Speaker 1: R and B money.
Speaker 2: We are.
Speaker 1: Thanks.
Speaker 3: We are the authority on all things R and B.
Speaker 1: Ladiesship, and my name is Tank and today Special band.
Speaker 1: It's a very special.
Speaker 3: Before we get to the man in the hot seat,
Speaker 3: we're gonna start with a brother who's sitting in as
Speaker 3: my co host, my co star. Uh, my brother from
Speaker 3: another mother. Uh, the brother to the brother.
Speaker 1: Of you know what.
Speaker 3: We'll get to all that sitting right here, Robert New
Speaker 3: We like to call him Bob.
Speaker 1: Come on building. How you doing, Bob? I'm doing great.
Speaker 1: You're doing great. Everything good to see. I like your shirt.
Speaker 1: I mean, you know, I don't figure we'll be a group.
Speaker 3: Okay, listen, ladies in the hot seat. As you notice
Speaker 3: are our shirts. You notice our tire. It's gotten silky.
Speaker 3: It's gotten silky.
Speaker 1: Uh.
Speaker 3: This episode represents, uh, hit records and Coco Butter. That's
Speaker 3: what this That's what this episode represents. Huh if you
Speaker 3: if you look good, you play good. And if you
Speaker 3: play good, they pay good. That's what this episode represents.
Speaker 3: Prime prime time, y'alln we gotta feel like something. It's
Speaker 3: gotta look like something. Huh gets from inside out. This
Speaker 3: man been doing this since he was a real little boy,
Speaker 3: jumping out of boxes and ship dancing everything.
Speaker 1: Jumping out of the boxes. Nikka cold with it. My
Speaker 1: brother a co founder, Colder.
Speaker 3: Oh, they are the podcast.
Speaker 1: Time to wipe up out what you want. You want
Speaker 1: to butt into the service right listen. They gotta get it,
Speaker 1: get it, they gotta get it. Asked brother, how you doing, brother?
Speaker 1: I'm good man, Yeah, got me to do it. Man.
Speaker 3: First of all, we had to you know, as we
Speaker 3: have you in the hot seat, you know, I had
Speaker 3: to call somebody you know who knew you best. Of course,
Speaker 3: I'm saying, you know somebody who can who can who
Speaker 3: can talk to you like you're supposed to be talking
Speaker 3: to you. Understand what I'm saying. You might used to
Speaker 3: kick your ass when you was little. You see the
Speaker 3: original lead singer. You know what I'm saying. I have
Speaker 3: to call the bominator himself. Man, this is awesome. Get
Speaker 3: this together. Everybody feel like they say a double.
Speaker 1: Right now, the same it's already they got signed back
Speaker 1: up for talk about it and then back up for him.
Speaker 2: Don't know how to sing back up, so I was
Speaker 2: singing back up and lead at the same time.
Speaker 1: You don't know how to sing back up. I get
Speaker 1: out there.
Speaker 3: That's your problem. When my shirt comes off, it's my time.
Speaker 3: It's not your time to take your shirt off too.
Speaker 2: Well in that particular, in that particular, in that particular,
Speaker 2: show tank you you bluff me. And we have been working.
Speaker 1: Out, We have been with the honets, we have been
Speaker 1: working on. I couldn't and I had. I warned you.
Speaker 2: I said, listen, when your shirt come off, my shirt
Speaker 2: come off, and you I didn't know you was gonna
Speaker 2: you know, you'd be pumped backing now.
Speaker 1: I didn't know you was gonna pump fake some mine.
Speaker 2: You pump fake and mine came off like a vacuum
Speaker 2: to yours off.
Speaker 1: The girls are screaming. I was like, I haven't taken
Speaker 1: off you and I looked behind me. Your shirt is off. Yeah,
Speaker 1: that's I know. His bodyguard as this high was here
Speaker 1: me d Night was screw is the brother Mark. It
Speaker 1: was just screed tears. Jan Valentine. First of all, you know,
Speaker 1: thank you for being in the hot seat. It's been
Speaker 1: a long time coming because I've been fighting with you
Speaker 1: for quite some time to get you back into this
Speaker 1: space of being the lead singer. Yeah, fighting with you
Speaker 1: for a long time bro. You know, we had to
Speaker 1: knockout drag outs about what the fuck Jay? Why not Jay?
Speaker 3: And as many as many a young artist that has
Speaker 3: come up and even come to this podcast and said,
Speaker 3: oh man, Jay Valentine. When I heard Jay Valentine, and
Speaker 3: when I saw Jay Valentine, all of this influence that
Speaker 3: you've had as you know, not just a creator, but
Speaker 3: as an artist, I just.
Speaker 1: Felt like it was so much more left for you
Speaker 1: to do. Yeah, you know what I'm saying, So thank
Speaker 1: you for finally coming to the come into the mind
Speaker 1: of doing what you needed to do. We're here to
Speaker 1: talk about, you know, because people haven't gotten the full
Speaker 1: scope of who you are and where you're from and
Speaker 1: how this all happened. We gonna go back to the
Speaker 1: beginning about we going back to where this shit started.
Speaker 1: You know what I'm saying.
Speaker 3: And listen, you jumping and you lead it anytime you
Speaker 3: feel like it.
Speaker 1: Okay, this is your world.
Speaker 2: So so what you're saying that, I want him because
Speaker 2: people don't notice. I want him to tell people what
Speaker 2: it feels like to start in the music business at five.
Speaker 1: He started at five, Like.
Speaker 2: You know what I mean, I'm talking practicing, learning routines,
Speaker 2: street performing for change on Fisherman Wharf, Like, tell him
Speaker 2: what that felt like, because you actually started the music
Speaker 2: business at.
Speaker 1: Five, and I mean, obviously even I don't know what
Speaker 1: that feels. Yes, it was. It was interesting because to
Speaker 1: a certain degree it all I knew, all we knew obviously,
Speaker 1: and shit, I blame you, honestly, I blame you because
Speaker 1: it was something that you had already done. Like I
Speaker 1: think sometimes people talk about the Neutrons and Jay Valentine
Speaker 1: now as Ryan Newsdream. I think that's only partially true,
Speaker 1: because I feel like it was five News Dream where
Speaker 1: it kicked off to where that was something that you
Speaker 1: were already full throttle into by the time I was five,
Speaker 1: because you were ten, you and Ronnie were ten, and
Speaker 1: I was just following suit ultimately and being forced this thing.
Speaker 1: I mean really, I mean because I couldn't really sing,
Speaker 1: or to me, I couldn't really sing. I don't really know.
Speaker 1: I mean it's funny because we have people, we have
Speaker 1: guests on here that's like, yeah, I was singing eighteen
Speaker 1: months and not me. You know, It's just not something
Speaker 1: that just happened naturally for me. It happened watching you
Speaker 1: and watching you go after it and seeing how passionate
Speaker 1: you were about it, and then I think I just
Speaker 1: kind of started off as the mascot in a sense
Speaker 1: because I was so little. Thank you, but you mentioned
Speaker 1: it earlier. I was literally kind of a fucking jack
Speaker 1: in the box. I was Jack in the box. I
Speaker 1: didn't know that I was Jack in the box, but
Speaker 1: I was Jack in the box because it would be
Speaker 1: on Fisherman's Wharf and there was a certain time. So
Speaker 1: Fisherman's Wharf is per thirty nine, is right on the water.
Speaker 1: If you go to San Francisco, it's something that you
Speaker 1: just have to go to. You gotta visit. So all
Speaker 1: kind of restaurants think it's in aquarium over there, like
Speaker 1: the seals are right there right there on like the
Speaker 1: little loading dock thing. And people from around the world
Speaker 1: come there, and they've been coming there probably since you know,
Speaker 1: San Francisco was started whenever they could get there, and
Speaker 1: it was a huge tourist spot. And the story behind
Speaker 1: us in Fisherman's Worth was our brother Ron. He had
Speaker 1: from his mom's side. He had family that used to strut.
Speaker 1: So strutting is like popping and locking and you know,
Speaker 1: doing the whole you know all this, They still owe
Speaker 1: me some money from day. So Ron's family, from his
Speaker 1: mom's side, which is our family too, they were already
Speaker 1: street performers. And my father had realized that, oh they're
Speaker 1: making some money down there, and if he was making
Speaker 1: some money, ran knew wanted in somehow someway. Well, no,
Speaker 1: don't forget. He was on probation. I didn't know that
Speaker 1: he was. I mean, he was always on We.
Speaker 2: Was on probation for welfare fraud. He was on probation.
Speaker 2: So this was a way for him to stay out
Speaker 2: of jail.
Speaker 1: We became a new hole. No, I knew that. Yeah,
Speaker 1: I do that. I did that. Ladies, disclaimer, Bob will
Speaker 1: say anything. He's going to tell the truth raw and
Speaker 1: untut let us continue. We were to hustle, Yeah we were, Yeah,
Speaker 1: we were. We were. We were the hustle. We would
Speaker 1: have k new hustle. And he realized that, you know,
Speaker 1: some kids was down there. They was a little older
Speaker 1: than us and they were making money down there. And
Speaker 1: he's like, well, my kids need to be down there,
Speaker 1: but not just be down there. My kids need their spots,
Speaker 1: these spots, these spots because there was like a there
Speaker 1: was a certain spot you get that money where the
Speaker 1: parking lot was where if you were dancing right there,
Speaker 1: you're getting people right either coming out of their car
Speaker 1: going into their car. Gotcha. He needed that, he needed
Speaker 1: that spot, the spot that was already occupied. Yeah, so
Speaker 1: some gangs shit happened, gangs of should happened. And let's
Speaker 1: just say we got to our spot. That was our spot,
Speaker 1: and if anybody had a problem with that, they had
Speaker 1: to go see in the car waiting whatever.
Speaker 2: Yeah, spot, you're gonna get this three to five hundred
Speaker 2: a day, and don't y'all go nowhere.
Speaker 1: Near that spot. Yeah, he would go and he would
Speaker 1: he would put us out there, put me. I would
Speaker 1: be in that box. He would put me in the
Speaker 1: box out there, and then he would go in the
Speaker 1: car and go to sleep. Yeah, unless we had any issues,
Speaker 1: if we had isshoes, we was going to the car
Speaker 1: and then he was coming out the car. And that's
Speaker 1: not what you want. What you want made me be
Speaker 1: in the car's chilling. It don't make me chilling. So yeah,
Speaker 1: I was the I was the reveal. Yeah, right, because
Speaker 1: I imagine that imagine you're going you taking the family
Speaker 1: on vacation and a little five year old pops out
Speaker 1: dancing and ship. You're gonna give him to You're gonna
Speaker 1: give you give us something. You don't really got a heart.
Speaker 1: If you don't, you don't up. You gotta that, nigga,
Speaker 1: If you don't give a kid that's popping out of
Speaker 1: you hauled moving box pop pop locking with his three brothers.
Speaker 1: It was no. China not quit already. Sometimes yeah, she
Speaker 1: was with it sometimes. So we were you know, we
Speaker 1: were Jackson five Wow with a girl. Yeah. Yeah, China
Speaker 1: played piano too early on. She was our piano player
Speaker 1: for a minute too. Yeah, she she she was the
Speaker 1: only neutron who got to quit because the rest of
Speaker 1: us couldn't quit. He told us, if you quit, you
Speaker 1: still got to practice, So that doesn't really quit. Still practice.
Speaker 1: You might as well stay in the group. So that's
Speaker 1: what it was, not an option. Yeah, yeah, so so
Speaker 1: so for me, that was my first entry into the
Speaker 1: entertainment industry. And you know, as any little kid like,
Speaker 1: I loved the reaction. Yeah I didn't. I didn't like
Speaker 1: the rehearsal and not being able to go outside and
Speaker 1: all of that stuff. But the reaction from you know,
Speaker 1: these people of all walks of life literally like losing
Speaker 1: it when we would perform, like they just loved us.
Speaker 1: They really, they really loved us. And and we made
Speaker 1: a lot of money out there. I've always been a
Speaker 1: shrewd business. But my dad used to actually have to
Speaker 1: pay him to practice. He's the only one that got paid.
Speaker 1: But you were a baby too, so yeah, but I
Speaker 1: just asked, also asked, you know what I mean, like, so,
Speaker 1: where the money you got? Yeah, you gave me that already.
Speaker 1: You gave me a dinner car.
Speaker 3: Okay, yeah, so that but you were you were at
Speaker 3: an early age getting like high level tutelage.
Speaker 1: You know what I'm saying in terms of putting rehearsal
Speaker 1: time in. Oh no, no, no, we were because that's
Speaker 1: a lost We were fully locked in. That's different. We
Speaker 1: were fully locked in. We we paid our dues as
Speaker 1: far as as rehearsal and the ten thousand hours that
Speaker 1: they talk about. Yeah, and I think sometimes you know,
Speaker 1: people they look at they look at our podcast and
Speaker 1: they see the way I am as far as how
Speaker 1: I am about the business and how how strict I
Speaker 1: am about what you need to do to survive in
Speaker 1: this ship, and it comes from that. They don't realize
Speaker 1: that you did that. Now, it comes from experience. It
Speaker 1: comes from experience, like you can literally throw me anywhere.
Speaker 1: I'm going to figure it out. I'm not going to drown. Yeah, yeah,
Speaker 1: and that's for me. That's the thing that you know,
Speaker 1: in terms as we talk about artists development, it's missing
Speaker 1: because that's the saving grace. Yeah. And a true established
Speaker 1: work ethic along with the love for the sport. Yes, yeah, right,
Speaker 1: but a true established work ethic is going to help you,
Speaker 1: as you say, figure out, figure it out on any
Speaker 1: Martin Luther King, Yeah, Okay, where I'm at doesn't matter
Speaker 1: what we're doing. Cool, that's work matter. So so you
Speaker 1: know from that age that that's I mean, if it
Speaker 1: just it felt like what I was supposed to be doing,
Speaker 1: because that's what our whole house did. It wasn't like
Speaker 1: I was the kid in the family and it's just
Speaker 1: me and everybody's trying to figure out, like why is
Speaker 1: he trying to sing or dance? No, we had a
Speaker 1: house of entertainment. Everybody was a part of it. You
Speaker 1: know what I'm saying. It's if it's our mother helping
Speaker 1: with our father, pick out our outfits or being our
Speaker 1: role manager or if it's our sister playing piano, or
Speaker 1: trying to be the role manager or be a part
Speaker 1: of it or collect the money. And you know it
Speaker 1: was it was Bob was David Roughing and these are
Speaker 1: the temptations in the beginning. No, seriously though, like because
Speaker 1: he was very serious early on, Like Bob was very
Speaker 1: serious about the art and about being a singer, you know,
Speaker 1: Like for me it was obviously my first thing was
Speaker 1: business because I was trying to get paid for practice
Speaker 1: and ship. But Bob was really like, man, I want
Speaker 1: to be famous. I want to sing. I want to
Speaker 1: write songs. Bob literally is writing songs at what ten
Speaker 1: eleven years old? Yeah, elementary love? That was the first
Speaker 1: because where else is your love at that elementary school?
Speaker 1: In elementary school? Was Brenda? Was Michelle what you wrote
Speaker 1: that about? Yeah? So so are you guys? So you
Speaker 1: are the neutrons at this point? Or does that? We
Speaker 1: were always in the tru New Trunk five because it
Speaker 1: had to be connected to the Jackson Ron. It was
Speaker 1: very adamant on things being connected to that because that's
Speaker 1: what was the top of the food chain. Yeah, and
Speaker 1: these are you know my little boys, you know, they
Speaker 1: they the next ones. You know, in his mind, this
Speaker 1: is what his train of thought was. So if I
Speaker 1: can attach that five, it's going to stick out, right,
Speaker 1: It's going to stick out the same way Jackson's five
Speaker 1: sticks out. So for him, I always always feel like,
Speaker 1: you know, especially as I really learned the music business.
Speaker 1: He was a marketing genius. He was a marketing genius
Speaker 1: and he just he was. He was putting it into children, though,
Speaker 1: which some of his marketing ideas were grown up ideas.
Speaker 1: They were. Have you ever seen the Neutrons suits? Yes,
Speaker 1: we had full suits.
Speaker 2: Yeah, we were dropping jumping all the way to the
Speaker 2: when we had a record. He was having those made.
Speaker 2: He would go get the garments, take them down. You
Speaker 2: go down to the garment, take them, have a maid.
Speaker 2: We got hearts cut into the blazers. It's sequence.
Speaker 1: It's our first stuff was made by Lily Nitt, who
Speaker 1: dressed all the pimps of the Bay Area. If anyone
Speaker 1: has ever seen the Mac, same lady who dressed all
Speaker 1: the pimps dressed the Neutrons. Yeah, yeah, and I'm pretty
Speaker 1: sure were the only kids getting clothes made there.
Speaker 2: You know how the name came about the neutrons.
Speaker 1: I don't know. Do you know what her name came about?
Speaker 1: Go ahead, you tell them. So our father just if
Speaker 1: you look at our name, obviously, our last name is
Speaker 1: Nuke for people who don't know, my middle name is Valentine,
Speaker 1: my last name is new we're Newts, and my father's
Speaker 1: name is Ron. So yeah, instead of Ron Newt, you
Speaker 1: put the new here, you put the ron there. You
Speaker 1: got neutrons. Now you have neutron. So we were just him.
Speaker 1: This was never a bount you never never. That's what
Speaker 1: I want you to know. Yeah, yeah, I love it. Yeah,
Speaker 1: I told I told her a long time ago. I
Speaker 1: told the story on on uh that part of the
Speaker 1: story on Soul Train. I had to tell Don Carnelius.
Speaker 1: I had to let him know what it was.
Speaker 3: So so the talent and all of these things had
Speaker 3: already had been identified and also impressed upon you that
Speaker 3: this is what we're going to do. When is that
Speaker 3: recognized for you on you know, on a high level
Speaker 3: where it pertains to record companies and executives and that
Speaker 3: type of thing.
Speaker 1: So so from five to about eight nine, we're just
Speaker 1: practicing and doing any performance we're performing at everybody's parties,
Speaker 1: all the adult events. You know. Somehow we were pulled
Speaker 1: out of the car at you know, eleven thirty oh midnight.
Speaker 2: So yeah, he would be in full nightclubs. I'm talking
Speaker 2: with drinking women.
Speaker 1: Yeah, like it was insane, ladies of the night, ladies
Speaker 1: of the night.
Speaker 2: So RONI would always have like a limo or some
Speaker 2: type of he'd be sleeping there until it's time for
Speaker 2: him to come out the box.
Speaker 1: Yeah.
Speaker 2: And but this would be like one in the morning.
Speaker 2: Now my wad be like neutrons front and center, and
Speaker 2: he would be pied.
Speaker 1: Because I mean he's he's Hey.
Speaker 2: And New Truns Frond Center at like one in the
Speaker 2: morning in the nightclub.
Speaker 1: And so literally that's what was crazy.
Speaker 2: Like we what he's saying about the hours, Like we
Speaker 2: performed everywhere, every talent show you could do, everybody's house,
Speaker 2: in the right hood, barbershops.
Speaker 1: We stayed. We stayed performing in Double Rock. Yeah, so
Speaker 1: Double Rockyover Rock. The neighborhood exists, but the actual product
Speaker 1: projects don't exist anymore. They like redid the projects. But
Speaker 1: we had family there and my father was from over
Speaker 1: there from you know, Hollister, Holly Rocken Hollister and Double
Speaker 1: Rock was connected, and he was he was from over there,
Speaker 1: and we would literally just go perform at people's houses.
Speaker 1: There are still people who DM me now talking about
Speaker 1: us performing at their house as if I want to
Speaker 1: remember that, but nah, but you know, it definitely brings
Speaker 1: back memories. But we would perform everywhere whatever, and we
Speaker 1: didn't understand that he was just preparing us for everything.
Speaker 1: We thought it was, at least I did. I thought
Speaker 1: it was punishment. Well, you know me, I just wanted
Speaker 1: to perform any He wanted to perform anywhere. I want
Speaker 1: to see all yeah, yeah, But for me, I was
Speaker 1: just like, this is punishment. He wanted to get paid,
Speaker 1: not even that I wanted to get paid, because you
Speaker 1: got to imagine too, your peers are there too. So
Speaker 1: these are like kids that maybe we went to school with,
Speaker 1: maybe you know, maybe it's our little cousin, maybe it's this,
Speaker 1: that and the other, and I'm like, and I got
Speaker 1: to sing for them, like why you know what I mean?
Speaker 1: Like at that age, I didn't get it. And it's
Speaker 1: not like it's like I look at it now and
Speaker 1: you know when people remind me, like, man, that was
Speaker 1: just so cool. I didn't look at it like it
Speaker 1: was cool. I looked at it like, man, like, why
Speaker 1: am I being forced to do this when I, you know,
Speaker 1: when I don't really want to. But then later on,
Speaker 1: like I said, I understood that it was just preparation
Speaker 1: because we were, like you said, it was Neutron's friend center.
Speaker 1: It did not matter where we were. We could be
Speaker 1: in the middle of a meal, we could be in
Speaker 1: the I could be sleep in the back of the car,
Speaker 1: and we were ready to go immediately because we had
Speaker 1: put in so much time and we had experienced so
Speaker 1: much of it. So over that time, we were performing
Speaker 1: it everywhere. The Circle Star it was this one venue
Speaker 1: that we would sing at. We would pull up with
Speaker 1: whatever big artists was there, you know, like we sang
Speaker 1: there and like Diana Ross pulled Bob on stage and
Speaker 1: we were.
Speaker 2: Just potatoes and everything killed it. I told her key
Speaker 2: to put me in. I sang while the foods falling
Speaker 2: in love. She snatched the mic quick as hell.
Speaker 1: So what we learned what veterans do you not? Yeah, yeah,
Speaker 1: this is not your show. But we would we would
Speaker 1: just go and we would perform everywhere, you know, fairs,
Speaker 1: and eventually, like I said, the singing kicked in. Maybe
Speaker 1: it was quick from just breakdancing to singing and over
Speaker 1: this time we're just rehearsing, we're performing, and our father
Speaker 1: is fully immersed in the streets, fully immersed in the streets.
Speaker 1: At the time. You know, it's it's wars going on.
Speaker 1: It's a whole bunch of dope, Dylan, it's a whole
Speaker 1: bunch of shooting. This is our doors is getting kicked
Speaker 1: in by the police. Like it's a wild time for
Speaker 1: our house and our family, and we're just moving around
Speaker 1: and around. I think maybe seven or eight we lived
Speaker 1: in Indianapolis. Our father had Our father had a plug
Speaker 1: in Indiana. He had a plug in Indiana. And you know,
Speaker 1: we talked about this a little bit on the podcast
Speaker 1: about how I hate road trips, and I said, the
Speaker 1: reason I road trips is because when we would road trip,
Speaker 1: we would do cross country with kilos and cocaine and
Speaker 1: it would take us damn there a week to get somewhere.
Speaker 1: So that's why I don't like riding in cars for long,
Speaker 1: because it brings back memories of like and obviously the
Speaker 1: cars are way more luxurious than than what we was
Speaker 1: riding in back then yeah, the missions of different you
Speaker 1: know what I mean, not in a U haul truck
Speaker 1: or winter Bago, you know what I mean, acting like
Speaker 1: we moving right, but we moving, we moving, we move,
Speaker 1: we moving something else? Yeah, yeah, and we lived in
Speaker 1: we lived in uh in Indianapolis, what about six months? Yeah?
Speaker 2: But you remember he took our whole band though, do
Speaker 2: you remember that? Oh shit, he took the whole band
Speaker 2: like we had so they would give us, you know, music.
Speaker 1: Lessons, you know, vocal lessons. Vocal lesson had a couple
Speaker 1: of pimps that that could sing. Back in the day,
Speaker 1: they was all that.
Speaker 2: And so we end up with this band and me
Speaker 2: and he should be like, man, this band is horrible,
Speaker 2: Like we don't know how we knew, but we knew
Speaker 2: right definitely. But that same band here, he'll come back
Speaker 2: to it. That same band actually helped us get a
Speaker 2: record because unlike the other boy bands, we could sing
Speaker 2: live and that was one of the things I got
Speaker 2: us record.
Speaker 1: But anyway, going back, so yeah, we go to Indiana.
Speaker 1: We go to Indiana, which is once again kind of
Speaker 1: the connection to the Jackson to a certain degree, Gary
Speaker 1: was because Gary was out there and at that point
Speaker 1: we had already had we had linked up with the Jackson.
Speaker 1: We linked up with the Jackson as about what it
Speaker 1: was about five or six? Yeah I was eleven, Yeah,
Speaker 1: so I six. So we had linked up with the
Speaker 1: linked up with the Jackson. Yeah. Ron new said we
Speaker 1: were kin to the Jackson's. I mean, you know, your
Speaker 1: father tells you. And then Joe said it when.
Speaker 2: We Pine Bluff Arkansas connection.
Speaker 1: Because our family was originally from Arkansas, New to originally
Speaker 1: from Arkansas, and you know, somehow they had some kind
Speaker 1: of connection through which I found out later. I don't
Speaker 1: know if you knew this, Bubbahamp really, So, Bubbahamp, who
Speaker 1: is family for us? You met, you know, you met
Speaker 1: our cousins in Vegas, becausin mistering them and his father,
Speaker 1: his father managed sly Stone got you and as kids
Speaker 1: we didn't really know what that meant. But obviously now
Speaker 1: as a businessman and understanding busy, that's some big shit.
Speaker 1: But they would be telling you, you know, he had slidestone,
Speaker 1: and we're like, who the hell is Sliestone? You know
Speaker 1: what I mean, Like, we're not we baby, So we
Speaker 1: don't really know you know, all the history of that
Speaker 1: and that whole thing. But Bubbahamp had legit music business connections.
Speaker 1: We don't know that because Bubba, which is like our uncle,
Speaker 1: is thrown into the group of everybody else we meeting.
Speaker 1: That's you know, pim stay in the game. And he
Speaker 1: was in the game too, So it's like we just differentiate. No,
Speaker 1: not at all, So we think it's all bluff. We think, okay,
Speaker 1: so that's what dad had got stuff from. But oh wow,
Speaker 1: bub bub was the connection to that, and so my
Speaker 1: dad would get you know, plugged from him, like yo,
Speaker 1: who who can we call here? Who can I tap
Speaker 1: tap in? We get to La? Who can you know
Speaker 1: what I'm saying? That the whole thing. That's the part
Speaker 1: we didn't know. So we just thinking we're going to
Speaker 1: La to meet the Jackson's because this is what has
Speaker 1: been told to us. And we're on a a school
Speaker 1: bush what school bus that he took the grill off,
Speaker 1: that's part of his creativity. He took the grill off
Speaker 1: of the school bus, took the other grill off off
Speaker 1: of a rolls royceter that he had and put it
Speaker 1: on put it on the front of the school bus.
Speaker 1: So we had a school bus with a rose Royce
Speaker 1: Chrison Man.
Speaker 3: Yeah, it was the biggest rose, the biggest he had
Speaker 3: it made.
Speaker 1: Imagine that on the front of a yellow school but
Speaker 1: in the school bus was still yellow.
Speaker 2: Yeah yeah, but it had like neutrons and graffiti on
Speaker 2: the side.
Speaker 1: It was because we were super because we were kids,
Speaker 1: so it should be a school bus school.
Speaker 2: It was also that was also a candy store.
Speaker 1: Yeah what you heard. Yeah, so candy, Yeah, candy house,
Speaker 1: to believe it, and probably the other can I feel like,
Speaker 1: probably both the candies, I feel like.
Speaker 2: So he did skip around a little bit, but that
Speaker 2: after we would practice and do all those things singing.
Speaker 2: Now we got routines. We would go from the Bay
Speaker 2: to l A trying to.
Speaker 1: Get a record deal.
Speaker 2: Yeah, and we would sit in Joe Jackson's office for hours.
Speaker 1: But before we got into the office, we were in
Speaker 1: front of the house. We're front of Havenhurst trying to
Speaker 1: get in, and we're like like some stone called groupies.
Speaker 1: We're like I thought, he said, I thought he was
Speaker 1: just going over to Michael Jackson house. I thought, I thought,
Speaker 1: this is this is like a done deal, and we're
Speaker 1: just in the car and he's negotiating with the security.
Speaker 1: Literally negotiating with the security, and Ronnie Knew showed my cousin.
Speaker 1: But for him this parton like what you know what
Speaker 1: I mean, you know he working his wiggle, his wiggle worked.
Speaker 1: Those gates opened. I took you to Havenhurst with me.
Speaker 1: I took you to the house for the forty eighth
Speaker 1: anniversary of of Thriller. That same house, those big old
Speaker 1: black gates magically opened for us. We was there for
Speaker 1: a while, if my hours and trying to trying to
Speaker 1: work as we're going to do his thing, and those
Speaker 1: gates opened up for us, and that man took us.
Speaker 1: Think about this, that man took us to the biggest
Speaker 1: star who ever lived ever and talked his way into
Speaker 1: those gates his house, Too's house. And then we were
Speaker 1: able to audition perform for Joe Jackson. And we had
Speaker 1: already put in so much time, even in that short
Speaker 1: span of a year or whatever it was, of every
Speaker 1: single day rehearsing, going over our shit, waiting for that moment.
Speaker 1: So when we performed for him, we got busy, like
Speaker 1: we literally got busy in Mike, I mean, Joe was like,
Speaker 1: oh no, I'm signing y'all like y'all own Jackson Records. Wow.
Speaker 1: So it went from we're just going to in our minds,
Speaker 1: we're going to we get to meet Michael Jackson to
Speaker 1: now we're going to sign to Joe Jackson. Now we
Speaker 1: really gonna meet Mike. Absolutely, absolutely, and eventually we did.
Speaker 1: Mike was cool a shit, you know what I'm saying.
Speaker 1: We got to hang out with Jermaine and all the
Speaker 1: brothers and the sisters, and we end up meeting who
Speaker 1: became really close friends for us and practically family. We
Speaker 1: still call each other cousin to this day. Was the
Speaker 1: Three T's, which are Tito sons, because they were around
Speaker 1: our same age and they just became our boys. Like
Speaker 1: we just we was like, oh, there's some other kids,
Speaker 1: and they fucked with it. Said it's like wait, but
Speaker 1: they can sing, and they because they weren't singing at
Speaker 1: the time. Eventually they became the Three T's and became
Speaker 1: a singing group. But they were all playing baseball. So
Speaker 1: we got to the other part is once we met them,
Speaker 1: we got to do kids shit because we have pockets,
Speaker 1: got you, We had pockets of when we could do
Speaker 1: kids shit because we had to rehearse so much and
Speaker 1: so much other you know, wild shit was going on
Speaker 1: that we didn't really get a chance to have like normal,
Speaker 1: oh little league at that age yet you know what
Speaker 1: I mean, like little league and youth league basketball and
Speaker 1: all the shit that we take our kids too. Saw music.
Speaker 1: So when we got to see them, it was like, oh,
Speaker 1: we can go we go play basketball, we can go
Speaker 1: to their house and go swimming. We was kicking it.
Speaker 1: But during that time, Joe's trying to figure out what
Speaker 1: to do with us, trying to figure out what to
Speaker 1: do with this, because this is what you know, I'm
Speaker 1: five six, Yeah, I'm six, it's like six, and they're
Speaker 1: like eleven. Ron is twelve. Because at that time it's
Speaker 1: four of us. Tryna dropped out so we're no longer
Speaker 1: the new Tron five. Like I'm out of here. You
Speaker 1: niggas ain't making no money. I actually actually we're making money,
Speaker 1: but Dad's getting it. So I quit. And it was
Speaker 1: four of us. And I know y'all probably heard that,
Speaker 1: but yes, it's two runs two Ronni's because Ron Newton
Speaker 1: would have two sons that both have his name. This
Speaker 1: is you know, y'all know how the streets go back?
Speaker 1: You know, George Formulate the only one on out here
Speaker 1: naming multiple kids the same name. So ro we call
Speaker 1: ron and Ronnie, Bob and me. Joe signed us. We
Speaker 1: moved to la for a minute. We lived in Grenada Hills.
Speaker 1: We get our first house with the pool. I learned
Speaker 1: how to swim, you know what I'm saying. Like, we
Speaker 1: we really think it's going to happen. And this was
Speaker 1: our first experience with what the music business is. It's
Speaker 1: not overnight. It's not overnight. It's you know, a lot
Speaker 1: of hurry up and wait, it's wait your turn, it's
Speaker 1: right now, ain't your time? And I think we we
Speaker 1: had a chance to learn that really early, especially for
Speaker 1: me being six seven years old at that time, really early.
Speaker 1: That damn okay. We thought we was gonna put an
Speaker 1: album out the next day after we meet Joe Jackson.
Speaker 1: That's how this works, right, It's not how I don't
Speaker 1: I'm pretty sure I don't think for Jackson Records at
Speaker 1: the time, I don't even know if they had distribution.
Speaker 1: We didn't know what distribution was.
Speaker 2: But also you got to think about Tank at this time,
Speaker 2: Michael Jackson is the biggest start the world.
Speaker 1: So we like we with his daddy. Yeah, oh, we
Speaker 1: about to be good. He would have to put on
Speaker 1: he would have to put on like full, he would
Speaker 1: have to dress up like it Halloween to go outside.
Speaker 2: I saw him doing this, the fake big t wig.
Speaker 2: He could not go outside.
Speaker 1: Like when people be saying that now, no, no, no, no,
Speaker 1: it's not even close. It's not even close. This man
Speaker 1: had to put on a disguise to just leave his
Speaker 1: home or it would have been a riot. I never
Speaker 1: seen nothing like that, you know, and I'll never see
Speaker 1: nothing like that again. They met a lot of stars.
Speaker 1: We didn't met a lot of stars together. They're not
Speaker 1: Michael Jackson. Bro, They're not Michael Jackson. And you know,
Speaker 1: I think for me it was good, good in one
Speaker 1: sense that it made everything normal to me, but it
Speaker 1: kind of fucked me up in a sense of, Bro,
Speaker 1: I can't meet anybody at this point. Same.
Speaker 2: Yeah, my wife is saying that it like it don't
Speaker 2: matter if you meet Michael Jackson. The only next person
Speaker 2: is Jesus. Listen, hey, Jesus week because everybody else didn't matter.
Speaker 2: But what I want to pull you back, like, because
Speaker 2: there's a point we forgot. So when we signed Joe Jackson,
Speaker 2: he got us our biggest show to date for the Roxy, right,
Speaker 2: and we didn't move to La yet. We're still at
Speaker 2: home in the ghetto, in the hood, and Ron Newt is, oh,
Speaker 2: d like, we got our ghetto band, and he's like, yo,
Speaker 2: we practicing twelve thirteen hours a day to prepare for
Speaker 2: the Roxy.
Speaker 1: He's sick.
Speaker 2: We did that for three months. You could hear the
Speaker 2: kids playing outside. It was torture, tank fucking torture because
Speaker 2: the house was yeah, like and you can hear I'm
Speaker 2: talking about tons of kids outside and we just intered
Speaker 2: going over at it again, over and over. We're doing
Speaker 2: I'll be there. We're doing uh, the greatest love of
Speaker 2: all that's what These are our cover songs that we're doing.
Speaker 2: And we're over and over and over. And the payoff though,
Speaker 2: so the payoff and he's young, so I don't know
Speaker 2: if he members all this, but the payoff. We get
Speaker 2: to the Rocky, which we didn't know was world famous.
Speaker 2: Roxy is world famous. Of course, we get five standing ovations.
Speaker 2: They say, oh, and we have a special guest up
Speaker 2: top El de Barge, right, so we're like, oh, wow,
Speaker 2: El deball right because at the time he's cracking too.
Speaker 2: Eld Barge. Wasn't El de barge eld the bars was
Speaker 2: Michael Jackson. Michael Jackson videoed the neutrons from up top
Speaker 2: our whole show. We came out, they like they took
Speaker 2: us upstairs.
Speaker 1: He was up there.
Speaker 2: Imagine, Bro, all I ever wanted to do was be
Speaker 2: Michael Jackson, like after we saw Motown twenty.
Speaker 1: Five, right of course, Bro, That's all I.
Speaker 2: Wanted to do, right, So we go up there. He
Speaker 2: imagine our faces.
Speaker 1: Bro.
Speaker 2: Then Joe's like yeah, and he invited y'all to the house.
Speaker 2: We're like, it's about to go up. We're about to
Speaker 2: hang out with Michael Jackson, you know what I mean.
Speaker 2: So we go, bro, and we ghetto kids. He had
Speaker 2: a full candy store type he had. He had the
Speaker 2: real it was. It was as big as this.
Speaker 1: Yeah it was, and it was I just remember, was
Speaker 1: air conditioned and everything and imagine.
Speaker 2: And he was like, get you a tub, like the
Speaker 2: big tub for popcorn. And he was like whatever y'all want.
Speaker 1: Imagine you can't tell. No. He just had silver teeth
Speaker 1: at four or five, just just as I just came
Speaker 1: from having my silver just help. So now this man
Speaker 1: is offering the candy house man, What did that do
Speaker 1: to your work ethic? Though for me it's all the way.
Speaker 2: I've never worked that hard again in my life. Tank
Speaker 2: that twelve thirteen hours a day for three months, like it.
Speaker 2: But we saw the results, so like, because I know
Speaker 2: how that affected me, how did that affect you?
Speaker 1: It made it where that I think maybe that's the
Speaker 1: point where I felt like it was all worth it.
Speaker 1: That was the validation for all of it, right, because
Speaker 1: it's like, it's it's not getting to play basketball with
Speaker 1: Michael Jordan, Yeah, even if it's an open run, Michael
Speaker 1: Jordan coming to your basketball game. Yeah, and you're like
Speaker 1: in video Jay over there and he got it on video.
Speaker 1: So the VMJ, you know, meeting him and seeing that
Speaker 1: he appreciated, you know, what we were doing. Like I said,
Speaker 1: it validated everything at that point on and we thought,
Speaker 1: you know, from that, we thought, you know that that
Speaker 1: we had arrived. But like I said, we realized that
Speaker 1: the music business doesn't work that way, and how was
Speaker 1: how wash? What was it? What was the point to
Speaker 1: where that realization kicked in and maybe even things had
Speaker 1: to go in a different direction. When the money stopped
Speaker 1: got you, When the money stopped because obviously with us
Speaker 1: signing to Jackson Records, there was a certain you know
Speaker 1: advance and a monthly and we were living in this
Speaker 1: you know, this house with the swimming pool, and we
Speaker 1: made it to all right, we got to move the
Speaker 1: lights about to get cut off to you know, they're
Speaker 1: not sending that bread no more because Pops just stopp
Speaker 1: hustling because he fully focusing on us. So during that time,
Speaker 1: obviously we got to move back. You know, we didn't
Speaker 1: tell everybody, and we hear these stories when we talk
Speaker 1: to other people that come on here. We didn't tell
Speaker 1: everybody were going to l A, were going to the
Speaker 1: Jackson's and I see you niggas on TV. Yeah, I
Speaker 1: get back to you. We didn't make it to the
Speaker 1: TV screen just yet. Right, So we go back home
Speaker 1: and same we back to the same thing we were
Speaker 1: back in school. We're back rehearsing rand New back in
Speaker 1: the streets, and you know, he starts hustling during that time.
Speaker 1: That's how we ended up getting to Indianapolis. You know,
Speaker 1: what was maybe going for eighteen in San Francisco, was
Speaker 1: going for thirty five in Indiana. It's time to get
Speaker 1: to Indiana. So you know, he went out there. I
Speaker 1: remember he got he bought two apartments. All the story
Speaker 1: is great. He bought two apartments next to each other.
Speaker 1: He busted the wall open and connected it. Instead of
Speaker 1: having two three bedrooms, now we have a six bedroom
Speaker 1: apartment right right right.
Speaker 2: But there was the grown people's side and the kids side.
Speaker 1: We had our own side.
Speaker 3: I'm I'm pretty sure. I'm pretty sure he didn't have permission.
Speaker 1: No, he went through the closet. He tore their door down. No,
Speaker 1: he tore the closet down. Yeah, he went through the
Speaker 1: two cars, the door, I'm sorry, the wall, he literally
Speaker 1: made it. Yeah, he had two upstairs.
Speaker 2: Oh, it was when I said I was a dude
Speaker 2: at school because everything out there is flat.
Speaker 1: The houses, you know meanwayt the houses are flat.
Speaker 2: We lived in a high riser that was connected, connected,
Speaker 2: and we had our and I look, i'm fourteen.
Speaker 1: You know you jumped far.
Speaker 2: Actually, because I'm fourteen, I'm in high school team.
Speaker 1: Yeah, you jumped far. I thought I was eight.
Speaker 2: No, that's not you must have been because remember I'm
Speaker 2: in ninth grade at Augington. Oh ship, Yeah, I'm playing
Speaker 2: house hard.
Speaker 1: I'm playing house because moving I don't know yeah, I mean,
Speaker 1: I meant he got a plug out there. You know,
Speaker 1: they in the streets, they doing what they're doing. What
Speaker 1: was it was the hood out there, Hartesville, Hartville, Harsville,
Speaker 1: you know what I mean, like Ron News. You know
Speaker 1: he was moving around and yeah, yeah, I guess I
Speaker 1: jumped a couple of years. But in that yeah, in
Speaker 1: that time, you know, he got back cracking. He got
Speaker 1: back cracking, went back home. That's when he got set up.
Speaker 1: Somebody set him up. Uh, and he caught a charge
Speaker 1: and he went to jail, and we went to jail
Speaker 1: with him, and that's how we ended up Reno. So
Speaker 1: we lived in Reno for a high second. Uh maybe
Speaker 1: boy a year, maybe by a year because he got
Speaker 1: My father had three years. He got three years in
Speaker 1: the state and three years in the FED. He had
Speaker 1: a fair charge and and and the state charge that
Speaker 1: we thought they originally gave him thirty six years because
Speaker 1: it was cheers on the sixties on that but they
Speaker 1: ran it concurrently. See do you even know what that means?
Speaker 1: Same time And we didn't, we didn't, we didn't, yeh.
Speaker 1: Concurrents life is a concurrent.
Speaker 2: When he's at first of all, he's representing himself.
Speaker 1: Yeah yeah, yeah, yeah, like a priest has against.
Speaker 2: It was against our uncle, who was the biggest police
Speaker 2: at the time. Kickshaw rest in peace now, ron NEU
Speaker 2: couldn't wait to get him on the stand so that
Speaker 2: he could cross examine.
Speaker 1: Our auntie, our youngest auntie. My mama married the biggest
Speaker 1: gangster in the city, and her little sister married the
Speaker 1: biggest cop.
Speaker 2: And they come from this hood.
Speaker 1: How about they come from the same hood police. But
Speaker 1: you know, our uncle just decided to become a cop,
Speaker 1: and we you know, he married our untie maybe when
Speaker 1: I think I was like eight, yeah around I say
Speaker 1: that same exact time he was. He was newly in
Speaker 1: the family. He was newly in the family at that time.
Speaker 1: Uh So.
Speaker 2: He tells us our dad and well, by the time,
Speaker 2: we're like at this time, we're like the new the
Speaker 2: new turre and army. We're like little soldiers for him.
Speaker 2: Whatever he say has to go. So he was like,
Speaker 2: what I need y'all to do is I need y'all
Speaker 2: to make free ron new signs and I need y'all
Speaker 2: to go out in front of jail, the courthouse, the house,
Speaker 2: the steps with all signs and I need y'all to
Speaker 2: protest to help me get out.
Speaker 1: He's protesting.
Speaker 2: We had Free Run News signs it's protesting outside a
Speaker 2: fifty Bryant and saying I'm talking about our friends is
Speaker 2: coming by. It's you're talking about embarrassing, bro. This was
Speaker 2: embarrassing Tank.
Speaker 1: I'm not you think your kids would pick it for you?
Speaker 1: My kids? Will you think they were free? Bob? I
Speaker 1: think the better. I think better. Actually a couple of
Speaker 1: them probably wouldn't, but I feel I don't giving one
Speaker 1: on it. I got the same kind of story.
Speaker 2: We're out there with the Free Run News sons and
Speaker 2: he's representing himself up as juices didn't work, and then
Speaker 2: they and then his cousins come in, other gangsters. They're like,
Speaker 2: oh my god, this is a circus. He's in there
Speaker 2: representing he's been to jail for and so we're sitting
Speaker 2: there and the judge. They come back to judge says.
Speaker 1: All these years charges, six years and currently, but we
Speaker 1: didn't know what current. We think that they gave. The
Speaker 1: protests didn't work, So he gets he gets six years.
Speaker 1: Uh you know, state time, you gotta go do, you
Speaker 1: gotta go? Do pretty much fifty percent and and you know,
Speaker 1: in the midst of them of his transfer, he escaped.
Speaker 1: He did it stay time he escaped, and it got
Speaker 1: tricky for us. So from like nine to ten and
Speaker 1: a half, it got really tricky for us. Like it
Speaker 1: just came home like yeah, no, no, I'm gonna tell you.
Speaker 1: So it got you know, it just nigga. We couldn't survive.
Speaker 1: It was tough. It was really tough. It was no
Speaker 1: work and obviously no work in Reno, so moms couldn't
Speaker 1: really work. We was trying to figure it out, government assistance,
Speaker 1: whatever kind of assistance, and it was fucked up. And
Speaker 1: we went to go see him and he was like, oh, no, no,
Speaker 1: I'm coming home. We're like, no, you're not right. But
Speaker 1: this is Ron Newt. He's made miracles happens before. You know,
Speaker 1: he took us to Michael Jackson. So if he says something,
Speaker 1: we kind of we kind of believe it. And he
Speaker 1: tells our mama, He's like, yeah, come get me kid.
Speaker 1: You you know, they have their grown up conversation of
Speaker 1: you know what time she supposed to come get him,
Speaker 1: and you know, she wakes us up, what three in
Speaker 1: the morning, three in the morning, three in the morning
Speaker 1: and we're driving in the middle of nowhere back to
Speaker 1: where the prison was. Who jumps out the bushes that.
Speaker 2: Thing that comes out the bushes like I'm that type
Speaker 2: of guy who j and all black with a scully
Speaker 2: on kind.
Speaker 1: Of what you got to right.
Speaker 2: And see It's funny because hear me from his point.
Speaker 2: From my point of view, I knew all night we
Speaker 2: was going to go get him.
Speaker 1: Yeah, shook.
Speaker 2: I'm like, oh, we're all going to jail because you know,
Speaker 2: you think about you think about people breaking people out
Speaker 2: and being on the lamb. I'm like, yo, we're gonna
Speaker 2: be on the run.
Speaker 1: He finish sacrifice all. I'm like, selfish ass, nigga, I'm
Speaker 1: a kid. We all won't go to jail. So I'm
Speaker 1: like not.
Speaker 2: But my mama, yeah, one of the ones bro or
Speaker 2: ride or die. When he said come get me, she
Speaker 2: was like, okay, yeah, and she didn't care that the kids.
Speaker 1: It wasn't just us, No, it's also our other cousin.
Speaker 1: And I'm showing and his mama in a big.
Speaker 2: And a big ass was in a big ass Cadillac.
Speaker 1: In a big ass I don't know. I don't know
Speaker 1: what we did.
Speaker 2: So he jumps in the whole way. I'm looking, I'm like,
Speaker 2: they gotta be coming. I'm nervous. I'm like, they gotta
Speaker 2: be coming.
Speaker 1: It never came. It never came. And in Reno, no,
Speaker 1: we're we're in the mountains. That was yes. And do
Speaker 1: you drive back to Reno or do you drive back
Speaker 1: to get our strive back to Rena to get our stuff?
Speaker 1: And my dad and Ryan Bob's twins, they leave, we
Speaker 1: stay when they leave. He got to go make a
Speaker 1: couple more trips to Indiana because he got to get
Speaker 1: back on his feet. And at this time back then,
Speaker 1: you know, you get on the plane with a paper
Speaker 1: paper I d and you know, I mean you got
Speaker 1: a kid with you, and you know, let's just say
Speaker 1: some you know, some country band went and some finances
Speaker 1: came back. And when he came back to get us,
Speaker 1: he got money and the U haul he was headed
Speaker 1: back to l A. And the matter of back on
Speaker 1: a week's time. Weeks time, we're back to l A.
Speaker 1: We moved to some you know, little apartment onyall on Crenshaw,
Speaker 1: very gang infested.
Speaker 2: Super gang in I hit him multiple times.
Speaker 1: Yeah, he definitely got pressed. Where you're from? Where you
Speaker 1: from you from right, because you got to say he's
Speaker 1: so at that point, they those questions. Niggas is getting
Speaker 1: pressed at that age, you know what I mean, Like, man,
Speaker 1: we're not from here, We're from the Bay, right, So
Speaker 1: we get to la. Unbeknownst to us, this over this
Speaker 1: year and a half whatever it was two years while
Speaker 1: my dad was in jail, our videos are circulating of
Speaker 1: us performing, like videotapes are circulating of us performing throughout
Speaker 1: the music industry. We have no idea. But back then
Speaker 1: it wasn't though finding artist on Instagram, finding him, blah
Speaker 1: blah blah. It was we can't find this family. We
Speaker 1: don't know where they are. Nobody could find us because,
Speaker 1: like I said, when Ron Newton went to jail, we
Speaker 1: went to with him. So it was no finding us
Speaker 1: and ship we probably had no phone really working at
Speaker 1: the time. We was just was fucked up. It was bad.
Speaker 1: It was bad. But now he out and now all
Speaker 1: the people you know, he tapping in, He tapping in
Speaker 1: to whoever, you know, He tapping in enough because he knows,
Speaker 1: you know, he's on the run so much. And I
Speaker 1: think what worked out for him is that he was
Speaker 1: in transition from going to state to Feds, so it
Speaker 1: already did his state time. So I think the state
Speaker 1: probably not even they're not they're not looking for him
Speaker 1: at this point. Now the Feds, it's a federal thing,
Speaker 1: so they're looking for him, but they haven't received him yet.
Speaker 1: It's a different you know whatever whatever, you know, different time.
Speaker 1: So as this tape is circulating, my dad's getting on
Speaker 1: the phone. Bubba hamp again is you know, connected to
Speaker 1: the industry. He knows people, they know him, he's you know,
Speaker 1: now he's letting people know like, oh no, we found him.
Speaker 1: They're starting to put people on the phone with Pops.
Speaker 1: So the first person that gets to our dad was
Speaker 1: Scherl Dickerson. Scherl Dickerson, you may know her from as Gaps.
Speaker 1: She was an ASKAP for a long time and she
Speaker 1: had been searching for us and trying to get a
Speaker 1: hold of us. But as she's searching for she's switching labels.
Speaker 1: She's going from MCA to Sony. But the mistake she
Speaker 1: made was that she also played us for the young
Speaker 1: man who was under her. No no, no, no no.
Speaker 2: She was leaving MCA with Jill Busby to go to Motown.
Speaker 1: Yeah, yes, yeah, yeah, yes, yes, but the young man
Speaker 1: that was under them was Louis Silas Junior. Yeah, and
Speaker 1: obviously Derl Busby had the boys. Yes, So he's like, oh,
Speaker 1: that's my old bosses. They got the boys. I'm about
Speaker 1: to get these neutrons. I'm going to find them. We
Speaker 1: don't know that though, because Cheryl's trying to find us.
Speaker 1: So my father talks to Cheryl and then he gets
Speaker 1: a phone phone call from Louis. Louil had an end.
Speaker 1: Louis from San Francisco. Wait, what this nigga? But I
Speaker 1: don't know none of this shit. So Louil originally from
Speaker 1: San Francisco, have family in San Francisco. I was able
Speaker 1: to get to dad another way around through the streets.
Speaker 1: So we meet. I think we met with Cheryl. I
Speaker 1: think she offered us a deal, offered our data deal.
Speaker 1: We get a call from Louis. Loul says, whatever she
Speaker 1: offered you, I'll triple it. We talked to a street niggas.
Speaker 1: All we know is doubling in the streets. You're gonna
Speaker 1: burn it though you might get stretched it. Two to
Speaker 1: try and sech three. We're gon. We're gonnay man, So
Speaker 1: you know once that happened, and then he used the
Speaker 1: Homeboys ship of course from San Francisco, and it was
Speaker 1: a fly nigga Lou you know what I mean, if
Speaker 1: you go back and anybody you can google Little Solace
Speaker 1: man Loul was that guy. Loul looked like the executive
Speaker 1: version of Keith Washington, because Keith Washington was that. Yeah, absolutely,
Speaker 1: Keith Watching was that. Nick right Lowell was the executive
Speaker 1: version of him. So when you've seen him, it was like,
Speaker 1: damn is he an artist? He got the drop top bands,
Speaker 1: He had just bought a house and then seen O.
Speaker 1: He showed us the crib. Were like, we get to
Speaker 1: live here. Now you'll get to live here. But if
Speaker 1: you hang out with we're gonna yeah, yeah, we're gonna,
Speaker 1: were gonna, We're gonna do what we're supposed to do.
Speaker 1: We signed the m c A Records Records, and you know,
Speaker 1: there was a lot of stinks. There was a lot
Speaker 1: of things that happened that will be in the movie
Speaker 1: within you know, just just us signing and us getting
Speaker 1: our deal and they throw us in the studio, they
Speaker 1: throw us in the studio and now it's it's really real.
Speaker 1: Would you say that about now it's really real because
Speaker 1: we got a major label record. Like, this ship is
Speaker 1: no joke anymore. Now it's like we've now, we've arrived.
Speaker 1: Now it's we're getting paid for what we do. We
Speaker 1: got paid in things. Oh mhm, everybody got cars. I
Speaker 1: was too young, So I got a bike. Okay, so
Speaker 1: I take that. At least I got a bike. Got
Speaker 1: a bike. I got a bike, right, And we got
Speaker 1: to you know, we lived in a crazy house. We
Speaker 1: had a fly house, were out in Diamond Bar at
Speaker 1: the time. Oh, don't be sad. We had a ball.
Speaker 1: We had we had we had a we had an
Speaker 1: absolute ball. And you know, now we're in the music
Speaker 1: business where it's really serious. And then we start seeing
Speaker 1: because he would take us and this is something that
Speaker 1: I appreciate to this day. He would take us into
Speaker 1: all the meetings. So I'm just listening. I was that kid.
Speaker 1: I wanted to listen. I didn't know what the ship
Speaker 1: meant at the time, but I was hearing those words.
Speaker 1: I was hearing publishing royalties, advanced, recooled like. I was
Speaker 1: hearing those words. It wasn't really connecting, but you heard
Speaker 1: those words. Yeah, when you do a deal at least
Speaker 1: at that time, they wanted everything that you recorded before
Speaker 1: you signed. So what Ryan Newton realized was, I can
Speaker 1: get another check on top of this triple advance I
Speaker 1: just got for old songs. So pops started getting old
Speaker 1: demos that we were on and just selling them the MCA.
Speaker 1: I'm talking about shit. That was because back then they
Speaker 1: never wanted old music to come out. They wanted to
Speaker 1: have everything you've ever done so they can own it
Speaker 1: in perpetuity, they can own it forever. They didn't want
Speaker 1: somebody popping up and saying, oh, we got a little
Speaker 1: you know, a little ep on the neutrons that were
Speaker 1: gonna drop too, so they would buy it all. They
Speaker 1: were giving him five thousand a song. They were giving
Speaker 1: him five thousand for every song he found that had
Speaker 1: our voices on it. So he find in all kind
Speaker 1: of shit.
Speaker 2: You can't tell a pimp that he pimped it, and.
Speaker 1: All of them actually Bob wrote them. No, I'm just
Speaker 1: you know, saying by the time, yeah, because he goes
Speaker 1: the other part. Now. They also have MCA Records, whose
Speaker 1: mother company is Universal, which has Universal Publishing. So what
Speaker 1: does Universal Publishing do for your dad? A pubs deal
Speaker 1: for Bob mc a laid it out for the Neutrons.
Speaker 1: I can say that when it all kicked off, they
Speaker 1: laid shit out bro like, and we were like the
Speaker 1: kids of the label. So we would just get to
Speaker 1: run up in there were running through everybody office Ron
Speaker 1: New taking niggas plaques.
Speaker 2: He actually we would be in there. He had keys
Speaker 2: or something.
Speaker 1: I feel like he had a key to the building. Bro.
Speaker 2: You know, we would go at night and there would
Speaker 2: be nobody there and Ron New would just tell us
Speaker 2: to just we was taking plaques off the walls, like
Speaker 2: we had new edition plaques we had.
Speaker 1: We didn't work on new audition pretty sure. Any heartbreak,
Speaker 1: Yeah a plaque name had a Bobby Brown plaque. Yeah yeah,
Speaker 1: that was my provative plaque off for Rocket Black. So two.
Speaker 2: Somebody had told him how to play the game tank
Speaker 2: about the budget. This is what jacked our album out,
Speaker 2: like somebody told him it had to be one of
Speaker 2: my old niggas bro from Motown or something. Remember, because
Speaker 2: he started meeting all of the the guys who were
Speaker 2: in but not in no more. The niggas that kind
Speaker 2: of had a foot had learned some ship, but nobody
Speaker 2: wasn't really fucking with him no more.
Speaker 1: They was his partners and he was learning the business
Speaker 1: from them.
Speaker 2: So he punked little Sidness and took over the budget.
Speaker 2: He's turning in songs. The nigga was out of control.
Speaker 2: Listen to me, Tank he he. If he would have
Speaker 2: let this man do his job.
Speaker 1: Right, we would have been huge, because it was. It
Speaker 1: was fully let out for us, Like I said, it
Speaker 1: was fully they got us anyway. He was. He was
Speaker 1: in competition. Louis was in competition with so he was like,
Speaker 1: I'm ready to throw the building. I'm ready to throw
Speaker 1: the building at it. And these kids are you know
Speaker 1: we had we had been fine too. If there was
Speaker 1: a version of the Marines for singers at that point,
Speaker 1: at that age, that was us, like we were, we
Speaker 1: were on it, and then they put us with brook
Speaker 1: pay the legendary.
Speaker 2: That's what I want to say to I ain't never
Speaker 2: got a chance to tell him this. As a ten
Speaker 2: year old, this nigga was cold. And when I say that,
Speaker 2: like he was this amazing, amazing singer, but he could
Speaker 2: sing and he could hold his own, but we had
Speaker 2: real routines. Next to Michael Jackson at ten, he was
Speaker 2: he didn't miss because we were doing intricate routines. You
Speaker 2: know what I'm saying, every beat had something and he
Speaker 2: ain't missed, That's what he's saying, like precision, like it
Speaker 2: was missed.
Speaker 1: He was amazing. We were in rehearsal. We were in
Speaker 1: serious rehearsal. I mean even when Brooke got us. Brooke
Speaker 1: was like all these kids, they really go after it,
Speaker 1: and we wasn't quitting and we would be trying to
Speaker 1: throw in all the little ship like I said that
Speaker 1: when little Steve was here, like trying to you know,
Speaker 1: because we love Troup, but we love new Addition. But
Speaker 1: then we love Bobby Brown, who told us he didn't rehearse, right.
Speaker 1: I remember, I remember we met him and Hard and
Speaker 1: Soul at the build I think it was at his plaque.
Speaker 1: They were giving him a plaque for selling a gazillion records.
Speaker 1: He's the king R and B at the time. And
Speaker 1: we asked him, were like, Bobby, like like what y'all
Speaker 1: be doing? Like the rehearsals in it him and Heart
Speaker 1: and Soul was like want be rehearsed? What like that? Bobby,
Speaker 1: I don't know, rehearse it. You niggas gonna rehearse what
Speaker 1: the big So we went back to rehearsal. But you know,
Speaker 1: we was working with did you at least get to
Speaker 1: from this situation bit to put out a record? So okay,
Speaker 1: we're speeding all this, all this tank, all this is
Speaker 1: happening in a matter of a year. Like all these
Speaker 1: things are happening. You know, people be on the shelf,
Speaker 1: all this kind of ship. They couldn't shell for us
Speaker 1: because ron New would not allow them to because there
Speaker 1: was some other shit that went on a little label
Speaker 1: that had nothing to do with us, some other groups
Speaker 1: that they were going to actually shove us for a minute,
Speaker 1: which we probably we probably still needed a little development,
Speaker 1: even though we had been in it so long on
Speaker 1: that level, we probably still needed some development. It wouldn't
Speaker 1: it wouldn't have hurt us, and we were still babies.
Speaker 1: We're still super young. But Ron k New had a
Speaker 1: clock in his head because I go back to he
Speaker 1: was on a round run, so he was fighting that
Speaker 1: so it was making him put more pressure on them
Speaker 1: to rush us. And at this point they had given
Speaker 1: him all this money. So when they told him we
Speaker 1: had to wait, he said, fuck y'all. Y'all found us
Speaker 1: a video director partner with him, put the money from this,
Speaker 1: from advances and all this other shit into the video
Speaker 1: himself spend fifty thousand dollars on our first video. He
Speaker 1: picked our single, My Heartbeat for You, was not supposed
Speaker 1: to be our single, and if any of you, you know,
Speaker 1: people go back to it and they're like, oh, Marg
Speaker 1: Beach us a great record. I hate that record. Honestly,
Speaker 1: I hate that record. It's not a kid's record, you
Speaker 1: know what I mean? It wasn't. We had so many
Speaker 1: records that were of the time, and you know, but
Speaker 1: ron Knut was like, you need a power ballad and listen,
Speaker 1: he come from he come from music, right, So that's
Speaker 1: what we were. Nigga. We put on a motherfucking you know,
Speaker 1: sparkly suit sequence and shit, and we had fake rain.
Speaker 1: We had motherfucking Wokie on the planet. Harp Nigga was
Speaker 1: a harp. Even a song. What wasn't I get a
Speaker 1: full ye full orchestra. I just knew it was a hard.
Speaker 1: I just knew it was a harp on the damn stage.
Speaker 1: And I'm like, why is this fucking harp on the stage?
Speaker 1: Man don't like harps to this day, no, nigga played
Speaker 1: hard with me, I might kick them up. So he
Speaker 1: was rushing them and they just gave in. But what
Speaker 1: I understand about the machine now and what I understand
Speaker 1: and what I learned then, was that they will show
Speaker 1: you why they're the machine. So he forced them, he
Speaker 1: forced their hand. We put the song out. The song
Speaker 1: is doing good. But the song is doing good because
Speaker 1: of how much work we were putting in. It wasn't
Speaker 1: like it was a radio record. It wasn't like, you
Speaker 1: know what I mean, we got a fucking power ballot.
Speaker 1: They're gonna play it on overnights. They're gonna play a
Speaker 1: ten year old in two fifteen year olds on a
Speaker 1: quiet storm. That's literally where we were falling. We were
Speaker 1: get overnight spins. But my father had the idea of like,
Speaker 1: fuck it, we just gonna hit the chitlinser, We're gonna
Speaker 1: hit the streets. So he put together his own promo
Speaker 1: along with the promo team, like a twenty six twenty
Speaker 1: six city tour of you know, high schools and malls,
Speaker 1: and you know that that's when they used to throw
Speaker 1: the kid acts at all of the you're doing the
Speaker 1: high school, you're doing in the middle school. You going
Speaker 1: to the boys club. Then you're gonna do autograph signing
Speaker 1: at the shoe store, and then we go go to
Speaker 1: the record store. Throw us out there when we get there.
Speaker 1: Were cooking. We're fucking cooking. We're cooking. He bought a
Speaker 1: he bought a camper. Bought a camper. For some reason,
Speaker 1: we never really got up to the tour bus thing.
Speaker 1: He would turn everything into a tour bus. So he
Speaker 1: gets a camper. He's still on the run. Us three manager,
Speaker 1: our sisters, the road manager, and our mother. And we
Speaker 1: got our dogs, and we got our dogs pee wee
Speaker 1: in August. But I skipped something that is very important
Speaker 1: that I've never spoke about before. You remember what I said.
Speaker 1: It was four of us, four brothers, when we got
Speaker 1: our opportunity to get our record deal. My brother Ron,
Speaker 1: our oldest brother, his mother's side, wanted to see the contract.
Speaker 1: You don't ask Ron new to see a contract. This
Speaker 1: is his kids, this is his thing, and you're lucky
Speaker 1: that he's asking you to come be a part of it.
Speaker 1: Be a part of it. So Ron don't get signed
Speaker 1: with us. In my opinion, it's our biggest mistake. One
Speaker 1: is our brother. You know, and you you family for us,
Speaker 1: so you know how we are like I have never
Speaker 1: met a family as close as us to this day,
Speaker 1: I've never met anybody close as we are. I mean
Speaker 1: that I've met. I'm sure there are families that are
Speaker 1: like us, but we really in the trenches together. We
Speaker 1: really rock out with each other. We still, you know,
Speaker 1: we love to see each other and hang out with
Speaker 1: each other. So I personally think, and I'll get back
Speaker 1: to that a little bit later, but I personally think
Speaker 1: that was our biggest mistake. Are my father's biggest mistake
Speaker 1: in music. Fuck all the other shit with the money
Speaker 1: and the deals and all that time, but Ron not
Speaker 1: being in our group, to me was our biggest mistake.
Speaker 1: So now it's three and you know, we're you know,
Speaker 1: we're got the record deal. Now we're on the road,
Speaker 1: the songs out, My Heartbeats for You is out, and
Speaker 1: all the old people love our shit because it's like
Speaker 1: it's old people music, you know what I'm saying, Like
Speaker 1: we make it grown up ass music. And then the
Speaker 1: kids love us because we look like them and we
Speaker 1: danceing and we singing and we just you know, we
Speaker 1: we a ball of fire going back to the label,
Speaker 1: showing you what the machine is about. When we get
Speaker 1: out there, we're selling out everywhere. We fucking we shut
Speaker 1: down be a mall in Oakland called up East My Mall.
Speaker 1: Five thousand kids, five thousands tell you they're scared to do.
Speaker 1: They pulled. They pulled my duct tail man til I'm like,
Speaker 1: get me out of here.
Speaker 2: We had a wall of security around us.
Speaker 1: It was so dope.
Speaker 2: Tony Tony, Tony is from Oakland. They never did that
Speaker 2: at East My Mother. They came to our autograph signing.
Speaker 2: It's something about kid you know what I mean.
Speaker 1: It's something about kid acts that it just connects because
Speaker 1: kids are never too cool. Ye, adults can get cool
Speaker 1: kids fast. Yeah. Man, they excited. Let's have it. They
Speaker 1: are excited when they see the artists that they up.
Speaker 1: They're excited. So they loved us and we was hometown heroes.
Speaker 1: We should do this video show out there called soul
Speaker 1: Beat So Beat. That's how that was like.
Speaker 2: The ghetto version of BT. Yeah, it was one dude
Speaker 2: that owned it from Oakland. And yeah, if you was
Speaker 2: cracking on so Bet.
Speaker 1: Because you was playing all day every day, sol Beat
Speaker 1: was home for us. They loved us. Right, and uh
Speaker 1: so we're going this. We're going this, uh promo run.
Speaker 1: What we realized when we get to the stores is
Speaker 1: one of the radio reps are one of the store
Speaker 1: people then told Ryan Newton that MCA Records ain't shipping
Speaker 1: our music. That was the lesson, like we put y'all out.
Speaker 1: It's not gonna win on our on our you know,
Speaker 1: on our time, not not why you're trying to control
Speaker 1: it so they would sell out, We sell it out
Speaker 1: around the country and not replish the store. Yeah, they
Speaker 1: can't get no more CDs in. We were going to
Speaker 1: autograph signings that we couldn't sign CDs because they were
Speaker 1: already sold out. So now they're trying to find those
Speaker 1: A body teams. We just signing those. But we can't
Speaker 1: sell no records. It's five thousand kids there. You can't
Speaker 1: sell nobody no music that can be fucked. So Royn
Speaker 1: Newp being Roy Newt, he gets on that phone. He
Speaker 1: going crazy, nigga, when I get back to LA and
Speaker 1: every threat you can imagine, and actually every promise you
Speaker 1: can imagine, these were not threats. Every promise that you
Speaker 1: can imagine. He was on his way home, so he
Speaker 1: pulls us off the road. We get home and he,
Speaker 1: you know, Louil won't meet with him because loul know
Speaker 1: is a promise. He will not meet with him. He
Speaker 1: is ducking. He is fully ducking. So one day Pop
Speaker 1: say we're going to We're going to m c A.
Speaker 1: Me and Ronnie like, we're going to. I don't know
Speaker 1: why you didn't go. I wasn't going. You went to bullshit.
Speaker 2: I wasn't with it at all. He was about to
Speaker 2: ruin it. I knew what he was about to do. Yeah, wait,
Speaker 2: but you you didn't jump too far ahead. You didn't
Speaker 2: tell him you was on Soul Train with Don Cornelius.
Speaker 1: You didn't tell him, so's Yeah, that's part of the
Speaker 1: m c A roll out. They you know, we got
Speaker 1: to do these really cool things. We got to do
Speaker 1: Soul trained Don Cornelius, the real, the real Soul Train
Speaker 1: with Yeah, we got to do video sol with Donnie Simpson.
Speaker 1: You know what I mean. We got They were really
Speaker 1: putting us in places to be successful from a from
Speaker 1: a promo sense. But we had an album out, not
Speaker 1: just a single, like My Heartbeat for You was out
Speaker 1: as a single, but the album was out, and they
Speaker 1: weren't reshipping it to one right, So no matter what,
Speaker 1: they just like the waters cut off and keep it shut.
Speaker 1: So now we're back in La. We do the whole run.
Speaker 1: We do the whole run. And when we get back,
Speaker 1: you know, we were taking this, we're taking this road trip.
Speaker 1: We're taking this road trip up to the MCA Records.
Speaker 1: That Vibe ain't fucking with this. I'm not going like
Speaker 1: he said, he's about to fuck it all up. I
Speaker 1: heard him on the phone. It's off with when you
Speaker 1: go up there, it's a rock. So we get up
Speaker 1: there and they're not letting us in. They always let
Speaker 1: us in at this point in the music business. I
Speaker 1: will credit him. Yeah, so other people will argue with
Speaker 1: me about what the rappers did, I will credit Ron
Speaker 1: Newt as the man that made record labels get security.
Speaker 1: Record labels then' us to have security. They just had it.
Speaker 1: They have receptionists. You could just get up on the
Speaker 1: floor if you got past receptionist. You know, I mean
Speaker 1: like it was. It was different. It wasn't like armed
Speaker 1: security in that whole day. And we go up to
Speaker 1: MCA Records and louis not coming out. They saying he's
Speaker 1: not there, and then his assistant at the time, a
Speaker 1: lady by the name of Denise Weathersby two years later
Speaker 1: gave me my first publishing did crazy at Warner Chapel Music.
Speaker 1: She was she ended up being a publisher. She brings
Speaker 1: out a copy of our next single. Our next single
Speaker 1: was the record we actually wanted to drop to be
Speaker 1: our first single. So me and Ronnie are excited. Nigga,
Speaker 1: they got the cover, they got the twelve inch. They
Speaker 1: showing it to us because one second single in his record,
Speaker 1: either mar Her Beach for You was his record, mar
Speaker 1: Beach for You was his record. He didn't own the
Speaker 1: second single. So we know the music business now, right,
Speaker 1: We all know the music business now. Niggas fighting for
Speaker 1: they single they record, you know what I mean. And
Speaker 1: he wasn't going and uh, a friend of his from
Speaker 1: the streets called him. It was like, come meet with me.
Speaker 1: Ron You're like, nigga, what they put him on the
Speaker 1: you know, they put him on the phone with him
Speaker 1: actually at the label. They put him on the phone
Speaker 1: when it's somebody that's on the phone for you, and
Speaker 1: it was, you know, one of his street guys. And
Speaker 1: we go meet with him and he tells my father
Speaker 1: don't go back up there. What do you mean, don't
Speaker 1: go back up there? You're like, no, Ron, this is
Speaker 1: your this is your patna telling you. This is not
Speaker 1: like me telling you threatening. You're like me, No, I'm
Speaker 1: telling you like it ain't gonna be good. Don't play
Speaker 1: with them people. Nah, they ain't even promise me. And
Speaker 1: b B blah blah blah blah blah. And you know
Speaker 1: Ryan knew, you know, had the artillery and all the
Speaker 1: shit that you know he wanted to go back up
Speaker 1: there with. And we go back up there, and when
Speaker 1: we get off it, when we get off the elevator,
Speaker 1: it's four men in suits. We've all seen enough movies.
Speaker 1: The fans, the fans are waiting for us. This is
Speaker 1: all the same day. It's not like we left one
Speaker 1: day came back. No, Ryan new when and took that
Speaker 1: thirty minute meeting at that gas station right there on Lancashire,
Speaker 1: right on the corner. Because MCAA Records used to be
Speaker 1: right where the hotels are now, right like right where
Speaker 1: I mean, not the hotels, but he used to be
Speaker 1: right there. He used to be a Bank of America
Speaker 1: that they used, and then MCA Records was in a
Speaker 1: building right there, and then that gas station right on
Speaker 1: Lancersham and Ventur gotcha exactly. So that's what we took
Speaker 1: our meeting, our street meeting, and went right around the corner,
Speaker 1: got off that elevator. It was like Ronnie Newton, he
Speaker 1: knew what it was. He was like, yeah, put that
Speaker 1: nigga in cuffs, and he's like my kids, and he
Speaker 1: was like, well, we figure out, you know what we're
Speaker 1: gonna do with them. So, like I said earlier, when
Speaker 1: Ronan Knew goes to jail, we all go to jail.
Speaker 1: We made them take us with them. We went to
Speaker 1: jail with him, not literally cuffing us, but we followed
Speaker 1: the police car as they put him in the car.
Speaker 1: Ronnie's driving, Ronnie don't got no license, and me and
Speaker 1: we knew it. We knew it was over in our minds.
Speaker 1: In our minds, we knew it was over. And it
Speaker 1: was the longest drive probably I've ever had from Universal
Speaker 1: City to Diamond Bar, which is what an hour, hour
Speaker 1: and a half hour, and at this point it's nighttime.
Speaker 1: She's me and Ronnie. He's sixteen, he's fifteen, sixteen, I'm
Speaker 1: ten eleven. Because it was like a year went by,
Speaker 1: we you know, doing the album, getting the deal. So yeah,
Speaker 1: I'm eleven, he's sixteen, And him and I had a
Speaker 1: conversation what we're gonna do next? What we you know
Speaker 1: what I mean, And you know what we're gonna tell mom,
Speaker 1: what we're gonna tell Bob. We're going to China, you
Speaker 1: know what I'm saying. Like, and we get home and
Speaker 1: now he's back in jail. They gotta process him. They
Speaker 1: gotta do that whole thing, and not maybe what a
Speaker 1: week they start. They sent paperwork, They sent paperwork stating
Speaker 1: that if we wanted to be on MCA Records, ron
Speaker 1: New couldn't be a part of it, could not be
Speaker 1: a part of it anymore. And it was finding us
Speaker 1: a new manager. They was finding us a new manager.
Speaker 1: Our budget was back, we was you know, they was
Speaker 1: gonna fix you know, get us back together. But you
Speaker 1: know it was gonna take some time to get all
Speaker 1: that going. But and and you know, we end up
Speaker 1: talking to to our dad in jail and he was like, listen,
Speaker 1: sign everything. I'll signed off because for him, he just
Speaker 1: needed to get us to that point. However he got
Speaker 1: us there. He needed to get us to that point.
Speaker 1: That was That was something that he had always dreamt of,
Speaker 1: giving us to a major record label, major deal. We
Speaker 1: on TV, we on soul training, we on video, so
Speaker 1: on BT. My kids are making it. I'll sign whatever
Speaker 1: y'all want me to sign. But then he also figured
Speaker 1: out a way to like put the new manager in place.
Speaker 1: He didn't do that. He did do that. He gotta
Speaker 1: atage control. And during that time, man our water was
Speaker 1: cut off though the new budget hadn't kicked in, and
Speaker 1: as we talk about on this podcast, Ryan Neu spent
Speaker 1: it all by the time he went to jail. No,
Speaker 1: when he.
Speaker 2: Says oh, he means all tame. Oh even our United posted.
Speaker 2: So for kids, it was supposed to be, yeah, money
Speaker 2: that can't be touched because we were under age.
Speaker 1: He touched that money. He touched that too, because he
Speaker 1: figured out his way into you know, talking to the
Speaker 1: people at the bank. He was connected to everybody because
Speaker 1: it's like his personality was so infectious that it didn't
Speaker 1: matter who he met, they worked for him. Now he
Speaker 1: worked for them. Whoever he met, they worked for him.
Speaker 1: He's gonna pimp everything and everybody. It's just what it was.
Speaker 1: And he was just so electric and his and his
Speaker 1: dreams was just so grand. It was like, man, this
Speaker 1: maybe he and he got these talented kids and his
Speaker 1: beautiful wife. You know what what you need Ronnie? That's
Speaker 1: literally like these were grown men, heads of banks, heads
Speaker 1: of labels, heads of legal What do you need, Ronnie?
Speaker 1: And he would he would find it, get to a bag,
Speaker 1: and he spent it. He spent it, all of it.
Speaker 1: The publishing deal, honey, the advanced money, it's gone, and
Speaker 1: he controlled the finances. So we don't know that. Once
Speaker 1: he goes to jail that day, we're officially broke. Literally,
Speaker 1: we're broke from that moment on it like fuck, what
Speaker 1: do we you know what I mean? So they're trying
Speaker 1: to fast track us, and they put us in the
Speaker 1: studio with Spider Man and Doctor Freeze. Spider Man and
Speaker 1: Freezer full of full of fact poison. They're coming off poison,
Speaker 1: so you already know what they're They love us m
Speaker 1: c A Records love. The look was different.
Speaker 2: We was gonna be the first ones they had us
Speaker 2: in hockey jerseys. We was about to go nuts town.
Speaker 1: We were we were, we were in the whole, We
Speaker 1: were in the space. Man. We now we're getting to
Speaker 1: wear Jordan's We're getting to wear the fly ship. We're
Speaker 1: getting to be kids and young niggas, and they're just
Speaker 1: they're throwing it at us. They have us in the
Speaker 1: studio and we're recording for the soundtrack of House Party
Speaker 1: two to put Jama Jammy jam that was supposed to
Speaker 1: be us Tank. So if you look at the movie,
Speaker 1: if you look at House Party two in the record store,
Speaker 1: you'll see when they go by the Neutrons album or
Speaker 1: Neutrons singing is either single or the album, it's the
Speaker 1: cover of us. Did you know that? Nope? In House
Speaker 1: Party two, about to go watch it to there's a scene, Jacob,
Speaker 1: if you can find it, there's a flash of our
Speaker 1: album of us in the movie. Because we were supposed
Speaker 1: to be in the movie because MCA controlled that soundtrack.
Speaker 1: Tony Tony Tony, our barrier brothers actually took our place
Speaker 1: in the movie. And the reason they took our place
Speaker 1: in the movie is because as we're recording for this soundtrack,
Speaker 1: our brother gets killed, and that goes back to them
Speaker 1: cutting our water off. He was fucked up, you know
Speaker 1: what I mean? We was fucked up. And Ronnie was
Speaker 1: always an extension of that he was his little hinchman.
Speaker 1: Yeah he was. He was an extension of our father.
Speaker 1: So he did what he, in a sense, knew best.
Speaker 1: He went to the streets. So Ronnie gets killed for
Speaker 1: people who don't know, he get killed Robin the liquor store.
Speaker 1: And you know, because he at this point, he's fully immersed.
Speaker 1: He's immersed in the streets. He's full street nigga. But
Speaker 1: we have a record deal. If we're going to the
Speaker 1: studio every day, and the day he got killed, our
Speaker 1: studio session got canceled. Engineer got sick, his parents got sick. Yeah,
Speaker 1: and our studio gets killed. Our studio, our studio day
Speaker 1: gets canceled. Because if not, we're at the studio, that
Speaker 1: doesn't happen. I mean, life is what it is. So
Speaker 1: you know, Ronnie was fully in it, so it could
Speaker 1: have happened anyway. But that's how that, you know, that's
Speaker 1: how it came crashing down and we literally had to watch,
Speaker 1: you know, our brother get killed. On National TV. They
Speaker 1: used to have a show called what was called hardcod Copy.
Speaker 1: The show called hard Copy. I'm eleven years old, bro
Speaker 1: turning twelve, sixteen, turning seventeen, and you know it comes
Speaker 1: on the screen and we got like news people outside
Speaker 1: our house. It's it's insane.
Speaker 2: Because it's looked at as a scandal too. Yeah, it's
Speaker 2: like you know what I'm saying. Kids on the Rise
Speaker 2: record deal goes out and robs the store and gets killed.
Speaker 1: It was on the news, so they were trying to like, oh,
Speaker 1: it was a gang initiation, and it was. It wasn't
Speaker 1: none of that. We was what they didn't realize. We
Speaker 1: were street niggas, plain and simple. He just couldn't get
Speaker 1: it out of him. And this wasn't anything like we would.
Speaker 1: Whatever city we went to, we find it. We was
Speaker 1: finding the hoods, we was finding we was fighting because
Speaker 1: at that age too, back then, we were like the
Speaker 1: first mixed niggas in the hoods, you know what I'm saying.
Speaker 1: Like that, like now it's like everybody mixed with something,
Speaker 1: you know what I mean. But other than de Barge
Speaker 1: where the Jets, the Jets, you know what I'm saying,
Speaker 1: you pick them out. Were live in all these cities.
Speaker 1: We were live in all these cities, and they would
Speaker 1: literally I remember kids asking me, especially in Indianapolis. A
Speaker 1: kid said to me, Nigga, what are you what am
Speaker 1: I I'm black. Nah, nigga, you ain't black. I'm nine
Speaker 1: years eight, nine years old. This is why I'm hearing.
Speaker 1: But that's really what it was. So after I punched
Speaker 1: him in his.
Speaker 2: Face, of course, of course I had to get off
Speaker 2: because that's the other thing.
Speaker 1: My daddy tolt us really early. Get off first, early,
Speaker 1: get off first, you know what I mean. Like we
Speaker 1: at one point we was the boxing We was the
Speaker 1: boys Club boxing team. Because ron knew was also golden gloves.
Speaker 1: He was nice with his hand and he was like,
Speaker 1: you know, I got these kids and his fucking hair.
Speaker 1: They got this hair and shiit know. When you our
Speaker 1: cousins would come to our house, everybody had to put
Speaker 1: the gloves on. We was fighting every day, was fighting
Speaker 1: each other. We was fighting, our cousins was getting to it.
Speaker 1: So we was just you know, it was aggressive guys
Speaker 1: man really early and me and Bob, especially Bob, and
Speaker 1: I think it's obviously because you know, Bob and Ronnie
Speaker 1: were paternal they were fraternal twins, and you know what
Speaker 1: they say, you know, it's just it's identical where they
Speaker 1: just acted like they talk like they sounded like then
Speaker 1: they got fraternal twins who were just like holer opposites,
Speaker 1: and Bob just wasn't with none of that ship man,
Speaker 1: and me I was in the middle of it because
Speaker 1: it was like I had Bob who was, you know,
Speaker 1: that voice of reason and not wanting to do none
Speaker 1: of that, and you know, want to sing and we're
Speaker 1: gonna be musicians. And then Ronnie like, nah, nigga, but
Speaker 1: we still street niggas. So I'm like in the middle
Speaker 1: of my two big brothers. And when Ronnie passed, you know,
Speaker 1: they fucking showed the whole thing on hard copy, and
Speaker 1: in a matter of another week or two, we went
Speaker 1: from this you know, five six bedroom, big ass house,
Speaker 1: swimming pool and you know in southern California to the project.
Speaker 1: Oh yeah, off the car. So we got to talk
Speaker 1: about what did you buy? Let's talk about in the nineties.
Speaker 2: By the way, he had a roy with the with
Speaker 2: the with the with the wheel on the right on
Speaker 2: the side, on the right side, the old that you
Speaker 2: know I'm talking about, the European he had that. Yeah, yes, yes, yes,
Speaker 2: the European. Yes, yeah, we had a we had a
Speaker 2: stretch limousine on things with mustard and man.
Speaker 1: Yeah yeah, yeah.
Speaker 2: Gold dates on it days. Yeah, he had a sixth
Speaker 2: series he I mean he said it was Yeah, I
Speaker 2: mean it was.
Speaker 1: I had a bike. It was good, and we're gonna
Speaker 1: go back to that car everywhere, back to that bike.
Speaker 2: Which also was a part of like from what he
Speaker 2: was saying, you know, like if anybody know that liveing
Speaker 2: in l a Is like keeping up with the Joneses.
Speaker 2: So one we had a record deal, Two we had
Speaker 2: this house. Three we had all these cars, but we
Speaker 2: didn't have no money.
Speaker 1: Mm hmm.
Speaker 2: So Ronnie felt like he was next man up, you
Speaker 2: know what I mean, and that he needed to go
Speaker 2: out and get it.
Speaker 1: Yeah, and got himself, got himself urt. Mm hmm. So
Speaker 1: in a matter of you know, a week or two,
Speaker 1: were back in San Francisco winning pro Jack. So when
Speaker 1: this happens, and you know, when you're talking about it
Speaker 1: just kind of you know, reminds me of a situation
Speaker 1: where when when it Lea passed, you know, you you
Speaker 1: you saw the how heartless the record company can be,
Speaker 1: her heartless the music business is altogether, and it wasn't.
Speaker 1: It was I think maybe a matter of days that
Speaker 1: everything that their money was connected to in terms of
Speaker 1: building was shut completely off. Yeah, yeah, no.
Speaker 2: They They sent us a letter Tank, which by the way,
Speaker 2: for me, was always really hard. And I never asked
Speaker 2: him like how it affected him, because again we had
Speaker 2: put in real work to get there, and so for years,
Speaker 2: I don't know if I tell him this, for years
Speaker 2: I was even mad at my twin, like, nigga, you
Speaker 2: threw it all away, like you how you you know
Speaker 2: what I'm saying, Like how you just you do that?
Speaker 2: Because like he said, we went from we had but
Speaker 2: you said, eighteen how many months? You said, Well, I'm
Speaker 2: talking about screaming girls, soul trained video soul, you know
Speaker 2: what I'm saying, tour, all of it.
Speaker 1: We did say no to drugs.
Speaker 2: It was ten thousand people Tank, ten thousand kids by
Speaker 2: the way, going nuts. And we went from that, like
Speaker 2: he said, to back to San Francisco again in the
Speaker 2: hood projects. Not to mention, we had just lost our
Speaker 2: brother and our group, remember who we had spent all
Speaker 2: our time from beginning from born to you know what
Speaker 2: I'm saying, right, and now he's gone and it's just
Speaker 2: me and him and were back in the hood, and
Speaker 2: now I got to keep him, you know what I'm saying.
Speaker 2: From from getting lost in the hood. You know what
Speaker 2: I'm saying, This nigga stealing bikes like he's wilding.
Speaker 1: But you had a bike, No, not in the hoodie didn't,
Speaker 1: so I did. I came with the bike. Oh you
Speaker 1: about your bike? I didn't know you about you the bike?
Speaker 1: The businessman because I needed money. But before we get
Speaker 1: to that, you're how old at this point? Twelve? Jesus Christ? Yeah,
Speaker 1: this is all happened before I'm a teenager. I'm not
Speaker 1: even I'm not a teenager yet.
Speaker 3: So are you are you able at this age to
Speaker 3: really process what's going on? Or are you able as like,
Speaker 3: since you're still a kid in the sense, you know,
Speaker 3: pick up and kind of move on quickly and just
Speaker 3: roll with the punches because you are our young Is
Speaker 3: there are these things really affecting you at this time?
Speaker 1: Yes and no, because I was just so used to
Speaker 1: things going left, because that's what that was our life.
Speaker 1: We up, Pops got the bread, Then the door get
Speaker 1: kicked in by the police. We up. Can somebody snitch
Speaker 1: on Pops? Now you're in jail. We get a record deal?
Speaker 1: Rynie get killed, our first writing Dad go back to jail,
Speaker 1: didn't write, get killed? Like these were just and numerous
Speaker 1: things amongst you know, along the way. So it was
Speaker 1: kind of part for the course of this is what
Speaker 1: life is. I didn't know that that wasn't everybody's lives.
Speaker 1: I thought everybody go through this wild shit until I
Speaker 1: got older and I'd be telling you stories and you'd
Speaker 1: be like, nah, Joe, you didn't tell the time you
Speaker 1: got kidnapped, right right. So it's like, you know, I
Speaker 1: think that it's for me a gift and a curse
Speaker 1: because I just knew how to adapt to the worst
Speaker 1: things that you could possibly throw at me. So now
Speaker 1: we're back in the hood. I'm a hood nigga, So
Speaker 1: give me cause you're back in the hood at eleven.
Speaker 1: At this point do you decide, Hey, the music business
Speaker 1: was what it was us and the streets is what
Speaker 1: it is. And if that's the case, at what point
Speaker 1: do you say, I think I need to get back
Speaker 1: to this music ship. Oh yeah, I was out. I
Speaker 1: was out because in the beginning, music was it wasn't
Speaker 1: my first love. It wasn't my love at all. It
Speaker 1: was a chore. It was Bob's love. My dad. Look
Speaker 1: at to be a kid. Now I get to be
Speaker 1: a kid, and as we all know, being a kid
Speaker 1: in the hood is actually fucking fun. What Bob Bobby Look,
Speaker 1: But Boble's becoming But you're also becoming a young man,
Speaker 1: so it's different for you.
Speaker 2: Hey, all the hood niggas is looking at me weird.
Speaker 2: They loved him, but I was competition.
Speaker 1: Yeah, I'm fully you know what I'm saying.
Speaker 2: They rolling by and they you know what I'm saying.
Speaker 2: All these are all the top drug dealers are my age.
Speaker 1: But all the bras is like, Bob is here, you
Speaker 1: know what I'm saying on TV?
Speaker 2: What Yeah, and he's still bobbed, you know what I'm saying,
Speaker 2: And so they get I didn't.
Speaker 1: Even know why they was giving me. Look so he
Speaker 1: fit in.
Speaker 2: I was at the boys club every day, like I
Speaker 2: was playing basketball. I was plus, I was already beyond
Speaker 2: the hood ship.
Speaker 1: I was already like that. It's some bullshit. He loved it.
Speaker 2: He with his little cousins and they they doing.
Speaker 1: All the crazy shit. I gotta tell.
Speaker 2: But see still because ron Knew is still in jail
Speaker 2: right now. So the only day he got his knee,
Speaker 2: the only person to look out for him and make
Speaker 2: sure he don't go all the way left and get killed.
Speaker 2: Like my twin is me to make sure. So I
Speaker 2: would all the hood niggas that did mess with me.
Speaker 2: I'll be like, if y'all see that little nigga on
Speaker 2: the block, punch him in his chest and get him.
Speaker 1: Off the block. Shout out to Black Higwie, Black Highwie.
Speaker 1: That was my guy. It was like a track star
Speaker 1: from our hood. I would I would see him and
Speaker 1: I would run and I would think that I got away,
Speaker 1: but by the time I got there, he was already there.
Speaker 1: He was literally a track start the niggas like the
Speaker 1: fast nigga I have ever seen in my life. It
Speaker 1: was already and you punched me to the chest stone
Speaker 1: cold athlete, and I had to go home. And I'm
Speaker 1: gonna tell Bob Nigga. Yeah, I used to want to
Speaker 1: tell Bob. You want to tell Bob right right, I'm
Speaker 1: in the middle of dice games and the old gie
Speaker 1: niggas just loved me Bro like before they before, like
Speaker 1: the robber nigga they used to rob all the dice
Speaker 1: games before would robbed the dice game. He was telling
Speaker 1: me to get my money and leave. It was already
Speaker 1: getting tamped on the shoulder.
Speaker 2: I'm like, it's sweet, but also tell them also like
Speaker 2: we so we never really realized how.
Speaker 1: The protection, the raw new protection. Yeah, that was real.
Speaker 2: It was like a shadow of a boogeyman that was
Speaker 2: always in San Francisco where man and we could fight niggas,
Speaker 2: we could do what we could really get away with
Speaker 2: it whatever.
Speaker 1: To be honest, because of they didn't want the consequences
Speaker 1: of him coming. Yeah, we had a I would say
Speaker 1: the three part family that all comes from our great
Speaker 1: grandmother and grandfather. The Newts that branched off had multi
Speaker 1: you know, families and kids. It's called the Newts, the Tatums,
Speaker 1: and the Beasleys. If you're from the Bay Area, you
Speaker 1: know what that means. If you're from San Francisco, you
Speaker 1: really know that, you really know what that means. And
Speaker 1: it's a lot of us, just with the Newt last names,
Speaker 1: over one hundred of us. We're gonna be around forever.
Speaker 1: R and B Money. R and B Money is a
Speaker 1: production of the Black Effect podcast Network. For more podcasts
Speaker 1: from iHeartRadio, visit the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever
Speaker 1: you listen to your favorite shows. Don't forget to subscribe
Speaker 1: to and rate our show, and you can connect with
Speaker 1: us on social media at Jay Valentine and at the
Speaker 1: Real Tank. For the extended episode, subscribe to YouTube, dot com, forward,
Speaker 1: slash r, and b money