Speaker 1: Of Course, Love Supreme is a production of iHeartRadio. This
Speaker 1: classic episode was produced by the team at Pandora.
Speaker 2: Yo Yo Yo, What up?
Speaker 3: This is this?
Speaker 4: Fonte Fontigelo here with another QLs classic. This episode we're
Speaker 4: taking it back to January eighteen, twenty eighteen, with Faith Newman.
Speaker 4: Faith Newman is the an r signed NODS and helped
Speaker 4: create the runway for Amatic. She joins thet QULS to
Speaker 4: discuss her time at Death Jam Columbia and we're going
Speaker 4: ugk too short at job. It's it y'all, episode number
Speaker 4: eighteen of PULS. Fifth Newman on the US classic.
Speaker 5: Who Suprema Suck Suck Supremo Roll Call, Suprema Suck Suck Subpremo,
Speaker 5: Roll Call, Supremo, sup Up Supremo Roll Call, Suprema Suck
Speaker 5: Suck Suprema roll Call.
Speaker 6: My name is Question. Yeah, that's who I am. Yeah,
Speaker 6: I'm gonna ask Faith new Man. Yeah, hollobout Primo, Suprema Road.
Speaker 5: Called, Suprema Suprema role call.
Speaker 4: My name is Fante. Yeah, I'm in the place. Yeah
Speaker 4: I'm not George Michael. Yeah, but I just gotta have Faith.
Speaker 2: Roll call Suprema Suprema Roll Call. Yeah, Faith new Man. Yeah,
Speaker 2: they call me sugar. Yeah, the sexy you Man, I'm.
Speaker 5: Punch spread No so Supreme roll called.
Speaker 2: I'm on Hey Bill, Yeah, I can't get no better.
Speaker 6: Yeah.
Speaker 2: Ready for eggnog?
Speaker 6: Yeah?
Speaker 2: Christmas sweaters?
Speaker 5: Who call Suprema So SUPREMEA roll call, Supreme Son Son Supremo.
Speaker 3: Road calls Boss Bill the meanest, Yes, Boss build the prettiest, Yes,
Speaker 3: Boss build the baddest more fu No down around this town.
Speaker 5: Supremo role called Suprema Son Sun Supremo role call.
Speaker 6: Yeah.
Speaker 7: Working on a rhyme scheme. Yeah, I don't know what
Speaker 7: I mean. Yeah, but I'm trying to see.
Speaker 2: Oh God, Supreme, why why she with me?
Speaker 6: Up?
Speaker 2: Roll Suprema Son Son Supremo roll call.
Speaker 8: My name is Faith.
Speaker 7: Yeah.
Speaker 8: I haven't rhymed since nineteen eighty.
Speaker 5: Yeah yeah, oh Supremo roll call, Suprema Son Son Supremo
Speaker 5: role call. Suprema Son So Supremo. Role called Suprema Son
Speaker 5: Son Supremo roll call.
Speaker 1: It's actually ironic that we are in or Barrack Street,
Speaker 1: in the location of the I guess the original.
Speaker 8: I thought you were going to go to death, Jam,
Speaker 8: I was trying to.
Speaker 2: Go to death Jam, So Death Jam wasn't on this block.
Speaker 8: No, the original original was on Elizabeth Street.
Speaker 1: I see, well, that voice you hear, ladies and gentlemen,
Speaker 1: is a legendary, legendary voice. What can I say about
Speaker 1: Faith Newman? I mean she has She's been there for
Speaker 1: some of your favorite moments in music. If you are
Speaker 1: a hip hop hit, you know, if if the Maroon
Speaker 1: to Black Death Jam logo the original meant anything to
Speaker 1: you in the eighties, in the nineties, Faith Newman was there.
Speaker 2: Not to mention, uh, she spirit headed.
Speaker 1: Probably one of the most debated and contested pieces of
Speaker 1: of work that has ever been in hip hop. I'm
Speaker 1: speaking of Illmatic by nas. You've done so much more.
Speaker 1: Ladies and gentlemen, give it up for Faith Newman.
Speaker 8: Thank you, thank you, thank you.
Speaker 2: Welcome to our dungeon. How are you doing to day, Faith, I'm.
Speaker 8: Doing okay Man you yeah, yeah, Dungeon, Dungeon.
Speaker 2: Come to my underground LA.
Speaker 1: When you hear that, normally I don't, I don't kick
Speaker 1: off an episode with the song, But when you hear
Speaker 1: that particular piece or just stuff from that era, like,
Speaker 1: what's the first thing.
Speaker 8: You thought of when you heard well, you know, I
Speaker 8: started working at Deaf Jam at eighty seven, right, so, uh,
Speaker 8: you know when I was still in college, and it
Speaker 8: was just an amazing, amazing time. Just some of the
Speaker 8: best years of my life were spent there. I was
Speaker 8: one of the first five people at the company, first woman, Right.
Speaker 2: I was going to say, if you.
Speaker 1: Were a woman in that vironment, I know that you
Speaker 1: have to have the toughest skin of all time. Yeah,
Speaker 1: because you're like what you're around. You were around twenty.
Speaker 2: Twenty one in that environment.
Speaker 4: Yeah, wow, Well, you know, there was no such thing
Speaker 4: as HR department. There's no HR department. There was no
Speaker 4: trigger warnings, there was none.
Speaker 2: Of that, you know.
Speaker 8: You know what's interesting though, was that before def CHAM
Speaker 8: I interned at Columbia Records eighty six and yeah, and
Speaker 8: you can imagine what that was like then. You still,
Speaker 8: I don't know if you saw the show No, the
Speaker 8: one that got canceled on HBO about the record thank You,
Speaker 8: Thank You, thank you, It was like that.
Speaker 2: Like, wait, canceled, Yeah, yeah, yeah one and done done Damn.
Speaker 2: Next to that was damn. I was actually I was
Speaker 2: into it too. Yeah, I liked it as well.
Speaker 8: But wow, but those guys, you know in eighty six
Speaker 8: that were in the record had been in the record
Speaker 8: business since, you know, whenever the seventies were still there,
Speaker 8: and that's where I got I experienced more harassment, you
Speaker 8: know what I mean? I see and I feel like
Speaker 8: with hip hop though, it's like I never could have
Speaker 8: gotten a job at Columbia unless I wanted to be
Speaker 8: somebody's assistant, you know.
Speaker 1: But so you're saying that working at Columbia in eighty
Speaker 1: six prepared you for the tough skin of the battles that.
Speaker 2: You would have to deal with.
Speaker 8: Yeah, you know, it's funny, like I don't know if
Speaker 8: it was my youth or whatever, how much I loved
Speaker 8: hip hop, It just I didn't think of myself as
Speaker 8: a woman first in hip hop. I just felt like,
Speaker 8: you know, that's kind of how it was with everybody
Speaker 8: who worked at Deaf Jams, Like we were all young
Speaker 8: and we were just totally immersed in the culture.
Speaker 7: Were there any other women at the time that maybe
Speaker 7: because you know, you were the first at Deaf Jam,
Speaker 7: but were there anything?
Speaker 8: There were women at Rush? So what you had was
Speaker 8: in the on an in Elizabeth Street. You had Rush
Speaker 8: management was on the first floor, and you had Lisa
Speaker 8: Cortez and Heidi Smith. Yeah Cortez, Yeah, who went on
Speaker 8: to work with Lee Daniels and yeah, she's doing great
Speaker 8: things in film.
Speaker 1: She she once infamously told The Roots when we I
Speaker 1: believe that she went to Mercury uh in ninety four.
Speaker 2: All right, so something happened.
Speaker 1: We were going to sign with Mercury, Like we went
Speaker 1: out to dinner and all this stuff, and then like
Speaker 1: there's a minor glitch in the contract that technically left
Speaker 1: us free for like a weekend.
Speaker 2: And that's when Wendy.
Speaker 1: Goldstein came with all his cash and Lisa Cortez was like,
Speaker 1: I hope they take race relation classes over there.
Speaker 2: Like that was like her last like, oh, you're gonna
Speaker 2: learn today forget uh So like was that You're.
Speaker 1: I'm trying to pedal backwards before I go forward. But
Speaker 1: how did you wind up in music? You're former phil Philadelphia.
Speaker 8: I'm a Philadelphia, proud Philadelphian.
Speaker 7: All right, I'm clapping alone, right, I mean I haven't
Speaker 7: been with the last sixteen years.
Speaker 8: Okay, take it.
Speaker 1: You're always all right, just no officially, like besides us
Speaker 1: being born on the same day, you're always Philadelphia native
Speaker 1: to me like DC doesn't count.
Speaker 7: No, my bougie spirit is down thanks to Philly, Like
Speaker 7: you know, it takes you down, brings you back up,
Speaker 7: phlling goop.
Speaker 2: So you're you're growing? What part of Philadelphia did you?
Speaker 8: Northeast?
Speaker 2: Wow? Is this Fishtown?
Speaker 6: No?
Speaker 8: Northeast? Northeast real Northeast, Bustleton Avenue? Okay, Tomlinson Road, I
Speaker 8: need this sounded familiar? Film on Avenue?
Speaker 1: Okay, I would expelt Roosevelt if you okay, what I'm
Speaker 1: saying is back in let's say nineteen eighty three. If
Speaker 1: current day no, no status, Amir Thompson, or to be.
Speaker 2: In that neighborhood, might I be greeted with some Louisville sluggers,
Speaker 2: perhaps as to relieve yourself.
Speaker 8: Them The Northeast? No, the Northeast is special.
Speaker 2: How okay?
Speaker 1: So I know me and knowing you personally, I know
Speaker 1: that you're a soul music officionado. How did that reach
Speaker 1: you up in the Northeast. Because when I'm thinking seventies
Speaker 1: and eighties Northeast, I'm thinking of like FM ninety eight,
Speaker 1: I'm thinking of the.
Speaker 8: Word yo, like yo, let's go get a head.
Speaker 2: Yeah, yeah, Like when you're from Philly.
Speaker 8: It's the worst ever. It's so glad. I don't you
Speaker 8: said that, but you.
Speaker 2: Said that out Yeah, So like, how were you no
Speaker 2: pun intended? Were you a black sheep of your Yeah?
Speaker 8: I have a funny story about that. I want you
Speaker 8: hear it. Well, actually the reason was Soul Train.
Speaker 2: Ah, okay, what was the reason.
Speaker 8: That you ask me?
Speaker 2: Why?
Speaker 7: No?
Speaker 2: I meant your love for.
Speaker 8: The show or just no, my love for the music.
Speaker 8: It's just I always had music playing in the house.
Speaker 8: My dad had this great, you know, fancy reel to
Speaker 8: real player, and he would play a lot of Ray
Speaker 8: Charles and the Birds, Creeden's Clearwater Revival, like a lot
Speaker 8: of bluesy stuff that I was always attracted to.
Speaker 1: And then we should let our let our listeners know
Speaker 1: that in the seventies, the uh real to reel player
Speaker 1: was like, I mean, that was the original m P
Speaker 1: three older even before it, like cassettes.
Speaker 8: Weren't even Yeah, well they bought you know, you'd buy
Speaker 8: real to real albums like you was, Oh okay.
Speaker 2: They were.
Speaker 1: Get and then oh really all the music he liked
Speaker 1: on that reel to reel so he just had three
Speaker 1: hours of yeah, continuous music without having them put the
Speaker 1: record stack on, so so your your father would would
Speaker 1: listen to all these songs on.
Speaker 8: Yeah, there was always music playing in the house, always
Speaker 8: on the house, always on the radio in the car.
Speaker 8: Funny story, I mean you asked kind of how I
Speaker 8: was different. I my grandparents lived in North Philadelphia and
Speaker 8: North Yeah you r F O r F North?
Speaker 2: Wow? What year?
Speaker 8: Oh god, I mean they moved out in the seventies, so,
Speaker 8: you know, forties, fifties, sixties. Well, and my mom went
Speaker 8: to Overbrook there.
Speaker 7: Oh, oh my goodness, y'all are your family yeah, yeah,
Speaker 7: very integrated, like yeah, but this this story, the funny
Speaker 7: story is that I was four, I guess four or five,
Speaker 7: and I was sitting on the stoop in my grandmother's
Speaker 7: house and across the street these.
Speaker 8: Activists, I guess we're said, I don't know if they
Speaker 8: were black panthers, I don't know what they were, but
Speaker 8: they were setting up a table to hand out literature,
Speaker 8: and I thought that they just looked amazing. They had
Speaker 8: these you know, big afros, and just they seemed so cool.
Speaker 8: So I went across the street just to hang out
Speaker 8: with them, and they said, are you lost? Yeah, which
Speaker 8: is you know, symbolic and yeah, so that was that
Speaker 8: was a funny story. But Soul Train was where I
Speaker 8: got my music from. That was it every Saturday?
Speaker 2: Okay?
Speaker 1: And then pretty much, I mean, what did you and
Speaker 1: I Philadelphia to make your check to New York.
Speaker 8: I started going to New York when I was sixteen,
Speaker 8: so that I kind of would sneak away. I would
Speaker 8: tell my mom is sleeping at a friend's house and
Speaker 8: I'd take the Greyhound to New York and I'd go
Speaker 8: to the Roxy places like that.
Speaker 1: Finally, yeah, someone that's been to the Roxy, Yeah at
Speaker 1: its peak favorite now when here's this eighty one, eighty two,
Speaker 1: eighty two eight, So what was what's what's the what's.
Speaker 2: The average environment of the Roxy?
Speaker 1: Because I think after Studio fifty four, the Roxy's definitely
Speaker 1: falling into the mythic hole.
Speaker 8: Yeah, it was everything that I thought it would be.
Speaker 8: The first time I went, it was like, how did
Speaker 8: you hear about it? That's a good question, And I
Speaker 8: don't know. I don't remember. I mean, I started listening
Speaker 8: to hip hop when I was thirteen, and I heard
Speaker 8: it first time at United States of America on Roosevelt Boulevard.
Speaker 2: Damn, USA, USA, I remember that spotyre.
Speaker 8: Yeah, but it is the first time I heard a
Speaker 8: rap record, which of course you know, given you know
Speaker 8: it was in Philly and it was rappers Delight. So
Speaker 8: that was a game changing moment for me. And I
Speaker 8: found a friend from Jersey who would get cassettes of
Speaker 8: you know, Funky four plus one and ANGIEB and Spoony
Speaker 8: G and you know, all of this stuff, and that's
Speaker 8: how I got my hip hop early on. It was
Speaker 8: through these cassettes through from New York to Jersey to Philadelphia.
Speaker 2: Really, so I've never heard of tapes making.
Speaker 8: They made their way, well, they made their way to
Speaker 8: my friend in Jersey and he got me the tape.
Speaker 1: So okay, So when you're going to the Roxy, like,
Speaker 1: what's I mean, what's the average night, it's like Jellybean
Speaker 1: Benita spending Like who.
Speaker 8: Was spinning Bombarda was spinning that night?
Speaker 2: Really? Yes? So what it? What is his method of
Speaker 2: I mean, can you describe like some of the songs
Speaker 2: you heard or whatever I heard? He would just go
Speaker 2: all over the place.
Speaker 1: I heard one mixtape in which he, for some weird reason,
Speaker 1: just stayed on the the Hey Mickey of drum intro
Speaker 1: for like ten minutes though.
Speaker 2: But it wasn't like but it wasn't like it was
Speaker 2: in line. It'd be like goop goop, you could you could,
Speaker 2: you could give us wow sound like sneakers in the
Speaker 2: dry wait that that was the best analogy I ever heard.
Speaker 2: I ever heard so any of the folklore characters of.
Speaker 8: Yeah, well, I just remembered I I met Mellie Mellon's
Speaker 8: Scorpio and I thought that was a really cool thing.
Speaker 8: And it was the first time I saw rock Steady live.
Speaker 8: It was like everything was happening at once. It was
Speaker 8: like all of hip hop in this you know, in
Speaker 8: this little space, and it was just you know, they're
Speaker 8: writing graffiti on plexiglass. You know, they're break dancing. It's
Speaker 8: actually probably eighty three because Planet Patrol performed. That's what
Speaker 8: I remember.
Speaker 2: Oh wow, that's that.
Speaker 8: Ye yep, that's it.
Speaker 2: With those costumes, with the crazy and the hat all
Speaker 2: of it.
Speaker 1: Planet Patrol would they'd start their shows looking like I
Speaker 1: can't even discover.
Speaker 8: But it was all I mean, it was like that.
Speaker 8: It was like very like p funk the way they
Speaker 8: did it, and Sulsonic Force did it. And it wasn't
Speaker 8: until run DMC that people stop kind of you know,
Speaker 8: even the Furious five had, you know, know what they
Speaker 8: used to dress like?
Speaker 2: So did you dress like that as well?
Speaker 6: No?
Speaker 2: Were you B girl? Were you the prototype cool white
Speaker 2: girl in the circle of black?
Speaker 4: I was?
Speaker 5: I was.
Speaker 2: I was a B girl, okay for sure?
Speaker 8: And then later on I was really like when I
Speaker 8: said that I haven't wrapped since eighty six, like that's
Speaker 8: for real, Like I was in a rap group and everything.
Speaker 8: So wow, yeah, well I have to preface this, you know,
Speaker 8: so it makes sense. Remember Calvin Coolers. Yeah, they came
Speaker 8: in a four pack, not a six pack.
Speaker 2: Yes, your name was a little four pack.
Speaker 8: Her name was four pack. Wow, there were four of us,
Speaker 8: get it?
Speaker 2: Yeah? Yeah, yeah, yeah, I got to google that.
Speaker 8: That's you know, I'm talking Calvin Coolers.
Speaker 7: Yeah.
Speaker 8: I never heard, never heard it.
Speaker 2: About it. That's why is cooler? Yeah, I'm late. I'm sorry.
Speaker 2: It's funny though.
Speaker 4: I just didn't now got the reference because I've heard
Speaker 4: I knew it from the King Ryan, but I didn't
Speaker 4: know it.
Speaker 2: Was an Actually, wait, who the who the two old
Speaker 2: white guys.
Speaker 7: That used to sell the James I remember them white
Speaker 7: even so yeah, but they're like heart lemonades now.
Speaker 4: Mike's hard lemonade. So for a non Draco like me,
Speaker 4: would wine cooler been like the perfect?
Speaker 2: Yeah? Yeah, it's just some sweet diabetic black Is it black?
Speaker 8: No?
Speaker 2: I mean you know, like we like, you know, black
Speaker 2: folks ordering ordering, we ordering Moscotto, it's the sweet tea
Speaker 2: of one.
Speaker 4: Yes, yes, yeah, any kind of wine cool. It's like
Speaker 4: why they stopped making it because I would have been
Speaker 4: the perfect.
Speaker 2: I know they still make it. It's just marketing towards
Speaker 2: like you know, freshman in college.
Speaker 7: Wow, like Boom's farm.
Speaker 2: So wait, when Bruce Willis was singing Sea Cool, who
Speaker 2: were they they returned to black folk. I don't think
Speaker 2: I think it was.
Speaker 4: I think it was the thing where it was unintended consequences,
Speaker 4: like how most upscale white products like they you know,
Speaker 4: right crystal, how we grabbed it.
Speaker 2: Yeah, we grabbed It's like, oh damn, we mean them
Speaker 2: for the niggas to get that, but.
Speaker 7: The whole.
Speaker 2: He's like, no, we made polo. We made chaps for
Speaker 2: y'all niggas. I wasn't sposed get polo, but you know,
Speaker 2: it happens like sneakers in the dry anyway. So damn.
Speaker 2: I forgot how we got on this tangent but a tangent.
Speaker 8: On four pack? Now, the name of the group four
Speaker 8: packs the name of our group?
Speaker 2: All right? So what was your actual name in the
Speaker 2: group four pack?
Speaker 8: My actual name?
Speaker 2: Yeah?
Speaker 8: Oh man, you're not going to get that.
Speaker 3: Come on, we got this play on the Supreme please,
Speaker 3: oh Lord exclusives.
Speaker 7: Give us the other girl.
Speaker 2: We won't send you to HR.
Speaker 8: We promised, promise. Does not know what it is, you know,
Speaker 8: you never told them. I must have told them it
Speaker 8: was M Fortune.
Speaker 2: Wait.
Speaker 8: Who are the other three though, Rammy, SD and C Money.
Speaker 2: That sounds like medical conditions. Are they in the business now?
Speaker 6: No?
Speaker 2: Okay, were you guys like seriously trying to get a deal.
Speaker 8: Or we were you know, we were just so like
Speaker 8: I said, immersed in the culture that it just seemed
Speaker 8: like this natural extension, like let's just have a group.
Speaker 8: And we went in the studio with the L A Posse.
Speaker 2: Oh wow wait era, Yeah.
Speaker 8: I was on the Bigger and Deafer album What what
Speaker 8: what's on?
Speaker 2: What's on?
Speaker 8: I don't know? The go l L Go and Let's
Speaker 8: get No No and let's get Let's get Wait.
Speaker 2: When you were still working at Deaf Jam.
Speaker 8: I hadn't started working with Death Jam. I didn't start
Speaker 8: working till seven.
Speaker 1: No, okay, but you started working at def Jam in
Speaker 1: the eighties eighty seven when that album came out, so
Speaker 1: back then you were still pursuing.
Speaker 8: It's just it was like a half. It isn't really
Speaker 8: what I wanted to do.
Speaker 7: Was it?
Speaker 2: Four Whirls?
Speaker 8: Yeah, we're four white girls?
Speaker 2: And Russell didn't see this at one point? Was a
Speaker 2: marketing the female Beast? Like, did he know about the.
Speaker 8: I don't think. I don't think he even knew. It
Speaker 8: was a short lived part of my life.
Speaker 2: Were you guys good? We're trying to bring are the
Speaker 2: demo tapes? Is there an union tour?
Speaker 8: Yeah, we're putting the band back together.
Speaker 2: Putting man on to him before my ad libs from
Speaker 2: all Let's get in.
Speaker 8: But that was the first time I saw Todd without
Speaker 8: his hat on. That was interesting.
Speaker 2: Wow, really, I don't think I saw that till like
Speaker 2: ninety five.
Speaker 8: Yeah, no, I got a sneak peek.
Speaker 1: Quincy Jones told of a story where he brought LLLL
Speaker 1: to Bill Cosby's house for dinner and ll had his
Speaker 1: hat on, and you know, Bill Cosby said, you know
Speaker 1: one of them. Cosby things like, well in this house,
Speaker 1: young man, we take our hats off.
Speaker 2: And da da da da.
Speaker 1: So llll like all embarrassed, took his hat off and
Speaker 1: then Bill looked at his head, was like, put that hat.
Speaker 2: Okay, so where do.
Speaker 8: Put the rap group? Just put that in a little
Speaker 8: you know bubble that Well, no.
Speaker 2: You you were?
Speaker 8: I was?
Speaker 2: I was, Yeah, was this when you were going to college?
Speaker 2: Or yeah?
Speaker 8: I was in college?
Speaker 2: Correct? Where's your major?
Speaker 8: Marketing?
Speaker 2: Did you know, Gina? Or was that to soon ginicker Sean.
Speaker 7: Gina got strong with the n YU acting she.
Speaker 1: Wanted to in the n YU and told me, Gina
Speaker 1: Kershon is the second person I know that has neglected
Speaker 1: her finals, like her college finals, to pursue her actual dream.
Speaker 1: The other person is Ursula Smith set to run. Gina
Speaker 1: told me that she was running late to her very
Speaker 1: final test that she had to take to get her degree,
Speaker 1: and Andy Warhol's stopped her and said, you know, you
Speaker 1: must be in my video. I think he was directing
Speaker 1: a video for the Cars and he wanted her immediately.
Speaker 1: So it's like, do I go to do I take
Speaker 1: this final and get my degree or do I do
Speaker 1: this Car's video? What she did the cars video? And
Speaker 1: the same story with with Ursula Smith. Ursula was was
Speaker 1: she the official Rush publishes.
Speaker 2: By then or not yet?
Speaker 8: Layla la?
Speaker 2: So Laila was there when it so I know that.
Speaker 7: She.
Speaker 1: There was a group on Tommy Boy called Information Society
Speaker 1: and running, Yeah, running, and it's like one of Stevie
Speaker 1: b Uh.
Speaker 2: I needed you.
Speaker 1: Like everything over a planet rock that's sort of Stevie
Speaker 1: bs freestyle.
Speaker 2: Exactly.
Speaker 1: So she uh, she had brought Information Society to a
Speaker 1: college uh in Houston, uh, like part of a spring
Speaker 1: fling thing and all she had to do was take
Speaker 1: her finals. And they asked her like after the show,
Speaker 1: you know, we don't have a tour manager or something
Speaker 1: like would you travel with us? And but they're like
Speaker 1: now like in an hour, and she took the opportunity.
Speaker 1: She didn't take her finals. She just packed everything and
Speaker 1: left college and went on tour.
Speaker 8: I was gonna leave and Rick said that I should
Speaker 8: finish because I had one semester to go.
Speaker 1: Was Rick Rubin at NYU at the time or no,
Speaker 1: Like was he actually or was that just folklore that
Speaker 1: he just lived there?
Speaker 2: And yeah, so he was a student there.
Speaker 8: Yeah, okay, but by the time I, you know, came aboard,
Speaker 8: he had you know, he was living in the Elizabeth
Speaker 8: Street building.
Speaker 1: Okay, because I'm just under the impression that Rick Rubin
Speaker 1: lived in the NYU dorms like during this whole period,
Speaker 1: I'm like, well, when was he actually in college?
Speaker 8: No, because he graduated, he would have had to graduate
Speaker 8: in eighty four.
Speaker 2: Okay, Yeah, okay, that makes.
Speaker 8: Sense, And I graduated in eighty eight.
Speaker 2: So I see, So like when did you well, you
Speaker 2: did a Columbia first correct.
Speaker 8: So, actually, my first first internship was with a company
Speaker 8: called Select Records. Yeah, do you remember Select? Yeah, Whistle,
Speaker 8: Real Rocks and years is eighty six, summer of eighty six.
Speaker 2: Right when that lethal record was coming.
Speaker 6: Yeah.
Speaker 2: So what did you do at Select?
Speaker 8: Made phone calls for you know, Rady, like for I
Speaker 8: don't know, the retailers. How big?
Speaker 2: How big was the company back then?
Speaker 8: It's about the size of this space we're in right now.
Speaker 2: How many employees full time employees? Four including you?
Speaker 8: No, not including me?
Speaker 2: So four and a half yeah, four and a half
Speaker 2: full pack, four pack. So okay, so you left Select
Speaker 2: to go to Colombia. Yeah, was this well, I think
Speaker 2: Terrence was there. What was there? Big eighty six moment.
Speaker 8: For you, Gregory Abbott.
Speaker 2: Wow, he just woke Steve up from the original Mark Morrison.
Speaker 2: I want that by my mother, Steve, you know, shaky down.
Speaker 2: Let me tell you about.
Speaker 8: Tubs from Miami Vice. No, he did, he did.
Speaker 2: Wasn't Philip Michael Thomas on Columbia? That was Atlantic.
Speaker 8: Eddie Murphy was on Columbia.
Speaker 2: Yeah, you know. Did you read that Frint story with
Speaker 2: Eddie Murphy? He was on Columbia's right. Well, okay, the
Speaker 2: thing about Sugar Steve is he is he's the black
Speaker 2: yacht rock expert rock like then you didn't you do
Speaker 2: a book a reporter on like on the Wings of
Speaker 2: Love or something? Wow? Wow, yes, I'm serious.
Speaker 5: Yeah, play it.
Speaker 2: That's my joint. Can you just sing it? I can wait?
Speaker 2: Why did you do a report on on the wings below? Okay?
Speaker 2: So the story was there?
Speaker 9: Was it was actually called it wasn't a report. It's
Speaker 9: called a rollout. It was for a music class in
Speaker 9: middle school junior high as we call it. And basically
Speaker 9: you had to you had to draw the lyrics and
Speaker 9: then and and then as and then and then you
Speaker 9: get in front of the class, you play the song
Speaker 9: on radio or whatever, and then you slowly roll it out.
Speaker 2: That's why it's called roll Yeah. What the school did
Speaker 2: you go to? See why? You smoke a lot of weed?
Speaker 8: Yeah?
Speaker 7: Yeah?
Speaker 2: Did you have grades?
Speaker 9: So so anyway, you you get in front of the
Speaker 9: class and you slowly roll it out while the music
Speaker 9: is playing so that you see the lyrics and drawing
Speaker 9: and so you know, the guy, the music teacher says,
Speaker 9: choose a choose a song that you love and and
Speaker 9: use that as your as your rollout topic.
Speaker 2: And yours on the wings at yo, matter of fact,
Speaker 2: you can you describe you're oh, please, any reason to
Speaker 2: play this song?
Speaker 9: So so the day of the rollout comes and and
Speaker 9: I'm sitting in the class and the first the first
Speaker 9: u the first student goes and he chose like led
Speaker 9: Zeppelin or something. The next guy comes and it's deep purple.
Speaker 9: And the next guy comes in it's you know, black
Speaker 9: Sabbath and uh. And then Steve walks up there and
Speaker 9: and I knew right there I had made sort of
Speaker 9: a misjudgment, but I had to follow through it. But
Speaker 9: it turns out that I got an a in it
Speaker 9: because my music teacher.
Speaker 2: It was black.
Speaker 4: No, he was gay, Sugar Steed, a man from downtown, right,
Speaker 4: so Gregory Abby at Columbia.
Speaker 8: You know that Jeffrey Osborne would do that as was
Speaker 8: so disappointing to me. Oh, you know, how do you
Speaker 8: go from love ballad?
Speaker 2: And the thing is is that you.
Speaker 1: Whether you want to admit it or not, I mean
Speaker 1: your hip. But you're a suit. I mean you're not
Speaker 1: the artist. I mean at a label, you're either going
Speaker 1: to be the artist or you're going to be the suit. Now,
Speaker 1: I mean, what were the conditions at a record label
Speaker 1: that told that particular artist that I need to cross
Speaker 1: over and.
Speaker 2: And win for survival? Sick? I don't. I don't think
Speaker 2: people cross over just for you know, just for the
Speaker 2: joy of it.
Speaker 4: I think it's it's no, it's a calculated decision. It's
Speaker 4: like some survival.
Speaker 3: No.
Speaker 2: Absolutely.
Speaker 4: And I mean particularly in the eighties, I mean that
Speaker 4: was at the time where you had like a lot
Speaker 4: of black artists. I mean they was making like that
Speaker 4: fucking ABC Friday Night music, you know what I mean,
Speaker 4: like fucking Stir it Up by Patty and then Horn.
Speaker 2: His sisters Friday Night Network. It was exactly so exact pink.
Speaker 1: Well, then again we did we did learn from Sheep
Speaker 1: Gordon that uh that black artists really weren't making money
Speaker 1: on tour. Right, so records was there there there soul
Speaker 1: means of of you know, generating income.
Speaker 4: Yeah, if you didn't have a hit, I mean, and
Speaker 4: I guess if you're watching Thriller, right, you know I
Speaker 4: you too would say like, oh I want my piece
Speaker 4: of the pie as well.
Speaker 2: Yeah, but Harold fall to myya, come on, let's go
Speaker 2: in the studio. Right, So yeah, well he had one
Speaker 2: hit though, Yeah, play me the Rabbit song? So maybe
Speaker 2: maybe I did hear? Yes, you definitely heard, You've heard
Speaker 2: you heard, Shake You Down. It was the number one ahead. Yeah,
Speaker 2: it was there. It was the original Turn of the
Speaker 2: Mac for real.
Speaker 8: It was Turn of the Mac was funkier than.
Speaker 4: That, I mean just in terms of the Yeah, wait,
Speaker 4: who was hidden on soft eighty six?
Speaker 2: It would have been It would have probably been Springsteen, right.
Speaker 8: Yes, that Bonnie Tyler record, remember that one was there?
Speaker 2: That was besides that? Yeah, yea, and.
Speaker 8: The album would head to toe and big audio dynamite
Speaker 8: remember that?
Speaker 2: Yeah? Who?
Speaker 9: Of course Elvis Costello put out two albums that year.
Speaker 9: Okay on Columbia.
Speaker 2: So at the time you were working at so you
Speaker 2: didn't get to choose what department or.
Speaker 8: No, I got stuck in a dance music promotion. That's
Speaker 8: where they put me.
Speaker 2: Who was like your supervisor?
Speaker 8: Who's this woman, Gail Brucewitz. She was the only female
Speaker 8: in the promotion department. And you know, last day of
Speaker 8: my I would sit in her office. You know, I'd
Speaker 8: look at all the plaques on the wall and I'd
Speaker 8: be like, this me is going to be me very soon,
Speaker 8: and I'm going to have this, and I'm going to
Speaker 8: have that.
Speaker 1: Who did you have to look up to back then?
Speaker 1: Was Sylvia Roon the only one that was remotely about
Speaker 1: to win? Well even in eighty six she was still yeah,
Speaker 1: not an executive, No.
Speaker 8: There was really no probably no okay anyway, So the
Speaker 8: last day of my intern and ship. Also in that time,
Speaker 8: I turned twenty one and I had a big birthday
Speaker 8: party and run dyem Sea came and Houdini and the
Speaker 8: Beastie Boys and yeah, because I was I was out
Speaker 8: in the clubs and you know, and I had met
Speaker 8: Russell totally randomly walking down Bleaker Street with the guy
Speaker 8: from London Records, who knew Russell because London used to
Speaker 8: distribute Deaf Jam before they went to Columbia. And so Mike,
Speaker 8: my friend Mike introduced me to Russell, and you know,
Speaker 8: my mind's going like, you know, a million miles a minute,
Speaker 8: like this is your moment, this is your chance, you
Speaker 8: better fucking talk your ass off, and like, so I sat.
Speaker 8: He asked us to sit down, and I just like
Speaker 8: went in on every liner note. I had ever read
Speaker 8: every artist, producer, musician, everything, and you know, and he
Speaker 8: looks at me and he's like, what do you do? Said?
Speaker 8: You know, I'm in school and he's like, how do
Speaker 8: you know so much about black music? I was like,
Speaker 8: well this, you know, I grew up listening to this
Speaker 8: and that, this and that. He said, you know, I would,
Speaker 8: I'd hire you from my company, you know if I
Speaker 8: could so stay in touch.
Speaker 2: And you know, and you did you bug him until
Speaker 2: I didn't.
Speaker 8: I didn't, you know, I didn't bug. That was like
Speaker 8: the summer of eighty six and I did the internship
Speaker 8: and you know, I guess the story I was going
Speaker 8: to tell was the woman who I interned for asked
Speaker 8: me to come into her office and she closed the
Speaker 8: door and she started crying. Yep, and she said, stay
Speaker 8: away from this business. It's no place for a woman.
Speaker 8: I'm trying to save you now before you you experience
Speaker 8: any real heartbreak like I experienced, like oh shit, you're crazy.
Speaker 2: Now let it out.
Speaker 7: What what.
Speaker 1: Do you I mean without naming names or whatever, like
Speaker 1: what treatment? What is the environment at a major label?
Speaker 1: The major label of the moment?
Speaker 8: Yeah? Yeah, yet in the coff Yeah, he had just
Speaker 8: left and al Teller was the president at the time.
Speaker 8: Between yet and the coff and.
Speaker 1: Montola came in eighty seven, right, I'm not sure I
Speaker 1: think so. So that was a very short that was
Speaker 1: like eighty five eighty six practically.
Speaker 8: Yeah.
Speaker 2: Wait, why did yet Nikov get dismissed?
Speaker 8: I don't know. I thought he was part of the
Speaker 8: whole you know, pay for play thing that got that
Speaker 8: everybody got caught up the scandal.
Speaker 2: Yeah, well has that ever stopped?
Speaker 8: No?
Speaker 2: No, I thought I'd tell you that we won't stop.
Speaker 8: But can you talk about that?
Speaker 7: That's interesting being a woman in the time, starting as
Speaker 7: an intern and then the trans transition to being the
Speaker 7: first woman at depth jam. Did it make the difference?
Speaker 8: Yeah? Made a huge difference, because you know, I so
Speaker 8: in April comes of eighty seven, I come home from
Speaker 8: school note on the refrigerator. Rick Rubin called, I think
Speaker 8: it's a joke. I asked my roommate, is this for real?
Speaker 8: He said, yeah, I think it is. Call Rick. He
Speaker 8: said yeah. You know, everybody at Columbia thought you were great.
Speaker 8: Russell really likes you. You know, you're really smart. You
Speaker 8: want to come work for Deaf Jam just like that?
Speaker 8: So I said sure. He said, do you want to
Speaker 8: know how much you're going to make? I said sure,
Speaker 8: you know, okay, so school me.
Speaker 2: At least before you get to deaf Jam. What's what's
Speaker 2: the average pay salary?
Speaker 8: Like, Oh, I don't know. They started me at eighteen thousand.
Speaker 2: A year deaf Jam nineteen eighty six.
Speaker 8: Nineteen eighty seven, and you were living in I was
Speaker 8: living in the village on Sullivan Street between Bleaker and
Speaker 8: West third and a fifth floor walk up with other roommates.
Speaker 8: Didn't matter, didn't matter. I would have paid them to
Speaker 8: go work for them. I didn't care.
Speaker 2: Really, Yeah, what what was it about deaf Jam at
Speaker 2: the time?
Speaker 8: That's jam Jam was everything. I mean, look at the
Speaker 8: artists that they had and you know it was you know,
Speaker 8: it's a cliche, but it's true. I mean people would
Speaker 8: go into the store, you know, and it's music factory
Speaker 8: or wherever it was, and there's a deaf Jam logo
Speaker 8: on that vinyl. You buy it.
Speaker 2: You know, I have questions about that though, about the
Speaker 2: deaf Jam label. Yes, it didn't, it didn't.
Speaker 8: That didn't sustain I'm saying at that at this particular
Speaker 8: moment in time.
Speaker 2: Right, you know, Okay, well, no, I'm but what I
Speaker 2: want to know is just what was it that made
Speaker 2: her warn you?
Speaker 8: Oh? Oh, those guys were scumbags. They were awful, They
Speaker 8: were you know, I would get hit on constantly by
Speaker 8: you know, the other promotion guys. Again, it's like the
Speaker 8: characters and Vinyl only real life left over from the seventies. Still,
Speaker 8: you know, in that that mindset, at the total misogyny,
Speaker 8: that's you know, So.
Speaker 1: At any point did they did you did they use
Speaker 1: you as a focus group, like hey, what do you
Speaker 1: think about this guy?
Speaker 2: And it's like Terrence and Derby.
Speaker 8: Or you know, like they didn't ask me anything. I
Speaker 8: was stuff in envelopes going to like Latin Quarter. You know,
Speaker 8: it's like my own thing. Okay, I see, it was
Speaker 8: just it was enough for me to realize that this
Speaker 8: is what I wanted to do with my life, but
Speaker 8: I was going to do it differently from what I
Speaker 8: was experiencing at a major label.
Speaker 2: What were your duties at deaf Jam.
Speaker 8: Then it started off with them wanting to start a
Speaker 8: publishing company and neither of them knew how to do it.
Speaker 8: So they wanted me to go sit with people who
Speaker 8: worked for publishing companies and figure out how it worked
Speaker 8: and then come back and start one for deaf Jam,
Speaker 8: which is what I did.
Speaker 2: And then so you had to learn it on the spot.
Speaker 8: I learned on the spot. I sat with lawyers and
Speaker 8: publishing executives and you know my big earrings, high top
Speaker 8: spot builts. Wow, that should give you a good visual.
Speaker 2: That definitely gave me.
Speaker 7: But by the time you got the Depth Jam, the
Speaker 7: treatment was different, right because you said that, you said
Speaker 7: the guys were a little bit they were worth.
Speaker 8: So we were all like around the same age, you know,
Speaker 8: So there wasn't that weird thing of like these older
Speaker 8: dudes and younger females. You know, we were all and
Speaker 8: it was just it was just a different environment. I
Speaker 8: think we all felt like we were and again not
Speaker 8: to sound like a cliche, you know, but that we
Speaker 8: were really part of something special.
Speaker 2: Your jacket.
Speaker 8: I got my jacket right away. I got the black
Speaker 8: bull wow black yeah.
Speaker 2: Yeah, for those that don't know in nineteen eighty seven,
Speaker 2: eighty eight, eighty.
Speaker 1: Nine, the deaf jam logo on your back, that that
Speaker 1: held wow, that help power like no other. Well you
Speaker 1: know again, I'm saying it like I've lived it, which
Speaker 1: clearly I wasn't there.
Speaker 7: But was it like a limited number of giving out
Speaker 7: like and only certain like you got to be a
Speaker 7: point of management or something like that.
Speaker 8: You just see how to actually work for the company
Speaker 8: and just be maybe one step removed from working for
Speaker 8: the company. No, I don't think interns got jackets. I
Speaker 8: don't think we had interns. We weren't enough of us.
Speaker 8: There was only five of us. We didn't need who
Speaker 8: needed interns?
Speaker 2: Okay? But the what was the power of the deaf
Speaker 2: jam jacket?
Speaker 8: Oh that could get you like chased down the street demos?
Speaker 2: Oh okay, it's the first.
Speaker 1: Everyone else I talked to is like, yeah, man, I
Speaker 1: can get any night glove whatever.
Speaker 8: I didn't think about that. I was already like able
Speaker 8: to do that.
Speaker 2: So it's so you wouldn't pip like you wouldn't wear
Speaker 2: that jacket as.
Speaker 8: Your your No, I didn't need to. I already in
Speaker 8: terms of all the clubs and stuff, I was already
Speaker 8: looped in so and established.
Speaker 1: Okay, yeah, so you so you started their publishing company
Speaker 1: for them. Yes, that was the first I know, that
Speaker 1: was something that had to be established.
Speaker 8: Ory even it doesn't it just they thought of it
Speaker 8: as you know, another money making opportunity for the company
Speaker 8: that they weren't taking advantage of and other people were,
Speaker 8: and that's what they wanted to do.
Speaker 2: So they wanted to start their own motown version.
Speaker 8: Of the Joe bet or yes, exactly.
Speaker 1: So did that mean all the def Jam artists had
Speaker 1: to sign their publishing over to deaf Jam?
Speaker 8: That was that was the the intent.
Speaker 2: Yes, did that happen? No, okay, because the artists were
Speaker 2: like the hell out of here.
Speaker 8: Right artists that time had a turned and things like that.
Speaker 1: You know, the concept of original concept was it were
Speaker 1: they a DJ crew with all the advertisements I saw
Speaker 1: was like stressing that, you know, they're a DJ outfit
Speaker 1: with some mcs.
Speaker 8: Like yeah, that sounds right.
Speaker 2: What it was with doctor dre from from TV raps
Speaker 2: and T Money.
Speaker 8: I forget the the other I forget there are other
Speaker 8: names too. Damn, Faith, I know, I'm sorry. It's thirty
Speaker 8: years ago.
Speaker 2: Damn you made me feel bad. What were you doing
Speaker 2: in nineteen eighty five?
Speaker 6: No?
Speaker 1: No, no, okay, So, but there's there's no story or
Speaker 1: recollection of I mean, at one point at that def
Speaker 1: Jam building, the heat got turned on as far as like,
Speaker 1: you know, that.
Speaker 8: Was funny you should say that because we didn't have
Speaker 8: any heat in that building really literally, so it was great.
Speaker 8: We had to wear our troop jackets you know, really yeah,
Speaker 8: and to a win until we moved out of that
Speaker 8: building at all.
Speaker 2: Like, at what point are you promoted.
Speaker 8: To doing A and R?
Speaker 2: Yeah?
Speaker 8: Well also well, aside from the publishing thing, also kind
Speaker 8: of I set up the whole like an R admin
Speaker 8: part of the company that didn't exist prior.
Speaker 2: To it was like it's five of you though, right, Yeah, so.
Speaker 8: It was me doing creating the admin s. I learned
Speaker 8: to talk to lawyers and people at labels and figured
Speaker 8: it out.
Speaker 2: So it's just a learning curve. But by this point,
Speaker 2: like isn't CBS.
Speaker 8: Part of the Yeah, yeah, we were distributed and I
Speaker 8: spent a lot of time up in Columbia.
Speaker 2: Did they give you guys your own cubicle section or
Speaker 2: do you building?
Speaker 8: No, always come up to their building.
Speaker 2: To use their resources and yeah, just to yeah exactly, Okay,
Speaker 2: So how do you how do you like, how do
Speaker 2: you establish it? Admin? This is stuff I don't even
Speaker 2: know that you should be doing now, Like I didn't
Speaker 2: know that.
Speaker 8: Well, there was no like a PO system for the studio,
Speaker 8: so the studio costs were like out of control. Nobody
Speaker 8: was really monitoring it. So there was a lot of
Speaker 8: the company just kind of bleeding money in a lot
Speaker 8: of places because nobody was like minding the store.
Speaker 2: So it's up to you to handle up to.
Speaker 8: Me to handle the business of deaf jam.
Speaker 2: Yeah, and you took that initiative on your own.
Speaker 1: Yes, you just got tired of studios like you guys,
Speaker 1: hold me seventeen thousand dollars.
Speaker 8: Well, the guy who was supposed to be handling a
Speaker 8: lot of this stuff. One day, Rick called me upstairs
Speaker 8: and said this was I guess I had been there
Speaker 8: for four months and he said, I'm giving you a
Speaker 8: promotion I'm giving your raise and I'm firing George, and
Speaker 8: I want you to take his job.
Speaker 2: Yeah, did you have to fire George?
Speaker 8: I didn't have to fire George, Rick, Rick fired George,
Speaker 8: and that's how I started doing all that the Edmond
Speaker 8: stuff that he hadn't been doing. He was, you know,
Speaker 8: too busy doing other things.
Speaker 2: So is this where bigger and depfor enters the picture?
Speaker 8: Uh?
Speaker 1: Yep, all right, now, I know that a big part
Speaker 1: of Rick's disdain for that follow up record One he
Speaker 1: didn't work on it, but two.
Speaker 2: He hated I need Love.
Speaker 1: Now when you guys are getting your daily report, assuming
Speaker 1: that you guys are operating like a real record label
Speaker 1: where you listen to daily reports and listening to new music,
Speaker 1: and this is where we are with the LL record.
Speaker 2: Are you guys in a room at the same time
Speaker 2: where they're like, yo, this is the one? Like what
Speaker 2: are y'all thinking?
Speaker 8: I wasn't thinking that it was the one. I think
Speaker 8: Columbia was really a big part of pushing that.
Speaker 7: Really, h That's interesting because I read somewhere that you
Speaker 7: said you're a very melodic type person, so a lot
Speaker 7: of these songs, in my mind, I thought, were you
Speaker 7: the one that became the voice of women in a
Speaker 7: way that okay, So you know how they say there
Speaker 7: are women female records, you know, the ones with the
Speaker 7: hooks that you can sing. So before you entered the room,
Speaker 7: was there nobody? Was there anybody who thought like that,
Speaker 7: because I would think that I need would have been
Speaker 7: one of yours.
Speaker 8: But yeah, I mean to me, you know, I was
Speaker 8: like a real hip hop head, so it sounded you
Speaker 8: know to me, it sounded corny to me.
Speaker 2: Really, but you didn see the dollars signs like, Yo,
Speaker 2: this is gonna win first real ballot.
Speaker 8: Yeah for the ladies. Yeah, yeah, up to that point,
Speaker 8: you didn't really have well it's not true.
Speaker 1: No, I mean he had that one and I can
Speaker 1: give you more, but it was too beat. It was
Speaker 1: too beat heavy, like I can give you more, and
Speaker 1: still got play on like the street hip Hop hour
Speaker 1: of you know, of Philadelphia. So you know it's wow,
Speaker 1: that's amazing to me. So you just you had Luke
Speaker 1: Waron not even I'm not saying did you personally like it?
Speaker 1: Did you think it was going to be effective to
Speaker 1: help the products sell or did you think, oh he's
Speaker 1: losing his he might lose his credibility with us.
Speaker 8: That's what I thought. Word, yeah, But I was a purist, so.
Speaker 2: I didn't even know that.
Speaker 4: There was a such thing as purest well not even
Speaker 4: I mean, hip hop wasn't selling out back then.
Speaker 2: This was the first.
Speaker 1: This was the first risky like this, this song with Mark,
Speaker 1: the first risk of the compromise of rap hip hop.
Speaker 4: But I don't think I think it worked on me
Speaker 4: was selling out back then because you know, I don't.
Speaker 4: I don't think that the pot of money wasn't as
Speaker 4: big as it was back then, you know, as it
Speaker 4: is now, you know what I mean. So I think,
Speaker 4: like particularly with ll In particularly, I remember reading I
Speaker 4: think it was in his book or something. He was
Speaker 4: saying something to the effect of when he was younger,
Speaker 4: like he would like this movies and people who did
Speaker 4: movies or whatever. And when, of course, you know, knowing
Speaker 4: where he went to his movie and TV career, when
Speaker 4: they checked that asked them on it, he said, well,
Speaker 4: the reason why I dissed it was because I didn't
Speaker 4: think it was possible for me at the time. So
Speaker 4: like in eighty six, I think it was a much
Speaker 4: more risk of quote unquote selling out back then because
Speaker 4: the stakes weren't.
Speaker 2: Really as high.
Speaker 4: It was kind of like, I don't think no one
Speaker 4: knew that there was that much money. Yeah, those are
Speaker 4: novelty records though.
Speaker 8: You know what it is though, is that it wouldn't
Speaker 8: have mattered because radio wasn't gonna play hip hop anyway, exactly.
Speaker 1: Yeah, I don't no when I okay, So I think
Speaker 1: Brian cut creator's cousin uh went to my high school,
Speaker 1: so he had an early copy of Bigger and deathfort
Speaker 1: And when I first heard I Need Love, like and again,
Speaker 1: I wasn't thinking in terms of the future, like I
Speaker 1: straight played your rides that joint and wrote.
Speaker 2: Down every lyric gave it. Oh no, I was the
Speaker 2: man for like a month and a half when a
Speaker 2: record came out. Why does it sound so fa?
Speaker 4: Yeah, I don't think it was a because I mean
Speaker 4: I remember when that record came out, and I was
Speaker 4: just so happy to hear hip hop on the radio
Speaker 4: that it didn't you know, you know, I remember, I
Speaker 4: remember I'm Bad the first time I heard I'm.
Speaker 2: Bad, and I was like, oh Ship.
Speaker 4: But then I Need Love and I was like, oh Ship,
Speaker 4: they're playing this on the radio because it was number
Speaker 4: one for two weeks and.
Speaker 2: Billboards, Uh the.
Speaker 8: I called it the black charts then.
Speaker 2: Records? Yeah, wow, all right.
Speaker 1: So once once it catches fire and you realize that
Speaker 1: we're all gullible, then what were you thinking?
Speaker 2: Mmm?
Speaker 8: I was thinking. I was thinking I was glad I
Speaker 8: was on the album.
Speaker 2: So you thought that there could be a chance that
Speaker 2: this album might not do as good as Radio.
Speaker 8: I think it became clear that that wasn't going to
Speaker 8: be the case. It was going to be much bigger,
Speaker 8: all right.
Speaker 1: So because all these doors were open to him, were
Speaker 1: those doors open to him? Was just the or was
Speaker 1: it just a perception in my mind that the world
Speaker 1: was his oyster? Like I remember you telling me that,
Speaker 1: you know, what was the what was the rat budget
Speaker 1: for l equal J's follow up out?
Speaker 8: Like, what's what for Walking with the Panther?
Speaker 6: No?
Speaker 2: No, no, I mean for bigger, bigger depth, Like I
Speaker 2: remember you telling me that, like you know all the
Speaker 2: La Potts. First of all, why was the La Posse?
Speaker 2: He chose? I chose him?
Speaker 8: I don't know how that happened.
Speaker 2: Was just always out in Cali a.
Speaker 8: Lot, Yeah, and hooked up with them?
Speaker 2: And why didn't Rick Rubin get chosen to produce the
Speaker 2: next record.
Speaker 8: I don't know. I think he thought he wanted maybe
Speaker 8: he wanted more artistic control, he wanted to be hit
Speaker 8: somebody he brought into the mix.
Speaker 2: Not sure really mm hmm, but like there wasn't anyone
Speaker 2: at the label to.
Speaker 8: Tell him, like yo, Like, I don't think Rick wanted
Speaker 8: to do it.
Speaker 2: And not broken, don't.
Speaker 8: I don't think Rick wanted to do it.
Speaker 2: Really. Yeah, it's not strange to you.
Speaker 8: Yeah, it's really strange to me now looking back on it.
Speaker 1: Yeah, Okay, when we get ric grouping, that's exactly where
Speaker 1: I'm asking.
Speaker 2: Okay, why didn't you follow up?
Speaker 8: Yeah, I mean this all happened, you know, this whole
Speaker 8: thing went down in eighty six before I got there.
Speaker 2: So Rick was also busy doing like Slayer records and stuff.
Speaker 8: He was really into his death metal shit, you know,
Speaker 8: Danzig Slayer. In fact, you know, when I had my
Speaker 8: interview with him, I first when he called me and
Speaker 8: he said, will you come, you know, come and we'll
Speaker 8: talk about the job. And so I went to him,
Speaker 8: and uh, I was you know, I just had so
Speaker 8: much I wanted to ask him, and so much I
Speaker 8: wanted to say, and I was talking about different records,
Speaker 8: and he said, you know, I'm not really into like
Speaker 8: the hip hop thing right now.
Speaker 2: Really, m damn fooled me to the hip hop Yeah
Speaker 2: damn what he said.
Speaker 8: And he's and he told me about these these these
Speaker 8: you know, these metal acts that he was working with.
Speaker 7: He came back, why your heartbroken?
Speaker 2: It took like twenty years.
Speaker 8: Yeah, so that's so that's why I say, I think
Speaker 8: that he was just in a different mind state.
Speaker 3: And like I think from what I've read, like there
Speaker 3: was just a lot ofttension between him and Russell and
Speaker 3: he was just starting to lose a lot of lose
Speaker 3: interest in the hip hop thing at all.
Speaker 8: Yeah, that's absolutely correct, and he told me as much.
Speaker 2: So, oh god, you just yoursels there. Yeah, I see.
Speaker 1: So of course you come aboard after the License to Ill.
Speaker 1: I thought that perhaps maybe the after effects of License.
Speaker 2: To Ill and this is well, I mean, at the time,
Speaker 2: it sold.
Speaker 1: At least seven eight million, so I would figure that
Speaker 1: would single handedlye give you guys the juice monetarily at
Speaker 1: least to stand on your own two.
Speaker 2: And oh yeah, allow you to sign everything.
Speaker 8: Yep.
Speaker 2: So again I have these romantic visions of the perception
Speaker 2: of Nation of.
Speaker 8: Millions as the first album I got thanked on.
Speaker 1: Well, that's the first rap album with real liner notes
Speaker 1: that I've ever seen. The album that I feel is though,
Speaker 1: really at least got the rock critics attention as far
Speaker 1: as really, I mean the message. The message as a
Speaker 1: single did some you know, did some work in helping
Speaker 1: to make hip hop credible in the eyes of rock critics.
Speaker 1: But I mean, if you were around and aware of
Speaker 1: music journalists in nineteen eighty eight, you saw nothing like
Speaker 1: the effect of what Nation and Millions had on rock critics.
Speaker 2: I think.
Speaker 1: That particular year it topped the Passing Job Critics poll.
Speaker 1: The Passing Job is kind of the the music critic
Speaker 1: version of what I would deem rotten Tomatoes, where you
Speaker 1: just sum up in total every music critic across the country.
Speaker 1: They give their top ten lists and reasons for why
Speaker 1: they felt these albums were important. And Nation Millions was
Speaker 1: the first hip hop record I believe in the album
Speaker 1: to top the polls. So at the time when you
Speaker 1: guys are getting this, I've heard a lot of stories
Speaker 1: including well DMC told me that it was him and
Speaker 1: jam Master Jay that even allowed Rebel without a pause
Speaker 1: to beat because Russell hated Rebel without a pause. So
Speaker 1: I'm assuming again and that you're saying that Russell's tastes
Speaker 1: and rick tastes work very different.
Speaker 8: Well, I mean that's the story. You know, it's a
Speaker 8: true story that that Russell never liked Public Enemy from
Speaker 8: the beginning. And I thought that they should be, you know,
Speaker 8: wearing Adidas sweatsuits. And you know, he just had his
Speaker 8: own vision of what it should be, and Rick had
Speaker 8: a had another vision.
Speaker 2: It's just crazy to me, like, how okay, how you
Speaker 2: see like three white kids from Brooklyn and you see
Speaker 2: dollar sign but you can't see that you know, these
Speaker 2: scary this this crew from Long Island.
Speaker 1: Well, I mean yeah, I guess if on paper a
Speaker 1: group from Long Island could be the most political important
Speaker 1: group of of our time and you just don't see
Speaker 1: how that works.
Speaker 3: Public Enemy was probably I can see them being a
Speaker 3: very tough Sell. It was scary sounding, it was noisy,
Speaker 3: Yeah for eighty eight.
Speaker 2: It was it was it was some radical ship.
Speaker 7: And they're black, Like maybe they were white, it'd be
Speaker 7: easier sell for Russell since he is black. Sometimes we
Speaker 7: get in our own way, right, I don't.
Speaker 1: Know, Well, yeah, but I'm just saying that for me,
Speaker 1: I just I thought there was an instant easy sell
Speaker 1: because the way that Chuck d kind of centered the group,
Speaker 1: which I mean, when I saw them, I didn't necessary
Speaker 1: I mean, I'm not saying I didn't pay attention, but.
Speaker 2: Only when when too much posse came on. And then
Speaker 2: I realized, wait, one of these guys talks way more
Speaker 2: shit than the other members.
Speaker 1: I couldn't tell, Like you see the album cover, you
Speaker 1: just see like six black guys, You're like, oh, which
Speaker 1: one is talk?
Speaker 2: Who was the one? Right?
Speaker 1: But I noticed, like, wait, one of these guys talks
Speaker 1: way more shit than the other guys doing this group,
Speaker 1: And then that that became my attraction, Like anytime the
Speaker 1: shit talking one spoke, it was funny and so and
Speaker 1: but that was by design, like they.
Speaker 2: Purposely, Yeah, it was the full flavor. Was they used
Speaker 2: flavor flavor.
Speaker 7: About Public Enemy? Because somebody recently said that to me
Speaker 7: that everything was so purposeful and the way that the
Speaker 7: group was put together, Is that truely? And how much
Speaker 7: was it purposeful and how much was just organic?
Speaker 8: I think a lot of it was very purposeful. I think,
Speaker 8: well there was you know, they had the they had
Speaker 8: the radio show, you know, and that's how Chuck w
Speaker 8: B A I. Yeah, and that's how Chuck connected with Flavor.
Speaker 8: So that was organic. That was before they kind of
Speaker 8: actually started the group Spectrum City Spectrum City. Yeah. But
Speaker 8: the whole idea of adding the S one w's and
Speaker 8: the whole thing that was that was you know, that
Speaker 8: was show business.
Speaker 2: It was smart.
Speaker 8: It was very smart.
Speaker 1: Well this leads to all right, before we get to
Speaker 1: your Columbia illmatic period, one of my favorite stories of
Speaker 1: all time, if I mean, the reason why I even
Speaker 1: wanted to do the show. It's just though that one
Speaker 1: day MC search could come on a guy who has
Speaker 1: so many stories.
Speaker 8: Of yeah, yes when sorry, I love Search too.
Speaker 2: So Cordon's Search Hammer, here's his mom's being called out
Speaker 2: like that. Uh.
Speaker 1: Pete Nice was trying to explain to Hammer that it
Speaker 1: was a pun of turn this mother out. The cactus
Speaker 1: turned Hammer's mother out. But Hammer was the way what.
Speaker 8: Was thee what was the good way of looking at it?
Speaker 2: Well, anyway, they put a hit out on their lives,
Speaker 2: and I guess the legend never put a hit out
Speaker 2: on third basis Lie Oakland. Yeah.
Speaker 7: Uh.
Speaker 1: And so as Search gets on the plane, Search and uh,
Speaker 1: Pete Nice get on the plane. I think they're flying
Speaker 1: out to LA to do the party machine, which is
Speaker 1: our Senio Hall's post show people's Yes, yeah, missus, Howard
Speaker 1: Hewett Yeah.
Speaker 8: Wait what.
Speaker 2: Wait were you around?
Speaker 5: Oh?
Speaker 8: They got married, right, they didn't have a kid.
Speaker 2: It was like yes, yea.
Speaker 1: Anyway, so the five hour duration of this flight, I'm
Speaker 1: not going to give the entire story a weight because
Speaker 1: Search will tell it way better than me. But there
Speaker 1: was a lot of kumbaya and having it, you know,
Speaker 1: to go on, uh, to keep them from getting killed,
Speaker 1: which ended with Michael Concepcion h sitting sitting next to
Speaker 1: Yeah in his wheelchair, sitting next to Michael Jackson, who
Speaker 1: wasn't even supposed to be If you remember the American
Speaker 1: Music Awards with when Eddie Murphy Michael Jackson are giving
Speaker 1: each other like Artists of the Decade Awards whatever. None
Speaker 1: of that stuff was ever supposed to happen. So I
Speaker 1: guess Russell since that the threat to their lives was
Speaker 1: so big that Russell called Donnie and Tommy please make
Speaker 1: something happen, And of course, in talking to Michael Concepcion,
Speaker 1: the only person that could put the halt to the
Speaker 1: hite of One of his stipulations was one, find me
Speaker 1: a label to do We're all.
Speaker 4: In the Same Gang, which is weird because Russell could
Speaker 4: have just easily said, I'll put it on my label,
Speaker 4: but instead Russell's like.
Speaker 2: Like, I want none to do.
Speaker 3: It was all West Coast right. Well, no, it was
Speaker 3: not even Third Base. Def Jam didn't even have any
Speaker 3: acts on that record.
Speaker 1: I would have just thought in I mean, in a
Speaker 1: five hour flight to LA and you're trying to save
Speaker 1: someone's life. He was still like, I don't you can
Speaker 1: go to Warner Brothers. I'll hook you up, like there's
Speaker 1: somebody over there that will take your record.
Speaker 4: He would have had nothing to benefit from that. Oh,
Speaker 4: especially if you heard the rest of that all on
Speaker 4: the Same Gang album?
Speaker 2: Did you buy that as well? I did not buy it.
Speaker 2: I dodged that bullet. A buddy of mine bought it.
Speaker 2: It's about Bill. It's about Bill. Bill. Did you purchase
Speaker 2: We're All on the Same Gang album?
Speaker 9: No?
Speaker 2: Just the twelve in Okay? It was that the album
Speaker 2: is that bad?
Speaker 7: It was more songs with the same album.
Speaker 2: It was.
Speaker 3: It wasn't It was just like solo tracks from other
Speaker 3: people that no one knew was not at all okay,
Speaker 3: like Deaf Jeff's Weed Rollers.
Speaker 2: Well anyway, so Michael.
Speaker 1: So then the legend is that Donnie and Tommy Mantola
Speaker 1: had to then call it Dick Clark. Uh two oh
Speaker 1: because Michael because actually un insisted on sitting next to
Speaker 1: Michael Jackson American Music Awards and they're like, well, he's
Speaker 1: not coming, he's not up for anything, so that's not
Speaker 1: going to happen. He's like, well, I'm sorry, I can't
Speaker 1: help you. Okay, we'll make it happen. And then they
Speaker 1: had to beg Dick Clark to give Michael a special award.
Speaker 1: But then once Bob Jones and Michael Jackson reluctantly agreed
Speaker 1: to do this, then their stipulation was, well, someone important
Speaker 1: has to give it to us. We want Eddie Murphy
Speaker 1: to give us this award. And Eddie Murphy is so
Speaker 1: busy doing no Harlem Knights he couldn't leave the set.
Speaker 1: So then they had to call the paramount like this
Speaker 1: just oh my God of Domino fuckery, just for this moment.
Speaker 1: So was this worth this faith?
Speaker 6: No?
Speaker 2: Yeah?
Speaker 4: All this ship over there have third Base album jail. Yeah,
Speaker 4: even a side like a filler cut. So the whole
Speaker 4: Third Base project? Did you sign Third Base?
Speaker 6: No?
Speaker 8: But I worked with him.
Speaker 2: How did they come into your How did they even
Speaker 2: come to the Deaf Jam?
Speaker 8: They came to the Deaf Jam as far as I
Speaker 8: can recall through Sam Severn.
Speaker 2: Okay, but was this was this some Chico Bar's D'Angelo
Speaker 2: revenge mission thing? Yeah, like the Beastie Boys left us,
Speaker 2: so now we need a new white group with credibility.
Speaker 8: Yeah. I had something to do with it, and search
Speaker 8: was really I mean I met him in eighty I
Speaker 8: want to say eighty five at Union Square.
Speaker 2: Okay.
Speaker 1: When people guests come on the show, everyone has a
Speaker 1: Latin Quarter story. Were you a Latin Quarter ahead? Or Oh,
Speaker 1: how come I'm not meeting anyone that's like, hell, no.
Speaker 8: I never went to the Latin Quarter lived in the
Speaker 8: Latin Quarter?
Speaker 2: What I've been that person? Yes, Dante Dante Ross told
Speaker 2: you that you wouldn't you wouldn't have gone there.
Speaker 1: Yeah, so you still would go to Latin Quarter even
Speaker 1: though there was a risk factor involved.
Speaker 2: And it was worth it.
Speaker 8: It was worth it every time, except for the night
Speaker 8: that they shut it down. Where I was at that night.
Speaker 1: Everybody was there at the night they shut down down corner.
Speaker 1: What happened the night they shut down.
Speaker 8: As I remember it, Yeah, l was there and somebody
Speaker 8: snatched his chain, which happened a lot of the Latin Quarter,
Speaker 8: you know, and it set off the sequence of events
Speaker 8: with like this, I don't know, people like this mass
Speaker 8: of people running to get away. I think somebody had
Speaker 8: a knife or something and like and then they are
Speaker 8: already just spilling out into Times Square afterwards. But I
Speaker 8: remember there was like you went upstairs to the you
Speaker 8: came in, then you went upstairs that's where the main
Speaker 8: area was, and there was it's like this marble like
Speaker 8: mirrored thing on the side of the stairs. It was
Speaker 8: just covered with blood, like all the way.
Speaker 7: Down and no bullets, no bullet hard work bullom. Yeah,
Speaker 7: that sounds like hard work, you know, staffman and punching.
Speaker 2: Yeah, that might be the quartered episode, right.
Speaker 8: As I remember, that was the last night. It was
Speaker 8: last night I ever went there last night last night.
Speaker 2: Yeah, you only got one time, and still it wasn't.
Speaker 8: As bad as a rooftop, and you still went to
Speaker 8: the rooftop. I stopped going to the rooftop.
Speaker 2: What was the rooftop?
Speaker 8: Like it was crazy, but there was a lot of
Speaker 8: a lot of shit went down the rooftop.
Speaker 2: All right, So what's the pros of going to the
Speaker 2: rooftop in the Latin corner? What's the pros?
Speaker 8: The pros especially Latin Quarter. I mean Pe did their
Speaker 8: first show there.
Speaker 2: I heard that didn't go over too well.
Speaker 8: Though I thought it was great. I didn't it didn't
Speaker 8: go over great. It wasn't you know.
Speaker 1: Okay, So I've been to the tunnel during the tunnel
Speaker 1: period tunnel era. Yeah, so was was it the equivalent
Speaker 1: of going to the tunnel? Yes, nightclub with big speakers
Speaker 1: that were yes.
Speaker 8: Just crazy. You imagine they're playing like nobody beats the
Speaker 8: biz like loud loud as ship like a right, it
Speaker 8: was the ship, So.
Speaker 2: There was worth it. So as a woman, as a
Speaker 2: white person, as someone that works at deaf Jam with
Speaker 2: this this jacket, well, even though you were past deaf Jam,
Speaker 2: I'm certain that you had some sort of swaggish or
Speaker 2: about you that let people know that, oh there's faith
Speaker 2: newman from data or whatever. Yeah, yeah, for sure, Like
Speaker 2: that didn't bother you.
Speaker 1: Like, first of all, how does how does anyone get
Speaker 1: that close to ll for him to even get his chain? Like,
Speaker 1: is there not a VP section or you're not even
Speaker 1: save him VIP.
Speaker 8: I don't think there's was there a VIP section. I
Speaker 8: don't remember him being in a special section. Wow, I
Speaker 8: don't remember that.
Speaker 2: So you just why wait, I would figure that LLLL
Speaker 2: was passed.
Speaker 8: Maybe it's the stuff of the legend. I don't know,
Speaker 8: it's like what eighty six, So yeah, he wouldn't have
Speaker 8: been passed eighty seven, sorry eighty seven, my mistaken eighty seven.
Speaker 2: He wouldn't have been pasted. Yeah, I don't know. I
Speaker 2: just imagine like LLLL just being too big or too
Speaker 2: good for that.
Speaker 7: Yeah.
Speaker 8: But do you go there and you like show up
Speaker 8: and you're like the fucking man, Oh I'm still down? Yeah?
Speaker 2: Or yeah, I see. So even though with Union Square and.
Speaker 8: Any of those, Union Square was the bomb too, but
Speaker 8: you had you know, you had the Bronx and Queens
Speaker 8: like separated by levels.
Speaker 2: Yeah, because that's what Kidden play around about. That's my
Speaker 2: experience of Union Square. I just know that the Fresh
Speaker 2: Prince and jazz.
Speaker 7: Yeah, but there's something to which you just asked faith though,
Speaker 7: because I'm curious, like how you how you were back then,
Speaker 7: because like your ship didn't stink and you were very young.
Speaker 7: You were having parties where Grandma's to flash with DJing
Speaker 7: at your house and stuff like that, So like, how
Speaker 7: was the the ego and the humbleness back then because
Speaker 7: you knew.
Speaker 8: Still, no, it was different, Like I knew that I was,
Speaker 8: but I was stumble at the same time, Like I think,
Speaker 8: uh yeah, I mean I you know, I was one
Speaker 8: of the only you know, I was the only woman
Speaker 8: at deaf Jam at the time.
Speaker 2: That was that was something, you know, so that still
Speaker 2: held weight and honor.
Speaker 1: Yes, okay, But you also mentioned people chasing with their demos,
Speaker 1: and that's the thing like when Marlon Marl did this
Speaker 1: episode and I'm like, yo, dude, you're still living in
Speaker 1: the projects when all these hits are out. How are
Speaker 1: these people not stalking you to make the stars because
Speaker 1: normally the people that will stalk you that which is
Speaker 1: weird hearing that the way that you approached Russell Simmons one,
Speaker 1: what or who's protecting you from stalkers? Especially with deaf Jam,
Speaker 1: the label that everyone dreamed of being on, which I'm
Speaker 1: certain that you guys got way more nos than yes.
Speaker 2: Speaking of which, who did y'all say no to?
Speaker 5: That?
Speaker 6: Is?
Speaker 2: There is the list of they're not deaf jam material like,
Speaker 2: I mean, this is going to.
Speaker 8: Sound you know they could give me but Vanilla.
Speaker 2: Ice, Wow, was he close to coming to deaf jam
Speaker 2: or was.
Speaker 8: It like no, it was a demo. It was like
Speaker 8: a just you know, a demo like any other.
Speaker 2: You would listen to actively listen to demos.
Speaker 7: How long did you listen to his?
Speaker 8: Not very long? They think I was with this guy
Speaker 8: Jorge who came to be known as Curious. It was
Speaker 8: my intern actually jam at the time.
Speaker 2: The album was Dope, So I like the Conservated one album?
Speaker 5: Did you.
Speaker 3: So?
Speaker 2: What did? What did you and George say when he.
Speaker 8: Said it was bananas and he threw it in the trash.
Speaker 1: One of the themes that always comes up during quest
Speaker 1: Love Supreme is the idea of your heart, uh having
Speaker 1: good tastes good or bad, versus your brain, which is
Speaker 1: is this effective or non effective?
Speaker 7: Now?
Speaker 1: As an employee, are you not thinking I have to
Speaker 1: pick some winners for us to sell versus you wanting
Speaker 1: just to have this pedigree of great work to be
Speaker 1: on this label.
Speaker 8: So was there pressure to I was a pedigree person.
Speaker 8: I couldn't help it. And as and as the label
Speaker 8: kind of became, you know, distorted by the next you know, decade,
Speaker 8: decade or the next or that that difficult transition period
Speaker 8: you know, in ninety one, it definitely affected me. I
Speaker 8: felt like you know that, I felt that the brand
Speaker 8: had been really compromised. Yes, forever, I mean it came back,
Speaker 8: but at that time it was. It was the reason
Speaker 8: I left.
Speaker 2: Was there a moment when you're like, oh, this is it,
Speaker 2: I'm done?
Speaker 8: The Don? In there?
Speaker 2: Does anyone remember the Don? I did not remember the
Speaker 2: Dies none, not god father Don. It was he had
Speaker 2: a song called in there? All right? How did the dying?
Speaker 8: Was thee with Ted NuGen on jam? What wasn't deaf Jam?
Speaker 8: It became r A L labels?
Speaker 2: Am I am?
Speaker 1: I to assume that the reason for the Dons being
Speaker 1: was to get some tone, look money or yeah, because
Speaker 1: in there sounded like at least Funky's cousin.
Speaker 4: Yeah, I saw it a lot on like video hot track. Yeah,
Speaker 4: especially the box. Yes, that's it's not like col Cisco,
Speaker 4: no bro.
Speaker 2: So who signed the dome or.
Speaker 1: Oh my god, totally totally totally forgot to ask you.
Speaker 1: I forgot Leo worked.
Speaker 7: At de Jab, he worked at Rush. We hadn't gotten
Speaker 7: to him yet, right like we're just getting.
Speaker 8: Rush, Yeah, And he just didn't have anything to do
Speaker 8: with the label side until he did so until he did.
Speaker 2: What are you.
Speaker 1: I met older le or nicer to me leor I
Speaker 1: don't have a leor imitation to give you le or.
Speaker 2: We've heard imitation.
Speaker 8: So he was a different person then.
Speaker 2: So I could say it wasn't a pleasant experience. Correct
Speaker 2: in hindsight?
Speaker 1: Do you feel as though he was an effective person
Speaker 1: to work for? Being as though the heights that def
Speaker 1: Jam was later going to?
Speaker 2: Do you think def Jam would have naturally gone to
Speaker 2: the Heights jay z d m X without someone No.
Speaker 8: I credit him. I'm just saying there was at the Helm,
Speaker 8: there was a period in time where it just it
Speaker 8: was really rocky and I had been there almost five
Speaker 8: years at that point, and it was time for me
Speaker 8: to go.
Speaker 2: Okay, where did you guys say away?
Speaker 1: What did you guys disagree as far because obviously your
Speaker 1: exit had to be at a disagreement.
Speaker 8: It was it was, it was. It was one of
Speaker 8: those things where I had been. I was the liaison
Speaker 8: between Deaf Jam and Columbia. So it was always up
Speaker 8: there anyway, went to their A and R meetings, went
Speaker 8: to their you know, retreats that they.
Speaker 2: Had, and so when those guys didn't feel like so
Speaker 2: I was, I was the persons.
Speaker 8: I was a Deaf Jam person at Columbia.
Speaker 1: Kind of like okay, so you know, like comedians always
Speaker 1: joke Black comedians will joke like have one white friend
Speaker 1: on standby because somebody's going to have to talk to
Speaker 1: the police.
Speaker 8: Right, So you were the I guess whisper yes, put
Speaker 8: a nice face on.
Speaker 2: All right, So you're the liaisons there and then where
Speaker 2: is it?
Speaker 8: And they always said to me, Donnie would say, if
Speaker 8: you ever want to make a change, you know, come
Speaker 8: work for us.
Speaker 2: Come to death Row.
Speaker 4: Yeah, and then uh, you with your executives throwing sandwiches
Speaker 4: all in the tools dancing, come to Columbia.
Speaker 2: Well that's exactly what you did.
Speaker 8: Yeah.
Speaker 2: So there that that broke the ca.
Speaker 8: What Leon and I had had an argument about something.
Speaker 8: He blamed my assistant for losing some ll cool J
Speaker 8: Master tapes or something that she didn't do. It wasn't
Speaker 8: her fault, he insisted I fire her. We had a
Speaker 8: back and forth and I just said I'm done with
Speaker 8: this and I was done. So Sony, Yeah, CBS and
Speaker 8: CBS building. When I first started, they had just done
Speaker 8: the deal with Sony.
Speaker 1: Okay, I keep on forgetting and call them CBS first. Yeah,
Speaker 1: the CBS still a thing now.
Speaker 8: Is it just records now? They got they divested of
Speaker 8: all their okay music.
Speaker 2: So you took Dony's device and went to death Row, came.
Speaker 8: On over, went to the dark side.
Speaker 2: Did you regret it?
Speaker 8: No, not at all. And I thought it was kind
Speaker 8: of interesting because you know, I had interned there, you know,
Speaker 8: years ago, as this intern trying to come up in the.
Speaker 2: World, and there I scourged from coming back, and.
Speaker 8: I was scourged from coming back, and I came back
Speaker 8: as an executive the last twenty five twenty five.
Speaker 1: You go faith to do it, You go here, that's it,
Speaker 1: That's that's it's rather tryumphant. Did you have the working
Speaker 1: girl theme from Carly Simon playing your looking at the
Speaker 1: skyline of New York?
Speaker 8: Exactly?
Speaker 2: My coffee month one of the you you signed a
Speaker 2: lot of acts, and one of the acts that I
Speaker 2: was shocked to find out that you signed A favorite
Speaker 2: of mine was Jamarqui. Uh what what? First of all,
Speaker 2: what was the first act that you did sign too?
Speaker 8: Nas?
Speaker 2: Even before Ja Maryland?
Speaker 8: It was around kind of around the same time. Actually,
Speaker 8: NAS was like the first act that I was two
Speaker 8: weeks into the job when I signed NABS and that
Speaker 8: was like in a October And in December I signed
Speaker 8: Jamiqui ninety one.
Speaker 1: Wow, it took three years for that to even What
Speaker 1: was it about Jamerqui that made you.
Speaker 8: Fly to London the week before Christmas?
Speaker 5: Damn?
Speaker 8: Yeah, it's a demo.
Speaker 3: You know.
Speaker 8: They were signed to Acid Jazz in the UK and uh,
Speaker 8: Kieran Hurley from Assid Jazz came to see me. He said,
Speaker 8: I just want you to listen to this. It was
Speaker 8: a demo, you know, cassette demo. One song when you're
Speaker 8: going to learn. Yes, I thought it was a woman singing.
Speaker 8: I couldn't you know exactly, you know who is she?
Speaker 6: She?
Speaker 8: It's a heat and he's white.
Speaker 5: And so so.
Speaker 7: That was it.
Speaker 8: It was the one song and I said, I gotta
Speaker 8: go and I gotta sign this guy. And that's really
Speaker 8: how it happened.
Speaker 2: And to you, like did you expect them to have
Speaker 2: visions of them blowing up in the States or was
Speaker 2: it just.
Speaker 8: I think I did. I mean, I was so into
Speaker 8: the music I thought for sure that it would it
Speaker 8: would translate.
Speaker 2: He got them, Jesus Christ.
Speaker 8: Not just not from here.
Speaker 2: He when we when the Roots toured and.
Speaker 1: You're in Italy and ninety five, I believe uh with Jameroqui,
Speaker 1: there's a drive from one city in Italy to the
Speaker 1: other side of it.
Speaker 2: It was like a fourteen hour trek. Jay actually.
Speaker 1: Purchased uh A Ferrari at the one city we were
Speaker 1: at and drove behind his tour bus the entire fourteen
Speaker 1: hour duration.
Speaker 7: That much off of that the album that one Virgil
Speaker 7: one that.
Speaker 8: He was huge.
Speaker 2: They were huge overseas.
Speaker 4: Wow, So right now that was like that was yeah,
Speaker 4: wowergency Planet Earth was the first one.
Speaker 7: So he's like a Craig David in that way, like
Speaker 7: we might not know, but he is really killing its.
Speaker 8: America was late and they never really got it.
Speaker 2: It's where like j America has like a one hit
Speaker 2: wonder in America. Yeah, Virginal that guy that slid, I'm
Speaker 2: like the guy with the hat.
Speaker 8: The hat I thought the space Cowboy was incredible.
Speaker 2: Absolutely shout out to BT for put me onto that video.
Speaker 1: Vibration well being as though they blew up in your
Speaker 1: Europe like we was, there was there a separate Uh.
Speaker 2: Would Columbia treat like different divisions different?
Speaker 8: I mean yeah that it was more in the in
Speaker 8: the hands of the International Department than I think they
Speaker 8: knew after the first album that it was a tough
Speaker 8: sell over here, so they didn't have it. They didn't
Speaker 8: have a radio record. That's what I kept hearing. There's
Speaker 8: no radio record, there's no radio record, there's no radio record.
Speaker 1: Well, shout out to my boy Fred at MTV, Fred Jordan,
Speaker 1: who that was the person that showed us the virtual
Speaker 1: Insanity video.
Speaker 2: But like, how did was that just a stroke of luck?
Speaker 5: That?
Speaker 7: Yeah?
Speaker 2: Well I was.
Speaker 8: I was gone from Colombia.
Speaker 2: Time, I see. So with NAS, what was it that
Speaker 2: told you to was it search or like what was
Speaker 2: the relationship?
Speaker 8: Well? I heard him on the main Source album like
Speaker 8: most people, and uh, and I like lost my mind.
Speaker 8: I said, I gotta find this kid. And I was
Speaker 8: already working. I was still working at Deaf Jam at
Speaker 8: the time, and so I asked Polly, you know a
Speaker 8: large professor, what's up with this kid Nasty Nas? You know,
Speaker 8: can I meet him?
Speaker 5: You know?
Speaker 8: And he was kind of pushing me on signing Acinelly
Speaker 8: and not Nas, you know. So so that was kind
Speaker 8: of like a tail end of my time at Deaf Jam.
Speaker 8: I took a month off before I started at Columbia,
Speaker 8: and apparently in that time, from what Nas tells me,
Speaker 8: he went up to Deaf Jam with large professor to
Speaker 8: find me specifically, I was already gone, and so this happened.
Speaker 8: And then I, you know, I was at Columbia, was
Speaker 8: two weeks in and Search came to my office and
Speaker 8: because he knew that I was trying to find now
Speaker 8: I was wanted this kid, and he said, I have
Speaker 8: his demo and played it for me two songs, and
Speaker 8: I went down the hall to the head of the
Speaker 8: ANR department, said, you know, you have to let me
Speaker 8: sign this kid. You don't have to let me sign
Speaker 8: anything else the entire time I'm here. You have to
Speaker 8: let me sign this kid.
Speaker 2: Was it that hard of a sell though, Yeah, to the.
Speaker 8: Corporate people that Columbia.
Speaker 2: I mean it was Columbia didn't really have much of
Speaker 2: a hip hop department.
Speaker 8: That was why they hired me.
Speaker 2: See Music Vietnam Freedom William solo album.
Speaker 6: Yeah.
Speaker 2: Yeah, So you're saying that it was a hard cell
Speaker 2: to even get NAS.
Speaker 8: Yeah, Well but it wasn't. It wasn't because part of
Speaker 8: the reason they hired me was they wanted their own
Speaker 8: rap division because they had def Jam, they had So
Speaker 8: So Deaf, but they didn't want that. They wanted all
Speaker 8: they wanted to have their own. They didn't want to
Speaker 8: they didn't want to share with anybody.
Speaker 2: But as as as wait, so is Michael was he
Speaker 2: there at that point?
Speaker 8: Not yet?
Speaker 4: So okay, I would think that as a label, having uh,
Speaker 4: these sub labels would satisfy that itch.
Speaker 2: So if you're Donnie and your your your Tommy, uh,
Speaker 2: I would just think, like, oh, matter of fact, was
Speaker 2: it NAS initially on rough House or is that.
Speaker 8: Just having this moment of oh no, nobody's going to
Speaker 8: know what to do with this record. Let's just put
Speaker 8: it out on rough House. At least we'll get, you know,
Speaker 8: the right marketing people and the right promotion people, because
Speaker 8: they wanted me to have this divis, but I didn't
Speaker 8: have There wasn't really anybody in the house right yet,
Speaker 8: no staff, no right so I said, let's put it
Speaker 8: out through rough House.
Speaker 2: What did you imagine or hope for with this record?
Speaker 1: Because for Yeah, I think the idea of Illmatic and
Speaker 1: even the process of it became bigger than.
Speaker 8: Yeah the more as time went on. It's like it,
Speaker 8: you know, came just like these mythic proportions.
Speaker 2: Well what I didn't know.
Speaker 1: The thing that makes Illmatic so special, or at least
Speaker 1: what made it such a game changer that people rarely
Speaker 1: discuss is the fact that this will mark the first
Speaker 1: time that multiple producers will handle a hip hop album.
Speaker 1: Whereas the status quo was like one producer sees the
Speaker 1: whole project through. Did his idea seem as radical to
Speaker 1: you at the time to not let one person produce
Speaker 1: the entire record?
Speaker 8: No, it felt really natural actually, but it's never happened before, right.
Speaker 8: It just because all of these people wanted to work
Speaker 8: with him, So it only made sense that everybody who
Speaker 8: wanted to work with him, all these great producers got
Speaker 8: an opportunity to be a part of the project.
Speaker 1: Who was lining up Because first of all, it's ten
Speaker 1: songs on the record, really nine.
Speaker 8: Poten it was supposed to be twelve.
Speaker 2: Yeah, I was going to say, like who got rejected.
Speaker 8: It's not a question of rejected. The album was so
Speaker 8: heavily bootlegged and so ubiquitous everywhere, I mean overseas. I
Speaker 8: mean everybody had a copy of that album that we
Speaker 8: had to rush it out before it was ready, and
Speaker 8: that's why there's only nine songs.
Speaker 4: Really, So you just I see, yeah, I read you
Speaker 4: said they were cutting more records as the joint came out,
Speaker 4: working on most stuff.
Speaker 8: Yep, it just wasn't enough time. There would have been
Speaker 8: another premier cut for sure.
Speaker 1: So in a perfect world, you would have made it
Speaker 1: a traditional hip hop record of the time, which in
Speaker 1: ninety four, I mean hip hop records were still like
Speaker 1: sixteen to eighteen songs.
Speaker 2: Were getting with skits and all that shit.
Speaker 7: Yeah.
Speaker 1: Well, yeah, who's the first, We'll say, Public Enemy was.
Speaker 1: I think Nation Millions was the first single record.
Speaker 2: That had like double album status.
Speaker 1: Well definitely one of the first album with interludes on it,
Speaker 1: so yeah, with sixteen songs on it. So that's the
Speaker 1: thing that struck me about this record, that it was
Speaker 1: that made it different to me, because like most classic records,
Speaker 1: in the mind of the music consumer, like Stevie Wonders
Speaker 1: in a Visions or thriller or whatever, like all those
Speaker 1: albums clock in at thirty to thirty three minutes and
Speaker 1: then you're out.
Speaker 2: So you know you were fine with that, just.
Speaker 8: We were perfect? Yeah?
Speaker 2: Was he fine with that?
Speaker 8: Yeah? I think he wanted it done and out too, Okay, So.
Speaker 2: I mean was it smooth?
Speaker 6: Like?
Speaker 2: Why did it take two years to make?
Speaker 8: And he just well he had his friend?
Speaker 2: Was it an easy record to make? That's what it was.
Speaker 7: No, it was a.
Speaker 8: Difficult record to make. How well he had his friend
Speaker 8: pass away, so that you know, that was tough. And
Speaker 8: then he just wasn't Sometimes he showed up to the studio,
Speaker 8: and sometimes you didn't show up to the studio. You
Speaker 8: kind of never knew what you were going to get.
Speaker 8: Sometimes he was feeling it and he'd write, and sometimes
Speaker 8: he wasn't feeling it and he'd go home or wherever.
Speaker 8: It's just it was just long, long, long process.
Speaker 1: Who who Who was the person that had the choke
Speaker 1: hold of I mean, I know, like with having worked
Speaker 1: with mcs, like you can't if you force them, you
Speaker 1: will traumatize them into permanent writer's block. So this could
Speaker 1: have easily been a j Electronica situation.
Speaker 8: It could have been easily.
Speaker 1: So how are you like, who's the designated person that
Speaker 1: was there to kind of take them out of that?
Speaker 8: You know, I don't know. I think we kind of
Speaker 8: eat with Search and me and you know, obviously the
Speaker 8: people at the label who didn't know what was going
Speaker 8: on and until they told me to drop him, which
Speaker 8: happened twice. Yeah, two years. Yeah, Yeah, I was wondering
Speaker 8: how she could hold on. It was, uh, well, one
Speaker 8: was because of a gun thing that.
Speaker 2: Did they know that that was just going to be
Speaker 2: you know as a rappers and gun, Yeah that's standard.
Speaker 8: Yeah, at the time, it wasn't so standard. And they
Speaker 8: wanted me to do They wanted to drop him, and
Speaker 8: I had to make the case fight for him.
Speaker 7: And yeah, because him in Jungle or so opposite too,
Speaker 7: because I always wondered, like was he always on the
Speaker 7: edge of situation because of his brother.
Speaker 8: Jungle was the one with the gun. So there you go.
Speaker 8: Which is a funny story actually because they had a show.
Speaker 8: His first show in New York was at a club
Speaker 8: called Mewse and we sent a car service to pick
Speaker 8: them up in Queensbridge. It doesn't end well and uh,
Speaker 8: Jungle had a gun on him. You know, this is
Speaker 8: after the thing with with Will had happened. And you know,
Speaker 8: and Uh, I always thought up until Rock the Bells
Speaker 8: three years ago, that the gun fell out of his pocket.
Speaker 8: But Jungle told me what had happened was he asked
Speaker 8: the driver to hold it for him while they were
Speaker 8: in the club. Okay, so the driver took it to
Speaker 8: the police.
Speaker 2: Oh man, yeah, snitching ass. I just want you to
Speaker 2: hold his cocaine while I did my set. That's all
Speaker 2: I did. So when the show's over.
Speaker 8: So the show's over, no car, no gun, Jungle starts
Speaker 8: calling the car company and threatening their lives. And Jungle,
Speaker 8: oh Jungle, Jabari.
Speaker 1: Did you as as someone from North Carolina or you
Speaker 1: Bill and someone from Indiana?
Speaker 2: Did you have nas expectations? None? Because I'll be honest
Speaker 2: with you, Nas.
Speaker 1: Yes, I remember I went to Hell for at the
Speaker 1: age of twelve, went to Hell for Jesus Fort and
Speaker 1: Jesus I remember the line.
Speaker 2: But I never had a yo. I cannot wait for
Speaker 2: that move.
Speaker 8: Like even after halftime, halftime, I.
Speaker 2: Never liked that. I didn't like halftime.
Speaker 4: I worked at rough House, Oh okay, I worked at
Speaker 4: rough House, and I was just like, it's cool.
Speaker 2: Yeah.
Speaker 4: I didn't really get NAS until it ain't hard to tell.
Speaker 4: When I heard that, I was like, Okay, this is dope, but.
Speaker 2: It was humang. Even then I was like, Okay, this
Speaker 2: is clever.
Speaker 1: But then but when I saw that, when I saw
Speaker 1: that Gang Star issue of the Source and saw that
Speaker 1: it got five mics, then I was like, holy shit,
Speaker 1: and like We're in the middle of making do you
Speaker 1: want more? And I'm reading this five mic review, man,
Speaker 1: and I'm just like like, oh God, like.
Speaker 2: There's I don't know.
Speaker 1: I just I read the review first, even before I
Speaker 1: heard the records, and by that point, anything that the
Speaker 1: source could have told me be incredible or not credible,
Speaker 1: that was you held it as in, you know, And
Speaker 1: I just felt like the way they worded it was
Speaker 1: like this is the new standard of the gold standard
Speaker 1: or whatever. And I just felt like, yo, I got
Speaker 1: to the train platform too late, and this is now,
Speaker 1: this is the new standard.
Speaker 2: Whatever this album is.
Speaker 1: And so I think Tariq was like, yeah, you know,
Speaker 1: I got to copy that tape and then he went
Speaker 1: in his bag and had like.
Speaker 2: And and played it, and I was just confused, like
Speaker 2: I was told Illmatic is classic.
Speaker 4: You never got to make it a classic on your own,
Speaker 4: like it never you never got to do it on
Speaker 4: your on your own merits.
Speaker 2: It was just told to you. Like the Chronic again,
Speaker 2: I was told it was classic. Now I see the
Speaker 2: Chronic was different for me.
Speaker 4: Was different because I got in on the Chronic early,
Speaker 4: Like I saw the g Thing video and was just like, whatever,
Speaker 4: it's cool. And but then I saw the covers like
Speaker 4: Doctor Dre the Chronic. I was like, Drake got an album,
Speaker 4: I'll buy it. And the Chronic was a slow burn
Speaker 4: like it was. I hated it when I bought it
Speaker 4: and I listened to it and I was like, all right,
Speaker 4: this is cool. And then I remember a couple of
Speaker 4: months later that ship was fucking everywhere, ready to die.
Speaker 2: Was like that for me, too.
Speaker 4: Ready to do I loved. I was like, all right,
Speaker 4: this is dope. And then it wasn't till the next
Speaker 4: time and then they were told you were told it
Speaker 4: was classic, but it became. But I got a chance
Speaker 4: to view it for myself, I think, but it was matic.
Speaker 4: I didn't really because like you, like, I remember this
Speaker 4: when the review came out, and.
Speaker 2: Like I said, I wasn't big on halftime. It ain't
Speaker 2: hard to tell.
Speaker 4: I liked and then I saw the review and I
Speaker 4: was like, damn, like he got like that was and
Speaker 4: the source and that sound like that was vible.
Speaker 2: And I didn't even think like, oh, that's political or favor. Yeah,
Speaker 2: it wasn't that. It wasn't that start man.
Speaker 4: And so then the record came out and I remember
Speaker 4: getting it and one of the things that really struck
Speaker 4: me about it was, you know, I maybe it was
Speaker 4: just you know, chance or divine to mention whatever. It
Speaker 4: was only ten songs, which was unheard of for a
Speaker 4: hip hop record, and so for me, I went to
Speaker 4: the mindset, I'm like, yo, if this motherfucker got balls
Speaker 4: enough to just do ten songs, like, to me, that
Speaker 4: in itself was a statement, like for you to just
Speaker 4: say fuck all these skits and shout out to this
Speaker 4: dude that ten songs, fuck it, this is what it
Speaker 4: is like that to me was like, Okay, he got
Speaker 4: some shit. And so then I listened to it, and yeah,
Speaker 4: I was like all right.
Speaker 2: Yeah, I've never and I want to go on the record.
Speaker 2: I never like dispute it if it was a classic
Speaker 2: or not. But it's just the way that it was.
Speaker 1: I wasn't expecting it that and that was my whole point,
Speaker 1: Like I didn't have any absolutely right.
Speaker 2: I just woke up one.
Speaker 1: Day saw the Gang Star issue and thought, okay, let
Speaker 1: me see what they reviewed.
Speaker 2: Did the Columbia people, did they know the like the
Speaker 2: gravity of what five mics menu at the time? Did
Speaker 2: they get that?
Speaker 8: Yeah? They got that?
Speaker 4: Oh wow, Okay, did that change anything in terms of
Speaker 4: how he was treated at the label or like more
Speaker 4: marketing dollars to him anything?
Speaker 6: Yeah?
Speaker 8: It did, it did. It's still only you know we
Speaker 8: the album was so bootlegged. We came out sold what
Speaker 8: seventy thousand first week back then? That's no, yeah, first
Speaker 8: week it was something.
Speaker 2: No, I mean we didn't sell shit.
Speaker 7: And we did like we we said, you had already
Speaker 7: had the bootleg copy of the NAS record and that
Speaker 7: was probably half the problem everybody had had.
Speaker 2: But we brought it again.
Speaker 3: I mean, okay, you did you like Money from the Sky.
Speaker 3: I'm just saying like you did, but not a lot
Speaker 3: of people, Like I got a full of taste that
Speaker 3: I dubbed off of people that I still haven't bought
Speaker 3: through it. But I feel like eighty thousand in the
Speaker 3: first week is like twenty.
Speaker 4: Sixteen numbers you got to in twenty sixteen US and
Speaker 4: NAS did eighty thousand in his first week.
Speaker 1: He would instantly got dropped from Columbia. I felt like
Speaker 1: you at least had to do one hundred thousand something.
Speaker 2: You're saying seventy wow, what was it? Oh? It matter?
Speaker 4: At least April nineteen ninety four has seen an eight
Speaker 4: hundred and forty four percent increasing sales. In nineteen ninety four,
Speaker 4: the album sold fourteen thousand, nine hundred and eighty seven
Speaker 4: copies during this first week.
Speaker 8: Oh I'm all right.
Speaker 4: As of today, OMDIC has sold one point six million,
Speaker 4: fourteen thousand.
Speaker 2: Thank you Jesus Christ. Well, I thought it was more
Speaker 2: than that. That was under your projections.
Speaker 8: Shit, that was that was my that's me right there.
Speaker 2: Okay, so first week, what are you saying.
Speaker 4: Let's put it in a ninety four context, at least
Speaker 4: to my knowledge and correct me if I'm wrong.
Speaker 2: In his faith first week numbers? Was that really a thing?
Speaker 2: Like it was like it became later on, like it
Speaker 2: wasn't just like your first week.
Speaker 8: No, it was a thing. Those were the days when
Speaker 8: you know, like Garth Brooks or whoever was doing like
Speaker 8: a million first week?
Speaker 4: Yeah, okay, gotcha, gotcha? Yeah, post sound Skin, Yeah, post
Speaker 4: nine after Life. You read that fourteen thousand, that's what
Speaker 4: it says, fourteen seven according to the internet.
Speaker 2: It must be true. That's from the story.
Speaker 8: I remember. That's not what I remember, but.
Speaker 2: That's from the story. Yeah, I mean, I mean it
Speaker 2: could be wrong.
Speaker 4: I mean, it's the great Winston Churchill said, never believe
Speaker 4: everything you read on the internet.
Speaker 7: Here.
Speaker 2: So were you at hip Hop's you know?
Speaker 5: Ju?
Speaker 8: Yes, I was there.
Speaker 2: What section were you sitting in?
Speaker 8: Were you on down the middle?
Speaker 2: Oh, you're in the middle on the on.
Speaker 1: The west coast side. The middle road was all west
Speaker 1: coast and down south.
Speaker 8: Then I was if you're facing the stage the far left,
Speaker 8: I'm facing the stage then I'm on the left, all right, So.
Speaker 1: The the the the halves, the uh winning New York side.
Speaker 1: Nas is sitting three rows ahead of me on the far.
Speaker 2: Right side. And I watched his whole body language, that
Speaker 2: his whole body language that night, the transition from nasty
Speaker 2: Nascar dog. I watched he came in.
Speaker 1: And it's weird because only maybe two years ago either
Speaker 1: him or Stout told of the story of that Tommy
Speaker 1: Hill figure shirt that Nas had on.
Speaker 2: That was the first oddest thing.
Speaker 1: First of all, it was like, well, there's like the
Speaker 1: fashionista of the roots, so he knew that was the
Speaker 1: out of season He'll figure shirt for some reason, like
Speaker 1: not like he said like, oh that that's not off
Speaker 1: the wreck, but when you go to the outlet store,
Speaker 1: like yeah, it's outlet last season. But the shirt was
Speaker 1: way too big for Nas. It was like he was
Speaker 1: wearing an imagine like your son wearing.
Speaker 2: Wearing one of my double right.
Speaker 1: It was just a very unusual looking Tommy Hill figure shirt.
Speaker 1: And he came in kind of really you know, proud everything.
Speaker 1: It was the top of the show and you know,
Speaker 1: all the drama, the heat was on Diddy, which shook
Speaker 1: Knight and the whole you know, come to death row
Speaker 1: and all in the video all that stuff, and you know,
Speaker 1: bit by bit, Big kept winning all of the awards
Speaker 1: and like by the time the third by the time
Speaker 1: the third nomination was, which I guess was like Lyricists
Speaker 1: of the Year or whatever. Yo, his body language just
Speaker 1: like he curled up in the most depressed sitting.
Speaker 2: Light bass bell right now. Yeah, it was purpose. It
Speaker 2: was a slouch. I'll never forget watch. And I looked
Speaker 2: and me and Ree looked at each other like, yo,
Speaker 2: he's never going to be the same again. Like and
Speaker 2: he wasn't.
Speaker 1: And he admitted that that night affected him. Like did
Speaker 1: that affect you or did at that time? Did you
Speaker 1: just think, ah, whatever, it's the source?
Speaker 7: No.
Speaker 8: I thought everything changed for hip hop that night. Everything
Speaker 8: scare the shit out of me. Yeah, I like it,
Speaker 8: felt it got it took a turn like towards each
Speaker 8: looked towards the dark, Yeah, the dark side, and and
Speaker 8: you just knew it was going to end badly for
Speaker 8: a lot of people. I felt that very much.
Speaker 2: So were you around for it was written or did
Speaker 2: you leave?
Speaker 8: I left for Jive. I had disagreements with Nas and
Speaker 8: with Stout over the direction of the album.
Speaker 1: So were you there at least for the beginning of
Speaker 1: it was written? So in your mind it was like,
Speaker 1: let's keep our eyes on the fries.
Speaker 8: And I told Nas, I remember saying this to him,
Speaker 8: you know, if you keep doing exactly what you're doing
Speaker 8: ten years, you're going to be, you know, legendary. I
Speaker 8: remember ten years feeling like a lot of time back then,
Speaker 8: and you know, just be true to yourself, Just be
Speaker 8: true to yourself.
Speaker 2: And but he was, He's like, I want it now,
Speaker 2: he's going on. What was your conversation with him after
Speaker 2: the source of wards.
Speaker 8: That conversation? So what was he feeling that he had
Speaker 8: been cheated somehow, that he had been overlooked, that he
Speaker 8: made this incredible piece of art and people are giving
Speaker 8: him the credit that he deserved.
Speaker 2: Meanwhile, Biggie is Biggie.
Speaker 8: He mentioned Biggie, Biggie Biggie.
Speaker 2: Yeah, so its right. So how how early into the
Speaker 2: first or second quarter did you leave? It was written
Speaker 2: very early.
Speaker 8: So I left Columbia in say, October ninety six.
Speaker 2: Okay, what wait a minute, but it was out by then.
Speaker 8: I had removed myself from the process.
Speaker 7: I was.
Speaker 8: The label. It hurt my soul.
Speaker 2: Yeah, so.
Speaker 1: Okay again, but here's another, here's another he love situation. Now,
Speaker 1: whatever your feelings is about, if I ruled the.
Speaker 8: World, I wrote the chorus for for fucking Lauren Hill
Speaker 8: by the way, wow, or rather I told her what
Speaker 8: to say.
Speaker 2: You approved of that?
Speaker 8: At least I was up to that point, yes, And
Speaker 8: then it became again an untenable situation because of Stout
Speaker 8: and myself. So mmmm, okay, I couldn't, you know, do
Speaker 8: what Stout did for nos That just wasn't you know,
Speaker 8: it's not what I doot.
Speaker 2: He Stout ones trying to argue me.
Speaker 1: Stout came to like a voodoo session once we were
Speaker 1: thinking of getting nads on.
Speaker 2: No chicken grease, No, what were we calling it on?
Speaker 7: No?
Speaker 2: In my mind? In my mind, yo, son, will we all? Yeah? Nah,
Speaker 2: it makes no sense queens QB. No, it wasn't ghetto children.
Speaker 7: It was.
Speaker 1: Wait, stop naming songs. I can figure out the day,
Speaker 1: all right. So we did a joining based on uh
Speaker 1: lots of loving the Ohio players Westbound. Yeah, like it
Speaker 1: was something based off of that. And Stout came by
Speaker 1: and we happened to be talking about it was written,
Speaker 1: and I guess he just automatically assumed that we were
Speaker 1: all aboard for it because it was winning and it
Speaker 1: was doing exactly what Na's.
Speaker 2: Hope it would do as far as cells and winning,
Speaker 2: and me and D were kind of lukewarm to it, and.
Speaker 1: Stout had mentioned that, yeah, man, remember we was trying
Speaker 1: to get you for Little Black Girl loss and uh
Speaker 1: and I mean the mistake of ooh, I said, oh
Speaker 1: really like it was kind of like, oh, you guys
Speaker 1: a bullet on that one.
Speaker 2: Really really not knowing who or what Steve Stout represented.
Speaker 1: I just thought he was just a guy that was
Speaker 1: opinionated about hip hop and was just hanging around in
Speaker 1: the studio.
Speaker 2: I didn't know that was like NAS's guy. And I
Speaker 2: was like, oh, that's a Little Black Girl Lost on
Speaker 2: that one. You said, what you don't like that?
Speaker 1: I was like, oh god, no, like I hated Little
Speaker 1: Black Girl Lost or the narrative was cool, but again.
Speaker 2: It was just like it was an old Yeah, the
Speaker 2: Stephanie Mills loop was it was the track master's formula
Speaker 2: that I didn't like at the time.
Speaker 4: And just for me with the NAS stuff, particularly with
Speaker 4: that album too, it was wit and dropping on the
Speaker 4: same day as Stakes as High. It's just like, man,
Speaker 4: come like there was that was the first time you
Speaker 4: could really see like an A and B kind of choice,
Speaker 4: you know what I mean, Boss.
Speaker 3: It's just pitting it Daylight ninety six versus NAS in
Speaker 3: ninety six.
Speaker 2: Well, I wasn't pitting them against each other.
Speaker 4: I was just saying like, at that point that was
Speaker 4: when there came a clear like a path in terms
Speaker 4: of sounds. So it's like if you got into if
Speaker 4: you were it was written fan, then that was when
Speaker 4: you went more to like you know, Biggie Track Masses
Speaker 4: and Biggie and the Bad Boys stuff going on.
Speaker 2: It was straight up a parts.
Speaker 4: If you went into Stakes is High, that was how
Speaker 4: you got into Dyla, and that was how you got
Speaker 4: into like all the kind of left field underground, these
Speaker 4: kind of shit. You know what I'm saying you the
Speaker 4: hip hop psyche era of music, you know what I mean,
Speaker 4: Sandbox automatic, Yeah, this, Oh my god, I don't know.
Speaker 2: I don't know. I don't.
Speaker 1: I hate to say this, but I wouldn't wish Illmatic
Speaker 1: or Nas again if you were able.
Speaker 2: To do a redo. Does that sound crazy?
Speaker 6: You know?
Speaker 2: I just feel like, is it a burden? Like, do
Speaker 2: you know if it's a burden on him?
Speaker 5: It is?
Speaker 8: I think it is.
Speaker 2: Does he realize the pressure? Like, well, I wouldn't wish
Speaker 2: that on him because it's I don't know, it's not.
Speaker 4: It was like I mean to me, ill Maadic as
Speaker 4: great as it was, like it was, it is, by
Speaker 4: the way, always smart enough is still a thing to me.
Speaker 2: I always looked at it.
Speaker 4: It's like like NAS was like the m Night Shyamalana Phipop.
Speaker 4: I mean, listen, it's like no, seriously, I mean like
Speaker 4: real and I'm a NAS fan, like not do NAS's
Speaker 4: is God legally, but it was like ill Maadic was
Speaker 4: the sixth sense it was written, was unbreakable.
Speaker 2: It's like everything else was everything else?
Speaker 1: Or are you sick of hearing people debate about Illmatic?
Speaker 1: Like you created this monster.
Speaker 2: That I would never personally, I wouldn't be I'm not.
Speaker 8: I mean, it's still relevant. That's the thing. It's you
Speaker 8: know here it is twenty two years later and we're
Speaker 8: still talking about it.
Speaker 1: I just think the idea of Illmatic is our idea
Speaker 1: and our I think we're just crying for a period.
Speaker 2: In hip hop that it's just it's gone.
Speaker 8: It's gone.
Speaker 3: Man, you're basically like I am with the Childish Gambino
Speaker 3: record I never heard. I'm basically you basically say I'm
Speaker 3: I'm pining for something that doesn't exist anymore.
Speaker 2: And that's why I don't like it. Never heard it?
Speaker 2: If you're just tuning in. Our guest is Faith Newman.
Speaker 1: She famously worked as an an r rep at Columbia
Speaker 1: and def Jam back in the early days of hip
Speaker 1: hop and now works at Reservoir Faith.
Speaker 7: Where does your hip hop days land these days?
Speaker 2: Well?
Speaker 4: Shit, you signed Joey Joey Badass, Joey Badass and yeah,
Speaker 4: like yeah, so you still try to.
Speaker 2: So when you went to jive? What period was this? Oh?
Speaker 8: This was the Blingy era. This was ninety seven to
Speaker 8: two thousand UGK stories? You GK stories? I got them?
Speaker 2: Man listening, Yeah, we're listening.
Speaker 8: Okay, Well they couldn't get them to turn into the album.
Speaker 8: So Barry Whyse says you need to go to Houston
Speaker 8: and come back with the album. You have one mission
Speaker 8: and that is to go to Houston, get the album
Speaker 8: and come back.
Speaker 2: And what album was this? Was this ninety seven? That
Speaker 2: was It wasn't Ryan Dirty, it was.
Speaker 7: No, it was.
Speaker 8: Oh god, what was their third album? Well, I mean
Speaker 8: I didn't come back with the ps is that I
Speaker 8: didn't come back with the album. So that would explain
Speaker 8: why the important part.
Speaker 2: Of the story.
Speaker 1: Yeah, and I'm shocked that Weiss would even care, not care,
Speaker 1: but I mean they.
Speaker 8: Were signing his label, weren't they, And the and the
Speaker 8: the other reason he cared was that Jay Prince was
Speaker 8: trying to steal them away from Jive. Yeah, to wrap
Speaker 8: a lot and in fact, I was the hotel that
Speaker 8: I was staying at. He sent somebody to sit in
Speaker 8: the parking lot of the hotel the entire time I
Speaker 8: was there.
Speaker 2: Yeah, yeah, why.
Speaker 8: Some intimidation thing, I don't know, just to let me
Speaker 8: know that they know that I'm there. So Chad PMSY says,
Speaker 8: want to take me to dinner with his mom.
Speaker 2: Mama wes you know who she recently did?
Speaker 8: She Yeah, to a very nice place which was this
Speaker 8: kind of you know, basic steakhouse or whatever, and that
Speaker 8: was fun. And then they had a show to do
Speaker 8: that night. I don't know if it was in the
Speaker 8: Fifth Ward, but it was somewhere not not good. So
Speaker 8: so he's driving to the show and I'm in the
Speaker 8: car with him and he's he's smoking the entire time
Speaker 8: that he's driving, and I got this crazy contact high
Speaker 8: and he says, hold on, I got to pull over
Speaker 8: to this place. And we pull over and it's like
Speaker 8: one of those adult emporiums.
Speaker 2: Oh wow, I'm listening.
Speaker 8: I still to this day, I have no idea what
Speaker 8: he went in there for it just kind of went
Speaker 8: in and.
Speaker 2: Yeah, I gotta make a stop.
Speaker 8: And then uh, and then we went to the show
Speaker 8: and I got my own bodyguard with a rifle.
Speaker 5: Wow.
Speaker 8: And and Jay Prince was in the audience surrounded by
Speaker 8: all these like his whole crew.
Speaker 2: Wow.
Speaker 8: It's just a little, little, adding little story.
Speaker 7: But it didn't shake you.
Speaker 8: No, no, nothing really ever shake me.
Speaker 1: See, you thought you were going there to Anara beats
Speaker 1: rhymes in life and right.
Speaker 2: You gk trailing? What was the what was the the
Speaker 2: too short? Like we had to bail to shut out.
Speaker 8: It was just a weird thing. He was stopped in
Speaker 8: Times Square smoking weed in the truck.
Speaker 2: Who hasn't been What was your tenure? What what period
Speaker 2: were you there.
Speaker 8: At ninety seven to two thousand?
Speaker 2: Ah, you were there for love movements? What we say moment? Wow,
Speaker 2: something real curious. I think the uh.
Speaker 1: I think bum Bee told a story about Pimpsy's uh
Speaker 1: reluctant to jay Z big pimping, Big Pimper, and I
Speaker 1: just remembered not liking the story because I felt like
Speaker 1: just the bottom line was clearly Pimpsy was struggling or
Speaker 1: having conflict of success, which most people have conflict of
Speaker 1: success because it's it's easy to obtain success, it's harder
Speaker 1: to keep keep it going consistently. And it's like clearly
Speaker 1: in the narrative of Bumbee, like Pimpse was absolutely trying
Speaker 1: his hardest to sabotage this big pimpin Ca cameo.
Speaker 4: He's like, well, I'm only going to do eight bars
Speaker 4: and he didn't show up at this time and didn't
Speaker 4: show up and he's not in the video and.
Speaker 2: They had to they had to fly crew down to
Speaker 2: shoot him in Houston.
Speaker 1: That was the only way he would do it right,
Speaker 1: And it's just like why now, I No, he was like,
Speaker 1: you know, hanging on to the credibility and all that stuff.
Speaker 1: But it's like, like, word, I mean, could could Utk's
Speaker 1: appeal have really gone to a national level without the
Speaker 1: aid of jay Z an Outcast had? I mean, I know,
Speaker 1: in hindsight, it's like, Okay, well, of course that they
Speaker 1: put the work in and you know, apply.
Speaker 2: That Nah, you need that thing, I think, But did.
Speaker 1: You feel But did you feel as though even before
Speaker 1: Big pimpod in, before Outcast comes aboard like that, they
Speaker 1: could have been.
Speaker 2: Bigger and you know, a household name.
Speaker 8: A household name. I don't think so.
Speaker 4: Really, really, I can't see pimp seed in a household
Speaker 4: name that just came, you know.
Speaker 3: Like I think they might have found some level of
Speaker 3: success after the success of like No Limit in cash
Speaker 3: money making southern hip hop, you know, more of a
Speaker 3: less of a regional thing. I think it would eventually
Speaker 3: got into UGK like it eventually did. Had they hung
Speaker 3: on and just I don't know if it would have
Speaker 3: gotten to the level that it got to.
Speaker 2: But now they needed I think they needed like definitely
Speaker 2: big pimping that I mean that open, No, they needed it.
Speaker 8: They would have had to have a couple more of those,
Speaker 8: I think, But I.
Speaker 1: Mean it could have at least with the momentum that
Speaker 1: big Pimping brought them, Like could they have you know,
Speaker 1: it was very least feeling like, Okay, we're in a
Speaker 1: role here, we can now cashing and.
Speaker 8: And if they could get them to turn in the record,
Speaker 8: I mean that was.
Speaker 2: What else did you work on it? Jeff?
Speaker 8: I worked on the Tupac album Oh Are You Still Down?
Speaker 8: Still Down? Like a hundred songs on there.
Speaker 2: When I Get Free? How did you guys get access
Speaker 2: to those songs?
Speaker 8: It was a it was a it was a return
Speaker 8: favor for something that Interscope did with just put out
Speaker 8: a jive release or a jive artist that I, for
Speaker 8: whatever reason I cannot remember right now. So in return,
Speaker 8: we will give you, We'll give you, We'll give you
Speaker 8: one album of Tupac music.
Speaker 2: Wow, it's like sports straight trading Man.
Speaker 4: That wasn't a bad album though, I remember, I mean
Speaker 4: because a lot of the cameo joined. H.
Speaker 2: Yeah. It was also shocking Carlin soul shot and calling.
Speaker 2: I wasn't mad at that, really, that was so shocking. Colin.
Speaker 2: Didn't I do Tracy Spencer? Tracy Spencer? Where the hell
Speaker 2: is Tracy Spencer? Didn't she marry one of them?
Speaker 7: She's a doctor or something. I thought, Tracy Spencer.
Speaker 2: You know if someone can. I'm just did you not
Speaker 2: get paid for the remix? Yeah? I got paid for it,
Speaker 2: but I never met Tracy Spencer.
Speaker 7: She was my idol when I was a little girl.
Speaker 7: Hide and Seek a mad did John Lennon, I'm sorry
Speaker 7: she did. Imagine she killed it like she did?
Speaker 2: Agree with you?
Speaker 3: Okay, So Faith, I have a question that actually should
Speaker 3: have asked way, way, way a long time ago. What
Speaker 3: exactly does an A and R person do?
Speaker 8: Oh well, there's different things. I Mean, the first thing
Speaker 8: the A and OUR person does is bring in the talent,
Speaker 8: is scout the talent and bring it into the label,
Speaker 8: and then shepherd it through the recording process. And it
Speaker 8: doesn't really end there, you know, you don't just kind
Speaker 8: of finish a record with somebody and you hand it
Speaker 8: over to marketing or you hand it over to promotion.
Speaker 8: You kind of you see it through the whole way
Speaker 8: because you know the vision and you know the sound,
Speaker 8: and you know you know where it should be going.
Speaker 8: So that used to be what A and R people did.
Speaker 2: Yeah, I was I was going to ask you, how
Speaker 2: has it changed in the from when you started doing
Speaker 2: it to now?
Speaker 8: Well, yeah, you know, I don't know what it's like
Speaker 8: because I've been in publishing for seven years now doing
Speaker 8: A and R, which is kind of like the old
Speaker 8: school way of doing it, which is cool. You know,
Speaker 8: I don't know how it goes on, what goes on
Speaker 8: with the labels. Right now, it doesn't seem like you
Speaker 8: have that much autonomy or you know, I mean, things
Speaker 8: are signed based on logistics and not so much you know,
Speaker 8: just pure raw talent.
Speaker 1: Yeah, well, which ones have gotten away from you? I mean,
Speaker 1: if you're talking in terms of like.
Speaker 2: Just over the course of my career, yes, which.
Speaker 8: Man?
Speaker 2: What you were trying to get them?
Speaker 8: Where at Columbia? Ah man as a unit, Donnie Einer said,
Speaker 8: and I quote their shit, Oh wow wow what? Yes?
Speaker 2: Yes, have you had like revenge talks? Like have you
Speaker 2: called them like yeah? Now what do you think?
Speaker 8: Yeah?
Speaker 2: Right, we could have had that.
Speaker 8: Trust me. I felt like a bunch of times.
Speaker 2: Wow. The entire unit, the entire unit at least had
Speaker 2: a conversation with Risen considered it had a conversation.
Speaker 8: The whole thing.
Speaker 3: Did he ever come with you with with any of
Speaker 3: the solo or the solo projects when he was shopping
Speaker 3: any to say?
Speaker 2: Colombia was the only label.
Speaker 8: That didn't even have remember yeah, well, you.
Speaker 4: Know, not even cap Donna Epic or who Army was
Speaker 4: Killer Army they were on they were like they were
Speaker 4: indie like what Indy but priority or something like that.
Speaker 1: So during that whole period of ninety four to ninety
Speaker 1: like when they were red hot, he just said no.
Speaker 8: Nothing, He just said nothing. This was you know, protect
Speaker 8: your neck days.
Speaker 1: This was ironic being as though one of Mariah's biggest
Speaker 1: singles was right, were you a part of that Brainschild
Speaker 1: that brought the Fantasy remix with ODB at Columbia?
Speaker 8: The town.
Speaker 2: Well faith in hindsight? Like where you with music today?
Speaker 7: Like?
Speaker 2: Does I mean are you are you searching for blood
Speaker 2: in the stone right now? Or is it you know?
Speaker 2: Do you still get this? You fork?
Speaker 8: I do? There's some there's some artists that two artists
Speaker 8: that I'm looking at right now that that moved me.
Speaker 1: This is including who you spoke of the singing include
Speaker 1: what well one of the artists you raved about, Uh
Speaker 1: the singer from down south. I don't know the name
Speaker 1: of the person, but singer from South.
Speaker 2: Yeah.
Speaker 1: Someone there's an act you told me about of oh shit,
Speaker 1: Uh not Sam Cook voice or whatever.
Speaker 2: But they were part of a group.
Speaker 8: Oh watch the Duck.
Speaker 2: Yes, yes, okay, Jesse right, are they closer to doing stuff?
Speaker 6: Ye?
Speaker 8: Yes?
Speaker 2: Okay? Are you still involved in the project? Okay?
Speaker 8: But they were one or two you were speaking of
Speaker 8: when you said, no, there's new ones that I'm looking
Speaker 8: at you guys, Yeah.
Speaker 2: I don Are you just on YouTube now looking for X?
Speaker 8: Or is it?
Speaker 2: No?
Speaker 8: It comes through different places. I mean, I may find
Speaker 8: some something on SoundCloud, you know, occasionally, but mostly it
Speaker 8: comes from just people, I know, managers, you know, mostly managers.
Speaker 2: And you're looking at the oats. Are you looking at
Speaker 2: them in terms of signing them, like publishing deals?
Speaker 8: Yeah, publishing deals.
Speaker 2: Okay.
Speaker 8: Yeah, there's this kid named Joyner Lucas. Okay, you heard
Speaker 8: of him. No, he's dope. He's on some like vivid
Speaker 8: eminem type storytelling clever you know, wordplay kind of thing.
Speaker 8: He's dope.
Speaker 1: But for you, you never want to enter into the
Speaker 1: sphere of traditional record label.
Speaker 8: No, I don't want to go back to that. I
Speaker 8: don't think if you lived through it in the nineties,
Speaker 8: like I did, you you you you can't. I couldn't.
Speaker 8: I couldn't do it right now because I don't know.
Speaker 8: I don't know how they do what they do with
Speaker 8: the resources that they have. Small budgets, yeah, the tiny budgets.
Speaker 1: And so what would satisfy you, like, what gives you,
Speaker 1: you know, what the patter on the back that pat
Speaker 1: you on the back of twenty seventeen, what would that be?
Speaker 4: You know?
Speaker 8: Aside from the artist thing, A lot of what I
Speaker 8: do is catalog deals, and that's the thing, the old
Speaker 8: school stuff. It's like everything for me is come full circle.
Speaker 2: You know what I've knowing who you are? Yeah, you
Speaker 2: love Yeah, you know what I wish you'd do? What
Speaker 2: go to men? Anneapolish.
Speaker 8: I wish I could too.
Speaker 2: I think you should. I can think about that.
Speaker 8: You know.
Speaker 2: I think they're looking for an archiver, somebody to go through.
Speaker 8: Like m Yeah. I love doing stuff like that, make
Speaker 8: it happen, you know, just.
Speaker 2: To get a new job.
Speaker 8: I'm gonna put it out there, put it out in
Speaker 8: the universe. I am.
Speaker 2: I'm putting it.
Speaker 5: No.
Speaker 2: I think you'd be perfect.
Speaker 1: I mean you, I know that your your majestic passion
Speaker 1: for purple is runs deep, and you have enough experience
Speaker 1: in the business to know how to minister and and
Speaker 1: and organize these things.
Speaker 2: And I happen to know they need a lot of help.
Speaker 2: I'm just saying that. Oh wait, I'm supposed to make Yeah,
Speaker 2: you brought it.
Speaker 7: It's your suggestion.
Speaker 2: Oh you know, Faith is magic too.
Speaker 7: She is but a little extra magic.
Speaker 2: One of my favorite country singers.
Speaker 8: She was your favorite R and B singer.
Speaker 2: Faith. Uh yeah, thank you, Thank you so much, everybody,
Speaker 2: Your presidence here. Thank you for not selling out. That's
Speaker 2: what you didn't do. You never cast in, You never
Speaker 2: sold out. Quest Love Supreme is a production of iHeart Radio.
Speaker 2: This classic episode was produced by the team at Mandora.
Speaker 2: For more podcasts from iHeart Radio, visit the iHeart Radio app,
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