Speaker 1: All my life, the grinding all my life, second fights,
Speaker 1: hustle back price one slice, got theron dice to swap
Speaker 1: all my life. I've been grinding all my life, all
Speaker 1: my life, the grinding all my life, sacond fights, hustle
Speaker 1: back prices. One a slice, got the ba dice to
Speaker 1: swapping all my life. I've been grinding all my life. Hello,
Speaker 1: welcome to another edition of Club Shaha. I am your
Speaker 1: whole Shan and Sharp, also the proprietor of Club sha Shade.
Speaker 1: The guy that's stopping by for conversation and a drink
Speaker 1: today really needs no introduction. He's hip hop royalty and
Speaker 1: a rap legend. Golden platinum selling rapper and songwriter, record
Speaker 1: producer and executive with almost forty years in the game,
Speaker 1: The King of the Bay too short? What did it due?
Speaker 1: What's up man? That's a multi platinum, multime multipe multi
Speaker 1: Yeah cause I did it. I did it like seven
Speaker 1: times in a row. What oh yeah, we talked to
Speaker 1: us about it. I'm just trying to trick you got
Speaker 1: a new you got a new single coming out called
Speaker 1: Nasty Dance. You'll always seem to have an album coming out.
Speaker 1: What number album is this for? You. I lost count,
Speaker 1: but it's it's up to like twenty something like twenty one,
Speaker 1: so somewhere up there. So you got this tell us
Speaker 1: about the single that you got that you're about to drop. Well,
Speaker 1: you know, I'm just trying our new platforms and stuff.
Speaker 1: I partnered up with a company called Encore, okay, and
Speaker 1: it's just a new style of how they shoot the
Speaker 1: videos and how they present it. And I'm just you know,
Speaker 1: at this age and with my career accolades, I really
Speaker 1: don't have much to prove, right, So you know, you know,
Speaker 1: we formed the Mount Westmore group. That's me, Snoop Cube
Speaker 1: and E forty, right, and that's kind of like my thing.
Speaker 1: So outside of that, I'm just freelancing a little bit,
Speaker 1: doing stuff, right, having fun. I love RAPS, right, I'm
Speaker 1: just doing it. You started, you got forty years in
Speaker 1: this game, so you started back in the eighties. Obviously
Speaker 1: it's a lot different. What's some of the biggest differences
Speaker 1: that you noticed between you rap when you started and
Speaker 1: currently where it is now. Probably the platforms is the
Speaker 1: biggest thing. The Internet and that changed the game as
Speaker 1: far as we were so worried about duplicating CDs, and
Speaker 1: copying MP three's and file sharing, and it just went
Speaker 1: straight to streaming, and streaming with streaming brought multiple multiple platforms, right,
Speaker 1: and you can you can maximize just like a artist
Speaker 1: can get one hot song right now, and you make
Speaker 1: a boatload of money right just by the fame you
Speaker 1: get and the different opportunities you can send your song,
Speaker 1: all these different platforms paying you. So it's it's a
Speaker 1: different ball game, and it's it used to be a
Speaker 1: lot about skills and what you can bring to the
Speaker 1: table original. Now it's just about popularity. Like the most
Speaker 1: popular guys gonna get the money. So he don't listen.
Speaker 1: He or she doesn't necessarily have to be good, but
Speaker 1: just have a hot soul and a hustle and a
Speaker 1: hustle and a hustle. So with the new platform that's out,
Speaker 1: you have the streaming, you have the Internet, you have
Speaker 1: social media guys, you can go directly. So do you
Speaker 1: really need a record company? Do you really need an
Speaker 1: you need a record company? The majors have the airwaves
Speaker 1: on lock right. They got you know, the big numbers
Speaker 1: on lock right. Yeah, worldwide, that international's on lock right.
Speaker 1: But you can get in there without a major and
Speaker 1: you could be like a young Dolf rest in peace,
Speaker 1: young Dolf who was making millions independent. It's still it's
Speaker 1: still a lane to get in there and master these
Speaker 1: platforms and make make room for yourself, right without a
Speaker 1: major label. Yeah, I recommend that as much as possible. Right,
Speaker 1: it depends on who you are individually and what you
Speaker 1: want out of this, right, But there is a way
Speaker 1: to have ownership and run your own show and have
Speaker 1: your own team and be and be a major artist. Right.
Speaker 1: But if you just like you, like I want to
Speaker 1: be that guy, I need to be Drake, You're gonna
Speaker 1: need that machine behind exactly. Well, you know what, let's
Speaker 1: tost I have my own brand of Carnact. You've been
Speaker 1: forty years deep in the game. You did it your way,
Speaker 1: and you'll still continue to do it your way. Sloop
Speaker 1: brou here we go. That's my own brand. Tell me
Speaker 1: they smooth. We go ahead and talk to me. Sure, No,
Speaker 1: it really is good. I was. I wouldn't even watch either.
Speaker 1: It's it's because if you could just drink it and
Speaker 1: it's not a problem, right, it's smooth, Like I don't.
Speaker 1: It's coniac man. This reminds me of the old in
Speaker 1: the nineties. Tell the story we was telling off fair
Speaker 1: to say, you know what, I used to be a
Speaker 1: big conjac drinker. I don't really drink as much as
Speaker 1: I want. I don't really partake into connact as much
Speaker 1: as I once did, because it reminds me of the
Speaker 1: days before I really made it big, and I was
Speaker 1: just a little guy, you know, hanging in the streets
Speaker 1: with the homies, and we get the bottle and pass
Speaker 1: it around. On a cold day, you know, Coniac was
Speaker 1: your jacket. Yeah, on a hot day, Coniac was your
Speaker 1: air condition. From that, and then I start getting a
Speaker 1: little money going into some different little places and I'm like,
Speaker 1: you know, but let me get a margar read it. Yeah,
Speaker 1: if you got poof, you got brand new us. So
Speaker 1: I saw all, you know, I just I just swished
Speaker 1: it up a little bit. And then when I when
Speaker 1: I sip a little bit, as soon as I sip
Speaker 1: in a smell of to see it, I'm like, oh,
Speaker 1: here we go. I'm back on the street corner in Oakland.
Speaker 1: In my mind, you know what I'm so, you know,
Speaker 1: I'm a tequila guy, but at the same time, I
Speaker 1: have a great coneyak drink that I've I've made many
Speaker 1: people over the years that it's high calorie, but it's
Speaker 1: the bomb. So you take you take an even shot
Speaker 1: of the coneyak, the Calua and the Bailey's Irish Cream.
Speaker 1: Even they gotta be even shots. Put them on a
Speaker 1: lot of ice and let it just get together, stirred up,
Speaker 1: real good. It's like a it's like a separator, but
Speaker 1: with a ghetto twist, right, and then the other version
Speaker 1: is replaced the ice with ice cream. So a couple
Speaker 1: of scoops of ice cream, one shot of Hennessy, well
Speaker 1: notot Hennessy, we want to yeah, one shot of port Yeah,
Speaker 1: one shot of u Kalua and one shot of the
Speaker 1: Bailey's Irish Cream. Mix it with the ice cream and
Speaker 1: let it. Let it turn into a milkshake. I'm trying
Speaker 1: to tell you, well, we're going to try that. I'm
Speaker 1: telling you it's called a dirty m okay and people
Speaker 1: such as uh Alan Ivison used to like it once
Speaker 1: fun time, right, it was it was I turned on
Speaker 1: I turned Scarface the rapper onto it, right, and between
Speaker 1: me and him, we turned a lot of people onto
Speaker 1: the dirty mfs okay. I like that. So what can
Speaker 1: we expect from this album though, Uh, you can expect
Speaker 1: hip hop to expand, meaning that every time one of
Speaker 1: your legacy artists who have who has been around for
Speaker 1: a long time, right and you know Nah still dropping albums,
Speaker 1: jay Z still dropping hit. You know, rappers who are
Speaker 1: well into their forties are doing good, and some into
Speaker 1: their fifties, you know, Snoop Snoop Dog Justify, and it's like,
Speaker 1: we're just expanding hip hop. Hip Hop hasn't had, uh,
Speaker 1: fifty year old rappers that have any type of success.
Speaker 1: If I had told you in your twenties and your
Speaker 1: early twenties that you still be doing this in your fifties,
Speaker 1: what would you have saying? I would have said you're crazy,
Speaker 1: because I was like at my early twenties, I would saying,
Speaker 1: anybody that's thirty two is an old man. Right, you're
Speaker 1: calling me an old man rapper. And the young rappers
Speaker 1: right now and see it the same way. They're like
Speaker 1: maybe old dudes, and I'm like, dude, you're gonna be
Speaker 1: an old dude one day. Yeah, and your old wish,
Speaker 1: you're gonna wish. If you're a twenty two year old rapper,
Speaker 1: you're gonna wish that you could be a forty two
Speaker 1: year old rapper on stage and they love you, because
Speaker 1: that's hard to do. You know what My grandfather's say, Hey,
Speaker 1: I've been your age, you've never been mind. Yeah forty
Speaker 1: forty just said that in the Rapper saying that you
Speaker 1: keep you keep living. So yeah, man, you know, I
Speaker 1: just think it's a beautiful thing that to do what
Speaker 1: you do. What I'm doing right in my fifties, right
Speaker 1: that I did when I was a teenager, and it's
Speaker 1: still something I love and it's still getting me money. Right,
Speaker 1: Is that why you do it? Because you still love it.
Speaker 1: You don't have to do it, obviously, if you've made money,
Speaker 1: you still made your money. But I do it because
Speaker 1: once upon a time I announced that I was retiring.
Speaker 1: It's thirty years old, and it was a big promotional
Speaker 1: push behind Too Short retiring. I was on my tenth
Speaker 1: album at the time, and I remember DJ Red Alert
Speaker 1: said to me, he was like, you don't ever see
Speaker 1: jazz musicians retiring or blues You know what I'm saying,
Speaker 1: Yanna Ross and smoking in him they on the stage.
Speaker 1: Stephen doesn't rapper have to stop. So when he said that,
Speaker 1: I never ever considered retirement ever again. And I think
Speaker 1: that the more I get older and wiser, I'm like,
Speaker 1: somebody's gotta keep doing. Is Doctor Dre is older than
Speaker 1: me and he's about to perform at the super Bowl.
Speaker 1: It be lit too. They didn't go get a young
Speaker 1: thug and gunner. They didn't go get you know, money
Speaker 1: bag out, They got I go the Dre. Whether you're
Speaker 1: in LA, I mean you got to How you come
Speaker 1: to LA and don't get Drake? How you don't get
Speaker 1: sloop you? I mean you can't. But agism is a
Speaker 1: real thing in entertainment. It is. And they got doctor Drake.
Speaker 1: So that's like that that is the host narrative of
Speaker 1: what I'm trying to be a part of. Is every
Speaker 1: time jay Z steps up to the plate, we accept it.
Speaker 1: And ever since he was twenty something, right, you know.
Speaker 1: So it's like, this is saying, not for me, look
Speaker 1: what I did. This is saying for my young homie,
Speaker 1: Look what I can do? Right? Look what is Tom
Speaker 1: Brady doing right now? Quarterbacks? Right? You know what I'm saying.
Speaker 1: He's saying it can't be done, right, I don't know
Speaker 1: if you could do it? Who are some of the
Speaker 1: features you have on this album. Features I'm trying to
Speaker 1: think right now, because you know, I really don't know.
Speaker 1: I really don't like value that that much. So if
Speaker 1: I got like like say Geasy was on there, and
Speaker 1: my mind is just the homie easy, It's like it's
Speaker 1: like nothing I can really like brag on it, right,
Speaker 1: But I definitely have some features. I always go out
Speaker 1: there and get some homies. I just I do so
Speaker 1: many projects, right, you know, like my westmore like, I'm
Speaker 1: not really focused on the bragging part of it. When
Speaker 1: it comes out, you're gonna see. How do you determine
Speaker 1: who you hop on a track with? Obviously, if Snoop
Speaker 1: come gon h forty waterco you gonna It's basically it's
Speaker 1: based on friendships relationships. I could have a relationship with
Speaker 1: the label or somebody at the label and not the artist,
Speaker 1: and they call me and say I need one, Need
Speaker 1: you do one? And I do it. I got a
Speaker 1: call from jazz Fai last night about the artists they
Speaker 1: were working with Atlanta, and they sent me the song.
Speaker 1: I don't know the artist, but I'm gonna do the
Speaker 1: song because it's a jazzy fake production right beat. It's hot. So.
Speaker 1: A lot of times it could be is a song
Speaker 1: hot right? A lot of times it could be who's
Speaker 1: the artist, right, and it's an artist I don't know.
Speaker 1: I might check the numbers and go a little homie
Speaker 1: doing it right, I'm gonna get down so and it
Speaker 1: could be family. I mean, like I all my cousins
Speaker 1: get one favorite and after that, like cause you want
Speaker 1: your favorite to do be a show, you want me
Speaker 1: to show me at your party, you need to help
Speaker 1: with a car, right, you get one favorite? Right in
Speaker 1: a lifetime. When I look at some of the guys
Speaker 1: that you've been up with, too big at jay Z's
Speaker 1: the best, I mean yeah, I mean dray T I.
Speaker 1: I'm the big homie though, because you eat while you
Speaker 1: boyd you have you been at it the longest. I'm
Speaker 1: the big homie. A lot of people get at me
Speaker 1: and they ask me these stats and these numbers in
Speaker 1: this what was happening in and there? I was like,
Speaker 1: all these stories you're telling me, I'm the big homie
Speaker 1: and in these stories, in these situations you're talking about
Speaker 1: big pot name all these people. I was plattingum when
Speaker 1: these dudes in high school and middle school and stuff,
Speaker 1: I was out there and living in kicking and so
Speaker 1: when they came to the party, I was already the
Speaker 1: big dog at the party, like you know, Snoop Dog
Speaker 1: was in middle school bumping too short. They all I'm
Speaker 1: old g man. So you know, these this list of
Speaker 1: artists I've collaborated with a lot of times, a lot
Speaker 1: of times. Majority of the times they were getting at
Speaker 1: me right now, like I need too short on the song.
Speaker 1: I brought a whole lot with me and you know,
Speaker 1: I'm proud of it. But at the same time, when
Speaker 1: you look back on it, you look like all of
Speaker 1: us were right there. But nah, when jay Z first
Speaker 1: got at me, I had way more platinums than that
Speaker 1: was established all that. So it's it's cool, man. I
Speaker 1: love where it all, the way it all played out.
Speaker 1: I love that when I look back at it, you know,
Speaker 1: I'm a part of an elite group, right and and
Speaker 1: you know, and it's history. It's it's hip hop history.
Speaker 1: I mean, it's it's it's I mean, when you think
Speaker 1: about it, think about when you started. I was live.
Speaker 1: Look at where we are now. I'm still on the scene.
Speaker 1: Like you said, you just mentioned Tom Brady. Tom Brady
Speaker 1: said look, I'm three generations. Rod did the two thousand,
Speaker 1: I did twenty ten. Here I'm in twenty twenties, still
Speaker 1: doing work. He's playing against quarterbacks that wasn't born when
Speaker 1: you got to the league, that was two years old
Speaker 1: when he got to the league. Did you did you
Speaker 1: think you would have this kind of success, this kind
Speaker 1: of staying power when you started. So when you're a
Speaker 1: legend and you're breaking records and you blazing trails, you
Speaker 1: don't care about that or even know that, right because
Speaker 1: you're a trailblazer. That means you're in front, right, and
Speaker 1: you you're the one burning the trail, right. You don't
Speaker 1: realize it till it's a paved road. You look back
Speaker 1: and go, I started that. So I'm saying, and you
Speaker 1: were in that status of of of just like you're
Speaker 1: doing greatness, right, You can't think I'm doing greatness. While
Speaker 1: you're doing greatness, you're like just trying to outdo the
Speaker 1: men in the room with you, and and and you,
Speaker 1: like we talked this stuff about sports heiress, who would
Speaker 1: have been who? And what error? And I'm like, a
Speaker 1: grown man is a grown man side strength, speed? You
Speaker 1: put that grown man in any putting back in Africa
Speaker 1: five hundred years ago. He gonna be a man amongst
Speaker 1: men because that's who he is. And I think, you know,
Speaker 1: you drop me off in any era, you drop me
Speaker 1: off in this era hip hop, I'm gonna shine. I
Speaker 1: just feel that confident about who I am as an
Speaker 1: individ drop me off in the hood in Baltimore, Maryland. Right,
Speaker 1: I'm gonna get home. You know what I'm saying. Everybody
Speaker 1: ain't gonna make it home. I'm gonna make it home.
Speaker 1: Your style, how did you come up with the way
Speaker 1: you were gonna rap? I was mimicking New York rappers.
Speaker 1: It's early eighties, okay. And when I say mimicing New
Speaker 1: York rappers, I just mean party rap. You know, you
Speaker 1: know the girl in the blue dress, well, you know,
Speaker 1: you know, just just it was like a shot out
Speaker 1: thing and the fun thing. You just kind of rhyming
Speaker 1: little simple words and and just trying to get your
Speaker 1: cadence and your patterns together. And then I heard the message,
Speaker 1: and the message is one of those songs that came
Speaker 1: out in nineteen eighty two. I was in eleventh grade.
Speaker 1: I was one of them little kids that had the
Speaker 1: beat box my big boom box and I'm walking down
Speaker 1: the street bu this day. I always remember this day
Speaker 1: because I was by myself and had no car. Probably
Speaker 1: was walking from somewhere to the bus stop or something
Speaker 1: coming from the bus or something, and the song came on.
Speaker 1: I stopped in my tracks by myself on the I was.
Speaker 1: I wasn't even on the main street. I was in
Speaker 1: like a neighborhood and the song come on and I'm like,
Speaker 1: I put the bright away up to my ears. He's
Speaker 1: like broken glass everywhere. I'm like what, And I'm I'm
Speaker 1: in the streets of Oakland. I'm a rapper. I'm pretty popular.
Speaker 1: I'm like little baby popular, right, And I think to myself,
Speaker 1: oh my god, I gotta start rapping about Oakland, right,
Speaker 1: And literally at that moment, that's what it turned into.
Speaker 1: And everything from that point on has been like it's
Speaker 1: just been like a match made in heaven. Like when
Speaker 1: I put the pen to the paper, I just think
Speaker 1: about Oakland, right, and I write songs, and it's just
Speaker 1: it's the message gave me that. Yeah, but you write
Speaker 1: about Oakland. Obviously Oakland is in you, but you were
Speaker 1: able to branch out because it wasn't just that Bay
Speaker 1: Rappers that we wanted to do too short on the hook.
Speaker 1: So so I spent my early years born in LA, right,
Speaker 1: and I moved to Oakland right after ninth grade. Okay,
Speaker 1: so I'm of that age where if I was in
Speaker 1: LA probably could have been trying to dip and dodge
Speaker 1: and with gangs. If I get to Oakland and it's
Speaker 1: a different thing. It's not the street gangs, blue and red.
Speaker 1: It's not like that. It's to me, Oakland looked like
Speaker 1: a movie. It looked like a Black Spoyltation movie that
Speaker 1: came to life, like I'm on set in the movie.
Speaker 1: Everything was colorful. It was the cars, it was the lifestyle.
Speaker 1: It just I'm looking at it. It It was totally different
Speaker 1: in LA and it just you know it just really
Speaker 1: like I think that me telling the story of my
Speaker 1: experiences and what Oakland taught me and brought to me
Speaker 1: was partially because of my outside influences. I spent every
Speaker 1: summer in my childhood in New Orleans. My mother couldn't
Speaker 1: wait till May junior schools out. You're like, oh, being
Speaker 1: my brother, You're on the plane, like come back sea
Speaker 1: in August, right, Like you don't get rid of us
Speaker 1: for two months every summer. Yeah, y'all, go stay with
Speaker 1: my sister, Go stay with my mama. And I think
Speaker 1: that that music in New Orleans gave me a whole
Speaker 1: different cultural thing. That West Coast represent half my knowing,
Speaker 1: and the streets of LA and coming up and being
Speaker 1: around and Blue and the red and and the hood
Speaker 1: stuff out here and the music influence out here. When
Speaker 1: I get to Oakland, I bring all this with me,
Speaker 1: like subconsciously, and then I absorb all this Bay stuff.
Speaker 1: In the Bay Area, the Bay Area music is sliding
Speaker 1: the family stone, you know, the whispers, the point of sisters,
Speaker 1: power power, and this is before rap and you know confunction.
Speaker 1: It's like the Bay has as a I can name
Speaker 1: a lot of groups. The Bay has a very rich
Speaker 1: music heritage, even the gospel, the Hawkins family. You know,
Speaker 1: like it's a lot. And when I come up as
Speaker 1: a rapper, I'm the first rapper. I'm the first guy
Speaker 1: who steps up to the plate. And I'm looking at
Speaker 1: it like because people are you know, the people that
Speaker 1: were I was working with when I first came up,
Speaker 1: some of them have been around Rick James, They had
Speaker 1: been around Power Power, they had been around sly Larry
Speaker 1: Graham right, and I'm like, okay, I gotta they telling
Speaker 1: me me, o, you taking big way back. Lar Graham
Speaker 1: wanted the men you convunct your love trade, but you
Speaker 1: love trade. But I'm saying these old Jesus telling me, look, youngster,
Speaker 1: you know this is what we did. This we you know,
Speaker 1: they telling me the greatness. I'm like, I gotta live
Speaker 1: up to this. So from the start, it's quality man,
Speaker 1: It's it's it's it's gotta be quality. And you gonna
Speaker 1: listen to the early two short songs and I'm this
Speaker 1: musicianship man. It's I got real like musicians on there
Speaker 1: trying to uphold the legacy. So you know, how did
Speaker 1: you live with forty? Me? Forty have street ties? Okay,
Speaker 1: So E forty is definitely a street guy from the streets.
Speaker 1: And my whole influence on how I came to be
Speaker 1: was from street guys. Like literally, I had a hustle
Speaker 1: where I sold cassette tapes in the streets and one
Speaker 1: of our clientele I had a rap partner named Freddie Bent.
Speaker 1: Of our clientele was street level drug dealers who was
Speaker 1: on the street selling drugs. And through that, through those relationships.
Speaker 1: When I started the label, the first thing I went
Speaker 1: to I didn't go to Wells Fargo. I went to
Speaker 1: the street dudes to start the label. If you go
Speaker 1: back and check almost the entire hip hop industry, a
Speaker 1: lot of us got bankrolled by the streets, right and
Speaker 1: because when you couldn't get along, So what's your occupation
Speaker 1: on the aspiring rep? Get out of here? So E
Speaker 1: Forty and his cousins and brother, they's some street dudes
Speaker 1: who financed themselves. They wouldn't got the game from their
Speaker 1: uncle Charles, who was affiliated with the music scene around
Speaker 1: Vallejo to confunction around it. And I got the game
Speaker 1: from a guy named Dean Hodges, who was also a
Speaker 1: street dude who was dabbling with a lot. He I
Speaker 1: feel like he wanted to be a rock star, but
Speaker 1: he really didn't. Couldn't play guitar, as a drums or saying.
Speaker 1: So he surrounded himself by all these music making people
Speaker 1: and he learned a lot. He taught me how to
Speaker 1: run an independent label. He taught me how to make
Speaker 1: music in a studio and mix it down and put
Speaker 1: it out. And me and Forty was on the same
Speaker 1: trajectory he's in Vallejo. I started rapping and getting popular
Speaker 1: before him. He's motivated by me, but he's like on
Speaker 1: a whole nother island thirty miles away and he's doing
Speaker 1: it on his own. He's like, I'm getting out there.
Speaker 1: And I think the way we connected was his immediate
Speaker 1: crew was literally doing street business with my immediate crew,
Speaker 1: right and at the same time they mixing in England
Speaker 1: were to wrap guys, We're in the same crew, and
Speaker 1: we keep meeting up, hanging out around the same you know, crew,
Speaker 1: not really talking about music, but not even really connecting,
Speaker 1: just around each other. What's up. You know, I've seen
Speaker 1: your tape. I've seen your tape. Whatever. Right, No, it's cool.
Speaker 1: I know who you are. I know who you are.
Speaker 1: It's cool. Respect. And then it started getting more and
Speaker 1: more popular, and he always tells the story that he
Speaker 1: flagged me down on the freeway. You know, how he
Speaker 1: flaxed right on the freeway were the doing fifty five
Speaker 1: sixty five eight? Man, we didn't work together, you know,
Speaker 1: he like, I kind of big willied on him a
Speaker 1: little bit, like yeah, okay and roll them window backs
Speaker 1: up there. I don't you know, I don't think it
Speaker 1: would like that, whether the role or whether the electric
Speaker 1: you know you can you do this. This was a
Speaker 1: row down there. You know, it's a road down, you
Speaker 1: roll it down. And that was that. We still the same,
Speaker 1: I know him, We still like family, but we not
Speaker 1: music back then. Nobody, man, you don't ask me to
Speaker 1: use my producer and uh me try to do a
Speaker 1: collab with somebody from something. We don't do that like
Speaker 1: Yo crew, Yo crew, love your public enemy, love your beats, everything,
Speaker 1: but I don't want to use your producers, you know
Speaker 1: what I mean. It was just it was just like that. So,
Speaker 1: uh fast forward a little bit. We had a big
Speaker 1: event that we used to do they still do in
Speaker 1: the bass called up Summer Jams. Right. It was you
Speaker 1: know that where the radio station bring the fifty artists album.
Speaker 1: Let everybody gets ten fifteen minutes and you know, the
Speaker 1: thirty forty thousand people in the crowd and it's just
Speaker 1: a big day. So I had done that a couple
Speaker 1: of times and this particular year it was forties turn
Speaker 1: to be the headline. He's hide, He's about to you know,
Speaker 1: big show. And I wasn't on the show that year.
Speaker 1: Some stuff that happened where I moved to Atlanta and
Speaker 1: a young group called the Loonies. I got five on
Speaker 1: it and had mentioned my name and a record and
Speaker 1: they mentioned this one line is said it was trying
Speaker 1: to say insinuate that they were a part of some
Speaker 1: situation that that came my way and they made me
Speaker 1: move to Atlanta, which is far from the truth, right,
Speaker 1: far from the truth, right. And I was totally offended
Speaker 1: that this record. The line was that's why the town
Speaker 1: got rid of Short and they was talking about some
Speaker 1: some gangs, gangs of shit or whatever, that's why the
Speaker 1: town got rid of Short. And I'm like, what, like,
Speaker 1: were them guys in the streets? Me and my rhythm guys? Right,
Speaker 1: And you can't get away with saying that. You can't
Speaker 1: say that. And okay, so I was being diplomatic because
Speaker 1: the Loonies are literally connected, right, I could tell you
Speaker 1: many layers of the story, Like the way they get
Speaker 1: in the game is through people that I influenced. My guys,
Speaker 1: all this stuff. We family, right, But I don't go
Speaker 1: to route them and let's just go get these dudes.
Speaker 1: And I'm not even thinking like that. I'm like, we
Speaker 1: gonna do this the right way. Summer jam is coming up.
Speaker 1: That's the show where everybody the bad is gonna be
Speaker 1: in the crowd. The Loonies is on the show e
Speaker 1: forty on the show. Ever, we're gonna step up in
Speaker 1: front of the crowd, me and the Loonies and just
Speaker 1: say to the crowd, ain't no beef between us. You
Speaker 1: ain't gonna explain this song. Ain't got Just step up there.
Speaker 1: If you say that in front of them, I'm too
Speaker 1: who So I come to the show. They tell me,
Speaker 1: you know, we can only give you four passes short,
Speaker 1: but they gave me them a sticker sticker passes. I'm like,
Speaker 1: I tell my guys we're good to go. I got
Speaker 1: four stickers. So we go to the show. Four guys
Speaker 1: go in. I send one guy out with four passes,
Speaker 1: four more guys come in. One guy goes out with
Speaker 1: four passes, four more guys come in. We do that
Speaker 1: shit all day. Right, So the Loonies are on stage,
Speaker 1: and I'm telling the k and El radio station people,
Speaker 1: let's do this thing I got in mind. Let's do
Speaker 1: it right. I'll hold up right here, let's go get
Speaker 1: this is a person. Now the Loonies are stage. They
Speaker 1: all missed the opportunity. So now we got all this
Speaker 1: friction backstage. Uh long story shorts that not the loonies,
Speaker 1: but their manager got roughed up a little bit. We
Speaker 1: went out in the crowd watched the show. He was
Speaker 1: a little upset, and I guess the presence of us
Speaker 1: and the over exaggeration of what how we showed up
Speaker 1: and what we did prompted them to end the show
Speaker 1: before E forty could perform. Then they went to the
Speaker 1: scandal of of Monday morning. Right, they get on the
Speaker 1: radio and have a comedian somebody funny fake my voice
Speaker 1: and pretend like I called the radio station and I
Speaker 1: and the dude was like, it's just too short, man,
Speaker 1: I don't Yeah, I don't care if your name was
Speaker 1: E one hunted, you ain't getting no state if I'm like,
Speaker 1: you know, I'm run this thing. And E forty called me.
Speaker 1: He was he had that that that sort of anger
Speaker 1: that was not like an angry voice. But Judy, He's like, hey, man,
Speaker 1: was you on the radio this morning? And I'm like nah,
Speaker 1: He's like so you wasn't you sure? He wouldn't you
Speaker 1: didn't call it there? I'm like, what didn't mean? He's
Speaker 1: like all right, hang a phone. And then however, circle
Speaker 1: back and start coming out about the call and this
Speaker 1: and that, and then E forty is a kind of guy.
Speaker 1: He said, I talked to you and you said to
Speaker 1: me man, and man, wasn't you. Didn't investigation wasn't me.
Speaker 1: It was somebody funny and long story short, the radio
Speaker 1: station was trying to make us enemies. They figured these
Speaker 1: big dudes a little too short lao E forty and
Speaker 1: them to click, you know, they gonna beat too short
Speaker 1: up and too. You know. The pro the program director
Speaker 1: was trying to check, was sending around fax machines, fax
Speaker 1: faxes and emails like band too short. It was. It
Speaker 1: was terrible. So E forty, who I give all the
Speaker 1: credit too, was like, man, you know, we gotta turn
Speaker 1: this negative into a positive. He really wanted to do
Speaker 1: that show, right. They really tried to tell him it
Speaker 1: was all my phone, and you know, they we need
Speaker 1: to be enemies, but we had already had a friendship, right,
Speaker 1: So we took all that and we made this song
Speaker 1: called rappers Ball, which went platinum. It was our first
Speaker 1: record we did together. We probably done dozens of songs together.
Speaker 1: We did dozens of songs since then, and it was
Speaker 1: almost like he could have took that bait and just
Speaker 1: been like he if he would have said, yeah, okay, pun,
Speaker 1: would I see you, then it would have just been
Speaker 1: no turning back and just but he's he's he's a
Speaker 1: he's a smart guy. Yes, and that was a great
Speaker 1: decision because I probably shot on the other foot. I
Speaker 1: don't know what my reaction would have been or yours.
Speaker 1: It was a big day for him. He had spent
Speaker 1: a lot of money out of his pocket to put
Speaker 1: this big show on and they shut it down and said, well,
Speaker 1: blame too short. And it was just you know, I
Speaker 1: always look back at that and I'm like a radio
Speaker 1: station tried to end my career, tried to pit me
Speaker 1: against my number one ally and all that backfire because
Speaker 1: we like we our music is from us to the streets, right,
Speaker 1: and you're gonna put a commercial middleman in there, Like
Speaker 1: I'm ana alter this and I can I can end
Speaker 1: your career with a fact machine. No you can't. So
Speaker 1: now that you mentioned that this transition, is that what's
Speaker 1: happening Because we see a lot of beasts and maybe
Speaker 1: the beef is manufactured, maybe it's real because a lot
Speaker 1: of these. You know, you rap about the proximity of
Speaker 1: where you grew up, You talk about what you see,
Speaker 1: what you've experienced, and because you've experienced doesn't make his
Speaker 1: experience any less or her experience any less. Is that
Speaker 1: what we're getting at? Because, like you said, or he
Speaker 1: could have been a totally different way, but he called
Speaker 1: you and stuff like a man, He's like, Okay, I'm
Speaker 1: gonna do my due diligence. Too short said it wasn't him.
Speaker 1: I'm gonna do my due diligence. Get to the bottom
Speaker 1: of it, as opposed is just capping off and then
Speaker 1: ain't no turning back from that. Yeah, a lot of
Speaker 1: situations that we see happening now, where we got injuries,
Speaker 1: loss of life could have been handled by a phone
Speaker 1: call from man, from one man to another man, and
Speaker 1: just what was it? Because clickbait is playing a part.
Speaker 1: UH rappers are using the clickbait to get popular. It's
Speaker 1: the most It's one of the easiest ways to get
Speaker 1: free publicity, right is to pick a guy you got
Speaker 1: to play the same position as you and you got
Speaker 1: You didn't we didn't have social media to cause so, uh,
Speaker 1: the week before the game, you just start hitting me.
Speaker 1: It's sorry week getting with the personal your ex girlfriend.
Speaker 1: Yeah that he's hot when he see you, right, but
Speaker 1: this is a different kind of hot. They sitting there saying,
Speaker 1: you know street stuff, right, and then you got this
Speaker 1: whole ego thing. You gotta live up to it, right,
Speaker 1: And it's it's so bad man. Where you know social
Speaker 1: media and playing with these streets and this music. You
Speaker 1: you get like you got albums out in videos and
Speaker 1: your face is popular. But you're gonna send out a
Speaker 1: message on social media saying I'm on such and such street.
Speaker 1: If you and your whole crew and they pull up
Speaker 1: in five minutes and shoot you, you just told him
Speaker 1: for you. It was at like, it's really it's really
Speaker 1: crazy than me because I know what my guys did
Speaker 1: when I was coming up. I didn't do what they did, right,
Speaker 1: They protected me from that. Right when they did what
Speaker 1: they did, they said, then you probably want to go
Speaker 1: because something about to happen. And they would even tell
Speaker 1: somebody may get short up out of here and things
Speaker 1: would happen. They would not say, come with us, we're
Speaker 1: about to go do this, right, or come staying on
Speaker 1: the corner while we do this. They wouldn't say that.
Speaker 1: They would literally say stay away from what we do
Speaker 1: because we need you to be you. We can't get
Speaker 1: in places that you get into if we don't have
Speaker 1: you right who you were at God for that, We
Speaker 1: got a God for this other stuff. And I think
Speaker 1: that if a rapper is promoting beef in these days
Speaker 1: with the social media, you got a crew of thirty
Speaker 1: forty people, it's only one popular face in your crew,
Speaker 1: right as you. So your guys do this and y'alla
Speaker 1: insited some stuff and then you provoking it with your song.
Speaker 1: When they see y'all around the town, they only know
Speaker 1: what a face you. And that's why I think personally
Speaker 1: I think we're losing a lot of rappers is because
Speaker 1: you know, chop it off at the head man. That's
Speaker 1: the bread and butter. When you when you gun down
Speaker 1: the rapper, you just gunned down five other employees income, right,
Speaker 1: You just gunned down school kids clothes. You know what
Speaker 1: I'm saying. Christmas a birthday, dope birthday that was gonna happen,
Speaker 1: you gunned down it. And same thing with jail when
Speaker 1: the rapper do so much dirt with his homies and
Speaker 1: he ended up catching the case and going to jail.
Speaker 1: You locked up the income. You feel me. So I
Speaker 1: think that we're not looking at the big picture. When
Speaker 1: I say we, I'm talking about us in the hip
Speaker 1: hop industry of the trinkle down, the economic trinkle down
Speaker 1: of rappers murdered and going to jail like you. Like, man,
Speaker 1: you got a rapper that's making fifty grand, am a weekend,
Speaker 1: not a month, right, a weekend? Every weekend. You go
Speaker 1: out to make fifty grand. That money go to the
Speaker 1: crew we shared. We you know, you're my role manager.
Speaker 1: You know what I'm saying. You're my hype man, You're
Speaker 1: my DJ. We were from nothing, right, and all that
Speaker 1: stops while you go do six months a year, three
Speaker 1: years untail. All that stops. So I'm like, we ain't
Speaker 1: thinking about the big picture. You lead the bay and
Speaker 1: you go to the A. I don't know if a
Speaker 1: lot of people knew this that Atlanta has been your
Speaker 1: home for two decades. Yeah, I mean I would I
Speaker 1: stayed in Atlanta fifteen years. Okay, I'm back on the
Speaker 1: West Nat. I can't so in the nineties, mid nineties,
Speaker 1: I'm from ninety three to two thousand and eight, Okay, Yeah,
Speaker 1: you know your boy was there. That's the boy was there.
Speaker 1: I'm telling you. So you know all about one twelve.
Speaker 1: You know about diamonds and Pearls. I know the Gold Club.
Speaker 1: I know everything. Okay, I know it was diamonds and pearls.
Speaker 1: And one twelve was at the other location. Yeah, and
Speaker 1: then one twelve one, Yeah, this is gonna Kroger. Yeah,
Speaker 1: that's what I'm well, David Justicson, not David just with
Speaker 1: the uh, Andre Rosen and left. I was in there
Speaker 1: wailing out in the grocery store Atlanta Live. Yeah, go
Speaker 1: down the stairs. Uh. And then one twelve moved to
Speaker 1: the old Diamonds in prol location, Chu Ridge, Thank you.
Speaker 1: So I know all that, man, I know a lot.
Speaker 1: I know the you know the original Magic City. I
Speaker 1: really be bad for. I'm the guy in Blue Flag.
Speaker 1: It's broke us. Oh you name all of them spots.
Speaker 1: I'm the guy when the club closed. I'm in there
Speaker 1: hanging out. I'm he put the tables the chairs on
Speaker 1: the table, right, I'm in there. I'm in the Uh.
Speaker 1: I'm down there with the house mom. Right while all
Speaker 1: the girls is changing in their regular clothes. They don't
Speaker 1: let nobody down there I'm not in that kigging in.
Speaker 1: I got some wings. You've been to the Clairemont, who
Speaker 1: haven't you everywhere eat breakfast? See people don't know about it.
Speaker 1: I'll leave it. You leave it because you know what
Speaker 1: goes on to the claire Box. Come on, I know everything.
Speaker 1: But y'all, I can tell you a lot about that
Speaker 1: that atl When I got to hl it was ninety three.
Speaker 1: I went to the freak Nick April ninety three. I
Speaker 1: heard about the freak Nick. That Fricknick happened in ninety one.
Speaker 1: It was a pig nick. It happened in ninety two.
Speaker 1: Pe My Park sold the whole park out and they
Speaker 1: was like, man, this freak Nick. I heard about it.
Speaker 1: So me and a whole bunch of people heard about
Speaker 1: it and we freak Nick probably went from twenty thousand
Speaker 1: people to four hundred thousand in a year. Yeah, I
Speaker 1: was there. I moved to Atlanta because of freak Nick.
Speaker 1: That's my story. At the time, I was living in Savannah.
Speaker 1: I had went back to so I had went back
Speaker 1: finished in my school by schooling. But I was living
Speaker 1: in Savannah in the off season, and I called my
Speaker 1: brother Na. I kept hearing people talking about it. I said, well,
Speaker 1: I'm gonna go to the Freak I go to Freak Nick.
Speaker 1: I called my brother Abro. They got this thing called
Speaker 1: freak Nick going off in Atlanta. He like win in it.
Speaker 1: I said, such a sucking You're like, okay, I'll meet
Speaker 1: you there. Freak Nick ninety three was life changing the wounds.
Speaker 1: It was a month. It was life change. We we
Speaker 1: got wind of it right. We about probably like fifteen
Speaker 1: dudes from Oakland, like some baller little baller crew. Yeah,
Speaker 1: you went out there. We we checked into a little hotel.
Speaker 1: It was like a bunch of Detroit dudes, Miami some
Speaker 1: some uh some Cleveland dudes and we kind of all
Speaker 1: clicked up and our hotel was like a like a
Speaker 1: crew and Freak Nick ninety three. I went for the
Speaker 1: weekend that mind you. I'm born April twenty eight. Freak
Speaker 1: Nigga is my birthday. Oh that's the weekend my birthdays.
Speaker 1: It's freak Nick. I check in the hotel three nights.
Speaker 1: I check out probably like three weeks later. And one
Speaker 1: of my homies from Oakland had moved to Atlanta, and
Speaker 1: he was like, man, what't you buy? What you gonna do?
Speaker 1: What you like, what you're doing in life. I'm like,
Speaker 1: I'm about to get me a little crib in the town.
Speaker 1: Probably probably spent about a half meal up on the hill,
Speaker 1: little on the little private roads or something. He was like,
Speaker 1: you're gonna spend five hundred thousand in Oakland. He'd let
Speaker 1: me show you what you're getting in Atlantic for five hundred.
Speaker 1: We rode around looking at houses. He's showing me these
Speaker 1: big hole I was just for like three fifty. I'm like, what,
Speaker 1: so it was? It was planted. Yes, I went home.
Speaker 1: I get home. Ain't nothing but drive bys and shootings
Speaker 1: and violence. And I mean seriously, man, At the time,
Speaker 1: friends of mine had split up into a street war.
Speaker 1: So friends went a small town Oakland's four hundred thousand populations.
Speaker 1: We got a small crew of homies that are now enemies.
Speaker 1: And it's really hard in that situation to determine what's
Speaker 1: coming your way, right because who's who's who picked up side.
Speaker 1: I don't know who's who's friends who's mad at me
Speaker 1: because I hang out with them Like it's it was
Speaker 1: really weird. And I'm going to Atlanta taking a little
Speaker 1: trips and I just was like, man, I'm about to
Speaker 1: buy me a house out here. I went to the
Speaker 1: Jack the Rapper, which is in August, four or five
Speaker 1: months after Freak Nick. I didn't tell nobody nothing. We
Speaker 1: had Jack the Rapper. It's tupodts snooped, it's people everywhere,
Speaker 1: it's it's it's not Freak Nig, but it's still it's
Speaker 1: still an eight. Yeah. Oh absolutely, I just got I
Speaker 1: had a little rented car. I just drove over to
Speaker 1: Southwest Atlanta by myself and bought a house and then
Speaker 1: went back to the convention like I didn't even do it.
Speaker 1: And by the end of the year the house was ready.
Speaker 1: I moved out. The rest is history, you know, as
Speaker 1: I happened. Atlanta was a hit town too. It wasn't
Speaker 1: it was nothing like it was cause I got there.
Speaker 1: I went to Freak Nig like you. I went to
Speaker 1: the Freak Nigg the first time at ninety two, went
Speaker 1: back in ninety three. I called my agent that was
Speaker 1: our Friday, Saturday, Sunday start breaking down waiting out Sunday.
Speaker 1: I called my agent Monday I moved to Atlanta. He's like, okay,
Speaker 1: we got this kind of you got this k this
Speaker 1: much money to get a house. I said, I don't
Speaker 1: care what nobody in Atlanta at that time. It was
Speaker 1: Bobby Brown. It was I'm trying to think who was
Speaker 1: there and that was that was like really like kicking
Speaker 1: up some dust. I remember my boy Eric Sermon got
Speaker 1: there kind of early. Yeah, well, I mean you had
Speaker 1: like I think La, I think baby Face. I'm saying
Speaker 1: that that was the gang. Yeah, but but no, but
Speaker 1: like you said, Bobby Brown was really the only like
Speaker 1: celebrity lay up that was there. Because I got there
Speaker 1: and I watched a little bit, and I've seen Bobby
Speaker 1: Brown having so much fun. I was like, I'm about
Speaker 1: to do what he's doing because he's having too much fun.
Speaker 1: And that's when the clubs stayed over long. I probably
Speaker 1: stayed over feel seven o'clock in the moment, Yeah, yeah,
Speaker 1: I probably. I probably. I got there and at the
Speaker 1: end of ninety three, and at that point in time,
Speaker 1: I had a platinum Albam at eighty nine, ninety ninety
Speaker 1: ninety two, ninety three, I had four platinum albums when
Speaker 1: I got there, right, I show up, I got my
Speaker 1: little car, I got like twenty inch rims. They're like,
Speaker 1: what are those flying saucers? What is that you know.
Speaker 1: I was like Michael Jackson, that's when you when somebody
Speaker 1: got maybe from California, you know, Michael Jackson. Of course
Speaker 1: I know, Mike when you talk about it, like, man,
Speaker 1: I used to be a magic city. I I never
Speaker 1: really tell a story. I used to be a maggic
Speaker 1: city and I had I had an endless supply of
Speaker 1: the really good California weed. And literally, people like you
Speaker 1: you want to tell some chick Uh, yeah, girl, I'm
Speaker 1: trying to kick with you what I gotta do. I
Speaker 1: was open that bag, like what is that? Like, that's dad,
Speaker 1: Cali baby? Like I was having so much fun in
Speaker 1: ninety three. But Atlanta, uh, the Atlanta that we know now,
Speaker 1: I was. I'm proud that I was there to see it.
Speaker 1: Born Young, Dallas Austin, Young, Jermaine Dupree, Young, lit Face Records,
Speaker 1: Outcast came out of all that. Yeah got the Tis
Speaker 1: now you got. The Olympics came and then they started
Speaker 1: building up Atlanta with the Olympic money. And when the
Speaker 1: Olympics left, Atlanta was a nice city. Yes, it was nice.
Speaker 1: And from that point on the music industry was establishing
Speaker 1: itself and it turned into a whole new Atlanta to
Speaker 1: Atlanta it is now. I just it doesn't make you
Speaker 1: proud when you go out there and you see the
Speaker 1: entrepreneurs and you see the dream, you see the firing
Speaker 1: people try trying to make it, yes, trying to make it.
Speaker 1: Like everybody ain't making it, but they be trying to
Speaker 1: make it. That's like that to me. It's so important
Speaker 1: that you try, because people have dreams and they sit
Speaker 1: around and they think of stuff, but they don't try it.
Speaker 1: You said something very interesting early. You said that you
Speaker 1: left the bay because there are some things going on.
Speaker 1: Do you feel that rappers have to leave their hometown,
Speaker 1: have to leave where they grew up from in order
Speaker 1: to get away because everybody is not happy. Too short
Speaker 1: is what he became. They like too short. When too
Speaker 1: short was the same level we drank it were hanging out.
Speaker 1: He ain't got no more than I got. I ain't
Speaker 1: got no more than he got. Too short, My dog
Speaker 1: hold on too short, got more than I got. They're
Speaker 1: too short, got three calls man too short. They bump
Speaker 1: in too short stuff. So in my case, it was
Speaker 1: it was a lot of violence, And I think that
Speaker 1: if you're close to that, you probably should separate yourself
Speaker 1: from it, because anybody that's into that, that's closer, you
Speaker 1: shouldn't want you to be there. If you're a ball player,
Speaker 1: if you would, entertainer, whatever it is, help that person.
Speaker 1: Help people make it out when you see, when you
Speaker 1: see it, got a chance. So I think that in
Speaker 1: certain situations, like I noticed long after I moved, long
Speaker 1: before I moved, that in the daytime, shine a little bit,
Speaker 1: come by and say hi, what's up? You know, But
Speaker 1: at night it's somebody that saw you earlier that day
Speaker 1: it was like f him and they might see you
Speaker 1: at the gas station of the store and just act
Speaker 1: on that. So I used to have like my my,
Speaker 1: you know, different uniforms. Yeah, my uniform for hanging out
Speaker 1: at night was be I look at everybody else, I'm like, okay,
Speaker 1: put on some black jeans, put on a little black hoodie,
Speaker 1: maybe a little raider hoodie or something, and uh, you know,
Speaker 1: don't put the fly something cool and just come out
Speaker 1: there and zip it up. You know what I'm saying.
Speaker 1: I literally stand out. Literally. I wouldn't bought me a
Speaker 1: nineteen seventy three Camaro Gotta. I wouldn't took it to
Speaker 1: the cheapest paint shop. Gotta the cheap paint paint job
Speaker 1: where if the if the little green chip, it'll be
Speaker 1: blue underneath, right, you know what I'm saying, And put
Speaker 1: some hub caps on it and have my little music inside.
Speaker 1: I had a brand new engine, right, it was reliable, right,
Speaker 1: but I would drive that at night. And when you
Speaker 1: pull up cash just me like all that short. You know,
Speaker 1: you ain't really pulling up with five chains on and
Speaker 1: and jumping out acting like you the man, and it
Speaker 1: just irritates people a little bit a show off. So
Speaker 1: what I'm saying is, in certain situations, you don't got
Speaker 1: a leader hood. Just understand that. You rub it and
Speaker 1: then folks face right, all that social media posting saying
Speaker 1: you got way more than everybody else. Somebody don't like
Speaker 1: that man, right, And it might be somebody that normally
Speaker 1: wouldn't even be mad at you, but you're making them mad. Right.
Speaker 1: And then you come around and you're showing up and
Speaker 1: you're jumping out, and you ain't really sharing because it
Speaker 1: ain't your obligation to necessarily share, right, So you're irritating somebody.
Speaker 1: You might get a jealous a jealous reaction. So I
Speaker 1: think Smart's the thing you do. Man, You be smart.
Speaker 1: You be smart how you move and if you gotta
Speaker 1: move out if you don't have that respect from like
Speaker 1: guys who fight good and guys who are very violent,
Speaker 1: don't come around them after you make it. And you
Speaker 1: know somebody been you know flight way bully situation, or
Speaker 1: it's a dude that like it's in the hood. Is
Speaker 1: dudes like this. You gotta respect. All these dudes gonna
Speaker 1: respect you. But it's just one dude that none of
Speaker 1: them is gonna miss with if he go bad on you.
Speaker 1: Oh man, Debo, don't win bad on you. Everybody who
Speaker 1: will protect you now that ain't pect Like do you stop?
Speaker 1: Can't that DEEPO? So you know, right, So it's all
Speaker 1: these situations that you gotta navigate through. DEEPO. Might not
Speaker 1: be the guy who want a job. He don't want
Speaker 1: to be your bodyguard. They don't want nothing from you.
Speaker 1: He just you just don't like you could do a
Speaker 1: punk showing off right and you in it. Right, So
Speaker 1: you gotta be smart man. Right. You were in the
Speaker 1: nineties in Atlanta. In the nineties, Tupac was also in Atlanta.
Speaker 1: He was there, he was in joy, he was early,
Speaker 1: he was the early one again. Yeah, yeah, so and
Speaker 1: you also in the studio with Biggie. What was what
Speaker 1: was it like? What was it? I mean because I
Speaker 1: talked to Snoop and Snoop what was what was Park
Speaker 1: really like? What was it like? With it being around
Speaker 1: him in the studio? You know that you notice instantly
Speaker 1: that Biggie and Park both You notice instantly like these
Speaker 1: guys are not in the same universe as me because
Speaker 1: the way they the way that their method of recording
Speaker 1: is truly unbelievable. Biggie, no pain, no paper. That didn't
Speaker 1: seem like you know, the one time I was around
Speaker 1: and when he wrote a classic rhyme, which was the
Speaker 1: world is field when the Rimmy's in my system, ain't
Speaker 1: no telling, you know what I'm saying. Classic. We were
Speaker 1: in the room and it was drink, it was smoking,
Speaker 1: it was girls, it was loud, it was storytelling, it
Speaker 1: was jokes. It was just a lot of distractions. So
Speaker 1: we're working on the song. Puffy got the first verse.
Speaker 1: Carl Thomas is on the hook. Beat is already done.
Speaker 1: Carl Thomas and Puffy already area they Puffy is playing it,
Speaker 1: doing his dance thing, and it's you know it was puffs. Uh.
Speaker 1: I forget how his verst started, but but he come
Speaker 1: in slick and puff. At the time, wasn't really known
Speaker 1: for like raps. He hadn't done a lot on Biggie's
Speaker 1: first album, right. This was the second album, right, and
Speaker 1: he was proud. He was hitting the knob and like,
Speaker 1: look at sound like he did it. He he he
Speaker 1: crafted his away from everybody and it was however he
Speaker 1: did it, he did it right. So that's the first phase.
Speaker 1: But I'm in the room. I was supposed to be
Speaker 1: doing my little sixteen bars and but there's a lot
Speaker 1: of distractions. It's two girls and racket it. You're drinking.
Speaker 1: Let me hit that. Let you know, it's a treat.
Speaker 1: So Biggie right there, we laughed, we steal it, and
Speaker 1: he's like, I'm ready. What you mean you're ready? What's
Speaker 1: what's he talks about? He's ready, He's going there and
Speaker 1: he's like he tell everybody like watching him duce in
Speaker 1: one take and he going he go when the room
Speaker 1: and in my sistim ain't no tell it and he stopped.
Speaker 1: He goes, hull, hello, hollo, take it back, you like
Speaker 1: watch it. And the next take he wrapped that whole
Speaker 1: verse at one take, and he you know, when you
Speaker 1: it's this is why I like about rap, whether it's
Speaker 1: on you or you put it on somebody else. He
Speaker 1: came out that boot and everybody was like, whoo, I'm
Speaker 1: sitting here two verses on the song on the hook
Speaker 1: is there to beat? There ain't but an open sixteen?
Speaker 1: And me, I'm like, oh, like, oh man, it was.
Speaker 1: It was It's that dudes like that put you in
Speaker 1: that situation. How he did that with all that noise
Speaker 1: and him talking, and how did he put that in
Speaker 1: his head and memorize? You know. Jay Z went on
Speaker 1: to develop that technique and then little Wayne stand I'm
Speaker 1: I'm throwing down the pen and now based on Biggie
Speaker 1: evolution and notory is big. Ain't nobody trying to use
Speaker 1: pen and paper because it's sort of like it's it's
Speaker 1: like a straight jacket. Is It's it's limiting your your freedom?
Speaker 1: Movie how you Go? So I found my way up
Speaker 1: out of it. I I I boxed my way out
Speaker 1: of it. It was, you know, I love those situations.
Speaker 1: I learned that when you get around somebody that's better
Speaker 1: than you and you ain't got no choice. You get better, right,
Speaker 1: you have to. And Tupac was a whole different beast
Speaker 1: because he actually would actually take a pen and paper,
Speaker 1: and I don't know if you've seen any of his
Speaker 1: written stuff. Yeah, he writes really fast and it's really
Speaker 1: like like it has emotions in the pen. And he
Speaker 1: and I one night, I remember in particular, he came
Speaker 1: in and did something on my album, a song called
Speaker 1: this Is How We Do, And he came in there
Speaker 1: He's like, hey, man, we had already made this song.
Speaker 1: He's like, man, let me get on that song like you, Tupac,
Speaker 1: get on it. And he gets the pen, he gets
Speaker 1: the paper and he starts writing. And I watching him
Speaker 1: and he's writing a line and he's writing as fast
Speaker 1: as you can just keep writing. He just keeps writing.
Speaker 1: Like when I write a rhyme, I'm wrap it. Think
Speaker 1: I'm thinking right, you know, taking me about thirty minutes,
Speaker 1: could take me an hour and get it like a
Speaker 1: cool sixteen or something, you know, right, this man wrote
Speaker 1: this verse I'm like five minutes as fast as he
Speaker 1: could write it. And I'm like he had to notice
Speaker 1: beforehand or something. But when you find out he's been
Speaker 1: doing that everywhere, and he gets in there and he
Speaker 1: just says to his opening line, was I finger fuck
Speaker 1: up with my diamonds, Like you just thought of that,
Speaker 1: like you just just come in here, and and everybody
Speaker 1: said it. Man. They're like, Tupac, I have like two
Speaker 1: verses written by the time you like just starting your
Speaker 1: first couple of lines, right, and he in the booth
Speaker 1: dancing circles around. You don't listen to a lot of
Speaker 1: the songs he did with the with the his Crew,
Speaker 1: the got Me Throwed Off now with the Who, with
Speaker 1: the Kadafi and all that, and the outlaws, thinking Tupac
Speaker 1: do the first two verses, and then they come on
Speaker 1: and they said a lot of the songs he got
Speaker 1: with people, He's already on verse two before you could
Speaker 1: even start, and he just he going to boot and
Speaker 1: rappers so fast while you're still writing, and he's like
Speaker 1: catch up. And I don't know how these guys come
Speaker 1: up with this. I don't know. I just think it's
Speaker 1: I wouldn't even call it genius. I would just I
Speaker 1: think that think about people who die young, they seem
Speaker 1: to and do great things. They seem to have an
Speaker 1: urgency that they got to hurry up and do this
Speaker 1: because they seem to know and a lot of time. Right.
Speaker 1: In Tupac's case, he rapped about it multiple times. He
Speaker 1: rapped about dying young, yes, getting murdered. Like, people don't
Speaker 1: realize Tupac was what twenty five twenty five, Biggie was
Speaker 1: him in twenty five two. Yeah, And it's hard to
Speaker 1: accomplish that much at that age. And that's the thing
Speaker 1: where people don't realize. You would think that bigger in
Speaker 1: Tupac had teen and fifteen twenty year careers, like five,
Speaker 1: we take time, Brady, where in twenty five he's not
Speaker 1: a legend, we take two shot awear, twenty five ain't
Speaker 1: no legend. Yeah, Like I need time to get to
Speaker 1: this right. That he didn't have a jay Z career,
Speaker 1: He didn't have an ll cool J or an ice
Speaker 1: Cube or Snoop dog the longevity. But I honestly think
Speaker 1: that somewhere in there you get it, you get the insight.
Speaker 1: I know people who weren't as popular as them that
Speaker 1: die young and they did great things, right, great things.
Speaker 1: I'm like, how do you know to do this right?
Speaker 1: How you know you gotta do this? Much though, I
Speaker 1: think I think those guys were gifts gifts to hip hop, right.
Speaker 1: Tupac brought Biggie, brought that style to No pen and Pad,
Speaker 1: a lot of cadences, a lot of stuff, you know,
Speaker 1: the big guy swag. But you know Tupac, I think, man,
Speaker 1: if you look at him, how many rappers had tattoos
Speaker 1: thug wife on their stomach before Tupacci? Yeah, you know
Speaker 1: what I'm saying. How many? How many people was trying
Speaker 1: to little skinny niggas was trying to tat it all
Speaker 1: up and he was you know, he was immulating gangbangers,
Speaker 1: you know, cripts and bloods. But at the same time,
Speaker 1: that's the look of hip hop now right, Like, you
Speaker 1: can't really be a rapper, Like I'm a rapper with
Speaker 1: no tattoos. I've been laughed at girls be like, let
Speaker 1: me see all tattoos. I ain't gotten nohing. You ain't
Speaker 1: how you ain't got no tattoos? I'm like, I wasn't
Speaker 1: before Tupac. Baby, you tell a story about the road
Speaker 1: trip from Miami to atl to be on Jay Z's
Speaker 1: big pimping Oh yeah, yeah, I mean not big clipping, yeah,
Speaker 1: big pippy. Yeah, that was the there's a whole thing
Speaker 1: with Pimp C, U g k Y, Pimpcy and BUNB
Speaker 1: and the big Pimping song, and I hear bun talk
Speaker 1: about it, and I knew the story. I knew a
Speaker 1: little bit of it because the label Drive Records were
Speaker 1: all in the same label was trying to get Pimp
Speaker 1: to do the song, and I knew Pimp's opinion on
Speaker 1: the situation, and it was open and shut. If you don't,
Speaker 1: if you don't fool with Tupac, I don't fool with
Speaker 1: your no bending of the rules. We're talking about a
Speaker 1: guy who never met Tupac, right, he's even knowing and
Speaker 1: he's like, I'll ride with pot to the end. So
Speaker 1: anybody who ever said this on Tupac ever, PIMPC didn't
Speaker 1: like you, just just never would food with you ever
Speaker 1: ever her. So he put jay Z in the category
Speaker 1: of I don't think Tupac liked him. Tupac wouldn't you
Speaker 1: know as Biggie HOMEI or whatever, I ain't ain't fooling
Speaker 1: with him, but Bumby the label myself included was trying
Speaker 1: to say, no, Jay ain't like that, brother j JA.
Speaker 1: You know it's it's a great opportunity right, jay Z
Speaker 1: getting that you right, do it? I ain't doing it?
Speaker 1: You know all this stuff. So whatever bund and all
Speaker 1: of them did, they talked him into it. The song
Speaker 1: got recorded. The pimp still had an attitude about the
Speaker 1: East West and then he from Port Arthur, Texas, but
Speaker 1: he mad, how y'all feel about Tupac right and Bumby?
Speaker 1: It give you way more insight on pimp's state of
Speaker 1: mind about this. But I was given the task of
Speaker 1: pimp won't go to the video the two day video shoot.
Speaker 1: I think it really was a one day video shoot.
Speaker 1: They was gonna shooting in Trinidad at Carnival, and this
Speaker 1: fool got a song with jay Z, a video and
Speaker 1: Carnival Trinidad, and he ain't going like you would have
Speaker 1: called me and said, do the song win, you know,
Speaker 1: the video, Carnival win, my flight win exactly. Not see,
Speaker 1: she was hard headed. So I was giving the task
Speaker 1: because can you get him to come to the video.
Speaker 1: They gonna add another day and shoot in Miami. They
Speaker 1: gotta get see is a big budget video. I think
Speaker 1: hype waves that right. So Pimpse had just bought a
Speaker 1: brand new Mercedes. He loved this new Mercedes and I
Speaker 1: think I had just got this little Porsche. So I
Speaker 1: was like, we should He knew about the video. Wasn't
Speaker 1: like I wasn't scamming him and nothing. Right, I was like,
Speaker 1: we should get the cars, go down to the video. Shoot.
Speaker 1: You know what I'm saying. We get down there, stay
Speaker 1: a couple, we get some I was, well, you know whatever,
Speaker 1: And I made it a thing. And he always show up,
Speaker 1: you know if I said it, cause I was. I
Speaker 1: was just like he looked up the tupac. He looked
Speaker 1: up to me, right. And in all situations, pimp would
Speaker 1: be like throwing a fit and they'd be like, man,
Speaker 1: go talk to you a little brother. Man, gonna talk
Speaker 1: to him, right. I go in there and we're like,
Speaker 1: can't talk him down, but you could throw some logic
Speaker 1: in there. We like, see, we came here to get
Speaker 1: the money. Man. Then people out there. I want to
Speaker 1: see the show man. You know what I'm saying, right,
Speaker 1: that's men people, man, look, get them made at this show.
Speaker 1: That's how we just how we do it. Bruh, We
Speaker 1: get at them. He did with them later and he'd
Speaker 1: be like, all right, if you if you say so,
Speaker 1: but we show out. He would throw the stuff around,
Speaker 1: like if everybody, man, I don't get your money out out.
Speaker 1: So we took the road trip. We got him down there,
Speaker 1: didn't sing it, and we kicked it. We stayed in Miami.
Speaker 1: We stayed in Miami for a few weeks and had
Speaker 1: a ball like we we really did kick it. You
Speaker 1: love you love sports. I'm a sports fan. You you
Speaker 1: sports junking. You love it all basketball, football, boxing, Barry
Speaker 1: Barry sports fans very biased, you buy used, very biased,
Speaker 1: So you still curry above all. I'm Warriors, the Warriors.
Speaker 1: You're the Warriors. You know, I was my tell us.
Speaker 1: You was there before Steph and Clay and Draymond. You
Speaker 1: were what did they call himselves? That was the Matt Barnes,
Speaker 1: Stephen Jakes? What they what they did? We believe to you,
Speaker 1: yeah yeah, yeah, yeah, we believe. We believe we had
Speaker 1: run TMC. You know. Yeah yeah, but look at this man,
Speaker 1: I'm I'm the We're the Warriors. Man. We really questioned
Speaker 1: the mate trade my teels like you're gonna trade my tail?
Speaker 1: And who who little our point, little little little little
Speaker 1: kid with the U with the with the weak ankles. Yeah,
Speaker 1: people was mad and stuff, you know, I really think
Speaker 1: he was that little kid all the way upteen. You
Speaker 1: get got that go teeth, when he got that go tee,
Speaker 1: when that got came, he grew up. He's like y'all know,
Speaker 1: ain't I remember the first time seeing Steph Curry the
Speaker 1: Warriors was they used to club. You know, the new
Speaker 1: Warriors don't really club. They they they are a little
Speaker 1: more refined. And you know the Steve Kurr Warriors. But
Speaker 1: the old Warriors, Baron Davids and them, Stephen Jackson and them.
Speaker 1: Was they went to the Matt Barns. They was in
Speaker 1: the club every night. And I was like, who is
Speaker 1: that little boy with the Warriors? Who's the little boy?
Speaker 1: Like that's the back of the point guard. I like,
Speaker 1: he's like a little kid. Man, he was a little
Speaker 1: kid and he's Steph Curry out. So you know, for real,
Speaker 1: so short athletes, give me your no first of all,
Speaker 1: you say big it in Tupac. Obviously give me your
Speaker 1: my rushmore rappers. And that's that's a tough one, man.
Speaker 1: That's really a tough, tough, tough one. I'm from a
Speaker 1: different era than most hip hop fans, and you know,
Speaker 1: with me right out, he can't do nothing without Mellie Mail,
Speaker 1: like and a lot of people ain't gonna put him there,
Speaker 1: but he put the MC in it. He was the
Speaker 1: first one to me to just put the MC in it, yep,
Speaker 1: like in it like on a on, not on a
Speaker 1: New York scale, on a commercial national scale. Yeah, this
Speaker 1: is a songwriter rapper, right maker, Grand mess Flash, first
Speaker 1: five League rapper, Mellie Mail. You know, that's just a
Speaker 1: tough question, man, because I'm biased on the West Coast bias.
Speaker 1: Give me your West Coast, give me your Mount Rushmore
Speaker 1: West Coast. But we just made the Mount Westmore group
Speaker 1: which does it, which is my guys. And then so
Speaker 1: you got forty you snoop and I got DJ Quick
Speaker 1: and I got warn No you ain't got before you got,
Speaker 1: but you ain't been there nor heads to my rush board.
Speaker 1: But of all time, man, you know I would put
Speaker 1: I would put Mellie Mail up there just because of
Speaker 1: his impact on hip hop. And I would put jay
Speaker 1: Z up there because I feel like jay Z. I
Speaker 1: don't know where Biggie and jay Z would have ended
Speaker 1: up as Brooklyn brothers if they both had a long career.
Speaker 1: I don't know where they would have went what Puffy
Speaker 1: would have did with Big whether it would evolve to
Speaker 1: But I do know that jay Z is an ex
Speaker 1: tension of Biggie, and I don't I do know that
Speaker 1: he I don't notice for a fact, but I do
Speaker 1: know that he took on everything jay Z was gonna
Speaker 1: be and everything Biggie was gonna be. And he said,
Speaker 1: I'm wearing both these both these fuck roats and and
Speaker 1: and and hold it down for Brooklyn, right. So where
Speaker 1: he got to is definitely it a rapper wise, you
Speaker 1: can't put doctor Dre in it because he's not a
Speaker 1: writing rapper, but he's doctor Dre and he had the
Speaker 1: best resume. He got the best branches on his tree
Speaker 1: of eminem and Snoop Doug and fifty cent and you
Speaker 1: know he's a producer. But rap wise, man, it's it's
Speaker 1: just too many. It's too many. It's too many to
Speaker 1: just go down the line and go who's the goat
Speaker 1: because there's too many goats. Man, I got my my boys.
Speaker 1: Scar Face, I mean, he's he's goat. Stop that's on us.
Speaker 1: The songs he wrote like scar face, you're gonna say scarface,
Speaker 1: but go back and listen to the word he wrote
Speaker 1: like the words he wrote, he's it's so poetic, poetic
Speaker 1: and yeah, there were the different style because people don't
Speaker 1: give k kr s it's lyricist kr. People don't give
Speaker 1: krs is due. But but I'm old enough. You and
Speaker 1: I are both old enough to know who krs won it.
Speaker 1: And Big Daddy Kane whom I mean, Kumoda he was
Speaker 1: a yep, you know, he was a guy for a while,
Speaker 1: rock Hill rock him. He changed a lot of a
Speaker 1: lot of the way people rap. Right, I'm saying every
Speaker 1: a lot of people rot a lot to the table, man,
Speaker 1: So it's hard to it's hard to go to with me. Man,
Speaker 1: I can't top five nothing. I'm not arguing no top
Speaker 1: five arguments. I'm not agreed with no top five that
Speaker 1: you gotta. I'm not. It's just it's just not I
Speaker 1: can't even top ten. It not even top ten. I can't. Man. Okay,
Speaker 1: we'll give me your rushmore basketball. Now you can do
Speaker 1: that hoop. Let's see. Uh. I'm definitely gonna go with
Speaker 1: Magic and Jordan. Okay, let's putting them on there. Okay,
Speaker 1: I got the witness and I've seen the I've seen
Speaker 1: the college clips and I've seen a lot of the youngster.
Speaker 1: It's hard, you know, Kareem app Dow with jabar Man
Speaker 1: a little ausender, you know what I mean. It's it's
Speaker 1: it's savage. Yeah, cause me picture his end of his
Speaker 1: career when he wasn't really going back on defense, but
Speaker 1: a lot layed up to that. Yeah, to still hold
Speaker 1: these he still hold that scoring. He had it for
Speaker 1: another year and a half till Lebron, Lebron, Lebron gonna
Speaker 1: get that. It's coming. He got you, He got you,
Speaker 1: That's part of it. While you hanging around. Yeah, uh, Lebron,
Speaker 1: I'm gonna give Lebron. They they talked to Lebron Steph
Speaker 1: Curry thing. But I'm like, I have a theory. You
Speaker 1: might dispute it. I know, you big up Lebron a lot.
Speaker 1: I have a theory that later on they're going to
Speaker 1: introduced the technology of human hybrids. And I gotta let
Speaker 1: us know that Lebron was one of the first, Like
Speaker 1: he was partially a robot six nine two fifty, could run,
Speaker 1: could jump body like Karl Malone. And I always thought
Speaker 1: it when he was a youngster, because he was a
Speaker 1: grown man at sixteen, right literally the grown man and
Speaker 1: he held up and he's still like coming down that lane.
Speaker 1: I pitied the food that take a charge from Lebron,
Speaker 1: Like they get out the way. I literally seen players
Speaker 1: like you watched you watched the game a different way
Speaker 1: to be but you jump out the way when he
Speaker 1: comes out. You ain't got no pads on Why am
Speaker 1: I taking Why am I taking a nail boat to
Speaker 1: the chair? Why am I taking a knee to the chair.
Speaker 1: I see dudes take that charge and later like, yeah
Speaker 1: he's a robot. Yeah he's a robot. He done a
Speaker 1: lot of robot stuff in the game too. Appreciate it, yes,
Speaker 1: sir for stopping by. Wait, don't mean yet it because
Speaker 1: I need to know because I thought you and your
Speaker 1: brother was twins for years. Who the oldest he is?
Speaker 1: He is the oldest? Okay, I'm three years younger for real. Yeah,
Speaker 1: you get the twins stuff a lot. No, well no,
Speaker 1: not really, but no people mistake me for him. They say, well,
Speaker 1: were you the one that played in Green Bay? I mean,
Speaker 1: people know we're brothers, but they always you know what
Speaker 1: I'm You know, I'm a raider now, so man, y'all
Speaker 1: always been a raider. You got to get you a
Speaker 1: new team. Bro, y'all gonna do that. We're about to
Speaker 1: get us a quarterback. Everything AMC West, you know? Yeah?
Speaker 1: You know how we get down to mc west? Oh yeah,
Speaker 1: aint love, ain't love lost three nobody in that individual. Yeah.
Speaker 1: So where y'all from? Born in Chicago, raised in South Georgia. Okay,
Speaker 1: so down in Savannah way yeah see yea, I went
Speaker 1: to school to Savannah. I'm about sixty five miles from Savannah.
Speaker 1: I know everything geographically. Okay, yeah, so you so you
Speaker 1: not only where do you live? So you parked it?
Speaker 1: You all died in Themaican Savannah going down there, Georgia, Columbus,
Speaker 1: all that, Yeah, okay, so yeah, I know it all.
Speaker 1: I know it all every I know every little town
Speaker 1: in Mississippi, Louisiana, Arkansas. I didn't hit the back rows.
Speaker 1: I didn't get the Chilean second. Bryeahing about you short
Speaker 1: beg you bro? Good stuff? All my life, the grinding
Speaker 1: all my life, sacrifice, hustle backer price, want a slice,
Speaker 1: got the broler dice to swap all my life. I've
Speaker 1: been grinding all my life, all my life, then grinding
Speaker 1: all my life sacrifice custle backer. Price want a slice,
Speaker 1: got the brother dice to swap all my life. I've
Speaker 1: been grinding all my life.