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Speaker 1: Quest Love Supreme is a production of iHeart Radio, Ladies

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Speaker 1: and Gentlemen. It's another episode of Quest Love Supreme. I'm

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Speaker 1: your host Quest Love. We have the Almighty Team Supreme

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Speaker 1: with us bon Tikolo Brother.

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Speaker 2: How's it been going.

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Speaker 3: I'm good man, I'm doing yoga.

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Speaker 2: Nice.

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Speaker 3: Hey, y'all to Flo Bro, I'm out here.

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Speaker 4: We down with dog and Pigeon posing on all of

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Speaker 4: your old niggasa.

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Speaker 2: That's nice, all right? Cool? Cool?

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Speaker 1: We Particulo is going to get is told. We've passed it.

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Speaker 1: Go past eighty maybe to ninety or one hundred.

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Speaker 5: Yes, I'm taking you to BIMs from taking hot yoga.

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Speaker 3: I know, yo yoga. How about album with you? Yeah?

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Speaker 2: Yeah, that's what's up, y'all.

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Speaker 1: Steve as as Steve Slice's cigarette.

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Speaker 6: I'm doing yoga too. How to start a Yet, everything's cool.

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Speaker 2: Working on a lot of stuff you're doing.

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Speaker 1: I don't know in your mind if it's like mocking

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Speaker 1: or not mocking, like with the network and all that.

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Speaker 1: But I got to say, in the last three weeks,

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Speaker 1: but you're doing like major, major, major shit, Like you're

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Speaker 1: not just like doing like RINKYDNK Jazz records. Like I

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Speaker 1: almost feel like you're out here trying to save jazz music.

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Speaker 2: Like, well, what's been going on? Man?

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Speaker 6: We got a lot of records coming out. It's Jmi's

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Speaker 6: name of the label. We're coming up on twenty Records.

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Speaker 6: It's been like five years that we've been around and

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Speaker 6: finally got you on the label. Recently we're mixing that

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Speaker 6: record with David Murray and Ray Angry and yeah, I'm

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Speaker 6: not Well, there's a lot of great jazz labels out

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Speaker 6: there obviously still doing it, but we're doing it all

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Speaker 6: analog with tape and never touching digital in any way.

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Speaker 6: So we I can't find another label that's doing it

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Speaker 6: like that, where it's completely purest in old school like that.

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Speaker 6: So yeah, we're proud of it. And you know what

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Speaker 6: else is turning five years old? The Sugar Network, Wait

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Speaker 6: network is five years old, that's correct this month?

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Speaker 2: Where you started in twenty eighteen.

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Speaker 6: Yeah, yeah, started shortly after course up Supreme.

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Speaker 1: It's a movement, man. The Sugar Network is the Army

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Speaker 1: better yet the Navy.

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Speaker 6: Well, it's like a little fan club for the for

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Speaker 6: this podcast. Basically that's how it's That's how it started,

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Speaker 6: but it's expanding.

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Speaker 1: It absolutely is all right, wait, so just let me know, JMI,

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Speaker 1: is your logo at least close to the CTI label,

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Speaker 1: like there are.

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Speaker 6: Some similarities to we stole some of some of their

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Speaker 6: design aspects for our stuff, but not not the logo specifically.

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Speaker 2: All right, but yeah, keep it tr we keep it

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Speaker 2: old school.

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Speaker 5: Uh.

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Speaker 2: How's it going.

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Speaker 5: Oh it's going good. I'm I got the flu, but

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Speaker 5: I don't want to miss speech. So you got yeah,

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Speaker 5: you know, talking to a bunch of niggas doing Grammy weekend.

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Speaker 5: I'll make you sick trying to book people. But in

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Speaker 5: the good news, Oh quest love supreme Honey. I was

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Speaker 5: on the strip with my leg and my skirt up, like,

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Speaker 5: come on, nas, come on Leslie Jones like yep.

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Speaker 2: Soies might just visit.

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Speaker 5: But he said he would. He said to me he would.

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Speaker 5: He said to me, Yeah, I went to.

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Speaker 2: Oh, okay, that's what's up. That's what's up. Well, ladies

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Speaker 2: and gentlemen, I will say that, you know.

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Speaker 1: Uh. This interview is close to my heart because as

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Speaker 1: a founder leader of one of the most legendary groups

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Speaker 1: and hip hop, a group really really responsible for laying

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Speaker 1: out the carpet for a group like the Roots to

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Speaker 1: come down and be able to have a career.

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Speaker 2: I will say that, you know, this gentleman has.

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Speaker 1: Pretty much made a profound impact on the music industry

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Speaker 1: just with the level of I guess the first wave

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Speaker 1: of black Joy. Like we weren't using terms like black

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Speaker 1: Joy back in nineteen ninety two, nineteen, you know, we

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Speaker 1: just basically called it alternative rep. But it's almost like

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Speaker 1: I never liked the term alternative rep because Lauren Hill

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Speaker 1: once told me that alternative rep just means like no skills,

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Speaker 1: and you know that's definitely not the case. You know,

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Speaker 1: besides being one of two people in the hip hop

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Speaker 1: field that have won Best New Artist for the Grammys.

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Speaker 2: As far as hip hop winning Best New Artist, I.

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Speaker 1: Will say that his group's debut album really just set

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Speaker 1: a high water mark for just music period, just a feeling,

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Speaker 1: definitely a blueprint that I followed, and it's this conversation

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Speaker 1: is seriously long overdue. Ladies and gentlemen, Please welcome to

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Speaker 1: Quest Left Supreme. I don't know if we ever had

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Speaker 1: a one title person before, because I'm used to saying

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Speaker 1: like the full name, I don't want to say Welcome.

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Speaker 1: Todd Thomas Oh, professionally known Oh. You know, I'm trying

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Speaker 1: to make it like you're a dignitary or or a

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Speaker 1: head of state, not just like I'm not trying to

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Speaker 1: be the popole. Please welcome speech to quest Left Supreme.

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Speaker 1: Thank you man, yo, yo, that that.

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Speaker 7: All of these words very much mean the world to me.

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Speaker 7: I appreciate it. Man. It's good to be here. It's

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Speaker 7: been a minute. Man, it's been a minute.

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Speaker 1: It's been a good minute. It's been a good Yeah.

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Speaker 1: In fact, where are you talking to us right now?

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Speaker 1: From where are you at?

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Speaker 7: This is my studio.

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Speaker 8: I call it the podium, and I'm at my crib,

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Speaker 8: so all my property. I have a separate building and

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Speaker 8: it's my studio. So I'm in here.

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Speaker 2: And the Georgia Ok.

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Speaker 7: Yeah, stay with Georgia Fayetteville area.

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Speaker 1: Yep, So you've stayed in Georgia that that entire time

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Speaker 1: of your.

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Speaker 7: Since yeah, since nineteen eighty seven.

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Speaker 2: Yo. Didn't we meet in Milwaukee?

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Speaker 1: I know that you have roots in Milwaukee, but I'm

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Speaker 1: trying to figure out if I met you in Milwaukee once.

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Speaker 8: You guys were rocking the show at Summerfest, which is

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Speaker 8: one of the largest music festivals in the world. Actually,

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Speaker 8: and I sell roasted corn at Summerfest. My father opened

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Speaker 8: up a hot roasted corn stand business at Summerfest forty

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Speaker 8: six years ago. And so my wife and I have

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Speaker 8: been doing that business. Well, I was working at it

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Speaker 8: since I was nine years old, but my wife and

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Speaker 8: I started working that business taking it over for my

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Speaker 8: dad for probably I'm going to say sixteen years or so.

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Speaker 8: So one year the roots was rocking, I want to say,

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Speaker 8: on the Miller stage, in one of the stages. Yeah,

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Speaker 8: at Summerfest. And I came backstage and hung out with

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Speaker 8: y'all while you were there.

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Speaker 1: All right, So I'm totally just going to throw away

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Speaker 1: my initial questions because now you piqued my curiosity because

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Speaker 1: I too, am in the food world. But I gotta know, like,

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Speaker 1: how do you maintain that business?

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Speaker 8: My dad he was trying to get his foot in

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Speaker 8: the door because we're the one and only black owned

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Speaker 8: food company in Summerfest, and Summerfest is huge.

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Speaker 7: I can't say that enough.

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Speaker 8: So and so basically he wanted to get his foot

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Speaker 8: in the door. They were offering soul food as an option,

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Speaker 8: so on and so forth. But he was just studying

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Speaker 8: the landscape and realized that roasted corn would kill for

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Speaker 8: the audience that tended to go to Summerfest at that time,

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Speaker 8: and so he was going in as a roast corn

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Speaker 8: business and it started off literally bananas, like so many

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Speaker 8: people were into it, like you were describing the dude

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Speaker 8: that was outside of SOB's. It was lines around the

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Speaker 8: block for this corn. And not to mention a black

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Speaker 8: man selling it. All black workers creating his corn, roasting

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Speaker 8: his corn, which is a big production, like unlike the

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Speaker 8: dude that was on the streets, ours was a very

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Speaker 8: big production. So we had tons of basically six seven

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Speaker 8: hundred degree roasters that were lined up and we would

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Speaker 8: put the corn on these big metal sheets and then

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Speaker 8: turned the corn over on one side was done, and

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Speaker 8: it was a production to watch as well, and people

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Speaker 8: just loved it. And so as a nine years old,

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Speaker 8: from that point on, I started doing it, just working there.

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Speaker 8: And then you know, when I got old enough and

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Speaker 8: my father was too old to run it, my queen

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Speaker 8: and I took it over.

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Speaker 2: And so or is he a chef by nature or no,

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Speaker 2: not at all.

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Speaker 8: In fact, he learned how to roast it the best

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Speaker 8: that he could, and it was just dope.

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Speaker 7: Everybody loved it.

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Speaker 8: And it was way above any competitors at other, you know,

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Speaker 8: state fairs, because Milwaukee also has a state fair which

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Speaker 8: is really big, was way bigger than the people that

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Speaker 8: sold it there. So everybody just started falling in love

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Speaker 8: with Robbie's roasted corn. And that was my dad, whose

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Speaker 8: name is Robert. Yeah, so he started that whole tradition.

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Speaker 7: Yeah.

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Speaker 8: No, not on a stick, no, no, You roast it

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Speaker 8: in a roast on a roaster, and then you pull

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Speaker 8: back the husk and you let that husk you hold

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Speaker 8: the hust, so you keep the hust.

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Speaker 7: You know a lot of people take the husk off

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Speaker 7: Mexican style exactly.

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Speaker 8: And you hold that husk and then you wrap a

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Speaker 8: paper towel around it.

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Speaker 7: You dip it.

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Speaker 8: We dip it in butter, like literally a crock pot

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Speaker 8: full of butter. We dip it in there. And then

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Speaker 8: we have various seasonings, you know what I mean, from

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Speaker 8: anything from lemon pepper to Mexican style, which is like

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Speaker 8: a mayonnaise and so on and so forth, rubbed on it.

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Speaker 2: It's better than fried chicken, it really is.

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Speaker 7: Actually, it's incredible. It's incredible.

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Speaker 1: Yeah, it's just a local phenomenon. You guys never expanded

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Speaker 1: outside of Milwaukee.

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Speaker 7: Or not in a huge way, not yet.

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Speaker 8: Like we strive to get into Disney World and stuff

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Speaker 8: like that, and just we're unsuccessful doing that. But the

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Speaker 8: truth is is that we've done like Atlanta, which is

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Speaker 8: where I live. We've done Chicago, So this is regional

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Speaker 8: to where we're sort of based out of.

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Speaker 7: But we haven't taken it national or anything like that.

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Speaker 5: Bruce Picnic, twenty twenty four.

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Speaker 2: That's what I'm saying. But even at that, consider it done.

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Speaker 7: I would do that for real. Shit, all right, you

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Speaker 7: know what I'm saying.

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Speaker 2: Are you growing your own corn? Do you have a farm?

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Speaker 7: No?

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Speaker 1: I know there's a music podcast, but I'm just really interested.

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Speaker 7: And I get it. I get it. We source our

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Speaker 7: corn from different growers.

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Speaker 8: So obviously corn is very seasonal, so we try to

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Speaker 8: make sure we get the best corn. We try to

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Speaker 8: get a mixture of white and yellow corn, and so

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Speaker 8: it's really really delicious and it's just it's more flavorful

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Speaker 8: than your normal yellow corn. And so we get it

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Speaker 8: sourced from different producers and you know, farmers and stuff

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Speaker 8: like that.

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Speaker 1: Oh his mind is yeah, I'm because I I mean,

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Speaker 1: I just purchased a farm. I don't have plans on

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Speaker 1: utilizing it as a farm farm farm. Yes, there's a

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Speaker 1: greenhouse to grow like vegetables and whatnot, but that's just

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Speaker 1: like my personal consumption. But again, because I'm getting into

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Speaker 1: the alternative food space and all those things, and you know,

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Speaker 1: not to mention, there's a brother from Milwaukee actually, Will

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Speaker 1: Allen basically pioneered inner city urban farming and kind of

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Speaker 1: really like what was the pioneer of that? He got

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Speaker 1: a MacArthur's Genius Grant for doing it, and I became

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Speaker 1: friends with his daughter, and you know, I thought it

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Speaker 1: was silly. They're like, yo, man, no, we need to

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Speaker 1: teach our people how to farm, how to because you know,

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Speaker 1: and I'm a result of it.

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Speaker 2: Like growing up in Philadelphia, I.

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Speaker 1: Didn't realize that, you know, we had go outside to

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Speaker 1: the suburbs. We had to go to Upper Darby to

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Speaker 1: find fresh fruits, organic food, right.

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Speaker 2: You don't have that in the inner city.

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Speaker 1: And so that's what made me interested in plant based

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Speaker 1: foods and developing that and not like, you know, I

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Speaker 1: think people are tend to thinking like we want to

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Speaker 1: replace it or whatever. Yes, granted, yes, I know, Patrick

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Speaker 1: from impossible foods wants to replace you know, meat, which right,

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Speaker 1: yea more power to I truly, I believe in twenty

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Speaker 1: years what we know is food now will be phased

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Speaker 1: out and will be like plant based. But yeah, I'm

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Speaker 1: just really interested when people get into the alternative space

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Speaker 1: for those things.

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Speaker 8: Yeah, totally totally shout out to Milwaukee. That's dope.

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Speaker 1: Okay, so dope, yes, absolutely, Now I'll get it back

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Speaker 1: to my real question.

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Speaker 2: What was your very first musical memory?

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Speaker 8: I would I would say it was seeing the Jackson

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Speaker 8: five show on Saturday mornings. That was probably my first

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Speaker 8: musical memory. And watching Michael Jackson and the Jackson five

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Speaker 8: that cartoon slash. I think they might have had like

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Speaker 8: real scenes as well, so I think it was a mixture.

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Speaker 2: Well it was, Yeah, it was a cartoon.

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Speaker 7: And then they had a variety show too, so.

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Speaker 1: Right, the Variety Show of seventy seven. I just found

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Speaker 1: out that when the Silvers moved from Tennessee to Los Angeles,

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Speaker 1: you know, they the Silvers, you know, they had variety

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Speaker 1: as a singing group. They've been singing together since they

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Speaker 1: were kids. But when they got to Hollywood, one of

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Speaker 1: the first jobs that two of the Brothers had. One

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Speaker 1: of the brothers in the Silvers was the voice of Jackie.

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Speaker 2: And I believe, I believe Jermaine.

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Speaker 1: Yeah, Jackie and Jermaine were voiced by members of the Silvers.

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Speaker 5: Yeah.

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Speaker 7: See, I did not know that.

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Speaker 1: That is something that we never mentioned that on the

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Speaker 1: Leon Silvers episode. Yeah, I think it was Edmund and

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Speaker 1: Ricky Silvers. I believe, I believe it was them. Yeah,

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Speaker 1: so wow, could you tell me the very first album

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Speaker 1: that you purchased with your own money, not given to you?

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Speaker 8: But yeah, yeah, Well I don't remember the Joy with

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Speaker 8: my own money, but I remember my grandmother gifting me

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Speaker 8: a forty five of Michael Jackson.

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Speaker 7: Well was it the Jackson five? It was damn what

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Speaker 7: was that song.

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Speaker 8: Down to the Ground Shake your body down to the ground?

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Speaker 8: That was probably.

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Speaker 7: Yeah.

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Speaker 8: That was my first like memory of having a record

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Speaker 8: that was my own, you know what I'm saying.

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Speaker 7: So I didn't buy it, but I owned it.

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Speaker 8: It was my record, Like that was the beginning of

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Speaker 8: my record collection and it was just a forty five.

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Speaker 7: Yeah.

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Speaker 2: What did your parents do for a living?

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Speaker 8: My mom, both of them are active, my mom and

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Speaker 8: my mom is the owner of the largest black newspaper

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Speaker 8: in Wisconsin. It's called the Milwaukee Community Journal. So that's

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Speaker 8: my mom. My dad is an entrepreneur in any way.

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Speaker 8: So he started gas stations, he started catering businesses, the

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Speaker 8: first black owned fast food restaurant in Milwaukee. He started

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Speaker 8: a nightclub called the Fox Trap, which turned into an arcade,

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Speaker 8: and so you know, he was just a serial entrepreneur.

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Speaker 8: He never owned all those things at one time, but

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Speaker 8: he would do this business for a while that he

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Speaker 8: would transfer to this business and that business.

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Speaker 7: So that's what my mom and dad both did.

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Speaker 1: Yeah, well, I want to know how easy is it

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Speaker 1: or how easy was it for black entrepreneurs to start

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Speaker 1: a business, because you know, for most of us, you

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Speaker 1: start a business first of all by getting.

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Speaker 2: A bank loan.

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Speaker 1: And usually for a lot of people that I hear

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Speaker 1: talking about, you know, post civil rights experience for black people,

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Speaker 1: you know, a lot of the Jim Crowing attitudes three

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Speaker 1: nineteen sixty eight were still happening, you know, long after,

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Speaker 1: like way into the seventies, way into the eighties. Even

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Speaker 1: one of the funniest stories I ever heard was George Johnson,

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Speaker 1: who you know, started the Johnson Hare Empire in Chicago,

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Speaker 1: you know, they single handedly funded soul trade, you know,

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Speaker 1: with the after scene commercials and all that stuff. So

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Speaker 1: he tells the story of going to at least twenty

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Speaker 1: banks in Chicago and getting rejected by them all when

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Speaker 1: he wants to start a business, and I believe he

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Speaker 1: says that his uncle told him, I'm going to show

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Speaker 1: you how to buck the system. I want you to

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Speaker 1: return to blah blah blah blah blah bank. And instead

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Speaker 1: of saying that you want to borrow two thousand dollars

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Speaker 1: to start a business, say you want to want to

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Speaker 1: borrow two thousand dollars to take your wife on vacation.

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Speaker 7: Wow.

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Speaker 2: And they did it.

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Speaker 1: Wow Wow again like that, you know, like we don't

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Speaker 1: talk about probably the main gripe of the systematic racism

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Speaker 1: in the United States is the rampant denial of bank

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Speaker 1: loans to start businesses exactly.

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Speaker 2: And so how is your dad.

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Speaker 1: Able to start all these businesses? Because you know, I've yeah,

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Speaker 1: this is a rare situation for me to hear someone

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Speaker 1: that has like a dream and it goes in fruition

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Speaker 1: and manifested itself.

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Speaker 8: Yeah, I'm glad you asked that they pulled money together

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Speaker 8: from other black families and people, and so that was

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Speaker 8: their startup money.

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Speaker 7: And then my mother, she was a school teacher.

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Speaker 8: And so after the riots of doctor Martin Luther King

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Speaker 8: Junior being murdered, there was riots in Milwaukee, or of

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Speaker 8: course across the nation, but in Milwaukee as well, and

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Speaker 8: they were they looted and destroyed a lot of the

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Speaker 8: black businesses. Well, while those black businesses were striving to

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Speaker 8: get back on their feet and got back on their feet,

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Speaker 8: they needed somebody to advertise the fact that they were

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Speaker 8: open again and ready for business. And the major newspapers

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Speaker 8: in Wisconsin were refusing to cover these stories. So they

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Speaker 8: asked my mother to put together a pamphlet. Initially she

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Speaker 8: did it. It's called the Soul City Shopper, and she

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Speaker 8: was just doing it for free. Her goal was to

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Speaker 8: try to get people in the community to realize that

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Speaker 8: these stores were back open.

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Speaker 7: That started to happen.

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Speaker 8: Other black people that had a little bit of money

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Speaker 8: scraped it together and helped them to start what's now

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Speaker 8: called the Milwaukee Community Journal.

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Speaker 7: My dad used that money to.

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Speaker 8: Start his first business, which was a small gas station,

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Speaker 8: and when that did pretty well, he used that money.

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Speaker 8: So you get where I'm going with this to start

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Speaker 8: his business, and he was the most in nineteen eighty

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Speaker 8: he was one of the most successful black business people,

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Speaker 8: well business people, not black people, business people in Milwaukee.

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Speaker 8: But when he got to that level, the city literally

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Speaker 8: systemically destroyed him tax wise, and they came after him.

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Speaker 8: They targeted him. He had a huge target on his back,

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Speaker 8: and they destroyed most of his businesses. My mom, on

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Speaker 8: the other hand, was able to keep hers and move forward,

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Speaker 8: but his he didn't have businesses. I would say past

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Speaker 8: I'm going to say, like nineteen eighty seven, my dad

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Speaker 8: didn't have any other businesses that he was able to

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Speaker 8: do in Milwaukee. That's how bad they put him into

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Speaker 8: bankruptcy tax issues that he had to fight all the

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Speaker 8: money with lawyers. They spent tons of money trying to

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Speaker 8: fight all of these things and just you know, fell

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Speaker 8: under water. It actually destroyed my mom and dad's marriage

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Speaker 8: at that time. So, I mean, all of these things

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Speaker 8: obviously have effects, you know what I mean.

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Speaker 1: Wow, I would think owning a newspaper would be seen

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Speaker 1: more as a threat than starting an independent business. On

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Speaker 1: your mom's sided, things like how was she able to

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Speaker 1: run that community?

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Speaker 7: The segregated mind state.

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Speaker 8: We weren't literally segregated, but the segregation mind state really

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Speaker 8: played a big role in her being able to sustain

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Speaker 8: because the major newspapers refused to give coverage to a

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Speaker 8: lot of the black stories, black death, black achievements, black joy.

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Speaker 8: As you said earlier, her paper was that sole resource

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Speaker 8: for quite a while and then later And that's the

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Speaker 8: same by the way, with my father's drive through restaurant,

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Speaker 8: he had called Robbie's and McDonald's.

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Speaker 2: Name all of his businesses. Again I know it, And so.

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Speaker 8: At that time period, McDonald's was afraid to have drive

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Speaker 8: throughs in the black community. They didn't want to do it.

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Speaker 8: They had some locations, but they refused to open a

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Speaker 8: drive through. Well, my father use that their refusal as

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Speaker 8: an opening to start a business that did have a

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Speaker 8: drive through. Of course, just like any other people, black

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Speaker 8: people needed convenience on their way to work. They wanted

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Speaker 8: to grab something to eat, go to work, so on

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Speaker 8: and so forth, and his business took off.

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Speaker 7: So it was basically.

397
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Speaker 8: Their own ignorance and their own refusal to serve black

398
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Speaker 8: people that.

399
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Speaker 7: Allowed my mom and dad both to have a career.

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Speaker 1: Is your entire family based in Milwaukee or just like

401
00:21:31,200 --> 00:21:32,280
Speaker 1: your mom and dad Like.

402
00:21:32,920 --> 00:21:36,280
Speaker 8: No, So, my my father's family is from Tennessee, and

403
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Speaker 8: then my mother's family is from East Saint Louis. So

404
00:21:39,760 --> 00:21:42,600
Speaker 8: they both came to Milwaukee. For exactly, are you from

405
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Speaker 8: East St.

406
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Speaker 7: Louis?

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Speaker 5: My mama is from Saint Louis.

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Speaker 1: From everywhere, I learned something new every episode. I did

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Speaker 1: not know you had Saint Louis roots.

410
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Speaker 5: Oh yeah, yeah, all that stuff. I'm sorry ahead, So no.

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Speaker 7: It's all good.

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Speaker 8: So then they came to Milwaukee and I met each

413
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Speaker 8: other during college years, and you know, so there was

414
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Speaker 8: some family there. But you know, back in these days,

415
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Speaker 8: there was this huge diversion from the from the South

416
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Speaker 8: to the Midwest to the West because of lack of

417
00:22:12,119 --> 00:22:15,200
Speaker 8: job opportunities and so factories were opening in the Midwest

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Speaker 8: and that's why, you know, Milwaukee was one of the

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Speaker 8: places that was on our radar back then as black people.

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Speaker 1: Yeah, ill, all right, I got this is a two

421
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Speaker 1: party one. What year did you leave Milwaukee?

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Speaker 8: Nineteen eighty seven, the year I graduated high school? So

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Speaker 8: I left literally a week after I graduated.

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Speaker 7: I came to Atlanta.

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Speaker 1: All right, Now, Part two that question is and this

426
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Speaker 1: is weird that you leave Milwaukee for Atlanta, in which

427
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Speaker 1: the unfortunate commonality thread of the two cities is that

428
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Speaker 1: both cities are well known for U two horrific crimes. Oh okay,

429
00:23:00,840 --> 00:23:05,800
Speaker 1: go ahead, No, two horrific crimes against groups of black people,

430
00:23:06,880 --> 00:23:10,040
Speaker 1: of course, the Atlanta child murderers and Jeffrey do Jeffrey.

431
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Speaker 5: Forgetting Milwaukee right Milwaukee?

432
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Speaker 1: And I, you know, I didn't know until the Netflix

433
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Speaker 1: series that he started back in nineteen seventy eight, Like

434
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Speaker 1: I thought this was happening like.

435
00:23:23,840 --> 00:23:26,480
Speaker 2: Around like ninety eighty nine, ninety ninety one, But I

436
00:23:26,480 --> 00:23:30,159
Speaker 2: didn't realize that his process was way slower.

437
00:23:30,160 --> 00:23:34,080
Speaker 1: But did I never had a chance to interview anyone

438
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Speaker 1: from Milwaukee that you know or know many black people

439
00:23:37,240 --> 00:23:40,800
Speaker 1: from Milwaukee, So I'm asking you to represent your entire

440
00:23:41,119 --> 00:23:45,920
Speaker 1: city here. But did you, like, did you have any

441
00:23:46,000 --> 00:23:50,480
Speaker 1: family that was affected by what was happening with with

442
00:23:50,640 --> 00:23:53,760
Speaker 1: Dahmer at the time, or like was that even in

443
00:23:53,920 --> 00:23:57,919
Speaker 1: the news, like were they reporting like missing black people

444
00:23:58,160 --> 00:24:01,040
Speaker 1: or or is this just like another murdered this week?

445
00:24:03,080 --> 00:24:05,880
Speaker 7: No? No, it was definitely a huge story in Milwaukee.

446
00:24:05,960 --> 00:24:08,919
Speaker 8: And my dad lived in the same complex, not in

447
00:24:08,960 --> 00:24:12,280
Speaker 8: the same like area that Dahmer lived as Dahmer.

448
00:24:12,720 --> 00:24:14,800
Speaker 7: So when my mother and father.

449
00:24:14,640 --> 00:24:17,639
Speaker 8: Divorced, his apartment was there, and so it was a

450
00:24:17,760 --> 00:24:20,040
Speaker 8: very big issue when we found out about it, when

451
00:24:20,080 --> 00:24:23,640
Speaker 8: it became big news and nationwide news. As a family,

452
00:24:23,720 --> 00:24:26,680
Speaker 8: we were affected in the sense of knowing dad was there.

453
00:24:27,200 --> 00:24:30,720
Speaker 7: You know, my father was there. So wow, Yeah, it

454
00:24:30,840 --> 00:24:32,359
Speaker 7: was a very very big deal.

455
00:24:32,800 --> 00:24:35,320
Speaker 8: It wasn't just one of those sort of like things like, oh,

456
00:24:35,359 --> 00:24:36,440
Speaker 8: something's happening over there.

457
00:24:36,520 --> 00:24:38,639
Speaker 7: No, it was definitely. And by the way, Milwaukee is

458
00:24:38,760 --> 00:24:41,680
Speaker 7: very black. So like Milwaukee in the.

459
00:24:41,600 --> 00:24:44,199
Speaker 2: City, yeah, we just think of Laverne and Shirrely in

460
00:24:44,200 --> 00:24:45,119
Speaker 2: Happy Days.

461
00:24:45,119 --> 00:24:46,160
Speaker 7: Exactly, exactly.

462
00:24:46,240 --> 00:24:49,080
Speaker 8: No, the city itself, I believe, I want to say,

463
00:24:49,119 --> 00:24:51,840
Speaker 8: it's sixty or so percent black. So if you go

464
00:24:51,880 --> 00:24:54,920
Speaker 8: to Milwaukee, the city itself, because you know, like like Georgia,

465
00:24:54,960 --> 00:24:57,960
Speaker 8: I know, people come down to Georgia. Georgia is one thing,

466
00:24:58,000 --> 00:25:00,960
Speaker 8: but Atlanta is another thing, right, and so it's the

467
00:25:01,000 --> 00:25:04,960
Speaker 8: same difference with Milwaukee, and it's a very black, black,

468
00:25:05,000 --> 00:25:05,920
Speaker 8: black city.

469
00:25:05,880 --> 00:25:08,879
Speaker 7: Yeah, so Milwaukee, I'm going to talk about Atlanta.

470
00:25:09,000 --> 00:25:14,919
Speaker 8: Milwaukee was a very like the difference the disparities between

471
00:25:14,960 --> 00:25:17,800
Speaker 8: black and white people is is and.

472
00:25:18,040 --> 00:25:19,800
Speaker 7: Was so crystal clear Milwaukee.

473
00:25:20,400 --> 00:25:25,879
Speaker 8: Most Milwaukee Black populations were either poor or lower middle

474
00:25:25,880 --> 00:25:29,640
Speaker 8: class somewhere in there. And white people, on the other hand, had,

475
00:25:29,880 --> 00:25:33,680
Speaker 8: you know, a much better shot at being able to

476
00:25:33,760 --> 00:25:36,199
Speaker 8: rise up the ladder in America in a sense. And

477
00:25:36,240 --> 00:25:39,520
Speaker 8: so when I left Milwaukee in nineteen eighty seven, right

478
00:25:39,520 --> 00:25:41,720
Speaker 8: out of high school, I came to Atlanta, and for

479
00:25:41,760 --> 00:25:47,000
Speaker 8: the first time in my life, I saw black affluence

480
00:25:47,359 --> 00:25:53,120
Speaker 8: and people being able, just black opportunity, black diversity, conscious

481
00:25:53,160 --> 00:25:56,280
Speaker 8: blacks over here with daishiki's and locks and stuff like that,

482
00:25:56,359 --> 00:25:58,160
Speaker 8: and corporate blacks over there.

483
00:25:58,200 --> 00:25:59,920
Speaker 7: I mean that type of way.

484
00:26:00,040 --> 00:26:01,680
Speaker 2: Wait, yeah, so that was in Atlanta.

485
00:26:02,160 --> 00:26:03,920
Speaker 7: That was in Atlanta nineteen eighty seven.

486
00:26:04,000 --> 00:26:05,280
Speaker 2: I'll be very honest with you.

487
00:26:06,040 --> 00:26:09,960
Speaker 1: I had a few friends and family members in Atlanta

488
00:26:09,960 --> 00:26:14,480
Speaker 1: at the time, and really before the Renaissance, which I

489
00:26:14,760 --> 00:26:18,080
Speaker 1: kind of I mean between you and like Bobby Brown, really,

490
00:26:18,160 --> 00:26:20,920
Speaker 1: Bobby Brown was the first person I heard, like, wait,

491
00:26:21,359 --> 00:26:23,800
Speaker 1: the success yet with this album, you're moving to Atlanta,

492
00:26:23,840 --> 00:26:26,800
Speaker 1: Georgia instead of like Baldwin Hills and all that stuff.

493
00:26:27,520 --> 00:26:28,800
Speaker 2: I just always wanted to.

494
00:26:28,720 --> 00:26:33,439
Speaker 1: Know, like, like I thought, y'all created what we were

495
00:26:33,520 --> 00:26:35,840
Speaker 1: know as the bojo lifestyle because I just thought, like,

496
00:26:36,440 --> 00:26:37,480
Speaker 1: they're the pioneers of that.

497
00:26:37,560 --> 00:26:38,639
Speaker 2: But you're saying that you.

498
00:26:38,560 --> 00:26:42,399
Speaker 1: Saw the def alternative bojo scene in Atlanta.

499
00:26:42,800 --> 00:26:43,000
Speaker 2: Yeah.

500
00:26:43,080 --> 00:26:45,920
Speaker 8: Yeah, So the West end of Atlanta, right, it's an

501
00:26:46,000 --> 00:26:50,359
Speaker 8: area where there's a lot, well, especially before it got

502
00:26:50,400 --> 00:26:57,119
Speaker 8: regentrified more recently, it was a very cultural landmark in

503
00:26:57,160 --> 00:27:02,720
Speaker 8: Atlanta where you had you know, African priests and African

504
00:27:02,800 --> 00:27:07,480
Speaker 8: dance companies and teaching about the importance of drumming and

505
00:27:07,520 --> 00:27:11,720
Speaker 8: the importance of language through music and mathematics through music.

506
00:27:11,760 --> 00:27:14,960
Speaker 8: Like these types of things were being taught and spoken

507
00:27:15,000 --> 00:27:17,840
Speaker 8: of in the West into particular, which is where arrested

508
00:27:17,840 --> 00:27:21,560
Speaker 8: development was really born in Atlanta. Like me and my

509
00:27:21,640 --> 00:27:24,520
Speaker 8: brother Headliner, who you know, was the first person I

510
00:27:24,560 --> 00:27:25,480
Speaker 8: asked to be in the group.

511
00:27:26,600 --> 00:27:27,440
Speaker 7: He used to cut hair.

512
00:27:27,480 --> 00:27:31,240
Speaker 8: I call him Headliner because he was incredible at barbering,

513
00:27:31,359 --> 00:27:34,040
Speaker 8: like the man. And then of course you had all

514
00:27:34,040 --> 00:27:37,600
Speaker 8: of these HBCUs there, right, So you have Spelman, Morehouse,

515
00:27:37,640 --> 00:27:41,080
Speaker 8: Clark Atlanta University, so on, and so Morris Brown. So

516
00:27:41,600 --> 00:27:44,639
Speaker 8: all of that area was bubbling with culture and with

517
00:27:45,320 --> 00:27:51,159
Speaker 8: revolutionary you know, ideas and visions. So yeah, yeah, definitely,

518
00:27:51,760 --> 00:27:57,920
Speaker 8: I think people who would later see Arrested Development, they

519
00:27:57,960 --> 00:27:59,639
Speaker 8: would know, like if they were in that area, they

520
00:27:59,640 --> 00:28:02,439
Speaker 8: would know that we we came from that sort of

521
00:28:02,520 --> 00:28:06,119
Speaker 8: frame of mind, but I will say we added the

522
00:28:06,200 --> 00:28:09,560
Speaker 8: more rural aspects, so like what you're talking about as

523
00:28:09,600 --> 00:28:12,680
Speaker 8: far as the need, you know, when you said my

524
00:28:12,760 --> 00:28:16,720
Speaker 8: man will Allen was a pioneer in the sense of

525
00:28:16,840 --> 00:28:19,680
Speaker 8: us getting back to the land and understanding the importance

526
00:28:19,680 --> 00:28:23,960
Speaker 8: of land growth. That's the tip Arrested Development in particular

527
00:28:24,160 --> 00:28:27,120
Speaker 8: was on just trying to take us back to that route.

528
00:28:27,119 --> 00:28:30,639
Speaker 8: So our videos were on purposely that kind of energy.

529
00:28:30,640 --> 00:28:33,240
Speaker 8: If you remember the Tennessee video and people every day,

530
00:28:33,600 --> 00:28:36,520
Speaker 8: it was always in that rural South, just to be

531
00:28:36,560 --> 00:28:39,440
Speaker 8: able to bring us back to that, you know, that

532
00:28:39,600 --> 00:28:44,560
Speaker 8: eco self determination, you know, saying grow our own food,

533
00:28:44,720 --> 00:28:46,520
Speaker 8: do our own thing, type of energy.

534
00:28:47,040 --> 00:28:48,200
Speaker 2: Do you hear you describe it?

535
00:28:48,560 --> 00:28:51,640
Speaker 1: I would assume that your parents weren't were they musically

536
00:28:51,760 --> 00:28:52,560
Speaker 1: inclined at all?

537
00:28:52,680 --> 00:28:54,000
Speaker 2: Or did you have siblings?

538
00:28:54,760 --> 00:28:58,520
Speaker 7: So yeah, I did. I had a brother brother, Yeah,

539
00:28:58,560 --> 00:28:59,360
Speaker 7: my brother Terry.

540
00:28:59,560 --> 00:29:04,040
Speaker 8: And then my mom was big on adoption and on fostering,

541
00:29:04,640 --> 00:29:09,480
Speaker 8: So throughout my childhood my mom would foster numerous kids

542
00:29:09,720 --> 00:29:13,520
Speaker 8: and then one of them that she actually adopted was

543
00:29:13,560 --> 00:29:16,920
Speaker 8: from Acra Ghana. His name was Bright Bulleting, so he

544
00:29:16,960 --> 00:29:20,480
Speaker 8: lived with me as a child. And yeah, so I

545
00:29:20,560 --> 00:29:24,640
Speaker 8: did have siblings. No, my parents weren't particularly into music.

546
00:29:24,680 --> 00:29:27,320
Speaker 8: But I will say my dad being an entrepreneur when

547
00:29:27,320 --> 00:29:30,120
Speaker 8: he started his club, it was called the Fox Trap,

548
00:29:30,360 --> 00:29:32,720
Speaker 8: one of the hottest clubs in Milwaukee at the time,

549
00:29:33,560 --> 00:29:36,960
Speaker 8: I started falling in love with DJing at that time.

550
00:29:37,000 --> 00:29:40,440
Speaker 8: I was thirteen, and I became a DJ at that

551
00:29:40,560 --> 00:29:43,680
Speaker 8: club because of just falling in love with music. So

552
00:29:43,680 --> 00:29:46,520
Speaker 8: I wouldn't say he taught me from like being musically inclined,

553
00:29:46,840 --> 00:29:50,080
Speaker 8: but getting all those promo records back in the day

554
00:29:50,120 --> 00:29:52,600
Speaker 8: because as a nightclub he would get promo records from

555
00:29:52,680 --> 00:29:56,000
Speaker 8: all the major labels. So you know, I remember you

556
00:29:56,120 --> 00:30:00,520
Speaker 8: posting recently about Yellow Magic Orchestrue, right, And I remember

557
00:30:00,640 --> 00:30:04,000
Speaker 8: I remember getting you know, vinyl from those days. They

558
00:30:04,080 --> 00:30:05,800
Speaker 8: used to poke a hole in the bottom of it

559
00:30:05,960 --> 00:30:09,440
Speaker 8: to say that it was promotional college. Yeah, and so

560
00:30:09,840 --> 00:30:12,920
Speaker 8: I would get Vinyl and my dad, not knowing about music,

561
00:30:12,960 --> 00:30:17,160
Speaker 8: would ask me to basically curate what his DJs would

562
00:30:17,160 --> 00:30:20,120
Speaker 8: play that night. So I was like always digging into

563
00:30:20,560 --> 00:30:23,880
Speaker 8: the Crates, you know, as they say. So, yeah, I

564
00:30:23,880 --> 00:30:26,680
Speaker 8: think that's where I was sort of taught music in

565
00:30:26,720 --> 00:30:29,280
Speaker 8: a in a in a sense was through that as

566
00:30:29,360 --> 00:30:32,640
Speaker 8: opposed to them teaching me, you know, them having musically

567
00:30:32,640 --> 00:30:33,840
Speaker 8: inclined skills, you know what I mean.

568
00:30:33,880 --> 00:30:35,320
Speaker 5: Why did you leave Milwaukee in the first place.

569
00:30:35,960 --> 00:30:41,200
Speaker 8: The opportunity was very rare Milwaukee, Like, no one had

570
00:30:41,320 --> 00:30:45,040
Speaker 8: made it out of Milwaukee except for Aljio before us.

571
00:30:46,000 --> 00:30:46,720
Speaker 2: He's from Milwake.

572
00:30:46,760 --> 00:30:49,000
Speaker 7: Milwaukee. Yeah, he's from Milwaukee.

573
00:30:49,240 --> 00:30:57,200
Speaker 8: And so it was much later later yeah wait who yeah,

574
00:30:57,240 --> 00:30:57,680
Speaker 8: so that's.

575
00:30:58,040 --> 00:31:00,680
Speaker 4: Yeah on Amazon. I you should check it out. Yeah

576
00:31:00,760 --> 00:31:01,960
Speaker 4: yeah yeah.

577
00:31:02,480 --> 00:31:05,880
Speaker 8: So you know, so like at that time, nobody was

578
00:31:05,920 --> 00:31:09,680
Speaker 8: making it from Milwaukee. Eric Banaa's from Milwaukee. That was later,

579
00:31:10,000 --> 00:31:11,200
Speaker 8: you know what I'm saying. So there was a lot

580
00:31:11,200 --> 00:31:14,600
Speaker 8: of things that was later, but at that time there

581
00:31:14,640 --> 00:31:17,960
Speaker 8: was nobody making it. There was no opportunities. I used

582
00:31:18,000 --> 00:31:21,480
Speaker 8: to tour Detroit to try to spend time with Jan Atkins.

583
00:31:21,520 --> 00:31:24,240
Speaker 8: I'm sure you're familiar with Wan Atkins. Oh yeah, yeah,

584
00:31:24,280 --> 00:31:27,920
Speaker 8: so like wine act music got electronic music god.

585
00:31:27,760 --> 00:31:29,479
Speaker 2: So like wait, he was nice to you.

586
00:31:29,840 --> 00:31:30,840
Speaker 7: He was very nice to me.

587
00:31:30,880 --> 00:31:32,720
Speaker 8: In fact, he liked my group at the time, which

588
00:31:32,760 --> 00:31:35,479
Speaker 8: was before arrested development called attack, and so that was

589
00:31:35,600 --> 00:31:39,040
Speaker 8: like the closest opportunities we had was like Detroit, you

590
00:31:39,040 --> 00:31:41,680
Speaker 8: know what I mean. And obviously in hip hop even

591
00:31:41,680 --> 00:31:43,400
Speaker 8: Detroit wasn't on yet, you know what I mean.

592
00:31:43,720 --> 00:31:44,800
Speaker 7: Chicago wasn't on.

593
00:31:44,760 --> 00:31:48,640
Speaker 5: Yet, So Atlanta wasn't either though really no it wasn't.

594
00:31:48,680 --> 00:31:51,520
Speaker 8: But Atlanta had much more opportunity than Milwaukee. So that's

595
00:31:51,560 --> 00:31:54,440
Speaker 8: why I chose Atlanta. Plus I wanted to be in

596
00:31:54,520 --> 00:31:58,560
Speaker 8: the South, like I spent all my summers with my

597
00:31:58,640 --> 00:32:01,960
Speaker 8: grandmother in Tennessee, and I fell in love with the South.

598
00:32:02,000 --> 00:32:03,640
Speaker 7: I fell in love with the whole idea of the.

599
00:32:03,600 --> 00:32:07,720
Speaker 8: South, especially the nature aspect, not obviously, you know, oppression

600
00:32:07,720 --> 00:32:10,920
Speaker 8: of slavery, you know, not that, but like the realities

601
00:32:10,960 --> 00:32:15,440
Speaker 8: of land ownership and self determination, of growing your own food,

602
00:32:16,320 --> 00:32:19,920
Speaker 8: exchanging food from one household to another. So if you

603
00:32:19,920 --> 00:32:23,080
Speaker 8: didn't have money, which my grandmother didn't, she still had

604
00:32:23,120 --> 00:32:26,240
Speaker 8: everything because the next door neighbor had college, and the

605
00:32:26,280 --> 00:32:28,120
Speaker 8: other neighbor had you.

606
00:32:28,000 --> 00:32:30,920
Speaker 7: Know, sugar, and the other neighborhod yams and meat.

607
00:32:31,320 --> 00:32:35,600
Speaker 8: And so it was this self determined community or communal

608
00:32:35,800 --> 00:32:39,720
Speaker 8: of the South that I fell in love with you know.

609
00:32:40,480 --> 00:32:42,880
Speaker 1: I feel like that's progressive thinking because I would just

610
00:32:42,920 --> 00:32:48,120
Speaker 1: think in the late eighties, like everyone I knew was

611
00:32:48,760 --> 00:32:52,680
Speaker 1: still trying to migrate to the north, especially where hip

612
00:32:52,680 --> 00:32:56,800
Speaker 1: hop was going. I meanmained to pre himself like moved

613
00:32:56,840 --> 00:32:59,840
Speaker 1: to New York City. And you know, it wasn't until

614
00:32:59,880 --> 00:33:03,880
Speaker 1: like you know, the kind of gentrification and outsource or

615
00:33:03,920 --> 00:33:08,360
Speaker 1: not even outsourcing, but just the overpricing of city living

616
00:33:08,640 --> 00:33:11,040
Speaker 1: is now made a reverse where now people are, yeah,

617
00:33:11,040 --> 00:33:16,320
Speaker 1: people are coming considering back down south now. So all right,

618
00:33:16,520 --> 00:33:22,440
Speaker 1: so now that you're in Atlanta, what are well, what

619
00:33:22,600 --> 00:33:27,200
Speaker 1: was your first musical experience in terms of starting a

620
00:33:27,240 --> 00:33:29,560
Speaker 1: band or or starting a group.

621
00:33:29,640 --> 00:33:33,040
Speaker 8: And yeah, so I came to Atlanta to go to

622
00:33:33,080 --> 00:33:35,600
Speaker 8: school because I sucked a school in Milwaukee.

623
00:33:35,600 --> 00:33:38,120
Speaker 7: I graduated with a zero point nine average, which is

624
00:33:38,160 --> 00:33:39,040
Speaker 7: a big time.

625
00:33:39,000 --> 00:33:43,160
Speaker 8: Fight exactly, that's under f you know what I'm saying,

626
00:33:44,160 --> 00:33:47,800
Speaker 8: that's a g And so so I came to Atlanta

627
00:33:47,920 --> 00:33:50,640
Speaker 8: because the Art Institute of Atlanta was the only school

628
00:33:50,680 --> 00:33:52,200
Speaker 8: that I had applied to that would.

629
00:33:52,000 --> 00:33:53,480
Speaker 7: Allow me to come.

630
00:33:53,800 --> 00:33:55,960
Speaker 8: And I even had to write a letter of acceptance

631
00:33:55,960 --> 00:33:57,640
Speaker 8: there to tell them that I was going to change

632
00:33:57,640 --> 00:33:59,320
Speaker 8: my tune, so and so forth. So the first week

633
00:33:59,360 --> 00:34:02,000
Speaker 8: I got there, I put up a flyer because I

634
00:34:02,000 --> 00:34:04,720
Speaker 8: wanted to start a crew, and I was a DJ,

635
00:34:05,160 --> 00:34:05,720
Speaker 8: but I was.

636
00:34:05,760 --> 00:34:07,560
Speaker 7: Rapping more and more and more.

637
00:34:07,760 --> 00:34:10,279
Speaker 8: So I put up a flyer for a DJ, and

638
00:34:10,440 --> 00:34:13,440
Speaker 8: I hung it up at the lunch counter area, you

639
00:34:13,440 --> 00:34:16,920
Speaker 8: know where people were, you know, hanging out, and his

640
00:34:17,000 --> 00:34:20,600
Speaker 8: brother named Tim Barnwell later Headliner, was looking at the

641
00:34:20,600 --> 00:34:23,000
Speaker 8: flyer and so I said, Yo, you know, my name

642
00:34:23,080 --> 00:34:26,040
Speaker 8: is Speech blah blah blah, and we just connected from

643
00:34:26,120 --> 00:34:29,360
Speaker 8: there and then we just started doing music vibing. I

644
00:34:29,400 --> 00:34:32,200
Speaker 8: started working for a brother named Butch Winston at Kiss

645
00:34:32,200 --> 00:34:34,799
Speaker 8: one oh four as the DJ because back then, you know,

646
00:34:34,920 --> 00:34:37,759
Speaker 8: DJ's not every dj knew how to scratch, you know

647
00:34:37,800 --> 00:34:39,239
Speaker 8: what I mean. So a lot of DJs we was

648
00:34:39,280 --> 00:34:42,040
Speaker 8: still mixing old school where it was the record faded

649
00:34:42,080 --> 00:34:44,520
Speaker 8: out and the next record faded in, but it wasn't

650
00:34:44,560 --> 00:34:46,399
Speaker 8: on beat and all that. You know, this is early

651
00:34:46,480 --> 00:34:49,520
Speaker 8: years of hip hop. So you know, I was a

652
00:34:49,600 --> 00:34:51,680
Speaker 8: DJ that actually knew how to scratch. I was studying

653
00:34:51,760 --> 00:34:54,960
Speaker 8: DST and you know all of these types of cats,

654
00:34:55,040 --> 00:34:56,600
Speaker 8: you know, Jazzy Jeff, you know what I mean.

655
00:34:56,680 --> 00:34:58,320
Speaker 7: And so on and so forth.

656
00:34:58,680 --> 00:35:01,759
Speaker 1: You said you went your reduce yourself to the tempt

657
00:35:01,840 --> 00:35:05,680
Speaker 1: headliner as speech. How did you what Keith tell us

658
00:35:05,719 --> 00:35:07,759
Speaker 1: the origins of you choosing that name?

659
00:35:08,640 --> 00:35:12,040
Speaker 7: Yeah, so I in Milwaukee when I DJ, I was

660
00:35:12,160 --> 00:35:15,000
Speaker 7: named DJ Peach p E E C H.

661
00:35:15,160 --> 00:35:17,920
Speaker 8: And it's because of the size of my head and

662
00:35:17,960 --> 00:35:20,279
Speaker 8: the light skinned complexion and you know, saying like that

663
00:35:20,360 --> 00:35:23,440
Speaker 8: kind of vibe being extra nice.

664
00:35:23,360 --> 00:35:27,840
Speaker 2: And was taken already.

665
00:35:26,840 --> 00:35:29,240
Speaker 7: Exactly, and LL cool J was taken already.

666
00:35:29,320 --> 00:35:29,520
Speaker 2: Yeah.

667
00:35:29,520 --> 00:35:31,759
Speaker 8: By the way, we're both scorpios, me and LL but

668
00:35:32,120 --> 00:35:33,320
Speaker 8: both of us are named Todd.

669
00:35:33,360 --> 00:35:34,640
Speaker 7: Both of us are named Todd. Well.

670
00:35:35,719 --> 00:35:38,440
Speaker 8: So, yeah, so I I put an in front of

671
00:35:38,520 --> 00:35:41,479
Speaker 8: Peach when I started rhyming, and to me, I wanted

672
00:35:41,520 --> 00:35:43,759
Speaker 8: to rebrand myself. I knew I was going to the

673
00:35:43,760 --> 00:35:45,680
Speaker 8: Peach state and I didn't want to be known as

674
00:35:45,800 --> 00:35:46,400
Speaker 8: m C Peach.

675
00:35:46,440 --> 00:35:48,359
Speaker 7: I thought that was why. And so I was like, okay,

676
00:35:48,400 --> 00:35:50,520
Speaker 7: let me put an S in front of it. Now

677
00:35:50,520 --> 00:35:51,680
Speaker 7: it makes sense. I'm rhyming.

678
00:35:51,760 --> 00:35:54,200
Speaker 8: Now I'm doing the you know, I'm letting the DJ

679
00:35:54,320 --> 00:35:57,880
Speaker 8: sort of go to the background and my DJ and

680
00:35:57,880 --> 00:36:00,560
Speaker 8: I should say, go to the background of my movement and.

681
00:36:01,080 --> 00:36:02,719
Speaker 7: Let me take speech. So I just put ans in

682
00:36:02,760 --> 00:36:03,320
Speaker 7: front of peach.

683
00:36:04,120 --> 00:36:07,839
Speaker 1: Hip hop wise before you go to Atlanta, who were

684
00:36:07,920 --> 00:36:12,200
Speaker 1: you sort of I guess more attracted to you in

685
00:36:12,320 --> 00:36:15,200
Speaker 1: terms of like where hip hop was at the time.

686
00:36:15,520 --> 00:36:17,520
Speaker 1: I mean, there was kind of a West Coast or whatever,

687
00:36:17,560 --> 00:36:20,640
Speaker 1: but like what was hip hop in Milwaukee at the time.

688
00:36:21,120 --> 00:36:24,440
Speaker 8: Well, Milwaukee was interesting because we liked all of it.

689
00:36:24,600 --> 00:36:28,040
Speaker 8: So we liked world class rerecing crew from the West Coast,

690
00:36:28,239 --> 00:36:31,000
Speaker 8: We liked Egyptian lover from the West Coast, but we

691
00:36:31,040 --> 00:36:34,200
Speaker 8: loved house music from neighboring Chicago, you know, saying, so

692
00:36:34,239 --> 00:36:37,479
Speaker 8: we were heavy on house music, but we loved DC

693
00:36:37,640 --> 00:36:39,760
Speaker 8: and the go go scene. We loved hip hop obviously

694
00:36:39,800 --> 00:36:43,480
Speaker 8: from the whole East Coast New York. So we liked

695
00:36:43,520 --> 00:36:45,719
Speaker 8: all of it. And as a DJ, I played all

696
00:36:45,760 --> 00:36:48,239
Speaker 8: of that, you know what I mean. So I liked

697
00:36:48,280 --> 00:36:50,920
Speaker 8: all of it like that. I think that was the

698
00:36:51,520 --> 00:36:55,279
Speaker 8: unique sort of entry for me musically, and my musicality

699
00:36:55,400 --> 00:36:58,200
Speaker 8: was such that all of it to me was dope

700
00:36:58,320 --> 00:37:00,760
Speaker 8: as opposed to just one or two groups that really

701
00:37:01,200 --> 00:37:03,279
Speaker 8: sort of dictated my direction or what.

702
00:37:03,200 --> 00:37:05,759
Speaker 7: I thought was ill. I liked all of it, you

703
00:37:05,800 --> 00:37:07,480
Speaker 7: know what I mean. It was all dope to me.

704
00:37:08,440 --> 00:37:14,120
Speaker 1: So in going to Atlanta for you, like, how how

705
00:37:14,160 --> 00:37:19,760
Speaker 1: do you take it from a social connection to Okay,

706
00:37:20,040 --> 00:37:23,760
Speaker 1: let's let's see we have something here as a musician.

707
00:37:24,280 --> 00:37:25,840
Speaker 2: First of all, did you break your promise to the

708
00:37:25,920 --> 00:37:28,080
Speaker 2: art school? Did you finish? You did?

709
00:37:28,120 --> 00:37:28,720
Speaker 7: I finished?

710
00:37:28,960 --> 00:37:29,160
Speaker 2: Okay?

711
00:37:29,239 --> 00:37:29,960
Speaker 7: Yeah, I finished.

712
00:37:29,960 --> 00:37:32,879
Speaker 8: I finished with a three point three, mind you, which

713
00:37:32,920 --> 00:37:34,560
Speaker 8: I totally repented.

714
00:37:34,640 --> 00:37:36,400
Speaker 7: You know what I'm saying. I came back.

715
00:37:36,520 --> 00:37:38,600
Speaker 5: I came back doing something that you liked.

716
00:37:38,640 --> 00:37:42,279
Speaker 7: So yeah, well it's funny I was doing something I liked.

717
00:37:42,280 --> 00:37:46,600
Speaker 8: But I'll be honest, it really was my black consciousness

718
00:37:46,600 --> 00:37:49,640
Speaker 8: that made me do well at school because I wanted

719
00:37:49,640 --> 00:37:53,319
Speaker 8: to be excellent as a black man, Like that was

720
00:37:53,400 --> 00:37:55,360
Speaker 8: my That was really my intention.

721
00:37:55,640 --> 00:37:58,320
Speaker 7: Like I felt like I wasn't.

722
00:37:58,080 --> 00:38:00,719
Speaker 8: Being excellent prior, and I wanted to to really come

723
00:38:00,760 --> 00:38:02,360
Speaker 8: with it, Like I wanted to come with it. So

724
00:38:02,400 --> 00:38:05,680
Speaker 8: I studied harder. I was studying the Black Panthers. I

725
00:38:05,719 --> 00:38:11,799
Speaker 8: was studying groups that was about our development, and they motivated.

726
00:38:11,280 --> 00:38:13,840
Speaker 7: Me to do better, Like okay, I need to do better,

727
00:38:14,040 --> 00:38:15,799
Speaker 7: you know what I'm saying. So I did I see that?

728
00:38:16,360 --> 00:38:18,600
Speaker 2: Well? Wait, you had a group before less of development?

729
00:38:19,080 --> 00:38:20,560
Speaker 7: Yeah, I did called Attack.

730
00:38:20,880 --> 00:38:24,000
Speaker 1: Yeah, okay, good, So what was who was in at

731
00:38:24,040 --> 00:38:26,480
Speaker 1: tech and like what what were you?

732
00:38:26,520 --> 00:38:29,640
Speaker 2: Guys were less like like stylistically, what were you like?

733
00:38:30,080 --> 00:38:34,279
Speaker 8: I think we were a mix between UTFO and run

734
00:38:34,360 --> 00:38:36,200
Speaker 8: DMC if I had to say.

735
00:38:36,080 --> 00:38:40,239
Speaker 7: And you know, you know I do.

736
00:38:40,360 --> 00:38:42,719
Speaker 8: In fact, we got records that we released back then

737
00:38:43,200 --> 00:38:48,080
Speaker 8: and they're they're like classic joints that you know, collectors

738
00:38:48,120 --> 00:38:51,719
Speaker 8: got and because we only pressed to three hundred copies,

739
00:38:51,920 --> 00:38:55,000
Speaker 8: so it's nothing huge, but in Milwaukee that was huge

740
00:38:55,040 --> 00:38:57,120
Speaker 8: because we was the first rap group to put out

741
00:38:57,160 --> 00:38:58,840
Speaker 8: records and to do our things.

742
00:38:58,880 --> 00:39:00,600
Speaker 7: So a lot of the things that we had in

743
00:39:00,640 --> 00:39:01,560
Speaker 7: Milwaukee loved it.

744
00:39:02,120 --> 00:39:04,960
Speaker 8: But as I was saying, we couldn't break past Milwaukee,

745
00:39:05,040 --> 00:39:08,040
Speaker 8: so even working with wyan Ackett, so it just never

746
00:39:08,160 --> 00:39:11,759
Speaker 8: happened for us. But in the group was myself, a

747
00:39:11,840 --> 00:39:15,760
Speaker 8: brother named t A Whiz rest in Peace, and Special

748
00:39:15,840 --> 00:39:18,680
Speaker 8: K who was now who is now named DJ Kimmitt

749
00:39:18,680 --> 00:39:25,360
Speaker 8: who's a beast as a DJ DJ KIMMITTT and myself

750
00:39:25,800 --> 00:39:27,960
Speaker 8: and Ta Whiz was the group Attack.

751
00:39:28,600 --> 00:39:31,799
Speaker 3: Wow, I never knew that that's my guy, man.

752
00:39:32,400 --> 00:39:32,959
Speaker 2: Yeah. TJ.

753
00:39:33,040 --> 00:39:36,279
Speaker 8: Kimmitt's the dude. Yeah, he crushes it. To this day,

754
00:39:36,760 --> 00:39:39,799
Speaker 8: and yeah, he was. He was our DJ, and I

755
00:39:39,880 --> 00:39:42,800
Speaker 8: was a DJ slash rapper and Ta was a rapper.

756
00:39:43,320 --> 00:39:46,720
Speaker 7: Ta was murdered. Unfortunately. In the early nineties.

757
00:39:47,920 --> 00:39:52,239
Speaker 1: Were you guys opening for established acts or like what

758
00:39:52,360 --> 00:39:54,440
Speaker 1: were shows like in Yeah.

759
00:39:54,239 --> 00:39:58,760
Speaker 8: So, like with Attack, one of the sort of ways

760
00:39:58,760 --> 00:40:02,960
Speaker 8: that we tried to get recordize was throwing parties ourselves.

761
00:40:03,400 --> 00:40:04,919
Speaker 7: So my father, being an.

762
00:40:04,920 --> 00:40:09,680
Speaker 8: Entrepreneur, would would spend the money and hire DJ Jazzy

763
00:40:09,760 --> 00:40:11,879
Speaker 8: Jeff and the Fresh Prince, who at that time only

764
00:40:11,920 --> 00:40:14,399
Speaker 8: had a single parents don't understand and one or Girls

765
00:40:14,440 --> 00:40:15,920
Speaker 8: of the World and nothing but trouble I think it was.

766
00:40:15,960 --> 00:40:19,680
Speaker 8: And back then they didn't have covers on singles a

767
00:40:19,680 --> 00:40:21,600
Speaker 8: lot of times, so I didn't know what they looked like.

768
00:40:21,680 --> 00:40:24,320
Speaker 8: We hired them, and I say it in quotes because

769
00:40:24,360 --> 00:40:25,080
Speaker 8: it wasn't them.

770
00:40:25,120 --> 00:40:26,040
Speaker 7: I learned that later.

771
00:40:27,160 --> 00:40:29,759
Speaker 8: We hired them for like three thousand dollars or what

772
00:40:29,840 --> 00:40:33,280
Speaker 8: have you, and they came and performed their one song

773
00:40:33,320 --> 00:40:35,959
Speaker 8: and a few other things. It wasn't even it wasn't

774
00:40:36,000 --> 00:40:37,720
Speaker 8: Jazzy Jeff, and it wasn't Fresh Prince.

775
00:40:37,760 --> 00:40:38,320
Speaker 7: Fresh Prince.

776
00:40:38,360 --> 00:40:41,279
Speaker 8: The guy I saw that night was like three four

777
00:40:41,360 --> 00:40:44,000
Speaker 8: hundred pounds it didn't look anything like the first prints

778
00:40:44,040 --> 00:40:48,040
Speaker 8: that we now know, and so that was our opportunity

779
00:40:48,080 --> 00:40:49,160
Speaker 8: to open up for people.

780
00:40:49,200 --> 00:40:49,840
Speaker 7: So we were.

781
00:40:49,719 --> 00:40:54,360
Speaker 8: Striving to use this entrepreneurial attitude to find ways to

782
00:40:54,400 --> 00:40:55,240
Speaker 8: expose ourselves.

783
00:40:55,360 --> 00:40:56,880
Speaker 7: Was that crazy, that's crazy?

784
00:40:57,360 --> 00:40:58,200
Speaker 3: Yeah, that's crazy.

785
00:40:58,480 --> 00:41:01,920
Speaker 1: For a second, I was thinking, Okay, Cash Money Marvelous

786
00:41:01,960 --> 00:41:05,040
Speaker 1: were there, because all right, I'm from Philadelphia and both

787
00:41:05,080 --> 00:41:08,760
Speaker 1: groups were sort of like kind of the same ILK skill,

788
00:41:09,120 --> 00:41:14,480
Speaker 1: tablest huguristic humor mc oh, that's crazy. That's not the

789
00:41:14,520 --> 00:41:18,600
Speaker 1: first time I heard stories of, you know, grifting from

790
00:41:18,600 --> 00:41:21,200
Speaker 1: the hip hop side. I think there's one dude that

791
00:41:21,320 --> 00:41:24,520
Speaker 1: made a killing as Redhead Kingpin.

792
00:41:24,760 --> 00:41:27,920
Speaker 2: I don't know if you remember been in the FBI, but.

793
00:41:29,640 --> 00:41:33,359
Speaker 1: Yeah, for like a good year and a half, this

794
00:41:33,440 --> 00:41:39,280
Speaker 1: guy was making a killing off of, you know, scamming

795
00:41:39,320 --> 00:41:43,480
Speaker 1: people doing nightclub gigs or whatever as Redhead.

796
00:41:44,320 --> 00:41:46,080
Speaker 2: When'd you realize the jig was up?

797
00:41:47,040 --> 00:41:50,120
Speaker 7: For like as far as those catfish open I mean.

798
00:41:50,280 --> 00:41:54,719
Speaker 8: Ax or yes, yeah, there there were more when no,

799
00:41:54,880 --> 00:41:57,719
Speaker 8: I wasn't any more of that particular thing. But when

800
00:41:58,200 --> 00:42:01,319
Speaker 8: DJ Jazzy Jeff at Fresh Prince when I first saw them,

801
00:42:01,360 --> 00:42:03,920
Speaker 8: and I forget what single it was, they the label

802
00:42:03,960 --> 00:42:06,200
Speaker 8: allowed them to have a you know, a picture on

803
00:42:06,600 --> 00:42:09,279
Speaker 8: a cup and I was like, damn, I think there's

804
00:42:09,320 --> 00:42:12,719
Speaker 8: like a year later or so, and I'm like, wow,

805
00:42:13,560 --> 00:42:16,239
Speaker 8: we got ripped off. They and the show was whack.

806
00:42:16,320 --> 00:42:18,920
Speaker 8: Their show was horrible. But I was like, even scratch

807
00:42:19,600 --> 00:42:23,319
Speaker 8: now and you know, like you know that that was

808
00:42:23,360 --> 00:42:26,560
Speaker 8: at DJ Chassi Jeff, who for me is my favorite DJ.

809
00:42:26,719 --> 00:42:28,240
Speaker 2: So like, did you ever tell them that story?

810
00:42:28,960 --> 00:42:30,840
Speaker 7: Actually I haven't told him that story.

811
00:42:31,000 --> 00:42:34,240
Speaker 2: Wow, I can't wait to call Jeff about that one. Yeah, exactly,

812
00:42:34,560 --> 00:42:38,000
Speaker 2: that's crazy. It's crazy. I think in Seattle.

813
00:42:38,800 --> 00:42:41,120
Speaker 1: Well, I don't want to say, like, hey, we pulled

814
00:42:41,160 --> 00:42:44,359
Speaker 1: the same skin, but there's a festival called Bumper Shoot

815
00:42:44,400 --> 00:42:48,239
Speaker 1: in Seattle, and the stars just weren't in line for

816
00:42:48,320 --> 00:42:51,440
Speaker 1: me and Tariq the b at that show. But you know,

817
00:42:51,680 --> 00:42:54,000
Speaker 1: we were heavy believers in the show must go on,

818
00:42:54,120 --> 00:42:56,680
Speaker 1: like we couldn't afford to give up one show, right,

819
00:42:56,760 --> 00:43:00,960
Speaker 1: and so like everyone but me and Tariq were And.

820
00:43:02,280 --> 00:43:04,440
Speaker 2: It was early enough for people to not know.

821
00:43:04,600 --> 00:43:08,520
Speaker 1: Who the roots were, right, but until the last minute,

822
00:43:08,520 --> 00:43:12,879
Speaker 1: one guy was like, wait a minute, that drummer is skinny. No,

823
00:43:13,320 --> 00:43:16,160
Speaker 1: And then like it went from like one person to

824
00:43:16,360 --> 00:43:18,360
Speaker 1: five people and then was like, damn near a riot,

825
00:43:18,360 --> 00:43:22,000
Speaker 1: but they dice raw was black thought, and you know,

826
00:43:22,160 --> 00:43:25,160
Speaker 1: they just was in the mail like we we just

827
00:43:25,239 --> 00:43:29,000
Speaker 1: ran out of town. So yeah, yeah, we can't fished

828
00:43:29,000 --> 00:43:29,520
Speaker 1: the city once.

829
00:43:29,560 --> 00:43:32,160
Speaker 2: Sorry, Seattle. I apologized for that.

830
00:43:36,800 --> 00:43:39,040
Speaker 1: Why did you choose the name Arrested Development when you

831
00:43:39,080 --> 00:43:43,520
Speaker 1: started the group? Like, was Arrested Development the next step after.

832
00:43:44,440 --> 00:43:45,200
Speaker 7: My group attack?

833
00:43:45,440 --> 00:43:48,359
Speaker 2: Yeah, after you imploded or yeah?

834
00:43:48,400 --> 00:43:51,600
Speaker 8: So basically we you know, I left Milwaukee because I

835
00:43:51,920 --> 00:43:53,600
Speaker 8: wanted to go to school and I wanted to get

836
00:43:53,640 --> 00:43:57,239
Speaker 8: to another atmosphere, another vibe. We started off as a

837
00:43:57,280 --> 00:44:00,840
Speaker 8: group called Secret Society in Atlanta. Then he had Disciples

838
00:44:00,840 --> 00:44:03,799
Speaker 8: of a Lyrical Rebellion as our name. Then it was

839
00:44:03,880 --> 00:44:06,319
Speaker 8: Arrested Development, and that's when we got our deal, right,

840
00:44:06,800 --> 00:44:11,080
Speaker 8: So all of those names was just conceptual if you

841
00:44:11,120 --> 00:44:14,520
Speaker 8: remember that in hip hop at the time, there was

842
00:44:14,600 --> 00:44:18,280
Speaker 8: a lot of concept going on. So Public Enemy, for instance,

843
00:44:18,840 --> 00:44:22,040
Speaker 8: was not just a music group, but they were a concept.

844
00:44:22,040 --> 00:44:25,080
Speaker 7: You got the S one ws, you you got.

845
00:44:25,000 --> 00:44:28,759
Speaker 8: Slave exactly, terminator acts, you know, and even in other

846
00:44:29,040 --> 00:44:32,080
Speaker 8: music styles, like even with Prince from the eighties on out,

847
00:44:32,160 --> 00:44:35,640
Speaker 8: like he had Prince of the Revolution and the keyboards

848
00:44:35,760 --> 00:44:37,319
Speaker 8: was a doctor, you know what I'm saying. And it

849
00:44:37,360 --> 00:44:40,040
Speaker 8: was like in the time, you know, had had that

850
00:44:40,520 --> 00:44:42,759
Speaker 8: character that they that they play, you know, the whole

851
00:44:42,760 --> 00:44:46,480
Speaker 8: mirror thing with Jerome. So it's like, so the concept

852
00:44:46,480 --> 00:44:50,600
Speaker 8: thing was something that was just it was accessible. It

853
00:44:50,640 --> 00:44:53,600
Speaker 8: was things that people were into, and I loved the name,

854
00:44:53,680 --> 00:44:55,799
Speaker 8: so I loved like punk rock stuff as well at

855
00:44:55,800 --> 00:44:57,800
Speaker 8: that time, and Dad Kennedy's.

856
00:44:57,280 --> 00:44:57,960
Speaker 7: And stuff like this.

857
00:44:58,000 --> 00:45:00,920
Speaker 8: It just had the certain ring to it for me.

858
00:45:02,080 --> 00:45:04,959
Speaker 8: Arrested Development just felt right for what we was doing

859
00:45:05,000 --> 00:45:05,960
Speaker 8: and the vibe.

860
00:45:05,680 --> 00:45:07,680
Speaker 5: We were on and in that moment, what was your

861
00:45:07,719 --> 00:45:10,000
Speaker 5: concept for Arrested Development when you first started?

862
00:45:10,440 --> 00:45:12,439
Speaker 7: It was pretty much the same as what it is now.

863
00:45:12,480 --> 00:45:16,000
Speaker 8: So like, you know, our whole thing was almost like

864
00:45:16,120 --> 00:45:20,560
Speaker 8: a play on soul to soul where you had jazz

865
00:45:21,640 --> 00:45:24,840
Speaker 8: who jazzy b who's like the DJ, but then he

866
00:45:24,880 --> 00:45:27,799
Speaker 8: would have guests of different types singing on it, you know,

867
00:45:27,960 --> 00:45:30,600
Speaker 8: saying exactly right, so like.

868
00:45:32,440 --> 00:45:34,799
Speaker 7: Exactly right, exactly right.

869
00:45:34,880 --> 00:45:37,640
Speaker 8: So that that was sort of the energy with us,

870
00:45:37,680 --> 00:45:41,120
Speaker 8: but it was more of headline is the DJ. I'm

871
00:45:41,120 --> 00:45:44,759
Speaker 8: the producer MC, and I would invite every show, I

872
00:45:44,760 --> 00:45:48,759
Speaker 8: would invite African drummers on I would invite African dance

873
00:45:48,840 --> 00:45:52,040
Speaker 8: troops to come and rock with us. So painters, live

874
00:45:52,120 --> 00:45:54,920
Speaker 8: painters to come and rock with us on stage. So

875
00:45:55,000 --> 00:45:58,160
Speaker 8: that was the energy of Arrested Development then. And you know,

876
00:45:58,280 --> 00:45:59,640
Speaker 8: to some extent or another.

877
00:45:59,440 --> 00:46:01,319
Speaker 5: Now, Funk Jazz got it from you.

878
00:46:02,360 --> 00:46:04,719
Speaker 8: I would say, yes, yeah, yeah, Funk Jazz my man

879
00:46:04,800 --> 00:46:07,880
Speaker 8: Jason Orr definitely was inspired.

880
00:46:07,320 --> 00:46:08,880
Speaker 7: By you know what we were doing.

881
00:46:09,080 --> 00:46:11,680
Speaker 1: Yeah, okay, I'll be very remissed if I didn't ask

882
00:46:11,680 --> 00:46:16,279
Speaker 1: this question now. I mean, I'm a pop culture junkie

883
00:46:16,600 --> 00:46:24,239
Speaker 1: and you know, one of my favorite comedies of all time. Also,

884
00:46:24,320 --> 00:46:28,680
Speaker 1: HAPs us to share the name of your band. Now,

885
00:46:28,719 --> 00:46:32,919
Speaker 1: I knew there was a situation with Vernon Reed and

886
00:46:33,000 --> 00:46:38,520
Speaker 1: the Wayans family in terms of Living Color and in

887
00:46:38,600 --> 00:46:41,960
Speaker 1: Living Color. But actually, in I believe in Vernon situation,

888
00:46:42,480 --> 00:46:47,399
Speaker 1: I believe Living Color. Actually maybe for the pilot took

889
00:46:47,440 --> 00:46:50,880
Speaker 1: the logo of Living Color, so I know that it

890
00:46:50,960 --> 00:46:53,160
Speaker 1: got to relegigious proportions.

891
00:46:53,200 --> 00:46:55,440
Speaker 2: But yeah, I always wanted to know.

892
00:46:57,080 --> 00:47:00,359
Speaker 1: When you own a name like Arrested Developments, that you

893
00:47:00,440 --> 00:47:01,800
Speaker 1: own the name of arrest Development.

894
00:47:02,080 --> 00:47:02,640
Speaker 7: We do.

895
00:47:02,760 --> 00:47:05,560
Speaker 1: Yeah, even if you're in and I know you guys

896
00:47:05,600 --> 00:47:09,160
Speaker 1: are still active, But do you have to be wholly

897
00:47:09,320 --> 00:47:12,400
Speaker 1: active in order to maintain the name? And does that

898
00:47:12,480 --> 00:47:16,240
Speaker 1: allow you? Like, how does that happen when another entity

899
00:47:16,280 --> 00:47:19,800
Speaker 1: comes along with your name? Like I knew there was

900
00:47:19,840 --> 00:47:26,080
Speaker 1: a situation where Prince actually owned the term the Family. Yeah, yeah,

901
00:47:26,120 --> 00:47:31,040
Speaker 1: And so when the Family the nothing that Nothing compares

902
00:47:31,080 --> 00:47:34,360
Speaker 1: to you Want and Done group that he produced in

903
00:47:34,440 --> 00:47:40,600
Speaker 1: eighty five, Yeah, when they imploded, he still retained the

904
00:47:40,719 --> 00:47:42,759
Speaker 1: night rights to the name of the family. So when

905
00:47:42,880 --> 00:47:46,200
Speaker 1: did he wanted to name his album, you know, puff

906
00:47:46,280 --> 00:47:48,680
Speaker 1: Daddy in the Family for the No Way Out album,

907
00:47:49,160 --> 00:47:52,160
Speaker 1: he actually had to break off Prince a little something, yeah,

908
00:47:52,400 --> 00:47:55,440
Speaker 1: just to least the name from him, but still Prince

909
00:47:55,600 --> 00:47:59,080
Speaker 1: still maintained that name. So when Arrested Development came out,

910
00:47:59,360 --> 00:48:04,520
Speaker 1: was it like is it a separate copyright for television shows?

911
00:48:04,600 --> 00:48:07,359
Speaker 1: Or when you own a rested Development, it's for any

912
00:48:07,480 --> 00:48:09,480
Speaker 1: entity that's named that, Like if I wanted.

913
00:48:09,320 --> 00:48:14,040
Speaker 2: Cereal or yeah, a sport or just something, you own it.

914
00:48:14,080 --> 00:48:17,880
Speaker 2: So how does that happen? Like are you talking to

915
00:48:17,920 --> 00:48:19,160
Speaker 2: Ron Howard or like.

916
00:48:19,600 --> 00:48:21,279
Speaker 7: Yeah, definitely yeah.

917
00:48:21,320 --> 00:48:23,920
Speaker 8: So what we you know how trademarks work is that

918
00:48:24,160 --> 00:48:29,440
Speaker 8: if it is if the consumer is going to be

919
00:48:29,600 --> 00:48:34,040
Speaker 8: confused about your product called arrested development and our product

920
00:48:34,160 --> 00:48:35,040
Speaker 8: arrested development.

921
00:48:35,640 --> 00:48:37,440
Speaker 7: Then there's a trademark issue.

922
00:48:37,560 --> 00:48:41,000
Speaker 8: So if there was a restaurant called arrested Development, probably

923
00:48:41,040 --> 00:48:44,600
Speaker 8: no problem. If there was, you know, a corn stead

924
00:48:44,719 --> 00:48:46,840
Speaker 8: called arrest of Development, probably no problem.

925
00:48:47,200 --> 00:48:51,560
Speaker 7: But TV shows tend to or can.

926
00:48:51,480 --> 00:48:54,040
Speaker 8: If they're successful, have soundtracks that they put out on

927
00:48:54,160 --> 00:48:56,839
Speaker 8: CD or a record or whatever version is out at

928
00:48:56,880 --> 00:48:57,440
Speaker 8: the time.

929
00:48:57,280 --> 00:49:00,800
Speaker 7: Of music mediums as they make movies.

930
00:49:00,800 --> 00:49:03,719
Speaker 8: In those movies, you know, there could be confusion as

931
00:49:03,719 --> 00:49:05,359
Speaker 8: to when they put out a soundtrack and when we

932
00:49:05,400 --> 00:49:08,799
Speaker 8: do it. And so we we had trademarked the name

933
00:49:08,840 --> 00:49:10,359
Speaker 8: back in ninety two or something.

934
00:49:10,360 --> 00:49:11,960
Speaker 7: It wasn't like before we came out.

935
00:49:11,960 --> 00:49:14,480
Speaker 8: We trademarked it after we came out because this was

936
00:49:14,480 --> 00:49:16,640
Speaker 8: our first album. We're learning like, oh, hell, you know,

937
00:49:16,680 --> 00:49:20,759
Speaker 8: we need to trademark the name. So so we did

938
00:49:20,840 --> 00:49:26,200
Speaker 8: have to take Ron Howard and Fox to court because

939
00:49:26,840 --> 00:49:29,279
Speaker 8: they had stolen the name, and you mentioned a few

940
00:49:29,320 --> 00:49:30,120
Speaker 8: other examples.

941
00:49:30,560 --> 00:49:31,879
Speaker 2: They were still in the name.

942
00:49:32,480 --> 00:49:38,600
Speaker 8: Definitely, No, they knew, they knew, they knew, they knew,

943
00:49:38,840 --> 00:49:42,560
Speaker 8: but they assumed that we were washed up, we had

944
00:49:42,640 --> 00:49:47,160
Speaker 8: no money, and that we couldn't fight, and so what

945
00:49:47,239 --> 00:49:50,200
Speaker 8: was the wrong assumption. Yeah, they they felt like, we'll

946
00:49:50,239 --> 00:49:53,160
Speaker 8: take it and just basically, you know, just steamroll them.

947
00:49:53,440 --> 00:49:55,239
Speaker 8: And they tried to do that because you know, these

948
00:49:55,239 --> 00:49:57,279
Speaker 8: big corporations, they have a lot of money, They have

949
00:49:57,320 --> 00:49:59,799
Speaker 8: long money, so they could go into court for they.

950
00:49:59,680 --> 00:50:02,640
Speaker 7: Could go a long time.

951
00:50:03,280 --> 00:50:06,480
Speaker 8: And so I had to go into court to fight,

952
00:50:06,719 --> 00:50:09,040
Speaker 8: and I had to tell the story of how we started,

953
00:50:09,080 --> 00:50:12,000
Speaker 8: which some of which I shared here in front of

954
00:50:12,000 --> 00:50:15,879
Speaker 8: the court to show the blood, sweat and tears of

955
00:50:15,920 --> 00:50:18,040
Speaker 8: what this group meant to me. So it wasn't just

956
00:50:18,080 --> 00:50:20,399
Speaker 8: a trademark to me, it was it was a thing,

957
00:50:20,560 --> 00:50:21,920
Speaker 8: you know what I mean. It was a baby in

958
00:50:21,960 --> 00:50:25,279
Speaker 8: a sense. And so when the people that was in

959
00:50:25,320 --> 00:50:29,760
Speaker 8: court then heard that story, Fox and Ron Howard just said, okay,

960
00:50:29,800 --> 00:50:32,080
Speaker 8: we need to settle, and so we settled out of court.

961
00:50:32,600 --> 00:50:34,360
Speaker 8: The show was already out at the time when we

962
00:50:34,400 --> 00:50:36,560
Speaker 8: went to court, and we settled out of court.

963
00:50:37,640 --> 00:50:40,799
Speaker 1: Always always wanted to do that.

964
00:50:41,239 --> 00:50:44,200
Speaker 5: Yeah, that was a night, and you were satisfied. I'm

965
00:50:44,200 --> 00:50:46,920
Speaker 5: trying not to be in your pocket. You were heavily satisfied.

966
00:50:47,200 --> 00:50:49,799
Speaker 8: Well, you know, we were satisfied to an extent because

967
00:50:49,800 --> 00:50:52,280
Speaker 8: they offered it. You know, they could put our music

968
00:50:52,320 --> 00:50:54,040
Speaker 8: on the show. You know, there was all types of

969
00:50:54,040 --> 00:50:56,680
Speaker 8: things we were negotiating, but we didn't know if the

970
00:50:56,680 --> 00:50:58,319
Speaker 8: show was going to go well or not. So we

971
00:50:58,440 --> 00:51:00,560
Speaker 8: just decided to go, you know, with an X amount

972
00:51:00,560 --> 00:51:03,080
Speaker 8: and just just move on and then if it went

973
00:51:03,120 --> 00:51:04,760
Speaker 8: to streaming, we get another X amount.

974
00:51:04,880 --> 00:51:06,839
Speaker 7: So things like that, you know, saying we went into

975
00:51:06,880 --> 00:51:07,600
Speaker 7: that kind of deal.

976
00:51:07,960 --> 00:51:12,920
Speaker 1: Wait, since we already did h a mal jam episode,

977
00:51:14,120 --> 00:51:20,920
Speaker 1: I correct me if I'm wrong. When Malcolm Jamal Warner

978
00:51:21,239 --> 00:51:24,280
Speaker 1: left the Cosby Show, I.

979
00:51:24,160 --> 00:51:27,759
Speaker 2: Believe that he did. All right, you're already agreeing with me.

980
00:51:27,880 --> 00:51:29,680
Speaker 2: I knew when he did his episode.

981
00:51:29,800 --> 00:51:31,440
Speaker 1: I didn't know the name of the show, and I

982
00:51:31,440 --> 00:51:35,880
Speaker 1: didn't know if I imagined that THEO became a teacher

983
00:51:36,960 --> 00:51:39,840
Speaker 1: of a bunch of elementary school kids. But I definitely remember.

984
00:51:40,000 --> 00:51:43,440
Speaker 1: I believe that Tennessee Yep was the theme.

985
00:51:43,239 --> 00:51:44,640
Speaker 2: Song to.

986
00:51:46,360 --> 00:51:49,160
Speaker 1: You know, Malcolm Joamalon Warner's. But I don't know if

987
00:51:49,200 --> 00:51:51,480
Speaker 1: he was THEO or if he just played a teacher.

988
00:51:51,520 --> 00:51:54,600
Speaker 1: But I believe that, Yeah, I believe he was THEO.

989
00:51:55,560 --> 00:51:58,680
Speaker 8: He wasn't He wasn't THEO. And it was his first

990
00:51:59,000 --> 00:52:01,640
Speaker 8: spin off spin off. It was just his first debut

991
00:52:02,239 --> 00:52:05,160
Speaker 8: as the star of his own show, and they they

992
00:52:05,200 --> 00:52:08,040
Speaker 8: did use Tennessee as his theme song.

993
00:52:08,560 --> 00:52:10,160
Speaker 2: I didn't know if I imagine that or not.

994
00:52:10,560 --> 00:52:12,239
Speaker 7: Yeah, we went to the taping of that.

995
00:52:12,400 --> 00:52:14,680
Speaker 2: Yeah, they only did like nine I think.

996
00:52:14,560 --> 00:52:16,919
Speaker 7: Nine episodes, but exactly it didn't last.

997
00:52:17,040 --> 00:52:20,480
Speaker 1: I forgive the name of the show or you know,

998
00:52:20,520 --> 00:52:25,720
Speaker 1: it's always exactly black siico yep, facts, here we go again,

999
00:52:25,800 --> 00:52:27,040
Speaker 1: starring Malcolm jamal One.

1000
00:52:27,600 --> 00:52:29,000
Speaker 7: Right exactly. Yeah.

1001
00:52:30,880 --> 00:52:36,399
Speaker 1: So in terms of musicianship or at least you as

1002
00:52:36,440 --> 00:52:39,960
Speaker 1: a producer, you know, is anyone teaching you production by

1003
00:52:40,000 --> 00:52:40,439
Speaker 1: this point?

1004
00:52:40,880 --> 00:52:41,000
Speaker 2: Yea?

1005
00:52:41,040 --> 00:52:42,680
Speaker 3: And what were you using? What were you making tracks

1006
00:52:42,680 --> 00:52:43,239
Speaker 3: on the that time?

1007
00:52:43,360 --> 00:52:46,720
Speaker 8: Yeah, yeah, nobody taught me. Unfortunately, I wish I probably

1008
00:52:46,719 --> 00:52:50,000
Speaker 8: would have had that evivent though. I was on a

1009
00:52:51,280 --> 00:52:59,320
Speaker 8: HR sixteen eleases drum Machine and uh in Sonic ASR

1010
00:52:59,400 --> 00:53:04,440
Speaker 8: ten or before that, and then Sonic EPs sixteen, So

1011
00:53:04,520 --> 00:53:07,760
Speaker 8: that was like my primary ways of like the whole

1012
00:53:07,760 --> 00:53:10,120
Speaker 8: first album for instance, and second album was on those

1013
00:53:10,120 --> 00:53:14,200
Speaker 8: two instruments pretty much unless we hire somebody to come

1014
00:53:14,239 --> 00:53:16,840
Speaker 8: in play horns, like on the song you to play

1015
00:53:16,840 --> 00:53:19,040
Speaker 8: horns or so on and so forth.

1016
00:53:19,080 --> 00:53:19,239
Speaker 5: You know.

1017
00:53:20,800 --> 00:53:24,279
Speaker 7: Yeah, pretty much my production was from that. You know

1018
00:53:24,400 --> 00:53:25,880
Speaker 7: those two things.

1019
00:53:26,000 --> 00:53:30,600
Speaker 1: So how do the other members that we know of

1020
00:53:30,680 --> 00:53:33,840
Speaker 1: the group speaking of like Deonne Faris and.

1021
00:53:37,480 --> 00:53:38,560
Speaker 2: We know headline and story?

1022
00:53:38,640 --> 00:53:41,839
Speaker 1: But well, first of all you said it was sort

1023
00:53:41,840 --> 00:53:45,520
Speaker 1: of a community of people, but the rest of the

1024
00:53:45,560 --> 00:53:51,520
Speaker 1: development that we know, how did you finally round up

1025
00:53:52,760 --> 00:53:56,839
Speaker 1: the final numbers in terms of word group and let's

1026
00:53:56,880 --> 00:53:58,759
Speaker 1: go for a record deal?

1027
00:53:59,080 --> 00:54:00,920
Speaker 7: And how do you can able to sign all these

1028
00:54:00,960 --> 00:54:02,600
Speaker 7: people like exactly?

1029
00:54:02,640 --> 00:54:05,080
Speaker 8: So that actually you hit it on the nail because

1030
00:54:05,560 --> 00:54:09,080
Speaker 8: we actually already had all of these members. But when

1031
00:54:09,280 --> 00:54:12,880
Speaker 8: when we got signed to the deal, you can't tour

1032
00:54:13,520 --> 00:54:16,040
Speaker 8: with twenty members, you know what I'm saying, You can't.

1033
00:54:16,280 --> 00:54:19,759
Speaker 8: It's not financially feasible right for a new group to

1034
00:54:19,880 --> 00:54:23,840
Speaker 8: go on a tour. So I had to try to

1035
00:54:23,880 --> 00:54:26,680
Speaker 8: make the best decision as possible of who to bring

1036
00:54:26,719 --> 00:54:29,239
Speaker 8: out on the road and make this a sort of

1037
00:54:29,280 --> 00:54:32,239
Speaker 8: an official thing. In my mind at the time, it

1038
00:54:32,320 --> 00:54:34,480
Speaker 8: wasn't necessarily the official group members.

1039
00:54:34,520 --> 00:54:36,399
Speaker 7: It was just the people we could take on the road.

1040
00:54:36,400 --> 00:54:38,360
Speaker 7: It made sense. We all had.

1041
00:54:38,200 --> 00:54:40,520
Speaker 8: Different roles that we could play, and this was sort

1042
00:54:40,560 --> 00:54:43,319
Speaker 8: of stage one, but it sort of got solidified into

1043
00:54:43,360 --> 00:54:45,279
Speaker 8: that because that album was so big for us that

1044
00:54:45,800 --> 00:54:47,680
Speaker 8: you know, those members was those members.

1045
00:54:47,800 --> 00:54:50,399
Speaker 7: Now we'll say Dion wasn't ever in the group as

1046
00:54:50,440 --> 00:54:53,279
Speaker 7: a member. She was just a guest vocalist.

1047
00:54:53,960 --> 00:54:57,400
Speaker 8: But how me in particular, and how we as a

1048
00:54:57,440 --> 00:55:02,120
Speaker 8: group rolled, is we we blurred the lines between who

1049
00:55:02,160 --> 00:55:04,480
Speaker 8: was in the group and who wasn't in the sense

1050
00:55:04,520 --> 00:55:07,640
Speaker 8: of all of our you know, appearances, all of our

1051
00:55:07,760 --> 00:55:10,279
Speaker 8: press tours. If she was down with us, then she

1052
00:55:10,400 --> 00:55:11,759
Speaker 8: was down like, come on with us, you know what

1053
00:55:11,800 --> 00:55:14,000
Speaker 8: I'm saying, Just come rock with us, even though she

1054
00:55:14,080 --> 00:55:17,719
Speaker 8: wasn't actually in the group. And that's how it sort

1055
00:55:17,719 --> 00:55:19,840
Speaker 8: of got confused that she was actually in the group.

1056
00:55:20,680 --> 00:55:25,200
Speaker 2: Got okay, yeah, wait, since who was the dancer? I

1057
00:55:25,239 --> 00:55:25,919
Speaker 2: forget her name?

1058
00:55:27,160 --> 00:55:32,279
Speaker 1: Yeah es she yes, okay, So how did you meet

1059
00:55:32,320 --> 00:55:34,040
Speaker 1: them or incorporate them into the group?

1060
00:55:34,160 --> 00:55:39,080
Speaker 7: Yeah, yeah, so is she was? Basically she auditioned.

1061
00:55:39,120 --> 00:55:43,040
Speaker 8: She was thirteen years old, and we auditioned her sister

1062
00:55:43,080 --> 00:55:45,520
Speaker 8: who was older than her, probably about five years older

1063
00:55:45,520 --> 00:55:48,600
Speaker 8: than her. And her sister was going on tour for

1064
00:55:48,600 --> 00:55:50,279
Speaker 8: the first time in her life with James Brown, I

1065
00:55:50,360 --> 00:55:53,160
Speaker 8: want to say, and so she couldn't do it, and

1066
00:55:53,239 --> 00:55:57,120
Speaker 8: so she suggested her sister, her younger sister Ishi, which

1067
00:55:57,120 --> 00:55:59,760
Speaker 8: her real name is Tamika, and so she suggested Tamika.

1068
00:56:00,560 --> 00:56:04,360
Speaker 8: She came to audition for US. I actually didn't feel

1069
00:56:04,400 --> 00:56:07,759
Speaker 8: to Mika. I loved her dancing, but she she was

1070
00:56:07,840 --> 00:56:10,319
Speaker 8: dressed sort of like Quame with the polka dots and

1071
00:56:10,320 --> 00:56:13,560
Speaker 8: that that energy it wasn't the energy that arrested development

1072
00:56:13,640 --> 00:56:13,879
Speaker 8: was on.

1073
00:56:14,000 --> 00:56:16,160
Speaker 7: So I didn't totally feel her.

1074
00:56:16,520 --> 00:56:19,600
Speaker 8: Headliner, on the other hand, loved her style and her

1075
00:56:19,719 --> 00:56:22,640
Speaker 8: vibe and felt like she could change it to the

1076
00:56:22,680 --> 00:56:24,160
Speaker 8: more the afrocentric vibe.

1077
00:56:24,320 --> 00:56:25,920
Speaker 7: And he was right. I mean, she she.

1078
00:56:25,960 --> 00:56:28,000
Speaker 8: Totally changed on her own, like once she got in

1079
00:56:28,040 --> 00:56:30,719
Speaker 8: the group, she changed her whole look. She cut off

1080
00:56:30,760 --> 00:56:33,360
Speaker 8: her hair, she had a bald head, She was like

1081
00:56:33,760 --> 00:56:36,360
Speaker 8: dope as ever, and she just had this total energy

1082
00:56:36,400 --> 00:56:36,759
Speaker 8: that I.

1083
00:56:36,680 --> 00:56:40,799
Speaker 7: Totally missed, you know, but he saw that, Yeah she did.

1084
00:56:40,880 --> 00:56:42,560
Speaker 7: She did, you know.

1085
00:56:43,520 --> 00:56:45,400
Speaker 8: I mean, I guess how most groups, do you know,

1086
00:56:45,480 --> 00:56:48,279
Speaker 8: people change their name when they start to sort of

1087
00:56:48,280 --> 00:56:50,560
Speaker 8: go into the entertainment realm as opposed to just using

1088
00:56:50,600 --> 00:56:51,280
Speaker 8: like Todd Thomas.

1089
00:56:51,320 --> 00:56:54,439
Speaker 7: You know, I'm saying like I used speech. Her name

1090
00:56:54,520 --> 00:56:55,799
Speaker 7: was just Tamika Gather.

1091
00:56:55,760 --> 00:56:56,759
Speaker 2: That that was her name.

1092
00:56:56,840 --> 00:56:57,440
Speaker 7: You know what I'm saying.

1093
00:56:57,480 --> 00:57:02,040
Speaker 8: So she looked up black and and what's her name,

1094
00:57:02,040 --> 00:57:03,120
Speaker 8: step of emotional Ishi.

1095
00:57:03,680 --> 00:57:05,560
Speaker 7: So anyway, it's something like black life.

1096
00:57:05,600 --> 00:57:08,200
Speaker 8: I think this black life, And she looked that up

1097
00:57:08,400 --> 00:57:10,400
Speaker 8: and came up with the name monsho Ishi.

1098
00:57:10,719 --> 00:57:14,640
Speaker 1: See in my mind, I thought, like, all right, speeches

1099
00:57:14,680 --> 00:57:19,680
Speaker 1: the ringleader. So he's like paving titles giving these titles to.

1100
00:57:20,560 --> 00:57:22,800
Speaker 7: No, No, not at all, not at all.

1101
00:57:23,040 --> 00:57:25,600
Speaker 8: The only name that I gave, and it was more

1102
00:57:25,600 --> 00:57:28,680
Speaker 8: of just a you know, a term of endearment, was

1103
00:57:28,760 --> 00:57:32,280
Speaker 8: Headliner because he was, you know, he was so dope

1104
00:57:32,360 --> 00:57:36,160
Speaker 8: as a barber that you know, he was known for real,

1105
00:57:36,240 --> 00:57:39,000
Speaker 8: like in the West End. He was that guy that

1106
00:57:39,160 --> 00:57:41,320
Speaker 8: the line was outside of the store waiting for him

1107
00:57:41,360 --> 00:57:44,360
Speaker 8: to cut hair. So I gave him the name headliner,

1108
00:57:44,520 --> 00:57:46,360
Speaker 8: which made sense to me in a sense of you know,

1109
00:57:46,440 --> 00:57:49,400
Speaker 8: somebody you know on the marquee being a headliner and

1110
00:57:49,400 --> 00:57:50,040
Speaker 8: stuff like that.

1111
00:57:50,520 --> 00:57:53,920
Speaker 4: In y'all's episode of Unsung, you may mention of like,

1112
00:57:54,280 --> 00:57:58,040
Speaker 4: I think your original you and Headliner's original arrangement was

1113
00:57:58,200 --> 00:58:00,960
Speaker 4: ninety ten. It was a space was nine year I

1114
00:58:00,960 --> 00:58:04,120
Speaker 4: guess teen him. That was your rationale in that in

1115
00:58:04,520 --> 00:58:07,320
Speaker 4: terms of like division of labor, and you know what

1116
00:58:07,600 --> 00:58:09,360
Speaker 4: made that a fair deal to you?

1117
00:58:11,480 --> 00:58:14,240
Speaker 8: For me, it was a matter of, you know, I'm

1118
00:58:14,320 --> 00:58:17,720
Speaker 8: producing the music. I'm the main writer of the lyrics,

1119
00:58:18,320 --> 00:58:21,600
Speaker 8: so you know, just go back and listen to the record.

1120
00:58:22,200 --> 00:58:25,240
Speaker 8: And even on like Raining Revolution, right, one of the

1121
00:58:25,280 --> 00:58:30,000
Speaker 8: songs on the debut, I would like when the song

1122
00:58:30,080 --> 00:58:32,560
Speaker 8: comes on, I'm saying on the mic, Yo, this is

1123
00:58:32,600 --> 00:58:35,480
Speaker 8: headliner from Arrested Development, and I come here tonight to

1124
00:58:35,520 --> 00:58:39,120
Speaker 8: give thanks to the Rain, and I'm talking, talking, talking,

1125
00:58:39,160 --> 00:58:41,720
Speaker 8: and throughout the record, I'm saying things. I would often

1126
00:58:41,800 --> 00:58:43,640
Speaker 8: do that on records as a.

1127
00:58:43,960 --> 00:58:44,600
Speaker 7: What do you call it?

1128
00:58:44,760 --> 00:58:45,760
Speaker 3: Reference reference?

1129
00:58:46,120 --> 00:58:50,880
Speaker 8: It's a reference exactly right for him to come back

1130
00:58:50,880 --> 00:58:54,360
Speaker 8: and do it. That's my point, is that. Yeah, And

1131
00:58:54,400 --> 00:58:58,040
Speaker 8: so like when those things happened, these songs were concepts

1132
00:58:58,280 --> 00:59:00,240
Speaker 8: that I came up with on my own.

1133
00:59:00,320 --> 00:59:01,000
Speaker 7: So that's why.

1134
00:59:02,000 --> 00:59:05,000
Speaker 8: And so managers generally speaking got like ten to fifteen

1135
00:59:05,080 --> 00:59:08,160
Speaker 8: maybe twenty percent max in my mind at that time.

1136
00:59:08,200 --> 00:59:09,959
Speaker 8: And I'm not saying I was a business dude, because

1137
00:59:09,960 --> 00:59:12,400
Speaker 8: I wasn't. I was twenty one years old, you know

1138
00:59:12,400 --> 00:59:15,480
Speaker 8: what I'm saying. So you're along the way, right, I'm

1139
00:59:15,560 --> 00:59:18,560
Speaker 8: learning very much along the way. So in my mind,

1140
00:59:18,640 --> 00:59:21,720
Speaker 8: I was like, even though you didn't write these joints,

1141
00:59:22,280 --> 00:59:24,600
Speaker 8: I still want to give you And that was my viewpoint.

1142
00:59:25,480 --> 00:59:27,160
Speaker 5: So you thought you were and I thought, but you

1143
00:59:27,160 --> 00:59:31,120
Speaker 5: were giving him something for work that actually hadn't been facts.

1144
00:59:31,200 --> 00:59:33,520
Speaker 7: I mean, that's that's that was my view at the time,

1145
00:59:33,600 --> 00:59:35,080
Speaker 7: you know what I'm saying. So sore.

1146
00:59:35,400 --> 00:59:37,920
Speaker 4: So in terms of your deal, y'all's deal with Chrysalist

1147
00:59:38,320 --> 00:59:41,600
Speaker 4: was that who was actually signed, like on paper like

1148
00:59:42,000 --> 00:59:42,600
Speaker 4: to that deal?

1149
00:59:43,080 --> 00:59:46,600
Speaker 7: Yeah, just me and Headliner were signed to that deal.

1150
00:59:48,320 --> 00:59:50,880
Speaker 8: And I tell you why that happened because, as I

1151
00:59:50,920 --> 00:59:54,080
Speaker 8: said earlier, you know, we had twenty members, so we're

1152
00:59:54,520 --> 00:59:57,160
Speaker 8: there's a lot of people. And so when we got

1153
00:59:57,160 --> 01:00:00,440
Speaker 8: the deal, which was very unexpected, but of course we

1154
01:00:00,440 --> 01:00:03,320
Speaker 8: were hoping for a deal, but we got turned down

1155
01:00:03,360 --> 01:00:06,480
Speaker 8: by all the other labels. So when this deal finally

1156
01:00:06,520 --> 01:00:09,720
Speaker 8: came through, which was initially a single deal actually that

1157
01:00:09,880 --> 01:00:15,560
Speaker 8: led to an album deal, I didn't exactly know at that.

1158
01:00:15,600 --> 01:00:17,600
Speaker 7: Time who was gonna be out in the road. Who

1159
01:00:17,720 --> 01:00:19,120
Speaker 7: is this group? You know what I'm saying. Because we

1160
01:00:19,160 --> 01:00:23,080
Speaker 7: got twenty people, who is the group? Like? So it

1161
01:00:23,200 --> 01:00:23,640
Speaker 7: was tough.

1162
01:00:23,640 --> 01:00:26,040
Speaker 8: So I knew me and Headliner that part I knew,

1163
01:00:26,080 --> 01:00:28,800
Speaker 8: So when it was time to sign the deal, I

1164
01:00:28,840 --> 01:00:31,520
Speaker 8: went ahead and did it that way, and you know,

1165
01:00:31,560 --> 01:00:34,600
Speaker 8: obviously then things blew up. But that's that's tough because

1166
01:00:34,600 --> 01:00:36,600
Speaker 8: when you sign stuff, you don't know how it's gonna

1167
01:00:36,600 --> 01:00:38,280
Speaker 8: go at the time, Like you don't know the record's

1168
01:00:38,280 --> 01:00:40,800
Speaker 8: gonna go, you know, crazy and all of that.

1169
01:00:41,360 --> 01:00:44,240
Speaker 1: So were the members who weren't in the nucleus of

1170
01:00:44,360 --> 01:00:48,160
Speaker 1: arrested development? Did they wind up being you? You had

1171
01:00:48,200 --> 01:00:49,680
Speaker 1: an offspring group called Gumbo?

1172
01:00:49,760 --> 01:00:52,880
Speaker 2: Correct? Yeah, Oh I was yeah.

1173
01:00:52,920 --> 01:00:56,640
Speaker 1: I was like, I know, yeahbum and shit, I was

1174
01:00:56,680 --> 01:00:58,480
Speaker 1: about to say, I thought you had something to do

1175
01:00:58,520 --> 01:00:58,920
Speaker 1: with Gumbo.

1176
01:00:59,160 --> 01:01:00,840
Speaker 2: The rest of them members is go to Gumbo.

1177
01:01:01,480 --> 01:01:04,480
Speaker 8: No, So Gumbo was a whole new like to me,

1178
01:01:04,720 --> 01:01:09,320
Speaker 8: they were they were my like you know, family tree

1179
01:01:09,360 --> 01:01:11,680
Speaker 8: starting to develop a family tree, you know what I'm saying,

1180
01:01:11,760 --> 01:01:14,320
Speaker 8: like sort of a native tongues if you will, you

1181
01:01:14,360 --> 01:01:18,080
Speaker 8: know where you know, they were gonna be my Fuji's

1182
01:01:18,120 --> 01:01:20,439
Speaker 8: in a sense, but the Fujis weren't out yet.

1183
01:01:21,000 --> 01:01:25,520
Speaker 1: Okay, how long did it take to source a record deal?

1184
01:01:25,600 --> 01:01:25,680
Speaker 5: Like?

1185
01:01:25,720 --> 01:01:28,360
Speaker 2: How long was the process of making a demo?

1186
01:01:28,640 --> 01:01:28,680
Speaker 5: To?

1187
01:01:29,760 --> 01:01:31,960
Speaker 7: Three years, five months and two days.

1188
01:01:32,600 --> 01:01:34,880
Speaker 2: Oh, so that's where the title comes from.

1189
01:01:34,920 --> 01:01:40,080
Speaker 7: Literally literally wow, And what songs are y'all shopping? Like?

1190
01:01:40,120 --> 01:01:42,000
Speaker 3: What was on y'all's demo at the time?

1191
01:01:43,080 --> 01:01:45,280
Speaker 8: You know, it changed over the over those years, you know,

1192
01:01:45,360 --> 01:01:48,000
Speaker 8: saying so when we first started shopping, it was a

1193
01:01:48,040 --> 01:01:51,840
Speaker 8: different version of Fisher For religion, it might have had

1194
01:01:51,920 --> 01:01:56,320
Speaker 8: mister Wendell, I forget, definitely not Tennessee, because in fact,

1195
01:01:57,320 --> 01:01:59,200
Speaker 8: the last, the last song.

1196
01:01:59,600 --> 01:02:01,840
Speaker 2: Yeah, it's always that way exactly.

1197
01:02:02,080 --> 01:02:03,000
Speaker 7: Tennessee was the.

1198
01:02:03,000 --> 01:02:06,680
Speaker 8: Last joint man and and it was only because I

1199
01:02:06,720 --> 01:02:08,760
Speaker 8: lost my grandmother, who I told you I spent all

1200
01:02:08,760 --> 01:02:12,360
Speaker 8: my summers with, and in that same week I lost

1201
01:02:12,400 --> 01:02:16,760
Speaker 8: my brother Terry, and so the last place I saw

1202
01:02:16,840 --> 01:02:19,080
Speaker 8: both of them was at her funeral in Tennessee.

1203
01:02:19,240 --> 01:02:21,200
Speaker 7: So Tennessee was the last.

1204
01:02:21,000 --> 01:02:23,440
Speaker 8: Joint that I wrote, and it ended up being our

1205
01:02:23,480 --> 01:02:25,280
Speaker 8: first single, our first hit, two.

1206
01:02:25,440 --> 01:02:29,600
Speaker 4: Man the Prince sample in Tennessee. Yeah, how did y'all?

1207
01:02:30,520 --> 01:02:31,400
Speaker 4: How did y'all pull that?

1208
01:02:31,440 --> 01:02:31,560
Speaker 2: All?

1209
01:02:31,600 --> 01:02:33,440
Speaker 3: Because he wouldn't let nobody.

1210
01:02:33,400 --> 01:02:37,680
Speaker 1: No, no, no, actually he was, but I know he was

1211
01:02:38,840 --> 01:02:41,360
Speaker 1: because like Nicest Smooth used I want to be a lover,

1212
01:02:41,480 --> 01:02:45,080
Speaker 1: and Hammer used prey yep, oh no, they use.

1213
01:02:45,400 --> 01:02:48,440
Speaker 2: They used then this guy is the limited.

1214
01:02:48,640 --> 01:02:49,680
Speaker 3: They also use what you call it.

1215
01:02:49,720 --> 01:02:52,880
Speaker 2: They usedtar fishing starfishing coffee too. I forget.

1216
01:02:53,880 --> 01:02:57,760
Speaker 8: You know, Prince was he was against sampling at that time.

1217
01:02:57,920 --> 01:02:59,960
Speaker 8: You know, he didn't think it was music, you know

1218
01:03:00,080 --> 01:03:03,960
Speaker 8: what I'm saying, and he was sort of offended. He

1219
01:03:04,440 --> 01:03:06,080
Speaker 8: was one of those people at the time that thought

1220
01:03:06,080 --> 01:03:09,080
Speaker 8: it was stealing basically. But I will say, you know,

1221
01:03:09,120 --> 01:03:13,400
Speaker 8: when we were released to stuff, the sampling world wasn't

1222
01:03:13,400 --> 01:03:17,600
Speaker 8: really solidified, like the whole we were saying rumors like

1223
01:03:17,680 --> 01:03:20,720
Speaker 8: if you were using less than three seconds, you're you're good.

1224
01:03:20,760 --> 01:03:22,520
Speaker 8: If you're not using a melody, you're good. If you're

1225
01:03:22,560 --> 01:03:24,920
Speaker 8: just using the beat, it's fine. So these were the

1226
01:03:25,040 --> 01:03:28,320
Speaker 8: sort of rules that were going around. It wasn't really

1227
01:03:28,320 --> 01:03:31,040
Speaker 8: solidified as to how that worked. And so when I

1228
01:03:31,120 --> 01:03:35,200
Speaker 8: sampled the word tones, see, I didn't feel like it

1229
01:03:35,280 --> 01:03:37,640
Speaker 8: was even a thing because I'm like, it's just the words.

1230
01:03:37,720 --> 01:03:39,440
Speaker 8: So it's like if you use something from a record

1231
01:03:39,480 --> 01:03:41,600
Speaker 8: like yo, you know, or you know what I'm saying,

1232
01:03:41,640 --> 01:03:43,240
Speaker 8: it's like it was sort of like that.

1233
01:03:43,280 --> 01:03:44,720
Speaker 7: To me, it wasn't a thing, you know.

1234
01:03:44,680 --> 01:03:45,080
Speaker 3: What I mean.

1235
01:03:46,640 --> 01:03:48,000
Speaker 7: That was how I was thinking at the.

1236
01:03:47,960 --> 01:03:51,920
Speaker 1: Time, you know, as much as a prince head that

1237
01:03:52,000 --> 01:03:55,280
Speaker 1: I am. I will actually say, it might have taken

1238
01:03:55,320 --> 01:03:57,840
Speaker 1: me like four to five months for me to even

1239
01:03:57,920 --> 01:04:00,080
Speaker 1: realize that was a prince sample.

1240
01:04:00,200 --> 01:04:03,360
Speaker 7: Right, exactly exactly. That's the other thing.

1241
01:04:03,960 --> 01:04:11,560
Speaker 1: Alphabet Street just one word take on the back seat.

1242
01:04:11,840 --> 01:04:16,320
Speaker 1: I gotta ask, I gotta ask, how much did they

1243
01:04:16,320 --> 01:04:16,840
Speaker 1: get you all for?

1244
01:04:17,600 --> 01:04:19,760
Speaker 7: So Prince did something?

1245
01:04:19,800 --> 01:04:19,960
Speaker 3: Really?

1246
01:04:20,160 --> 01:04:20,880
Speaker 7: Go ahead? Go ahead, bro?

1247
01:04:21,320 --> 01:04:26,000
Speaker 1: No, no, typical you know, typically most groups will pay

1248
01:04:26,200 --> 01:04:29,480
Speaker 1: twenty five to fifty thousand and four something.

1249
01:04:29,520 --> 01:04:31,400
Speaker 2: But for one word. I get the feeling you're about

1250
01:04:31,440 --> 01:04:33,240
Speaker 2: to tell me it's it's expensive.

1251
01:04:33,280 --> 01:04:36,000
Speaker 8: Good it was, And what he did and this is

1252
01:04:36,000 --> 01:04:38,280
Speaker 8: pretty this is pretty shrewd on Prince's behalf.

1253
01:04:38,320 --> 01:04:40,600
Speaker 7: What he did is he waited for it to hit

1254
01:04:40,680 --> 01:04:41,760
Speaker 7: to the top of the charts.

1255
01:04:42,280 --> 01:04:45,480
Speaker 8: And so we had already won on the rap charts,

1256
01:04:45,840 --> 01:04:48,400
Speaker 8: we hit number one on the R and B charts,

1257
01:04:48,680 --> 01:04:51,760
Speaker 8: we got to number six, I believe on the pop charts, right,

1258
01:04:52,160 --> 01:04:55,920
Speaker 8: And the moment it went down to number seven, we

1259
01:04:56,000 --> 01:04:58,080
Speaker 8: got a call. And I'm not joking, it was literally

1260
01:04:58,120 --> 01:05:01,120
Speaker 8: the moment it went down, yeah, and he was like, yo, I.

1261
01:05:01,040 --> 01:05:02,800
Speaker 7: Want one hundred grand for that word.

1262
01:05:03,520 --> 01:05:06,080
Speaker 8: And at the time I thought that was crazy though.

1263
01:05:06,120 --> 01:05:08,440
Speaker 8: I thought that was crazy, But I get him and

1264
01:05:08,520 --> 01:05:11,040
Speaker 8: I was young. That's him being nice, bro. And I

1265
01:05:11,040 --> 01:05:12,120
Speaker 8: didn't realize.

1266
01:05:11,720 --> 01:05:15,880
Speaker 2: That, Yeah he cut break, He cut me a.

1267
01:05:15,840 --> 01:05:17,080
Speaker 7: Break, He cut me a break.

1268
01:05:17,120 --> 01:05:18,840
Speaker 2: I didn't realize that he could have put some sting

1269
01:05:18,960 --> 01:05:20,600
Speaker 2: shit and just could ye.

1270
01:05:20,960 --> 01:05:23,000
Speaker 7: Yo, I was half the record, you know what I'm saying.

1271
01:05:23,120 --> 01:05:26,200
Speaker 2: All the publishing and all that stuff. That's all publishing yep.

1272
01:05:26,400 --> 01:05:28,240
Speaker 5: In those three years and stuff, did you guys have

1273
01:05:28,360 --> 01:05:30,520
Speaker 5: management and whatnot? And they were helping with things? Because

1274
01:05:30,560 --> 01:05:33,720
Speaker 5: I know, so how did the whole Michael Mauldine.

1275
01:05:34,120 --> 01:05:39,120
Speaker 8: Yeah, so our man, Yeah, Jermaine's dad was our manager.

1276
01:05:39,720 --> 01:05:41,520
Speaker 2: Wow, Okay, yeah, I didn't know that.

1277
01:05:41,560 --> 01:05:47,080
Speaker 8: And so you know, back then we had released a

1278
01:05:47,160 --> 01:05:51,560
Speaker 8: record in Atlanta and pressed about two hundred copies and

1279
01:05:51,600 --> 01:05:54,280
Speaker 8: we were, you know, passing it around the industry people.

1280
01:05:54,880 --> 01:05:57,360
Speaker 8: One of those people was Ian Burke, who's a very

1281
01:05:57,400 --> 01:06:01,160
Speaker 8: big music dude here in Atlanta, and then he passed

1282
01:06:01,200 --> 01:06:04,320
Speaker 8: it to Michael Malden. Michael Maldon at that time wasn't

1283
01:06:04,360 --> 01:06:07,080
Speaker 8: really huge. He had he was, I want to say

1284
01:06:07,080 --> 01:06:10,800
Speaker 8: he was managing or to be the tour manager still

1285
01:06:10,840 --> 01:06:13,880
Speaker 8: times Leather, which was Jermaine Dupriez's first major label signing.

1286
01:06:15,120 --> 01:06:17,160
Speaker 8: But they weren't huge, you know, they were just one

1287
01:06:17,240 --> 01:06:19,520
Speaker 8: act on a shelf of acts, you know what I'm saying,

1288
01:06:19,960 --> 01:06:23,680
Speaker 8: And so he said it to Michael Maldon.

1289
01:06:24,080 --> 01:06:26,280
Speaker 7: He was sort of just like a tour.

1290
01:06:26,160 --> 01:06:28,520
Speaker 8: Manager for Brick, you know, the R and B band,

1291
01:06:29,200 --> 01:06:31,440
Speaker 8: and he was just wanting to break off into the industry.

1292
01:06:31,960 --> 01:06:34,640
Speaker 8: He got the Stiltimes Leather hook up with his son, Jermaine.

1293
01:06:34,640 --> 01:06:37,240
Speaker 8: I knew Jermaine really well too, so you know, it

1294
01:06:37,280 --> 01:06:39,400
Speaker 8: was just a matter of Okay, well he's bigger than

1295
01:06:39,400 --> 01:06:40,720
Speaker 8: anybody else that we knew.

1296
01:06:41,000 --> 01:06:42,120
Speaker 7: Let's go with Michael Malden.

1297
01:06:42,160 --> 01:06:44,800
Speaker 8: He was dope and he got us the deal between

1298
01:06:44,880 --> 01:06:46,800
Speaker 8: him and his partner Philip Callaway.

1299
01:06:51,640 --> 01:06:57,640
Speaker 1: Are you having any social interaction whatsoever with anyone in

1300
01:06:57,680 --> 01:07:00,240
Speaker 1: the lineage of Atlanta hip hop by the time you

1301
01:07:00,240 --> 01:07:04,400
Speaker 1: get down there, like are you do you know members

1302
01:07:04,400 --> 01:07:05,320
Speaker 1: of the Dungeon family?

1303
01:07:05,360 --> 01:07:09,680
Speaker 2: Do you know Drean Big Boy or the good moun guys?

1304
01:07:09,720 --> 01:07:13,200
Speaker 1: Like are you running to anyone that six degrees to

1305
01:07:13,240 --> 01:07:14,200
Speaker 1: hip hop in Atlanta?

1306
01:07:14,240 --> 01:07:17,320
Speaker 8: By that point, Yes, and no, no, none of the

1307
01:07:17,400 --> 01:07:19,880
Speaker 8: Dungeon family because I didn't know them, like they weren't

1308
01:07:19,920 --> 01:07:23,520
Speaker 8: a thing when we were first coming out. So when

1309
01:07:23,560 --> 01:07:26,720
Speaker 8: we were first coming out, it was other acts, you know,

1310
01:07:27,080 --> 01:07:30,440
Speaker 8: mcshi D and people like that that was really making

1311
01:07:30,520 --> 01:07:33,720
Speaker 8: moves in Atlanta on the local scene. And it was

1312
01:07:33,800 --> 01:07:36,520
Speaker 8: more like, well, as you well know, it's like that

1313
01:07:36,640 --> 01:07:40,400
Speaker 8: sort of Miami based type of style. One twenty beats

1314
01:07:40,400 --> 01:07:43,280
Speaker 8: permitted a more type of style, and it wasn't really

1315
01:07:43,320 --> 01:07:45,320
Speaker 8: where we were at, but we knew all these cats

1316
01:07:45,320 --> 01:07:49,080
Speaker 8: and all of the showcases that we did, they were

1317
01:07:49,120 --> 01:07:51,800
Speaker 8: on those same showcases or people like them were on

1318
01:07:51,880 --> 01:07:54,800
Speaker 8: those exact same showcases. So it was very much the

1319
01:07:54,840 --> 01:07:57,480
Speaker 8: scene of Atlanta, and we changed that, you know what

1320
01:07:57,520 --> 01:08:01,160
Speaker 8: I mean, like bringing a different energy to the Atlanta scene.

1321
01:08:01,200 --> 01:08:03,280
Speaker 1: Did you think that you had to leave Atlanta in

1322
01:08:03,400 --> 01:08:05,160
Speaker 1: order to make it, like we got to move to

1323
01:08:05,160 --> 01:08:08,320
Speaker 1: New York in order to get it a deal or

1324
01:08:08,680 --> 01:08:09,320
Speaker 1: la or.

1325
01:08:10,080 --> 01:08:11,080
Speaker 7: No, we didn't feel that.

1326
01:08:11,400 --> 01:08:13,920
Speaker 8: In fact, I didn't go to New York until right

1327
01:08:13,960 --> 01:08:15,040
Speaker 8: before we got our deal.

1328
01:08:15,200 --> 01:08:17,559
Speaker 7: That was my first time ever being in New York period.

1329
01:08:17,720 --> 01:08:21,559
Speaker 8: So I felt like Atlanta had a good shot, Like

1330
01:08:21,600 --> 01:08:22,320
Speaker 8: we had a good shot.

1331
01:08:22,360 --> 01:08:22,479
Speaker 2: You know.

1332
01:08:22,479 --> 01:08:24,599
Speaker 8: It took us some years obviously to make some things happen,

1333
01:08:24,680 --> 01:08:26,760
Speaker 8: but I felt like we had a shot and there

1334
01:08:26,760 --> 01:08:29,280
Speaker 8: was a scene there that was very musical, very different,

1335
01:08:29,880 --> 01:08:32,040
Speaker 8: you know than what was going on in New York

1336
01:08:32,080 --> 01:08:32,519
Speaker 8: at the time.

1337
01:08:33,640 --> 01:08:37,360
Speaker 1: Were there any other labels that were considering you guys before,

1338
01:08:37,400 --> 01:08:37,840
Speaker 1: you know.

1339
01:08:38,360 --> 01:08:41,439
Speaker 8: I mean, we tried all the labels, but at that

1340
01:08:41,560 --> 01:08:43,599
Speaker 8: time we were just getting turned down left and right,

1341
01:08:43,680 --> 01:08:45,840
Speaker 8: left and right, left and right. And this is prior

1342
01:08:45,920 --> 01:08:49,040
Speaker 8: to like, you know, obviously Black Eyed Peas.

1343
01:08:48,880 --> 01:08:50,599
Speaker 7: Or PM don or any of those things.

1344
01:08:50,640 --> 01:08:52,640
Speaker 8: Well PM down actually did put out a record, it

1345
01:08:52,760 --> 01:08:54,840
Speaker 8: just wasn't it wasn't huge just yet.

1346
01:08:55,240 --> 01:08:58,240
Speaker 7: But yeah, so it was it was tough for them

1347
01:08:58,240 --> 01:08:59,639
Speaker 7: to imagine, you know what I'm.

1348
01:08:59,560 --> 01:09:02,840
Speaker 1: Saying, you know, because the thing is is that, at

1349
01:09:02,880 --> 01:09:05,519
Speaker 1: least now that I look in sort of an aerial

1350
01:09:05,600 --> 01:09:09,120
Speaker 1: view of it, for me, the beginning of what they

1351
01:09:09,160 --> 01:09:11,479
Speaker 1: call the alternative movement of hip hop starts with the

1352
01:09:11,520 --> 01:09:16,280
Speaker 1: Jungle Brothers, and well, you guys are technically the penultimate.

1353
01:09:16,560 --> 01:09:19,920
Speaker 1: I will say that it ended in my eyes with

1354
01:09:20,040 --> 01:09:25,639
Speaker 1: diggable planets. Really before before the I guess you could say,

1355
01:09:25,640 --> 01:09:29,040
Speaker 1: the eclipse of what we call the chronic came right

1356
01:09:29,640 --> 01:09:35,080
Speaker 1: and yeah, yeah, part of my dis not at the time.

1357
01:09:35,240 --> 01:09:37,280
Speaker 1: And you know, I've said this to Dre millions of

1358
01:09:37,320 --> 01:09:39,840
Speaker 1: times that it took me really fifteen years to really

1359
01:09:40,439 --> 01:09:43,360
Speaker 1: open up an admit that. Okay, I like the chronic,

1360
01:09:43,479 --> 01:09:45,280
Speaker 1: but I hated the Chronic when it first came out,

1361
01:09:46,160 --> 01:09:49,600
Speaker 1: really because I saw, you know, the night that you

1362
01:09:49,720 --> 01:09:54,120
Speaker 1: guys when year Grammy was like, right when to Reconnie,

1363
01:09:55,320 --> 01:09:59,960
Speaker 1: we're starting the roots, and I was like, okay, now,

1364
01:10:00,640 --> 01:10:05,200
Speaker 1: you know, this is the first step into alternative hip hop,

1365
01:10:05,280 --> 01:10:08,320
Speaker 1: getting you know, a seat at the table. So by

1366
01:10:08,400 --> 01:10:10,560
Speaker 1: the time we get our thing together, it's going to

1367
01:10:10,600 --> 01:10:13,640
Speaker 1: be on and popping. And then after you know, and

1368
01:10:13,680 --> 01:10:15,800
Speaker 1: then and then diggable planets was next. I was like,

1369
01:10:15,800 --> 01:10:19,439
Speaker 1: all right, great, first restive plant development and diggable planets

1370
01:10:19,520 --> 01:10:21,320
Speaker 1: and the roots the next you watch, and then we

1371
01:10:21,400 --> 01:10:23,559
Speaker 1: get our when we get to the train platform and

1372
01:10:23,600 --> 01:10:27,280
Speaker 1: the doors closed, and then we have to wait until

1373
01:10:27,320 --> 01:10:29,639
Speaker 1: like the late nineties in order to get the second

1374
01:10:29,680 --> 01:10:33,639
Speaker 1: wave in. But you know, in your mind, how did

1375
01:10:33,640 --> 01:10:37,760
Speaker 1: you feel about the alternative hip hop tag? Because you know,

1376
01:10:38,760 --> 01:10:41,800
Speaker 1: what I will say is that I mean people that

1377
01:10:41,840 --> 01:10:45,519
Speaker 1: listen to the show know kind of my obsession with

1378
01:10:46,360 --> 01:10:51,640
Speaker 1: sort of like journalism music journalism in particular. Yeah, and

1379
01:10:51,760 --> 01:10:57,400
Speaker 1: so one of the most impossible, like Steph Curry from

1380
01:10:57,439 --> 01:11:03,599
Speaker 1: half Shot, Eyes Closed, Op Direction, Shot going in Moments

1381
01:11:03,760 --> 01:11:08,639
Speaker 1: and hip hop history to me was you guys winning

1382
01:11:09,200 --> 01:11:15,439
Speaker 1: the Coveted Pass and Job Awards of ninety two, which

1383
01:11:16,080 --> 01:11:17,559
Speaker 1: you know, I don't know if you were aware of

1384
01:11:17,600 --> 01:11:20,280
Speaker 1: it at the time, but for those of you who

1385
01:11:20,280 --> 01:11:24,360
Speaker 1: don't know, you know, I'll say that Lester Bangs was

1386
01:11:25,680 --> 01:11:28,639
Speaker 1: the first like rock journalist that was like a star,

1387
01:11:29,360 --> 01:11:31,800
Speaker 1: you know, like a journalist that was bigger than he

1388
01:11:32,000 --> 01:11:35,040
Speaker 1: was a part of the story. Yeah, saw himself as

1389
01:11:35,360 --> 01:11:37,760
Speaker 1: you know, which is kind of a dangerous thing. And

1390
01:11:37,800 --> 01:11:40,639
Speaker 1: then after the age of Lester Bangs, then a gentleman

1391
01:11:40,720 --> 01:11:45,080
Speaker 1: named Robert Christigal who started working at the Village Voice,

1392
01:11:45,240 --> 01:11:47,600
Speaker 1: of which you know that's where like Greg Tad and

1393
01:11:48,200 --> 01:11:50,840
Speaker 1: all these other like black writers are coming up Dreamampton,

1394
01:11:51,200 --> 01:11:53,680
Speaker 1: like basically the first wave of what we'll run like

1395
01:11:53,760 --> 01:11:57,120
Speaker 1: the Source and Vibe in the nineties. But you know,

1396
01:11:57,200 --> 01:12:00,679
Speaker 1: in eighty six, eighty seven, eighty eight, what's happened is

1397
01:12:00,680 --> 01:12:03,559
Speaker 1: is Robert Christgau is letting like a lot of black

1398
01:12:04,040 --> 01:12:06,519
Speaker 1: rioters get a seat at the table to start reviewing

1399
01:12:06,600 --> 01:12:08,880
Speaker 1: hip hop. And this is the first time that I'm

1400
01:12:09,040 --> 01:12:12,160
Speaker 1: reading reviews, sort of said in the native tongue of

1401
01:12:12,280 --> 01:12:13,080
Speaker 1: like a.

1402
01:12:13,080 --> 01:12:14,439
Speaker 2: Black person, you know.

1403
01:12:15,320 --> 01:12:19,559
Speaker 1: And so when I saw y'all win the Past Job

1404
01:12:19,640 --> 01:12:24,120
Speaker 1: Awards and the Past Job Awards, basically Chris Degau gathers

1405
01:12:24,240 --> 01:12:29,880
Speaker 1: like three hundred journalists across the United States and he

1406
01:12:29,960 --> 01:12:32,600
Speaker 1: asked them for their top ten singles and records of

1407
01:12:32,600 --> 01:12:37,000
Speaker 1: the year, and it varies so to get like, the

1408
01:12:37,040 --> 01:12:39,200
Speaker 1: last time I seen a hip hop album win that

1409
01:12:39,280 --> 01:12:42,559
Speaker 1: award was a nation of millions. Before that, a hip

1410
01:12:42,600 --> 01:12:44,760
Speaker 1: hop album hadn't won. So when you guys won that,

1411
01:12:46,200 --> 01:12:49,080
Speaker 1: I was like, Yo, this is a fucking moment. At

1412
01:12:49,080 --> 01:12:51,680
Speaker 1: the time when you won that the Past Job Awards,

1413
01:12:52,080 --> 01:12:54,479
Speaker 1: did that mean anything to you or.

1414
01:12:54,400 --> 01:12:56,080
Speaker 2: Was it just like, oh, that's cool.

1415
01:12:57,040 --> 01:12:57,679
Speaker 7: Oh it's cool.

1416
01:12:57,760 --> 01:12:59,120
Speaker 8: I didn't even know anything about it. I fact, I

1417
01:12:59,160 --> 01:13:00,880
Speaker 8: didn't know anything about it. You just said it down,

1418
01:13:03,120 --> 01:13:05,360
Speaker 8: I'm serious about it.

1419
01:13:06,200 --> 01:13:07,000
Speaker 7: Nothing about it.

1420
01:13:07,120 --> 01:13:11,720
Speaker 8: You mean, I'm telling you, I'm telling you wait time out.

1421
01:13:11,840 --> 01:13:14,639
Speaker 1: You mean, I'm telling you right now that, like right now,

1422
01:13:14,680 --> 01:13:17,320
Speaker 1: you wont like three Mischelin stars for your restaurant and

1423
01:13:17,360 --> 01:13:20,559
Speaker 1: you had no clue, no clue that you got like

1424
01:13:20,640 --> 01:13:23,639
Speaker 1: fives in the source and you had no no clue.

1425
01:13:23,800 --> 01:13:26,600
Speaker 4: I remember, I remember the past job, but like I

1426
01:13:26,600 --> 01:13:28,680
Speaker 4: ain't carried the white people thought like, what was the

1427
01:13:28,720 --> 01:13:29,160
Speaker 4: source saying?

1428
01:13:29,240 --> 01:13:30,479
Speaker 2: But no, no, no, no, it wasn't that.

1429
01:13:30,560 --> 01:13:34,559
Speaker 1: I know, I know that that's that's a very easy deflection, Fonte.

1430
01:13:34,600 --> 01:13:38,360
Speaker 1: But what I'm saying was Chris de Gal made it

1431
01:13:38,400 --> 01:13:40,600
Speaker 1: in a very even seat at the table. So this

1432
01:13:40,680 --> 01:13:44,479
Speaker 1: is a mixture of black critics white critics. So that

1433
01:13:44,560 --> 01:13:49,040
Speaker 1: ship meant a lot more to me than the A

1434
01:13:49,800 --> 01:13:53,120
Speaker 1: and job and instead of jazz and pop they spell

1435
01:13:53,160 --> 01:13:54,240
Speaker 1: it passing job.

1436
01:13:54,400 --> 01:13:55,840
Speaker 7: Word up, you know.

1437
01:13:55,960 --> 01:13:57,720
Speaker 3: And I wasn't saying that it wasn't you know that

1438
01:13:57,760 --> 01:13:58,599
Speaker 3: it wasn't important.

1439
01:13:58,640 --> 01:14:00,760
Speaker 4: I just meant from the standpoint for us, for me

1440
01:14:00,880 --> 01:14:04,599
Speaker 4: as a hip hop fan, right, we weren't really checking

1441
01:14:04,640 --> 01:14:06,720
Speaker 4: for what their opinion was on hip hop, you know

1442
01:14:06,760 --> 01:14:08,439
Speaker 4: what I mean, Like it was just you know, that

1443
01:14:08,560 --> 01:14:09,400
Speaker 4: was kind of what it was.

1444
01:14:10,040 --> 01:14:10,439
Speaker 7: I was.

1445
01:14:11,320 --> 01:14:12,200
Speaker 2: I'm sorry.

1446
01:14:13,880 --> 01:14:17,479
Speaker 1: To me, that was like some of me like, I

1447
01:14:18,000 --> 01:14:21,640
Speaker 1: don't know, like, yeah, often hard to achieve, and you

1448
01:14:21,680 --> 01:14:23,360
Speaker 1: guys did it. But the fact that you didn't even

1449
01:14:23,360 --> 01:14:26,640
Speaker 1: know about it no even more crazier than me.

1450
01:14:27,479 --> 01:14:29,920
Speaker 8: Well you know, also, I hated the term alternative hip

1451
01:14:29,920 --> 01:14:32,599
Speaker 8: hop because I didn't. For me personally, I.

1452
01:14:32,600 --> 01:14:33,840
Speaker 7: Didn't get it.

1453
01:14:33,840 --> 01:14:36,920
Speaker 8: It didn't feel like it was an alternative or an

1454
01:14:36,960 --> 01:14:40,240
Speaker 8: alternative to the other hip hop. Like I'm listening to

1455
01:14:40,520 --> 01:14:44,880
Speaker 8: like Yo bum Rush the Show album and they're sophisticated,

1456
01:14:45,439 --> 01:14:47,800
Speaker 8: you know, which is a rock song, and there's all

1457
01:14:47,840 --> 01:14:50,320
Speaker 8: these live drum loops and stuff like this on Yo

1458
01:14:50,400 --> 01:14:53,040
Speaker 8: bum Rush the Show record coming from Death Jam, which

1459
01:14:53,080 --> 01:14:56,559
Speaker 8: was obviously a very legitimized labeling hip hop, and it

1460
01:14:56,600 --> 01:14:59,880
Speaker 8: wasn't called an alternative record. Chuck d sounded one percent

1461
01:15:00,080 --> 01:15:03,160
Speaker 8: different than any in my opinion, at least any MC

1462
01:15:03,360 --> 01:15:07,240
Speaker 8: prior to him, and it totally you know, a flave,

1463
01:15:07,360 --> 01:15:10,160
Speaker 8: the concept of a flav or flave and everything he

1464
01:15:10,240 --> 01:15:12,280
Speaker 8: did in same with Nation of Millions to hold his

1465
01:15:12,360 --> 01:15:15,360
Speaker 8: back record. Don't get me wrong, it was clearly we

1466
01:15:15,400 --> 01:15:18,479
Speaker 8: all celebrated that music. But I'm saying, like to me,

1467
01:15:19,560 --> 01:15:23,479
Speaker 8: if you know too much posse and these type songs

1468
01:15:23,560 --> 01:15:27,920
Speaker 8: aren't gonna be considered alternative hip hop, then I didn't

1469
01:15:27,920 --> 01:15:28,280
Speaker 8: get it.

1470
01:15:28,360 --> 01:15:32,760
Speaker 7: I didn't get what made it so alternative or why

1471
01:15:32,840 --> 01:15:33,479
Speaker 7: it started with.

1472
01:15:33,520 --> 01:15:37,320
Speaker 1: Us, you know what, something though, If I'm really, really

1473
01:15:37,360 --> 01:15:42,519
Speaker 1: truly honest I was twenty one when the album came out,

1474
01:15:42,800 --> 01:15:47,639
Speaker 1: and I didn't buy the album until mister Wendell started

1475
01:15:47,880 --> 01:15:48,960
Speaker 1: until after I'm plugged.

1476
01:15:49,840 --> 01:15:52,960
Speaker 2: Okay, then I brought the record. God I spun.

1477
01:15:53,080 --> 01:15:56,879
Speaker 1: I'm a DJ, so I had when I buy singles

1478
01:15:56,880 --> 01:15:59,280
Speaker 1: and forty five's is for the purpose of like playing

1479
01:15:59,320 --> 01:16:02,880
Speaker 1: in ne club. So here's the thing though, when I

1480
01:16:02,920 --> 01:16:11,160
Speaker 1: hear Tennessee and essentially people every day, I remember having

1481
01:16:11,360 --> 01:16:14,400
Speaker 1: a little hip hop debate arguments about is the rest

1482
01:16:14,400 --> 01:16:17,320
Speaker 1: of development a hip hop group or an R.

1483
01:16:17,240 --> 01:16:17,840
Speaker 2: And B group?

1484
01:16:18,280 --> 01:16:18,800
Speaker 7: Fucked up?

1485
01:16:20,320 --> 01:16:24,040
Speaker 2: He rapping I was twenty one dog but even then

1486
01:16:24,840 --> 01:16:30,080
Speaker 2: because he was singing, because he was delivering so melodically, I.

1487
01:16:30,240 --> 01:16:34,200
Speaker 1: Just in my mind rap was glo wan too throw

1488
01:16:34,240 --> 01:16:37,200
Speaker 1: the MIC's one Wan two want Too.

1489
01:16:37,280 --> 01:16:38,639
Speaker 2: And I didn't see that.

1490
01:16:38,720 --> 01:16:41,760
Speaker 1: So in my mind, I was like, yo, this is

1491
01:16:41,760 --> 01:16:48,479
Speaker 1: one of the most innovative R and B groups ever. No, hey,

1492
01:16:48,640 --> 01:16:53,440
Speaker 1: another disclosure, One of my first debates with Missy Elliott

1493
01:16:54,120 --> 01:16:57,200
Speaker 1: was over the same thing, because I made the mistake

1494
01:16:57,240 --> 01:16:59,719
Speaker 1: of letting my opinion on on Twitter that I didn't

1495
01:16:59,720 --> 01:17:02,240
Speaker 1: consent to Missy Elliott and MC. More than I considered

1496
01:17:02,240 --> 01:17:05,120
Speaker 1: her a singer, I consider her a singer that had

1497
01:17:05,160 --> 01:17:06,160
Speaker 1: skills as an MC.

1498
01:17:06,920 --> 01:17:08,920
Speaker 2: Well she lived my dms up.

1499
01:17:09,000 --> 01:17:13,640
Speaker 1: Boy Wow the lyrics to the second verse or I

1500
01:17:13,680 --> 01:17:16,599
Speaker 1: guess the first verse of people every day? How much

1501
01:17:16,760 --> 01:17:23,080
Speaker 1: resistance were you on a daily basis meeting from the

1502
01:17:23,400 --> 01:17:27,040
Speaker 1: hip hop guard that saw you guys as weirdos.

1503
01:17:27,800 --> 01:17:30,920
Speaker 8: Ironically, we weren't getting, like from a in my own

1504
01:17:30,960 --> 01:17:31,840
Speaker 8: body experience.

1505
01:17:31,880 --> 01:17:33,679
Speaker 7: We weren't getting a lot of.

1506
01:17:35,080 --> 01:17:38,320
Speaker 8: People doubting the hip hop origin of who we were

1507
01:17:39,280 --> 01:17:40,200
Speaker 8: being in my own body.

1508
01:17:40,200 --> 01:17:42,639
Speaker 7: We were getting a lot of.

1509
01:17:42,600 --> 01:17:46,040
Speaker 8: Pushback from gangs to hip hop at the time. I

1510
01:17:46,120 --> 01:17:51,559
Speaker 8: mentioned ice Cube on people every day and Earlie to read.

1511
01:17:51,439 --> 01:17:54,639
Speaker 7: From our group says who after I say his name?

1512
01:17:55,320 --> 01:17:59,320
Speaker 8: So there's like a Now I'm meant for it to

1513
01:17:59,360 --> 01:18:02,120
Speaker 8: be a slight in a sense, right, because I'm trying

1514
01:18:02,160 --> 01:18:06,120
Speaker 8: to compare how I'm going to handle this situation compared

1515
01:18:06,120 --> 01:18:08,559
Speaker 8: to how Ice Cue portrayed himself.

1516
01:18:09,120 --> 01:18:11,840
Speaker 7: Oh exactly right.

1517
01:18:12,560 --> 01:18:15,840
Speaker 2: Wait a minute, now, I'm just hearing now I'm one

1518
01:18:15,960 --> 01:18:16,680
Speaker 2: second years old.

1519
01:18:16,760 --> 01:18:21,200
Speaker 1: I didn't realize that who Yep, I didn't realize it

1520
01:18:21,280 --> 01:18:22,000
Speaker 1: was a question.

1521
01:18:22,400 --> 01:18:24,240
Speaker 2: I just thought, Hey, all.

1522
01:18:24,439 --> 01:18:26,479
Speaker 8: We all knew who Ice Cue was. Don't get me wrong,

1523
01:18:26,720 --> 01:18:31,960
Speaker 8: she was, but at the time. He he did, and

1524
01:18:32,040 --> 01:18:35,879
Speaker 8: so did therefore Snoop And so did you know others

1525
01:18:36,000 --> 01:18:38,200
Speaker 8: who were on the West Coast that were more so

1526
01:18:38,360 --> 01:18:41,000
Speaker 8: repping gangs to hip hop in a more direct way, right,

1527
01:18:41,479 --> 01:18:45,280
Speaker 8: So there was that sort of and not to mention

1528
01:18:45,800 --> 01:18:48,800
Speaker 8: every show that I did, and I'm talking about for

1529
01:18:48,840 --> 01:18:52,760
Speaker 8: twenty thousand people or arrested development did, I'm saying, I

1530
01:18:52,800 --> 01:18:57,519
Speaker 8: would say that we're not calling black women bitches and holes.

1531
01:18:57,640 --> 01:18:59,679
Speaker 7: We don't do that. Our peers do that. We don't

1532
01:18:59,720 --> 01:19:00,080
Speaker 7: do that.

1533
01:19:00,439 --> 01:19:04,120
Speaker 8: So I'm making a very clear statement about who we are,

1534
01:19:04,240 --> 01:19:06,960
Speaker 8: what we're doing, and why it's different than what this

1535
01:19:07,040 --> 01:19:12,200
Speaker 8: dude's doing. So those types of things came off as basically,

1536
01:19:12,280 --> 01:19:18,320
Speaker 8: you know what I'm saying, like, Okay, you better than Yeah.

1537
01:19:17,720 --> 01:19:19,679
Speaker 2: What happens the first time that you meet them?

1538
01:19:21,680 --> 01:19:25,920
Speaker 8: Cube Cube did that signature growl look that he does?

1539
01:19:25,960 --> 01:19:28,200
Speaker 8: You know how he just it's it's a cover of

1540
01:19:28,240 --> 01:19:31,160
Speaker 8: every magazine you've ever seen. Cbe Grace, the cover of

1541
01:19:31,720 --> 01:19:34,760
Speaker 8: He gave me that cube scal one oh one. He

1542
01:19:34,840 --> 01:19:38,800
Speaker 8: gave me that scowl, right, and then Snoop gave me

1543
01:19:38,880 --> 01:19:41,080
Speaker 8: this sort of like cold thing at the Grammys, And

1544
01:19:41,439 --> 01:19:43,920
Speaker 8: it was that kind of energy iced tea. At the time,

1545
01:19:44,439 --> 01:19:47,559
Speaker 8: me and him, prior to us really blowing up, we're friends.

1546
01:19:48,320 --> 01:19:50,920
Speaker 8: But after we started to blow up, he distanced himself

1547
01:19:50,920 --> 01:19:53,559
Speaker 8: from me. So it's those kind of things that I felt.

1548
01:19:53,560 --> 01:19:56,040
Speaker 8: But it wasn't necessarily the whole R and B versus

1549
01:19:56,120 --> 01:19:58,640
Speaker 8: hip hop thing. It was more of the stance that

1550
01:19:58,680 --> 01:20:02,879
Speaker 8: we were taking. And I think, now, mind you, we're eating.

1551
01:20:03,000 --> 01:20:06,240
Speaker 8: We're eating at this time, like we're wrapping up awards shows,

1552
01:20:06,240 --> 01:20:06,799
Speaker 8: So this.

1553
01:20:06,680 --> 01:20:11,120
Speaker 7: Is this is scary. Also said, so this is this.

1554
01:20:11,000 --> 01:20:15,400
Speaker 8: Is like competition now, like, okay, their stance is very

1555
01:20:16,080 --> 01:20:18,240
Speaker 8: juxtaposed to what we're doing.

1556
01:20:18,720 --> 01:20:22,000
Speaker 7: And they're winning. Like this is not an underground sensation.

1557
01:20:22,120 --> 01:20:25,400
Speaker 8: This is something that's actually taking awards from them, like

1558
01:20:25,439 --> 01:20:26,320
Speaker 8: the chronic.

1559
01:20:26,360 --> 01:20:30,120
Speaker 1: It's become because because of the yeah, I mean, you

1560
01:20:30,160 --> 01:20:32,320
Speaker 1: guys owned, you guys own ninety two.

1561
01:20:33,040 --> 01:20:34,519
Speaker 2: Did it ever become a burden?

1562
01:20:35,600 --> 01:20:35,720
Speaker 5: Uh?

1563
01:20:36,960 --> 01:20:39,880
Speaker 2: Winning that much and selling that much?

1564
01:20:40,200 --> 01:20:43,799
Speaker 1: Because then again, it's also like, and I do remember

1565
01:20:43,920 --> 01:20:47,800
Speaker 1: like Cypress Hill went through situation where you know, the

1566
01:20:47,840 --> 01:20:51,479
Speaker 1: source decided to just start going out on them for

1567
01:20:51,560 --> 01:20:54,800
Speaker 1: their second album because they thought, like, oh, y'all ain't

1568
01:20:54,840 --> 01:20:57,640
Speaker 1: making hip hop for the heads. No, more like we

1569
01:20:57,680 --> 01:21:00,479
Speaker 1: see you know, white people dancing and slam dancing in

1570
01:21:00,520 --> 01:21:02,840
Speaker 1: your videos and you're doing like Wlapalooza and all this

1571
01:21:02,880 --> 01:21:08,360
Speaker 1: other stuff. Yeah, so were you feeling as though that

1572
01:21:08,400 --> 01:21:09,920
Speaker 1: you were in danger of hindering the.

1573
01:21:09,880 --> 01:21:11,400
Speaker 7: Group without a question?

1574
01:21:11,840 --> 01:21:13,760
Speaker 8: Like, for me as a leader of the group, I'm

1575
01:21:13,760 --> 01:21:16,759
Speaker 8: worried about that every day, Like every day, I'm worried

1576
01:21:16,800 --> 01:21:25,840
Speaker 8: about this, this transference of black heads and fans loving

1577
01:21:25,920 --> 01:21:30,280
Speaker 8: our music and it starting to transform into mainly white

1578
01:21:30,320 --> 01:21:34,640
Speaker 8: audiences now loving the music, mainly white critics, you know,

1579
01:21:35,120 --> 01:21:36,000
Speaker 8: heroin the music.

1580
01:21:36,360 --> 01:21:38,559
Speaker 7: It was like, oh man, what is this? What does

1581
01:21:38,600 --> 01:21:39,120
Speaker 7: this mean?

1582
01:21:39,400 --> 01:21:43,719
Speaker 8: Like because everything we're talking about is these black issues.

1583
01:21:43,760 --> 01:21:46,880
Speaker 8: But then the people that's starting to you know, come

1584
01:21:46,880 --> 01:21:50,800
Speaker 8: to all the shows is different. We did Lollapalooza, you

1585
01:21:50,840 --> 01:21:54,479
Speaker 8: know what I'm saying. We we did these huge which

1586
01:21:54,520 --> 01:21:57,080
Speaker 8: I love these festivals, don't get me wrong. Like I'm

1587
01:21:57,120 --> 01:22:01,960
Speaker 8: with bands that I absolutely adore, Primise and and you know,

1588
01:22:02,760 --> 01:22:03,880
Speaker 8: I love these bands.

1589
01:22:03,880 --> 01:22:05,520
Speaker 7: So I'm loving this experience.

1590
01:22:05,560 --> 01:22:08,280
Speaker 8: But it's a it's a it's a hard thing to

1591
01:22:08,360 --> 01:22:10,040
Speaker 8: sort of reckon, right because you're this.

1592
01:22:11,520 --> 01:22:14,599
Speaker 7: We're an underground hip hop group talking about black liberation.

1593
01:22:15,640 --> 01:22:18,920
Speaker 8: And yet we're doing these big rock tours and we're

1594
01:22:18,960 --> 01:22:21,760
Speaker 8: doing things that I wouldn't take back to this day.

1595
01:22:21,800 --> 01:22:24,840
Speaker 8: But it was tough, right to try to understand the trajectory,

1596
01:22:24,880 --> 01:22:25,920
Speaker 8: you know, what.

1597
01:22:25,600 --> 01:22:26,120
Speaker 7: Was going on.

1598
01:22:26,439 --> 01:22:30,240
Speaker 1: Carol Lewis of course gets immortalized and paintingful. You know,

1599
01:22:30,360 --> 01:22:33,240
Speaker 1: Nobrie Walker's our agent. Carol Lewis is our agent, word up,

1600
01:22:33,320 --> 01:22:38,320
Speaker 1: indeed whatever. And so I remember the reason why my

1601
01:22:38,360 --> 01:22:42,640
Speaker 1: manager chose Carol Lewis is because you guys were a

1602
01:22:42,680 --> 01:22:47,559
Speaker 1: client and always working, and he saw the basic group

1603
01:22:47,640 --> 01:22:50,160
Speaker 1: that you took, you know, the festivals you were doing.

1604
01:22:50,680 --> 01:22:53,360
Speaker 1: And again this was unheard of at the time in

1605
01:22:53,400 --> 01:22:57,320
Speaker 1: the early nineties. We live now in a America just

1606
01:22:57,360 --> 01:23:02,639
Speaker 1: got onto festival fever. But right and so, but one

1607
01:23:02,640 --> 01:23:07,960
Speaker 1: of the most shocking things was you guys wanting to do.

1608
01:23:09,600 --> 01:23:12,479
Speaker 2: A Chitlin circuit kind of.

1609
01:23:14,120 --> 01:23:17,760
Speaker 1: You basically wanted to un Yeah, it seemed like you

1610
01:23:17,800 --> 01:23:24,320
Speaker 1: wanted to undo the progress of the first album with

1611
01:23:24,479 --> 01:23:28,600
Speaker 1: zing Lamadouni. Because I remember this whole campaign of you know,

1612
01:23:28,640 --> 01:23:30,240
Speaker 1: we're going to do a Chitlin circuit or we're going

1613
01:23:30,320 --> 01:23:32,639
Speaker 1: to do like small clubs and that sort of hanging.

1614
01:23:32,680 --> 01:23:36,240
Speaker 1: I'm like, wait, a minute, y'all sold four million. I've

1615
01:23:36,280 --> 01:23:39,479
Speaker 1: seen you guys open for en Vogue in the summer,

1616
01:23:39,720 --> 01:23:43,280
Speaker 1: like now it's your turn. Really, I was just mad

1617
01:23:43,280 --> 01:23:45,920
Speaker 1: because I wanted you guys in the shed so that

1618
01:23:45,920 --> 01:23:50,320
Speaker 1: way the roots get open for y'all. So I'm like,

1619
01:23:51,400 --> 01:23:53,600
Speaker 1: you know, I'm thinking, like, wait, why are y'all in

1620
01:23:53,680 --> 01:23:57,080
Speaker 1: these small venues where you're not going to make money?

1621
01:23:57,200 --> 01:23:58,639
Speaker 2: Like go back to the big venues.

1622
01:23:58,680 --> 01:24:03,760
Speaker 1: But you know, so why what was your mind the

1623
01:24:03,840 --> 01:24:07,160
Speaker 1: mind state of doing what you called the Chitlin circuit

1624
01:24:07,200 --> 01:24:09,160
Speaker 1: run for you know, the.

1625
01:24:10,640 --> 01:24:12,840
Speaker 2: Launch of zing A Lamaduni.

1626
01:24:13,640 --> 01:24:16,719
Speaker 8: I felt like we had lost track with the roots,

1627
01:24:17,040 --> 01:24:22,479
Speaker 8: no put un intended. I felt like like we weren't

1628
01:24:22,479 --> 01:24:24,840
Speaker 8: connected with the people, and the machine had gotten so

1629
01:24:26,200 --> 01:24:28,720
Speaker 8: it became so much a part of everything that I

1630
01:24:28,760 --> 01:24:31,200
Speaker 8: felt scared. To be honest, I felt like I was

1631
01:24:31,240 --> 01:24:33,320
Speaker 8: floating and my feet weren't on the ground, like I

1632
01:24:33,360 --> 01:24:36,720
Speaker 8: didn't know what I was connected to and so we

1633
01:24:36,760 --> 01:24:39,880
Speaker 8: went that direction. To me, it reminded me of what

1634
01:24:40,000 --> 01:24:42,640
Speaker 8: Dayla did after their success with three Feet Right, So

1635
01:24:44,040 --> 01:24:47,920
Speaker 8: their next record was DayLA's Dead Right. So to me,

1636
01:24:48,479 --> 01:24:51,080
Speaker 8: I don't know, I know them, but I've never talked

1637
01:24:51,080 --> 01:24:53,080
Speaker 8: to them about this, but I have a feeling that

1638
01:24:53,360 --> 01:24:57,160
Speaker 8: it was their way of saying, Okay, let's get back

1639
01:24:57,160 --> 01:25:00,840
Speaker 8: to something that has more I don't know roots for

1640
01:25:00,960 --> 01:25:03,160
Speaker 8: something then the whole hippie thing, Like we could take

1641
01:25:03,200 --> 01:25:05,040
Speaker 8: that and we could keep going with the hippie thing.

1642
01:25:05,840 --> 01:25:08,120
Speaker 8: But I think that they purposely wanted to kill that

1643
01:25:08,360 --> 01:25:11,439
Speaker 8: and go, you know, to something that they that that

1644
01:25:11,520 --> 01:25:12,519
Speaker 8: felt more real to them.

1645
01:25:12,680 --> 01:25:15,160
Speaker 4: Yeah, I say, man, I was surprised. You know, I

1646
01:25:15,240 --> 01:25:17,200
Speaker 4: was very surprised. I thought, ease, my mind was going

1647
01:25:17,280 --> 01:25:18,760
Speaker 4: to be like out of here. I thought that would

1648
01:25:18,800 --> 01:25:20,479
Speaker 4: be like a big yeah, you know what I mean,

1649
01:25:20,520 --> 01:25:23,479
Speaker 4: because I was like, okay, this is them. It sounded

1650
01:25:23,520 --> 01:25:24,479
Speaker 4: like y'all like, okay, this.

1651
01:25:24,479 --> 01:25:25,280
Speaker 3: Is this is them.

1652
01:25:25,360 --> 01:25:27,320
Speaker 2: But you know that was my gym.

1653
01:25:27,400 --> 01:25:30,920
Speaker 4: Yeah, what was the relationship with the label like at

1654
01:25:30,920 --> 01:25:33,280
Speaker 4: the time when y'all would make it that well, so.

1655
01:25:33,280 --> 01:25:36,320
Speaker 8: It was the perfect storm because the label was going

1656
01:25:36,360 --> 01:25:39,000
Speaker 8: through huge changes, so that we just made them I

1657
01:25:39,040 --> 01:25:39,719
Speaker 8: don't even know how.

1658
01:25:39,640 --> 01:25:40,920
Speaker 3: Many millions right, right.

1659
01:25:41,280 --> 01:25:44,559
Speaker 8: And what tends to happen with these big labels is

1660
01:25:44,600 --> 01:25:47,920
Speaker 8: then their presidents start getting changed and people start getting changed,

1661
01:25:47,920 --> 01:25:48,800
Speaker 8: and you know.

1662
01:25:48,800 --> 01:25:51,000
Speaker 3: They start it brought you into building.

1663
01:25:51,200 --> 01:25:54,040
Speaker 8: Facts, you start losing your team and the people that

1664
01:25:54,080 --> 01:25:57,599
Speaker 8: you're working with. Simultaneously, the group is going through it.

1665
01:25:57,680 --> 01:26:01,360
Speaker 8: So internally, me and the headliner are going at war

1666
01:26:01,400 --> 01:26:04,599
Speaker 8: with each other behind the scenes, and we're going through everything,

1667
01:26:04,640 --> 01:26:07,760
Speaker 8: you know what I mean, And that that was demoralizing

1668
01:26:08,120 --> 01:26:12,840
Speaker 8: and horrible, and the music industry was changing, you know

1669
01:26:12,880 --> 01:26:14,960
Speaker 8: I'm saying WU was coming in. It was a different

1670
01:26:15,040 --> 01:26:19,120
Speaker 8: energy from what was happening in the early nineties, and

1671
01:26:19,520 --> 01:26:23,200
Speaker 8: well it still was the early nineties, but like ninety

1672
01:26:23,200 --> 01:26:26,000
Speaker 8: one ninety two had a different energy than what would

1673
01:26:26,000 --> 01:26:27,960
Speaker 8: start to happen. We were becoming more and more popular,

1674
01:26:28,080 --> 01:26:30,960
Speaker 8: Naza's Ellmatic was hout, so it was like it's just

1675
01:26:31,360 --> 01:26:33,800
Speaker 8: all of those things combined made it a little bit

1676
01:26:33,840 --> 01:26:37,120
Speaker 8: of a different landscape, you know what I'm saying that

1677
01:26:37,120 --> 01:26:41,400
Speaker 8: that landscape internally group wise, musically on the outside and

1678
01:26:41,479 --> 01:26:42,120
Speaker 8: label wise.

1679
01:26:42,600 --> 01:26:46,800
Speaker 1: So with the remix for people every Day, Wait, did

1680
01:26:46,840 --> 01:26:48,880
Speaker 1: you make both at the same time or was it

1681
01:26:48,960 --> 01:26:50,799
Speaker 1: after the fact, after the album was done.

1682
01:26:51,360 --> 01:26:54,559
Speaker 8: After the album was done, and in fact, when Tennessee

1683
01:26:54,640 --> 01:26:57,200
Speaker 8: blew Up, which again was the last song we did

1684
01:26:57,240 --> 01:27:00,800
Speaker 8: on the album, right right, So, and so if you

1685
01:27:00,840 --> 01:27:04,280
Speaker 8: could imagine the whole hip hop argument versus melodic singing argument.

1686
01:27:05,320 --> 01:27:07,519
Speaker 8: There was not really a melodic singing record on the

1687
01:27:07,560 --> 01:27:09,920
Speaker 8: record on our album except for there was two songs,

1688
01:27:10,160 --> 01:27:12,960
Speaker 8: a song called You and a song called Rainy Revolution,

1689
01:27:13,880 --> 01:27:16,839
Speaker 8: but none of those were planning to be singles for us.

1690
01:27:17,040 --> 01:27:21,599
Speaker 8: So by the time we released Tennessee as our first single,

1691
01:27:21,920 --> 01:27:25,479
Speaker 8: unexpected but last minute move, it was a melodic style.

1692
01:27:25,960 --> 01:27:30,559
Speaker 8: It did so well that I didn't feel confident. I

1693
01:27:30,600 --> 01:27:31,960
Speaker 8: wanted to make a run of this, you know what

1694
01:27:32,000 --> 01:27:34,680
Speaker 8: I'm saying, because I wanted this to work. So I

1695
01:27:34,720 --> 01:27:37,360
Speaker 8: didn't feel confident that the version of People every Day

1696
01:27:37,360 --> 01:27:39,840
Speaker 8: that was on the record was going to do it.

1697
01:27:39,880 --> 01:27:42,080
Speaker 8: But the label wanted to release that as a single,

1698
01:27:42,280 --> 01:27:44,920
Speaker 8: People every Day. The version that's from the record, that's

1699
01:27:44,920 --> 01:27:45,760
Speaker 8: not the version that.

1700
01:27:45,840 --> 01:27:48,480
Speaker 3: Became the one. Yeah right exactly.

1701
01:27:48,880 --> 01:27:50,840
Speaker 7: So I was like, Yo, I'm doing the singing style

1702
01:27:50,880 --> 01:27:51,479
Speaker 7: on Tennessee.

1703
01:27:52,160 --> 01:27:57,759
Speaker 8: Let me try to basically recreate that same song, different

1704
01:27:57,800 --> 01:28:01,439
Speaker 8: groove and different lot of styles. So I resang it,

1705
01:28:01,479 --> 01:28:03,280
Speaker 8: went into the studio, brought the rest of the group,

1706
01:28:03,280 --> 01:28:04,120
Speaker 8: and we did that.

1707
01:28:04,160 --> 01:28:07,000
Speaker 7: We did that version. I felt like that was the

1708
01:28:07,040 --> 01:28:08,280
Speaker 7: right call, and it was.

1709
01:28:09,080 --> 01:28:09,559
Speaker 2: The right call.

1710
01:28:10,240 --> 01:28:11,240
Speaker 3: It took off question.

1711
01:28:11,400 --> 01:28:21,519
Speaker 1: Yeah, basically, you know between Tennessee and uh uh people

1712
01:28:21,560 --> 01:28:25,800
Speaker 1: every day and mister Wendell and Natural, you know, I

1713
01:28:26,000 --> 01:28:28,920
Speaker 1: never have that much faith in record companies for like

1714
01:28:29,320 --> 01:28:33,439
Speaker 1: having a plan and successfully executing that plan.

1715
01:28:34,800 --> 01:28:35,080
Speaker 7: Either.

1716
01:28:35,760 --> 01:28:38,719
Speaker 1: So who's the person that's going to claim the credit

1717
01:28:38,760 --> 01:28:41,840
Speaker 1: of it? Was my mastermind think because you know, not

1718
01:28:41,920 --> 01:28:45,559
Speaker 1: for nothing. But we followed. We saw that blueprint and

1719
01:28:45,640 --> 01:28:49,160
Speaker 1: was like, oh, this is obviously a blueprint for success. Yeah,

1720
01:28:49,320 --> 01:28:51,599
Speaker 1: like well the label claim that, oh we we had

1721
01:28:51,600 --> 01:28:53,960
Speaker 1: a plan all along, We knew this was going to happen, Like.

1722
01:28:54,160 --> 01:28:59,439
Speaker 8: Yeah, I would credit a team and it was Michael Maldon,

1723
01:29:00,439 --> 01:29:02,000
Speaker 8: it was myself.

1724
01:29:01,840 --> 01:29:04,200
Speaker 7: And it was Lindsay Williams. Those are the people.

1725
01:29:04,200 --> 01:29:07,400
Speaker 8: Lindsay Williams was our A and R guy at Chrisli's.

1726
01:29:07,680 --> 01:29:13,320
Speaker 8: He also signed Gang Star and released Step in the

1727
01:29:13,360 --> 01:29:19,479
Speaker 8: Arena album and stuff after that. So Lindsey knew hip hop.

1728
01:29:19,520 --> 01:29:24,559
Speaker 8: He was from, he is from Harlem. Michael Malden knew us.

1729
01:29:24,640 --> 01:29:27,040
Speaker 8: He understood our vibe, and I knew us. So I

1730
01:29:27,080 --> 01:29:30,160
Speaker 8: feel like between us, we were sort of coming up

1731
01:29:30,200 --> 01:29:33,040
Speaker 8: with what should be this, how should we navigate that?

1732
01:29:33,520 --> 01:29:35,960
Speaker 8: And the label just really follows suit. I'll never forget

1733
01:29:36,000 --> 01:29:38,120
Speaker 8: being a twenty two I think I was twenty two

1734
01:29:38,160 --> 01:29:41,360
Speaker 8: year old dude going for the first time up.

1735
01:29:41,200 --> 01:29:43,240
Speaker 7: To these tall high rises on.

1736
01:29:44,000 --> 01:29:47,800
Speaker 8: Avenue of America's New York and having these meetings with

1737
01:29:47,880 --> 01:29:50,920
Speaker 8: these all these execs at this long table, trying to

1738
01:29:50,960 --> 01:29:54,160
Speaker 8: explain to them why and how rest of development can

1739
01:29:54,240 --> 01:29:56,799
Speaker 8: make it, you know what I mean, And having marketing meetings,

1740
01:29:56,840 --> 01:29:58,920
Speaker 8: like talking about marketing strategies.

1741
01:29:59,439 --> 01:30:04,240
Speaker 7: So it's just it's crazy.

1742
01:30:05,280 --> 01:30:11,599
Speaker 1: Usually like record labels usually stories like yours in which

1743
01:30:12,080 --> 01:30:14,280
Speaker 1: other groups, I mean, for every it's development.

1744
01:30:14,360 --> 01:30:18,720
Speaker 2: I can name other alternative hip hop groups that you know.

1745
01:30:18,760 --> 01:30:20,720
Speaker 1: It could be the Boogey Monsters, it could be me

1746
01:30:20,840 --> 01:30:23,760
Speaker 1: by me, it could be shit the Roots for the

1747
01:30:23,800 --> 01:30:27,240
Speaker 1: first three or four records, and which the alternative But

1748
01:30:28,040 --> 01:30:29,880
Speaker 1: well no, no, I'm just saying which the label just

1749
01:30:29,920 --> 01:30:33,120
Speaker 1: doesn't have a clue on how to market. And let's

1750
01:30:33,120 --> 01:30:36,720
Speaker 1: be honest, a lot that was selling was also due

1751
01:30:36,720 --> 01:30:40,360
Speaker 1: to the momentum of a controversy. You know, if someone

1752
01:30:41,240 --> 01:30:45,120
Speaker 1: gets shot, if someone goes to jail, if someone has

1753
01:30:45,200 --> 01:30:48,080
Speaker 1: a backstory, then that's easy marketing.

1754
01:30:48,080 --> 01:30:50,680
Speaker 2: But that's not on the label's part. They're just exploiting

1755
01:30:50,720 --> 01:30:51,080
Speaker 2: that and.

1756
01:30:51,080 --> 01:30:55,320
Speaker 1: Always just you know, the stars was was aligning for this.

1757
01:30:56,720 --> 01:31:01,280
Speaker 1: You got to talk about working with in the Malcolm X.

1758
01:31:01,439 --> 01:31:05,360
Speaker 1: I can only imagine, like I was really excited seeing

1759
01:31:05,400 --> 01:31:09,280
Speaker 1: revolution for the end of it. I have to know, though,

1760
01:31:09,400 --> 01:31:13,600
Speaker 1: when Spike's approaching you about this in your mind, especially

1761
01:31:13,640 --> 01:31:18,600
Speaker 1: in nineteen ninety two, are you seeing having the flagship

1762
01:31:18,640 --> 01:31:20,760
Speaker 1: song for a Spike Lee film?

1763
01:31:21,200 --> 01:31:22,120
Speaker 2: Is it pressure?

1764
01:31:22,240 --> 01:31:26,400
Speaker 1: Because I mean we pretty much are thinking like, oh,

1765
01:31:26,680 --> 01:31:28,360
Speaker 1: you got to come with someone on the level of

1766
01:31:28,400 --> 01:31:32,000
Speaker 1: Fight the Power something like of that level or the button,

1767
01:31:32,080 --> 01:31:34,080
Speaker 1: you know, like there was one point where a song

1768
01:31:34,160 --> 01:31:39,439
Speaker 1: associated with the Spike Lee film could elevate this, so

1769
01:31:39,760 --> 01:31:41,280
Speaker 1: like what is that like?

1770
01:31:41,280 --> 01:31:43,240
Speaker 2: Like how did that all come about?

1771
01:31:43,320 --> 01:31:43,680
Speaker 7: It was?

1772
01:31:43,800 --> 01:31:50,120
Speaker 8: It was incredibly stressful because Public Enemy smashed it with

1773
01:31:50,439 --> 01:31:54,320
Speaker 8: Fight the Power and the way Spike position Fight the

1774
01:31:54,360 --> 01:31:58,760
Speaker 8: Power throughout the film made it such a pivotal.

1775
01:31:58,640 --> 01:31:59,960
Speaker 7: Part of that film.

1776
01:32:00,120 --> 01:32:03,000
Speaker 8: I mean, it's an undeniable part of that film, right,

1777
01:32:03,120 --> 01:32:04,880
Speaker 8: you know, it's part of the fabric of the film,

1778
01:32:04,920 --> 01:32:06,559
Speaker 8: not just the soundtrack, you know what I'm saying.

1779
01:32:06,600 --> 01:32:09,760
Speaker 7: So coming in after that was.

1780
01:32:09,680 --> 01:32:14,200
Speaker 8: Extremely tough and I felt a lot of pressure, you

1781
01:32:14,240 --> 01:32:16,200
Speaker 8: know what I mean to like to try to make

1782
01:32:16,240 --> 01:32:19,320
Speaker 8: sure that it was Look, I mean, Bomb Squad is

1783
01:32:19,360 --> 01:32:20,880
Speaker 8: a whole crew, you know what I'm saying.

1784
01:32:21,040 --> 01:32:26,080
Speaker 7: But for me as a producer, still with that ASR ten.

1785
01:32:26,000 --> 01:32:26,599
Speaker 3: You know what I'm saying.

1786
01:32:27,160 --> 01:32:31,760
Speaker 8: In HR sixteen, Yeah, I'm striving to make sure that

1787
01:32:31,880 --> 01:32:35,680
Speaker 8: it has the layers and that it has the potency

1788
01:32:36,240 --> 01:32:38,559
Speaker 8: of something that deserves to be in this film, but

1789
01:32:38,640 --> 01:32:42,880
Speaker 8: also making sure that it's still us and not somebody else,

1790
01:32:42,920 --> 01:32:44,439
Speaker 8: you know what I'm saying, making sure it's still who

1791
01:32:44,479 --> 01:32:46,000
Speaker 8: we are as a group and what we do.

1792
01:32:46,560 --> 01:32:50,280
Speaker 1: Knowing how tenacious Spike is, you know, even for like

1793
01:32:50,760 --> 01:32:53,000
Speaker 1: we did a song for Bamboos or whatever, So I

1794
01:32:53,920 --> 01:32:58,080
Speaker 1: know how Spike is in terms of him putting the

1795
01:32:58,080 --> 01:32:58,760
Speaker 1: pressure on you.

1796
01:32:59,400 --> 01:32:59,839
Speaker 7: Facts.

1797
01:33:00,240 --> 01:33:01,920
Speaker 1: How many times did he have to come to you

1798
01:33:01,960 --> 01:33:05,360
Speaker 1: to be like because even Chuck will say I think.

1799
01:33:05,439 --> 01:33:09,360
Speaker 1: I think Keith Shocky told me that Spike didn't like

1800
01:33:09,439 --> 01:33:12,760
Speaker 1: the first three drafts to Fight the Power, Yeah, and

1801
01:33:12,840 --> 01:33:15,760
Speaker 1: the fourth time they finally nailed it. Yeah, you know,

1802
01:33:16,320 --> 01:33:19,200
Speaker 1: because I was asking Keith, like why name some of

1803
01:33:19,200 --> 01:33:22,160
Speaker 1: them fight the power and not have like the Isisley

1804
01:33:22,200 --> 01:33:24,320
Speaker 1: Brothers or reference of that, And he talked about like

1805
01:33:24,360 --> 01:33:26,920
Speaker 1: we did a whole other thing. And then Spike was like, Nah,

1806
01:33:27,000 --> 01:33:30,479
Speaker 1: this ain't it, This ain't it or whatever. And I

1807
01:33:30,560 --> 01:33:34,120
Speaker 1: often know that sometimes it's hard to take criticism from

1808
01:33:34,200 --> 01:33:37,719
Speaker 1: a non musician. Yeah, they just don't know or whatever.

1809
01:33:38,400 --> 01:33:40,599
Speaker 1: And you know, you guys have like four top ten

1810
01:33:40,640 --> 01:33:43,160
Speaker 1: singles at the time, so it was like you could

1811
01:33:43,160 --> 01:33:46,519
Speaker 1: have easily been and can't tell me Nutingville. Yeah, So

1812
01:33:46,720 --> 01:33:49,640
Speaker 1: like how much back and forth was it until he

1813
01:33:49,720 --> 01:33:52,000
Speaker 1: was like, that's it, that's the one.

1814
01:33:52,160 --> 01:33:52,360
Speaker 2: You know.

1815
01:33:52,400 --> 01:33:52,880
Speaker 7: What's funny.

1816
01:33:52,880 --> 01:33:54,599
Speaker 8: We didn't get a lot of back and forth from

1817
01:33:54,600 --> 01:33:57,760
Speaker 8: Spike on that, and he was very hands on though,

1818
01:33:57,840 --> 01:34:00,439
Speaker 8: so he was in the studio when we were that.

1819
01:34:00,479 --> 01:34:03,519
Speaker 8: He was shouting revolution. He insisted that it be an

1820
01:34:03,560 --> 01:34:07,519
Speaker 8: anthem right from the jump, and so he really trusted

1821
01:34:07,520 --> 01:34:10,760
Speaker 8: in me to deliver and he didn't give me any

1822
01:34:11,560 --> 01:34:14,000
Speaker 8: The only only fighting back that he gave me was

1823
01:34:14,040 --> 01:34:16,519
Speaker 8: the video because I wanted to have a more militant

1824
01:34:16,640 --> 01:34:19,760
Speaker 8: video and he shoot it. Yes, he shot it. He

1825
01:34:19,760 --> 01:34:22,200
Speaker 8: shot it in Brooklyn. We shot it in Brooklyn with him.

1826
01:34:22,439 --> 01:34:25,840
Speaker 8: It was amazing experience. We shot that entire video in

1827
01:34:25,880 --> 01:34:27,880
Speaker 8: seven hours and if you look at that video again,

1828
01:34:28,200 --> 01:34:31,479
Speaker 8: you'll see probably two, three, four five hundred people, I'm

1829
01:34:31,479 --> 01:34:33,880
Speaker 8: not sure, marching down the street with us in one

1830
01:34:33,880 --> 01:34:37,160
Speaker 8: scene another to maybe one or two hundred people in

1831
01:34:37,160 --> 01:34:39,439
Speaker 8: a classroom with us in the school. I mean, there's

1832
01:34:39,479 --> 01:34:41,280
Speaker 8: a lot of sets and we did all of that

1833
01:34:41,400 --> 01:34:46,920
Speaker 8: in seven hours. Just amazing, amazing. So yeah, it was

1834
01:34:46,960 --> 01:34:51,600
Speaker 8: definitely his hands on experience all over it. But he

1835
01:34:51,600 --> 01:34:53,920
Speaker 8: didn't give me a lot of fight back. And prior

1836
01:34:53,960 --> 01:34:58,000
Speaker 8: to us, Gangstar had did It's a jazz thing for

1837
01:34:58,600 --> 01:35:02,680
Speaker 8: Mobetta Blues and that that took a little bit of

1838
01:35:02,680 --> 01:35:06,479
Speaker 8: the pressure off. But for me personally, as big as

1839
01:35:06,520 --> 01:35:08,960
Speaker 8: the group, our group was, I was really wanting to,

1840
01:35:09,760 --> 01:35:12,080
Speaker 8: you know, go somewhere near that fight the power energy.

1841
01:35:12,760 --> 01:35:15,880
Speaker 2: Okay, all right, I gotta ask the question.

1842
01:35:16,920 --> 01:35:22,120
Speaker 1: So again, long time listeners know of my journalism obsession,

1843
01:35:23,360 --> 01:35:28,080
Speaker 1: so without really getting into the specifics of it, I

1844
01:35:28,160 --> 01:35:30,360
Speaker 1: kind of want to ask you about the aftermath of it.

1845
01:35:30,960 --> 01:35:34,840
Speaker 1: And we actually did an entire episode with Danielle Smith,

1846
01:35:35,280 --> 01:35:38,120
Speaker 1: writer and at the time I was living in London

1847
01:35:39,479 --> 01:35:45,479
Speaker 1: and there weren't American publications, uh they you know, it

1848
01:35:45,520 --> 01:35:49,160
Speaker 1: was hard to get you know, now like everything's digitally colonized,

1849
01:35:49,160 --> 01:35:51,960
Speaker 1: so I can get the same magazines that you're getting

1850
01:35:52,000 --> 01:35:55,400
Speaker 1: all across the world. So you know, I'm getting care

1851
01:35:55,479 --> 01:35:59,760
Speaker 1: packages from my publicists in the States to London, and

1852
01:35:59,800 --> 01:36:02,439
Speaker 1: of course, you know, the Princess you A Vibe magazine

1853
01:36:02,439 --> 01:36:10,400
Speaker 1: comes out, and you know, I had never experienced a

1854
01:36:10,560 --> 01:36:20,120
Speaker 1: black takedown article before, and I internalized, like I almost

1855
01:36:20,120 --> 01:36:22,360
Speaker 1: felt like that was my group she was talking about.

1856
01:36:22,479 --> 01:36:26,479
Speaker 1: I think maybe these questions I'm asking you simply because

1857
01:36:26,560 --> 01:36:31,360
Speaker 1: like vicariously, I was living in your footsteps and whatnot,

1858
01:36:31,400 --> 01:36:34,200
Speaker 1: and Okay, what they do, that's what I'm doing, and

1859
01:36:34,840 --> 01:36:38,519
Speaker 1: they do that, students that stuff. And then so you know,

1860
01:36:38,880 --> 01:36:40,800
Speaker 1: I get the magazine. I read the Prince article and

1861
01:36:40,840 --> 01:36:43,400
Speaker 1: everything I was like, all right, read the rest of

1862
01:36:43,439 --> 01:36:44,720
Speaker 1: development article.

1863
01:36:44,520 --> 01:36:47,200
Speaker 7: And Trouble in Paradise was I was.

1864
01:36:47,280 --> 01:36:51,400
Speaker 1: Like, yo, like, you know, I'm used to in black journalism.

1865
01:36:51,520 --> 01:36:53,680
Speaker 1: I'm used to like ride on magazine, you know what

1866
01:36:53,720 --> 01:36:58,160
Speaker 1: I mean, Like, Hey, what opposites do you find attractive

1867
01:36:58,160 --> 01:37:01,479
Speaker 1: in the opposite sex? And what kind of foods do

1868
01:37:01,520 --> 01:37:06,320
Speaker 1: you like? So this level of journalism I'd never seen before. Yeah,

1869
01:37:06,640 --> 01:37:08,519
Speaker 1: I've never seen a takedown And for those of you

1870
01:37:08,520 --> 01:37:12,360
Speaker 1: who know, takedown article is kind of where I believe

1871
01:37:12,439 --> 01:37:16,680
Speaker 1: the artist doesn't realize that they're being ambushed facts in

1872
01:37:16,760 --> 01:37:20,320
Speaker 1: the interview. Can you walk me through the process from

1873
01:37:20,360 --> 01:37:25,960
Speaker 1: which you found out that this article was not going

1874
01:37:26,040 --> 01:37:30,320
Speaker 1: to be the glowing A plus report card that a

1875
01:37:30,400 --> 01:37:33,599
Speaker 1: re development had been getting up until that point.

1876
01:37:34,560 --> 01:37:36,960
Speaker 2: Yeah, like what can you just walk me through it?

1877
01:37:37,160 --> 01:37:38,920
Speaker 2: Like it was?

1878
01:37:39,200 --> 01:37:44,800
Speaker 7: It was literally a kick in the ass because I

1879
01:37:44,960 --> 01:37:47,880
Speaker 7: was cool with Danielle, Like she came to it at

1880
01:37:47,920 --> 01:37:51,160
Speaker 7: last and she said this. We hung out with Danielle

1881
01:37:51,160 --> 01:37:53,800
Speaker 7: and it was all love, Like it was so much love.

1882
01:37:53,880 --> 01:37:57,200
Speaker 8: And we needed that article because we had already been

1883
01:37:57,240 --> 01:37:59,640
Speaker 8: facing backlash. We had already been getting a lot of

1884
01:37:59,680 --> 01:38:02,760
Speaker 8: different narratives about where we're going, who we are. Not

1885
01:38:03,200 --> 01:38:06,599
Speaker 8: from a like internal group like any beefs going on

1886
01:38:06,640 --> 01:38:08,600
Speaker 8: in a group, but just from a standpoint of what

1887
01:38:08,640 --> 01:38:10,920
Speaker 8: I was saying earlier, as far as you know, now

1888
01:38:10,920 --> 01:38:13,479
Speaker 8: we're sort of these pop music darlings, which we never

1889
01:38:13,520 --> 01:38:15,840
Speaker 8: were on that tip, but that's what we had sort

1890
01:38:15,880 --> 01:38:16,880
Speaker 8: of become to some extent.

1891
01:38:16,920 --> 01:38:17,760
Speaker 7: We're winning all these.

1892
01:38:17,680 --> 01:38:21,040
Speaker 8: Awards, We're going to these big lollapalooza rock tours and

1893
01:38:21,080 --> 01:38:25,120
Speaker 8: all of this. So that article was dear to me,

1894
01:38:25,200 --> 01:38:28,880
Speaker 8: and it for me, it was a sister, a black

1895
01:38:28,960 --> 01:38:32,000
Speaker 8: sister that's come down to Atlanta to hang with us,

1896
01:38:32,479 --> 01:38:36,280
Speaker 8: so she had total access to everybody. And long story

1897
01:38:36,320 --> 01:38:37,439
Speaker 8: short goes on to me.

1898
01:38:37,800 --> 01:38:39,280
Speaker 2: Oh, is that always the protocol?

1899
01:38:39,520 --> 01:38:43,240
Speaker 1: Like because even now, like me and Tarique do the

1900
01:38:43,320 --> 01:38:46,240
Speaker 1: Roots interviews, there's eleven of us, but right now it's

1901
01:38:46,280 --> 01:38:48,080
Speaker 1: micking Keith right.

1902
01:38:48,200 --> 01:38:52,799
Speaker 2: You you felt comfortable and just letting hey talk to everybody.

1903
01:38:53,240 --> 01:38:53,679
Speaker 7: I did.

1904
01:38:53,960 --> 01:38:56,439
Speaker 2: I did, and you didn't know I was coming.

1905
01:38:57,160 --> 01:39:01,200
Speaker 8: Not at all, Like that was one hundred one of

1906
01:39:01,240 --> 01:39:04,880
Speaker 8: those like damn when I read it is when I

1907
01:39:05,000 --> 01:39:08,800
Speaker 8: knew that that's what the take was, because that's not

1908
01:39:08,920 --> 01:39:12,599
Speaker 8: what I was getting from Danielle in person like eye

1909
01:39:12,600 --> 01:39:15,400
Speaker 8: to eye right and with the other members with me

1910
01:39:15,479 --> 01:39:19,160
Speaker 8: too by the way, so like we're with her and

1911
01:39:19,240 --> 01:39:21,599
Speaker 8: I'm not getting that now, min she talks to everybody

1912
01:39:21,600 --> 01:39:24,680
Speaker 8: separately as well, and you know this article starts to.

1913
01:39:26,640 --> 01:39:29,920
Speaker 7: Listen. There was there was.

1914
01:39:31,120 --> 01:39:34,640
Speaker 8: Turmoil in the group. I'm not denying that, but that

1915
01:39:34,840 --> 01:39:37,320
Speaker 8: wasn't the narrative of where we even were at as

1916
01:39:37,360 --> 01:39:39,800
Speaker 8: a group. So we were going through turmoil, but we

1917
01:39:39,800 --> 01:39:42,000
Speaker 8: were marching on, like that's where we're at.

1918
01:39:42,600 --> 01:39:44,400
Speaker 3: Going through y'all were going through turmoil, but y'all weren't

1919
01:39:44,400 --> 01:39:45,040
Speaker 3: trying to sell it.

1920
01:39:45,720 --> 01:39:48,439
Speaker 8: We were definitely not trying to sell it. And also

1921
01:39:48,640 --> 01:39:51,680
Speaker 8: we weren't it wasn't the major narrative of where we

1922
01:39:51,680 --> 01:39:54,360
Speaker 8: were at as a group. It was a narrative. It

1923
01:39:54,400 --> 01:39:58,400
Speaker 8: was a narrative, but it wasn't the narrative. So when

1924
01:39:58,439 --> 01:40:01,000
Speaker 8: I saw that article and it was the narrative of

1925
01:40:01,080 --> 01:40:06,080
Speaker 8: the entire article, I was like, I lost my faith

1926
01:40:07,120 --> 01:40:11,840
Speaker 8: in journalism from that point forward because I was like, damn,

1927
01:40:11,960 --> 01:40:14,400
Speaker 8: like that was like you said, it was a takedown.

1928
01:40:15,320 --> 01:40:17,000
Speaker 7: And I don't know what she said.

1929
01:40:17,000 --> 01:40:18,960
Speaker 8: I don't even if y'all addressed this when you interview her,

1930
01:40:19,000 --> 01:40:22,559
Speaker 8: but it even had to been some type of thing

1931
01:40:22,600 --> 01:40:24,640
Speaker 8: where you know, it's it was a good look for

1932
01:40:24,720 --> 01:40:27,320
Speaker 8: her to do some kind of story or maybe or

1933
01:40:27,400 --> 01:40:29,479
Speaker 8: boss or Uppers was like yo, come in at this

1934
01:40:29,560 --> 01:40:31,400
Speaker 8: way or whatever. I don't know what it was, but

1935
01:40:31,439 --> 01:40:31,720
Speaker 8: it was.

1936
01:40:32,360 --> 01:40:32,880
Speaker 7: It was crazy.

1937
01:40:32,880 --> 01:40:35,000
Speaker 1: You know, I don't want to put words in Dan

1938
01:40:35,200 --> 01:40:37,960
Speaker 1: Danielle's mouth, but I definitely I don't.

1939
01:40:38,200 --> 01:40:41,799
Speaker 2: I can't even write it. It wasn't it.

1940
01:40:41,680 --> 01:40:44,000
Speaker 1: Wasn't a yeah I did it, and so what like

1941
01:40:44,240 --> 01:40:49,920
Speaker 1: it was definitely a remorseful, like sort of afterthoughts, and

1942
01:40:49,960 --> 01:40:52,160
Speaker 1: she explained, like you you have to understand that I

1943
01:40:52,200 --> 01:40:55,640
Speaker 1: wasn't coming mean spirited. I believe that there was a

1944
01:40:55,680 --> 01:40:59,280
Speaker 1: pressure to not make and again, you know, as I

1945
01:40:59,280 --> 01:41:05,639
Speaker 1: explained earlier, or black journalism before the source, before Vibe

1946
01:41:05,680 --> 01:41:11,040
Speaker 1: magazine was basically just limited to either Ebony magazine where

1947
01:41:11,080 --> 01:41:15,360
Speaker 1: everything was glowing or ride On magazine, where everything was kind.

1948
01:41:15,200 --> 01:41:18,720
Speaker 2: Of frothy, you know what I mean, but not like

1949
01:41:19,960 --> 01:41:20,960
Speaker 2: real journalism.

1950
01:41:21,360 --> 01:41:21,760
Speaker 3: And so.

1951
01:41:23,320 --> 01:41:27,200
Speaker 1: I remember her feeling, like I believe she said that

1952
01:41:27,320 --> 01:41:30,960
Speaker 1: it was a very conflicting thing to do, like as

1953
01:41:31,200 --> 01:41:37,360
Speaker 1: a journalist, do I tell the truth or do we

1954
01:41:37,400 --> 01:41:39,800
Speaker 1: protect because you know, also I know the rules of

1955
01:41:39,840 --> 01:41:43,200
Speaker 1: black people is that you don't spill your dirty laundry

1956
01:41:43,240 --> 01:41:45,040
Speaker 1: in front of the world to see.

1957
01:41:45,240 --> 01:41:47,840
Speaker 2: And me reading.

1958
01:41:47,479 --> 01:41:55,240
Speaker 1: That article made me uber obsessive in terms of who

1959
01:41:55,280 --> 01:41:58,200
Speaker 1: we talked to, Like that was the points. That was

1960
01:41:58,240 --> 01:42:03,840
Speaker 1: the point in which I started, you know, studying every journalist,

1961
01:42:03,920 --> 01:42:06,920
Speaker 1: every botty line, looked at other articles they wrote.

1962
01:42:07,400 --> 01:42:08,080
Speaker 2: Even to this day.

1963
01:42:08,120 --> 01:42:10,760
Speaker 1: I mean, I'm not as vigilant now as I was,

1964
01:42:11,520 --> 01:42:16,639
Speaker 1: but yeah, it just for me, I was just like, yo,

1965
01:42:17,160 --> 01:42:21,120
Speaker 1: like this group is might might never recover from this,

1966
01:42:21,439 --> 01:42:25,960
Speaker 1: How we didn't How did you so mentally and physically

1967
01:42:26,000 --> 01:42:30,800
Speaker 1: to go that high and then to be in a

1968
01:42:30,840 --> 01:42:36,599
Speaker 1: car crash that wasn't by your intentional design, It's still

1969
01:42:36,600 --> 01:42:40,559
Speaker 1: a car crash. Nevertheless, how did you guys continue with

1970
01:42:40,680 --> 01:42:44,160
Speaker 1: promoting the album or like, was it a rap after that?

1971
01:42:44,520 --> 01:42:45,519
Speaker 7: It was a rap after that?

1972
01:42:45,680 --> 01:42:50,080
Speaker 8: I mean, by and large, And so for me, I'm

1973
01:42:50,120 --> 01:42:53,080
Speaker 8: I'm literally pissed at her, Like dude, I saw her.

1974
01:42:53,880 --> 01:42:56,720
Speaker 8: I saw her at events and I literally, you know,

1975
01:42:56,760 --> 01:42:59,679
Speaker 8: I'm saying I won't go there, and I was pissed

1976
01:42:59,680 --> 01:43:02,200
Speaker 8: and I didn't talk to her at all. I just

1977
01:43:02,680 --> 01:43:06,280
Speaker 8: I was literally bitter towards her. I think for me,

1978
01:43:06,360 --> 01:43:12,479
Speaker 8: it was the first time I saw sensationalistic journalism. For me,

1979
01:43:13,760 --> 01:43:16,519
Speaker 8: it was my first introduction to it. So, like you said,

1980
01:43:17,160 --> 01:43:21,679
Speaker 8: articles prior were one thing and different magazines covered things

1981
01:43:21,880 --> 01:43:24,879
Speaker 8: in one way. But after I saw that, I was like, oh, okay,

1982
01:43:26,360 --> 01:43:28,479
Speaker 8: because it's one thing to say the truth about there's

1983
01:43:28,520 --> 01:43:31,760
Speaker 8: some beef going on behind the scenes. To me, I

1984
01:43:31,840 --> 01:43:33,719
Speaker 8: think I was cool with that, Like I was alright

1985
01:43:33,800 --> 01:43:36,280
Speaker 8: with that, and that's why I was allowing everybody to speak.

1986
01:43:37,439 --> 01:43:41,320
Speaker 8: But to make the whole trajectory of the story. It

1987
01:43:41,400 --> 01:43:44,760
Speaker 8: damaged us and Vibe was very much a huge deal

1988
01:43:44,800 --> 01:43:49,360
Speaker 8: at the time, and from a black perspective, we needed

1989
01:43:49,400 --> 01:43:52,559
Speaker 8: that co sign at the time, like we needed that

1990
01:43:52,640 --> 01:43:56,360
Speaker 8: from a marketing standpoint for this group. We needed that

1991
01:43:56,439 --> 01:44:01,679
Speaker 8: love in order to you know, validate the direction we're

1992
01:44:01,720 --> 01:44:04,719
Speaker 8: continuing to go with and without it, it was tough.

1993
01:44:05,080 --> 01:44:07,640
Speaker 5: It was really no circle back for you and Danielle.

1994
01:44:08,800 --> 01:44:11,400
Speaker 7: I mean at this age I'm now fifty four. Yeah,

1995
01:44:11,439 --> 01:44:13,880
Speaker 7: I could summer black with her, but but.

1996
01:44:13,880 --> 01:44:16,599
Speaker 8: I'll be honest, like during that time period, probably for

1997
01:44:17,760 --> 01:44:20,280
Speaker 8: probably ten years probably I couldn't talk to her.

1998
01:44:20,560 --> 01:44:21,640
Speaker 5: Those are our petty years too.

1999
01:44:21,720 --> 01:44:24,400
Speaker 7: Yeah, yeah, you know what I mean, I couldn't. I

2000
01:44:24,400 --> 01:44:25,040
Speaker 7: couldn't do it.

2001
01:44:25,160 --> 01:44:27,880
Speaker 4: You talked about around like ninety six, like when you

2002
01:44:27,920 --> 01:44:31,080
Speaker 4: did your solo record and you know you were you know,

2003
01:44:31,160 --> 01:44:32,719
Speaker 4: you were feeling suicidal at the time.

2004
01:44:33,439 --> 01:44:34,840
Speaker 3: What took you to that mind stake?

2005
01:44:35,520 --> 01:44:37,280
Speaker 7: I think it was what you just talked about.

2006
01:44:37,360 --> 01:44:40,040
Speaker 8: Quest was like it was the drop and how far

2007
01:44:40,120 --> 01:44:42,200
Speaker 8: it was, you know what I mean Like that that's

2008
01:44:42,280 --> 01:44:44,719
Speaker 8: tough to digest for any person.

2009
01:44:45,000 --> 01:44:47,720
Speaker 9: In my opinion, Yeah, dude, I was gonna say, we

2010
01:44:48,080 --> 01:44:51,439
Speaker 9: that's You're literally the first person to call me to

2011
01:44:51,479 --> 01:44:55,320
Speaker 9: do something, so I forgot like you did a first project.

2012
01:44:55,439 --> 01:44:56,800
Speaker 7: It was my first music video.

2013
01:44:56,880 --> 01:45:00,360
Speaker 2: I was in your video you Fully be Myself.

2014
01:45:00,240 --> 01:45:01,599
Speaker 7: You Foley Dallas Austin.

2015
01:45:02,240 --> 01:45:03,840
Speaker 2: That's right. He was playing keyboards, right.

2016
01:45:03,800 --> 01:45:06,320
Speaker 7: Yep, he was playing organ on Ramone.

2017
01:45:06,360 --> 01:45:08,599
Speaker 2: Harvey was your manager. I remember you and Ramone honking

2018
01:45:08,680 --> 01:45:08,960
Speaker 2: me up.

2019
01:45:09,560 --> 01:45:10,120
Speaker 7: Yeah, you and.

2020
01:45:10,080 --> 01:45:13,000
Speaker 2: Ramone picking me up from the hotel exactly.

2021
01:45:13,120 --> 01:45:13,320
Speaker 7: Yeah.

2022
01:45:13,439 --> 01:45:14,559
Speaker 5: I didn't want here to speak.

2023
01:45:15,040 --> 01:45:16,640
Speaker 8: Yeah, yeah, I mean, but I mean I was a

2024
01:45:16,680 --> 01:45:20,320
Speaker 8: fan of y'alls already, Like before I met you. The

2025
01:45:20,400 --> 01:45:23,400
Speaker 8: label showed me y'all's album and was like, Yo, peep

2026
01:45:23,479 --> 01:45:27,200
Speaker 8: this out. So I was a fan already. And at

2027
01:45:27,200 --> 01:45:30,040
Speaker 8: that time the label that was no longer Christalist, it

2028
01:45:30,080 --> 01:45:32,920
Speaker 8: was called EMI and it was sort of morphine and

2029
01:45:33,040 --> 01:45:35,559
Speaker 8: D'Angelo was signed as well, but he wasn't out yet.

2030
01:45:35,840 --> 01:45:37,400
Speaker 8: So I was hearing a lot of the stuff that

2031
01:45:37,439 --> 01:45:39,800
Speaker 8: they was about to go into the direction of. And

2032
01:45:39,840 --> 01:45:41,599
Speaker 8: that's how I knew about y'all. So I was like, yo,

2033
01:45:41,680 --> 01:45:44,040
Speaker 8: I love this group. And so that's why I know

2034
01:45:44,160 --> 01:45:44,920
Speaker 8: reached out to you.

2035
01:45:45,880 --> 01:45:47,800
Speaker 4: For y'all when you were talking about you know, being

2036
01:45:47,840 --> 01:45:50,439
Speaker 4: in that like kind of deep depressive period.

2037
01:45:51,080 --> 01:45:52,360
Speaker 3: What got you out of it? How did you get

2038
01:45:52,360 --> 01:45:52,680
Speaker 3: through it?

2039
01:45:53,479 --> 01:45:56,960
Speaker 8: You know, it was through time but also spirituality. In

2040
01:45:57,080 --> 01:45:59,800
Speaker 8: ninety six, I released my solo album. In ninety six,

2041
01:46:00,520 --> 01:46:04,680
Speaker 8: I was very suicidal and a woman that I auditioned

2042
01:46:04,720 --> 01:46:08,200
Speaker 8: for a tour I was doing in Amsterdam was a

2043
01:46:08,280 --> 01:46:11,719
Speaker 8: Christian and she started talking to me and my wife,

2044
01:46:12,040 --> 01:46:15,000
Speaker 8: and long story short, I became a Christian and that

2045
01:46:15,120 --> 01:46:18,439
Speaker 8: truly saved my life and truly made me think of

2046
01:46:18,479 --> 01:46:22,680
Speaker 8: things differently and see myself as valuable outside of wherever

2047
01:46:23,120 --> 01:46:27,160
Speaker 8: a record was at and where you know, whatever the

2048
01:46:27,200 --> 01:46:29,920
Speaker 8: industry was saying in my music career was going. So

2049
01:46:30,280 --> 01:46:32,400
Speaker 8: I saw a value outside of that.

2050
01:46:32,400 --> 01:46:35,360
Speaker 5: That changed my ninety six was also around the time

2051
01:46:35,400 --> 01:46:37,120
Speaker 5: I used to see you on campus. So you were

2052
01:46:37,120 --> 01:46:39,719
Speaker 5: going through all kinds of enlightening.

2053
01:46:39,600 --> 01:46:43,280
Speaker 8: Facts, and that was I went back to school at Clark.

2054
01:46:43,600 --> 01:46:45,400
Speaker 8: I never went to Clark prior, but I went to

2055
01:46:45,439 --> 01:46:49,800
Speaker 8: school in general, back to college to really, like to

2056
01:46:50,760 --> 01:46:53,479
Speaker 8: I wanted to be around academia in a sense, and

2057
01:46:53,520 --> 01:46:55,599
Speaker 8: I wanted to be around that sense of learning and

2058
01:46:55,680 --> 01:46:59,240
Speaker 8: curiosity and things that I felt was more pure in life.

2059
01:46:59,640 --> 01:47:01,760
Speaker 2: Wait, you two weren't to Clark at the same time

2060
01:47:02,560 --> 01:47:03,040
Speaker 2: he went.

2061
01:47:02,880 --> 01:47:04,960
Speaker 5: To Clark as speech emir very brave.

2062
01:47:05,720 --> 01:47:06,600
Speaker 2: What was that like?

2063
01:47:07,160 --> 01:47:09,920
Speaker 1: I dream of going back to college, but time won't

2064
01:47:09,960 --> 01:47:12,960
Speaker 1: allow that. So what is that like? Like not starting

2065
01:47:12,960 --> 01:47:13,400
Speaker 1: over again?

2066
01:47:13,439 --> 01:47:16,519
Speaker 8: But just yeah, it was tough because we had already

2067
01:47:16,520 --> 01:47:19,240
Speaker 8: blown up. This is prior to Zingo LAMADOONI, but it

2068
01:47:19,320 --> 01:47:23,640
Speaker 8: was after three years album so we're huge. I'm very noticeable,

2069
01:47:23,800 --> 01:47:27,719
Speaker 8: very known, and so it was tough and our schedule

2070
01:47:27,800 --> 01:47:32,080
Speaker 8: was absolutely insane. So honestly, I could only stay for

2071
01:47:32,120 --> 01:47:34,360
Speaker 8: a semester. I had to drop back out because it

2072
01:47:34,520 --> 01:47:37,760
Speaker 8: just was it wasn't doable pretty long term unless I

2073
01:47:37,760 --> 01:47:39,800
Speaker 8: would have quit the industry, which I wasn't willing to

2074
01:47:39,800 --> 01:47:40,960
Speaker 8: do it that at that point.

2075
01:47:41,000 --> 01:47:44,320
Speaker 1: So, yeah, you were still actively releasing music and you

2076
01:47:44,400 --> 01:47:48,000
Speaker 1: guys were, you know, still there. There was a momentum

2077
01:47:48,040 --> 01:47:51,720
Speaker 1: and outside of the United States facts you know very much.

2078
01:47:51,800 --> 01:47:54,000
Speaker 5: So yeah, Mace did the same thing, though I don't

2079
01:47:54,000 --> 01:47:55,600
Speaker 5: know what it is about Clark, but Mace went to

2080
01:47:55,600 --> 01:47:57,679
Speaker 5: Clark after he was Mace too.

2081
01:47:57,520 --> 01:48:02,320
Speaker 7: So yeah, reach your Mace, Yeah yeah, yeah, yeah, I

2082
01:48:02,320 --> 01:48:05,479
Speaker 7: think his ministry was in the was on Clark initially.

2083
01:48:05,560 --> 01:48:11,599
Speaker 1: Yeah, thirty years into this business, can you tell me, like,

2084
01:48:11,720 --> 01:48:12,920
Speaker 1: what have you learned?

2085
01:48:13,960 --> 01:48:15,960
Speaker 2: What have you like?

2086
01:48:16,160 --> 01:48:19,759
Speaker 1: What your overall experiences in terms of what you learned,

2087
01:48:20,360 --> 01:48:23,840
Speaker 1: things that you could have changed, or experiences that you've had.

2088
01:48:23,920 --> 01:48:26,920
Speaker 1: I didn't even ask about, like what does success feel

2089
01:48:26,960 --> 01:48:30,040
Speaker 1: like in nineteen ninety two ninety three amongst the people

2090
01:48:30,080 --> 01:48:33,519
Speaker 1: you meet, Like did you even have an inner circle?

2091
01:48:33,640 --> 01:48:36,960
Speaker 1: Like did you become friends with other artists or not?

2092
01:48:37,200 --> 01:48:40,760
Speaker 7: Or so to answer that last part, yes or no.

2093
01:48:40,840 --> 01:48:43,759
Speaker 8: I mean I was cool with, you know, certain artists,

2094
01:48:43,800 --> 01:48:47,360
Speaker 8: but not really friends friends because everybody was in the

2095
01:48:47,360 --> 01:48:49,799
Speaker 8: East coast or West coast and we was down in Atlanta,

2096
01:48:49,840 --> 01:48:51,760
Speaker 8: and it just was a different energy. You know, back

2097
01:48:51,800 --> 01:48:53,960
Speaker 8: then hip hop was still very divided. You know, it

2098
01:48:54,000 --> 01:48:56,439
Speaker 8: was West coast, East coast. The South was still not

2099
01:48:56,600 --> 01:49:00,160
Speaker 8: thoroughly respected. If you remember Andre's speech at the awards,

2100
01:49:00,000 --> 01:49:03,519
Speaker 8: It's like and that was that was after us, So

2101
01:49:04,000 --> 01:49:08,120
Speaker 8: imagine prior to that, how little respect you know, the

2102
01:49:08,160 --> 01:49:09,599
Speaker 8: South got in many ways.

2103
01:49:09,720 --> 01:49:12,559
Speaker 7: So so the answered the question, no, I don't think so.

2104
01:49:12,600 --> 01:49:16,360
Speaker 8: And also I'm a very like everyday people kind of guy,

2105
01:49:16,800 --> 01:49:21,439
Speaker 8: so by nature I didn't find super value in hanging

2106
01:49:21,479 --> 01:49:24,640
Speaker 8: with like clicks in the industry type thing like that.

2107
01:49:24,760 --> 01:49:25,439
Speaker 7: Wasn't my thing.

2108
01:49:25,640 --> 01:49:27,400
Speaker 8: So if we if we clicked, it was good, but

2109
01:49:28,080 --> 01:49:30,559
Speaker 8: that just not that that wasn't what I was searching

2110
01:49:30,600 --> 01:49:31,240
Speaker 8: for in a sense.

2111
01:49:31,560 --> 01:49:34,479
Speaker 1: So you weren't going like making pilgrimage in New York

2112
01:49:34,520 --> 01:49:37,000
Speaker 1: to go record shopping with blah blah blah blah blah

2113
01:49:37,120 --> 01:49:39,599
Speaker 1: or no, and when you come to Atlanta, come hang

2114
01:49:39,640 --> 01:49:40,200
Speaker 1: with us, And.

2115
01:49:40,479 --> 01:49:42,920
Speaker 8: Yeah, I would start doing that later, like much later,

2116
01:49:43,280 --> 01:49:45,120
Speaker 8: but no, I wouldn't. I wasn't doing that.

2117
01:49:45,120 --> 01:49:45,559
Speaker 7: At the time.

2118
01:49:45,720 --> 01:49:47,960
Speaker 5: Does the Atlanta hip hop community look to you to

2119
01:49:48,200 --> 01:49:50,160
Speaker 5: know that you kind of like kind of started this

2120
01:49:50,280 --> 01:49:51,920
Speaker 5: ball rolling in a way, like do you feel the

2121
01:49:52,000 --> 01:49:53,519
Speaker 5: respect from Atlanta in net work?

2122
01:49:54,080 --> 01:49:56,960
Speaker 8: Yes, and no just when they meet me in person. Know,

2123
01:49:57,000 --> 01:50:01,280
Speaker 8: when it comes to documenting it like whenever there's a

2124
01:50:01,320 --> 01:50:04,400
Speaker 8: documentary about Atlanta, somehow we're sort of left out of

2125
01:50:04,439 --> 01:50:07,320
Speaker 8: it and it starts with organized noise and it starts

2126
01:50:07,320 --> 01:50:10,679
Speaker 8: without castid goodie Mobb, it's funny, let.

2127
01:50:10,600 --> 01:50:13,160
Speaker 1: Me go on record to give you the flowers and

2128
01:50:13,560 --> 01:50:17,040
Speaker 1: basically says that, yeah, you know, and we really haven't

2129
01:50:17,360 --> 01:50:19,879
Speaker 1: running to each other all that much because it would.

2130
01:50:19,680 --> 01:50:21,720
Speaker 5: Have been in person, by the way, in Atlanta, if

2131
01:50:21,760 --> 01:50:25,240
Speaker 5: speech was in Atlanta when we was getting Lantah. Yeah,

2132
01:50:25,280 --> 01:50:26,760
Speaker 5: he was gonna be party Atlanta run.

2133
01:50:26,840 --> 01:50:30,519
Speaker 1: Yeah, okay, facts facts, Yeah, I see, I see.

2134
01:50:30,600 --> 01:50:33,719
Speaker 5: I'm sorry, I mean interrupted wisdom. No, God, go ahead, no, no.

2135
01:50:33,640 --> 01:50:34,920
Speaker 2: No, but I'm just saying that.

2136
01:50:35,120 --> 01:50:39,720
Speaker 1: Yeah, no, I I do acknowledge that you guys, you know,

2137
01:50:39,840 --> 01:50:44,320
Speaker 1: planted a seed and oftentimes, yeah, history doesn't remember pioneers

2138
01:50:44,360 --> 01:50:47,599
Speaker 1: like often people that come after the fact and sort

2139
01:50:47,600 --> 01:50:50,920
Speaker 1: of perfect a formula, that sort of thing. They get

2140
01:50:50,960 --> 01:50:53,400
Speaker 1: the flowers and they get the accolades, and you know,

2141
01:50:53,600 --> 01:50:57,680
Speaker 1: you guys definitely, whether people really want to admit it

2142
01:50:57,800 --> 01:51:01,559
Speaker 1: or not, Like you know, you guys are onsible for

2143
01:51:01,640 --> 01:51:04,439
Speaker 1: a movement. You're definitely responsible for the movement that I'm

2144
01:51:04,479 --> 01:51:09,440
Speaker 1: still allowed to participate, you know, thirty years later into

2145
01:51:09,520 --> 01:51:09,960
Speaker 1: my life.

2146
01:51:10,000 --> 01:51:13,040
Speaker 2: So I definitely I thank you for that. Man.

2147
01:51:13,520 --> 01:51:16,240
Speaker 7: Well, that means everything. It really does. It means a lot.

2148
01:51:16,800 --> 01:51:19,479
Speaker 5: And then you just do a show with Christian and Tariq.

2149
01:51:20,320 --> 01:51:20,559
Speaker 2: Yeah.

2150
01:51:20,600 --> 01:51:22,360
Speaker 8: I did a show in New Jersey at the Pack

2151
01:51:22,479 --> 01:51:29,200
Speaker 8: Center with Black Thought with Yah seen with Christian.

2152
01:51:29,120 --> 01:51:30,760
Speaker 2: Showed up on time.

2153
01:51:31,439 --> 01:51:33,800
Speaker 8: He did he actually was on time, he was before time.

2154
01:51:33,840 --> 01:51:36,479
Speaker 8: Actually he rocked. He did his thing. Rak Kim was

2155
01:51:36,479 --> 01:51:38,719
Speaker 8: supposed to be on it and he broke his foot

2156
01:51:38,800 --> 01:51:41,760
Speaker 8: our ankle, and then Chuck d was supposed to be

2157
01:51:41,800 --> 01:51:43,120
Speaker 8: on it he got COVID.

2158
01:51:42,840 --> 01:51:45,559
Speaker 5: So but you killed it.

2159
01:51:45,840 --> 01:51:50,599
Speaker 1: So have you had any communication whatsoever with the the

2160
01:51:50,640 --> 01:51:53,160
Speaker 1: initial original members of the band?

2161
01:51:53,800 --> 01:51:55,559
Speaker 2: What's the relationship like now?

2162
01:51:56,000 --> 01:51:57,280
Speaker 7: It's dope. It's dope.

2163
01:51:58,400 --> 01:52:01,560
Speaker 8: It's never gonna be like it was in the early days.

2164
01:52:01,720 --> 01:52:04,040
Speaker 8: But we're like mad, cordial with one another.

2165
01:52:04,160 --> 01:52:04,519
Speaker 3: Mad.

2166
01:52:05,080 --> 01:52:07,160
Speaker 8: You know, when we see each other, it's literally like

2167
01:52:07,200 --> 01:52:10,559
Speaker 8: seeing an old best friend. Right, So, in particular me

2168
01:52:10,560 --> 01:52:13,600
Speaker 8: and Headliner, because that's where the main split was, you

2169
01:52:13,600 --> 01:52:15,120
Speaker 8: know what I mean, and the group sort of split

2170
01:52:15,160 --> 01:52:17,679
Speaker 8: on one side or the other according to that main split,

2171
01:52:17,760 --> 01:52:22,080
Speaker 8: you know what I'm saying. So Headline and I were cool,

2172
01:52:22,200 --> 01:52:24,840
Speaker 8: you know what I mean. The issues are what it was,

2173
01:52:24,920 --> 01:52:27,639
Speaker 8: and I don't think it will ever not be there.

2174
01:52:27,680 --> 01:52:29,160
Speaker 7: But we're real cool and.

2175
01:52:29,960 --> 01:52:32,559
Speaker 8: You know, like if he has issues with his family,

2176
01:52:32,560 --> 01:52:34,200
Speaker 8: I'm the first to call him and try to see

2177
01:52:34,200 --> 01:52:36,240
Speaker 8: what I could do, you know what I'm saying, and

2178
01:52:36,320 --> 01:52:39,160
Speaker 8: to help a vice versus. So there's a lot of

2179
01:52:39,200 --> 01:52:41,559
Speaker 8: love there and I think as the older we've gotten,

2180
01:52:42,040 --> 01:52:45,519
Speaker 8: the more we're able to dead the stuff that you

2181
01:52:45,560 --> 01:52:47,800
Speaker 8: know is sort of irrelevant in the gist of time,

2182
01:52:47,880 --> 01:52:48,960
Speaker 8: you know, as time moves on.

2183
01:52:49,800 --> 01:52:52,880
Speaker 1: Well, not to hint too much, but you know, it

2184
01:52:52,960 --> 01:52:57,320
Speaker 1: is kind of the thirtieth anniversary of that movement.

2185
01:52:57,640 --> 01:53:01,040
Speaker 2: So if there ever was a time to.

2186
01:53:02,560 --> 01:53:06,240
Speaker 1: Sort of rekindle or respark or flame whatever, like, you know,

2187
01:53:06,880 --> 01:53:12,920
Speaker 1: just having participated in an event in which we're celebrating

2188
01:53:12,920 --> 01:53:15,040
Speaker 1: our history. And I know, I know hip hop has

2189
01:53:15,080 --> 01:53:20,040
Speaker 1: a lot of disdain for being seen as old or

2190
01:53:20,080 --> 01:53:24,839
Speaker 1: ancient or sages or whatever. You know, the non sexy

2191
01:53:24,920 --> 01:53:30,040
Speaker 1: term is for for having age of wisdom. But I've learned,

2192
01:53:30,640 --> 01:53:33,680
Speaker 1: probably after the Grammy experience, how important it is to

2193
01:53:35,080 --> 01:53:37,639
Speaker 1: acknowledge and celebrate a history.

2194
01:53:38,280 --> 01:53:40,519
Speaker 2: And I agree you guys have that.

2195
01:53:40,560 --> 01:53:45,200
Speaker 1: So I you know, I really hope that one day

2196
01:53:45,360 --> 01:53:48,200
Speaker 1: I see it all come back full circle because you

2197
01:53:48,200 --> 01:53:51,240
Speaker 1: know the world needs that, because I still I still

2198
01:53:51,280 --> 01:53:54,040
Speaker 1: spend the music and the magic.

2199
01:53:54,160 --> 01:53:56,920
Speaker 2: You know, the magic still works, you know.

2200
01:53:58,680 --> 01:54:02,720
Speaker 5: Pility sixty. We were thinking, we're thinking, no, I.

2201
01:54:02,680 --> 01:54:05,200
Speaker 8: Mean, it's it's way He's gotten way better than that.

2202
01:54:05,320 --> 01:54:06,800
Speaker 8: Now we've worked all of that out.

2203
01:54:06,840 --> 01:54:10,160
Speaker 5: Now also, it can really oh make it happen. Oh,

2204
01:54:10,400 --> 01:54:12,200
Speaker 5: last question, this is such a random question. But you

2205
01:54:12,240 --> 01:54:14,439
Speaker 5: talked about land and stuff in Georgia earlier, and I

2206
01:54:14,479 --> 01:54:17,080
Speaker 5: was just curious if you're linked in with those families

2207
01:54:17,080 --> 01:54:19,000
Speaker 5: that bought that ninety seven acres in Georgia.

2208
01:54:19,680 --> 01:54:24,360
Speaker 8: No, but I that that movement has been something that's important.

2209
01:54:24,000 --> 01:54:28,400
Speaker 5: For nineteen black families bought ninety seven acres for a

2210
01:54:28,439 --> 01:54:31,320
Speaker 5: safe space for black people. They're building a community. So

2211
01:54:31,640 --> 01:54:33,560
Speaker 5: I was just seems so in speeches like.

2212
01:54:33,560 --> 01:54:35,640
Speaker 2: Lane, it doesn't have anything to do with doctor yorick.

2213
01:54:35,880 --> 01:54:40,320
Speaker 8: No, no, no, what nope, and it's dope houses too,

2214
01:54:40,440 --> 01:54:41,960
Speaker 8: dope they they're building it.

2215
01:54:42,320 --> 01:54:44,840
Speaker 2: Well, I'll send you an article on mereor yeah, I

2216
01:54:44,840 --> 01:54:45,680
Speaker 2: want to see about that.

2217
01:54:46,640 --> 01:54:50,560
Speaker 1: Well speech brother, brother, thank you, thank you for taking

2218
01:54:50,600 --> 01:54:54,440
Speaker 1: the time out just to speak with us, and thank you.

2219
01:54:54,440 --> 01:54:56,280
Speaker 1: You know again you're a legend and I thank you,

2220
01:54:56,320 --> 01:54:58,000
Speaker 1: thank you, thank you so much for for doing this

2221
01:54:58,040 --> 01:55:01,800
Speaker 1: with us. This is q US, y'all another classic episode,

2222
01:55:02,400 --> 01:55:07,120
Speaker 1: uh speech our guests on the show, Sugar Steve, thank you, speech.

2223
01:55:07,280 --> 01:55:12,760
Speaker 8: Man, thank you' all, thank you, And I'll send you

2224
01:55:12,840 --> 01:55:14,920
Speaker 8: then article on me of course.

2225
01:55:14,760 --> 01:55:18,200
Speaker 2: On on behalf. I know once I hang up, I

2226
01:55:18,240 --> 01:55:20,080
Speaker 2: know it's like a question. I forgot to ask I

2227
01:55:20,120 --> 01:55:20,880
Speaker 2: know you.

2228
01:55:22,040 --> 01:55:27,720
Speaker 3: Last question, Oh yes, can we horseshoes?

2229
01:55:35,440 --> 01:55:38,320
Speaker 2: What's Love? Supreme is a production of iHeart Radio.

2230
01:55:40,920 --> 01:55:44,200
Speaker 1: For more podcasts from iHeart Radio, visit the iHeart Radio app,

2231
01:55:44,400 --> 01:55:47,480
Speaker 1: Apple Podcasts, or wherever you listen to your favorite shows.