Speaker 1: Quest Love Supreme is a production of iHeartRadio. What's Up?
Speaker 2: This is unpaid bill from Quest Love Supreme. On Today's
Speaker 2: Classic QLs. We travel back to January of twenty twenty
Speaker 2: two for our conversation with the legend Dougie Fresh. This
Speaker 2: is part one.
Speaker 1: Shall we started?
Speaker 3: We can't do call Dog such a roll call episode?
Speaker 1: Are you.
Speaker 4: Yelling out?
Speaker 1: I will think of a solution so we can get
Speaker 1: back to role call audio.
Speaker 5: Can you work on I actually thought.
Speaker 6: Of one today, Like we can just we can just
Speaker 6: do our own, our own verse ours. We can say
Speaker 6: that yeah, and the supreme is ourselves.
Speaker 7: But the whole thing is the reaction to you what
Speaker 7: the other person says.
Speaker 3: Exactly and then and then our guest wants to hear.
Speaker 3: They can kind of get an idea.
Speaker 1: Sometimes well okay, I think I got a good idea.
Speaker 6: We go back into a studio in person with people
Speaker 6: and we do our role calls there.
Speaker 4: Now I'm good on that.
Speaker 6: Fante, you can always be even if we're live all
Speaker 6: together in a studio with a.
Speaker 4: Guest being yeah, we just passed you. I'm I'm with it.
Speaker 2: Can we make Fonte like Max headrom though, like he's
Speaker 2: just like on a TV.
Speaker 1: You can just see his head. Can I start this please? Oh?
Speaker 7: No, small talk, ladies and gentlemen. Yeah, that was the
Speaker 7: small talk. Ladies and gentlemen. Welcome to another episode of
Speaker 7: Quest Love Supreme. I'm your host Quest Love and the
Speaker 7: Supreme team is with me strong all five of you
Speaker 7: or four of you? I still don't know the proper
Speaker 7: number anyway. Uh unpaid bill, Congratulations, thanks friend. I think
Speaker 7: you're Yeah, you're you're you're doing big things in your
Speaker 7: life right now. What you got going on?
Speaker 2: Thanksgiving?
Speaker 1: Uh? Grammys? Uh, movies? Uh, that's it. That's all you
Speaker 1: can ask for life jobs. I'm good.
Speaker 7: I was like, life is good, brother, good still dropping.
Speaker 7: I kind of kind of at the point where you were, Well,
Speaker 7: I kind of hit a plateau in Yeah. So I'm
Speaker 7: down probably like thirty right now. I'm down probably like
Speaker 7: thirty seven, you know what I mean. And so I've
Speaker 7: been just switch it up a little bit, and I'm
Speaker 7: gonna start going meatless.
Speaker 4: Maybe like one or two days a week, just to try,
Speaker 4: you know.
Speaker 1: I see.
Speaker 4: So, uh, we're we're switching it up a little bit.
Speaker 7: Well, I'm about to let you know this what my
Speaker 7: heck I got dandy lion, garlic, spinach, and cucumber. So
Speaker 7: hopefully this will do the trick and get me off
Speaker 7: that plateau.
Speaker 4: I was just gonna eat some sweet potatoes.
Speaker 1: But yeah, I'm gonna think less. See that'll do it.
Speaker 4: That'll do it. Yeah, that called will put it on you.
Speaker 3: I'm good, still got the three jobs. Moving down to
Speaker 3: where the black folks live in l A. Really excited.
Speaker 4: Yeah, you got a new apartment, talk about it.
Speaker 1: Apartment right now?
Speaker 8: Yeah, no, this is my mama house. But in LA,
Speaker 8: I got me in a nice spot. So now my
Speaker 8: parents got another bed sleeping. I ain't got to sleep
Speaker 8: on the couch.
Speaker 3: And I'm down with a black folks.
Speaker 1: Where do black people live in l A?
Speaker 8: Just if they're lucky there? They live in South LA Inglewood,
Speaker 8: you know I live. I got I'm letting the murder
Speaker 8: by the drum Circle and whatnot, which is kind of like,
Speaker 8: really dope. It's being highly gentrified right now because that's
Speaker 8: where the stadium is and then putting in the train,
Speaker 8: so LA is it really expansion gentrification on level three.
Speaker 1: The football stadium?
Speaker 5: Yeah?
Speaker 7: Yeah, I went there to see uh the last Rolling
Speaker 7: Stones LA show. Yeah, I heard it, and I didn't
Speaker 7: realize they dropped that joint like right in the middle
Speaker 7: of the hood.
Speaker 3: Yeah, right in Inglewood.
Speaker 7: The second you step off the pavement, you're definitely in Inglewood.
Speaker 8: Yes, it's not as long as that people can afford
Speaker 8: to stay.
Speaker 7: Yeah, it's yeah, right right right in the middle of it.
Speaker 1: Steve, how are you? Yes, I'm good. How are you okay?
Speaker 1: Where am I? How are you?
Speaker 9: Yeah?
Speaker 1: I know where you are. Okay. Let your many followers
Speaker 1: know that you're good.
Speaker 4: Yeah, boss man, and congrats on the witch Call.
Speaker 7: We forgot to congratulate the well the oscars and all that,
Speaker 7: But then the short film you did shout Okay, you
Speaker 7: didn't realize I directed a second film. Sometimes when when
Speaker 7: when there's a little buzz on you and then people
Speaker 7: start and you know, I got a call from a
Speaker 7: team hove to uh settle Well. The thing was is
Speaker 7: that I knew without something on that level, he would
Speaker 7: not come to the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame.
Speaker 7: So I told the staff, let me direct something and
Speaker 7: that will lure him to it.
Speaker 1: Without that, he wouldn't have come. He would have just
Speaker 1: you know, phoned in.
Speaker 3: All right.
Speaker 7: This is probably the longest wow we never going to
Speaker 7: four minutes without even acknowledging our guests right now, we haven't.
Speaker 3: Talked in a while. We sorry, guests, we haven't talked.
Speaker 4: It's been a minute, Okay.
Speaker 7: So what I will quickly say about our guest today is,
Speaker 7: if if I were compiling a list of the most
Speaker 7: charismatic figures in hip hop or maybe in music, I
Speaker 7: wouldn't hesitate to put this gentleman. This gentleman will probably
Speaker 7: and I'm trying to keep the quest level hyperbole down
Speaker 7: to a minimum, he's probably, if not in my top three,
Speaker 7: maybe he is my number one most charismatic figure that
Speaker 7: I know in hip hop. And the evidence of that
Speaker 7: for me is, and I'm going beyond hip hop and
Speaker 7: going to music, the evidence is in the in the
Speaker 7: thirty five years that I've been fortunate enough to see
Speaker 7: him perform. Throughout those decades, I've never not seen him
Speaker 7: elevate any event.
Speaker 1: To the highest level.
Speaker 7: Like I've never seen him walk in any situation with
Speaker 7: fear or trepidation. It's and to me, like, you know,
Speaker 7: I'm a guy who wire overthinking, like, oh, I can't
Speaker 7: go out there.
Speaker 1: You know, they don't know.
Speaker 4: Who I am.
Speaker 7: Whatever, Like forget generational, forget genre. I've seen him rock
Speaker 7: with you know, Prince Tom, Cruise, Heavy d Chuck Brown,
Speaker 7: like every from every genre I've just he's the the
Speaker 7: most charismatic and you know, stupid charismatic. Will Smith's charismatic.
Speaker 7: I can name a gazillion Jay Z's charismatic. But you
Speaker 7: know this, our gentleman, this, our guest today is.
Speaker 4: The world's greatest entertainer.
Speaker 7: Yes, literally, lady ladies and gentlemen, our guest today is
Speaker 7: officially known for the and not for the Please give
Speaker 7: it up for Doug E.
Speaker 1: Fresh on Quest Left Supreme.
Speaker 9: Flowers.
Speaker 5: Let me tell you it is an honor.
Speaker 9: It is an honor, and I appreciate y'all giving me,
Speaker 9: or rather having such a long delay on the introduction
Speaker 9: because I felt because I felt like I got caught
Speaker 9: up with all of y'all too, and I felt like
Speaker 9: it was family conversation and I was able to hear
Speaker 9: it close up in person, you know. So yeah, thank
Speaker 9: you and thank you for having me on your show, Quest,
Speaker 9: I appreciate it. With the Supreme Team and that name,
Speaker 9: Supreme Team HP hip Hop, for y'all to use that
Speaker 9: name is a very powerful thing. Because back on w
Speaker 9: HBI it was the world famous Supreme.
Speaker 5: Team show Keys, Holla and Justice.
Speaker 1: Yes, yes, I know you did.
Speaker 5: That's what look.
Speaker 9: You are the ultimate collector. So I know that when
Speaker 9: I mentioned something like that, you would you either know
Speaker 9: it or you would appreciate it, you know. So I
Speaker 9: and I appreciate you, and I appreciate you having me
Speaker 9: on your show.
Speaker 5: Thank you know what I.
Speaker 7: Think, even though I'm going to start before that, I
Speaker 7: do believe that you are indeed, and I think about
Speaker 7: till today, you are indeed the first beat boxer the
Speaker 7: world has seen, because I believe that your cameo and
Speaker 7: Beat Street did predate the Fat Boys. So even though
Speaker 7: you know, a lot of the world credits Buffy, rest
Speaker 7: in peace to Buffy as the first beat boxer they
Speaker 7: ever seen. If we really look at the timeline for
Speaker 7: all this hip hop heads that saw Beat Street in
Speaker 7: nineteen eighty three, the disco three Fat Boys didn't come
Speaker 7: out until nineteen eighty four, So technically, and it's weird,
Speaker 7: I don't think at the time, and I remember the
Speaker 7: Christmas rap from Beat Street. I think at the time
Speaker 7: you might have been so effortless in doing what you
Speaker 7: were doing. I don't think it even registered to us
Speaker 7: that you were doing drums with your mouth.
Speaker 1: Right, you know what I mean.
Speaker 5: And it was a funny.
Speaker 9: It was us trying to make people kind of laugh
Speaker 9: and feel good. But it's deep that you picked that
Speaker 9: up because I actually did the movie at the time,
Speaker 9: because there was a scout who went up to Savoy
Speaker 9: Matter and I was performing on that show with the
Speaker 9: Crash Crew, Master Don and the Deaf Committee, and I
Speaker 9: believe at that time. I don't think the foss MC's
Speaker 9: was on that show at the time, but I performed
Speaker 9: there and then she gave me a card. And when
Speaker 9: she gave me a card that said Beach Street on it,
Speaker 9: she said, do you want to be in a movie?
Speaker 9: Because what you're doing would be unbelievable to see in
Speaker 9: a movie. And I'm gonna tell you some information. So
Speaker 9: I went there and he started to see what I do,
Speaker 9: and he was like, I don't care what I gotta do.
Speaker 5: I gotta get you in this movie.
Speaker 9: Now. Originally run DMC was supposed to be in Beach Street.
Speaker 9: What And That's what I'm telling you. I think you know,
Speaker 9: I'm give you the yeah, I know, Well, y'all well,
Speaker 9: y'all done, ran to the right y'all and ran in
Speaker 9: the right store tonight because this and everything and by
Speaker 9: the way and everything is free, just by the way,
Speaker 9: just so you know, it's just free. So they're right.
Speaker 9: So but this is how it went. I was supposed
Speaker 9: to do beat when I was doing Beach Street. Harry
Speaker 9: Belafonte wanted me to do something where this thing with
Speaker 9: the beat box could be showcased. So what happened is
Speaker 9: Run DMC and Russell came up there and they were
Speaker 9: going to be in Beach Street, but I don't think
Speaker 9: Russell felt good about them just doing a little segment
Speaker 9: in it. He wanted them to do more. And then
Speaker 9: we and then it was me Run in the elevator
Speaker 9: and d M s see and in the room. So
Speaker 9: they started doing one of their records, the rhyms to
Speaker 9: the second album that came out, the beat that sound
Speaker 9: a little bit like suck MC's.
Speaker 5: I don't know the exact song, but they was saying.
Speaker 1: The King of Rocket album.
Speaker 5: The next album, right, yeah, it's.
Speaker 1: Right, the last song inside too.
Speaker 5: It got done. Yeah, I got like a little it
Speaker 5: got a little kind of thing to it.
Speaker 9: So I'm in the elevator and we started doing it
Speaker 9: and he said, and he looked at Russell and he said, Yo,
Speaker 9: this will be crazy. We should get Dug to do
Speaker 9: the beatbox on this, and we could do this whole
Speaker 9: thing in the movie with And then we started coming
Speaker 9: up with the idea to do it, and then and
Speaker 9: then Harry was excited about it. But then Russell pulled out.
Speaker 9: And after he pulled out, then he brought in Treacherous three.
Speaker 9: And when he brought in Treacher's Three, Treacher's three knew
Speaker 9: me as a kid because they knew me from going
Speaker 9: into Bobby Robinson's record shop or all the time. So
Speaker 9: when they seen me, they said, hey, you know, Harry said,
Speaker 9: mister Bellafonte said, you know, is it any way that
Speaker 9: you can have Dougie do this with you? Because I
Speaker 9: think this routine is unbelievable. So if you listen to
Speaker 9: the rhyme, they mentioned me multiple times and the rhyme,
Speaker 9: he said, you know, you know that kid Dougie fresh
Speaker 9: from down the block, because I.
Speaker 5: Really lived down the block, you know, so when.
Speaker 1: You were their labelmates too, because the right.
Speaker 9: Right, I was yeah, yeah, yeah, no, no, just having
Speaker 9: fun came out on on enjoy. But what happened is
Speaker 9: that that was after you know, Treacher's three was already established.
Speaker 5: But I let out just having fun and.
Speaker 9: I did the movie because at the time, I felt
Speaker 9: like I needed to let people who understand the beat
Speaker 9: Box and I needed to do something. And I started
Speaker 9: to see a lot of people trying to, you know,
Speaker 9: kind of kind of go there with it. In the
Speaker 9: time we grew up in hip hop, it was about
Speaker 9: being as original as possible, so if you did something,
Speaker 9: it would be considered biting. But see, biting was only
Speaker 9: considered bad because the only way to make hip hop
Speaker 9: survive and to be pure creatively, it was necessary for
Speaker 9: you to feel that kind of pressure.
Speaker 5: So somebody say you're a bito.
Speaker 9: That was kind of like the worst thing that you
Speaker 9: can ever be called in your life, you know what
Speaker 9: I mean?
Speaker 1: It was crazy?
Speaker 9: Well, okay, and the be Box was made up in
Speaker 9: eighty I introduced it in eighty two, but I made
Speaker 9: it up in eighty one. See, because I started in
Speaker 9: eighty one at Harlem World. That's where I started. And
Speaker 9: when I made it, I made it because I used
Speaker 9: to play the trumpet, and when I played the trumpet,
Speaker 9: I used to there was a teacher in my class
Speaker 9: named brother Lee.
Speaker 5: Brother Lee was I went to as two A one.
Speaker 9: And Brother Lee really quick. Brother Lee was in there
Speaker 9: and he said, what do you want to play? And
Speaker 9: I pointed to the percussions and the drums. He said, well,
Speaker 9: you can't play that jet. You got to play the trumpet.
Speaker 9: I said, well, why you asked me, Brother Lee, I
Speaker 9: mean baby, and he said he said, I understand, he said,
Speaker 9: but I want you to play the trumpet.
Speaker 5: So I took the trumpet home every day.
Speaker 9: And when I took the trumpet home, I would practice it,
Speaker 9: take the mouthpiece, boil it, do the whole thing, do
Speaker 9: all of the exercises. And then one day when I
Speaker 9: came back to school, Brother Lee was gone because they
Speaker 9: cut all the music programs in school. So I gave
Speaker 9: them the trumpet back. And I was still walking home.
Speaker 9: And when I was walking home, I would pass by
Speaker 9: the mom and pop record shops. So at that time
Speaker 9: Grandma asked a flash hat out. It was a Friday night.
Speaker 9: Everybody was freaking the highs right and I would always
Speaker 9: say it, right there you go, and I would always
Speaker 9: hear the baseline, and when I would hear the baseline.
Speaker 9: Then all of a sudden, I hear all of these
Speaker 9: other things. So I would walk back and forth and
Speaker 9: I would just kind of try to keep adding.
Speaker 5: More and more and more.
Speaker 9: Ideas to the beat, to the point that I had
Speaker 9: maybe seven eight nine things going on at the same time.
Speaker 5: I'm not thinking.
Speaker 9: And I'm going crazy now, but I'm not thinking about it, right,
Speaker 9: let me tell you this true story. I'm not thinking
Speaker 9: about it. So then I go to Barry's house where
Speaker 9: we used to practice, because me and Will Barry b
Speaker 9: that's right, we go over there and practice because that
Speaker 9: was the practice house.
Speaker 5: Long story short.
Speaker 9: I'm in there doing the beatbox and I'm doing I
Speaker 9: think I was doing in peace to President because it's
Speaker 9: like right, and I'm going to piece the President.
Speaker 5: And then all of a.
Speaker 9: Sudden his mother comes in the room and say, that
Speaker 9: was a nice beat. I liked that beat that was playing.
Speaker 9: And he said, Ma, that wasn't the record. That was him,
Speaker 9: And now he said that was him, and then she said, well,
Speaker 9: whatever it was, it was a nice beat. And then
Speaker 9: he turned around and looked at me and said, yo,
Speaker 9: you know what, you should do that in the Big
Speaker 9: Park tomorrow because Mike and Dave was throwing jams out
Speaker 9: in the Big Park. He said, Yo, you should call
Speaker 9: it the human beat Box. I said, I'm not going
Speaker 9: to do that.
Speaker 5: That's crazy.
Speaker 9: I'm not doing that. You're trying to make me look crazy.
Speaker 9: He said, I'm telling you, yo, what you just did
Speaker 9: was crazy. So then I went out to the Big
Speaker 9: Park and when I did it, everybody lost their mind.
Speaker 5: And that was the beginning of the Beatbox.
Speaker 7: And that was nineteen eighty one. That was okay eighty two.
Speaker 7: What Burrow did you premiere that in?
Speaker 5: I premiered it in Harlem. I prepared it in Harlem.
Speaker 9: And then after which was a fascinating piece that I
Speaker 9: think you'll appreciate too, is that Curtis Blow came out
Speaker 9: with one hundred and twenty fifth Street, the people laying
Speaker 9: the concrete, and it was on you know, you know,
Speaker 9: you know, you're like, you know, So what happened? Craziest story.
Speaker 9: I was doing the Beatbox. I was on Flyers with
Speaker 9: the Cold Crush, Busy Bee with the Funky four with Fantastic,
Speaker 9: with treacherous street feelers like I'm on I'm rolling now.
Speaker 9: So now what happened is Curtis Blow was outside, and
Speaker 9: this was the first time Harllow Week had somebody up.
Speaker 9: Curtis Blow was the first hip hop artist to perform
Speaker 9: at Harllow Week. Before that, it was never no hip hop.
Speaker 9: So when Curtis Blow was there, they forgot to give
Speaker 9: him turntables because it wasn't normal. So I'm walking down
Speaker 9: the street. But I'm walking down the street they see me. No,
Speaker 9: that's Dougie Fresh right there. No Dougie, come over here.
Speaker 9: And Curtis said to me, He said, Dougie, is it
Speaker 9: possible for you to get on and do the beatbox
Speaker 9: for me? Because I have no turntables, the band, there's
Speaker 9: no band. The band only know how to play for
Speaker 9: whoever's getting on next. There's no CD, there was no cassette,
Speaker 9: there was nothing. I was standing there. I was like
Speaker 9: this crazy Curtis Blow is asking me to get on
Speaker 9: with him. Are you crazy? I was like, oh, mister Blow, Uh,
Speaker 9: no problem, sir, I'm reckon do that right, sir. That
Speaker 9: I got on and when I got on, Frankie Krocker
Speaker 9: was on BLS. And this is when Harlem Week was big,
Speaker 9: so it was probably like fifteen thousand people outside. I
Speaker 9: got on and I did the beat box and that
Speaker 9: was the first time Curtis Blow heard the beat box.
Speaker 5: And that was way before the fire Boys.
Speaker 1: Okay, se y'all did see ya.
Speaker 9: That's why I'm giving you that feet.
Speaker 1: I get it.
Speaker 9: And then I asked them later.
Speaker 5: I asked some later.
Speaker 9: I said, curt when you did this and you know
Speaker 9: that I create, you know you know that I did this,
Speaker 9: I said, it didn't feel a little funny with you
Speaker 9: in there doing doing He said, Dougie, you know, he
Speaker 9: just asked me to come in and produce.
Speaker 5: And he said, I.
Speaker 9: Said, I'm just trying to understand. I said, did you
Speaker 9: He said, Dougie, it was just so crazy. I was
Speaker 9: under so much. I said, I don't worry about it, man,
Speaker 9: I said, I just wanted to know, you know what
Speaker 9: I mean, because if I did it for you, you
Speaker 9: called me to do it, then it was kind of
Speaker 9: strange for me to hear that you produced the fact
Speaker 9: voice and then the tradition and hip hop was not
Speaker 9: about you when you do something, see you, you're trying
Speaker 9: to create your own sigmaents you were looking to do
Speaker 9: and I didn't need to do to beat box.
Speaker 5: I just it found me.
Speaker 8: And there had to be a life lesson in that though, Doug,
Speaker 8: don't you feel like at the end of the days
Speaker 8: that you were so young and that happened to you,
Speaker 8: You feel like, in retrospect, was there some type of
Speaker 8: life lesson and that, Yeah, you.
Speaker 9: Know what's interesting with the life lesson? I always feel
Speaker 9: this way, And this is the truth I say to myself.
Speaker 9: If the music program was never cut at I is
Speaker 9: two o one and Brother Lee was no longer there,
Speaker 9: would I have created the beat box? I don't know.
Speaker 9: And then on top of that, what's really fascinating is
Speaker 9: Brother Lee. Later on I found out it's Malcolm Lee's father.
Speaker 9: Why brother Lee is also a jazz musician whose brother
Speaker 9: is Spike Lee.
Speaker 1: Billy was your teacher.
Speaker 9: Malcolm Lee's father was your music teacher. And then guess
Speaker 9: what when when I made my records and I came out,
Speaker 9: I found out.
Speaker 5: I said, I got to talk to Brother Lee and
Speaker 5: I'm going.
Speaker 9: To ask you what was you gonna say?
Speaker 4: Well, I'm I'm the.
Speaker 5: Trumpet about.
Speaker 9: I said, I said, Brother Lee, I'm getting ready to
Speaker 9: perform at Madison Square Garden. I said, I want you
Speaker 9: to know that I made up this thing called the
Speaker 9: beatbox and I made it up because of you having
Speaker 9: me play the trumpet. And I said, you know, I
Speaker 9: want you to perform with me at the garden. He said, Dougie,
Speaker 9: I'm so proud of you. He said, but man, I
Speaker 9: don't know if I can handle performing at the garden.
Speaker 9: He was a jazz physician. He said, I might be
Speaker 9: too much for me. I said, well, I just want
Speaker 9: you to know that what you did and what and
Speaker 9: what happened from from the way all of these things
Speaker 9: landed turn this thing into something that in hip hop
Speaker 9: we call the fifth element. And I just want you
Speaker 9: to know that you are the reason or one of
Speaker 9: the reasons how this thing became what it is, and
Speaker 9: it was the deepest thing in the world. And then
Speaker 9: I wound up working with his son Malcolm on Girl
Speaker 9: Trip and and and it's fascinating circle ties together.
Speaker 7: I have a theory, especially in hip hop, those who pioneer,
Speaker 7: those who go first, really never get the glory.
Speaker 1: Those who go second always get the shine.
Speaker 7: So yes, I think in this case, because we technically
Speaker 7: think of you as the second, you also improved or
Speaker 7: be boxing even though you were the first, and even
Speaker 7: though you came out with a single, the original Human
Speaker 7: Betpop whatever, Right, I still say that, you know, it's
Speaker 7: a good thing you came second, because I don't know why.
Speaker 7: But it's just like, you know, Marley Marrole started the
Speaker 7: noise thing, but then the Bomb Squad came in and
Speaker 7: really started the noise thing.
Speaker 5: You know, they weren't there right right.
Speaker 7: East, these first white rappers, and yeah they had success,
Speaker 7: but Eminem really like, whoever does it second in hip
Speaker 7: hop always capitalizes it better. We gotta stuff from the beginning.
Speaker 7: First of all, where were you born? Where were you born?
Speaker 9: I was born here in the US, but as a kid,
Speaker 9: I was taken back and forth to Barbados. So it's
Speaker 9: kind of like you would consider it kind of like
Speaker 9: a dual dig it citizenship in a kind of a way,
Speaker 9: you know, because as a kid, that's how my parents
Speaker 9: kind of moved. And then my grandfather's from Trinidad and
Speaker 9: my grandma's from Barbados, so they was kind of they
Speaker 9: didn't know whether I should stay in Barbados or should
Speaker 9: I be.
Speaker 7: So then I'll ask you then when people are asking
Speaker 7: you about the origins of hip hop and being as
Speaker 7: though a lot of the first generation of that culture came.
Speaker 1: From the Islands.
Speaker 7: Do you do you what is your true belief on
Speaker 7: where hip hop was born? Is it the Bronx or
Speaker 7: do we have to say that technically you know the
Speaker 7: composites of all the residents of the islands, that's where
Speaker 7: it was born. And what are you seeing on these
Speaker 7: islands that lead you Because something's happening there that's bringing
Speaker 7: it to America.
Speaker 5: So right, right, it's a very interesting question.
Speaker 9: Well, my sister introduced me to hip hop here in
Speaker 9: the US, but my family was so diverse in their
Speaker 9: music selection that it made it easy for me to
Speaker 9: take Soca reggae and Go Go and R and B
Speaker 9: and all of these other musics, and it just it.
Speaker 5: Was just one of these things.
Speaker 9: Where you're influenced by all of these things, but in
Speaker 9: the form of hip hop in the way that I
Speaker 9: learned it, because I am the first child of the
Speaker 9: first generation in hip hop, meaning that I am the
Speaker 9: beginning of like all of these people that came before me.
Speaker 9: I learned from DJ Hollywood. So my sister came home
Speaker 9: and said, there is this guy named DJ Hollywood who's rapping.
Speaker 9: I said, let me hear what he say. She said,
Speaker 9: he go ring a dinger ding the dong the dong dong,
Speaker 9: the dang the dang dang d ding the dong dong
Speaker 9: to the hip hop.
Speaker 5: She wopped the box before.
Speaker 9: Anything I've ever heard, and when she told me, say
Speaker 9: it again, say it again, and I'm trying to catch it.
Speaker 9: Then my brother brought in a tape with Grandma's top
Speaker 9: flies in the series five. And when he brought these
Speaker 9: pieces in and then my family lived in the Bronx
Speaker 9: and also in Harlem. So the point I'm making is
Speaker 9: that in the form that I learned hip hop here,
Speaker 9: meaning like I think the influence goes back way further
Speaker 9: than we really understand stand. But the pieces that I
Speaker 9: learned from watching Hollywood, watching Our love Bugstarsky, being able
Speaker 9: to sit on the side of the stage at Harlem
Speaker 9: World when Busy the Battle Kumo d being there in
Speaker 9: the contest. I was in that contest in eighty one.
Speaker 9: So we were taking all of these elements as far
Speaker 9: as like weird it it originate, It originated in Harlem,
Speaker 9: it originated in the Bronx, it originated in Brooklyn.
Speaker 5: There was movements going on all over.
Speaker 8: Do you guys attribute as we we have some historians here,
Speaker 8: I'm curious. I'm like, do you attribute any of this
Speaker 8: to like scatting and at all? Or do you just
Speaker 8: go straight to.
Speaker 9: The well, that's what I'm saying on the levels, because see,
Speaker 9: if you're looking at it on the levels that I'm
Speaker 9: talking about, you could say Calypso and Soca, our original storytellers.
Speaker 9: You could say Yellow Man and Nico Demus, and you
Speaker 9: can go back even further than that, but just use
Speaker 9: them as a blue print. I'm getting married and the morning,
Speaker 9: you know, like like all of these different pieces is
Speaker 9: what made up what we do. And then even and
Speaker 9: this is my experience, you know that that I seen
Speaker 9: all of these elements come together, and they were influencing me.
Speaker 9: Whenever I would go to a certain borough in the Bronx,
Speaker 9: I would get a particular kind of hip hop. When
Speaker 9: I'm in Harlem, I watch Hollywood burn the Apollo down. See,
Speaker 9: Hollywood is the architect of crowd participation, and I learned
Speaker 9: I learned the skill directly from him. So I know
Speaker 9: I know things about it that nobody You will never
Speaker 9: know this because it doesn't exist.
Speaker 5: Any like he had it.
Speaker 9: He gave it to me, and I understand the dynamics
Speaker 9: of it that like be another kid might not like
Speaker 9: Batman's school grew up watching me, so he understands some
Speaker 9: of the dynamics of it. So what I'm saying is
Speaker 9: is that it just kept evolving because everybody was doing
Speaker 9: it in their own experience.
Speaker 5: So I can only respond to the experience that I had.
Speaker 9: But I was in all of the burrows, most of
Speaker 9: the burrows, studying it, you know.
Speaker 7: Okay, So that leads me to what I said at
Speaker 7: the at the top of the show, which is the
Speaker 7: thing that I admire and the thing that I want
Speaker 7: to learn from you the most. Tarik actually learned this
Speaker 7: from you. You have a way of commanding the crowd
Speaker 7: that's not forced because usually in hip hop people have
Speaker 7: to at least the modus operandi. Yeah, the motus operandi
Speaker 7: r come. It's a full twelve yelling and like the
Speaker 7: idea of what you imagine, like Freddie Fox to be
Speaker 7: like shoe off the microphone.
Speaker 1: But you, but you are.
Speaker 7: So the thing that made me pay attention to your
Speaker 7: your crowd control. And the thing is is like the
Speaker 7: one level that I lack in my life journey is
Speaker 7: the ability to really communicate in a way that I'm
Speaker 7: not in my head like you know, because this is
Speaker 7: the thing, like right before I address a crowd or whatever,
Speaker 7: suddenly I'm in my head, like, man, I want to
Speaker 7: look like a nut out here.
Speaker 1: So what I want to.
Speaker 7: Know is I'm certain now that this is like your
Speaker 7: fourth decade in the industry, that now you just do
Speaker 7: it out off of muscle in marine, like you know
Speaker 7: how to capture the crowd. But in those first ten years,
Speaker 7: like even without the show in Lottie Dottie, Like, in
Speaker 7: those first ten years, how are you psyching yourself up?
Speaker 7: Because you, you, to me, are like hip hop's true version.
Speaker 7: I've seen most stuff do this. Also, you're the true
Speaker 7: version of like when I watch a comedian do crowd work.
Speaker 7: You know, even without a single, without a song, you
Speaker 7: walk on the stage, you know how to engage the crowd,
Speaker 7: how to talk to them, things to do, and it
Speaker 7: always works.
Speaker 1: Like I know you've seen you learn it from Hollywood.
Speaker 7: But for the first ten years, like the first five years, say, okay,
Speaker 7: right before the show eighty four, you're doing CrowdWork, Like
Speaker 7: what are you saying to yourself before Like are you
Speaker 7: ever nervous in any situation like damn, who I got tonight?
Speaker 1: A bunch of white people at a corporate party? Like
Speaker 1: how do I do this?
Speaker 8: Like?
Speaker 9: Wow, right, I remember we did that.
Speaker 5: We did a corporate party together one time. I remember
Speaker 5: that time.
Speaker 7: There's no crowd, you can't frock. So what is your
Speaker 7: what is your motivational? I need the motivational talk on
Speaker 7: how you deal with crowd work and why do you
Speaker 7: do so well?
Speaker 9: I used to see Apollo want to sing a come
Speaker 9: out and he sing and I watched him practice before
Speaker 9: he got on. He'll be like this.
Speaker 5: I believe he's singing the notes and everything is tight.
Speaker 9: It's he's pictures perfect. When the showtime starts and he
Speaker 9: walks out there, I believe it.
Speaker 5: And the audience boom right before he even finishes.
Speaker 9: It's because they feel the frequency of fear. And when
Speaker 9: they smell it and they feel it, they automatically get
Speaker 9: out of here.
Speaker 5: Man, Yo, were you don't believe it?
Speaker 4: You don't believe it?
Speaker 5: We believe get out, yo.
Speaker 9: Who's next? Now? If it's a little kid, If it's
Speaker 9: a little kid, it's fascinating. Little kid get up there
Speaker 9: and he'll be like I believe they'd be like, all right,
Speaker 9: come on, shorty, you're gonna do it. Let's go. Yeah. Yeah,
Speaker 9: it's encouragement because he's a younger kid, you see what
Speaker 9: I'm saying. And they don't want to boo him because
Speaker 9: they want to build him up to be come as
Speaker 9: great as they see him having the confidence to at
Speaker 9: least get up on that stage. But if it's an
Speaker 9: if it's a person who is giving, like coming up
Speaker 9: there and you start singing and they feel fear, the
Speaker 9: frequency automatically makes them boom. So through these little lessons,
Speaker 9: I advance the technology that I learned from Hollywood, and
Speaker 9: I learned from love Buck and Busy B and I,
Speaker 9: and I was able to change. I guess, like you said,
Speaker 9: I played with it so much that I don't even
Speaker 9: think about the frequency. I feel the frequency and I
Speaker 9: just respond to the frequency, or I make the frequency
Speaker 9: what I wanted to be right, and I'm and I
Speaker 9: bring you to that frequency.
Speaker 5: You see what I'm saying. It's interesting.
Speaker 8: Can you tell us what you feel like in your body?
Speaker 8: Is this is going on like in your body?
Speaker 9: Don't you tell us?
Speaker 7: How do you how do you talk yourself out of fear? Okay,
Speaker 7: all right to read no, no, no for real.
Speaker 5: That's a good question.
Speaker 1: As it is taping.
Speaker 7: Tarika has left the Tonight Show for four months, so
Speaker 7: thus forcing me in a position where I have to
Speaker 7: address the audience something I hate doing.
Speaker 4: I don't know.
Speaker 7: I don't know if it's that I feel Hollywood or
Speaker 7: feel you know, like ladies and gentlemen, welcome to the
Speaker 7: ROUTO did well?
Speaker 9: See that's the part right there. That's the part right
Speaker 9: there where it goes wrong. See. The fear is because
Speaker 9: you're doing something and being something that's not as authentic
Speaker 9: as you.
Speaker 5: So the key is to be you and to.
Speaker 9: Be you as best like be you and enjoy being you,
Speaker 9: and don't make it like you're trying to fit into
Speaker 9: something and replace it. Don't replace anything, just be you.
Speaker 9: And the energy is so honest that people will feel
Speaker 9: that frequency and they will accept it and make it
Speaker 9: what it is, like the same way, like your conversation
Speaker 9: now is so real that it's making me respond to
Speaker 9: you like I'm responding because I can feel what you're saying,
Speaker 9: and because I feel it, it makes me talk to
Speaker 9: you like this. And that is the same thing you
Speaker 9: have to do. And fear comes from your thinking, don't think,
Speaker 9: feel it and be you when you think. That's where
Speaker 9: fear lives. Fear live in thought. Fear can't exist when
Speaker 9: it's just pure energy and truth. See, fear and truth can't.
Speaker 9: Fear and truth can never be in the same room
Speaker 9: together because truth exposes care. You see what I'm saying.
Speaker 9: So as much as you be yourself, fear can't be around.
Speaker 9: Like right now, I'm telling y'all the truth, and it
Speaker 9: doesn't matter to me how you feel.
Speaker 5: About my truth because it's truth.
Speaker 9: Now, if I was fearful, it's because I want you
Speaker 9: to feel a particular way about me. But I'm not
Speaker 9: concerned with your feelings right now. I'm only concerned with
Speaker 9: making sure you feel the truth. And when you.
Speaker 5: Feel the truth, you can determine how you feel about me.
Speaker 9: You may like me, you may not, but guess what,
Speaker 9: you know what you gonna get when you deal with me.
Speaker 5: You understand truth.
Speaker 9: Right And I'm saying and I'm saying it in this
Speaker 9: way to make you understand that your.
Speaker 5: Truth is good. Your truth is good.
Speaker 9: And you don't like he that's that's his space, but
Speaker 9: your space is you know, you're coming from a completely
Speaker 9: different space and that space you're coming from. It's a
Speaker 9: good space. You just don't know it because you haven't
Speaker 9: been using it. You understand what I'm.
Speaker 7: Saying, being for use it right now so you know,
Speaker 7: we will see how it goes till.
Speaker 8: I feel like at some point, even for Dougie Fresh,
Speaker 8: there's an energy in your body that you may have
Speaker 8: to either suppress for the moment or figure you know
Speaker 8: what I mean, Like it's something different going on in
Speaker 8: here sometimes than out there to get to what they need.
Speaker 5: But given what they need right you're.
Speaker 9: Always you know the reason why the energy is not
Speaker 9: bothering me because my level of focus is on what
Speaker 9: I want, and what I want is I want to
Speaker 9: save a life. I want to fix this problem. See
Speaker 9: what happens is this when people are dealing. And it's
Speaker 9: a fascinating how this all ties in together. Because see,
Speaker 9: when a person panics, the panic stops them from making
Speaker 9: a disc that they would have made if they didn't panic.
Speaker 9: So if a person can focus on what they're doing,
Speaker 9: panic can't get in because you're focused on what you're doing.
Speaker 9: Now you'll feel things. Panic could be at the door knocking,
Speaker 9: but you're focused and it's it's It's part of a
Speaker 9: I guess a technique. Like even like when I work out, right,
Speaker 9: say I run, I run, and I don't use no music.
Speaker 5: And sometimes what I do is when I'm running, I'm.
Speaker 9: Taking my mind and I'm focusing on something and I'm
Speaker 9: training it to focus on that. And you know how
Speaker 9: the mind work, there's always a new thought that come in.
Speaker 9: Even when somebody's talking to you, there's a new thought.
Speaker 9: But I train my mind to block all the things,
Speaker 9: and I am focused on that. And when I'm ready,
Speaker 9: I will let you tell me what I will let
Speaker 9: And I hope I ain't bugging y'all out, but okay, okay,
Speaker 9: I will.
Speaker 3: I will.
Speaker 9: I will decide when I want that thought to come in,
Speaker 9: and I decide if I want that thought or use
Speaker 9: that thought because the focus is what is what I'm
Speaker 9: looking at. And in order for me to be effective
Speaker 9: at that thing that I'm doing, I have to stay focused.
Speaker 9: If I'm performing and something is going on and I'm
Speaker 9: not focused on the audience, let's say I'm I'm too divided,
Speaker 9: you know what I mean. I'm trying to, you know,
Speaker 9: get this happening. I'm trying to get my man in
Speaker 9: the club. I'm trying to make sure my girl is situated.
Speaker 9: I'm trying to make sure yo yo yo yo sound
Speaker 9: man like it's too much. So if you're able to
Speaker 9: take and focus on something, the impact of it is powerful.
Speaker 9: And then when you're focused on it and you trage
Speaker 9: your mind to think like that, then what happens is
Speaker 9: that there's no fear in it because you're focused, and
Speaker 9: there's no panic because that thing you're focused on is
Speaker 9: the only thing that matter.
Speaker 1: Think about are meditation.
Speaker 3: I was about to say, a marriage sound like what
Speaker 3: we talk about.
Speaker 9: I don't have no problems with it, but I guess
Speaker 9: in a form I do what kind of I guess
Speaker 9: it's like a form of meditation, because when I'm running,
Speaker 9: I may be running for seventy minutes, sixty minutes, ninety minutes,
Speaker 9: and every time my mind is trying to take me
Speaker 9: someplace else, I'd be like, no, no, no, no, we're
Speaker 9: staying here.
Speaker 3: Yeah, you're doing it.
Speaker 5: I keep grabbing it meditation, and I put it right back.
Speaker 9: I go like this, no, right here, And then I
Speaker 9: practice it so much to the point that people don't
Speaker 9: know how hard it is to think about the same thing.
Speaker 5: For ten minutes with any interruptions, just ten minutes.
Speaker 3: If they try to meditate, they know it.
Speaker 5: That's what. Yeah.
Speaker 9: Yeah, So I kind of incorporate that in a lot
Speaker 9: of things because I feel like fear is not real,
Speaker 9: but it's real to you when you're going through it.
Speaker 9: So if I'm able to, you know, control the outcome
Speaker 9: by my focus, then fear can't get in there. So
Speaker 9: if I'm dealing with a situation like city college, if
Speaker 9: I'm dealing with a situation where I see somebody who
Speaker 9: got shot at a club or a family member instead
Speaker 9: of me, kind of king, I'm focused and I deal
Speaker 9: with that, and it's I'm so focused that I'm not
Speaker 9: allowing nothing to stop me. And anybody that's giving me anything,
Speaker 9: I can hear when it's something I need, but if it's, ah,
Speaker 9: oh my god, I don't need that, you know, meaning
Speaker 9: like if you said so, Doug, I got to ride
Speaker 9: for so and so I can hear you and I
Speaker 9: would grab the person and put them in the ride.
Speaker 9: So it's a focus for being able to understand what's necessary.
Speaker 5: I don't know if I went too far with.
Speaker 9: This, but I mean.
Speaker 7: It's an earful Yeah, A question for you, Doug, because
Speaker 7: you've you know, in terms of your faith, because we
Speaker 7: know that you've been involved with like scientology for a while.
Speaker 7: Is that having that kind of focus, Is that something
Speaker 7: that you know you learned in that faith? How does
Speaker 7: that help you as an entertainer?
Speaker 9: It's funny, that's a that's a real good question, bro.
Speaker 9: You know what, I didn't get that from scientology. I
Speaker 9: discovered it from just running, you know. And I'm running,
Speaker 9: like my running is the thing I love to do,
Speaker 9: you know. So when I'm running, I started to discover
Speaker 9: how my mind is all over the place trying to
Speaker 9: keep itself busy because I'm trying you know, you're running
Speaker 9: it he's trying to breathe and so so all of
Speaker 9: a sudden, I said, Yo, the mine is panic ging, Yo, doggie,
Speaker 9: why are you pushing me like this? Yo? You know
Speaker 9: this is too heavy?
Speaker 5: So why you got me? And then I would like this,
Speaker 5: shut up, bro, shut up, shut up, shut up.
Speaker 9: Like all right, and I'll be like we're doing this
Speaker 9: right here, and now I want you to relax, don't panic,
Speaker 9: and breathe and and and not to the degree to
Speaker 9: say if I needed to slow down, you slow down.
Speaker 9: But don't panic. See that's the part that piece right there.
Speaker 9: Don't panic you See what I'm.
Speaker 7: Saying A good buddy of mine is it's actually your too, DJ,
Speaker 7: my man, DJ skills.
Speaker 4: That's that's my guy.
Speaker 5: Oh that's a bad man.
Speaker 9: That's a bad man.
Speaker 7: Yeah, it's a bad bad Yeah. And he was telling me, uh,
Speaker 7: going out with you. He was like, yeah, Dougie, he
Speaker 7: will work out before the show. He always tells me like, Yo, Doug,
Speaker 7: workout or you'll run or whatever for the show.
Speaker 4: Shower kind of have your time and then you do it.
Speaker 4: So I always highly of you. Man.
Speaker 7: Well, I think when you mentioned when we mentioned meditation earlier,
Speaker 7: what I what I do know is the sort of
Speaker 7: common factor, the reason why people jog, the reason why
Speaker 7: we work out, the reason you know.
Speaker 1: I've said in.
Speaker 7: Past episodes about like advanced breathing techniques and sexual activity,
Speaker 7: like anything that causes you, yes, anything that causes you
Speaker 7: to breathe, like it's your last breath. Somehow your mind
Speaker 7: your mind goes into another which is another is weird
Speaker 7: to say.
Speaker 1: I kind of want to know.
Speaker 7: I don't want to know, but I do want to
Speaker 7: know what what the mind state is to a person
Speaker 7: that's about to drown, because I also believe I almost drowned.
Speaker 9: That's how I came That's another that's how I came
Speaker 9: up with this. I said, kid almost dropped, almost dropped
Speaker 9: the Central Park Lake.
Speaker 5: Me and two of my friends took a little boat.
Speaker 5: We took one of them little boats. He was cutting school.
Speaker 9: They talked me into it, and I jumped on the
Speaker 9: boat with him, and we didn't even have use was
Speaker 9: pushing out with a little log, and then all of
Speaker 9: a sudden, one he had heard the siren, so he
Speaker 9: knew he wasn't supposed to be doing nothing.
Speaker 5: So he had fear.
Speaker 9: He jumped into that water. He started swimming, and so
Speaker 9: when he jumped, the boat pushed back, and all of
Speaker 9: a sudden, the other one was there. I said, man,
Speaker 9: I ain't jumping in that water. Come on me and
Speaker 9: you let's just roll back. And all a sudden he's like, yo,
Speaker 9: come on, man, come on. So his fear he transferred
Speaker 9: it to his cousin. His cousin jumped out the boat
Speaker 9: started swimming. Then he said, oh, come on, man, the
Speaker 9: cops is gonna get us. I'm telling you, the cops
Speaker 9: gonna get you. You know, here. We are young. I said, man,
Speaker 9: I don't care what he saying. I'm rolling this damp boat,
Speaker 9: you know. So I get closer to the ship. I
Speaker 9: think that I'm getting I'm close enough. He's panicking. I
Speaker 9: allowed his fear to get in me. I jumped in
Speaker 9: the water. I'm doggy podder. I'm saying, this is close enough.
Speaker 9: I think I'm good. And I put my feet down
Speaker 9: under me, thinking that the ground was there.
Speaker 5: There wasn't no ground. There wasn't no ground.
Speaker 9: It wasn't no ground. And I started, right, wow, I
Speaker 9: mean when i'm and then my man came in and
Speaker 9: he grabbed me and pulled me in right.
Speaker 5: And when he pulled me in, I'm spinning.
Speaker 9: I'm spinning the water up. So now when I go
Speaker 9: to the pool, and this is a real story, I'm
Speaker 9: over here.
Speaker 5: Everybody's in the five.
Speaker 9: Feet sixteen you know, summertime pool is with everybody else. Girl,
Speaker 9: I'm over in the little four feet or the three feet,
Speaker 9: sitting in here with my feet water. I'm just shook.
Speaker 9: I'm just shook, like to my point it was crazy.
Speaker 9: Then I said, I can't live my life like this.
Speaker 9: This is crazy. I said, this is not even this
Speaker 9: makes me feel crazy. Every time I'm getting in water,
Speaker 9: I'm shuk. So that one day I went to Hawaii
Speaker 9: to to go do a show because this was on
Speaker 9: for a while. I got in a WHI the dude
Speaker 9: was sitting out on the raft and my man, my
Speaker 9: sound man, said, Yo, come swim out. Man, Yo, come
Speaker 9: come out here. So I said, I said, all right,
Speaker 9: I got to break this. I jump in the water
Speaker 9: and I swim out. I get to the raft. He
Speaker 9: said there, talk to me. Asked me like two different things.
Speaker 9: He said, well, I gotta go. I'm jumping off the raft.
Speaker 9: He jump off the raft and he swims back to
Speaker 9: the to the beach. I'm sitting there going, damn, this
Speaker 9: is crazy. I gotta go all the way back now.
Speaker 5: So I jump.
Speaker 9: So I jump in the water and I started swimming.
Speaker 9: And when I started swimming, I said, I stopped. And
Speaker 9: then I lay in the water and I'm floating and
Speaker 9: I said, wow, now I get it. I said. The
Speaker 9: reason why I almost drowned, it's not because I can't swim.
Speaker 9: It's because I panicked. And when I panicked, it took
Speaker 9: everything out of me. It made me not think, It
Speaker 9: just made me.
Speaker 5: Just how stired here.
Speaker 9: Yeah, yeah, it took everything out of me. And I said,
Speaker 9: if I relax, if I breathe, and if I trust myself,
Speaker 9: and if I allow this to make sure that that
Speaker 9: fear is not there, then it's not as hard. And
Speaker 9: that lesson is the lesson that I have applied in
Speaker 9: every aspect of my life, from that time that I
Speaker 9: drown to the time that I discovered that. And then
Speaker 9: I learned that when you run, even when you breathe
Speaker 9: it most people stop running because they panic when they're breathing.
Speaker 9: It's getting cut short, right, So the key is to
Speaker 9: think and focus on the breathing and then you relax,
Speaker 9: the same way if a person is you know, you
Speaker 9: know you're going into a stressful situation.
Speaker 5: You have to relax and then the energy will flow.
Speaker 5: And I mean, I hate to say it like this suit,
Speaker 5: but we're keeping it real on this little com y'all.
Speaker 9: Y'all took me.
Speaker 5: I didn't even think.
Speaker 9: But even if you're losing the fireproom, bro, if you don't.
Speaker 7: Die, you don't and there's a Dougie fresh.
Speaker 5: Like you're sitting there like this.
Speaker 4: I don't want nobody to have me.
Speaker 9: I don't want nobody to see me, and then I
Speaker 9: ain't gotta go. You see what I'm saying. But until
Speaker 9: i'm I'm keeping it so real. And I know y'all
Speaker 9: know it's true that if you don't relax, y'all, if
Speaker 9: you don't relax, it's crazy. So that's a that's a
Speaker 9: big part of controlling fear. You can't control fear unless
Speaker 9: you relax.
Speaker 1: We got to get to the show eventually, But I
Speaker 1: do have one question. You mentioned.
Speaker 7: A legendary Harlem figure that I don't know anything about
Speaker 7: besides his record labels, But could you please like we've
Speaker 7: heard everything about Jersey and Sugar Sugar Hill with Sylvia
Speaker 7: and Bobby in Jersey, but a lot of people don't
Speaker 7: know that the Bobby Robinson that runs Enjoy Records is
Speaker 7: another Bobby Robinson I know nothing about. And you know,
Speaker 7: I'm a fan of the Godfather of Harlem and Bobby
Speaker 7: Robinson's character this season, Yeah, he's been Yeah, Bobby Robinson's
Speaker 7: sort of been a figure in the first In the
Speaker 7: second season, he owns a local record store.
Speaker 4: Obviously, Okay, I saw the first season.
Speaker 7: So obviously you know, like I can see like you
Speaker 7: own a record store, and then you start your label.
Speaker 1: Oh YadA YadA, YadA woo.
Speaker 7: But can you talk about Bobby Robinson and what he
Speaker 7: meant to the community of Harlem, like and your dealings
Speaker 7: with him, Like what was he like?
Speaker 9: Bobby? Bobby Robinson was a very mild mannered, low key,
Speaker 9: community friendly guy who was not a very big guy.
Speaker 5: But he was a guy that.
Speaker 9: All of us respected because he had his own record shop.
Speaker 9: He would go to his record shop, he had the
Speaker 9: Mamo Pop Record Shop, and you would you would hear
Speaker 9: everything that came out from the Treacher's Free, from the Feelers,
Speaker 9: from Coolkow, from anybody from Funky four. And he was
Speaker 9: the first guy out there doing it. But the problem
Speaker 9: is is that in the community, Bobby Robinson was also
Speaker 9: known as a guy who did not pay and he
Speaker 9: did not pay no rappers. So so I when I
Speaker 9: did the deal with him, I got some money up
Speaker 9: front from him because I knew based on the history
Speaker 9: of what he did with the trust. I used to
Speaker 9: sit in Bobby Robinson's record shop and watch Treacher's Three
Speaker 9: come in there, and LA would be like, Joe, we're
Speaker 9: Bobby Man, I'm looking for my money.
Speaker 8: Man.
Speaker 9: I would watch mo d coming, it goes Bobby in here, Yo,
Speaker 9: where's he at? And I would watch how.
Speaker 5: People respected Bobby because he was.
Speaker 9: The guy who looked like he knew more than us
Speaker 9: we were kids, but it looked like he didn't either
Speaker 9: explain what was going on, or he was doing things
Speaker 9: and didn't really come clean on what he was doing.
Speaker 5: Can you under saying.
Speaker 7: Okay, so okay, So nineteen eighty one and I get
Speaker 7: a deal with Enjoy Records? What how's the deal broker?
Speaker 1: Like? What is housing k or fair deal for Enjoy Records?
Speaker 7: Are you giving me and you're Bobby Robinson, are you
Speaker 7: giving me and my crew like five hundred bucks to
Speaker 7: do one side? Or like, what's what kind of deal
Speaker 7: my striking with you? If you're Bobby Robinson? I want
Speaker 7: to make a rap record.
Speaker 5: Bobby Robinson is not giving you a deal where you
Speaker 5: really know what.
Speaker 9: You're gonna get. You might get ten center record, you
Speaker 9: might get twelve cents a record or fifteen cents a record,
Speaker 9: But he is not sitting down with a lawyer and
Speaker 9: going through a deal with you. He know you're a
Speaker 9: hungry young kid who could rap, and he's just trying
Speaker 9: to put the record out and he's saying, no, here,
Speaker 9: sign this and we're gonna work it out. And there's
Speaker 9: no way for you to take account to how many
Speaker 9: records he sold because he's selling them out the trunk
Speaker 9: or he's passing them around.
Speaker 5: As to mom and pop distribution.
Speaker 9: Bobby Robinson was a guy that for me, I watch
Speaker 9: every hit pop artists that he had signed, from Grandmaster
Speaker 9: Flash to Funkie four to Treacherous three and feel his four.
Speaker 9: I watched all of them. He had them all and
Speaker 9: he never dealt with them in a way that they
Speaker 9: felt confident that they were going to get compensated for
Speaker 9: their music. And with me, I just did one single
Speaker 9: with him with two sided, because I did get Fresh
Speaker 9: Doug on the other side, because I needed to have
Speaker 9: something out because I seen what was going on in
Speaker 9: regards to people believing that I might have got it
Speaker 9: from Fat Boys, which originally was Disco three. So when
Speaker 9: I got with him, it was only for strategic purposes.
Speaker 5: It wasn't he.
Speaker 9: I knew that Bobby Robinson was not a guy that
Speaker 9: would pay you, and he would not. He was not
Speaker 9: a guy that you could see yourself making money with.
Speaker 7: So you went with enjoyed, just so that you could
Speaker 7: stop the bleeding of the fat boys being the soul
Speaker 7: creators of the beat box, Like I gotta get in
Speaker 7: the Okay, I get it marketing right right.
Speaker 9: So I strategically, I said, if I hit him with
Speaker 9: the movie, if I hit him with just having fun
Speaker 9: and Get Fresh tough, because remember I said, for all
Speaker 9: the sounds you bet boxes are doing, all you bit
Speaker 9: from me, I should be sewing some say yay what
Speaker 9: they should be going. From the time you hit this robing,
Speaker 9: your career is ruined. That's the way I opened it up,
Speaker 9: you know what I mean. And then and so once
Speaker 9: I did that, it was to make people know. And
Speaker 9: then out in Long Island in eighty two, I met
Speaker 9: Biz and then I would have Biz with me everywhere
Speaker 9: because Biz was coming to my house and he was
Speaker 9: going to the store for my mother. He was going
Speaker 9: to the store for my grandmother. And he was up
Speaker 9: under me because he was trying to learn the beat box.
Speaker 5: So I had him there you talking, yes, business, Biz
Speaker 5: was This is one of the members, the first members
Speaker 5: of the Get Fresh Crow.
Speaker 4: Did not know.
Speaker 9: You that.
Speaker 5: That's my brother. I love him. He's on this new
Speaker 5: album that I just let out. I mean, that's one
Speaker 5: of our list times together. And then and and he's
Speaker 5: his family, you know what I mean.
Speaker 9: So and then eventually and then it got a little
Speaker 9: weird because he's trying to do the beat box. I'm
Speaker 9: doing it and I'm like, yo, Biz, you know you're
Speaker 9: biting straight up.
Speaker 5: I can't let you do that.
Speaker 9: And he's like, all right, all right. And then that's
Speaker 9: when he went to Magic. But I was with Magic first.
Speaker 9: But Magic was trying to get me to battle everybody.
Speaker 9: So I didn't like that. I didn't like how Magic
Speaker 9: was trying to get me to go in there and
Speaker 9: battle every single person that he had. That that he
Speaker 9: didn't like because he was getting high at the time
Speaker 9: and he.
Speaker 5: Wasn't the same as the magic from w HBI, you
Speaker 5: know what I mean.
Speaker 7: Doug one more enjoyed eraror question that I gotta know about,
Speaker 7: you know, because I come from a lineage of musicianship,
Speaker 7: you know, and all respect to Keith le Blancin and
Speaker 7: Doug win Bush of sugar Hill.
Speaker 5: To talking about Pumpkin, Baby.
Speaker 1: Pumpkins.
Speaker 7: So for our listeners that don't know, pumpkin, Pumpkin was
Speaker 7: the you know, for Keith le Blancin and and Doug
Speaker 7: win Bush to be the house band of sugar Hill
Speaker 7: Records over at Enjoy Records up in Harlem. The leader
Speaker 7: was Pumpkin the drummer. And you know if you if
Speaker 7: you're if you're a beat, heead you know if you
Speaker 7: collect records. Then his interpolation of tower power squid cakes,
Speaker 7: it was done. I think even better. You know, I
Speaker 7: prefer love rap by Spoony g. That break more than
Speaker 7: the original breakdown it should have came from. Can you
Speaker 7: tell me anything about I knew nothing about Pumpkin.
Speaker 9: What was he?
Speaker 1: Let me tell you about original.
Speaker 9: Pumpkin, right right, right right Pumpkin. Pumpkin was unbelievable. One
Speaker 9: day and this is what happened with Bobby Robinson. And
Speaker 9: this is what made me do it like I did it.
Speaker 9: Pumpkin was in there and I told him a beat
Speaker 9: I wanted him to play. He played a beat. He'll
Speaker 9: go to the keyboards. I said, give me this sound.
Speaker 9: He'll go in there.
Speaker 5: He'll pick up the sound. If you need him to
Speaker 5: play the bass and grab the bas and put that
Speaker 5: in there. Pumpkin was like.
Speaker 4: A one man man.
Speaker 9: And what happened and if you listen to love rap
Speaker 9: when it's going that beat, and then if you hear
Speaker 9: in the back, you here the percussions.
Speaker 5: That's Spoony G's.
Speaker 9: Brother and his name is Pooci all of them little
Speaker 9: brother Poochie is Spoony Jeans brother.
Speaker 5: Never knew that b this this thing runs so deep.
Speaker 9: But but Pumpkin, and before Pumpkin passed, Pumpkin came to
Speaker 9: the studio and he kept saying, Dougie, let me let
Speaker 9: me play a beat for you tonight.
Speaker 5: Come on, Dougie, mean, let's go back to back, Let's
Speaker 5: do beat.
Speaker 9: And in the middle of everything going on before me
Speaker 9: and were before me and it were able to get together,
Speaker 9: he passed away. But Pumpkin was a guy that that's
Speaker 9: why we did this. That's why he did this song.
Speaker 9: Pumpkin and the All Stars. We remember that one because
Speaker 9: Pumpkin and if you have oh, that was his cod
Speaker 9: kidnamed Fly Fly.
Speaker 1: Tired Michael Jackson.
Speaker 9: We crazy, look, look, look Pumpkin was. Pumpkin was honestly
Speaker 9: as a drummer, as a musician, he was a guy
Speaker 9: that you could tell your ideas too, and he would
Speaker 9: be able to give you the idea just like you
Speaker 9: wanted it and add some things. That was really really good.
Speaker 9: So my first record I was gonna do was a
Speaker 9: song with Pumpkin, but we never got to finish it.
Speaker 7: I was going to say, because if it wasn't for
Speaker 7: Pumpkin passing away, would you have worked with Teddy Riley
Speaker 7: for the show in nineteen eighty five? If Punkin were
Speaker 7: still alive, would you go on to Pumpkin instead of
Speaker 7: Teddy Riley?
Speaker 5: I would have probably went to Pumpkin.
Speaker 9: But also I was I was teaching Teddy about hip
Speaker 9: hop because Teddy was from.
Speaker 5: The church, church kid, right, so we used.
Speaker 9: To cut school and that's when I introduced him to swing.
Speaker 9: And that was the beginning of it because because the drums,
Speaker 9: you know, let me talk to you as a producer
Speaker 9: now like on the d X or the DMX, the
Speaker 9: button in the back would determine how much swing that
Speaker 9: you put into a beat. If I'm going.
Speaker 5: That's swinging, run DMC's beat is to be like.
Speaker 9: Now, it's more like.
Speaker 5: Right action.
Speaker 9: So what I brought was so that's swing, that's swing,
Speaker 9: that swing. And I did it because Greg Greg g
Speaker 9: from the disco for owed me some money because I
Speaker 9: did a show for him because he was a promoter
Speaker 9: on the side, and because he owed me money, he
Speaker 9: lent all of his equipment to Teddy. And when he
Speaker 9: lent it to Teddy, he said, Yo, man, I ain't
Speaker 9: got the money right now for Joe. If you want
Speaker 9: to work on your music and you want to get
Speaker 9: your joint done, yo, I got the equipment over there
Speaker 9: at Teddy's house. I said, really, he said yeah.
Speaker 5: So I went over there.
Speaker 9: Teddy had all of his equipment over there, and right
Speaker 9: over there is when I started to make up the
Speaker 9: pattern of this show. The drums, and then that's when
Speaker 9: I hit that shaker and I as when, huh.
Speaker 1: How many tracks were you?
Speaker 9: Like?
Speaker 1: What equipment made the show?
Speaker 5: I use.
Speaker 9: I used the DX drum machine, and I use a
Speaker 9: series of keyboards because my manager was the one in
Speaker 9: the studio that played everything. Because it's just a complicated story, man.
Speaker 9: But but you know, but the truth of the matter
Speaker 9: is that I know that the show would have never
Speaker 9: became what it is if I didn't have Teddy there
Speaker 9: to be able to to to express my ideas the
Speaker 9: way that I express you know what I mean.
Speaker 7: I was gonna say the show is one of the
Speaker 7: most unusual formatic songs I've ever heard, because if you really,
Speaker 7: if you really break down the show, the show is
Speaker 7: almost like it's almost like I wouldn't say interludes, but
Speaker 7: I would almost say seven vignettes because nothing, nothing repeats
Speaker 7: twice like then here we go, here we go, come on.
Speaker 7: It's almost like it's like every hooks could be a
Speaker 7: hook every four bars, and I know you guys aren't
Speaker 7: dealing with like pro tools and cut these four bars,
Speaker 7: so it's almost like I feel like you had to
Speaker 7: map out that entirely sequence.
Speaker 5: I did, I did, I did. I went over there.
Speaker 9: I sat down, and this is when I first learned
Speaker 9: how to count the bars and arrange it.
Speaker 5: So I sat down and I arranged the whole thing.
Speaker 9: And when I arranged it, I went over there his
Speaker 9: house after I'm made up the track.
Speaker 5: Because this is how.
Speaker 9: Y'all understand this, because y'all are musicians and y'all know
Speaker 9: the game.
Speaker 5: You go there, you feel the music, and you make
Speaker 5: it up.
Speaker 9: After you make it up, I would take the tape
Speaker 9: home and then I would, you know, play around with it.
Speaker 9: I'll go to Will's house, Battery's house, and I'll come
Speaker 9: back and say I like this.
Speaker 5: I like this, and so I wanted I didn't.
Speaker 9: I just structured it where I want the horn to
Speaker 9: hit here, I want this to be, and I learned
Speaker 9: how to structure it based on how many bars everything
Speaker 9: was on the song. And then after it was all done,
Speaker 9: then I had to go back and program the drums
Speaker 9: so so I can separate all of these pieces, so
Speaker 9: you don't want even pacing. No, I just I just
Speaker 9: programmed it like that Teddy. I told Teddy what I
Speaker 9: wanted to do, and he knew how to work the equipment,
Speaker 9: and so he sat down and whatever I was asking
Speaker 9: him to do, he would do it.
Speaker 5: I'll say, like Teddy was the one who came up
Speaker 5: with the.
Speaker 9: Drum roll, so so because I was doing a drum
Speaker 9: roll and mom was cool. But then and he heard
Speaker 9: mine and it was in his like a combination of
Speaker 9: what I was doing and what he added to it,
Speaker 9: which made it better. So the other part that any
Speaker 9: contribution that anybody was trying to make to the song,
Speaker 9: if it felt good and if it worked, it didn't matter.
Speaker 5: Who came up with it.
Speaker 9: It was about making this thing as hot as it
Speaker 9: could be. Like when I hit the shaker. I hit
Speaker 9: the shaker by accident because it was I was looking
Speaker 9: for something else. And then when I hit the shaker,
Speaker 9: I just started to you know, because I'm doing the
Speaker 9: bee box and all of that, I said, I started,
Speaker 9: I started.
Speaker 5: Really moving it.
Speaker 9: And then when I was working with the drum machine Teddy,
Speaker 9: I said, I want swing in it, and he was like, okay,
Speaker 9: and he put a little I said no, I got
Speaker 9: to swing harder than that, and.
Speaker 5: Then he started saying no, I got to swing.
Speaker 9: I said, that's it right there, that's swing and nobody
Speaker 9: was using it.
Speaker 1: Man, not like that.
Speaker 7: I'm gonna tell you to be alive and of age
Speaker 7: in nineteen eighty five. I'm probably the last human that
Speaker 7: got on the train of the show right before it
Speaker 7: took off, because I spent the entire summer of nineteen
Speaker 7: eighty five in California where it was all about Toddy
Speaker 7: T's batter Ram the batter I remember, right, I like, yeah,
Speaker 7: my cousins, My cousins were bangers whatever like and literally
Speaker 7: that's all you only heard batter Ram. So to spend June,
Speaker 7: July and August in California in the Altadena, Pasadena with
Speaker 7: my teenage cousins.
Speaker 1: Only hearing batter Ram.
Speaker 7: I come back home to Philly and this is this
Speaker 7: is I know that nineteen eighty five is probably the
Speaker 7: last regional year for hip hop, where like only regions,
Speaker 7: you only dealt with their regions and it wasn't like
Speaker 7: fully national yet. And I got home and saw, you know,
Speaker 7: the landed. My plane landed like three or four in
Speaker 7: the afternoon. Got home, and I remember like talking to
Speaker 7: the kids on the block, and I just knew I
Speaker 7: was up on something that they weren't up on. And
Speaker 7: I was like, yo, y'all know about batter Ram. Now
Speaker 7: I'm from Philly, right. They looked at me like I
Speaker 7: was an alien. They're like, what the hell is a
Speaker 7: batter Ram. I'm like, right, you can't stop. I'm singing
Speaker 7: the first verse and everything. They just looked at me
Speaker 7: like it was like the block was laughing at me.
Speaker 7: They're like, nah, we only know about the show and
Speaker 7: Lotty Dottie. And I was like, like, the did not
Speaker 7: know about this. Literally, this is like two days before
Speaker 7: school started. And they told me, nah, this is this
Speaker 7: has been number one on Power ninety nine for three
Speaker 7: months in a row, like that's the that's the last
Speaker 7: time I felt so late on something that the whole
Speaker 7: world was up on.
Speaker 8: You still had you still had till nineteen ninety one
Speaker 8: to get back on it again.
Speaker 3: Because I was gonna say, did did the New Jack City?
Speaker 8: I wanted to know the story between on the New
Speaker 8: Jack City situation and how it became kind of that
Speaker 8: scene and in that movie, and how you even allowed
Speaker 8: them to use it. Yeah, because I felt like it
Speaker 8: came back and the Ninjack City it just gave it
Speaker 8: new life.
Speaker 1: I mean the show never I think, no gave it
Speaker 1: was timeless.
Speaker 3: Yeah, no doubt, no doubt.
Speaker 1: For starters.
Speaker 7: I guess we should ask you, how did you hook
Speaker 7: up with Slick Rick to start this group?
Speaker 9: Well that's an interesting question because Slick Rick was well,
Speaker 9: he wasn't Slick Rick.
Speaker 5: He was Ricky Ricky right, he was Ricky.
Speaker 9: D And he was with his crew that man, y'all.
Speaker 9: Y'all asked some questions. Man, Well, yeah, it was the
Speaker 9: Cango Cup. But where I seen him, see the Kango
Speaker 9: crew was in his school. Where he was doing his
Speaker 9: thing was up at the Cadet Club in the Bronx. Now,
Speaker 9: Rick was moving around with different guys trying to get
Speaker 9: his get his hip hop thing going on. And there
Speaker 9: was a guy named Donald d.
Speaker 5: And there was another dude named June loves.
Speaker 1: Syndicate.
Speaker 9: All no, this is another guy and he calls himself
Speaker 9: now Dandy down. He's still alive, right, But it was
Speaker 9: these three guys. Me and Tito was hanging out. One night.
Speaker 9: Tito came by my house from the Fearless four and
Speaker 9: we hung out and we went uptown and they had
Speaker 9: an EMC contest. Now I was known to take a
Speaker 9: lot of EMC contests because my style was was basically
Speaker 9: the new thing with.
Speaker 5: The beat box.
Speaker 9: I'm rhyming, it's crowd participation, I'm dancing, it's Harlem, it's
Speaker 9: a whole nother thing.
Speaker 5: There's melody.
Speaker 9: So there was a new dimension and hip hop coming
Speaker 9: in long story shot, me and Tito got on and
Speaker 9: the girls loved Tito, so it was like a It
Speaker 9: was like a it was like, let's go get this
Speaker 9: money Tito. But then they said we couldn't be in
Speaker 9: it because they looked at him as a professional and
Speaker 9: they looked at me as a.
Speaker 5: Professional, even though I didn't have a record out at
Speaker 5: the time, nothing major.
Speaker 9: But this is what so Rick June Love and Donald
Speaker 9: D was in the contests. So when they was in
Speaker 9: the contest, the Cold Crush Brothers was in the contest too.
Speaker 9: So this is how the story goes. I was there
Speaker 9: whe watching June and watching them. I say, Yo, these
Speaker 9: dudes is nice. I said, yo, Yo, t don't look
Speaker 9: at the nice and he was like yeah, yeah, and
Speaker 9: Tila Rock was up there and he's like, yeah, you
Speaker 9: know it's yours. It's yours, yo. That's another right, that's
Speaker 9: the whole another story. So we up there and all
Speaker 9: of a sudden, say, yo, I heard Rick And so
Speaker 9: the rhyme that you hearing him say on the show
Speaker 9: was the rhyme that I heard him say in the contest.
Speaker 9: And so when he said that rhyme in the concert,
Speaker 9: I said, Yo, the kid is nice, said the kid.
Speaker 9: Donald D was rhyming about a beef patty. And when
Speaker 9: he brought the beef patty, so they burned it and
Speaker 9: they flipped it on the other side and gave it
Speaker 9: to him, and they tried to hide it, you know
Speaker 9: what I'm saying, And he wrote a rhyme about the beef.
Speaker 9: I was like, Yo, these dudes are ill, because I
Speaker 9: haven't heard nobody rhyme like this. You know, long story short,
Speaker 9: June Love stopped. June Love was gonna team up with
Speaker 9: Greg Nice. June Love got murdered. So the style that
Speaker 9: you hear Greg Nice's rhyme in is June style.
Speaker 7: Okay, So the great Nice style of fear the Fan
Speaker 7: that is based on June Love, right, And June Love
Speaker 7: was a part of Cago Crew.
Speaker 4: Okay, you're following me, got it.
Speaker 5: I'm trying to another.
Speaker 1: Beat boxer, Greg Nice, right, But.
Speaker 9: Greg NICs was also under my guidance because the feel
Speaker 9: is four. He wanted to do the beatbox for the
Speaker 9: Feelings four because they wanted something to balance out what
Speaker 9: they wasn't doing, and because I rhymed the beat buzz.
Speaker 9: So Greg Nice was another piece that he was going
Speaker 9: with feelers for. So that's my man all that, But
Speaker 9: I'm just telling you he started to transition into the
Speaker 9: Junie Love style because he was going to do the beatbox.
Speaker 5: For June Love, and when June Love.
Speaker 9: Lost his life, Greg basically took the style and then
Speaker 9: he went forward with it. So like all I was
Speaker 9: going on, Rick seeing me get on, and then I'm
Speaker 9: doing parties throughout the whole city. So everywhere I go,
Speaker 9: Rick is like, yo, jugie freshman, Yo, you think you
Speaker 9: could put me on with you? I said, Yo, I
Speaker 9: gotta hear you, man, I gotta hear all night. You know,
Speaker 9: see if you're good whatever you know? I say, Yo,
Speaker 9: you seem like a cool dude. Say yeah, man, my
Speaker 9: name is Ricky de Man. I say, yeah, I see
Speaker 9: you downtown, man at Ro said was kind of slick.
Speaker 9: He said, yeah, man, I'm nice. So I would go
Speaker 9: all of these different places and I would see him.
Speaker 9: He would be pressing me, like everywhere I go. I'm
Speaker 9: in the door.
Speaker 5: He's like, yo, Doug, put me on.
Speaker 9: I get off stage, and then he'll be standing there.
Speaker 9: He was like, y'all see you get on man, Yo,
Speaker 9: do you think we could go back on? You could
Speaker 9: put me on with you? And I'll be like, I
Speaker 9: can't do that, man. I just got off. And one
Speaker 9: day I'm going down the hill and Comment Avenue and
Speaker 9: Harlem and he's I see him on the phone.
Speaker 5: I don't know how he was on the corner on
Speaker 5: the phone while.
Speaker 9: I'm walking down there. The odds is like a billion
Speaker 9: to one. I take him over to Will's house. I
Speaker 9: got this little drum machine, the RX seven that I
Speaker 9: got from oc from Feelings spoiled one of his dj
Speaker 9: because it was crazy Eddy and oc Oc was trying
Speaker 9: to sell me the drum machine. So you know, you
Speaker 9: when you were broke, you're trying to borrow somebody drum
Speaker 9: machine and trying to get.
Speaker 5: As most out of it as you can. And then
Speaker 5: you know, you gotta, you know, to stress you then
Speaker 5: you give it back, you know how that was? So yeah,
Speaker 5: So Rick came over and I say, yo're come over
Speaker 5: into the house man. And then right then and there
Speaker 5: is when I say, yo, let me see what you got.
Speaker 5: I got on.
Speaker 9: A couple of other dudes got on. And that was
Speaker 9: the day that he started lotty ditting. And when he
Speaker 9: said it, he couldn't he couldn't even finish the rhyme
Speaker 9: because we was laughing for at least an hour. I mean,
Speaker 9: it was like, yo, let me tell you something. Bro
Speaker 9: Rick was so goddamn funny. I'm talking about like he
Speaker 9: was h hilarious. I mean to the point that we
Speaker 9: all in there holding our stomach. He can't finish the rhyme.
Speaker 9: Then all of a sudden, out there and then the rhyme.
Speaker 9: He said, I told you I was nice. I told
Speaker 9: you I was nice.
Speaker 7: Wait are there any other takes of Lotty Doddy that
Speaker 7: we've not heard because.
Speaker 9: It's just you too.
Speaker 5: Yeah, there's a couple, I.
Speaker 1: Mean alternative takes of it.
Speaker 9: Nah. Now, what we did and what we did on
Speaker 9: Wax was when we made that. That was because my
Speaker 9: manager at the time say, Yo, why don't y'all do
Speaker 9: that thing called Lotti Doddy that all the kids are
Speaker 9: talking about in the street because Lotty Dotty was created
Speaker 9: in eighty four. And what I did is when I
Speaker 9: seen them, when I heard the rhyme, I say, Yo,
Speaker 9: this rhyme would be crazy if I did the beatbox
Speaker 9: and I just come in with different words and I
Speaker 9: changed the beat so that it doesn't get boring, and
Speaker 9: I say, yeah, this will be good. And then all
Speaker 9: of a sudden, I said that we get and then
Speaker 9: he was excited. I said, and we could take all
Speaker 9: the rap contests. He was like, yeah, yeah, that's what
Speaker 9: I want. Because he felt that he got jerked when
Speaker 9: he was at the Cadet court because they didn't they
Speaker 9: didn't win, so he had this big thing on his
Speaker 9: shoulder saying I'm taking every contest. So then we started
Speaker 9: going around in the city just taking every contest, and
Speaker 9: then when we did it on record, we took out
Speaker 9: the second part to Lottie Dottie because we mentioned Vanessa.
Speaker 7: Ways Williams, Oh yeah, you told me. Wait a minute,
Speaker 7: Wait a minute, God, this is like the rabbit hole
Speaker 7: of life. I just gotta do you have any of
Speaker 7: those tapes? From course, okay, I'm coming to your rib
Speaker 7: of course. Literally more more than the twelve inch there was.
Speaker 7: There was again Philadelphian. There was a dude, my go
Speaker 7: to cheese steak guy every Sunday, my go to steak guy,
Speaker 7: like he would have He would have like he had
Speaker 7: cousins from New York that always put him on to
Speaker 7: like those t Connection tapes and those Parlem World tapes.
Speaker 7: So when I'm you know, Sunday after church my routine,
Speaker 7: I get a cheese steak after church, and he's always
Speaker 7: playing some live whatever. And one of these Sundays he
Speaker 7: had like much of my mom's dis may this is
Speaker 7: the first time I'm here and treator like a prostitute
Speaker 7: a live version, and I snuffed back. I was like, Mom,
Speaker 7: I'm gonna get some potato chips and I stuck up
Speaker 7: to him. I said, and I had one of those
Speaker 7: like my mom's you know you always record over your
Speaker 7: mom's tapes or whatever, And I had like one of
Speaker 7: her old gout, like one of the gospel tapes that
Speaker 7: she just walked from church and was like, yo, can
Speaker 7: you can you meet me? Gods it don't be back
Speaker 7: tomorrow for lunch. And I lived with it's a live
Speaker 7: version of YouTube, just doing your whole routine. And I
Speaker 7: studied that ship to the tape. Pop it popped and
Speaker 7: I never got I gotta get that back again.
Speaker 9: But yo, yo, yo, yo, that's crazy you're saying that.
Speaker 9: I mean, you know, see when we when we treat
Speaker 9: him like a prostitute, we were already doing that and
Speaker 9: that was going to be the next thing we was
Speaker 9: gonna let out and some other things that we had right.
Speaker 5: But what was crazy is when I hurt Jay and
Speaker 5: them do it with.
Speaker 9: The beat, it changed the whole vibe of it. It
Speaker 9: wasn't like the same or it wasn't the same.
Speaker 7: Yeah, Like I'm probably the only person that like when
Speaker 7: I heard it, I was like, man, I don't want
Speaker 7: it with music.
Speaker 1: I want it with Dougie, right right, right, But.
Speaker 9: You know it's crazy, it's real like that. And that's
Speaker 9: interesting because like I said about frequency, going back to that,
Speaker 9: it was a match of a frequency. You see see
Speaker 9: when you doing the beat box people think is easy
Speaker 9: or simple. It's like the way you if you're playing
Speaker 9: the drums, you're playing to align your spirit with the
Speaker 9: person that you're playing for. You're not playing like a
Speaker 9: drum machine. You're playing like a spirit. So when they're
Speaker 9: doing this and not, you gotta flow. So what Lottie
Speaker 9: Dottie is it's to match, to match him and to
Speaker 9: move with him and to make him be the best
Speaker 9: he can be. It wasn't about me. It was about
Speaker 9: how can how can we make this be the best?
Speaker 9: And I had to match the way the energy move.
Speaker 9: If I don't match the way the energy move, you're
Speaker 9: just liking me.
Speaker 5: But I don't just want you to like me. I
Speaker 5: want you to like what's going on.
Speaker 9: I want you to feel it. So it has to move,
Speaker 9: you know what I mean? And that's how that's the
Speaker 9: reason why I treat him like a prostitute lives better
Speaker 9: than the drum machine.
Speaker 1: Yes it is, how okay? So by September.
Speaker 7: First of all, let me just declare that I probably
Speaker 7: think that the show Lotti Dottie is one of the
Speaker 7: greatest twelve inches of all time.
Speaker 1: For any I'm afraid to ask, I pray the answers.
Speaker 7: Yes, I hope you still own your publishing for Lottie
Speaker 7: Dotty because it's probably the most sampled song of in
Speaker 7: hip hop history.
Speaker 5: Yes, I do, Yes, I do, Yes, I do.
Speaker 9: But not only do I own all of the publishing.
Speaker 5: I made sure Rick owns his publisher and the story
Speaker 5: and the other side of this.
Speaker 9: Story, which only requests love and the Supreme Team could get,
Speaker 9: is when I made the show a quest. When I
Speaker 9: did just having fun, I called it just having fun
Speaker 9: because I was learning about the studio and I knew
Speaker 9: Bobby Robinson wasn't gonna pay nobody, so I wasn't gonna
Speaker 9: try to do everything that I could do with him.
Speaker 5: That was number one.
Speaker 9: Original human Beatbox was with Entertainment Records and Vincent Davis.
Speaker 9: I had an argument with him because I made the
Speaker 9: beat up and he put that bing bing link sound
Speaker 9: in there and it sounded like I hated it.
Speaker 1: Man.
Speaker 9: You know, I'm gonna tell you I love the guitars.
Speaker 9: But I hated that sound because I had a different
Speaker 9: idea that I felt was better, and me and him
Speaker 9: got into a conflict, so that vocal was just a practice,
Speaker 9: a rough vocal on what I was getting ready to
Speaker 9: come back and do better. So then I left the
Speaker 9: studio and I started doing shows.
Speaker 5: I stacked up.
Speaker 9: All my money and when I went in there, I
Speaker 9: made the show and Dotty, and when I told Rick
Speaker 9: about the show, he said that idea is whack. That
Speaker 9: ain't gonna work. So then I said, Rick, I said,
Speaker 9: trust me, I know what I'm talking about, the same
Speaker 9: way I told you that this beatbox thing is going
Speaker 9: to work with this routine. So then what happened. He
Speaker 9: trusted me and we went into the studio and I
Speaker 9: made this show and I made Lottie Dotty. I took
Speaker 9: it the Profile Records. Profile Records heard it. He said,
Speaker 9: this is the worst music I've ever heard. He said,
Speaker 9: who's that guy sounding like that? And what's this little
Speaker 9: clicking sound that I keep hearing in the song?
Speaker 5: So he said it.
Speaker 9: To me and I said, Steve, it was It was
Speaker 9: the owner Coo, so listen to this. So afterwards, I said,
Speaker 9: no problem, now I paid all the money I spent
Speaker 9: ten I had saved the ten grand I went to
Speaker 9: Daily Planet Studio in New York. So then after that
Speaker 9: I went and I said, man, I got to get
Speaker 9: this record out. So I took it to WHBI. Jerry
Speaker 9: blood Rock played it, and a couple of other guys
Speaker 9: started getting the crazy buzz. So I went to this
Speaker 9: label called Dain your Records, right, I said, distributed by Fantasy.
Speaker 9: So when I went to him, I said, he said, yo,
Speaker 9: I want to distribute the record for you. I said,
Speaker 9: that's cool, I said, but I'm going to own it.
Speaker 9: He said, well, I want to buy into the ownership.
Speaker 9: I said, if you want to buy into the ownership,
Speaker 9: you got to give me the money back that I
Speaker 9: spent and then we can go from there.
Speaker 5: So then what he did is he gave me the
Speaker 5: money back, and then.
Speaker 9: Basically I owned the master, and I brought him in
Speaker 9: and I gave him a piece of the master. So
Speaker 9: in eighty five, I was the first artist to ever
Speaker 9: own their master. You see, but I learned that because
Speaker 9: of what happened over there, and I watched it. So
Speaker 9: when I owned the Master and I came back and
Speaker 9: when I gave Rip half of the publishing on the show,
Speaker 9: and we both split high for the publishing on Lottie Dottie,
Speaker 9: and then from there we moved forward.
Speaker 4: And then now, so was that Reality Records? Was that you?
Speaker 4: Was that your Reality Records?
Speaker 9: Yeah? See it went from oh and by the way,
Speaker 9: and every record after that, I owned the master, So
Speaker 9: it was right. So what happened is that I was
Speaker 9: seeing what was going on, and you know, I'm like
Speaker 9: around seventeen years old, eighteen years old, but I'm seeing
Speaker 9: that something just didn't seem right about how people are
Speaker 9: owning your master, Like I thought that was kind of
Speaker 9: And then since I spent the money, I was like,
Speaker 9: how you're gonna own it? So now the record blows up.
Speaker 9: I go to Roxy. Cory is in Roxy. The record
Speaker 9: is on fire.
Speaker 5: I mean bro. When I say fire, I mean five y'all.
Speaker 9: So now Corey comes in there and he said, Yo,
Speaker 9: could I talk to you?
Speaker 5: I said sure.
Speaker 9: He said, Yo, Man, I made a mistake. Man, I
Speaker 9: was wrong, He said, Man, this thing, I just couldn't
Speaker 9: see it coming. He said, I was just seeing run DMC.
Speaker 9: I couldn't see nothing. This was just so unusual. It
Speaker 9: was so new it was, so I didn't know what
Speaker 9: to think. I said, bro, I said, it ain't no problem.
Speaker 9: I was just giving you the first opportunity because you
Speaker 9: got the label. I said, it's okay. He said, Yo, man,
Speaker 9: is it any way that we could do something else?
Speaker 9: Are you signing anybody? I said, well, I got to
Speaker 9: deal with I got my masters and I'm also with
Speaker 9: the label. But it's a great deal. I got my publisher,
Speaker 9: I got the masters. I said, but maybe we couldn't
Speaker 9: down the road. And then after he got Dana Dan
Speaker 9: because he wanted to.
Speaker 4: Fame that album.
Speaker 9: Right right, And we didn't mind because Dana was a
Speaker 9: part of the family, you know what I mean. But
Speaker 9: I'm just showing you how sometimes once again it's back
Speaker 9: to that fear. He told me my record was garbage.
Speaker 7: I was like, okay, so this this leads to my
Speaker 7: follow up question. You two have undoubtedly created one of
Speaker 7: the and this is not even a thing where it's
Speaker 7: like time has to pass by before we know it's
Speaker 7: a classic. But it's like y'all just hit us with
Speaker 7: these two singles and then nothing else. Now of course,
Speaker 7: with you like yes, I realized that, oh my god,
Speaker 7: came out in eighty six, So you did come up
Speaker 7: with an album?
Speaker 4: Why they came back?
Speaker 9: They did?
Speaker 4: Sitting in my car?
Speaker 7: They didn't come back they yeah, but like, yeah, there
Speaker 7: were teen years later, two years he.
Speaker 5: Was going to prison. Yeah why why did I know?
Speaker 7: But even before prison, what was happening with Slick Rick
Speaker 7: between nineteen eighty six in nineteen eighty nine, before he
Speaker 7: signed the Deaf Jam? Like why why didn't why capitalize
Speaker 7: on you know, the hottest single, making you.
Speaker 1: Guys a unit? Like was that just a one off deal?
Speaker 9: And okay, now what happened was is that to the
Speaker 9: blame of us both? I felt that once again, like
Speaker 9: I said, I was already established in the street, I
Speaker 9: was moving around. I took Will and Barry and I
Speaker 9: brought them together and that was the first time again
Speaker 9: with two DJs DJ together at the same time. There's
Speaker 9: never been a crew before the Gift Fresh Crew with
Speaker 9: two DJs DJ at the same time. Get Fresh Crew
Speaker 9: is the foundation to the executioners because that because no,
Speaker 9: I had two sets and they're playing at the same time.
Speaker 9: Not you get on after me. So I was really
Speaker 9: always trying to push something new.
Speaker 5: The Deep Box was new. I had my guys there.
Speaker 9: I brought Rick in here, and what happened with me
Speaker 9: and Rick was, you know, I felt that he was
Speaker 9: accusing me of doing something that I didn't do.
Speaker 5: He was accusing me of not He felt.
Speaker 9: Like I was trying to make all the money of
Speaker 9: something and that's not true. I gave him half of
Speaker 9: the royalty.
Speaker 5: I gave him half of the publishing.
Speaker 9: I gave him a really good salary while he was
Speaker 9: on the road, and also the other DJs I had
Speaker 9: a manager. I gave him twenty percent. The agent. I
Speaker 9: gave him, you know, the ten percent because he was
Speaker 9: booking the shows all of these different expenses and everybody
Speaker 9: had to, you know, get a salary. And on top
Speaker 9: of that, I put him in on what was already
Speaker 9: in motion. And I didn't like how we were. We
Speaker 9: were like this, you know what I'm saying. And then
Speaker 9: when I started to see how people was getting in
Speaker 9: his head and people was coming in trying to.
Speaker 5: Get into my head.
Speaker 9: I didn't really like the energy. So I said, I
Speaker 9: gotta pull out of this. And I didn't want no money.
Speaker 9: I didn't want no producer or no override or no
Speaker 9: find this speed. I was like, bro, you go ahead
Speaker 9: and do what you gotta do, because the energy is
Speaker 9: not feeling good no more. And I think we got
Speaker 9: too much love for one another for us. I felt
Speaker 9: that the magic were creating is because once again he
Speaker 9: trusted me. I trusted him, and when I felt that
Speaker 9: there was a violation of him trusting me bothered me.
Speaker 9: And I was young and I should have just allowed
Speaker 9: him to express that, but I took it personal and
Speaker 9: I just say, yo, you go do your thing. And
Speaker 9: then when he went over there, Russell sat him on
Speaker 9: the bench for multiple years, And if we're being real,
Speaker 9: it's because you know, at that time he didn't really
Speaker 9: know what to do with him. And over there depth Jymp,
Speaker 9: everybody was happy, but not so happy because we were
Speaker 9: we were a little bit of a threat to people
Speaker 9: because of the dynamics of all of the things that
Speaker 9: we were bringing together. But I love Rick, so I
Speaker 9: didn't want nothing but the best for him, and I
Speaker 9: just felt like, you know, if the energy is not right,
Speaker 9: it doesn't make sense for us to go any further.
Speaker 7: Was there any conversation or reach out to you to
Speaker 7: do anything on The Great Adventures Life, Like, did they
Speaker 7: try to say something or no.
Speaker 9: They tried to.
Speaker 5: They didn't call me, but they tried to. They tried to.
Speaker 9: Put me in it because if you listen to maybe
Speaker 9: six or seven eight songs, my voices is throughout the
Speaker 9: whole album. So they're trying to balance out the formula
Speaker 9: of what it was that we created together. So when
Speaker 9: people are listening to that album, they they're hearing his
Speaker 9: brilliance and the excellence of the production, but they're also
Speaker 9: feeling my frequency in there in a subtle way, because
Speaker 9: I'm in there, you know, and I'm in multiple songs.
Speaker 9: So they were trying to figure out how to bring
Speaker 9: him where.
Speaker 5: He needed to be. And I look at it like
Speaker 5: this too.
Speaker 9: To be completely transparent, I think that it was necessary
Speaker 9: because Great Adventures of Slick Rick gave him the platform
Speaker 9: to express things that I think was important for him
Speaker 9: to express, and we probably could have figured it out.
Speaker 9: But I think that would he have been what I
Speaker 9: call the greatest storyteller? Could he have been that with me?
Speaker 9: And could I have been the entertainer that I've grown
Speaker 9: to become, Because maybe it would have been too much
Speaker 9: forced from two different you know what I'm saying, two
Speaker 9: different energies, and it would not really have been as
Speaker 9: great as it could have been.
Speaker 5: And you know, I just I just know that.
Speaker 9: Like and then when he was about to go to prison,
Speaker 9: because he knew it was happening, I went up to
Speaker 9: Neurochelle and vance Wright was up there, and I said,
Speaker 9: let me hear some of his music, man, and he
Speaker 9: played something in her sitting in my car, and I said, nah,
Speaker 9: y'all got a drum machine. Pull that out. And he
Speaker 9: was getting ready to do the same thing that he
Speaker 9: did with jam Master Jay. I said, let me do it,
Speaker 9: and then I put it in there, and then I
Speaker 9: kept the loop in there.
Speaker 5: And then when he got out.
Speaker 9: Of prison after doing a long, long rough ride, I
Speaker 9: was there for him to perform with him when he
Speaker 9: got out in LA and I did that for him
Speaker 9: to support him, you know what I mean. And then
Speaker 9: I had the Senator to go up and you know,
Speaker 9: make sure you didn't get depored in. And then when
Speaker 9: the Senator became the governor, I brought the governor in
Speaker 9: because I felt like, even though we're not together, we're
Speaker 9: always together, all right, y'all.
Speaker 3: I know you want some more and we got it
Speaker 3: for you.
Speaker 8: That was part one of quest love Supreme's interview with
Speaker 8: Dougie Fresh.
Speaker 3: You ready for part two?
Speaker 9: All right?
Speaker 3: Stay tuned's coming up West Love.
Speaker 1: Supreme is a production of iHeart Radio. For more podcasts
Speaker 1: from iHeart Radio, visit the iHeart Radio app, Apple Podcasts,
Speaker 1: or wherever you listen to your favorite Chills