Speaker 1: Quest Love Supreme is a production of iHeartRadio. Ladies and gentlemen.
Speaker 1: Guess what time it is? That's right, your favorite podcast,
Speaker 1: the award winning Quest Love Supreme. I got it right. Fine,
Speaker 1: we are the award winning or what Supreme? Yeah? Here
Speaker 1: we're Teine Supreme Quest Love. You know what time it is? Tigolo?
Speaker 1: What's up? Brother?
Speaker 2: What's up? Man?
Speaker 1: What's happening? What's happening? We're in the daytime. When's the
Speaker 1: last time we did the daytime?
Speaker 2: John? It's been a min It's been a good minute.
Speaker 1: I just woke up. Yeah, like he hits a little
Speaker 1: different than the daylight.
Speaker 3: Oh you like that a good thing?
Speaker 1: I don't know? Isot that was?
Speaker 3: Get back from the other night?
Speaker 1: No? No, look like yo, can we talk about that night?
Speaker 3: Can we really quick?
Speaker 1: Guess?
Speaker 3: I would really like to talk about that night?
Speaker 1: Which night?
Speaker 3: So, Amir had an experience?
Speaker 4: Would you like to tell everybody about your experience?
Speaker 1: You know, it's random? I mean, you know, uh, you know,
Speaker 1: I was in I was in La you know, I'm Philly.
Speaker 1: I'm Philly to the boom and just happened to have
Speaker 1: a night off when Miss Jill Scott finally got around
Speaker 1: to after, you know, a pandemic, a false pandemic start,
Speaker 1: you know, celebrating the one year anniversary of her landmark.
Speaker 1: Who is Jill Scott Tore did it from beginning to end?
Speaker 1: It was just that from outside eyes, I could see
Speaker 1: how random and weird and motley that crew looked walking in.
Speaker 3: You were sitting with the crew that you walked in with.
Speaker 1: Yeah, well you know, I'm Philly, Me, me and Quinta
Speaker 1: are really really good friends.
Speaker 4: You know, allegedly we don't know according to this podcast
Speaker 4: because all your friends, well no, your friends don't come
Speaker 4: on this podcast.
Speaker 3: She is a good friend, yes.
Speaker 1: Right, she's notoriously shy. But I'll say the random party, No,
Speaker 1: I was just I was hanging with my crew and
Speaker 1: Quinna having to roll with us and just out of
Speaker 1: nowhere and layah, correctly, you're you're very correct, and thank
Speaker 1: you for your pre warning. You know, there's there's some
Speaker 1: people who's you know, like James Brown. Won't let you
Speaker 1: call him James or James Brown. You have to call
Speaker 1: mister James Brown. H We already have our own. We
Speaker 1: we have Miss Lauren Hill. Yes, so just randomly, at
Speaker 1: the last minute, my boy Silvert who is Jill's tour
Speaker 1: manager and sometimes roots tour manager. Said hey, you know,
Speaker 1: I got to stick somebody in your section. I came
Speaker 1: back and basically it was Lisa Ray.
Speaker 2: Oh.
Speaker 3: I had to let him know.
Speaker 4: Basically, Amir didn't know that Lisa Ray is always Lisa Ray.
Speaker 3: She's never Lisa.
Speaker 4: So when Amira said that she was going to be
Speaker 4: showing up, I said, well, you just make sure you
Speaker 4: don't never slip.
Speaker 3: And call her Lisa. Her name is Lisa Ray, right.
Speaker 1: And so I warned everybody that we are to addresser
Speaker 1: as Lisa Ray and not hey Lisa or whatever. And
Speaker 1: you know, by then our treats had already kicked in,
Speaker 1: so it was really hard explaining that to people. So
Speaker 1: I think we overdid it. In every three seconds we
Speaker 1: were just like, hey, Lisa Ray, would you like someone, Hey,
Speaker 1: Lisa Ray, would you like a blanket? Lisa Ray? Can
Speaker 1: you see Lisa Ray? Like literally, I would also.
Speaker 4: Like the world to know that this was quest Laf's
Speaker 4: first time sitting in the audience of the Hollywood Bowl
Speaker 4: at the blackest Hollywood Bowl event probably of the year,
Speaker 4: one of the blackest ones outside.
Speaker 1: Of jut I've never sat in the audience before at
Speaker 1: the Hollywood Bowl. I didn't know that you could bring
Speaker 1: your own food. No, it was for those that are
Speaker 1: regular Hollywood Bowl attendees, like, it was nothing like I.
Speaker 1: You know, I didn't know that you were supposed to
Speaker 1: bring your own bottle and whatever. So let's just say
Speaker 1: a lot. Laya was getting a kick out of watching.
Speaker 4: Me, watching you go to the stand by you a blanket,
Speaker 4: do all the things you ain't bring your own.
Speaker 1: Blanke a civilian, I enjoyed it. I enjoyed being a
Speaker 1: civilian anyway, unpaid Bill, what's up, bro?
Speaker 5: I don't know, man, I feel like my day is
Speaker 5: all fucking weird because we're doing it in the middle
Speaker 5: of the day, and I don't know, I'm great though.
Speaker 5: I just feel like this usually ends the day. Now
Speaker 5: is the beginning of the day.
Speaker 1: You usually so you want a day drink? No?
Speaker 5: Not today?
Speaker 1: All right, sugar Steve? Hey, everybody, do I hit differently
Speaker 1: in the daytime as well? Quest? Yes, we can see
Speaker 1: your face now. You normally have the darkest room out
Speaker 1: of all of us, so you know, no, we're good. Yeah, anyway,
Speaker 1: all right, so this episode definitely long time coming. I
Speaker 1: will say that our guest, along with his brother Rich,
Speaker 1: is a founding member of the rock group The Black Crows.
Speaker 1: About that let Me Rewind, Let me Rewind? No, Actually,
Speaker 1: for the last thirty seven years are our guest today
Speaker 1: has been beloved patriarch Jack Hamilton on The Ball and
Speaker 1: the Beautiful and also the voice of and also the
Speaker 1: voice of Vicks Formula forty four for the last forty
Speaker 1: seven years. No, no, no, no, let me try this
Speaker 1: one more time.
Speaker 3: How many are there?
Speaker 1: Yoh wait? Look, first of all, I will say on
Speaker 1: video directing credits alone, I know that we've elevated to
Speaker 1: movies and to production and whatnot, but I will probably
Speaker 1: say that I think that our guest today that his
Speaker 1: canon of music videos has really, in my opinion, saved
Speaker 1: and somewhat defined the best moments of be et and MTV.
Speaker 1: I mean literally, like, dude, I didn't even know that
Speaker 1: you directed the Dodoo Brown video. Oh yeah, can we
Speaker 1: just start there? Can we start like.
Speaker 2: Brothers than a which, But.
Speaker 1: Our our introduction to Alicia Keys came through his lens,
Speaker 1: you know, dude, like a Marie. Like we can go
Speaker 1: on just literally Alicia Keys a Marie uh directed uh
Speaker 1: name it while for the Night Lord Lord all the
Speaker 1: miracles that he's done with outcasts, we can't even go there.
Speaker 1: But dude, my favorite Brandy videos full mood. I didn't
Speaker 1: know that you did that. I know what you want.
Speaker 1: How did you handle the entire Flip Mode squad? I
Speaker 1: want to see the entire treatment. I just want to
Speaker 1: know how from one to ten. What was the headache
Speaker 1: level of advil you had to take for that entire
Speaker 1: Buster Mariah Flip Mode video experience. And by the way
Speaker 1: that you're staring at me, I can tell that that
Speaker 1: day was very heady for you. But no, literally, you've
Speaker 1: directed some of these crazy innovative videos. Dude, so anxious. Also,
Speaker 1: I'm just saying, just name it, like from Jay he's
Speaker 1: literally directed. If we named his entire cannon, the episode
Speaker 1: would be over by no, yes.
Speaker 6: This whole episode just on the New Edition story, just alone.
Speaker 2: Just that.
Speaker 1: But yeah, I'm about to say between a New Edition
Speaker 1: story between.
Speaker 3: Star shooting stars. Yeah, man, you've.
Speaker 1: Done various Wu Tang saga like you you are. I
Speaker 1: feel like he.
Speaker 3: Did Mama, I made it. Bonn was on our show too,
Speaker 3: Like it's just all of the things.
Speaker 1: It's and that's the episode. So thank you very much
Speaker 1: Chris for joining us. Now pladon John and Chris Robinson
Speaker 1: is joining the are Chris Robinson. Yeah, I gotta admit
Speaker 1: there was a slight who's on first situation when Brittany
Speaker 1: and cousin Jake brought you up. It's like, yo, Chris
Speaker 1: Robinson wants to do the show. And I was like, oh, okay,
Speaker 1: so I went to a Bruce Springsteen concert. You already
Speaker 1: know where this shit's going. I went to a Bruce
Speaker 1: Springsteen concert like a month and a half ago, and
Speaker 1: I saw Black Crows Chris Robinson and kind of had
Speaker 1: a who's on first conversation the elevator. I was like, yeah,
Speaker 1: so I hear you're about to do the show with us,
Speaker 1: and I think he thought I was talking about the
Speaker 1: tonight show, right, So just cut to like just ten
Speaker 1: minutes of going in Circle before I realized, yeah, I
Speaker 1: don't think he's coming on Quest Love Supreme.
Speaker 3: So Chris Robin, oh that shit, I got it, okay
Speaker 3: right right?
Speaker 2: You know I got a story with him.
Speaker 3: You got a story with Chris Robinson.
Speaker 7: Chris Robinson Atlanta, Georgia at the Four Seasons in the
Speaker 7: lobby somebody's calling for Chris Robinson. I show up and
Speaker 7: he shows up. It should have been like a Dave
Speaker 7: Chappelle's skit.
Speaker 2: And then he goes. He goes, do you know everybody
Speaker 2: thinks I'm a video director? And I said, do you
Speaker 2: know everybody thinks that I play rock and roll? We
Speaker 2: had a conversation.
Speaker 1: All it takes is you got to direct a Black
Speaker 1: Crose video and then the circles complete.
Speaker 2: Let's set that up.
Speaker 1: You know what, yo, not knowing your everyday life is
Speaker 1: but one of the strangest nights in rock star kind
Speaker 1: of existence I've ever had. You were a part of it.
Speaker 1: I don't even know if you remember it. Do you
Speaker 1: remember the night that I came to Atlanta? I don't
Speaker 1: even think you took me. I think you just happened
Speaker 1: to be there and you became like my you know,
Speaker 1: like whoever whoever the your your your guide is on
Speaker 1: the first day of kindergarten, or whoever your guide is
Speaker 1: on your first day in prison, it's almost the same
Speaker 1: thing equivalent. I went to. It wasn't what's Atlanta's most
Speaker 1: popular gentleman's uh, it wasn't a magic city. It was
Speaker 1: a magic city though.
Speaker 3: It was nis a gentleman's club, it was.
Speaker 1: It was someone on that level.
Speaker 2: But I remember, I remember, yeah, I forgot where we were.
Speaker 2: We were somewhere that was like.
Speaker 7: Legitimately, if you are from Atlanta, you freak with this spot.
Speaker 2: Right.
Speaker 1: Someone told me, like, you know, to go to Magic
Speaker 1: City is almost like some tourist shit, like, right, don't
Speaker 1: go to Magic City and you're only going to go
Speaker 1: to what's what's the uh, the one that's that has
Speaker 1: the letter see in it that's my lounge, yeah, or
Speaker 1: the Claremont Clairemont for novelty purposes only, right, Oh, I
Speaker 1: never heard of it. But the actual natives and locals go
Speaker 1: to the spot that I went to. I forget the
Speaker 1: name of it. And I've never seen like I thought,
Speaker 1: I've you know, like we'll go to the spot in
Speaker 1: Vegas or something like that. I've never seen no shit
Speaker 1: like this in my life. Where twenty minutes into the experience,
Speaker 1: I realized that the whole purpose of that of that
Speaker 1: establishment wasn't It wasn't even the women like they just
Speaker 1: happened to be there dancing. It was about breakfast. No,
Speaker 1: it's about to find the laws of gravity and how
Speaker 1: much muscle power do you have to grab a stack,
Speaker 1: throw it up in the air and keep it up
Speaker 1: in the air before the last dollar drops. And I
Speaker 1: believe that they had like a counter on the wall
Speaker 1: like people breaking records, like who who can make it
Speaker 1: rain their dollars in the air the longest? And I've
Speaker 1: never seen a spot with its own banking system like
Speaker 1: so a very much well loved ball player that's near
Speaker 1: and dear to my hometown, I will say at that
Speaker 1: point he was a young startup in the atl They
Speaker 1: were basically having a who's dick is bigger contest on
Speaker 1: whose dollars could stay up in the air more and literally,
Speaker 1: like at one point said ballplayer threw up maybe twenty thousand.
Speaker 1: And this is when I was my afro was out
Speaker 1: and I was rocking a that was in my uh
Speaker 1: what do you call it? Freedom fighter for slaves? Not
Speaker 1: that turner that Frederick Douglas, Yes, Frederick Douglas. I was
Speaker 1: about to say, Frede run Barry, I'm sorry, okay yo.
Speaker 1: And I remember two hundred dollars had landed in the
Speaker 1: part of my afro, and naturally I was just going
Speaker 1: to grab the ship and Chris like don't do that,
Speaker 1: They'll come and get it. And I was like huh
Speaker 1: and literally I was about to do that and security
Speaker 1: is like no, like I couldn't. You couldn't touch the money.
Speaker 1: I've never seen no shit like that in my life?
Speaker 2: Is that?
Speaker 1: Is that night just indicative of what the strip club
Speaker 1: experience is because we weren't even like at the tables,
Speaker 1: We were just by the bar chilling watching it.
Speaker 2: You know what, brother? That is?
Speaker 7: Uh, when the money goes up, you can't touch it
Speaker 7: on its way down because that's it. Like I've seen
Speaker 7: situations where guys have reached for the money on the
Speaker 7: floor and it ain't good. So you know, I could
Speaker 7: not have my brother reaching for any.
Speaker 1: You saved my life. And literally I just wanted to
Speaker 1: take it out my hair to give it to like who.
Speaker 3: But you can't do that because you ain't throw it.
Speaker 4: So you can't act like you're giving it to somebody
Speaker 4: because somebody else do it.
Speaker 1: Not that that just it was on my person, you know,
Speaker 1: there it is. It wasn't possession was nine tenths of
Speaker 1: the law you know or whatever. I don't know. Very surreal.
Speaker 1: Are you still in Atlanta right now as we speak?
Speaker 2: I am not. I'm in Los Angeles. You know what's funny.
Speaker 2: People think I'm from Atlanta, but I'm actually from Maryland.
Speaker 2: I do.
Speaker 1: I thought you were from Atlanta.
Speaker 7: Yeah, and I live in LA now, so I still
Speaker 7: go back and forth to Maryland. But I think I
Speaker 7: just did so many videos and I did ata.
Speaker 2: How the people think that I'm from Atlanta. I love Atlanta.
Speaker 2: Shout out Atlanta.
Speaker 1: All there, there you go. So normally, you know, we
Speaker 1: have mostly musicians on the show. But for you, what's
Speaker 1: your beginning step to becoming a lenement?
Speaker 2: Like?
Speaker 1: How does this? How does this happen?
Speaker 2: Well? Like like many other people, and when you're young.
Speaker 2: In the beginning, I just knew I was going to
Speaker 2: be in the NFL, like you know. Then I realized
Speaker 2: when I went to college that I was slow and
Speaker 2: short and weak to be in the NFL. One nose
Speaker 2: guard Yeah, oh really? Oh well you for real your careal.
Speaker 6: Now play some nose enough in high school too, that
Speaker 6: was I love those man, it was in the trenches.
Speaker 1: I loved it. I'm gonna pretend I know what the
Speaker 1: NewsGuard is.
Speaker 3: I don't think I know what that means.
Speaker 1: I saw, I saw his face and I'm like, yeah,
Speaker 1: it's safe to ask this question. What do you think
Speaker 1: a those guard? Yeah, you want to pine in the
Speaker 1: face moment this early in the day. Bill, Now I'm good.
Speaker 1: Moving on. Nose guard. Are you in the center? Is
Speaker 1: that a defensive position? Is that an offensive position?
Speaker 6: Guard is offensive? Is a defensive position. So the center
Speaker 6: is the one that snaps the ball to the quarterback.
Speaker 6: That's the offensive position. The nose guard is like generally
Speaker 6: right in front of the center, Like you're right in
Speaker 6: the middle, you know what I mean. On the defense,
Speaker 6: So you're trying to penetrate the old line get to
Speaker 6: the QB.
Speaker 1: You know what that means?
Speaker 4: Like, yeah, you penetrate the offensive line to get to
Speaker 4: the quarterback.
Speaker 1: Came man, Yeah, come on.
Speaker 7: And basically, if you just plug up the hole, which
Speaker 7: means you know, three dudes you know, hit you in
Speaker 7: the back and the ribs and the chest, then you
Speaker 7: did you did your job.
Speaker 2: Just just clog it up, you know, running backs and
Speaker 2: got up clag it up. But so you know, that
Speaker 2: went quick. But in that but when I went to college,
Speaker 2: I discovered making.
Speaker 7: I went to you know, just took film one oh
Speaker 7: one and it I was like this is interesting.
Speaker 2: And then I read Spike Lee's.
Speaker 7: Book, She's Got to Have It, and it was like
Speaker 7: he wrote this specifically to me and blew my mind.
Speaker 2: And then at that point, you know, I was off
Speaker 2: and running.
Speaker 1: So what were you? What were your first steps into
Speaker 1: that world?
Speaker 2: Like?
Speaker 1: Are you most filmmakers I know that either went to
Speaker 1: n YU or that sort of thing, Like, what was
Speaker 1: your first steps into it?
Speaker 2: No, it was more it was more you know, independent
Speaker 2: figuring it out. You know.
Speaker 7: I went to school in Cali, went back home, took
Speaker 7: all kinds of odd jobs.
Speaker 2: But I used to put flyers in the record store.
Speaker 2: Need a video, call me.
Speaker 7: Fly yeah, man, all every now Here's here's the tough part,
Speaker 7: because you know, you from Philly, you know, like.
Speaker 2: It was so much like club music in Baltimore versus
Speaker 2: hip hop. Right, So it was hip hop.
Speaker 7: Artists were few and far between, but the hip hop
Speaker 7: artists that were there, everybody went through this one record
Speaker 7: store and so I got.
Speaker 2: A couple joints.
Speaker 7: You know, I was learning about getting ten thousand dollars
Speaker 7: in a brown paper bag, you know, from some cats
Speaker 7: doing their video. And Frank Ski you mentioned earlier, Dude
Speaker 7: Brown Brown was a DJ, and then they got in
Speaker 7: touch with me and we did two different Dodo Browns.
Speaker 7: One of the dude his boy Stanley Evans. He lived
Speaker 7: close to me, so he was at a rival high
Speaker 7: school back in the day. So and you know Frank was,
Speaker 7: he was. He was the guy in boutour like he
Speaker 7: ran everything.
Speaker 1: So were the radio personalities, Yes, Frank was. Yeah, Frank
Speaker 1: Ski ever come to Philly.
Speaker 4: Frank went to Atlanta. Remember Frank went to Atlanta and
Speaker 4: was in Atlanta for like twenty years and then he
Speaker 4: came back.
Speaker 3: Now he's in DC.
Speaker 4: So that's probably why you confused, because when you were
Speaker 4: in visiting Atlanta you may hear him.
Speaker 1: Okay, I know, I know that voice like the early odds. Okay, cool.
Speaker 4: But question because you mentioned Baltimore. That means like you
Speaker 4: came up in a time of Frank Ski and like
Speaker 4: miss Tony right, like can you can you talk about that?
Speaker 4: Because come on, people don't talk about Baltimore.
Speaker 1: Come on please, So since the beginning of what we
Speaker 1: call Baltimore House, yeah okay.
Speaker 2: Yeah, I mean listen, it was always around because I know,
Speaker 2: I'll tell you I'm from Baltimore. But every Friday night
Speaker 2: they you turn on the radio when it was just
Speaker 2: house and I hated it, you know, so I would
Speaker 2: go over to Morgan State's station because they would play
Speaker 2: hip hop late at night.
Speaker 7: So being at home doing those videos, meeting Frank doing
Speaker 7: Dude Brown. And then there was a contest. This is
Speaker 7: gonna blow your mind. There was a contest on a
Speaker 7: show called Pump It Up.
Speaker 2: Yeah.
Speaker 7: Yes, So the contest was to remake ll Cool Jay's
Speaker 7: Booming System. I got my brother, we borrowed somebody's jeep,
Speaker 7: I got all my cousins, I got.
Speaker 2: Some friends and we shot it in back of Morgan State.
Speaker 7: And you know, it was syndicated show, so it was national.
Speaker 7: So we send it in a VHS tape and we won,
Speaker 7: and it was crazy. We were like what excuse me?
Speaker 2: We won? So the prize was you get to go
Speaker 2: to New York. It was when Mama said, knock you out,
Speaker 2: came out. You got to go to New York and
Speaker 2: have dinner with l L and his grandmother and his
Speaker 2: and all the executives. You know what I mean at depth, jam,
Speaker 2: you know what I'm saying. So it was it was dope.
Speaker 4: Do tell us about it?
Speaker 3: Because then what.
Speaker 7: Well, yes, it did because it's it's some of the
Speaker 7: best advice I ever got in the busines. So there,
Speaker 7: oh no, but I met Paris Barkley later. Okay, right,
Speaker 7: so I'm set.
Speaker 2: Well l and we are nineteen twenty maybe, and so
Speaker 2: I'm going, yo, son, I'm gonna rhyme against hell. LL
Speaker 2: have the camera red. I got to tell you, I
Speaker 2: always also thought I was gonna be a rapper, like,
Speaker 2: oh boy, you know what I'm saying. These are over
Speaker 2: young boy aspirations. You know, every single thing you can
Speaker 2: do in the hood, from a barber to a NFL
Speaker 2: to rap, ended up in film. But so we have
Speaker 2: a beautiful dinner. Man, I get to meet his mom,
Speaker 2: ll the whole thing, and you know, at one point
Speaker 2: I give my boy the camera and I go, okay, yo, man,
Speaker 2: let's battle and he elder kind of smiles. It's a slight.
Speaker 7: Chuckle and he goes, listen, brother, you're very talented. What
Speaker 7: you should do is get the number of every one
Speaker 7: of these people here, because you know, there were interns
Speaker 7: and assistants and people who would like they at Deaf
Speaker 7: Jam who were who were given the job to deal
Speaker 7: with this contest and this you know, crazy kid from Baltimore,
Speaker 7: and he said, because you need to have your industry contacts,
Speaker 7: so he wouldn't rob against me, thank god, because then
Speaker 7: that that would be somewhere out of the universe.
Speaker 2: About now.
Speaker 7: But all those people I was with turned into presidents
Speaker 7: and executives of the highest.
Speaker 2: Level, and I work with them my whole career. Told you, yeah, man.
Speaker 1: Damn see Tomorrow's intern is is the future president? Was
Speaker 1: he always that presidential? Yes?
Speaker 7: He Listen, man, he has always been. He's you know,
Speaker 7: like there's a there's a there's a fabric that is
Speaker 7: for the camera and then there's something behind it. He's
Speaker 7: always been the same from me. I've been on one
Speaker 7: hundred and twenty fifth Street and he rolls up in
Speaker 7: a Bentley and rolls down the window and goes, hey, Chris,
Speaker 7: how you doing and pulls off, and it's.
Speaker 1: Like wow, commercial exactly.
Speaker 2: Like super Solid.
Speaker 7: I worked with him on a project during COVID where
Speaker 7: we did.
Speaker 2: These performances like in the in the in the most
Speaker 2: storied places because it was COVID, right, and we did
Speaker 2: the Trooper Door with him and just you know, connecting
Speaker 2: with him and having the pre pro calls. It's it's
Speaker 2: straight business, but it's love and he keeps it moving.
Speaker 2: He's a bad dude.
Speaker 1: You know. I assume that by this time, Lionel Martin
Speaker 1: is the gatekeeper. So in your eyes, is it like
Speaker 1: I gotta get to Lionel C. Martin level? Like I
Speaker 1: gotta he's the guy. Like I know that Hype Williams
Speaker 1: High Williams told me that he used to sweep the
Speaker 1: floorist with Lionel Martin, and I know that uh Paul
Speaker 1: Hunter did the same thing for Hype. So it's almost
Speaker 1: like a a thing like, so, did you have to
Speaker 1: be an apprentice for an established video director before you
Speaker 1: were truly allowed to run your own thing or you
Speaker 1: just came in the door as a video director.
Speaker 7: As I was going through this process, I also like
Speaker 7: worked in the promo department at Fox forty five News
Speaker 7: in Baltimore, and any movie that came through, I was
Speaker 7: a pa on media man.
Speaker 2: Robert Oh okay, wow, yeah, yeah, yes, you learned. Yeah,
Speaker 2: this is what I learned.
Speaker 7: This might not sound good for the kids. I was like,
Speaker 7: I was like a ham, No, I'm directed.
Speaker 2: Like I'm young, super young, But I go it's I'll
Speaker 2: put it to you this day after working there for weeks.
Speaker 2: You know, as a PA, most of the time you're
Speaker 2: not able to go on the set. You're not able
Speaker 2: to participate. You're doing the dirty work, you know. Same
Speaker 2: and I put my son through the same torture.
Speaker 1: So for our listeners out there, what does that entail?
Speaker 7: It is picking up trash, it's cleaning out toilets and
Speaker 7: win a bay go, it's going to get coffee. It's
Speaker 7: if an artist needs medicine or medicine, you go get
Speaker 7: it and whatever.
Speaker 2: Running never do it. You're the runner.
Speaker 7: So one night we were working overnight, so call time
Speaker 7: was five pm and we'd work until seven am. We're
Speaker 7: in Baltimore, humid to one hundred some degrees as the
Speaker 7: sun starts to come up, and there was a scene
Speaker 7: where all the neighbors on each side of the block
Speaker 7: threw things out the window with medium men.
Speaker 2: And so the AD came to us, our PA.
Speaker 7: Group, and said, okay, you see each square on the sidewalk,
Speaker 7: I want you to go to that square, take a
Speaker 7: photograph and then a polaroid.
Speaker 2: Then I want you to take a box and put
Speaker 2: each thing in that box.
Speaker 7: So when we picked this up later tonight, we can
Speaker 7: place everything in the exact as we looked at that
Speaker 7: three block radius and everybody said, okay, well, we're gonna
Speaker 7: be here another five hours.
Speaker 2: After working for twelve hours, I was like.
Speaker 7: This shall be my last day as a PA, and
Speaker 7: I'm gonna tell and I'm gonna tough it out.
Speaker 2: So that day I left the set, I was like,
Speaker 2: I don't even care if you pay me, I'm out.
Speaker 2: And I dipped And I told Robert this story. I
Speaker 2: saw him recently and as the first time he knew
Speaker 2: that I worked as a PA on his on this thing.
Speaker 7: But I think what it did is that it really
Speaker 7: motivated me, man Like it had me going to New
Speaker 7: York on the M track with fifteen dollars in my pocket,
Speaker 7: going to set in the lobby. I just wanted anybody
Speaker 7: to have my demo tape, you know, which wasn't that
Speaker 7: good to take you down down that I know, but
Speaker 7: I would bug I bugged somebody, you know. Fred Felman
Speaker 7: was a guy profiled, but I called him every day,
Speaker 7: so he was the only guy in the office. Because
Speaker 7: I met him later and he was telling me about it.
Speaker 7: He goes Yo used to call me every day, but
Speaker 7: nobody was in the office. We had like went bankrupt
Speaker 7: or something, but we had a They were kind of
Speaker 7: going from the run DMC era to this new era
Speaker 7: and in these new artists. So finally he hit me
Speaker 7: up and said, yo, I got an artist and Smoothed
Speaker 7: the Hustler.
Speaker 6: And so you did Smooth the Hustler, the Broken Language
Speaker 6: that I did.
Speaker 2: Yeah, before that, I did Smooth's joint. It was just him.
Speaker 7: Then his brother trick him and Trigger got and they
Speaker 7: did Broken Language. But I ended up doing like four
Speaker 7: or five joints for them. They would come to Maryland,
Speaker 7: we would have a barbecue, we would like make posters
Speaker 7: and like have our own release parties. It just was
Speaker 7: it was never about the money because because you know,
Speaker 7: my idea of success was if I could get a
Speaker 7: pair of times.
Speaker 2: I was good, you know, after doing the video.
Speaker 3: From Baltimore, you know Baltimore.
Speaker 2: They weren't black Black Air Force ones though they was,
Speaker 2: buterton I would get.
Speaker 7: If I could get tims, that was it. And that's
Speaker 7: that's how the love part, you know, of doing it began.
Speaker 4: How did you back then when you first started, what
Speaker 4: was your method for creating, Like did you have to
Speaker 4: get with the artists first, or did you just present
Speaker 4: the artists with your idea, like, I guess what's move.
Speaker 2: Oh yeah, we you know, I'd go up meet them.
Speaker 7: You know what's funny is is I think back I
Speaker 7: was so naive that I just thought everybody was friends,
Speaker 7: everybody was cool, Like it was just somebody you would
Speaker 7: meet and I would go up and I'd go straight
Speaker 7: to the heart of Brooklyn and I was meeting M O.
Speaker 7: P and dr period, and I was meeting all these
Speaker 7: dudes who were still in the street and I'd be
Speaker 7: sitting on their stuked.
Speaker 2: Okay, guys, so here's the treat I.
Speaker 7: Would break out the break out the treatment and just
Speaker 7: kind of you know. So there was some storyboards connected
Speaker 7: to it, and I think, you know, they were like.
Speaker 2: Yo, this kid is serious.
Speaker 7: So there was a certain trust that we that we
Speaker 7: got and I you know, we would always just try
Speaker 7: to shoot everything.
Speaker 2: But back then it was like, you know, their mother would.
Speaker 7: Cook for us when we were in Brooklyn shooting and
Speaker 7: we would go to Carolina Kitchen around the corner over
Speaker 7: there in Brooklyn, and it was just that was the start.
Speaker 2: And I think it's funny because just along with technology
Speaker 2: and how things changed. This word would spread. Then I'd
Speaker 2: get a call from this artist. Then I would get
Speaker 2: a call from Fat Joe, and then that relationship started.
Speaker 2: That turned into then I get a call from Fuck,
Speaker 2: then I get a call from Jay.
Speaker 7: It was very much a smaller community, and you would
Speaker 7: it wasn't a phone call or zoom. You went up
Speaker 7: to the office and you sat there and you had
Speaker 7: the conversation before you really did any work. So there
Speaker 7: was a certain you know, you had to be vetted
Speaker 7: by the person.
Speaker 1: All right, let me let me ask a question. As
Speaker 1: a person who especially in the prime of their career,
Speaker 1: you know, I'm the person that would micro manage album credits,
Speaker 1: the engineering of a song, the photographer for like the
Speaker 1: art direction of our album call. But I hated the
Speaker 1: process of video making, even with the whole what they
Speaker 1: do situation, Like I literally had no clue that we
Speaker 1: were referencing one more chance, because that's how indifferent I was,
Speaker 1: Like I was now happened we were. I was snapping
Speaker 1: in the trailer, like I only came when it was
Speaker 1: my time to do a scene. And even when we
Speaker 1: watched watch the credits or whatever, I don't know. I
Speaker 1: just felt like maybe it was the deprecation thing, like I,
Speaker 1: we're so motley looking, like this ain't getting on television.
Speaker 1: So it's almost like.
Speaker 4: You weren't thinking as a director back then, and even
Speaker 4: though you tell these many stories.
Speaker 1: Yeah, it's the It's the equivalent of like a kid
Speaker 1: with a bad report card that waits till like six
Speaker 1: in the morning and ask their parents to sign the
Speaker 1: shit like mom, dad, haaven's real quick, or this permission
Speaker 1: slip like when you're asleep at six in the morning.
Speaker 1: That sort of thing. That's so for me. What I
Speaker 1: what I learned though, what I learned was I think
Speaker 1: especially when record labels, you know, there's certain artists that
Speaker 1: will get an unlimited budget. You know, they have a
Speaker 1: little wigger room for creativity. But how do you deal
Speaker 1: with an artist that has high expectation for their video
Speaker 1: but not the video budget.
Speaker 2: You know what I think?
Speaker 7: I was so close, you know when we were there,
Speaker 7: it is like I was like, yeah, let's go, Like
Speaker 7: I never said no to anything.
Speaker 2: Now. My producer was you know, having a stuff.
Speaker 1: Produces the bad guy. Who's your producer.
Speaker 7: My producer for the last twenty years has been Roseanne
Speaker 7: cunning In. You know, as soon as we opened robot
Speaker 7: like we've been we stuck together this whole time.
Speaker 1: That's dope. So she was the bad cop to your
Speaker 1: good cop.
Speaker 2: Yeah she was. She wasn't only the bad cop cop
Speaker 2: to the label. She'd be the bad cop to me.
Speaker 2: You know. She'd be like, Chris, we're shutting these lights off.
Speaker 7: And you know, back then, you know, which is a
Speaker 7: youthful mistake, I'd go, well, take part of my fee.
Speaker 7: I was always throwing my fee in for extra lights
Speaker 7: or an extra an hour, just because you know, she
Speaker 7: was trying to make sure I didn't bankrupt our company,
Speaker 7: you know, because that's that's you just you just wanted
Speaker 7: it to be because I always you know, I always
Speaker 7: say like it's funny because back then we were all
Speaker 7: fighting for like maybe one hundred slots in the country.
Speaker 7: Right There was TRL but that didn't play a lot
Speaker 7: of hip hop. There was one oh six in Park
Speaker 7: and then you know, of course Ralph McDaniel's and and
Speaker 7: but there wasn't you know where where there's where there's
Speaker 7: a million slots every hour now because you go to YouTube,
Speaker 7: there was a certain amount. So when hip hop got serious,
Speaker 7: it became a business that was generating money. You know,
Speaker 7: those big budgets were a reaction to let's win the slot.
Speaker 7: You know, how does this competition? Hype Williams is doing this?
Speaker 7: Like how do we get there? Like how do we
Speaker 7: how do we create?
Speaker 2: And there was a lot of creativity put into it.
Speaker 7: And so me, I would always go, yes, let's let's
Speaker 7: try to achieve beyond what the number is.
Speaker 1: You know, so you would aim high for a lower
Speaker 1: budget instead of like aiming for good lower, you would
Speaker 1: just aim higher.
Speaker 2: Anyway, I didn't even know what aiming good lower was.
Speaker 2: I mean, just to be real, now I do. Now
Speaker 2: I know what makes sense as a filmmaker to go, okay,
Speaker 2: let's do this really well because we have this amount
Speaker 2: of money in this amount of resources, or let's change
Speaker 2: our idea. Like once that treatment was written and they
Speaker 2: chose it, I really kind of took it on myself
Speaker 2: to like, we got to make it work.
Speaker 4: You know.
Speaker 1: I also came from a world where you know, at
Speaker 1: Geffen Records, they would always throw on my face, hey man,
Speaker 1: we shot smells like teen Spirit for ninety thousand dollars,
Speaker 1: like a gymnasium of two cameras. So yeah, they would
Speaker 1: always say to me, like it's in the song, it's
Speaker 1: in the spirit of the performance. It's not you know,
Speaker 1: we don't need this car or this mansion or I
Speaker 1: mean not like we want in the car mansion. But
Speaker 1: you know, I at least like my thing was, I
Speaker 1: would always fight for like Spikes Jones, like because I
Speaker 1: want to just do crazy, off kilter things right, and
Speaker 1: you know, we were just always always under budget. So
Speaker 1: I mean, after dude, Brown, what do you feel like
Speaker 1: your first video was that really established you? As in like,
Speaker 1: all right, flag planning. There's a new sheriff in town.
Speaker 1: His name is Chris Robinson.
Speaker 7: I would say, Peter Gunns and Lord tie uptown, all.
Speaker 1: Right, So how did you pull off that Yankee shot?
Speaker 2: This is the first time I'm telling this story.
Speaker 1: Yeah, of course we.
Speaker 2: Want to be uptown.
Speaker 7: We want to be in Yankee Stadium, and this is
Speaker 7: the beauty of that era.
Speaker 2: And we and music videos, my producers got all the
Speaker 2: way up to George Steinbrent right like we were.
Speaker 7: We were coming bringing hip hop Yankee Stadium. And at
Speaker 7: the end of the day he said no, and we
Speaker 7: were devastated. And then me, this may be sacrilegious for.
Speaker 1: All of New York people don't say Mets.
Speaker 2: We went to the Mets stadium.
Speaker 7: We went to Queens and and I was like, how
Speaker 7: do we make this look like Yankee Stadium?
Speaker 2: And we did our best, But see, you didn't know,
Speaker 2: but I'm telling I'm telling you said, how did you
Speaker 2: do the Yankee shot?
Speaker 3: And why did y'all think it was the Yankees? Then
Speaker 3: how did y'all think it was? Because I'm sitting here looking.
Speaker 1: Like uptown man, like I just assumed, okay, but they
Speaker 1: were also wearing like Yankee shit? How did you pull
Speaker 1: that off?
Speaker 2: Exactly? That's that was that's the director has to go,
Speaker 2: how do you draw the eye?
Speaker 7: Everybody had on Yankee jackets, but then you also had
Speaker 7: everybody from the Bronx, pun Joe.
Speaker 2: All these cats were in the audio we did.
Speaker 7: We had like instead of them having beer and hot dogs,
Speaker 7: there was like champagne bottles that the guy walking around with.
Speaker 7: And we got to get on the field, we got
Speaker 7: to see the you know, the scoreboard and how.
Speaker 1: Did you Yeah, how did you look that up? Though?
Speaker 7: So that listen we went on. That's that's how serious
Speaker 7: it became. Like we would we would move like a
Speaker 7: feature film.
Speaker 3: But did the Mets know what you were doing directly?
Speaker 2: I don't think so.
Speaker 1: I don't think it's very much stadium though.
Speaker 5: Man, now that I know that's what it's like, that
Speaker 5: is so different.
Speaker 2: Yeah, exactly, But that was a beautiful day.
Speaker 1: Wow. I also know that as a director, second nature
Speaker 1: for you has to be Jedi mind tricking. And I
Speaker 1: know again, like your producer has to be the bad
Speaker 1: guy or the shield. You know, your producer has to
Speaker 1: know if you're singing with a a a certain chantu
Speaker 1: is a certain singer that there might be three hundred
Speaker 1: seconds in her minute.
Speaker 2: You know.
Speaker 1: So you might have to tell people like, okay, this
Speaker 1: the shoots at four o'clock and then they show up
Speaker 1: at nine o'clock or whatever, which is what you wanted
Speaker 1: them to do in the first place, or whatever. But like,
Speaker 1: how do you how do you immediately know that you're
Speaker 1: dealing with like that level of uh, Jedi mind tricking
Speaker 1: with your artists.
Speaker 7: You can only Jedi mind trick so much, right, And
Speaker 7: that's that's in your schedule, right, But it's planned b
Speaker 7: that's the most important part, right, Like when you set
Speaker 7: your day up, be prepared to shoot all the other
Speaker 7: stuff you need in case somebody comes six hours late
Speaker 7: and six hours.
Speaker 1: Late, so you do your b shots first.
Speaker 2: Oh yeah, oh yeah.
Speaker 1: Is that is that general for you? Or is that
Speaker 1: is that video making one on one?
Speaker 2: I think it's I think it's a learned behavior, you
Speaker 2: know what I'm saying.
Speaker 7: Like, you know, I started off like you know, once
Speaker 7: you set everything up and you set the first shot
Speaker 7: and you set the lights and we were sitting there waiting,
Speaker 7: sitting on apple boxes, you just learn because the artist
Speaker 7: eventually shows up. It's their money, it's their music video.
Speaker 7: But you may not get your whole creative off like
Speaker 7: you wanted it. The video might not be as dope
Speaker 7: as you want it to be. So you figure out
Speaker 7: ways just to get the video to your vision. And
Speaker 7: you know, when you get repeat business, you know you
Speaker 7: would learn like, oh, Nor's gonna be three hours late.
Speaker 7: You know, there was a there was a tweaking of
Speaker 7: like some people were twenty minutes late, some people were early,
Speaker 7: and you better show up and be there on time.
Speaker 7: And so once you kind of got that repeat business,
Speaker 7: you kind of understand who did what.
Speaker 3: Did you have?
Speaker 4: We talked about you reading the Spike Lee book, but
Speaker 4: like did you have a mentor in this game? And
Speaker 4: along with that question, what other influences are a part.
Speaker 3: Of your work that we may not know when it
Speaker 3: comes to direction.
Speaker 2: No, no mentor, no real mentor.
Speaker 1: It was you are the roots of directing.
Speaker 7: No, there you go, you walk like okay, this, yeah,
Speaker 7: that's that's kind of what it was. And because of
Speaker 7: all of the times in Baltimore, nothing scared me, right,
Speaker 7: you know, because I was already dealing with all of
Speaker 7: these guys who's who how can you say it? The
Speaker 7: stakes were very high, right, you had to get this
Speaker 7: this right. So I was like in a playground.
Speaker 2: Man. I just was like going and I was like,
Speaker 2: oh my god, they're gonna let me do this.
Speaker 7: And then you take the next step, Oh we got
Speaker 7: another phone call. I think I will quit my job,
Speaker 7: and you know, it just it just builds from there.
Speaker 7: But yeah, no, no real mentor. And that scene I
Speaker 7: was looking for that early, you.
Speaker 2: Know, along with you know, doing Judie Ground and all that.
Speaker 2: Like there'd be movies that came.
Speaker 7: Through Baltimore or TV shows and you nobody when you're
Speaker 7: in that zone of the PA, nobody really has time
Speaker 7: for you, right, And most of them aren't you know,
Speaker 7: aren't like your people. So that's what happened in the
Speaker 7: video is I was embraced by people like me who
Speaker 7: just happened to be the big star or the big executive.
Speaker 7: Kevin Lowles is from Baltimore.
Speaker 3: Yeah, I about to ask you, so, did you guys
Speaker 3: know each other? Early on when he was.
Speaker 2: I know, I knew Kevin Lyles. I knew of Kevin Lyles.
Speaker 7: He was like a legend because he had a song
Speaker 7: in Baltimore and he was an artist first, so all
Speaker 7: of us in Baltimore like exactly the new Marks, and
Speaker 7: we were just yeah, he was a legend, and then
Speaker 7: he was a death jam and we were like, oh
Speaker 7: my god, every single I can't imagine how many.
Speaker 2: People from baltim More called Kevin Lyns because he was
Speaker 2: our one guy in the music business. So I think
Speaker 2: everybody was you.
Speaker 3: Was from Baltimore. Though there was a moment when when
Speaker 3: he went, oh shit.
Speaker 2: Okay, I can't I can't remember. I can't remember. I
Speaker 2: know he he is funny. I've seen Russell Simmons more
Speaker 2: than I've seen Kevin wow, right, because he.
Speaker 1: Was those white people also think that Kevin is Russell
Speaker 1: Simmons Also, I just automatically assumed, especially because black directors
Speaker 1: that finally get let past the develvet rope, that you
Speaker 1: guys automatically know each other and hang with each other.
Speaker 1: I mean, let me ask, like, is it territorial pissing?
Speaker 1: Like like once you're established, are you were you phone
Speaker 1: buddies with in your beginning, like with a Linel or
Speaker 1: a Hype or a Sangie or.
Speaker 4: More.
Speaker 1: People pretty much very competitive and just kept in.
Speaker 7: Themselves absolutely competitive, right because we were all signed to companies, right,
Speaker 7: so they it's really interesting they knew what they were doing.
Speaker 7: The companies really understood like, oh wow, we're getting five
Speaker 7: hundred thousand dollars. You know, we're breaking the director off
Speaker 7: you know a percentage of that. But we the more
Speaker 7: this business of hip hop grows, the more of these
Speaker 7: guys we want. So some of us ended up at
Speaker 7: the same companies. And but to answer your question, competitive
Speaker 7: all day. For me, Lionel Martin was like a north
Speaker 7: Star like his work, his creativity, his his just what
Speaker 7: he was able to bring. But then when you met
Speaker 7: all the other people who were like his line producer,
Speaker 7: his art director, like just being in New York and
Speaker 7: working on things. There was a cross pollination because all
Speaker 7: those people that are below the line, which is a
Speaker 7: whack term, but you know the people who the craftsman,
Speaker 7: they're working on everybody stuff, so they may even go, hey, man, Line,
Speaker 7: I just worked with this kid Chris. So I just
Speaker 7: worked with this kid X and.
Speaker 2: You get known.
Speaker 7: But I think for us Hype in line. First it
Speaker 7: was Linel of course, but then Heype was like a
Speaker 7: super north Star.
Speaker 2: And then all of us meet Paul X, Benny, Dave Myers, you.
Speaker 7: Know Benny love Benny, and I think we were all
Speaker 7: in a friendly competition. We were in a friendly competition
Speaker 7: in the most beautiful way because then we'd see each
Speaker 7: other in the oh, we're in the streets to LA,
Speaker 7: or we're at this party or at this thing, and
Speaker 7: then we would I'd be our first opportunity to chop
Speaker 7: it up, first opportunity to talk.
Speaker 2: Then you found like, oh, his brother's cool or you
Speaker 2: know whatever.
Speaker 7: So and then as we've grown, we've been like cheering
Speaker 7: for each other. It was so hard to break into TV, right,
Speaker 7: so if I was did.
Speaker 2: Something in TV, I'd get a call from Benny or whatever,
Speaker 2: like yo, how did you? You know, how did you
Speaker 2: get over that hump? And I'm trying to you know,
Speaker 2: I remember when Benny was trying to get his first
Speaker 2: TV episode.
Speaker 7: You know, same thing with me. You know, I had
Speaker 7: to be brought in by that. So I think the
Speaker 7: same thing happened with us as we grew. I remember
Speaker 7: the first time, I'll give.
Speaker 2: You a little little who we got? Who is? Benny
Speaker 2: was Hype's first A d okay? Right then Benny.
Speaker 7: The first big video he got a Puffy called me
Speaker 7: and did he now?
Speaker 2: So did? He called me and he was like, Chris,
Speaker 2: I want you to do this video. I think it
Speaker 2: was genuine.
Speaker 3: I don't want to know.
Speaker 2: I did it. I don't want to know.
Speaker 1: That's right, I did.
Speaker 2: But this was like there on a bridge.
Speaker 7: It was dope, dope video, and me and Puff had
Speaker 7: been working a lot by then. You know, Puff is
Speaker 7: extremely demanding executive. So yeah, the budget was low, right,
Speaker 7: So I said the budget was, I mean, we'll see,
Speaker 7: it's all perspective because I think it back then it
Speaker 7: was like one seventy five, which today for the movies
Speaker 7: that was directed exactly. But he had been spending north
Speaker 7: of four hundred thousand and still being unsatisfied if you
Speaker 7: didn't get to the to the thing right. So I said, look, man,
Speaker 7: you're going to be out there yelling and screaming and mad.
Speaker 7: Why don't you just raise the budget a little bit.
Speaker 7: So He's like, I can't raise the budget. This song
Speaker 7: ain't charging.
Speaker 2: No, no, no, And so I was going to do it,
Speaker 2: but I but he moved on and he gave Benny
Speaker 2: the job, and that video blew Benny up, and Puff
Speaker 2: called me after that was like, hey, yeah, you're up
Speaker 2: on the hill at the House on the Hill. Now
Speaker 2: you ain't trying to grind no more. Now He like
Speaker 2: dug it in. But you know, like yeah, but.
Speaker 7: That was dope because that was Benny's opportunity. And then
Speaker 7: the other part of that is that Melina was Benny's assistant.
Speaker 2: Wow, yeah, Benny. She was Benny's assistant.
Speaker 7: And then I remember there was a video for Ludacris
Speaker 7: that he didn't do that she did, and then that
Speaker 7: blew her up. So there, So I think the thing
Speaker 7: that I appreciate about our era in our community is
Speaker 7: that all those pieces like connected in some kind of
Speaker 7: way to push us where we are.
Speaker 2: We got to just keep going.
Speaker 1: So, okay, when you are putting flyers in the record stores, right,
Speaker 1: I'll do your video and you start making traction. At
Speaker 1: what point do you realize that there's a pivot to
Speaker 1: this and that maybe you want to start doing something
Speaker 1: more like maybe the next step up is epk's and
Speaker 1: then the next step is commercials. Then the next step
Speaker 1: of is episodes production company. So for you, what was
Speaker 1: your first pivot too, Hey, there's something more I can
Speaker 1: do besides the music video.
Speaker 7: Yeah, I wish that I could be like Yo, And
Speaker 7: then I saw the light, you know, but I was
Speaker 7: so dug into music videos that I didn't see anything else.
Speaker 2: Like the start was music videos were never a dream.
Speaker 7: It was making movies, you know, after reading She's got
Speaker 7: to have it right, So.
Speaker 1: You wanted to make movies from the gate gate from
Speaker 1: the gate, I wrote, Okay, I wrote a feature I
Speaker 1: wrote a feature script, you know, when I was twenty.
Speaker 7: Of course, it's like every twenty year old script. That
Speaker 7: was a story about me, about a kid who went
Speaker 7: to college and then the old thing.
Speaker 2: Right.
Speaker 7: So, but then as I was trying to work within
Speaker 7: the business, because I did all those warehouse jobs and
Speaker 7: those you know, janitorial.
Speaker 2: Jobs, and I was like, I gotta figure out how
Speaker 2: to stay in the in the game. Music videos became
Speaker 2: a way to make two hundred dollars. Then it just
Speaker 2: grew and the business I just timing was right, and
Speaker 2: the business grew, and I was like, I'm never going
Speaker 2: back because I had a couple of dollars and I
Speaker 2: just was like, I'm never.
Speaker 7: Going back to how that felt, you know, being in
Speaker 7: a guard shack as a security guard with a rat
Speaker 7: running under the you know what I mean, in Baltimore.
Speaker 2: So I just tried to get better and better and
Speaker 2: better and better and there and I was embedded in
Speaker 2: the culture.
Speaker 7: And you know, when I went to a bigger company,
Speaker 7: which was Michelle Gandri's company, part of the you know,
Speaker 7: there was an executive there who was like, man, you
Speaker 7: need to shoot commercials, and it was so funny.
Speaker 2: I had my one experience. I did Maya in Common
Speaker 2: for Coca Cold.
Speaker 1: You shot that, Oh.
Speaker 2: Yeah, I didn't.
Speaker 1: I didn't know you directed that joint. I wasn't on
Speaker 1: the set, but I did the music to that.
Speaker 2: Of course you did exactly so, but.
Speaker 7: But I that experience. Once I did it, it didn't
Speaker 7: feel good. To me because when you do a commercial,
Speaker 7: every time you do a take, you stop. You have
Speaker 7: to look back at the agency, and the agency is
Speaker 7: huddled around the TV. And then then they tell you
Speaker 7: if you can move on, even if you can move
Speaker 7: to the medium shot. And so I've had a few
Speaker 7: years is now and of being like the record company
Speaker 7: just having trust and going Okay, man, thanks, we're gonna
Speaker 7: we're gonna go to lunch while you guys do this.
Speaker 7: We'll be back later, and just having kind of that
Speaker 7: full creative power. And what I didn't realize is that, man,
Speaker 7: you should you should really make these relationships like l
Speaker 7: to me back in the day, like advertising is a
Speaker 7: thing you can bring your talent to this world. And
Speaker 7: because of that executive, I did a.
Speaker 2: Lot of stuff. I did Nike and Gatorading. I got
Speaker 2: to do a lot, but I never enjoyed it. I
Speaker 2: just wanted to get back to, you know, dealing with
Speaker 2: you know.
Speaker 1: What I knew I was going to use this moment
Speaker 1: to ask, was that the executive was that Ron Fair
Speaker 1: micromanaging you.
Speaker 2: Ron Fair. Ron Fair didn't mess with me too much. Cool.
Speaker 1: He's probably the reason why I didn't want to go
Speaker 1: to a commercial suit like he. I mean at the time,
Speaker 1: I was like regularly producing Common so I thought, okay,
Speaker 1: really I thought, okay, this is gonna be my audition
Speaker 1: to start working with Maya. But I didn't realize that
Speaker 1: Ron Fair was being brought in to make sure that
Speaker 1: like basically he just kud A Todd the whole thing,
Speaker 1: and like, is he.
Speaker 3: What the advertising company or is he what the.
Speaker 1: Ron Fair is the guy who famously told the Black
Speaker 1: Eyed Peas, look, guys, you could either be a success
Speaker 1: or you could be the roots. Which one you want
Speaker 1: to be? Like Ron Fair was Jimmy I Bean's right
Speaker 1: hand man.
Speaker 3: That's why we gotta have will on ou know what
Speaker 3: you know? If he made.
Speaker 1: So, you're still my buddy.
Speaker 2: But yeah, I remember Ron Fair used to come with
Speaker 2: his Dora and he just right, he was come through.
Speaker 2: He didn't bother me too much like he But it's
Speaker 2: just weird, you know when you think back, Like my
Speaker 2: focus was so on the work, you know, and until
Speaker 2: the ad who you know, we had worked together so
Speaker 2: many times shout out Moni Greenley.
Speaker 7: He was like, okay, I'd be going on to the
Speaker 7: next shot to go Chris, Okay, we gotta stop, we
Speaker 7: gotta have this conversation with these eighteen people, so that
Speaker 7: pivot didn't really happen, you know, like like I thought
Speaker 7: about it and did the pivot. It happened because there
Speaker 7: was an executive who recognized.
Speaker 4: This is gonna sound real random. But as you're talking,
Speaker 4: it just made me think. So, did did the Wire
Speaker 4: have any effect on you in a way as a director?
Speaker 7: No, just I was I was in I was. I
Speaker 7: remember I used to watch The Wire in the edit
Speaker 7: facility while I was in La Wow. The only effect
Speaker 7: that it had on me was everybody going, is it
Speaker 7: really like that in Baltimore?
Speaker 4: I start as a director and being from Baltimore, and
Speaker 4: it made you to go like, maybe there is something
Speaker 4: else for me outside of these commercials in this video
Speaker 4: and you know, I didn't know that made you feel like.
Speaker 2: Well, by the time the Wire came, yeah, I was.
Speaker 2: I was pretty pretty deep in it. So I definitely
Speaker 2: wanted to shoot the Wire and I had. One of
Speaker 2: the things that I regret to this day is I
Speaker 2: got a call from Bob Colesberg, who was one of
Speaker 2: the creators of Wire, and Bob Colesbery said, hey, man,
Speaker 2: we heard you from Baltimore. I saw your work. Would
Speaker 2: you come and do an episode? Hell? Yeah, I'm coming.
Speaker 2: All right? So this is this.
Speaker 7: Is this is how you you know, this is what
Speaker 7: you learned about agents and everything, right, Okay, So Listen
Speaker 7: invited me to come and direct. And when I talked later,
Speaker 7: there's some guys who were on there like it just Elba.
Speaker 2: They had told the actors like, yo, Chris Roberts is coming,
Speaker 2: were like, Yo, don't you know, We're gonna get this
Speaker 2: brother to come through. So I had done atl and
Speaker 2: I was in post. I mean I was almost done.
Speaker 2: I think we were like just doing the sound. And
Speaker 2: my agent was like, well, Chris, you probably shouldn't do
Speaker 2: that because maybe Warner Brothers might feel.
Speaker 7: Away, and you know, I'm new. You know, I'm new
Speaker 7: as far as like working with us. It's my first movie.
Speaker 7: And I listened to him and that was a mistake.
Speaker 7: But then how God works, I got another call and
Speaker 7: I was working on What was I working on? I
Speaker 7: was working on some big, big opportunity, but it was
Speaker 7: the same thing. Like I was in post and they
Speaker 7: offered it to me again, and I didn't do it.
Speaker 7: I couldn't do it. I was in the middle of
Speaker 7: you know what it was. I was in the middle
Speaker 7: of a movie that never happened, right. You know, you
Speaker 7: do a movie like they don't pay you, you're on
Speaker 7: it for a year.
Speaker 2: And then if it pops, you go.
Speaker 7: So I was in the middle of this and once
Speaker 7: again I got that advice and didn't do it.
Speaker 4: So will you be on a movie for a year
Speaker 4: and they don't pay you?
Speaker 2: What is this?
Speaker 3: What is this movie?
Speaker 4: Magic?
Speaker 3: No, y'all gotta let me tell you something.
Speaker 4: Y'all better tell these people the real story of how
Speaker 4: this shit happens. Because people just think the money is
Speaker 4: thrown in the beginning. They make a deal and you're
Speaker 4: rich throughout the making of it to the end, and
Speaker 4: didn't you get stuff on.
Speaker 3: The back end.
Speaker 2: To make a movie is difficult, as question of to
Speaker 2: make a mediocre movie is difficult. It is brutal to
Speaker 2: think of all these things.
Speaker 7: That are in your head and how you have to
Speaker 7: work with a crew of people to make all this
Speaker 7: stuff work, the personalities, the actors.
Speaker 2: It's difficult. Right to make a great movie.
Speaker 7: That director is like miracle genius genius level, right, a
Speaker 7: miracle worker. I always look at these guys when you
Speaker 7: when you watch a movie and you are just thoroughly
Speaker 7: satisfied and.
Speaker 2: Go, what did he go through to make this? To
Speaker 2: make this thing happen? And having the experience now it's
Speaker 2: it's it's difficult. But every movie you see, there's this
Speaker 2: last movie I did with you know, Shooting Stars.
Speaker 7: I'm on that movie for three and a half years,
Speaker 7: because there's there's the prep and then there's oh, we're
Speaker 7: gonna go Oh.
Speaker 2: Actually the studio is going to push it till next year,
Speaker 2: like you know, that's just the that's just the way
Speaker 2: it ends. And the book. The producer got the rights
Speaker 2: to the book thirteen years ago. So when you you
Speaker 2: would think, oh it's Lebron.
Speaker 7: James, this is a layup, this movie is gonna get
Speaker 7: made quickly, it took thirteen years for that movie to
Speaker 7: be made, and I was on it for three and
Speaker 7: a half. So it's it's a it has to you
Speaker 7: have to love it. It's got to be a labor
Speaker 7: of love. And that's just what it is.
Speaker 1: What takes so.
Speaker 6: Long for a movie about the biggest basketball start in
Speaker 6: the world to be made, well.
Speaker 2: I think from the perspective of the studio, the studio
Speaker 2: right they're going, Okay, well does this work in our slate?
Speaker 2: Because they got all these other movies.
Speaker 7: They're making a big giant I'm not saying I don't
Speaker 7: think Universal does Marvel, but whatever those big movies are, right,
Speaker 7: then there's a lot of they're going for awards or
Speaker 7: other movies, just whatever their slate is, Where does it
Speaker 7: fit in? Once it's there, when do we put that
Speaker 7: movie out when's most advantageous.
Speaker 2: So they're dealing with the business aspect. We're dealing with
Speaker 2: the creative aspect. How do you tell this story?
Speaker 7: Because there's been a book, there's been a documentary, now
Speaker 7: here's a feature film.
Speaker 2: What's the tone? How do you tell this? Why people care?
Speaker 2: Who can play Lebron James? Let's do that for you.
Speaker 1: Yeah, I was going to say, isn't isn't timing of
Speaker 1: the essence? Because if you're telling the not a cradle
Speaker 1: of the grave, but a childhood to adult story, like
Speaker 1: the likelihood of your target that you're working with.
Speaker 3: Might get older and then be the past age of.
Speaker 1: What you need him for. Like, isn't that also a problem?
Speaker 7: Well, I think if the person was in it right.
Speaker 7: So when we finally found Mookie Cook to play Lebron.
Speaker 7: You know he's seventeen, you know, so we once that
Speaker 7: was really the button pusher, like can you find Lebron?
Speaker 2: Like it's a needle in the haystack, Like no, we didn't.
Speaker 2: Nobody believe a lot of people just were like, how
Speaker 2: is this ever going to happen?
Speaker 7: You know, a lot of people had no idea. Caleb
Speaker 7: McLaughlin could who you know there needed to be for
Speaker 7: this particular movie. There needed to be an athletic skill
Speaker 7: level and they needed to be acting skill level.
Speaker 2: And I'd worked with Caleb on.
Speaker 7: The New Edition story, so I knew, and he'd been
Speaker 7: lying king on Broadway. His kid's pretty amazing, right, so
Speaker 7: I learned. I watched him learn to dance like.
Speaker 3: Stranger things for everybody else who doesn't even know what
Speaker 3: we talking about.
Speaker 2: Yeah, yeah, Caleb.
Speaker 7: And but then when he came to the audition, he
Speaker 7: had handled he was balling. I pulled him aside. I
Speaker 7: was like, hey man, what you been doing since I saw.
Speaker 2: You three years ago? Like he could ball for real?
Speaker 2: And that was a godsend because he's such an amazing actor.
Speaker 2: But but just to answer your question, like those things,
Speaker 2: that's real time like we found. We didn't do a
Speaker 2: traditional casting. We did some traditional with Kim Coleman, who
Speaker 2: was amazing. She does all the big movies.
Speaker 7: But we we actually got in a car and went
Speaker 7: up and down the East Coast, Me and my boy
Speaker 7: Yer own hips and.
Speaker 2: Yeah, Jay, yes, I.
Speaker 3: Didn't know he was that involved.
Speaker 7: Gracious he ended up coming in and being one of
Speaker 7: our basketball consultants because he's so into that and it's.
Speaker 2: Just the man.
Speaker 7: And we went up and down the East Coast to
Speaker 7: AAU tournaments and found Mookie and found Scoot. Wow, here's
Speaker 7: a good way that. Here's a good story about how
Speaker 7: videos connect. We met Scoot's dad. Now, Scoot just went
Speaker 7: number three in the draft to Portland Trailblazers.
Speaker 3: What wait, hold on.
Speaker 2: He plays Romeo in the movie. Okay, okay, so he
Speaker 2: just draft night. He went number three to the Portland Trailblazer. Wow.
Speaker 3: He was really good too. It's something else in there.
Speaker 3: I was like, oh, it's more story.
Speaker 2: Okay, yes, yeah, so we meet his dad.
Speaker 7: Now, think we're at an AAU tournament going, excuse me, sir,
Speaker 7: we're making a movie about Lebron James, and like it's
Speaker 7: just me and himps, it's no official anybody else with us,
Speaker 7: and the dad is kinda and his son's gonna go
Speaker 7: his son's already in the G League and his son's
Speaker 7: gonna go pro.
Speaker 2: He was there with his other kids. He's got other
Speaker 2: kids who were in a tournament. But hips knew of
Speaker 2: his dad. So we're talking to his dad and and
Speaker 2: we do our pitch and then you know, I have
Speaker 2: to pitch.
Speaker 7: How there's a little silence, and these were just stand
Speaker 7: there looking at each other, and he goes, didn't you
Speaker 7: do one mic?
Speaker 1: And I was like, yes, yes.
Speaker 2: That legitimized me to him to have this conversation about
Speaker 2: his son being in the movie and that that dad.
Speaker 1: As hip hop heads. I wish I knew the feeling man,
Speaker 1: the feeling.
Speaker 6: Chris, I want to ask you about Erica is the
Speaker 6: Honey video? You did that under an alias?
Speaker 1: What was the yeah? Was that your Alan Smithey like no, no, no,
Speaker 1: or were you trying to just establish your company different? Yeah?
Speaker 2: Okay, all right, Uh.
Speaker 1: This sounds like what it was.
Speaker 2: Erica and I had worked before. Now I'm gonna tell
Speaker 2: let me start this off by saying how much I
Speaker 2: love Erica, but she she is not only a wonderful,
Speaker 2: amazing artist, but she is a icun.
Speaker 7: So we worked together and on the first one with
Speaker 7: common love of my life. But what I didn't know
Speaker 7: is like Erica's very involved. Like Erica wants to make
Speaker 7: the outfit, she wants to cook the lunch, she wants
Speaker 7: to look at every shot. And we did it and
Speaker 7: it wasn't it's not. So then we worked again on this,
Speaker 7: so like we had the connection right, she wanted to
Speaker 7: work together again.
Speaker 2: Were together again, and I.
Speaker 7: Had, you know, my company's role by film company, my
Speaker 7: Instagram handles mister Roberto director. So now I think this
Speaker 7: is before Instagram or anything else, but I had, you know,
Speaker 7: people would call me mister Robot and mister Rabato.
Speaker 2: So we did it again and it was the same thing.
Speaker 2: But she.
Speaker 7: This is the first time she wanted a director's credit. Now,
Speaker 7: in the video world, there is a thing where certain
Speaker 7: artists will want a video a director's credit.
Speaker 2: And I took that thing seriously, like.
Speaker 7: I'm like, okay, if we're gonna co direct this cool,
Speaker 7: But like certain artists would just go, I'm the artist,
Speaker 7: just put my name on it.
Speaker 2: And so me and Erica worked together. It was beautiful.
Speaker 2: It was the most beautiful.
Speaker 7: We had known each other, so we knew how to
Speaker 7: work together, and I think we pulled out another good
Speaker 7: one because she's she's a genius, especially choosing all those
Speaker 7: names for the album covers.
Speaker 2: So then I get a note from the label later
Speaker 2: that said Erica wants her director's credit on this, and
Speaker 2: you know, I was like, what so because I take
Speaker 2: it so seriously, So I was like, well, I mean,
Speaker 2: if she's gonna get her get the director's credit, that's cool.
Speaker 2: I'm just in my artist ship and now go, I'm
Speaker 2: gonna put mister Rabato, right, because that's that's my aliens.
Speaker 2: So I put mister Rabato and then we won the damn.
Speaker 7: MTV Award, My my MTV Award Best Director.
Speaker 2: Mister not have my name on it.
Speaker 7: Less just to be clear on this amazing podcast, Erica Baddud,
Speaker 7: I have so much love for you.
Speaker 2: We've worked together.
Speaker 7: I've shot her and a different you know shows, and
Speaker 7: we always have talked about doing a movie together. But
Speaker 7: I just think that's this, this mister Roboto represents.
Speaker 2: I'm an artist and I'm sensitive about my.
Speaker 1: Understandable understandable.
Speaker 3: You did really well with that explanation.
Speaker 5: Hey QLs listeners, this is unpaid billed right. Here's where
Speaker 5: we're going to pause this interview. Check back next week.
Speaker 5: You're looking your podcast being for part two. In that conversation,
Speaker 5: Chris Robinson reveals more inf and outs from the iconic
Speaker 5: music videos and it's pivot to filmmaking. Make sure you
Speaker 5: check out Chris Robinson's latest creation, Shooting Stars, where he
Speaker 5: tells the story of teenage Lebron James.
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