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