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