Speaker 1: Quest Love Show is a production of iHeart Radio.
Speaker 2: Another Quest Love Mini here Me and Opened My Eagle. Okay,
Speaker 2: so I have a question. Now, I'm very familiar with
Speaker 2: the sort of reputation or the lure of the Good
Speaker 2: Life Cafe movement, of which you sort of come into
Speaker 2: the picture doing the second phase of.
Speaker 1: It after the after life period.
Speaker 2: One, can you explain to me the difference between the
Speaker 2: two events and just start there?
Speaker 3: Okay, I didn't go to the Good Life, but I
Speaker 3: know all about it because it was like, you know,
Speaker 3: it's the Housyon days of the rap family that I
Speaker 3: belonged to. So the Good Life Cafe was a literal
Speaker 3: place called the Good Life Cafe on Exposition in Crenshaw
Speaker 3: that was a health food store and they did an
Speaker 3: open mic on Thursday nights that all of the rappers all.
Speaker 1: Around the city.
Speaker 3: It's very I'm sure that word was said very many nights,
Speaker 3: right right many. I'm sure that place smelled like incense.
Speaker 3: B Hall who ran it, and I forgot the young
Speaker 3: man's name who ran it with her, and you know,
Speaker 3: everybody from Freestyle Fellowship sort of started there. The Unity Committee,
Speaker 3: which ended up becoming Jurassic five volume chilling villain Empire
Speaker 3: like far Side. I never saw video of Farside on
Speaker 3: the stage, but I'm sure they were there because some
Speaker 3: of what was happening at Farside Manor was musicians and
Speaker 3: rappers who were at the Good Life, So I'm sure
Speaker 3: they were there and part of that as well.
Speaker 1: Would the alcoholics also be missed.
Speaker 3: I don't know about the alcoholics connection. I think Exhibit
Speaker 3: was around there. Okay, I'm not sure if the alcoholics
Speaker 3: were so, but definitely the Living Legends uh so Mers
Speaker 3: and and uh and Eli and the Grouch and all
Speaker 3: of them were around there to the l A component,
Speaker 3: because the other component of the Liver Legends came from
Speaker 3: the Bay with the Mister Journeyman.
Speaker 1: And this is a gathering every week every week.
Speaker 3: It was where they established the sort of rules of
Speaker 3: the La open mic, which was please pass the mic.
Speaker 3: If you weren't rocking it right, the crowd would direct
Speaker 3: you to get off stage, like the Apollo kind of situation.
Speaker 3: But yeah, if you didn't come with it, if you
Speaker 3: didn't come with it, because these were this was high
Speaker 3: level rapping. This is high level rapping people coming off
Speaker 3: the head with the craziest styles you could ever imagine
Speaker 3: my lyrical styles and they and they were establishing like
Speaker 3: a new sort of technical language of rap. Like one
Speaker 3: of their rules was like no digities. So you know
Speaker 3: how dos Effects was doing, they would do you off
Speaker 3: stage for doing You had to say real words in
Speaker 3: your in your in your topping of syllables, broth inside
Speaker 3: of the cheap You couldn't cheat. So you know, famously,
Speaker 3: other rappers would come from all around the country to
Speaker 3: stop through because it was the place where rap was
Speaker 3: happening and a lot of cast was getting signed out
Speaker 3: of there. Okay, so you know, Fat Joe famously got
Speaker 3: booed off the.
Speaker 1: Stage of the Good Life he did.
Speaker 3: He did why famously because he wasn't rapping good likes.
Speaker 3: That's why that would happen. The Grave Diggers were there
Speaker 3: early on, like there's a there's a great they did great.
Speaker 3: I mean you can hear it Grim Reaper to poetic
Speaker 3: rest in Peace, you can hear it in his style.
Speaker 3: He picked up something there with the way, Yeah, that's
Speaker 3: a very good lifestyle like that volume ten. The way
Speaker 3: ice Cube started rapping when he was doing the was
Speaker 3: it Gorilla's in the Midst or whatever.
Speaker 1: He's doing.
Speaker 3: That's Volume ten style from a Good Life.
Speaker 2: Can you what is the legend of Volume tim My.
Speaker 2: I'm only familiar with Volume ten because he got the
Speaker 2: lead review in the Source magazine for his album, and
Speaker 2: that's how I heard of Allington. I know he's legendary,
Speaker 2: but he was one of the early guys who got
Speaker 2: signed out of the Good Life. And he had that
Speaker 2: song Pistol Grip Pump that was huge. Pistol grip pump
Speaker 2: on my lap at all times.
Speaker 3: Like it was like outside of Doctor Dre's circle, it.
Speaker 2: Was like the g Funk Joint, see Okay, coming from
Speaker 2: Philly in New York, they were extremely.
Speaker 1: Like unless it was like Doctor Dre level of g
Speaker 1: funk like that.
Speaker 2: It's sort of like when the Class Wars were starting
Speaker 2: with the East Coast and West Coast sound. Yea, So
Speaker 2: I wish like there's a whole bunch of like I
Speaker 2: was a major above the Law fan and all that stuff.
Speaker 3: And really didn't get that. I mean, this is a
Speaker 3: big share of that because there were people getting signed
Speaker 3: out of the Good Life, but the Good Life really
Speaker 3: wasn't underground spot like, so a lot of the luminarias
Speaker 3: that were out of there were more underground heads and
Speaker 3: hiss that were signed right, and so the way to
Speaker 3: underground work back then. And this is what I learned
Speaker 3: after I moved here from Chicago. A lot of that
Speaker 3: stuff literally because of touring and how hard it is
Speaker 3: to tour east of Colorado, a lot of that stuff
Speaker 3: didn't make it to the East coast, you know what
Speaker 3: I'm saying. So like I had to, I had to
Speaker 3: sort of get my own education and reframe a lot
Speaker 3: of men own understanding when I moved out here.
Speaker 2: All right, let me let me car jack a little
Speaker 2: bit because you said something I always wanted to know about.
Speaker 2: So for the roots in my mind, the way that
Speaker 2: the second hand rolls across the United States.
Speaker 1: You know, we have the Northeast.
Speaker 2: On lockdown, yep, from Maine to about DC, Virginia because
Speaker 2: we were a college.
Speaker 3: Bed, right, But North Carolina too, I would imagine, right.
Speaker 2: Yeah, some parts of Carolina's we would hit like a
Speaker 2: territory is hitting it three to five times a year.
Speaker 1: And that's a very hard thing to do.
Speaker 2: Like, once you do a show in a city, you're
Speaker 2: pretty much supposed to be on at least an eight
Speaker 2: month freeze, like when you come to Chicago and do
Speaker 2: your show, if you want that same response in that
Speaker 2: same audience, come back of meat scarcity.
Speaker 1: Marketing, right, because the more you keep doing it.
Speaker 2: So we got lucky because we were able to hide,
Speaker 2: like the same group of people come to see the
Speaker 2: roots of the fujis aren't coming to see the roots
Speaker 2: open up for beck or rage against the machine. So
Speaker 2: there was always you were able to overlap in the market. Yeah,
Speaker 2: at least four times with a real hip hop group,
Speaker 2: a weirdo white act of the beck ilk and then
Speaker 2: a rage against the machine or system of a down
Speaker 2: and college gigs don't count because they're in their uncontained world.
Speaker 2: But my whole point is that we have that on lockdown.
Speaker 1: Some places down south.
Speaker 2: We can go to Atlanta, the Carolinas, maybe an occasional
Speaker 2: city in Florida once every other year. We could never
Speaker 2: penetrate the Florida section, some parts of Texas and it.
Speaker 1: Gets a little weird. In the Midwest. Yeah, like we
Speaker 1: could basically just do Seattle down to California, the west coast,
Speaker 1: run yep.
Speaker 2: Oregon, maybe a Utah and kind of of a Vegas.
Speaker 2: But there's a giant gap in the Midwest, huge gap.
Speaker 1: So our routing was more like the Wu Tang W.
Speaker 2: But for someone from California, what are the markets that
Speaker 2: you know?
Speaker 3: So we received you do La, you do San Diego,
Speaker 3: you do Phoenix, you do you can do Tucson, you
Speaker 3: can do Albuquerque, Santa Fe.
Speaker 1: See New Mexico, and Arizona.
Speaker 3: But if you're able to do this loop, you can
Speaker 3: establish those two or one or the other. You probably
Speaker 3: can't do both of them every time. But the thing
Speaker 3: about Albuquerque and Santa Fe, they're on a twenty five
Speaker 3: north south so you go straight up to Denver from there.
Speaker 1: Yeah, Denver's tricky because it's hard.
Speaker 3: To get in and out. If we go to Chicago
Speaker 3: the next stop that we can do ism and that's
Speaker 3: a huge drive, sixteen hours.
Speaker 1: Yeah, it's a huge drive.
Speaker 3: And that's what I'm saying, Like there's this gulf between
Speaker 3: like the Western region and like the Midwest. If you
Speaker 3: if you're doing the longitude from like Chicago down, so
Speaker 3: a lot of music just didn't make it. Could you
Speaker 3: do Milwaukee? Milwaukee's tough. I mean, if you're big enough,
Speaker 3: you could do Milwaukee, but it's so close to Chicago.
Speaker 1: It's rough.
Speaker 2: I'm realizing now and I gotta get Caro Lewis on
Speaker 2: the show.
Speaker 1: Do you know Caro Lewis?
Speaker 2: Is?
Speaker 1: I know that name? So in Payton Full, you know,
Speaker 1: Norby Walker's our agent.
Speaker 2: Yeah, Caro Lewis is Okay, Yeah, So Carol Lewis was basically,
Speaker 2: I think in her twenties and she was the youngest
Speaker 2: at Norby Walker. I believe that agency, and I think
Speaker 2: one of her first big projects was The Fresh Best.
Speaker 2: So she's the one that was very instrumental in getting
Speaker 2: hip hop into stadiums.
Speaker 1: I see, she's basically the gold standard. Now.
Speaker 2: She was so powerful that I know that she bullied
Speaker 2: promoters into accepting the Roots because again, we had no
Speaker 2: party jam, we had no She would basically say, I'll
Speaker 2: give an example whoever her promoters are in New York,
Speaker 2: so say, I'm gonna give data to jay Z if
Speaker 2: you don't find me ten roots gigs, ten Roots gigs.
Speaker 1: No, No, I don't want to hear you.
Speaker 2: No.
Speaker 1: No.
Speaker 2: So literally the first two years she just had to
Speaker 2: play hardball and force us to be there. But because
Speaker 2: the show was bulletproof, you know, afterwards, it's like, oh
Speaker 2: my god, you're right, I love those guys. But she
Speaker 2: only had to do that once. I'll say from ninety
Speaker 2: three to about after the Fujis Goodie Mob the Score tour.
Speaker 2: Then suddenly it was like you could take the training
Speaker 2: wheels off. But yeah, a lot of our beginning was
Speaker 2: either if and you know I joke about it, it's
Speaker 2: very true if a member of Wu Tang would more
Speaker 2: than likely cancel a gig. We were always the second
Speaker 2: call to take the gig. That was how we got gigs.
Speaker 2: And then she just played hardball. And you can't even
Speaker 2: touch her big acts unless you show her some love
Speaker 2: and the money better be right too.
Speaker 1: I've learned. I've learned the hard way. That's how a
Speaker 1: lot of this business works.
Speaker 2: Yeah, so she like forced us into wherever big college,
Speaker 2: any any of those spots are, that's where we would go.
Speaker 2: So Chicago and Milwaukee almost worn in the.
Speaker 3: Same Yeah, it's like an hour and a half north.
Speaker 3: It's not far enough to really warrant a huge another show.
Speaker 1: Now, I'm Sam.
Speaker 2: It's from the perspective of I've always been a tour bus,
Speaker 2: lived in a tour bus.
Speaker 1: But for you, you're driving these damn a minivan.
Speaker 3: Guy, I've been on like four tours and a tour
Speaker 3: bus where I'm opening for somebody else but my typical
Speaker 3: headlining show, or like most of my peers went into it.
Speaker 3: We're in a minivan and you're driving. I drive a lot.
Speaker 3: I like driving, though.
Speaker 2: I love driving to I don't have the experience of
Speaker 2: driving from gig to gig, but I can imagine that
Speaker 2: after rocking one night and settling and packing cleaning, I
Speaker 2: got that much to pack compared to right, But I
Speaker 2: mean just and then you're facing a ten hour drive
Speaker 2: to the next city.
Speaker 1: Is this a thing where you switch off with someone
Speaker 1: after five hours or you know, occasionally it's like that.
Speaker 3: Sometimes I just do the whole thing. A lot of
Speaker 3: times I just do it all. But I'm crazy. Have
Speaker 3: you ever been in an accident. I've not been an
Speaker 3: accidental I was thinking about that today. As many times
Speaker 3: as I have driven all around this country, I've never
Speaker 3: been in an accidental row.
Speaker 1: Wow.
Speaker 2: We've had three major accidents, and believe it or not,
Speaker 2: they were all based on sober drivers. This is what
Speaker 2: I learned a lot of those trucks. So be careful
Speaker 2: when you're like playing uh spy hunter with you. See,
Speaker 2: I don't do none of that. Like, that's the thing.
Speaker 3: I keep it real easy. Like, you know, I don't
Speaker 3: do the cruise control. I don't do the cruise control
Speaker 3: like because you can fall asleep to that. It's not
Speaker 3: even fall asleep. It's just like being engaged, being constantly engaged.
Speaker 3: Yeah yeah, But I drive, and and that's when I
Speaker 3: think of playing Denver. That's why I don't play Denver
Speaker 3: as much as I want to, because typically I'm driving.
Speaker 3: And that's the most treacherous drive to me is driving
Speaker 3: west out of Denver. The scariest driver I ever had
Speaker 3: in mind. The weather, Yeah yeah, weather, Yeah, it's just bad.
Speaker 3: It could be really rough. But all of this was
Speaker 3: me talking about the good life back to the project.
Speaker 1: Were driving back home.
Speaker 3: So the good life had a lot of rules. You
Speaker 3: couldn't curse. You could not curse because this is the
Speaker 3: if that's that was too short, wasn't it.
Speaker 1: That's debate.
Speaker 3: But if you rapped whack the rappers and people in
Speaker 3: the crowd would please, you know, please pass the mic.
Speaker 1: If you cursed, be Hauled would kick you off stage.
Speaker 1: She was the lady that random play.
Speaker 3: So there was a lot of rules, a lot of
Speaker 3: structure she had a lot of values that she was
Speaker 3: instilling in the in the event, and people enforced these
Speaker 3: things and respect it. Yeah, and they just wrapped. And
Speaker 3: you know when people freestyled outside and filled up the
Speaker 3: parking lot and it was ciphers everywhere like it was
Speaker 3: and out there was like you know, straight street rules
Speaker 3: or whatever, and.
Speaker 1: Was it Crenshaw? Yeah, Crenshaw. So you know there was
Speaker 1: ask you was it Crenshaw? It was Crenshaw. It's Crenshaw.
Speaker 3: And now I'll take it in the Project Blow, which
Speaker 3: started after the Good Life closed.
Speaker 1: So how does that?
Speaker 3: Ac Alone an abstract route. Ac Alone is signed through
Speaker 3: the Freestyle Fellowship, and I believe he's got his solo
Speaker 3: deal at that point, and Abstract Rute, I think is
Speaker 3: signed to Grand Royal at this time as well. When
Speaker 3: the Good Life closes, it shuts down, they start a
Speaker 3: new spot with Ben Caldwell who runs this place called
Speaker 3: the Chaos Network here in Lambert Park, and they start
Speaker 3: the new outpost there same night, but no rules. So
Speaker 3: all the styling gets pushed further, the battling gets pushed further.
Speaker 3: It's more Crenshaw because the street rappers are in there
Speaker 3: doing eight thing too, because there's no be haul to
Speaker 3: cut the music if somebody curses. So the Project Blowed
Speaker 3: is the more rugged, intense version of the good Life,
Speaker 3: a lot more street infused into.
Speaker 2: The So how enthusiastic are you to go on stage
Speaker 2: to see what you got?
Speaker 3: I mean, I think if you loved rap, especially if
Speaker 3: you loved freestyling, you just couldn't wait. Like and my
Speaker 3: first time I went because the first time I heard
Speaker 3: the Project Blowed it was mentioned in the Ac Alone album,
Speaker 3: his album All Balls Don't Bounce. I was in Chicago
Speaker 3: playing this album and they mentioned the Project Blowed. And
Speaker 3: there's Mic and nine on this album piece and all
Speaker 3: of these people, And to me, the Project Blowed is
Speaker 3: sounding like some idyllic, artistic wonderland of rap music. And
Speaker 3: I get there and it's like, oh, this is a
Speaker 3: bunch of angry. Because I saw the video.
Speaker 2: They were like doing count aesthetics and all those things,
Speaker 2: and I was like, oh, okay, it was happy, go lucky.
Speaker 3: It was not not to It was not happy or
Speaker 3: lucky all.
Speaker 1: It had a lot of street energy.
Speaker 3: Like the place where the Project Blowed is it's on
Speaker 3: the boundary between a few different gangs too. So like
Speaker 3: there was a sort of tension in the air, and
Speaker 3: it's the nineties, so like that sort of street tension
Speaker 3: and everybody being hyper vigilant for violence is just everywhere.
Speaker 3: So when I came, I wasn't received with open arms.
Speaker 3: I was not I got booed off stage my first
Speaker 3: time rapping at the Project Blob Damn, even when I
Speaker 3: established myself, because I mostly established myself on the corner
Speaker 3: until I sort of figured out the difference between my
Speaker 3: Chicago rap values and what they were valuing.
Speaker 1: Out here, and what's the difference.
Speaker 3: I came up on the South Side of Chicago in
Speaker 3: the nineties, where the value was punchlines, and the hip
Speaker 3: hop in general was different that way because I was
Speaker 3: a breakdancer too. The value in the breakdancing in Chicago
Speaker 3: was power moves. Right when you came to La, the
Speaker 3: value in dancing it was grooving and styling. The value
Speaker 3: in rap is also styling. It's not about you doing
Speaker 3: a setup and a punchline. It's about how many ways
Speaker 3: you can approach cadence m okay. Like if you listen
Speaker 3: to the freestyle Fellowship and Peace and La Cool and
Speaker 3: Mike and nine, they are wizards of cadence and freestyling
Speaker 3: in ways where it's just straight flow state and you're
Speaker 3: just being musical. I had to learn to appreciate the
Speaker 3: percussive element of rap music because in Chicago that was
Speaker 3: strictly a West Side thing that the gangsters did the
Speaker 3: double time and like Twister and do or Die in
Speaker 3: Crucial Conflict. Wein't rapped like that. We had this little
Speaker 3: weird value adjustment about this type of shit. But I
Speaker 3: came out here It's like, oh so this was like
Speaker 3: my rap graduate school where I sort of had to learn,
Speaker 3: Oh no, like this is a whole different way to
Speaker 3: approach it. So do you go up and sign on Sinalist?
Speaker 3: They still got they have I think they have scans
Speaker 3: of lists somewhere.
Speaker 2: I have to all right, I can only imagine was
Speaker 2: like shook Ones everyone's backdrop or like what would they
Speaker 2: rhyme over?
Speaker 3: No, not shook Ones. I struggled to remember the beats.
Speaker 3: I don't feel like there was a predominant beat style.
Speaker 3: That's part that was part of the problem of the
Speaker 3: blow though. In the problem in La hip was that
Speaker 3: it was too MC centric, and if you look at
Speaker 3: the LA beat scene, part of how that happens is
Speaker 3: the beat makers got pushed out. They went and started
Speaker 3: doing their own night call Sketchbook also on Thursdays, because
Speaker 3: they wasn't getting enough respect at places like the Blow.
Speaker 2: Oh so people weren't bringing their drum machines there to
Speaker 2: try to.
Speaker 3: A couple like, you know, if you know dB C, Like,
Speaker 3: so I came up with him and he used to
Speaker 3: bring his boombox and we'd be outside wrapping to his beats.
Speaker 3: But like, it just wasn't a place where if you
Speaker 3: had fire beats, they were making room for you to
Speaker 3: come be a part of the night really on stage.
Speaker 1: They like, so if you were.
Speaker 3: A rapper, you could come do your song and if
Speaker 3: you you know, whatever beat was fine.
Speaker 1: It's just that they.
Speaker 3: Didn't respect the producers enough. They didn't like the the
Speaker 3: the ethos of the place wasn't given the producers the
Speaker 3: proper amount of reverence. So they would and did their
Speaker 3: own things, and Sketchbook ultimately became low in theory.
Speaker 2: Oh damn, okay, I mean I've sprung lowering a few times.
Speaker 1: Yeah, I think I saw you there.
Speaker 3: And then if you look at the la rapping around
Speaker 3: at the same time, all of the battling started being
Speaker 3: a cappella and that was the great divide.
Speaker 1: What are your thoughts on that?
Speaker 2: Like I'm asking probably in light of j Electronica's actions.
Speaker 1: Of late he loves an a cappella guy Electronic.
Speaker 2: I got so triggered because you know, the last days
Speaker 2: of so kind of the our version of good life
Speaker 2: that goes into Project Blode was initially the Roots Jam
Speaker 2: sessions before things fall apart, and then we had to
Speaker 2: go on tour and it's like, well what do they
Speaker 2: do now? And then the women took it over and
Speaker 2: then it was Black Lily st s m mc and
Speaker 2: in it. But I remember many a night where like
Speaker 2: cannabis would come and he was starter.
Speaker 1: Vers cursed and rehearsing the the.
Speaker 2: Phenomena and I'm there like, okay, where's the one? Like
Speaker 2: and so then I started doing the high half things.
Speaker 2: It's almost like if you've seen what up with that?
Speaker 1: Like like that like trying to trying to build out,
Speaker 1: to figure out when to jump back. Yeah, and he
Speaker 1: would never no no no no no no no, and
Speaker 1: so acapella free style.
Speaker 3: I mean, I'm you know, I'm a rappers rapper, but
Speaker 3: I know that some things in rap are just for us,
Speaker 3: they're not really for people. And that a cappella thing,
Speaker 3: I've never really got down with that because I mean,
Speaker 3: that's like one of them kind of wrap self congratulatory things. Yeah,
Speaker 3: if you're a room full of rappers, cool, do you
Speaker 3: a cappella? If you're a room full of people who
Speaker 3: pay for a show, let him he a little bit,
Speaker 3: give a little beat a little bit.
Speaker 1: Next time we talk, I want to talk about I
Speaker 1: have ideas for your show.
Speaker 2: What was weird for someone that's not senior show to
Speaker 2: start giving you unsolicited advice on a show. But I
Speaker 2: actually feel as though your albums could be like Vignette's
Speaker 2: or like almost done as a play.
Speaker 1: Yeah.
Speaker 3: I did like a little one man thing around my
Speaker 3: anime Trauma Divorce album, but one performance I did was
Speaker 3: very much presented in that way, and that is something
Speaker 3: in my mind. But I don't I don't lean on
Speaker 3: that enough. I don't think you feel like we still
Speaker 3: want to be like throw your hands in it. I
Speaker 3: don't want to be like throw your hands in it.
Speaker 2: Okay, I don't know why, Like I gotta get the
Speaker 2: eminem eight mile thing out of my head, like, you know,
Speaker 2: in the place to be like that sort of thing
Speaker 2: out my head like I don't know what today's version
Speaker 2: of that is, but anyway, yeah, next time we'll talk
Speaker 2: about that.
Speaker 1: We sure will, all right. Quest of Shows a production
Speaker 1: of iHeartRadio