Speaker 1: Quest Love Supreme is a production of iHeartRadio. Listen and
Speaker 1: gentlemen check it out. This is a classic QLs episode
Speaker 1: featuring our fam Little Brother. Of course, you know they
Speaker 1: have a really powerful documentary called Me the Lord Watch.
Speaker 1: I highly recommend you watch it. They're one of my
Speaker 1: favorite groups. We'll assume we be one of your favorite groups. Falla, No,
Speaker 1: they're already one of your favorite groups. All right, Quest
Speaker 1: Love Supreme Classic Little Brother. Ladies and gentlemen, welcome to
Speaker 1: another episode of Quest Love Supreme. I'm your host Quest
Speaker 1: Love with Me. Today is Boss Bill and kind of
Speaker 1: weird is Fontigolo on his own former podcast, As suggested,
Speaker 1: the product sun is return and the one and only
Speaker 1: Big Poof collectively known as Door of North Carolina's Finest
Speaker 1: Little Brother. I'm correct, seeing duran correct? Yep, yep, and
Speaker 1: you claim Durhman as well.
Speaker 2: Pooh Durham claims me.
Speaker 1: Like who's one of the tug of war of where
Speaker 1: the genesis and little brother actually lies?
Speaker 3: It all started at Central, you know what I mean?
Speaker 3: We were students in North Carolina Central together, so Durham,
Speaker 3: for all intents and purposes, it is the birthplace a
Speaker 3: little brother yeah, I just I just have.
Speaker 2: To make it clear that I'm I'm from Virginia originally
Speaker 2: just what cities Alexandria, all through northern Virginia, but Alexandria
Speaker 2: and Fairfax specifically.
Speaker 1: Okay, all right, So, I, in the attempts to treat
Speaker 1: Fonte as a regular guest, did not assume that everyone
Speaker 1: knows his story.
Speaker 2: I do.
Speaker 1: However, I'm not that familiar with your story, pooh. So
Speaker 1: to give us a recap or whatever, I'll start with you.
Speaker 1: What was your entry into music?
Speaker 2: Probably the radio, but like more importantly BMG, when they
Speaker 2: did the uh you could get likes for a dollar
Speaker 2: or whatever.
Speaker 1: Were you or were you scamming?
Speaker 2: I was scamming big time.
Speaker 1: Yeah, proud Sam here. Yeah.
Speaker 2: I did it about five different times and got five
Speaker 2: different groups of CDs. But that was probably my real intro,
Speaker 2: just learning about so many different artists. And I had
Speaker 2: friends from New York. I mean everybody probably did at
Speaker 2: that time, back in the nineties who would come down
Speaker 2: with tapes like That's how I first heard the big
Speaker 2: ee nas and just different artists from out of New
Speaker 2: York at the time, and between that and radio, because
Speaker 2: radio was real regional in the nineties, so you I
Speaker 2: mean we were it was heavy Go Go influence, but
Speaker 2: you would get when the artists come through, you will
Speaker 2: start getting a different artist. So that's how I got
Speaker 2: put on to Like when Ray Kwan, when he dropped
Speaker 2: the Purple tape, he came through, did an interview. They
Speaker 2: actually debuted incarcerated scar faces on the radio. I'll never
Speaker 2: forget it in DC. So that was my start.
Speaker 4: Man.
Speaker 2: I was actually just talking about this with my wife yesterday, Like,
Speaker 2: we didn't listen to music in the house. My mom
Speaker 2: is not a huge music fan, so I just had
Speaker 2: to get at other places because it didn't come from
Speaker 2: the crib.
Speaker 1: Yeah, I was gonna ask for the same for you, Fante, Like,
Speaker 1: was there trickle down creativity in your life like an
Speaker 1: older cousin and older like, Yeah, for me, it absolutely was.
Speaker 1: It was it was my mom. I think it started
Speaker 1: with my mom.
Speaker 3: So the thing was, you know, I have very young parents,
Speaker 3: so my mother was my mother when she had me,
Speaker 3: she was fifteen and my dad was seventeen, So I
Speaker 3: was pretty much with my mom like all the time,
Speaker 3: So wherever she went, I was there. So during the summer,
Speaker 3: but during the like the weekends, that was when we
Speaker 3: had to clean up. We all live with my grandmother,
Speaker 3: so that was clean up time. So that was when
Speaker 3: she was playing all the you know, all just you know,
Speaker 3: the classic R and B stuff, Luther Patty, you know,
Speaker 3: you had Johnny Guitar Watson. She used to like Love
Speaker 3: Jones by Johnny Guitar Watson and we would sing that.
Speaker 3: And then during the week if she went out to
Speaker 3: like the park or whatever. That's why I heard all
Speaker 3: like the early eighties, you know, Nucleus jam on it,
Speaker 3: Shannon let the music play. That was kind of where
Speaker 3: I was hearing all that. And so between her and
Speaker 3: my uncle, but two uncles. My one uncle, Mike, he
Speaker 3: was a DJ, and he would get like all the
Speaker 3: promo records from the station and bring them home and
Speaker 3: I would go through the promo records.
Speaker 1: And then my other uncle, my uncle Brod, He was super.
Speaker 3: He was kind of the more experimental, I guess in
Speaker 3: terms of his taste, Like he was heavy p funk heavy.
Speaker 3: He was a big dance music fan, so a lot
Speaker 3: of South soul stuff, south sool, orchestra, instant funk, got
Speaker 3: my mom made up.
Speaker 1: He like heart.
Speaker 3: I remember he had like the Heart, the Dreamboat, and
Speaker 3: the album, you know what I'm saying. So he he
Speaker 3: went all over everywhere. So he was probably, you know,
Speaker 3: one of my biggest musical influences in terms of no
Speaker 3: regard for a genre.
Speaker 1: If it was funky to him, he just fucked with it.
Speaker 1: And that's what it was. So with Pooh, for you,
Speaker 1: you not having that like what was it just recreational
Speaker 1: or just an escape or like life playing?
Speaker 2: It was an escape for me. I can put on music,
Speaker 2: had a bite walk man, just ride around town unless
Speaker 2: I was just listening to music, had the auto reverse
Speaker 2: so flip itself. And so you know, I just for me,
Speaker 2: it was just something I just always innately enjoyed and
Speaker 2: just enjoy listening. I was always a writer, not necessarily
Speaker 2: a music but like I would write poetry, I would
Speaker 2: write short stories. So that inspired like that intrigued me
Speaker 2: in music. That's why I took to Nas like I did,
Speaker 2: because his rhymes are more like stories to me. So
Speaker 2: that's why I took the Prince. His stuff was like stories,
Speaker 2: and I mean that that was pretty much it. I
Speaker 2: later learned that my dad is a big music head
Speaker 2: and fan, but you know, I didn't meet him till
Speaker 2: I was nineteen, so I would not have known that
Speaker 2: in my younger years.
Speaker 1: Now, I mean, is this the typical narrative for a
Speaker 1: young black teenager in the early nineties to go this
Speaker 1: particular route, because again, I mean, you know, I'll call
Speaker 1: truly ignorant Northerners, and what our thoughts are about anybody
Speaker 1: below the Mason Dixon line. So I mean just in general,
Speaker 1: because Aucass had this problem as well, like people just
Speaker 1: landing whatever, you know, not knowing. So was there ever
Speaker 1: a I mean, is this the typical route of a
Speaker 1: young black teenager in that time period?
Speaker 3: I definitely wouldn't say it was typical, just because you
Speaker 3: know where we grew up at where I grew up
Speaker 3: in Greensboro, North Carolina. You know, there wasn't There were
Speaker 3: people who made music, but there wasn't really the thought
Speaker 3: of actually making it as a musician. It was just yo,
Speaker 3: we like music, we spend records, you know, we freestyle whatever.
Speaker 3: But I don't think there was ever a real thought of, like, yo,
Speaker 3: you could make a living doing this. This the South
Speaker 3: at that time and still in many ways it's still
Speaker 3: very traditional in the sense of, you know, you go
Speaker 3: to school, you get a job, you get you some benefits.
Speaker 1: You know, you bring a steady check home. You know
Speaker 1: what I'm saying. That was life, That's what it was. Yeah.
Speaker 3: So in terms of just musically though, we were always
Speaker 3: the South was always a big kind of melting pot
Speaker 3: because and I think a lot of things that people
Speaker 3: didn't understand the problem that cast had and also you
Speaker 3: know a problem that little brother had, you know, people
Speaker 3: didn't understand it. In the South, we grew up listening
Speaker 3: to everything. Like the South was the meeting point for
Speaker 3: all kinds of music. So you had, of course, you
Speaker 3: know where we were, and I talked about this for
Speaker 3: him the show where we were in Greensboro, that was
Speaker 3: you know, it's the South, it's East Coast. But it
Speaker 3: was a lot of traffic that went through Greensboro, be
Speaker 3: it college students, be it drug dealers, be it you know,
Speaker 3: just all kinds of transplants that was bringing their music,
Speaker 3: you know, to our area. And then like Pool was saying,
Speaker 3: you had the Cats coming from DC. They brought to
Speaker 3: Go Go, you know what I mean. And so we
Speaker 3: were getting and then you had Florida that was you know,
Speaker 3: Magic Mike two Live Crew you had the base, you know,
Speaker 3: from from Florida and Atlanta, and then you know the
Speaker 3: West coast, you know, with like Chronic of course, I
Speaker 3: mean Chronic was kind of the bombed, it went off everywhere.
Speaker 3: But we were students, and that was something that I
Speaker 3: think we always had an advantage of as Southerners because
Speaker 3: we really had to study all types of music.
Speaker 1: Versus New York. They kind of got caught off guard.
Speaker 3: Like the South was a sucker punch to them, like
Speaker 3: when they saw you know, when Master p blew up
Speaker 3: and you know, no limit, you know, cash money.
Speaker 1: They got caught off guard. They was like, what the
Speaker 1: fuck is this? But in the South, we knew that
Speaker 1: shit was coming, you know what I mean, because we
Speaker 1: had been studying it. So Okay, when I first started
Speaker 1: coming down to North Carolina, there was a club called
Speaker 1: is it the Cat's Cradle? Yep, okay, So like one
Speaker 1: of our very first gigs was at the Cat's Cradle,
Speaker 1: And I mean, you know, we were the roots, so
Speaker 1: of course we're going to attract sort of an alternative
Speaker 1: sort of audience whatnot. So there was like an element
Speaker 1: of culture that I was familiar with down there that
Speaker 1: I wasn't too certain about. I don't know if you
Speaker 1: guys know Dave Tompkins. He was like a writer. Yeah,
Speaker 1: he was a writer at I know of him. I
Speaker 1: don't know him personally, but I know who he is. Yeah,
Speaker 1: he wrote for like Vibe and all that stuff and whatnot.
Speaker 1: So he was like showing me around North Carolina and whatnot.
Speaker 1: So I meant, was there a first draft of a crew?
Speaker 1: Like how how do you two meet and amalgamate into
Speaker 1: what will eventually be known as Little Brother? Like what's
Speaker 1: what's the circle?
Speaker 2: I mean we initially met, uh in a dorm room.
Speaker 2: Tay came through in this ever ever bubbly personality to
Speaker 2: supit a rohund he wrote for English class.
Speaker 1: Uh, and that's hot. That's how we met, as those
Speaker 1: first how we met straight up. It was.
Speaker 2: Already on the hallway Joe Joe Wright, I remember his
Speaker 2: last name today, Joe Wright. He was. It was his
Speaker 2: room and he used to just have mad people come
Speaker 2: in the room. And I was fresh on the hallway
Speaker 2: because I actually stayed in a hotel for half of
Speaker 2: my first semester in college. But I got there. We
Speaker 2: were in the room kicking it and Fonte come in
Speaker 2: and was like, yeah, I wrote this round for English class.
Speaker 2: It's called no Apologies. And he starts spinning and I'm
Speaker 2: just like, what you wrote that for English class? That
Speaker 2: could be on the radio or some ship. And that's
Speaker 2: when he let everybody know he was quitting football as well.
Speaker 2: I didn't know he played football, but he was quitting.
Speaker 1: Football. Man, I played football.
Speaker 3: I started playing football in the sixth grade, and h
Speaker 3: I played all through middle school, all through high school,
Speaker 3: and I played my first two years in college and
Speaker 3: a fullback. And you know, by the time I got
Speaker 3: to college, I realized that it was a much more
Speaker 3: of a It was a commitment that I just didn't have.
Speaker 3: Like I didn't love the game. I wasn't on scholarship.
Speaker 3: I didn't care, you know, I was like, why am
Speaker 3: I out here?
Speaker 1: Fuck?
Speaker 2: This?
Speaker 1: Was it a Friday night lights culture for football down there?
Speaker 1: Or yeah, it kind of was.
Speaker 3: I mean it was a big So the school I
Speaker 3: played for in high school, Page high school, we used
Speaker 3: to whoop ass like we was the truth. And so
Speaker 3: my senior, my junior senior year, my senior year, we
Speaker 3: got to the semifinals and we almost took state, but
Speaker 3: we lost in the semifinals. But we always had a
Speaker 3: good program, and so it was something I think for me,
Speaker 3: it was just something that was more social. In high school,
Speaker 3: it was just you know, I was a big kid.
Speaker 3: I had decent size, you know, decent speed, and you
Speaker 3: know I like to hit motherfuckers. So I was like,
Speaker 3: all right, fuck I played football. But once I got
Speaker 3: this was I got to college. That's when I was like, yo,
Speaker 3: this ship is a business, Like you really got to
Speaker 3: be committed, and I just didn't have.
Speaker 1: The love for it.
Speaker 3: And I'm just like, man, why am I out here?
Speaker 3: I love doing music, so let me go do music.
Speaker 3: And that was around the time that that was when me.
Speaker 1: And who met.
Speaker 2: That's where we met, and I mean it morphed into
Speaker 2: a different variations of what it ultimately became. It was
Speaker 2: a big ass group of us at one time called
Speaker 2: the organization. Then that whittled down to give me.
Speaker 1: How many how many people in that organization?
Speaker 3: I don't know at nine so it was okay, the organization,
Speaker 3: It was me. You I guess ninth was in it
Speaker 3: by default. I think I don't even think he was
Speaker 3: in the organization. Yes, it was people I can't even
Speaker 3: remember their name.
Speaker 1: It was organization.
Speaker 3: It was this organization, So I know definite it was me, you,
Speaker 3: Joe God who you remember Rosie Rosie was like one
Speaker 3: of it was this. It was a girl we used
Speaker 3: to run with named Rosie who was em C.
Speaker 1: She was dope.
Speaker 2: Uh.
Speaker 1: Medina of course she was in that.
Speaker 4: Yes, yes, it was was there.
Speaker 2: Medina was Medina was she was another girl she was
Speaker 2: She was an m C. And Medina was Dope. And
Speaker 2: Medina and and Sean Dawn they had a whirlwind ro
Speaker 2: Manus relationship.
Speaker 1: And it was the original Chris Brown and Rihanna man.
Speaker 2: Man old man. Listen, Okay, we leave that man to
Speaker 2: tell his own his own war war stories.
Speaker 1: Those stories and out ours to tell.
Speaker 2: We were collective of just em c's and and then
Speaker 2: we had a z these Colins Collins, he was he
Speaker 2: was our R and B singer.
Speaker 1: Yeah, he keep them hollering. Collins.
Speaker 2: He had like somebody else that wrapped. I can't remember that.
Speaker 2: I can't remember who it was. But it was your
Speaker 2: very loose and I used that term loosely. It was
Speaker 2: very loose collective of people who went to school together
Speaker 2: and we would just.
Speaker 1: Go to each other each other rooms, freestyling and ra
Speaker 1: style and that was that was it.
Speaker 2: And then it whittled down to Gimme, which is me
Speaker 2: sean Dan give.
Speaker 1: Me a g I M M E y Yeah, yep,
Speaker 1: that was name. What that was at an acronym? Was it?
Speaker 1: It was? Of course it was an A.
Speaker 2: Of course, God I murdered many ms. That was one
Speaker 2: of them.
Speaker 1: Yeah, we had a couple of them.
Speaker 2: That was the main one.
Speaker 1: That was the main one. God I murdered. Man, it
Speaker 1: was so many bad We had so many bad meanings
Speaker 1: for the acronym.
Speaker 2: But that was it.
Speaker 5: I want a group to come out named acronym in
Speaker 5: the accomplished character resilience, right.
Speaker 2: I don't get that ship way to fuck up out
Speaker 2: of here, But I mean it transformed into many different
Speaker 2: took many different shapes, and I still remember this is
Speaker 2: this would always be funny to me. I mean, this
Speaker 2: was the moment that changed my rap career. But it's
Speaker 2: it's still funny because it's ironic how it ended up.
Speaker 2: U Seandan didn't come back to school one semester, so
Speaker 2: that was the end of Gimme and uh Fante was
Speaker 2: in my dorm room and he was like.
Speaker 1: Yo, man, we got went to New York. He went
Speaker 1: back to New York.
Speaker 2: Yeah, Sean went back to New York. So I was like,
Speaker 2: what's good man. He's like, yeah, man, I don't see
Speaker 2: as being no duo. So, uh, you know, you gotta
Speaker 2: do some more work.
Speaker 1: So but if you need me for.
Speaker 2: Something, just I let me. That conversation changed my It
Speaker 2: changed my rap career.
Speaker 1: Man.
Speaker 2: It made me work the hardest ship, Like I never
Speaker 2: worked so hard my life at something. But I mean
Speaker 2: it's ironic because that's what we ended up a duo anyway.
Speaker 1: During that period. I mean, how how much would you
Speaker 1: say you were committing to your craft as opposed to
Speaker 1: like surviving going your job and I write rhyme, maybe I.
Speaker 2: Was surviving man.
Speaker 1: Uh yeah, it wasn't.
Speaker 2: It wasn't serious for me. I still didn't. I still
Speaker 2: didn't believe that it could be more than just something
Speaker 2: we were doing in school at the time, because I
Speaker 2: never saw this as a career for me. It was
Speaker 2: just something I love to do. And that moment let
Speaker 2: me know like, hey man, you gotta step your ship
Speaker 2: up or you better start really going to class. It
Speaker 2: was it was one of those moments. Yeah, I'm saying
Speaker 2: I didn't choose class.
Speaker 1: Yeah, that was the thing.
Speaker 3: I mean, I remember at that time because we were
Speaker 3: kind of It was a pivotal moment for all of
Speaker 3: us because at that time, Sean Donnie went back to
Speaker 3: New York and Pool was still me and you. We
Speaker 3: were only ones I think still in Durham and you
Speaker 3: were about to go home that summer. We were about
Speaker 3: to just go home for that summer. And this is
Speaker 3: ninety eight, ninety nine, No, this was this was probably
Speaker 3: was it two thousand, It had to be the two thousand.
Speaker 2: It was two thousand and one, because that's the summer.
Speaker 1: We don't know what it was two thousand and one
Speaker 1: to spring.
Speaker 2: It was spring two thousand and one. I went to
Speaker 2: Charlotte for the summer and I was taking the train
Speaker 2: back to Durham because that's when the Justice League started. Yeah,
Speaker 2: that's when little brother became little brother like that.
Speaker 1: And that end us Spring two thousand and one. That
Speaker 1: was like dealing. It was born. My oldest son was born.
Speaker 3: He was born December two thousand, So yeah, around two
Speaker 3: thousand and one Spring, old Nigga, My head was in
Speaker 3: a whole nother place. I was like, yo, if you
Speaker 3: ain't real about this shit, nigga. Yeah, you better find
Speaker 3: something else because nigga, I got a kid.
Speaker 1: Yeah, I'm going to say out, when you have a
Speaker 1: kid and when you have real life situations, then how
Speaker 1: much pressure to pursue your your craft? Like what's the
Speaker 1: ratio balance? Man? I was scared of ship.
Speaker 2: I was.
Speaker 1: I was.
Speaker 3: I was scared to tell. But you know, my son
Speaker 3: was born the end of December. Uh he you know,
Speaker 3: he was Christmas. He was Christmas Eve two thousand and
Speaker 3: so I ended up finishing my degree in that that
Speaker 3: following semester of like May two thousand and one. His
Speaker 3: mother ended up coming back I think that next the
Speaker 3: semester after that, and she finished her degree like in December.
Speaker 3: So we were young parents and we had no fucking
Speaker 3: idea what we were gonna do. You know, I had
Speaker 3: no clue you know what what it was gonna be.
Speaker 3: And me and Pooh, we were we had started kind
Speaker 3: of making records. We had made a couple of records.
Speaker 3: It's give me and you know, I felt like we
Speaker 3: had something.
Speaker 1: It was dope. But uh, you know, Seanda went back
Speaker 1: to New York.
Speaker 3: Me and Pool were just you know, kind of here
Speaker 3: he was going back home for the summer, and he
Speaker 3: was going back home to Charlotte, and we had that conversation.
Speaker 1: Was like, yo, man, I don't really see us being
Speaker 1: the duo.
Speaker 3: But that summer, I remember Pooh went home and that
Speaker 3: was it was this event used to call call fat
Speaker 3: City that a buddy of ours was having.
Speaker 1: It's cat DJ dr and it was like.
Speaker 3: An open mic kind of freestyle thing and Pooh he
Speaker 3: put in work and he came back that next semester
Speaker 3: and his rhymes was just different.
Speaker 1: He was rhyming. I was like, nigga, you shit sound good?
Speaker 1: You know what I mean?
Speaker 3: And I could just see he had really put that
Speaker 3: work in. I mean, and we always kind of been
Speaker 3: putting it in, but I really just saw in him.
Speaker 3: I was like, yeah, like he really he really about
Speaker 3: it now, and you know, we all, you know, we
Speaker 3: took him seriously at that point.
Speaker 1: Okay, So where does ninth come into the equation of ninth?
Speaker 1: Originally was man ninth? Was I met nine in ninety.
Speaker 2: Eight?
Speaker 1: Ninety eight? It was ninety eight.
Speaker 3: Yeah, So ninety eight we were moving into the dorm.
Speaker 3: This was like, uh, you the day when everybody moves
Speaker 3: into the dorm. I was playing football, so I had
Speaker 3: already been there earlier to report for camp. So we
Speaker 3: had been in there all the all the football players.
Speaker 3: But this is when the civilians we used to call them,
Speaker 3: you know, the civilians had first moved in, so all
Speaker 3: the niggas didn't bolve like it's like it's civilians about
Speaker 3: to move in, the civilians coming, and so ninth it.
Speaker 1: Was sports and first, and then the civilians come.
Speaker 3: Yeah, that's when the civilians come after that, because we
Speaker 3: had to report early, you know, for two days, three
Speaker 3: of days really and so so man, so I'm I'm
Speaker 3: in the joint. I walk into the dorm and it's
Speaker 3: like the lobby kind of commons area, and I see
Speaker 3: this dude holding a source magazine.
Speaker 1: And I was like, yo, man, let me let me
Speaker 1: see that. Let me let me see that source.
Speaker 3: And at that time, this was again, this is like
Speaker 3: ninety eight, so this is master p you know, bad boy.
Speaker 3: I mean, this is kind of like the peak of
Speaker 3: that era, you know, approaching that era. So to see
Speaker 3: somebody with a source magazine, that shit was like, Nigga,
Speaker 3: that's like manner from heaven, you know what I mean.
Speaker 1: It's like, oh, my god, you know about this too?
Speaker 1: What the fuck you know? And so he was like yeah, man.
Speaker 3: So we me and him started going through the source
Speaker 3: together and it was an ad for Most steps Black
Speaker 3: on Black Side, and I think either me or him
Speaker 3: was like, Yo, man, I'm.
Speaker 1: Waiting on this shit. And I was like, nigga, you
Speaker 1: know about that? Like what you were you up on Most?
Speaker 3: And from that point on, me and Knife like we
Speaker 3: were like that was it, you know what I mean?
Speaker 3: It was like, you know, I found kind of another Jedi.
Speaker 3: So that was ninety eight.
Speaker 1: Can I ask Can I ask something? Sure?
Speaker 2: Well?
Speaker 1: When I met culturally, did you often have to code
Speaker 1: switch musically to fit in with whatever social sirvece or
Speaker 1: you were in? So say, if like someone's not into
Speaker 1: most that is in your parameter in college, like who
Speaker 1: else are you listening to? At that time?
Speaker 3: No Limit they ran ship because I couldn't make No
Speaker 3: Limit ran ship, bro.
Speaker 1: Like that was for me.
Speaker 3: It was different because so I didn't get no Limit
Speaker 3: until I got to college because at the time that
Speaker 3: was when we was playing football, and so all the
Speaker 3: football players.
Speaker 1: Like all in the locker room.
Speaker 3: That was what we was bumping about it about it
Speaker 3: the true album No Limit Soldiers, like you know, before
Speaker 3: we went to the weight room, like we bumped that ship.
Speaker 3: So that was when No Limit clicked for me because
Speaker 3: I was like, Okay, this is what the music is
Speaker 3: used for. It wasn't necessarily nothing. I was riding around
Speaker 3: in my car playing, you know.
Speaker 1: So at no point were you guys like, hey, this
Speaker 1: is this thing called the love movement. I was a hold,
Speaker 1: you know, I was.
Speaker 2: Still I was still in high school. But I mean
Speaker 2: for us, it wasn't. It was just like you like
Speaker 2: what you liked, and you learned from other people about
Speaker 2: other you know, other ship. So I learned from other
Speaker 2: people about No Limit. I learned because I was listening
Speaker 2: to New York stuff personally. So I learned from other
Speaker 2: people about No Limit. I learned from other people about
Speaker 2: the West Coast. I had a homeboy who was from
Speaker 2: Oakland originally, so he put me on to Drew Down
Speaker 2: and Too Short and all the guys from Oakland and
Speaker 2: and so that's how I started just taking everything in.
Speaker 2: But it wasn't like a if you come into the
Speaker 2: circle and you be like yo, man. I listened to
Speaker 2: you know, the Jungle Brothers, and somebody was like, man,
Speaker 2: I'm listening to fucking n w A man. Like it
Speaker 2: wasn't a seemed like they wasn't down on that. It
Speaker 2: was just like, oh well, let me see what that's
Speaker 2: talking about. And it was like a sharing experience.
Speaker 1: It was a lot sharing, way more communal experience. We
Speaker 1: gotten a no limit, but it was more like with binoculars,
Speaker 1: let's see what they're doing a distance, Let's see what
Speaker 1: they're doing. I mean when the movie came out, we
Speaker 1: had it on the tour bus, but it's more like,
Speaker 1: look at those guys. But we I didn't realize that
Speaker 1: that ship was a culture.
Speaker 2: It's it was a that ship. Yeah, man, Yeah, it
Speaker 2: wasn't a movement, nigga. It was definitely a culture.
Speaker 1: Like you saw that no Limit tank.
Speaker 2: Out the way, and.
Speaker 1: Yet the thing that's curious to me is that you
Speaker 1: guys still decided to go to another pasture that not
Speaker 1: travel before down there, where it could have been easy
Speaker 1: for you guys to just go that route. I just
Speaker 1: think that that wasn't who we were, you know, because
Speaker 1: I've you know, I've been asked that question a lot
Speaker 1: about you know, why we chose was the route that
Speaker 1: we did and you know, for me, I think it
Speaker 1: was just an extension of who we were, you know
Speaker 1: what I mean. I mean the no limit stuff and
Speaker 1: like a lot of the South stuff that was popping
Speaker 1: at that time. You know, I enjoyed those records, and
Speaker 1: you know, they certainly had a place in my life,
Speaker 1: but I knew I couldn't live that, you know what
Speaker 1: I mean, And so I was like, well, the stuff
Speaker 1: that is more connected to me in terms of, you know,
Speaker 1: just who I am as a person and kind of
Speaker 1: where I want to live my life. It was tribe.
Speaker 3: It was calm and the roots, and you know, it
Speaker 3: was all the stuff from that kind of native tongue tree,
Speaker 3: and that was what felt right to us in terms
Speaker 3: of making records.
Speaker 1: Now, I'll say what attracted me to you guys when
Speaker 1: I first heard of you guys was the fact that, well, first,
Speaker 1: I mean, our listeners need to know exactly how ahead
Speaker 1: of your time you guys were as far as I mean,
Speaker 1: what people are doing now, as far as like do
Speaker 1: it yourself, making records, making final products in your houses,
Speaker 1: in your apartment, that sort of thing, which I mean
Speaker 1: is practically unheard of. I mean, for all the folklore
Speaker 1: of Rizza. Yeah, making the wood tanking stuff in his apartment.
Speaker 1: He still brought those aid debts to a real studio
Speaker 1: to polish them and all those things. So the first,
Speaker 1: you know, when you guys told me that all this
Speaker 1: stuff was made in your in your dorm room and
Speaker 1: on fruity loops and on computers and all that stuff
Speaker 1: like that was like talking Greek to me. I how
Speaker 1: did you guys even know? I mean, how are you
Speaker 1: guys even pioneers of just new ways of recording and whatnot?
Speaker 2: That's all we had, we black folk man, you know
Speaker 2: what I'm saying, working what you got? Like, we didn't
Speaker 2: have no studios, We didn't have no you know NiFe,
Speaker 2: didn't have no beat machine, like.
Speaker 1: I mean, point was it like? Because even with us,
Speaker 1: it was like, okay, well we got to get to
Speaker 1: a real studio one day. So like we pulled it
Speaker 1: up our money and just went to a real studio
Speaker 1: and no point is there.
Speaker 2: Like we heard what we had and what we were doing.
Speaker 3: It was like fuck that studio like this is and
Speaker 3: then were good and then too on top of that,
Speaker 3: and on top of that, you remember we heard, so
Speaker 3: we heard the stuff that we were making in our studio.
Speaker 3: And then we also heard the stuff that was coming
Speaker 3: out of the big studios at that time, right, and
Speaker 3: that shit was garbage, And so I think that kind
Speaker 3: of gave us even more confidence because we was like, Yo,
Speaker 3: if we're doing this shit in our fucking in my
Speaker 3: homies apartment and y'all niggas is going to ease.
Speaker 2: You know.
Speaker 3: It was mixed on this twenty four track or whatever,
Speaker 3: and the music still ain't good. So I think for
Speaker 3: me that was a big That was a big factor too.
Speaker 2: That's when I realized it was the man, not the machine.
Speaker 2: That's that's that's what that taught me.
Speaker 1: What were the alternative group names? A little? I mean,
Speaker 1: was it Little Brother? Just in automatic, like that's what
Speaker 1: we are. Did you have other that was the first name? Yeah?
Speaker 3: I think another one, The only one I can remember
Speaker 3: was Round Midnight. I remember we had that was one
Speaker 3: which things.
Speaker 2: That was one we had one that we just all
Speaker 2: knew it couldn't be used for a rap group. Flea
Speaker 2: market Mannequins.
Speaker 1: Oh, I remember that.
Speaker 2: I'm still wearing that ship for something. Why.
Speaker 3: I have no idea where that came from. I remember
Speaker 3: that name, but I don't know what the thought of
Speaker 3: it was. I think maybe I was like I was.
Speaker 3: I was listening to like Google dolls and like food Fighters,
Speaker 3: like I was into that ship. So I was trying
Speaker 3: to think of a name that sounded something like that, but.
Speaker 1: An alternative name that you get you all the booked
Speaker 1: at a club, right.
Speaker 2: Wait a minute, a lot of pissed off people.
Speaker 1: So what was the the the genesis of what we
Speaker 1: now know as the listening.
Speaker 3: At the beginning of it, man, the listening was Yeah,
Speaker 3: by this time, this is around two thousand and one,
Speaker 3: it's old one. Yeah, I graduated school in May and ninth.
Speaker 3: He was by this time he was fully fledged, like
Speaker 3: making beats. So the thing with Knife was that, you know,
Speaker 3: we met in ninety eight. I didn't hear a beat
Speaker 3: from him until like a year later. I didn't even
Speaker 3: know he made beats. He came to my room. We
Speaker 3: met in ninety eight. He came to my room one
Speaker 3: day and he had He's like, yo, man, I got
Speaker 3: something I want to play for you. He's like, yeah,
Speaker 3: I got the black Star bootleg.
Speaker 1: I was like, word, you got that?
Speaker 3: She's a hell yeah, And so we played the Black
Speaker 3: Star album. We was listening to the Blackstar record, and
Speaker 3: I was like, man, this shit crazy as hell, this
Speaker 3: shit dope. And so then I didn't see ninth again
Speaker 3: for like months at a time because.
Speaker 1: He was in school. But I don't think he was
Speaker 1: really in school. Yeah, he was a career student. Like
Speaker 1: how do y'all do that? Likes yo?
Speaker 3: If you get if you hang around the dorm, if
Speaker 3: you can get uh, you know, if you're good with
Speaker 3: somebody in the calf, you can eat. So if you ain't,
Speaker 3: even if you ain't got no meal playing, you know,
Speaker 3: you can get in the calf on especially on like Chicken.
Speaker 2: Day, nigga, come on anybody on Chicken Day. Every day?
Speaker 1: Essential was like the club. I was gonna say. At
Speaker 1: Treia School, they did not allow any rentals, wrap or
Speaker 1: foil uh inside their cafeteria for fear that you know,
Speaker 1: the students would steal the food and take it back
Speaker 1: to their dorm.
Speaker 2: Man.
Speaker 1: Listen, man, niggas took all kind of ship back from
Speaker 1: the dorm. We were taking so word everything.
Speaker 2: I mean, we had a takeout line in the calf
Speaker 2: so you can come and get your food and eat,
Speaker 2: like get it to go and lead.
Speaker 1: Straight up, straight up but h so, yeah.
Speaker 3: So around that time, you know, niney nine Poop ninth
Speaker 3: wasn't on campus like that. I've just kind of see
Speaker 3: him sporadically. But ninety he bring the Black starlebum to
Speaker 3: my room. We listened to it, and then in ninety
Speaker 3: nine he shows back up. And by this time we
Speaker 3: were in a new dorm. We were in the new residence,
Speaker 3: and so we had moved and we had like this
Speaker 3: little sweet or whatever, and so he come and he like, yo, man,
Speaker 3: I got some joints I want to play for you.
Speaker 3: And I was like, and I was thinking he had
Speaker 3: like another unreleased album, and he plays. He puts the
Speaker 3: tape in, plays it and I'm like, yo, this shit dope.
Speaker 2: Who is this?
Speaker 1: He's like, yo, this is me? I said, word, I said,
Speaker 1: He's like, you made these beats. He was like, yeah,
Speaker 1: these joints.
Speaker 3: I said, what you make them on? He said, man,
Speaker 3: I just make him on fruity loops or well no, no, no,
Speaker 3: I'm sorry. It wasn't frud loops at the time. This
Speaker 3: is even before fruit loops. He was using a program
Speaker 3: called called beat Nah. This was even before acid. It
Speaker 3: was called it was a program called be Box and
Speaker 3: he was using be box and cool at it to
Speaker 3: make to make tracks, and I mean again, it was
Speaker 3: unheard of me.
Speaker 1: I was like, nigga, what the fuck?
Speaker 3: Like, I was really on a computer and so but
Speaker 3: he had some joints and so one record he had
Speaker 3: was one Beat Had.
Speaker 1: I said, man, when you let me wrap over this?
Speaker 3: He was like, all right, cool, he said you really
Speaker 3: want to wrap I said, yeah, let me wrap over
Speaker 3: this joint. And I did a record called paper Lines
Speaker 3: and that was like ninety nine. That was like the
Speaker 3: first song me and him ever did together. And I
Speaker 3: remember doing it. I played it for pool, played it
Speaker 3: for just cats and our crew. They really they really
Speaker 3: fucked with it. And that was that was kind of
Speaker 3: when it all first started. So around the time, by
Speaker 3: the time oh one World Around, that was when the
Speaker 3: league had all, we was just recording so much shit
Speaker 3: together and it was still just kind of loose. But
Speaker 3: by this time we would had started work on a song.
Speaker 3: It was called Speed, and originally it was supposed to
Speaker 3: be me and Median. Median never shows up to the
Speaker 3: studio and so Pooh was there.
Speaker 1: I can't remember if you wrote with me to the
Speaker 1: studio that night or yeah, I think.
Speaker 2: I think I came up on the train and I
Speaker 2: wrote with you.
Speaker 1: Yeah, we came.
Speaker 3: We came to the studio together and I was like,
Speaker 3: I was like, well, ship Pool here like you you
Speaker 3: want to rocket? He was like, yeah, I rocket, And
Speaker 3: so we did that song together and that was it.
Speaker 2: That was just like the Speed.
Speaker 1: I know, that was their first joint together. That was
Speaker 1: the very first song we put together. Oh shit, okay, okay.
Speaker 1: So it's also explained to me who is in the
Speaker 1: Justice League? Okay, all right, I'm sorry should I say
Speaker 1: Justice League?
Speaker 2: That side was to remember the names, it's fifteen of them,
Speaker 2: and also.
Speaker 1: How do you how do you wrestle with that Justice League?
Speaker 1: And have y'all ever had a meeting a collective meeting?
Speaker 1: Like I talked to Rook.
Speaker 3: I haven't taught the rook in sometimes Rook from the
Speaker 3: Justice League, but it was it was always love, I love.
Speaker 1: Yeah.
Speaker 2: We met.
Speaker 1: At one point me and Brook was talking. This was
Speaker 1: years ago.
Speaker 3: He was like, yo, man, we need to do a
Speaker 3: Justice League meets Justice League, Like let's let's collab, let's
Speaker 3: do some ship and we were talking about doing it,
Speaker 3: but I know it just never happened. But it was
Speaker 3: never no, no, smoking's first. I think we were first.
Speaker 2: I think we were first. I think yeah, all right,
Speaker 2: all right, all right, so so Justice League members, Okay,
Speaker 2: so let's let's we're gonna do this the easy way.
Speaker 1: Start with the niggas on the phone.
Speaker 2: Yeah, me, and do you have nine? Did you have
Speaker 2: Sean Dawn? You have Seambu Crisis? Uh Na Cason right
Speaker 2: that Comanche? Hey, uh flacentriccentric Centric big legacy though leg
Speaker 2: lega thirteen.
Speaker 1: Were the crisis Crisis.
Speaker 2: I said crisis.
Speaker 1: You got crisis.
Speaker 2: I said crisis.
Speaker 1: You show your Allen Poe and Eggar Allan Poe or.
Speaker 2: Said flow the flow. I said, PoCA, Yeah, I got
Speaker 2: the flow. The reading nig I think that's it. I
Speaker 2: think forgetting. So it's fifteen. We forget.
Speaker 3: We got Mike Bird, we got Eccentric, we got some
Speaker 3: of your real got some of your got Bird, got
Speaker 3: Bird says all.
Speaker 1: We got book saves a crisis, leg crisis. I think
Speaker 1: what about the weight, you said, the Waight team. That's
Speaker 1: I think we got everybody.
Speaker 2: Median media damn median median.
Speaker 1: Yeah. Yeah.
Speaker 3: Another dude that showed up intermittently like he would just vanished.
Speaker 3: For like months at a time, and then just popped
Speaker 3: back up. That was that's that's been meetings and mo
Speaker 3: since I know him. Everybody needs your elk be in
Speaker 3: their life.
Speaker 1: Just shows up in here. That was him? Was it
Speaker 1: so with speed? Like when is the official like okay,
Speaker 1: are we a group? Or was it just like okay,
Speaker 1: what is this?
Speaker 2: I mean?
Speaker 1: Is it like a relationship where you're like, you know,
Speaker 1: like after the third date, then she's like, okay, so
Speaker 1: what are we? We are farmers.
Speaker 2: For that? I think like a day or two later,
Speaker 2: like we all just kept listening to the song and
Speaker 2: noticed the chemistry and said, hey, this sounds good. Let's
Speaker 2: let's make a few more and see how it come out.
Speaker 2: And a few more turned into a whole Lass album.
Speaker 1: Okay, Now I really want to now that I've established
Speaker 1: the story for those that are not familiar, now I
Speaker 1: want to get to my real first question because even
Speaker 1: more than the roots, like okay, okay, granted it's like
Speaker 1: eleven of us, but really the roots are two people,
Speaker 1: and it comes down to me Intarique and fifty to
Speaker 1: fifty is a little bit more easier than thirty three
Speaker 1: or three and third. So in the beginning, are you
Speaker 1: guys ever, like, what is the the democratic process of
Speaker 1: how decisions are made?
Speaker 2: Man?
Speaker 3: At that time, I mean, it was we had I
Speaker 3: think I thought was a fairly a good system that
Speaker 3: got kind of you know, corroded over time. But but originally,
Speaker 3: you know, it was the three of us. It was me,
Speaker 3: poor Knife, and Doe was our manager. So pretty much
Speaker 3: whenever it came down to do something, me, poor Knife
Speaker 3: would discuss it internally, and it's three of us, so automatically,
Speaker 3: somebody's gonna lose, you know what I mean. Sometimes I lose,
Speaker 3: sometimes Pool lose, Nfe lose, whatever. But whatever it was
Speaker 3: that we voted on, we would then go to our
Speaker 3: manager and be like, look, this is what we agreed on,
Speaker 3: this is what we're gonna do.
Speaker 1: And that was it.
Speaker 3: Once Ninth left the group, that was when things changed
Speaker 3: and we no longer had that kind of third swing vote,
Speaker 3: so to speak. So that was when for me, I
Speaker 3: think just the group became very taxing because it was just, yeah,
Speaker 3: it was, but yeah, particularly and hard as a twosome
Speaker 3: at that point because at that point in time, me
Speaker 3: and Pool hadn't really I don't think me and you
Speaker 3: had really talked like that.
Speaker 1: About what we wanted and about kind of at all.
Speaker 3: We didn't have none of them conversations, so we were
Speaker 3: just making a lot of them decisions on the fly,
Speaker 3: and you know, when you don't have a third person
Speaker 3: there to kind of help smooth things over, in some ways,
Speaker 3: it made it really hard.
Speaker 1: But in the beginning, that's what it was.
Speaker 3: It was the three of us, we make a decision
Speaker 3: and then just kind of told our manager what we
Speaker 3: wanted to do with it.
Speaker 1: So what were your initial goals for the listening? Was
Speaker 1: it like, Okay, we'll have these collection songs, we'll try
Speaker 1: to get a major deal too much.
Speaker 2: It was let's do these songs, sell them ourselves, and
Speaker 2: see what happens.
Speaker 3: Yeah, originally we was gonna do We was gonna do it,
Speaker 3: put it out ourselves because I was on I think
Speaker 3: I had like a credit card at that time, I
Speaker 3: had my little Discovery card and I was we was
Speaker 3: on disc makers and I was just running numbers. I'm like, yo,
Speaker 3: so how much if we just press this shit ourselves?
Speaker 3: And we moved out the trunk like I was, you know,
Speaker 3: doing it just in my mind, and I was talking
Speaker 3: to ninth about it. Because I remember we were in
Speaker 3: We were in the computer lab at h at at
Speaker 3: in C State. So another fun fact about this time,
Speaker 3: which I'm just now remembering. Even though the listening was
Speaker 3: recorded on a computer, none of us had personal computers
Speaker 3: at that time. Oh like none of us had personal computers.
Speaker 3: I didn't do get story Yo bro for real, Like
Speaker 3: I didn't have a computer. Ninth ain't had one. Ninth
Speaker 3: was using he was a courting. We was recording at
Speaker 3: Sazar Comanche's crib and he had a compact for Sario.
Speaker 1: So that was the computer.
Speaker 3: So whenever I wanted, whenever I wanted to get on
Speaker 3: like okay, player and ship nigga, that was all computer lab.
Speaker 3: So uh, my Homie Median he was a student at
Speaker 3: n C State but like not really a student, but
Speaker 3: he had an I D.
Speaker 1: So he was there. You know us we use Yo Reil,
Speaker 1: Yeah Leroy.
Speaker 2: Uh we used LeRoy's roommate, Uh, Louis Cheronis like he
Speaker 2: was the he was the cafe Nigga pretty pretty pretty
Speaker 2: low when we were this joint.
Speaker 3: And and then like when I was at Central like
Speaker 3: that that that my last year. That was when I
Speaker 3: was I was on the newspaper.
Speaker 1: I was an editor.
Speaker 3: I was the arts in arts and entertainment editor on
Speaker 3: our newspaper, and so I would be in a computer
Speaker 3: lab all the time.
Speaker 1: You know.
Speaker 3: That's when I would get all my OK player post off.
Speaker 3: But after that, I mean I was going home like nigga,
Speaker 3: we have no computers at.
Speaker 1: The crib, no cell phone?
Speaker 2: Shit Ty didn't he have a cell phone at that time?
Speaker 3: Yeah, I don't think I got my first cell phone
Speaker 3: probably like oh, what four something like that, some shit
Speaker 3: like that.
Speaker 1: Yeah, three four, Yeah, Boss, Bill, correct me if I'm wrong. No,
Speaker 1: this is literally the Bill Gates story. Bill Gates' story
Speaker 1: had a faulty ID that let him stay in the
Speaker 1: computer lab like fifteen hours a time. To be in
Speaker 1: the computer lab during Bill Gates day was like attaxing,
Speaker 1: like forty dollars an hour thing, but he never got
Speaker 1: charged for it. So then he was like, all right,
Speaker 1: I'm gonna stay in this motherfucker for fifteen hours a
Speaker 1: day figure out how to turn this big ass room
Speaker 1: into a laptop. So basically, sneaking in computer labs, barring
Speaker 1: other people's idea and whatnot, this is the Bill Gates story.
Speaker 3: That's what I wish we made Bill Gate's money, but really,
Speaker 3: but fate didn't have it that way.
Speaker 1: But but no, that was it. We were just doing
Speaker 1: those records.
Speaker 3: So at that time, yeah, the thought wasn't you know,
Speaker 3: at least for me, the thought it was just Okay,
Speaker 3: we made this record, let's just get it out so
Speaker 3: people can hear it.
Speaker 1: And you know, it was just.
Speaker 3: Like I don't think no one had a thought of
Speaker 3: where it was gonna go. I knew my life was
Speaker 3: gonna change. Like I can specifically remember the night when
Speaker 3: we finished everything and like we had the final mix
Speaker 3: down and sequence of the album and I just sat
Speaker 3: outside my apartment in the car just listen to the record,
Speaker 3: and I just I knew things were gonna change. I
Speaker 3: just felt that we had something special. It wasn't like,
Speaker 3: you know, yo, we're gonna be rich or we're gonna
Speaker 3: be whatever. But I specifically remember having the feeling of
Speaker 3: just like yo, like something is around the corner. I
Speaker 3: don't know what it is, but I know something's coming
Speaker 3: and at that time, and we just wanted people to
Speaker 3: hear it. That was the only that was the only
Speaker 3: mo What was.
Speaker 1: The first sign of that, of that assurance was it
Speaker 1: like your first out out of state show. Was it
Speaker 1: like a mentioned in the source or like, what was
Speaker 1: that moment where it was like, oh, ship happened.
Speaker 2: I think for me it was when uh, when Benny
Speaker 2: b got in touch with us, just to have somebody
Speaker 2: Benny B from ABB Records.
Speaker 1: Okay, so that was not your label, No, No, not
Speaker 1: at all at all.
Speaker 3: I thought that ABB was your Now ABB was Benny
Speaker 3: b Uh from the Bay Area. They they had put
Speaker 3: out like a lot of dilated people's twelve ines. That
Speaker 3: was kind of their claim to fame, uh, dillate people's
Speaker 3: the far Rye. They had put out like just a
Speaker 3: lot of stuff and they were known for just moving vinyl.
Speaker 2: Yeah.
Speaker 3: And that was how a buddy of ours, a promoter
Speaker 3: out this way bum rush DJ bum rush.
Speaker 4: Uh.
Speaker 3: He had to connected abb Ian Davis, I D and
Speaker 3: I D heard our stuff on the narre from all
Speaker 3: of us. We had posted on Okay player and all
Speaker 3: that shit, and we had the little site that was
Speaker 3: when Bossville had the John he had the Yeah, it's
Speaker 3: like he posted up to join us up on there.
Speaker 3: So it was just kind of spreading and so I
Speaker 3: G I D from A dB A B b caught
Speaker 3: wind of it and reached out. The bum rusher was like, Yo,
Speaker 3: you gotta line on these little brother dudes, and I
Speaker 3: d caught my crib you know what I'm saying one day, and.
Speaker 1: That's how we started talking.
Speaker 3: And that was how the ABB relationship, Uh, that was
Speaker 3: how we came to sign with them.
Speaker 1: So, Bill, were you the okay player that officially introduced
Speaker 1: okay player to introduced a little brother to Okay player?
Speaker 4: I guess, but I mean I got it through von
Speaker 4: p from currently a Tania Morgan and like Vaughn hooked
Speaker 4: me up with Eccentric and the Centric sent me like
Speaker 4: the Beasts for Love joint revisited and like so I was.
Speaker 4: I was a Ninth Wonder fan first and then I
Speaker 4: didn't even know about these two until later, Like I
Speaker 4: think I heard speeding away from me, like maybe not
Speaker 4: maybe like a week or two after that, and then
Speaker 4: I was like.
Speaker 1: Damn, what is this ship? Slot funked us too. He
Speaker 1: was another one.
Speaker 3: He was the one that really cause again we had
Speaker 3: no computers, let alone a way to build a website
Speaker 3: or none of that ship. So Slot was the one
Speaker 3: that had he had built like a little site for us,
Speaker 3: and he was like, yo, I can put some joints
Speaker 3: up for y'all.
Speaker 1: I was like cool.
Speaker 3: And I was working at Blue Cross Blue Shield at
Speaker 3: the time, and he would call me, you know.
Speaker 1: We would we would he would well he would DM
Speaker 1: me or PM.
Speaker 3: Me as we would call it back then, and he
Speaker 3: was like, yo, man, like y'all joints just crashed my server.
Speaker 1: I gotta like everybody been coming this ship. I was
Speaker 1: like word for real.
Speaker 3: And we just had like three folks songes up there.
Speaker 3: So slop was a big, a big part of that.
Speaker 3: Was it you and Ninth or you and Pool or
Speaker 3: were you alone?
Speaker 1: Would you?
Speaker 2: I wouldn't. I went to the Greensboro show.
Speaker 1: I didn't go to that one, Okay. All I remember
Speaker 1: was that we were doing a show and it was
Speaker 1: about to rain, and and said we should cancel this
Speaker 1: show because it's electric and whatever. And I'm like, dude,
Speaker 1: you wear Timberland's like no one's you ain't getting let
Speaker 1: you cuted, and he like protested that I think he
Speaker 1: didn't play this show or like walked off stage earlier
Speaker 1: or something shit, And I felt bad and I did
Speaker 1: something very uncharacteristic, like I'm never the guy that like
Speaker 1: goes in the audience and like, hey, how you doing.
Speaker 1: Thanks for you know. But some sit said, all right,
Speaker 1: go out there and shake hands for the first time
Speaker 1: in your whole career. And I did it, and you
Speaker 1: put it in my hand. You reminded me that this
Speaker 1: was the little brother I read about. Okay player, oh
Speaker 1: wow wow ok And normally, you know, normally anybody hands
Speaker 1: me disc is instant, uh, you know, coffee table coaster
Speaker 1: for me.
Speaker 3: For instance, about to break up my droll on your CD, nigga,
Speaker 3: I just I just thought it trash.
Speaker 5: Right now.
Speaker 1: I can't do that. I just leave it back backstage.
Speaker 1: I don't know, like I'm kind of proud of my
Speaker 1: track record like something. I was going to leave it
Speaker 1: backstage and I looked at it, and I don't know
Speaker 1: if it was the fact that you're handwriting like the
Speaker 1: the your your your front or whatever. You really Yeah,
Speaker 1: some spoke to me. I'm like, yo, he really puts
Speaker 1: some effort into this homemade uh this artwork. I was like.
Speaker 1: And I went back picked it up and listened to it,
Speaker 1: and I was like, holy shit, like I'm poor lone
Speaker 1: jealous of this, like like this ship and and like yeah,
Speaker 1: like I'll say that I've only you know, Jill Blow,
Speaker 1: Slum Village, Cody Chestnut and you guys. I'm sure I'm
Speaker 1: missing somebody else. But like something told me to listen
Speaker 1: to that shit, and that shit like that changed my life, man,
Speaker 1: because I personally didn't think I would at that time.
Speaker 1: I was concerned because there was the idea of a
Speaker 1: group existing was becoming endanger and in dangerous species. And
Speaker 1: I was like, yo, a real group, not not a
Speaker 1: bunch of soloists. And you know, from there then I
Speaker 1: just saw the word spread and spread and spread. So
Speaker 1: when it like, what was the decision to not go
Speaker 1: the slow and steady route and like, let's get it real,
Speaker 1: let's get a deal through atlantic and poverty. So as
Speaker 1: your own record label, all right, so what is it
Speaker 1: back then? What was what were the roadblocks and the
Speaker 1: potholes in being your own record label?
Speaker 2: You should have yeah, distribution, you didn't have directed consumer
Speaker 2: back then. But I think for for I can speak
Speaker 2: for me on this my decision. I think if abb
Speaker 2: if that experience would have been a better experience for us,
Speaker 2: it wouldn't have been a thing of well, man, let's
Speaker 2: go get this deal we'd have been it would have
Speaker 2: been more like shit, we good where we at, but
Speaker 2: the experience wasn't good because so, yeah, that makes the
Speaker 2: experience terrible. We still haven't gotten paid, So can I ask?
Speaker 1: Let me ask, Let me ask, all right? So that
Speaker 1: it came out on two thousand and two, two thousand
Speaker 1: and three, Yeah, two thousand and three. Okay, So had
Speaker 1: technology as we knew now in twenty twenty been available
Speaker 1: in two thousand and two, two thousand and three, would
Speaker 1: this had been a different outcome? Very different, very different.
Speaker 1: I wouldn't have fuck personally, I wouldn't have.
Speaker 3: Fucked with no label had we had it, you know,
Speaker 3: had we back then, you know, we already had the
Speaker 3: means of our own production.
Speaker 1: So we owned our means of production.
Speaker 3: We could make it ourselves, you know, if we had
Speaker 3: a straight pipeline that we could get it directly to
Speaker 3: our fans and see the money back.
Speaker 1: Man, fuck a label, straight up. But that was but poo.
Speaker 3: But you made a great point, you know, when you
Speaker 3: you know, you ask about what made us make that jump.
Speaker 3: You know, I really think an agree one hundred percent
Speaker 3: that had it, if our indie experience would have been
Speaker 3: better and we would have actually been like paid fairly
Speaker 3: and you know, according to our contract. If we would
Speaker 3: have actually been compensated for our work on an indie label,
Speaker 3: I think we would have been much.
Speaker 1: More hesitant about signing to a major.
Speaker 3: But at that time, you know, we we put out
Speaker 3: the records and you know, you're hearing all this buzz
Speaker 3: and you know, everybody's saying, oh, man, y'all about to
Speaker 3: blow up, y'all do this whatever. So then Atlantic comes knocking,
Speaker 3: and it was a bunch of labels that wanted to
Speaker 3: sign us at that time, but that kind of fed.
Speaker 2: Uh well, Mike Karen reached out first, but we were
Speaker 2: we were told, we got the word not to deal
Speaker 2: with him. So like we ended up.
Speaker 3: We met with Warner, We met with Jive, and then
Speaker 3: we met It's Warner and then it was Warner because
Speaker 3: Tom Waller. That's when we met Tom Wally.
Speaker 2: Tom Wally, we met with Rest of Peace, Chris Lighty
Speaker 2: and Peter THEO and.
Speaker 1: Jive to throw something. Yeah yeah, Chris Lighty, man, he
Speaker 1: came to.
Speaker 2: Me and to the club, took us to the crowd
Speaker 2: house and.
Speaker 1: Lighty yeah, like the thing was, Man, I'll never forget
Speaker 1: this ship. Man.
Speaker 3: I remember being in there and because this is around
Speaker 3: the time of Chris Lighty, like g Unit Holland on records,
Speaker 3: Chris Lighty, right, So the thing was, man. So we
Speaker 3: went into the meeting. We had a meeting at Jive,
Speaker 3: and you know, Chris Lighty comes in and we're all
Speaker 3: sitting there at the table. It's Chris Lighty, it's me
Speaker 3: Pooh Doe, our manager at the time, and Wayne Williams
Speaker 3: DJ Wayne Williams out of Chicago.
Speaker 1: We're all sitting in there. Williams from R Kelly, Yes, yes, yeah.
Speaker 3: R Kelly chosen a few DJs, Wayne Williams, you know
Speaker 3: what I'm saying. So he's in there, and so, man,
Speaker 3: so we we talking and stuff and and I remember
Speaker 3: Chris saying he was like, you know, man, I listened
Speaker 3: to y'all album and he's like, Yo, it tells the
Speaker 3: whole story. He's like, it's not just singles. He's like,
Speaker 3: you know, it tells a whole story. And you know,
Speaker 3: I really think I love what you guys are doing.
Speaker 3: I think, you know, we can push it. And I
Speaker 3: was just sitting there. I was like wow, and he
Speaker 3: was like, you know, man, I remember he's like. He
Speaker 3: was talking about fifty and he was like, you know,
Speaker 3: the whole thing with fifty was get ready to root
Speaker 3: for the bad guy. That was our whole marketing scheme.
Speaker 3: And I was like, yeah, it's like the movie Payback.
Speaker 3: And he was like, yo, I like this guy.
Speaker 1: I like this guy.
Speaker 3: You know, like it was funny. He said, yo, I
Speaker 3: like this guy. And I said, yeah, it was like that.
Speaker 3: He was like yeah, He's like, you know, that was
Speaker 3: my whole thing with fifty. And he said, but I
Speaker 3: really like y'all. He said, y'all are like different from
Speaker 3: everything else that's out and y'all really cut through the clutter.
Speaker 3: And he was talking. He started talking about his time
Speaker 3: at Death Jam. I never get this shit. He was like, yo,
Speaker 3: he said, man, you know when I was at Death Jam,
Speaker 3: he said. You know, I was fresh off the Mister
Speaker 3: Smith album, so I was the prince of Death Jam.
Speaker 3: He was like, I could do whatever I wanted, he said.
Speaker 3: And so the next record I signed was this this
Speaker 3: record called Crew now Me. You know, hip hop fucking
Speaker 3: rap NERD. I'm like, Nigga CW.
Speaker 1: I'm like, yeah, Dirty thirty. I love that fucking album.
Speaker 1: And he again he was like, yeah, I like this guy.
Speaker 1: I like this guy. I say this, I like this guy.
Speaker 1: I said, nah, man, Dirty thirty that was the shit,
Speaker 1: and he said something He's like, I never get it.
Speaker 1: He said yeah.
Speaker 3: He said, man, I love that record too, but just
Speaker 3: because you love something don't mean it's gonna sell.
Speaker 1: And I was like, damn, that's the fucking truth. But
Speaker 1: but yeah, man, he was.
Speaker 3: I you know, that was just my only encounter with Chris,
Speaker 3: but I really liked him. Man, I fucked with Chris.
Speaker 3: He was a straight shooter, you know.
Speaker 2: He you know, he's where we wanted to go. We
Speaker 2: wanted that's where.
Speaker 3: We wanted to go for real, because you remember, Job
Speaker 3: was like, they wanted to just re release the listening first,
Speaker 3: and that was.
Speaker 2: The problem because they them re releasing the listening means
Speaker 2: they now take some ownership, if not all, ownership of
Speaker 2: the album. And Benny Beef maybe b wasn't given that
Speaker 2: album up. He wasn't given that album up.
Speaker 1: And I'm sorry, Yeah, I guess we had to go.
Speaker 2: We essentially had to go where he was comfortable going.
Speaker 2: That's how we ended up at Atlanta, or we would
Speaker 2: have never went to Atlanta.
Speaker 3: And the only reason I think, well, I won't to
Speaker 3: say the only reason I know, A big reason why
Speaker 3: he chose Atlantic was because Atlantic let him keep his
Speaker 3: vinyl rights so atant and let him continue to press
Speaker 3: the all the LB vinyl, but they retained the rights
Speaker 3: for everything else.
Speaker 1: And so that was how we ended up at Atlanta.
Speaker 1: That's almost unpressing in it.
Speaker 4: That did he press anything up for the second album
Speaker 4: other than loving it twelve minutes.
Speaker 1: There was a minstrel show vinyl. I think there was Mister.
Speaker 2: Show vinyl, and I think it was a it was
Speaker 2: another single. I gotta look through my records. I think
Speaker 2: it's a single.
Speaker 1: Again again.
Speaker 2: Yeah, and then and then he reissued the listening in
Speaker 2: the Mystery Show a couple of years ago.
Speaker 1: It's like a year or two ago.
Speaker 2: Yeah, didn't he had a courtesy to send us in
Speaker 2: me of this fabulous reissues. Vinyl ain't paying us play
Speaker 2: Boy could gave us some vinyl ship that look good?
Speaker 2: It looks it looks snasty.
Speaker 4: You know.
Speaker 1: I have to ask you a question which is like, like,
Speaker 1: I know, know as not not trite, but as you know,
Speaker 1: as it not meaning something today as it once meant
Speaker 1: back in the nineties. But did it mean anything to
Speaker 1: you to see those four and a half mics in
Speaker 1: the source?
Speaker 2: Head all, yes, yes, it meant everything.
Speaker 3: Yeah, yeah, seeing the four and a half, seeing you
Speaker 3: know we got four on the listening because again this
Speaker 3: was something that you know, this is pre like you know.
Speaker 1: Social media, you know, for the blocks took over. Yeah.
Speaker 3: Yeah, so I mean we were literally hearing about this,
Speaker 3: so it will be like, yo, your words that y'all
Speaker 3: got four in the source, Like what, nigga?
Speaker 2: What?
Speaker 1: And then you see it.
Speaker 3: I remember like going to the you know, grocery store
Speaker 3: and buying the source and you see it and it's
Speaker 3: like holy shit, like this is really it's a real thing.
Speaker 3: And and I got like the hip hop quotable, and
Speaker 3: that to me was like holy shit, because.
Speaker 1: I grew up. Wait a minute, what did you get
Speaker 1: quortable for? I got it twice. I got it one.
Speaker 3: The first time I got it was for the Yo Yo,
Speaker 3: and then the second time I got it was of
Speaker 3: course my verse on the Off for you Off show.
Speaker 3: And that to me was just like man, holy shit.
Speaker 3: You know that was a moment. So yeah, that shit
Speaker 3: meant a lot back then. That should been a whole lot.
Speaker 1: Yeah, I tried to act like four and a half
Speaker 1: MIC's on mean, nothing like the story, but you know
Speaker 1: it's still hanging on my wall. No, four and a
Speaker 1: half is the real five. I mean, me and you
Speaker 1: talked about this a lot, But four and a half
Speaker 1: is the real five. It is. It is absolutely.
Speaker 2: So with.
Speaker 1: In hindsight, how was the mentreal show experience? Because there
Speaker 1: was so much expectations and so much was happening. I
Speaker 1: meant like Hoove was co signing you guys, like everybody
Speaker 1: was like all the stars were aligned, Like at the
Speaker 1: end of the day, what happened?
Speaker 2: Man? So have you been watching the Last Dance Bulls documentary?
Speaker 1: I just got them watching it, Okay, So I watched
Speaker 1: it at eight o'clock this morning.
Speaker 2: Ok So, the thing about it is like at the time,
Speaker 2: we only knew what we saw.
Speaker 1: So it was just like you just see the.
Speaker 2: You know, them going for the the you know, the
Speaker 2: third championship in the row for the second time, but
Speaker 2: you don't see all all of the underlying stuff that's
Speaker 2: going on during that time. It's just like, Yo, the
Speaker 2: concentration the motherfuckers had was amazing, And I look at
Speaker 2: the Mystery Show. It wasn't that dramatic, but it was
Speaker 2: dramatic enough for us. You know, I was twenty four
Speaker 2: to twenty five years old at the time, hadn't really
Speaker 2: experienced a lot, and we're trying to record this album
Speaker 2: major label, trying to keep maintain our sound, dealing with
Speaker 2: our own ship as a group at the time, because
Speaker 2: that was when the group really started to splinter during
Speaker 2: that time. And so you got all that happening, and
Speaker 2: then you have this album that people at the label
Speaker 2: say they excited for, but you know, there's some trepidation
Speaker 2: because of the title, and nobody, all the white people,
Speaker 2: they don't want to deal with this ship.
Speaker 1: Now, let me ask, Okay, so is this Craig Kelman
Speaker 1: or or Julie Like what era of Atlantic.
Speaker 2: Craig and Julie? When when when Death Jam took over? Yes?
Speaker 2: Or Kevin It's it's right, it's at the takeover. It's
Speaker 2: at the Death Jam takeover Warner. And so the real
Speaker 2: problem started before the ink was dry. On our contract
Speaker 2: with Atlantic. Robert Reef too low, I Rea.
Speaker 1: If you say, if you say his whole name, then
Speaker 1: this might not be good. He's gonna say it was
Speaker 1: it was Reefed there because he would seem like your
Speaker 1: biggest man.
Speaker 2: He started there. And then when we went into his
Speaker 2: office after the deal was done, we saw the boxes
Speaker 2: in there and he was on the way out. But
Speaker 2: it was it was, It was nothing more telling. Then
Speaker 2: we pulled up for a meeting one time and we
Speaker 2: were walking into the building in New York. We walking
Speaker 2: into the building and Rob and Reef is coming in
Speaker 2: at the same time, and he waiting at the desk.
Speaker 2: We're about to go upstairs. We're like, yo, what you're doing.
Speaker 2: He's like, man, I gotta wait to get to get
Speaker 2: let up our an R, right because he was no
Speaker 2: longer They let him get an R of the album.
Speaker 2: But he wasn't no longer. He was no longer employed.
Speaker 2: Man's was not an employee of it employee Like.
Speaker 1: And this how this how you're finding out?
Speaker 2: Yes, we found out.
Speaker 1: We found out Reef was fired when we came.
Speaker 2: Just like Bo said, we came to the building and
Speaker 2: you know, we realized that he had to get buzzed
Speaker 2: in just like we had to get buzzed and we're like,
Speaker 2: what the fuck.
Speaker 1: So then we get up to his office and we
Speaker 1: see all the boxes be like Niggy, like you really
Speaker 1: fired out this bitch and you know, and he was.
Speaker 3: I mean, I actually funny thing. We actually saw Reef
Speaker 3: in New York like last year. We was kind of
Speaker 3: doing our press run and I mean it's all love.
Speaker 3: I mean, it's you know, it was you know, I mean,
Speaker 3: everybody had to do what they had to do at
Speaker 3: that time. So it was no like hate or nothing
Speaker 3: like that.
Speaker 2: It was.
Speaker 1: It was it was all love. But but yeah, Reef bound.
Speaker 1: That was when he bounced. I think he went to
Speaker 1: Shady right who we went.
Speaker 2: To, or he wouldn't. I think, I know he ended
Speaker 2: up over at uh Shady Shade for five. But it
Speaker 2: was just one of them things where we we're in
Speaker 2: the building, we're new. They don't know what to do
Speaker 2: with us really because we're unlike what they have or
Speaker 2: what they what they had and we don't have an
Speaker 2: A n R h Our marketing guy James Lopez who
Speaker 2: now runs the Will Packer Productions. Uh so, James Lopez
Speaker 2: was marketing. He ended up being our marketing our A
Speaker 2: n R Our cheerleader. All we had him punching bag
Speaker 2: Rodney Johnson recipes to Rodney Johnson.
Speaker 1: Wait can I ask is was rig Morales there yet
Speaker 1: or was this before he came to Rigg? He was?
Speaker 2: Jay Brown ended up being there right before we left
Speaker 2: because Jay Brown was Lupe's A and R.
Speaker 1: This like the Hollywood shuffle music, like literally def Jam
Speaker 1: and Shady are just that's all. It was switching characters.
Speaker 2: So yeah, Julie too, man, Julie always was in our
Speaker 2: corner and she and she was with whatever, like as
Speaker 2: long as we came in and show her that we
Speaker 2: was passionate about what we wanted to do. She was witty.
Speaker 2: So shout out to Julie Greenwalk.
Speaker 1: Okay, so I love the title the Minstrel Show, but
Speaker 1: humor me, why did you decide to go with the
Speaker 1: minstrel show?
Speaker 2: Because we could call it nigga music.
Speaker 1: That you wanted to call that we wanted to call it.
Speaker 3: Was like, man, what we call the ship nigga music.
Speaker 3: And that was like the running we were with it.
Speaker 3: I think that might have lasted for like three.
Speaker 1: Weeks and then we realized, Okay, we can't call it album.
Speaker 2: They're not gonna let us do that. We didn't even
Speaker 2: think they were gonna let us do show, but.
Speaker 1: Nigga music in the pocket. It's like, we did want
Speaker 1: to call it nigga music. Wait, was there any red flax? Like,
Speaker 1: wait a minute, I don't know, because oftentimes I'll have
Speaker 1: to explain to white people what minstrel see is and
Speaker 1: they never know what it is. And then like they're
Speaker 1: already in the middle of you know, the swamp.
Speaker 2: So like.
Speaker 1: Man were thinking at the time.
Speaker 3: Man, at the time, I think they were. I mean,
Speaker 3: the one thing I got to give Atlantic credit for,
Speaker 3: you know, they let us do us. And so my
Speaker 3: main thought in going into the Mintel Show, particularly once
Speaker 3: we you know, signed to Atlantic, my whole thing was,
Speaker 3: we gotta show our fans that we can still do
Speaker 3: us on a major label, because around that time, you know,
Speaker 3: signing to a major label, in a lot of ways,
Speaker 3: it was kind of the kiss of death.
Speaker 1: You know what I mean.
Speaker 3: If you heard that your favorite band signed to a
Speaker 3: big label, the first thing as a music fan that
Speaker 3: your mind is like, ah, man in a scope, about
Speaker 3: the fuck they should up Atlantic, About the fuck they
Speaker 3: should up you know what I'm saying. So our whole
Speaker 3: thing was, well, man, first and foremost, we got to
Speaker 3: show our fans and we can still be us. You know,
Speaker 3: unapologetically us on a major label, and so Atlanta they
Speaker 3: stood behind that. You know, it was a gamble and
Speaker 3: you know, and they let us the record that y'all hear.
Speaker 3: That is the exact record that we took out of
Speaker 3: our computer in in Durham and put out to the world.
Speaker 3: And you know, from the stories I've heard just from
Speaker 3: so many cats on uh you know labels, that is
Speaker 3: something that rarely happened certainly didn't.
Speaker 1: It wasn't happening back then, you know what I'm saying.
Speaker 1: And we learned it using real facilities this time around.
Speaker 1: This was same thing. It was the same.
Speaker 3: We still recorded that one. I think by this time
Speaker 3: we weren't recording in Comanche's crib no more. We had
Speaker 3: the chop shop by that point.
Speaker 2: Yeah. We we actually had an office space that we
Speaker 2: dubbed the studio and it was the same ship was
Speaker 2: set up, same setup, just a communal space and not
Speaker 2: someone's apartment.
Speaker 1: Yeah, but it was the exact same setup. We had
Speaker 1: a computer, we had, Uh, we had a mic.
Speaker 2: We U was the.
Speaker 1: Road, We had monitors, wass.
Speaker 2: The same The same mic that I have in my
Speaker 2: my setup right now is the mic we recorded the
Speaker 2: Mystery Show, get back all that on.
Speaker 1: But mix wise, uh, guru mix it a real basically.
Speaker 3: Mixine mix it that baseline. That was probably like the
Speaker 3: only kind of upgrade I guess. You know what I
Speaker 3: mean is that, you know, Google, he mixed the baseline.
Speaker 3: But everything else, Man, that ship was straight out of
Speaker 3: our computers, and you know that was that was what
Speaker 3: it was. And I think we learned a valuable lesson too,
Speaker 3: you know when you ask about you know, what was
Speaker 3: the climate like in terms of us calling it the
Speaker 3: minstral show or whatever. I don't even know if the
Speaker 3: people around, if the if you know, the Julie and
Speaker 3: Craig and all them, I don't even think they got
Speaker 3: too much into the politics of it. I think they
Speaker 3: were just like, Yo, this is something new. These guys
Speaker 3: are buzzing. Let's just throw it out and see what happens.
Speaker 3: And one of the things that we learned that you know,
Speaker 3: me and Pooh learned and Pool was even doing now
Speaker 3: like in his uh career as a manager. You know,
Speaker 3: we we were very self contained. So we came to
Speaker 3: a label and in our mind we thinking like, yo,
Speaker 3: we got our artwork done, we got our music done.
Speaker 3: We know who we want to master, Like we came
Speaker 3: in with all that shit already, and in our minds
Speaker 3: it's like, yo, we're making the job of the label easier.
Speaker 3: But what really happens is that you don't have anyone
Speaker 3: to root for you because they don't have no one
Speaker 3: can lay a claim to your success. Like no one
Speaker 3: can say they're not personally invested in it.
Speaker 1: They got no investment, they got no skin in the game.
Speaker 3: So you know, that's one of the things that for
Speaker 3: us it was like hell yeah, but it ended up
Speaker 3: being a liability when trying to come into the measure
Speaker 3: label system because everybody is trying to look for a
Speaker 3: leg up.
Speaker 1: Every an R nigga want to be VP. Every mail
Speaker 1: room nigga want to be an.
Speaker 2: A n R.
Speaker 3: So everybody's looking for that thing to hold on to
Speaker 3: that's gonna be the star to take them somewhere else.
Speaker 3: And if they can't hitch their wagon to your star,
Speaker 3: then they don't give a fuck.
Speaker 2: Man. I still remember we gave Sycamore so much. We
Speaker 2: gave him the petty that Babyface gave Teddy Riley the
Speaker 2: other night.
Speaker 1: Like Sycamore down with uh Sycamore is the DJ Sycamore.
Speaker 1: He was was what do you wrong with?
Speaker 2: I remember who he ran, but I just know he was.
Speaker 2: He was fresh, he was fresh a and R over there.
Speaker 2: And because the crazy thing is Hip Hop wanted to
Speaker 2: be our an R. But Craig Callman wouldn't let us
Speaker 2: go over with Hop because Hop and G had the
Speaker 2: office over there, and Hop was like, YO, give me them,
Speaker 2: give me Saigon and it was somebody else and Craig
Speaker 2: Carman wouldn't do it, so he ended up giving us
Speaker 2: the Sycamore. And I remember us going to New York.
Speaker 2: We was working on I think, yeah, it became get Back,
Speaker 2: and we went up there and we just had we
Speaker 2: were just so off putting the Sycamore man, like, man,
Speaker 2: we know what the fuck were doing. Man, I don't
Speaker 2: even know why we're up here with you. No taking
Speaker 2: us off an all these producers and ship nigga. We
Speaker 2: don't need these niggas, like I know who that attitude
Speaker 2: that we had, man, and I was like, just like
Speaker 2: like you said, just thinking back on it as as
Speaker 2: a manager now with an artist that signed to Dreamville
Speaker 2: and in the Scope and another one on indie label
Speaker 2: Mellow Music, I just I understand now how off putting
Speaker 2: we were. And we didn't even allow them to treat
Speaker 2: us like stars. Like that was a big thing I
Speaker 2: noticed as well, because we were so self contained, we
Speaker 2: didn't allow them to pamper us, if you will, And
Speaker 2: and that it is very off putting to label folk because.
Speaker 1: They because the thing is man and the other thing too.
Speaker 3: Like I just kind of saw, is like how much
Speaker 3: the the record industry, you know, at that time, and
Speaker 3: I mean even certainly now, how much it perpetuates dysfunction
Speaker 3: and how much it requires that shit in order to
Speaker 3: remain a business model, because you know, like we were
Speaker 3: saying earlier, you know what made you sign the.
Speaker 1: Deal, Nigga was poverty, Like niggas was broke and shit.
Speaker 3: So like when I saw, you know, you know, a
Speaker 3: couple of weeks ago, months ago, whatever, when when Meg
Speaker 3: was going through that shit with her label and all
Speaker 3: that shit came out and they were talking about Meg
Speaker 3: the Stallion and her deal, and everybody was just oh.
Speaker 1: Well, you know, why don't you just get a lawyer
Speaker 1: and why don't you just get this Yeah, and.
Speaker 3: It's like, nigga, you don't understand the consequences that the
Speaker 3: artists are living in when they signed these fucking contracts,
Speaker 3: you know what I mean.
Speaker 1: It's hard to.
Speaker 3: Think two three years down the line when nigga rent
Speaker 3: is about to be due on the first, So you
Speaker 3: know what I mean.
Speaker 1: So you can't you know the circumstances of what you
Speaker 1: signed this shit.
Speaker 3: You know, the record industry the is the shit is
Speaker 3: pretty much a goddamn glorified payday loan, you know what
Speaker 3: I mean. It's more predatory lending than anything else, you
Speaker 3: know what I mean. So poverty and dysfunction, that shit
Speaker 3: is baked into their business model. So in a lot
Speaker 3: of ways, it again, it becomes a liability if you're
Speaker 3: an artist that is self contained, know what you want,
Speaker 3: show up on time, do your job, just do it whatever,
Speaker 3: because at that point they have nothing. They can't control
Speaker 3: you with nothing. And we were those dudes like we
Speaker 3: just didn't give a fuck. We were just like, yo,
Speaker 3: we make the music we want to make. If we
Speaker 3: don't get this look or that look or that look,
Speaker 3: who fucking cares. But so when you're a part of
Speaker 3: that bureaucracy, you can't be like that.
Speaker 1: So let me ask if if say, the outcome of
Speaker 1: the mental show turned out to be more rosier than
Speaker 1: what happened. Uh what we would you guys have delved
Speaker 1: into your next step, which was like uh, I mean
Speaker 1: for Pooh was like the Sleepers project, Fonte, You're you're
Speaker 1: making Foreign Exchange, uh with Nikola, like you're doing these
Speaker 1: side projects, still committed to the well. I mean then
Speaker 1: there's nine departure, so his leaving to do more production
Speaker 1: and whatnot, like your your next step was splintering up
Speaker 1: and taking a break for a while. But had the
Speaker 1: outcome been different, would you guys have even chartered off
Speaker 1: into the territory or the the outcome?
Speaker 2: The funny thing is the outcome of the Minstry show
Speaker 2: didn't even weigh in because the first Foreign Exchange and
Speaker 2: my album, my Sleepers album were done, already.
Speaker 1: Done fo y okay, I thought I've been sure it
Speaker 1: was two thousand and it was five, two thousand and five,
Speaker 1: four two thousand and five, okay, okay, And Sleepers came
Speaker 1: out in February of five. I forgot when that first
Speaker 1: Connecting Connector came out in oh four.
Speaker 3: It was it was like all four, I want to say, yeah,
Speaker 3: And we were working on those records, like with each other.
Speaker 3: So yeah, it was never a thing of like, you know,
Speaker 3: if Pool's like, I'm working on a record, I need
Speaker 3: a verse for that, all right, cool, I jump on it.
Speaker 3: He jumped on you know, foreign exchange records. So there
Speaker 3: was always you know, me just kind of being a
Speaker 3: student of the game. I always saw the groups that
Speaker 3: allowed themselves to kind of do their own thing, they
Speaker 3: seemed to work a lot better, you know what I mean,
Speaker 3: Like even with like Gang Star was kind of my
Speaker 3: example where Pream was doing remixes for everybody, but Guru
Speaker 3: had Jasmin tasks like that was his own thing that
Speaker 3: he did, and then they came together and do Gang Star,
Speaker 3: And so that was always my thought. So when it
Speaker 3: came to us throughing side projects and solo stuff, even
Speaker 3: went ninth with all the stuff he was doing, we
Speaker 3: were all very much a part of that, and we
Speaker 3: we championed that.
Speaker 1: Okay, So without making this, you guys's uh audio obituary,
Speaker 1: So then you all right, So I actually want to
Speaker 1: cut in Tarantino this skipping in the future, because I
Speaker 1: don't know the story of after me begging and begging
Speaker 1: and publicly began, We've we've talked about this story before
Speaker 1: in the salone episode of me trying to wield a
Speaker 1: Little Brother reunion into existence. But what was the straw
Speaker 1: that at least that unbroke the camel's back for you
Speaker 1: to be like, okay, like what you down? You down?
Speaker 2: I think it was just us becoming friends, Like we
Speaker 2: just had to take time to after we didn't speak
Speaker 2: for a while. We just had to take time to
Speaker 2: just become friends. And that just really and honestly, like
Speaker 2: for almost two years we didn't discuss making no music together.
Speaker 2: We didn't discuss It was more like, yo, how you
Speaker 2: doing in life? Like what's going on in your life?
Speaker 1: And then.
Speaker 2: Eventually once we did that show the next day, it
Speaker 2: was just it was unspoken, like I went to take
Speaker 2: house to pick my money up and he was like, yo,
Speaker 2: I'm cooking. He said, I'm cooking. I said I'll stay.
Speaker 2: You know what I'm saying, I'm not going to turn
Speaker 2: down the free meal. And we just was talking before
Speaker 2: everybody else pulled up, and it was just one of
Speaker 2: them things was like, man, how you feel? It was like, shit,
Speaker 2: I feel good? How you feel?
Speaker 1: Okay? So now I want to go back a little bit.
Speaker 1: How hard is it to walk away because for me,
Speaker 1: I know, for me and Tarique, like, yes, we were
Speaker 1: birds of a feather, best friends in high school, spending
Speaker 1: night each other's couches, you know whatever, do everything together,
Speaker 1: and then we start a business with each other, and
Speaker 1: we're just slowly now, we're just slowly now now that
Speaker 1: we're inching to fifty, we're slowly now inching back to
Speaker 1: where we were when we were fourteen and fifteen. But
Speaker 1: there was a period between ages twenty three to forty
Speaker 1: seven in which we were very committed business partners and
Speaker 1: it was like, no, matter what, this group is not dying,
Speaker 1: which doesn't make for good chemistry if you're you know,
Speaker 1: if you're making creative products. So it's likeing together for
Speaker 1: the kids, Yeah, is defeat. Did you feel a sense
Speaker 1: of like a dream deferred? Once it was like, Okay,
Speaker 1: this group is officially a rap and just put it
Speaker 1: on the shelf and you'll go that way and I'll
Speaker 1: go this way. I'll let you go. Uh.
Speaker 2: I think for me that didn't hit till later at
Speaker 2: the time when we stopped speaking. I think I was
Speaker 2: just I was so pissed, and I think we were
Speaker 2: so just frustrated at just a bunch of things and
Speaker 2: turn each other. That it was more like, fuck that ship,
Speaker 2: I'm gonna show this nigga. And later on I started
Speaker 2: to really sink in, like, yo, I think we fucked up,
Speaker 2: but it's too late to turn back now. Yeah, it
Speaker 2: was down this path.
Speaker 1: Yeah it was.
Speaker 3: I didn't realize that, I think. You know, at the
Speaker 3: time when when we you know, just said fuck it,
Speaker 3: I was just tired, you know what I mean. And
Speaker 3: I just you know, we had spent so many years
Speaker 3: just kind of in a pressure cooker together, just album
Speaker 3: mixtape tour, mixtape, album tour, and I was just fucking exhausted, man.
Speaker 3: And so at the time when we said, you know,
Speaker 3: it was over, I was like, Okay, well, you know,
Speaker 3: we hadn't really been, you know, because a lot of
Speaker 3: people asked, well, if the record, if you think if
Speaker 3: the record would have sold better, y'all would have stayed together.
Speaker 3: The thing about it, at the time when we broke
Speaker 3: up in Old Well, ninth Left and O seven and then.
Speaker 1: We improved twenty ten.
Speaker 3: At that time, that was when we were seeing some
Speaker 3: of our best shows. So you know, after Get Back,
Speaker 3: that was when we got a really big black audience.
Speaker 3: So our shows were still going up, Like, you know,
Speaker 3: we were doing really good business on the road, and
Speaker 3: you know, we could have kept.
Speaker 1: You know, going out there and getting that money.
Speaker 3: But I think it was a combination of just exhaustion
Speaker 3: and then just it wasn't fun, Like we just weren't
Speaker 3: enjoying each other, We weren't enjoying the experience. We were
Speaker 3: literally just coming on stage, just rap rap, rap, and
Speaker 3: then we would go off in two separate directions. And
Speaker 3: for me, you know, I mean, you know, you gotta
Speaker 3: make money. Money is important. But the minute this shit
Speaker 3: started feeling like a job, nigga, I'm gone. I didn't
Speaker 3: get in this shit because I wanted to.
Speaker 1: Work a job. I could have kept my job, you know.
Speaker 3: I got in this to, you know, make a living
Speaker 3: and be around people I love and us build something together.
Speaker 1: And once this shit became work, it was like, man,
Speaker 1: fuck this.
Speaker 2: And for me it was, like I said, it was
Speaker 2: just I think for me it was just hard just
Speaker 2: looking at the scene at the time and it was like, Yo,
Speaker 2: this shit is wide open. This is what we fought
Speaker 2: all them fucking years for is to get to this point,
Speaker 2: and we got here. We're the man in the cave
Speaker 2: that all we had to do was hit that take
Speaker 2: that pitchfork and hit that dirt one more.
Speaker 1: Time and the diamond all the diamond.
Speaker 2: Yeah, but we turned around and walked away where that
Speaker 2: where that guy, Like, that's that's how I felt, just
Speaker 2: how everything turned around, and I was just like, damn,
Speaker 2: we missed an opportunity there. But like you said, man,
Speaker 2: we just exhausted, man, just with each other, with the situation,
Speaker 2: with just everything. It was just like, man, I just
Speaker 2: need time to go be free over here by myself
Speaker 2: or doing some other ship and yeah, get back.
Speaker 3: But that was our last album, We Owe ABB And
Speaker 3: after that that was like freedom. I felt freedom in
Speaker 3: a way that I hadn't felt in a long time.
Speaker 3: And that was when I met I was like, nigga,
Speaker 3: fuck a label, Like fuck we out this deal. We're
Speaker 3: free of Atlantic abb Man, fuck this ship. And that
Speaker 3: was when me and Nick form e fie music after that.
Speaker 1: Okay, all right, so everyone that listens to the show
Speaker 1: knows Fonte's disdain for me holding on tightly to politically
Speaker 1: correct non gotcha questions. Go in something we talk about whatever.
Speaker 1: We're in the age of the Roman, Nick, the.
Speaker 2: Age of the Roman, so.
Speaker 1: Should I will publicly into the future a reunion of
Speaker 1: the original unit of this group. Well, I can tell
Speaker 1: you this, damn you already started. Okay, you can, you can,
Speaker 1: you can.
Speaker 2: You can say out loud and put into the air
Speaker 2: as much as you want, Brother Amir, I can tell
Speaker 2: you what ain't gonna Happensten.
Speaker 1: Listen, listen, wait, listen, hear me.
Speaker 2: I know my ass already, but I listen because I believe.
Speaker 1: Okay, for those that never heard the salone episode, I
Speaker 1: went on Twitter, I think in I was at least
Speaker 1: at fallon at the time. It's like twenty twelve thirteen.
Speaker 1: It nah, this was later than that. This was this
Speaker 1: is about twenty.
Speaker 2: This yeah, oh yeah, that was about twelve thirteen is
Speaker 2: I decided.
Speaker 1: You know what I'm gonna will. I'm a publicly will
Speaker 1: a Little Brother reunion for the greater good, you know,
Speaker 1: the rof the hell's paid with great intentions. Facts I
Speaker 1: put it. I put a tweet out there. I was like,
Speaker 1: I want little I forget the exact wording, but it's like,
Speaker 1: I'm willing a Little Brother reunion because damn it, I
Speaker 1: need it. And you know, Fante kind of did the
Speaker 1: you when Chappelle man, I was like, nah, man, chill,
Speaker 1: don't do that.
Speaker 2: Chill.
Speaker 1: I tried, I tried. I tried to defuse the bomb
Speaker 1: and you did it like yo man, my wife and
Speaker 1: my wife is here like like what are you doing?
Speaker 1: Like that sort of thing. He gave an example of
Speaker 1: like yo, man, this is like me putting out there
Speaker 1: like you and salons and da da da da da.
Speaker 1: And then Salon saw our name says wait wait me
Speaker 1: and a mirror what and then it caused what a time?
Speaker 2: I saw all that. That's all the fireworks.
Speaker 1: Yeah.
Speaker 2: Yeah, we weren't even talking at that time. We were
Speaker 2: talking at that time, but that ship went off.
Speaker 1: That was crazy. My whole point was that this still happened,
Speaker 1: and you said it would never happen. So that's it.
Speaker 1: It never happened. Is it possibility? What were you saying?
Speaker 2: Oh, back back to my answer. That was a nice story,
Speaker 2: like this is the thing, this is this, yeah, this
Speaker 2: is this is the thing. We when we came back
Speaker 2: this time, we realized the fundamental differences as men, and
Speaker 2: you can't get past that fact, like he is who
Speaker 2: he is, we are who we are, and we see
Speaker 2: things differently than the way he does, and the clarity
Speaker 2: is there, and that's just it like, because for me,
Speaker 2: the thing I always said about little Brother, even when
Speaker 2: we weren't talking, when we weren't making music, the magic
Speaker 2: in the music was that it was our relationship. It
Speaker 2: wouldn't the fact that ty Dope, I'm Dope night Beast
Speaker 2: for Dope. It's our relationship. It's the way we approach records,
Speaker 2: the way we made records. You can hear the joy
Speaker 2: in the records. In our later records, you can start
Speaker 2: to not hear that joy, and little, yeah, a little
Speaker 2: by little it was gone. And so when we came
Speaker 2: back to do which ended up being made a little watch,
Speaker 2: me and Tay had a talk and it basically was like, listen, man,
Speaker 2: we here to do this for each other, were here
Speaker 2: to have fun doing this shit, and nigga anything more
Speaker 2: than that, we ain't. It's whatever, like, we ain't here
Speaker 2: for it. And we realized very quickly that we saw
Speaker 2: things that way he did not, And so it's just like, Yo,
Speaker 2: we're good like we're good like we're.
Speaker 1: Good when when's the last time you guys have spoken
Speaker 1: to ninth twenty eighteen, the twenty. For me, it was
Speaker 1: more than you it bro it was twenty eighteen.
Speaker 2: You was twenty eighteen. For me, it was twenty nineteen.
Speaker 2: It was March twenty nineteen.
Speaker 3: Yeah, because it was right time Nip died and yeah, yeah, yeah, Marsh, Yeah,
Speaker 3: it was March sween nineteen.
Speaker 1: Yeah for me at twenty eighteen.
Speaker 3: The last the last time we actually saw each other,
Speaker 3: like saw saw each other was yah yeah come back
Speaker 3: Articicol Festival. Yeah, so August twenty eighteen, that was the
Speaker 3: last time we saw each other.
Speaker 1: And that performance was just someone saying, hey, who was missing?
Speaker 1: Who was supposed to Royce? Yeah, Royce Man. Who's the
Speaker 1: person that was the point person who reached out to him?
Speaker 3: It was so's my man, Suleyman Massi. He's a promoter
Speaker 3: and he runs now he owns the ARTICLEP Festival with
Speaker 3: the music festival that goes on down here in Durham
Speaker 3: and Royce Msster's flight and me and Suleiman, you know,
Speaker 3: we had a working relationship. He had booked for an
Speaker 3: exchange a bunch of times, so we knew each other
Speaker 3: just you know, over the years, and so he reached
Speaker 3: out to me and was like, yo, man, Roycemster's flight
Speaker 3: that you want to do a solo set and I'm
Speaker 3: literally at home in you know, a T shirt and
Speaker 3: my boxer was just like doing nothing and U I said, well,
Speaker 3: let me check and see if it's even possible.
Speaker 1: So I ended up making the calls.
Speaker 3: I called reached out to Flash it was my two
Speaker 3: DJ first he didn't get answer for him, so then
Speaker 3: I reached out to Knife and me and Knife had
Speaker 3: been hanging in Durham that previous night, so I hit him.
Speaker 3: I was like, hey, man, Suley Min hit me by
Speaker 3: wanting to do this this show, you know, would you
Speaker 3: would you DJ for me?
Speaker 1: He was like, yeah, I'll DJ for you. And I said, man,
Speaker 1: you know it'd be crazy, man, what if we get
Speaker 1: Pool involved in this shit? And he was like, oh hell,
Speaker 1: I mean he was.
Speaker 3: He was super reluctant about it, but you know, I
Speaker 3: you know, kind of twisted his arm and he was like,
Speaker 3: all right, cool, you know, I'll do it. And I
Speaker 3: called Pooh and hit SULEI mine back and we got
Speaker 3: everything sorted out and so that all came together within
Speaker 3: the matter of three four hours. I mean, it was
Speaker 3: super super fast, and that was it. I mean that
Speaker 3: was kind of what started it. And that was the
Speaker 3: last time the end. And at the end, it wasn't
Speaker 3: like yeah, I enjoyed that. It was absolutely yeah.
Speaker 2: I mean the funny, the funny part about it was
Speaker 2: foreshadowing in life. I didn't see him when it was over,
Speaker 2: Me and Tate, no, no lie, no bullshit. Like me
Speaker 2: and Tate walked back up to the to the to
Speaker 2: the r VS, which were our trailers, and he didn't
Speaker 2: because he went down there to the stage before we did,
Speaker 2: and he didn't go back up when we went up,
Speaker 2: and I ain't seen him since we walked off that stage.
Speaker 2: We took like two pictures together, and then I was like, man,
Speaker 2: fuck this, I ain't got to stay down here taking
Speaker 2: all these pictures and going going upstairs to get drunk
Speaker 2: like and Tab was like, nig I'm going upstairs too,
Speaker 2: and we went upstairs and I didn't. I haven't seen
Speaker 2: him since. Like, no lie, no cat, as the young
Speaker 2: people say, no cap.
Speaker 1: Not a cat, not a cap at all, No cap,
Speaker 1: no fedora, no none of that shit, because a man
Speaker 1: he couk twenty twenty two. I'm getting you all life, coach.
Speaker 2: We don't need one man.
Speaker 1: Were good.
Speaker 2: Not for this.
Speaker 3: I mean, if you want to coaches talk about childhood
Speaker 3: trauma and ship like that, we talking about that.
Speaker 2: That's something totally different. We're good on this. You don't
Speaker 2: work this out.
Speaker 1: We don't go all the way out. Okay, all right,
Speaker 1: I feel you, man, you know, no, no, no, no,
Speaker 1: I'll take that. Look, this is this is a little
Speaker 1: this official Little Brother reunion. I'll take it. The album
Speaker 1: is banging. You're happy to have been a part of it.
Speaker 1: So what happens?
Speaker 5: Uh?
Speaker 1: Okay, So obviously we're in the edge of the rona
Speaker 1: now where all the breaks have suddenly halted on our
Speaker 1: professional lives. And you know what happens now is this
Speaker 1: time for a new album?
Speaker 2: Is it making it through the rona?
Speaker 1: Man?
Speaker 2: That's all that's all you can do right now, one
Speaker 2: day at a time.
Speaker 1: Yeah, one day.
Speaker 2: You know people always asks about another album. Man, it's
Speaker 2: one for us. It's just one of them things.
Speaker 1: Where it's like, let's be like you're lucky you got
Speaker 1: the one you got.
Speaker 2: Not only that, but like we both have just a
Speaker 2: lot of other things that we have going on, and
Speaker 2: you know, like I manage full time. So luckily Big Dough,
Speaker 2: my partner so he was able to pick up a
Speaker 2: lot of that slack and.
Speaker 1: And what is that into now? Who being a manager
Speaker 1: being a suit Listen.
Speaker 2: Man, let me tell you something, bro. This ship is
Speaker 2: this ship well you can't see him in the camera,
Speaker 2: but I got a lot of grades down here, now, man,
Speaker 2: got a lot of grades. Man, it's you know, it's
Speaker 2: for me. It's just one of them things. Man. I
Speaker 2: just love music, and I love the guys that I have,
Speaker 2: and I believe in them full force, and I just
Speaker 2: want to see them accomplish some of the things that
Speaker 2: they want to accomplish, if not everything. So I'm I'm here,
Speaker 2: I'm right or die. That's why I don't have a
Speaker 2: lot of clients, man, Like I gotta I gotta feel
Speaker 2: goosebump when I hear you for the first time. And
Speaker 2: all these guys I had that feeling. But it's hard, man,
Speaker 2: it's stressful. It's three it's three different people, three different personalities,
Speaker 2: three different levels in their careers right now.
Speaker 1: But you're using you're using the wisdom all of it
Speaker 1: that you all right, but that you have. But this
Speaker 1: is the thing.
Speaker 2: How old are the thirty thirty thirty thirty one and
Speaker 2: twenty four.
Speaker 1: Young.
Speaker 2: Yeah, and this is this is the thing I tell
Speaker 2: people I have. I have a lot of wisdom, right,
Speaker 2: I have a lot of wisdom, but this is their careers,
Speaker 2: so I don't I don't rule with the iron fists.
Speaker 2: I'm more of a let's have a conversation about whatever
Speaker 2: the situation is. That's way to pros the cars. I'll
Speaker 2: give you my advice, I'll give you some you know,
Speaker 2: some anecdotes if I have any. But at the end
Speaker 2: of the day, you have to make a choice for
Speaker 2: you because it's your career, and I'm gonna ride whatever
Speaker 2: that choice is, whether I agree or not, but it
Speaker 2: has to be your choice because you gotta go out
Speaker 2: here and sell it.
Speaker 1: Shit exactly.
Speaker 3: We were always kind of on some when it came
Speaker 3: to us dealing with other acts whatever. We always kind
Speaker 3: of on some tigos to the runner shit, just in
Speaker 3: the sense of, you know, like he said, as like,
Speaker 3: I can have my thoughts about it, but if it's
Speaker 3: a song you believe in, you the one that's gotta
Speaker 3: walk out here on this shit, not me.
Speaker 1: It's it's your name that's attached to it. So I
Speaker 1: could hate the fucking song.
Speaker 3: But if you love it and this is what you
Speaker 3: believe in, then I'll stand behind you on it, cause
Speaker 3: it's you the one that's gotta sell.
Speaker 1: It, and it's gonna follow you.
Speaker 2: It's gonna follow you, right. I think the best thing
Speaker 2: for me, the best thing for me and my position
Speaker 2: is I have a legacy that's cemented. Whether I stopped
Speaker 2: today and just go back to being Thomas Jones and
Speaker 2: go work at the airport or some shit, like, my
Speaker 2: legacy is cemented already, so I don't have that fear
Speaker 2: of the fuck up. And it's just like, Yo, let's
Speaker 2: let's let's go, Let's go fast, let's go hard, and
Speaker 2: if we suck up along the way, it's gonna happen.
Speaker 2: Mistakes going to hunted and mistakes going ten. There's two
Speaker 2: different type of mistakes. Let's go on hunting and that's
Speaker 2: just what we do.
Speaker 1: Yeah, yeah, I was. I was thinking that.
Speaker 3: We had Jimmy jam on you know the other day,
Speaker 3: and you know, he was talking about how his wife,
Speaker 3: you know, how he got involved in the Grammys and stuff,
Speaker 3: and it was his wife that was telling him like, Yo,
Speaker 3: this is what you're supposed.
Speaker 1: To be doing. Now, you know what I mean?
Speaker 3: And that really resonated with me because it kind of
Speaker 3: reminded me. I think that was a lot of what
Speaker 3: me and Pool would have conversations with about. Made The
Speaker 3: Lord Watch one of the earliest conversations we had. After
Speaker 3: we finished the record. The first thing we thought about was, Okay,
Speaker 3: how can who can we help, Like, now that we've
Speaker 3: done this, how can we use this new platform we
Speaker 3: have to you know, jump somebody the l fall so
Speaker 3: help you know, someone else. And so when it comes
Speaker 3: to you asked about doing another album for me, you know,
Speaker 3: that record just took a lot, Like it took everything
Speaker 3: out of me because it was so much we knew
Speaker 3: we had to get right. And I mean, you know,
Speaker 3: and you always, you know, not to say that it's
Speaker 3: ever been, you know, records that we have stepped on
Speaker 3: or like purposely just did some bullshit or whatever.
Speaker 1: I mean, we always put our best foot forward.
Speaker 3: But we made a little Watch that was just a
Speaker 3: draining process because we did everything ourselves, you know.
Speaker 1: What I mean.
Speaker 3: We cleared our samples, we were budget label studio, the.
Speaker 1: Whole nine, you know what I'm saying.
Speaker 3: So it just took so much out of us both
Speaker 3: and I think in terms of us doing another record,
Speaker 3: For me, it really just came down to I just
Speaker 3: wanted us to do something, So where now the errors
Speaker 3: out of the room. So now if I just want
Speaker 3: to jump on a song for his album, well he
Speaker 3: jumped on song on my album. We can just do
Speaker 3: a fucking song and that be the end of it.
Speaker 3: It's no more discussion of oh, well what does this mean?
Speaker 1: And nigga just mean we did the song together, you
Speaker 1: know what I mean. So we have the freedom to
Speaker 1: do that now.
Speaker 3: And if another record comes, if we feel like we
Speaker 3: got something else to say, you know, we can do that.
Speaker 3: But as of right now, speaking for me, I'm just
Speaker 3: kind of enjoying the peace of just having you know,
Speaker 3: my brother back in my life again and us being
Speaker 3: able to use our influence to help other people.
Speaker 1: Like that's the most that's the most joy the joyous
Speaker 1: part of it for me.
Speaker 2: And we still got cities we ain't touch yet because
Speaker 2: of the role No man, straight up, we ain't been
Speaker 2: to New York, Houston, Detroit, to roder Boston. We ain't
Speaker 2: did a show at the crib sits the festival, like man,
Speaker 2: y'all ain't getting no album to that happen.
Speaker 1: Five Hey, man, burden hand a burden in hand, beast
Speaker 1: two in the bush. I mean I wanted a new
Speaker 1: Little Brother record. You got it, I got I got
Speaker 1: a Christmas gift. I'm not being greedy. Thank you. I
Speaker 1: appreciate it. Thank you for this, man.
Speaker 2: Yeah, man, And and I always wanted to thank you,
Speaker 2: Amir for I don't know if you remember, but we
Speaker 2: did a show at the t l A. This is
Speaker 2: this is around, this is the listening time, and you
Speaker 2: came to the show, and I.
Speaker 1: Know what you're talking about.
Speaker 2: I remember you said, Yo, I want to buy some
Speaker 2: CDs from y'all, and we said, okay, how many you want.
Speaker 2: You paid for thirty c ds. You left them CDs there,
Speaker 2: I did so we were able to resell them CDs
Speaker 2: money in the half, and we needed that money.
Speaker 1: So I.
Speaker 2: Thank you for that.
Speaker 1: That's that's a very mere thing to do. But I
Speaker 1: think I also did it on Donald's Got Niggas Back
Speaker 1: Down ninety five show it all right? Well, look I'm
Speaker 1: wrapping up the show, man, Yo, I want to thank
Speaker 1: you all for doing this show under under these circumstances.
Speaker 1: I never thought i'd get the Little Brother episode, but.
Speaker 3: You know what though, man on some Brittain, this is
Speaker 3: just my mind working post edible. How poetic is it
Speaker 3: that we all met on the internet and now we're
Speaker 3: doing our show. My god, can't do do it?
Speaker 1: It's only right Well on behalf of Big Pooh, Fanticicolo,
Speaker 1: Boss Bill, the rest of the team Supreme. Yeah Sugar, Steve,
Speaker 1: unpaid Bill and oh my god, I was about to
Speaker 1: see you out getting cigarettes anyway, I'm back now all
Speaker 1: are you good? All right? This is a quest Love
Speaker 1: and thank you for tuning in and we will see
Speaker 1: you on the next go round of Quest Love Supreme.
Speaker 1: Thank yous. What's Love Supreme is a production of iHeart Radio.
Speaker 1: For more podcasts from iHeartRadio, visit the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts,
Speaker 1: or wherever you listen to your favorite shows.