ever
Speaker 2: see that that gift where Homo Simpson just back the
Speaker 2: Irish exit, Yo, I was like.
Speaker 4: But it was things like that that would always Besides
Speaker 4: the girl, there was like so many weird girl stories,
Speaker 4: Like girls it'll be like pulling up and doing in
Speaker 4: store when there were record stores to do in stores
Speaker 4: at and you do the instore and there's like little
Speaker 4: kids being in, little girls and being in and and
Speaker 4: then like two hours later, you get a knock on
Speaker 4: the door and his grown woman to show up to
Speaker 4: the to the room in this nice dress. She's like, yeah,
Speaker 4: I found out you were hearing. And then you know,
Speaker 4: you're like seventeen, you're ready to get in, and then
Speaker 4: she goes, you know, you don't remember me, I was
Speaker 4: the girl you met at the in store, the twelve
Speaker 4: year old.
Speaker 2: She's like, what it was like a.
Speaker 4: Whole lot and it was like and it was like, yeah,
Speaker 4: I stole my mom's she worked nice and she don't
Speaker 4: know I took her dress, blah blah blah, like we
Speaker 4: got to get you home, you know, and you know
Speaker 4: what it was like. It was so crazy. It was
Speaker 4: and it started to be known that these young girls
Speaker 4: were doing it or it was and I don't know,
Speaker 4: it might happen still like this today, but it'll be
Speaker 4: things where girls are being in the room and you
Speaker 4: hear husbands just knocking on every door crying where's mother.
Speaker 2: Exactly.
Speaker 4: It'll be things like and this was the crazy thing.
Speaker 4: Whole moms would bring their daughters and like, because the
Speaker 4: mom wanted to meet say Ll, the daughter wanted to
Speaker 4: meet me. So the mom would be like, I'm gonna
Speaker 4: just leave her here in the room with you.
Speaker 2: I'm gonna go go beet l.
Speaker 4: It was stuff like that, the mom wanted to meet
Speaker 4: Alby Shaw, Bobby Brown or Keith Sway strain up. And
Speaker 4: then then and then the worst then the craziest thing,
Speaker 4: you know, because back then music literally at this point
Speaker 4: before ninety i say, pre ninety two, music was just hot.
Speaker 4: Music was hot music, and anybody went on tour with anybody,
Speaker 4: you would have the whole Sheriff's department. They know somebody
Speaker 4: was in town. The whole sheriff's department would show up
Speaker 4: at the hotel, knock on every door and check I D.
Speaker 4: And there's been many specially roadies, many roadies arrested for
Speaker 4: suspicion of statutory rate because they would have a girl
Speaker 4: in the room. The girl would be fourteen, the roady
Speaker 4: would be twenty something. It would check ID. The girl
Speaker 4: wouldn't have any ID, so the girl would have to
Speaker 4: call the parents. The parents was superheated at the fact
Speaker 4: that this random guy from Bushwick or whatever it is
Speaker 4: with their daughter. You know, it was crazy stuff like that.
Speaker 4: You know, you know, nobody was smart in any such
Speaker 4: sense of the word.
Speaker 8: It was just like Pete Bobby Brown, prebody, No, this
Speaker 8: is pre.
Speaker 4: This is current Bobby, this is Bobby Brown, is Bobby
Speaker 4: Brown was this was during the same time. This was
Speaker 4: all at the same time.
Speaker 7: I feel like during that's when it's got shut down,
Speaker 7: like nineties between.
Speaker 2: Bobby Brown and Luke Luke. I feel like, really, yeah,
Speaker 2: the idea thing like yeah, so so.
Speaker 4: But but to your question about what, hey, I know.
Speaker 2: I women, I know women. I mean, you know it was.
Speaker 4: But see the thing is, it wasn't. We look at
Speaker 4: it as a certain way now, But I think back
Speaker 4: then it was just I want to liken it to Woodstock,
Speaker 4: you know how everybody wild out in Woodstock and no
Speaker 4: one put you know, like there was sex on the
Speaker 4: lawn and in the mud and all that. But nobody said, oh,
Speaker 4: that was a whole doing it. You know, nobody did that.
Speaker 4: It was just like people doing sex and drugs. So
Speaker 4: in the eighties, I would say, I would think from
Speaker 4: Mellion Mail's time all the way up to say ninety
Speaker 4: one ninety two, there was no definition of it. It
Speaker 4: was just kids gone wild. It was literally that. Because
Speaker 4: then after that, then the label started and Freaknick started
Speaker 4: to come and in, and then all this all this
Speaker 4: crazy stuff.
Speaker 2: Then things started.
Speaker 4: It started to have an ugly face to a lot
Speaker 4: of things that were going on. But I think to
Speaker 4: answer your question, when I think the end of I
Speaker 4: would say an era, a golden era, I would say
Speaker 4: with death row with with NWA. Honestly, with the beginning
Speaker 4: of bad Boy, with that, it started to put things
Speaker 4: in boxes and rappers. We definitely all wore our costumes
Speaker 4: at the time, but now there were designated costumes that
Speaker 4: you had to wear. If you were from the East coast,
Speaker 4: you had to look like this and you had to
Speaker 4: rap like this. If you were from the West coast,
Speaker 4: you had to look and rap like this. And MTV
Speaker 4: came into full stream, like every neighborhood started to have
Speaker 4: that cable now and your MTV ra apps is now
Speaker 4: really at its height. And that was the imagery that
Speaker 4: was pushed across the world. So that's why a lot
Speaker 4: of people will think rap starts with Tupac and Biggie,
Speaker 4: because that at that point is where it turned into
Speaker 4: a corporate hydra and and I don't think people understood
Speaker 4: what they were falling into because it was now now
Speaker 4: there was money.
Speaker 2: You know, think about it.
Speaker 8: I got a Sprit commercial.
Speaker 4: Yeah, you understand what a top artist gets on tour, right,
Speaker 4: quest So the top, the top pay for somebody in
Speaker 4: nineteen eighty nine, nineteen ninety was maybe I remember Salt
Speaker 4: and Pepper was getting twenty two thousand a show a show,
Speaker 4: you know, and that was like.
Speaker 2: Oh shit, twenty But in nineteen eighty nine that was major.
Speaker 8: Yeah, no, that sounds great.
Speaker 4: Mc hammer was probably the top and he was at
Speaker 4: twenty three to twenty five.
Speaker 2: That's crazy.
Speaker 4: A good a good rapper, like if you're really popping
Speaker 4: and you had like maybe a gold out because like
Speaker 4: selling gold is now the equivalent of like two times platinum.
Speaker 4: So if you had a goal to platinum album, you
Speaker 4: can probably get twelve to fifteen thousand.
Speaker 1: Your agent nor well, no, no, I see him, Mark
Speaker 1: Mark Mark At, I see him was was my agent
Speaker 1: at the time.
Speaker 4: But you know, there was several agencies that we would
Speaker 4: just bounce from. You know, there was all these weird
Speaker 4: little agencies and but you know, so the money wasn't
Speaker 4: you know, the hottest you know, I was pushing a Volkswagon.
Speaker 4: You know, that was like the hottest whip you know,
Speaker 4: and you know, the only person that had like a
Speaker 4: super ill car besides Herbie. Every Beat for some some
Speaker 4: reason pulled out of Rolls Royce one day and everybody
Speaker 4: was like, how the hell, how the hell? It was
Speaker 4: an old one, but it was like, how did you
Speaker 4: get that? You know, no, no, no, you would be surprised.
Speaker 4: And I think that I think that at the glow
Speaker 4: of hip hop and being a rapper and being in
Speaker 4: hip hop at the time was a full body experience,
Speaker 4: so people just acted that way. Then once ninety two
Speaker 4: ninety three came along and you started following the mega trends,
Speaker 4: it just it just turned. It turned everything into a
Speaker 4: big money game. People made a lot of money.
Speaker 2: Ladies and gentlemen.
Speaker 1: I hate to do this to you, but you're gonna
Speaker 1: have to wait for part two with our interview with
Speaker 1: Kwame on Quest Love Supreme and which he gets into
Speaker 1: it about the big Ee situation and produce him for
Speaker 1: a lot of hip hop notable.
Speaker 2: So we'll see you on the next go ROUNDO Quest
Speaker 2: Love Supreme only on Pandora. Sorry, See You.
Speaker 1: Quest Love Supreme is a production of iHeartRadio. This classic
Speaker 1: episode was produced by the team at Pandora. For more
Speaker 1: podcasts from iHeartRadio, visit the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or
Speaker 1: wherever you listen to your favorite shows.