Speaker 1: Question. Love Supreme is a production of iHeartRadio. All right,
Speaker 1: So Ange, you don't know this, but you're actually part
Speaker 1: of our theme.
Speaker 2: I am.
Speaker 1: Let's go. What is it?
Speaker 3: Suprema Supremo role, Suprema Supremo role, Suprema shut, Suprema.
Speaker 1: Roll, Suprema. You're gonna get a verse supremo, he says.
Speaker 1: She says, yeah, she's a genius. Yeah, better than three
Speaker 1: heads all rise with Martinez Supremo Supremo role. Came Suprema
Speaker 1: son So Supremo role.
Speaker 4: My name is Fante and I'm doing it right there
Speaker 4: with Angie.
Speaker 5: Ma.
Speaker 1: Yeah, it's ladies night.
Speaker 3: Supremo son soun Supremo role called Suprema sun Supremo Roll.
Speaker 6: I'm Sugar Steve. Ye'all spit a verse for you. Yeah,
Speaker 6: up close and personal.
Speaker 7: It's like, yeah, you know that's right.
Speaker 5: Yeah, And just like Angie, I made this last night.
Speaker 1: Sure do it again.
Speaker 6: I'm Sugar Steve. Y'all spit a verse for you. Come
Speaker 6: get this, Sugar. Yeah, up close and personal.
Speaker 1: Was the first.
Speaker 7: My name is Edgie.
Speaker 1: Yeah, I'm in the room. Yea.
Speaker 7: They made me.
Speaker 4: Supp sup sup Roll.
Speaker 1: Ladies. Another episode of Quest Love Supreme gonna be very
Speaker 1: very interesting, Steve. That was hard for delivery.
Speaker 6: I practiced for eight hours.
Speaker 2: You guys could have given me a heads up. I
Speaker 2: would have had some bars bars for you.
Speaker 1: The joy of this show is watching people think quick
Speaker 1: on their feet.
Speaker 2: I had anxiety because we started the show in a
Speaker 2: weird unique you.
Speaker 1: Got our way. See, you can't put it out there
Speaker 1: like that, And what do you mean you gotta you can't.
Speaker 7: Oh, I have to have to say, okay, manifest anxiety.
Speaker 1: Anxiety.
Speaker 7: I can't anxiety.
Speaker 1: All right, let's have them mo of silence people.
Speaker 7: Okay, m hm.
Speaker 1: We are going to breathe in seven seconds in our nose,
Speaker 1: hold it five seconds in our mouth, seven seconds in,
Speaker 1: hold it five seconds out, seven seconds in, five seconds out? Okay,
Speaker 1: are we calm?
Speaker 6: Yeah?
Speaker 1: And we all got COVID. Now you have no idea
Speaker 1: how much I needed that today.
Speaker 7: Really, we just don't briefe. We don't don't put that
Speaker 7: in the air. He just said, only put it.
Speaker 1: In the air, Steve. Only Steve's humors is his defense
Speaker 1: for emotions.
Speaker 6: Yes, I'm very disappointed in my role, calls or whatever.
Speaker 7: No, you're not more disappointed than me.
Speaker 6: No, No, you actually beat me you guys.
Speaker 2: I didn't even hear the beat. My headphones are low.
Speaker 2: I don't know what's happenings.
Speaker 1: Okay, all right, So, ladies and gentlemen, all guest today
Speaker 1: is a super legendary figure radio Hall of Fame inductee.
Speaker 1: I should add, yes, you got it inducted when I did.
Speaker 1: What year?
Speaker 7: Oh well, I was the year before last?
Speaker 1: Was it?
Speaker 2: I heard a bunch of COVID time, so we didn't
Speaker 2: get in all the people.
Speaker 1: All the people of color basically just got lumped in.
Speaker 2: Yeah, that's what somebody was like, Hey, there's no people
Speaker 2: of color here, let's get them all.
Speaker 1: In this year, right exactly. She's a taste maker who
Speaker 1: I feel her voice has raised generation after generation, a
Speaker 1: very trusted voice on radio. I will also say Fante
Speaker 1: reminded us that she was a Grammy nominated artist. Yeah,
Speaker 1: I totally forgot about Ladies night, I've come out about
Speaker 1: right exactly. She's an activist. She is a legend. She basically,
Speaker 1: like what I truly know Angie for is her legendary interviews,
Speaker 1: of which she was kind of podcasting before podcasting was
Speaker 1: a thing, Like you would do these legendary half hour
Speaker 1: interview blocks. I always wondered how you were able to
Speaker 1: get these sort of introspective interviews from your artists in
Speaker 1: these blocks without playing a bunch of music in between.
Speaker 2: But I think when I came up, there was only
Speaker 2: one you know, there was only one place to go.
Speaker 2: It was only one station, so there was no competition.
Speaker 2: So when you have no competition, you could do whatever
Speaker 2: you want.
Speaker 7: That's right. It was just hot, you know, it was
Speaker 7: just hot. It was just us.
Speaker 2: We were the only place to get hip hop, so
Speaker 2: we could pretty much do anything we want and we
Speaker 2: would win.
Speaker 7: And so.
Speaker 2: When competition came, I almost had to light I was
Speaker 2: so sad because I knew everything was going to change.
Speaker 2: I knew interviews were going to have to get shorter
Speaker 2: because we're in competition. I knew that the days of
Speaker 2: like doing whatever we wanted, because how it felt, we're
Speaker 2: kind of over. But so I was lucky enough to
Speaker 2: come up at a time where it was really just
Speaker 2: a free for all, kind of a free for all.
Speaker 1: I see. Oh, by the way, ladies, let's get our
Speaker 1: hands to get no.
Speaker 7: Oh, sorry, let's get it.
Speaker 1: Let's get it together. For Angie Martinez, thanks guy. Was
Speaker 1: what was the highlight of your day.
Speaker 7: This is the highlight of my day.
Speaker 1: This was what time did you get You asked me
Speaker 1: about my day. When do you get up in the morning.
Speaker 2: I normally get up around seven. I had to worst
Speaker 2: my grain last night, so I got up in the
Speaker 2: middle of night three am, and then I was up
Speaker 2: for a couple hours and my sleep was all messed
Speaker 2: up last night anyway. So I got up today because
Speaker 2: we were doing an event earlier for this big podcast
Speaker 2: that we did around the Life after Death. The celebration
Speaker 2: of that, I saw miss to see there, which was
Speaker 2: a really nice moment in my day because I haven't
Speaker 2: seen him in so long. And then I just was
Speaker 2: kind of been floating around today. It was a stressful
Speaker 2: a little bit day. That's why when I came here
Speaker 2: and you telling me about how I need to meditate
Speaker 2: in the morning, I was really receptive to this information
Speaker 2: you were giving me because it's it's.
Speaker 1: It's I think it's important, like you got to start
Speaker 1: your day with positive, good intentions.
Speaker 2: It's one thing to know that, and it's another thing
Speaker 2: to exercise and do it regularly and be diligent about it.
Speaker 1: Most of us, when we wake up, we grab our phone. Yeah,
Speaker 1: we doom and gloom. Literally, grabbing your phone is like, hey,
Speaker 1: hand me my bottle of pain, handy my stress. Now,
Speaker 1: just because I'm currently in that situation with organizing the
Speaker 1: Roots Picnic and these movies I'm doing, and twelve other
Speaker 1: projects that you know, if we don't, if we don't
Speaker 1: go inward.
Speaker 8: To I like what Fonte said a few months ago,
Speaker 8: that first thing he does in the morning is take
Speaker 8: like a whole bunch of deep breaths, right, yeah.
Speaker 1: Yeah, yeah, you got to. Yeah, man, you got to. Yeah.
Speaker 2: You know what I started doing lately that has been
Speaker 2: a thing for me is I started golfing at golf Now,
Speaker 2: is that like the weirdest thing.
Speaker 1: I can't even believe that's me.
Speaker 7: I love golf.
Speaker 1: I'm jealous of you assuming north of forty people, yes,
Speaker 1: that have taken up golf, because that's the one thing
Speaker 1: I feel like, like everyone my age is now like
Speaker 1: going to the golf courses, Like various members of the
Speaker 1: Roots are golfing, golfing and stuff.
Speaker 2: It's two things. It's the one thing I do that
Speaker 2: I'm not multitasking. There's no phone involved there. It's just
Speaker 2: I'm trying to get better at this very specific thing
Speaker 2: and this whatever it is, my short game. I look
Speaker 2: whatever it is, and it's and you're outside in this
Speaker 2: beautiful environment and the grass and the sky and.
Speaker 1: The who taught you how to play golf?
Speaker 7: Nobody.
Speaker 2: One of my girlfriends who golfs, was like, come. I
Speaker 2: was like, I don't know how to golf.
Speaker 7: She was like, so what none of us do? Nobody's good.
Speaker 7: Don't worry.
Speaker 2: And so I went to just ride the cart and
Speaker 2: have a drink and chill, and I did it a
Speaker 2: couple of times. And then I took a couple of
Speaker 2: lessons from a guy at the range.
Speaker 1: And her name is not Ashley, is it?
Speaker 2: No?
Speaker 7: But I have golf. I do golf with actually sometimes.
Speaker 1: I was gonna say I golf.
Speaker 7: With actually a few times and then I.
Speaker 1: Got a hustler, like I didn't know that she was
Speaker 1: that good at it. So she's good.
Speaker 7: She's been golfing a long time.
Speaker 1: Your child, Ashley Witherspoon actually.
Speaker 2: Helps with me with my podcast, by the way, too.
Speaker 2: She helps with a lot of the digital on my pie.
Speaker 2: And and then when we GoF we golf last week
Speaker 2: actually together.
Speaker 1: The only thing I won't do with Ashley is anymore
Speaker 1: game nights. I brought her to one game night and
Speaker 1: the ship almost ended in a fight. So she's very competitive.
Speaker 1: She's very intense with game nights.
Speaker 5: I got to say, I'm excited to see squads of
Speaker 5: women on golf courses now, especially brown and black women,
Speaker 5: because that's like a thing.
Speaker 2: Let me tell you my other friend, Jamie, another woman,
Speaker 2: she's she's a Callid's head of digital and she we
Speaker 2: golfed and Compton together.
Speaker 7: Yes, and.
Speaker 1: There's a golf course in Compton.
Speaker 2: Yes, And I don't want to be correct me if
Speaker 2: I might be right outside of Compton, but it's the
Speaker 2: Compton golf course where you went there and it was
Speaker 2: all people called it golfing, all black and brown people golfing,
Speaker 2: and it was so dope to see that and feel that,
Speaker 2: because you know, most golf courses not that.
Speaker 7: It's not that, that's not the scene.
Speaker 1: Okay, So if you're going to start.
Speaker 2: At any point, go there and feel and get catch
Speaker 2: the vibe, and then on my list, it's a good place.
Speaker 1: I was supposed to start with miniature golf first and
Speaker 1: then don't do that.
Speaker 7: Don't do that place.
Speaker 1: So golfing is where golfing is where you find yes.
Speaker 7: For me, that's a thing, but I don't.
Speaker 2: I can't golf every day, So clearly I need to
Speaker 2: do some type of meditation in the morning. It's just
Speaker 2: I have to just I know what I need to do.
Speaker 2: It's just about getting diligent about doing it. But yeah,
Speaker 2: and now that my plate is filling up because I'm like,
Speaker 2: I have all these things that I want to do
Speaker 2: and achieve, and sometimes it all gets overwhelming, and like
Speaker 2: you said, I have to get inside. It's the only
Speaker 2: way to create it or really be creative and tap
Speaker 2: into that.
Speaker 1: Usually this is my last question, like what is it
Speaker 1: that is still on your bucket list for achieving that?
Speaker 2: Kidding, it's it's an endless list of things. But I
Speaker 2: tell you right now, as I've been doing this pod
Speaker 2: that I you know, I launched the podcast, paid for it,
Speaker 2: we shoot it, we have a whole production team and.
Speaker 1: Very professional looking Thank you. I like it.
Speaker 7: And I did that because I just wanted to have conversations.
Speaker 2: I don't want anybody anybody's opinion about who I booked
Speaker 2: or what we talked about.
Speaker 7: I really wanted to create something that with some of
Speaker 7: my heart.
Speaker 2: But I learned a lot about production from this process,
Speaker 2: and it made me have a little bit of confidence
Speaker 2: to to be able to feel like I could do
Speaker 2: what I've been really wanting to do for a long time,
Speaker 2: which is tell stories kind of like you. And it's
Speaker 2: funny because I heard you talking about being afraid to
Speaker 2: direct for a long time and kind of shying away
Speaker 2: from that feeling and I and I related to that
Speaker 2: so much because I felt the same way. I feel
Speaker 2: like I know how to tell a great story. I
Speaker 2: feel like I have a vision that maybe some people
Speaker 2: don't have. And I always felt a little scared because
Speaker 2: maybe I didn't go to film school or I didn't
Speaker 2: go to you know. And so but now I've grown
Speaker 2: the confidence to feel like I actually do have a
Speaker 2: perspective and a vision and a clarity and a storytelling
Speaker 2: ability that I'm not really exercising to the extent that
Speaker 2: I should be. And so that's kind of what the
Speaker 2: next couple of years hopefully looks like for me.
Speaker 1: So now do you say that, like, how's your pursuit
Speaker 1: of comedy going?
Speaker 7: Why do you always put me on the spot with that?
Speaker 1: Because I got sometimes in the river.
Speaker 5: It's hard when you I mean, I think Angie can
Speaker 5: speak to this. It's like, it's hard sometimes pursuing your
Speaker 5: passion when you got multiple jobs.
Speaker 7: But I'm girl. First of all, I still have a
Speaker 7: full time radio job. I got a pocket, I got
Speaker 7: seventeen jobs, right, But.
Speaker 2: You know you prioritize what's calling, whatever's inside you.
Speaker 7: That's like screaming to get out.
Speaker 5: As we're talking about prioritizing yourself and meditation is hard.
Speaker 2: No, That's why I'm so receptive to what you saw,
Speaker 2: how it came in the room as soon as I'm
Speaker 2: receptive to that, because I know I cannot deliver at
Speaker 2: the level I want to if I am not finding
Speaker 2: a place to kind of center and get creative and
Speaker 2: give myself that kind of.
Speaker 5: So the answer to that question is, I'm working on
Speaker 5: I'm listening to you and trying to figure out where
Speaker 5: to make the space because obviously you have found it.
Speaker 7: And are you doing it in the morning. Are you
Speaker 7: meditating and stuff?
Speaker 5: Yes, meditation, meditation and the comedy thing that he said,
Speaker 5: I kind of took a took a She.
Speaker 1: Has a comedy, she has a comedy dream that she
Speaker 1: wants to pursue, and comedy is hard. Because there's a
Speaker 1: lot of the only way you're going to learn how
Speaker 1: to be the greatest comic ever is you're going to
Speaker 1: have to tell jokes, embrace but really like embrace for
Speaker 1: failure in silence, And that's the way you figure out what.
Speaker 2: Also, don't you have to tell yourself and believe it.
Speaker 2: When you tell yourself that you are a comedian, that you.
Speaker 7: Are sold that part. And I'm not. And this is
Speaker 7: what I know. I know, I'm I say that that's
Speaker 7: a probable way.
Speaker 5: No, I say that to say that I feel like
Speaker 5: there are funny people and we notice, right there are
Speaker 5: people who are.
Speaker 7: Funny, and then there are comedians.
Speaker 5: And so what I did was when I moved my
Speaker 5: last radio job, I got fired and feeling, and I
Speaker 5: moved to LA to pursue like TV dreams, and I
Speaker 5: wanted to make sure that my funny. I knew formulas
Speaker 5: and things, I knew to call back and things. So
Speaker 5: I started doing stand up and whatnot. But it's really about,
Speaker 5: like you said, being a creative and putting your stories
Speaker 5: out there. So, yeah, the comedy thing, but I have stories.
Speaker 2: But the only way you could do that is you
Speaker 2: have full confidence in your vision and confidence.
Speaker 7: That's a word right now.
Speaker 2: No, you need it, I'm sure, Like, let me ask
Speaker 2: you this, let me ask not my podcast.
Speaker 4: Sorry, no, no, this is literally what this podcast is
Speaker 4: teaching class.
Speaker 2: You're teaching class, like you were, like, even when you
Speaker 2: start calling yourself a director, it's something.
Speaker 1: When I just started calling myself When you just.
Speaker 2: Started calling yourself a director? Was it before the Academy
Speaker 2: awarder after? Or like when did.
Speaker 1: That I really fully accepted who I was and what
Speaker 1: my mission in life is? Probably July of twenty twenty two. Okay,
Speaker 1: so I was, did you. It's to the point where
Speaker 1: Disney was like, dude, you're going to self deprecate yourself
Speaker 1: out of this award if you keep on telling people
Speaker 1: that you know you like what I mean that All shucks, guys.
Speaker 1: And I was in such a habitual routine of self
Speaker 1: deprecating and and a lot of me why do we
Speaker 1: do that? Because we want to manage the expectations of
Speaker 1: people around us. You know, I'm thinking about if the
Speaker 1: roots think I'm a nut or like, man, are they
Speaker 1: talking behind my talking shit behind my back? Where my
Speaker 1: friends think, well, these guys.
Speaker 7: Think, what do your director friends think about you stuff.
Speaker 1: Oh dude, for the longest, like I would go to
Speaker 1: Knicks games, and you know, I was like, ah, man,
Speaker 1: Spike's not gonna you know. I went to this event
Speaker 1: and if you remember his partner, Ernest Dickerson, who used
Speaker 1: to juice right, shoot shoot stuff, Ernest came up to me.
Speaker 1: It was like, brother, I've watched your movie five times.
Speaker 1: It was so emotional, so incredible, and I saw Spike's
Speaker 1: ears prick up, and I realized, oh, okay, Spike didn't
Speaker 1: watch the movie yet, which I actually understand. There's a
Speaker 1: very popular, prominent MC who I refused to listen to
Speaker 1: out of professional jealousy. No, but it's it's like that sometimes,
Speaker 1: like why you know, because sometimes you might internalize your
Speaker 1: own failure based on someone else's success, and you know,
Speaker 1: I would feel some sort of way like a man
Speaker 1: like or get it over analytical, and I didn't like,
Speaker 1: music is too precious for me to even want to
Speaker 1: like be that disparaging to someone else. But I found
Speaker 1: myself having these professional jealous feelings to this particular person,
Speaker 1: and so I just refused to acknowledge their music and
Speaker 1: unless I had to DJ it in the nightclub, and
Speaker 1: I realized I was like, Okay, who is this person?
Speaker 1: I'm not gonna go okay, fine, but I noticed. I
Speaker 1: did notice though that in a week, based on the
Speaker 1: energy that Ernest Dickerson brought me at this particular thing.
Speaker 1: Then Spike finally hit me with a text like, man,
Speaker 1: I really liked your movie. It was great, And then
Speaker 1: he started talking. But in my mind I was also like, man,
Speaker 1: Spike ava all the going to look at me like
Speaker 1: he think he's doing right exactly.
Speaker 2: But did it switch for you when you could call
Speaker 2: yourself a director? Do you show up differently after you
Speaker 2: have the after you say to yourself, oh, man, I
Speaker 2: am a director.
Speaker 1: Like the second you have that high of a moment,
Speaker 1: And what you have to realize is the Oscar is
Speaker 1: the last stop on that journey. Like I've been spending
Speaker 1: an entire year going to the awards ceremony, wards ceremony,
Speaker 1: local ceremony, that film festival. Then I sun danced all
Speaker 1: this stuff, and then after like like we were sweeping everything.
Speaker 1: It was like the Thriller days. Like after the thirteenth Award.
Speaker 1: I even asked Disney like, yo, like can we just stop?
Speaker 1: Can you pull us out the thing? Because After about
Speaker 1: a month of this, then suddenly I've noticed like people,
Speaker 1: you know, sort of like here he comes to still
Speaker 1: Christmas again, like that sort of thing. And I use
Speaker 1: that and as an excuse to like again start self
Speaker 1: deprecating and all that stuff. And then it started affecting
Speaker 1: my personal life, Like I year with everyone like food
Speaker 1: was my that was my cocaine. So my level binge
Speaker 1: eating was getting very dangerous, very you know. It's just
Speaker 1: hard to handle because I didn't want to pivot. I
Speaker 1: didn't want to grow up and get into my new life,
Speaker 1: like part of me still wants to hang on to music.
Speaker 1: I've yet to release the record that will let us
Speaker 1: in Madison Square Garden, and I know I can do it.
Speaker 1: It's our seventeenth rect week. And so even after the Oscar. Yeah,
Speaker 1: I've had, like, you know, two weeks after the Oscar,
Speaker 1: I've probably had like four to five panic attacks. I
Speaker 1: went to Mexico just to sit alone and whatnot. And
Speaker 1: so I will say that probably around July. There's a
Speaker 1: book by a gentleman named Jose Silva called The Silver Method,
Speaker 1: and he teaches you how to talk to yourself, how
Speaker 1: to advocate for yourself, how you know that sort of thing.
Speaker 1: So yeah, I'll stay around Like August, that's when I
Speaker 1: really started taking and owning what my purpose in life
Speaker 1: is and that sort of thing and not being like
Speaker 1: afraid to.
Speaker 7: But are you calling yourself a director?
Speaker 1: Yeah?
Speaker 2: Okay, yah, yeah, I just wonder like once you by
Speaker 2: the way, I didn't know you went through all that.
Speaker 7: I didn't know you went through all of that. But
Speaker 7: like how you say, like you.
Speaker 2: Don't call yourself comedian or you don't call your self director,
Speaker 2: like once you kind of own it. I just wonder
Speaker 2: if you could lean into it more, like if you
Speaker 2: can really fully.
Speaker 1: But I'm also leaningto like twelve other things, like this
Speaker 1: week too much. This thing is now like oh I'm
Speaker 1: I'm a children's book author, you know what I mean.
Speaker 1: So it's like each week is like a new challenge.
Speaker 5: So and we're born on the same day. So I'm
Speaker 5: just looking over here laughing because I'm like.
Speaker 1: You, we're all born in the same month.
Speaker 5: So we responded, I'm going a quariers, oh January.
Speaker 1: Yeah, okay, I'm December twenty.
Speaker 5: Y'all got it, y'all you got your head on your
Speaker 5: shoulders were over here when it's Quarius.
Speaker 1: We're like, what are you saying, Steve.
Speaker 8: I'm just thinking about your conversation here and about what
Speaker 8: you said about sort of accepting that you're just a
Speaker 8: great storyteller this.
Speaker 6: Yeah, and I feel like, you know, in the long
Speaker 6: it took me.
Speaker 2: Like I'm fifty two, it's the one thing I'm like,
Speaker 2: I wish I could talk to young me.
Speaker 7: But they were like, so I could tell myself a
Speaker 7: different narrative is super?
Speaker 2: You know how much work I could I would have
Speaker 2: done if I told myself that earlier in life.
Speaker 6: Yeah, but it doesn't work that way.
Speaker 7: That's true. You have to build up to it.
Speaker 8: Yeah, Like I was going to say, like when you
Speaker 8: start off, it's faked till you make it, and then
Speaker 8: when you make it, it becomes imposter syndrome for a long time,
Speaker 8: and then there's this acceptance of like, oh shit, I
Speaker 8: can do this stuff.
Speaker 6: Well, you know? And is that our age is that
Speaker 6: when this happens question.
Speaker 7: I think for different people different times.
Speaker 2: I'm always fascinated when I see a young talent, twenty
Speaker 2: five thirty year old talent and they seem to just
Speaker 2: have this confidence. So this that might be to fake
Speaker 2: it no, No, I think of like a young Rihanna
Speaker 2: going around thinking this girl believes I don't know, I
Speaker 2: mean she is a unicorn, yes, But I'm just saying
Speaker 2: there are people that at a young age, for some reason,
Speaker 2: tap into a confidence about who they are.
Speaker 1: She has something because she walked up to me once.
Speaker 1: I've never spoken to well, I spoke to Rihanna first
Speaker 1: before I spoke to Grace Jones. An, Wait, aren't they
Speaker 1: from the same island? There are they?
Speaker 5: Jamaica, Jamaican, She's from Trinidad, Barbado, Barbados.
Speaker 1: I'm sorry, hey, Bill, when we need them right exactly.
Speaker 1: So when she first walked up to me, it was
Speaker 1: like a young Grace Jones and she comes up to
Speaker 1: me like you and I look like, oh ship, Rihanna
Speaker 1: does know who I am. And she's like, I want
Speaker 1: to work with you, like and she she just had
Speaker 1: this very.
Speaker 7: Commanding the short hair, short hair Rihanna.
Speaker 1: She was in Kanye's video for one of those songs
Speaker 1: on Ato Eight's and Heartbreak where she's behind in the car. Yeah,
Speaker 1: I forget what it was, but like that's when def
Speaker 1: Jam was like throwing video release parties for just videos
Speaker 1: or whatever. And so good times. I feel like you
Speaker 1: are the eye of the storm of what many were
Speaker 1: probably deemed the celebratory period of hip hop, which I
Speaker 1: feel like between ninety seven and two thousand and seven,
Speaker 1: where like every hype Whims video, the rise of the Rock,
Speaker 1: like the ROC like you're the trusted like you're almost
Speaker 1: like Switzerland. You are the trusted epicenter of a lot
Speaker 1: of these artists. And I'm well, first of all, I'm curious,
Speaker 1: like what was your entry into communication as far as
Speaker 1: like radio.
Speaker 2: Oh, just throw that young girl in here. She's the
Speaker 2: only one here who really knows anything about hip hop,
Speaker 2: and then.
Speaker 1: Just jump in the pool looking at you again.
Speaker 7: So I'm working out.
Speaker 2: I'm seventeen eighteen working at a station, a radio station,
Speaker 2: because I was I was a mess with my mother.
Speaker 2: I got, you know, getting kicked out of school, and
Speaker 2: my mother was in radio.
Speaker 7: She got me an internship. I was interning.
Speaker 1: Your mom used to be on radio.
Speaker 7: She wasn't on the air. She she did say she
Speaker 7: used to do. She worked in the sales department.
Speaker 2: And when like this, when red Alert was like KISSFM
Speaker 2: read alert, you know, like kiss cards and like legendary
Speaker 2: Red Alert, young red. My mother was like a sales
Speaker 2: rep there. Then she worked then she wounded up becoming
Speaker 2: a music director and program director at CD one to
Speaker 2: one point nine and stuff like that.
Speaker 1: So she was in for a long time. So I
Speaker 1: got an internship.
Speaker 7: I was eighteen, So it was a dance station.
Speaker 2: When I first got there, there was no commercial hip
Speaker 2: hop radio station.
Speaker 1: So the place that was Hot ninety seven was.
Speaker 7: For dance station.
Speaker 2: I was you know, they play like you know, C
Speaker 2: and C Music Factory kind of, you know, like that,
Speaker 2: and so, but I was a hip hop head like
Speaker 2: and so when they when they were slowly transitioning, I
Speaker 2: would get asked a lot of questions because I was
Speaker 2: the kid who knew. I was like a nerd, like
Speaker 2: a hip hop nerd, and so I was in the
Speaker 2: right place at the right time. Then they brought Flex
Speaker 2: in as going to be the head of this when
Speaker 2: they decided to go hip hop, and then I had
Speaker 2: so I learned. I was running the boards for him.
Speaker 2: I was doing everything, getting coffee, doing everything. And then
Speaker 2: they were like.
Speaker 1: Wait, in my mind, like what the idea of hit
Speaker 1: ninety seven was like always here, So you're saying that
Speaker 1: in the nineties.
Speaker 7: There was seven. It was it was dance music.
Speaker 2: It was no There was no commercial hip hop radio
Speaker 2: station in existence in New York City.
Speaker 7: Just a show, maybe hip or not.
Speaker 2: You would have to listen to Kiss or b LS
Speaker 2: on the weekends, like you would have to listen to
Speaker 2: Red Alert Moll mister Magic. You have to listen on
Speaker 2: the weekends and tape you couldn't. There was no There
Speaker 2: was no twenty four hour day hip hop.
Speaker 1: You're saying like ninety three ninety four is when this
Speaker 1: starts happening or ninety two.
Speaker 2: Ninety so bad this years? Well, you were eighteen, so yeah,
Speaker 2: I was eighteen. So you do the math and.
Speaker 7: Y'all are setting like standard for the whole country.
Speaker 2: Yeah, but you know, when you're in it and you're
Speaker 2: creating something and that in your babies, you're just doing
Speaker 2: it because you love it. There's no understanding of what
Speaker 2: this could be, what it would evolve into, what it
Speaker 2: could grow into. Even when I started doing interviews, there
Speaker 2: was no understanding of one day these interviews could matter
Speaker 2: to somebody, or we could grow into something. It was
Speaker 2: just like, oh my god, I love this Wool Tang album.
Speaker 2: I can't believe they're here. And then having these these conversations,
Speaker 2: and this is what I miss about those times?
Speaker 7: Is there right now?
Speaker 2: I feel like everything is very agenda driven because people
Speaker 2: kind of have the codes and they know what works,
Speaker 2: and they know what you have to do to get results,
Speaker 2: and you and people understand the business of it.
Speaker 7: There was no business of it. We really were operating under.
Speaker 2: There was just hard The people were operating under a
Speaker 2: love for the music, for the culture. For we weren't
Speaker 2: even calling it the culture then we did. We weren't
Speaker 2: even organized enough to call it that. We we just
Speaker 2: were operating on sheer like love and connection.
Speaker 5: And this is such a beautiful circle back because we
Speaker 5: just talked at least the Cortez earlier, and I feel
Speaker 5: like y'all both hit the scene around the same well
Speaker 5: but still, I mean, ninety seven was the first, and
Speaker 5: so it's the.
Speaker 1: Same thing the same time without hot ninety seven. How
Speaker 1: old were you when you How do you become a
Speaker 1: radio personality? Did they put you on like four in
Speaker 1: the morning? First?
Speaker 2: Oh, I was doing everything. I was running the boards.
Speaker 2: I used to run the boards for flex. I was
Speaker 2: like I was just I was pushing the buttons and
Speaker 2: running the boards. And I was nice with the you know,
Speaker 2: back then you just have to edit on the real reels.
Speaker 2: I mean nice with that and the tape, I'd have
Speaker 2: cuts on my fingers.
Speaker 1: Yeah. Nothing sexier than a female engineer. Yeah. The amount
Speaker 1: of times where.
Speaker 2: Yo, when I tell you I was nice, I could
Speaker 2: make somebody say something they didn't mean to say with
Speaker 2: the white marker.
Speaker 7: And the raised blades and the I was nice.
Speaker 1: I saw the first time I met h Mecca of
Speaker 1: Diggable Planets, she was like, this is why when they
Speaker 1: were recording a blowout come and she was like the tape,
Speaker 1: I'm like, what the hell? I'm in love also, but.
Speaker 7: What the hell?
Speaker 2: So I'm there, I'm this young girl who's a hip
Speaker 2: hop nerve who knows everything. And then I can also
Speaker 2: run the boards and be on the radio. And then
Speaker 2: they brought flexing. I'm running his boards so that it
Speaker 2: was like this put this girl on overnights and just
Speaker 2: gives see what she got.
Speaker 1: But don't you have to have the gift of gab
Speaker 1: and know how I had no.
Speaker 2: Gift to gab. No, no, I had no gift to gap.
Speaker 2: I learned gift a gab throughout the process of of
Speaker 2: being on the radio, that I was god awful at
Speaker 2: least two years of being terrible on the radio. For sure,
Speaker 2: Like if I went back and here tapes, I will
Speaker 2: be mortified right now. And then over the years they
Speaker 2: weren't always great. I really had the I had the
Speaker 2: privilege of like learning how to be on the air
Speaker 2: while I was on the air. What I did have
Speaker 2: going for me. The one thing I will say though,
Speaker 2: is that from the beginning, my intention was always good,
Speaker 2: and I think that that carried me because people wanted
Speaker 2: me to you know, people wanted me to win.
Speaker 7: The reported me.
Speaker 2: You had a cheer for me, and so that that
Speaker 2: that carried me for a while until I learned actually
Speaker 2: how to do how to.
Speaker 1: Do that right.
Speaker 6: Well, we happened to have one of your tapes from your.
Speaker 1: Oh my god, wait, do you so I know, like
Speaker 1: when you first were on the radio, would you like
Speaker 1: afford yourself.
Speaker 2: Over over modulating smiling?
Speaker 1: Do you remember you like, who was the first person
Speaker 1: you interviewed? I don't.
Speaker 2: People have asked me that, and I don't remember for
Speaker 2: some reason in my mind, and I know it wasn't them,
Speaker 2: because time wise, it was like group home or someone
Speaker 2: like that. It was like, I don't know that for
Speaker 2: sure it was them, but those were the early interviews
Speaker 2: that I remember at that time.
Speaker 1: So when do you feel like you arrived when in
Speaker 1: my bag? Like when they when they first all right,
Speaker 1: can y'all explain to me? I know there's always a
Speaker 1: morning show? And then I've learned that most in my
Speaker 1: radio experiences of meeting people, I've met more midday mommies
Speaker 1: than it's their formula.
Speaker 7: They think they have a formula.
Speaker 1: Right, but it's always like you know, if you.
Speaker 2: Ask Salon Remy Salon REMI will tell you because he
Speaker 2: always says this, and I'm like Salom stops saying that
Speaker 2: Salam thinks that every like hip hop ratio station across
Speaker 2: the country hired a Latin.
Speaker 7: Girl because because of my success on.
Speaker 2: Hot like well, that was like they placed the Angiebartinas
Speaker 2: that like He's like.
Speaker 7: I'm going around the country, I'm seeing the place.
Speaker 1: It's around ninety nine. Like literally, I've met more midday
Speaker 1: mommies after your arrival that I didn't see the first
Speaker 1: rounds of us having the travel radio stations, so.
Speaker 7: I didn't realize their way. So but she wasn't the
Speaker 7: first mid day one man.
Speaker 5: But just that's how you feel because it's the era
Speaker 5: in the time, because I.
Speaker 7: Think that's radio. People swear that's a whole formula.
Speaker 5: We put the woman I've never heard of man.
Speaker 1: But I.
Speaker 7: Did nights, which honestly is like a you know, for a.
Speaker 1: Girl, that's the prime spot.
Speaker 7: They don't put women in the nights though.
Speaker 2: It depends what you call a prime spot if you're
Speaker 2: a radio person and you're selling ads morning show and
Speaker 2: afternoon drive or the prime spot before a young girl
Speaker 2: who's in the clubs and in the streets and it's
Speaker 2: going to artists listening sessions.
Speaker 7: You know.
Speaker 2: Night times is when in New York at that time
Speaker 2: was it was popping, like it was popping.
Speaker 7: So that's why I started. I started doing nights and
Speaker 7: then and.
Speaker 5: It's right before the shows, right, so then you also
Speaker 5: got the guests because people don't realize night show n
Speaker 5: ten o'clock, so folks was coming on your show because
Speaker 5: it's like it's hit Angie before the show.
Speaker 7: And then over the years, then they moved me to
Speaker 7: afternoon Drive.
Speaker 1: Who do you feel is your most important interview during
Speaker 1: that time? Like I remember like a lot of your
Speaker 1: jay Z interviews.
Speaker 2: Yeah, Jay was great for me in my career because
Speaker 2: he gave me an opportunity to kind of like have
Speaker 2: different types of conversations.
Speaker 1: That he wouldn't have with anyone else.
Speaker 2: He was just always so smart and he always had
Speaker 2: such like I don't know, he just always wanted to
Speaker 2: elevate the conversation.
Speaker 7: So and he trusted me. So he wasn't doing a
Speaker 7: lot of interviews all of it.
Speaker 2: I mean, there wasn't a lot of places to go
Speaker 2: for interviews, especially back then. I probably think I probably
Speaker 2: in New York, I had to have done this first one.
Speaker 2: I would imagine, I don't want to say that's wrong.
Speaker 2: Maybe it was stretching Bob. Probably stretching definitely stretching Bob,
Speaker 2: stretching Bob.
Speaker 1: Yeah, yeah, yeah, for sure.
Speaker 2: But we did a lot of them earlier on and
Speaker 2: so those were some of my favorites at the beginning.
Speaker 2: But honestly, it's hard to say, you know that, It's like,
Speaker 2: what's your favorite show?
Speaker 7: Do you have a favorite show? Like you can't say that, yeah,
Speaker 7: you can for this show.
Speaker 1: I feel like even though Jimmy Jammin.
Speaker 2: No, I mean like a roots show, no, oh no,
Speaker 2: definitely really do you have a favorite roots song?
Speaker 7: Right?
Speaker 1: Exactly?
Speaker 7: I mean exactly.
Speaker 1: I don't know my favorite until I get it.
Speaker 7: I don't know.
Speaker 1: I can't say it.
Speaker 5: Joe, I got a question, And have you ever worked
Speaker 5: at another radio station besides Power?
Speaker 2: Well, when I was sixteen and I was getting I
Speaker 2: got kicked out of my high school, I got kicked
Speaker 2: out of John Doing in Brooklyn. No, No, I'm sorry, Yes,
Speaker 2: I got I was getting kicked out of John Doing Brooklyn.
Speaker 1: I was sixteen.
Speaker 7: My mother sent me to Florida to live with my aunt.
Speaker 1: For two years from sixteen. Wait was it that bad?
Speaker 2: Oh? No, I didn't go to school like a juvenile
Speaker 2: delinquent or yeah I was.
Speaker 7: My mother was a single mom. She was she worked late.
Speaker 7: She I just was free.
Speaker 2: I was a latch key kid. I did whatever I
Speaker 2: wanted to do, like you know everybody on the block.
Speaker 1: Right, What was young Angie Martinez like?
Speaker 7: She was?
Speaker 2: She thought, I don't she had no really understanding. She
Speaker 2: loved hip hop music. All I would literally watch like
Speaker 2: Beach Street. I was like, I would see the whole
Speaker 2: watch Beach Street and Wild Style and all those movies,
Speaker 2: and and I would I would tape red Alert on
Speaker 2: the weekends, and then I'd spend all week listening to
Speaker 2: the songs so I could memorize them and all the lyrics.
Speaker 1: I was chuck wearing like oh yeah, I was it.
Speaker 2: I know, like lee belts and you know what I mean,
Speaker 2: pants and belts and name belts and bamboo earrings and
Speaker 2: all those things. And then my mom was working and
Speaker 2: I you know, are you start hanging out, you're playing handball,
Speaker 2: you're drinking for all English.
Speaker 1: And we're doing this interview, so asked backwards. Right now,
Speaker 1: let me start. We're born, weren't I don't get there. No,
Speaker 1: it was literally like we normally.
Speaker 7: Still over the place here, I mean you.
Speaker 1: Know what tho, No, no, but like normally yes, we
Speaker 1: started the beginning and then work our way up.
Speaker 7: Okay, there's a formula.
Speaker 1: You're right. What was your home life? Do you have siblings?
Speaker 7: Single mom?
Speaker 1: What burrow?
Speaker 5: My?
Speaker 2: Most of my family is from Washington Heights in the Bronx.
Speaker 2: And then my mom was that she was that single
Speaker 2: mom that was like trying to change her life and
Speaker 2: it's going to self help and reading a lot. And
Speaker 2: now I'm your horring ako, and you know she's My mother.
Speaker 1: Was always this episode right now.
Speaker 2: She was always trying to do better. Her dad was,
Speaker 2: you know, battling alcoholism, and it was challenging for her
Speaker 2: in a lot of ways growing up, and she tried
Speaker 2: to get out. So, so my whole family's uptown in
Speaker 2: the Bronx. My mother took me. The two of us
Speaker 2: went all the way to the other side of Brooklyn,
Speaker 2: which is like a two hour train ride. So my
Speaker 2: whole family's uptown. Me and my mom is on the
Speaker 2: last stop by Corney Island in Brooklyn.
Speaker 1: Oh really, Yeah.
Speaker 2: So we're out there and we're in the little one
Speaker 2: bedroom apartment, me and her. My mother was so dope.
Speaker 2: We had a one bedroom apartment. She let me have
Speaker 2: the bedroom and she.
Speaker 7: Would sleep in the living room and like this couch,
Speaker 7: just like this terrible green couch.
Speaker 1: Have you been there lately? Yeah, so you've seen the gentrification, like.
Speaker 7: Oh, yeah, it's crazy, it's crazy.
Speaker 1: Yeah, there's even like luxury motels something.
Speaker 2: Even, by the way, I told you my family's from
Speaker 2: Washington Heights. Even Washington Heights, it's a whole difference. They
Speaker 2: changed that too, one hundred percent different from when I
Speaker 2: grew up.
Speaker 1: Yeah, for New York.
Speaker 2: Yeah, it's crazy, so different. So yeah, but you know what,
Speaker 2: my block wasn't bad, it was very I love that
Speaker 2: I grew up in a building where my next door
Speaker 2: neighbor was from Trinidad, mother with two daughters over here,
Speaker 2: this Asian family, Korean family, so Russian family across a
Speaker 2: super diverse building. And I think that it really create
Speaker 2: created who I am. You know what I'm saying, Like,
Speaker 2: I feel like I can talk to anybody. I feel
Speaker 2: like I can people feel it from you. Yeah, I
Speaker 2: feel like I understand all different types of people. And
Speaker 2: my neighborhood really had a lot to do with that.
Speaker 2: How I grew up in that in that building in Brooklyn.
Speaker 1: You know, so I got I gotta get so Latin
Speaker 1: coret is an extreme no no, no no, But did you
Speaker 1: have earlier expansiones in like New York night life?
Speaker 2: My first club was roseland Biz Marcky was performing. The
Speaker 2: first that I went to a club, I was fifteen.
Speaker 2: I snuck in with a fake ID. There was a
Speaker 2: shootout inside the club the night I went first night
Speaker 2: in the club. The crazy thing about it is that
Speaker 2: after the shooting, everybody got back to partying, like the
Speaker 2: club wasn't closed.
Speaker 1: I will ask you. I will ask you like I
Speaker 1: ask everyone else like and maybe this is me like
Speaker 1: again like living and fear and safety or whatever, But
Speaker 1: why would you go to a spot where the likelihood
Speaker 1: of something about the pop off would happen wouldn't deterry you?
Speaker 1: It all like okay, oh yeah.
Speaker 2: Sure as a sensible adult, but as a fifteen year
Speaker 2: old who can't believe that business marketing, it's in like
Speaker 2: the touch, like distance, like he's right there and he's
Speaker 2: performing in the DJ and the scene and I can't
Speaker 2: believe I'm in a club and the music is crazy.
Speaker 7: I just was happy to be like I was. It was.
Speaker 7: It's crazy I hit the clubs when you were under age.
Speaker 2: It wasn't until I got older and I actually started
Speaker 2: getting to like a fear. It's crazy because my whole
Speaker 2: career I had to go to clubs.
Speaker 1: I was gonna say, you, but I have to go
Speaker 1: to the tunnel.
Speaker 7: But I, oh, it was at the tunnel regularly.
Speaker 1: What was the tunnel? Even though we I think we
Speaker 1: performed at the at the end of like the era
Speaker 1: of the tunnel. They finally like when the roots get
Speaker 1: invited to the tunnel, then you know, it's over. There
Speaker 1: was always it was like the roots in Eminem. Oh
Speaker 1: wow wow, back when Eminem was exactly.
Speaker 7: You were never like in the trenches of the tunnel
Speaker 7: at the Big.
Speaker 1: No Not Shook Ones era, this.
Speaker 7: Urban legend of tunnel.
Speaker 2: I definitely saw mob deep and all those were my favorite,
Speaker 2: like boot Camp, the tunnel was like all of those
Speaker 2: were crazy.
Speaker 1: Like Flex started being nice to us like ninety nine before.
Speaker 1: It's like, yeah, I don't know if I feel him yet.
Speaker 1: You know, it sounds like Flex, right, I don't know
Speaker 1: if I feel him yet. But you know, when he
Speaker 1: wanted us to do the tunnel and I was scared,
Speaker 1: I was like, we don't want to do the tunnel,
Speaker 1: like we no, And it actually wound up being.
Speaker 2: The crazy thing is Flex was when I think about
Speaker 2: him now, I was so in awe of how he
Speaker 2: seemed to be like one of those people that we
Speaker 2: were talking about, that he had this confidence about what
Speaker 2: he was doing. He came there, he was like, we're
Speaker 2: gonna make this station, We're gonna get this is what
Speaker 2: we're gonna do.
Speaker 1: He'd be in the.
Speaker 2: Tunnel, he like, I don't know, he just had this.
Speaker 2: He made merch, he made fun.
Speaker 7: Flex jackets, and we all wore the leather jackets when.
Speaker 2: We went by the way, we would go to the
Speaker 2: in matching nothing but flavor folk Master flex jackets. And
Speaker 2: I thought it was I wasn't. I was so in
Speaker 2: awe that he even had this type of vision and confidence.
Speaker 2: And I always, you know, I always felt a little unsafe,
Speaker 2: but not enough that I would want.
Speaker 1: To leave, like what would have happened, what was a
Speaker 1: typical night at the say Latin Quarter at the tunnel
Speaker 1: at the.
Speaker 2: Tunnel, well for me already, because I was already running
Speaker 2: around with flex so I was I'd be by.
Speaker 7: The booth or I'd be like, you have the safety
Speaker 7: of the booth.
Speaker 2: Somewhat, yeah, somewhat, because I did start to develop over
Speaker 2: the years, I did start to develop a little bit
Speaker 2: of phobia of crowds. I started to feel a little
Speaker 2: like I would get a little anxiety when I when
Speaker 2: I couldn't move and I would get stuff.
Speaker 7: And so that became a thing for me.
Speaker 1: So save an unknown ill out scratch is waiting like
Speaker 1: I'm certain that when you're going in and out of
Speaker 1: hot ninety seven happened to me, like you know, you
Speaker 1: can you can feel in your peripheral that like, yeah,
Speaker 1: five people over there waiting like for the moment to
Speaker 1: double dutch their way to like, yo, here's our new
Speaker 1: joint whatever, like have you.
Speaker 7: Had most of the time.
Speaker 2: And I've really been lucky in the streets of New York,
Speaker 2: Like and I used to run around by myself, like
Speaker 2: and even when I was young and like going to spots,
Speaker 2: I had no business by myself pulling up in the
Speaker 2: car by like.
Speaker 1: I willinez of course.
Speaker 2: And I had this like I don't know, I had
Speaker 2: this like false sense of security in this city. And honestly,
Speaker 2: people made me feel that way.
Speaker 1: They made me feel that way.
Speaker 7: Like one time I got.
Speaker 2: My car stolen. My car was stolen. I got on
Speaker 2: the radio and I was like, Yo, somebody stole my car.
Speaker 1: You know that.
Speaker 7: Somebody called the radio station was like, ang, we got you.
Speaker 7: I know what it is.
Speaker 2: It'll be downstairs by the time you get out of work.
Speaker 2: And they returned my stolen car. This is how the
Speaker 2: city made me feel, like treated me like, I don't know,
Speaker 2: that's a that's beautiful. That's beautiful. Isn't that amazing? So
Speaker 2: I would walk around the streets and I felt a
Speaker 2: sense of like love. Yeah, I would feel love. I'm
Speaker 2: not stupid, like I wouldn't put myself in bad situations.
Speaker 2: But I did feel maybe a little bit of a
Speaker 2: full beautiful always like safe, and.
Speaker 1: I don't it's amazing because I don't know if I
Speaker 1: would admit that my car, like because I don't want
Speaker 1: the world to know, like, oh, you can easily get
Speaker 1: got quest love like that sort of thing. But but.
Speaker 2: What are you talking about. Anybody in the planet could
Speaker 2: get your car to get stolen. I don't think they
Speaker 2: stole the car because they.
Speaker 7: Knew it was mine. It was just randomly stolen.
Speaker 1: But I'm just saying Varner Building they liked that, where
Speaker 1: like nah, like fuck it, I'm not gonna let nobody
Speaker 1: know I got got that sort of thing.
Speaker 2: Honestly, I had a couple of times I would leave
Speaker 2: this and where the way High nine seven used to be.
Speaker 2: It was like in the garment district. It was dark
Speaker 2: over there. It was like nobody was there at night,
Speaker 2: and I would leave by myself. I'd be like, it
Speaker 2: wasn't no security, it was just me. I'd get on
Speaker 2: the train two am, take the train like I was
Speaker 2: I was crazy.
Speaker 1: Like oh yes, Andrew Martinez.
Speaker 7: You know, yes, absolutely.
Speaker 5: That's why I asked you earlier about like that being
Speaker 5: your only station, because that kind of love is hard
Speaker 5: to leave, right. And I know people tried to get
Speaker 5: you because you you had the mold, you had the
Speaker 5: model of what to do. I know people tried to
Speaker 5: get you to come to other cities many and many
Speaker 5: and many a times. But like, I don't know, you've
Speaker 5: never gotten going really from other stations.
Speaker 2: I have to think about it. But nothing that like
Speaker 2: out the gate. I mean when Power first came in,
Speaker 2: there was definitely feelers out for me at the beginning
Speaker 2: of that.
Speaker 5: Not even the beat in l A like I just
Speaker 5: imagine like LA call like such a New York girl's
Speaker 5: you know what I'm saying.
Speaker 2: I didn't even want to be syndicated because I didn't
Speaker 2: want to have to like compromise.
Speaker 1: At what point were you guys being syndicated?
Speaker 7: No, I didn't. When people would say, are you interested
Speaker 7: in that?
Speaker 1: I don't like what Time Joiner does.
Speaker 7: Yeah, I wasn't interested because I know what that means.
Speaker 2: It's this you have to kind of chair more localization,
Speaker 2: you have to Yeah, And I just wasn't.
Speaker 7: I was like Yeah, I'm good.
Speaker 1: I'm amazing. You see that as an opportunity, not for me,
Speaker 1: because I got to change who I am.
Speaker 7: And that's no judgment.
Speaker 2: Some people can do it, Like if you look at
Speaker 2: the Breakfast Club does if they were only on in
Speaker 2: New York, they'd be the same show that they are
Speaker 2: all the way. But how I and how I deliver
Speaker 2: I think works for New York.
Speaker 1: So you're saying, all right, who who were those two
Speaker 1: the two guys that were on Hot ninety seven that
Speaker 1: were like they were the originals? Yes, I was the
Speaker 1: original Jesus and Mirror. Right, So you're saying to me
Speaker 1: that as a New Yorker, you could have been like
Speaker 1: crazy or whatever your personality was, But if you're syndicated,
Speaker 1: then you really have to dial that back.
Speaker 2: And also I didn't have that crazy. I was never
Speaker 2: the Hey. First of all, I didn't do a lot
Speaker 2: of gossip. I didn't do I wasn't a shock jock.
Speaker 2: I wasn't I didn't have this crazy, over the top personality.
Speaker 2: What I had was a knowledge in my city, an
Speaker 2: authentic perspective about the music. People trusted me, and people
Speaker 2: feel like they know me, And I felt like I
Speaker 2: just didn't want to compromise any of that I wanted to.
Speaker 7: I didn't want to. I didn't want to shift that
Speaker 7: to like do a radio show that was like, oh,
Speaker 7: you know, you got to talk to the.
Speaker 2: Specifically to New York anymore the other opportunities. And then
Speaker 2: once the internet opened up, then why would I ever
Speaker 2: do that when people could watch my interviews on YouTube
Speaker 2: and I could do it the way I do it without.
Speaker 7: Having to kind of compromise.
Speaker 1: Was there ever pressure at any point, or in a
Speaker 1: professional or even in a toxic way to.
Speaker 6: Do more?
Speaker 1: That's something out of your zone all the time.
Speaker 2: I mean, you know how all the time and every
Speaker 2: turn sometimes. I mean, I'm sure there were points in
Speaker 2: my life or my career where you try because you
Speaker 2: want to win, and you try to figure out a
Speaker 2: way you could do a certain thing, especially when people
Speaker 2: start looking at numbers.
Speaker 7: And all that stuff. But I don't think at any.
Speaker 1: Point are you numbers good?
Speaker 7: I mean most of the time, not always.
Speaker 1: I all know you are, so I would tell you something.
Speaker 2: Though my whole career, people would tell me, oh, you're
Speaker 2: the number one, or you have this many. I never
Speaker 2: look at ratings. I don't look at numbers. I don't
Speaker 2: look at ratings because I never wanted it to make
Speaker 2: I didn't. I didn't want it to affect how I
Speaker 2: show up right.
Speaker 1: Right, But they let you They let you know that
Speaker 1: well for ignorance.
Speaker 2: No, they were if we were in trouble, they'd say, hey,
Speaker 2: maybe we need to tighten up on this, and I say, okay, well,
Speaker 2: but the up and down of radio ratings is so
Speaker 2: crazy that I didn't I never wanted to, like fall
Speaker 2: victim to like watching that, and then also FLEX watched
Speaker 2: it so hard I felt like I didn't have to.
Speaker 1: Okay, I was going to lead back to him. I'm
Speaker 1: not using him specifically as an example, but I guess
Speaker 1: I could use him as an example of which, you know,
Speaker 1: I've heard a few times where people like, yo, man,
Speaker 1: why don't you, you know, give up the keys of
Speaker 1: the kingdom to let someone else younger? And whatever? But
Speaker 1: is there like how I'm not saying doggy dog? Is
Speaker 1: it like how often do you have to look in
Speaker 1: the rear view mirror to figure out like.
Speaker 7: Who's on my neck?
Speaker 1: Yeah? And what is that?
Speaker 7: Anybody on your neck?
Speaker 1: Someone new comes in, I have to wonder, like, oh,
Speaker 1: do they want my spot or like.
Speaker 2: Do you get I think probably a younger me was
Speaker 2: a little bit more aware of that than me. Now.
Speaker 7: Me now is just like I'm supposed to be where
Speaker 7: I'm supposed to.
Speaker 2: This is no, it's not that I mean I welcome
Speaker 2: I'm always trying to get them to I don't know.
Speaker 7: I welcome new energy, young energy, like around. So I
Speaker 7: don't know.
Speaker 2: I don't really think about that, but I think at
Speaker 2: some points I probably did. But but for short periods
Speaker 2: of time, you can't let yourself. But you know, whenever
Speaker 2: you're looking over there, it just alters your delivery, alters
Speaker 2: your state of mind, your old and I always is
Speaker 2: aware of that. So even if I look over there
Speaker 2: for a second, I'm right back here.
Speaker 1: Okay, So the world that Steve and I belong to,
Speaker 1: which is at thirty Rock University. Yeah, the sign of
Speaker 1: uh oh is when as as a not a staff person,
Speaker 1: but as a a union guy, like the guy that
Speaker 1: does a camera, a guy that does the light, like
Speaker 1: a crew guy. The sign of oh is when they
Speaker 1: tell you you got to go to the Today Show. So,
Speaker 1: because because of the way that New York has, like
Speaker 1: union rules and all those things, you can't like fire
Speaker 1: someone or as you just put them on the ship job, right,
Speaker 1: you can't. You can't never get fired from like you
Speaker 1: have to do something extreme, like kind of short of murder.
Speaker 1: I hate that, by the way, Well yeah.
Speaker 7: Cool for radiople.
Speaker 1: I'm right. So when you work at thirty, like if
Speaker 1: you get in on my you're golden, and people fight
Speaker 1: for the job because it's like you dental, like you
Speaker 1: get insurance and all that stuff. I didn't that, so,
Speaker 1: but the thing is is that I don't believe that
Speaker 1: what you.
Speaker 2: Know I come from, Like, if you're not if you
Speaker 2: don't want to be here, or you're not delivering or
Speaker 2: this is not a good fit, then let's all let's
Speaker 2: keep it moving, right.
Speaker 1: But what I'm saying with him is that the thing
Speaker 1: is like you gotta go to the Today Show, which
Speaker 1: means like a damn, I got it. Well, it's because
Speaker 1: they can't fire you. Being on the Today Show is
Speaker 1: so inconvenient because now you got to wake up at
Speaker 1: two in the morning to work at three and all
Speaker 1: that stuff. I guess they could do that you quit.
Speaker 7: Yeah, they'll put you on Sundays at two am.
Speaker 1: Oh yes, out the passion that's not.
Speaker 2: Radio though, but if it's over, it's over. Well now,
Speaker 2: I mean now I'm at iHeart. That's a difference a
Speaker 2: similar type of machine. It's like a big company. So
Speaker 2: there's a lot more rules, and over the.
Speaker 1: Years there's more. So what's the undesirable hour?
Speaker 7: Like, what's the undesirable the undesirable hour?
Speaker 2: Yeah, I would imagine it's like overnights, even though I
Speaker 2: had a good time doing overnights, but I would imagine
Speaker 2: who I don't know, I don't know.
Speaker 7: I don't think that's a thing. Now, I don't think
Speaker 7: that's a thing.
Speaker 1: I don't know. So all times are good times.
Speaker 7: And no window is just so different.
Speaker 1: It's just so different asking these questions as the person
Speaker 1: that clearly doesn't listen to great like this.
Speaker 7: It's not even like a date. Everybody has a day
Speaker 7: part with a rule. Never perse.
Speaker 2: Somebody came to me and they were like, hey, Andrew,
Speaker 2: were thinking maybe you should do Sundays at midnight. Now
Speaker 2: that would be great, right. I'd be like, yeah, no,
Speaker 2: thank you, though this has been good times. We can
Speaker 2: we can easily just we could just go our ways.
Speaker 2: Now that that wouldn't work for me. But luckily I'm
Speaker 2: in a position in life where I can do other
Speaker 2: things and and I'd be fine.
Speaker 1: So so for you, what was your wildest like historical
Speaker 1: moment that you felt was that Hot ninety seven at
Speaker 1: its peak?
Speaker 2: Oh jeez, you just reworded the question I didn't want
Speaker 2: to answer before, which was what was.
Speaker 7: Your favorite What was your biggest interview?
Speaker 1: You read?
Speaker 7: That's what you're not. That's what an interviewer does. They go,
Speaker 7: they bring it back around if you don't answer it
Speaker 7: the first way. That's what a good interviewer does.
Speaker 1: Well, I would figure that you would have like one
Speaker 1: I caught this freestyle, or I met at Kenchrick Lamar
Speaker 1: for the first time, or.
Speaker 2: So many But do you have do you have any
Speaker 2: idea that this was my life for so many years
Speaker 2: that I did this every day, that every day it
Speaker 2: was highlight And I'm in New York City at a
Speaker 2: point where it's Woo Tang and jay Z.
Speaker 7: And Nas and mob Deep and uh you know what
Speaker 7: I mean.
Speaker 2: Just an endless stream artists every single night, coming every day.
Speaker 1: Assuming that you were at Years Hot, assuming that you
Speaker 1: were at Summer Jam during the Yes takeover period, like
Speaker 1: it wasn't weird to see like Michael Jackson just backstage
Speaker 1: at Hot ninety seven, like, oh.
Speaker 7: Yeah, that was pretty great. That was pretty great. You
Speaker 7: just got a remind her because I see that so much.
Speaker 2: That was that was pretty great. Okay, let me think
Speaker 2: a good one for you.
Speaker 1: Want to I want to campfire story. Damn it, damn you.
Speaker 1: I'm a nerd. You know I love that about you.
Speaker 1: It's good.
Speaker 2: I mean, you know, you know there's you know, you
Speaker 2: know the Na's battle happened on my show, right? Did
Speaker 2: you know that that we played records and the whole
Speaker 2: city voted and that was the moment when that was
Speaker 2: a huge moment.
Speaker 1: So what was that? What? No, this is what the two.
Speaker 2: Records it was, which I thought was unfair, but it
Speaker 2: was really super ugly. Oh okay, it was super ugly
Speaker 2: versus ether and what happened.
Speaker 7: Yes, we were Wait wait, do you remember.
Speaker 2: How I was saying earlier, like when there was no competition,
Speaker 2: you could do whatever you want. You want to do
Speaker 2: a twenty minute talk break. Good, where's everybody gonna where's
Speaker 2: everybody gonna go? They're not gonna go anywhere you can
Speaker 2: talk for twenty minutes. Now competition has come, right, now
Speaker 2: there's two hip hop radio stations in the market, so
Speaker 2: now you have to be a little more careful and
Speaker 2: tighter otherwise you're giving it. So in the middle of
Speaker 2: this nas J thing, I don't I'm scared. I don't
Speaker 2: want any parts of it. Flex is like, if we
Speaker 2: don't do this here, they're gonna do it down the block.
Speaker 7: Do you want that to have?
Speaker 2: Like you know, Flex is a beast, right, So he says,
Speaker 2: we're gonna do this. I'm gonna start it on my show.
Speaker 2: We're going to play the two records. People are going
Speaker 2: to vote all the way. We finish the voting your
Speaker 2: show in the afternoon tomorrow.
Speaker 7: Brilliant, brilliant.
Speaker 2: It actually is kind of brilliant. I was resisting it
Speaker 2: because I didn't want to get in the middle of
Speaker 2: that because it's you know, it's NOTS and it's.
Speaker 7: J, and I don't want to. I don't want to
Speaker 7: be in that Switzerland. But you know I was.
Speaker 2: I was kind of thrown in it, and so it
Speaker 2: was huge. It was I hadn't nobody could anticipate how big.
Speaker 1: I mean, I don't.
Speaker 2: Evening we sat there, We sat there, and it was like, honestly,
Speaker 2: there was a lot of people in the room case
Speaker 2: a rest and peace, God bless.
Speaker 7: He was in the room, The interns were in the room.
Speaker 2: There was like anybody who was The other DJs were
Speaker 2: hanging around because this was just a huge thing.
Speaker 1: So people from the.
Speaker 7: Sales department like were like popping in to see and
Speaker 7: so we're sitting there answer in the in.
Speaker 2: The board ups like with a tally with like one
Speaker 2: line two like we're doing this the two phones we're
Speaker 2: taking votes on.
Speaker 1: Come on, I mean this story.
Speaker 2: I believe one either one. The crazy thing is Ether one.
Speaker 2: And Jay was on his way to the station to
Speaker 2: do an interview with me because coincidentally or just what
Speaker 2: had happened was super ugly.
Speaker 7: People didn't like.
Speaker 1: Super ugly. Why did he go against super ugly and
Speaker 1: not think about the current?
Speaker 2: Got so all this time had passed that the takeover
Speaker 2: dropped Ether and then all of a sudden it was
Speaker 2: super ugly and everybody was like, oh God, which one
Speaker 2: of these diss records is better?
Speaker 1: I like the beat to I never liked Yeah, I
Speaker 1: didn't either. Well, it's like I need to like you
Speaker 1: need to dance to And I was like, this is
Speaker 1: one of the things where I got to listen to
Speaker 1: it and I couldn't humme it now to save my life,
Speaker 1: Like I feel you, Yeah, I definitely remember that anyway.
Speaker 2: So as I'm announcing and the winner is, I could
Speaker 2: see my peripheral in the window. I could see Jay
Speaker 2: walking in. The winner is Nas, and then Jacks.
Speaker 6: In the room.
Speaker 2: As I'm saying it live, I could as I'm saying
Speaker 2: the winner is, and I see j walking in from
Speaker 2: the peripheral.
Speaker 1: My god, he said, door J. And so it was.
Speaker 2: I hated the I hated the whole moment. I hated
Speaker 2: is so uncomfortable. And then because I felt so uncomfortable,
Speaker 2: then you know, Nas took it wrong that I was
Speaker 2: being so like j.
Speaker 1: He was like, well what about me?
Speaker 2: So then there was all this weirdness that happened. Luckily,
Speaker 2: after years, you know, all the years later, we all
Speaker 2: are everybody anybody's great and I love to see either
Speaker 2: one of them anywhere, and you know, but in that moment,
Speaker 2: it was, you know, when you're in it and you're
Speaker 2: younger and you don't really have a perspective of where
Speaker 2: it's gonna land, it all.
Speaker 7: Seems so heavy and serious in the moment. Now, we
Speaker 7: can laughing, is it? But in the moment it felt heavy, man.
Speaker 2: Because the streets are listening, the streets are listening, and
Speaker 2: I'm thinking, oh my god, did.
Speaker 7: I just help ruin Jay's career?
Speaker 1: Did I was I part of this? Is this going
Speaker 1: to ruin him? Because in the moment, in the moment,
Speaker 1: that's the biggest thing in everybody. You don't know in the.
Speaker 2: Moment, you think this could be the death of his career.
Speaker 2: You know, it sounds ridiculous now, but in the moment,
Speaker 2: you don't know that. And I and it was.
Speaker 7: It was bad from what I recall, I think like
Speaker 7: he came on fine, obviously.
Speaker 1: But then he come on the air and he apologized. Yeah,
Speaker 1: I was about to say like it was a humbler,
Speaker 1: like okay, I've least I'm sorry. And you know, I
Speaker 1: think he got a lot.
Speaker 2: Of calls, including from his mother who said that he
Speaker 2: had crossed the and he so he just wanted to
Speaker 2: be like, yeah, I cross that right there, and is
Speaker 2: what it is.
Speaker 7: And he tried to say his stay.
Speaker 2: It just was an awkward time. His timing was the
Speaker 2: whole thing was just nuts, all right. And then I
Speaker 2: got mad and me after because because he felt it
Speaker 2: wasn't fair.
Speaker 7: What do you mean it was a fair you won?
Speaker 2: But I understand from his perspective also him sitting home
Speaker 2: and be like, hey, you should be happier for me,
Speaker 2: Like what's going on here now? In retrospect, I can
Speaker 2: understand his feelings anyway, So you know, it's all growing pains.
Speaker 7: It's all like growing pains.
Speaker 6: Did Flex apologize to you for putting you in that situation?
Speaker 7: Well, he was like, this was great. We killed it.
Speaker 7: You killed it, But you know it's history.
Speaker 5: You haven't feel the pressure in that way because you
Speaker 5: had these beautiful relationships and long lasting relationships that when
Speaker 5: you are in your job asking questions, have you had
Speaker 5: a moment where they might look at you like why
Speaker 5: are you asking me that?
Speaker 7: You know, like, do you ever have those that kind
Speaker 7: of I.
Speaker 2: Think a younger me, a younger me, a younger because
Speaker 2: I feel like I've changed a lot. But I think
Speaker 2: a younger me maybe fell victim to that a couple
Speaker 2: of times where I'd press because I'm like, the audience
Speaker 2: wants to know. I think me as I got older
Speaker 2: and I started realizing this really doesn't matter and it's
Speaker 2: not worth it's not worth me a relationship sacrifice even
Speaker 2: about the relationship, because it's not about if we don't
Speaker 2: have a relationship, that's fine, but it's not me worth
Speaker 2: me disrespecting somebody or making somebody just putting somebody in
Speaker 2: an awkward spot in my home. Like, I don't like
Speaker 2: not only that moment, but I don't like what it
Speaker 2: says to the people listening how we should treat each other.
Speaker 2: And so I think, you know, you know.
Speaker 1: What, I think. I just remembered that. Actually, I think
Speaker 1: your best interviews were with fifty in which even I
Speaker 1: hate to be this person that's like, but when I
Speaker 1: first heard my first fifty cent interview, I was like,
Speaker 1: oh yo, he's.
Speaker 7: He's the best, the best interview.
Speaker 1: I hate that. I hate well, I hate he's smart,
Speaker 1: and I hate that when people like you see so
Speaker 1: well whatever. Yeah, but I no.
Speaker 2: No, no, no, there is a there is a moment
Speaker 2: where you realize this is a this is not he's
Speaker 2: not just wild.
Speaker 1: He's he's playing a character.
Speaker 2: No, he's brilliant, Yeah, yeah he's and he's a marketer
Speaker 2: and he's a marketing kind of genius and he also
Speaker 2: charming and yeah, all of those things. But I will
Speaker 2: tell you because I didn't always love some of the
Speaker 2: things fifty fifty did, right, So I but I love
Speaker 2: that I could have interviews with him and like push
Speaker 2: him a little bit.
Speaker 1: And so you're allowed to challenge if you don't if
Speaker 1: he disagreed without.
Speaker 2: Feeling yeah, I mean, if it's an honest conversation, I'm
Speaker 2: not here to hurt anybody. But if I'm like, hey,
Speaker 2: a lot of people feel like this, I kind of
Speaker 2: feel like this too, what do you think about that?
Speaker 7: And it's nice to get it be able to have
Speaker 7: an open conversation like that.
Speaker 2: But he has said to me over the years a
Speaker 2: couple of times, He's like, I definitely left your show
Speaker 2: bleeding a few times.
Speaker 1: I love your show.
Speaker 7: I was bloody a few times, and I was like,
Speaker 7: oh but please, just let's be friends.
Speaker 1: Though Okay, I never wanted to be feeling hard.
Speaker 2: That's the beautiful party, you know, great it because I
Speaker 2: also had respect for him, so.
Speaker 1: He knows that. So how hard was it to transition
Speaker 1: to being an artist? Oh?
Speaker 7: That was tough?
Speaker 1: Really? Like how so speaking of the whole imposter syndrome
Speaker 1: thing or whatever.
Speaker 7: Like, yeah, we talked about that was the prime of
Speaker 7: it for me.
Speaker 1: So how did you get talked into?
Speaker 5: Like?
Speaker 1: Where is this idea? Come up? Does electric come to you?
Speaker 5: No?
Speaker 7: No, no. I'm at a club.
Speaker 2: I'm hosting a party as the host and I'm talking
Speaker 2: on the mic and doing a look you know one
Speaker 2: two one two and karas One is there and Karras
Speaker 2: One comes up to me after the party and.
Speaker 1: Says, right, you're what I got next?
Speaker 7: And he said, have you ever been on a record?
Speaker 1: And you should? You know you got? You got in
Speaker 1: the mic?
Speaker 7: You sound good. I bet you could kill it. I
Speaker 7: was like, now you're crazy.
Speaker 2: First of all, it is Karas One. He's one of
Speaker 2: my role models. And then he invites me to the
Speaker 2: studio and I do Heartbeat and we do Heartbeat with Redman.
Speaker 7: So I'm in.
Speaker 2: So it's imagine. It's like you're I always say like,
Speaker 2: imagine you're like a little league baseball player. And Derek
Speaker 2: Jeter says, come on down and hit a few balls
Speaker 2: with us at Yankee Stadium and You're like, fuck, So
Speaker 2: you this was me. I'm in the studio with Karas
Speaker 2: One and Redman and we do this song and then
Speaker 2: from there it was like a roller coaster. Then Ladies
Speaker 2: Night happened, and then the labels start called, and I'm like,
Speaker 2: what do you mean you want.
Speaker 1: To do a whole album? This is lazy. I have
Speaker 1: for them things?
Speaker 2: Yeah right, because them things, And if I could go,
Speaker 2: and all those records were from the album that came
Speaker 2: because I did the Kerason and then the Ladies names
Speaker 2: and they came up.
Speaker 7: Was just single because that.
Speaker 2: And also if I could go, which more people would
Speaker 2: know if it wasn't stuck in streaming hiding away.
Speaker 1: From it, was like I can't we can't find it.
Speaker 5: I know.
Speaker 7: We just literally about a week ago finally got it cleared.
Speaker 7: It'll go out.
Speaker 2: More, it'll go a little stream soon. We just literally
Speaker 2: like a week ago, just finally clear.
Speaker 7: You gotta do a whole marketing blitz for that now,
Speaker 7: like you gotta know no come, I still oh my god,
Speaker 7: please no.
Speaker 5: No.
Speaker 1: My not tune set is. It's so funny, it's so weird.
Speaker 1: It's such a weird thing for me.
Speaker 4: Did that give you I was gonna ask that being ours?
Speaker 4: Did it give you a new respect for artists?
Speaker 1: This?
Speaker 7: I told you.
Speaker 2: I was like a rap nerd, like I would recite
Speaker 2: lyrics were for I could like recite like rock sand
Speaker 2: Chantey lyrics, MC light lyrics not just them ll cool
Speaker 2: J lyrics to the t. And so when that happened, Uh,
Speaker 2: it was so much fun. It was like, oh shoot,
Speaker 2: I love this, like I really loved it. But then
Speaker 2: there was a lot of criticism because people knew me
Speaker 2: from the radio, and I think I let that get
Speaker 2: in my head and it made me scared.
Speaker 1: And so because a conflict.
Speaker 7: No, no, no, just like.
Speaker 2: Who do you think like imposta syndrome? Why do you
Speaker 2: think you should be allowed to do that?
Speaker 1: Are you allowed to spend your own records?
Speaker 7: I didn't, I know, I didn't. I mean you could.
Speaker 7: I guess I could. I mean lots of DJs do.
Speaker 1: Wait, mistake a lot of spins. So it was I mean,
Speaker 1: I don't know. Lady Night was definitely a hit.
Speaker 2: No, if I could go, it was a Lady's Night
Speaker 2: was a hip for sure, and if I could go,
Speaker 2: it was the top ten record also. But you know
Speaker 2: what would happened if I could go? I mean some
Speaker 2: of those songs Ladies' Night, like they'd play it on
Speaker 2: the pop stations with ZE one hundred be playing Ladies Night,
Speaker 2: and they would cut my verse out.
Speaker 1: Really what I was going to ask.
Speaker 2: Other radio stations, even across the country, if they were
Speaker 2: deemed the competitive market, they would cut out the first.
Speaker 7: Because it's because it's promo. You can't promo.
Speaker 1: Yeah, who is Like if you're a radio one with Helen,
Speaker 1: what's heard, it.
Speaker 7: Doesn't matter if we're talking about the internets. Yeah, they
Speaker 7: they they would cut me, cut me out. So there
Speaker 7: was like some weirdness, but that wasn't the thing. It
Speaker 7: was me would imposter syndrome.
Speaker 2: And it was honestly, I feel like I stunted my
Speaker 2: own growth because yeah, you didn't. I didn't get I
Speaker 2: was just starting to, like sometimes I see things and
Speaker 2: I was like, oh you was about to get better
Speaker 2: right there, and you and I stunted my own growth
Speaker 2: because I felt like like imposter a little bit and
Speaker 2: I didn't, And it was just easier for me to
Speaker 2: be on the radio.
Speaker 7: So I just kind of leaned into that take.
Speaker 1: Your own was awesome my joint too, huh yeah, yeah,
Speaker 1: yeah yeah.
Speaker 7: And it was always so.
Speaker 2: Let me tell you something, It was always so because
Speaker 2: I was always so insecure about it that whenever I
Speaker 2: would see somebody that I'll never forget I was with.
Speaker 2: I was in LA promote and I was very insecure
Speaker 2: about it and I saw most most Death at the time,
Speaker 2: and I saw him from the hotel.
Speaker 7: He was like, Yo, you killed that.
Speaker 2: I really And I was like, so anytime an artist,
Speaker 2: somebody that I really respected would say something to like that,
Speaker 2: it really like it meant a lot to me, and
Speaker 2: you too, And then I live one time I saw
Speaker 2: somewhere he had something nice to say.
Speaker 7: It meant a lot because I was so insecure, and you.
Speaker 5: Did something I don't think any other radio host has
Speaker 5: done like you made history.
Speaker 1: Yeah. Yeah, how I feel to be nominated for Grammy
Speaker 1: and imposter syndrome totally?
Speaker 2: Why am I here? Who put me here? How is
Speaker 2: this possible? And it was so quick. I went from
Speaker 2: never doing a song too, I'm on the second song,
Speaker 2: I'm ever on and I'm at the Grand I'm at
Speaker 2: the MTV Awards.
Speaker 1: Say where did you guys? Performed it once? Somewhere? Yeah,
Speaker 1: so what was that recording session? Like, like, did you
Speaker 1: It was a lot of.
Speaker 7: It was peacemeal. My first time was by myself. Was
Speaker 7: there already laid, was already there.
Speaker 2: And I came in and I didn't even honestly, I
Speaker 2: was so I was so green that I didn't. I
Speaker 2: wasn't sure, like where the eight bars was supposed to end,
Speaker 2: Like my bars weren't. I wasn't even counting bars properly,
Speaker 2: Like I came there with a whole book of rhymes
Speaker 2: because I didn't know how much I was gonna need.
Speaker 1: So when you're in the studio, is it like everyone
Speaker 1: get out the studio like, no, no, are you the person?
Speaker 1: Are you kidding me?
Speaker 2: It was my second time ever doing it in a room,
Speaker 2: but it's no. And then so but then they had
Speaker 2: me come back to do ad libs. And when I
Speaker 2: was there left, I was there with me. Yeah she was,
Speaker 2: and she was so she was like, oh you like
Speaker 2: she was just so encouraging, so sweet, and she had
Speaker 2: already she was left out from TLC, like she was
Speaker 2: already you know, traveled the World International Group and so
Speaker 2: that was that was encouraging.
Speaker 7: And you know, it was eight bars. It wasn't like
Speaker 7: it was I felt like, Okay, I'm quick in and out.
Speaker 7: This was good.
Speaker 1: I did it. I just want to know.
Speaker 7: Every single girl said, I'm like, what are Kim saying?
Speaker 7: When she heard it? Was she like, damn girl.
Speaker 2: I don't remember what Kim said, but she made me
Speaker 2: feel so because you know, we all did the video together.
Speaker 7: The video, we were all there together.
Speaker 2: We weren't there for the song altogether, but the video
Speaker 2: we were all there together, and everybody was dope.
Speaker 7: Everybody.
Speaker 2: It was such a beautiful experience. I always say that,
Speaker 2: It's like, I'm really lucky to have had that experience
Speaker 2: because you know, you're in a room and Mary J.
Speaker 2: Blige and Queen Latifa and Little Kim and the Brat
Speaker 2: and Missy could you imagine like this?
Speaker 1: A lot of people there.
Speaker 2: Told me the TLC is there all in one room
Speaker 2: video and most of our minds.
Speaker 7: Y'all was already friends anyway, So yes, I mean, I.
Speaker 2: Know a lot of them, but not we hadn't really
Speaker 2: I definitely never worked with any of them.
Speaker 1: I started rapping.
Speaker 7: It was my second song.
Speaker 1: I was ever run Wait, did.
Speaker 6: You well, Angie? We have a special surprise tape start.
Speaker 7: You have the seventy two bars to make the song.
Speaker 1: I don't know the circumstances when you left the station,
Speaker 1: but even past radio, like, at what point did you
Speaker 1: ever feel at any point like okay, I'm I did this,
Speaker 1: or yeah, just like you know the artists or we're
Speaker 1: younger than or that sort of thing, like I don't
Speaker 1: understand this music or that sort of thing. How do
Speaker 1: you wrestle with because even as a DJ now struggle
Speaker 1: well fear all right, so I did. I got ambushed
Speaker 1: with a play for the kids thing, and I've you know,
Speaker 1: already said like, look, I'm just trying to do like
Speaker 1: throwback adults, like that sort of thing. I don't want
Speaker 1: to do no more I do adult. I wanted to write,
Speaker 1: I want to know who's going to be there. And
Speaker 1: there's the thing where you know, I had to hand
Speaker 1: out a bunch of scholarships to a bunch of like
Speaker 1: you know, needy kids, and the kids love you, and
Speaker 1: you know, I got gassed and I was like, all right,
Speaker 1: I'll DJ for the kids.
Speaker 6: And then they were looking at you like wow, was
Speaker 6: you playing?
Speaker 1: No? Well? When I tell you I played litl uzi
Speaker 1: Vert's joint like I made a fifteen minute mix I've
Speaker 1: never seen. I'm so mad that shit's just an interlude.
Speaker 1: You know, that song's only one minute, That song's only
Speaker 1: one minute and twenty song Because even when we got
Speaker 1: in for SNL. I'm like, yo, y'all realize that this
Speaker 1: is just a minute in twenty five seconds, like it's
Speaker 1: an interlude. So I made a fifteen minute version of it,
Speaker 1: and of course the kids were like crazy, Yeah, Baseline
Speaker 1: only his voice, drums, his voice, like, I did a
Speaker 1: billion versions of it. I just stressed it. But you're
Speaker 1: also a personality, yes, So was there any time where
Speaker 1: you felt like a disconnect where it's sort of like
Speaker 1: I think.
Speaker 2: I had to pivot a little bit because when I say,
Speaker 2: I started and I was old all about I was
Speaker 2: a rap nerd, like I knew everybody's lyrics, I knew
Speaker 2: everybody's album cut, I knew, I knew you know what
Speaker 2: I mean? At some point I had to I pivoted
Speaker 2: a little bit because I could not keep up.
Speaker 7: No.
Speaker 2: So, but what you can do is that everybody's human.
Speaker 2: Everybody's having an experience of creating and sharing and being vulnerable.
Speaker 2: And so I started talking to people a little maybe
Speaker 2: less about their craft.
Speaker 7: And on who they are more. And that to me
Speaker 7: is timeless.
Speaker 6: Right.
Speaker 2: You know, you can talk to you can talk to
Speaker 2: people about who they are and what they're creating forever.
Speaker 1: Okay, so you're a hardcore New Yorker, so I gotta
Speaker 1: ask you this question. Yeah, So I think in ninety
Speaker 1: seven is the first time that I heard ha by
Speaker 1: Juvenile on Hot ninety seven, which to me was like
Speaker 1: a pivotal That was a moment. Even when I heard
Speaker 1: the radio, I was like, whoa like?
Speaker 7: And then we played there them We had to hit
Speaker 7: the remix this right?
Speaker 1: Well, David, of course, you know, David was like on
Speaker 1: top of it. But when I heard it, I remember
Speaker 1: having it. We had a conversation. I feel like we
Speaker 1: only played the remix. I'll be honest, No, you played
Speaker 1: the original version first?
Speaker 7: And are you sure?
Speaker 1: Oh, I'm definitely. I remember us having a conversation. I
Speaker 1: was like, wait, what girls he from? Because in my
Speaker 1: mind it's like New York and I don't know if
Speaker 1: his tip if somebody played, uh somebody played for me?
Speaker 1: Uh Notori stugs by Big And you know I has
Speaker 1: a notoriously long intro, right, it was like they wanted
Speaker 1: to test my face, like yo, listen to this, and
Speaker 1: they put it on and I was like, what was this?
Speaker 1: Like boone Fuck's army whatever, And so a minute goes in,
Speaker 1: I'm like what am I listening for? And when I
Speaker 1: heard Biggie Rhyme, I was like, wait, is this allowed
Speaker 1: to happen? Like it was? That was such a crucial
Speaker 1: moment and then how happened? And I always wanted to know,
Speaker 1: from like a New York DJ's perspective, what was the
Speaker 1: feeling like when suddenly it's like, oh, we gotta, we
Speaker 1: gotta be more national include.
Speaker 2: But I think I don't know if that moment was
Speaker 2: the moment, because then it was it was still niche.
Speaker 1: It was still like I don't remember any down South
Speaker 1: song before.
Speaker 7: I mean, I'm just saying it didn't.
Speaker 2: That we have to This was like a one, It's
Speaker 2: a it's a splash of it.
Speaker 7: It was just a little splash.
Speaker 2: We we weren't fully immersed in opening up to everything.
Speaker 2: And when I say we, I'm just saying New York
Speaker 2: because I didn't. I was never want to pick the music.
Speaker 7: But I think that was it was, you know, that
Speaker 7: was the one record that was kind of cool and
Speaker 7: it was great and it.
Speaker 1: But eventually there had to be a memo.
Speaker 7: Where it at one point the floodgates open, right.
Speaker 2: And it's funny because I was on aternity leave, I
Speaker 2: had just had my son, and I was out from
Speaker 2: and I came back to the radio. And by the
Speaker 2: way I came back to the radio, my first big
Speaker 2: interview was Jay Z R. Kelly after the concert.
Speaker 1: Yes, and I remember that.
Speaker 7: Get back to that.
Speaker 4: But we did get back to that.
Speaker 1: I remember I listened to the interview and it's like
Speaker 1: it was funny.
Speaker 2: Thoughts asked me a question, trying to answer the question
Speaker 2: now about the answer. No, No, I came back from
Speaker 2: maternity and we're playing now this is how this is
Speaker 2: like we're playing laughy taffy that we were playing. I
Speaker 2: wish I had a list of all the songs that
Speaker 2: were out at that time, because I feel like.
Speaker 7: There was like seventh how I was saying, like I
Speaker 7: was out.
Speaker 1: It was dope.
Speaker 7: We liked it, but it was just the one song.
Speaker 2: But when I came back from attorney leave, it was
Speaker 2: like I came back to a different land and it
Speaker 2: was cool, but it.
Speaker 7: Felt I felt out. I was like, wait, what's happening?
Speaker 4: All of these was the two thousands, five six, There
Speaker 4: was two thousand, two thousand and one.
Speaker 7: Yeah, my son was born in two thousand and one.
Speaker 4: Oh, she said, she said, laughy Tavvy. That was only
Speaker 4: because Lavy Taffy was like, oh five, I.
Speaker 7: Feel like, yeah, I don't think that's right.
Speaker 1: Around that time, I could.
Speaker 5: Be you couldn't get their play because they were playing
Speaker 5: Laffy Taffy and you couldn't get the airplace, so you wouldn't.
Speaker 2: By the way, I could be crediting them for a
Speaker 2: moment that it wasn't that song.
Speaker 7: Now I got that in my head though, y'alls thank you.
Speaker 7: I believe it was that song. I don't know why.
Speaker 7: I'm going to look it up right now.
Speaker 1: Daffy was two thousand and five? Really was five?
Speaker 2: Okay, so then it must not have been laughing Tabby?
Speaker 2: What was two thousand and one too?
Speaker 1: I mean southern song. It was a bunch of oh
Speaker 1: maybe was it? Like emotion was starting to become a thing,
Speaker 1: a juvenile slow motion was a thing.
Speaker 7: Definitely played. I was thinking about it.
Speaker 1: Was about it in ice cream about it? That was nice.
Speaker 1: I mean, back that ass up. I mean, yeah, you know,
Speaker 1: but you know that I remember, yo, they did. This
Speaker 1: was such a genius move where I remember once the
Speaker 1: Spice Girl's label just purchased commercial time on Hot ninety
Speaker 1: seven to play wanna be like they purchased dude. It
Speaker 1: was the most shocking thing ever. Like you ever read
Speaker 1: a magazine Sometimes you're like, wait, what the hell is
Speaker 1: this doing there? And you see at the very fine
Speaker 1: print that's out like special advertisement, like it's not a
Speaker 1: part of my but try to trick you to be like, right,
Speaker 1: the Spice Girls at one point purchased like two minutes
Speaker 1: and thirty seconds of commercial time. That's crazy, no, Because
Speaker 1: I would be in a car with a bunch of
Speaker 1: people and we would have these hip hop debates or whatever,
Speaker 1: and I was like, Yo, they're playing the Spice Girls
Speaker 1: on Hot ninety seven right now. But then I heard,
Speaker 1: you know, like commercial, you know, like it.
Speaker 7: Was the smart tactic at the time.
Speaker 1: It was, but at the time where I thought it
Speaker 1: was like them playing it for real and then but
Speaker 1: I always wanted to know just how did you guys
Speaker 1: feel about that paradigm shift of south friend of shit?
Speaker 1: Not only that, but now you got to bring them
Speaker 1: on the air and talk to them, and some of
Speaker 1: them have chips on their shoulders and some.
Speaker 7: Of them did.
Speaker 2: But I always look at like when I when I
Speaker 2: was saying how I make a pivot to like really
Speaker 2: talking about people who they are and where they're from.
Speaker 2: To me, that opens up a I don't know, that's
Speaker 2: what you love about hip hop? Right even when we start,
Speaker 2: even when the West Coast was first happened, it was
Speaker 2: the first time I learned about West Coast living was
Speaker 2: I never went to California. I didn't know what that
Speaker 2: felt like until we started to be able to interview
Speaker 2: artists that were from the West Coast because the West
Speaker 2: Coast was pop But I kind of looked at the
Speaker 2: South kind of blowing up like that as an opportunity
Speaker 2: to learn about what was happening there too, because I
Speaker 2: didn't really I'd never really spent time in the South.
Speaker 2: I didn't even I didn't know anything about the.
Speaker 7: Lifestyle of it.
Speaker 2: So when those artists started flooding in and maybe I
Speaker 2: wasn't as familiar with them.
Speaker 1: You're a better person than I was, exactly. I'm I'm
Speaker 1: minded because I feel.
Speaker 2: Like I felt a little disconnected because I didn't know
Speaker 2: the roots of maybe where some of them came from,
Speaker 2: which all the New York artists, I knew the roots
Speaker 2: of that. So I felt a little disconnected in that sense.
Speaker 7: But as you get to talk to people.
Speaker 2: People are people, right, everybody has a story to tell,
Speaker 2: and so I kind of just looked at it like that,
Speaker 2: like an opportunity. I was never somebody who felt like, oh,
Speaker 2: why is I mean to me? That's why to me,
Speaker 2: we're always evolving. We should always be evolving. I was
Speaker 2: always open minded to that, and some of the records
Speaker 2: was fired, like so I don't.
Speaker 1: Know, well in retrospect now, like I then, well I'll
Speaker 1: be revisioned. It's like, yeah, I always played this, but
Speaker 1: you know.
Speaker 7: I could maybe I could be Maybe that's grown up
Speaker 7: me talking.
Speaker 2: And if you if you were to rewind the time machine,
Speaker 2: maybe there was a guess what?
Speaker 1: All right? So where was the story you had about
Speaker 1: that interview? It was, yeah, it was the night it
Speaker 1: was after it was after the night with jay Z.
Speaker 1: R Kelly. It was the last night that he was on.
Speaker 1: He felt like somebody was trying assassinate it.
Speaker 7: Were you at the concert?
Speaker 1: I was at my house in North Carolina, account never
Speaker 1: in R Kelly's presence ever interview. I think I heard
Speaker 1: the interview.
Speaker 7: Fascinating I heard the interview.
Speaker 4: I remember because first it was like jay Z was on,
Speaker 4: but then like I think R Kelly came. I forgot
Speaker 4: the order, but anyway, but R Kelly he was talking
Speaker 4: about the night and he was on stage, and it
Speaker 4: was just oh my god, it was it was it.
Speaker 1: Was just YouTube and I hear this in the depths
Speaker 1: of like the internet, all these tapes.
Speaker 2: Just digitized them a couple of years because you know
Speaker 2: eventually you're gonna have to have like Congress, you want
Speaker 2: to direct my documentary, I'm done.
Speaker 4: I heard we were listening to it on the and
Speaker 4: it was yeah, you know, I came on stage and
Speaker 4: I'm just I saw a guy.
Speaker 1: I'm not saying appreciation woke up like it was him.
Speaker 4: It was like talking about he came on stay. I
Speaker 4: guess he said it was like whatever.
Speaker 1: I can't remember. He was talking about how he got
Speaker 1: sprayed with Mason ship Mason I was on tour O
Speaker 1: and okay, I mean on the reason because yeah, hey,
Speaker 1: I was.
Speaker 4: Actually I was just it was my I mean, I've
Speaker 4: been on stage I rock, you know for so many years.
Speaker 1: I you know, in my Lightning.
Speaker 4: Man, and I was like my light my lightning and
Speaker 4: I was like, oh, he's saying lighting man, but like
Speaker 4: it sounded like but dude, it was just it was.
Speaker 1: It sounded like he sounded bad, shipp insane. It was crazy.
Speaker 1: It was the crazy.
Speaker 7: It wasn't even my shift.
Speaker 1: I was.
Speaker 2: I went to the radio station from the show because
Speaker 2: I was at the show when the whole thing unraveled.
Speaker 6: Yeah.
Speaker 2: And then I was getting my parking lot get in
Speaker 2: my car and Mike Michael Kais had called me.
Speaker 7: It was like Jay wants to get.
Speaker 1: On the radio.
Speaker 2: I was like, okay, well he can come by my
Speaker 2: show tomorrow afternoon. He was like, no, no, no, he
Speaker 2: wants to go on.
Speaker 7: The radio right now and we'll only talk to you,
Speaker 7: and he wants to.
Speaker 1: Talk to you.
Speaker 2: So I had to call the program take off. I
Speaker 2: think it was Big Dennis was on at that time.
Speaker 2: I remember who was on.
Speaker 7: But they had to get off so I could get
Speaker 7: on because.
Speaker 1: Like people do some sort of way like he will
Speaker 1: only talk to else.
Speaker 2: Yeah, And so I went up there and I was like, Okay.
Speaker 2: The funny thing is I was at the parking lot,
Speaker 2: but right outside of Manster Square Garden. It was like
Speaker 2: I was waiting in line because I didn't want to
Speaker 2: be like a jerk and like run to the front.
Speaker 2: So I'm like waiting in line for my car. But
Speaker 2: then when I got the call from Kaias, I was like,
Speaker 2: jay Z wants to get on the radio. They were like,
Speaker 2: let her go, let her go, because only in the
Speaker 2: line had just come out the concert.
Speaker 1: They knew what happened. Jay Z's about to get on
Speaker 1: the radio.
Speaker 7: Let edg you get her car.
Speaker 1: So they let me go. What happened and don't know like, oh, well,
Speaker 1: a concert went down, both worlds.
Speaker 7: In the best of both worlds.
Speaker 1: And then the lights go out.
Speaker 7: Have it consued?
Speaker 2: Allegedly, Peppers break R Kelly backstage and then and then R.
Speaker 2: Kelly left and Jay Jay had to finish the rest
Speaker 2: of the show at Madison Square Garden by himself, and
Speaker 2: he called.
Speaker 7: On people quickly to take Mary.
Speaker 2: Mary came out, Usher came out. People kind of came
Speaker 2: to rescue Jay.
Speaker 1: Lenny told me, okay, so Lenny rescue Jay. You know
Speaker 1: what I mean.
Speaker 7: He needed a show.
Speaker 1: I remember Kodak. Lenny actually said that he had to
Speaker 1: run up and down the aisles and see like people, Yeah, literally,
Speaker 1: you know, come up and do your joint or whatever.
Speaker 7: Yeah, to pack us.
Speaker 2: He was playing Usher songs from his phone and then
Speaker 2: Usher came and performed, and because peck Us worked at
Speaker 2: Arista at the time, right or right?
Speaker 7: Yeah? Is that right Arista?
Speaker 2: Yeah, I'm so bad at like those little and you're
Speaker 2: telling me that, like, so the whole So everybody in
Speaker 2: the concert knew what was happening. So then when we left,
Speaker 2: we were like, yo, that was crazy.
Speaker 7: What happened? We don't know.
Speaker 2: And then from there it was Jay wants to go
Speaker 2: on the radio and talk about it. So now anybody
Speaker 2: who was at the concert is listening. And then I
Speaker 2: don't know how everybody would hear it because everybody.
Speaker 4: A somebody posted at the time. Honestly, I feel like
Speaker 4: somebody posted it okay player, right no, no, no, no, no,
Speaker 4: so yeah, somebody.
Speaker 7: From I never knew how everybody heard it.
Speaker 1: Yeah, somebody up in New York.
Speaker 4: And I can't remember what who it was or you
Speaker 4: know what the okay player was, but somebody in New York.
Speaker 4: It might have been a thirty thirty but I can't
Speaker 4: remember it. Take somehow had taken the stream or had
Speaker 4: recorded you on the radio, and then like they posted
Speaker 4: a link for us to check on okay player, and
Speaker 4: so that was how we heard the interview.
Speaker 7: So Jay cames up to tell his what happened.
Speaker 2: He was so frustrated and he was like, look, you
Speaker 2: know this guy, we've had problems.
Speaker 1: We called it. This guy like discussed. He was very.
Speaker 2: Frustrated, and then he was We got a call from
Speaker 2: from Tracy was programm director at the time. She was like, listen,
Speaker 2: we have to be fair. R Kelly called he wants
Speaker 2: to come up and tell his side of the story too.
Speaker 7: The middle of the night.
Speaker 2: So I say, I tell Jay R Kelly wants to
Speaker 2: come up, because like, that's fine, you could talk to him.
Speaker 7: I'm almost done anyway, I'm about to leave. Jay leaves.
Speaker 2: R Kelly shows up five ten minutes later, I could
Speaker 2: be it could have been twenty.
Speaker 1: I don't know.
Speaker 7: It was a few minutes later. It's all live on
Speaker 7: the radio.
Speaker 4: A moment in my show and his eyes I say,
Speaker 4: calling Tyrone and the audience say, but but you wouldn't
Speaker 4: know that you're not a fan.
Speaker 1: This is on the air, like we'll listen, yo yo
Speaker 1: bro right. In fact, it was I remember this now.
Speaker 1: It was I was over.
Speaker 4: I went to ninth brid ninth. I feel like I
Speaker 4: don't know what's christis with maybe a homie Mike.
Speaker 1: Bird was with it. But anyway, crib and we're listening.
Speaker 4: I had no idea, like like what I don't.
Speaker 2: I do know that after that, people will come up
Speaker 2: to me from different places and tell me. And I
Speaker 2: don't always curious how did everybody because it wasn't that.
Speaker 7: Wasn't like you know what I mean.
Speaker 1: So player was the social media. It was like we
Speaker 1: we are definitely black Twitter, yeah for sure, like we
Speaker 1: started black Twitter. Yeah.
Speaker 2: So then so then that happened and R Kelly showed
Speaker 2: up and his eyes were all red from the pepper sprays.
Speaker 1: Still it just come from.
Speaker 2: Yeah, I think he I don't I could be wrong,
Speaker 2: but I think he went to the hospital first for
Speaker 2: them to like look at his eyes, and then he
Speaker 2: came to the station.
Speaker 7: And so this was the middle of the night. Now
Speaker 7: I'm interview and R Kelly in the middle of the night.
Speaker 7: It was it was nuts and remind us I'm sorry
Speaker 7: because mirror wasn't there.
Speaker 5: He doesn't know what what R Kelly said.
Speaker 1: He I mean, listen, I just remember he was. R
Speaker 1: Kelly was very he.
Speaker 7: Said somebody was in the crowd who had a gun.
Speaker 4: I will say, Angie, you were always professional, but like
Speaker 4: you handled that interview really well because we were literally
Speaker 4: on the other side listens like yo, this nigga pre
Speaker 4: Gail King like yo, We were like, yo, he sounds crazy,
Speaker 4: but yeah he was somebody you talked about.
Speaker 1: You saw some with a gun and yeah it was was.
Speaker 2: J side of the story was he was uncomfortable because
Speaker 2: Jay was killing it every night and R Kelly was
Speaker 2: in his feeling, so he wanted to leave.
Speaker 7: He just wanted to leave. He didn't want to finish.
Speaker 7: That was Jay's story.
Speaker 2: R Kelly's story was he wanted to leave because it
Speaker 2: felt he was threatened because somebody was in the audience
Speaker 2: with a gun and he saw it from the stage
Speaker 2: and he wanted to leave.
Speaker 1: But he said it like R Kelly, not out there, okay,
Speaker 1: freaking I saw. I'm not saying what it was like.
Speaker 4: I was like, Yo, you saw somebody and you asked
Speaker 4: you was like, so he had a gun. I'm not
Speaker 4: saying what he had or what he didn't have. I'm
Speaker 4: saying I saw a guy. I saw a guy.
Speaker 1: It was. It was very much like the the to
Speaker 1: like when you say teenage how we talk.
Speaker 4: It was the precursor to that like it was you
Speaker 4: know what I mean. But yeah, but he saw a guy.
Speaker 2: The wild thing is, I would love to know put
Speaker 2: this in the air. Somebody was in the room with R.
Speaker 2: Kelly that night, and and this is early. I didn't
Speaker 2: use the video tape my interviews back then, never so, but.
Speaker 7: Somebody was with R. Kelly who had like a big
Speaker 7: old camcorder.
Speaker 1: I'm not surprised.
Speaker 7: Somewhere.
Speaker 2: Wow, hey guys, thanks for having me. It's really fun
Speaker 2: to be here on the podcast. My point is that
Speaker 2: there's a video probably somewhere that interview. Yeah, somewhere, somebody
Speaker 2: has it. Somewhere in somebody's basement. There's a video of
Speaker 2: that interview.
Speaker 1: It was great. Yeah, thanks, That's probably most legendary interview.
Speaker 7: There's other ones.
Speaker 1: Was smoking and no one.
Speaker 5: I'm smoking and saying that wasn't her. It's been so
Speaker 5: many I'm with her.
Speaker 1: I'm just I'm just saying it just for me. That
Speaker 1: was the one for me because you.
Speaker 7: Have how about the locks and the locks fighting for.
Speaker 2: The publishing that happened on my show.
Speaker 7: And then puff the next day with receipts and you.
Speaker 1: Still understand this was very much.
Speaker 4: I mean, I signed like before we like our little
Speaker 4: brothers start going and stuff. So I would just be
Speaker 4: like hot ninety seven and all that. That would just
Speaker 4: be our window into kind of what New York was,
Speaker 4: and we was just I remember me just being at
Speaker 4: home in the South, just looking like yo, all these
Speaker 4: niggas are crazy, Like, no, I don't need to do this.
Speaker 1: So I was just come when I came to New York.
Speaker 4: I just come to New York, do my shows whatever,
Speaker 4: like see my people whatever, get my money, and I
Speaker 4: leave because I'm just like, dude, this I listened to
Speaker 4: I list.
Speaker 1: None of these niggas sound happy.
Speaker 7: So you have I was waiting for your No.
Speaker 8: No, I have a question about since we're talking about
Speaker 8: your archives and you said your digitized them, do you
Speaker 8: of any kind of plan of how to release those somehow.
Speaker 7: I'm trying to figure that out. I have I have
Speaker 7: so many that I don't really know.
Speaker 2: I feel like it's damn. It's also like, no, it's
Speaker 2: not about waiting for the offer. I really because I
Speaker 2: need a lot of money on the table. My whole career,
Speaker 2: I've left a lot of money on the table. I
Speaker 2: really operate from a place where I want to until
Speaker 2: I can figure out a way to do it. That is,
Speaker 2: it honors it and it's interesting and it's different. It's
Speaker 2: dope like I do it doesn't need to I don't
Speaker 2: need to do something just to do it.
Speaker 1: I assure you as as a person that works in
Speaker 1: that world. To you now, it's just like, yeah, I
Speaker 1: got my radio shows, and ten years it'll be like
Speaker 1: oh back in the day, I got no no no.
Speaker 1: But I swear to God, like your Oscar future lot
Speaker 1: like forty years from now, like when you when you're
Speaker 1: seventy seventy five whatever, that will be like a piece
Speaker 1: of history that if told right, where did that come from?
Speaker 6: Man?
Speaker 1: I got to pass the rasp on.
Speaker 6: Totally clips of the heart.
Speaker 1: No, if if told correctly, like please, I beg of you,
Speaker 1: because even now I will at what point were you
Speaker 1: fine with your radio journey? And how hard was it
Speaker 1: to pivot into TV personality and more specifically with up
Speaker 1: closing person like with.
Speaker 2: I think that's the thing that's kept me in radio
Speaker 2: so long is that I always, at different points in
Speaker 2: my career, played around something else just to keep the
Speaker 2: creative juices going, whether it was music or whether it
Speaker 2: was you know, little cameos and movies or you know,
Speaker 2: I wrote a book.
Speaker 7: I am.
Speaker 2: I think I always the radio became almost like just
Speaker 2: part of who I was, and it was just not easy,
Speaker 2: but it's just it's just a fabric of what I do.
Speaker 7: But I needed to stay.
Speaker 2: Creatively, you know, challenged, and so that's kind of why
Speaker 2: I would venture off and do different things here and there.
Speaker 1: And in your vision board or just in your life,
Speaker 1: do you ever foresee you becoming the station owner or
Speaker 1: he always wants to do that.
Speaker 2: I don't. I don't have any desire to.
Speaker 1: It's not my heart.
Speaker 7: It's not where my heart is. My heart is in storytelling.
Speaker 2: My heart is not running a business to help a
Speaker 2: media company, like it's not where my heart is. My
Speaker 2: heart is in storytelling. And so whether it be during
Speaker 2: an interview on the radio or just getting on the
Speaker 2: radio and talking.
Speaker 7: About something that I feel like is storytelling or.
Speaker 2: Creating or writing or like writing is something writing for
Speaker 2: me is probably like what like for you, like how
Speaker 2: you kind of finally.
Speaker 7: Have got com about it?
Speaker 2: You know, I wrote that book, and I always looked
Speaker 2: for other people to help me because I thought I
Speaker 2: wasn't a writer enough. And then as I would go
Speaker 2: try to hire people, I realized, actually I could. I'm
Speaker 2: better at this part of the story than me.
Speaker 1: And so what was the hardest part about writing the
Speaker 1: book for you?
Speaker 2: Well, all of it, because writing all of those pages,
Speaker 2: and it took me like years to do that. And
Speaker 2: I did have some help, you know, they brought I
Speaker 2: learned a lot about storytelling from this woman named mem Reavis.
Speaker 2: But she also taught me that I was actually a
Speaker 2: great writer. She gave me that confidence. So my book
Speaker 2: was pretty much done.
Speaker 7: See, it's crazy that you didn't realize that you're the combination.
Speaker 7: It's different. It's different.
Speaker 2: And thinking you could write a few bars versus writing
Speaker 2: a story and writing like or.
Speaker 5: Being a storyteller. Is what I'm saying, is saying that
Speaker 5: you are a storyteller. And I think, isn't that. So
Speaker 5: here's two examples. So number one, the book I tried
Speaker 5: to get all these writers, I didn't like it. I
Speaker 5: do it myself, but I had I still didn't have
Speaker 5: I still didn't feel it books Best New York Times
Speaker 5: be so I still feel it was.
Speaker 7: Yeah, you're okay, thank you, Oh thank you?
Speaker 1: Something? Can I get that something?
Speaker 7: Oh?
Speaker 2: Jeez, No, but then I probably felt like you after
Speaker 2: you ask, I still don't feel like a real writer.
Speaker 7: I feel like, oh, that was my memoir. Of course,
Speaker 7: that was easy.
Speaker 2: And then I say, I have this other idea, and
Speaker 2: I'm trying to get a script done, and I go
Speaker 2: to mad people and I go to stuff and I
Speaker 2: and so I start writing it by myself during COVID
Speaker 2: because I'm home, and why not, who cares?
Speaker 7: I wrote like two scripts while I started.
Speaker 2: During COVID, and so now I'm well, both of them
Speaker 2: are done. One of them needs a little tweaking. Well,
Speaker 2: it's not about me, no, but it is from my lens.
Speaker 2: Anything I do is gonna be from my lens because
Speaker 2: it is what it is, right. But you know, I'm
Speaker 2: starting to feel I'm starting to get in my bag
Speaker 2: with it. I'm starting to feel like confident about my
Speaker 2: storytelling ability as a writer and also as a creator.
Speaker 2: And so I think it's gonna be interesting to see
Speaker 2: where the next couple of years bring me. I've never
Speaker 2: operated with this level of confidence or just clarity.
Speaker 7: Through my whole career.
Speaker 4: When I was asking about the hard parts of writing
Speaker 4: the book, I meant more so emotionally, like were there
Speaker 4: any parts of your life that were hard.
Speaker 7: Yeah's scary to tell your whole story.
Speaker 2: Scary to say your father was on drugs and you
Speaker 2: ain't seen him since you're ten, or you dated this
Speaker 2: person and that was terrible for you and your heart broke.
Speaker 2: It's scary to tell family things and personal things.
Speaker 7: But I did.
Speaker 2: I wrote everything down, and I told myself when it's over,
Speaker 2: I'll take out.
Speaker 7: Anything that I don't want to share. But once you
Speaker 7: get it all out, you realize it's just my story.
Speaker 7: It's okay.
Speaker 2: It's so scary to share, you know what I mean.
Speaker 2: But then once this hour, you feel good. I don't know,
Speaker 2: it's just you could be yourself more in a weird way.
Speaker 1: Does your son see you as like mom? Or does
Speaker 1: he like know the lineage of the nah? He does?
Speaker 7: He respects it. He definitely respects it. I think he
Speaker 7: likes to.
Speaker 2: See the way people kind of react entertainment. No, my
Speaker 2: son plays ball, he plays. He wants to be in
Speaker 2: sports business. He's studying sports management, sports business.
Speaker 7: He's a good kid.
Speaker 1: I have.
Speaker 7: He's about to be twenty and June he'll be twenty. Yeah,
Speaker 7: he's he's a big boy. Remember is like, yeah, that's
Speaker 7: what made me think of that.
Speaker 1: Now I'm like, I knew you when you're playing chess
Speaker 1: at the age of six, and now you might be
Speaker 1: managing me and like a couple.
Speaker 7: We remember when Angel's pregnant.
Speaker 2: That's why I'm like, so I have him, So he's
Speaker 2: twenty and then I have a bonus, my bonus son
Speaker 2: who lives with me. He's seventeen Christian. He's doing amazing too.
Speaker 2: And I don't know they. I think that they like,
Speaker 2: I think that they respect my history and my career,
Speaker 2: but I don't think neither one of them are like
Speaker 2: really they don't care about celebrity doesn't really impress them much.
Speaker 1: I love that about gen Z.
Speaker 2: They're not like, yeah, they like people who they just
Speaker 2: like people, but they're not really you know, like, hey,
Speaker 2: you want to go over to such and such a
Speaker 2: self man, No, I'm okay, rather be over here doing this.
Speaker 1: So and you're sure that you don't want to just
Speaker 1: own the radio station?
Speaker 7: Why would I want to do that in twenty twenty three?
Speaker 7: Like what why would I want to?
Speaker 1: Wait?
Speaker 7: Wait, wait, thank you people, that's.
Speaker 1: A listen to me.
Speaker 7: How many summers do we have left?
Speaker 1: Right?
Speaker 6: Right?
Speaker 1: The sky's the limit.
Speaker 2: No, no, you're not. Most people don't live to two hundred, right,
Speaker 2: so you have a limited amount of summers left here.
Speaker 1: Okay, and this.
Speaker 2: Life and this body stress and is being a radio
Speaker 2: station owner? How I want to live out the next
Speaker 2: twenty thirty, forty whatever.
Speaker 7: I'm lucky enough to.
Speaker 1: Get the radio station owner. But I would think that.
Speaker 2: You can't do that part time. That's your life, that
Speaker 2: becomes your life. Then that's not I'm not willing to
Speaker 2: do that with my life.
Speaker 1: I'm trying to figure out a way to rubbert, like
Speaker 1: to stop micromanaging. Like I'm in the game now where
Speaker 1: like establishing like a production breaking mortar thing, and.
Speaker 7: I haven't learned how to do that.
Speaker 1: Eventually I'll get to a place where I can rubber
Speaker 1: stamp ship and micro Now. Yeah, Tika and I are
Speaker 1: like micromanaging everything. But one day I can build an
Speaker 1: empire and let it run by itself, and then I
Speaker 1: could truly do nothing. When is that gonna happen? Right?
Speaker 1: It's not like literally.
Speaker 7: Far I don't know that.
Speaker 1: It's your fifties, trust me, I got this. What do
Speaker 1: you think? I'm just talking in circles on the show.
Speaker 2: But don't you think it's you that has the gift?
Speaker 2: That's that is the nuances of that, isn't it you?
Speaker 1: I don't want to walk away. So what I'm trying
Speaker 1: to do is figure out a way to keep this
Speaker 1: running and I don't have to be here. Luck with that.
Speaker 7: I hope you do. I wish you well.
Speaker 1: I just don't mother other once family, and to be president.
Speaker 7: You might have to let go of some things to
Speaker 7: have that balance.
Speaker 1: There is an exit plan because you cannot survive in
Speaker 1: the level of stress that I'm living in now. I'm
Speaker 1: I'm taking this on now so that when I am
Speaker 1: sixties seventy eighty ninety, I don't have to do this anymore.
Speaker 7: And there's an operation running. Yeah.
Speaker 1: Yes, I'm determined to be the first black professional that
Speaker 1: actually retired. You remember, like Jay was like, yeah, you know,
Speaker 1: I'm retired after my second album or whatever, like the
Speaker 1: don't entire me. I mean, I'm not gonna retire.
Speaker 7: Killing it over here, y'all.
Speaker 1: I thank you, Thank you, guys.
Speaker 7: This is fun.
Speaker 1: This is our first real real conversation as you're a coerson.
Speaker 1: I mean, I mean we've had niceties and pleasantry. I've
Speaker 1: been on your show. But it's also like to promote
Speaker 1: my product. But I feel like I got.
Speaker 6: To know you bro, your team of Supreme over here
Speaker 6: is comatose.
Speaker 2: And I get invited to a game night because you
Speaker 2: invited me one time and I couldn't go. And I
Speaker 2: feel like because I couldn't go that one time, I
Speaker 2: have never been invited again.
Speaker 1: Yes, I will invite you the game night.
Speaker 2: So I'm a little aggressive. But I've gotten better as
Speaker 2: I've gotten older. I know how to I know how
Speaker 2: to behave well.
Speaker 1: I also I don't play the game anymore because I
Speaker 1: had to host it.
Speaker 7: Oh that's fun.
Speaker 1: Yeah, it's more fun because if I'm in the game
Speaker 1: games you play? Sorry, what do we play? Well, A
Speaker 1: lot of people in their their pandemic pivot haven't been
Speaker 1: a game. So I have like just a room full
Speaker 1: of like unused games that they want my opinion, like questions.
Speaker 1: Can I.
Speaker 2: You know I have on my bucket list in life?
Speaker 2: What is to host the game show?
Speaker 1: That? Really? I feel you do you know how much fun?
Speaker 7: Because that to me will be so much fun every.
Speaker 1: To be like I got you you got one for me?
Speaker 1: Did you did you watch?
Speaker 7: First of all, I'm offended that was.
Speaker 4: A bold ask questions as that game show, but you know,
Speaker 4: I mean that show has been on.
Speaker 1: Yes, she said, you don't know what motherfucker y. Yes,
Speaker 1: I want from Popeye exactly, come on exactly, buddy. Yeah,
Speaker 1: and I thank you so much for going on the
Speaker 1: show on behalf of Sugar Steve and PEPERI. Did he
Speaker 1: go out for more cigarettes?
Speaker 5: No?
Speaker 1: No, no, he'll come back.
Speaker 6: He's unpaid. How can you how could you ask for why?
Speaker 1: Three? Frantico and uh yeah, yeah, yeah, yes.
Speaker 4: All right, I apologize, yes as a fellow, like hearing
Speaker 4: did you talk about the way you move and the
Speaker 4: way you choose, like it really resonates with me so
Speaker 4: like much expecting love just for what you do, for
Speaker 4: the way you're doing, like staying true to yourself and me,
Speaker 4: and like, nah, I don't want to do that. That
Speaker 4: ain't for you know, you said, I turned down a
Speaker 4: lot of money in.
Speaker 2: This game to say, but also proud to say, all right, we're.
Speaker 1: Gonna end the way that we started, and we're all
Speaker 1: gonna all live in our integrity. We're not gonna self sabotage,
Speaker 1: We're not gonna dismiss our dreams. How are we gonna breathe?
Speaker 7: How are we gonna end breathing?
Speaker 1: Or we've been breathing. Actually, I'm cold as ship. I
Speaker 1: gotta get out of this room myself. Yes, thank you,
Speaker 1: and uh Supreme, We'll see all next week. Thank you.
Speaker 6: We's love.
Speaker 1: Supreme is a production of iHeart Radio. For more podcasts
Speaker 1: from iHeart Radio, visit the iHeart Radio app, Apple Podcasts,
Speaker 1: or wherever you listen to your favorite shows.