Speaker 1: He is drinks chests, motherfucking podcast man.
Speaker 2: He's a legends every queens rapper.
Speaker 1: He ain't agreed as your boy in O r E.
Speaker 1: He's a Miami hip pop pioneer put up as d
Speaker 1: j e f N.
Speaker 2: Together they drink it up with some of the biggest
Speaker 2: players you know, me and the most professional unprofessional podcast
Speaker 2: and your number one source for drunk drinks chans mother
Speaker 2: fu Postquavery Days.
Speaker 1: New Year's c that's his time for drink champs. Drink up, mother, mother?
Speaker 1: What a it gonna be hoping to beat your boy
Speaker 1: n A O n A What up his dj e
Speaker 1: f N. This is the military crazy war. Yeah, you
Speaker 1: have a drinks champs. Yep, you have a man. Ye.
Speaker 1: When we started this show, we started this saying that
Speaker 1: we wanted to give flowers to legends, to people who
Speaker 1: are eye cars, people who came before us, people who
Speaker 1: have knocked down the door for us. In many ways,
Speaker 1: this show wouldn't exist without this brother right here. Absolutely,
Speaker 1: this brother has lead. When you see so many people
Speaker 1: with podcasts, so many people owe him flowers, so many
Speaker 1: he was at one point everybody wanted to be in
Speaker 1: front of the camera. They didn't want to be interviewing
Speaker 1: the stars. He he's I did research and they said
Speaker 1: in hip hop he pulled he pulled off the first
Speaker 1: pull up interview where they come to you. He'd been
Speaker 1: a competing with Easy Eating. We got to talk about that.
Speaker 1: He's been everywhere. He's interviewed Tupac and he's a legend.
Speaker 1: He's an icon, and he's a write book writer. He's
Speaker 1: a producer. Bloody shot of them out and ant Passil
Speaker 1: should be called his name. They don't check the wow.
Speaker 1: He is an innovator. He's more. He's a reason why
Speaker 1: we're here. In case you don't know what we're talking
Speaker 1: about about. The one Holy I haven't been drinking, but
Speaker 1: I'm gonna drink today because I am celebrating you. Listen, man,
Speaker 1: I'm not gonna lie to you. Thank you. We do
Speaker 1: research and every now and then, I, uh, I get like,
Speaker 1: you know, blown back, right, and I've realized how much
Speaker 1: uh your TV raps was for that time, right, And
Speaker 1: then I started. Then I realized you produced one of
Speaker 1: the very first MTV videos that was hip hop on MTV. Well,
Speaker 1: I was.
Speaker 3: I was directed mad videos. The first video I directed
Speaker 3: a little before your TV rap started.
Speaker 4: Was my philosophy for Kris.
Speaker 1: Hold On because I don't don't want to, all right,
Speaker 1: because I want the kid invest out Brooklyn to you, Yeah, yeah,
Speaker 1: I want to. You just said your first video, this
Speaker 1: is your first video? Correct that I directed? Direction directed?
Speaker 3: Okay, so for making Wild Style, that was my film school,
Speaker 3: I like to say.
Speaker 1: Right, so so so let's let's let's let's lets let's
Speaker 1: bring people to the beginning, right, got it? How did
Speaker 1: you how did you camera? How did you like start
Speaker 1: thinking that? Because music videos wasn't the thing at the time, No,
Speaker 1: it was actually radio records and then so eventually it got.
Speaker 3: It was to MTV that music videos really tolew up
Speaker 3: on a national basis. Yeah, so how did you start?
Speaker 1: Yes?
Speaker 3: Okay, Well I've just written a memoir which is just
Speaker 3: so many stories I've been just dying to share with
Speaker 3: people because it's been more.
Speaker 4: Than a blessing.
Speaker 3: But I definitely started out with a mission. But I
Speaker 3: came from some place so growing up around my people,
Speaker 3: I had jazz musicians, my hops. If I had a
Speaker 3: neclected group of friends, very intelligent young brothers that was
Speaker 3: wanting changed.
Speaker 4: You know what I'm saying.
Speaker 3: Things were beginning to happen as they were coming up.
Speaker 3: Max Roach was my godfather, godfather and my dad's childhood friends.
Speaker 3: I used to pick up on a lot of the
Speaker 3: game around these guys. They was mad hip it was
Speaker 3: puffing cannabis.
Speaker 1: Jazz was like the first hip hop if you think
Speaker 1: about it, thank you, thank you.
Speaker 4: And even in the beginning.
Speaker 3: Of jazz, they would looked at as worse than gangster rats.
Speaker 4: Just come on, now, let's get it.
Speaker 3: Don't get it twisted talking racism, you know, one of
Speaker 3: them things that go on. So this is developing in
Speaker 3: the nineteen twenties, so this was the way a lot
Speaker 3: of our culture have been pigeonholed and looked at. So
Speaker 3: for me, get it having inspired and learning things what
Speaker 3: I grew up around my pop's friends, Max Roach. You know,
Speaker 3: these cats were incredible artists, but not always so they
Speaker 3: used to I used to hear them complain about not
Speaker 3: being able to control like what they were doing. So
Speaker 3: they were just as highly intelligent as anybody we know,
Speaker 3: but they imagine that in a time when you was
Speaker 3: being held back. I want to start a label. I
Speaker 3: want to do this. I want to write the article.
Speaker 3: Now that you know the other folks that was, you know,
Speaker 3: loving the culture was all bad.
Speaker 4: But it's like, hey, I'd like to do this too,
Speaker 4: So those things.
Speaker 1: Kind of rubbed off. So growing up.
Speaker 3: Being a wild kid and bed star doing you know whatever,
Speaker 3: you know, how we come up and doing. I began
Speaker 3: to you know, I used to cut school and go
Speaker 3: to the library.
Speaker 1: Okay, I was to school and went to a different
Speaker 1: type of school school to get educated.
Speaker 3: I would cut school and go to the museums in
Speaker 3: New York City. That was like going to Disney Line.
Speaker 3: I go to the Metropolitan Museum.
Speaker 1: Win.
Speaker 3: That was just mad curious man though right correct.
Speaker 1: Back in the days in the schools they would give you.
Speaker 3: Every month you got a different pass. We can get
Speaker 3: on the trains and buses for free. I was just
Speaker 3: entertained myself and travel around. At the same time, in
Speaker 3: the seventies.
Speaker 1: Graffiti was strong.
Speaker 3: It was everywhere, and it was developing from just writing
Speaker 3: your name wherever it needed to be, to the letters,
Speaker 3: the characters, the cases began to evolve, and so I
Speaker 3: began to Having looked a been in museums a lot
Speaker 3: and looked at.
Speaker 4: The work of pop artists.
Speaker 3: Andy Wahall Lichtenstein Rauschenberg, like I just absorbed all of that.
Speaker 3: I'm like, wait a minute, the stuff that we's doing
Speaker 3: in the subway is very similar.
Speaker 4: They inspired by the same stuff.
Speaker 1: I didn't realize that that that was the connection.
Speaker 3: So then I'm like, man, if I could figure out
Speaker 3: a way to, you know, tell this story and just.
Speaker 4: Get to some people that would listen to this.
Speaker 3: This is before there was any appreciation hip hop is
Speaker 3: still not even hip hop yet. It's just wild parties
Speaker 3: going on. I begin to think, like, what is happening
Speaker 3: there with the music, What's happening with this type of
Speaker 3: visual art which is really evolving.
Speaker 4: There's the former dance. This is a new culture.
Speaker 3: If I could get to a position where I can
Speaker 3: share that with people, you know, that would be a
Speaker 3: jump off. Plus, I was interested in taking my work
Speaker 3: from having done graffiti to getting into the gallery spaces,
Speaker 3: and the idea was to make this film Wild Stops.
Speaker 3: I had this idea to combine all of those things together.
Speaker 3: That's the directing part. It comes from no that becomes
Speaker 3: the first film. I collaborated with a guy named Charlie
Speaker 3: ahearn Okay, and I pitched the idea to him.
Speaker 1: He was so your brainchild.
Speaker 3: To be clear, basically, the basic idea that Charlie was
Speaker 3: with it.
Speaker 4: He has seen Lee and Jonis's work and it.
Speaker 1: All came out before b Street correct Wild Style is
Speaker 1: the first, this is the this is the.
Speaker 3: Face had some good elements in it. Now, there was
Speaker 3: a lot of other movies that came out, Wrapping, Breaking, Breaking, two,
Speaker 3: three four, it was all trash, you know what I'm saying, like,
Speaker 3: let's just cash in on this. Harry Belafonte and them,
Speaker 3: they produced that and they was they had good intention
Speaker 3: and a lot of good heads is in that. But
Speaker 3: they followed the blueprint that we laid down, which is
Speaker 3: how the game goes. You know, copy from the best.
Speaker 3: But basically me and this cat Charlie got collaborated, went
Speaker 3: up to the Bronx together. I was up on that
Speaker 3: there was this new music. I'm from the best style,
Speaker 3: but no, you had to know what was going on uptown.
Speaker 3: So I finally when I'm working with Charlie, we going
Speaker 3: to research and then we start heading uptown Ecstasy Garage.
Speaker 1: See I like it sounds like a place.
Speaker 4: I like, no, this is.
Speaker 5: Just to put it in perspective, like, yes, obviously pre internet,
Speaker 5: like this is pre hip hop, this is definitely yeah.
Speaker 1: So like you had to.
Speaker 5: Like really go into these places, yes that you kind
Speaker 5: of heard something was going on, to actually experience it.
Speaker 3: The way the music really traveled back then was ya
Speaker 3: a boombox and I always had a double cassette. So
Speaker 3: if you, if you was blessed enough to get close
Speaker 3: to it, your baby, run me a copy. That's what
Speaker 3: them double concess Okay, man, I run off for ninety
Speaker 3: minute whatever sixty tep for you. And then the music
Speaker 3: spread and that's how the music really got it.
Speaker 1: It was viral. That was the way to go perfection.
Speaker 3: That was the origin, the origins of viral hand but
Speaker 3: it was hand to hand, you know, really great vine
Speaker 3: type of stuff. And so the idea was to put
Speaker 3: all this stuff in the film and showcase it. And
Speaker 3: that's the movie we made co while style. But I
Speaker 3: learned a little bit about filmmaking because I was like,
Speaker 3: you're like the co producer. And then what became when
Speaker 3: I walked in, Y was playing some of the instrumentals
Speaker 3: from the film.
Speaker 4: I wanted to use your real music. I'm like, what
Speaker 4: the hell is?
Speaker 3: Everything was so underground, but We was connected with Theodore
Speaker 3: and Flash and Charlie Chase and Tony Ton you know,
Speaker 3: we was connected with the core of the scene. And
Speaker 3: Charlie said, no, we can't use those records. And I said, okay,
Speaker 3: I'm gonna go and make this music. So I pulled
Speaker 3: together bass player, a drummer, you know, listen to some beats,
Speaker 3: you know, and told them, YO, give me something like this.
Speaker 3: And then Chris Stein from Blondie. Him and Kirsten Debbie
Speaker 3: were the core of Blondie. I had hooked up with
Speaker 3: them and other people on the downtown New York scene
Speaker 3: and I would run these ideas by them and they
Speaker 3: became supporters, looking out guidance, cooking, introducing me to people
Speaker 3: like Andy Wall, etc.
Speaker 1: Blondie record, Yeah.
Speaker 3: That's what So that record rapture comes out of me, Yo,
Speaker 3: this is what's going on new culture. That shouted me out,
Speaker 3: shout it out, Flash, you know, say Freddy told me
Speaker 3: everybody's fly by the way. It's the title of my memoir.
Speaker 3: And it was just all love. But they really appreciated
Speaker 3: shouted out what I was doing. You know, don't strain
Speaker 3: your brain, pain and train. But nobody really knew who
Speaker 3: I was at the time, but it really put the
Speaker 3: spark in people like what is this all about?
Speaker 1: And it just became a number one. Blondie was like
Speaker 1: like the lady God got that that era description and yeah,
Speaker 1: that's a real good description.
Speaker 3: And in fact, Lady Gaga was on the club scene
Speaker 3: coming up. My man Troy Carter brother out of Philly,
Speaker 3: managed to end the beginning. Get the hell Carter is
Speaker 3: a genius. You need to have him come through here.
Speaker 5: He's just like Madonna was exposed as like they were
Speaker 5: all in those club scenes.
Speaker 1: Yeah, well you're mingling with the hip hop scene as well.
Speaker 3: That's right, and you know, we was all tight. And
Speaker 3: when she came on the scene. Mark Caimans, who produced
Speaker 3: some of her first records, here, fabous, this is this
Speaker 3: girl just in from d Detroit.
Speaker 4: I'm working on her first records.
Speaker 6: But Donna's from Detroit. Yes, oh really yeah, hoodie yeah
Speaker 6: ye from mom Yeah, okay, you stole that on us.
Speaker 6: You know you got you got Frank Ocean Blondie motherfucker.
Speaker 4: Yeah, rapture, here you go.
Speaker 1: No, you gotta go to raps.
Speaker 3: Trying to find that one.
Speaker 1: Yeah, there you go. Yes, now now you know you
Speaker 1: don't know, but in New York City record was everywhere else.
Speaker 1: I mean I was onhere you don't want to be.
Speaker 3: Yeah, that's crazy, that's okay. But Number one records wild.
Speaker 1: So how does this record coup about?
Speaker 3: So basically, once again, in my pursuit to make connections
Speaker 3: with people to get the movie made and connect and
Speaker 3: to get things popping, and you know, with with with
Speaker 3: my visual art and everything, we became really tight. And
Speaker 3: I'm playing tapes for them, I'm running it down and
Speaker 3: I'm seeing the comparison between what's developing in the Bronx
Speaker 3: and the way the new wave and the punk rock
Speaker 3: scene jumped off, because I just happened to catch on
Speaker 3: to that early.
Speaker 1: And I'm reading this is that's why what they're doing.
Speaker 1: But that's kind of like what rat was doing, like
Speaker 1: because they had the spikes, so people were mistaking it
Speaker 1: for punk rock at first, right, like a black version
Speaker 1: of punk rock.
Speaker 3: That's exactly right, because those things was happening some people,
Speaker 3: like when Flashing them got real wild, it was like.
Speaker 4: A punk funk thing.
Speaker 3: There was syenergy, but no, but they was also oh,
Speaker 3: they was looking at what Rick James and then was
Speaker 3: doing whatever, which was all good, but it was in
Speaker 3: the air at that time. But basically they had told
Speaker 3: me that they wanted to make some funkier music. I mean,
Speaker 3: out of that new wave scene. They were literally like
Speaker 3: the biggest group. They just went mainstream in a really
Speaker 3: cool way, but they still was really about the underground
Speaker 3: in downtown. I'm talking about Blinde and so they said
Speaker 3: they was they wanted to do something a little more funky,
Speaker 3: funkier music or whatever people could dance to. So then
Speaker 3: they jetted to go to Cali or whatever to work
Speaker 3: on their next album. When they came back, they called
Speaker 3: me to come over to the crib. They said, man,
Speaker 3: we want to check drop some of these new.
Speaker 1: Tracks on you.
Speaker 3: They played me a couple of songs and then they said, okay,
Speaker 3: here's something a little different.
Speaker 1: And then when they put.
Speaker 3: It on, I'm like, you know, the singing part, I'm like, wow,
Speaker 3: this is fly. And then when she starts rapping, I'm like, wow,
Speaker 3: this is crazy.
Speaker 4: I totally thought that.
Speaker 3: This was just something they did in the studio, goofing,
Speaker 3: just to let me hear, because they never said we're
Speaker 3: gonna try to do a rap record or whatever whatever
Speaker 3: serious and I thought just that they was playing around
Speaker 3: in the studio. Here's a special little something just to
Speaker 3: play for Freddy, you know whatever.
Speaker 1: Whatever.
Speaker 3: So I loved that, and that was so cool. That's
Speaker 3: how I thought it was. It wasn't until two months
Speaker 3: later I was in Paris for the first time after
Speaker 3: my second art show in Italy, and I'm hanging out
Speaker 3: actually with two members of the Talking Heads, and we
Speaker 3: get into a cab on our way to a restaurant
Speaker 3: and I hear this song in a cab.
Speaker 1: I'm like, how does this cab driver like, no, it's
Speaker 1: you right? No? How does he get a copy of
Speaker 1: this suit hits the radio? Yeah?
Speaker 3: Yeah, they said, Freddie, this is the next Blondie single.
Speaker 3: This is the next Blondie single on a new album.
Speaker 3: And I'm like, I never thought it was going to
Speaker 3: be like a serious runner. I thought they was just
Speaker 3: playing it goes on to be number one?
Speaker 1: Did you think it was Maybe they might be looked
Speaker 1: at as like a clowning parody of hip hop at
Speaker 1: the time, No, hmm.
Speaker 3: You know, I wasn't too concerned about that because rap,
Speaker 3: I mean, probably the only thing most people had heard
Speaker 3: at that time was rappers D light, so nobody was really.
Speaker 5: Interestating backlash as well from within the culture.
Speaker 4: Well yeah, for obvious reasons.
Speaker 3: But in the country, mainstream people had no it was
Speaker 3: a fun record.
Speaker 4: People didn't know it was a real culture.
Speaker 3: That's one of the things I wanted to show in
Speaker 3: Wild Style, which is a part of what WildStar ends
Speaker 3: up doing. It shows who we are because our decision
Speaker 3: was to use all the artists, the musicians, the graffiti writers,
Speaker 3: the breakdances, the b boys, girls to play themselves, you feel.
Speaker 3: That was one of the concepts me and Charlie came
Speaker 3: up with for the film.
Speaker 4: But basically it.
Speaker 3: Was a surprise to me that the record caught on.
Speaker 1: The way it did.
Speaker 3: I was like, Yo, it's cool that they did it,
Speaker 3: that they shouted me out, They talked about things we
Speaker 3: was doing, you know, they shout it out Flash.
Speaker 4: It was just like things I told them.
Speaker 1: I said, Yo.
Speaker 3: As far as DJ's Flash is known for being, you know,
Speaker 3: super fast with it, fly guys and Fly Girls is
Speaker 3: how to scene.
Speaker 1: You know, to people who represent put the she she
Speaker 1: freaked it the artist.
Speaker 3: Does yeah, exactly, put her own little spin on it.
Speaker 1: And it just was a lot of love, you know
Speaker 1: what I mean.
Speaker 3: And so oh so the other interesting thing about the video.
Speaker 3: So I had told Flash to come through because you know,
Speaker 3: we're working on putting grand Master Flash by the way,
Speaker 3: guys le.
Speaker 4: Grandmaster Flash.
Speaker 3: And so because we're still in production pre production on
Speaker 3: make the movie Wild Style, and so ik new flashing them.
Speaker 3: I say, yo, come through. This record just came out.
Speaker 3: You know, you get a shout out, you know, shot
Speaker 3: me on the record. Come through and be in the
Speaker 3: video videos wasn't really a thing yet. And Flash says, Okay,
Speaker 3: I'm coming. But he never shows up. It's only recently
Speaker 3: that he's explaining to me that Sylvia was like, Yo,
Speaker 3: don't you know, stay away from that whatever, Tylvia Robinson,
Speaker 3: that Sugar Sugar Sugar Hill Records.
Speaker 4: So Jean Michelle, that's my man too.
Speaker 1: That we was all think, Joe Michelle even, yeah too much.
Speaker 1: Stop me for one second, please remember that story. Right.
Speaker 1: But the other day, I'm sitting there, right, I had
Speaker 1: posted a picture with pun and I go to a
Speaker 1: can forget. I think it was a sneakers stall and
Speaker 1: the kid is just telling me and he's just asking
Speaker 1: me about fun and I'm sitting there and all the
Speaker 1: questions he's asking me. It was like normal questions. It
Speaker 1: was like, you know, he's just my friend, like and
Speaker 1: I realized he looked at pun as a superhero, and
Speaker 1: I realized he is a superhero. He's my friend. What
Speaker 1: I just said the other day, I say, I didn't
Speaker 1: realize how dope mob Deep was because I was like
Speaker 1: so much kind of like what you doing so not
Speaker 1: with you. I'm watching documentaries on you, I'm watching interviews,
Speaker 1: and you always like you have the coolest friends. Let
Speaker 1: me just say that. Let me say that, right, But
Speaker 1: therefore he's one of the coolest guys. But after this
Speaker 1: guy asked me about one, I thought about you and
Speaker 1: how you just said, Michelle, and you said it so notionalists.
Speaker 1: But the thing about it is, here's the deal. This
Speaker 1: is a person, this is this is a person for me.
Speaker 1: I knew problem was a legend right when I'm when
Speaker 1: I walked through, I knew it was something special about him.
Speaker 1: I knew he was. It was different. He goes on
Speaker 1: and becomes even more of a folk telle. More for
Speaker 1: a legend, more for like you know what I'm saying,
Speaker 1: like more for a story. In your situation with boskya
Speaker 1: we only really have stories, right, Like he's the Jesus
Speaker 1: that we actually got a picture of. Right, He's changed culture,
Speaker 1: he's changed ship, and you were like you guys were
Speaker 1: fucking tight as hell.
Speaker 3: Like I'm getting in your business man, like it gets
Speaker 3: even deeper in these pages that and everybody wanted to
Speaker 3: people another one.
Speaker 1: So how did you meet Boskia? How did this? And
Speaker 1: let me let me get let me get let me
Speaker 1: get you the first question. Sure? Sure? Did you know
Speaker 1: how special he was when he was here?
Speaker 3: In a way, yes, like the way you knew plumbing
Speaker 3: special or somebody that you rock with. Did y'all become
Speaker 3: like comrades in the game and you respect him, you
Speaker 3: respect you and y'all trying to get it, get it popping.
Speaker 4: It's like it really was just that.
Speaker 1: But let me coach you for one second, super pun,
Speaker 1: there was a heavy d there was a biggie before him.
Speaker 1: There was there's no other before and there's happening to
Speaker 1: be no other. So now this course is a little tougher.
Speaker 3: I'm sorry, No, No, that's you're one hundred percent correct
Speaker 3: because it's very few black artists that were able to
Speaker 3: make the moves, particularly that gen made that we made,
Speaker 3: and these were things what was so dope about connecting
Speaker 3: with him? Like I told you, I cut school and
Speaker 3: used to go to museums museums all over the city.
Speaker 3: I got very familiar essentially with the history of art,
Speaker 3: not like on a scholarly level, but a lot of
Speaker 3: different genres of art I looked at in the museums.
Speaker 4: I would look at books and read a little.
Speaker 1: I got.
Speaker 3: You know, it's an ongoing process, but I was like wow.
Speaker 3: And then like reading about a certain painter or seeing
Speaker 3: some work that you feel and then you could stand
Speaker 3: right in front of it like in the museum, like
Speaker 3: in the gallery first, and that was like, oh my god.
Speaker 3: I felt like a connection to that. So when I
Speaker 3: connect with people on the downtown in New York, like
Speaker 3: Kristian Debbie from Blondie, Glenn O'Brien rest in Peace, there
Speaker 3: was a whole bunch of cool people I connected with that.
Speaker 3: I got plugged into that downtown scene. And Jean Michelle
Speaker 3: shows up right around that same time. He had started
Speaker 3: out doing these street little him and another cat named
Speaker 3: al Diaz. Initially it was called same O and he
Speaker 3: would tag up like the tag with same O with
Speaker 3: a copyright symbol.
Speaker 4: But he would write.
Speaker 3: These little phrases like they would be checking people or
Speaker 3: really make you think, like messages if you will, kind
Speaker 3: of poetic, but he would be putting people in check,
Speaker 3: like one I remember he was like same o, checking
Speaker 3: those who are on the scene, trying to play art
Speaker 3: with daddy's money, or little things like that that would
Speaker 3: be like, oh, yeah, that's really.
Speaker 1: What's going on.
Speaker 3: Yeah, this would be little tags that would google it.
Speaker 3: You'll see what these same old tags look like. And
Speaker 3: he was just writing them, so there was very like
Speaker 3: you would see them if he was moving through the village.
Speaker 4: He would hit a few trains.
Speaker 3: Him and his cat al Diz did it together. But
Speaker 3: then Jean just you know, became like the he became
Speaker 3: the face of it, so to speak. And so he
Speaker 3: had did that for a while. But he also was
Speaker 3: very creative. He was trying to figure things out and
Speaker 3: thinking about being an artist. He was he was in
Speaker 3: a band for a while. That was a cool thing
Speaker 3: to be on that downtown scene, to be in a band.
Speaker 3: So we meet and then it's like right away he's
Speaker 3: very aware of art history because you know, coming up
Speaker 3: in best style, I'm hanging. You know, I'm thugging, you
Speaker 3: know what I'm saying. I'm doing this, that and the third.
Speaker 3: But I'm just knowing about the art. Stuff was not
Speaker 3: what I'm trying to kick with casts on the corner
Speaker 3: whatever you hip hop niggas was in an artist at
Speaker 3: that time, right, nobody in.
Speaker 1: Band thing.
Speaker 3: So when me and Jean connect and I'm like, yo,
Speaker 3: he hood he from Haiti, He from Haiti. But you know,
Speaker 3: we had similar backgrounds. Both our fathers was like accountants
Speaker 3: and whatever. But he was like, you know, he basically
Speaker 3: had left home. His pops wasn't with it, yo, you know,
Speaker 3: and John just broke off. So he was in the
Speaker 3: village making moves, bouncing around. And so when we connect,
Speaker 3: it was like, yo, I know about Warhall, Jasper, John's Rosenberg,
Speaker 3: all these artists, contemporary artists, abstract expressionists. I was like,
Speaker 3: oh my god, this is incredible. Somebody like my age
Speaker 3: who's up on this stuff. And we could talk about
Speaker 3: this stuff. And so right away it was on a
Speaker 3: similar mission in a similar part of town. We just
Speaker 3: became tight because it wasn't too many brothers on the
Speaker 3: scene at that time trying to make moves and right
Speaker 3: away we linked up. I put I'm putting them on, yo.
Speaker 3: It's this new kind of music going on uptown. Put
Speaker 3: him on the hip hop well once again, it even
Speaker 3: hip hop yet I'm tapping. I got cold crush tapes,
Speaker 3: I got tastes. Was fantastic because I'm getting next to
Speaker 3: the scene now, Yo, this is that new ship right here.
Speaker 3: Because you couldn't hear this anywhere. You feel me, He
Speaker 3: was like, I was like, oh yeah, man, you know.
Speaker 3: And then we're making moves going to the downtown clubs.
Speaker 3: That was a move, like the Mud Club and places
Speaker 3: like that. We bouncing around the East Village downtown and
Speaker 3: that's how it all got popping, and Sean Star begins
Speaker 3: to rise, you know, like rather quickly, just being a
Speaker 3: cool cat on the scene.
Speaker 4: Then we as people see.
Speaker 3: The things that I've done with the art thing, and
Speaker 3: I'm opening and bringing other helping other graffiti casts as
Speaker 3: me and Lee. The name starts to our names start
Speaker 3: to ring a little bit. And then we're working on
Speaker 3: Wild Style where we're gonna feature this so other casts
Speaker 3: that's real official graffiti people. They start coming getting into
Speaker 3: the mix too, because there's this opportunity now to like,
Speaker 3: look at our work in galleries, so it's alternative type
Speaker 3: galleries like the gallery in the South Bronx called Fashion Mota.
Speaker 3: A gallery opened in the East Village really to show
Speaker 3: our work exclusively called the Fun Gallery. And this changed
Speaker 3: the whole game because it had been in Soho, which
Speaker 3: was where the contemporary art scene was really popping. And
Speaker 3: we shifted the whole game with our energy. And then
Speaker 3: this gallery opened to show our work myself Futura Lead,
Speaker 3: Crash Days Pink, and the scene caught fire like real
Speaker 3: quick and it was a war come around you guys
Speaker 3: in this ball hall began because you know, and then
Speaker 3: one of the things I did, because I was such
Speaker 3: a fan and dug his whole like just the whole
Speaker 3: impact he had on culture and you know, the cool
Speaker 3: factor going on, and to let people know that some
Speaker 3: people doing graffiti was really hip to art history. I
Speaker 3: did a train covered in Campbell soup cans Lee got
Speaker 3: down on it with me. Was the idea I had
Speaker 3: to to let them know that we was hip to
Speaker 3: art history and that we was coming.
Speaker 1: We was, you know, the move was on, you feel me, and.
Speaker 3: It began to take. It began to you know, come
Speaker 3: together in ways.
Speaker 1: That you know, I mean, look at the impact to today,
Speaker 1: Like we're in wind Wood right now, an.
Speaker 5: Example of what that exactly?
Speaker 1: Right, let me ask you, Like I said, I knew
Speaker 1: problem with especially I didn't know how special he was.
Speaker 1: I didn't know how legendary he was. I didn't know
Speaker 1: how much he meant to the people till after he
Speaker 1: passed away and I got to see it, and I
Speaker 1: see the impact, and I got to realize that my
Speaker 1: friend always belonged to the world. I thought he was
Speaker 1: just my friend, you know what I'm saying, and like
Speaker 1: for not But what we we got to do was
Speaker 1: we got I got to do records for him. He
Speaker 1: got to do records for me. And there's a bunch
Speaker 1: of records tests laying around. You want to try the
Speaker 1: watermelon mix, the watermelon selica mix, Please just try it
Speaker 1: one time because you want to mix yourself, Like, try
Speaker 1: to try the watermelon just one one drink, just one drink,
Speaker 1: because you're going to turn into kool aid. So so
Speaker 1: me and put we got a chance to do that, right.
Speaker 1: Did you ever like be around Vosqua and be like,
Speaker 1: man drove me some for me.
Speaker 3: That's funny no, but but people ask all the time
Speaker 3: because of the whole undisbelievable phenomenal success of everything. It's
Speaker 3: really it's really like a remarkable thing, and the numbers
Speaker 3: associated with his work, which is just insanity. People often
Speaker 3: always ask, yo, you gotta ain't at work because you know, ridiculous.
Speaker 1: I got a punt birse somewhere later around.
Speaker 3: No, it's such a great comparative, you know, type of
Speaker 3: situation you and pun, me and Jean and me and
Speaker 3: other friends that were.
Speaker 1: Artists, well artists.
Speaker 3: Often times we do is they we give each other
Speaker 3: work or just make a trade.
Speaker 1: Like yo, man, I like that.
Speaker 4: Yo, okay, I got you. You know what I'm saying.
Speaker 3: So those kind of things is how we dealt with
Speaker 3: each other in terms of the work or whatever.
Speaker 4: But yeah, with Jean, like it was just a unique situation.
Speaker 3: He had a sincere understanding of going forward in a
Speaker 3: really hard way and it was such a unique individual.
Speaker 3: Like you would cut his head in real wild kind
Speaker 3: of ways, you know, dreadlocks.
Speaker 4: Growing his he was hot top.
Speaker 3: He would do real wild different things.
Speaker 1: It looks so cool now, but did it look cool
Speaker 1: back then? Yeah?
Speaker 3: But sometimes like being that you know, you got the
Speaker 3: ignorance that goes along with like racism and whatever. A
Speaker 3: lot of people was real cool on the scene, but
Speaker 3: sometimes we'd be making a move walking down certain areas.
Speaker 4: This is before Soho or.
Speaker 1: Any of that.
Speaker 3: Downtown was anything like it is now, and people sometimes
Speaker 3: seeing us, but particularly Jean, they cross on the other
Speaker 3: side of the street his head. People dreadlocks were still
Speaker 3: a new thing, but that's like a come on, what
Speaker 3: you being so stupid? Then that becomes a style now
Speaker 3: that people replicate all over the world, but at that
Speaker 3: time it was really extreme. You really didn't see a
Speaker 3: lot of that, but people would just react really negatively.
Speaker 3: Jean told me sometimes he'd be getting on an elevator
Speaker 3: and folks would see him and give, you know, like
Speaker 3: get off. So that went on. Cabs wasn't trying to
Speaker 3: pick us up. So it was a lot of like
Speaker 3: stuff that we had to deal with more than what
Speaker 3: years is this around. This is like the early eighties
Speaker 3: essentially when it began to start popping for us, early
Speaker 3: eighties going through. But it began to change because a
Speaker 3: lot of the like the white guys that were cab drivers,
Speaker 3: like they moved on and cab drivers, yellow cab javers
Speaker 3: primarily became.
Speaker 1: People of color and things changed.
Speaker 3: But but definitely Jean, you know, it's just an incredible cat,
Speaker 3: real cool. We had a lot of fun going to
Speaker 3: clubs doing things. But uh, you know, he definitely just exploded,
Speaker 3: which was amazing to see it happened.
Speaker 1: It was was he like the because we hear other
Speaker 1: and this is pure ignorance, correct question. All we hear
Speaker 1: other black artists, but we don't hear other black cool artists,
Speaker 1: right right. Was there other artists before him? Yeah? There was,
Speaker 1: There was.
Speaker 3: There was definitely other black artists because of the segregation,
Speaker 3: and it was a black art scene for sure. That
Speaker 3: goes back to the time of the Harlem Renaissance and
Speaker 3: like and what have you. You know what I'm saying,
Speaker 3: artists like Romar Beard and Jacob Lawrence. There's incredible black
Speaker 3: artists that made incredible work. A part of the Harlem
Speaker 3: Renaissance happening was black folks for the first time in
Speaker 3: our history being in this in this country, and you
Speaker 3: obviously know the history.
Speaker 4: We was coming, we was migrating.
Speaker 3: It was called a great migration from the South, and
Speaker 3: still oppression after slavery ended, Black folks was like we
Speaker 3: going north, were trying to get to Chicago. We're trying
Speaker 3: to get to New York. Even though they probably raised
Speaker 3: the prices on us. We were trying to get away
Speaker 3: from all that pressure that we.
Speaker 1: Were still under.
Speaker 3: And I like to think that the celebration that went
Speaker 3: on of kind of feeling free for the first time
Speaker 3: that really created the Harlem Renaissance. So people began to
Speaker 3: start writing intellectual stuff, you know.
Speaker 4: Like Harlem Art Flourish and our flourish, you know.
Speaker 3: Marcus Garvey, like we move in politics, like we really
Speaker 3: exercising all the elements. And so they were artists, incredible
Speaker 3: visual artists at that time, and there were writers like
Speaker 3: Langston used like zor Neil Hurston.
Speaker 1: There's a whole you know, why was the the artist
Speaker 1: hip hop and breeze. That's a great.
Speaker 3: Question, And I guess it's the cool factor.
Speaker 4: This is so great to see all this chance.
Speaker 1: You I'm trying to throw you. That's a bit of that.
Speaker 4: But yeah, absolutely so was.
Speaker 1: It was it back then? Was not seen embracing him
Speaker 1: because I want to see sorry, I want to look
Speaker 1: at it like you you are to go all right,
Speaker 1: this this art and hip hop right, Yeah, hip hop
Speaker 1: is art right correct, that's one man percept. But I
Speaker 1: want to credit you. This is my opinion. This is
Speaker 1: this is not bad saying. It's just me saying that
Speaker 1: what the person who brong art into hip hop?
Speaker 3: Yeah, I pulled that true because because now you see,
Speaker 3: you see jay Z.
Speaker 1: I had a conversation with jay Z for two minutes
Speaker 1: and he was talking to me about art. I knew
Speaker 1: nothing he was talking about, but I was saying so.
Speaker 3: Once again, I was like, yep, because I did so
Speaker 3: at that point in the game, clearly you're getting I'm
Speaker 3: the kind of helping lay down the foundations of this.
Speaker 4: And it's not too many people.
Speaker 3: But in the conversations Jean and I would have, these
Speaker 3: are things we would sometimes talk about. We knew that
Speaker 3: we would eventually get it. It's just that we was
Speaker 3: in position at a time. We was just way ahead.
Speaker 1: And so.
Speaker 3: What I think a part of what happened is which
Speaker 3: was fascinating for me because most people know me from
Speaker 3: what I've done, even though my foundation and background is
Speaker 3: making art, exhibiting all of that stuff. Along with Jean
Speaker 3: and these other people, I had other interests as well,
Speaker 3: to work in film to work in music. Jean did
Speaker 3: as well, and so Jean starred in a film called
Speaker 3: Downtown Edy One. We talked about producing movies. We was
Speaker 3: into foreign films. He turned me on the foreign films.
Speaker 1: I turned him on.
Speaker 3: This stuff like the surrealist films of Lewis Bounell, that
Speaker 3: Salvador Dolly worked with them doing wild stuff on films.
Speaker 1: So we was he everybody he was Yeah, it was
Speaker 1: like a surrealist, but he was a brilliant guy. That was.
Speaker 3: That was a big influence on what Andy because he
Speaker 3: was the most famous artist until Andy, like he became
Speaker 3: that that was a very specific thing and so damn,
Speaker 3: these are the things that we were We were all
Speaker 3: focused on, you know at the time, and uh, you know,
Speaker 3: and Jean definitely we were. This is the part of
Speaker 3: the thing that we shared. We were both aware of,
Speaker 3: you know, how the game had been played, but being
Speaker 3: artists of color, how to maneuver and how to make
Speaker 3: moves into the scene. So we had that synergy like
Speaker 3: that punk rock and that new wave thing was a
Speaker 3: lot of people that were open that we connected with
Speaker 3: that and saw what we were doing and looked at
Speaker 3: it in the proper way. And that's how once again
Speaker 3: some of the first shows and stuff began to happen,
Speaker 3: you know what I'm saying.
Speaker 5: And so it felt like the all of these, all
Speaker 5: of these scenes are like the counterculture scenes of the
Speaker 5: time that were correct, correct, correct, kind of they kind
Speaker 5: of saw kinship and all being counterculture.
Speaker 3: Absolutely, And that's the part of what I dug too,
Speaker 3: even though I'm a little kid when I'm reading about
Speaker 3: stuff that happened in the sixties, when Andy just popped
Speaker 3: off and.
Speaker 1: The Warhol, Andy Warholl were.
Speaker 3: Talking about the sixties, we talk in rock and roll,
Speaker 3: We talking that whole cultural revolution.
Speaker 4: That went on.
Speaker 3: Andy Andy controlled, he didn't control. Andy was like dominant
Speaker 3: forcing that, and so looking at those other elements, and
Speaker 3: plus they was having mad fun, we'd all look so
Speaker 3: cool to us. So we definitely were inspired by that
Speaker 3: and looking to do in some regards our version of that,
Speaker 3: you know what I'm saying. And eventually when we began
Speaker 3: to get it popped and Andy came around like yo,
Speaker 3: y'all doing it, you know what I'm saying, and make
Speaker 3: connections with him, it was an encouraging thing and it
Speaker 3: just kind of continued to grow.
Speaker 1: Now someone's the same question with Andy Warhol. Right, if
Speaker 1: a person has Andy Warhol in the house, right, that
Speaker 1: is like a safe that's that's like you know, you
Speaker 1: shouldn't even have it in your house. Yeah, it's crazy. Now.
Speaker 3: That's why once again the question that I get asked
Speaker 3: about if I have Bosky, It's like, wow, it's an
Speaker 3: awkward question.
Speaker 1: I feel like you guys like stuff that he do.
Speaker 1: That said because.
Speaker 3: Because of the value, like like you got people that
Speaker 3: have you know, when the art gets that crazy, you
Speaker 3: have to have.
Speaker 4: You have to secure it. It has to be ensured.
Speaker 1: You want to you have to have next levels of.
Speaker 4: You know, security.
Speaker 3: Sometimes it's like like do you want to have you know,
Speaker 3: you got to make sure everything is right.
Speaker 4: It's crazy because.
Speaker 1: Do you feel weird though that you're in certain country?
Speaker 1: But do you feel weird that your friend's work is
Speaker 1: so valuable and that you now you have maybe something
Speaker 1: of value that but this was just your friend, you
Speaker 1: know what it is?
Speaker 3: It is you know, the whole thing about John, not
Speaker 3: just that the whole way it's developed. It's just phenomenal
Speaker 3: that his unfortunate, it's so unfortunate that his life was
Speaker 3: so short. But that the effect continues and resonates at
Speaker 3: a level that's just unprecedented, and that's so dope for
Speaker 3: me twenty seven which unfortunately people talk about.
Speaker 1: Twenty seven Club exactly. That's crazy.
Speaker 5: Jimmy Hendricks, Jimmy Wyerson, Amy white House, someone just recently
Speaker 5: just wow, passages I forget.
Speaker 3: Because that's what a bunch of sixties once again iconic
Speaker 3: people that just was happening and running things. Jim Morrison, right,
Speaker 3: Jim Morrison, Jimmy Hendrix, Jannis Choplin, probably some others. So
Speaker 3: it's just an unfortunate thing. But oh the other thing,
Speaker 3: I lost the train of thought to answer something you
Speaker 3: brought up before, which was brilliant. What I have noticed,
Speaker 3: and it is when people get curious about Jean and
Speaker 3: they lean in, they see that we had this close connection,
Speaker 3: and once again, most people know me from you know,
Speaker 3: being on TV, going TV raps this, that, and the
Speaker 3: third not knowing a bunch about my art background, which
Speaker 3: is all good. Then they go, oh, my goodness. And
Speaker 3: so that got a lot.
Speaker 4: Of hip hop folks curious.
Speaker 3: People will run up on me, You're father, like I
Speaker 3: was checking, you know, this cat out Sean Michelle whatever,
Speaker 3: you know, it's hard to say his name at first.
Speaker 3: Now people can say.
Speaker 4: It, right, Yo.
Speaker 3: I saw that, you know, y'all was hanging and everything
Speaker 3: like what's up with that? And I'm like, well, and
Speaker 3: I love that so much because I'm like, this is
Speaker 3: one of the things once again, Jean and I wanted,
Speaker 3: we wanted our people to connect with it. People coming
Speaker 3: from where we're coming from the understand this.
Speaker 4: And that has happened in great ways now.
Speaker 3: So as far as black artists that I talked a
Speaker 3: little bit about from the Harlem Renaissance or whatever, and
Speaker 3: it was popping black artists all through time, they just
Speaker 3: was kind of like everything largely was segregated. Now there's
Speaker 3: a lot of younger black artists that are doing things
Speaker 3: that are definitely making serious inroads. And because of the awareness,
Speaker 3: more people are now looking at those older black artists
Speaker 3: that didn't get the treatment from the museums exactly. So
Speaker 3: now this has all happened within the last I say,
Speaker 3: ten years, was where they decided, man, we have all
Speaker 3: this work in the museum, but we don't have enough
Speaker 3: from our Beard Jacob Lawrence and a bunch of other
Speaker 3: very important artists that they should have been appreciation and
Speaker 3: so that has happened now And.
Speaker 1: That's another stupid question. It's not stupid.
Speaker 3: Who painted the Good Times poster? Oh that's a great question,
Speaker 3: by the way. That's an artist named Ernie Barnes. Ernie
Speaker 3: actually was an NFL football player and sand and his
Speaker 3: side thing was just doing He had this unique style
Speaker 3: of doing them characters and then be and in Good
Speaker 3: Times and Marvin Gaye's album I want to say, what's
Speaker 3: going on?
Speaker 1: What's going on? Made?
Speaker 4: That's the cover. He did the cover art.
Speaker 3: It made him iconic, and once again, I think he's
Speaker 3: passed away, but there's a people now realizing his work
Speaker 3: that that value and you know is.
Speaker 1: And I think Eddie Murphy said he has the original
Speaker 1: exactly believe it's eight million dollars or.
Speaker 3: Once again, which is a reflection of the fact that
Speaker 3: people are like, oh my god, this is an important
Speaker 3: work of art. It was also connected to the TV
Speaker 3: show to a great album. So that's another very good point,
Speaker 3: like Ernie Bond's incredible incredible.
Speaker 5: Yes, yes, real quick, I want to go back to
Speaker 5: the making a wall style and yes, the place, the
Speaker 5: time frame that is being made this is is this
Speaker 5: pre Zulunation or Zolnation around this time as well.
Speaker 4: Good question.
Speaker 3: I think that's probably around the time because we like
Speaker 3: we're doing this early eighties and a lot of that happened.
Speaker 1: You know, this story about Zulu Nation and whatever and
Speaker 1: bringing all the gangs together, coming.
Speaker 3: To gang, the gangs coming together, so so the gang
Speaker 3: thing kind of ends. That's a wind down late seventies,
Speaker 3: like from Brooklyn. But that was kind of you know,
Speaker 3: you look at the documentaries and so that they begin
Speaker 3: after that, and as the parties grew.
Speaker 1: You know, you would hear uh you know, you know,
Speaker 1: the Zulu Nation.
Speaker 3: Because BAM's name was growing as playing records at that
Speaker 3: in that side of the Bronx and whatever. He was
Speaker 3: strong and other groups around him, Soul Sonic and a
Speaker 3: few other ike you see. You know, it was a
Speaker 3: bunch of other things under that. But Yo, while Star
Speaker 3: was like I would say, when we started making a
Speaker 3: movie Rappers the Delight, I don't think have really even.
Speaker 4: Come out that came out.
Speaker 3: I don't think the time Charlie and I had begun
Speaker 3: to really work on the film, there was some local
Speaker 3: records that came out that I thought were very important,
Speaker 3: like on the label called Enjoy like super rapping, and
Speaker 3: then Spoony g. It was like a solo So there
Speaker 3: were a few things that came out, but it was
Speaker 3: sugar Hill the rappers d Light really opened a lot
Speaker 3: of people up because they got it charted or like
Speaker 3: across the country. Yes, that's one of the kind of
Speaker 3: things he would do. Yeah, this is a good one,
Speaker 3: same old But those of us who merely tolerate civilization
Speaker 3: and you see these things and people were like, is
Speaker 3: this some type of like a conceptual artist because most
Speaker 3: everybody else was doing their names and tagging and had
Speaker 3: their own style.
Speaker 4: Of how they did their graffiti.
Speaker 3: So it caught a lot of people once you if
Speaker 3: you were tapped into the downtown scene and were very curious,
Speaker 3: like who is this cat? And when he emerges and
Speaker 3: we actually meet at this party, it's a great story
Speaker 3: in my memoir. I meet these guys that have a
Speaker 3: big loft, like and they're trying to create this like scene,
Speaker 3: like this art scene, and they and me and Lee
Speaker 3: connect with them and we painted these big class lead sheets.
Speaker 3: Lee star and is he Puerto Rican?
Speaker 1: Yes he is, He's Puerto Rican? Lee, Yes, he thought
Speaker 1: it was him that's his name is mister Lee. Mister
Speaker 1: he got yeah.
Speaker 3: Now was like the pinnacle of graffiti. What he had
Speaker 3: did that was like groundbreaking at that time.
Speaker 4: Obviously, most graffiti really is on.
Speaker 3: The size of trains, the letters, the characters are developing.
Speaker 1: The colors. Lee paints on.
Speaker 3: An entire handball card, the image of how.
Speaker 1: It can you remember the story? Absolutely? I didn't realize
Speaker 1: how racist people are. WHOA. I went to a handball
Speaker 1: court the other day. Ship.
Speaker 6: Oh.
Speaker 1: My comments was now we really know you Puerto Rican.
Speaker 1: I'm like, oh wow, it was the most racist black
Speaker 1: people played him.
Speaker 3: Ball to y'all.
Speaker 1: But you know what the fun up Ship, well was
Speaker 1: they did. They just attacked my Puerto Rican side, bro
Speaker 1: like they destroyed me like they was like it was
Speaker 1: like your only Puerto Ricans is going it was. It
Speaker 1: was the coldest day in Miami. I saw in Miami
Speaker 1: and I found out there was a handball I could
Speaker 1: not exist. Was like this real Puerto Rican Ship. I'm like, damn,
Speaker 1: I'm sorry, I'm sorry I had he said that.
Speaker 3: He used to do pieces of my hand damn giant
Speaker 3: handball card.
Speaker 4: The image of how with the duck.
Speaker 3: It was like, wow, nobody had did anything like that.
Speaker 3: You know, I was up about twenty thirty feet, you know,
Speaker 3: And so Lee was the master of the game. And
Speaker 3: when I connected with him with these ideas once again
Speaker 3: we said, he was like, let's get busy and do this,
Speaker 3: and that led to us having an exhibit at a
Speaker 3: gallery in Rome, very prestigious. Gas Crazy got our first
Speaker 3: little item written up in the villa his voice and
Speaker 3: this just Italian Ardealer had been seeing the work on
Speaker 3: the trains and he was thinking, like I was, this
Speaker 3: is like.
Speaker 4: A next level of pop art.
Speaker 3: And when he saw who we were and we had
Speaker 3: I was standing in front of Lee's wall.
Speaker 4: In fact, because Lee.
Speaker 3: Along with being super super dope one of the best
Speaker 3: that was doing it.
Speaker 4: He was the.
Speaker 3: He was the most warned graffiti artist in New York City.
Speaker 3: They literally have like posters wanted by the by the
Speaker 3: transit police at the time. It was like real serious.
Speaker 3: So so so Lee had the kids. Part of his
Speaker 3: part of the skill of being nice in the game
Speaker 3: is not getting caught. So he was stealthy with it,
Speaker 3: like super low key and out He's like, yo, you
Speaker 3: go out and beat the face and you know, get
Speaker 3: to get it popping like that, which I did, and
Speaker 3: so that me standing in front of his wall telling
Speaker 3: the story of who we are a little young kids
Speaker 3: taking it from trains.
Speaker 1: You know.
Speaker 3: We inspired by the same stuff as Warhol, Roy, Lichtenstein,
Speaker 3: whatever whatever. This is how this our dealer gave.
Speaker 4: Us a show and that was huge.
Speaker 1: He's like the original what's the British dude that's anonymous?
Speaker 1: What was his name? The Wells is inspired by Least
Speaker 1: there describing it that you guys get it well Banks? Yeah,
Speaker 1: because Lee say he wants to meet Banks.
Speaker 3: Yeah he's super low key, but he's no. But we
Speaker 3: we exchanged, you know people, because he keeps it low
Speaker 3: key but he definitely no. But you gotta you have
Speaker 3: to reach the people that have engaged.
Speaker 4: But what he's doing is so specific.
Speaker 3: You have to respected gangst of all that because it
Speaker 3: was brilliant. But I'm told he was inspired by Lee's
Speaker 3: character in Wildstyle because whoa least character and Wild Style
Speaker 3: is Zorrow. Essentially none of the other graph people know
Speaker 3: who he is, which is inspired by how Lee actually
Speaker 3: got down.
Speaker 1: So that was weird.
Speaker 3: The ideas of the story of Wild Style come from
Speaker 3: things that were going on all around us, like we're
Speaker 3: about to connect with the art scene.
Speaker 4: We go to the art collective spot.
Speaker 3: You know, Patty Asta plays the journalists coming to write
Speaker 3: about us, and you know, so it captures that period
Speaker 3: when the culture is just beginning to get taken serious
Speaker 3: and looked at in a in a wait a minute,
Speaker 3: what's going on here? What are you guys doing? And so, yeah,
Speaker 3: so that was but it's.
Speaker 5: So rough it almost feels like a documentary reality. That's exactly. Yeah, yeah, yeah,
Speaker 5: it feels.
Speaker 3: Sort of like a docu drama because we intentionally wanted
Speaker 3: it to have an energy like that. Because all the
Speaker 3: people that play the characters were really who they were,
Speaker 3: so we gave them little direction, here's the idea of
Speaker 3: what we want you to say, say it how you'd say.
Speaker 3: And then you have people like Busy Bee, who literally
Speaker 3: is like a start.
Speaker 4: He steals every scene he's in.
Speaker 3: So when me and Charlie are going to the parties,
Speaker 3: constantly taking notes on who we want to put in
Speaker 3: the movie, Busy's just had this most unique personality. In fact,
Speaker 3: when we the first time we go to the Bronx
Speaker 3: to start our research.
Speaker 4: We go to a park.
Speaker 3: It's called a valley way up in the North Bronx
Speaker 3: and we walk in and we were checking things out.
Speaker 3: It's me and this white dude, Charlie, and we walk
Speaker 3: up on Busy and Busy kind of kind of what's
Speaker 3: going on? And then Charlie is like, Hey, I'm Charlie.
Speaker 4: This is Fred.
Speaker 3: We're here to make a movie on the rap scene,
Speaker 3: and Busy goes what Busy runs right up on the mic,
Speaker 3: brings Charlie up.
Speaker 4: Yo, y'all, he's here.
Speaker 3: To make a movie about me, about him, about him,
Speaker 3: And we became immediately connected because he's like, what's going on?
Speaker 3: Like you just see no no kind of white folks
Speaker 3: going out to the Bronx.
Speaker 5: And that's in the Stick is the Stick Apart. You've
Speaker 5: talked about this before. There's like the part where the
Speaker 5: guys come up to like to rob y'all or something
Speaker 5: in the.
Speaker 3: Oh God, yeah, that's at one of the parties we
Speaker 3: was at and this cat was on dust, big strong,
Speaker 3: overly muscle bound cat and I'm looking at this cat
Speaker 3: like this, this dude is crazy and and I'm like, Charlie,
Speaker 3: you know, because this is you want to stick up
Speaker 3: kids and all this is going on at this time
Speaker 3: every time. You know how I used to get down,
Speaker 3: and so going up to the Bronx, which is not
Speaker 3: my territory, I'm constantly thinking this every time.
Speaker 1: But you know what Busy told.
Speaker 3: Me, and I'll get back to the to the to
Speaker 3: the you know the big, big guy of a smoking dust.
Speaker 3: Busy told me when we first walked up to him,
Speaker 3: he thought we was the police, like the mod squad
Speaker 3: or some ship like a like a like a.
Speaker 1: Par typical box people.
Speaker 4: We didn't.
Speaker 3: We looked like, who's this white guy? Here's this black
Speaker 3: guy with They gotta be undercovered. It's party, got to
Speaker 3: be playing clothes cops. This is this can't be happening
Speaker 3: and that and anyway. So we had this party one
Speaker 3: night and this dude is walking around looking crazy.
Speaker 4: He had his shirt off, he cocked diesel.
Speaker 3: Everybody's moving out of his way. And this is at
Speaker 3: a jam. So it's you know, people thugging it, but
Speaker 3: jam is.
Speaker 1: A party, guys.
Speaker 3: Yeah, the whole night we did. You know, cats is down.
Speaker 3: I remember Cold Crushes on the mic. You know, a
Speaker 3: bunch of cast of characters, you know, typical uptown party
Speaker 3: at that time. And I'm constantly going man, I hope
Speaker 3: this cat don't lock onto us because this looks like
Speaker 3: it'd be crazy. And then me and Charlie because Charlie
Speaker 3: would always have a camera and we're taking pictures. You
Speaker 3: know how, we did all the research, like you look
Speaker 3: into early history. Some of the earliest photos now are
Speaker 3: photos that Charlie and I took and making and making
Speaker 3: wild style and doing our research. At some point I
Speaker 3: look up and this cat locks onto us. It's really
Speaker 3: Charlie and I see this cat start sliding through the party,
Speaker 3: across the party, coming our way, going, yo, this is
Speaker 3: going to be dude.
Speaker 4: Six six everybody.
Speaker 3: Yeah, he looked he definitely dusted because he dude's moving
Speaker 3: kind of kind of crazy. It's like, the fuck is
Speaker 3: going on? And so I'm looking for something to get
Speaker 3: my hands on because I'm thinking, yo, it's about to
Speaker 3: go down for real. So he walks right up to us.
Speaker 3: He's standing there, and Charlie goes fred, I think he
Speaker 3: wants me to take his picture. The ship was super white, funny,
Speaker 3: and the dude looked at Charlie.
Speaker 1: And he just turned and slid off the ship. We
Speaker 1: must I.
Speaker 3: Mean, I'm like, I swear to God, like I felt
Speaker 3: like I didn't breathe for two minutes because I'm like, yo,
Speaker 3: this is about to go down. He about to hit
Speaker 3: my man. You know, I got to jump in it.
Speaker 3: But this dude looked crazy, you know. Anyway, that was
Speaker 3: just one of many that was you know, nothing really
Speaker 3: went down, which basically is.
Speaker 4: The whole thing.
Speaker 3: Everything was cool, and we made the movie, which still
Speaker 3: is like a remarkable thing. Hold lot said so once,
Speaker 3: Like I said, so. One of the things I did
Speaker 3: I made all the instrumental beats because with Charlie was
Speaker 3: like no, which I mentioned earlier, and so I went
Speaker 3: into the studio and made basically what I was considering
Speaker 3: like a record of breakbeats, about eleven tracks, all instrumental.
Speaker 3: Christine put all the different sound effects and the guitar
Speaker 3: ship to make it sound weird because I played him
Speaker 3: different breakbeats.
Speaker 4: Marti gras seven minutes, you know.
Speaker 3: Things of that nature that the DJ classics, classic shit.
Speaker 3: And then we used those tracks and we pressed up
Speaker 3: about one hundred pieces of vinyl and that's what each.
Speaker 4: DJ is cutting.
Speaker 1: So they were playing them in the film.
Speaker 3: Yeah, they literally playing them, and then that becomes our soundtrack.
Speaker 3: We record the Cold Crush, the Fantastic Busy in Them,
Speaker 3: Double Trouble, all rhyming in the movie that becomes our soundtrack.
Speaker 1: Before we get into it.
Speaker 5: But the reason why I went and asked about Zulu
Speaker 5: is because it sounds like when you made While Style,
Speaker 5: you kind of made a decision to bring these elements together.
Speaker 1: Later on everybody would package as hip hop.
Speaker 3: Yeah, well that's fun because not but later on.
Speaker 1: Hip hop, you know, corporate America. The industry comes in soups, in.
Speaker 5: Grabs rappers and kind of divides and conquers the culture
Speaker 5: and divides the elements. Again, very true, and we've been
Speaker 5: all ever since trying to hold it together.
Speaker 1: Very true.
Speaker 3: Wow, you definitely see it clearly.
Speaker 1: Yeah, so at least, you.
Speaker 3: Know, our attempt not that we could predict everything. We
Speaker 3: was just trying to represent it for what it was,
Speaker 3: based on that initial idea I had. I wanted to
Speaker 3: show this was all one thing, and I had this
Speaker 3: idea to make a film. Charlie was like, great, idea,
Speaker 3: let's make this film. We made that film and it
Speaker 3: kind of carved kind of an understanding of what the
Speaker 3: culture actually is. And Wild Style does that, and yeah,
Speaker 3: it was an incredible blessing, and then the way it
Speaker 3: spread around the world was something I could not have
Speaker 3: predicted that people of other languages would be. Yeah, man,
Speaker 3: that's that blew my mind.
Speaker 4: Because some of the first tours to Europe.
Speaker 3: We did the first tour of Europe, which was France,
Speaker 3: primarily about twenty or thirty of us, Yes, you know,
Speaker 3: we did that, and that they went crazy. That's still
Speaker 3: the second biggest market for hip hop in the world.
Speaker 3: And then we went to Japan the following year eighty three,
Speaker 3: about twenty about thirty of us Rock Steady Crew, Rap
Speaker 3: is Dgit whole shit. This is eighty eight, eighty three,
Speaker 3: eighty three, eighty three, when we go to we go
Speaker 3: to Europe in eighty two, we go to we go.
Speaker 4: To Japan in eighty three.
Speaker 1: Crazy told us about that.
Speaker 3: Yeah, crazy, that was an incredible trip and that plants
Speaker 3: to diseased. But we had no idea it was going
Speaker 3: to take like it did. It's still remarkable to this day. Yeah,
Speaker 3: I mean is global and global in every kind of
Speaker 3: way you can imagine.
Speaker 1: So, and sometimes represented even better in other countries.
Speaker 4: That's so true, you know.
Speaker 3: But you know what I find that I like is
Speaker 3: when you go to places where people it's like a
Speaker 3: level of poverty that, especially in New York.
Speaker 1: You don't see anymore. Like, you know, that's what it is.
Speaker 3: And these people, when you see the way it's applied
Speaker 3: and the way they adopted, it's like it reminds me
Speaker 3: of where it came from and how the Bronx was
Speaker 3: really bombed out. It was the most horrific ghetto on
Speaker 3: the planet because it was a poster child and from
Speaker 3: that Bronx, the way the Bronx in the seventies.
Speaker 1: When I'm researching you, that's when I found out that
Speaker 1: that it was actually landlords that was burning down their property. Yeah, apartment.
Speaker 1: I didn't know that.
Speaker 3: That's a big part that happened. It was a combination
Speaker 3: of things with people.
Speaker 1: The burnt down Bronx, But I didn't know that it
Speaker 1: was self inflicted.
Speaker 4: Listen, I you know what I'm saying, Like, I didn't.
Speaker 3: Know that a lot of it was a lot of
Speaker 3: it was because it was was they can get more
Speaker 3: and get out with the insurance money.
Speaker 1: I did not know that.
Speaker 4: So it's huge in the Bronx and it was rampant.
Speaker 3: They had people that was just like that's why it
Speaker 3: used the whole blocks in the South Bronx, but maybe
Speaker 3: one or two buildings left. It was just rubble. It
Speaker 3: was unbelievable. Looked like literally like bombs have been dropped.
Speaker 3: There's a famous I've seen I talk about in my
Speaker 3: book in the seventy seven Yeah, in the seventy seven
Speaker 3: World Series when the Yankees is playing seventy seven seventy
Speaker 3: seven Reggie Jackson, that hard show. I remember watching them
Speaker 3: born that. Yeah, you could see two or three fires
Speaker 3: glowing not far say wow, you go on YouTube and
Speaker 3: watch that. Wow, that's how the Bronx was burning for
Speaker 3: real and the gangs come out of that because it
Speaker 3: was like.
Speaker 4: Come on, it was nothing.
Speaker 1: It was like always worried in the Bronx and that
Speaker 1: was always like Arlen lu like you know a joke
Speaker 1: like burned down Bronx. But we didn't know that.
Speaker 3: Yeah, participate from the South Bronx. Yes, yes, that was
Speaker 3: really devastated for.
Speaker 1: Us from Queens. We just the Bronx was the Bronx
Speaker 1: talk for Brooklyn.
Speaker 3: I didn't really know over that later like years later.
Speaker 1: You know what I mean?
Speaker 5: And this is where hip hop is born out of them,
Speaker 5: Like did you watch the Rubble Kings documentary.
Speaker 4: I was so amazing.
Speaker 1: Yeah, largely, what do you why did you say largely
Speaker 1: and not totally in terms of hip hop out those
Speaker 1: Yeah yeah.
Speaker 3: Yeah, oh because the origins of hip hop or what
Speaker 3: leads to hip hop.
Speaker 1: This is a lot of people.
Speaker 3: Yeah, no question is look and people are entitled to
Speaker 3: their opinion.
Speaker 4: But this is what happened.
Speaker 1: Tell us this is what happens. Yes, there were.
Speaker 3: DJs, and it's wait before I go, I'm gonna get
Speaker 3: I'm gonna run this down.
Speaker 1: It's incredibly want to shot? You want to shot? You
Speaker 1: want to shot? Let's wait for big time, okay, because
Speaker 1: I feel like you're getting you know, no, listen.
Speaker 4: I've been waiting, you know. I wanted to get on
Speaker 4: here and sham.
Speaker 1: I'm sitting down like although I'm not to listen. I
Speaker 1: am in school right now. There stop. You know. You
Speaker 1: know what I can tell you what you know this is.
Speaker 4: This is a good one that I'm passionate about it.
Speaker 1: Okay, because obviously.
Speaker 3: There's dollar different stories there is about the Jamaica connection
Speaker 3: and whatever and.
Speaker 4: The dance hall.
Speaker 3: I'm deep into that since the seventies as well.
Speaker 4: Growing up in Brooklyn.
Speaker 3: You know I'm going to you know, hearing all them
Speaker 3: early dancehall records. But there were DJs that, damn there,
Speaker 3: go back to the late sixties that were mobile DJs.
Speaker 3: They wasn't cutting or scratching that they was mixing one
Speaker 3: record to the other.
Speaker 4: That was the big innovation.
Speaker 3: Everybody else had a record player going back seventies, going in,
Speaker 3: going for the back. You put four or five forty
Speaker 3: fives and the arm would swing, drop a record.
Speaker 1: It would play, and.
Speaker 3: That's how people listen to music.
Speaker 4: You understand what I'm saying.
Speaker 1: They lost the DJs, what they were considered DJs.
Speaker 3: No, you was just playing records, were just playing records. Now,
Speaker 3: the idea of the DJ what is that short for
Speaker 3: dis jockey?
Speaker 1: Thank you? Who was the.
Speaker 3: Disc jockey in those any time? Thank you? This is
Speaker 3: the real inspiration for what the dance hall DJs that
Speaker 3: sound system scene did in Jamaica and what these early
Speaker 3: DJs were doing here. They were emulating the black radio
Speaker 3: DJs like and because they was the ones talking kind
Speaker 3: of slick doing the talking over you had a little
Speaker 3: job talk slip slang. It was Jocko who was out
Speaker 3: of Philly in New York had a little slick shit
Speaker 3: kind of rhyming. When you look at the history going
Speaker 3: down to the scene in Memphis, Stacks Records, Pee Wee Markham,
Speaker 3: he was on the radio. Sly Stone, he was on
Speaker 3: the radio. That's how he built his name in San Francisco.
Speaker 3: So the big inspiration on the idea of a DJ
Speaker 3: is the disc jockey on the radio. They were the
Speaker 3: ones who played the music, had the flavor, talk that
Speaker 3: slick shit soundfly and play the records you wanted to hear.
Speaker 3: That's really who the DJs were inspired by because it's like, oh,
Speaker 3: this is like the radio he's playing, and you know,
Speaker 3: the beginning of people getting on the mic with like
Speaker 3: emulating what the radio.
Speaker 1: Records by talking over them and well just.
Speaker 3: Really bigging up who the DJ was and shouting him
Speaker 3: out and promoting him. That was what the original foundation
Speaker 3: was because even.
Speaker 1: In hip hop, the DJ was the man, way before.
Speaker 3: Thank you DJ was the man. He had the system,
Speaker 3: he bought the music.
Speaker 1: Colweys DJs didn't want to be better.
Speaker 3: Believe it, Okay, that was one hundred percent and that
Speaker 3: was a huge scene that developed like like through the seventies,
Speaker 3: like Herkle tell you Pete DJ Jones, the original grand
Speaker 3: Master of Flowers. My boy, it was a list of
Speaker 3: these cats. Queen's had, people like the Disco Twins, you know,
Speaker 3: the Infinity Machine, my boy Hassan and Ron Lawrence, Ron
Speaker 3: amen Ra who was one of the you know the
Speaker 3: hit Man Man Man. He's doing all them cool like
Speaker 3: AI clips now with people talking about hip hop, and
Speaker 3: he takes.
Speaker 4: The photos and make a move a little bit.
Speaker 3: They made a documentary a little over ten years ago
Speaker 3: called Founding Fathers that details, Yeah, it was only on
Speaker 3: it was on YouTube for a bunch of time. It's
Speaker 3: about to be on to b and the Founding Fathers
Speaker 3: really interviews and talks about this era of the game
Speaker 3: and these DJs.
Speaker 1: When we say found fallers, I just want to reiterate
Speaker 1: that we're talking about the founding fallows of hip hop.
Speaker 3: Correct, Well, that's what it implies, but it's really like
Speaker 3: it doesn't say that in the title, but percent right.
Speaker 3: But in terms of what led to that boom, what
Speaker 3: Herk did, once again is genius because he took that
Speaker 3: structure of the DJs that was mad popular all over
Speaker 3: the city, and then he brought something new to the table.
Speaker 3: With the breaks, through playing the breaks, picking up doing
Speaker 3: that like needle drop type of technique and flashing them
Speaker 3: will tell you they they got what he was trying
Speaker 3: to do. It was incredible, but they couldn't catch the
Speaker 3: beat all the time. And Flash went and did the
Speaker 3: research to figure out what turntake.
Speaker 4: But it was a researcher, but he did. He did
Speaker 4: research for.
Speaker 3: Every turntable until he found out that the Technique twelve
Speaker 3: hundred was the one that had.
Speaker 1: The direct drive.
Speaker 3: And then he Yeah, there was a drag before you
Speaker 3: got to.
Speaker 1: So we had Flash on here. Flash was amazing on.
Speaker 3: Here, Yeah, Grandmaster, Yeah, crazy legs on here.
Speaker 1: Yes, I seen that. And I feel like.
Speaker 3: All of them do say they credit her, Yeah, they
Speaker 3: credit him for what becomes hip hop, but just that
Speaker 3: a lot of them may not know. Flash will tell
Speaker 3: you about Pete DJ Jones and the DJs that made
Speaker 3: you want to be a DJ.
Speaker 4: It was a thing.
Speaker 3: I think was it herk on here or maybe Flash
Speaker 3: told the story?
Speaker 1: Had not her?
Speaker 3: I meant to say, kaz Or Flash told the story
Speaker 3: about if I'm not mistaken. When he went to battle.
Speaker 3: As soon as Pete DJ Jones turned his system on,
Speaker 3: he was like, yo, it's trying to pack up and
Speaker 3: go because these dudes not just was nice with the records,
Speaker 3: but they knew how to put the systems together.
Speaker 1: It took some it took.
Speaker 5: Bread, and you had to have some real tech gets
Speaker 5: the same thing in these eras, like you had to
Speaker 5: be able to have access to the equipment or a
Speaker 5: studio or whatever.
Speaker 3: As you noticed, the story goes the black Out of
Speaker 3: seventy seven when cats got their looting on a lot
Speaker 3: of Bronx. Cats got access to equipment because let's be real,
Speaker 3: the Bronx was the poorest borough in the city at
Speaker 3: that time.
Speaker 4: It took some money.
Speaker 3: A lot of times you hear stories about casts that
Speaker 3: have big sound systems and queens or whatever. Their parents
Speaker 3: spent two, three, four or five K. That's a lot
Speaker 3: of money there.
Speaker 1: That's incredible.
Speaker 3: When casts told the story, a lot of casts went
Speaker 3: to where the where the entertainment electronics stores was and
Speaker 3: got busy, got mixes, got real.
Speaker 4: Stuff for the first time, you know.
Speaker 1: And so that I was born in seventy seven, I
Speaker 1: helped that ship. It was me. It's my magic.
Speaker 3: So those are some of the incredible stories about how
Speaker 3: it really got built, but definitely what herk did was
Speaker 3: taken in another direction.
Speaker 4: Also, the other thing that's.
Speaker 3: Interesting about those DJs that I mentioned, the Flowers and
Speaker 3: the pet DJ Jones, there were there were clubs that
Speaker 3: came up in Manhattan where promoters would rent out like
Speaker 3: a restaurant and they would take the chairs out and
Speaker 3: they would promote that as a party for people coming
Speaker 3: from the burrows, not in the grill. No, this is
Speaker 3: way before the brill. This is like Nell Gwinns. I
Speaker 3: didn't go to these places. I'm still shorty, but I'm
Speaker 3: well aware of way before all of that.
Speaker 4: It's place before club it was. These were legit clubs too.
Speaker 3: But this is what once again turned the heat up
Speaker 3: on this whole.
Speaker 4: Idea of DJ.
Speaker 3: Your mobile DJs go from playing in the streets to
Speaker 3: getting high bodies promoters. Their names are getting bigger and
Speaker 3: bigger and bigger. They're the ones that's really developing this
Speaker 3: whole disco thing.
Speaker 1: Frankie Crocker, this is pre disco. You're saying, this is what?
Speaker 3: Then this is what Mexico and Frankie Krocker doesn't get
Speaker 3: enough credit. I go into him deep in my memoir
Speaker 3: because when he took over BLS FM. Most black people
Speaker 3: or most people listen to their.
Speaker 1: Music on AM.
Speaker 3: When Frankie Kraker takes control of BLS, it's stereo for
Speaker 3: the first time. In fact, when it was a big thing,
Speaker 3: when you would hear it at the speak like they
Speaker 3: would do the station ID, they would go w B
Speaker 3: L S. It would go from left speaker back to right.
Speaker 3: People would be like, oh my god, that's next level.
Speaker 3: And that made people want to go and get stereo
Speaker 3: systems because most people it wasn't about stereo. And so
Speaker 3: Frankie Kraker became the dominant DJ. His style was more smooth.
Speaker 3: He had like a suave kind of vibe. He drove
Speaker 3: a Rose Royce, you know. He was like on some player, suave, sophisticated.
Speaker 3: But he followed the DJs, these mobile DJs that I'm
Speaker 3: talking about, and he'd be at these parties. If he
Speaker 3: saw the DJ broke some record and the crowd went crazy,
Speaker 3: Frankie would put that record on BLS and he broke
Speaker 3: a lot of the acts that became the big disco.
Speaker 3: He was super duper dumb. He doesn't get enough props,
Speaker 3: but how influential he was because I'm listening. Then I'm
Speaker 3: hearing him promote the parties of these DJs. Next thing,
Speaker 3: you know, the records that he's breaking become hit records.
Speaker 3: You know what I'm saying, The records that are the
Speaker 3: foundations of disco. Frankie broke most of those records. He
Speaker 3: would interview the artists.
Speaker 1: On the radio.
Speaker 3: He was Frankie Hollywood cracker. That was his whole thing.
Speaker 3: He was real smooth, real fly, influential and so with
Speaker 3: his energy and everything, I'm telling you, that takes it
Speaker 3: over the top. Then it Then we get Studio fifty four.
Speaker 3: Then we got high end clubs. Because now it's a thing.
Speaker 3: I didn't go to study, but that was some ship
Speaker 3: where they invented. I'm still a short time, I ain't
Speaker 3: really deep in the mixed yet, but they would pick you.
Speaker 3: That's where that whole velvet rope things start, and they
Speaker 3: would diss a lot of people. I went up there
Speaker 3: once to just to watch it going because it was
Speaker 3: a scene.
Speaker 1: People would be crying in man, listen.
Speaker 3: It was the biggest thing in the media. To get
Speaker 3: up in there to get picked. That's where the whole
Speaker 3: rope thing started. James, when my ship got popping, and
Speaker 3: the mud Club did the reverse instead of the velvet rope.
Speaker 3: The mud Club had a little chain outside and when
Speaker 3: me and Sean Michelle rolled up.
Speaker 4: If you're like, oh, Freddy Jean, come right on in.
Speaker 3: You know, we had five or six cats with us.
Speaker 3: So that was our scene, which was a change from
Speaker 3: the whole Bougie's Studio fifty four, but that was super four.
Speaker 1: It was you. But it was like it was like yo, man,
Speaker 1: you know fab and they downtown, they got they got
Speaker 1: the white girls they were.
Speaker 4: That's all that was then.
Speaker 3: You know, opportunity equal opportunity, and you know we would
Speaker 3: have you know, we wasn't trying to discriminate.
Speaker 1: Girl. Then the other white girl, my friend Sundy d
Speaker 1: over there right. I thought he's a white people whisperer,
Speaker 1: was like at first, at first I thought it was embarrassing,
Speaker 1: and then I thought about it. I was like, yo,
Speaker 1: these white people like soon as he talks, they let
Speaker 1: their guard down around him, like he's he is a
Speaker 1: white person whisperer, I don't think relate to other Haitians related.
Speaker 1: That's crazy. Do you think do you do you think
Speaker 1: you're white people whisper?
Speaker 3: Well, well, you know at that time, that's mostly who
Speaker 3: was on the downtown scene.
Speaker 4: And you know, it was a crowd that was very open.
Speaker 3: That's the thing. Everybody in New York. You know, New
Speaker 3: York was really polarized back in the day. It's like
Speaker 3: if you you know, casting different neighborhoods, they didn't really
Speaker 3: intersect segregated in that way. Yeah, it was more or less.
Speaker 3: It's very segregated. You know, you could roll through different neighborhoods.
Speaker 3: It was a fight like you know, even when people
Speaker 3: like me and when we were sure he's going through Brownsville.
Speaker 4: Cast was check you, what's up. You have to get
Speaker 4: busy on some knuckle ship.
Speaker 1: You know what I'm saying.
Speaker 3: Yiggas don't know about the fifty two blocks for real,
Speaker 3: you know what I'm saying. You had to know how
Speaker 3: to handle your ship. And that's New York, you know.
Speaker 3: And so certain neighborhoods where you had tough you know,
Speaker 3: cast would get busy. And so that was the That
Speaker 3: was a dynamic on the downtown scene. It was very open.
Speaker 3: People was on some artist ship. It was different. It
Speaker 3: was so we even though me, Jean, a few other
Speaker 3: brothers were among the few people of color. The crowd,
Speaker 3: every all of them was like looked at us outcasts
Speaker 3: as well. You know, punk block, niggad shade heads.
Speaker 1: With CBGB popping out us.
Speaker 3: CBGB's was popping them up in there. You know what
Speaker 3: I'm saying, I'm making moves through all of them spot.
Speaker 1: And that's one of the first venues that was then.
Speaker 5: Yeah, but hip hop was was the first part to
Speaker 5: performing there.
Speaker 4: Okay that I missed.
Speaker 1: It wasn't like BC's and then like all the well the.
Speaker 3: Beasts, Yeah, they wasn't doing anything. I was around the
Speaker 3: b c's when they came up, Bacie Boys. You know
Speaker 3: what I'm saying. They was definitely had that punk rock energy.
Speaker 1: They were pu Originally they were a punk rock group.
Speaker 3: I thinks, well, they had a punk rock thing.
Speaker 4: They had a punk.
Speaker 3: Rock attitude, but they was mixing hip hop with it.
Speaker 3: The first record that I loved blew Up was was
Speaker 3: called Cookie Puss, which she probably never came out where
Speaker 3: they recorded this this TV commercial of for Carvel ice
Speaker 3: cream and they just sampled these ship. It made a wild, crazy,
Speaker 3: goofy record. It was a lot of fun, but it
Speaker 3: had a punk sensibility. But they was rapping, and that's
Speaker 3: a part of Russell's genius, seeing these white guys and
Speaker 3: thought this could work.
Speaker 1: You know.
Speaker 3: Rick Ruben stepped in to work with them, and that
Speaker 3: shit blew up way beyond. But we was all hanging
Speaker 3: in that same downtown scene at that time because some
Speaker 3: of the clubs that we frequented as different rap records
Speaker 3: are beginning to come out sugar Hill other doing things
Speaker 3: you know, hoo DEENI and whatever. The downtown clubs was
Speaker 3: spinning them, you know what I mean. They was beginning
Speaker 3: to get into that because the things we were doing,
Speaker 3: like like I curated an exhibit at the Mud Club,
Speaker 3: the same club I'm talking and.
Speaker 4: We did a show. Keith Herring had put me on.
Speaker 3: He said, Yo, the owner of the club wants you
Speaker 3: to curate a show which.
Speaker 1: Is a flex. Keith Herring is a flex right now.
Speaker 3: Yeah, that's my dad. He was a part of the
Speaker 3: whole team at that time. And he said, the owner,
Speaker 3: Keith is just starting to come up and we were
Speaker 3: super tight, and he asked me to curate a show
Speaker 3: which I did called Beyond Words, and I included a
Speaker 3: lot of these other graffiti artists I'm talking about Jean Michelle, Futurea,
Speaker 3: Crash Days, a few other people to show that.
Speaker 4: We moving into this scene.
Speaker 3: And the dude knew I was connected to this rap
Speaker 3: thing which is starting to bubble.
Speaker 4: He said, Yo, can you put something? Get some of
Speaker 4: them groups?
Speaker 3: So I got like Bam and Cold Crushing Busy. All
Speaker 3: of them came down to perform at the opening and
Speaker 3: that was a lot of people's first experience with hip
Speaker 3: hop culture on that downtown scene show was in.
Speaker 4: They was just yo, this is dope.
Speaker 3: They felt it beyond expectation, and then more and more
Speaker 3: people began to mess with it, and so that became
Speaker 3: a place where we began to do our things, so
Speaker 3: to speak, and people were open to this new thing
Speaker 3: coming on. There's a venue for the bill called hip hop.
Speaker 3: Yeah no, not totally yet.
Speaker 1: When do you hear it called hip hop? Like what
Speaker 1: is okay?
Speaker 3: So what happens is oh boy? And I elaborate thoroughly
Speaker 3: in my memory. There was no name for it officially,
Speaker 3: and looking at new wave and punk rock, those scenes
Speaker 3: were named and you could notice styles that are different.
Speaker 1: Groups like the.
Speaker 3: Sex Pistols, Clash and groups like that. The Dead Boys
Speaker 3: were punk rock, but then new waves like were like
Speaker 3: Blondie Talking Heads.
Speaker 1: Be fifty two.
Speaker 3: But these scenes were clearly defined, and they were being
Speaker 3: written about and further defined and explained and working on
Speaker 3: wild Style. As we were coming towards the end and
Speaker 3: going into post production, and I'm like, Charlie, what are
Speaker 3: we gonna call it? We had did an event. There
Speaker 3: were two events that well, it was an event that
Speaker 3: we did, which was because you know, I used to
Speaker 3: spit on the mica a little something something and we
Speaker 3: come together. It was the photos of Henry Schafon and
Speaker 3: Martha Cooper. Those were two the first official graffiti documentarians.
Speaker 1: They would photograph this stuff.
Speaker 3: The rock Steady Crew, a DJ from my block in Brooklyn,
Speaker 3: DJ Spy I got on the mic, and another cat
Speaker 3: that I brought.
Speaker 1: Into the scene named ramel Z.
Speaker 3: And this event we were gonna we were calling it
Speaker 3: graffiti rock. But Charlie and I were like, well that
Speaker 3: was the term we had used.
Speaker 4: We're like, what are we gonna call it?
Speaker 3: So every other rapper at the time, many rappers would
Speaker 3: in between rapping, they would and I used to consider
Speaker 3: it an opportunity to catch your breath and think of
Speaker 3: your next rhyme. They would go to the hip the
Speaker 3: hop hippie dibby divvy, you know you don't stop. That
Speaker 3: was a part of the like a break in between
Speaker 3: your rhymes, you throw your hands in the air, different
Speaker 3: things that a lot of the Foundation rappers would do.
Speaker 3: I told Charlie, I think we should use this term
Speaker 3: to define the whole scene because we because the scene
Speaker 3: we were trying to showcase in the film was the painting,
Speaker 3: was the music, the DJs and the dancing and every
Speaker 3: a lot of people were saying it, and so we
Speaker 3: helped push that into the mix as a way to
Speaker 3: describe what the movie was about. Because once again, seeing
Speaker 3: how Punk and New Way were written about, we were
Speaker 3: anticipating something similar, being that I had the instinct to
Speaker 3: connect with people were big supporters of us, that were
Speaker 3: the key principal people in that scene.
Speaker 4: And so that's essentially.
Speaker 3: How that began to help push to help nudge that
Speaker 3: into place, because to promote the film the first real descriptions,
Speaker 3: nobody was writing about this as a culture and in
Speaker 3: the promotional wild style, this is the beginning of it
Speaker 3: being seen as this broad picture as you know, together
Speaker 3: together the culture, the elements four or five whatever, people
Speaker 3: were determine and this is what it's called because it
Speaker 3: was so it's more organic. It's not like I named which. No,
Speaker 3: it was a name and a word, a phrase that
Speaker 3: was a part of the culture I like to consider.
Speaker 3: I just helped nudge it into place because we needed
Speaker 3: to tell the story, promote the film and what the
Speaker 3: film was about. And Wild Style was the beginning of that.
Speaker 3: Their initial stories were in The Village Voice and Downtown publications.
Speaker 4: The first time it was used in print.
Speaker 3: And this cat Michael Hoeman, who once again.
Speaker 1: He did a TV show early.
Speaker 3: But the but the but the but the goofy cornball
Speaker 3: suits that he had to deal with didn't allow it
Speaker 3: to go syndicate it and it was called Graffiti Rock.
Speaker 3: You've probably seen clips of it online where you see
Speaker 3: like coom o d and running them perform. It was
Speaker 3: and he's the host on it. He had the Gazel's on,
Speaker 3: you know. He he was somebody that I put on
Speaker 3: and he dived right in. He would manage the New
Speaker 3: York City Breakers, they were like the rivals to the
Speaker 3: rock STEADI crew. In an interview in an article in
Speaker 3: a Downtown paper called East Village, I he does a story.
Speaker 3: I had gotten his end.
Speaker 1: Let him know.
Speaker 4: Listen, we're gonna call it all this.
Speaker 3: We're beginning to promote the movie, this whole special section
Speaker 3: in the East Village. I was like several articles the
Speaker 3: first time this had ever happened about different aspects of
Speaker 3: the culture. Futura and Lee had art that was included
Speaker 3: in that issue. And Michael Holman does an interview with
Speaker 3: Bam Bada and uses that term for the first time
Speaker 3: in print.
Speaker 1: Vam Boda says it because that's what I know.
Speaker 4: Well, Michael is talking.
Speaker 3: Michael brings us truck in fact, to make it legit,
Speaker 3: to make me feel like I was on the right track.
Speaker 1: I called Bam.
Speaker 3: I said, Bam, I'm thinking that to promote the movie.
Speaker 3: We're thinking of using and Bam said, yes, I totally agree.
Speaker 3: So he agreed because we were like, look, we want
Speaker 3: to call it something on No Flyer that you see
Speaker 3: and the flyers and collections everywhere, No Flyer called it.
Speaker 3: It was no name. They were just promote who was rapping,
Speaker 3: who the DJ was? You know, those classic flyers by
Speaker 3: Phase two and Buddy Esquire and so many others.
Speaker 4: So we were like, what are we going to do
Speaker 4: and so that's how we help.
Speaker 1: So we're kind of saying that you can't up with
Speaker 1: the term hip hop.
Speaker 3: Oh no, no, no, I didn't come up with it.
Speaker 4: It was being used rappers.
Speaker 1: Was Cas told us. I forget who he said was
Speaker 1: saying it because.
Speaker 3: Yeah, okay, the first yeah, I tell that story grade.
Speaker 3: And there's another component where Flash says a girl he
Speaker 3: was dating back then her it was her brother going
Speaker 3: into the army. Flash says that she heard, but Flashes
Speaker 3: just as a little to it.
Speaker 1: This girl.
Speaker 4: It was this girl's brother and she.
Speaker 3: Was at the party and she started it first. Then
Speaker 3: Cowboy from the Furious get on and they both are
Speaker 3: just teasing him pop, you know, like the way they
Speaker 3: would do the marching drill sergeant type of thing, and
Speaker 3: Keith Cowboy really got it going first. And then then
Speaker 3: they say that love Bugs started utilizing it, you know,
Speaker 3: love Buck Stars original Stowsky, And then it became a
Speaker 3: thing where that was the thing you would hear often
Speaker 3: in between your rhymes, you know, something you could say
Speaker 3: and then you think of what you're gonna what you're
Speaker 3: gonna spit next. That's how the turn became popular.
Speaker 1: So like already there you just it's what I'm.
Speaker 4: Saying that I just said, let's let's use that because.
Speaker 3: It seems like everybody's like when people would talk about yo,
Speaker 3: I was at this jam, and I remember people would say,
Speaker 3: what kind of music? Because you still had DJs that
Speaker 3: just played music, and they'd be, no, it wasn't just
Speaker 3: like music.
Speaker 4: It was one of them hibbitty hop joints.
Speaker 3: And you would know okay because they would be Typically
Speaker 3: you would hear it at any party where people was
Speaker 3: people was rapping it. Often you would somebody would do
Speaker 3: that oftentimes. So it became like a synonymous way to
Speaker 3: describe the kind of party it was makes sense, which
Speaker 3: was different than people that was just trying to be
Speaker 3: a disco type DJ, which was cool, but everybody wasn't
Speaker 3: with that or had somebody that would get on the
Speaker 3: mic and do that. I wasn't a thing with every DJ,
Speaker 3: but the Bronx Cats they made that a thing and
Speaker 3: it became the thing.
Speaker 1: So Ballpark figured real quick, how many white girls you take?
Speaker 1: You fuck out? Mash Man like like like, I mean,
Speaker 1: I mean, you know downtown, this is downtown. I mean.
Speaker 4: I don't, I don't kiss and tell.
Speaker 1: The culture this you see the culture man, like, well.
Speaker 3: Listen, speaking of I'm sorry but speaking to Sean Michelle.
Speaker 3: Please you may not know he dated Madonna, right correct?
Speaker 1: Yeah for a hot minute, that's that's hard date Jehan
Speaker 1: Haitian Puerto Rican?
Speaker 3: What Yes, John Haitian Puerto Rican. He's Hatian Puerto Rican,
Speaker 3: Haitian for his father's Haitian.
Speaker 1: Get out. I didn't know that.
Speaker 3: Yeah, I got so John spoke. He could speak a
Speaker 3: little Spanish.
Speaker 1: Oh he's knocking anything, yes, yeah, yeah, yeah. So like Madonna, man,
Speaker 1: I know we've touched on her a little Biteah yeah.
Speaker 1: Madonna is like I don't want to say the person
Speaker 1: that's invited to the cook out. I think she's actually
Speaker 1: bringing ingredients to the cook She's like bringing she's actually
Speaker 1: bringing her own version of three potato. That's a great description.
Speaker 4: That's a great discription.
Speaker 1: She's invited, she's in the kitchen prepare now.
Speaker 3: Like Madonna has several kids, and a couple of her
Speaker 3: kids which she's raised for quite a while.
Speaker 4: They're African.
Speaker 1: Yeah yeah, yeah, me and you. Yeah yeah, I'm trying
Speaker 1: to the same nigga. Okay, Big Daddy came to Madonna.
Speaker 1: He had the Leopards said was crazy.
Speaker 3: That was the sex Book. Yeah, oh my god, that
Speaker 3: was wow. I remember when that came out.
Speaker 1: Flowers Flowers, man, listen our show. It's about giving people
Speaker 1: flowers where they can smell them. Oh man, we've been
Speaker 1: waiting so they can tell them and we want to
Speaker 1: give yours better than the Grammy because it comes from
Speaker 1: this people and we your people, and we want to
Speaker 1: you know, let me just tell you something, man.
Speaker 4: I can't tell you how much I appreciate it.
Speaker 1: No, listen, if something man, just we've been we've been
Speaker 1: waiting to give it. We've been waiting for ten years,
Speaker 1: you know, and congratulations on ten years. But but let
Speaker 1: me just tell you something, man, like you made media
Speaker 1: fly man. You know what I mean a lot of people,
Speaker 1: you know, when you you look at people in the
Speaker 1: in the hood, they wanted to be the artist. They
Speaker 1: wanted to be the basketball player, they wanted to be
Speaker 1: the you know, even hockey player, football player, whatever whatever. Correct.
Speaker 1: They wanted to be an athlete or they want to
Speaker 1: be the artist. When you look at you in your career,
Speaker 1: you interview those people, you highlight those people, you show
Speaker 1: lighted that. You know, this is what you do. But
Speaker 1: this is this is the rewards of it. And you
Speaker 1: were just as cool or cooler and interview and for
Speaker 1: back then, you know, and you look at media now
Speaker 1: and wow, look look, look all of us are walking
Speaker 1: in your footstepsolutely, every last one of us. If you
Speaker 1: look at your favorite artist has now turned into media. Bro.
Speaker 1: And so you were doing that ship twenty five years ago, Bro,
Speaker 1: thirty thirty years thirty plus thirty. Yes, make.
Speaker 4: We're all we're all.
Speaker 1: Following your footsteps. You know what I'm saying and what
Speaker 1: you're doing. An excellent job, you j that's right. Yeah,
Speaker 1: he pronounces your name correct. I'm like I thought, I'm like,
Speaker 1: my bad did you ever think because honestly right, Uh,
Speaker 1: it was Ralph McDaniels. Yes, you better believe it.
Speaker 3: Video music box baby, Yes, I was locked in.
Speaker 1: And this is this is this is my friend, you know.
Speaker 1: And he always tells us, tells us sometimes he said,
Speaker 1: you know, New York, you guys were cocky, right, and
Speaker 1: I kind of don't realize it it's me yeah him.
Speaker 5: Yet Oh, because I'm coming from the perspective of.
Speaker 3: What you're well researched, you know a lot of his
Speaker 3: So let me break it down.
Speaker 1: So what I didn't realize is when we had a
Speaker 1: show like Ralph McDaniels, which is Video Music Box. It
Speaker 1: was on Channel nine or te.
Speaker 3: Was on in New York cable Saturdays. I believe, okay, yes,
Speaker 3: which is what I didn't know. And you you said
Speaker 3: it to me, He said to me, very very mean
Speaker 3: what you did say to me. And you were like, yo,
Speaker 3: you know we saw Video Music Box, but we had.
Speaker 1: To see it on VHS. Wow, you know what, how
Speaker 1: spoil we were as New Yorkers right point, and so
Speaker 1: I'm just talking about it. I'm like, damn, you know
Speaker 1: it only came on in a certain channel, you with
Speaker 1: a certain cable right on a certain cable station. And
Speaker 1: then we had the rest of the world that was VHS,
Speaker 1: which he just acted the sign. So these tapes were circulating, right,
Speaker 1: And I said, New York, We're so spoiled. We don't
Speaker 1: even know how special this is. Because this is on
Speaker 1: our public access. This is where look at me like that. No, no, no,
Speaker 1: the world looking at you, look at the world. But
Speaker 1: this is where Kermy de Frog comes on. This This
Speaker 1: is not the HBO cinemax, but you can see some
Speaker 1: tennis or something. No, this is this is the public.
Speaker 1: So I didn't realize how spoiled he was. And you
Speaker 1: said to me one day, yelled at me, and I
Speaker 1: was like, damn, he's right right. It was very mean
Speaker 1: to me, but you're my friend, all right. But now
Speaker 1: here comes MTV. Yes, MTV is a rock and roll station, MTV.
Speaker 1: I remember, I'm old enough to stay fuck y'all, fuck y'all,
Speaker 1: but I'm old enough to say you had a choice.
Speaker 1: At one point. You can say I want HBO on
Speaker 1: my cable, I want show Time, I want Centemax, and
Speaker 1: then you can say I want MTV. At first, when
Speaker 1: MTV first came on the cable network in New York City,
Speaker 1: I cannot speak for anywhere else, most people said no,
Speaker 1: right because it wasn't playing. It wasn't for us, it
Speaker 1: wasn't it wasn't. Initially we would take off our cable
Speaker 1: to access to public Access channel because that wasn't on.
Speaker 1: That was on local cable. That's the cable that comes
Speaker 1: with your apartment already, correct, So the cable that you
Speaker 1: pay for, you don't get Ralph McDaniel, So you had
Speaker 1: to unplug that. Wow did MTV drops? And then we
Speaker 1: get a show called yo, MTV, motherfucking rap. Yeah. Yeah,
Speaker 1: and this is real, this is real. Thank you because
Speaker 1: this is real, because this is me. I made my
Speaker 1: life do this. And then, like you know, I had
Speaker 1: cousins in Seattle, I had cousins in Florida, and cousins
Speaker 1: in South Carolina, North Carolina, so many places that I
Speaker 1: never could talk hip hop too. Maybe they got it,
Speaker 1: but by the time they got it, it was three
Speaker 1: months later and I was already on to another act
Speaker 1: or another such and such. Your own TV raps was
Speaker 1: the first time I got to speak to people in
Speaker 1: real time, meaning I saw Tupac's new video at the same.
Speaker 3: Time my cousin cousins, So y'all can talk about.
Speaker 1: It, so we can talk about it in real time.
Speaker 5: Wow.
Speaker 1: Wow, that was like the first So this is a
Speaker 1: degression one. Do you know how many lives you fucking jamed? Wow?
Speaker 4: You know it's a humbling.
Speaker 3: Feeling and when you realize it, and I just want
Speaker 3: to say, I mean, look, MTV at the time when
Speaker 3: it hit the incredible stretch, it wasn't a long stretch,
Speaker 3: but it was a pivotal stretch. It was in pivotal
Speaker 3: stretch for incredible artists, Emmerson, your first time seeing artists
Speaker 3: that defined a whole host of spaces. You saw them first,
Speaker 3: and I'm super honored that they stood next to me,
Speaker 3: and I kind of was the first time.
Speaker 1: You saw X, Y and Z and you think they
Speaker 1: reached out to you to hold the show because of
Speaker 1: wild style.
Speaker 4: That was a part of it.
Speaker 3: So there was a cat that I knew initially named
Speaker 3: Peter Dougherty who was on the downtown scene.
Speaker 4: He knew the moves I was making.
Speaker 3: He was at the mud Club show I told you about.
Speaker 1: He was a.
Speaker 3: Underground music, a fictionado, and he got a job to
Speaker 3: be a producer at MTV early on, so he would
Speaker 3: get tickets to a rock concert. I mean he took
Speaker 3: me to see like Judas Priests and he actually got
Speaker 3: me to see the Jackson five and it was on
Speaker 3: to it. So his name was Peter Doerty, and Peter
Speaker 3: knew what was going on. He was close enough to
Speaker 3: know this shit is bubbling. There was a few records
Speaker 3: had come out by this point that have gone goal,
Speaker 3: some run DMC shit and some Houdini and you know things.
Speaker 4: Curtis flow exactly.
Speaker 3: Things beginning the bubble, and he was in their ear
Speaker 3: to do a show.
Speaker 4: He used to mention it to me.
Speaker 3: I used to always be like, get out of here, man,
Speaker 3: Boom boom boom.
Speaker 4: Then he linked up with another kid at MTV.
Speaker 3: His name is Ted Demied. Yes, indeed, me and Ted
Speaker 3: became like super tight. He was the nephew of the
Speaker 3: Oscar Award winning director Jonathan Demi, who I became tight
Speaker 3: with later. Ted was a white kid from Long Island,
Speaker 3: grew up loving hip hop, really got it down. Pat
Speaker 3: Peter had seen the development. He was tapped in. They
Speaker 3: lobbied in, campaigned to get it hopping, and Peter was like,
Speaker 3: he's the guy that should host it. I was like, what,
Speaker 3: He's the guy that's in the raption video. There's this
Speaker 3: film Wild Style.
Speaker 1: He's in.
Speaker 3: He's connected, he's downtown. And so Peter was like kept
Speaker 3: telling me it was Peter's idea and got with Ted Demi.
Speaker 3: They were producers on the channel they wanted to do
Speaker 3: a show. Also, I must give props to a French chick,
Speaker 3: a black French woman named Sophie Bromley that had been
Speaker 3: in New York early on, hanging in the mix taking
Speaker 3: pictures of the very early stuff going to the fever,
Speaker 3: hooking up with you know, bam botty snapping. She goes
Speaker 3: back to Europe and MTV Europe actually does a show
Speaker 3: called Yo First, and Sophie host that for about a
Speaker 3: year or so. You can go on YouTube and see
Speaker 3: clips real attractive sister.
Speaker 1: She and she got.
Speaker 3: Friendly with mad people, so she knew so many people.
Speaker 3: Her vibe was just incredible. So they did that for
Speaker 3: about a year. Meanwhile, Peter is like, this is where
Speaker 3: it's born. This needs to happen here, and they were
Speaker 3: lobbying other executives. We should we gotta do this. Look
Speaker 3: like we're in boom boom boom. MTV was mirroring the
Speaker 3: way quote unquote pop radio was, which pretty much was
Speaker 3: all white.
Speaker 1: That was the rape radio was.
Speaker 3: Radio was very segregated in most places. So MTV was
Speaker 3: just mirroring what radio was. That was what they were
Speaker 3: basically doing. But these producers pushed and Peter was like,
Speaker 3: pitching me to be the host. And then he said, man,
Speaker 3: like we actually did a screen test, he said, if
Speaker 3: you if he knew I'm creative and I'm getting busy,
Speaker 3: he said, man, how would you want to do this?
Speaker 3: If we ever did get to do it. I was like, well,
Speaker 3: you know most of those VJs, you see them on
Speaker 3: for two three hours or whatever with some crazy goofy
Speaker 3: shit going on on the green screen behind him. I'm like, dude,
Speaker 3: I don't want to do that. That's why I said,
Speaker 3: I would feel more comfortable if I was in the
Speaker 3: street where artists is making their music in their basement,
Speaker 3: you know, on the corner. I'd be more comfortable there.
Speaker 3: And he said, okay, boom. That's why we did the
Speaker 3: little screen test where I kind of fake introduced a
Speaker 3: run dmc ll CUJ video.
Speaker 4: That was this little screen test.
Speaker 3: Next thing, I know, within a couple of weeks we
Speaker 3: were shooting the first episode and they bugged out and
Speaker 3: thought that the Nielsen ratings must have bugged out because
Speaker 3: it was the highest rated show that had the channel
Speaker 3: that had ever been on the channel. We've been saying, Wold,
Speaker 3: that shit took off like a rocket being you know,
Speaker 3: I was. At first it was a half hour, and
Speaker 3: then we went to an hour, and then they asked me,
Speaker 3: after about a year, did I want to host a
Speaker 3: daily version? And I used to watch a lot of
Speaker 3: MTV waiting to see a Michael Jackson video waiting for
Speaker 3: Princess Dove's Cry or the thing you really wanted to see,
Speaker 3: and then you'd be looking at these VJs. I felt like, Yo,
Speaker 3: you're corny. Fuck who are you?
Speaker 1: You know? Play my shit?
Speaker 5: You know?
Speaker 3: I mean, man, I don't want to be overexposed, you
Speaker 3: know what I'm saying. So they asked me if I
Speaker 3: wanted to do the Weekend. I said, nah, that's cool,
Speaker 3: and so Ted knew at Lover and Peter knew Doctor
Speaker 3: Dre because Doctor Dre.
Speaker 4: Was a producer. He produced just he produced a.
Speaker 3: Couple of records on Deaf Jam Real early on. I
Speaker 3: came remember the name of it now, but it was
Speaker 3: that had some eight o way base was crazy, and
Speaker 3: they put them together as the week as a week crew,
Speaker 3: like kind of like in a clubhouse like Aving Costello
Speaker 3: the week say, a weekend weekly, And I did there
Speaker 3: in the studio. It was in studio, and I was
Speaker 3: like running around mostly out here they're traveling, and that's
Speaker 3: what I was really fascinated, because I'm mad curious anyway,
Speaker 3: So as I hear now it's beginning to bubble in
Speaker 3: other places, I'm like, what are they making?
Speaker 4: Like the first time Yo m TV raps travel.
Speaker 3: It was to Miami to cover Luke Skywalker and the
Speaker 3: two Live crew.
Speaker 1: Talk about that.
Speaker 3: It's crazy, you know, this is the before South Beach
Speaker 3: got sexy. It was like a re It was like
Speaker 3: a retirement community as you if you remember old the
Speaker 3: folks sitting out in uh walking chairs and uh. But
Speaker 3: we went to Liberty City and I got to hang
Speaker 3: with Luke and he broke down what they were doing.
Speaker 3: I understood then, oh, this is just a lot of
Speaker 3: fun because I'm into lyrics, you know, I want bars
Speaker 3: and ship like that was once I saw how to
Speaker 3: get down spinning.
Speaker 1: It was just spending that ship.
Speaker 5: But I felt like it was it was there was.
Speaker 4: Yeah, so that's one hundred percent what they were doing.
Speaker 3: But I realized, like, this is a whole different thing,
Speaker 3: and it was fascinating to be able to showcase it
Speaker 3: and then to go to other cities. That was the
Speaker 3: biggest most exciting thing to me, to go to Houston
Speaker 3: interview the Ghetto Boys when Mine playing Tricks was the
Speaker 3: hottest record, you know, to catch be in San Francisco
Speaker 3: with Digital Underground, when you know the Humpty Hump and
Speaker 3: all that.
Speaker 1: Just just broke out.
Speaker 3: It was just the hangar on he Yeah, when I
Speaker 3: first interviewed he had they hadn't even put him in
Speaker 3: the mix yet, But then soon later he would be
Speaker 3: in the mix, and then I would interview him. The
Speaker 3: first interview I did with Tupac was when they were
Speaker 3: filming above the they were filming, Oh God, above them, No,
Speaker 3: not above the rim juice. I'm sorry, Bang, And we
Speaker 3: did something special because I'm in juice, I make a
Speaker 3: cameo Juice at the DJ scene. We filmed that interview
Speaker 3: and held it several months inuntil the film was ready
Speaker 3: so we could drop the special episode which we filmed
Speaker 3: on the set to help to promote that film. And
Speaker 3: that was just incredible stuff. So a lot of artists
Speaker 3: like Pac, like Dre Snoop oh Man, a long list
Speaker 3: of practically everybody super important made their television debut with
Speaker 3: me on Your MTV Raps.
Speaker 5: So it was real special and that was a catalyst
Speaker 5: to spread hip hop everywhere.
Speaker 3: Oh, this is the thing I've been meaning to say.
Speaker 3: The VHS tape thing is so special to me. People later,
Speaker 3: Your MTV Raps was one of the only shows MTV
Speaker 3: produced because MTV was franchised out in about six or
Speaker 3: seven other countries. It was MTV Europe, Brazil, Asia here
Speaker 3: there our show was the only show that was in
Speaker 3: all those other markets, but particularly in Europe. Like the
Speaker 3: first time I went to Africa, I went to Nigeria
Speaker 3: and I met some young Nigerians from affluent families, and
Speaker 3: they all recognized them.
Speaker 1: I'm like, what the hell is going on? How do
Speaker 1: you guys get it?
Speaker 3: Oh, we have the satellite thish, this is a this
Speaker 3: is twelve. Yes, we have a dish, which made me
Speaker 3: know like their people had paper, but they were able
Speaker 3: to pick up the European feed and they would make
Speaker 3: they were recording on VHS and sharing it with their
Speaker 3: friends like mixtapes, just like mixtapes. So sometimes I'll meet
Speaker 3: somebody brother be just so moved to tell me they
Speaker 3: had a relative or somebody would send them tapes of
Speaker 3: your TV raps and that's how they got tapped into
Speaker 3: the culture.
Speaker 4: That's mind blowing, fucking mind blowing.
Speaker 3: So that was like you said, going viral back then,
Speaker 3: but that the VHS tape and the cassette tape.
Speaker 1: Were critical to the culture.
Speaker 3: Should I remember speaking to Luke even uh, Well, this
Speaker 3: was pre DVD. Luke was putting out them videos and
Speaker 3: on wild parties.
Speaker 1: And then the Peep Show.
Speaker 3: Yes it'd be we'd be like, oh my god, Luke
Speaker 3: was x rated, but he was a brilliant businessman.
Speaker 1: We got to talk about when you went to Compton.
Speaker 4: Well once he again.
Speaker 3: So we had interviewed Easy on the show a few
Speaker 3: times when we won Easy and.
Speaker 4: Uh, they were great. Videos came out before it was
Speaker 4: Easy first.
Speaker 1: First people don't know that.
Speaker 3: They had been in the lab working on stuff, but
Speaker 3: I think the story goes it might have been draining them.
Speaker 3: That was like, yo, Easy, you should rap because Easy
Speaker 3: was bankrolling what they were doing. He's getting money on
Speaker 3: the street and it.
Speaker 1: Was his label. Ruthless was his label.
Speaker 4: Yeah exactly.
Speaker 3: So he was working on putting that together and so
Speaker 3: they got Easy to actually came on first and it
Speaker 3: worked right, So we it was one of the early
Speaker 3: videos that we had.
Speaker 1: I remember when your.
Speaker 4: TV rap takes off.
Speaker 3: So after you know, a few a month or so
Speaker 3: period of time, a couple of months, we'd go out
Speaker 3: to La you know, Ted was like listen, Easy's got
Speaker 3: this new group. We're gonna go out there and do
Speaker 3: a show.
Speaker 1: With him in La. When you say Ted, Ted.
Speaker 4: Demi was talking about Ted Demi. So I'm like, okay.
Speaker 3: Ethan was incredible with videos, were great, well produced. A
Speaker 3: good friend of mine named Kevin Swaying was the was
Speaker 3: the director of Brother from Cali who's produced.
Speaker 1: A million things, but.
Speaker 3: Back then he was cutting his tea for music videos
Speaker 3: as I was. And so we go out there to
Speaker 3: do this show with them. So we're in a new town.
Speaker 3: Now We're like okay. Because Ted we were in sync,
Speaker 3: we got to do something interesting because we were conscious
Speaker 3: of wanting to show the rest of the country this
Speaker 3: new group, this new area where I had been out
Speaker 3: in LA but mostly wes Hollywood, because I had had
Speaker 3: a big exhibit a couple of years prior at a
Speaker 3: really important contemporary gallery. Jean Michelle had been out there
Speaker 3: a year or two early showing with Gogosi in so
Speaker 3: Jean was like, you know, telling me about what it
Speaker 3: was like in LA, and.
Speaker 1: Then I got my chance.
Speaker 3: But now we're dealing with some with some hood ship
Speaker 3: which I had I knew nothing about. So the night
Speaker 3: before we go out to do the empty d NWA interview,
Speaker 3: Ted calls me in my room. He says, listen, everything
Speaker 3: is set up. What we're gonna do is we're gonna
Speaker 3: rent a truck, a flatbed truck.
Speaker 1: Oh it was a flat bed. I thought it was
Speaker 1: a pick of It was a flat bed.
Speaker 3: Yeah, it's like a big flat bed, a big truck.
Speaker 3: It had like, you know, rails around ship we could
Speaker 3: like it's like a hay ride type of without any Hey,
Speaker 3: we're gonna drive around. We're gonna meet with Easy. We're
Speaker 3: gonna meet here in Compton. We're gonna learn a little
Speaker 3: bit about Compton. Then we're gonna go to the swap
Speaker 3: meet where they get their little street gear in whatever,
Speaker 3: and then we're gonna ride out to Venice Beach. So
Speaker 3: I'm like, wow, we're gonna show people different spots in LA.
Speaker 3: We meet at the Welcome to a Compton sign and
Speaker 3: we tape the first episodes. This is where I meet
Speaker 3: the group for the first time. It's now Cube, it's uh,
Speaker 3: it's rand, it's yellow.
Speaker 4: You know, it's the whole thing.
Speaker 3: And a bunch of other cats, including the doc and
Speaker 3: the funny story I like to tell is I'm standing
Speaker 3: there and some cats roll up in a sixty four
Speaker 3: whatever once again. Oh and the night before Ted said,
Speaker 3: oh yeah, don't wear nothing black, don't wear nothing red,
Speaker 3: or don't wear that black.
Speaker 4: We knew nothing.
Speaker 1: About that, so we were in black.
Speaker 3: I didn't understand all this gang culture at that particular
Speaker 3: point in time, so whoy And when we get out there,
Speaker 3: n w A isn't all black. So I'm like, okay,
Speaker 3: yeah this is you know, we're all good. And I'm
Speaker 3: standing there and a car rolls up. It's like some
Speaker 3: casts in the sixty four, like Impalla and and and
Speaker 3: they kind of recognized me. So they're looking at me
Speaker 3: and I go like, hey, what's up? And Cube comes
Speaker 3: over to me. It's your fab Like, I just got
Speaker 3: to tell you, man, I'll hear if you do the
Speaker 3: peace sign like that.
Speaker 1: That's a gang sign.
Speaker 3: I was like, oh, he says, so we we have
Speaker 3: you have to do it this way.
Speaker 1: I was like, okay, which way you did it? You
Speaker 1: did it.
Speaker 4: This is like open hand cast, so you gotta.
Speaker 1: Do it this way, he said.
Speaker 3: He said this was because that was some some some
Speaker 3: some you know nothing, but the first hit time hearing
Speaker 3: any of this and not understanding how ill it is
Speaker 3: or what that culture is really all about. And that
Speaker 3: was the introduction, which then turns out to be a
Speaker 3: lot of people's favorite show because they get introduced to
Speaker 3: this group.
Speaker 1: We drive around.
Speaker 3: I always remember something that stuck with me because in
Speaker 3: between segments, Cube kept asking me, you're fab.
Speaker 1: I hadn't even.
Speaker 3: Listened to the record yet, by the way, to keep
Speaker 3: in mind, what's what's up with g rap?
Speaker 4: He's cool? G rap cool?
Speaker 1: And then he asked me again, you're fab, tell me
Speaker 1: something about it. And that's when you discovered that He's.
Speaker 3: When I later listened to the album. Mom was blown
Speaker 3: where they was going. It was like they was also
Speaker 3: inspired to go as hard as Public Enemy was going musically,
Speaker 3: which they was doing, but they was talking about this
Speaker 3: is where we're from, this is what's going on here.
Speaker 1: It blew my mind. Cube going to what is the
Speaker 1: Public Enemies producers?
Speaker 3: Yeah, you gets to New York. I'm the first person
Speaker 3: he called. I'm like, because we're tight. Now we got
Speaker 3: everybody numbers cool and not only that. Oh man, this
Speaker 3: is another good story. I had did an interview. Andy
Speaker 3: Walhol had had a magazine. It's called Interview Magazine.
Speaker 1: Wild. Okay, it's this.
Speaker 3: Story where and yeah, any Weell had a magazine, so
Speaker 3: I'm you know, I know Andy now and they would
Speaker 3: interview interesting people doing interesting stuff. It was a cool format,
Speaker 3: like a big news print. The photos were big, beautiful.
Speaker 3: It was like nothing was like it. And I was like, yo,
Speaker 3: let me reach out to them. I wanted to interview
Speaker 3: this new group because I had did a couple of
Speaker 3: interviews I did, and I did an I interviewed ll
Speaker 3: for interview.
Speaker 4: I did a few people.
Speaker 3: The first one I did was for Spike Lee for
Speaker 3: She's when She's got to have it came I'm in
Speaker 3: that for a second.
Speaker 1: Anyway.
Speaker 4: I interviewed n w A all of the group's.
Speaker 3: Members on the phone, and then we set up this
Speaker 3: photo shoot, which is happened in a few days later,
Speaker 3: and I talked to the photographer who's based out there,
Speaker 3: and I'm like, make sure you you know, these are
Speaker 3: the members of the group, you know, make sure this.
Speaker 3: So I set it all up and I talked to
Speaker 3: the photographer a little later. I go, so, how did
Speaker 3: it go? He said, he said, oh, fab, it went great.
Speaker 3: I go, so, so who was there again? And he
Speaker 3: runs down all the members of the group. I said,
Speaker 3: wait a minute, what about ice Cube? Are you sure,
Speaker 3: you sure. I can't believe what he's saying. He goes, yeah, fab,
Speaker 3: this is who was there? So Cube wasn't there. I
Speaker 3: couldn't understand why. And you didn't know he left the dude,
Speaker 3: he just left the group. I called Cube and he
Speaker 3: tells me. I'm like, yo, dude, really you left the group.
Speaker 3: This is that point, like the money wasn't right. He
Speaker 3: figured it out. Then the math wasn't mathing, and he
Speaker 3: was like yo, and he was trying to get his paper.
Speaker 3: It's all now we all know the stories documented.
Speaker 5: Like a consumer, we didn't know until we saw America's
Speaker 5: Most Wanted Like that's how I found out.
Speaker 1: I was like, what is this?
Speaker 3: So when he comes to New York, I'll know if
Speaker 3: you get called me and I'm I'm.
Speaker 1: Like, what's up.
Speaker 4: He's like, man, I can't work with.
Speaker 3: The squad man. That's the only one I can get
Speaker 3: busy with. I'm like, whoa.
Speaker 4: And then the rest is history.
Speaker 3: No vascinate all that ship South Hell and I'm like, wow, oh,
Speaker 3: you know what was incredible about that moment that I
Speaker 3: really loved Cube was the one that prominatly like water
Speaker 3: Jerry curl In beginning which was a big l a style.
Speaker 3: Black folks had the Jerry juice to Jerry Curl going on.
Speaker 4: When Cube did.
Speaker 3: His first performance at the Apollo, he.
Speaker 4: Shaved his head off.
Speaker 3: He came out with with with the bald and hallm
Speaker 3: went crazy. I'll never forget like how that hit so
Speaker 3: hard because everybody was used to seeing them like that
Speaker 3: and that was that ship. Like when that baldy hit,
Speaker 3: you know, that was a look right then, like that
Speaker 3: was that was official and uh and that was the
Speaker 3: beginning of him becoming like, you know, taking it to another.
Speaker 5: Level, crazy Jack. I'm gonna do our drinking game. Okay, drinking,
Speaker 5: so but he's your designated drinker.
Speaker 1: Sip if you want, you got wine. We got whatever
Speaker 1: you want, got go ahead, we got vodka. He said,
Speaker 1: he's the baka. See I told you man.
Speaker 5: You said it as you said it, all right, So
Speaker 5: here are the rules of the game. We're gonna give
Speaker 5: you two choices. You pick one the choices. We don't drink.
Speaker 5: Nobody drinks.
Speaker 1: But if you give the politically correct answer, which is
Speaker 1: either both you say I just this both or neither
Speaker 1: of them. Okay, we all love for both. Yeah, yeah,
Speaker 1: you say I love both of them, or I don't
Speaker 1: like both of them. We all drink.
Speaker 5: But this is really, this is not to just anybody's
Speaker 5: really for stories, anything that any of these choices bring
Speaker 5: up a story for you.
Speaker 1: Please give us the story. You know what I'm saying.
Speaker 4: Okay, okay, okay, the bathroom?
Speaker 1: Thank you? What'd you send it? As? Holy a million? No,
Speaker 1: I don't got it.
Speaker 5: You got it the picture?
Speaker 1: Yeah, that's it. Click above it. No, I don't see it.
Speaker 1: I see it you ready, Yeah, Dick, I don't see it.
Speaker 1: Let me get it. It's right to here, bros. Right, No,
Speaker 1: I don't see it. Oh, I see it now, my bad, bad, bad, ahead,
Speaker 1: I got it ready, don't forget that.
Speaker 3: I want to get on to talk about this.
Speaker 1: Absolutely. I haven't gotten that at all. Okay, yeah, absolutely,
Speaker 1: Biggie or big l WHOA your criteria.
Speaker 5: And it's your criteria and any stories with anybody as well.
Speaker 3: Because you knew you bet them both, big al I
Speaker 3: met briefly stripped club in the Bronx.
Speaker 1: Back then, Golden Lady, go, that's what you made Golden Lady. Okay,
Speaker 1: I feel my mom.
Speaker 4: Was there, yes, but I did a yo.
Speaker 3: MTV raps with the whole digging in the crates crew
Speaker 3: Show Business AG and them and the other brother that
Speaker 3: passed away with the with the with the on the turntables.
Speaker 3: One of the executioners, rock Raider, was there, and also.
Speaker 1: There was I'm glad you got scared for him too.
Speaker 3: I was big l but at that point I didn't.
Speaker 1: Know who he was.
Speaker 3: He was literally just getting on large. Professor was there.
Speaker 3: So the whole scene opens, everybody's digging in the crates
Speaker 3: because that was their thing.
Speaker 1: So we was like, yo, y'all, what up here? You know,
Speaker 1: how do my thing?
Speaker 3: We helped up here Show Business AG's laugh and homies
Speaker 3: digging in the crate recently, Yeah, one of my and
Speaker 3: so Big I'm like after later, I'm like, oh.
Speaker 1: My god, that's big out.
Speaker 3: So I love him, but I'm a little obviously Biggie
Speaker 3: got to produce a bit more, you know, I got
Speaker 3: to connect with Biggie. Put some blunts in the air.
Speaker 3: He was a he was a blunt chainsmoker. Yeah, well yeah,
Speaker 3: our gin. Of course we didn't engage at that point,
Speaker 3: but when we later met and connected, just the vibers, right,
Speaker 3: and then I do the whole interview with him, at
Speaker 3: the Bad Boy Officers, him and crag Mac. You know,
Speaker 3: that's his national television introduction.
Speaker 1: You know, wasn't that the time y'all introduced the Big
Speaker 1: Mac's that it.
Speaker 3: No, we into the Big Mac, but we're both in
Speaker 3: the office and but you know, but I asked Biggie
Speaker 3: a question because it was similar with referenced one of
Speaker 3: his rhymes. I was like, he said, sometimes the rap game,
Speaker 3: you know, was comparable to the crack game.
Speaker 1: And being that he had he was like.
Speaker 3: Yeah, you know, his answer was if I was flipping burgers.
Speaker 3: You know, if I was telling Burgers, then I would
Speaker 3: have been rapping about that. But one of the answers
Speaker 3: to that, that was a great moment with them, with
Speaker 3: them to Spittters Hot Spitters.
Speaker 1: Tupaca easy rest piece of both man.
Speaker 7: You met them both? Yeah, neither oh man, no question,
Speaker 7: that's so wow. Wow, I go it easy, Yeah, just
Speaker 7: because we look. I mean, I love them both.
Speaker 4: But had that.
Speaker 3: Connection and introduced the whole scene if I got But I.
Speaker 4: Loved the episode. We did your TV raps.
Speaker 3: You had it on earlier when I walked in and Tupac.
Speaker 3: That was the first time it was recorded because I knew,
Speaker 3: and it hadn't come out then, he hadn't become this,
Speaker 3: you know, the megastar in terms of you know.
Speaker 1: The movies and whatever.
Speaker 3: But I knew he had a Black Panther connection and
Speaker 3: found out and it's the first time he stated it.
Speaker 3: And Harlem, yeah, no, we were in LA because oh yeah, yeah, yeah, No.
Speaker 3: The Panther twenty one all happened.
Speaker 1: In New York when his mom was involved and.
Speaker 4: He was conceived. It's a crazy story.
Speaker 3: His mom was in and his the brother that was
Speaker 3: his father, they were both a part of the Black
Speaker 3: Panther twenty one and they were on trial.
Speaker 4: They were under heavy pressure.
Speaker 3: They had a moment together in the holding cell or
Speaker 3: whatever when the people that know that they break it
Speaker 3: all down because they was caught up in.
Speaker 4: The system for a while. That's how he was conceived.
Speaker 1: It's crazy. Yeah, So he came out of there.
Speaker 3: So when I asked him about that in that episode,
Speaker 3: and he says, he breaks that down, like I come
Speaker 3: from some you know, from some revolutionary stuff, like my
Speaker 3: mother was a panther, my father and they met he
Speaker 3: was a hustle on hundred thirty Fish Street and they
Speaker 3: got together, you know, where they was down trying to
Speaker 3: make revolution for real.
Speaker 1: Crazy, So that was a good moment. Smith and Western
Speaker 1: or m O P. M O P.
Speaker 3: I love Smith and Wesson too, but you know, being
Speaker 3: a Brooklyn cat the way m O P represents like they.
Speaker 1: Defined brown from Brooklyn one my time, Smith Wester is
Speaker 1: from Brooklyn.
Speaker 4: Oh yeah yeah, no, no doubt.
Speaker 3: I should be more specific and say Brownsville, very specific
Speaker 3: energy the way they articulated just the one. I feel like,
Speaker 3: what you know, like the best of Browns veil on
Speaker 3: some on some street, wild ship.
Speaker 1: They all my brothers too. Yeah, shut out all care
Speaker 1: rest one Ques or rock camp. Man, this is torture.
Speaker 1: I mean, come on, I mean, you know you drink
Speaker 1: if you if you don't want to pick, you know
Speaker 1: he drinks. Oh man, I'm sorry, yeah, thank you? Yeah yeah, yes,
Speaker 1: I don't want to know you don't want to pick?
Speaker 1: I think I think I mean you didn't have to
Speaker 1: remind him like that. Now we're gonna drink. No, thank you.
Speaker 4: I totally forgot the rules.
Speaker 3: I'm like, man, I want to have been said that, like, yeah,
Speaker 3: thank you, man, I would have been you know, I'm spazy.
Speaker 1: You don't want to do you want to shot one
Speaker 1: little piece on somewhere. You're dignating the whole hair. I
Speaker 1: love it, y'all be having all right?
Speaker 3: Okay, yeah, yeah, yeah, come have a shot A shop
Speaker 3: for bad man.
Speaker 1: All right, so much? You know I got take your shot? Yeah,
Speaker 1: took me. Thanks for reminding me of the rules of
Speaker 1: the game. All right.
Speaker 5: For Duke Ellanton or John Coltrane or John Coltrane, I
Speaker 5: can't you gotta take a shot.
Speaker 1: I take a shot. Cool cook, that's the killer. He
Speaker 1: likes the killer. Yeah, go ahead to drink it out,
Speaker 1: coolie rapper, slick rick Man to drink up. Oh damn.
Speaker 3: Damn, come on man, y'all y'all, have.
Speaker 1: You got any good stories with any of them? Once again?
Speaker 3: Well shit, yes, I mean I directed.
Speaker 4: Oh this is great.
Speaker 3: I love to tell people because at this point when
Speaker 3: I'm directing the director board. Yeah, so I directed about
Speaker 3: sixty or soul music videos. The first one my philosophy.
Speaker 3: Hype did his thing. He had a whole incredible style.
Speaker 4: So love Hype. Love to see that.
Speaker 3: That was incredible, very exciting period of just a lot
Speaker 3: of people learning how to use film. And once again,
Speaker 3: wild style was my introduction and I had these ideas.
Speaker 3: It was a period where I was frustrated with just
Speaker 3: making paintings, having shows one solo show a year, a
Speaker 3: couple of group shows. I had this experience making wild
Speaker 3: Style and I wanted to do something with film again,
Speaker 3: and that's why I wanted to direct the videos. I'm
Speaker 3: you know, I was trying to do a public enemy video.
Speaker 4: Job Records.
Speaker 1: The woman that.
Speaker 3: Ran the head of the whole, An r Anne Carley,
Speaker 3: had heard and hired me to do my philosophy video
Speaker 3: for a charras one.
Speaker 1: Oh he's the first video.
Speaker 3: Yes, and then I go on to direct the whole
Speaker 3: bunch of videos in that period, and I directed Rode
Speaker 3: to the Riches for Coolchie Rap Crazyright. And what I'm
Speaker 3: most proud of in terms of where we were in
Speaker 3: that time, the crack game was really going on, and
Speaker 3: the song is about the rise and fall of a
Speaker 3: crack dealer.
Speaker 4: This is like ninety two ish if.
Speaker 3: You will time frame wise, and you know I'm from
Speaker 3: these streets, so I know that story band. So I
Speaker 3: put that together and if you remember the video. What
Speaker 3: I was also proud is I'm the first video to
Speaker 3: put an image of Scarface that became a super iconic thing.
Speaker 3: And I'm a film nerd as well as the art nerd,
Speaker 3: like I noticed it and I was like, I went
Speaker 3: to see Scarface the first day to film over.
Speaker 1: I'm a Brian D. Palmer fan.
Speaker 3: Who's the director And actually it was Oliver Stone that
Speaker 3: wrote the screenplay. So I was like, unbelievable film. And
Speaker 3: then to see it become such a big thing and
Speaker 3: the culture was fantastic. So bang I direct that video
Speaker 3: once again, which is the story of the rise and
Speaker 3: fall of a crack dealer like the shop of that to.
Speaker 4: The Richards, cool gi rap.
Speaker 3: And another little piece of that story is there's a
Speaker 3: brother named George Jackson Rest in peace that was in jail.
Speaker 3: He got no no, no, not the black not the
Speaker 3: black panther. Okay, okay, that's okay, no no no. I
Speaker 3: love that because you know, it's funny. I used to
Speaker 3: think of that early on, but then as you got
Speaker 3: to know.
Speaker 1: George, he looked at who he was.
Speaker 3: George was a brother from Harlem that went to Harvard
Speaker 3: on a football scholarship and worked his way into into Hollywood.
Speaker 3: And I think he worked on he might have had
Speaker 3: something to do with Crushcrew. He was hanging around doing
Speaker 3: things with Richard Pryor, and then he came he being there.
Speaker 1: He was from Harlem.
Speaker 3: He had this idea to make a gangster film and
Speaker 3: the film George came to me to assist with. There's
Speaker 3: a film called New Jack City. I'm an associal producer
Speaker 3: on that film.
Speaker 1: Thank you, Thank you.
Speaker 3: The story was actually based on the Nicky Bonds story
Speaker 3: heroin Whatever, but that's set in the nineteen seventies. George
Speaker 3: didn't want to set the film in the seventies. He
Speaker 3: wanted to set it which was current day. Current day,
Speaker 3: which was the early nineties when Nwjack swing is bubbling
Speaker 3: and about to explode. So he wanted to do a
Speaker 3: contemporary scene. And he knew I was tapped in. When
Speaker 3: George comes to meet with me to talk about this film,
Speaker 3: which I didn't know anything about, I'm finishing the rough
Speaker 3: cut of the Kougi Rap video okay, road to the Riches.
Speaker 3: And when I show him the video, if you remember,
Speaker 3: there's an undercover. There's a dude that's in Kouji Rap Crew.
Speaker 3: He starts off. They scrambling on the street, you know,
Speaker 3: like real, you know, real grimy Howard used to be
Speaker 3: hand in hand, you know, the jumbos and whatever. Then
Speaker 3: we see them he's the boss now in the in
Speaker 3: the office and whatever. And there's this cat that I
Speaker 3: that you see several times through the video that pulls
Speaker 3: out as the cops rush in. His man was was
Speaker 3: undercover and he may and you see you go back
Speaker 3: and watch.
Speaker 1: The Road to the Richards video.
Speaker 3: When George watches the video, He's like, oh my god,
Speaker 3: this is the idea in the movie which I see
Speaker 3: and is the cop you know, infiltrating Nino Brown's organization.
Speaker 3: When George had this, put this in front of me
Speaker 3: and he had gotten his brother Sadly, he passed not
Speaker 3: long ago Barry Michael Cooper, who was from Harlem, but
Speaker 3: he was nice with the words. His word game was crazy.
Speaker 3: And Barry had written a couple of articles and being
Speaker 3: he was from Harlem, like writers that was connected to
Speaker 3: our scene. Our culture at that time hadn't emerged yet
Speaker 3: with a strong voice. And George was highly educated.
Speaker 4: But he was from these streets too.
Speaker 3: When he saw a couple of articles Barry had written,
Speaker 3: and that in fact, one of the very first articles
Speaker 3: on the crack epidemic, about to happen. Think it might
Speaker 3: have been a spin magazine. George was like, this brother
Speaker 3: can write this script. And George got burried to write
Speaker 3: the screenplay for New Jack City. And after he saw
Speaker 3: the video, I came on as a producer to help
Speaker 3: the flavor, like the jewry, you know, Wesley's clothes, Like
Speaker 3: I was hovering over all of those departments, getting the
Speaker 3: fourth finger ring right, getting the right jewelry right at
Speaker 3: different times as they was rising, you know, the suits,
Speaker 3: and that was phenomenal.
Speaker 1: So that's crazy, makes some.
Speaker 3: Change exactly exactly.
Speaker 1: I love it. Christopher moment.
Speaker 4: Yeah, yeah, that was.
Speaker 1: Listen.
Speaker 3: I remember when we were shooting that scene New Jack
Speaker 3: City where Wesley stabs Christopher Wims and I never liked
Speaker 3: you anyway, pretty motherfucker that ship. Every time we shot,
Speaker 3: there's moments when you're on a set, if you got
Speaker 3: actors at.
Speaker 4: That level, when they do that, the whole crew is like.
Speaker 3: No, everybody is everybody has stopped doing what they do
Speaker 3: in the watch, like yo, he's doing his thing. And
Speaker 3: when he did that ship, it was so crazy. I
Speaker 3: was like what, I never like you went like just
Speaker 3: to stab a nigga, like in the hand like that,
Speaker 3: like you like your crew was ship.
Speaker 1: You know.
Speaker 3: That was the dynamic. Let me tell you another listen,
Speaker 3: let me tell you another interesting dynamic about that. And
Speaker 3: this was my role on that film, being that I
Speaker 3: know what time it was and George wanted to the
Speaker 3: archetypes were people in the game and the thing the
Speaker 3: model for Nino Brown in our heads and this me
Speaker 3: that no, you know, it's what I'm in brought on
Speaker 3: to do.
Speaker 4: Was Big Daddy came.
Speaker 3: It was that was the model in terms of the
Speaker 3: art type.
Speaker 4: We can see that.
Speaker 1: I see.
Speaker 3: It was a character in the way his the way
Speaker 3: he would do his wrap thing and uh, some of
Speaker 3: his early videos boom, so we you know, I see
Speaker 3: was definitely you know, so I'm bringing all these names
Speaker 3: to the table.
Speaker 1: But we had.
Speaker 3: Audition Kane, he was incredible, but we had heard.
Speaker 4: About this brother that was it was.
Speaker 3: I think it was, Oh my god, was it not
Speaker 3: No Better? What was the movie? Wesley debuts and it
Speaker 3: might have been White Up. No, i'mna be mad at myself,
Speaker 3: That's what I'm thinking.
Speaker 1: Was it Mo Better?
Speaker 4: Wesley's first film?
Speaker 3: I think he was about to start shooting all the time.
Speaker 1: Bobcats Wildcats.
Speaker 4: No what I'm talking about.
Speaker 3: No, not that this was specifically a Spike Lee film.
Speaker 4: I think it was Younger Fever.
Speaker 3: And George had had, you know, had gotten like a
Speaker 3: line on this guy. He said, Yo, there's this actor,
Speaker 3: young actor, Wesley Snipes. He's about to be and he's
Speaker 3: just shot this next this new Spike lead film I
Speaker 3: believe was Jungle Fever. He said, I think this could
Speaker 3: be our Nino Brown. And we went to the after
Speaker 3: party for Spike's film and I meet him for the
Speaker 3: first time. He had been in another film about baseball.
Speaker 3: He was playing a baseball player, but it didn't really
Speaker 3: blow up. It was like, I think it was major
Speaker 3: League thinks that as he was Willie May's Hayes his character.
Speaker 3: And so we now, George, we're very aware of the
Speaker 3: dynamic amongst us of the dark skin and the light skin,
Speaker 3: and and something was happening at that time with Michael
Speaker 3: Jordan with Wesley Snipes. It was like the dark skin
Speaker 3: now is emerging as an alternative, you know, getting some
Speaker 3: shine and some legit. Bobby Brown was on fire and
Speaker 3: about to explode. So we were like, you know what,
Speaker 3: as opposed to going the way Hollywood made typical one.
Speaker 3: Somebody a little lighter, brighter, you know, curly here like that,
Speaker 3: like you know whatever. We were like, we want to
Speaker 3: go to complete opposite. This was something that George and
Speaker 3: I were very like, okay, that makes sense. So the
Speaker 3: first time we go to meet Wesley, I remember, we
Speaker 3: now knew we know this. We knew this is gonna
Speaker 3: be fire right the film like what we're putting together,
Speaker 3: got Teddy Riley putting.
Speaker 1: The soundtrack together.
Speaker 3: We is, yeah, oh my god, telling myselfday Tuesday, Yeah,
Speaker 3: tell Teddy.
Speaker 4: Tell Teddy.
Speaker 1: I talked about this.
Speaker 3: He gonna light up because I'm in the studio like
Speaker 3: I'm hovering over like boom boom boom, and we we go.
Speaker 4: We pulled Wesley to the side, and you know.
Speaker 3: He's auditioning everything like he's incredible, Like you know, he's
Speaker 3: he can do it, like he can cry and the
Speaker 3: scene that we need, he can do that whole shit,
Speaker 3: Like he's a whole acting package. So we said Wesley, like, yo, man,
Speaker 3: like I'm telling him. I said, man, you, I said,
Speaker 3: this film is really going to make you a star.
Speaker 3: He said, no, fab that's not gonna happen. Man, I said,
Speaker 3: what do you mean Because we saw it. He says,
Speaker 3: I'm too dark, and I was like, wow, I remember
Speaker 3: George and I both laughed because that was exactly why
Speaker 3: we knew it was going.
Speaker 4: To happen, because we felt the tempo this was coming
Speaker 4: now and the.
Speaker 3: Gangster but still like attractive with a dangerous sexy. We
Speaker 3: had the whole shit mapped out like what we needed
Speaker 3: this character like to be, you know what I'm saying,
Speaker 3: and shit worked and Wesley blew up. It was just
Speaker 3: beautiful to see it all explode bigger, even bigger than
Speaker 3: I think. You know, I didn't know people was we
Speaker 3: see it was, you know, bullets was going.
Speaker 1: It was that weekend.
Speaker 3: It was quite a sensation. That was a long story.
Speaker 3: That was great.
Speaker 1: Thank you, Jim.
Speaker 3: That reallyed to me being a producer on New Jack City.
Speaker 1: Miles Davis or lowis armstrong man. Y'all got a drink, man,
Speaker 1: I'll drink.
Speaker 3: So yes, Miles I met because of him and Max
Speaker 3: Roach were tight and Max was a big fan of
Speaker 3: all the hip hop stuff as it was just beginning
Speaker 3: to emerge, and so uh he was really into it
Speaker 3: and as was Miles. Like I like to say, Max,
Speaker 3: Max Max Roach, who was the drummer that was my godfather.
Speaker 3: If I didn't if we didn't talk about him earlier,
Speaker 3: and he was tight with Miles and Miles and they
Speaker 3: would talk about different things going on. Miles was you know,
Speaker 3: he switched from the classic jazz and went into the
Speaker 3: jazz rock.
Speaker 4: And they were very they're very they a very open minded.
Speaker 1: And so is it true that Louis Armstrong asked for
Speaker 1: a week card.
Speaker 3: Yeah, that's in my film, Yeah, in my in the
Speaker 3: documentary I made about the Week Yeah, this is legit. Yeah,
Speaker 3: the documentary I made for this ship.
Speaker 1: Yeah.
Speaker 3: Yeah, so it's yeah, now it's legal. But Louis, it
Speaker 3: was such great logic in that moment in the.
Speaker 1: Sixties he asked for that.
Speaker 4: It was known among many people.
Speaker 1: He said that you could get a gun license.
Speaker 4: That's in that film.
Speaker 1: That's exactly what he said. Yes, makes so much, doesn't
Speaker 1: thank you?
Speaker 3: Telling his manager his manager was yeah, his manager's Yes.
Speaker 3: His manager was a real deal gangster that they were
Speaker 3: super tight and he was able to the gangsters controlled
Speaker 3: a lot of the music industry and what have you.
Speaker 4: And Louis manager was he was.
Speaker 1: The real deal.
Speaker 3: He sold a letter they didn't write the letter, but
Speaker 3: he wrote what Louis Armstrong would do. He would record
Speaker 3: how he felt. There's hours of him just expressing himself.
Speaker 3: And this was one of the things that he had
Speaker 3: talked about numerous times about why they pressuring me for
Speaker 3: this plan which is virtually basically harmless and I should
Speaker 3: telling his manager in a sense, which I think it
Speaker 3: was a letter if I'm not mistaken, But there's tape
Speaker 3: to him talking about the about the illogical nature of
Speaker 3: cannabis being criminalized and him kind of being pressured when
Speaker 3: which is what my whole film, Grasses Green it gets into.
Speaker 1: Yeah.
Speaker 4: Yeah, it was heavy duty.
Speaker 3: Pressure that they targeted people in the music game, and
Speaker 3: they knew Louis and other people that got pressured the
Speaker 3: most for this plant that never killed anybody.
Speaker 4: And Louis was you know, it was real. He was
Speaker 4: well renowned and we believe and.
Speaker 3: The research I did with other like cannabis experts, when
Speaker 3: because he sometimes referred to it as a golden lead,
Speaker 3: I've been looking for his connection. Really knew how to
Speaker 3: cultivate cannabis for the flower. When we was coming up,
Speaker 3: most people just smoked everything. Damn there, you didn't know like,
Speaker 3: you know, it's when the weed got got that sticky
Speaker 3: stuff on it. That's the flower giving you like the
Speaker 3: real state of the art in in cannabis, you know,
Speaker 3: like a sativa like an indica. We believe that's what
Speaker 3: Louis had a direct line on it.
Speaker 1: So his weed was consistently great. Louis had Branson back then.
Speaker 1: I loved that part of your documentary. Yeah, Branson and
Speaker 1: BIG's on film, and that's probably two of the last
Speaker 1: filmed people in the listen. Branson is my boy.
Speaker 3: It was really hard work to get Branson and the
Speaker 3: day we were initially were shooting him, he stood up
Speaker 3: my whole crew and I'm like, I got made people
Speaker 3: my DP Malik Sai. These are feature level cinematographers, you know,
Speaker 3: brother in the gang.
Speaker 1: That's what I mean.
Speaker 3: He was just he was Hype, Hype Williams name cinematographer
Speaker 3: coming up. They designed that that look of what Hype
Speaker 3: was doing. But uh yeah, that was heavy. That was
Speaker 3: heavy pressure. Said let me, let me, let me just
Speaker 3: say something that we're here.
Speaker 1: I tell the famous story of one time I was
Speaker 1: drunk on one hundred and twenty fourth Street. This is
Speaker 1: the first, Uh, I believe it's Fruits of Life. And
Speaker 1: we were we were drinking. We were drinking, I mean Harlem.
Speaker 1: Obviously I live in Jersey, but I was I was,
Speaker 1: I was drunk, but I was sober enough to know
Speaker 1: if I get if I make it to Branson Block, yeah,
Speaker 1: I'm safe. Uh No, I tell the story. And Branson
Speaker 1: recently that co signing story, right, I went, he's been
Speaker 1: on a part, right he did.
Speaker 6: He did.
Speaker 1: Let me break it down because there's a part of
Speaker 1: this story that's super missing. Wow. No, it's with me.
Speaker 1: And I'm telling Jada Kiss this. Jada Kiss knows exactly
Speaker 1: what it is. Okay, I'm sitting there in Harlem. I
Speaker 1: drink tager Bone. This is tager bone fancy.
Speaker 3: We had that tagle Bonejack.
Speaker 1: So I'm one hundred and twenty four form Foods of Life.
Speaker 1: I live in Jersey. I'm on my way ahead of Jersey,
Speaker 1: and I'm like, I can't make this. There's no way.
Speaker 1: I don't even want to, like risk my life, Like
Speaker 1: my life is too important. So I go to the
Speaker 1: savings place in the world that I think, you know
Speaker 1: what the saving places in the world was at that moment,
Speaker 1: was Branson bl Wow, I drove my car to Branching
Speaker 1: Block and this is I love the fact that he
Speaker 1: co signed my story about I want to reiterate how
Speaker 1: important this man is in our community and is to
Speaker 1: the cannabis lifestyle legend. He's legend. There was at times
Speaker 1: where right now in New York City, if you go
Speaker 1: to certain restaurants, just stick up kids outside of these restaurants.
Speaker 1: If you go to a certain spots, just stick up
Speaker 1: kids outside of this spot. Branson has so much love
Speaker 1: and so much power that you can walk into Branson
Speaker 1: and Red Man would be behind it the thing pause,
Speaker 1: sucking on a lottipop. They had the best lottipops at
Speaker 1: this time. This is just just chill.
Speaker 4: That's the Japanese can.
Speaker 1: They had the Japanese candy that. Seriously, you will go
Speaker 1: back there. You go use the bathroom, Biggie Smalls will
Speaker 1: be coming out the bathroom, I kid you not. For us,
Speaker 1: Branson created an experience. It wasn't about going to buy.
Speaker 1: But I come from means I'm literally almost an hour
Speaker 1: and a half with traffic, and it's always traffic in
Speaker 1: New York City. I would come from Queen's ninety seven
Speaker 1: DA thirty fifty seventh Avenue and go all the way
Speaker 1: wow to the tri barrow. And guess what. I would
Speaker 1: not leave Branson when I saw him in your documentary.
Speaker 1: I saw how comfortable he was, and I know he's
Speaker 1: not comfortable with entertainment. There's so many people who make
Speaker 1: him up. That's so true. There's so many people would
Speaker 1: pick him up, and he's always like, took the back.
Speaker 1: So I want to I want to reiterate this part
Speaker 1: of the story. That the reason why I parked at
Speaker 1: Branson and I pulled up, I had a six hundred.
Speaker 1: This is the brand new six hundred. Ben Jada Kisson
Speaker 1: knew the story. Jady Kiss.
Speaker 4: I was like, Yo, where did you go?
Speaker 1: Because I was drinking with Jada Kiss. That's the reason
Speaker 1: why he was there with me. But I went and
Speaker 1: I parked the car and I just looked at the
Speaker 1: first person that I know I saw in Branson, and
Speaker 1: I was like, yo, I can't drive. I gave the
Speaker 1: kid my key. Is that the kid that had to
Speaker 1: have the dreads? No, No, you talking about Eddie, you
Speaker 1: talk about Okay? You know that that that was that
Speaker 1: was that was that was his people inside. This was
Speaker 1: the people from the block. How much? What's how much?
Speaker 1: Branson had love and block? I knew anybody who knew him,
Speaker 1: I was good with. I gave this guy my key, Bro,
Speaker 1: I don't know him from nowhere. I gave him my
Speaker 1: key and I called what we called o J. This
Speaker 1: is New York Shire. That was that was that.
Speaker 4: Back in the day.
Speaker 1: And I went and I went home, and I woke
Speaker 1: up and I had no worries in the world. I
Speaker 1: promise you. I went right back to the same block
Speaker 1: and everything was good. Kid was sitting there, waven be like, yo,
Speaker 1: you're good, Like, yeah, that was the right thing you did.
Speaker 1: You couldn't have made it to whatever the fuck you?
Speaker 1: And what I'm trying to say to you is Branson.
Speaker 1: When Branson answered this story, yeah, he answered it as
Speaker 1: if it was the respect for me. I have to
Speaker 1: I have to take that away. This is a modest cat.
Speaker 1: So that's yeah, he's the modest, humble guy. There was
Speaker 1: a reason I went to that block. He that was
Speaker 1: the safest block in America. Bro Branson sold you triangle bags.
Speaker 1: And I've seen that when you was and then I've
Speaker 1: seen you. You actually went on that podcast. You showed
Speaker 1: the envelope on.
Speaker 4: The I made how to weave back.
Speaker 1: You used to look. Yeah, but let me just describe
Speaker 1: you because you also in your documentary you said sixty
Speaker 1: over sixty rappers shout it out brands.
Speaker 4: Yes, right, he had to tell you put together.
Speaker 1: So let me tell you why, Gush. You come from Queens,
Speaker 1: you come from Staten Island, you come from Jersey, you
Speaker 1: come from anywhere in the world. And then with those
Speaker 1: three blocks, because he did not only have that one block,
Speaker 1: he had all these other blocks. I would buy my butt,
Speaker 1: bring some champagne, and I would sit there a Queens dude. Wow,
Speaker 1: I get my car washed out there. That's that old
Speaker 1: school hall. Let me tell you something, there has never
Speaker 1: been experience like Branson. So when I kept I just
Speaker 1: kept rewinding your documentary just looking at that because this
Speaker 1: is the first time that he talked and he was
Speaker 1: still humble. So I'm going to brag for him. I'm
Speaker 1: a brag for him. Branson, bro, we all owe you
Speaker 1: a lot. You gave us a sense of safety and
Speaker 1: sense of comfortability like we couldn't even get about. I'm
Speaker 1: speaking on for all rappers to feel you. We couldn't
Speaker 1: get that comfortability in our own hood because people would
Speaker 1: judge us. But for that block, I don't know what
Speaker 1: he did to that block. Loved him.
Speaker 4: It's just so beautiful to hear you articulated like that.
Speaker 1: That's something I got to get. Listen. I love it.
Speaker 3: And when I moved up to Harlem in the early
Speaker 3: two thousands, I got really tight with Eddie and he
Speaker 3: would tell me how they got down and the way
Speaker 3: Branson numerous times they would he would have cookouts and
Speaker 3: he would buy food, the real classic Harlem stuff that
Speaker 3: went down that you hear about.
Speaker 1: You know Branson did that.
Speaker 3: He cut He's cut from that cloth of those cats
Speaker 3: from that seventies era. He didn't go that direction, obviously,
Speaker 3: but he treated people like that. He was super tight
Speaker 3: with another Harlem legend. Rest in peace, my man Vaughn.
Speaker 3: Zip Zip had one hundred and eighteenth Street the same
Speaker 3: way they took care a whole bit.
Speaker 1: Zips club zip cod.
Speaker 4: Yes, zip Code came later.
Speaker 3: Yes, indeed, he got an incredible fly club in Harlem.
Speaker 3: He managed Mike Tyson for a minute, along with my
Speaker 3: dear friend Jimmy Rosemand you know aka Jimmy Ah.
Speaker 1: Yeah, you know that's my man.
Speaker 3: But So Branson had that classic Harlem get down that
Speaker 3: really unfortunately, you know, nothing lasts forever. But that's a
Speaker 3: big I think a big part of the reason why
Speaker 3: he had Why the block shows you just was the
Speaker 3: way that went down is just unbelievable.
Speaker 1: But just think about it. If I'm telling you, listen, listen,
Speaker 1: I'm smacking.
Speaker 4: Drunk out of it.
Speaker 1: But I still I knew enough to say, I know
Speaker 1: where's safe. Act I'm already in Harlem one hundred and
Speaker 1: twenty four and I believe correct me if I'm wrong.
Speaker 1: I believe Branston was one hundred and fifty.
Speaker 3: Yeah, it was Satan one Fitch spot is right down
Speaker 3: the block, right.
Speaker 1: That's how I get the Branson fish sandwich.
Speaker 4: And then I go, yes, yeah, yeah.
Speaker 1: Yeah, yeah, what's that famous fish.
Speaker 3: It's famous fifth yes, and Saint Nick.
Speaker 1: It's the best fish in the world.
Speaker 4: Get the fries.
Speaker 1: That's the only thing. Yeah, Miami, I need to understand
Speaker 1: where fish like that?
Speaker 4: Yes, I need that's the Southern thing.
Speaker 3: So it's mostly fried pogis and whities, this is what's typical.
Speaker 1: In New York.
Speaker 4: And then some fries, you know what I mean, a
Speaker 4: few other.
Speaker 3: Size but it's mainly like fried whitings and fried pogies. Yes, yes,
Speaker 3: it's typical what you're getting most fishing. They might have
Speaker 3: a red snapper here and there.
Speaker 1: What is it what I got? I have one spot
Speaker 1: that I love here. It's in the hood snap snappers.
Speaker 1: That's what I think, my New York niggas. Listen, lit,
Speaker 1: I got New York fish out here, and like we're now,
Speaker 1: I me just like it.
Speaker 3: I'm sorry for jumping like it was just an anxiety moment.
Speaker 3: So so Branson, because he's exactly how you described classic hustling.
Speaker 3: I'm not trying to be telling everything. I'm not trying
Speaker 3: to that's so much a weird part of the culture
Speaker 3: now casts is ready to tell everything. Branson is cut
Speaker 3: from that classic cloth of you don't talk nobody talking,
Speaker 3: classic real, classic hustling street shit. And so that's I
Speaker 3: think a part of why he was like I had
Speaker 3: said all this up because I also told Branson, look, man,
Speaker 3: I had no idea I would get into the cannabis business.
Speaker 3: But just really that is a part of how this happened,
Speaker 3: because I said, man, listen, I'm going to meet these people. Brandson,
Speaker 3: you basically created a brand without realizing you created a
Speaker 3: brand because over sixty rappers, including Biggie, which I use
Speaker 3: in my film and mentioned a bunch of others rapped
Speaker 3: about Yo, I got a jar from Branson. I'm uptown
Speaker 3: with that brand.
Speaker 1: People in one second, because let me just say something.
Speaker 1: When you say jaw jar is different, because something you
Speaker 1: broke down in your documentary is his twenties was in triangle, correct,
Speaker 1: and his fifties was in brown bags.
Speaker 3: Okay, but no he I think he might have had
Speaker 3: two sizes of triangles because I remember sometimes it's like
Speaker 3: a twenties no, no.
Speaker 1: Because sometimes I had tosstic and sometimes he had the green.
Speaker 1: Somebody he said he had the brown. Okay, I love you.
Speaker 1: I might have been likened to bring twenty t isssue there,
Speaker 1: like because I'm going to take a ship and it's
Speaker 1: going down that serious. I'm dead serious. Yeah, I loved
Speaker 1: it so much. That's so they had to hit a
Speaker 1: tosstick in the twenties. Then he had any the green
Speaker 1: in the twenties as well, but then the brown bags
Speaker 1: of the fifties, and then if you had a jaw
Speaker 1: that was like was one fifty or more?
Speaker 4: Yeah, if it's about it was. That was a jaw
Speaker 4: a quarter or like a half ounce.
Speaker 1: It was. I ain't gonna lie to you. I don't know.
Speaker 4: It was between the two and one of them.
Speaker 1: Yeah, that was when you was a baller, like exactly.
Speaker 3: That's what they called the rapper, which is the way
Speaker 3: you would hear it referenced you.
Speaker 4: You had some paper and you knew you he was.
Speaker 3: He had the most consistent, high quality cannabis that you
Speaker 3: can get.
Speaker 4: It was really like a dispensary.
Speaker 1: I'm gonna get. I'll never tell this story. I gotta
Speaker 1: tell the story. Capone gets locked up poems like Juli
Speaker 1: Kbone was like, yo, you know, I need some bud
Speaker 1: you know what I mean? Like them, But he's like, nah,
Speaker 1: I want that. I want that band. Was like I
Speaker 1: I go up down about everything that I need. Then
Speaker 1: I buy everything. Component I don't know. I don't know
Speaker 1: to wrap ship up for jail niggas. What the fuck? Okay, okay, okay,
Speaker 1: I don't know how to do this ship. He tells
Speaker 1: me to go meet the girl, Meet the girl, give
Speaker 1: it a bar. I don't wrap the ship. Hit me
Speaker 1: like man, that ship ripped his ship up. Oh ship
Speaker 1: the triangles. I got good. God, okay, I got like
Speaker 1: ten of them. She had to stop the ship. Whoa, whoa,
Speaker 1: whoa whoa. He's like, Yo, why you ain't wrapping up?
Speaker 1: I'm like, what the fuck nigga like to buy?
Speaker 4: He didn't know where it was actually going to go.
Speaker 1: I'm sure to that is that my problem? Like I'm
Speaker 1: paying for it. I'm wow, wow. And but when I
Speaker 1: tell you, when I tell you, Jesus, every that whole
Speaker 1: week was like he was the man, like he had
Speaker 1: the whole jail brands. Yes, yes, this this out. It's
Speaker 1: allegedly anyway, No, it's not allegedly. Was his name?
Speaker 4: He assistently had that.
Speaker 1: Had I had a person like fab a person like me,
Speaker 1: person like us, have we knew that you could legalize
Speaker 1: this shit eventually? Yeah, Like this guy was the first
Speaker 1: of everything. Branston Like, I'm just being honest, like like
Speaker 1: he's my friend, I love him. I don't want to
Speaker 1: say that he doesn't want this props. I just I
Speaker 1: want to say what you said. He's from that old
Speaker 1: school where it's like you don't claim this ship, but
Speaker 1: I gotta claim this. I gotta be cocky for him. Bro,
Speaker 1: this is the first time, like I would be stressed out.
Speaker 1: This is like therapy for me going to Branston. Like
Speaker 1: I would go there and I would just chill, I
Speaker 1: mean by myself, like a queen's dude chilling in the Harlem.
Speaker 1: What a fucking six hundred bins parked outside, sitting there, rolling,
Speaker 1: arguing with Eddie, arguing with it. Because I argue with
Speaker 1: Eddie like yeah, man, shut up, man. He's like, man,
Speaker 1: your queen's niggas come over here, get your car wash.
Speaker 1: I'll get my car was I'm sitting there. It was
Speaker 1: a great experience. Bro. There has been nothing like that.
Speaker 1: And and God blessed me Branston, because I know he
Speaker 1: probably gonna watch this and be like, damn you, you
Speaker 1: went too far. But they have Every dispensary in California
Speaker 1: has been yeah, yeah, and what you presented like they
Speaker 1: come and you get chilled. You can roll up, you
Speaker 1: can buy some candy, and you can sit outside and chill.
Speaker 1: He's a real pioneer. So I'm sorry, Branston. I'm sorry,
Speaker 1: but I had to give your flowers because I heard
Speaker 1: I said this story. He responded, but he responded in
Speaker 1: the so much of a humble way, and I was like, nah, bro,
Speaker 1: the reason why I parked there because I knew you
Speaker 1: the respect that they have for you, and I knew
Speaker 1: the respect that they had that I always come in
Speaker 1: there to see you so real right there, and I
Speaker 1: got to give a branch in the spot. So you
Speaker 1: not only got branding to speak, but a person who
Speaker 1: managed me and if in both its bigs, yes, yes, yes,
Speaker 1: and you got bigs to speak. I was blown away
Speaker 1: to sitting back. It was like because and you got
Speaker 1: Bigginess speak about cannabis. And not only that, Biggs got
Speaker 1: convicted of cannabis.
Speaker 3: Well he sort of referenced that I didn't want to
Speaker 3: go expend expend too much on that, but I'm gonna
Speaker 3: say that that was part of the dynamic in terms
Speaker 3: of the injustices that too many people have had to
Speaker 3: go through for this plant, which is basically a harmulous
Speaker 3: medicinal plant that has been going back to the nineteen
Speaker 3: thirties that I illustrate, they just whipped it into a frenzy.
Speaker 3: They lied, They created this cannabis conspiracy film like reaf
Speaker 3: for Madness, and they people to the core and got
Speaker 3: cannabis criminalized and then targeted people.
Speaker 4: So Biggs was one of the victims of that.
Speaker 1: Wasn't it a guy who killed his whole family or
Speaker 1: something like that, and they said it was before we
Speaker 1: and he was a stohistic.
Speaker 4: Yeah, but thank you. The guy was a schizophrenic.
Speaker 3: But they whipped it and made it seem like this
Speaker 3: was a cannabis So that was a part of the
Speaker 3: of the lies that they used to whip and get
Speaker 3: congressmen to like criminalize cannabis in nineteen thirty seven. And
Speaker 3: which was always the guy's name was yeah, but the
Speaker 3: guy's name, but it was only because people of color
Speaker 3: were using it and as well as Spanish ber they
Speaker 3: even gave it the name. That's why people in the
Speaker 3: cannabis business never used serious. People that get this don't
Speaker 3: use the term marijuana because.
Speaker 1: That was invented.
Speaker 3: It was invented by the people that went that went
Speaker 3: to criminalize cannabis to make it sound Mexican. That word
Speaker 3: did not exist for the plant in Mexican society, so
Speaker 3: they got marijuana like Tijuana.
Speaker 1: You know, just checking my film.
Speaker 4: So there's real serious.
Speaker 3: Racism when you dig in to how they targeted certain
Speaker 3: people and we were victimized largely for that and.
Speaker 1: The people around the guana yeah go ahead, Yeah.
Speaker 3: That became a nickname for it. So those are all
Speaker 3: things that they used to get cannabis criminalized.
Speaker 1: But cannabis is.
Speaker 4: Largely medicine, and that's the thing that we now know
Speaker 4: more of.
Speaker 3: When you get especially good cannabis, there's medicinal value. And
Speaker 3: once scientists really looked at the plant and studied it
Speaker 3: and understood there's these various cannabinoids different components, began to
Speaker 3: isolate the and be like, oh, this really heals pain.
Speaker 3: It takes the inflesh in inflammation away. And it's the
Speaker 3: medical usage of the plant that have broken down all
Speaker 3: these lives and states like California, Colorado, which were out
Speaker 3: front in terms of going medical first. Then all the
Speaker 3: lies that it's going to just the gateway drug blom
Speaker 3: book come on. What has created Taking people to a
Speaker 3: opioid crisis was legally pushed, you know, the oxycodone and
Speaker 3: the whole opioid thing. Cannabis has helped so many people
Speaker 3: and that's what changed a lot of the negative perception.
Speaker 4: It's usually medical first.
Speaker 3: A couple of years and then people got look, it's
Speaker 3: helped me with this it's helped me admit that it
Speaker 3: helps people with pain issues. So a lot of these
Speaker 3: things are in the process, and you know, I happen
Speaker 3: to make a film talking about this, showing this his
Speaker 3: to read the music connection from the jazz people to
Speaker 3: the hip hop people.
Speaker 1: Snoop gave it up for me.
Speaker 3: I got my man, you know, uh be real, be
Speaker 3: real from Cyprus and and then really speaking about the plant.
Speaker 1: That's the only part I like, be real to the
Speaker 1: the the Mount Rushmore and he was like him, Snoop,
Speaker 1: mav Well, that was yeah, that was like your I'm
Speaker 1: my invisible I'm with I was like, damn, nigga, I've
Speaker 1: been here for years. That's what you know. You clearly
Speaker 1: but segue into into your product.
Speaker 3: So basically once again loving cannabis growing up my dad,
Speaker 3: all those jazz guys with bigger fictionados. It's actually my
Speaker 3: business partner, Ron Samuel where I.
Speaker 1: He was. He's from Cali. He's a brother that was
Speaker 1: in the game.
Speaker 3: In cannabis, seriously moving packs around.
Speaker 4: You know, he was in the game, hustling doing this thing.
Speaker 4: But he sorted.
Speaker 1: The legal business opening up and he wanted to dive in.
Speaker 3: But being that had he had, he had got caught
Speaker 3: up in the system, had you know, spent a little time.
Speaker 4: They forbid, which.
Speaker 3: Are the people that really pioneered it, They forbid you
Speaker 3: in a lot of these states to be able to
Speaker 3: get into too the business.
Speaker 1: So he was fussing to have a background.
Speaker 3: Correct and you've been convicted and you know, felling me
Speaker 3: whatever it may be, so boom. His whole thing was
Speaker 3: I want to be a part of this. And he
Speaker 3: was going to the conventions thinking, you know, this is
Speaker 3: going back ten or so years as it became a
Speaker 3: medical thing and a big business in California. How could
Speaker 3: I be a part of this because I know this,
Speaker 3: I've done this. And we had a conversation one day.
Speaker 3: This is back like I think about twenty sixteen, twenty seventeen.
Speaker 1: He said, Yo, I figured it out.
Speaker 3: I'm going to start a consulting to see company and
Speaker 3: I'm going to call it forty acres and a greenhouse.
Speaker 3: And so the idea was to play off for like
Speaker 3: the forty acres, which really didn't get I was given
Speaker 3: and taken away and.
Speaker 1: That was a that was the idea.
Speaker 3: That and to get into the game and you be
Speaker 3: a be a consultant because all these all these business
Speaker 3: guys are getting in that really don't know cannabis. He's
Speaker 3: the cat that did it all up and down Cali
Speaker 3: Humbo grows, you know, moving packs of serious, high quality cannabis.
Speaker 3: And so when he said that, we I just cracked
Speaker 3: up and I was like, oh, what a great idea,
Speaker 3: what a great name for the for the company.
Speaker 4: And this this is my business part in the cannabis.
Speaker 3: Brother name Ron Samuel, who's been in the game a
Speaker 3: long time, he wanted to He said, I'm gonna start
Speaker 3: a consultancy company called it forty acres in a greenhouse.
Speaker 3: And I said, that's great. And in the conversation we
Speaker 3: cracking up and talking, I'm like, but wait a minute.
Speaker 1: You know, black folks made.
Speaker 3: Jazz records and bigged up the plant back then. Then
Speaker 3: reggae artists did the same thing, Peter Tosh saying about
Speaker 3: legalized it over forty plus years ago. And then in
Speaker 3: my artists that I introduced to the country Snoop, you
Speaker 3: know Redman method Man. All these cats were the modern
Speaker 3: day proponents making big hit records about the plant. What
Speaker 3: a great way to do a documentary. And that was
Speaker 3: when it was like, Man, I have music, I'll be
Speaker 3: able to show, like get the hip hop people to talk,
Speaker 3: I'll get the historical footage of the jazz people doing it.
Speaker 3: But then I knew I was going to have to
Speaker 3: focus on the criminal justice side of all the people
Speaker 3: that have gone to prison and lives have been upside down.
Speaker 1: And that's how you discovered be Noble.
Speaker 4: Well, how I discovered how b Noble came to be.
Speaker 3: The story that I chose to focus on to illustrate
Speaker 3: just the unfair, just harshness.
Speaker 4: Of this criminal justice system.
Speaker 3: Was a brother from Louisiana that was given a thirteen
Speaker 3: year sentence for two joints worth of cannabis. He was
Speaker 3: in just seven. His name was Bernard Noble. So all
Speaker 3: people that were fighting two joints of cannabis crazy, A
Speaker 3: couple of grams, a couple of grahams of cannabis in
Speaker 3: his pocket, this is what it came out to. So
Speaker 3: basically enough to roll two joints, we break it down
Speaker 3: to two joints, but it was.
Speaker 1: Just a little bit of week.
Speaker 3: You maybe could have rolled like one blood, but basically
Speaker 3: some shit like that, right, two point whatever grams and
Speaker 3: this is just illustrates how a lot of the prison
Speaker 3: system still works. Unfortunately in certain states they're looking to
Speaker 3: put people in prison just to make money off that
Speaker 3: prison industrial complex.
Speaker 1: All you know, all that nonsense that state that this
Speaker 1: guy's for a joint. Thank you, thank you, thank you.
Speaker 3: Listen when Bernard Noble, which is the brother's name, we
Speaker 3: interview his family because I'm covering the jazz scene in
Speaker 3: my film, and Louis Armstrong, who's a big part of
Speaker 3: my film, as you've seen, is from Louisiana. That's where
Speaker 3: jazz is boring, so we covering that. But then we
Speaker 3: interview his family, his mom and sisters. They break down,
Speaker 3: really a sad moment. He's still in prison.
Speaker 1: And those are the ones that you were there. That's
Speaker 1: his family. I'm in the it's all three girls.
Speaker 3: Yeah, it's the mother and his three sisters, I believe
Speaker 3: two or three sisters. Really sad moment that illustrates what
Speaker 3: this has done to families. Over two joints for the week,
Speaker 3: his case had become celebrated and a lot of people
Speaker 3: were campaigning illustrated. In fact, Weis had did a show
Speaker 3: called Weedkett and that's how I had first seen this
Speaker 3: episode this his story. A couple of years before, they
Speaker 3: had a show called Weedicket on Vice TV.
Speaker 1: I didn't see that.
Speaker 3: It's like an Indian guy that hosted different topics around cannabis.
Speaker 1: What was it?
Speaker 3: What was it about this particular episode of this show
Speaker 3: which would do all different types of cannabis coverage, did
Speaker 3: a show on this brother that was in prison. I
Speaker 3: remember them talking to his kids and maybe having you
Speaker 3: maybe heard him on the phone. He might have called in.
Speaker 3: But when you hear how much we and how much
Speaker 3: time he got, it was just unbelievable. So I was like,
Speaker 3: that's the story I'm going to focus on in the film.
Speaker 3: But after I interviewed the family, about a week later,
Speaker 3: I got a call that he had because the people
Speaker 3: were campaigning on his behalf, that he finally got a
Speaker 3: parole and he'd be coming home in a couple of weeks.
Speaker 3: So we fly back to Louisiana to capture that moment,
Speaker 3: and when he.
Speaker 1: Comes out, he says, man, I didn't know what was
Speaker 1: going on.
Speaker 4: There's people in there for less weed Like, he's just
Speaker 4: blowing my mind.
Speaker 3: I mean, I interviewed the former prosecutors that said I
Speaker 3: couldn't do that anymore looking at how unjust there's certain
Speaker 3: towns in some of these states the money is made
Speaker 3: from this local prison which they got to keep full.
Speaker 3: And this goes back to a film made a Duvene
Speaker 3: made a documentary also on Netflix called The Thirteenth, which
Speaker 3: is about the Thirteenth Amendment, which was supposedly the ending
Speaker 3: of slavery, but it shows how the prison system still
Speaker 3: manages to enslave people and has.
Speaker 1: Working for slave wages.
Speaker 3: And it was like this business, this big business unfortunately,
Speaker 3: like publicly traded private prisons, you know, you know what.
Speaker 4: So that motivated me to do a.
Speaker 3: Brand in the brother's name and we work with him,
Speaker 3: and we made a connection with this company, Curely, which
Speaker 3: is really big cannabis company.
Speaker 4: And so we've we've been in the numerous states the.
Speaker 3: Non states already, right correct, Yeah, we've been.
Speaker 1: Up to nine.
Speaker 3: And this was our initial product, which is a two
Speaker 3: joint pre roll which reflexed read he got popped for
Speaker 3: little stuff you mentioned that.
Speaker 1: Yeah, this is I'm sorry, I get you so this
Speaker 1: is yeah, I'm taking that.
Speaker 3: No, No, like we got you, we got you covered
Speaker 3: and I got you know yeah, no, we got you covered.
Speaker 3: And the flower is really incredible, like from really high
Speaker 3: quality flower that the company has been making sure as
Speaker 3: a premier brand with a compelling story. I mean, come on,
Speaker 3: Cannabis is big business, but a lot of brands is
Speaker 3: just like colorful packaging. And my weed's better than yours.
Speaker 3: Our weed is killer incredible. Plus we're doing something giving
Speaker 3: back and raising awareness about these issues which people are
Speaker 3: still in prison. Like it's while cannabis is a multi
Speaker 3: billion dollar growing business, there's still states where people are
Speaker 3: still in prison like Bernard could technically still be in jail.
Speaker 1: Now. You know, you only just seven. So we're going
Speaker 1: to finish quick time with Slim. Yeah.
Speaker 3: And by the way, we started another new brand called
Speaker 3: Jungle Girl, which is only in New York but just
Speaker 3: a female focus cannabis product. Here as sister named Natalie
Speaker 3: from Calli who has a fashion brand called j.
Speaker 4: Oh No No No. Anybody can smoke it. But what
Speaker 4: we learned in the in the.
Speaker 3: Cannabis scene, particularly people people a lot of people that are.
Speaker 1: New don't get bathroom breaks. I love our casual Its.
Speaker 3: What we learned in the business since we've been doing
Speaker 3: this now for like a few years now, a lot
Speaker 3: of women are now getting comfortable. People, a new audience
Speaker 3: is getting comfortable with cannabis, and a lot of the
Speaker 3: chicks can't roll because if you think about it, it
Speaker 3: takes some time to learn how to prepare and.
Speaker 1: Put a joint together.
Speaker 3: So pre rolls, particularly for women, are very easy access.
Speaker 1: And that's a pack of pre rolls.
Speaker 3: Yeah, there's a five pack of little kind of nice, medium,
Speaker 3: small joints. And we have various like vibrant, you know,
Speaker 3: euphoric and different kind of things. So we're not trying
Speaker 3: to get into all the wild names.
Speaker 1: Of various strains.
Speaker 3: People want to feel a certain way without making it
Speaker 3: too complicated. So this has taken off really well in
Speaker 3: New York. Were in a bunch of dispensaries with Jungle
Speaker 3: Girl and the b Noble brand. You know, we're expanding
Speaker 3: and it's just really been an incredible run, you know,
Speaker 3: helping it inform people about these aspects of cannabis. Like
Speaker 3: just to keep in mind that a lot of people
Speaker 3: have suffered as a lot of states legalized. You're supposed
Speaker 3: to be able to expunge your criminal record and stuff.
Speaker 3: I mean even when I made Grascus Greener, I didn't
Speaker 3: realize that people could get kicked out of public housing.
Speaker 3: A lot of stuff was still in cannabis in New
Speaker 3: York up until we went a completely adult use and
Speaker 3: I get heavy on that in my film.
Speaker 4: I didn't realize what the cannabis laws actually were like.
Speaker 5: So a lot of and some of the companies that
Speaker 5: are benefiting off of it being legal, or these huge
Speaker 5: corporations Larborough.
Speaker 1: No, not yet.
Speaker 3: Well, the company that we did this licensing deal with,
Speaker 3: Currely did literally big.
Speaker 4: They're very big there in many states.
Speaker 3: They started medically, hence the name Cure Leaf Curing, but
Speaker 3: they really wanted to step up and represent a brand
Speaker 3: that was speaking to this issue because when you understand cannabis,
Speaker 3: a lot of people's lives have been jammed up. You
Speaker 3: know a lot of people that who we know, like
Speaker 3: when I go to just Spend Series in New York,
Speaker 3: which has one of the most like progressive cannabis like
Speaker 3: rules or regulations and stuff like that, and the OCM,
Speaker 3: the Office of Cannabis Management, A lot of people that
Speaker 3: got first on the list for dispensaries had did time
Speaker 3: that got caught up.
Speaker 1: It was seriously.
Speaker 4: Oh yeah, mostly you know, I mean it's.
Speaker 3: White folks as well, but mostly they was pressuring us,
Speaker 3: whereas in the white neighborhoods kids were smoking just as
Speaker 3: much we Popo wasn't doing stopping first and running down
Speaker 3: on them in the same way. So the hint as
Speaker 3: a hint you have so many people getting jammed up.
Speaker 3: They really structured the legislation, particularly this state representative, Crystal
Speaker 3: People Stokes out of Buffalo.
Speaker 4: She fought hard for the legislation that we have and.
Speaker 3: Whereas if Governor Cromo tried to chop up pieces of
Speaker 3: the bill, she was like, no, we got to have
Speaker 3: it like this, and then finally he signed it.
Speaker 4: So that's how people get on like that.
Speaker 3: Other states have talked about helping people, but it never
Speaker 3: really came to fruition, you know what I mean that
Speaker 3: they helped as many people as they said they wanted to.
Speaker 3: But New York there's a lot of people that you know,
Speaker 3: have dispensaries now giving it a go, and player they.
Speaker 1: Be noble baby fat boys or beastie boys mm hmm boys,
Speaker 1: Jay Z or Big Daddy Kane. I can't touch that.
Speaker 3: Y'all got to drink up, love them both to death.
Speaker 3: Big Daddy Kane is from not far from where I'm
Speaker 3: from in bed style.
Speaker 4: You know, I'm from Hancock.
Speaker 3: Lewis and Garby used to be Lewis and Sumner and
Speaker 3: Kane is from Lewis about four or.
Speaker 4: Five blocks away. Yeah, big daddy.
Speaker 3: He was on one of the first episodes of your
Speaker 3: TV raps as well Him Rock Him Yes, okay, Charlie
Speaker 3: Chase or read Alert. Wow wow men, I can't do
Speaker 3: neither one of the I love both of them.
Speaker 1: Man.
Speaker 3: Wow, this list is murder. But y'all gonna get drunk.
Speaker 3: That's no I'm cool now.
Speaker 1: I'm just saying yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. They knocked it back.
Speaker 4: Drink champs are serious, you know.
Speaker 1: Debbie Harry or Cydy lap Oh man, you know I
Speaker 1: love Cyndy La. Gotta get my shot ready.
Speaker 3: Debbie Harry is Debbie Harry's family, so you know, love it,
Speaker 3: love love me some. Debbie Harry, b Street of wallstof
Speaker 3: I mean, come on, y'all, wow, the first, the best,
Speaker 3: the original.
Speaker 1: DMC or E P M D. You know I ain't
Speaker 1: touching none of that.
Speaker 3: I directed one of the e PM's early videos. I
Speaker 3: directed Strictly Business, Strictly.
Speaker 1: Business, E P M D. Okay, Nas or L L COJ.
Speaker 3: I directed one of the early when of Nas is
Speaker 3: the early videos which one One Love, Yes, One Love.
Speaker 1: Did you know that?
Speaker 3: No?
Speaker 1: I did know that. That's great man.
Speaker 3: Yeah. I literally filmed in his apartment in Queensbridge. His
Speaker 3: moms were still up in that apartment. Nas was just
Speaker 3: beginning to take off. But I shot the scenes right
Speaker 3: in that apartment.
Speaker 1: So let's tell us about that, all right. So you
Speaker 1: get the call from Faith. No no, no, no, no.
Speaker 3: I know Faith going way back, it would happen often,
Speaker 3: which was a really a blessing. I'm hosting your MTV raps,
Speaker 3: so Nas once again makes his national television debut with
Speaker 3: me on your MTV raps. Of course, the buzz was phenomenal,
Speaker 3: you know. I of course heard like, you know, Live
Speaker 3: at the Barbecue actually had happened already, I think, so
Speaker 3: I'm not sure about that one, but definitely Live at
Speaker 3: the Barbecue. And then this buzz about this incredible phenomenon
Speaker 3: that you know, and listening, I'm like, unbelievable, this is incredible.
Speaker 3: So then boom he comes through to do the show,
Speaker 3: and I really had, you know, I was looking at
Speaker 3: his videos and a couple of things the first ones
Speaker 3: that came out, and I just felt like his personality
Speaker 3: was so held back in a way, and I wanted
Speaker 3: I knew like I wanted to get a chance to
Speaker 3: work with him because I wanted to bring more him out.
Speaker 3: I felt like I saw it because even sometimes in
Speaker 3: talking to him, initially he would talk, he'd be real
Speaker 3: laid back and like but then it right, he'd be like, yo,
Speaker 3: but so and so and boom boom boom.
Speaker 4: I'd be like, Oh, okay, that's sort of thing in there.
Speaker 3: If you know now you talking about when you really
Speaker 3: get him going, he'll come out of it. So I
Speaker 3: knew I wanted to And then when so when we
Speaker 3: did the interview on your MTV raps, he was They
Speaker 3: told me the story, how, Yo, man, I can't believe
Speaker 3: I'm sitting here with you. This is this was no,
Speaker 3: this is actually On the part of the interview, he says, man, like,
Speaker 3: my pop took me to see wild Style like when
Speaker 3: I was ten, and I can't believe I'm sitting here
Speaker 3: talking to you and dah and so then he's asking
Speaker 3: me questions in between. I told him, oh, I directed this,
Speaker 3: I did that, He said, Yo, man, I want to
Speaker 3: work with you.
Speaker 1: And so that's how that started.
Speaker 3: Right there, because he realized other things I made, like
Speaker 3: I did just to get a just to get a
Speaker 3: rep of course, but I also did yeah, just getting
Speaker 3: as bad and rode to the riches for g wrap
Speaker 3: those is real now of storytelling. That that's you know,
Speaker 3: I knew I could could handle that, and so yeah.
Speaker 5: Well it's full circle being that he used whilst all
Speaker 5: in the project too.
Speaker 4: It was just connection was incredible.
Speaker 3: Plus being at his father was a jazz musician, I
Speaker 3: could sense that sensibility in his whole attitude and flow.
Speaker 3: And then as you learn more later, that was shooting
Speaker 3: fact as Pops used to live.
Speaker 1: Near me in Harlem. Olu Dara is his dad who's
Speaker 1: a really.
Speaker 3: Renowned you know, horn sax player, and his dad introduced
Speaker 3: him to a whole lot of you know, conscious stuff,
Speaker 3: and you know, it just it was just perfectly. It
Speaker 3: worked out perfectly. He made a young prodigy. And so
Speaker 3: that song One Love was like a script. I mean,
Speaker 3: it's perfect the construct of that song.
Speaker 1: You suggested you film that or they called you.
Speaker 3: Well, when I met Nasa and I told them things
Speaker 3: I made, and he said, oh you know you made
Speaker 3: just to get a rep.
Speaker 1: You did. Wow, you know I want to work with you.
Speaker 3: My philosophy every because the videos the only MTV at
Speaker 3: a point started putting the director's name up mostly you
Speaker 3: didn't know and then you know you, people didn't know
Speaker 3: who directed was, but the MTV started doing that, so
Speaker 3: it was really a good look. People got to know Williams,
Speaker 3: you know fab or this one Lionel Martin. Different people
Speaker 3: were directed and it was people begin to pay attention.
Speaker 4: But with NASA's thing, it was perfect.
Speaker 1: I was like, oh man, I got this.
Speaker 3: And the hard thing was the casting and something that
Speaker 3: I'm really flattered about with the one Love video is
Speaker 3: hyped to the scene in Belly, which was very kid,
Speaker 3: the young kids sitting down in a bench and so yeah,
Speaker 3: and they recreated a scene very similar with Na sitting
Speaker 3: on the bench talking to this young want to be
Speaker 3: thug type cat.
Speaker 4: The problem I.
Speaker 3: Would often have with music videos, the budgets wasn't enough
Speaker 3: for me to really hire actors, so oftentimes I would
Speaker 3: have to run out and try to find somebody that
Speaker 3: can be the character that I needed. So I know,
Speaker 3: I need this young kid for this scene that I
Speaker 3: have in my mind, I'm riding around. I don't know
Speaker 3: where I'm going to find this kid. But we was
Speaker 3: in Harlem one day and I saw this kid, this
Speaker 3: is before cell phones, was really mad.
Speaker 1: Comment.
Speaker 3: These two young kids on the corner with a with
Speaker 3: a with a house phone, a Courtland's house phone, fronting
Speaker 3: like like brick on the brick phone. Yeah, not as
Speaker 3: big as a brick, but the same idea. I got
Speaker 3: a cell phone and it was fronting like and they
Speaker 3: really was swagged out. They was like thirteen ish and
Speaker 3: so I drove by and I seen these two kids
Speaker 3: on the corner. I said, yo, I told my man,
Speaker 3: I said, yo, spin back around, let me run over
Speaker 3: and hollered this young shorty right here. So I rolled
Speaker 3: up on him, you know, and just like I'm back.
Speaker 3: He was trying to be thugged out, but I'm like.
Speaker 1: Hey, how you doing, shorty? We on what your name?
Speaker 1: What you doing?
Speaker 3: So we had a little conversation with him, and as
Speaker 3: I'm talking to him, I said, yo, I think this
Speaker 3: kid can do that because he was trying to be
Speaker 3: like a lot older. He had a real hard rock
Speaker 3: swagger and boom. I got his mom's number and I
Speaker 3: reached out and booming and that made it happen.
Speaker 4: So that's the kid that's on the plays that whole Yeah.
Speaker 1: You know, dad, that's all. I can't remember the lyric,
Speaker 1: but he's like.
Speaker 3: I would go when I come back home, nobody's out
Speaker 3: for short. He do roll in two phillies together and
Speaker 3: the bridgerie called him hu and you know, the whole
Speaker 3: thing and ship, and the kid played the ship off lovely.
Speaker 3: You know, I wear a bulletproof or pack of you know.
Speaker 3: He was that he had that whole ship that I
Speaker 3: need care. Caught him on the corner bee and got
Speaker 3: him to play that cat.
Speaker 1: I talked to him from Queensbridge. But so in the
Speaker 1: scenes when NaNs, you know, I do the whole shooting
Speaker 1: scene and whatever those was real.
Speaker 3: Those was the real Queensbridge cats, Like people was really
Speaker 3: playing themselves. Then I do the jail scene, you know,
Speaker 3: and I bust a bunch of them cats out to this.
Speaker 4: We found a local like.
Speaker 3: A local jail that looked like an old style prison,
Speaker 3: had tears and ship, and that's where we did the
Speaker 3: jail scene where his man that's writing him is in jail,
Speaker 3: you know.
Speaker 1: So that was fun to do.
Speaker 4: That video because it was the song was perfect.
Speaker 1: I just had to put the right. Don't one kind
Speaker 1: of like made a song like that prior to that? Right? No,
Speaker 1: I don't think. I don't think.
Speaker 4: I think everyone not with that level.
Speaker 3: I mean I would like to think so people like
Speaker 3: I think people tried to be like cinematic and tell
Speaker 3: a story.
Speaker 1: But that was my thing. I knew I could handle it.
Speaker 1: But not only was to telling the story he was
Speaker 1: he was telling a story for right now, for a
Speaker 1: person that's in jail.
Speaker 3: Oh you mean in terms of the the way that
Speaker 3: he wrote, man, No, listen, it's beyond yeah.
Speaker 1: It was yeah, man.
Speaker 3: So let me tell you another thing we did. There
Speaker 3: was a cat in the directing game that came up
Speaker 3: under me, brother from Brooklyn, name named Black. Name is
Speaker 3: Brian LeVar. That was my man, and he got on
Speaker 3: you know, he was the PA on some videos, but
Speaker 3: I saw he had flavor. He was a real deal
Speaker 3: cat out of Bushwick, Brooklyn. So he worked his way
Speaker 3: up to where I knew it was time for him
Speaker 3: to get a shot directed. So I'm setting up and
Speaker 3: developing everything to shoot the video for One Love Ye.
Speaker 1: Bring Back. This is Philly Blunt beautifully Road. It was Boris.
Speaker 1: Oh he eat is chicken and fries. That's it. That's so,
Speaker 1: and he's a vegan.
Speaker 3: So basically else I'm preparing. I'm preparing to do the
Speaker 3: one Love video and Nas calls me and says, Yo,
Speaker 3: I want you to do this other video I want
Speaker 3: to drop. It's a remix to the World Is Yours.
Speaker 3: He wants me to do that too.
Speaker 1: But you know, I'm like, man, this is a lot so.
Speaker 3: But my man, who was like my right hand on
Speaker 3: doing videos, he was assistant director, like he learned the
Speaker 3: entire game and wanted to direct. So I basically got
Speaker 3: him to direct the remix to the World Is Yours.
Speaker 4: And what we came up with. What I told my
Speaker 4: man we should do is I said, listen, because the box.
Speaker 3: Was really popular, and like, you need to note it
Speaker 3: now exactly. You call it up and you could pick
Speaker 3: the number you did late at night, the video would.
Speaker 1: Come right on.
Speaker 3: So I said, listen, come up with a story in
Speaker 3: the video with it is a kid that a character.
Speaker 4: We'll both cast him together.
Speaker 3: I'll make sure he's right, and then at the end
Speaker 3: of whatever you come up with, this kid is going
Speaker 3: to run away to get away from like Popo or
Speaker 3: something like some setup he had with the popo was
Speaker 3: raising like a gate.
Speaker 4: And dude got away and he ran.
Speaker 3: And that cat who ran we worked it all out
Speaker 3: with the same outfit and everything is the kid that
Speaker 3: you see in the beginning of the One Love video
Speaker 3: running and this is a kid that plays that whole
Speaker 3: character in jail whatever that Nasa is writing the letters
Speaker 3: to and you see the kid run. The video opens
Speaker 3: with him running and the police jump out and they
Speaker 3: lock him down. The Nasa is in the project window
Speaker 3: and he's like damn. And that's so we the whole
Speaker 3: idea of doing that. We saw that on the box
Speaker 3: you could play both videos and the video would go
Speaker 3: from the world is your depending. Dude would be running
Speaker 3: when the same outfit, and then when One Love comes on,
Speaker 3: that's the same cat he running and then Booma gets him.
Speaker 1: He says, Yo, what up kid? No sh rush When
Speaker 1: the cops came to my crib time looking back and.
Speaker 3: Done, Puss, congratulations, you know you got a son by
Speaker 3: that point. By that point, you seeing him in jail
Speaker 3: now readognized his letters.
Speaker 1: I think that is genius.
Speaker 4: That was a moment I was so proud of.
Speaker 3: And my man got to direct, and now he was
Speaker 3: in the game because now he'd have made his first video.
Speaker 4: He went on to do a lot of He did
Speaker 4: a lot of ship.
Speaker 3: In fact, he did a video for Big Al you know,
Speaker 3: and he got his he got his ship on them.
Speaker 3: He's still in the film game. My man, my man, black,
Speaker 3: what up?
Speaker 6: Black?
Speaker 1: Yeah?
Speaker 4: Yeah, man, So that's a fun story.
Speaker 1: Yeah, yes, yes, yes, speak time. Oh yeah, please all right?
Speaker 1: Scene or Zephyr, Oh man, you're gonna have to drink
Speaker 1: on that. Hold up both for the cast.
Speaker 3: I mean, Zephy is one of the stars of Wild Style.
Speaker 3: The scene is incredible. Man, my man, seeing from the
Speaker 3: v X.
Speaker 1: Yes, eighties or nineties hip hop?
Speaker 4: Wow, wow, damn n, y'all gotta drink.
Speaker 1: I love them both eighties and nineties. How y'all.
Speaker 4: I'm so cruel with these company.
Speaker 3: I can't.
Speaker 1: It's hard to shoot on nothing. Cocaine section over there,
Speaker 1: you shot on anything over here? Drink look for this one.
Speaker 1: No I did that. You get to put it? Look.
Speaker 1: Look I'm waiting for come on all right, basket or
Speaker 1: Warhol Oh man, these.
Speaker 4: Every time there's people that I really love, like.
Speaker 5: Bro, he said, Haiti night.
Speaker 1: I love both of them, man, you say both ball
Speaker 1: man and yes.
Speaker 3: Yes recipes, Yes, the recipes of both.
Speaker 1: Of them, man, both of my homies right there, all right?
Speaker 5: The Ramones or Agnostic Front, Oh wow, definitely the Ramones.
Speaker 1: I know Queen's right cool, the Ramones. I think they
Speaker 1: was just right. Really, yes, they from Queens. You don't
Speaker 1: watch the Entourage. I mean it's been a long time.
Speaker 1: They showed the Ramote being from Queen.
Speaker 3: I think they definitely was from Queens. Yeah, they was
Speaker 3: definitely New York casts. Interesting rock and roll high school.
Speaker 1: Talking about that. So Queens was b X. Wow, don't
Speaker 1: say both man, Wow, to go back to you, I mean,
Speaker 1: I'm from Brooklyn, so you should be Queens.
Speaker 4: Yeah, neither.
Speaker 3: I can't.
Speaker 1: Yeah, I can't ship on.
Speaker 3: Queens qualified queens.
Speaker 4: In the boogie down Bronx.
Speaker 5: You know.
Speaker 1: Grandma's a flash or cor work.
Speaker 3: Y'all gotta drink, man.
Speaker 1: Jesus Chris, one of them be.
Speaker 4: We're not gonna be able to be here with you,
Speaker 4: right found man, y'all gotta come with some crazy ship.
Speaker 4: You should have some some people that were certifying.
Speaker 1: Kill us over there? All right? Oh, we gotta drink.
Speaker 1: Guys are the Dominican and uh oh my god, cypricill
Speaker 1: or House of Pain. Oh man, neither man. I love
Speaker 1: both of them guys too. Man, So you say both
Speaker 1: of both ship? Yeah, yeah, same crew.
Speaker 3: That's what I'm saying basically, I mean, come on, I
Speaker 3: gott drink both of them debuted your TV baps.
Speaker 1: Relaxed Sonny mann't even oh drink yo, This drink Champs
Speaker 1: is real. I see that.
Speaker 3: Yeah, they're playing over here when we take the pictures
Speaker 3: like we can at Bernie's.
Speaker 4: Okay, what an experience you guys.
Speaker 1: N y C Breakers of rock Steady Crew.
Speaker 3: Oh man, definitely rock Steady Crew. Okay, I was afraid
Speaker 3: say both of them. I mean respect to New York
Speaker 3: City Breakers, but rock Steady Crew for sure. Baby, come on,
Speaker 3: we made history together here.
Speaker 1: It's your favorite. It's done wild style baby.
Speaker 5: Wu tang Oh wait wait hold up? So NYC Breakers
Speaker 5: were not at all washed all? I don't know, No,
Speaker 5: just just Rocksteady, rock Steady Okay.
Speaker 3: Yeah, Wu Tang or n w A, oh man, I
Speaker 3: can't mess with that, y'all.
Speaker 1: Come up with these on such another man's shop, bro
Speaker 1: Colombian and Dominican section of Idea. They come up with
Speaker 1: the questions what y'all is? Yo?
Speaker 4: That's why point y'all out? Oh my good.
Speaker 1: Man, how you how did you do this? We did?
Speaker 1: We did? They on that day?
Speaker 3: A Rahap City or video music box, Video music box
Speaker 3: come one percent?
Speaker 1: All right, here we go. Last one loyalty or respect?
Speaker 3: Wow, I mean both are essential ship both for mandatory,
Speaker 3: so just so we got to do both.
Speaker 1: I like it, but I want to get on it
Speaker 1: because grow Oh cool? What the fuck?
Speaker 3: Man?
Speaker 1: You don't even both for mandatory. Yeah he's been around.
Speaker 3: Yeah, No, I've definitely been around.
Speaker 1: And those are those are.
Speaker 4: That's foundational right there?
Speaker 1: You need both?
Speaker 4: Lord, man, you know what's incredible?
Speaker 3: DJ Premier it was this twenty nineteen, right before the pandemic.
Speaker 3: So my film drops on for twenty and twenty nineteen,
Speaker 3: Grass is Greener my documentary on Netflix.
Speaker 1: Over too many people viewed my joint. It was crazy.
Speaker 3: I'm sure a lot more said that was numbers I
Speaker 3: got back. Then DJ Premier called me up because so
Speaker 3: I did. I did two videos, well, I did just
Speaker 3: to get a rap and then I did another video
Speaker 3: for Guru and a French rapper. That was a real pivotal,
Speaker 3: pioneering French rapper that opened up the scene named EMC Solar,
Speaker 3: not the other empty Soular.
Speaker 4: That was the one that was involved with Guru to
Speaker 4: us and that was.
Speaker 3: Another I'm talking about the original one in my book
Speaker 3: in Guru's album though, So hit me out the story
Speaker 3: I'm getting too. That's the story I'm telling you. This
Speaker 3: is French Guru, I'm sorry, French EMC solo and the
Speaker 3: song is called lobiena Lamar. It was on that Jazmine
Speaker 3: Tag record. I direct that video and so yeah, the
Speaker 3: shot I shot it in Paris. It was the idea
Speaker 3: of the video, which was a you know, being in
Speaker 3: past I used to. I fell asleep on the Paris
Speaker 3: metro once and woke up and I was like, man,
Speaker 3: wouldn't this be amazing? Like I like if you was
Speaker 3: on the train in New York and you woke up
Speaker 3: and he was in Paris or vice versa, because the
Speaker 3: subways are so.
Speaker 1: Similar, Like, but you're gonna wake up neckad in New York,
Speaker 1: New York, You're gonna wake.
Speaker 4: Up neck know you want to try it? You know
Speaker 4: how you just doze off.
Speaker 1: Those off are different from one of us.
Speaker 3: Know, you're right, you know you're doing to change, Yeah,
Speaker 3: and you just it's amazing how you can go to
Speaker 3: sleep on the train pack with people, but if you
Speaker 3: ride the subway in New York, that's something you can do.
Speaker 3: And I had this would have this like a vision
Speaker 3: of this happening.
Speaker 1: So the way that.
Speaker 3: Video opens that video for that song, Guru gets a
Speaker 3: call from MC Solar. He runs down the New York
Speaker 3: City subway, he comes out of the Paris Metro and
Speaker 3: they run.
Speaker 1: We run all over Paris filming them do this song together.
Speaker 8: Uh.
Speaker 1: So I was like, you know, a really really uh
Speaker 1: But anyway, so.
Speaker 3: I did two videos that and the just to get
Speaker 3: a wrap and so Primo calls me and he says, listen, man,
Speaker 3: there was a legal fight with this other Solar person
Speaker 3: and we got back the rights or all the other
Speaker 3: materials that Google when he passed. This dude had hold
Speaker 3: held on to everything and Primo and his family, so
Speaker 3: you know, you know, you know the half on that.
Speaker 3: So Primo is like, listen, man, I got this one
Speaker 3: track and I created a new bee for it. It's
Speaker 3: called Family and Loyalty this track.
Speaker 1: And uh, the most recent.
Speaker 3: This is the most recent, you know. I yeah, it's
Speaker 3: a real good. So the idea was in the hook
Speaker 3: of the song Diamonds. It is a reference to like
Speaker 3: diamonds in forever, like you know, yes, diamonds are forever,
Speaker 3: like like he's just like lawyer, see thank you.
Speaker 1: Thank you, thank you.
Speaker 3: So it's this whole thing about diamonds, and I'm like, man,
Speaker 3: how do I deal with this without being like a
Speaker 3: gratuitous bling bling kind of thing? But how do I
Speaker 3: address these diamonds? So I came up with this concept
Speaker 3: which the video opens with the reading of Guru's will,
Speaker 3: and in his will, this lawyer states and Guru's will
Speaker 3: these raw diamonds were given to him by an African prince,
Speaker 3: and Guru's son, Primo was like, his son has to
Speaker 3: be in it.
Speaker 1: Sons like a young man now twenty two, twenty whatever.
Speaker 3: And basically the concept of the video is when his
Speaker 3: son gets these diamonds, I shoot him going around Harlem
Speaker 3: cast selling t search on the street, go to this
Speaker 3: juice barn one forty fifth and they bless the people
Speaker 3: with these raw diamonds, like on some gratitude shit. So
Speaker 3: it's a whole nother way of dealing with the stones
Speaker 3: and stuff. Anyway, it was a fun video.
Speaker 1: Ja Cole is also on that. Thanks for remembering, Yes,
Speaker 1: Jacle that's from the newer game, the newer Gang Star Joint.
Speaker 3: Yeah yeah, Jacole, we go down to North Carolina and
Speaker 3: I shoot Jacole. Anyway, it was just such a special
Speaker 3: vibe that guru and artist that I work with, and
Speaker 3: here's a song, you know, like a new song.
Speaker 4: So it was a real privilege to.
Speaker 3: Do that video, which felt like videos back in the nineties,
Speaker 3: like I did it real rough running gun.
Speaker 1: You know, and uh yeah, anyway, thank you, thank you man.
Speaker 3: I can't thank you enough man, because it's been so
Speaker 3: much fun waiting no no, no, not your turn.
Speaker 1: This is your house, thank you your place. You know
Speaker 1: the fact that black media is to control of black
Speaker 1: media or hip hop, it's take control of hip hop
Speaker 1: media and me and I think could like sit back
Speaker 1: and say that, you know, we kind of like I
Speaker 1: was trying to do that, but when we spoke about that,
Speaker 1: it's always been about what you've done for us, and
Speaker 1: that's meaning like put hip hop first. Yes, you know,
Speaker 1: in my running club, we have something called run first, right,
Speaker 1: run first, run first, my running club, right right, But
Speaker 1: in life it's always been hip hop first. Hip Hop
Speaker 1: has always been the catalyst to get us to the
Speaker 1: next place. Thank you so much, thank you. I just
Speaker 1: want to thank you because hip hop it's really brung
Speaker 1: us to the fucking forefront of everything in life, beyond
Speaker 1: my expectations. Really.
Speaker 3: Yeah, it's a thrill and a blessing that you know,
Speaker 3: just seriously to be kicking it like all, kept it,
Speaker 3: keep it real, basic and organic, and I'm still my
Speaker 3: mind is blown that just continues in such an incredible way,
Speaker 3: especially not just I mean, everything has gone on here,
Speaker 3: I see how real it is. But once again, like
Speaker 3: I said earlier, you see how it's touched people.
Speaker 1: Around the world. You know, it's like the world it
Speaker 1: really is, man.
Speaker 3: And that's one of the sad things in a sense,
Speaker 3: because we're in a culture now that technologically has completely
Speaker 3: changed and things happen at hyper speed literally from the
Speaker 3: technology that's coming into play, every other weakest in the
Speaker 3: AI advancement and this is happening and more and more
Speaker 3: people getting to do these things. But at the same time,
Speaker 3: it's like I think one of the reasons hip hop
Speaker 3: was able to develop so incredibly is because the aspirations
Speaker 3: were so real and so humble, like I'm just trying
Speaker 3: to be somebody. I'm trying to be nice on my block.
Speaker 3: It wasn't completely motivated by how much money you wanted
Speaker 3: to have and just an exaggeration and riches. Just really
Speaker 3: trying to be somebody, really trying to stand up and say, yo, baby,
Speaker 3: check me out, like I'm really here and I'm gonna
Speaker 3: break it down to in the.
Speaker 1: Fly is way possible. Props was a currency completely and so.
Speaker 3: All of that, I think the roots went down really deep,
Speaker 3: and that's I think significant to where it has.
Speaker 4: Blossomed so much fruit.
Speaker 3: That's so continuous, and this thing when it seems kind
Speaker 3: of flat, it'll switch up on you in real unexpected way, which.
Speaker 1: Is that's optimistic, man, I hope that to be true.
Speaker 4: Well, it's been consistent for me.
Speaker 3: There's been many times, and you know, I've been involved
Speaker 3: for quite a while when it seems like it's kind
Speaker 3: of flat, it's kind of corny, it's kind of whatever,
Speaker 3: and then there's a whole new energy. That's why I
Speaker 3: don't just difference was like a lot of times old
Speaker 3: it heads just you know, try to say people mumbling
Speaker 3: or just skinny jeans. And you know, I get that
Speaker 3: because people lock into the error when when they emerge
Speaker 3: what they hear. But you got to remain open minded,
Speaker 3: which is what I forced myself to do. Like I'm
Speaker 3: not going crazy over every little thing that gets made,
Speaker 3: but I'm examining and listening. I want to understand, like,
Speaker 3: you know, what's motivating some of the things that go on.
Speaker 3: You know, I've always been curious about that.
Speaker 5: Yeah, my only concern with it is the is confusing
Speaker 5: what the overcorporatization of it versus what the real art is. Like,
Speaker 5: don't let the corporate push convince you that this is
Speaker 5: what it is. When ye let your heart tell you
Speaker 5: what the heart is. You know what I'm saying, that's
Speaker 5: that's I don't know if that makes sense.
Speaker 4: No, it makes a lot of sense.
Speaker 3: But along that line, the way the dissemination of music
Speaker 3: now is so completely different with DSPs. I mean, anybody
Speaker 3: can post something on YouTube right now. I mean, it's
Speaker 3: kind of amazing. You you know, it doesn't make sure
Speaker 3: you guarantee you you know what I mean. So the
Speaker 3: democratization is there, but it's also like, you know, you
Speaker 3: know it's it's a it's a it's a whole new
Speaker 3: landscape of stuff that's more open like those companies that
Speaker 3: had control.
Speaker 1: That's no more. I want, I want to take a
Speaker 1: quick advantage of homing of ours. Scam come over here
Speaker 1: really quick, just really quick to show your face. So
Speaker 1: because of the art aspect that you bring to everything
Speaker 1: you brought to hip hop. He's the guy that created
Speaker 1: our logo. This is scam off, you know, scam. Yes,
Speaker 1: but he did the album cover for beach Rhyme and
Speaker 1: Life for Trype called Quest, the Eminem artwork, amongst a
Speaker 1: lot more. I always use those two beach rybes in
Speaker 1: light which one is that? That's the man as well
Speaker 1: tracks with Eminem and many a damn wow.
Speaker 3: Tips a good buddy of mine. Man and him connect
Speaker 3: all that's amazing. Congratulations, that's one of your images.
Speaker 1: I just want to shut out because he's he has
Speaker 1: that's that's yours. What's what's what's on the show to now? Okay,
Speaker 1: yeah he's and he's from here from Miami Herald City.
Speaker 4: Yeah yeah yeah, Mario bro Yes, yes, man, that's well.
Speaker 1: I love the logo, man, this is that's really fun.
Speaker 1: It helped us. We have an iconic logo and this
Speaker 1: is definitely wow. Congratulations.
Speaker 3: Yes, yeah, this is a great logo, great great, great branding.
Speaker 1: Yeah you know, yes for pleasure man. Yeah, so this
Speaker 1: has been iconic. Man, man, thank you man.
Speaker 4: I was so I'm the one that this is so great.
Speaker 4: You guys got such great energy one time.
Speaker 1: This is your house. Thank you so much. I will
Speaker 1: be back. I appreciate it so much.
Speaker 3: I used to feel so bad. I know, people on
Speaker 3: your team hit me up a few times and I
Speaker 3: just liked. You know, the last few times I was
Speaker 3: in this neckative Woods Miami was to go on the
Speaker 3: reggae cruise like the people that promote that and put
Speaker 3: that together. Yeah, the Marley's and what I want to
Speaker 3: Oh no, man, this is be in the hogh Seas
Speaker 3: with all that great reggae.
Speaker 4: It's that's a big reggae he you know.
Speaker 3: I directed all the most of the mostly all the
Speaker 3: shava ranks this video.
Speaker 1: The fuck out.
Speaker 3: Yes I did shiploaded and I was deep into that
Speaker 3: scene trailer loaded girls, mister loving man, slow and sex scene. Yes, yes, yes,
Speaker 3: I did all most of the shoppers about by at
Speaker 3: least five videos for Shaba at the same time.
Speaker 1: I was out there. I'm sure he was great.
Speaker 3: Great over here, man, I was deeply immersed in that
Speaker 3: dance sall scene because we would cover it on your
Speaker 3: TV raps. But coming up in Brooklyn, I was around like,
Speaker 3: you know, from back when the Posse's was popping and
Speaker 3: I'm hearing, you know, the earliest dancehall people.
Speaker 4: I was tuned in.
Speaker 3: So when I got to work with Shaba, I was
Speaker 3: able to go to Jamaica for the first time and
Speaker 3: meet some of the Illis cats, you know, and really
Speaker 3: get immersed in the ghetto culture. You know, Willie, I
Speaker 3: God and Bogo like I was moving with them cats
Speaker 3: in jungle and because once again I'm coming down there,
Speaker 3: I'm a super cat. He was coming off the stage
Speaker 3: performing that sting. He introduced me to Willi. I got
Speaker 3: him and Bogo that's a Roses crew. And so we
Speaker 3: became tight because the next time I would come back
Speaker 3: to Jamaica, Kingston go to House Alio.
Speaker 1: I see Willie, he said, Man, people.
Speaker 3: Calling me from everywhere if I'm London to see me
Speaker 3: with you, I'm like, whoa. So we got tight and
Speaker 3: I'd hang with those cats quite que quite seriously, that
Speaker 3: was a fun experience. Man.
Speaker 1: The book comes out, What's yes.
Speaker 3: March tenth, everybody's fly and bookstores.
Speaker 1: So do we take a shot for the book? Just
Speaker 1: one shot? I was, but we gotta let you choose
Speaker 1: what we got here. What's that is? Mamajuana Dominican? What
Speaker 1: is that? That's some hip made in a bathtobe. You
Speaker 1: can do a religious ceremony, or you can enjoy your drink.
Speaker 1: I want baby, go with this. You're gonna go fireball.
Speaker 1: I wouldn't suggest that you want that. I talk about it.
Speaker 1: You want to.
Speaker 4: I'm gonna just take a little bit. I'm thank you
Speaker 4: so much. I just want to taste it.
Speaker 1: What is that? Okay? All right? All right, all right,
Speaker 1: so you you got to body? I got I got
Speaker 1: a Runners drink.
Speaker 4: I'm taking this, don't you?
Speaker 1: Yeah? You do me under the bus.
Speaker 4: I just thought the story behind it was so dope.
Speaker 4: I mean, I want to take something that.
Speaker 1: Runners is just with but hold on, holdt me, just
Speaker 1: take me and I'm a partner right here. Yes, we
Speaker 1: love hip hop, man, absolutely. I might love the more
Speaker 1: fashionable part of hip hop. He might love the grittiest
Speaker 1: part of hip hop, but me and him have the
Speaker 1: same exact passion. And when we know that we have
Speaker 1: fucking Freddy, we were so excited. We both like, I
Speaker 1: love the fact that no matter where we at in life,
Speaker 1: we always come together and say, this is what we
Speaker 1: want to do. Wow. And when we have a person
Speaker 1: like you, we want to salute you, we want to
Speaker 1: respect you, and we want to let the people know
Speaker 1: how much you should be honored. And we are going
Speaker 1: to honor you. And we are honoring you. Everybody here,
Speaker 1: We sincerely, this is this is real ship, bro. Like
Speaker 1: I came home you know to watch your own TV raps. Wow,
Speaker 1: and that ship that shit changed the culture, changed lives, man,
Speaker 1: And I will never ever in my life not respect that.
Speaker 1: So you don't have to take a shot if they
Speaker 1: don't want to.
Speaker 4: I'm tasting.
Speaker 1: That's what I do.
Speaker 3: I'm gonna taste some cinnamon whiskey. The brand is fire.
Speaker 3: But take the mother the fact that people.
Speaker 1: How you the guy stop taping, Yo, just taste good.
Speaker 4: It's like I told you, like like mouthwash.
Speaker 1: They call them drinks li coure that you mix with
Speaker 1: it tastes good. They give you the means yea more
Speaker 1: time on your yeah. Let me tell you something, man,
Speaker 1: thank you so much, thank you for what you did,
Speaker 1: because I want you to on a Sunday, on a Sunday,
Speaker 1: on a Sunday, I want you to open up it's
Speaker 1: called black Internet is open it up and it's gonna
Speaker 1: be fifteen million podcasts if you could look at it.
Speaker 1: And I want you to say to the y'all, owe
Speaker 1: me flowers. Because the first black media that made it
Speaker 1: cool national worldwide. You said Germany, you mentioned Italy. Yeah,
Speaker 1: God bless me. That's that's the reason why I said
Speaker 1: that story earlier with Rolf McDaniels, with Rob m daniels,
Speaker 1: we were so cocky, we were so but it was
Speaker 1: really only just New York. You had the chance to
Speaker 1: do MTV and broadcasting. You made black people all over
Speaker 1: the world world be seen. And I will always salute
Speaker 1: you for that. Man, hip hop in general, hip hop,
Speaker 1: thank you man. You just you just fab five for
Speaker 1: on the planetop. But I want to tell you face
Speaker 1: to face, man, man, we love you and God bless you,
Speaker 1: Thank you man.
Speaker 3: You guys man, this is definitely one of my top
Speaker 3: hip hop media experiences. Yes, because you guys are so
Speaker 3: passionate I've watched salute on ten years in the game,
Speaker 3: like you can feel it.
Speaker 1: It's and even.
Speaker 3: Everybody in the room that's down, I've heard people clapping.
Speaker 3: I get to see everybody up in the building.
Speaker 1: This is really special.
Speaker 3: You guys are doing it so salute to doing something
Speaker 3: so real and definitely carrying on like literally the baton
Speaker 3: in terms of realness.
Speaker 1: This is it.
Speaker 4: I mean, you don't fake this ship. That's why people
Speaker 4: try you guys.
Speaker 1: Yes, yes, uh h you on like white people's shows.
Speaker 1: And I said, this is squad because it's like, all right, cool,
Speaker 1: I've seen what what like MV like my man, I mean,
Speaker 1: man like certain like when I was watching your interviews
Speaker 1: that I watched black and I watched and I was,
Speaker 1: you know, I'm trying to you know, trying to be official,
Speaker 1: you know what I'm saying. But when I see you
Speaker 1: and I'm like, yo, you know how to do that?
Speaker 1: But think about this is your gift, my brother, in
Speaker 1: just in case you don't know, you know how to
Speaker 1: move in difference audiences. You know how to move a
Speaker 1: different our gifts. Man, that's a real gift, bro, Like,
Speaker 1: don't don't downplay that, like, don't ever like ignow is that,
Speaker 1: Like I was watching you because I want to do
Speaker 1: my job, but I'm like, I'm looking at it. I'm like,
Speaker 1: that's not something that you have to teach that to yourself, right,
Speaker 1: That comes from Yeah, my bad, that's a false sense
Speaker 1: of of of learning. Right. So it's like I adapt
Speaker 1: to every room that I'm in, right, no matter what.
Speaker 1: Woman that I'm in.
Speaker 8: Prison allowed us the time to like read things, study things,
Speaker 8: and sting like that. So it's like, if I'm in
Speaker 8: a peaceful room, I'm peaceful. If I'm in a room
Speaker 8: on some bullshit, then I'm with that too. If I'm
Speaker 8: on a room, that's that's If I'm in a room
Speaker 8: that's about progression, then that's what we're talking about.
Speaker 1: That's what we're on.
Speaker 8: Adaptation, adaptation, right, being able to adapt, that's the way
Speaker 8: you stay here.
Speaker 1: We ain't always gonna be hot nigga, be like, oh
Speaker 1: you watch stuff. You old nigga.
Speaker 8: You ain't who you used to be. But that don't
Speaker 8: define you. You still gotta you still got to be
Speaker 8: able to turn those corners. So being able to adapt
Speaker 8: to the times, to be able to adapt to climate,
Speaker 8: to be able to adapt.
Speaker 4: To the wounds that we're in. No nigga, that's me.
Speaker 1: But I mean that's not normal. Like you, you're a
Speaker 1: genius man, like trust me. Like I I was, I
Speaker 1: was taking a jog this morning. Well my boy Henry,
Speaker 1: and I was watching all your interviews, watching it all,
Speaker 1: and I was like, Yo, this dude is mad smart
Speaker 1: like and it made me mad that six years ago
Speaker 1: people well that's all they were saying, Oh, you're a
Speaker 1: street dude, your doug dude. And I'm looking at your
Speaker 1: progress to where you're at. I'm like, yo, man, you
Speaker 1: you're a smart dude. Bro.
Speaker 8: Me being a street nigga is smart is a footnote
Speaker 8: in my life. Bro, that's a little that's a small
Speaker 8: part of my life. I look, you know what I'm saying.
Speaker 1: Look that ain't.
Speaker 8: That ain't gonna be ever be something that I denied.
Speaker 8: That ain't ever gonna be something that I'm ashamed of.
Speaker 8: That where I come from, what I come from, what
Speaker 8: I've been through the issues that I had. Yeah, but
Speaker 8: that also helped define you, right, because what you've been
Speaker 8: through helped shopping you in a certain way to make
Speaker 8: you who you are.
Speaker 4: Right, whatever it's meant to be will be.
Speaker 1: So it's like, yeah, I've been through prisons, I've been
Speaker 1: through wars, I've been through I've been through extreme violent situations. Right,
Speaker 1: l L told me this.
Speaker 8: L L told me say, Yo, don't let your past
Speaker 8: failures handcuffed. M hmm, I said what you mean? He said,
Speaker 8: Then you might drop a white album. It won't sell,
Speaker 8: But the fuck that keep going? Nigga act like act
Speaker 8: like you did. Nigga, act like you just went platinum.
Speaker 8: Don't let your past failures and that and that that
Speaker 8: that's attributed to every angle of life.
Speaker 1: If you didn't been in prison, you've been in the street.
Speaker 8: Like just because you started one way, that doesn't determine
Speaker 8: how you finish. So what we've been involved in this,
Speaker 8: that don't mean that we can't put our suits on
Speaker 8: and sit in these rooms and talk to these.
Speaker 1: People about life and build on some progress. They don't
Speaker 1: mean that.
Speaker 4: It don't mean that at all, my nigga.
Speaker 1: You know, Man, I can't thank you enough.
Speaker 4: Man, I thank you.
Speaker 1: Man. I wanted to give your flowers.
Speaker 8: Man, thank you for thank you for giving me my
Speaker 8: motherfucking flowers. I never had too many flowers.
Speaker 1: And fog.
Speaker 8: I want to put you on somethingcause I'm here. I'm
Speaker 8: down here for the weekend because a friend of mine
Speaker 8: is just open up a restaurant in Miami and.
Speaker 3: It is.
Speaker 1: Probably gonna be the the top restaurant in the city.
Speaker 1: Talk about it.
Speaker 8: It's called Nouveau. Shout out to my people, Ebony Caro,
Speaker 8: shout out the wrong. Shout out to Yandy because she's
Speaker 8: involved with that. It was yes, big grand opening last night.
Speaker 8: And this is why I'm down here. We out here
Speaker 8: celebrating that. You seeing what I'm saying is it's in
Speaker 8: one what Okay? So it's right here, right here there,
Speaker 8: right here. It's new Veau.
Speaker 4: What I'm telling you.
Speaker 1: The food is good? You like y'all?
Speaker 4: Come on, I've been right now.
Speaker 1: Yeah, we can do that, absolutely, absolutely, you can do that.
Speaker 1: All right, he can do that? Hey you do that? Yes,
Speaker 1: take the picture.
Speaker 5: Drink Champs is a Drink Champs ll C production hosts
Speaker 5: and executive producers n O.
Speaker 4: R E and d J. E.
Speaker 1: F N.
Speaker 5: Listen to Drink Champs on Apple Podcast, Amazon Music, Spotify,
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Speaker 5: for another episode of Drink Champs, hosted by Yours Truly
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