00:00:15 Speaker 1: Pushkin. One of the most important artists of my life is Tupac Shakor. One of the earliest memories I have, in fact of watching music on TV is seeing Tupac Shacor on SNL and then Biggie not that much later. But since Tupac died in Las Vegas, there's been all kinds of conspiracy surrounding his life and death, and his legacy has been picked over in ways that feel kind of demeaning to his music and to who he was as a person. So I've always avoided any interviews that have anything to do with Tupac. That is, of course, until moprim Shakor, Tupac's half brother, put out his new book This Thug's Life. Moprimam himself is a rapper, filmmaker, and record producer living at the intersection of revolutionary politics and hip hop. He's also one of the only surviving members of Tupac's group Outlaw Mortals, and the only surviving member of Tupac's other group, Thug Life. He was raised along with Tupac and the tradition of black liberation activism them and shaped by the streets of Queens and also the stages of the world, not just with his brother, but with his own groups and also, believe it or not, with Oakland's own Tony Tony Tony Moprim is one of the only people you can go to to get the truth about Pac and for the first time, Moprim is telling his story. It's the first ever insider account of the Shakuor family, a book about brotherhood, survival, movement building, and of course the making of Tupac's legend. This is broken record, real musicians, real conversations. Here's my interview with Moprim shakur Yo. There's so much to say, so. 00:01:54 Speaker 2: You gotta come up with for dinner. 00:01:55 Speaker 1: Man, please please, man, more than happy if you guys have ever in Long Beach, man a come through. We right up here, happy to come through any time. 00:02:05 Speaker 2: Man. 00:02:06 Speaker 1: I have a lot of love of a lot of love for you know, have a lot of love for your family, appreciate you. A lot of love for the black panther struggle, for the struggle for black liberation. Absolutely, and uh so just the fact that you know these are all the things that you come from. I mean, it's just going through your book. I mean, I guess we could start at the end here. Please my book y'all know, I mean, it's so it's really well written, it's beautifully written, and we've set a lot of histories, but just just the closing graph. And when you think about this, when you say the closing graph, Thug and Piece, Tupacamarshakor, Fanny Shakur, Matulus Shakur, Joseph Uncle, Joey Harding, Falani, Suni, Ali, Yaki Kadafi, Quincy Jones, Lisa, Leftie Lopez, Clarence Henry, you know, Shock, g Big, Psych, Stretch, Big d Evans, Nate Dog, John Singleton, g Money, Young, Noble Laylah. I'm not even naming everyone. Johnny cockran Uh, I mean geroniment to Joga Prat. I mean, there's so many lives that both you and your brother yeah, touched by and and it's just incredible, man, It's just incredible. 00:03:23 Speaker 3: Ye it's been a ride, you know, you know, the younger part of our lives were busy trying to live it. 00:03:30 Speaker 2: And uh now in my latter. 00:03:33 Speaker 3: Years, you know, been thinking about the impact and you know, we weren't perfect, but we made an impact. You know, I feel like we impacted our communities positively. So being that we've lost so many family and crew. You know, so I'm one of the few that could tell a story to been around the longest. 00:03:58 Speaker 1: How long had you been wanting to tell this story? I mean, what did it? Did it take you get into a certain point where you felt you could reflect and then and then get it down. 00:04:07 Speaker 3: Or did you I started when I was locked up. I was locked up doing something silly. I'm sitting there thinking about myself and thinking about my life, and I'm like, Okay, this would be a productive thing to do. Get started on because I knew it was gonna be necessary then and over the years, do a little bit, keep going, do a little bit. 00:04:30 Speaker 2: Then we got to the point where I needed help. 00:04:33 Speaker 3: And then uh, bean, Talia, you know once, you know, once we got together on an and agent shout out to John. 00:04:43 Speaker 2: It was it was it was an experience. It's a lot of work. It was more work than I thought. Yeah. 00:04:47 Speaker 1: Yeah, but I mean, thank god you have a great wife and Talia. It seems like she really helps you keep She really seems to know your history, man or care and deep deeply care and knows it. 00:04:57 Speaker 3: She's highly educated, She's Ford fellow. 00:05:01 Speaker 2: Uh you know what I'm saying, and why you masters all that. I ain't got all that. I got it. I got a street PhD. You know what I'm saying. But uh, all the academic work is, you know, to her credit, it's amazing. 00:05:15 Speaker 3: And you know she has a degree in Africana studies and Latin history and studies, you know, which was necessary in my story because a lot of my family was connected to these international issues. You know, we were Pan Africans, pan Africanism. You know, my father helped fight and revolutions in Africa. 00:05:41 Speaker 2: You know, so you thought it was necessary. 00:05:45 Speaker 1: At what point in your life did it hit you like, what being the son of a tul like that, you were the son of a tulushah Kore and what that the heaviness of that, what that entailed? 00:05:54 Speaker 2: When I was. 00:05:58 Speaker 3: When I was like fourteen, and I saw the article in the New York Times. 00:06:09 Speaker 2: A terrorists WHOA You. 00:06:11 Speaker 1: Tell the story in the book about coming to the top of the stairs one night because you heard your dad arguing with someone and you see a bag of rifles and you're thinking, yeah, yeah, And I. 00:06:24 Speaker 2: Hadn't seen him kind of rifles before I was a shorty. 00:06:26 Speaker 3: I was like seven seven eight and I was like, yo, I don't want of news with me. You got a bunch of them in there. I don't want of them to me, you know. I was so, you know, but I knew related to something intense and serious because he was arguing with my brother's mother Moto at the time. 00:06:51 Speaker 2: I was like, whoa. 00:06:53 Speaker 3: And I just never seen m sixteen before. You know, I've been down south shooting Remington rifles and Daisy Daisy BB guns. But I hadn't seen that before. But it didn't register. Yeah, you know, it didn't register. 00:07:07 Speaker 1: But you see that New York Times ard call, and all of a sudden, you're putting the pieces together at that point. 00:07:12 Speaker 2: And then I see with Tulu Shakur mastermind. I was like, oh, whoa. So I was like, oh boy, it's going down. 00:07:22 Speaker 1: I mean, was the overwhelming sense at that point when you read that like fear for fear for your family, fear. 00:07:28 Speaker 2: For anxiety, okay, anxiety. I'm like, what did that mean? Where you know? 00:07:37 Speaker 1: Uh? 00:07:40 Speaker 2: Where are you? Where are these rifles going to be shot at? You know, didn't know? Yeah, didn't know. 00:07:47 Speaker 3: Then I'm with my mother and I see the FBI wanted post in the post office that. You know, you see that in movies, but that really happened to me. I was like, you know, FBI most wanted and I got sad because I didn't know. I know that meant trouble simply, I know it meant and I didn't know when I would see him again. 00:08:12 Speaker 2: Yeah. Yeah, so that that bothered me. 00:08:16 Speaker 3: But you know, people often confuse my father and a Feiny's political assignments. A Feany was in the Black Panthers, a Harlem chapter of the Black Panthers. My father, Matulu Chico, was not a Black Panther. He was in the Black Liberation Army and part of the provencial government of the Republic of New Africa. But they supported each other. You know, all these groups supported each other, the weather underground, all these different groups, anti war, anti poverty, these people were starting to work together. Even Malcolm and Martin were starting to connect, you know, before he was murdered. 00:09:01 Speaker 1: There were a lot of radical groups, not just the Black Panthers at that time, working to civil society right through I government. 00:09:11 Speaker 3: The Irish ira folks. I mean, you know, they were connected with the struggles of the world. Yeah, and that that I respect it because we ain't the only ones going through something, and we need allies to fight these battles. 00:09:31 Speaker 2: And if you you know, and you know there's power and numbers work together. That made sense to me. 00:09:38 Speaker 1: Yeah, a lot of people think that probably you're like your childhood and Pox's childhood was was just getting indoctrinated by theory, like all day every day. What was I imagine reality is a little different. Imagine there was a balance. 00:09:54 Speaker 2: There was. 00:09:55 Speaker 1: I'm sure there was, you know, moments where it wasn't just being taught about the struggles around the global struggle and the black struggle and how the black struggle relates to whatever, like what so what was the balance at home? How much was it being taught you know, those global conflicts. And then also that it was just normal family life. 00:10:16 Speaker 3: Well, when I live with a Fannatulu, they were it seemed they were trying to open us up to the world as opposed to you know, the sick America. You know, the different cultures. I mean, because we we practiced quansa. When I'm with them, we practice quansas. But don't get it twisted. I love me some Christmas, okay, you know, and uh, there was room there was room for both it was room for both. It was room and I'm glad I got both of those experiences because it makes you, you know, smarter, Yeah, I feel Yeah. 00:10:54 Speaker 1: It gives you a complex. It gives you a more complete picture of the world. But how and how was it perceived in the rest of the neighborhood, because I'm sure also, you know entime neighbor wasn't full of the Revolutionariya, So for people the neighbor kind of look like your parents are heavy or is. 00:11:10 Speaker 3: It like I grew up in Southside Jamaica, Queens, so you know, Queens is Queens, New York, New Jersey. There's a lot of you know, there's a lot of those movements, the Fiper Centers, the Moor's and you know a lot of island people up that way, and uh, they kind of understood. 00:11:33 Speaker 2: But my in my neighborhood was stugged out. 00:11:36 Speaker 3: So when I came around my little koofi and my dashiki, you know what I mean, I looked a little different, but I felt good. My little African medallion. You know, my father wore a lot of African jewelry with with with shells and beads and different colored stones and leather and different, you. 00:11:57 Speaker 1: Know what I mean, Like that could be cool too, because Matula was the coolest. You know, he was the coolest. Yeah, you're put in the book that even before I mean like long before he was ever, when he was just Gerald was his birth name, Darrell. Excuse me, he was always the coolest. You you said that he could always get away with the most and dressed the fliest and even within his own way. 00:12:24 Speaker 3: Dude, in his uh in the in one of the FBI files, I think it's on his wonder poster, it says. 00:12:32 Speaker 1: Uh. 00:12:35 Speaker 3: Know, the frequent fine dining establishments, you know what I mean. He had a particular type of out. 00:12:41 Speaker 2: He liked food. 00:12:43 Speaker 3: You know. He was a people person. Yeah, people, and he loved kids. He loved kids and he was a people person. And that's what you know Republican New Africa, Republic of New Africa was doing. They were setting up camps training our youth like white folks were training their youth. 00:13:05 Speaker 2: That's where the rifles were going. 00:13:07 Speaker 1: I know, you and Pot shared a bunk. So I imagine like a live two little kids at home, and so as I rolled up, I'll kind of go down the hallway. I hear on John at night when it's supposed to be asleep and stuff. What were the things you and Pop just connected over as kids? What was what were what was your guys's relationship? 00:13:30 Speaker 3: Well, at that time, he was real little, so he wanted to you know, he was looking at me. He wanted to be like me, like you know, and and I had the advantage of being with my mother and queens and having Christmas. So but when I would come back to Matulu and the fainties, I'll have new stuff, different stuff that he would like. And uh, you know, he's soaking up the game. I had some poonas he wanted some poons, you know, poons was and ship and uh, you know, I try to guide him in the right direction. We we loved food and we always fought together at our cousins up in the Bronx got a but the licens shout out to the licenes up in the Bronx Leeland projects. My father would drop us off up there because there was a bunch of boy cousins. You know that the boys go play with the boys, and they was always into something. My cousin Kenny, my cousin Billy. Yo, they're wild, but they very lovable, very lovable and they would be always into some shit. And you know the cousins fight with the cousins, you know, so it was a bonding. It created a bonding thing. Oh and we love karate. 00:14:47 Speaker 2: Karate. 00:14:48 Speaker 3: Bruce Lee was the man at the time, So everybody was Bruce Lee, black, white, yellow. We all Bruce Lee. We all had our geys karate slippers. 00:14:58 Speaker 2: Yeah. 00:14:58 Speaker 1: So that's the time you were on, was Bruce Lee. 00:15:01 Speaker 3: Oh yeah, yeah, that's why I ended up breaking my arm. We Mtulu too because Mtulu was a brown belt and cut take. 00:15:08 Speaker 1: Yeah, and you you guys were in karate, right, you guys were the arts. 00:15:12 Speaker 2: Yeah. 00:15:13 Speaker 3: He takes us to the Black Panther the karate school. Yeah, and we we we learned a little bit. You know, we be standing there in our horse stand since they come kick his trip us on our butt and pocked and not like that very much, but you know that was That's how it was. 00:15:34 Speaker 1: Was he always uh like a like a I don't know how to respectable, like a hot head. Was he always uh always a temper in that way. 00:15:43 Speaker 3: He did have a temper and he had a he had a big mouth. He'll tell you himself. He had a big mouth, and you would have to be smarter than his mouth. I mean, that's how I said. You know, you have to be able to control your your your own emotions and temper and try to connect with him because he was very passionate. He's very genuine and it was sort of reactive, but you know it's coming straight from his heart. 00:16:15 Speaker 1: How would that come up with you? 00:16:16 Speaker 2: Guys? 00:16:16 Speaker 1: Between you two as kids when you were younger. 00:16:19 Speaker 2: Fighting Not only did we fight with our cousins, we karate fight, played karate fight all that. You know, that was a real thing. 00:16:30 Speaker 3: And uh, you know, I was bigger than him and sometimes I hit him too hard and he get pissed off. He get pissed off a little, all the big eyebrows and you know when he was when he was mad, and you know, it's like dude, you know. And he was two three years old, so he wasn't really used to having a brother yet. 00:16:50 Speaker 2: And you know, but we got we got, we got, we got tight. 00:16:55 Speaker 1: It was a real big brother, little brother dynamic. 00:16:57 Speaker 3: Then yeah, and then Matulu would walk us to school hand in hand. You know, felt like leave it to Beaver was some ship. But walking down the streets to Harlem. Yeah, men, one side, park on the other walking us to school. 00:17:12 Speaker 1: And you mentioned in the sayings like park. For a long time, I grew up thinking that Billy was his father, right. 00:17:19 Speaker 3: No, you're talking about Billy Garland. I'm telling excuse me, Gloria Cox our globe. That's a fainty sister. Okay, and she I think she got ten kids. There's a bunch of We got a bunch of cousins. 00:17:33 Speaker 1: Yeah, got his family is wild, their family tree is wild. 00:17:36 Speaker 2: Yeah. Yeah. So you know, we were all in New York. 00:17:42 Speaker 3: You know, we were all in New York and while we were growing up, you know, doing the school thing, our parents were doing they thing, you. 00:17:52 Speaker 2: Know, and until eighty one, until Nayak went down. 00:18:03 Speaker 1: You want, do you want to lay out that story for me for people who don't know, just kind of how like the importance of nayaking and all of this and your your father's story and Okay. 00:18:14 Speaker 3: In Nyack, New York, there was an appropriation in progress at a shopping center in Nyack, New York, and in which a security guard and police officer was killed. And at that point a lot of the comrades went on the run, most of them got caught and Matulau stayed on the run. He was on the run for like five years. He was accused of being part of that. 00:18:51 Speaker 2: He was charged. She did his time for that, as well as deliberation of a side of chicaur. 00:18:57 Speaker 1: He was captured getting out of prison. 00:19:00 Speaker 3: Correct in which she stayed free until our last days, and Matulau ended up serving thirty seven close to. 00:19:11 Speaker 2: Thirty eight years. You know, he paid for it. 00:19:14 Speaker 3: But you know, he was a true political prisoner, which this country doesn't say that we have, but his his his motives were clearly political in nature. 00:19:27 Speaker 1: You know. Yeah, did your dad and Asada did they ever get a was there ever a way for them to back channel? And over the course of time. 00:19:36 Speaker 3: And it was just too dangerous that I think he was getting some messages from someone I just don't know who, you know, But they weren't frequent. It was just a check in type thing. Even though she wasn't captured. She was free in Cuba, and she would make her own moves and you know, but they stayed, you know, they did as much as they could. It was that's why I keep talking about the level of commitment in those days. The times are little times are different, but the social impact they were having was way more intense. You know, the anti war folks were blowing up buildings in the US. There was appropriations, there was jail breaks because you know, things are unfair. Pressure bus pipes, pressure bus pipes, and kind of like you know the politics of the Republican New Africa. Okay, you don't like us, you don't like us, you don't like us, okay, okay, Well we could solve this peacefully by you people giving us these particular states to be run by us our people. Since you don't like us, you can't let you sell you just just supposed to let you just kill us all up and you know, abuse us. So we're going to have these states and we're going to build our own nation because we have not as well, we have not been paid back reparations, which you know, it's conveniently forgotten over how many years, So that that's kind of their thinking. 00:21:28 Speaker 2: Yeah, and if you don't give it to us, we will have to make other arrangements. 00:21:35 Speaker 1: About to figure out how to get that in ourselves. 00:21:37 Speaker 3: Yeah, we got just going to accept no. Okay, you know they just weren't accepting no and accept the conditions of our exactly exactly. The difference to me is, you know, late sixties, early to mid seventies, there were a lot of there was assassinations, you know here in the US. They were assassinations from Malcolm Martin. 00:22:01 Speaker 2: Medgar Kennedy and plus Fred Hampton. We can go on. 00:22:07 Speaker 3: Yeah, yes, correct, The level of commitment was way more serious. 00:22:14 Speaker 1: When you were young. At any point, did you think that was going to be your life? You would take up that mantle and be a revolutionary as well, and that in the same way that your father was. 00:22:24 Speaker 3: Yeah, because we looked up to our uncles bah blah blahlaud baba say cool geronimo. We looked up to them, but a lot of bad things started happening to them and other uncles that were either where's uncle? Also, oh he you know he's locked up now, and you know once they go to jail. You know, that broke a lot of connections. Jail all murdered, jail all murdered, jail all murdered systematically because of co and tail Pro. 00:22:57 Speaker 1: Yeah, and you even believe perhaps that cointel Pro is operating on some level, maybe under another name, some version of co intel Pro in the background. 00:23:08 Speaker 3: Of pox career correct under a different name, under different name, same tactics, because why because they worked, they worked. You know, the significant thing I think about our story is that we were like the last major significant story of the Panthers of the era that after us the liberation of Asada too. 00:23:32 Speaker 2: After that period, you know that that that liberation movement. 00:23:38 Speaker 1: Was was goed yeh yeh, or it just was fractured of the point of just not being as powerful a repotement as it as it was. 00:23:46 Speaker 2: Yeah. 00:23:47 Speaker 1: But while the thing that that you joined the military ally and they didn't know who you were, that they let you exactly. 00:23:58 Speaker 3: And you know, after my father got captured, I was definitely gonna talk to him about it. But he knows like I knew growing up. He would always call this is my little soldier. This is my little soldier, My little soldier. That's all as a shorty, you know, it's my little soldier. And so when he went down, it's like, Damn, I really don't know how to be a soldier yet. So I went to learn how to be a soldier, no politics attached, but there's an invaluable education in the military. 00:24:32 Speaker 2: I learned how to shoot. I know, about. 00:24:34 Speaker 3: Explosives, I know, some shit. Excuse my French. When I went to visit him for the first time, I told. 00:24:39 Speaker 2: Him and he was like, yeah, that's good, that's good. 00:24:42 Speaker 3: You know, you're gonna learn some things. And then he told me about Uncle Geronimo was in the army. You know, it's a lot of the brothers was in the military. 00:24:51 Speaker 1: I didn't know Deronmo prot was the military. 00:24:54 Speaker 2: Because now the Black Liberation Army. 00:24:59 Speaker 3: Was the armed wing of the Black Panthers, so they supported the Panthers, you know, armed you know, and other g troops because the times were changing. 00:25:12 Speaker 2: You know, they had to. They were adjusting their tactics to match what was going on. 00:25:16 Speaker 3: Yeah, you know, they would have loved to been peaceful, but if it's if they make it untenable there you're supposed to do just lay down and just die. 00:25:27 Speaker 2: Nah, That's why they called it the struggle. 00:25:30 Speaker 1: Struggle be back with more from Moprem after the Break. One of the other wild things about about your story, and I always forget, is that you and Park. You know, obviously it's abundant family, so you guys end up apart for a while, but just somehow, through fate, you guys wind up in the Bay Area at the same time. You know, he's younger, so he's around seventeen eighteen, but you haven't just gotten out of the military. Find your way to the Bay and to Oakland, pox the Arene, and all of a sudden, y'all all able to reunite. 00:26:07 Speaker 2: And what it's to be wild than that. 00:26:11 Speaker 3: Because Matulu was captured in lat Extra godted back to New York, sentenced, and then sent back to La California. So we were all on the West coast, and we were all on the West coast, and like I said, there was a bit of relief there he was captured, because there was talk of him not going alive. There was he wasn't gonna let him take him alive, and so we were concerned that he would be killed. And but when he was captured, everybody could breathe a little bit. He's alive, you know, we could the families could reconnect because you know, Cole and Telpro, they were all on top of everybody trying to find a Sada one, then trying to find him two. And then when he's captured, they still trying to find a Sada. You know what I'm saying so, yeah, it was Gully, but you and Parker. 00:27:09 Speaker 1: Able to reunite because you're in the Bay area, and and your sister Set and. 00:27:15 Speaker 3: Park Set moved there because of Geronimo's family, right, Germo's family was still. 00:27:22 Speaker 1: There, and Dromo was it was in prison at that time already, but his wife and kids or his woman and his kids. So and then that's who part goes to live with for a time. 00:27:33 Speaker 2: That's where they started. 00:27:34 Speaker 1: Yeah, they started, and then and then the Fainty moved out. 00:27:38 Speaker 3: And then they got their their their own spot in Bay but they didn't have much. 00:27:43 Speaker 2: They were broke, you know. Yeah, and then we were blessed enough to make it in the game. 00:27:50 Speaker 1: Yeah, well, I know you were kind of shocked by like the way that they were living at that time when you reconnected that just it was there wasn't quite as you know, it was. It was a little less than you you'd imagined or hoped or i'd imagine, right for your family. 00:28:03 Speaker 3: Yeah, you know, when you little, you don't you don't always recognize poverty much. But I was older, so I knew what poverty really was at this point, and you know what was going on, And yeah, it's not hard to maintain a nine to five when you got the fast on you, all up in your business, trying to bring you down, you know, and all the support system of people that would support you, they're on them too, you know. So that's why, you know, I felt I needed to write this story, my story. You know, I don't have the only story, but I feel like my story is quite significant because of you know, my relationship, my relationships, and for. 00:28:59 Speaker 2: History's sake, for history's sake, for their history's sake. 00:29:03 Speaker 3: Their history should be remembered, it should be studied, should be appreciated. And there's that history, and then there's black music history. You know. I was first to to you know, on a hip, on a hit record in our family. I mean, my grandmother used to make a gospel record. 00:29:29 Speaker 1: But you know what I'm saying, Yeah, you got you. You have eight bars on Tony Tony's Feels Good. Yes, phenomenal, classic, classic to this day, huge, God is Good, Huge, And then pop came out behold up. But how did you get How did that happen that you wound up? You're in the military, you moved to Oakland. How do you wind up on Tony Tony record. 00:29:52 Speaker 3: Because from South Side Jamaica, Queens, New York, and I'm from the mecca of hip hop, and I grew up with hip hop. 00:30:02 Speaker 2: We all me and Pop grew up grew up with it all around it. Especially he was in Harlem. 00:30:08 Speaker 3: We were over it up in the Bronx together and I was in Queen's you know, run DMC, what you know, l L and rock him. You know that that that that's my error right there, you know, highly influenced me. So when I got out the army, got out with a little paper, I put myself in the studio and through that process, brother named Kenya Baker, his brother is in Tony Tony Tony, but he was producing some some some demo for me, and uh, they came and heard my demo and then asked me, did I want to be on a song? Raphels asked me, you know, asked Eric to ask me if did I want to be on a song? 00:30:49 Speaker 2: I'm like yeah. 00:30:53 Speaker 3: Then I heard it, I was like, oh, oh, this maybe the magic that that that though those drums are infections, infectious on that song. 00:31:04 Speaker 2: I love that song. 00:31:04 Speaker 1: I want to hold up, I want to I want to play I want to play second that I want to play little bars on that. 00:31:11 Speaker 3: Oh yeah, man, you know, go and play classics. Want to move the table backs so you could dance it. Yeah, that that was a blessing because that record when we connected, the record was recorded, but it wasn't out yet. 00:31:30 Speaker 2: So I got to, you know, tell give them the good news. And everybody was happy for me. You know, is that for real? 00:31:40 Speaker 3: Because everybody knew Tony Tony Tony, Tony, Tony Tony. 00:31:42 Speaker 2: Had already had Little Walter. Hey, little Walter. I don't know remember that first album. 00:31:46 Speaker 3: Yeah, yeah, and that was a hit. And then yeah, man, god it's good. It was a charm time in our lives. Yeah, songs, songs were like four minutes, four or five minutes back then, so much I'm I'm near the end. But yeah, it was a big deal. 00:32:21 Speaker 1: Oh it's gonna come in. Hold up. 00:32:26 Speaker 2: Boom boom. 00:32:30 Speaker 3: Boo boo mo mellow, Quite a nice fellow, met three t get around my capello. They had the real dom and and I had the rhyme. So then I hear it that boom more time. It worked out and then they worked it in. Tony has done it. Man, the classics baby can you read that, you go on, man, ridiculous And I love it because it's a feel good song if the name of it just feels good and it's a feel good song, and it doesn't have no no, a whole bunch of luggage attached. Yeah you know, I mean I didn't. I wasn't properly. I haven't seated it. But it is a blessing all the same. Yeah, yeah, this is blessing all the same. You know, I still love him, dudes. That's the piece Dwayne Wiggins who passed away like last year ago. Yeah, but Raphael shout out to Rafael. I think he was just nominated for an oscar for uh senates for sinners. Yeah yeah, man, so we have some talent. Talent, man, but you all. 00:33:36 Speaker 1: The funny part about that, and I didn't know this is when they ask you to do it, it's like, yeah, we're kind of why don't you write something and we'll see what it turns out to be. We're also talking to mc hammer c do something. 00:33:48 Speaker 3: Yeah, so you were you were kind of likeation prize. 00:33:52 Speaker 1: Not a consolation prize, but it was kind of like listen. So I was like, man, I wonder I was like This must have been a smart move because at the end, you go, Tony Tony, Tony has done it again. I'm like, okay, you must have named checked that. That's like you're gonna pick me because'm gonna'm gonna i'mnna shout you all out on it, you know. 00:34:08 Speaker 3: Yeah, yeah, yeah, I wrote, dude, they were making commercials off of my tagline Tony Tony, Tony has done it again. I'm like, yo, but yeah, man, they were going to have mc hammer do it for real. But uh, mc hammer was hot at the time. He was quite pricey, so it was more economical. 00:34:30 Speaker 2: Yeah, the fuck with this little New York dude. See what he got? 00:34:34 Speaker 1: You know, the dude was in the town at that time, you know what I mean. 00:34:37 Speaker 3: Yeah, And I didn't know nobody, you know, but I knew music. I knew I could do this, you know what I mean. I just needed a shot. 00:34:44 Speaker 1: Yeah, yeah, I mean that's even before digital underground pocks and you know, so you have the first hit. 00:34:51 Speaker 3: Yes, I am part of the story. I have part of the story. And then when when, uh, but park was inspired. Now that was my first record, first in the family, but pac had already been been on this Pollow stage. I had already did raise it in the Sun after Pollow A thirteen, So we were honing our entertainment chops, you know. And then when Pop got to Baltimore, they did. He went to school with the arts and so he was ready. 00:35:27 Speaker 2: He was ready. 00:35:28 Speaker 3: Shock was keen enough to recognize that because Shock recipe shot g he was a trained musician. 00:35:37 Speaker 2: He went to school in Tampa music school. So he got it. 00:35:42 Speaker 3: Pop got we will all try to be serious artists, you know, and and and doing it in the Bay shout out to the Bay Area was a blessing because it was so creative. Groups, music musicians everywhere, you know, legendary managers, legendary artists, legendary you know what I mean. Two show was out there Richie rich A young e forty forty water, you know what I'm saying. And it was just good, good energy, good, A lot of creative juice is flowing. 00:36:15 Speaker 1: Yeah. Man, did you when you reconnect with Park was he did you? Could you sense that he was coming into his own that he was Yes, so. 00:36:26 Speaker 3: Uh, Park knew what was going on with me and that the logical organic thing was us to do some music together. We got together and do something, you know, and we sat down. We sat down to write a song. I still remember naming this song. It was called rolling out of Forsyth County. Forsythe County. There was a klan rally that year in forsythe County. 00:36:49 Speaker 2: Seen it on the news. 00:36:51 Speaker 3: We should go out there, cadillacs, beanses and false on them and can I curse? 00:36:57 Speaker 2: I ain't. 00:36:59 Speaker 3: And so we sat down and started writing, started writing, trying to work out mothers like ship. 00:37:06 Speaker 2: And then next thing, I know, all right, let's y what you got? 00:37:10 Speaker 1: Like? 00:37:10 Speaker 2: What are like? You finished already? Yup. 00:37:14 Speaker 3: Fob was a beast. His pen was wicked. He was He's an excellent writer. And because he would write poetry too. I didn't write poetry. I just wrote rhyme songs. 00:37:25 Speaker 2: He would. He would write poetry, and I was like, whoa. 00:37:29 Speaker 3: That's when I knew, Oh he's really kids, really got it. And then shot gave him a shot. The rest is history. 00:37:36 Speaker 1: And then you're with him for most of the ride. Man like you guys are I mean you really saw the evolution of his of his career. 00:37:44 Speaker 2: Yeah, helped him get there. And I mean. 00:37:50 Speaker 3: Because I was at the beginning he was his eyes inspired him, you know, no exaggeration, but when he learned his big brother gonna be on the record with Tony Tony Tony, that meant something. That meant something to an eighteen year old living in the Bay. 00:38:05 Speaker 1: Yeah, you know, yeah, and then you're both that Summer Jam at the same time, you with Tony Tony Tony him was Shocked with digit on the ground with Shocking them money Bee. 00:38:15 Speaker 2: Yeah. 00:38:15 Speaker 3: Yeah, because it was eighty eight, eighty nine, eighty nine, ninety ninety one them three four years we were at the Summer Jam. Every year somebody was out with a record that meant they would be on the Summer Jam, either Shock or the Tony's or you know, always some of our people, you know rich you know, there's always a reason for us to be there. 00:38:40 Speaker 2: So I my mind tally. 00:38:42 Speaker 3: It helped me work out my memory because I was remembering one Summer Jam was really the other Summer Jam. 00:38:48 Speaker 2: It was just like kind of a blur, but it was such it was like a Costo dream. 00:38:54 Speaker 1: Well it's crazy too that like pop gets the juice roll before. It's really hard. I mean, even having I lived it, just to look back on it, and knowing it and knowing all the stuff as well as I know it. But just it is hard to process that he got the Juice Rollo even had the record deal outside of Digital Underground, you know what I mean, his own solo record deal. 00:39:15 Speaker 3: Yeah, because Pac got into Digital. Digital's hot. Do what you're like, Humpty dance huge. That's when Parc got with Digital. So because they were so hot that they had a lot going on. 00:39:28 Speaker 2: Because and you even. 00:39:30 Speaker 3: Want to put that Dan Akroyd movie actually know that, think about it. Nothing but trouble, Nothing but trouble, Nothing but trouble. Yeah, Park gets a little little quick cameo in that. But when Rod came up for Juice, Shock wanted money Be to do it first, and then Mon was like, no, Park needed to do this. 00:39:50 Speaker 1: You know. 00:39:50 Speaker 2: It was more of a POC type role. And they's like, yeah, you rock this. 00:39:57 Speaker 3: And because they knew he was also trained yeah in acting as opposed to them guys. 00:40:04 Speaker 1: From Baltimore, emmorn both schools right. 00:40:06 Speaker 3: Well yeah, yeah, as first rap group was up in Marin h Ray Love DJ did Strictly Dope, always shoutout Strictly Dope. Park's first rap group and he blew away to audition. He blew away the audition from what I heard, and then the rest was history. And then we had to say, like, oh ship this nigga's a movie star. We ain't got no record deal, and so we dug in trying to get that done. 00:40:38 Speaker 2: You know. It was a lot of work, you know, but we was trying to get all the money. 00:40:43 Speaker 1: What was it like with with Interscope? Did it? Did it over the course of things? Like how how did you ever? We ever around like Jimmy or. 00:40:53 Speaker 3: Or I was around Tom Willy more than Jimmy. I would have to deliver the music to in the scope, pocabing the studio, like run this to the label, you know, and now play this and this for time, play this, you know. I would have to play selects for Tom, looking for the singles and and things like that. 00:41:17 Speaker 2: You know, had a lot of jobs. Man had a lot of jobs. But we made it. We made it, you know, Hooker crook. 00:41:25 Speaker 1: You know. 00:41:26 Speaker 3: And and Park had a lot of energy and he needed someone who could keep up and that he trusted and he knew I was already and it by me having feels good, it gave me I was comfortable I was cool with that. I was cool with that. I want my brother to be that hit now, yeah, you know, and that just kept going. Yeah, he kept hav you know. Yeah, we had a good five six year run. 00:41:54 Speaker 1: Even when it stops, even when he's gone, it's still keep you know. 00:41:57 Speaker 2: It's just the greatest of all times when it's rap ship. 00:42:01 Speaker 1: You know what the greatest thing about his story is and your story and all that is just when you're reading through the book, so much of the narrative about any rapper now is about it's about money. 00:42:11 Speaker 2: You know. 00:42:12 Speaker 1: And when you're reading this your book and you're really thinking about Po's legacy and you're just kind of reliving it, it's like he probably never got the money he should have gotten. But regardless, it's an inspiring story. Man like his life. You guys lived and inspired life around the arts, around uplifting blacks, uplifting people of all cultures, really through your example, right, And it's just like it's a success story that doesn't center around money. And that's fascinating to me because that's all we talk about now. 00:42:47 Speaker 3: Kind of what set said it set Park apart was that he he wrote he often wrote about social issues more than other artists. He wrote about social issues and he was passionate, genuine and intense. So those songs about those social issues resonated. Uh, Brendon's Got a Baby, Keep your Head up, you know these you know, those songs got through so. 00:43:16 Speaker 2: Because they were coming from a real place, a genuine place. You know. 00:43:19 Speaker 3: We come from community, family of community organizers, you know, healers. You know, my father was also an acupunctured doctor. You know, he did all that shit before thirty five. You know. 00:43:34 Speaker 1: But I think that's what makes Pok's music more than any other rappers music, like just perennially relevant. As long as he made those records, they're never out of style. Park is relevant right now right now. Got money for war but can't feed the poor. I see that everywhere right now. 00:43:52 Speaker 2: It's unfortunately it's still relevant. 00:43:54 Speaker 3: Yeah, but yeah, man, we were That's part of that being aware of the world around us. You know, it's you know, it's a big world out there, and we ain't the only ones going through it. 00:44:07 Speaker 1: Yeah. Well, last break and we'll be back with Mopreme chakor for you as his brother, Like, what is it like? I feel like every year there's a new like someone's there's always like something like interview where someone's got PC figured out. Okay, oh he was an actor. Okay, he was a thug. Okay, he was a he was just a he was he was pretending, Okay he was What was it like? 00:44:34 Speaker 2: See? 00:44:34 Speaker 1: I mean every year, every year is a new story about why Pak was the way Pac was and this is this is really who he was. 00:44:40 Speaker 2: You know what Pap was. Pac was legend. Pac was legend. 00:44:45 Speaker 3: The moves he made, the impact, he had, the love he got, passion he displayed. He was one of a kind. You know, he's one of a kind, and it still resonates. Pac was the black James Dean. You know, he's he's the Bob Marley, He's he's that guy. 00:45:07 Speaker 2: Pac was that guy. You know I did. 00:45:09 Speaker 3: I don't know how else to explain it, but his his chrisma, He had chrisma. Yeah, yeah, missed that dude. Missed that dude. But he did it his way. He did it his way. 00:45:25 Speaker 1: Do you feel like Inerscope knew what they had with. 00:45:27 Speaker 2: Him, not until they got a hit record. 00:45:30 Speaker 3: I mean they knew he was a movie star, right, so he was worth investing in and it might have paid off, and it did, right, it did. But he was a movie star and he was plugged with one of the hottest groups in the game, Digital right, so there was a lot of farther for success. Yeah, you know, and we were hungry prior to us coming up. Park was poor, you know, we they were broke. 00:46:01 Speaker 1: You know. 00:46:02 Speaker 3: Packer would try dabbling in dope, you know, selling drugs, but all the drug did was like, man, you don't need to be doing this, this is not for you. Yeah, you know, and only my only dudes who got love for you would would you know, say that pull you out and put you in a different direction. Shout out to man Man Mike Cooley, you know, Patters from Richmond. They they helped get him in the studio in the early days, you know, and then when he got with Shock, Shock would have signed different producers to work with Park, Big D Ed Impossible who did changes. Shout out to Big D Recipes, the Big D Chot Master j. You know, they did a lot of the early demos. And then Park had a lot of friends, so he would end up working with everybody and we would end up kicking it with everybody. 00:46:57 Speaker 2: He was that dude. 00:46:58 Speaker 3: Everybody wanted him at their party. Everybody wanted him on their song. So we you know, and I just try to support him. We just try to support them. Let's get it, you know. You know, I was in the military, as you know. And they got a saying that we all brothers in the foxhole. We all brothers in the foxhole. No matter who, what color you are, what gender you are, we in that foxhole together. We're down for the struggle together. We're riding together, you know what I mean. And that's that's what it was, the Digital family, you know, like we got pac you know what I mean, We got them. 00:47:40 Speaker 1: There's an incredible story about you guys coming back to the Bay Area and going to a affair in Marin, the County Fair of Marin. Can you tell that story. 00:47:53 Speaker 3: Yeah, Park had was really being he was blowing up his success. He had already done Juice. I think he had Apocalypse now out. He has, you know, success with that. So he was doing good and he wanted to get back to his community where he came from over there in Marin. And we went back for the fair and these dudes started a fight, and you know, we came with our cousins, the l Saints outlawed Edie when he was younger. You know, they were all young and some other kids from the neighborhood in Richmond. 00:48:33 Speaker 2: We went to the fair. We had no ill or mall intent, and dudes just walked up the. 00:48:38 Speaker 3: Bout what you say about Marine City bow sock pock up just hit him in the face and it was on. And then we knew we were out dumbled and tried to get up out of there, and you know, we got up out of there, thank god. But a child was killed. You know, they were shooting. We was you know, it was going down. They were shooting, and it's unfortunate. 00:49:07 Speaker 1: The aftermath of that, like what what do you guys even talk about it? What's the vibe after that? 00:49:13 Speaker 3: It was, you know the worst day of our lives. You know, none of us wanted anything like that to happen, but. 00:49:22 Speaker 2: We realized out here in this world, in this game, with this much attention, these things could happen, and we didn't have no security. Really, it was just us, you know, probably just starting now. 00:49:42 Speaker 3: We couldn't actually afford it, you know, and he really needed extra and you know, that's kind of got to look at the label and all that as far as that goes. But he was a movie star as well as a successful rapper. Now, so his popularity was high. And all we had was us, you know what I mean. And we was out there with. 00:50:04 Speaker 2: Our cousins, with our kids, and. 00:50:09 Speaker 3: Cash Show had a cast on his leg at the time to his heap, you know, one of them long casts, and so you know, dudes are shooting at us. 00:50:17 Speaker 2: We're trying to run, and it was just bad. It was a bad day. 00:50:22 Speaker 1: The cops even gotten boy, I mean, you got you got a gun, yeah, pulled right to your head by a cop. 00:50:27 Speaker 2: Yeah. 00:50:27 Speaker 3: Sheriff put the yeah. Cheryff put a pistol to my head. And the crowd was attacking us, and it was me and parking in front. We were trying to wait for everybody to get in the truck so get out of there. And we were waiting at the same time. The sheriff had a pistol to uh my head. But the crowd is still coming. They're throwing rocks, they throw they mad, they're angry, you know what I mean, And you know, because they think popped this marine. They busted out the window, started busting all the windows. But then they started pulling on the doors. It started pulling on the doors. It was going to yank think it was easy on that said, it was about the young come out and it was going to. 00:51:10 Speaker 2: Get even worse. So I evaded. I evaded. 00:51:17 Speaker 3: There was a lot going on, So I think that the sheriff got distracted, popped it in reverse. 00:51:24 Speaker 2: It was I got us about it. It I got us about it. 00:51:27 Speaker 3: Also, as the older brother, I felt responsible for taking care of everybody to a certain degree. 00:51:33 Speaker 1: And you really did play that older brother role, I mean until I mean, I didn't really know that story that things got. I mean, I know things got kind of weird at Death Throw, but that you got pushed out seems that way. 00:51:46 Speaker 2: I mean, you know, we were at that time. 00:51:49 Speaker 3: Now that's years later, like five years later, but at that time we were repping. We had been repping thug life, which had its own power. Death Row had its own power. I thought when we combined forces, you know, we all be allies riding together, rah, you know. But there was a lot of gang shit going on. You know, this is that Throws La. A lot of gang shit going on, and you know, gang practices and how they get down. You know, it wasn't necessarily how we got down, and uh, you know, shit didn't like me. 00:52:34 Speaker 2: Who knew I ain't never had nothing. 00:52:36 Speaker 3: Against the brother, So a lot of pressures started coming down on me in different ways. So I decided to gracefully bow out. My brother's grown. Now he went from a young man to a man. He was growing. He became from a young man to a man. Now he's a grown man, and he was making his own decisions. And you know, we're big on freedom. Let them have his freedom, you know. I I try as much as possible to influence him and all the positive ways, you know what I mean. And he took he he learned a lot of lessons, he soaked up a lot of game, but he was still him. 00:53:26 Speaker 2: He was not not going to be him. 00:53:28 Speaker 1: About that time, though. He opens up an office out of your ant's apartment, his dances apartment, and so you would go through by there and Fame he would be there, and just different family be it was more of a family thing. 00:53:41 Speaker 2: But not so much Fanny, but yes, mean, but she'd at least. 00:53:44 Speaker 1: Be his apartment and you go to his apartment sometimes, so there were you were around the family. 00:53:48 Speaker 3: Whether yeah, yeah, I would go to the house. Once I stepped away, I would go to the to his house. He would be at the he was in Calabasas, because you know, I still loved him. He knew I still loved him. I was mad at him, you know, with the whole depth throw ship. I felt like he could have made that go a different way, you know, But I realized he was under pressure himself, so I didn't want to make it no harder for him. 00:54:20 Speaker 2: Yeah. 00:54:22 Speaker 1: But and was that the consensus with the with the rest of the family too. It was just sort of like, hey, this isn't this isn't. 00:54:28 Speaker 3: Well, everybody wasn't privy to the same information and experiences. 00:54:34 Speaker 2: You know. 00:54:35 Speaker 3: I was a front line soldier, so I was around for the good and bad and uh, you know, and in all the ways. And I guess my presence wasn't desired or required. 00:54:49 Speaker 2: Anymore, ain't. Okay? Okay, you know right, because we had a positive. 00:55:01 Speaker 3: At first, we had a positive outlook with Death Throat because Parker was always wanted to support black business, and park had done good business with Sugar in the past. 00:55:13 Speaker 2: On the above the. 00:55:14 Speaker 1: Rit movie on the soundtrack paid him stupid for it, so they had a good relationship. 00:55:20 Speaker 3: It's not you know, Sugar is who he is. But they had a good relationship. Pac was you know, they was trying to get that was trying to get parking keep your head up days. And he asked again, he asked me what I thought. I'm like, Yo, why you want to be on somebody else's ship where they're the captain here right now, you're the captain on your own ship, right, you should do this, you know, until he couldn't do it no more and he needed some help. 00:55:47 Speaker 2: And that's what that happened. 00:55:49 Speaker 1: Well after poc pasted what was it was? And I know after pock Past, Sugar kind of went through his own He had his own thing going on. You know, he had a bunch of legal issues right after that happened. Was there communication between the family and Sugar and the way you might imagine that people might have imagined there being I. 00:56:05 Speaker 3: Mean, you know, my sister asked him directly, and he said he didn't have nothing to do with what happened to Pop And and. 00:56:15 Speaker 2: Believe it or not, I believe it. 00:56:18 Speaker 3: Because my brother gave him power his relationship, my brother, my brother gave him power. So I don't see why he would destroy power source. That's why investigations going on. We gonna see whoever the fuck it was part of my French you know. But yeah, that's that's about as much as it went though, because he was dealing with his own ship as well. 00:56:45 Speaker 1: Did the family have a bad feeling towards Sugar that at that point or was it? Like I guess I'm just trying tounderstand like. 00:56:52 Speaker 2: What I mean, we were all confused. 00:56:56 Speaker 3: Yeah, that throw was a top dog and they were strong, and they had a big security company securing them, and they had gang bangers on the label, and you know, they should have been safe. Yeah, but you know, things started happening to where, uh, you know, these these random things would happen, these random fights would happen where which causing be attacked, you know. But you know, I feel it was orchestrated. I feel it was orchestrated. I may be wrong, but we gonna see. 00:57:37 Speaker 1: Yeah, you feel confident will get some answers. 00:57:40 Speaker 2: We're gonna get more than we got now, mm hmm. We're gonna get more than we got now. 00:57:46 Speaker 1: You know. 00:57:46 Speaker 3: But what pisces me off is that you know, shit is blatant. They right, but yeah, I kill him. Yeah, yeah, gave me the good Okay. Okay, okay, okay, all y'all tough guys, Okay, we go see. You know, I mean it's really you know, I mean, uh, how does hold some responsibility. 00:58:16 Speaker 2: For the the way he went about it? But you know he went wrong. 00:58:25 Speaker 3: It was just it was just a perfect It was a perfect storm. It was a perfect storm. The stuff that was going on on the East Coast with Biggie and Puffy and Sugar had his own issues with dude. It was just you know, you know, uh, enemy of my enemy is my friend, you know what I mean that that that's kind of what was happening. And it was. 00:58:52 Speaker 2: The storm was so perfect it was hard to not to for it not to take off like that. 00:58:57 Speaker 1: Yeah, yeah, fog a war situation in hindsight might be clear, what you know. But right, and a lot of the guys that were like Parc was like Stretch and you know, like you knew you knew those guys. 00:59:14 Speaker 2: Yeah, I knew Biggie Stretch. 00:59:16 Speaker 1: Going back now to the Quad shooting, you knew like you knew, Like so when Pack was adamant that those guys were involved, Haitian, Jack Stretch, Big Puff, Like, were you kind of like taking aback by that seeing as you knew those people. 00:59:34 Speaker 3: Yes, yes, I just didn't know to what degree the relationships had deteriorated. Yeah, because as of that day, Park was cool with all them. Pack was cool until that day. Pack was cool with all of them. 00:59:55 Speaker 1: Uh. 00:59:56 Speaker 3: Pack was thinking about possibly signing seeing these are the things that people don't know. 01:00:00 Speaker 2: Pak was thinking about possibly signing Big too. 01:00:05 Speaker 1: Uh. 01:00:06 Speaker 2: Out the Gutter. 01:00:07 Speaker 3: People forget that Poc had a label deal. He was finally in a position where he could sign artists. He was putting us to our first Thug. 01:00:16 Speaker 1: Life volume one is on Out the Gutter right, correct, correct. 01:00:20 Speaker 3: So he was in a position and we did songs together Pocket Pocket Outlaws. This song were big, and you know, it was a real relationship there. You even said running was supposed to be running from the police that comes out of the thug Life concept. 01:00:36 Speaker 2: Yeah, I mean yeah, it was all about thug life at that time. 01:00:40 Speaker 3: And that's one of the projects that Park worked on the longest, was the Thug Life project. 01:00:47 Speaker 2: About two and a half years. 01:00:49 Speaker 3: We worked on that straight out of Actually, while we were still working on strictly for my niggas kind of. That's when the thug life materials started being created. Hell of an hell of a ride, man, it's been an hell of a ride. But yeah, so you know, when things turn from sugar to shit, it's usually a reason, you know. And with our success, with the music success, and Pac was having film success, that movie star shit just kept getting bigger. You know, comes a lot of jealousy and envy, and that's a another thing you gotta deal with that. It's hard to explain, you know, why you got beef with that nigga. I don't know why I got beef with that nigga. He just don't like me, you know what I mean, So tell you and then that turns into something, you know. 01:01:45 Speaker 1: So you were seeing that around, like people around being. 01:01:49 Speaker 3: Yeah, and Pac was, you know, he was unapologetic. He said, yeah, nigga, I'm the best. I'm the best, and y'all should support me because I'm a ride for y'all. I'm a ride for the people. And he's like, y'all should know me by now, y'all should know me by now. I'm a ride for the people. And that resonated. People felt that, Yeah, mm hmm. 01:02:11 Speaker 2: Yeah. 01:02:11 Speaker 1: And it's amazing too, how you guys stayed in touch with with Matulu the whole way, the whole time. I mean, there's one of the funniest Trying to end on a lighter note, man, one of the funniest anecdotes in the book. It's where it comes from your dad. When when uh you and Parker on the phone with Metulu and you're telling them about how Park's kind of hanging out with my daughter. 01:02:40 Speaker 3: Yeah, it's like, now, my pops has his reputations with his uh ladies of of all types. So you know, he you know, he was trying to drop the game on us, you know, you know, because he he still want to be considered a player. I look a here, and I look a here, y'all, don't don't have sex with her sex of mind, sex and mind get into a mind find I wish you're coming from it. Me and Pa was like, yo, we started a buzz out of it. I'm like, dude, all right, I'm too little, okay, sure, sure, they too late, And man on, it's Madonna. The money actually hinds up and some might have been some game in that throw and hindsight. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, but it was too late. It's actually too late sex from mine first. Yeah, and I mean we talked all the time because it was like that's the closest the family could be to reuniting. Yeah, you know, you know we could finally talk. I mean it was through the prison phone and all the face listening, but at least we can hear his voice, share a laugh, soak up a little game and if you had a chance to go visit. Yeah, that's why we really he Matulu wanted to see us and we wanted to see him. So he made sure when he started doing the events in prison for the prisoners, he made sure that we were included. We had become big enough now where you know, it was actually a nice you know, an event to have Pac come and perform, you know, And this was he wanted. Park wanted it to be specifically Thug Life. They come perform, and we performed them Park Prison, Doug Life Crew, y m V, Big Side, Big Surge. That was like the last time me, Park my father were together was in that prison. 01:04:49 Speaker 2: Wow. And yeah yeah, and we took a bunch of pictures with all the crews. I mean, there was. 01:05:02 Speaker 3: It was almost didn't go down because it was almost a riot, so Matulu able to piece it out. We had to take pictures with all the crews, DC crew DC, Mob, Island Boys, uh Vy Boys, the Bloods, cribs, you know, all the black gangs, BGF. You know, we took like so many pictures that day. I don't wonder anybody got any, but yeah, we were able to find a few from the Lompop performances in the book, and people, please buy the book, This Doug's Life. We got twenty four photos in there, so never before seen photos. Big Matula up in there, you know, Fanny, you know I tried. We tried very hard to get the pictures right. I think I messed up my mama's picture with my grandmothera picture, but I don't know how that happened, but I hope she's still on me. 01:05:58 Speaker 1: Next edition. Figure you can correct that and I'll get faced next time. Have you had a chance, like to, like have set read the book or anything like that and talk to family any want upset ever people happy people. 01:06:09 Speaker 2: It's so much anxiety with that ship, especially this type of book. It's a memoir. I bet, yeah, So first I had to you know, we're from the keep a real generation. 01:06:17 Speaker 3: I had to keep it real as possible, and I try to be as genuine as possible. But you know, you know, colhard truth sometimes comes over cold, you know, but they know I ain't lying. 01:06:35 Speaker 2: You know, there ain't no lives in there. 01:06:37 Speaker 1: It's a beautiful testament to your family. Man. There's a lot of thank you. 01:06:41 Speaker 2: Really try, we try hard. 01:06:42 Speaker 1: It's a great read. You know, unlike a lot of people, you haven't spent the last thirty years running around telling telling every story under the sun, you know, And so it's it's great to finally be able to get this story from your vantage point, you know what I mean, someone that's close to Muss, his brother, and. 01:07:01 Speaker 3: I feel it's too it's too important not to make sure that it's you know, down for the record. 01:07:10 Speaker 2: Yeah, because it follows my father, involves my family, you know what I mean. 01:07:14 Speaker 1: It's all through the lens of the politics y'all grew up with, you know what I mean, And it's all through the lens of of of of a love of blackness. You know. That's why I love it's unapologetically black stories. Yes, the subtitle of the book, it really is. It is, and it's through the lens, and you even talk about the music through that lens, and that's that's an important part that a lot of people miss, I think when discussing even pox music or your music or you know, Doug life and any of it. 01:07:42 Speaker 2: Yeah, I can't wait to do a series of show because we also touched music. Yeah. 01:07:48 Speaker 3: Now, my bah Blah Blau, my uncle Blau played with Gill Scott Herring's Wow the midnight band The Revolution will not be televised. Was he was rocking with real revolutionaries, you know what I mean. And then my father would promote shows to raise money for the movement, for the movement in other countries see raised money for it to buy ambulances in Africa, ROBERTA Flag, Eddie, Paul Mary, I mean, major acts of the day he would promote. So that's why I can't wait to do a series. We could have the musical element, we could have all that in there. But yeah, Blah Blah Blah play the flute and so you know, we were tapped into music, you know, but then it became our era, the hip hop era took over, and you know we were doing our thing now. 01:08:44 Speaker 1: Well and you guys left your mark man you guys left your mark. 01:08:46 Speaker 2: Man, God is good. 01:08:49 Speaker 3: I'm thankful, grateful for you know, the successes we've had. It ain't been easy, but I just I'm thankful that their struggles wasn't for nothing. They got to see something good come out besides all the brothers getting locked up, getting killed. You know, they got to see, you know, outside have a little success. Yeah, you know we will. 01:09:13 Speaker 2: We take the family to general market. 01:09:15 Speaker 1: Yeah yeah, Mo prem Man, thank you for writing the book and thanks for taking the time to talk to me about it. 01:09:21 Speaker 2: Man, Thank you, Thank you, my brother. I appreciate you. 01:09:26 Speaker 1: Come on. In the episode description, you'll find a link to a playlist of our favorite songs from Moe Prematucre and of TUPAC. Be sure to check out YouTube dot com slash Broker Record podcast to see for our video interviews, and be sure to follow us on Instagram at the Broken Record Pod. You can follow us on Twitter at Broken Record. Broken Record is produced and edited by Leah Rose, with marketing and help from Eric Sandler and Jordan McMillan. Our engineer is Ben Holladay. Broken Record is production of Pushkin Industries. If you love this show and others from Pushkin consider subscribing to Pushkin Plus. Pushkin Plus is a podcast subscription that offers bonus content and ad free listening for four ninety nine a month. Look for Pushkin Plus on Apple podcast subscriptions, and if you like the show, please remember to share, rate, and review us on your podcast app. Are theme musics by Kenny Beats. I'm justin Richmond.