Speaker 1: Quest Love Supreme is a production of iHeartRadio. All Right, y'all,
Speaker 1: welcome to Quest Love Supreme. This summer, we sat down
Speaker 1: with Jonathan Schechter, who is the co founder and the
Speaker 1: first editor in chief of The Source magazine, The Hip
Speaker 1: Hop Bible, The Source. That's right the card. Part one welcome.
Speaker 1: If you haven't, make sure you check it out before
Speaker 1: you listen to this one. And you know, Checkey spoke
Speaker 1: about growing up in Philly, working at Howard one nine
Speaker 1: in the early eighties, and his days at the Source
Speaker 1: back when it was just a pamphlet at Heart Cool.
Speaker 1: I got to answer, Oh, it's Jonathan Schechter. He's telling
Speaker 1: me to wrap it up. All right, guys, listen to
Speaker 1: part two right now of Jonathan Schechter The Source Peter.
Speaker 2: Okay, So what happened was we had halftime and Live
Speaker 2: of the Barbecue. Okay, to recognize's first two appearances Live
Speaker 2: of the Barbecue. Everyone knows the main Source. I should
Speaker 2: mention also because you brought up something about the ratings,
Speaker 2: and I think it's important to note that those four
Speaker 2: and mics, the ratings were the number one thing that
Speaker 2: people spoke. There was two things that people cared about
Speaker 2: who was on the cover and what rating did they get.
Speaker 2: Those are the things that we hear the most feedback on.
Speaker 2: That was what every just general person on the street
Speaker 2: cared about. The other thing they cared about is like
Speaker 2: seeing what the rappers were like in real life, like
Speaker 2: you know, like what cars they drive and things like that.
Speaker 2: So there was layers to it, but basically so we
Speaker 2: actually gave If I take one more step back, there
Speaker 2: was a brief period of time when we were reviewing
Speaker 2: singles as well as albums given ratings to singles. We
Speaker 2: always reviewed singles, but for a short period of time,
Speaker 2: we actually gave the mic ratings to singles. Looking Out
Speaker 2: the Front Door got five mics, as it should. It's
Speaker 2: a hip hop classic, no doubt, right. I loved I
Speaker 2: love Large Professor, I love Main Source. I think a
Speaker 2: lot of us love love that record. That was the
Speaker 2: only time in the history of the Source that anyone
Speaker 2: ever thanked us for a review. We did hundreds and
Speaker 2: hundreds of reviews. One time only the Sir Scratch and
Speaker 2: Kcutt's mother showed up at the Source office. They were Canadian.
Speaker 2: Remember they're from Toronto. I think it's they're so polite, right,
Speaker 2: those Canadians, there's so nice. They's so nice, and they
Speaker 2: showed and this was literally all we ever got was
Speaker 2: negative feedback from people that were mad. One time I
Speaker 2: can ever recall somebody who was like, thank you so much,
Speaker 2: that review meant so much to us. Here's and she
Speaker 2: gave me a bottle of like Canadian whiskey or something
Speaker 2: and I and I kept it like on my desk
Speaker 2: for years. But she that was the only time that
Speaker 2: anyone ever thanked us for a review. The feedback was
Speaker 2: only either nothing, silence or negative. The only positive feedback
Speaker 2: we ever got was from main sources, Sir Scratch and
Speaker 2: ca Cut. There were brothers, their mother out.
Speaker 1: Yeah, shout out to uh manners and.
Speaker 2: That's right, that's right, polite goes along with I appreciated
Speaker 2: it that she did that. I was very nice of her.
Speaker 1: But before you tell the story, and I'm glad you
Speaker 1: mentioned Maine source, let me ask your opinion. It was
Speaker 1: actually that main source issue that was my uh not
Speaker 1: north Star. But I believe that getting a four point
Speaker 1: five getting four and a half mics in the source
Speaker 1: was better than getting five mics in the source. Why
Speaker 1: because everyone has the whole Golden era thing you say
Speaker 1: yours is eighty four to ninety four, the period in
Speaker 1: which we would have critical thing King Friday discussions of
Speaker 1: an album like religiously like and I missed that so
Speaker 1: much about about hip hop. Now, it's definitely between like
Speaker 1: eighty eight and kind of ninety Maybe we stopped in
Speaker 1: ninety six ninety seven because then it became like, well,
Speaker 1: they said this was classic, and we don't think this
Speaker 1: is classic. Like we became like olderf and Statler in
Speaker 1: the Muppets, like yeah, right, But I will say that.
Speaker 1: For me, I was like, okay, when something gets five
Speaker 1: mics because someone in my crew didn't get why Daylas
Speaker 1: Soul is Dead got a perfect five and I was like, dog,
Speaker 1: this is the best sequence records, the samples I never
Speaker 1: heard before, the rhyme star like everything about this album
Speaker 1: is pitch perfect. And they were like yeah, but you know,
Speaker 1: you know, and he said, you know, I'm a little
Speaker 1: biased because they you know, in his mind it was
Speaker 1: like they're just always giving out fives, and I'm like, no,
Speaker 1: it's quite the opposite. Like I think the source is
Speaker 1: really hard to please and this example of it, but
Speaker 1: that stuck with me, and I realized that people don't
Speaker 1: criticize you as much if you have a four and
Speaker 1: a half. It's almost like four and a half is
Speaker 1: the same effect as a five, but it doesn't make
Speaker 1: you that threatening where you got to be like man,
Speaker 1: fuck da da da da da or I don't know.
Speaker 1: That's my theory. I always thought four and a half
Speaker 1: was better than a five.
Speaker 2: And so the way the ratings worked as we got
Speaker 2: more mature now if we're moving into like the early nineties,
Speaker 2: is that we would Reggie became the music editor, as
Speaker 2: I mentioned, and we would to sign out the reviews
Speaker 2: to people. Sometimes I would write a couple, but for
Speaker 2: the most part that was kind of the reviews were
Speaker 2: kind of a place for the newer writers for the
Speaker 2: most part, you know, it was kind of like a
Speaker 2: way for someone to break into the source.
Speaker 1: Yeah, you would trusted me to that instead of like
Speaker 1: for like a.
Speaker 2: Spacest album or something. I mean, you know, if not
Speaker 2: for like the big marquee names, but for like, you know,
Speaker 2: for like such a new artist, you know, like somebody knew.
Speaker 2: We would give it to like somebody new because I
Speaker 2: was a chance for them to kind of prove themselves,
Speaker 2: you know, the rating, but the rating okay, So there
Speaker 2: was like a separate thing. The review would get written,
Speaker 2: but we would have a separate meeting every month with
Speaker 2: all the main people there, the people I mentioned, and
Speaker 2: we would discuss the ratings. And that was when would you.
Speaker 1: Thoroughly review it, like thoroughly listening to it, or just
Speaker 1: like you.
Speaker 2: Would defer to the person kind of who had you know,
Speaker 2: if you hadn't, if I hadn't personally listened to the
Speaker 2: whole album, I would I would try to be, you know,
Speaker 2: cognizant of that and not not over not just just
Speaker 2: give opinions on what I knew, you know, Like but
Speaker 2: there were only a handful of times that I like
Speaker 2: forced the issue and like put my foot down and
Speaker 2: like we got to give this a five. Ill Matic
Speaker 2: was one of those only times.
Speaker 1: You thought it was classic material. Who was like it
Speaker 1: might be four.
Speaker 2: It or Reggie Reggie. Reggie was like, you know, it's not.
Speaker 2: We don't know if it's going to be a class
Speaker 2: I mean, it was easy to say Listen five was
Speaker 2: called a hip hop classic, so it was easy to
Speaker 2: say in the course of this meeting which we had
Speaker 2: every month, where we would discuss the ratings. Is that
Speaker 2: really a hip hop classic? Is this going to be
Speaker 2: remembered twenty years from now as like a very important
Speaker 2: And it was a hard question. You know, You're like, here,
Speaker 2: we are ahead of even it coming out, We're like
Speaker 2: months ahead of it. Even we're like among like maybe
Speaker 2: a dozen people that I've even heard this record, and
Speaker 2: now we have to decide is it going to be
Speaker 2: a hip hop classic? It's kind of hard, you know,
Speaker 2: It's like it's not easy in the case of Illmatic. Okay,
Speaker 2: So what happened was we had heard halftime, we loved it,
Speaker 2: loved it. That movie Zebrahead, remember I think that came
Speaker 2: up on another one of your episodes. I saw, yeah
Speaker 2: with the Clark Kent right, that's correct, right with Clark
Speaker 2: Kent worked.
Speaker 1: At rough House, and we have the premiere at zebra
Speaker 1: Head and Clark Kent starts spinning in vokes, hold on
Speaker 1: and nods, gets up from freestyle, and I think maybe
Speaker 1: I was like the six in line. So that's my Oh,
Speaker 1: that's right, you were wrapped.
Speaker 2: That's when you wrapped. I remember, Yes, that's right, Okay, okay, cool.
Speaker 2: So no, so I was so we loved Halftime and
Speaker 2: Live with the Barbecue. This kid Nas incredible. You know,
Speaker 2: he was shocking. You know, I'm waving automatic guns and
Speaker 2: nuns and you know, hell for snuffing Jesus and all
Speaker 2: that stuff. So it was shocking. It was like shocking wrap.
Speaker 2: But it was obviously really good and it was really literate,
Speaker 2: and it was it was it sounded great, and we
Speaker 2: were very, very hungry to hear more from this kid Nas.
Speaker 2: So I had a trip booked to Philly and on
Speaker 2: the agenda was to visit Chris Schwartz and to go
Speaker 2: to rough House Records. So I went. It might have
Speaker 2: been an early ninety three, ninety four, I guess. So
Speaker 2: when was that released. I can't remember.
Speaker 1: The summer ninety two was zebra Head, but yeah, ninety
Speaker 1: three is yeah, so.
Speaker 2: It was late ninety it was after it was after
Speaker 2: zebra Heead, it was probably late ninety two. I go
Speaker 2: to Philly and I sat in that rough House when
Speaker 2: when rough House was in the suburbs, it was like
Speaker 2: he had this office in the It was no longer
Speaker 2: in the city. It was in the suburbs somewhere I remember,
Speaker 2: And Chris Schwartz was at the desk, and you know,
Speaker 2: we talked about a few different things, and then you know,
Speaker 2: rough House had some great records, you know, they had
Speaker 2: some great stuff. So but my real agenda for being
Speaker 2: there was I wanted to hear more Nas. I didn't
Speaker 2: tell him that, but that was my true agenda for
Speaker 2: going there. So I go there, and Chris Schwartz, as
Speaker 2: you recall, had kind of like the air of like
Speaker 2: a messy person, sort of like his hair was kind
Speaker 2: of messy. Gems version, Yeah, exactly exactly. It was a
Speaker 2: very hectic, noisy, sort of like disheveled atmosphere, right, And
Speaker 2: so there was like a desk with like coffee cups
Speaker 2: and piles of tapes and records and all. And so
Speaker 2: I go in and he's like, I'm like, hey man,
Speaker 2: you know, so we talked about other stuff, and then
Speaker 2: I'm like, so listen about this guy Nas. He's like, Nas,
Speaker 2: you know who that is? And I was like, yeah,
Speaker 2: of course, we know who that is. Halftime Live with
Speaker 2: the Barbecue. He's like, oh, man, I mean, I'm surprised
Speaker 2: you guys know about him. And I was like, oh,
Speaker 2: we love him, we love Nas. We're really curious to
Speaker 2: hear more stuff, and he searches through his desk and
Speaker 2: moves some stuff around. He picks up a cassette and
Speaker 2: he hands it to me. He'say, you can check this out.
Speaker 2: I was like, I can keep it. He's like, yeah, yeah,
Speaker 2: you can keep it. Put it in my pocket. I
Speaker 2: leave the meeting. I go back to thirtieth Street station.
Speaker 2: I get back on the train Amtrak back to New
Speaker 2: York City. I pop take out my Walkman, so using
Speaker 2: Walkman back, then pop into the Walkman hit play, and
Speaker 2: what I have in my hands in my Walkman is
Speaker 2: the entire Illmatic album, like six seven months before it
Speaker 2: came out. Okay, it was like so long in advance.
Speaker 2: It was the first draft of it. There was like
Speaker 2: multiple mixes were different. I still have this cassette, by
Speaker 2: the way, it's still it's my office right now. Yeah,
Speaker 2: well have it here right now. So basically I'm sitting
Speaker 2: here on this Amtrak train listening to represent you know
Speaker 2: one Love, you know, all these like unbelievable songs, and
Speaker 2: by the time I get to New York, I am
Speaker 2: like floating in the air with the realization that I
Speaker 2: have like the Holy Grail in my pocket. I have
Speaker 2: maybe like the greatest album I've ever heard in my life,
Speaker 2: Like sitting and no one. It's like this feeling of
Speaker 2: no one knows about it, no one's heard it. It
Speaker 2: was it was like, literally like I don't know why.
Speaker 2: I to this day, I have no idea why Chris Schwartz.
Speaker 2: I mean, obviously he wants to promote his music, but
Speaker 2: it was way too early to give that cassette to
Speaker 2: the Source. It was like.
Speaker 1: They didn't know what they had, which is why I
Speaker 1: think why I went back to Columbia and not on
Speaker 1: because we had nas on rough House for the longest
Speaker 1: and then suddenly it was like shrug, Columbia took him back.
Speaker 2: That's right, and Faith Faith knew men, yeah, and so
Speaker 2: forth right, right and so so that's what happened. I
Speaker 2: think he just didn't realize that he had this, you know, legendary,
Speaker 2: you know, ground bright, earth shattering record here. So I
Speaker 2: get back to New York. I immediately it's already now
Speaker 2: it's like ten eleven o'clock at night. I go back
Speaker 2: to the Source office downtown. I knew that some people
Speaker 2: were going to be there. I walk in. It's Maddie
Speaker 2: c Reef, Chris Wilder, Scott Free later on Loud Records,
Speaker 2: An R was there, I remember, and I walk in
Speaker 2: and we had like a mediocre like you know system,
Speaker 2: like you know, some kind of like off the shelf
Speaker 2: stereo system. I hit play and I play the entire
Speaker 2: album for this assembled heads the mind Squad, and literally
Speaker 2: every single person is just like you know, like I remember,
Speaker 2: Scott Free was literally laying on the floor like he
Speaker 2: was so blown away, like he you know when people
Speaker 2: like fall down out of like mock, you know, shock,
Speaker 2: you know, like he was just the entire room was
Speaker 2: just what the this is insane? This is so good especially.
Speaker 1: Something though, Yeah, because the thing was when I had
Speaker 1: those moments, they were chaotic bomb squad moments.
Speaker 2: Yeah.
Speaker 1: I never had that moment with a regular meat and
Speaker 1: potatoes perfect beat like bo perfect yeah, perfect rhyme, just
Speaker 1: you know, there's no novelty to it. It's not like,
Speaker 1: oh yeah it was a classic because they're using childhood
Speaker 1: records or they're using ninety five trillion samples, like I've
Speaker 1: never heard just a perfect beat, rhyme, perfection record, and
Speaker 1: so it because it didn't come with whistles, the same
Speaker 1: bells and whistles that three feet hind Rising was, or
Speaker 1: Nation of Millions was, or Americans most want it was.
Speaker 1: You know, he wasn't hyper For me, it was like
Speaker 1: such a risk because when I heard it again, there's
Speaker 1: that Gangstar issue. I read the review first and then
Speaker 1: I was like, I got it and I was like, well,
Speaker 1: it's so normal. It's one It is only ten songs,
Speaker 1: like rap records back then were like twenty seven songs.
Speaker 1: I was like, there's no skits, there's no no, no no.
Speaker 1: And my manager finally brought me down to earth. He's like, yo, man,
Speaker 1: this is what intervisions. But Stevie Wonder was like there
Speaker 1: was this nine perfect songs, like this is nine perfect songs.
Speaker 1: And I actually had to grapple with that, like I
Speaker 1: wasn't in touch with how I felt. I still had
Speaker 1: to follow what you guys said, and I had so
Speaker 1: many questions about a nine bells and whistles record getting
Speaker 1: that much much acclaim to it. But you guys instantly
Speaker 1: felt you got goosebumps from the gate.
Speaker 2: Yeah, I mean, I remember just I loved every song.
Speaker 2: I liked every single song, especially one Love that was
Speaker 2: the one that pushed me over the top, Like you know,
Speaker 2: it's just so deep, you know, it just sounds so
Speaker 2: and his lyrics are so good on it, you know,
Speaker 2: it's just so. That was like something like, you know,
Speaker 2: six or eight months before the album ended up coming out.
Speaker 2: So we have this holy grail now sitting in our possession.
Speaker 2: What do we do with it? And I think you're right.
Speaker 2: It was that issue with Gangster on the cover, yep.
Speaker 2: And I went and I took on the job of
Speaker 2: because I had this experience, you know, I went and
Speaker 2: took on the job of writing the feature about NOAs,
Speaker 2: introducing NOAs to the world. It was called the Second
Speaker 2: Coming and it was a reference to obviously Rock him
Speaker 2: because that was you know, the god MC that's who
Speaker 2: everyone viewed as pretty much the greatest rapper of all time,
Speaker 2: almost universally, and NAS was viewed as as, you know,
Speaker 2: the next in line for that kind of a title
Speaker 2: just by us. I mean, I don't know, the world
Speaker 2: didn't know yet, but that was how we were looking
Speaker 2: at it. And we went and then matt went, Mattie
Speaker 2: C went and interviewed all the producers that were involved,
Speaker 2: you know, Pete Rock, Premiere, Q Tip and Large Professor
Speaker 2: and so it was like this dream team. So we
Speaker 2: put together the story and then we still had to
Speaker 2: do the review part of it. So we assigned it
Speaker 2: in one of these cases again to a newer writer,
Speaker 2: and her name was Minya oh Yeah, later known to
Speaker 2: the world as miss Info.
Speaker 1: Miss info right. Yes, but she called herself Shorty.
Speaker 2: She caught herself Shorty right because she was she was
Speaker 2: an incredibly hip, uptown New York chick, you know, came
Speaker 2: in and was just like just new shit, way ahead.
Speaker 2: I mean, but this was still very early in her evolution,
Speaker 2: I think, and we assigned her the job. I'm really
Speaker 2: glad it was her because you.
Speaker 1: Know, was it risky for you to not see this through?
Speaker 1: Like were you not were you not allowed to touch
Speaker 1: your own reviews or would that been seen as a
Speaker 1: conflict of interest, like, well you can't be the editor
Speaker 1: a chief in HM.
Speaker 2: No, that wasn't really I mean, like in this case,
Speaker 2: I think the reasoning was that I had already written,
Speaker 2: like I was obviously the main champion of it inside
Speaker 2: the building.
Speaker 1: But you saw the feature story more important than his
Speaker 1: album review.
Speaker 2: In my mind, that was the that's more journalistic to me,
Speaker 2: is like this feature story is where you tell the
Speaker 2: whole story, you know, and like that's.
Speaker 1: Where no friends, I don't remember that story, but I
Speaker 1: remember that album.
Speaker 2: I get it. Yeah, yeah, that's okay. I understand that
Speaker 2: that's the case because listen, as I said earlier, what
Speaker 2: most people did, just like yourself, is they looked and see, oh,
Speaker 2: who's on the cover. Okay, it's so and so, and
Speaker 2: then they'd flip right to the back and say what
Speaker 2: rating did everything get? Like that was the normal way
Speaker 2: people consume the source. Absolutely, I get it.
Speaker 1: Why didn't you put the record reviews in the front
Speaker 1: of the magazine?
Speaker 2: Then you know what, Again, I think it was earlier,
Speaker 2: Like I said, I was following that Rolling Stones like structure,
Speaker 2: and they had the reviews in the back.
Speaker 1: So, by the way, I did read everything. But yes,
Speaker 1: I did read the thing backwards, so.
Speaker 2: I know, I get it. I get it. It's all good.
Speaker 2: So yeah, we should did the review. But then again
Speaker 2: we had now this is where we had the big meeting,
Speaker 2: and I was pounding this is one case where I
Speaker 2: use my authority to force the issue. And I was like, Reggie,
Speaker 2: it's a five man, what do he five? I think
Speaker 2: he wanted either a four or maybe a four point five.
Speaker 2: The others in the room, everyone agreed with I mean,
Speaker 2: the most majority of people agreed with me. There was
Speaker 2: a few maybe I don't remember exactly who didn't. I
Speaker 2: know Reggie was the main voice of the opposition in
Speaker 2: this case. He lost the debate and he got a five,
Speaker 2: and I think he would admit that we were correct
Speaker 2: about giving it a five. I mean, obviously it's pretty
Speaker 2: much the iconic hip hop album, or among the iconic,
Speaker 2: legendary all time classic hip hop albums. I think everyone
Speaker 2: agrees with that.
Speaker 1: For me crafting albums, of course, it was always does
Speaker 1: someone see the vision inside my head the same way
Speaker 1: that I see it? You know, when they review it?
Speaker 1: And so the obsessive amount of headaches I gave my
Speaker 1: publicist Amy Marsh just daily about like, Okay, when do
Speaker 1: we give this to the source? When do we give
Speaker 1: this to the source? When do we get this to
Speaker 1: the source? You know, we're not going to get to
Speaker 1: that part of the story yet of what happened that
Speaker 1: day in October of ninety four. However, you know, it
Speaker 1: was to the point where I saw it as me
Speaker 1: getting up at five in the morning to get on
Speaker 1: a train to and the thing was Amy is like,
Speaker 1: you cannot go to the source of me, like that's
Speaker 1: that's you know, there were still rules of like you know,
Speaker 1: not crossing the line as an artist and that sort
Speaker 1: of thing, and literally me going to the source to
Speaker 1: get the issue because you guys would not reveal to
Speaker 1: her what the rating was. She did tell me like, yes,
Speaker 1: you guys got the leave review. But for me to
Speaker 1: get up in another state at five in the morning,
Speaker 1: to get on a train to go to New York,
Speaker 1: to go outside that building and for her to hand
Speaker 1: me that issue and for me to look and read
Speaker 1: the review first before I see the mics and I'm
Speaker 1: going through each bike like okay one, Mic two, Mike three,
Speaker 1: Mike four, Mike, okay four, Mic, I'll take four. It
Speaker 1: was literally of that obsessive level, like at what point
Speaker 1: did you realize that the artists are obsessed with that?
Speaker 1: Like I'm certain was not even door like what the
Speaker 1: source give me or.
Speaker 2: Yeah, I mean, like I said, it's we knew, like
Speaker 2: there was a sense that the ratings were important because
Speaker 2: we you know, you could you could hear it in
Speaker 2: the in the feedback. We got that everybody. We knew
Speaker 2: that the ratings were one of the main things that
Speaker 2: people looked at, but we spent most of our time
Speaker 2: on the rest of the magazine, you know what I mean,
Speaker 2: Like we were filling the magazine with features and photo shoots,
Speaker 2: and then we got into fashion and electronics and movies
Speaker 2: and TV and film and you know, and all that stuff.
Speaker 2: So so in other words, there was the answer to
Speaker 2: your question is we always knew that people were watching
Speaker 2: and that their artists cared, but we didn't get a
Speaker 2: lot of feedback, you know, like we from the artists.
Speaker 2: It wasn't commonplace for people. I mean they might have
Speaker 2: been angry or they might have been happy, and we
Speaker 2: didn't hear it usually. I mean we you know, of
Speaker 2: course we would talk to the label people, and I
Speaker 2: guess maybe you would hear second hand all the you know,
Speaker 2: Questlove was very happy with a review or whatever, you
Speaker 2: know what I mean, Like I might have Warne something
Speaker 2: like that, but like it wasn't it wasn't. There wasn't
Speaker 2: a lot of drip artists interaction. I mean, there was interaction,
Speaker 2: but just not feedback necessarily.
Speaker 1: As a fan. Only have one question ahead, and that
Speaker 1: is I wish you guys would have reconsidered all of
Speaker 1: your Gang Star.
Speaker 2: Reviews again, listen three and a half.
Speaker 1: I mean eventually long after you left. Of course, you
Speaker 1: know they evaluated that. Yeah, yeah, there was revalve based
Speaker 1: and moment of truth got it's just do with the
Speaker 1: four and a half review. But that's long after you
Speaker 1: guys had left the building. But this one thing I
Speaker 1: wanted to ask also, is there's a point where you
Speaker 1: know the way that the stories are presented, you know,
Speaker 1: more importantly, like would you consider the hell Raiser Tupac issue,
Speaker 1: like if any thing? I feel as though the hell
Speaker 1: Raiser issue really built whom we know as Tupac. Like
Speaker 1: before that issue, you might have had a clue of
Speaker 1: who Tupac was if you watch MTV news or you know,
Speaker 1: was that after Juice or nah, this is hell Raiser
Speaker 1: is like possibly right before he gets shot in the Yeah,
Speaker 1: this is like early ninety four, but it was such No,
Speaker 1: that's after Juice Citiary. Oh it's way after Juice.
Speaker 2: Yeah, yeah, after Juice. Okay, Bishop came to life, so
Speaker 2: right exactly. Okay, So let's talk about Tupac because I
Speaker 2: was going to talk about Gangstar, but Tupac. I got
Speaker 2: some interesting perspectives. So, I mean I didn't really love
Speaker 2: Tupac as a rapper for a long time. When he
Speaker 2: came out, you know, I clown around when I rolled
Speaker 2: around with the Underground like, it wasn't necessarily earth shattering.
Speaker 1: It was just we were comparing every one to rock
Speaker 1: him basically and KRSS I get.
Speaker 2: K the Mount Rushmore was was KRS rock him and
Speaker 2: Chuck d And then you could argue for the fourth
Speaker 2: one being Big Daddy Kane she wrapped, you know, or
Speaker 2: a number of others to ll you know, there's other potentials.
Speaker 2: But anyway, so when Tupac came out with that, I
Speaker 2: didn't like it. I didn't like him. I didn't like
Speaker 2: his early albums. I thought that it was okay, but
Speaker 2: it just didn't really move me. And then I got
Speaker 2: a visit from Hollywood producers who came into the Source,
Speaker 2: which is rare. We were still basically broke. I mean,
Speaker 2: we didn't make any money for most of this time anyway,
Speaker 2: and we were and having someone from Hollywood you feel like, oh,
Speaker 2: someone important is here.
Speaker 1: Wait, Tomson, you're not making money, like in terms of
Speaker 1: like what we see like the billboard charts or whatever.
Speaker 1: How do you know, like what you guys are selling
Speaker 1: in terms of.
Speaker 2: Oh, like magazines, comedy send we we were doing well,
Speaker 2: like with the magazine, was was doing very well on
Speaker 2: the newsstands. I mean it was we we eventually it
Speaker 2: got to the point where we were selling hundreds of
Speaker 2: thousands of magazines every month. But throughout most of my
Speaker 2: time there, there wasn't a huge profit. I mean we
Speaker 2: were making a small, modest salary. You know. The business
Speaker 2: was was profitable, but it wasn't like making a killing. Granted,
Speaker 2: this is before anyone knew anything about startups the internet,
Speaker 2: you know, VC funding. We had none of that. Although
Speaker 2: I although if you want me to, I can tell
Speaker 2: the story when Quincy Jones tried to buy the Source people.
Speaker 2: People may or may not know that before Vibe yes,
Speaker 2: vibe Okay. So in that case, what happened was we
Speaker 2: got contacted by Russell Simmons, who was friends with Quincy.
Speaker 2: He told us that Quincy Jones is interested in talking
Speaker 2: to us along with Time Warner, and Quinn was working
Speaker 2: on a deal with Time Warner. So the four core
Speaker 2: founders of the Source, myself, Dave Mays, James Bernard, and
Speaker 2: Ed Young get on a plane. We go to La
Speaker 2: We go to Quincy Jones's house in Beverly Hills. Were
Speaker 2: sitting there with that beautiful mansion. Starstruck, you know, right away,
Speaker 2: like holy shit, we're in Quincy Jones's house. We walk
Speaker 2: into the room. There is a room of suits. There's
Speaker 2: about six seven guys, white guys in suits. There's a
Speaker 2: woman named Jane Pratt who at that point was an
Speaker 2: editor working for Time Life, and there was Quincy Jones
Speaker 2: and Russell Simmons. So there was like ten people in
Speaker 2: the room. We walk in, four of us. We sit
Speaker 2: and talk. They're interested in the source. I remember it
Speaker 2: was very early, it was ninety one. So we walk in.
Speaker 2: We have a whole meeting where we talk about They
Speaker 2: start ripping apart, not in a mean spirited way, but
Speaker 2: they're they're kind of like, you know, you guys could
Speaker 2: do this better. The artwork isn't that great, the photos
Speaker 2: aren't that great, you know, but we love what you're doing.
Speaker 2: You guys are doing it great, but we feel like
Speaker 2: we can help you do it better. And and we
Speaker 2: were open to it. We didn't we were so naive,
Speaker 2: we didn't know shit. But we were just in there
Speaker 2: having the meeting and thinking maybe we'll all get rich.
Speaker 2: Who knows what's going to happen, right, And so we
Speaker 2: we have the whole meeting and we end up getting
Speaker 2: a very low ball offer from them. It was like insulting.
Speaker 2: It was like ridiculously bad. I forget the number, but
Speaker 2: it was like something like fifty thousand dollars for the
Speaker 2: whole magazine, and it was like digulous. Yeah, it was
Speaker 2: like it was like pathetic, and they wanted us to
Speaker 2: come work for them. And I remember in the in
Speaker 2: the letter where they sent us the offer, they spelled
Speaker 2: like several of our name. My name always gets spelled wrong,
Speaker 2: so I was used to it, but they spelled like
Speaker 2: multiple people's names wrong, and it was just very disrespectful
Speaker 2: the whole the whole thing that once we got the letter,
Speaker 2: we felt very respected. So we just we didn't respond
Speaker 2: and we just decided like, we're not going to do it.
Speaker 2: And then they ended up starting Vibe like a few
Speaker 2: months later. And then there was a brief period of
Speaker 2: time when the editor of Vibe was a guy named
Speaker 2: Jonathan Van Meter and I'm Jonathan Scheckter, and so there
Speaker 2: was two Jonathan's running these two rap magazines. So anyway,
Speaker 2: that's the story. So that was it. So they wanted
Speaker 2: to buy the source. They ended up not doing it.
Speaker 2: But long story short, what ended up happening. We were
Speaker 2: very concerned. We knew that there was going to be
Speaker 2: this other magazine. Vibe comes out. It is beautiful. It
Speaker 2: has Treacher on the cover looking all you know, incredible,
Speaker 2: and the photos and it was all like very fashion
Speaker 2: forward and it was like beautifully designed with amazing photography
Speaker 2: and all that stuff, and we were concerned. But it
Speaker 2: ended up being the best thing that ever happened to us.
Speaker 2: Why because suddenly all these legit advertisers are interested in
Speaker 2: the category, because Time Warner had like Pepsi and Ford
Speaker 2: and Sony and like i mean Sony Electronics and like
Speaker 2: things like that. So we were like getting by on
Speaker 2: just just industry ads basically. But now for the first
Speaker 2: time we had this new market of huge companies that
Speaker 2: are they're interested in rap music, and you know, it
Speaker 2: didn't take long for them to see that we were
Speaker 2: actually the leaders in the in the space, even though
Speaker 2: Vibe you know, had a bigger saw, right, yeah, you know,
Speaker 2: but we were we were the actual like on the street,
Speaker 2: you know, newstand Leaders. So it helped us. It ended
Speaker 2: up helping us. It took a long time for that
Speaker 2: arc to all kind of play out, but in the
Speaker 2: end it was actually a positive for the source that
Speaker 2: they started vibe.
Speaker 1: Okay, So back to you Tupac thing.
Speaker 2: Okay, So back to Tupac. So the guys come to
Speaker 2: my office and they say, so, we're casting for this
Speaker 2: movie and we're looking at artists and we're looking to you.
Speaker 2: We want to ask you, like, who is you know,
Speaker 2: we want to get a sense of like who's who
Speaker 2: in this rap world. So so they started talking about rappers.
Speaker 2: I don't remember everyone they said, but they said Tupac
Speaker 2: and I said, oh, you mean that guy from the
Speaker 2: Digital Underground. I was like, eh, he's okay, He's not
Speaker 2: that great. I mean, no one really knows who that is,
Speaker 2: you know. And they were like, oh okay, and like
Speaker 2: they we had the meeting. And then it shows how
Speaker 2: much I know because they casted him. It was Juice.
Speaker 2: They were making Juice Simmon Juice. Obviously he you know,
Speaker 2: he knocked it out of the park. It was like
Speaker 2: an incredible movie, incredible performance, and it really made him,
Speaker 2: you know, a star, and I remember I was watching
Speaker 2: that movie screening with Russell Simmons, was in the awe.
Speaker 2: It was in a private screening and Russell happened to
Speaker 2: be there, and I remember Russell saying, if they throw
Speaker 2: this motherfucker off the roof, this movie is going to
Speaker 2: be a hit. I don't remember. Remember there's a scene
Speaker 2: where they throw someone off the roof. Yeah, it was
Speaker 2: right exactly. They say, if they throw him off the roof,
Speaker 2: this this movie is going to be a hit. And
Speaker 2: they threw him off the roof. Russell goes insane, He's right,
Speaker 2: the movie's a hit. A little bit later, I go
Speaker 2: to the first how Can I Be Down event in Miami,
Speaker 2: which was a very homemade event. It was like at
Speaker 2: somebody's house.
Speaker 1: What were those events like?
Speaker 2: It was kind of like what you'd think it was.
Speaker 2: It was nice. I mean, look, it was a nice house,
Speaker 2: but it was very like bootleg. It was like there
Speaker 2: was it was like a lot, you know that particular one.
Speaker 2: I remember that Tupac was there, Doctor Dre and ed
Speaker 2: Lower from your own TV raps were filming an episode there.
Speaker 2: Puffy was there, a bunch of other artists, and I
Speaker 2: was there with a photographer we interviewed a bunch of people.
Speaker 2: But I remember seeing Tupac and now I started paying
Speaker 2: attention to him because now he's his his star is
Speaker 2: starting to rise. And he always had like a joint
Speaker 2: or a cigarette in his hands. He was drinking, but
Speaker 2: all the girls were all over him, and like he
Speaker 2: he was like a charisma out the you know, off
Speaker 2: over the star the star. Right. So I still don't
Speaker 2: really love his rapping, and I'm still like kind of
Speaker 2: the jury is still out. I didn't really like his records.
Speaker 2: I just didn't really think that like Brenda's Got a
Speaker 2: Baby was kind of boring. I just didn't really love it.
Speaker 2: And so then a little bit later, I remember I
Speaker 2: went to a party in Brooklyn. It was Lord Jamar's
Speaker 2: birthday party that I was invited to. I remember I
Speaker 2: walk into this party in Brooklyn. It was an outdoor
Speaker 2: courtyard and there was a lot of people there. There's
Speaker 2: a lot of beautiful girls there. It was like a
Speaker 2: nice party. I walk in and I'm having a good
Speaker 2: time and I've see like a lot of artists around
Speaker 2: and stuff. And then I noticed this kid in the
Speaker 2: corner and I see Tupac is there. I see Tupac
Speaker 2: is in this party, and this is right when he's
Speaker 2: hanging out with Biggie. Biggie wasn't there, but he was.
Speaker 2: It was during the time when he was, like, you know,
Speaker 2: starting to hang out with Biggie, and that that period
Speaker 2: of time he's in Brooklyn. So he Tupac is there
Speaker 2: and I look in the corner of my eye and
Speaker 2: I see this guy dressed exactly like Tupac, Like literally
Speaker 2: he has the bandana wrapped around a bald head, he
Speaker 2: has his shirt open, he looks exactly he's modeled after
Speaker 2: Tupac and Juice like image, Like he has the exact
Speaker 2: look of Tupac and he's what he's eyeing him. I'm like,
Speaker 2: that's weird, Like, whoa, what's I kind of see it
Speaker 2: happen from Afar and this guy has like a fire
Speaker 2: in his eyes, like he's angry, and he walks across
Speaker 2: the space up to Tupac and basically challenges him to
Speaker 2: a battle in this party. A guy that looks exactly
Speaker 2: like Tupac challenges Tupac to a rhyme battle inside this party.
Speaker 2: And this is a true story. And so then people
Speaker 2: start gathering around, like you could tell there's about to
Speaker 2: be something happening, right, And so the guy starts rapping
Speaker 2: and he's, uh, he's not good. He's not great. He's okay,
Speaker 2: but he's not really good. And I'm like it's pretty
Speaker 2: clear pretty early on that he's not really a good rapper,
Speaker 2: but he's trying. He's like, yo, man, I'm gonna fuck
Speaker 2: you up. I'll do this, I'll do that, and uh,
Speaker 2: everyone's kind of like I'm looking around, going like, where's
Speaker 2: like somebody to jump in, Like where's like one of
Speaker 2: the brand Nubian guys or you know, where's Buckshot Shorty,
Speaker 2: Like we need somebody here to like represent New York
Speaker 2: because I knew Pak was more of like a California
Speaker 2: even though he's from New York, he's a California guy.
Speaker 2: So the guy finishes, and then Pok steps up and
Speaker 2: destroys him, just gives this like virtuoso performance where he's
Speaker 2: like breaking down. He's like, you even look like me.
Speaker 2: You got your band danna like me, you got this
Speaker 2: like me? And then he looks over and he goes,
Speaker 2: I'm gonna even murder you in front of my dude
Speaker 2: from the source, and he like points at me and
Speaker 2: it's like this whole moment and I was like, that
Speaker 2: was my That was the moment when I realized that
Speaker 2: he really actually could rap and that he was like
Speaker 2: actually like a really good MC. You know, I didn't,
Speaker 2: I didn't know. It wasn't until that live you know,
Speaker 2: like impromptu thing that I realized that he's a great rapper.
Speaker 2: And then I kind of changed my take on him.
Speaker 2: It took that experience for me to really get it,
Speaker 2: you know, and then of course that years later, he
Speaker 2: you know, became a huge, even bigger star.
Speaker 1: At this moment, are you guys even remotely concerned about like,
Speaker 1: you know, like there was an era of Deaf Jam
Speaker 1: where it was just like ye old general store and
Speaker 1: then suddenly you go to Deaf Jam and then now
Speaker 1: you got security clearance and all that stuff. And yeah,
Speaker 1: like at any point did the source come to that or.
Speaker 2: You know, we had our share of threats and stuff
Speaker 2: like that. I mean, it wasn't it never thankfully spilled
Speaker 2: over into anything major, you know, there was to your point,
Speaker 2: I get it. That's I think that was one of
Speaker 2: Chimo DU's great skills because she did that. That snoop one,
Speaker 2: you know what you're referring to with that snoop is
Speaker 2: that she had this ability to walk into any hood
Speaker 2: in the entire world and people would like him. He
Speaker 2: was a very warm, friendly dude. And you know, I
Speaker 2: believe he had like Nigerian roots or he was African,
Speaker 2: but he had like a very friendly demeanor. There was
Speaker 2: something about him. You smiled all the time. He was
Speaker 2: very calm and positive energy. And so that was one
Speaker 2: of our secrets, I guess, was that we could walk
Speaker 2: into a situation where other journalists maybe wouldn't want to.
Speaker 2: And this I did this myself a few times. But
Speaker 2: any anyone, any any of the many writers that worked
Speaker 2: for the Source who got sent on an assignment to
Speaker 2: go to Houston or to go to La You know,
Speaker 2: I once went on a on a on a graffiti
Speaker 2: run with KRS Fat Show and the Bronx Tat crew
Speaker 2: and I went to like the straight you know, like
Speaker 2: the graffiti like you know, four in the morning, like
Speaker 2: climb and breaking into the into the train yard all
Speaker 2: that shit. Like we all have those moments when we
Speaker 2: basically penetrated what a normal like journalist would do. And
Speaker 2: I think, you know, thank God, like we never had
Speaker 2: any major problems like there was always you know, I
Speaker 2: think everyone had an interest in making sure things went well,
Speaker 2: Like there was the artists at the center of whatever
Speaker 2: rething we were doing would do everything in their power
Speaker 2: to make sure that the situation was was was was good.
Speaker 2: You know, everyone wants like a good story, everyone wants
Speaker 2: the pictures to look good, everyone wants good reviews, you know,
Speaker 2: So there was we kind of like coasted through on that.
Speaker 2: And again it was like, you know, it was with
Speaker 2: guys like Chi, I think, who were kind of like
Speaker 2: on the front lines of a lot of these going
Speaker 2: to like certain hoods, and you know he Chi photographed,
Speaker 2: you know, everyone in every hood and never had a problem.
Speaker 1: Whose idea was it to do the crack issue?
Speaker 2: Great, great question that was. I think Reggie and James
Speaker 2: Bernard were the primary drivers behind that one. Okay, I
Speaker 2: know you know this, but you know for Trivia Buff's
Speaker 2: you know Big East ten Crack Commandments is actually from
Speaker 2: a source article and that I did not know that.
Speaker 2: You didn't know that, Okay, didn't.
Speaker 1: The actual was that the cover story or was I'm
Speaker 1: trying my hardest to remember was the counter story? Was
Speaker 1: it a main feature?
Speaker 2: I think it was just a big feature. I don't
Speaker 2: think we put crack on the cover. I think we
Speaker 2: still put a rapper on the cover. But I think
Speaker 2: it was the two times that we did very political
Speaker 2: things that I remember was obviously the LA riots. That
Speaker 2: was a huge, huge, monumental source moment because we covered
Speaker 2: the LA Riots very extensively from the point of view
Speaker 2: of the rioters really. And then the Crack issue was another.
Speaker 2: You know, we devoted a lot of pages to the
Speaker 2: crack epidemic, but not from a oh my god, what's
Speaker 2: going on, but more so from like what's really going on?
Speaker 2: You know. And and one of the articles was the
Speaker 2: ten Crack Commandments. That was literally one of it was
Speaker 2: like a sidebar. It was like it wasn't the main feature.
Speaker 1: The ten Crack Commandments were. What was in that Crack issue? Yes,
Speaker 1: oh my god.
Speaker 2: Yes, if you go back and biggie, it's almost word
Speaker 2: for word. I mean it's not literally word for word,
Speaker 2: but it's like eighty percent word for word. It's like
Speaker 2: you got that from the source.
Speaker 1: Yeah, I did not know that. I do remember that
Speaker 1: issue thought like whoa, Like they're going to places that
Speaker 1: no periodical as dared go.
Speaker 2: Should we touch on Biggie real quick, because if anything,
Speaker 2: that's the biggest artist that ever came out of the Source.
Speaker 2: Let's be real, you know, like as far as being
Speaker 2: christened an artist because of something that happened in the
Speaker 2: Source magazine, we had a column called Unsigned Hype. Everybody knows,
Speaker 2: you know. The idea was that we would review cassettes
Speaker 2: from regular people, regular artists who are trying to make it,
Speaker 2: and every month we would pick one cassette. Mattie C,
Speaker 2: who later on, you know, became an R for Loud
Speaker 2: and became a legendary ear, you know, was kind of
Speaker 2: the main point person, and so matt would get We
Speaker 2: literally had like a plastic trash bag filled with cassettes.
Speaker 2: I mean we would get hundreds of cassettes a month.
Speaker 2: I mean maybe two hundred every month. I mean it
Speaker 2: was endless, like every so Mattie's job was one of
Speaker 2: Mattie C's job was to go through all these cassettes.
Speaker 2: Now what really ended up happening because maybe the first
Speaker 2: month he listened to a bunch of them. But as
Speaker 2: you as we all know, when it comes to demos,
Speaker 2: you know, unfortunately most of them are not good. So
Speaker 2: you kind of get burned out very quick. And then
Speaker 2: he started putting in the I remember he added to
Speaker 2: the text of the description puts your best cut first.
Speaker 2: I remember you put that in there, smart because he
Speaker 2: didn't want to have to like sit through like you know,
Speaker 2: search for the search for it. So one day, you know,
Speaker 2: after doing this, and the truth was that that bag
Speaker 2: got bigger and bigger, and we would get like literally
Speaker 2: like five a day, so it would be like one
Speaker 2: hundred and fifty a month, okay, and it would be
Speaker 2: like a bag of cassettes, and it was it was,
Speaker 2: you know, no one wants to really go through that,
Speaker 2: but slowly, you know, we would once in a while,
Speaker 2: Oh that one looks Look, that's a that's a weird
Speaker 2: pink cassette. Let me listen to that one. We would
Speaker 2: just randomly to like pick him out. And then one
Speaker 2: day he comes into my office and he's like, yo,
Speaker 2: we got one, we got one. Listen to this, and
Speaker 2: he sits down, he gets play and I hear the
Speaker 2: original for eight and a half stepping, which is, uh,
Speaker 2: who was a yeah, blind emotions. I hear the I
Speaker 2: hear the emotions blind Alley and what's up? Source my
Speaker 2: name is Biggie Smalls. I want to say thank you
Speaker 2: for giving me this opportunity. Thank you so much. I
Speaker 2: really respect y'all and I want to thank you. He
Speaker 2: gave us like a nice intro where he like thanked
Speaker 2: us for the opportunity to wrap for us, and then
Speaker 2: the bee kicks in and he starts rapping, and it's amazing.
Speaker 2: It's phenomenal. It's basically like Biggie, you know. It's like
Speaker 2: it's all the personality that we all came to know
Speaker 2: and love. So Maddie had gotten this tape not from
Speaker 2: the mail but from mister C. Mister C had gotten
Speaker 2: the tape from fifty Grand, who is Biggie's guy, who
Speaker 2: gave the tape to mister C. We played the tape
Speaker 2: for Maddie, Maddi gives its shows at us. We're like, oh,
Speaker 2: this is incredible. So we go and we decide he's
Speaker 2: going to be the unsigned hype. We send Chimo du
Speaker 2: to his house. He takes those first pictures of Biggie
Speaker 2: where he's like, you know, like on the street. I
Speaker 2: think he's outside, and we run it and it comes
Speaker 2: out and then this rarely happened, but we got a
Speaker 2: call from Puffy. Mattie got a call from Puffy. This
Speaker 2: almost never happened. He's like, yo, I'm interested in that.
Speaker 2: This was happening right at the time obviously Joe to
Speaker 2: see Andre Herel and like the whole breakup was happening.
Speaker 2: It was right at that time when like he was
Speaker 2: leaving Andre Herrel. So it was right when bad Boy
Speaker 2: was starting. It was just timing. And so he's like, yo,
Speaker 2: I'm interested in this guy. And so Maddie goes and
Speaker 2: takes the meeting.
Speaker 1: Wait, y'all introduce Yeah.
Speaker 2: Mattie c introduced Puffy to Biggie.
Speaker 1: Yes that I did not know.
Speaker 2: Yeah, yeah, and to take the meeting, and Maddie go,
Speaker 2: I didn't go. Maddie went to the meeting, and Puffy
Speaker 2: is like, a so yeah, like tell me, tell me
Speaker 2: what let me hear the tape. He plays the tape.
Speaker 2: He's like, yo, it is incredible, and he's like, let
Speaker 2: me what does he look like? And Maddie's like trying
Speaker 2: to describe what Biggie looks like, you know, He's like, well,
Speaker 2: he's kind of a big dude, you know. So Biggie
Speaker 2: and Puffy meat and very shortly after that we get
Speaker 2: party and bullshit party and bullshit was like I don't know,
Speaker 2: like a month or two, like not long after that,
Speaker 2: like that record got made and obviously we're like going
Speaker 2: insane loving it. And then you know, long story short.
Speaker 2: I got to meet Biggie a couple of times. He
Speaker 2: came to the office. He was I remember one particular
Speaker 2: time we went to the staircase to smoke weed. He
Speaker 2: we smoke a blunt about six people. Biggie's there and he's, uh,
Speaker 2: he's he's at this point, he is still unsure and
Speaker 2: this is depicted in all of the documentaries and the
Speaker 2: movies that have been made. When remember he still wanted
Speaker 2: to be a drug dealer. He didn't really want to
Speaker 2: be a rap star. So right when that moment was happening,
Speaker 2: that was like real, real time I saw and he
Speaker 2: didn't say drug dealer, but he's sitting there going, man,
Speaker 2: I got shit going on. I don't know if I
Speaker 2: have time for this shit. Yeah, He's like, I don't
Speaker 2: have time for this ship. Man, I'm doing well, Like
Speaker 2: I don't really have time for this shit, and like
Speaker 2: the rest of us are trying to encourage him, like yo, man,
Speaker 2: like this is a real opportunity, like you should really
Speaker 2: do this party and bullshit was already out, so I didn't.
Speaker 2: I thought it was like a it was already a
Speaker 2: done deal, like he was going to be huge, but
Speaker 2: he didn't really see it that.
Speaker 1: Way yet, right. And then.
Speaker 2: Not long after I think I've told you this story before,
Speaker 2: I remember sitting on the step near watching the Square
Speaker 2: park and that's when I heard the demo from the
Speaker 2: night before of Juicy and Maddie hits play and I
Speaker 2: hear you know, im too may come out of the speakers,
Speaker 2: and then I hear Biggie you know, doing these rhymes
Speaker 2: and then he says smiles every time my face is
Speaker 2: open the source, and I'm like over the moon, like
Speaker 2: this is amazing, Right, And that was it. And then
Speaker 2: you know, then I got a piece of mateo and
Speaker 2: all that other stuff, and a star is born. Star
Speaker 2: is born.
Speaker 1: Okay, I'm gonna ask you the question, man, go ahead.
Speaker 1: So part two of that story I told of me
Speaker 1: leaving Philly get on a train at six in the
Speaker 1: morning just to just to come to the West Village,
Speaker 1: just so I can be the first person to read
Speaker 1: what my rating was, you know, the reasonable all.
Speaker 3: The time, you have to say, this is very important.
Speaker 3: Don't know how much you listen to the show. We
Speaker 3: talk about the roots and the microphones all the time.
Speaker 3: This big moment.
Speaker 2: I've heard a little bit. Yeah, I've heard a little
Speaker 2: bit of it.
Speaker 1: And the thing was, you know, I was elated. I
Speaker 1: was nervous because you know, we were so left the
Speaker 1: center and taking a risk on this new, unchartered live
Speaker 1: instrumentation territory thing. But yeah, yeah we got we got
Speaker 1: the leave review, we got four mics. I'm happy. I
Speaker 1: want to go up and say, thinking I would have
Speaker 1: been the second person to thank you guys for my
Speaker 1: four mikes, but I can't do that right now because
Speaker 1: I don't know that all hell is breaking.
Speaker 2: Loose at the exact same moment. There's a crisis happening
Speaker 2: at the side.
Speaker 1: Literally. So the story that I got was that your partner,
Speaker 1: Dave Mays took it upon himself to insert a three
Speaker 1: and a half page feature on one of his acts
Speaker 1: from Boston without the knowledge of you guys knowing it. Basically,
Speaker 1: as I'm discovering my four mics in the magazine, you
Speaker 1: guys are also subsequently discovering, Hey, there's an article here
Speaker 1: about Almighty RSO. And this is when I first heard
Speaker 1: the term called conflict of interest. You know, first I
Speaker 1: was like, well, what's that people will promote all the
Speaker 1: time and nepotism they're and you know, Amy and Ursula
Speaker 1: are trying to explain to me, the newbie of the industry,
Speaker 1: like there's certain rules that you follow, and there's conflict
Speaker 1: of interest, and there's you know, talking to your co
Speaker 1: workers and that sort of thing. And of course the
Speaker 1: way that this shit spread like wildfire, because the thing
Speaker 1: is like Amy is very connected to every publicist, every
Speaker 1: data you know, and there's no such thing as a
Speaker 1: phone thread or you know, social media whatever. So it's
Speaker 1: like the second we get back, it was like they
Speaker 1: were all on like a war council, Like, yo, the
Speaker 1: source is over. As they're all walking away. What happened
Speaker 1: that morning in October of ninety four? How did you
Speaker 1: find out that you guys have been compromised by one
Speaker 1: of your own and the subsequent aftermath of that. I
Speaker 1: never knew what happened on the inside of those walls
Speaker 1: that morning, And of course I get the announcement that night.
Speaker 1: The source as I knew it is no more. I mean,
Speaker 1: and so we.
Speaker 2: Saw each other around that time. If you remember, I
Speaker 2: went to the studio and I saw I met with you.
Speaker 2: But anyway to get to answer your question, yes, just unrelated.
Speaker 2: I happened to see you shortly after that happened. But
Speaker 2: you're right, the way you framed it is exactly correct.
Speaker 2: We every month would have a an editorial sort of
Speaker 2: a layout, not just editorial, but the whole sort of
Speaker 2: map of the whole magazine. Dave and I would it
Speaker 2: would primarily just him and I would sit in the
Speaker 2: room and we'd have, Okay, this month's issue, how many
Speaker 2: how many ads did he get? How much editorial do
Speaker 2: we have? And like where are these things come together?
Speaker 2: There would be a physical sheet of paper, but that
Speaker 2: we would map out the whole issue.
Speaker 1: You have to tetris the format of Okay, I get it.
Speaker 2: The whole magazine right, So it's like we have, Okay,
Speaker 2: here's the cover feature, here's the secondary feature, here's the
Speaker 2: record reviews, here's the fashion shoot this month, here's this whatever.
Speaker 2: So those pages were marked as ads, so I thought
Speaker 2: they were ads. I didn't even think twice about it.
Speaker 2: We often had ads that were Sometimes people would buy
Speaker 2: like a two page spread ad that was like a
Speaker 2: normal thing. So I just assumed that that's what it was.
Speaker 2: So we finished the issue. As you said, I had
Speaker 2: red Man on the cover, and I get a call,
Speaker 2: I think from James Bernard, who's, you know, my partner
Speaker 2: on the editorial side and also a co owner of
Speaker 2: the magazine. Yo, something really fucked up happened.
Speaker 1: Man.
Speaker 2: You got to come in right now. You got to
Speaker 2: see this. I'm like, what, just come here, come here
Speaker 2: and see. So I come in and it's the pages
Speaker 2: that we thought were ads were actually a whole article
Speaker 2: about this group that Dave had been working with separate
Speaker 2: from the magazine. He was managing them basically, but you know,
Speaker 2: I don't know if that was his official title, but
Speaker 2: that was basically what he was doing. He was getting
Speaker 2: them deals, he was cultivating them and trying to make
Speaker 2: them into stars, and they wanted to jump ahead and
Speaker 2: get in this. You know, we were approaching it the
Speaker 2: same way we approached every artist in that an unfold.
Speaker 2: Let's you know, we got hundreds of artists every month, like,
Speaker 2: let's figure this out whatever. Instead, this thing happened, and
Speaker 2: it was a very big violation of our ethics. It
Speaker 2: was inside the magazine, our friendship. You know. I felt
Speaker 2: very offended by that act because it was like, you know,
Speaker 2: taking away I was the editor in chief. I was
Speaker 2: in charge of every article. Like I didn't write every article,
Speaker 2: but I made sure I knew about every article that
Speaker 2: was going in. And this was the first time that
Speaker 2: I didn't, So it was very shocking.
Speaker 1: Everyone has a code. I didn't. I understand that the
Speaker 1: public out there.
Speaker 2: Would they even even know the difference you're saying, wow.
Speaker 1: I would have not known the difference that I know.
Speaker 2: I know, Okay, So here's what really happened. If you
Speaker 2: want to know the sequence of events. My inclination, to
Speaker 2: be quite honest with you, was the way I always am,
Speaker 2: which is to handle this privately. I did not want
Speaker 2: to go public with this information. My instinct, even though
Speaker 2: it was really messed up and I was very angry,
Speaker 2: I would have handled it privately. But something happened that
Speaker 2: prevented me from doing that. What happened was James Bernard
Speaker 2: sent out a letter addressed to Dave using something using
Speaker 2: a fax machine. We used to have a fax newsletter
Speaker 2: called The Weekly Word, and it was pre internet, and
Speaker 2: what it was was we had the facts number of
Speaker 2: literally everyone in the rap industry, radio records exit, so
Speaker 2: we would send out we would send out this a
Speaker 2: weekly and Minya actually Minya Oh miss Info, her first
Speaker 2: job for us as far as a full time job
Speaker 2: was that newsletter. She would actually come in once a
Speaker 2: week and she would say, what are the biggest stories,
Speaker 2: and we talk and then she'd go and type up
Speaker 2: that one page sort of like summary. It was kind
Speaker 2: of like a news headlines thing, like this is what's happening,
Speaker 2: so that people on rap shows would be like, this
Speaker 2: is from the source. We found out that so and
Speaker 2: so is happening. So we had this platform that was
Speaker 2: still very you know, kind of like a really industry
Speaker 2: oriented thing, but.
Speaker 1: Right what initially was it.
Speaker 2: Was still along the lines of initial and we even
Speaker 2: had one point when we try to do industry magazine,
Speaker 2: separate from the source very quick, very briefly. But anyway,
Speaker 2: so we had this platform. So this crisis happens, Dave
Speaker 2: does this thing, I'm very angry, everyone's angry. At this point,
Speaker 2: we had a pretty big staff. Our editorial side was
Speaker 2: probably about ten or twelve people, and the business side
Speaker 2: was probably another ten or twelve people. We probably had
Speaker 2: twenty five people working there this time, and Jane James
Speaker 2: does something that I thought was a bad idea. I
Speaker 2: still think it was a bad idea. He goes and
Speaker 2: he writes this letter to Dave, and he puts it
Speaker 2: through that weekly word fax machine, so that in one minute,
Speaker 2: the entire rap industry knows, Dave, how could you do this? Like,
Speaker 2: you know, you put this article about these guys. We
Speaker 2: had nothing to do with it, We knew nothing about it.
Speaker 2: Da da da da, and all hell breaks loose. I mean,
Speaker 2: it's like everyone in the industry was calling me. I
Speaker 2: got the New York Times, the Wall Street Journal, the
Speaker 2: Village Voice, like all these people, media reporters, you know,
Speaker 2: like what happened?
Speaker 1: Like this?
Speaker 2: It's kind of like it's two things. It's a hip
Speaker 2: hop story, it's also a media story. It's a story
Speaker 2: about turmoil, about about media ethics as you as you
Speaker 2: alluded to, you know, it's it's about all of these things.
Speaker 2: And now that James has unfortunately made it public, which
Speaker 2: again and I would never have done that. I would
Speaker 2: have handled it privately because that was what my instinct
Speaker 2: was telling me. But now that can no longer be done.
Speaker 2: Now everyone knows that this thing happened, So what's going
Speaker 2: to happen next. It's a very tough moment for me
Speaker 2: and for everyone around, you know, at those days, at
Speaker 2: that time, what really happened was all of the editorial
Speaker 2: staff had a meeting. I think I went to one
Speaker 2: of the meetings, but then I think there was another
Speaker 2: meeting without me because I was more like.
Speaker 1: Did you guys have an HR at all?
Speaker 2: No? I mean we had, yeah, we did have somebody,
Speaker 2: but it was it wasn't really a real HR. It
Speaker 2: was you know, it was a very you know, we were.
Speaker 1: Like maze in the office as you guys are, Like
Speaker 1: there was Caesar style like it was heaving like that.
Speaker 2: There was like a giant split and like half the
Speaker 2: company went one way and half the company went the
Speaker 2: other way. And when it came down to it, I
Speaker 2: had to make a very difficult decision, which was given
Speaker 2: that now this information was out there. On top of it,
Speaker 2: the entire editorial staff had voluntarily left their jobs. So
Speaker 2: now that means there was other people there. There was
Speaker 2: a guy named Rob Marriott, Carter, Harris Kieranameyo, Chris Calloway
Speaker 2: was art director, Chimo dou Maddie c. There's a whole
Speaker 2: lot of people, Reggie, Dennis, all of them had said,
Speaker 2: you know what, we're not even going to work here
Speaker 2: anymore because Dave needs to go. And I'm like, I
Speaker 2: hear you, but he's like he owns a big chunk
Speaker 2: of this magazine. Dude, Like, I mean, you know, what
Speaker 2: are we going to do about it? And they were like,
Speaker 2: that's your problem, you figure that out, you know kind
Speaker 2: of thing. So I was really ico.
Speaker 1: So they put the pressure on you to well, you
Speaker 1: don't have a staff or anything to vote him mount
Speaker 1: or anything, do you exactly.
Speaker 2: I was left in a very isolated position because the
Speaker 2: staff had already decided we're done, fuck this, we don't
Speaker 2: care about you know, We're not going to work in
Speaker 2: a place that does this. And I agreed with them.
Speaker 2: I understood their anger. I was angry too, But also
Speaker 2: I was a co owner, as was James and Ed Young.
Speaker 2: We were all co owners, so we I had two
Speaker 2: hats on. I had my editorial you know hat, which
Speaker 2: was and my friendship with him after all these years,
Speaker 2: like how could you do this? And I don't think
Speaker 2: Dave even realized, like how serious, like what he had done, Like,
Speaker 2: I don't think he even knew the effect. He definitely
Speaker 2: did not anticipate the reaction. And I was left in
Speaker 2: a very difficult position. And what do I do? So
Speaker 2: after thinking about it for quite a long time, a
Speaker 2: few weeks, you know, a couple of very stressful weeks,
Speaker 2: I decided I want to get bought out. I'm done.
Speaker 2: It was hard decision, but once I made it, I
Speaker 2: made it, and I was like, Okay, I'm not going
Speaker 2: to be able to go back to work and pretend
Speaker 2: everything's okay. I'm going to have to If I were
Speaker 2: to go back to work, I'd have to hire a
Speaker 2: bunch of new people. I'd have to still work under
Speaker 2: this now, you know, potentially corrupted, you know, structure now
Speaker 2: and this and that. And I just made the decision
Speaker 2: I wanted to get bought out. It took a long
Speaker 2: time for that deal to get done. It took maybe
Speaker 2: a year for that whole process to unfold. I remember
Speaker 2: seeing you around the time that I made this decision,
Speaker 2: and you were in a studio somewhere. Do you remember
Speaker 2: this or you.
Speaker 1: May probably in battery studios. I think you were.
Speaker 2: It was battery yes, yes, correct, And I remember, I
Speaker 2: can't remember why I was sitting with you, but I
Speaker 2: went up in the studio and you and I think
Speaker 2: your engineer were very curious, as was everybody, and I
Speaker 2: got it. I understood. You were like what happened? Like, dude,
Speaker 2: what happened? And I probably told some version of the
Speaker 2: same story, you know, And.
Speaker 1: Yeah, the source was my illmatic you know what I mean, Like, yeah,
Speaker 1: it was it.
Speaker 2: Yeah, I mean, look, it's not the way that I
Speaker 2: would want it, would have wanted to leave the source.
Speaker 2: But if I'm being totally honest, you know, as I
Speaker 2: think back on those years, I had already begun to
Speaker 2: feel a sense that I wanted to maybe move on.
Speaker 2: You know. It wasn't necessarily definitely not under that circumstance.
Speaker 2: But there was a period of time about a year
Speaker 2: before that, when I did actually take like a two
Speaker 2: month hiatus, and I went to Philly and tried to
Speaker 2: write other stuff. I was interested in writing screenplays and
Speaker 2: other things, so I went and pursued that for a while.
Speaker 1: Was there ever a thought that you guys would just
Speaker 1: collectively start another magazine?
Speaker 2: That was a thought, you know. James and Reggie ended
Speaker 2: up starting XXL about like a few months after that,
Speaker 2: and then they lasted about a month and then they
Speaker 2: they didn't they they had a falling out with that publisher.
Speaker 2: And then I actually am the one that recommended Elliott
Speaker 2: Wilson for the job, because those the people from Harris
Speaker 2: Publications who were also friends of acquaintances or friends of mine,
Speaker 2: were like, hey, man, do you want to come they
Speaker 2: I was offered the job to go run XXL, and
Speaker 2: I didn't want to do it, but I offered. I
Speaker 2: proposed that Elliott Wilson would be the best candidate, and
Speaker 2: he ended up being a great, a great person to
Speaker 2: do it, obviously, But yeah, that was it, man. I
Speaker 2: decided to get bought out again. I wasn't, you know,
Speaker 2: I didn't anticipate that would happen, but you know, it
Speaker 2: was that. That's what happened, and I accepted that and
Speaker 2: we eventually reached the deal for a small seven figure
Speaker 2: sum and that was it.
Speaker 1: Were you part of the first? Never spoken about but
Speaker 1: the first source awards correct.
Speaker 2: I was part of the first, but not the second.
Speaker 2: So I was there for the first.
Speaker 1: First. The first was a little crazy too, Yeah, first
Speaker 1: was insane.
Speaker 2: Also, people don't. Yes, people, the first was it was
Speaker 2: late ninety three.
Speaker 1: Were you there from that Tupac Tribe moment?
Speaker 2: Yes, I was there for that. I was that was
Speaker 2: that I think it was where what theater was that
Speaker 2: in it?
Speaker 1: That Madison Square Garden right right, that's right. I went
Speaker 1: there as a spectator. And yeah, I think I've told
Speaker 1: this story before, like there wasn't a Tupac Tribe thing.
Speaker 1: What I believe happened was that as tribe was coming
Speaker 1: up to accept their award for Midnight Marauders, right, someone
Speaker 1: accidentally queued up Tupac song. Yeah, and he did whatever.
Speaker 1: I don't give a fuck song whatever. But from the
Speaker 1: audience point of view, it looked and you know, this
Speaker 1: is like after the legend of the Karas one PM
Speaker 1: dawn situation or whatever, which I still don't I've heard
Speaker 1: variations of that story that it wasn't as you know,
Speaker 1: it's like they were both booked on the show. I
Speaker 1: don't know, but it seemed like Tupac was just like, yo,
Speaker 1: fuck that, and the music came on cue. It was
Speaker 1: like Bishop had come to life and then you know,
Speaker 1: the Zoo Nations words and Noah. But at the time
Speaker 1: in the audience. I thought someone was about the pop
Speaker 1: off between you know, Tupac and Tribe, but it wasn't that.
Speaker 2: Yeah, that whole that You're right, that whole show was
Speaker 2: very chaotic. We didn't know what we were doing. Again.
Speaker 2: We were like I think I had written the scripts
Speaker 2: for what they were saying, and like I remember like
Speaker 2: like as soon as the thing started, I realized they
Speaker 2: were all too wordy. Like it wasn't until the real show.
Speaker 2: It wasn't until the show actually begun and the audience
Speaker 2: was there that I realized that all the writing I
Speaker 2: had done was like three x too long. Like I was,
Speaker 2: you know, I was made. I was like I messed
Speaker 2: up and like and up there is like like cool
Speaker 2: Hirk is trying to like get through like some sentences
Speaker 2: that I wrote, and it gets all frustrated and like,
Speaker 2: you know, like there was I just remember being very uncomfortable.
Speaker 2: But it wasn't quite as extremely bad as the next one,
Speaker 2: but it was a similar, similar, very chaotic event.
Speaker 1: What were your thoughts of nineteen ninety five. I've probably
Speaker 1: going on record stating that kind of and joking, but
Speaker 1: as the years go by, sort of serious where if
Speaker 1: I were to mark the time where the sand in
Speaker 1: the yeah, where I felt the hip hop that I
Speaker 1: once loved was now like out of my reach, even
Speaker 1: though you know, ninety five was still a dope ass
Speaker 1: year and you know, Lord knows I thrived. But first
Speaker 1: of all, were you there at all? Without me knowing?
Speaker 2: At that point? I was. It was really right in
Speaker 2: the aftermath of this whole breakup that was going on,
Speaker 2: I remember getting a zillion phone calls. I was not there,
Speaker 2: but I got a million phone calls from people updates
Speaker 2: for telling me all the crazy stuff and they fight,
Speaker 2: they're fighting, yeah, all that stuff. But yeah, I wasn't
Speaker 2: there for that, but yeah, it was. It was. I
Speaker 2: remember thinking, you know, not being super surprised because of
Speaker 2: knowing how bad the first one was that it was
Speaker 2: kind of like more of the same, not how bad,
Speaker 2: but how chaotic it was. And yeah, I you know,
Speaker 2: it wasn't that much of a shock. But I definitely
Speaker 2: remember like reacting to that as I also remember from
Speaker 2: the PM down incident too. I wasn't there for you there, no,
Speaker 2: but I was very close with KRS. I was like,
Speaker 2: KRS was kind of my hero and he still is.
Speaker 2: KRS was you know, my most important rapper in my life.
Speaker 2: He's the guy that I always looked up to, and
Speaker 2: so I interviewed him, actually twenty four hours later after
Speaker 2: that incident. I was the first person to interview KRS,
Speaker 2: and I wrote a story that became a cover story
Speaker 2: where he was on fire. He was going after everybody.
Speaker 2: He was going after X Clan, he was going after
Speaker 2: Core Righteous teachers, he was going after you know, of
Speaker 2: course PM down. He went after everybody. And he had
Speaker 2: these he had like a stack of beefs and he
Speaker 2: just was like just one after the next, after the next.
Speaker 1: And yeah, I mean.
Speaker 2: That was when KRS was the king of rap. I
Speaker 2: mean he was definitely the all of hip hop embody
Speaker 2: in one person.
Speaker 1: Before I wrap and one, I really want to think
Speaker 1: you're being super generous. I love the fact that Bill,
Speaker 1: you don't remind me that we're almost getting into Jimmy
Speaker 1: jam territory.
Speaker 3: I was gonna say, like, this is like a ten parter. Now,
Speaker 3: this is like the you know, the Almanac of the
Speaker 3: source history.
Speaker 1: I'm happy to dude, I purposely did not look at
Speaker 1: the clock one and I'm shocked at even Jake Steve
Speaker 1: around the city. Wait, I'm sorry, I'm seeing I'm at
Speaker 1: work right now.
Speaker 4: I should have known that this was gonna go. Like
Speaker 4: Steve is walking to work. They're like, it's me on
Speaker 4: the floor. This, this is this is an act of
Speaker 4: rebellion I'm doing right now.
Speaker 1: It's perfect, It's perfect source material. Dog, I've been waiting
Speaker 1: for this conversation for at least thirty years. YO, like
Speaker 1: this all important.
Speaker 2: I got two guys here in my office with me.
Speaker 2: They've been patient the whole time. To everyone, For those
Speaker 2: who are still awake and still listening, I thank you.
Speaker 1: Trust me, there's an audience for this. Before I wrap, though,
Speaker 1: just in quick retrospect, if you can name like three
Speaker 1: magic moments that we probably don't know about. I don't
Speaker 1: know if you're there for the sequencing of a classic album,
Speaker 1: or you were there to witness an incredible show, or
Speaker 1: just in your prime source memories.
Speaker 2: I'll come up with at least one, which is we're
Speaker 2: talking about KRS and I remember this was a really
Speaker 2: important moment for me. Is while we were still at
Speaker 2: Harvard and the Source was born, but it was still
Speaker 2: in its very early stages, and I had got a
Speaker 2: call from Layla Turkin. Yes, who had the one of
Speaker 2: the publicity companies you mentioned earlier, and she was like, hey,
Speaker 2: you know, is there any chance that you could help
Speaker 2: KRS come to Harvard? And I was like, of course,
Speaker 2: Like I would want nothing in my entire life than
Speaker 2: to do that, And that incident became something I think
Speaker 2: about as a pivotal moment in my life. Basically, I
Speaker 2: went to the Black Student Organization of Harvard and tried
Speaker 2: to get them to endorse a keros One speaking engagement.
Speaker 2: This is the under the undergraduate Black students of Harvard.
Speaker 2: And I had a friend who was part of that committee.
Speaker 2: So he brought me in and I presented the opportunity.
Speaker 2: I was like, you know, there's at that point, the
Speaker 2: source had maybe like a year under its belt or something.
Speaker 2: It had about like eight issues or something like that,
Speaker 2: and I said, you know, I said, I have a
Speaker 2: chance to bring this. You know, everyone knew who KRS was.
Speaker 2: This the leader of hip hop, the most important artist.
Speaker 2: He's going to come to Harvard. And they were like, okay, okay,
Speaker 2: this sounds great. We'll get back to you. And then
Speaker 2: they talked about it, and the guy got back to
Speaker 2: me and he said, hey, man, I got bad news.
Speaker 2: They're not going to do it. I'm like what they said, Yeah,
Speaker 2: they're worried about violence and getting a bad name on
Speaker 2: the you know, for the student organization. And I'm like,
Speaker 2: this was this was during the time when you know,
Speaker 2: everybody thought if you have a rapper, it means like
Speaker 2: you're going to get violence and all the you know,
Speaker 2: it was back in the stereotype of you know, some
Speaker 2: people that maybe there's some truth to it, but they
Speaker 2: didn't want to do it. So I'm like, what am
Speaker 2: I going to do? And so I meet somebody who says, oh, no,
Speaker 2: there's another organization you can go to. It's the Kennedy
Speaker 2: School of Government, which is one of Harvard's graduate schools,
Speaker 2: and they have a black student organization, which this other
Speaker 2: friend of mine was part of. So he's like, come
Speaker 2: into that one. So I come into that one and
Speaker 2: they said, yes, we'll do it. So the night happens,
Speaker 2: they set up the event. It is packed, there's like
Speaker 2: every seat is full, it is absence is probably like
Speaker 2: one thousand, two thousand people there and what is this
Speaker 2: I believe this is nineteen eighty nine and yup, yup,
Speaker 2: and they have like placards for everyone on the panel.
Speaker 2: And there's a whole panel and literally it's Cornell West,
Speaker 2: Henry Lewis Gates, it's every like black intellectual professor like
Speaker 2: legend lined up on the stage and there's a slot
Speaker 2: for KRS. And he's not there. He's missing. The entire
Speaker 2: room is filled, all the other people are on stage,
Speaker 2: and KRS is missing, and I am the only link
Speaker 2: to KRS. So you can imagine how I was feeling
Speaker 2: stress level through the roof. And this is the days
Speaker 2: before the internet, before cell phones. Okay, so I basically
Speaker 2: was stressing my ass off. Okay, I had put this
Speaker 2: whole thing together. I was, you know, the main reason
Speaker 2: they were doing this. And he's not even there. So
Speaker 2: I'm standing in front of this building and like the
Speaker 2: time comes that the start time comes, he's not there.
Speaker 2: Fifteen minutes, thirty minutes, forty five minutes, I'm like, I
Speaker 2: am dead and never like I have to like what's
Speaker 2: going to happen. And then after like fifty minutes, I
Speaker 2: look in the distance and I see a cluster of
Speaker 2: people and I realize that's him. It's like the pied Piper,
Speaker 2: like he's walking through the streets and all these kids
Speaker 2: are following him and it's like krs KRS. And he
Speaker 2: walks in and I'm like, Chris, what's up man? Where
Speaker 2: were you? He's like, what I got on the plane.
Speaker 2: I'm here now, Like, what's the big deal. It's all good,
Speaker 2: you know. I'm like, no, you don't understand, Like there's
Speaker 2: a crowd, come on right now, right now. So he says, here,
Speaker 2: take this and he hands me, and this shows you
Speaker 2: the time period a giant VHS video recorder, like with
Speaker 2: literally a VHS popped in like over the shoulder, giant,
Speaker 2: heavy ass camera. So he hands it to me. What
Speaker 2: because he's like, hey, tape me, tape me, tape this
Speaker 2: for me, please. He hands it to me. We walk
Speaker 2: into the building. The event has already been now forty
Speaker 2: five minutes underway, but they get the first glimpse of RS,
Speaker 2: and the whole crowd just roar standing ovation. It was
Speaker 2: almost like better because he was late. It made it
Speaker 2: even more impactful. He gets up there and he gives
Speaker 2: this amazing like monologue about hip hop and black history
Speaker 2: and America and politics and everything.
Speaker 1: Does this wind up being the interstitials that will wind
Speaker 1: up on edutainment?
Speaker 2: No, but it was similar timeframe, so I'm sure it
Speaker 2: was what was on his mind around that time. Okay.
Speaker 2: And then and then what happens is he gives this
Speaker 2: amazing speech, and then there's some questions and a little
Speaker 2: back and forth and it's going very well. And then
Speaker 2: a black woman in the crowd stands up and asks
Speaker 2: the question, and she says, we got two white boys
Speaker 2: on campus running a rap magazine. We're not happy about that.
Speaker 2: I want to know what you think about that. And
Speaker 2: it was like this very it was like, after all
Speaker 2: this shit happened, now, okay, this like pivotal moment in
Speaker 2: my life. Man. I had already devoted my life. I
Speaker 2: had already, as we told in this story, been already
Speaker 2: devoted to hip hop for years. And KRS looks at
Speaker 2: me and he knows me, you know, And he looks
Speaker 2: at the crowd, he looks at the girl and he says,
Speaker 2: I know what you're talking about. He's like, I know
Speaker 2: those guys, and I have a question for you. Instead
Speaker 2: of asking why are they doing it? Why don't you
Speaker 2: ask why aren't I doing it? Those guys work their
Speaker 2: ass off. I know those guys. They love hip hop,
Speaker 2: They work their ass off. Every day, you know, to
Speaker 2: do this magazine and I beg you please outdo them. Please,
Speaker 2: if you can do a better job, I beg you,
Speaker 2: please do a better job. We need more voices, we
Speaker 2: need more magazines, we need more hip hop in the world,
Speaker 2: you know. And it was like this pivotal moment for me,
Speaker 2: and it validated what we have been doing. It gave
Speaker 2: me the confidence to move on, to keep going. And
Speaker 2: then later after the whole event had done, I was
Speaker 2: sitting alone with KRS in like a diner in Harvard Square,
Speaker 2: and again the Source was very young, we were all
Speaker 2: still very new, and I said to him, man, listen, like,
Speaker 2: you know how much it meant to me that you
Speaker 2: said those things and that you know you're here and
Speaker 2: that kind of And then I said, would you be
Speaker 2: willing to like be our spokesperson? And there was a
Speaker 2: period of time when he agreed, and he actually did.
Speaker 2: He became almost like the spokesperson for the Source. That
Speaker 2: was only for like a period, a short period, but
Speaker 2: that whole experience obviously had a huge impact on the
Speaker 2: rest of my career.
Speaker 1: Are there any retrospect regrets in terms of your contributions
Speaker 1: to the Source that you wish you could have corrected
Speaker 1: I don't know the TLC cover.
Speaker 2: Or that's a good one.
Speaker 1: Yeah, yeah, I had no problem with that. But I'm
Speaker 1: just saying like it just in general, like is there
Speaker 1: like ah, man, I wish I did a soul's a
Speaker 1: mischief issue before I left or it, like, are there
Speaker 1: any like.
Speaker 2: Well, you know, it's the problem with the TLC cover
Speaker 2: was that they were green. Their skin was green because
Speaker 2: it was not printing job. That was the problem. The
Speaker 2: printer did a terrible job and for some reason their
Speaker 2: skin was like green. But the real reason there was
Speaker 2: obviously that was the first R and B group that
Speaker 2: we put on the cover, so we did get a
Speaker 2: lot of flat But I don't regret that. I don't
Speaker 2: regret that because that was you know, that was how
Speaker 2: hip hop was moving at the time, and it was
Speaker 2: a normal evolution, you know. Like I guess, as I
Speaker 2: alluded to earlier, you know, I do wish that the
Speaker 2: ending had been more graceful or more you know, positive.
Speaker 1: And what is your status with Maze now today? Like spoken,
Speaker 1: are you civil?
Speaker 2: We're you're civil? We're civil. We've spoken a few times.
Speaker 2: He made he made an effort in recent years to
Speaker 2: be more I think appropriate in terms of his perspective
Speaker 2: on things. I think he kind of came around and
Speaker 2: realized that, you know, mistakes have been made, and he
Speaker 2: was kind of more conciliatory in recent years than he
Speaker 2: had been in the past. But obviously, and we know
Speaker 2: if we're not going to get into it all today,
Speaker 2: but I've gone on to do a lot of other
Speaker 2: things in the music.
Speaker 1: And that's all good.
Speaker 2: Another time we can talk about it as a.
Speaker 1: Nine fault man. I'm sorry. I was going to go
Speaker 1: dive right in.
Speaker 2: Yeah, I do, but but I mean, you know, real quick,
Speaker 2: I do music for businesses now. I have a company
Speaker 2: called Playback Prodigy, which is a background music for businesses.
Speaker 2: We have thousands of I mean hundreds and even over
Speaker 2: a thousand locations around the world. So but anyway, I
Speaker 2: work with a ton of DJs.
Speaker 1: You technically mean when I hear background music in the
Speaker 1: supermarket or that sort of thing, or like.
Speaker 2: Mostly in hospitality places. So we do the music for
Speaker 2: WIN resorts, we do the music for MGM resorts, We
Speaker 2: do the music for SOHO House.
Speaker 1: So when I check in to a hotel.
Speaker 2: When you're in a hotel, we do need for tons
Speaker 2: of fancy.
Speaker 1: The soundtrack that I hear. Yeah, I'm secretly obsessed with
Speaker 1: that world, man, Like I figured you'd be.
Speaker 2: Curious about that. Yeah, because it's it's it's a great
Speaker 2: perspective on like music, and it forces me to stay
Speaker 2: current and and and also to be able to go
Speaker 2: back because there's some people that want yacht rock and soul,
Speaker 2: and some people want you know, cutting edge hip hop,
Speaker 2: and some people want pop, and some people want house
Speaker 2: music and whatever it is.
Speaker 1: So you're a professional curation, correct music curator. Is there
Speaker 1: licensing that has to happen with that or is it
Speaker 1: just like you this restaurant says, hey, I need that
Speaker 1: music for three hours in a loop. And you guys know.
Speaker 2: We like we we we pay all of the appropriate agencies.
Speaker 2: You know, we pay the p R O, s ASCAP, E,
Speaker 2: M I C. Sack. You know, we pay we pay
Speaker 2: everybody that we have to pay to license the music.
Speaker 2: That's one of our expenses, you know, running this business.
Speaker 2: But uh, for the most part, it's you know, it's
Speaker 2: it's hardware, software content. So we do the whole thing.
Speaker 2: But in the end, it's about having good taste in
Speaker 2: music and picking what's appropriate for seeing a certain setting.
Speaker 1: I didn't know that one could actually monetize off that
Speaker 1: because the amount of restaurants that I frequent that are
Speaker 1: just like a mere. Can you send me one of
Speaker 1: your playlists that uh, yeah, I hear about so much
Speaker 1: and I'll be like, yeah, sure, and I'll make them
Speaker 1: a five hour playlist and they'll be playing it. I
Speaker 1: didn't realize that that is a business.
Speaker 2: Yeah, I've been doing this for about eight years, eight
Speaker 2: and nine. I can get a job with you, please.
Speaker 2: I would love I would love nothing more than be
Speaker 2: able to say playlist by a mere quest love Thompson.
Speaker 2: That would be our greatest you know, feature ever if
Speaker 2: we're able to say that. But yeah, for sure, man.
Speaker 2: We It's kind of like being a DJ behind the curtain.
Speaker 2: It's like being It's like w'sard of Oz, Like you
Speaker 2: get to be the DJ, but no one sees you.
Speaker 2: You know, You're like, it's kind of fun.
Speaker 1: Wow, Okay, now I'm excited about that. You think I'm joking.
Speaker 1: I'm not. I love all I love is curating. Now
Speaker 1: do you open that door? I have so many more
Speaker 1: questions about that, but I technically have to get to
Speaker 1: work right now. Okay, the longest four hour lunch break
Speaker 1: of it, but very much well worth epic. I knew
Speaker 1: it was going to be epic. Now that I'm in
Speaker 1: the space that I'm in, I'm really hoping that perhaps
Speaker 1: you two can come to some sort of agreement in
Speaker 1: terms of at least setting the legacy right. You know,
Speaker 1: there's the time where, yes, everything that you've described, I
Speaker 1: would love to see this told mad Men's style. I
Speaker 1: believe that this is almost a six season episodic series
Speaker 1: that you've told and certain the stuff you didn't tell
Speaker 1: me was even you know, worth it. But no, just
Speaker 1: in general, man, I want to thank you for your
Speaker 1: contribution to that magazine, and you know that magazine especially
Speaker 1: being a pivotal moment in my life in terms of
Speaker 1: what I wanted to do for a living and something
Speaker 1: to look forward to and to aspire to be. And
Speaker 1: the shit literally has me here right now interviewing you, Man,
Speaker 1: I want to thank you for that, and that's kind
Speaker 1: of why this was a lengthy interview and not just
Speaker 1: a forty five minutes Oh tell me where you started? Like, thanks, n.
Speaker 2: I'm great, thank you. I appreciate all you guys for
Speaker 2: having me on and also in particular a mirror for
Speaker 2: representing you know what I think Philly does represent, which
Speaker 2: is a love of music, a knowledge of music, a
Speaker 2: respect for music. You know, like growing up in Philly,
Speaker 2: we that's what's in our It's in the water, as
Speaker 2: we say, w ar t e er water.
Speaker 1: Yes, it's in the water.
Speaker 2: Basically, you know, we love music in Philly. And if
Speaker 2: you go back to Philly today, we're still playing the classics.
Speaker 2: You know, you walk into store that you're here like
Speaker 2: Luther Vandross or It's Takes two or Bruce Springsteen or whatever.
Speaker 2: You know what I mean, it's going to be like,
Speaker 2: we just love the classics in Philly and it's in
Speaker 2: the water. And I am grateful for all the things
Speaker 2: that you and your colleagues have done to be a
Speaker 2: positive force in the world of music.
Speaker 1: So thank you so Jonathan.
Speaker 5: Yes, sir, how many mites would you give the Source
Speaker 5: as a magazine?
Speaker 2: Wow?
Speaker 1: In your time period and overall?
Speaker 2: Verat question? Man, I mean it was worth a four
Speaker 2: hour wait for that one, Okay, you know, I really
Speaker 2: I often say that my golden era is the Source's
Speaker 2: golden era. So I think that nineteen from I did
Speaker 2: an issue called the Decade of Wrap, which came out
Speaker 2: in nineteen ninety. It was a look back to nineteen
Speaker 2: eighty to nineteen ninety. That was my senior thesis at Harvard,
Speaker 2: was that issue of the Source. So I would say
Speaker 2: from that issue until the time I left five mics
Speaker 2: because we did everything. Now I have no comment on
Speaker 2: what happened after I left, because I had nothing to
Speaker 2: do with it, thank god. But basically, you know, I
Speaker 2: think that our time period four and a half to
Speaker 2: five you know, a mere set of four and a
Speaker 2: half is cool, but you know, I mean, I do
Speaker 2: think that that time period in my life is a
Speaker 2: five MIC time period. And it's like, you know, what
Speaker 2: I look back is my golden era. So I'm very
Speaker 2: grateful for it.
Speaker 1: Is there a place where I can collectively get like
Speaker 1: my one dream is to see the entire Source cannon
Speaker 1: as a volume set? Or do you own every issue?
Speaker 1: Like do you have boxes?
Speaker 2: And yes, I have boxes, and as my colleagues here
Speaker 2: in Vegas, cy, I have all kinds of shit. Man.
Speaker 2: I got boxes of pictures, records autographed by everybody, rec
Speaker 2: gold records, you know, promo material, but and also all
Speaker 2: the issues and also all the internal stuff. I have
Speaker 2: a whole lot of internal documents about when we were
Speaker 2: making the issues and all that stuff, and I would
Speaker 2: like to The Source has a new owner. I'm a
Speaker 2: guy named Londell McMillan.
Speaker 1: And he is I'm familiar with Londel.
Speaker 2: You know who Londell is. So Londel, I would like
Speaker 2: to say.
Speaker 1: Right, no, Prince by Documentaries landed.
Speaker 2: He pretends to Prince very very assiduously. But yes, I
Speaker 2: will say that Londel. You heard Requestlove just said, let's
Speaker 2: put every issue. I'm only talking about mine. So the
Speaker 2: first let's just say the first.
Speaker 1: So he owns the IP right now.
Speaker 2: The first fifty issues of the Source, which is roughly
Speaker 2: my time period. A little bit more than that. I
Speaker 2: think I did like fifty four to fifty five issues
Speaker 2: something like that. So the first fifty whatever issues from
Speaker 2: that nineteen eighty to the one that had cool HERK
Speaker 2: Bam and Flash on the cover, which is the hip
Speaker 2: hop History issue. Between those two, I would like to
Speaker 2: put all those online for free. I don't want to
Speaker 2: make money from it. I just want the world to
Speaker 2: have it. I want to put them online for free.
Speaker 2: The only person that can give me the green light
Speaker 2: is Londell. So Londel, let's do it for the sake
Speaker 2: of history. Let's do it for the sake of the
Speaker 2: legacy and for and also let's make it searchable so
Speaker 2: that people can, you know, if you want to look
Speaker 2: up like large professor, you can type in large professor
Speaker 2: and you see all the page's he's on, you know.
Speaker 2: But but yeah, that's that's what we need to do.
Speaker 1: You're mount the God's ears. All right, Londel, you heard
Speaker 1: it here first.
Speaker 5: This show is still going on.
Speaker 1: Get out of here, all right, y'all. We gotta sign off, John,
Speaker 1: thank you. Going to be up a Bill and unpaid
Speaker 1: Steve than That sounds about right? Is quest Love next week?
Speaker 1: This is Sugar Steve.
Speaker 5: Thank you for listening to Quest Love Supermeo. This podcast
Speaker 5: is hosted by a Mere Quest Love, Thompson, Liah Saint Clair, Sugar,
Speaker 5: Steve Mandel, and Unpaid Bill Sherman. The executs your producers
Speaker 5: are a Mere Quest of Thompson, Sean g and Brian Calhoun,
Speaker 5: produced by Britney, Benjamin, Jake Payne and Liiah Saint Clair.
Speaker 1: Edited by Alex Conroy.
Speaker 5: Produced for iHeart by Noel Brown.
Speaker 1: West. Love Supreme is a production of iHeartRadio. For more
Speaker 1: podcasts from iHeart Radio, visit the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts,
Speaker 1: or wherever you listen to your favorite shows.