00:00:00 Speaker 1: Questloft Supreme is a production of iHeartRadio. So y'all, June is Black Music Momp, and every year we use this time to knowledge something that really can't be overstated. Black music is one of the foundational forces behind modern culture. Now, back when Teams Supreme and I we're doing the Quest Love Supreme and now on the Quest Love Show, We've always tried to create a space for those stories. So for the entire month of June, we're bringing you an episode every day focus on the history, influence, and ongoing evolutions black music. A team and I dug through the catalog and selected episodes that build especially meaningful for now conversations that are formed and entertained and connect the dots between where this music comes from and where it's headed. 00:00:52 Speaker 2: Now. 00:00:53 Speaker 1: Alongside those, we'll be releasing four new episodes on Quest Loft Show featuring trailblazers, innovator and cultural connectors and visionaries who represent the past, present and future. 00:01:04 Speaker 2: Of black music. I want you to enjoy the same. 00:01:07 Speaker 1: Thank you, ladies and gentlemen, Welcome to another episode of Quest Love Supreme. 00:01:24 Speaker 2: I'm your host Questlove with Me. 00:01:25 Speaker 1: Today is Boss Bill and kind of Weird is Fontigolo on his own former podcast as Sudds the proud of his son, his return and the one and only Big Pooh, collectively known as Durham, North Carolina's finest little Brother. I'm correct and seeing Durham correct yep, yep, and you claim dorm as well, Pooh. 00:01:57 Speaker 3: Durham claims me. 00:02:03 Speaker 1: Like who's one of the tug of war of where the genesis little brother actually lies? It all started at Central, you know what I mean with students in North Carolina Central together, So Durham, for all intents and purposes, it is the birthplace a little brother. Yeah, I just I just have to make it clear that I'm from Virginia originally just what cities Alexandria, all through northern Virginia, but Alexandria and Fairfax specifically. Okay, all right, So I in the attempts to treat Fonte as a regular guest, to not assume that everyone knews his story. 00:02:44 Speaker 2: I do. 00:02:44 Speaker 1: However, I'm not that familiar with your story, Pooh. So to give us a recap or whatever, I'll start with you. What was your entry into music? 00:02:56 Speaker 4: Probably the radio, but like more importantly BM when they did the h you could get like. 00:03:05 Speaker 3: CDs for a dollar or whatever. 00:03:08 Speaker 2: Were you or were you scamming? 00:03:10 Speaker 3: I was scamming big time. 00:03:11 Speaker 2: Yeah. 00:03:13 Speaker 4: Yeah, I did it about five different times and got five different groups of CDs. But that was probably my real intro, just learning about so many different. 00:03:24 Speaker 3: Artists. And I had friends from New York. 00:03:26 Speaker 4: I mean everybody probably did at that time, back in the nineties who would come down with tapes like That's how I first heard the big ee nas and just different artists from out of New York. 00:03:36 Speaker 3: At the time. 00:03:37 Speaker 4: And between that and radio, because radio was real regional in the nineties, so you, I mean we were. It was heavy go go influence, but you would get when the artists come through, you will start getting a different artist. So that's how I got put on to like when Ray Kwan when he dropped the Purple tape, he came through, did an interview. They actually debut you incarcerated scar faces on the radio. I'll never forget it in DC. 00:04:04 Speaker 3: So that was my start. 00:04:06 Speaker 5: Man. 00:04:06 Speaker 4: I was actually just talking about this with my wife yesterday, Like we didn't listen to music in the house. My mom is not a huge music fan, so I just had to get into other places because it didn't come from the crib. 00:04:21 Speaker 1: Yeah, I was gonna ask for and the same for you, Fante, Like, was there trickle down creativity in your life like an older cousin and older like, Yeah, for me, it absolutely was. It was it was my mom. I think it started with my mom. So the thing where you know, I have very young parents, So my mother was my mother when she had me, she was fifteen and my dad was seventeen. So I was pretty much with my mom like all the time. So wherever she went, I was there. So during the summer, but during the like the weekends, that was when we had to clean up well with my grandmother, So that was clean up time. So that was when she was playing all the you know, all just you know, the classic R and B stuff, Luther Patty, you know, you had Johnny Guitar Watson. She used to like Love Jones by Johnny Guitar Watson and we would sing that. And then during the week if she went out to like the park or whatever. That's why I heard all like the early eighties, you know, Nucleus gem on It, Shannon let the music play. That was kind of where I was hearing all that, and so between her and my uncle, my two uncles. My one uncle Mike, he was a DJ, and he would get like all the promo records from the station and bring them home and I would go through the promo records. And then my other uncle, my uncle brid he was super. He was kind of the more experimental, I guess in terms of his taste, Like he was heavy. 00:05:55 Speaker 2: P funk heavy. He was a big dance music fan, so a lot. 00:05:59 Speaker 1: Of South Old stuff, southsol orchestra, instant funk that my mom made up. 00:06:06 Speaker 2: He like Heart. I remember he had like the Heart, the Dreamboat and the album, you know what I'm saying. 00:06:11 Speaker 1: So he he went all over everywhere. So he was probably, you know, one of my biggest musical influences in terms of no regard for a genre. 00:06:20 Speaker 2: If it was funky to him, he just fucked with it. And that's what it was. 00:06:25 Speaker 1: So with Pooh, for you you not having that like what was it just recreational or just an escape or like I was life playing? 00:06:38 Speaker 3: It was an escape for me. 00:06:40 Speaker 4: I can put on music, had a bite walk man, just ride around town unless how I was just listening to music. Had the auto reverse so flip itself and so you know, I just for me. It was just something I just. 00:06:55 Speaker 3: Always innately enjoyed and just enjoy listening. 00:06:59 Speaker 4: I was always a writer, not necessarily of music, but like I would write poetry, I would write short stories. So that inspired like that intrigued me in music. That's why I took to Nas like I did, because his rhymes are more like stories to me. So that's why I took the Prince. His stuff was like stories, and I mean that was that was pretty much it. I later learned that my dad is a big music head and fan, but you know, I didn't meet him until I was nineteen, so I would not have known that in my younger year. 00:07:32 Speaker 1: Now, I mean, is this the typical narrative for a young black teenager in the early nineties to go this particular route, because again, I mean, you know, I'll call truly ignorant Northerners are and what our thoughts are about anybody below the Mason Dixon line. So I mean just in general, because Aucass had this problem as well. Yeah, like people just are landing whatever, you know, not, So was there ever a I mean, is this the typical route of a young black teenager in that time period? I definitely wouldn't say it was typical, just because you know where we grew up at where I grew up in Greensboro, North Carolina. You know, there wasn't There were people who made music, but there wasn't really the thought of actually making it as a musician. It was just yo, we like music, we spend records, you know, we freestyle whatever. But I don't think there was ever a real thought of, like, yo, you could make a living doing this. This the South at that time and still in many ways it's still very traditional in the sense of you know, you go to school, you get a job, you get you some benefits. You know, you bring a steady check home. You know what I'm saying. That was life, That's what it was. Yeah. So in terms of just musically though, we were always the South was always a big kind of melting pot because and I think a lot of things that people didn't understand, the problem that cast had and also you know, a problem that little brother had, you know, people didn't understand it. In the South, we grew up listening to everything, like the South was the meeting point for all kinds of music. So you had, of course, you know where we were and I talked about this for on the show where we were in Greensboro, that was you know, it's the South, it's East Coast, but it was a lot of traffic that went through Greensboro, be it college students, be it drug dealers, be it you know, just all kinds of transplants that was bringing their music, you know, to our area. And then, like Pool was saying, you had the Cats coming from DC. They brought the go go, you know what I mean, and so we were getting Then you had Florida that was you know, Magic Mike two Live Crew. You had the base you know from from Florida and Atlanta. And then you know the West Coast you know, with like Chronic of course, I mean Chronic was kind of the bomb that went off everywhere. But we were students and that was something that I think we always had an advantage of as Southerners because we really had to study all types of music versus New York. 00:10:12 Speaker 2: They kind of. 00:10:13 Speaker 1: Got caught off guard, like the South was a sucker punch to them, Like when they saw you know, when Master p blew up and you know, no limit, you know, cash money. 00:10:23 Speaker 2: They got caught off guard. It was like what the fuck is this? 00:10:26 Speaker 1: But in the South, we knew that shit was coming, you know what I mean, because we had been studying it. So Okay, when I first started coming down to North Carolina, there was a club called is it the Cat's Cradle? 00:10:39 Speaker 3: Yep? 00:10:40 Speaker 1: Okay, So like one of our very first gigs was at the Cat's Cradle. And I mean, you know, we were the roots, so of course we're going to attract sort of an alternative sort of audience whatnot. 00:10:53 Speaker 2: So there was. 00:10:56 Speaker 1: Like an element of culture that I was familiar with down there that wasn't too certain of that. I don't know if you guys know Dave Tompkins, he was like a writer. 00:11:04 Speaker 2: Yeah, he was a writer. I know of him. I don't know him personally, but I know who he is. 00:11:08 Speaker 1: Yeah, he wrote for like Vibe and all that stuff and whatnot. So he was like showing me around North Carolina and whatnot. So I meant, was there a first draft of a crew like how how do you two meet? And a manga mat into what will eventually be known as Little Brother, Like what's what's the circle? 00:11:29 Speaker 4: I mean, we initially met uh in a dorm room. Uh Tay came through in this ever ever bubbly personality. Uh to spit a rhyme he wrote for English class. Uh and and that's how we met. 00:11:45 Speaker 2: As that was first time we met straight up. It was. 00:11:49 Speaker 4: Ari on the hallway, Joe Joe Wright, I remember his last name today, Joe Wright. 00:11:55 Speaker 3: He was. 00:11:56 Speaker 4: It was his room and he used to just have mad people come in the room. And I was fresh on the hallway because I actually stayed in a hotel for half of my first semester in college. 00:12:08 Speaker 3: But I got there. 00:12:09 Speaker 4: We were in the room kicking it, and Fonte come in and was like, yeah, wrote this around for English class. It's called no apologies. And he starts spitting and I'm just like, what you wrote there for English class? That could be on the radio or some shit. And that's when he let everybody know he was quitting football as well. I didn't know he played football, but he was quitting out of that you. 00:12:33 Speaker 2: Played football for man. I played football. 00:12:36 Speaker 1: I started playing football in the sixth grade, and I played all through middle school, all through high school, and I played my first two years in college and I played fullback. And you know, by the time I got to college, I realized that it was a much more of a It was a commitment that I just didn't have. Like I didn't love the game. I wasn't on scholar ship. I didn't care. 00:13:02 Speaker 2: You know. I was like, why am I out here? Fuck? 00:13:04 Speaker 3: This? 00:13:05 Speaker 1: Was it a Friday night lights culture for football down there or high football? And yeah, it kind of was. I mean it was a big So the school I played for in high school, Page high school, we used to whip ass like we was the truth. And so my senior, my junior, senior year, my senior year, we got to the semifinals and we almost took state, but we lost in the semifinals. But we always had a good program, and so it was something I think for me, it was just something that was more social. 00:13:37 Speaker 2: In high school, it was just you know, I was a big kid. 00:13:40 Speaker 1: I had decent size, you know, decent speed, and you know I like to hit motherfuckers. 00:13:45 Speaker 2: So I was like, all right, fuck it, I play football. 00:13:47 Speaker 1: But once I got the was I got to college, That's when I was like, yo, this ship is a business, Like you really got to be committed, and I just didn't have the love for it. 00:13:57 Speaker 2: And I'm just like, man, while am I out here? 00:14:00 Speaker 1: I love doing music, So let me go do music. And that was around the time that that was when me and who met. 00:14:04 Speaker 4: That's where we met, And I mean it morphed into a different variations of what it ultimately became. It was a big ass group of us at one time called the organization. Then that whittled down to give me how. 00:14:20 Speaker 2: Many how many people in that organization? I don't know what nine So it was okay, the organization. It was me, you. I guess ninth was in it by default. I think I don't even think he. 00:14:32 Speaker 3: Was in the organization. It was people I can't even remember their name. 00:14:36 Speaker 2: It was this organization. 00:14:37 Speaker 1: It was this organization, So I know, Devin, it was me, you, Joe, God who you remember? Rosie Rosie it was it was a girl who used to run with named Rosie. 00:14:49 Speaker 2: Who was MC. She was Dope. Uh, Medina of course she was in that. 00:14:54 Speaker 3: Yes, yes, it was Theda. 00:15:00 Speaker 2: Modina was Medina was A. 00:15:01 Speaker 1: She was another girl she was she was an m C and Modina was Dope and Medina and and Sean Dawn. 00:15:09 Speaker 2: They had a whirlwind. 00:15:10 Speaker 4: Romance, tumotualist eumotualistuous relationship. 00:15:15 Speaker 3: And it was. 00:15:16 Speaker 1: The original Chris Brown and Rihanna Mann Man. 00:15:21 Speaker 4: Old man, listen, Okay, we leave that man to tell his own his own war war stories. 00:15:28 Speaker 1: Those stories are not ours to tell. But we were a collective of just em c's and and then we had a Z Yoursell Collins. 00:15:36 Speaker 2: He was he was our R and B singer. 00:15:38 Speaker 4: Yeah, keep them hollering Collins. He had like somebody else that raped. I can't remember that. I can't remember who it was. But it was just a very loose and I used that term loose lee. It was very loose collective of people who went to school together and we would just go to each other each other rooms, freestyling style, and that was that was it. And then it whittled down to give me which is me sean Dan, give me a g I. 00:16:10 Speaker 2: M m E. 00:16:11 Speaker 3: Yep, yeah, yep. 00:16:13 Speaker 2: That was no name. What that was at an acronym, was it? It was? Of course it was an acronym. 00:16:18 Speaker 4: Of course, give us God the murder me God, I murdered menyms. 00:16:27 Speaker 2: That was one of them. Yeah, we had a couple of them. 00:16:30 Speaker 3: That was the main one. 00:16:32 Speaker 1: That was the main one, God I murdered man. It was so many bad We had so many bad meanings for the acronym, but that was it. 00:16:40 Speaker 2: I want a group to come out named acronym in the an. 00:16:47 Speaker 1: Accomplished character, resigious, resilience, nigga. 00:16:57 Speaker 3: I don't get that ship way the fun up out of here. 00:16:59 Speaker 4: Yeah, but I mean it transformed into many different took many different shapes, and I still remember this is this would always be funny to me. I mean, this was the moment that changed my rap career. But it's it's still funny because it's ironic how it ended up. Seandan didn't come back to school one semester, so that was the end of gimme and h Fante was in my dorm room and he was like, yo, man. 00:17:23 Speaker 2: We got he went to New York. He went back to New York. 00:17:25 Speaker 4: Yeah, Sean went back to New York. So I was like, what's good man. He's like, yeah, man, I don't see as being no duo. So uh, you know you gotta do some more work. So but if you need me for something, just. 00:17:37 Speaker 2: I let me. 00:17:41 Speaker 3: That conversation changed my It changed my rap career. 00:17:44 Speaker 2: Man. 00:17:44 Speaker 4: It made me work hard at ship, like I never worked so hard in my life at something. But I mean, it's ironic because that's we ended up a duo anyway. 00:17:55 Speaker 1: During that period, I mean, how how much would you say you were committing to your craft as opposed to like surviving going your job and I write rhyme. 00:18:05 Speaker 4: Maybe I was surviving man. Uh yeah, yeah, it wasn't It wasn't serious for me. I still didn't I still didn't believe that it could be more than just something we were doing in school at the time, because I never saw this as a career for me. It was just something I love to do. And that moment let me know, like, hey man, you gotta step your ship up or you better start really going to class. 00:18:35 Speaker 3: It was. It was one of those. 00:18:38 Speaker 2: Yeah I'm saying I. 00:18:40 Speaker 3: Didn't choose class. 00:18:42 Speaker 2: Yeah, that was the thing. 00:18:43 Speaker 1: I mean, I remember at that time because we were kind of it was a pivotal moment for all of us because at that time, Shan Donnie went back to New York and Pool was still me and you. We were the only ones I think still in Durham and you were about to go home that summer. We were about to just go home for that summer, and there was just this is ninety eight, ninety nine, No, this was this was probably was it two thousand, It had to be the two thousand. 00:19:10 Speaker 3: It was two thousand and one because that's the summer. 00:19:13 Speaker 2: We you know what it was two thousand and one. 00:19:17 Speaker 3: It was spring. It was spring two thousand and one. 00:19:21 Speaker 4: I went to Charlotte for the summer and I was taking the train back to Durham because that's when the. 00:19:27 Speaker 3: Justice League started. 00:19:29 Speaker 4: Yeah, that's when little brother became little brother like that, and that. 00:19:33 Speaker 1: Us Spring two thousand and one. That was like dealing. It was born. My oldest son was born. He was born December two thousand, so yeah, around two thousand and one spring old Nigga. 00:19:45 Speaker 2: My head was in a whole nother place. I was like, Yo, if you ain't. 00:19:48 Speaker 1: Real about this shit, nigga, yeah, you better find something else because nigga, I got a kid. 00:19:53 Speaker 2: Yeah, I'm not going to say. 00:19:54 Speaker 1: When you have a kid and when you have real life situations, then how much pressure to pursue your your craft? Like what's the ratio balance? 00:20:05 Speaker 2: Man? I was scared of ship. 00:20:07 Speaker 3: I was. 00:20:08 Speaker 2: I was. 00:20:08 Speaker 1: I was scared to tell you know, my son was born the end of December. 00:20:15 Speaker 2: Uh he you know, he was Christmas. 00:20:16 Speaker 1: He was Christmas Eve two thousand and so I ended up finishing my degree in that like that following semester of like May two thousand and one. 00:20:26 Speaker 2: His mother ended up coming back. 00:20:28 Speaker 1: I think that next the semester after that, and she finished her degree like in December. So we were young parents and we had no fucking idea what we were gonna do. You know, I had no clue you know what what it was gonna be. And me and Pooh we were we had started kind of making records. We had made a couple of records. It's give me and you know, I felt like we had something. It was dope. But uh, you know, Seanna went back to New York. Me and Pool were just, you know, kind of here. He was going back home for the summer and and he was going back home to Charlotte, and we had that conversation was like, yo, man, I don't really see us being the duo. But that summer, I remember Pooh went home and that was it was this event used to call fat City that a buddy of ours was having its cat dj DR and it was like an open mic kind of freestyle thing, and Pooh he put in work and he came back that next semester, and his rhymes was just different. 00:21:25 Speaker 2: He was rhyming. 00:21:26 Speaker 1: I was like, nigga, you this shit sound good, you know what I mean? And I could just see he had really put that work in. I mean, and we always kind of been putting it in, but I really just saw in him. I was like, yeah, like he really he really about it now, and you know, we all, you know, we took him seriously at that point. Okay, so where does Ninth come into the equation of the original incarnation of Little Brother? Ninth originally was man ninth? Was I met Knife in ninety eight? 00:22:00 Speaker 2: It was ninety eight. 00:22:01 Speaker 1: Yeah, So ninety eight we were moving into the dorm. This was like, uh, you the day when everybody moves into the dorm. I was playing football, so I had already been there earlier to report for camp. So we had been in there all the all the football players. But this is when the civilians we used to call them, you know, the civilians had first moved in, So all the niggas didn'tvolve like it's like it's civilians about to move in, the civilians coming, and so now it was. 00:22:27 Speaker 2: Supports at first, and then the civilians come. 00:22:29 Speaker 1: Yeah, that's when the civilians come after that, because we had to report early, you know, for two days, with three of days really and so so man, so i'm I'm in the joint. I walk into the dorm and it's like the lobby kind of commons area, and I see this dude holding a source magazine and I was. 00:22:44 Speaker 2: Like, yo, man, let let me let me see that. Let me let me see that source. 00:22:48 Speaker 1: And at that time, this was again, this is like ninety eight, so this is master p you know, bad boy. I mean, this is kind of like the peak of that era, you know, approaching that era. So to see somebody with a source magazine that shit was like, Nigga, that's like manner from heaven, you know what I mean. 00:23:08 Speaker 2: It's like, oh my god, you know about this too? What the fuck? You know? And so he was like yeah, man. 00:23:15 Speaker 1: So we me and him started going through the source together and it was an ad for most Steps Black on Black Side, and I think either me or him was like, yo, man, I'm waiting on this shit. 00:23:26 Speaker 2: And I was like, nigga, you know about that? Like what you were you. 00:23:29 Speaker 1: Up on most And from that point on, me and Knine like we were like that was it you know what I mean. It was like, you know, I found kind of another Jedi. So that was ninety eight. 00:23:41 Speaker 2: Can I ask? Can I ask something? Sure? 00:23:43 Speaker 3: Well? 00:23:44 Speaker 1: When I met culturally, did you often have to code switch musically to fit. 00:23:50 Speaker 2: In with whatever social circle you were in? 00:23:52 Speaker 1: So say, if like someone's not into most that is in your parameter in college, like who else are you listening to? 00:24:02 Speaker 2: At that time? 00:24:04 Speaker 1: No Limit they ran ship because I couldn't make No Limit ran ship, bro Like that was for me. It was different because so I didn't get No Limit until I got to college because at the time that was when we was playing football, and so all the football players like all. 00:24:23 Speaker 2: In the locker room. That was what we was bumping about it about it the true. 00:24:28 Speaker 1: Album No Limit Soldiers, like you know, before we went to the weight room, like we bumped that ship. So that was when No Limit clicked for me because I was like, Okay, this is what the music is used for. 00:24:40 Speaker 2: It wasn't necessarily nothing. I was riding around in my car playing you. 00:24:43 Speaker 1: Know at no point where you guys like, hey, this is this thing called the love movement. 00:24:52 Speaker 2: I was called get a hold, you know. 00:24:56 Speaker 3: I was still I was still in high school. But I mean for us, it wasn't. 00:25:01 Speaker 4: It was just like you like what you liked, and you learned from other people about other you know, other shit. So I learned from other people about No Limit. I learned because I was listening to New York stuff personally. So I learned from other people about No Limit. I learned from other people about the West Coast. I had a homeboy who was from Oakland originally, so he put me on to drew Down and Too Short and all the guys from Oakland and and so that's how I started just taking everything in. But it wasn't like a if you come into the circle and you be like, yo, man, I listened to you know, the Jungle Brothers and somebody was like, man, I'm listening to fucking n w. 00:25:41 Speaker 3: A man Like. 00:25:42 Speaker 4: It wasn't a seemed like they wasn't that. It was just like, oh well, let me see what that's talking about. And it was like a sharing experience. 00:25:50 Speaker 1: It was a way a lot more sharing, way more communal experience. We gotten a no limit, but it was more like with binoculars, see what they're doing a distance. Let's see what they're doing. I mean when the movie came out. We had it on the tour bus. But it's more like, look at those guys, but we I didn't realize that that ship was a culture. 00:26:13 Speaker 4: It's it was a that ship, yeah man, Yeah, it wasn't a movement, nigga. 00:26:18 Speaker 3: It was definitely a culture. 00:26:19 Speaker 1: Like you saw that No Limit tank out the way, And yet the thing that's curious to me is that you guys still decided to go to another pasture that not travel before down there where it could have been easy for you guys to just go that route. I just think that that wasn't who we were, you know, because I've you know, I've been asked that question a lot about, you know, why we chose the route that we did, and you know, for me, I think it was just an extension of who we were, you know what I mean. I mean the No Limit stuff and like a lot of the South stuff that was popping at that time. You know, I enjoyed those records, and you know, they certainly had a place in my life, but I knew I couldn't live that, you know what I mean, And so I was like, well, the stuff that is more connected to me in terms of, you know, just who I am as a person and kind of way I want to live my life. 00:27:22 Speaker 2: It was tribe. 00:27:24 Speaker 1: It was calm and the roots, and you know, it was all the stuff from that kind of native tongue tree, and that was what felt right to us in terms of making records. Now, I'll say what attracted me to you guys when I first heard of you guys was the fact that, well, first, I mean, our listeners need to know exactly how ahead of your time you guys were as far as I mean, what people are doing now, as far as like do it yourself, as far as doing stuff for yourself, making records and final product in your houses, in your apartment, that sort of thing, which I mean is practically unheard of. I mean, for all the folklore of Rizza, yeah, making the wood taking stuff in his apartment, he still brought those a debts to a real studio to polish them and all those things. So the first, you know, when you guys told me that all this stuff was made in your in your dorm room and on fruity loops and on computers and all that stuff like that was like talking Greek to me. I How did you. 00:28:34 Speaker 2: Guys even know? I mean, how are you guys. 00:28:38 Speaker 1: Even pioneers of just new ways of recording and whatnot. 00:28:42 Speaker 2: That's all we had. 00:28:43 Speaker 4: We black folk man, you know what I'm saying, working with what you got, Like, we didn't have no studios, We didn't have no you know, knife didn't have no beat machine. 00:28:54 Speaker 1: Like I mean, at no point was it like because even with us, it was like, okay, well we got to get to a real studio one day. So like we pulled it up our money and just went to a real. 00:29:04 Speaker 4: Studio, and no point is there, Like we heard what we had and what we were doing, it was like fuck that studio, like this is and then were good and. 00:29:13 Speaker 1: Then too on top of that, and on top of that, you remember we heard, so we heard the stuff that we were making in our studio, and then we also heard the stuff that was coming out of the big studios at that time, right, and that shit was garbage. And so I think that kind of gave us even more confidence because we was like, yo, if we're doing this shit in our fucking in my homies apartment and y'all niggas is going to ease. 00:29:38 Speaker 2: You know. 00:29:38 Speaker 1: It was mixed on this twenty four track or whatever, and the music still ain't good, So I think for me that was. 00:29:44 Speaker 2: A big That was a big factor too. 00:29:46 Speaker 4: That's when I realized it was the man, not the machine. That's that's that's what that taught me. 00:29:53 Speaker 1: What were the alternative group names besides Little I mean, was it Little Brother? 00:29:58 Speaker 2: Just in automatic, like that's what we are? Did you have other that was. 00:30:02 Speaker 3: The first name? 00:30:03 Speaker 2: Yeah? 00:30:04 Speaker 1: I think another one. The only one I can remember was Round Midnight. I remember we had that was one which things? 00:30:10 Speaker 4: That was one we had one that we just all knew it couldn't be used for a rap group. 00:30:16 Speaker 3: Flea market Mannequins. 00:30:19 Speaker 2: I remember that. 00:30:21 Speaker 3: I'm still hearsing that ship for something. 00:30:22 Speaker 2: Why. 00:30:25 Speaker 1: I have no idea where that came from. I remember that name, but I don't know what the thought of it was. I think maybe I was, like I was. I was listening to like Google Dolls and like food Fighters. I was into that ship. So I was trying to think of a name that sounded something like that, but an alternative name that you get you all the booked at a club, right, Wait a. 00:30:44 Speaker 3: Minute, right, A lot of pissed off people. 00:31:04 Speaker 1: So what was the genesis of what we now know as the listening at the beginning of it, Man, the listening was, Yeah, by this time, this is around two thousand and one, it's old one. 00:31:20 Speaker 2: Yeah. 00:31:21 Speaker 1: I graduated school in May, and Ninth he was by this time he was fully fledged, like making beats. So the thing with Ninth was that, you know, we met in ninety eight. I didn't hear a beat from him until like a year later. I didn't even know he made beats. He came to my room. We met in ninety eight. He came to my room one day and he had He's like, Yo, man, I got something I want to play for you. He's like, yeah, I got the black Star bootleg. 00:31:51 Speaker 2: I was like, word, you got that. 00:31:52 Speaker 1: She's like hell yeah. And so we played the black Star album. We was listening to the Blackstar record and I was like, man, and this shit crazy as hell, this shit dope. And so then I didn't see Ninth again for like months at a time because he was in school. 00:32:09 Speaker 2: But I don't think he was really in school. Yeah, he was a career student. Like, how do y'all do that? 00:32:15 Speaker 1: Likes Yo, if you get if you hang around the dorm, if you can get uh, you know, if you're good with somebody in the calf, you can eat. So if you ain't, even if you ain't got no meal playing, you know, you can get in the. 00:32:29 Speaker 2: Calf on especially on like Chicken Day. 00:32:31 Speaker 1: Nigga, come on on Chicken Day. 00:32:38 Speaker 2: Day. Essential was like the club I was gonna say. 00:32:40 Speaker 1: At to Reach school, they did not allow any rentals, wrap or foil uh inside their cafeteria for fear that you know, the students would steal the food and take it back to their dorm. Man, listen, man, niggas took all kind of ship back from the door. 00:32:57 Speaker 2: We were taking sid everything. 00:32:59 Speaker 4: I'm we had a takeout line in the caf so you can come and get your food and lead like get it to go and lead. 00:33:07 Speaker 2: Straight up, straight up. 00:33:09 Speaker 1: But so yeah, so around that time, you know, nany nine Poop ninth wasn't on campus like that. I've just kind of see him sporadically. But Nan, he bring the Black Star album to my room. 00:33:19 Speaker 2: We listened to it. 00:33:20 Speaker 1: And then in ninety nine he shows back up. And by this time we were in a new dorm. We were in the new residence, and so we had moved and we had like this little sweet or whatever, and so he come and he like, yo, man, I got some joints I want to play for you. And I was like, and I was thinking he had like another unreleased album and he plays he puts the tape in, plays it and I'm like, yo, this shit, dope, who is this? He's like, yo, this is me? I said, word. I said, you're like, you made these beats? He was like, yeah, these joints. I said, what you make them on? He said, man, I just make him on fruity loops or well no, no, no, I'm sorry. It wasn't frud loops at the time. This is even before fruit loops. He was using a program called beat Nah. This is even before acid. It was called it was a program called b box, and he was using b box and cool let it to make to make tracks. And I mean again, it was unheard of me. I was like, nigga, what the fuck? Like really on a computer? And so, but he had some joints and so one record he had was one beat had. 00:34:18 Speaker 2: I said, man, when you let me wrap over this? 00:34:21 Speaker 1: He was like, all right, cool, he said you really want to wrap I said, yeah, let me wrap over this joint. And I did a record called paper Lines and that was like ninety nine. That was like the first song me and him ever did together. And I remember doing it. I played it for Pool, played it for just Cats and our crew. They really they really fucked with it. And that was that was kind of when it all first started. So around the time, by the time oh one World Around, that was when the league had all we was just recording so much shit together and it was still just kind of loose. But by this time we would had started work on a song. It was called Speed, and originally it was supposed to be me and Median. Median never shows up to the studio and so who was there. I can't remember if you wrote with me to the studio that night or yeah. 00:35:09 Speaker 3: I think I think I came up on the train and I wrote with you. 00:35:13 Speaker 2: Yeah, we came. 00:35:13 Speaker 1: We came to the studio together and I was like, I was like, well, ship Pool here, like you you want to rocket? He was like, yeah, I rocket. And so we did that song together and that was it. That was just like the Speed. 00:35:25 Speaker 2: I know, that was their first joint together. That was the very first song we ever got together. Oh shit, okay, okay. 00:35:32 Speaker 1: So it's also explained to me who is in the Justice League. Okay, all right, I'm sorry should I say Justice League? 00:35:44 Speaker 3: That side was to remember the names? 00:35:47 Speaker 1: It's fifteen of them, and how do you how do you wrestle with that Justice League? 00:35:53 Speaker 2: And have y'all ever had a meeting a collective meeting? 00:35:56 Speaker 1: Like I talked to Rook I been talked to Rook in sometimes Rook from the Justice League, but it was it was always love love. Yeah, we met. At one point, me and Rook was talking. This was years ago. He was like, yo, man, we need to do a Justice League meets Justice League, Like let's let's collab, let's do some ship and we were talking about doing it, but you know, it just never happened. But it was never no, no, smoking's first. 00:36:23 Speaker 2: I think we were first. 00:36:24 Speaker 3: I think we were first. 00:36:25 Speaker 2: I think yeah. 00:36:27 Speaker 4: All right, all right, so so Justice League members, Okay, so let's we're gonna do this the easy way. 00:36:33 Speaker 2: Start with the niggas on the phone. 00:36:35 Speaker 3: Me and. 00:36:38 Speaker 2: Do you have nine? 00:36:40 Speaker 3: Did you have Sean Dawn? You have Shamba crisis? 00:36:46 Speaker 2: Uh Nason right com. 00:36:52 Speaker 4: Uhccentric ecentric centric, It's to do the big though. 00:37:01 Speaker 2: Legacy though legs legas thirteen crisis crisis, I said crisis. You got crisis. I said, you show you Allen Poe and Eiggar Allan poe Or. 00:37:15 Speaker 3: Said flow the flow. 00:37:17 Speaker 4: I said, po Yeah, he gott the flow the reason nig. I think that's it. I think forgetting. 00:37:23 Speaker 2: So it's fifteen we forget. 00:37:25 Speaker 1: We got Mike Bird, we got eccentric, we got some of your real got some of your got bird Bird says all We got. 00:37:32 Speaker 3: Book saves off crisis, leg crisis. 00:37:37 Speaker 2: I think what about the weight? You said, the Waight team, that's prices. I think we got everybody median media damn median median. 00:37:47 Speaker 3: Yeah. 00:37:48 Speaker 2: Yeah. 00:37:48 Speaker 1: Another dude that showed up intermittently like he was just vanished for like months at a time and then just popped back up. 00:37:54 Speaker 2: That was That's that's been meetings and mo since I know them. 00:37:57 Speaker 1: Everybody needs your Molik be in their life. Just shows up in plano. 00:38:05 Speaker 2: He that was him. 00:38:06 Speaker 1: That was him, so with speed, like when is it the official like okay, are. 00:38:13 Speaker 2: We a group? Or was it just like okay, what is this? 00:38:19 Speaker 1: I mean is it like a relationship where you're like, you know, like after the third date, then she's like okay, so. 00:38:24 Speaker 2: What are we? We are farmers. 00:38:30 Speaker 4: For that, I think like a day or two later, like we all just kept listening to the song and noticed the chemistry and said, hey, this sounds good. Let's let's make a few more and see how it come out. And a few more turned into a whole lass out. 00:38:47 Speaker 1: Okay, Now I really want to Now that I've established the story for those that are not familiar, now I want to get to my real first question, because even more than the roots, like okay, okay, granted it's like eleven of us, but really the roots are two people, and it comes down to me and Tarique, and fifty to fifty. 00:39:09 Speaker 2: Is a little bit more easier than thirty three or three and third. 00:39:16 Speaker 1: So in the beginning, are you guys ever. 00:39:21 Speaker 2: Like, what is the the. 00:39:24 Speaker 1: Democratic process of how decisions. 00:39:28 Speaker 2: Are made man? 00:39:30 Speaker 1: At that time, I mean, it was we had I think I thought was a fairly a good system that got kind of you know, corroded over time. But but originally, you know, it was the three of us. It was me, poor Knife, and Doe was our manager. So pretty much whenever it came down to do something, me poor Knife would discuss it internally. And it's three of us, So automatically, somebody's gonna lose, you know what I mean, sometimes I lose, sometime Pool lose, Ninth, flues whatever. But whatever it was that we voted on, we would then go to our manager and be like, look, this is what we agreed on, this is what we're gonna do, and that was it. 00:40:11 Speaker 2: Once Ninth left the group, that was. 00:40:14 Speaker 1: When things changed and we no longer had that kind of third swing vote, so to speak. So that was when for me, I think just the group became very taxing because it was just, yeah, it was, but yeah, particularly and hard as a twosome at that point because at that point in time, me and Poo hadn't really I don't think me and. 00:40:39 Speaker 2: You had really talked like that about what we. 00:40:41 Speaker 1: Wanted and about kind of at all. We didn't have none of them conversations. So we were just making a lot of them decisions on the fly, and you know, when you don't have a third person there to kind of help smooth things over, in some ways it made it really hard. 00:40:55 Speaker 2: But in the beginning, that's what it was. 00:40:57 Speaker 1: It was the three of us, we make a decision and then just told our manager what we wanted. 00:41:01 Speaker 2: To do with it. 00:41:03 Speaker 1: So what were your initial goals for the listening? Was it like, Okay, we'll have these collection of songs, we'll try to get a major deal. 00:41:11 Speaker 3: Too much. 00:41:15 Speaker 4: It was let's do these songs, sell them ourselves and see what happens. 00:41:22 Speaker 1: Yeah, originally we was gonna do We was gonna do it, put it out ourselves because I was on I think I had like a credit card at that time. I had my little Discovery card and I was we was on disc makers and I was just running numbers. 00:41:35 Speaker 2: I'm like, yo, so how much if we just press this shit ourselves? 00:41:38 Speaker 1: And we moved out the trunk like I was, you know, doing it just in my mind. And I was talking to Ninth about it because I remember we were in we were in the computer. 00:41:47 Speaker 2: Lab at at at in c State. 00:41:51 Speaker 1: So another fun fact about this time, which I'm just now remembering. Even though the listening was recorded on a computer, none of us had personal computers at that time. Yea, like none of us had personal computers. I didn't story, yo, bro for real, Like I didn't have a computer. 00:42:07 Speaker 2: Ninth ain't had one. Ninth was using he was a courting. 00:42:10 Speaker 1: We was recording at Sazar Comanche's crib and he had a compact for Sario, So that was the computer. So whenever I wanted, whenever I wanted to get on like Okay player and ship Nigga, that was all computer labs. 00:42:23 Speaker 2: So my homie Median. 00:42:25 Speaker 1: He was a student at n C State but like not really a student, but he had an I D. 00:42:31 Speaker 2: So he was there. You know, we used Yo Reil yeah Leroy. 00:42:41 Speaker 5: Uh. 00:42:41 Speaker 3: We used LeRoy's roommate, U. 00:42:44 Speaker 1: Louis Cheron like he was the he was the cafe Nigga. Pretty pretty pretty low when we use this joint. And and then like when I was at Central like that, that that my last year. That was when I was I was on the newspaper. I was an editor. I was and arts and entertainment editor on our newspaper, and so I would be in a computer lab all the time. 00:43:05 Speaker 2: You know. 00:43:06 Speaker 1: That's when I would get all my ok Player post off. But after that, I. 00:43:10 Speaker 2: Mean I was going home, like nigga, we have no computers at the crib, no. 00:43:14 Speaker 3: Small phone shit Ty didn't he have a cell phone at that time? 00:43:17 Speaker 1: Yeah, I don't think I got my first cell phone probably like oh what four something like that. 00:43:21 Speaker 2: Some shit like that. 00:43:21 Speaker 1: Yeah, three four, Yeah, Boss Bill, correct me if I'm wrong. No, this is literally the Bill Gates story. Bill Gates's story had a faulty ID that let him stay in the computer lab, like fifteen hours a time. To be in the computer lab during Bill Gates day was like attaxing, like forty dollars an hour thing, but he never got charged for it. 00:43:45 Speaker 2: So then he was like, all right. 00:43:46 Speaker 1: I'm gonna stay in this motherfucker for fifteen hours a day, get his figure out how to turn this big ass room into a laptop. So basically sneaking in computer labs, barring other people's idea and what not, this is the Bill Gates story. 00:44:05 Speaker 2: That's well, I. 00:44:06 Speaker 1: Wish we made Bill Gates money, but really, but fate didn't have it that way. 00:44:12 Speaker 2: But but no, that was it. We were just doing those records. 00:44:15 Speaker 1: So at that time, Yeah, the thought wasn't you know, at least for me, the thought it was just Okay, we made this record, let's just get it out so people can hear it. 00:44:25 Speaker 2: And you know, it was just. 00:44:29 Speaker 1: Like, I don't think no one had a thought of where it was gonna go. I knew my life was gonna change, like I can specifically remember the night when we finished everything and like we had the final mix down and sequence of the album, and I just sat outside my apartment in the car just listen to the record, and I just I knew things were gonna change. I just felt that we had something special. It wasn't like, you know, yo, we're gonna be rich or we're gonna be whatever. But I specifically remember having the feeling of just like yo, like something is around the corner. I don't know what it is, but I know something's coming. 00:45:04 Speaker 2: And at that time, we just wanted people to hear it. That was the only that was the only mo O. 00:45:12 Speaker 1: What was the first sign of that, of that assurance. Was it like your first out out of state show? Was it like a mentioned in the source or like what was that moment where it was like, oh shit, what happened? 00:45:23 Speaker 4: I think for me it was when uh, when Benny b got in touch with us just. 00:45:32 Speaker 3: To have somebody Benny b from ABB Records. 00:45:35 Speaker 2: Okay, so that was not your label, No, No, not at all at all. 00:45:40 Speaker 1: I always thought that ABB was your Now ABB was Benny b Uh from the Bay Area. They they had put out like a lot of dilated people's twelve ins. That was kind of their claim to fame, uh, dillate People's the far Ride. They had put out like just a lot of stuff and they were known for just moving vinyl. Yeah, And that was how a buddy of ours, a promoter out this way bum Rush DJ bum Rush. He had to connected abb Ian Davis, I D and I D heard our stuff on the n from all of us. 00:46:12 Speaker 2: We had posted on okay Player and all that. 00:46:14 Speaker 1: Shit, and we had the little site that was when Bossville had the John he had the Yeah, it's like he posted up to join us up on there. 00:46:22 Speaker 2: So it was just kind of spreading and so I G I I D from a dB. 00:46:26 Speaker 1: ABB caught wind of it and reached out to the bum Rush and was like, Yo, you gotta line on these little brother dudes. And I D caught my crib you know what I'm saying one day, and that's how we started talking. And that was how the ABB relationship, Uh, that was how we. 00:46:40 Speaker 2: Came to sign with them. 00:46:42 Speaker 1: So, Bill, were you the okay player that officially introduced okay player to introduced a little. 00:46:49 Speaker 2: Brother to Okay Player? 00:46:51 Speaker 5: I guess, but I mean I got it through Von p from currently a Tania Morgan and like Vaughn hooked me up with the Centric, and the Centric sent me u like the He's for Love joint revisited. 00:47:01 Speaker 2: And like so I was. 00:47:02 Speaker 5: I was a Ninth Wonder fan first, and then I didn't even know about these two until later, Like I think I heard speeding away from me, like maybe not maybe like a week or two after that, and then I was like, damn, what is this ship? 00:47:13 Speaker 2: Slot funked us too. He was another one. 00:47:15 Speaker 1: He was the one that really cause again we had no computers, let alone a way to build a website or none of that ship. So Slot was the one that had. He had built like a little site for us, and he was like, yo, I can put some joints up for y'all. I was like cool, And I was working at Blue Cross Blue Shield at the time, and he would call me, you know. 00:47:36 Speaker 2: We would we would he would well he would DM me or PM. 00:47:39 Speaker 1: Me as we would call it back then, and he was like, yo, man, like y'all, joints just crashed my server. 00:47:43 Speaker 2: I gotta like everybody been coming to this ship. 00:47:46 Speaker 1: I was like word for real and we just had like three folks songes up there, so slop was a big a big part of that. 00:47:53 Speaker 2: Was it you and ninth or you and Pooh or were you alone? Would you? 00:47:59 Speaker 3: I wouldn't. I went to the Greensboro show. 00:48:01 Speaker 2: I didn't go to that, Okay. 00:48:04 Speaker 1: All I remember was that we were doing a show and it was about to rain, and I remember we were having an argument backstage because Help was bitching and said we should cancel this show because it's electric and whatever. And I'm like, dude, you wear Timberland's like no one's. You ain't getting to eletrocuted. And he like protested. I think he didn't play this show or like walked off stage earlier or something shit. 00:48:32 Speaker 2: And I felt bad and. 00:48:34 Speaker 1: I did something very uncharacteristic, like I'm never the guy that like goes to the audience and like, hey, how you doing, thanks for you know. But some sid said all right, go out there and shake hands for the first time in your whole career. And I did it, and you put it in my hand. You reminded me that this was the little brother I read about. Okay player, oh wow wow, okay. And normally, you know, normally anybody hands me disc is instant. Uh, you know, coffee table coaster from Frisby about to break up my draw on your CD, Nigga, I just I just thought it right now, I can't do that. I just leave it back backstage. I don't know, like I'm kind of proud of my track record like something. I was going to leave it backstage and I looked at it, and I don't know if it was the fact that you're handwriting like the the your your your font or whatever. 00:49:38 Speaker 2: You really Yeah, some spoke to me. 00:49:42 Speaker 1: I'm like, yo, he really puts some effort into this homemade uh this artwork. 00:49:47 Speaker 2: I was like, And I went back picked it up and. 00:49:49 Speaker 1: Listened to it, and I was like, holy shit, like I'm poor lone jealous of this, like like this ship and and like yeah, like I I'll say that I've only you know, Jill Blow, slum Village, Cody Chestnut and you guys. I'm sure I'm missing somebody else. But like something told me to listen to that ship. And that ship like that changed my life, man, because I personally didn't think I would at that time. I was concerned because there was the idea of a group existing was becoming uh endangered and in dangerous species and I was like, yo, a real group, not not a bunch of soloists. And you know, from there then I just saw the word spread and spread and spread. So when it like, what was the decision to not go the slow and steady route and like, let's get it real, let's get a deal through atlantic and poverty. 00:50:59 Speaker 2: So as you're record label, all right, so what is it back then? What was what were the roadblocks and the potholes in being your own record label? 00:51:10 Speaker 4: Shit, you should have yeah, distribution, you didn't have director consumer back then. But I think for for I can speak for me on this my decision. I think if abb if that experience would have been a better experience for us, it wouldn't have been a thing of well, man, let's go get this deal. We'd been like, it would have been more like, shit, we good where we at. But the experience wasn't good because paid So yeah, that makes the experience terrible. We still haven't gotten paid. 00:51:43 Speaker 1: So can I ask, well, let me ask, let me ask, all right, So that it came out on two thousand and two, two thousand and three, Yeah, two thousand and three, okay, so had technology as we know now in twenty twenty been available in two thousand and two, two thousand and three. Would this had been a different outcome? Very different, very different. I wouldn't have fucked personally. I wouldn't have fucked with no label had we had it, you know, had we back then, you know, we already had the means of our own production. 00:52:18 Speaker 2: So we owned our means of production. We could make it ourselves. 00:52:22 Speaker 1: You know, if we had a straight pipeline, we could get it directly to our fans and see the money back. Man, fuck a label, straight up. But that was but pooh, But you made a great point, you know, when you you know, you ask about what made us make that jump. You know, I really think an agree one hundred percent that had it, if our indie experience would have been better and we would have actually been like paid fairly and you know, according to our contract, if we would have actually been compensated for our work on an indie label, I think we would have been much more hesitant about signing to a major. But at that time, you know, we we put out the records and you know, you're hearing all this buzz and you know, everybody saying, oh man, y'all about to blow up, y'all due whatever. So then Atlantic comes knocking and it was a bunch of labels that wanted to sign us at that time, but that kind of fed uh well. 00:53:16 Speaker 4: Mike Karen reached out first, but we were we were told, we got the word. 00:53:20 Speaker 3: Not to deal with him. So like we ended up. We met with Warner, We met with. 00:53:26 Speaker 4: Jive, and then we met It's Warner and then it was Warner because Tom Waller. 00:53:36 Speaker 2: That's when we met Tom Wally, Tom Waally. 00:53:38 Speaker 3: We met with Rest of Peace, Chris Lighty and Peter THEO and Jive. 00:53:43 Speaker 2: Chris Rdy to throw something. 00:53:45 Speaker 4: Yeah, yeah, Chris Lighty, man, he came to Day and Tall out to the club, took us to the house and. 00:53:55 Speaker 2: Lighty yeah, like the thing was, man, I'll never forget this ship. Man. I remember being in there. 00:54:01 Speaker 1: And because this is around the time of Chris Lighty like g Unit Holland on records, Chris Lighty, right, So so the thing was, man. 00:54:11 Speaker 2: So we went into the meeting. 00:54:13 Speaker 1: We had a meeting at Jive and you know, Chris Lighty comes in and we're all sitting there at the table. 00:54:18 Speaker 2: It's Chris Lighty, It's me Pooh. 00:54:21 Speaker 1: Doe our manager at the time, and Wayne Williams DJ Wayne Williams out of Chicago. 00:54:27 Speaker 2: We're all sitting in there. 00:54:29 Speaker 1: Williams from R Kelly, Yes, yes, yeah. R Kelly chosen a few DJs, Wayne Williams, you know what I'm saying. So he's in there, and so, man, so we we talking and stuff, and and I remember Chris saying he was like, you know, man, I listened to y'all album and he's like, Yo, it tells a whole story. He's like, it's not just singles. He's like, you know, it tells a whole story. And you know, I really think I love what you guys are doing. I think, you know, we can push it. And I was just sitting there. I was like wow, and he was like, you know, man. I remember he's like he was talking about fifty and he was like, you know, the whole thing with fifty was get ready to root for. 00:55:07 Speaker 2: The bad guy. 00:55:08 Speaker 1: That was our whole marketing scheme. And I was like, yeah, it's like the movie Payback. And he was like, yo, I like this guy. 00:55:14 Speaker 2: I like this guy. You know, like it was funny. He'said, yo, I like this guy. And I said yeah. It was like that. 00:55:19 Speaker 1: He was like, yeah, He's like, you know, that was my whole thing with fifty and he said, but I really like y'all. He said, y'all are like different from everything else that's out and y'all really cut through the clutter. And he was talking. He started talking about his time at Death Jam. I never get this shit, he was like, yo, he said, man, you know when I was at Death Jam, he said, you know, I was fresh off the Mister Smith album, so I was the prince of Death Jam. He was like, I could do whatever I wanted, he said, And so the next record I signed was this this record called Crew now Me. You know, hip hop, fucking rap nerd. I'm like, niggaw, I'm like, yeah, thirty thirty. 00:55:54 Speaker 2: I love that fucking album. And he again, he was like, yeah, I like this guy. 00:55:58 Speaker 1: Like this guy. I'd say this, I like this guy. I said, no, man, thirty thirty that was the ship. And he said something He's like, I never get it. 00:56:05 Speaker 2: He said yeah. 00:56:06 Speaker 1: He said, man, I love that record too, but just because you love something don't mean. 00:56:09 Speaker 2: It's gonna sell. And I was like, damn, that's the fucking truth. 00:56:14 Speaker 1: But but yeah, man, he was, I you know, that was just my only encounter with Chris, but I really liked him. 00:56:22 Speaker 2: Man, I fucked with Chris. He was a straight shooter, you know. 00:56:24 Speaker 3: He you know, He's where we wanted to go. 00:56:27 Speaker 1: We wanted That's where we wanted to go for real, because you remember, Job was like they wanted to just re release the listening first, and that was. 00:56:34 Speaker 4: The problem because they them re releasing the listening means they now take some ownership, if not all, ownership of the album. And Benny Beef maybe b wasn't given that album. He wasn't given that album. And I'm sorry, Yeah, we get we had to go. We essentially had to go where he was comfortable going. That's how we ended up at Atlanta. Well, we would have never went to Atlanta. 00:57:02 Speaker 1: And the only reason I think, well, I wan't to say the only reason I know, a big reason why he chose Atlantic was because Atlantic let him keep his vinyl rights. So Atlantic let him continue to press the all the LB vinyl, but they retained the rights for everything else. 00:57:17 Speaker 2: And so that was how we ended up at Atlantic. 00:57:20 Speaker 5: That's almost unpressing in it that did he press anything up for the second album other than loving it. 00:57:24 Speaker 2: Twelve minutes. There was a minstrel show Vinyl. I think there was. 00:57:29 Speaker 4: Mister Show Vinyl, and I think it was a it was another single. I gotta look through my records. 00:57:36 Speaker 3: I think a single. 00:57:40 Speaker 4: Again again, I think again. Yeah, and then and then he reissued the listening in the Mystery Show. 00:57:47 Speaker 2: A couple of years ago. It's like a year or two ago. 00:57:50 Speaker 3: Yeah, didn't he had a courtesy to send us in me of this fabulous reissues? 00:57:54 Speaker 4: Vinyl ain't paying us. 00:57:57 Speaker 3: Play Boy could have gave us some Vinyl ship that gold minor look good, it looks, it looks fasty. 00:58:03 Speaker 4: You know. 00:58:07 Speaker 1: I have to ask you a question, which is like, like, I know, as not not trite, but as you know, as it not meaning something today as it once meant back in the nineties. But did it mean anything to you to see those four and a half mics in the source head? 00:58:29 Speaker 3: Yes, yes, it meant everything. 00:58:34 Speaker 1: Yeah, anything, Yeah, seeing the four and a half, seeing you know we got four on the listening because again this was something that you know, this is pre like you know social. 00:58:45 Speaker 2: Media, you know, for the blocks took over. 00:58:48 Speaker 1: Yeah, yeah, so I mean we were literally hearing about this, so it will be like, yo, your words that y'all got four in the source, Like what, nigga? 00:58:57 Speaker 2: What? And then you see it. 00:58:58 Speaker 1: I remember like going to the you know, grocery store and buying the source and you see it and it's like holy shit, like this is really it's a real thing. And and I got like the hip hop quotable and that to me was like holy shit because I grew up. 00:59:14 Speaker 2: Wait a minute, what did you get quotable for? I got it twice. I got it one. 00:59:18 Speaker 1: The first time I got was for the Yo Yo, and then the second time I got it was course my verse on the off for you off a Mister show, And that to me was just like man, holy shit. You know that was a moment. So yeah, that ship meant a lot back then. That should have been a whole lot. 00:59:33 Speaker 2: Yeah. 00:59:34 Speaker 1: I tried to act like four and a half mics on me nothing like, but you know it's still hanging on my wall. 00:59:41 Speaker 4: No, four and a half is the real five. I mean, me and you talked about this a lot, but four and a half is the real five. 00:59:48 Speaker 2: It is. It is absolutely so with. 00:59:57 Speaker 1: In hindsight, how was the Mentell Show experience? Because there was so much expectations and so much was happening. 01:00:07 Speaker 2: I meant like Hove was co. 01:00:10 Speaker 1: Signing you guys, like everybody was, like all the stars were aligned. 01:00:17 Speaker 2: Like at the end of the day, what happened? Man? 01:00:23 Speaker 3: So have you been watching the Last Dance Bulls documentary? 01:00:29 Speaker 1: I just got them watching it, Okay, So I watched it at eight o'clock this morning. 01:00:34 Speaker 4: So the thing about it is like at the time, we only knew what we saw. So it was just like you just see the you know, them going for the the you know, the third championship in the row for the second time, but you don't see all all of the underlying stuff that's going. 01:00:51 Speaker 3: On during that time. 01:00:54 Speaker 4: It's just like, Yo, the concentration the motherfuckers had was amazing. And I look at the Mintroll Show, it wasn't that dramatic, but it was dramatic enough for us. You know, I was twenty four five years old at the time, hadn't really experienced a lot, and we're trying to record this album, major label, trying to keep maintain our sound, dealing with our own shit as a group at the time, because that was when the group really started to splinter during that time, and so you got all that happening, and then you have this album that people at the label say they excited for, but you know there's some trepidation because of the title, and nobody, all the white people, they don't want to deal with this shit. 01:01:46 Speaker 1: Now, let me ask, Okay, so is this Craig Kelman or or Julie or like what era of Atlantic Craig. 01:01:59 Speaker 3: And jew When? When when death Jam took over? 01:02:02 Speaker 2: Yes? 01:02:04 Speaker 4: Or Kevin It's it's right, it's at the takeover. It's at the Death Jam takeover Warner. And so the real problem started before the ink was dry. On our contract with Atlantic. Robert Reef too low. 01:02:23 Speaker 1: If you say, if you say his whole name, then this might not be good. He's gonna say it was it was Reefed there because he would seem like your biggest man. 01:02:31 Speaker 3: Well he started there. 01:02:34 Speaker 4: And then when we went into his office after the deal was done, we saw the boxes in there. 01:02:41 Speaker 3: And he was on the way out. But it was it was. It was nothing more telling. 01:02:45 Speaker 4: Then we pulled up for a meeting one time and we were walking into the building in New York. Were walking into the building and Rob and Reef is coming in at the same time. 01:02:57 Speaker 3: And he waiting at the desk. We're about to go upstairs. 01:02:59 Speaker 4: We're like, yo, what you doing? He said, Man, I gotta wait to get to get let up our A and R right because he was no longer They let him get A and R of the album, but he wasn't no longer. 01:03:13 Speaker 3: He was no longer employed. 01:03:14 Speaker 1: Man's was not an employee of it. Like and this how you this is how you're finding out. 01:03:21 Speaker 2: Yes, we found out. We found out Reef was fired when we came. 01:03:26 Speaker 1: Just like Boo said, we came to the building and you know, we realized that he had to get buzzed in just like we had to get buzzed and we're like. 01:03:32 Speaker 2: What the fuck. So then we get up to his office and we see all the boxes, be like, Nigga, like you really fired. 01:03:39 Speaker 1: Out this bitch, and you know, and he was, I mean, I actually funny thing. We actually saw Reef in New York like last year. We was kind of doing our press run and I mean it's all love. I mean, it's you know, it was you know, I mean, everybody had to do what they had to do at that time. 01:03:53 Speaker 2: So it was no like hate or nothing like that. It was it was it was all love. 01:03:56 Speaker 1: But but yeah, reef bound that was when he bounced something with the Shady right we went to He wouldn't. 01:04:02 Speaker 3: I think he? 01:04:03 Speaker 4: I know he ended up over Shady Shade for five But it was just one of the things where we were in the building. 01:04:12 Speaker 3: We're new. 01:04:13 Speaker 4: They don't know what to do with us, really because we're unlike what they have or what they what they had and we don't have an a n r uh our marketing guy James Lopez who now runs the Will Packer Productions. Uh so, James Lopez was marketing. He ended up being our marketing, our an R our cheerleader. 01:04:36 Speaker 2: All we had him. 01:04:39 Speaker 3: Punching bag Rodney Johnson Johnson. 01:04:42 Speaker 1: Wait, can I ask is was Rick Morales there yet? Or was this before he came to? 01:04:50 Speaker 4: Jay Brown ended up being there right before we left because Jay Brown was Loupe's A and R. 01:05:00 Speaker 1: It's like the Hollywood shuffle of music, Like literally def Jam. 01:05:03 Speaker 2: And Shady are just that's all. It was switching characters. 01:05:09 Speaker 4: So yeah, Julie too, man, Julie always was in our corner and she and she was with whatever, like as long as we came in and showed her that we was passionate about what we wanted to do. 01:05:20 Speaker 3: She was witty. So shout out to Julie Green Walk. 01:05:24 Speaker 1: Okay, so I love the title the minstrul Show, but humor me, why did you decide to go with the minstrel show? 01:05:31 Speaker 3: Because we couldn't call it nigga music. 01:05:39 Speaker 1: You wanted to call that, we wanted to call it. We was like, man, what we call this ship nigga music? And that was like the running we were with it. I think that might have lasted for like three weeks. And then we realized, Okay, we can't call it autum. 01:05:50 Speaker 3: They're not gonna let us do that. We didn't even think they won't let us do. 01:05:54 Speaker 2: But we nigga music in the pocket. It's like we did want to call it nigga music to make the wait? Was there any red flax? 01:06:05 Speaker 1: Like wait a minute, I don't know because and oftentimes I don't have to explain to white people what minstrel see is and they. 01:06:12 Speaker 2: Never know what it is. 01:06:13 Speaker 1: And then like they're already in the middle of you know, the swamp, So like, what were people thinking at the time? 01:06:21 Speaker 2: Man, at the time, I think they were. 01:06:23 Speaker 1: I mean, the one thing I got to give Atlantic credit for you know, they let us do us. And so my main thought in going into the Minstrel Show, particularly once we you know, signed to Atlantic, My whole thing was, we got to show our fans that we. 01:06:38 Speaker 2: Can still do us on a major label, because. 01:06:41 Speaker 1: Around that time, you know, signing to a major label in a lot of ways, it was kind of the kiss of death, you know what I mean. If you heard that your favorite band signed to a big label, the first thing as a music fan is your mind is like ah man in a scope, about the fuck they should have Atlanta, about the fuck they should up, you know what I'm saying. So our whole thing was, well, man first and foremost, we got to show our fans and we can still beat us, you know, unapologetically us on a major label. 01:07:09 Speaker 2: And so Atlantic they stood behind that. 01:07:12 Speaker 1: You know, it was a gamble and you know, and they let us the record that y'all hear. That is the exact record that we took out of our computer in Durham and put out to the world. And you know, from the stories I've heard just from so many cats on uh you know labels, that is something that rarely happened. 01:07:33 Speaker 2: Certainly didn't. It wasn't happening back then, you know what I'm saying. 01:07:36 Speaker 1: And we learned it using real facilities this time around, this was same thing. It was the same. We still recorded that one. I think by this time we weren't recording in Comanche's crib no more. We had the chop shop by that point. 01:07:51 Speaker 4: Yeah, we actually had an office space that we dubbed the studio and it. 01:07:57 Speaker 2: Was the same ship. 01:07:59 Speaker 4: Set up, same setup, just a communal space and not someone's apartment. 01:08:05 Speaker 2: Yeah, but it was the exact same setup. 01:08:07 Speaker 1: We had a computer, we had uh, we had a mic, we used the. 01:08:13 Speaker 2: Road, we had monitors was Likens. 01:08:16 Speaker 4: The same, the same mic that I have in my my setup right now is the mic we recorded the Mynstry show, Get back. 01:08:23 Speaker 2: All that on. 01:08:24 Speaker 1: But mix wise, uh, Guru, mix it at a real basically mix the baseline. 01:08:31 Speaker 3: You mix that baseline. 01:08:33 Speaker 1: That was probably like the only kind of upgrade I guess, you know what I mean, just that, you know, Google, he mixed the baseline. But everything else, Man, that ship was straight out of our computers, and you know that was that was what it was. And I think we learned a valuable lesson too. You know, when you ask about you know, what was the climate like in terms of us calling it the minstral show or whatever. I don't even know if the people around, if the if you know, the Julie and Craig and all them, I don't even think they got too much into the politics of it. I think they were just like, Yo, this is something new. These guys are buzzing. Let's just throw it out and see what happens. And one of the things that we learned that you know, me and Pooh learned and Pool was even doing now like in his uh career as a manager. You know, we we were very self contained. So we came to a label and in our mind we thinking like, yo, we got our artwork done, we got our music done, we know who we want to master, Like we came in with all that shit already, and in our minds it's like, yo, we're making the job of the label easier. But what really happens is that you don't have anyone to root for you because they don't have no one can lay a claim to your success, like no one can. 01:09:47 Speaker 5: Say they're not personally invested in it. 01:09:50 Speaker 1: They got no investment, they got no skin in the game, So you know, that's one of the things that for us it was like hell yeah, but it up being a liability when trying to come into the measure label system because everybody is trying to look for a leg up. Every A n R nigga want to be VP, every mail room nigga want to be an A n R. So everybody's looking for that thing to hold on to that's going to be the star to take them somewhere else. And if they can't hitch their wagon to your star, then they don't give a fuck. 01:10:22 Speaker 3: Man. 01:10:23 Speaker 4: I still remember we gave Sycamore so much. We gave him the petty that Babyface gave Teddy Riley the other night. 01:10:34 Speaker 2: Like Sycamore down with uh Sycamore? 01:10:38 Speaker 3: Is the DJ? Sycamore was it? 01:10:43 Speaker 2: What are you wrong with? 01:10:45 Speaker 3: I remember who he ran, but I just know he was. He was fresh, He was fresh A and R over there. 01:10:49 Speaker 4: And because the crazy thing is Hip Hop wanted to be our an R. 01:10:56 Speaker 3: But Craig Callman wouldn't let us go over. 01:11:00 Speaker 4: With hot because Hop and G had the office over there, and Hop was like, YO, give me them, give me Saigon and it was somebody else and Craig Carman wouldn't do it, so he ended up giving us the Sycamore. 01:11:13 Speaker 3: And I remember us going to New York. 01:11:14 Speaker 4: We was working on I think, yeah, it became Get Back, and we went up there and we just had we were just so off put the Sycamore, man like. 01:11:24 Speaker 3: Man, we know what the fuck were doing. 01:11:25 Speaker 4: Man, I don't even know why we're up here with you no taking us off round all these producers and shiit nigga. 01:11:30 Speaker 3: We don't need these. 01:11:31 Speaker 4: Niggas, Like, I don't remember that attitude that we had, man. And I was like, just like like you said, just thinking back on it as as a manager now with an artist that signed to Dreamville and the Scope and another one on indie label Mellow Music, I just I understand now how. 01:11:50 Speaker 3: Off putting we were. 01:11:52 Speaker 4: And we didn't even allow them to treat us like stars like that was a big thing I noticed as well, because we were so self con we didn't allow them to pamper us, if you will, and that is very off put and to label folk, yeah, because. 01:12:09 Speaker 1: They because the thing is man like and the other thing too, Like I just kind of saw is like how much the the record industry, you know, at that time, and I mean even certainly now how much it perpetuates dysfunction and how much it requires that ship in order to remain a business model. Because you know, like we were saying earlier, you know what made the sign the deal. 01:12:31 Speaker 2: Nigga was poverty, Like niggas was broke and shit. 01:12:34 Speaker 1: So like when I saw you know, you know, a couple of weeks ago, months ago, whatever, when when Meg was going through that ship with her label and all that shit came out and they were talking about Meg the Stallion and her deal, and everybody was just, oh, well, you know, why don't you just get a lawyer and why don't you just get this Yeah, And it's like, Nigga, you don't understand the consequences that the artists are living in when they signed these fucking contracts, you know. 01:13:00 Speaker 2: I mean, it's hard to think. 01:13:02 Speaker 1: Two three years down the line when nigga rent is about to be due on the first, So you know what I mean, So you can't you know the circumstances of what you signed this shit. You know, the record industry, the shit is, the shit is pretty much a goddamn glorified payday loan, you know what I mean, it's more predatory lending than anything else, you know what I mean. So poverty and dysfunction, that shit is baked into their business model. So in a lot of ways, it again, it becomes a liability if you're an artist that is self contained, know what you want, show up on time, do your job, just do it whatever, because at that point they have nothing. They can't control you with nothing. And we were those dudes, like we just didn't give a fuck. We was just like, yo, we make the music we want to make. If we don't get this look or that look or that look, who fucking cares. But when you're a part of that bureacracy, you can't be like that. 01:14:00 Speaker 2: So let me ask if. 01:14:03 Speaker 1: If say the outcome of the Menstreal Show turned out to be more rosier than what happened, Uh, what we would you guys have delved into your next step, which was like uh, I mean for Pooh was like the Sleepers project, Fonte, You're you're making Foreign Exchange, uh with Nikola, like you're doing these side projects, still committed to the well. I mean, then there's ninth departure, so his leaving to do more production and whatnot, like your your next step was splintering up and taking a break for a while. But had the outcome been different, would you guys have even chartered off into the territory or the. 01:14:57 Speaker 4: The the outcome, And the funny thing is the outcome of the Minstry show didn't even weigh in because the first for in Exchange and my album, my Sleepers album were done. 01:15:08 Speaker 2: It was already done. 01:15:09 Speaker 3: Four. Yeah, that was done before. 01:15:12 Speaker 1: Okay, I thought, I've been sure. It was two thousand and. 01:15:14 Speaker 3: It was five, two thousand and five, four. 01:15:15 Speaker 1: Two thousand and five, okay, okay, and Sleepers came out in February of five. 01:15:22 Speaker 2: I forgot when that first Connecting Connected came out in four. 01:15:26 Speaker 1: It was it was like all four, I want to say, yeah, And we were working on those records like with each other. So yeah, it was never a thing of like, you know, if Pool's like, I'm working on a record, I need a verse for that, all right, cool, I jump on it. He jumped on you know, Foreign Exchange records. So there was always you know, me just kind of being a student of the game. I always saw the groups that allowed themselves to kind of do their own thing. They seemed to work a lot better, you know what I mean, Like even with like Gang Star was kind of my example where Pream was doing remixes for everybody, but Guru had Jasmin tasks like that was his own thing that he did, and then they came together and do Gang Star, And so that was always my thought. So when it came for us doing side projects and solo stuff, even went ninth with all the stuff he was doing, we were all very much a part of that and we championed that. Okay, So without making this you guys's audio obituary, so then you all right? So I actually want to cut in Tarantino this skipping in the future because I don't know the story of after me begging and begging and publicly begging. We've talked about this story before in the salone episode of me trying to wield a little brother reunion into existence. 01:16:54 Speaker 2: But what was the straw that at least. 01:16:59 Speaker 1: That unbroke the camel's back for you to be like, okay, like what. 01:17:06 Speaker 2: You down? You down? 01:17:09 Speaker 3: I think it was just us becoming friends, Like. 01:17:14 Speaker 4: We just had to take time to after we didn't speak for a while, We just had to take time to just become friends. And that just really and honestly, like for almost two years, we didn't discuss making no music together. We didn't discuss It was more like, yo, how you doing in life? Like what's going on in your life? 01:17:37 Speaker 2: And then. 01:17:39 Speaker 4: Eventually once we did that show the next day, it was just it was unspoken, like I went to take house to pick my money up and he was like, yo, I'm cooking. He said, I'm cooking. I said, I'll stay. You know what I'm saying. I'm not gonna turn down the free meal. And we just was talking before everybody else pulled up, and it was just one of those things it's like, man, how you feel? 01:18:02 Speaker 3: It was like, shit, I feel good? How you feel? 01:18:06 Speaker 2: Okay? 01:18:06 Speaker 1: So now I want to go back a little bit. How hard is it to walk away? Because for me, I know, for me and Tarique, like, yes, we were birds of a feather, best friends in high school, spending night each other's couches, you know whatever, do everything together, and then we start a business with each other, and we're just slowly now we're just slowly now now that we're inching to fifty, we're slowly now inching back to where we were when we were fourteen and fifteen, But there was a period between. 01:18:43 Speaker 2: Ages twenty three to forty seven. 01:18:50 Speaker 1: In which we were very committed business partners and it was like, no matter what, this group is not dying, which doesn't make for good chemistry if you're you know, if you're making creative products. So it's playing together for the kids, Yeah, is. 01:19:12 Speaker 2: Defeat. 01:19:14 Speaker 1: Did you feel a sense of like a dream deferred? Once it was like, okay, this group is officially a rap and just put it on the shelf and you'll go that way and I'll go this way. 01:19:26 Speaker 2: I'll let you goo. Uh. 01:19:29 Speaker 3: I think for me that didn't hit till later. 01:19:33 Speaker 4: At the time when we stopped speaking, I think I was just I was so pissed, and I think we were so just frustrated at just a bunch of things and turn each other that it was more like fuck that ship, I'm gonna show this nigga. And later on it started to really sink in, like, yo, I think we fucked up, but it's too late to. 01:19:58 Speaker 3: Turn back now. 01:19:59 Speaker 2: Yeah, path, Yeah, it was. 01:20:03 Speaker 1: I didn't realize that, I think, you know, at the time, when we you know, just said fuck it, I was just tired, you know what. I mean, and I just you know, we had spent so many years just kind of in a pressure cooker together, just album mixtape tour, mixtape, album tour, and I was just fucking exhausted, man. And uh So at the time when we said, you know, it was over, I was like, Okay, well, you know, we hadn't really been, you know, because because lot of people asked, well, if the record, if you think if the record would have sold better, y'all would have stayed together. The thing about it, at the time when we broke up in Old Well ninth left and O seven and then we improved. 01:20:48 Speaker 2: Twenty ten. 01:20:50 Speaker 1: At that time, that was when we were seeing some of our best shows. So you know, after get Back, that was when we got a really big black audience. So our shows were still going up. Like I you know, we were doing really good business on the road, and you know, we could have kept you know, going out there and getting that money. But I think it was a combination of just exhaustion and then just it wasn't fun, Like we just weren't enjoying each other, We weren't enjoying the experience. We were literally just coming on stage just rap rap, rap, And then we would go off in two separate directions. And for me, you know, I mean, you know, you gotta make money. Money is important. But the minute this shit started feeling like a job, nigga, I'm gone. I didn't get in this shit because. 01:21:39 Speaker 2: I wanted to work a job. I could have kept my job, you know. 01:21:42 Speaker 1: I got in this to, you know, make a living and be around people I love and us build something together. 01:21:47 Speaker 2: And once it shit became work, it was like, man, fuck this. 01:21:50 Speaker 4: And for me it was, like I said, it was just I think for me, it was just hard just looking at the scene at the time and it was like, Yo, this shit is wide. This is what we fought all them fucking years for is to get to this point, and we got here. We're the man in the cave that all we had to do was hit that take that pitchfork and hit. 01:22:10 Speaker 2: That dirt one more time, and the diamond the diamond. 01:22:14 Speaker 3: But we turned around and walked away where that where that guy? 01:22:17 Speaker 4: Like, That's that's how I felt, just how everything turned around, and I was just like, damn, we we missed an opportunity there. But like you said, man, we just exhausted, man, just with each other, with the situation with just everything. It was just like, man, I just need time to go be free over here by myself or doing some other. 01:22:40 Speaker 2: Shit and get back. 01:22:42 Speaker 1: But that was our last album, We Owe ABB And after that that was like freedom. I felt freedom in a way that I hadn't felt in a long time. And that was when I met I was like, nigga, fuck a label, Like fuck we out this deal. We're free of Atlantic abb Man, fuck this ship. And that was when me and Nick form FIEW Music after that. Okay, all right, so everyone that listens to the show knows Fonte's disdain for me holding on tightly to politically correct non gotcha questions. 01:23:19 Speaker 2: Go in something we talk about whatever. We're in the age of the Rona, Nick. 01:23:27 Speaker 3: Now the age of the Roma. 01:23:31 Speaker 1: So should I will publicly into the future a reunion of the original unit of this group. Well, I can tell you this, damn you already started. 01:23:48 Speaker 2: You can, you can, you can, you. 01:23:51 Speaker 4: Can say out loud and put into the air as much as you want, brother emir, I can tell you what ain't gonna happen. 01:24:00 Speaker 2: Listen, listen, listen, listen, but wait, okay. 01:24:04 Speaker 3: Listen, I listen. 01:24:05 Speaker 2: Hear me. 01:24:06 Speaker 3: I know my ass already, but I listen. 01:24:09 Speaker 2: Because I believe. 01:24:11 Speaker 1: Okay, for those that never heard the salone episode, I went on Twitter, I think in I was at least at Fallon at the time. 01:24:22 Speaker 2: It's like twenty twelve thirteen. It nah, this was later than that. This was this is about twenty. 01:24:32 Speaker 3: This when. 01:24:34 Speaker 4: This is when you got yeah, oh yeah, that was about twelve thirteen is I decided, you know what I'm gonna will. 01:24:43 Speaker 1: I'm a publicly will a little Brother reunion for the greater good. You know, the road to Hell's paid with great intentions. Facts I put it. I put a tweet out there. I was like I want little I forget the exact wording, but it's like I'm willing a little brother union because damn it I needed And you know, Fante kind of did the. 01:25:08 Speaker 4: You when. 01:25:10 Speaker 2: I was like, nah, man, chill, don't do that. 01:25:12 Speaker 1: Chill. I tried, I tried. I tried to defuse the bomb, and you did it. Like yo man, my wife and my wife was here like like what are you doing? Like that sort of thing right right right. He gave an example of like, yo, man, this is like me putting out there like you and Salons and da da da da da. And then Slan saw our name says wait wait me and a mirror what and then it caused. 01:25:39 Speaker 2: What a time I saw? I saw all that. That's all. 01:25:45 Speaker 1: Yeah, yeah, we weren't even talking at that time. We were talking at that time, but that ship went off. 01:25:51 Speaker 2: That was crazy. 01:25:53 Speaker 1: My whole point was that this still happened, and you said it would never happen, So that's had never happened. 01:26:06 Speaker 3: Oh, back back to my answer. That was a nice story, like. 01:26:13 Speaker 4: This is the thing this, yeah, this is this is the thing we when we came back this time, we realized the fundamental differences as men and you can't get past that fact, like he is who he is, we are who we are, and we see things differently than the way he does, and the clarity is there. 01:26:42 Speaker 3: And that's just it. 01:26:43 Speaker 4: Like because for me, what the thing I always said about little brother, even when we weren't talking, when we weren't making music, the magic in the music was that it was our relationship. 01:26:55 Speaker 3: It wouldn't the fact that T Dope, I'm dope night beasts for Dope. It's our real relationship. 01:27:00 Speaker 4: It's the way we approach records, the way we made records you can hear the joy in the records. 01:27:06 Speaker 3: In our later records, you can start to not hear that joy. A little by little, it was gone. 01:27:13 Speaker 4: And so when we came back to do which ended up being made a little watch, me and Tay had a talk and it basically was like, listen, man, we here. 01:27:24 Speaker 3: To do this for each other. We here to have fun doing this shit, and nigga anything more than that, we ain't. It's whatever, like we ain't here for it. And we realized very quickly that we saw things that way he did not. And so it's just like, yo, we're good, like we're good, like we're good. 01:27:48 Speaker 2: When when's the last time you guys have spoken to ninth? Twenty eighteen, the twenty for me and you bro, it was twenty eighteen. 01:28:00 Speaker 3: You was twenty eighteen. For me it was twenty nineteen. It was March twenty nineteen. 01:28:04 Speaker 1: Yeah, because it was around the time Nip died and yeah, yeah, yeah, Marsh, Yeah it was to March sween nineteen. Yeah for me at twenty eighteen, the last the last time we actually saw each other like saw saw each other was yeah, yeah, come back article festival. 01:28:23 Speaker 2: Yeah. So August twenty eighteen. That was the last time we saw each other. 01:28:26 Speaker 1: And that performance was just someone saying, hey, who was missing? Who was supposed to Royce y? Yeah, Royce Man. Who was the person that was the point person who reached out to him? It was so's my man Suleyman Massi. He's a promoter and he runs now he owns the Article festival with the music festival that goes on down here in Durham. And Royce Miss's Flight and me and Suleiman, you know, we had a working relationship. He had booked for an exchanged a bunch of times, so we knew. 01:28:59 Speaker 2: Each other just you know, over the years. 01:29:01 Speaker 1: And so he reached out to me and was like, yo, man, Royce Smist's Flight, do you want to do a solo set? And I'm literally at home in you know, a T shirt and my boxers, just like doing nothing. And I said, well, let me check and see if it's even possible. So I ended up making the calls. I called reached out to Flash it was my two DJ. First he didn't get answer for him, so then I reached out to Knife and me and Knife had been hanging in Durham that previous night, so I hit him. 01:29:31 Speaker 2: I was like, hey, man, suleymn hit me by wanting to do this this show. You know, would you would you DJ for me? He was like, yeah, I'll DJ for you. 01:29:39 Speaker 1: And I said, man, you know it'd be crazy, man, what if we get Pool involved in this shit? 01:29:42 Speaker 2: And he was like, ah, hell, I mean he was. 01:29:46 Speaker 1: He was super reluctant about it, but you know, I you know, kind of twisted his arm and he was like, all right, cool, you know, I'll do it. And I called Pooh and hit suleit mine back and we got everything sorted out and so that all came together within the matter of three four hours. 01:30:00 Speaker 2: I mean, it was super super fast. And that was it. I mean that was kind of what started it. And that was the last time. 01:30:10 Speaker 1: And at the end and at the end, it wasn't like yeah, I enjoyed that, It was absolutely yeah. 01:30:17 Speaker 3: I mean the funny the funny part about it was foreshadowing in life. I didn't see him when it was over. 01:30:27 Speaker 4: Me and Tate no, no, lie, no bullshit like me and Tate walked back up to the to the to the RVs which were our trailers, and he didn't because he went down there to the stage before we did, and he didn't go back up when we went up, and I ain't seen him since we walked off that stage. We took like two pictures together, and then I was like, man, fuck this, I ain't got to stay down here taking all these pictures. 01:30:49 Speaker 3: We're going going upstairs to get drunk like, and Tate was like, Nick, I'm going upstairs too, And we went upstairs and I didn't. I haven't seen him since. Like, no, lie, no cat, as the young people say, no cap, not a. 01:31:03 Speaker 2: Cat, not a cap at all, No cap, no fedora, no none of that ship. Because all right, man, twenty twenty two, I'm getting you all, life coach. We don't need one man. Were good not for this. 01:31:14 Speaker 1: I mean, if you want to have a life coach, just talk about childhood trauma and shit like that. 01:31:18 Speaker 2: We talking about that. 01:31:19 Speaker 3: That's that's something totally different. We're good on this, don't We don't work this out. 01:31:23 Speaker 2: We don't go all the way out. Okay, all right, I feel you, man, you know you? Hey hey, no, no, no, no, I'll take that. Look this this is a little this official Little Brother reunion. I'll take it. 01:31:37 Speaker 1: The album's banging. You're happy to have been a part of it, thank you. So what happens? Uh? Okay, So obviously we're in the edge of the runa now where all the breaks have suddenly halted on our professional lives. And you know what happens now is this time for a new album? 01:32:01 Speaker 2: Is it? 01:32:02 Speaker 3: We're making it through the rona man. That's all. 01:32:05 Speaker 2: That's all you can do right now, one day at a time, one day. 01:32:09 Speaker 4: You know, people always ask us about another album. Man, it's one for us. It's just one of them things where. 01:32:14 Speaker 2: It's like, let's be like, you're lucky you got the one you got. 01:32:18 Speaker 3: Not only that, but like we. 01:32:23 Speaker 2: Both have just a lot of other things that we have going on. 01:32:27 Speaker 4: And you know, like I managed full time, so luckily Big Dough my partner, so he was able to pick up a lot of that slack and and. 01:32:37 Speaker 2: What is that into now? Who being a manager being a suit Listen, man. 01:32:42 Speaker 3: Let me tell you something, bro. 01:32:44 Speaker 4: This ship is this ship well you can't see him in the camera, but I got a lot of grades down here now, a lot of grades. 01:32:52 Speaker 2: Man. 01:32:52 Speaker 3: It's you know, it's for me. It's just one of them things. 01:32:54 Speaker 2: Man. 01:32:54 Speaker 3: I just love music and I love the. 01:32:56 Speaker 4: Guys that I have, and I believe in them full force, and I just want to see them accomplish some of the things that they want to accomplish, if not everything. So I'm here, I'm right or die. That's why I don't have a lot of clients. Man, like I gotta I gotta feel goosebumps when I hear you for the first time. And all these guys, I had that feeling. But it's hard, man, it's stressful. It's three it's three different people, three different personalities, three different levels in their careers right now. 01:33:27 Speaker 1: But you're using You're using the wisdom all of it that you all right, everything that you have. 01:33:33 Speaker 2: But this is the thing. How old are the thirty. 01:33:38 Speaker 3: Thirty, thirty, thirty one and twenty four. 01:33:44 Speaker 2: Young? Yeah? 01:33:46 Speaker 3: And this is this is the thing I tell people I have. 01:33:49 Speaker 4: I have a lot of wisdom, right, I have a lot of wisdom, But this is their careers. So I don't I don't rule with the iron fists. 01:33:58 Speaker 3: I'm more of a. 01:34:00 Speaker 4: Let's have a conversation about whatever the situation is. Let's way to pros the cars. I'll give you my advice. I'll give you some you know, some anecdotes. If I have any but at the end of the day, you have to make a choice for you because it's your career and I'm gonna ride whatever that choice is, whether I agree or not, but it has to be your choice because you gotta go out here and sell it. 01:34:22 Speaker 1: Shit Exactly. We were always kind of on some when it came to us dealing with other acts whatever. We were always kind of on some tigos to the Runner shit, just in the sense of, you know, like he said, it's like, I can have my thoughts about it, but if it's a song you believe in, you the one that's got to walk out here on this shit, not me. 01:34:39 Speaker 2: It's it's your name that's attached to it. 01:34:41 Speaker 1: So I could hate the fucking song, But if you love it and this is what you believe in, then I'll stand behind you on it because it's you the one that's got to sell it, and it's gonna follow you. 01:34:52 Speaker 4: It's gonna follow you. I think the best thing for me, the best thing for me and my position is I have a legacy. See that's cemented. Whether I stopped today and just go back to being Thomas Jones and go work at the airport or some ship like my legacy is cemented already, so I don't have that fear. 01:35:14 Speaker 3: Of the fuck up. And it's just like, yo, let's let's let's go, let's. 01:35:19 Speaker 4: Go fast, let's go hard, and if we suck up along the way, it's gonna happen. Mistake's going to hunted and mistakes going ten. There's two different type of mistakes. Let's go on hunting and that's. 01:35:30 Speaker 3: Just what we do. 01:35:31 Speaker 2: Yeah, yeah, I was. I was thinking. 01:35:34 Speaker 1: We had Jimmy jam on you know, the other day, and you know, he was talking about how his wife, you know, how he got involved in the Grammys and stuff, and it was his wife that was telling him like, Yo, this is what you're supposed to be doing now, you know what I mean. And that really resonated with me because it kind of reminded me. I think that was a lot of what me and Pool would have conversations with about. Made the Little Watch one of the earliest conversations we had. After we finished the record. The first thing we thought about was, Okay, who can we help, Like, now that we've done this, how can we use this new platform we have to you know, jump somebody else all so help you know, someone else. And so when it comes to you asked about doing another album for me, you know, that record just took a lot, like it took everything out of me because it was so much we knew we had to get right. And I mean, you know, and you always, you know, not to say that it's ever been, you know, records that we have stepped on or like purposely just did some bullshit or whatever. I mean, we always put our best foot forward. But we made a little watch that was just a draining process because we did everything ourselves, you know. 01:36:44 Speaker 2: What I mean. We cleared our samples, we were budget label studio, the whole nine, you know what I'm saying. 01:36:51 Speaker 1: So it just took so much out of us both, and I think in terms of us doing another record for me, it really just came down to I just wanted us to do something, so where now the errors out of the room. So now if I just want to jump on a song for his album or he jump on song on my album, we can just do a fucking song and that be the end of it. It's no more discussion of oh well what does this mean? And nigga just mean we do the song together, you know what I mean? So we have the freedom to do that now. And if another record comes, if we feel like we got something else to say, you know, we can do that. But as of right now, speaking for me, I'm just kind of enjoying the piece of just having you know, my brother back in my life again and us being able to use our influence to help other people. 01:37:43 Speaker 2: Like that's the most that's the most joy the joyous part of it for me. 01:37:48 Speaker 4: And we still got cities we ain't touched yet because of the role now. Man, straight up, we ain't been to New York, Houston, Detroit, to Rod Boston. 01:37:59 Speaker 3: We ain't did a show at the crib. 01:38:01 Speaker 4: Sits the festival, like, man, y'all ain't getting no album to that halfwy twenty five. 01:38:09 Speaker 1: Hey man, look a burden in hend a burden in hand, Beast two in the bush. I mean I wanted a new Little Brother record. You got it, I got I got a Christmas gift. I'm not being greedy. 01:38:21 Speaker 2: Thank you, I appreciate it. Thank you for this man. 01:38:25 Speaker 4: Yeah, man, oh and I always wanted to thank you Amir for I don't know if you remember, but we did a show. 01:38:31 Speaker 2: At the t l A. 01:38:32 Speaker 3: This is this is around this is the listening time. And you came to the show, and I. 01:38:39 Speaker 2: Know what you're talking about. 01:38:40 Speaker 3: I remember you said, Yo, I want. 01:38:42 Speaker 4: To buy some CDs from y'all and we said, okay, how many you want? You paid for thirty CDs. You left them CDs there, I did so we were able to resell them CDs money in the half, and we needed that money. 01:38:58 Speaker 2: So I thank you for that purpose. 01:39:03 Speaker 1: That's that's a very mere thing to do. But I think I also did it on dollars. Got niggas back down ninety five. All right, well, look I'm wrapping up the show man. Wait, but Bill, you usually have a trick and thank you Bill, Yo. I want to thank you all for doing this show. You know, under under these circumstances, I never thought i'd get the Little Brother episode. But you know what, though, man on some Britain, this is just my mind working post edible. How poetic is it that we all met on the internet and now we're doing our show in. 01:39:53 Speaker 2: My God, can't do won't do it? 01:39:57 Speaker 1: It's only right Well on behalf of Big Pooh, font Ticolo, Boss Bill, the rest of the teams, Supreme, Liah Suk and Steve unpaid bill and fantic. 01:40:08 Speaker 2: Oh my god, I was about to see you out getting cigarettes. Anyway, I'm back now, all you good, All right. 01:40:15 Speaker 1: This is quest Love and thank you for tuning in and we will see you on the next go round of Quest Love Supreme. 01:40:21 Speaker 2: Thank you. West. 01:40:31 Speaker 1: Love Supreme is a production of iHeart Radio. For more podcasts from iHeart Radio, visit the iHeart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you listen to your favorite shows.