Speaker 1: Quest Love Supreme is a production of iHeartRadio.
Speaker 2: As we gear up for the twenty twenty five Roots Picnic,
Speaker 2: why not listen back to QLs with Tarik Trotter also
Speaker 2: known as black Boy, And this may have been the
Speaker 2: most roquestic West Love Supreme guests that we've ever had.
Speaker 2: And I always planned to do it with the Roots album.
Speaker 2: Instead we did it for Tarik's book, The Upcycle Self.
Speaker 1: Make sure you get that. Here we go.
Speaker 3: Suprema Suprema roll call, the Suprema Suprema roll call, Suprema Supremo,
Speaker 3: roll call, Suprema su.
Speaker 2: Supremo roll He is the best. Yeah, nothing to prove. Yeah,
Speaker 2: we get the honor. Yeah, talking about Suprema.
Speaker 1: My name is Fante Yeah.
Speaker 4: Back on the block with my man yap It Codo.
Speaker 5: My name is Sugar. Yeah, I shall proceed.
Speaker 6: Yeah to eat your shrooms and smoke your weeds.
Speaker 1: Supremo Supremorem.
Speaker 7: I'm hi Bill, I'm not better than you, Yeah, but
Speaker 7: thanks to Fantee, I'm a better rapper than you.
Speaker 8: Yeah.
Speaker 9: And my favorite MC. Yeah who else? Yeah, motherfuck whoa.
Speaker 4: X It's regis Yeah. I give all y'all that. Yeah,
Speaker 4: but y'all gonna have to chill. Yeah, I know, I'm
Speaker 4: gonna have to rap.
Speaker 3: Bring Roll, come bre so sound Soup, pre roll, come up,
Speaker 3: Preemo something something up? Preemo roll care un South upreing roll?
Speaker 1: Whoa wait? You know like us dot X will stop
Speaker 1: a bar like like he will stop the bar fourteen
Speaker 1: bars before he finishes that I did. I did because.
Speaker 5: Like too many times and there's a really long pause.
Speaker 9: I'm celebrating.
Speaker 2: Yeah, I can get used to this. This is another
Speaker 2: in person yeah classic dust dustin.
Speaker 8: One of the most anticipated episodes of all Questlove Supreme times.
Speaker 2: Exactly the amount of times that has been in the
Speaker 2: group chat when is this going to happen?
Speaker 1: When is this going to happen? I don't know for me.
Speaker 2: If you're old enough to know the reference, this will
Speaker 2: feel like the anytime that Eddie Murphy comes on the
Speaker 2: Arsenal Show, where it's like, how do you add professional
Speaker 2: with someone that you've known for four decades of all
Speaker 2: your life? Like you know, this is another episode of
Speaker 2: Quest Love Supreme. Ladies and Gentlemen, Quest Love and Wait,
Speaker 2: where the.
Speaker 1: Hell are we? Like go back in time?
Speaker 2: It's an old time streshold recording studio. Yes, I feel
Speaker 2: like I'm in nineteen thirty six and also nineteen ninety six. Yo,
Speaker 2: it's also to.
Speaker 4: Today is the I guess the thirteenth we anniversary of
Speaker 4: an undone undone drop today December sixth.
Speaker 1: Wow, that's awesome. Twelfth twelve year twelve, right, I think
Speaker 1: it's twelve. Yeah, I'm getting numb to roots album anniversaries.
Speaker 1: I know, I got so many of them.
Speaker 8: I know.
Speaker 9: Man, what a beautiful privilege. That's beautiful.
Speaker 1: All right. So yeah, sugar Steve, how was life good?
Speaker 1: That's night? Bill? You made it? What's up? I'm happy
Speaker 1: to be here.
Speaker 5: You gave me like a half a second house, like
Speaker 5: I was like house Like great?
Speaker 1: Great? I paid Bill. What's going on? Great?
Speaker 7: Everything's good. I'm happy to be here. I thought I
Speaker 7: wasn't going to be here at the weather sort of
Speaker 7: me here. Okay, that's awesome. Uh fron Tikeolo. This is
Speaker 7: the first time we're talking to you after seeing the documentary.
Speaker 1: Man, yeah, that was a response.
Speaker 4: It's been amazing, man, kind of overwhelming, but uh no, man,
Speaker 4: it's yeah. It's being received exactly how we want to
Speaker 4: be received. We made it with a lot of love,
Speaker 4: and we get a lot of love back, So check
Speaker 4: it out a little bit.
Speaker 1: Go check it out, all right, And what's the the
Speaker 1: next move after the documentary? I don't know. I mean,
Speaker 1: I just we literally, so we finished this.
Speaker 4: We finished the doc November seventh, We had our first
Speaker 4: screen in November knife and then we released it November
Speaker 4: twenty fourth.
Speaker 1: So I ain't trying to do shit a little bit.
Speaker 1: I'm just yeah, yeah, we don't know about that life.
Speaker 4: Not doing shit, Yeah, not doing shit. Hey, hey, I
Speaker 4: hate man right back to rap, back to the lag.
Speaker 2: Well, I mean I will say that, you know, it's
Speaker 2: real good to see because it was also just like
Speaker 2: unprecedented territory because not since maybe Metallica's Some kind of
Speaker 2: Monster have us seen a documentary of a group really
Speaker 2: do self analytical work. Because normally it's just like cutting
Speaker 2: place and then nineteenth thirer and we did this and
Speaker 2: no no no, no, no no no, and then happen
Speaker 2: you know, that sort of undone unsung methods, and so yeah,
Speaker 2: good to watch. And actually our guest today and myself
Speaker 2: or at the very beginning of our process, so.
Speaker 4: We're finna bite jack. That whole concept really really break
Speaker 4: off ship, Like yo, man, how come we you know
Speaker 4: what I mean, like you down to the to the
Speaker 4: very last compound and ship.
Speaker 8: That's what you do with the youth though, y'all, y'all
Speaker 8: you've put themselves out there and then we you know,
Speaker 8: how's it going. I'm good.
Speaker 9: I am so happy that we finally got this.
Speaker 2: Ladies and gentlemen, we have literally one of the best
Speaker 2: wordsmiths that ever entered the realm of hip hop, which
Speaker 2: sort of sounds like an empty intro, but it's it's
Speaker 2: actually literally true. What actually makes this even more special
Speaker 2: a propose that we're here kind of to celebrate a
Speaker 2: new chapter in your life, which is kind of you
Speaker 2: opening up to the world because you've been very mysterious
Speaker 2: to the entire world.
Speaker 1: And yes, it is awkward at fuck giving introduction. No,
Speaker 1: but I absolutely make no buns.
Speaker 5: Buns, you don't make buns.
Speaker 2: No, I don't about no, I absolutely make no bones
Speaker 2: about our guest today being not only just one of
Speaker 2: the greatest people of all time. But you know, it's like,
Speaker 2: I don't know how to refer to Trek because he's
Speaker 2: literally probably been the most consistent figure in my life period.
Speaker 2: Like I've seen him on a regular basis for the
Speaker 2: last thirty seven.
Speaker 1: Years of my life.
Speaker 2: Like I haven't done that with my mother, my father
Speaker 2: and my sister, any girlfriend, Like it's kind of my
Speaker 2: work spouse, which I don't even have shame in that. Man,
Speaker 2: this is this is this is a commitment. The greatest
Speaker 2: of all time. Tariq Black thought Trotter is on costloft supreme.
Speaker 2: You so.
Speaker 1: Go, oh, God.
Speaker 2: See that our sineo ednything started already before every for
Speaker 2: any ll moment, there's always here in the background.
Speaker 1: God is great. Yeah. Initially my plan was like to
Speaker 1: lay back and let the four of you go at it, to.
Speaker 2: Ask whatever, but even I have questions. I'm mid read
Speaker 2: of the book right now. But since you are bursting
Speaker 2: at the seams, start.
Speaker 9: Okay, let's just start with this.
Speaker 8: The fact that this is one of the most anticipated projects,
Speaker 8: at least in our circle of people. We've been waiting
Speaker 8: to hear your story for probably the last couple decades.
Speaker 8: So I want to know why now and why the
Speaker 8: way that you decided to do and how you and
Speaker 8: not not why the way you decided to do it,
Speaker 8: but how you decided.
Speaker 1: To do it.
Speaker 4: You know, I think the the why now of it
Speaker 4: all is I kind of feel like now or never,
Speaker 4: you know what I mean, Like there's a certain urgency
Speaker 4: that is very tangible that you know, is to I
Speaker 4: don't know, I feel like there is like it's time
Speaker 4: to do all all the things right we have to
Speaker 4: you know, sort of do it or not, you know
Speaker 4: what I'm saying.
Speaker 1: So for me, it was it was now or never.
Speaker 1: It was you know, if not now, then when it was,
Speaker 1: you know, why not now?
Speaker 4: And you know all the different ways that I could
Speaker 4: you know, self sabotage in my mind and worst case
Speaker 4: scenario without I was able to resolve, you know, And
Speaker 4: and yeah, it just felt like, uh, you know, the
Speaker 4: best move both you know, for me, for my sanity,
Speaker 4: for my mental peace, and you know, just to give
Speaker 4: people who have been long time supporters of the route
Speaker 4: something new to latch on too, and you know, something
Speaker 4: to identify with and you know, something that they're able
Speaker 4: to you know, see representation of themselves in to some
Speaker 4: extent hopefully.
Speaker 1: Yeah, it just felt very necessary.
Speaker 9: So and real quick, what's this process?
Speaker 8: Because I told Fante this morning, we've been talking about
Speaker 8: your book a lot and between May the Lord watch
Speaker 8: his documentary and the upcycle self. They're very special because
Speaker 8: we are seeing not just our two of our favorite
Speaker 8: artists to our favorite MC's, but we are seeing two
Speaker 8: black men of certain ages reveal themselves in ways that
Speaker 8: we may not be used to seeing film wise and
Speaker 8: on paper. So when talking to Fonte and knowing that
Speaker 8: he started his process years ago, because the onion has
Speaker 8: to be peeled, how does that work for you? As
Speaker 8: far as yet, I'm going to do this book. I'm
Speaker 8: going to bring this, but I know you had to
Speaker 8: go through the Okay, do I want to talk about
Speaker 8: this or I don't want to talk about that, and
Speaker 8: I ain't gonna do that, but somebody had to go
Speaker 8: to you.
Speaker 1: No, you have to do that.
Speaker 9: You have to say these things.
Speaker 6: How do you do that?
Speaker 1: Far? Yeah?
Speaker 4: Yeah, Well this isn't my first attempt at a memoir,
Speaker 4: you know what I'm saying. So I feel like maybe
Speaker 4: I feel like this is a third time, So third.
Speaker 1: Times a charm, you know what I'm saying.
Speaker 4: I partnered up with a couple of different people, you know,
Speaker 4: the collaborators in the past, and you know, great minds,
Speaker 4: and we've got you know, hours of hours of of interview. Uh,
Speaker 4: you know, audio and video stuff, and we took you know,
Speaker 4: lots of notes and sort of.
Speaker 1: Did all of the all of the you know, like
Speaker 1: the groundwork.
Speaker 4: But yeah, I wasn't able to get through the process
Speaker 4: in either of those instances. And I think in this
Speaker 4: dynamic like between me and Jasmine Martin, Jasmine is.
Speaker 1: From Philadelphia, you know what I'm saying.
Speaker 4: As I we've worked together on so many different things
Speaker 4: over the past now five or six years or so.
Speaker 4: We had just did a comparable sort of project for
Speaker 4: Audible during Quarantine in seven years, so like the bones
Speaker 4: were there, So it was just about, uh, you know,
Speaker 4: how are we gonna approach it? And we wrote this
Speaker 4: book the way that we would record an album or
Speaker 4: work on a screenplay or do anything for musical theater.
Speaker 4: It was sort of you know, from the inside out,
Speaker 4: you know what I'm saying. On some Quentin Tarantino shit.
Speaker 4: I think that's the beauty of you know, just being
Speaker 4: it being my first time you know what I mean
Speaker 4: doing the thing.
Speaker 1: There's a there's a.
Speaker 4: Blitz they you know, they don't say ignorance is bliss
Speaker 4: for nothing, right, So there's something in the just the
Speaker 4: abandon of not knowing better not knowing the right way
Speaker 4: to do a thing, so you just do it, you know,
Speaker 4: like the artistic or you know, most efficient or creative way.
Speaker 1: And that's what I'm experiencing right now. How many years
Speaker 1: was this book in the making. It took about a
Speaker 1: year and a half, two years, okay.
Speaker 4: And the first two attempts that you made at doing
Speaker 4: the kind of this biography? What made those I guess
Speaker 4: the wrong attempts? Like what didn't work about those? I
Speaker 4: think it was just the relate like I was sort
Speaker 4: of relinquishing my my story, you know what I mean.
Speaker 4: And in both of those situations, it was almost as
Speaker 4: if I was along for the ride because these were
Speaker 4: too far more experienced authors and you know what I mean,
Speaker 4: people that I had, you know, I still have a
Speaker 4: great deal of respect for, but they just aren't familar. Like,
Speaker 4: you know, no one could tell your story the way
Speaker 4: you can tell it, you know. But I wasn't, you know, ready,
Speaker 4: for whatever reason, to tell it myself. So I figured,
Speaker 4: by you know, just association, I would receive, you know,
Speaker 4: the same sort of validation as if I if I
Speaker 4: just you know, jump jumped out there on my own.
Speaker 1: And that wasn't the case, and uh yeah, I just
Speaker 1: it wasn't ready, you know what I mean.
Speaker 4: Things happened when they when as they should, you know,
Speaker 4: And I don't think either of those you know, like respectfully,
Speaker 4: it just wasn't you know, like the right situation or time.
Speaker 1: You know what I'm saying. I get it. When in
Speaker 1: writing this book, did you have to have conversations?
Speaker 4: We had Will on the show and he was talking
Speaker 4: about how you know, he had to have conversations with
Speaker 4: family and people like, Yo, this is coming.
Speaker 1: Did you have to have those talks with your people
Speaker 1: on how did they go? I had.
Speaker 4: I had some of those talks with you know, people
Speaker 4: whose opinion you know what I mean, who it mattered
Speaker 4: to me how they feel?
Speaker 1: And yeah, you know, like there was lots that we
Speaker 1: had to omit, you know what I mean.
Speaker 4: Like my uncle, who is my father's brother, my oldest
Speaker 4: year surviving relative. He you know, he likes to talk
Speaker 4: and he has no filter, you know what I'm saying.
Speaker 4: Once you get in your eighties, it's like yeah, so yeah,
Speaker 4: there's very much that had to be omitted, and you know,
Speaker 4: some names had to be changed within There was a
Speaker 4: bunch of names that were left in there, and those
Speaker 4: are the people you know, I had to holler at
Speaker 4: like my auntie. Now you know what I'm saying, Like,
Speaker 4: you know, like you go be good, that's it. And
Speaker 4: and then you know some homies, like there were a
Speaker 4: couple of people who I grew up with who just
Speaker 4: some minor inconsistencies, Like there was one thing that I saw,
Speaker 4: like in the book, it says that these two kids
Speaker 4: that my boys started this organization of writers called T
Speaker 4: E T. And they didn't start T E T. They
Speaker 4: weren't even they weren't ain't even right. You know what
Speaker 4: I'm saying.
Speaker 1: Now.
Speaker 4: When I was doing the audio book, I caught it
Speaker 4: because I did my own audiobook, so I caught it
Speaker 4: and I corrected it. But you know, I wasn't gonna
Speaker 4: have to. You got to come out the posative is like, oh, yes,
Speaker 4: one more thing I want to change. So it's like, yeah,
Speaker 4: they just has to stay in there. But I hit
Speaker 4: them up, like, yo, you know you read the book,
Speaker 4: it's going to say X, Y and Z. I mean
Speaker 4: not really, you know, to make sure it was good
Speaker 4: with the dudes who were credited at starting the group,
Speaker 4: but to make sure it was.
Speaker 1: Good with the dudes who were in it and they
Speaker 1: had nothing to do it to you, you know what
Speaker 1: I'm saying.
Speaker 4: But everybody's all good and folks that I grew up with,
Speaker 4: like people from my block, like like who you know. Well,
Speaker 4: in the in those scenarios, in those moments in time
Speaker 4: that that that I reconjured in the book, have read
Speaker 4: it and told me that it was a great read
Speaker 4: and that it was you know, the transportive and in
Speaker 4: the way that we intended it to be. In the book,
Speaker 4: you talk about specifically a fight you and the Meer
Speaker 4: had in London and how that changed the course of
Speaker 4: you guys relationship in some way.
Speaker 1: How do you think it changed y'all? How did that
Speaker 1: change y'all dynamic?
Speaker 4: Well, you know, I think, uh, if you if you
Speaker 4: have a close friend, you and a close friend get in,
Speaker 4: you're like come to you know, a fisticuffs like you're
Speaker 4: come to blows something that's forever changed. Right, If it's
Speaker 4: between two people who are used to fighting all the time,
Speaker 4: then you know it's sometimes just far little like with
Speaker 4: that change is you know, I mean, it's less significant
Speaker 4: then if that's somebody's only fight, Like I'm going through
Speaker 4: my mind I can't remember how many fights I've been
Speaker 4: and I don't even stomped out.
Speaker 1: I mean I win, some lose, some bunch of fights. Shit.
Speaker 4: It said, if that's like your only fight, if you
Speaker 4: had like one, two, three altercations, then yeah, I would
Speaker 4: think it would be just more impactful.
Speaker 1: So that's just how I understood it, you know what
Speaker 1: I mean.
Speaker 4: I think for me, it was something that like later
Speaker 4: that day I moved on, like you know what I'm saying,
Speaker 4: definitely again like something had been changed, but it was
Speaker 4: such an insignificant change for me. But yeah, I just
Speaker 4: feel like in our mirrors, you know, world, there was
Speaker 4: something that, uh, you know, there was a line that
Speaker 4: had been crossed that you know what I'm saying, we
Speaker 4: could never sort of cross.
Speaker 1: You know, and look at my own funeral. That was
Speaker 1: or like I was a quick fist couple of more
Speaker 1: wrestling like wrestling. It was like a chokehold. It was
Speaker 1: it was wrestling that.
Speaker 9: Or did you get it?
Speaker 1: I think I just sat on top.
Speaker 4: Of himinety pounds, like I never heard of this situation.
Speaker 2: But the thing is is like when you're my size,
Speaker 2: like people just rightfully think like I'm never fucking with him,
Speaker 2: so I never had to fight my life.
Speaker 1: That was the only fight I've ever had in my life.
Speaker 1: You know, it's kind of weird.
Speaker 8: Do y'all understand that for the majority of the public,
Speaker 8: they don't really get to see, like, you know, you
Speaker 8: writing a whole chapter about a mirror and how you
Speaker 8: guys man at how y'all connected In real life? People
Speaker 8: watch y'all and they watch you on the stage, they
Speaker 8: watch him from drums, but they really don't see y'all
Speaker 8: ever connect. And I gotta say, as a fan and
Speaker 8: I feel like family friends not so much. But I remember,
Speaker 8: I said to Day this morning, I said, I remember
Speaker 8: the one time and the first time that I saw
Speaker 8: y'all like embrace, right. I remember how it felt to
Speaker 8: see it. I remember where I was. I was at
Speaker 8: the Black Lily, at the five Spot. I felt emotional
Speaker 8: because it was just something that I hadn't seen.
Speaker 1: Y'all.
Speaker 8: Y'all was having a private conversation at the bar, was
Speaker 8: having a private conversation at the bar. And it wasn't
Speaker 8: like a let me hug you, bro, but it was
Speaker 8: just like a show of affection that I had never
Speaker 8: seen between the two of you and I'm just curious.
Speaker 9: Are y'all kind of.
Speaker 1: Like, oh, I'll see you tomorrow, But y'all don't do
Speaker 1: I see.
Speaker 8: You tomorrow, hug bro, I'll see you tomorrow. Like that's
Speaker 8: not something that people are used to seeing it.
Speaker 1: It's weird, Okay.
Speaker 2: So I have despite whatever, the the whatever, my like,
Speaker 2: I don't know what people think they see me. Like
Speaker 2: I've heard I'm super arrogant. I hear I'm happy, go lucky,
Speaker 2: or yeah, I'm very aloof.
Speaker 1: I hear that a lot.
Speaker 2: But the one thing I had to work on the
Speaker 2: pandemic was really letting go of old ideas and perceptions.
Speaker 2: And the one thing that I was always taught that
Speaker 2: my dad always taught me. And that's basically because he
Speaker 2: went through a situation with the business that he started
Speaker 2: with his brothers, and one of his big rules was
Speaker 2: always like, you know, never start business with family.
Speaker 1: You can never ever mix business in your friendship. D
Speaker 1: da da da.
Speaker 2: And I've seen the told that that business took on
Speaker 2: my dad, like we we lost, he lost so much money.
Speaker 2: We Yeah, I think I met it on the show,
Speaker 2: Like we lived three years without gas in the house
Speaker 2: and it was like either a private school for a
Speaker 2: mere or a gas This is before Kappa. Oh yeah,
Speaker 2: there is some crazy shit with me. So that said,
Speaker 2: I always like, once I realize, oh, we're running a business,
Speaker 2: then I wondered, like, well, I wonder how like, well
Speaker 2: shit change? Like well, we still spend the night at
Speaker 2: each other's house, Like can we be friends or am
Speaker 2: run a business? So I was, and even when I
Speaker 2: joke about the Grifven door Slytherin thing, in my mind
Speaker 2: it was always like, now that we have a business,
Speaker 2: I should keep a professional distance so.
Speaker 1: That the business can last long.
Speaker 2: But I also knew that I was sacrificing because I
Speaker 2: do miss those times where like we just hang out
Speaker 2: and you know, watch movies and all that stuff. But
Speaker 2: in my mind, I think I was carrying a lot
Speaker 2: of my father's beliefs I started carrying on my own.
Speaker 2: And the one thing I thought about was like, oh, man,
Speaker 2: I mean when Uncle Rosie and Dad and so now
Speaker 2: that I'm starting business, what's on it's like a brother
Speaker 2: than me.
Speaker 1: I could never do that.
Speaker 4: I mean there's something to that, right, you know what
Speaker 4: I'm saying, Like that isn't like lots of OG's have
Speaker 4: that philosophy. And it's not for you know, not for nothing,
Speaker 4: and you know, like just to speak to that same
Speaker 4: sort of you know thing.
Speaker 1: You know. I mean, Sean and I you showing who
Speaker 1: manages the Roots. That is my cut.
Speaker 4: That's who I'm talking. That's who that nigga just left.
Speaker 4: When I burned down the house, he would yeah the
Speaker 4: fuck it. His spot on the on the floor was
Speaker 4: still warm. But you know, we grew up only you know,
Speaker 4: two years apart from one another, and just really close
Speaker 4: as cousins in the same way that our mothers were.
Speaker 4: They were like sisters, but they were aunt and niece.
Speaker 4: And he and I were you know, great cousins, but
Speaker 4: you know we were more like brothers about that too.
Speaker 4: I mean, we went to you know, college together, that
Speaker 4: whole thing. But once he became you know, the Roots
Speaker 4: business manager, and once he partnered up with Rich, there
Speaker 4: was something that I mean, it changed, Like there's something
Speaker 4: that changed.
Speaker 1: And I always wondered if you.
Speaker 4: Know it's like, yeah, we used to kick it all
Speaker 4: the time. We go get drinks, we go we at parties,
Speaker 4: we you know what I mean. I talked to you
Speaker 4: in the morning, We're on the phone, and there's something
Speaker 4: that there is a you know, uh uh consciousness of
Speaker 4: maintaining the business bar that I think. I mean, there's
Speaker 4: a there's something admirable and being able to separate the professionalism,
Speaker 4: you know what I mean in that way, You know
Speaker 4: what I mean. It's like he and I have brothers
Speaker 4: showing our cousins. I don't think that's ever gonna change,
Speaker 4: but for the brand's sake, for the sake of the business. Yeah,
Speaker 4: you know what I'm saying. Sometimes you gotta do what
Speaker 4: you gotta do. So I mean, I completely understand, you know,
Speaker 4: I know, like there are lots of other examples that
Speaker 4: have been set, you know what I mean, other cats,
Speaker 4: other you know, artists that have been collaborative in a
Speaker 4: comparable way, but none of them have stood the test
Speaker 4: of time that we have.
Speaker 1: So it must be something to that shit. You know
Speaker 1: what I'm saying. It is weird. The once, uh once,
Speaker 1: during the bionic period of Bionics.
Speaker 2: Sorry, this is two thousand and three, I think two
Speaker 2: thousand and two, two thousand and three, I caught in
Speaker 2: a twenty minute candid moment. I forget where we were,
Speaker 2: either like a photo shoot or something like that, and
Speaker 2: I was far away, but I was keeping my eye
Speaker 2: on him, and.
Speaker 1: I was like, wait a minute, they actually like each other. Yeah,
Speaker 1: like yo friends. Because it's also a thing where you
Speaker 1: got to understand that to.
Speaker 2: Endure, and we can't stress enough the amount of stress
Speaker 2: and turmoil. Those first like four years were where daily
Speaker 2: every day like my one dream of why this has
Speaker 2: to work is I can never I will never ever
Speaker 2: go back to fifty two.
Speaker 1: Twelve O Sage Avenue.
Speaker 2: I don't know if you remember Jungle Fever, when that
Speaker 2: moment where Annabella Sior had to like in a moment
Speaker 2: of defeat, have to come back home to her dad.
Speaker 2: And my worst nightmare was this one because even before
Speaker 2: things fall apart, like every day I had to deal
Speaker 2: with here, my dad sort of say like you gotta
Speaker 2: get a real job, and or you're doing a video,
Speaker 2: but was a cable bill and what about the electric bill?
Speaker 1: And so my mind like it's like I can never.
Speaker 2: But the thing is is that we have to be
Speaker 2: in tight the way that you describe being on that tour,
Speaker 2: in like tight circles, Like I've never spent that much
Speaker 2: amount of time with any human that long. So it's
Speaker 2: like you gotta maintain a professional relationship and your brothers
Speaker 2: and you know, and again I'm just I'm going you
Speaker 2: you're gonna live out the examples of what was getting
Speaker 2: with you.
Speaker 4: You know, like there were some people who were in
Speaker 4: the Roots who did that to the extreme. Like it's
Speaker 4: a delicate balance, you know what I mean. You have
Speaker 4: cats who I mean on more than one occasion, more
Speaker 4: than one member of the Roots who we we travel,
Speaker 4: they act like they ain't even they don't know it.
Speaker 1: Yeah, Like like dude, like we in't fuck it.
Speaker 4: You gotta be Calicutta right now, like we always Yeah, really,
Speaker 4: I like, you know what I'm saying, like we didn't
Speaker 4: come together, but you know, and I think it was
Speaker 4: you know, in that I think people did that for
Speaker 4: some of the same reasons.
Speaker 1: But it's just extreme, you know what I mean.
Speaker 2: It's weird you mentioned the hook thing because there's one
Speaker 2: moment I remember, which was at Dyla's funeral, and I
Speaker 2: believe either John or my Duke's sorter said like, shot me,
Speaker 2: not shot me. Look because everyone was sitting in the
Speaker 2: front row and of course, you know, me carries a
Speaker 2: flag for Dilla like I should be, but I wanted
Speaker 2: to sit in the back and it seemed kind of
Speaker 2: odd because it was a large church, but it wasn't
Speaker 2: that many people. It was like maybe forty fifty people
Speaker 2: in a place that could hold like three hundred, Like
Speaker 2: Dyla's buried in the same cemetery that Michael Jackson and
Speaker 2: Elizabeth Taylor are, So it's like a large, sprawling estate,
Speaker 2: but there's only like fifty people there. And I purposely
Speaker 2: sat like in the last row, like with seventeen roads
Speaker 2: like ahead of me, of emptiness. And at the time
Speaker 2: my girlfriend was like, well, why are we sitting back here?
Speaker 2: And I was just like, it's so foolish now. But
Speaker 2: my whole thing was like, oh man, I can't let
Speaker 2: Tarik see me in a vulnerable, weak moment, which is
Speaker 2: again I was whatever it is you can never hold
Speaker 2: pre twenty twenty meters.
Speaker 8: Now look at it, like, now that we've read the
Speaker 8: book and we have had these conversations in the last
Speaker 8: seven years, is about you know, I had moments reading
Speaker 8: that book, even when Tarik was describing your home situation
Speaker 8: like with the past inside.
Speaker 1: Now you know what I remember, no one ever broke
Speaker 1: into my crib.
Speaker 4: What I remember about Dyla's funeral was, yeah, definitely you know,
Speaker 4: like just how you know, gargantuan, the sort of the
Speaker 4: space was. We were only in the first few rows
Speaker 4: and stuff. But yeah, I remember being like, yo, where
Speaker 4: where the fuck is I'm here at you know what
Speaker 4: I'm saying. And then I just remember like when it
Speaker 4: was over. I think at one point like I connected
Speaker 4: Dave New York. When it was over, I hugged. I
Speaker 4: fucking cried, like that was the first time I was
Speaker 4: able to, Like I hadn't cried the whole time of hearing,
Speaker 4: you know what I mean, throughout the whole shit.
Speaker 1: I saw a mire after the funeral and I just
Speaker 1: started balling.
Speaker 2: Started right and it was such So it felt weird
Speaker 2: to me because like I maintained such a professional distance thing,
Speaker 2: but this is like, oh shit, now I gotta switch
Speaker 2: the light on and go back to nineteen ninety one
Speaker 2: when we were born, you know what I mean?
Speaker 1: After that?
Speaker 8: Do you go back after the hug and the embrace?
Speaker 8: Does it slowly open up things?
Speaker 2: Or do you go back to So here's the funny thing,
Speaker 2: all right, So I'm in, you know, and I'm sure
Speaker 2: my my psychological journey and all that stuff. So I
Speaker 2: did a session once and I kind of slipped, and
Speaker 2: she said, well, you know, what was Tarik's opinion on that?
Speaker 2: And I was like, well, it's cool, you know whatever.
Speaker 2: He said, no, no, what do you say for Batim?
Speaker 2: I said, well, he ain't say it, but it'll be
Speaker 2: cool that. She's like, wait, how how long do you
Speaker 2: talk to Treik? And she's the kind of person. So
Speaker 2: she's the kind of person that if she sees a scab,
Speaker 2: she'll just start scratching it scratching, and it's like, yo,
Speaker 2: I got other issues.
Speaker 1: I got you know, mother issues.
Speaker 2: Yeah, right, And she kept wanting to go there and
Speaker 2: I'm trying to like matrix bullet dodge, and she clearly
Speaker 2: saw my discomfort, and she was just asking basic questions.
Speaker 1: Like well, how long do you talk?
Speaker 2: Does dark know that like you're in therapy and da
Speaker 2: da da da, and that you're turning new leaf? And
Speaker 2: I was like, cool, man, you feel you know the
Speaker 2: thing like where you like you don't say like, oh
Speaker 2: I love you man, and you know, and I had
Speaker 2: a hard time just come to grips with myself, like
Speaker 2: looking in the mirror and all that stuff. And so well,
Speaker 2: she the way that she sort of gets me the
Speaker 2: part that I never reveal. It's her method's a little
Speaker 2: bit different. Let's just say there's a certain amount of
Speaker 2: cash money in escrow in which I have to in
Speaker 2: this December, so I'm gonna have to start write a
Speaker 2: contract of what my goals are for twenty twenty four.
Speaker 2: And if I don't stick to that, then she will
Speaker 2: present my worst nightmare, which is, Okay, I'm gonna take
Speaker 2: this money and donate it all to the GOP.
Speaker 1: No no, no, no, okay, okay, I'll stop eating sugar.
Speaker 1: I'll stop eating sugar.
Speaker 2: And it's almost like she has to she has to
Speaker 2: mind trick and force me to do cause I'll just
Speaker 2: say like, yeah, I'll talk to him next week, next week,
Speaker 2: next month, next week.
Speaker 1: So here's the thing.
Speaker 2: So it's it's it's almost akin to that of like
Speaker 2: you know when you get a girl's number in high
Speaker 2: school and you're in the mirror, Like I'm in the
Speaker 2: mirror my dressing room, like all right, so you know,
Speaker 2: I'm in therapy and like I'm rehearsing my lines like
Speaker 2: a week ahead of time and shit, and she's like
Speaker 2: calling me, all right, so what did Duik say about
Speaker 2: your thing?
Speaker 1: And I was like all right, all right, all right,
Speaker 1: I'm gonna do it. I'm gonna do it. She's like,
Speaker 1: I'm gonna take this money. And the relationship is a
Speaker 1: hostage negotiations.
Speaker 2: I'm hearing right like I'm the person that has to
Speaker 2: be threatened to do the right thing, like I'll expose
Speaker 2: you if you don't, you know, take care of yourself.
Speaker 1: So I was like all right, I said, so uh
Speaker 1: and there's like doing the pandemic.
Speaker 2: So I was like, all right, reek, yeah, so you know,
Speaker 2: I'm kind of doing self work and stuff and you know,
Speaker 2: microdoc and.
Speaker 5: Here we go, right, so I got my life together.
Speaker 1: I'm micro.
Speaker 2: So I did like so I did like this whole
Speaker 2: ship and I mentioned one of the people and I
Speaker 2: was like, yeah, so you know, I'm reading this book
Speaker 2: by this guy named doctor Joe Despenza and he talks
Speaker 2: about how like communications.
Speaker 1: Like oh yeah, doctor Joe, Yeah, I'm done with that.
Speaker 1: And in my head, I'm like, holy shit, wait what
Speaker 1: does he know about that? I said, you know about
Speaker 1: that joke?
Speaker 2: It's like, yeah, you know years ago when you know,
Speaker 2: when I first started therapy and the like holy shit,
Speaker 2: you're in therapy, like ya I was, And when I
Speaker 2: got back. I was like, yo, I didn't know. I
Speaker 2: thought I was the only one like doing the self
Speaker 2: improvement thing, and treeks like.
Speaker 1: Beat me by like years really years?
Speaker 9: Really?
Speaker 2: Yeah, yeah, little bit he was like four years ago.
Speaker 2: I started in twenty twenty.
Speaker 1: He was like, what was fifteen?
Speaker 4: Well, you know, I am man. I've become close friends
Speaker 4: with a fellow named Kyle Vaines. And Kyle he worked
Speaker 4: with me and Mark Jenkins and Ray Angry. He was
Speaker 4: like a supplement dude. Well you know that worked at
Speaker 4: this you know, this gym that we were training that
Speaker 4: whenever Mark would come to work with D'Angelo, we would all,
Speaker 4: you know, I mean be working down in the financial
Speaker 4: district at this spot. So at one point Kyle disclosed
Speaker 4: to Ray and I about how his girlfriend at the time,
Speaker 4: his fiance, was a huge Roots fan. You know, she
Speaker 4: was terminally ill and really the only thing that was
Speaker 4: getting her through was our song Tomorrow, the one with
Speaker 4: you know, me and Ron Rahiem and yeah, so you
Speaker 4: know she wound up, you know, transitioning. We all kept
Speaker 4: in touch and as luck would have it, we were
Speaker 4: out in La I think like her funeral, her memorial
Speaker 4: was like a few days before we would have been
Speaker 4: out there for Grammys or whatever. So me and Ray
Speaker 4: went out there early, performed at her memorial and became,
Speaker 4: you know, closer friends with Kyle. So Kyle and I,
Speaker 4: that's like he's my hiking buddy, you know what I'm saying.
Speaker 4: We meet up at different places around the country and
Speaker 4: you know, just go on walks, and you know, he
Speaker 4: was always heavy into meditation, and when he started rocking
Speaker 4: with Joe Dispenser, he started sending me his meditations early on,
Speaker 4: and I couldn't get with it, you know what I'm saying,
Speaker 4: because the dudes he talks with, you know what I'm saying.
Speaker 4: But he just kept bombarding with the ship until you know,
Speaker 4: like I got one meditation that was it was you know,
Speaker 4: short enough for me to get into. And it was
Speaker 4: also it wasn't so long that you know, it started
Speaker 4: to because I tried to do it with my family
Speaker 4: and everything, and they was like, yo, I can't do this,
Speaker 4: Like why is dude talking that way? But once you
Speaker 4: get over how he's saying this shit, you start to
Speaker 4: see results and you start to feel, you know what
Speaker 4: I'm saying different. So yeah, I've been rocking with it
Speaker 4: for a minute. But that's how I got turned onto it,
Speaker 4: you know what I mean? And uh, I think Kyle
Speaker 4: was the first person that gave me that book Becoming Supernatural?
Speaker 1: Is that is meditation? Is that still a practice today
Speaker 1: that you still do?
Speaker 8: It is?
Speaker 1: But you know what really you know tripped me out
Speaker 1: was I forgot.
Speaker 4: I didn't even realize when I discovered uh Joe Dispenser's
Speaker 4: meditations that he was the same dude from that documentary.
Speaker 1: What the bleep do we know that did that? He
Speaker 1: did the water experiment?
Speaker 4: You know what I'm saying, that doc that that Japanese
Speaker 4: dude does, who wrote you know, the hidden messages in water?
Speaker 4: Where you know, if I take a glass of water,
Speaker 4: if I take three glasses of water, say I take
Speaker 4: two glasses of water from the same source, and I
Speaker 4: you know, you know, for a certain amount of time,
Speaker 4: a week or two weeks, just curse and talk down
Speaker 4: to this glass of water, and you know, I praised
Speaker 4: this container water and then we freeze them and then
Speaker 4: look at it under the microscope. You'll see that the
Speaker 4: water that I focused all the negative energy on is
Speaker 4: going to you know what I mean, produce just all
Speaker 4: these ugly sort of like you're gonna be able to
Speaker 4: visibly see the ugliness that I projected.
Speaker 1: Yeah, it's like I projected toxicity onto you.
Speaker 4: Know what I mean, this water and the water that
Speaker 4: you you know, praise and that you hit, you know,
Speaker 4: and focus your positive energy on, like the images of
Speaker 4: like you know, beautiful you know, one of one, like snowflakes,
Speaker 4: you know what I mean when you look at it
Speaker 4: at the microscope.
Speaker 1: Because we're water, right, human being. So this dude who's meditations,
Speaker 1: he and I do.
Speaker 4: I was already a fan of his from the water shit,
Speaker 4: you know, I mean really years probably ten twelve years ago,
Speaker 4: and then I didn't realize, oh shit, this is that
Speaker 4: same dude.
Speaker 1: Then, you know what I mean.
Speaker 4: I started listening to really his podcast interviews and stuff
Speaker 4: because he was he was he was like paralyzed from
Speaker 4: the neck down from an accident and you know, just
Speaker 4: through my control, he was able to you know, focus
Speaker 4: on different parts of his body and bring it all back,
Speaker 4: you know what I mean. So he's he's the real
Speaker 4: deal in that. You know, he's still he talks with
Speaker 4: weird though.
Speaker 1: So yes, he talks weird.
Speaker 2: But that was the thing, like I didn't realize that
Speaker 2: Treek was actually more advancing this ship than I was. Like,
Speaker 2: I think I'm like bringing some like shit where man,
Speaker 2: motherfucker's going to start clowning me and you all like
Speaker 2: he was waiting on you to get here, right exactly,
Speaker 2: That's what happened. So yeah, I'm yah, man doing white
Speaker 2: people's shit.
Speaker 1: Right exactly.
Speaker 2: Yeah, because just doing doing the work and doing you know,
Speaker 2: as with most of us discovered for a lot of us,
Speaker 2: doing the work is it's it's a vulnerable thing to
Speaker 2: put yourself through and oftentimes we're looking at ourselves through
Speaker 2: the eyes of what others will think about me and
Speaker 2: all that stuff. And it really wasn't until mid twenty
Speaker 2: twenty in which a lot of us were like, okay,
Speaker 2: mental health and you know, not just church hand, no choice.
Speaker 9: But and I gotta just say, at least for your
Speaker 9: story read like you.
Speaker 8: You would hope, just based on the surface of what
Speaker 8: we knew before you presented this book to us, that
Speaker 8: you were in therapy, because it always just felt like
Speaker 8: your life it was heavy.
Speaker 4: Yeah, you know, I've definitely you know, I've done different
Speaker 4: sorts of therapy, and you know, I think this book
Speaker 4: just the process has been. You know, it was like
Speaker 4: it was a therapeutic, cathartic sort of thing for me
Speaker 4: to work through. I knew I didn't want to write
Speaker 4: a tell all. You know what I'm saying, Like there
Speaker 4: is I'm still super private, and there was much that
Speaker 4: you know what I mean, I just still hold close
Speaker 4: to the chest a lot of the shit. It's embarrassing,
Speaker 4: it's fucking it's you know what I mean, it's it's.
Speaker 9: What was the hardest thing for you to in that realm?
Speaker 9: What was one of the hardest things it was for
Speaker 9: you to express.
Speaker 1: In that book?
Speaker 4: The hardest thing I talk about in the book is,
Speaker 4: you know, firing the pistol into a building that I
Speaker 4: knew my mother was inside of. You know what I'm saying,
Speaker 4: that was you know, very ready it was hard, super hard.
Speaker 4: I mean, in that moment, you know, it felt it
Speaker 4: made perfect sense.
Speaker 8: It was so brave of you, and I appreciated you
Speaker 8: for introducing us to your mom. Yeah, she was like,
Speaker 8: I mean I've never even met a high ranking woman.
Speaker 4: Like yeah, I was going to ask you another part
Speaker 4: in the book you mentioned, you know, just relationships that
Speaker 4: your behavior, you know, you knew you kind of like
Speaker 4: kind of ruined in some ways.
Speaker 1: How did you go about fixing those relationships? And what
Speaker 1: did that look like?
Speaker 4: You know, some some of those relationships I haven't been able.
Speaker 4: You know, they've been irreparable, you know what I mean.
Speaker 4: And sometimes it's a hard pill to swallow, but you know,
Speaker 4: you gotta swallow it, right one of the relation you know,
Speaker 4: I really, I mean, we would all hope that you
Speaker 4: be able to make it all good with like your
Speaker 4: nuclear family.
Speaker 1: At some point. Right.
Speaker 4: So I was, you know, I did have hopes that
Speaker 4: I don't know, even though I refer to him as
Speaker 4: my half brother in this book, you know, I mean,
Speaker 4: it's I only have one brother. So I was, you know,
Speaker 4: it was my hopes that he was going to read
Speaker 4: the book and I don't know, like that would be
Speaker 4: a springboard for some self revelation, some discovery within hisself
Speaker 4: that would lead to I don't know, some sort of
Speaker 4: you know, peace. But yeah, just as luck would have it,
Speaker 4: like the crazy shit was, I found out that they
Speaker 4: found his body, Like what I'm saying, my brother was, Yeah,
Speaker 4: he I don't think there was any foul play, but
Speaker 4: he passed away. And I found out when I was
Speaker 4: in Philly to do a book event, like the first
Speaker 4: book event with Mark Leamon.
Speaker 1: So this is recent. This is this is recent. Yeah,
Speaker 1: but you know they yeah yoa.
Speaker 4: So So during this whole for the past two weeks,
Speaker 4: while I've been on this run, like promoting this book,
Speaker 4: I've been having to you know, shoot back and forth
Speaker 4: to Philly and figure out the funeral arrangement. I mean,
Speaker 4: you know he did he never wanted the funeral or
Speaker 4: anything like that, but you know, just to get his remains,
Speaker 4: you know, cremated and that whole process. It's been a lot.
Speaker 4: And I didn't take any time off from you know,
Speaker 4: tonight show or any of that either, because I just
Speaker 4: been you know, just trying to choose my battle.
Speaker 1: So I just made it happen.
Speaker 9: But communicated.
Speaker 4: The last time he and I communicated was, man, maybe
Speaker 4: it was it's been about two years or so, you
Speaker 4: know what I mean. He reached out, I know, like
Speaker 4: within the past like two months, he reached out, but
Speaker 4: he wasn't able to get in contact with me.
Speaker 1: Oh man.
Speaker 4: So one question I had, how do you I mean
Speaker 4: a mirror talkt about it as well. But like when
Speaker 4: you are the one in your family that makes it right.
Speaker 4: How do you go about setting up boundaries with your
Speaker 4: family in terms of, Okay, this is what I can do,
Speaker 4: this is what I'm not going to do.
Speaker 1: How did y'all figure that out?
Speaker 4: I think over time, you know, those boundaries just sort
Speaker 4: of reveal themselves, right in situations where it's extended family.
Speaker 4: But with your parents, with your I mean I would
Speaker 4: have imagine with your parents, you know what I'm saying,
Speaker 4: but like with your siblings, with your uh, you know,
Speaker 4: with anyone in your family who was close enough to
Speaker 4: feel that level of entitlement, it's crazy, like it could,
Speaker 4: you know, like it could. It's for for for many
Speaker 4: of us, it's a deal breaker, you know what I'm saying.
Speaker 4: I have my brother on the salary for a long time,
Speaker 4: you know where he was, you know, he never had
Speaker 4: to do anything and you just get a check every week,
Speaker 4: you know, And it was like, I mean, but I
Speaker 4: tried all different sorts of configurations of you know, trying
Speaker 4: to set him up for self care and to be
Speaker 4: able to, you know, best take care of my grandmother
Speaker 4: too at the time before she passed away, and uh,
Speaker 4: you know, to Novail, you know what I'm saying, have your.
Speaker 8: How have your your kids, because you talked about briefly
Speaker 8: your older kids. Of course you're younger too, but how
Speaker 8: have they received the book or and are they aware
Speaker 8: of everything that you have put in that My.
Speaker 4: Daughter Celia, uh, she's she read a couple of drafts
Speaker 4: and she's read the book.
Speaker 1: So she how she some weird Yeah Saliah's seventh team. Yeah,
Speaker 1: showing that my family will never read he can't do.
Speaker 4: She's read a couple of drafts and she's read the book,
Speaker 4: and you know, she loves it. She you know, she
Speaker 4: was brought to tears on a couple of different instances.
Speaker 4: But my other kids, I know, a mayor hasn't read it.
Speaker 9: I wanted to say that too, that was a mayor has.
Speaker 1: Not read it, and you know, I don't know what
Speaker 1: somethingor a mayor this year mayor is a This.
Speaker 8: Is the way you just dropped that, Like everybody knows
Speaker 8: that Black Thought has a son named Mirror talking about it.
Speaker 4: But no, Yeah, he's about to be twenty four and
Speaker 4: he was just always so you know, idyllic.
Speaker 1: You know that.
Speaker 4: I feel like now I'm just it's so shocking, like
Speaker 4: he'd be forgetting. Yeah, he's forgot my birthday this year
Speaker 4: days late, which is it's not huge, but it's like, wow,
Speaker 4: like this, who is who is this?
Speaker 1: You know what I'm saying? He like, oh, my bad, pops,
Speaker 1: I've just been mushrooms.
Speaker 4: Right, But uh, I'm sure he hasn't read the book
Speaker 4: yet because he's just you know, he's uh, he'll have
Speaker 4: to probably up here for the holidays and in my
Speaker 4: presence and then he'll.
Speaker 1: You know, crack it.
Speaker 8: You've had conversations with like a mirror and stuff about
Speaker 8: this evolution in these stories of your family and like.
Speaker 9: How you up cycle?
Speaker 1: Yeah, yeah, you know, I try.
Speaker 4: I've always tried to, you know, just be be transparent
Speaker 4: with my kids about that from which we sort of
Speaker 4: you know, came. But yeah, it's hard to get them interested,
Speaker 4: you know what I mean. I drive around like, you know,
Speaker 4: this is why I went to school. I used to
Speaker 4: live like in this tiny structure, you know what I mean?
Speaker 1: This is how far. Let me show you how far
Speaker 1: I walked to first grade, you know what I mean?
Speaker 4: And I say, okay, we started here and then I'm
Speaker 4: driving drive and driving. They're like, we ain't get there yet,
Speaker 4: like nah, and we drive. Yeah, I'm not making this up. Yes,
Speaker 4: I was walking and maybe there was a path shovel
Speaker 4: through the snow, but maybe there wasn't, you know what
Speaker 4: I mean. And they just you know, they lose interest.
Speaker 4: So I try not to impress it upon them. But
Speaker 4: I think it's because you know, they're just so they
Speaker 4: come up in a bubble. So there's that disc connect,
Speaker 4: you know what I mean, And it's it's part of
Speaker 4: what we do. This is this is part of the
Speaker 4: you know, proverbial having overcome, you know what I mean.
Speaker 4: So the way that privilege, the way that entitlement plays out,
Speaker 4: it plays out in different ways, and it depends on
Speaker 4: you know, I think it boils down to you know,
Speaker 4: I mean, we all spare the rods now, but you know,
Speaker 4: I think it boils down to how much time has passed,
Speaker 4: maybe how many generations have passed, you know, since the
Speaker 4: rod has been has been spared, you know what I'm saying.
Speaker 1: But yeah, you know, it's wild. I try not to
Speaker 1: force it on him.
Speaker 4: But just a couple of weeks ago, when we were
Speaker 4: leaving a book event in Philly, I went to Philly
Speaker 4: to do something. Uh oh, no, what the one I
Speaker 4: was talking about with Mark and it was in my
Speaker 4: old neighborhood. So we were on our way home and
Speaker 4: just as we were on our way home, my son, Tarik,
Speaker 4: who's eight, was like, he said, jail, Then when next
Speaker 4: time we come to Philly, could we see you know
Speaker 4: one of the places used to live, like maybe the
Speaker 4: house that you burned down. And we were like two
Speaker 4: blocks away from there. So I got to now because
Speaker 4: he had expressed interest, I took him to the block.
Speaker 4: I showed him, you know, where I went to preschool,
Speaker 4: showed him the house that I, you know, set on fire,
Speaker 4: and where I used to go to the corner store
Speaker 4: and that whole thing.
Speaker 1: And you know, not that he you know, cared, but
Speaker 1: I showed him with Chubby Chucker used to live.
Speaker 4: And uh yeah, but you know now it's you know,
Speaker 4: he has a you know, there was because he expressed interest.
Speaker 4: I think that memory but it'll sit with him in
Speaker 4: a different way. But yeah, my other kids, they don't
Speaker 4: really they don't be caring.
Speaker 2: Okay, I kind of want to car jack this interview.
Speaker 2: I know we're talking about the book, but also a
Speaker 2: big part of Tariq's existence is that in roots world,
Speaker 2: everyone knows a mirror, but no one knows, Tarik. Kind
Speaker 2: of the ways where we're opposite is, uh, last night,
Speaker 2: I went to bed at four twenty am. I'm certain
Speaker 2: you were probably up at three am. What is your
Speaker 2: morning routine?
Speaker 1: I usually go to bed around nine or nine thirty.
Speaker 1: Who does that? Well when you're not in third grade?
Speaker 4: But I got a son who's in second grade, and
Speaker 4: he'd be ware out, so you know, so it's all
Speaker 4: of your kids first and foremost. I have to be
Speaker 4: awake for as many consistent hours as possible just to
Speaker 4: police his sugar and take If Eriq wakes up at
Speaker 4: six am and we don't wake up till eight, there's
Speaker 4: been two hours where he could just roll through the crib,
Speaker 4: grabbing snacks, stashing shit, eating you know, candy for breakfast,
Speaker 4: and then I wake up at eight, and then that's
Speaker 4: a real shit, that's super real. Yeah yeah, yeah, So
Speaker 4: you know, So there's that. There's also if there's anything
Speaker 4: you talked about me wanting to watch Thegither, if there's
Speaker 4: anything that I that I like to watch or that
Speaker 4: I want to read or work on or listen to,
Speaker 4: it has to happen before the house is up. So
Speaker 4: it works out that I'm in bed right after when
Speaker 4: Tarita goes to sleep at nine nine thirty, I go
Speaker 4: to bed. But then I wake up at like four
Speaker 4: thirty five, and then I'm good and everybody else is asleep,
Speaker 4: and I have an hour and a half to two hours,
Speaker 4: you know, to do whatever. Right, what time do they
Speaker 4: wake up that they wake up at seven? They wake
Speaker 4: up at seven, And it's wild because that gives me anxiety.
Speaker 4: Celia has a seven to twenty train to make it
Speaker 4: to school in New York City, and she gets up
Speaker 4: at seven o'clock and she still she has to walk
Speaker 4: the dog and be at the train, and I'm like, yo,
Speaker 4: how are you doing this? But she makes it happen.
Speaker 4: She makes a happen happen. She makes it happen. Michelle
Speaker 4: gets up at seven and you know, to get to
Speaker 4: school every day at the absolute latest that he can arrive.
Speaker 1: You know, I know you're big on food. Are you
Speaker 1: the food person in the house? I am, Yeah. I cook.
Speaker 4: I do all the grocery shopping, and I cook almost well,
Speaker 4: eighty ninety percent of the grocery shopping, and I cook
Speaker 4: eighty ninety percent of the meals. But yeah, also in
Speaker 4: the morning, I do that. Joe de spends the twenty
Speaker 4: five minute morning meditation. I knocked that out, work out
Speaker 4: with you know physical Sometimes I.
Speaker 1: Work out, you know what I mean. Like when I'm
Speaker 1: in a workout period, I work out. But if that's
Speaker 1: the vibe, then then then I worked out nothing.
Speaker 4: When I was fresh off the LL tour, you know
Speaker 4: what I mean, and I found out that our mayor's
Speaker 4: trainer happened to live ten minutes from my crib, and
Speaker 4: you know, we had gotten close on the road. They
Speaker 4: were like, yeah, cool, let's work out, you know what
Speaker 4: I mean. I did it for a solid month after
Speaker 4: we got off the road, and then you know, we
Speaker 4: trickled off. You know it's Thanksgiving, but yeah, I'll be
Speaker 4: back you know January, Yeah, January, no doubt. You know
Speaker 4: when in terms of your writing, like writing songs, writing rhymes,
Speaker 4: how often do you write and what does writers block
Speaker 4: look like? Well, I get home from work at night,
Speaker 4: I eat dinner, and then I go into my office
Speaker 4: and I write. I either try to read full Leased
Speaker 4: an hour or write full Leased an hour before I
Speaker 4: come back to you know, because my office is over
Speaker 4: the garage, so it's like it's almost like I come
Speaker 4: in the crib, I have dinner, and then they say, oh,
Speaker 4: you're leaving us, you know, ended out. It's like I
Speaker 4: go across the drive way and then I work you
Speaker 4: know some more, and I do the same thing in
Speaker 4: the morning.
Speaker 1: So your office is outside the house. Yeah.
Speaker 8: On a writing note, I just want to I want
Speaker 8: to ask about this, this one hundred three thousand quote
Speaker 8: that he recently said. I was just talking about this
Speaker 8: with Ponte too, where he said that at this age
Speaker 8: he's not doing hip hop because what does he have
Speaker 8: to talk about, like going is to get a colonoscopy.
Speaker 9: What do you feel about that?
Speaker 8: Because when I heard that in my friend we were like, yeah,
Speaker 8: we actually would like to hear about things.
Speaker 1: I think. I think that's it. I think there are
Speaker 1: I don't really get writers block like that.
Speaker 4: I'm always able to come up with something just because
Speaker 4: of the amount of you know, constant like information like
Speaker 4: the intake. You know what I mean, It's content being
Speaker 4: projected at me. You know, at every turn, you know
Speaker 4: what I'm saying. I drive in, I'm listening to PRX,
Speaker 4: which is all twenty minute chunks of storytelling, which is
Speaker 4: dope because it just it gets me into just being
Speaker 4: a more efficient storyteller. I listen to NPR. If I
Speaker 4: want to hear something a long form, I listen to
Speaker 4: you know, Urban View for you know what I mean,
Speaker 4: you know, black people politics, and that's it. Like if
Speaker 4: vol get o'bar like that, right, I mean the black ego,
Speaker 4: you know what I mean. But that's the type ship.
Speaker 4: You know, that's where the bars come from. Whether I
Speaker 4: agree with it or not, you know what I mean.
Speaker 4: It's always a springboard, you know, like into a thing.
Speaker 1: Are you writing like to beats or you're just writing.
Speaker 4: Just sometimes I'm writing not to beats, but it's more
Speaker 4: exciting for me to write to beats. I got a
Speaker 4: batch of joints from mad Lib for example, like you know,
Speaker 4: maybe two three weeks ago he hit me. He was like, Yo, Monday,
Speaker 4: I'm gonna start bombarding with joints. Boom, Monday rolled around.
Speaker 4: He sent me like a hundred beats, you know what
Speaker 4: I'm saying. And then I got the beats and it
Speaker 4: was like I narrowed it down to like eighteen and
Speaker 4: I started, you know, vibing to those joints. But yeah,
Speaker 4: you know it's exciting now for me, like to come
Speaker 4: home and like dig through that sort of that that
Speaker 4: that collection.
Speaker 1: I went to La. We were in this We had a.
Speaker 4: Couple of sessions in La over the weekend. I came back.
Speaker 4: So that's sort of what I've been like chipping away at.
Speaker 9: But yeah, say we had is that Like.
Speaker 1: No, no, I went.
Speaker 4: I went to La to do a book event at
Speaker 4: USC But I'm gonna always you know, the studio is
Speaker 4: my church, Like that's why I feel most at home.
Speaker 4: So if there's any possibility for me to go and
Speaker 4: sit in the studio someplace and hear music and chill
Speaker 4: and smoke and be social, whether I'm actually actively working
Speaker 4: on a thing or not, then that's what I'm going
Speaker 4: to opt for, you know what I mean. So yeah,
Speaker 4: I went out there, I did my book thing, and
Speaker 4: then I went into the studio. I was in studio
Speaker 4: with madod Rich Richard Nichols. We talk about undone today.
Speaker 4: Was is the Anniversity of Undone. That was the second
Speaker 4: time that I got called to be on the record,
Speaker 4: and we did one time, and that was the first
Speaker 4: time with that one, and also how I got over
Speaker 4: That was the first time I really got to see
Speaker 4: how integral Rich was to the recording process because I
Speaker 4: had never been like in the studio with y'all. So
Speaker 4: I wanted to just hear from you like what he
Speaker 4: was kind of to you as you know, as a
Speaker 4: mentor manager? Like what role did he play kind of?
Speaker 4: And you know for me, yeah, Rich was a mentor.
Speaker 4: I've always been big on mentorship, you know. Yeah, I
Speaker 4: don't know where I would be, you know without it.
Speaker 4: He lived by example, you know what I'm saying, in
Speaker 4: many ways, and was you know, he was the roots,
Speaker 4: I mean, above and beyond an executive producer.
Speaker 1: I always talk about he was the.
Speaker 4: Sort of the brains of this operation, you know when
Speaker 4: he really, you know, laid down the groundwork for us
Speaker 4: to be able to you know, I don't think I,
Speaker 4: mayor and I would be as self sufficient as we are,
Speaker 4: you know what I mean, had he not you know,
Speaker 4: been focused on that, you know, ten twenty years before
Speaker 4: it mattered to us, you know. So you know what
Speaker 4: he was was he was that, he was the he
Speaker 4: was on both of us. She was you know what
Speaker 4: I mean, and influencer. Yeah yeah, and you know, just
Speaker 4: working with him, like having him in on the process. Uh,
Speaker 4: you know, I knew the ball I was gonna always
Speaker 4: be at my best, you know what I'm saying. Always, always,
Speaker 4: He was gonna always push us, even when you know
Speaker 4: you might it might be something that you you really
Speaker 4: feel like you you killed it and you you have
Speaker 4: taken it as far as you could take it. Yeah, No,
Speaker 4: he's gonna you know what I mean. He was the
Speaker 4: voice of reason and he would bring you back down
Speaker 4: to reality in that way. Talk about uh that you
Speaker 4: working with us in the roots. I was I felt
Speaker 4: threatened by you when you worked with this, you know
Speaker 4: what I mean, just because I was like, how was this?
Speaker 1: You know?
Speaker 4: Rich sent you back to the drawing board, but not
Speaker 4: as much as he was sending us, you know what
Speaker 4: I mean. And I know it wasn't and I know
Speaker 4: I know, I know it wasn't because like we were
Speaker 4: you know what I mean, his family. It was because
Speaker 4: he was just more content with what you were doing.
Speaker 4: So I was like, what the fuck is I to
Speaker 4: take doing that?
Speaker 1: You know what I mean? He only had to rewrite
Speaker 1: his ship like ten times.
Speaker 8: You know, so this is the first time most of
Speaker 8: us are hearing that somebody could make either money y'all
Speaker 8: read write.
Speaker 4: Was like, well we cameme when I when I did
Speaker 4: the verse for one time, because the thing was it
Speaker 4: was one time. It was it was now or never
Speaker 4: first it was now or never, and I came to
Speaker 4: do that one and I just wrote a verse because
Speaker 4: he would.
Speaker 1: I would.
Speaker 4: I'm like, okay, so what's the song about? Rich and
Speaker 4: rich would send me like a gip chat.
Speaker 1: For real, I'd be like, okay, nigg i'ma what none
Speaker 1: of this ship mean? All right?
Speaker 4: Fuck it, I'm gonna And so I did my verse
Speaker 4: and I just did it, and what none of y'all.
Speaker 4: Y'all wasn't dead. It was just me and spawned in
Speaker 4: the studio.
Speaker 1: So I think even Richard left and so I did
Speaker 1: my joint and I'm like, all right, I think I
Speaker 1: don't know. I guess this works.
Speaker 4: And so I went to the crib, went to the
Speaker 4: hotel and the next morning he called me, and I
Speaker 4: didn't hear nothing because normally rich you know, he would
Speaker 4: text or I would get something to say I ain't
Speaker 4: here ship, and I'm like okay.
Speaker 1: So he called me.
Speaker 4: He was like yeah, man, uh yeah, just I mean yeah,
Speaker 4: just I'm gonna need you to go at it again.
Speaker 4: I'm like, all right, cool, and so I went again,
Speaker 4: and I remember the note he gave me was he
Speaker 4: was like, I wanted to make sense. It can't just
Speaker 4: be dope as a rap. It has to make sense
Speaker 4: on the page, like if you're just.
Speaker 1: Reading it it's poetry, you know, or it's literature. It
Speaker 1: hasn't made sense in that way.
Speaker 4: And I was like, shit, okay, got it. And so
Speaker 4: then I did the second draft. And then that was
Speaker 4: when he called me back for the day with Blue.
Speaker 4: And when he called me back for that, I was like,
Speaker 4: hell yeah, cause that was one, Like I loved it.
Speaker 4: It's like one of my favorite even without me on,
Speaker 4: that's just one of my favorite songs. I gotalog and
Speaker 4: so he did that one. But through all of those times, man,
Speaker 4: he was really because I understood, like I'm walking into
Speaker 4: a studio, nigga.
Speaker 1: It's you truck porn. He was from poem was.
Speaker 4: Getting his ship and ship I would I would show up,
Speaker 4: like you know, and I was living in LA at
Speaker 4: the time, of course, big up the dice. I would
Speaker 4: show up and they would, you know, because it was
Speaker 4: so competitive, they would all you know, clamor to get
Speaker 4: their ideas on the beat before I heard it. So
Speaker 4: that I was, you know, just more married to you know,
Speaker 4: that's how why I first experience the the you know,
Speaker 4: the composition, right, I would hear they were like, yo,
Speaker 4: you got to hear this beat.
Speaker 1: And the first time they playing it for me, I
Speaker 1: heard poorn verst what I'm saying. So it was competitive
Speaker 1: in that way. But by the way, Greg porn, uh,
Speaker 1: you know Rag porn.
Speaker 4: But yeah, you know, Fonte for Rich to even you
Speaker 4: know what I mean, be concerned enough to send you
Speaker 4: back to the drawing board, man, I appreciate it means
Speaker 4: it means that you were brilliant because he would, you know,
Speaker 4: just as quickly like nah, I mean, he couldn't give
Speaker 4: us what we needed and we would just you know,
Speaker 4: me move on because it was so many other people
Speaker 4: sort of waiting for that slot. But he was concerned
Speaker 4: with elevating you know, hip hop lyricism to literature and
Speaker 4: elevating you know, hip hop culture to fine art. And
Speaker 4: he was, you know, he was so disgusted, always disgusted
Speaker 4: with the state of black lyricism, like R and B lyrics,
Speaker 4: like you know what I mean, the ship that you know,
Speaker 4: he fucked right, Rich fuck up the whole family cookout,
Speaker 4: just dissecting, you know what I mean.
Speaker 1: Yeah, we did. I remember we did one time for undone,
Speaker 1: and I remember the note he gave me.
Speaker 4: He was like, you know, you have to be a character.
Speaker 4: He said, I don't want you to just rap this,
Speaker 4: like you can't just be rapping, you know what I mean.
Speaker 4: And he played me when I first when I first
Speaker 4: got there, it was before you got in the studio,
Speaker 4: he played me sleep and he played me sleep.
Speaker 1: I was like, oh, this shit hard and he was like, man,
Speaker 1: re did that like thirty times like I had him doing.
Speaker 1: I'm like, damn.
Speaker 4: So I went in to do I did mine, and
Speaker 4: I mean it was in that particular case. The lyrics
Speaker 4: I got right because he was pretty much by that time,
Speaker 4: I kind of knew the science. So I'm like, okay,
Speaker 4: I see what he's going for now. But the performance, yeah,
Speaker 4: he dripped me on that shit. He's like, nah, I
Speaker 4: want you to do this word say it like that.
Speaker 4: I'm like, a you know now, you know I hate
Speaker 4: doing the lyrics. And you know what rich Rich would
Speaker 4: do with me sometimes he would, you know, just get
Speaker 4: me to do it that many times and then he
Speaker 4: do a composite that's when you do a composite of
Speaker 4: you know, the best syllables from you know, thirty different
Speaker 4: takes and then you know, get this composite and it'll
Speaker 4: be That was the chat gpt of it all, because
Speaker 4: that was like, okay, now this is AI. But then
Speaker 4: he said, okay, so we can either use this composite,
Speaker 4: which you know, nine times out of ten I wouldn't
Speaker 4: want him to use just because it's a different sort
Speaker 4: of you know, feeling like there's nuance that is different.
Speaker 4: But you know, the composite will become the example and
Speaker 4: then it's like, you know, if you can't do it,
Speaker 4: it's dope, Like give me a take like this or
Speaker 4: better or the composite is what we're.
Speaker 1: Using now and that yeah, one hundred percent.
Speaker 4: Because with that, that kind of was something that changed
Speaker 4: my mind because for me, I know, as MC's we
Speaker 4: pride ourselves on getting it in one tape.
Speaker 1: Yes, like yeah, this is one tape, Yeah, which ever? Take?
Speaker 1: Which ever? Take? His right, that's the first one, that's
Speaker 1: the one.
Speaker 4: But like for him, I kind of start to see
Speaker 4: it more and looking at making records almost as like
Speaker 4: making a film in the sense of that you're really
Speaker 4: just trying to capture the best performance. You know what
Speaker 4: I'm saying it because you want that down. That's it,
Speaker 4: Like it's like that forever, you know what I mean.
Speaker 9: Was Rich just integrated in the live perform as he
Speaker 9: was in the studio.
Speaker 1: He was our sound guy.
Speaker 8: I mean even in the way that you presented just
Speaker 8: not just the sound of it all, but even the
Speaker 8: way that you y'all presented yourselves on stage.
Speaker 2: I mean, Rich built the myth of the roots because
Speaker 2: before us, you know, your average band was maybe ninety
Speaker 2: six dbs, which is like a normal listening spirits. Rich
Speaker 2: was trying to create some Pink Floyd shit where we
Speaker 2: were one hundred all the sound, Yeah, we were like
Speaker 2: one hundred and forty DB's. He would like, I mean
Speaker 2: the whole idea of like echoes and all that stuff.
Speaker 2: Because also the thing is that we weren't hit space,
Speaker 2: so we had to make the show fall sight right.
Speaker 8: So it was he like like, I'm rika gonna need
Speaker 8: you to work the stage more like I'm gonna need
Speaker 8: you to He.
Speaker 4: Would give he would give notes like that, and he
Speaker 4: would give yeah, notes like that, I mean, but you
Speaker 4: would be able to tell, you know what I mean like,
Speaker 4: if we get done the performance and we get back
Speaker 4: to the dressing room, I'm like, yeah, how was that ship?
Speaker 1: That ship? You know what I'm saying.
Speaker 4: He wasn't going to uh you know, he wasn't very
Speaker 4: generous in that way. So you know, even if he
Speaker 4: said that ship was cool, it meant it was cool.
Speaker 8: Y'all right, because I'm like, I remember the first, the first,
Speaker 8: the only time I got a compliment from Rich and
Speaker 8: it changed my life.
Speaker 7: Like I got a question along those lines trigger. I
Speaker 7: caught the four tour like a month ago. It was
Speaker 7: last it was in Boston. It was the last one.
Speaker 7: And my favorite thing is not just you as the
Speaker 7: leader of the roots, but you was hype man. It
Speaker 7: was one of my favorite things to watch, like l
Speaker 7: L and all of it was. I didn't know you
Speaker 7: were such a great hype man, and it was what
Speaker 7: I just don't know if you could speak to that
Speaker 7: and just but what it's like to be with some
Speaker 7: of your heroes are you know, people you really respect
Speaker 7: and and and hype and hype in front of them.
Speaker 1: It was it was far out.
Speaker 4: It was you know, for me, that's that's one of
Speaker 4: my favorite things to do. Is to be supportive, like
Speaker 4: you know what I mean, I just enjoy sparring back
Speaker 4: and forth with those legends.
Speaker 1: Like but people who you know, are the reason that
Speaker 1: I do what it is that I do, and many
Speaker 1: of whom.
Speaker 4: I just feel unsung or you know, underappreciated. It blows
Speaker 4: in mind, you know what I'm saying, to realize that
Speaker 4: something they wrote when they were fourteen or fifteen or
Speaker 4: sixteen that impacted me when I was fourteen or fifteen
Speaker 4: or sixteen. Now these thirty or forty years ago, it's
Speaker 4: still you know, has a life, you know what I mean. So,
Speaker 4: and you know a lot of these cats, I think
Speaker 4: the role that the Roots serves is we're connective tissue
Speaker 4: between a generation bridge, right, you know what I mean?
Speaker 1: So, yeah, we've been that bridge.
Speaker 4: And there's a lot of cats who you know, maybe
Speaker 4: at one point of their career were at a certain
Speaker 4: level and then they don't perform for a long while,
Speaker 4: and then when they have the opportunity to perform again,
Speaker 4: it's like, I, you know what I mean, is my
Speaker 4: music going to be right?
Speaker 1: Do they know my lyrics?
Speaker 4: All these people familiar with what it is that I do,
Speaker 4: and you know, the fact that they may be coming
Speaker 4: back with the roots puts them at ease because of
Speaker 4: the way that you know, like musically and from a
Speaker 4: just a hypeman's standpoint, we're able to support them, you know.
Speaker 4: So that's something that I've always you know, just a
Speaker 4: pre shade it and enjoyed it. I'm not about on
Speaker 4: stage trying to I don't want any attention on stage, like,
Speaker 4: don't even look at me, look at due just you know,
Speaker 4: I'm about the sound, you know. So it works out
Speaker 4: for me in that way. But the Fourths tour was
Speaker 4: a dream come true and that man, we got to
Speaker 4: do that every day, you know.
Speaker 2: All right, So let me ask probably one of the
Speaker 2: biggest myths of black thought is your relationship with freestyling.
Speaker 2: There's three particular stories I want you to talk about,
Speaker 2: all right.
Speaker 5: I don't need you to do a forty five minute freestyle.
Speaker 2: Okay, So of course I know that shout out to
Speaker 2: ESPO from Philly for catching uh that clip of us
Speaker 2: in the alleyway or whatever, like doing the freestyle thing
Speaker 2: which is which basically set your legend.
Speaker 1: Can you talk about do you remember the.
Speaker 2: Time Scott Scott, No, no, no, no, do you remember
Speaker 2: that moment when we were at the Trocadero with Hansoul
Speaker 2: and we drove home and he freestyled that entire time
Speaker 2: in the backseat.
Speaker 1: I do did that have an impact on you?
Speaker 2: Because the next day you said it once You're like,
Speaker 2: that's the level that I have to supermate, Like, can
Speaker 2: you talk about like how if that had an impact
Speaker 2: on you as far as like rhyming on the spot
Speaker 2: because I've seen you do it in high school.
Speaker 1: Yeah, but kind of in a funny way like battling.
Speaker 4: But there was yes. To answer your question. I remember
Speaker 4: that night come home from the truck. I remember Hansoul freestyling,
Speaker 4: and I remember the way it made me feel, not
Speaker 4: necessarily threatened, but just you know competitive, you know what
Speaker 4: I'm saying, the same way that I felt when I
Speaker 4: came up and the first time I saw Rozelle and
Speaker 4: Supernatural and Muhammad performing.
Speaker 1: At that boom poetic thing. Right. I came back to
Speaker 1: Philly like it, what are y'all doing? You know what
Speaker 1: I mean?
Speaker 4: Like, fucking dude, you're awake and you're not rapping, like
Speaker 4: like niggas in New Yorkers, They're like, Yo, they fucking
Speaker 4: rapping right now? Dog like you know what I mean,
Speaker 4: you got to be able to go like off the top,
Speaker 4: but some one you can't.
Speaker 1: That's how I was. So yeah, I think, uh, you know,
Speaker 1: it was more of that, you know what I mean.
Speaker 4: I wasn't necessarily it wasn't like I didn't feel threatened,
Speaker 4: but I was just super competitive, you know, and I
Speaker 4: knew you know, people who went to college with me,
Speaker 4: people went to high school with me. They'll always tell
Speaker 4: you about, oh this one time, you know, to regrab
Speaker 4: for three hours and we walked from here to here
Speaker 4: or drove from here to there, and he never started rapping,
Speaker 4: but there was something, Uh, there was a gravitas. There
Speaker 4: was a seriousness in it that night, and what Hans
Speaker 4: was doing that made me like, okay, like this is
Speaker 4: a thing. There was a level of mastery to it,
Speaker 4: you know what I'm saying. So yeah, I definitely, yeah,
Speaker 4: that was the takeaway.
Speaker 2: So can you give your version, like I know, richest
Speaker 2: version of the Kindanye a bathroom situation?
Speaker 1: Yeah? Do you remember?
Speaker 2: And we were backstage at Universal Amphitheater, right. I didn't
Speaker 2: know who Kanye West was then, so I think like
Speaker 2: he just did get by, like he was hanging with
Speaker 2: quality or whatever.
Speaker 1: And again because of the legend of Threeeks is the
Speaker 1: best freestylist ever.
Speaker 2: You know, motherfuckers would just come up and think, you
Speaker 2: know the rappers that want to rap just like and
Speaker 2: I hate that too with musicians, Like musicians want to like, hey,
Speaker 2: let's have a jam session, or you know, start drumming
Speaker 2: and talking, and I'm like, I don't do that shit
Speaker 2: on my off hours or whatever. So Rich told me
Speaker 2: a story once about like you were changing for show whatever,
Speaker 2: and then Kanye decided this is my moment and just
Speaker 2: starts freestyle in front of you.
Speaker 1: Can you tell that story because I never heard you.
Speaker 4: I mean, you know, like what like back in the day,
Speaker 4: we would show up for our sessions. Kanye would be
Speaker 4: in there sometimes, you know what I mean. Eighty eight
Speaker 4: Keys would be in there. Sometimes they wore down with
Speaker 4: Kenny Douro. They were down with you know what I mean.
Speaker 4: You know people who worked in studios who would give
Speaker 4: him a heads up, you know on who had sessions,
Speaker 4: and they would be in there and trying to place
Speaker 4: their beats and and rap for niggas ambushes, right, And
Speaker 4: you know my thing with Kanye was I would I
Speaker 4: would run into him more while we were shopping. So
Speaker 4: I would be in Atlanta or Chicago or LA at
Speaker 4: the place where you knowever everybody goes to get clothes. Yeah, right, yeah,
Speaker 4: so whatever the popping you know what I mean store
Speaker 4: is at the Barneys or you know fred Sieger whatever
Speaker 4: back in the day, and Kanye would always be in there,
Speaker 4: and he would always see me.
Speaker 1: And now Kanye would be like, Yo, what you got?
Speaker 1: You know what I'm saying.
Speaker 4: So he would be the type of person that he
Speaker 4: wants to see everything you putting on the counter, you
Speaker 4: know what I mean, and he want to go back
Speaker 4: and see if you want to get that or if
Speaker 4: you want to switch out. So I would, you know,
Speaker 4: beat sometimes in a store or in like a mall
Speaker 4: and Kanye is there and now I'm grabbing ship to
Speaker 4: try and throw him off the center of the trail,
Speaker 4: make him think I'm gonna get this stuff and that's
Speaker 4: not what I'm gonna get. The night that you're talking about,
Speaker 4: we showed up to our gig. It was a in
Speaker 4: the Roots in Erica. If I'm not mistaken, and Kanye
Speaker 4: was dead, I forgot. Yeah, that was the first time
Speaker 4: I met a kon he was over enough with it,
Speaker 4: and Kanye was in there, and he immediately goes into
Speaker 4: his ship.
Speaker 1: Oh shit, what's that? Oh you got them y threes?
Speaker 1: And oh what's that?
Speaker 4: And he started like picking apart everything that I had on.
Speaker 4: So now I'm trying to get dressed and my whole ship.
Speaker 4: Like the reason why I was annoyed, It wasn't even
Speaker 4: that he started rapping or that he was talking about music.
Speaker 4: I was used to him doing that, but he was
Speaker 4: trying to, you know what I mean, like sort of
Speaker 4: tag picked my shit apart and be like, Oh you
Speaker 4: got to this, you got to that, you got to that?
Speaker 4: Oh oh yeah, oh I'm up on that, you know
Speaker 4: what I mean. And it was like that was what
Speaker 4: I'm like, you just get the fuck out of here,
Speaker 4: like I'm getting dressed, nigga, Like I'm trying to you
Speaker 4: know what I'm saying. And I think that was you
Speaker 4: know that, That's what happened at Universal that night.
Speaker 1: I have a theory about the flex freestyle.
Speaker 2: Yeah I knew how hard you and Malik paired in
Speaker 2: ninety three, like the mentality of like, yo, motherfucker's in
Speaker 2: New York.
Speaker 1: Are you know we got to come with it.
Speaker 2: And I remember once like we were driving to New
Speaker 2: York and we were listening to like a best of
Speaker 2: Barbido and Stretch Armstrong thing and we were like, wait
Speaker 2: a minute, that's a B side. We've heard that rhyme
Speaker 2: before and it was kind of a there's no Santa
Speaker 2: Claus ye realization, but you to still kept that. And
Speaker 2: I remember once you guys did a session which you
Speaker 2: did so many freestyles for all these name brand DJs
Speaker 2: that never wound up, like there's there's volumes of freestyles
Speaker 2: that you've done that are probably still Yeah, it was
Speaker 2: like one of the MCA like we're going to promote
Speaker 2: you know what I mean, like you know for all
Speaker 2: the radio mixed show DP, right, Yeah, I remember.
Speaker 1: So for you.
Speaker 2: Knowing that was your first time after thirty two years
Speaker 2: of never being invited on Flex's show, were you in
Speaker 2: kill Bill. I'm gonna show you not to ever deny
Speaker 2: me again, because that wasn't regular. That wasn't just like
Speaker 2: oh by a minute seven, I was like, oh, this
Speaker 2: is a revenge mission.
Speaker 1: No, No, I wasn't.
Speaker 4: I wasn't really on kill Bill mode, you know, I
Speaker 4: was for me. I don't know if you recall, that
Speaker 4: was a Thursday that I did that joint. It was
Speaker 4: weird taped to tonight's shows.
Speaker 1: So I was tired.
Speaker 4: It was like twenty below zero, freezing cold, you know
Speaker 4: what I'm saying. I couldn't find parking. I had my
Speaker 4: assistem at the time, like outside waiting in my car
Speaker 4: like double parked. So it was just like the urgency
Speaker 4: of trying to you know, get in and out out.
Speaker 4: And I knew, you know, Flex and I have been
Speaker 4: texting back and forth for maybe six months at that point,
Speaker 4: just trying to figure out a window that made sense.
Speaker 2: And what was that first text like when finally like
Speaker 2: he acknowledges that were not me five nothing?
Speaker 4: Yeah, yoh no, No, I was, you know, sorry, I
Speaker 4: was like, wow, you know what I mean, I think, yeah,
Speaker 4: it was definitely I was surprised.
Speaker 1: I was surprised.
Speaker 4: I was surprised, And you know, I don't know if
Speaker 4: I think leading up to that, you know what I mean,
Speaker 4: Flex's olive branch. Flex His way to show that it
Speaker 4: was coming from an authentic place was he just started
Speaker 4: offering to spend for us, Like yo, any booskigs y'all
Speaker 4: got I'll pull up. I'll just rock for y'all, know
Speaker 4: what I mean. I don't know if you remember this
Speaker 4: is the moment that changed his mind.
Speaker 2: I don't know, but you know what I'm saying, We
Speaker 2: didn't you do another oh the method maybe the Method
Speaker 2: Man thing, because even j hit me about the method.
Speaker 4: But by the time I did the Metha Man freestyle flexing,
Speaker 4: I had already been talking for like, you know, damn
Speaker 4: near a year about me coming up to flex. The
Speaker 4: metha Man freestyle just took place because we were promoting
Speaker 4: that HBO show and you know, there's no way we
Speaker 4: could go somewhere and it's me and metha Man and
Speaker 4: they not ask us to rap, you know what I'm saying.
Speaker 4: But yeah, you know, when I did that flex freestyle,
Speaker 4: it was like, you know, I mean, roming off the
Speaker 4: top rapping period. It only matters to it's so niche,
Speaker 4: you know what I'm saying. So I just wanted to
Speaker 4: represent for those people who sort of gave a fuck,
Speaker 4: you know, and I wanted to It had to be
Speaker 4: one take because I had to get out of there,
Speaker 4: you know what I mean.
Speaker 1: I was ready to go home, and.
Speaker 2: My fear was that he was just going to interrupt
Speaker 2: you and not let you finish. Yeah, yeah, that's enough
Speaker 2: And I was like no, no, no, and okay he
Speaker 2: let him go on, right, But you know, for me,
Speaker 2: can you talk about did that finally feel like a
Speaker 2: redempt dimptive moment for you which.
Speaker 1: You finally got your flowers? Didn't It felt? Yes, that moment,
Speaker 1: you know what I mean, like the moment that you
Speaker 1: know that followed, like would you do that night when
Speaker 1: you got home, Oh, Jill, probably you know what I
Speaker 1: mean little bit and went to bed. Yeah, I went
Speaker 1: to Yeah. Yeah, it was I hate to say, I mean,
Speaker 1: I hate to say I actually cried. No, it wasn't.
Speaker 4: No, it wasn't until yeah, it started to go viral
Speaker 4: and I you know, I saw folks re retweeting it
Speaker 4: and you know what I mean, like reposting the joint.
Speaker 4: That's when it started to feel like, oh wow, you know,
Speaker 4: because I never like I was still new, I guess
Speaker 4: the social media, you know what I'm saying, Like, I
Speaker 4: just really started rocking, you know, with the Instagrams and
Speaker 4: twitters of the world, you know, relatively recently at that
Speaker 4: at that point.
Speaker 1: So, yeah, it was it was just dope. You know
Speaker 1: what I mean. It's it's it's dope to be acknowledged.
Speaker 4: To that point about social media, for you know, you're saying,
Speaker 4: you know what, I'm on stage like, I don't want
Speaker 4: you to really see me at all. So how do
Speaker 4: you deal with now in the era of you know
Speaker 4: of music just entertainment period where you have to have
Speaker 4: that presence of some sort you know, some sort of
Speaker 4: presence online.
Speaker 1: Or I mean, it's it's it's just it's a delicate balance,
Speaker 1: you know what I mean.
Speaker 8: I do.
Speaker 1: It's just gonna sound crazy. It's like I basically do
Speaker 1: the bare minimum. You know what I said.
Speaker 4: I do the bare minimum, and I'm able to still
Speaker 4: somehow feed my family. But you know there's a bunch
Speaker 4: of a lot of what I do is also in
Speaker 4: exercise in overcoming you know, the anxiety associated with you know,
Speaker 4: doing shit, you know what I mean.
Speaker 1: So when I do, like if I forced myself to
Speaker 1: go and.
Speaker 4: Do a hot five type five of stand up, like
Speaker 4: that's a you know, an exercise in me, you know,
Speaker 4: just becoming more comfortable to my own skin in front of.
Speaker 1: An audience without having any safety net. You know, the
Speaker 1: same talk.
Speaker 2: About that because I feel like a lot of people
Speaker 2: don't know that you're heavy into stand up.
Speaker 4: Yeah, yeah, you know I got I got heavy into
Speaker 4: stand up. I got heavy into you know, musical theater
Speaker 4: when I was you know, when I'm working on Black
Speaker 4: No More.
Speaker 1: That's what I'm doing.
Speaker 4: Basically right right it is it's still you know, still
Speaker 4: a thing, and I'm now, you know, heavy into I mean,
Speaker 4: I mean, I think the medium with which we tell
Speaker 4: the story is ever evolving, but the story sort of
Speaker 4: remains the same.
Speaker 1: You know what I'm saying.
Speaker 4: How do you I was gonna ask you about just
Speaker 4: your memory in terms of memorizing. Yeah, Like how do
Speaker 4: you go about just memorizing all of those Like when
Speaker 4: you're doing on the Roots Picnic.
Speaker 1: And you're something once, Yeah, you just do just a
Speaker 1: a verse, Like you just come up and just do
Speaker 1: a verse or something. How do you just I guess
Speaker 1: log all that stuff.
Speaker 4: I don't know, man, It's like you I think I'm
Speaker 4: using a part of my brain that is, I don't know.
Speaker 4: I'll just tapped into, you know, something that probably would
Speaker 4: otherwise have laid dormant if I didn't sort of force
Speaker 4: myself to you know what I mean, work with something
Speaker 4: outside of my muscle memory.
Speaker 8: Wait, so to that point the book, I found myself
Speaker 8: reading this and being like, fuck, I know Reek smokes, but.
Speaker 2: The details well not as much anymore though, right, not
Speaker 2: as much a little bit.
Speaker 4: But you know, I think that's attributable to Rich Rich's
Speaker 4: genius too, and that, you know, just in the storytelling
Speaker 4: as a writer.
Speaker 1: You know, he would challenge you to be as visual.
Speaker 4: As possible and the conjure up that that imagery, you
Speaker 4: know what I'm saying, to make you see and feel
Speaker 4: and smell a thing, but to.
Speaker 8: Smell some thing like you're a six year old, six
Speaker 8: year old self. That's deep and to be able to
Speaker 8: describe that on paper.
Speaker 1: Yeah, yeah, I guess it is. So I have a question.
Speaker 6: So I'm writing a tell all book right now actually
Speaker 6: about about the two of you. Do you have any
Speaker 6: advice for somebody who wants to know I'm just kidding,
Speaker 6: but and when's the rematch?
Speaker 1: The fight? Rematch? I think the audience wants to know that.
Speaker 5: It's all been, it's going to be, but we want
Speaker 5: to know when the when the rematch is whatever?
Speaker 2: No, No, I mean, what are you allowed to talk
Speaker 2: about as far as black No, more is concerned because
Speaker 2: we can talk about it's so weird. Like when you
Speaker 2: started black No More, Obama was president, so sort of
Speaker 2: in that House of cards way, like you clearly knew
Speaker 2: it was going to be a satire because you know,
Speaker 2: it's never going to get that crazy, right, And then
Speaker 2: suddenly once Trump was president, then it was like, oh,
Speaker 2: this is relevant to times now. So at one point
Speaker 2: it was an extreme satire and then became reality.
Speaker 4: Yeah, that's the thing, you know, I mean, at this
Speaker 4: point it's it's not as far fetched as it was
Speaker 4: or as it felt, you know, you know before the
Speaker 4: Trump and Biden administrations, you know what I mean. This
Speaker 4: was originally slated to you know, to open off Broadway
Speaker 4: during the Trump elections, you know what I mean. So yeah,
Speaker 4: I mean I think there's some you know, rejiggering that
Speaker 4: you know, I mean, it needs to take place. There's
Speaker 4: you know, very much that you know, we need to
Speaker 4: sort of be revisited. But just you know, for for
Speaker 4: the fact that you know, what felt so dynamically sensational,
Speaker 4: you know, six years ago, eight years ago no longer
Speaker 4: feels that way. It's like that has been our reality
Speaker 4: and worse, you know what I mean, so much off
Speaker 4: the wall shit has happened.
Speaker 1: Yeah, for those don't know.
Speaker 2: The Black Memoirs a book written by George Skyler yep,
Speaker 2: I thinking like it was like one of the first
Speaker 2: that her futurist books nineteen thirty two. Oh wow, yeah,
Speaker 2: and he basically, uh, it's just it's a satire about
Speaker 2: a black man who changes his skin color, falls in
Speaker 2: love with a white woman and now she's pregnant, right,
Speaker 2: and she will eventually find out that which.
Speaker 1: This that that's that's a show that was on Bravo
Speaker 1: last night, right, you know what I mean.
Speaker 8: It's like, you know, how do we how does he
Speaker 8: know because he watches Bravo.
Speaker 1: We got it?
Speaker 4: So yeah, yea, we gotta we gotta sort of punch
Speaker 4: it up a little bit, I think, just to make
Speaker 4: it more you know, as far fetched said as it felt.
Speaker 1: Uh, you know at its own set.
Speaker 2: Actually, you are one of the most random TV watching people.
Speaker 2: I know, Like, what are you watching?
Speaker 1: And how do you pick?
Speaker 2: Because you and Jimmy will talk about the most random
Speaker 2: You'll discover shit on QB or whatever like Tubby.
Speaker 1: To me, Toby, I was like, who QB? Well?
Speaker 2: QB was a that was Quibbi. Yeah, that was that
Speaker 2: lasted like ten minutes. Yeah, like what mindless ship do
Speaker 2: you watch?
Speaker 4: Or like, what's what shows right right right now I'm watching,
Speaker 4: I'm watching you know, bass Lorman bass Reads.
Speaker 1: You know what I'm saying, Lorman bass.
Speaker 4: Reeves is, uh, is about the US Marshall first, the
Speaker 4: first black U S Marshall.
Speaker 1: Really it's the character.
Speaker 4: It's the real life person that the Lone Ranger character
Speaker 4: was based on, you know what I mean, which is
Speaker 4: based on a black person. Yeah, the Lone Ranger was
Speaker 4: based on a black person. But you know they weren't
Speaker 4: gonna have it. I mean they're like, yo, let's make
Speaker 4: it a black a white man and put a mask on.
Speaker 1: The mass.
Speaker 4: But yeah, so bass Reeves, Uh, it's this dope show
Speaker 4: that I've been watching recently, Yellow Yeah, it's in the
Speaker 4: Yellowstone family.
Speaker 1: And a Yellowstone worth it. Yes, it is.
Speaker 4: This was what else I was gonna say anything Yellowstone
Speaker 4: eighteen eighty three. That's level like I must watch a different, different, different,
Speaker 4: you know what I mean. I think I'm always excited
Speaker 4: when somebody could get period right, you know what I mean?
Speaker 1: And they got period right, you know what I mean?
Speaker 1: Every time.
Speaker 8: So and also the inclusion of the indigenous culture and
Speaker 8: just giving us more context.
Speaker 1: Yeah, that's they got it. Run. So I'll go on
Speaker 1: Apple TV and you see, Yo, I'm watching that.
Speaker 4: I'm watching that now, Bass Reds, I mean, Loman Bass Reeves.
Speaker 4: I'm also watching well, yeah, the Gilded Age.
Speaker 1: You know what I'm saying. Have you seen Killers of
Speaker 1: the Flower Moon yet?
Speaker 2: No?
Speaker 1: I hear it.
Speaker 4: Yeah yeah, I haven't watched that yet. But Fargo, the
Speaker 4: new season of Fargo, Yeah yeah, yeah, four episodes in. Yeah,
Speaker 4: but you know what I'm saying. And I've been, uh,
Speaker 4: I keep coming back to just because it's like I
Speaker 4: can never even though it's only three episodes.
Speaker 1: I think they're like an hour and a half long each.
Speaker 4: The American Buffalo documentary Ken Burns, which is you know,
Speaker 4: it's not just about the Buffalo, you know what I mean,
Speaker 4: It's really about out America and you talk about indigenous
Speaker 4: people and I'm just a history buffing that way. So
Speaker 4: I've been rocking with dad. I found out that it
Speaker 4: was out because Celia came home. She was like, they
Speaker 4: made us watch this documentary today in school. I'm sure
Speaker 4: you would be into it.
Speaker 1: I was like, what is it?
Speaker 4: She was like about the American Buffalo. I was like,
Speaker 4: do tell it was Kim Burns And I was like, ship, like,
Speaker 4: you know, hell yah. So I've been watching that only
Speaker 4: because I have to watch a Kim Burns documentary maybe
Speaker 4: like five six times to you know, take in all
Speaker 4: the information.
Speaker 1: You fuck with rap shit on HBO. I watched the
Speaker 1: first season. Second season is better. I mean, the first
Speaker 1: season is good, but the second season is it's good.
Speaker 1: I have, I have.
Speaker 7: I haven't seen every father's impression of their teenage daughter
Speaker 7: is exactly the same, because I.
Speaker 1: Thought, right, yeah, right, exactly do your kids like are
Speaker 1: they aware? Are you dad? Are you? Or are they
Speaker 1: like do you catch them listening to your music? Or yeah,
Speaker 1: you know, aren't you worry for them?
Speaker 2: No?
Speaker 1: No, I catch a mirror listening to my music. You know.
Speaker 4: He does his little playlist and stuff, and sometimes even
Speaker 4: his playlist of other music that he's listening to in
Speaker 4: the shower and all that.
Speaker 1: You know, it's dope to see.
Speaker 4: That he's somehow found music that I was listening to
Speaker 4: when I was in my twenties two without me having
Speaker 4: to say, let me.
Speaker 1: Put you onto it.
Speaker 4: So there's that it's Sealia, you know, does the same thing,
Speaker 4: you know what I mean. She listens to my music.
Speaker 4: She has a little bit, you know what I mean. Yeah,
Speaker 4: she's becoming a hip hop here. But Tariq, he's never
Speaker 4: been into any of my me The only root song,
Speaker 4: roots thing that Tariq has really that has resonated with him,
Speaker 4: not our Disney Junior stuff as what you would think.
Speaker 4: It's the Blackish thing, the June Team Blackiest thing that's
Speaker 4: you know, uh, And that put him on to the
Speaker 4: whole Schoolhouse Rock world and he started listening to the
Speaker 4: original I'm Just a Bill and all the original Schoolhouse
Speaker 4: Rock shit, and then the new Schoolhouse Rocks You and
Speaker 4: then the new New Schoolhouse Rock shit, all just from
Speaker 4: ours yeah, from our Blackish segment. So this is that,
Speaker 4: you know what I'm saying, But what he's up on
Speaker 4: and what I'm still trying to dissect because it played
Speaker 4: out the same way with Kamala's kids, who were like,
Speaker 4: you know, two and six or two and eight, No,
Speaker 4: Tarika's eight, maybe Kamala's. Because the youngest kids are two
Speaker 4: and six, they all know every word the mama said,
Speaker 4: knock you out, and they've owned they saw l L
Speaker 4: perform it a couple of times that they came to
Speaker 4: the shows with us, But for some reason, this is
Speaker 4: the first rap song Treek's known. All the lyrics to
Speaker 4: Kamal's Little Baby, you know what I mean, cash Like
Speaker 4: they all listen, they know all of the from don't
Speaker 4: call it a And I'm like, that's what I need to.
Speaker 1: Tap into, you know what I mean. It's like, Yo,
Speaker 1: they don't be my son. But we talked.
Speaker 4: I've never heard none of my children have ever sang
Speaker 4: one of my joints the way Treek sing.
Speaker 1: Don't call it a comeback. I'm like, yo, like out
Speaker 1: of a movements.
Speaker 4: Right, Oh yeah, there's definitely something in that that h
Speaker 4: channel and that's what Yeah, And that's why I told you.
Speaker 4: I was like, Yo, we need to use that joint
Speaker 4: that we didn't want to yo, because it might be
Speaker 4: something in that and I don't know if it's the
Speaker 4: music or the lyrics or the marriage.
Speaker 1: Well return yeah yeah, my okay.
Speaker 2: So you know, we redid Mama for the NBA mid
Speaker 2: season the mid season tournament, and my initial idea I
Speaker 2: knew they wanted Mama said knock you out. But also
Speaker 2: LL's kind of this place where it's like, yo, man,
Speaker 2: I'm not a legacy act like that sort of thing.
Speaker 2: But you know, the people that write the text are like, nah, man,
Speaker 2: we just just do your song from nineteen ninety please
Speaker 2: and take this check.
Speaker 1: So I was like, all right, let me find a
Speaker 1: happy meeting.
Speaker 2: So I actually did something dope where I reversed because
Speaker 2: I'm also working on the Slide movie.
Speaker 1: I have access to the masters, so I was like,
Speaker 1: all right, let me reverse the song.
Speaker 2: And you know, like what terminator Actually a ja panic
Speaker 2: was to rebel without a pause, like the sirens going backwards.
Speaker 2: So I did a backwards version that ship and it
Speaker 2: sounds dope as ship, and Even was like, uh, let's
Speaker 2: let's not give this to them.
Speaker 4: Like Even was like, God, it's great, I mean because
Speaker 4: I mean, we see you working, you know what I mean,
Speaker 4: you you know, been dropping projects left right in terms
Speaker 4: of you know, a roots record. Now that Rich is
Speaker 4: no longer here in that role, who is in that
Speaker 4: role for y'all? Yeah there is you know, I don't
Speaker 4: know that there's anyone in that role. Yeah, I think,
Speaker 4: and I have to be yeah, yeah, we've we've had
Speaker 4: to extend ourselves not necessarily over extended. We've had to
Speaker 4: extend ourselves in order to fill in that gap, you know,
Speaker 4: because Sean, though he is he's he's an innovative, he's
Speaker 4: not necessarily a creative, you.
Speaker 1: Know what I mean.
Speaker 4: He's a business mind. He's an innovative mind. He's not
Speaker 4: a creative. And that was the beauty of the balance
Speaker 4: between him and Rich was like, you know what I mean,
Speaker 4: hot and cold?
Speaker 2: You know.
Speaker 1: So yeah, so there's that.
Speaker 4: But I think in terms of an album being done,
Speaker 4: I think we got plenty of material. I think it's
Speaker 4: just gonna boil down to you know, I may or
Speaker 4: not being excited enough in any moment to do the
Speaker 4: mix is necessary to say all right, this is the
Speaker 4: ten songs or twelve songs, however many that are gonna
Speaker 4: be album. But we got enough joints, you know, we
Speaker 4: have more than enough.
Speaker 2: I just for me, once a week, I get excited
Speaker 2: about something else, and then I'll.
Speaker 1: Replace it and replace it and replace it.
Speaker 9: That's the problem, because really wouldn't Rich be the want
Speaker 9: to come in and be like mother.
Speaker 2: Yeah, it's just like in your dreams thing, then in
Speaker 2: your dreams thing got shelved because it's just like, look,
Speaker 2: we gotta wrap up.
Speaker 1: Do you want more?
Speaker 2: We're not gonna get this shit done in time. So
Speaker 2: that's the one thing I don't have, which is like,
Speaker 2: all right, no more new songs.
Speaker 4: There's there's value in our procrastination in that, you know,
Speaker 4: once we put out any thing, then it's out right
Speaker 4: right now. The bar is where the bar is. What
Speaker 4: the Roots brand means to people is what it means.
Speaker 4: So yeah, I think there's something in that. I think
Speaker 4: the whole what makes the Roots the Roots is the
Speaker 4: fact that we've always you know, thought and then overthought
Speaker 4: right in the process.
Speaker 1: So I think now the idea is to pull it
Speaker 1: back a little bit.
Speaker 4: We don't need to overthink, but I think we still
Speaker 4: need to be as considerate in the process as we
Speaker 4: you know, have in the past. Because that's that's the
Speaker 4: difference when people say, Yo, what's the difference in me
Speaker 4: in the Roots? In me on somebody else's shit, is like,
Speaker 4: I'm just gonna pull up and I'm gonna almost go
Speaker 4: with the first thing that comes to my mind. That's
Speaker 4: why streams of thought is called streams of thought because
Speaker 4: it's like it's as close to a freestyle as you
Speaker 4: know what I mean, I'm just letting the it's the
Speaker 4: first thing that I think of, which you know and
Speaker 4: many times is dope, and you know it's witty and funny,
Speaker 4: but it's not what we do in the roots. It's
Speaker 4: not rich challenging me to you know, be something that's
Speaker 4: gonna fucking you know, resonate just reading it off the page.
Speaker 4: That's not what I have to do if I'm in
Speaker 4: the studio with Ninth or Salime or Sean c. And
Speaker 4: that's part of you know, that's what informs it and
Speaker 4: makes it. It's a dope exercise because it's not as
Speaker 4: it's not something that I won't say. I don't take
Speaker 4: it as serious. But it's just a different process, I understand,
Speaker 4: you know.
Speaker 2: What I mean.
Speaker 1: It's a different process, you know.
Speaker 4: So I mean I think in that like, you know,
Speaker 4: the roots album, especially based on what dictates enough material
Speaker 4: to be an album in this day and time, we've
Speaker 4: got multiple new roots albums done. What do you feel
Speaker 4: like y'all or do you feel like y'all have anything
Speaker 4: to prove on the album front?
Speaker 2: Like what would be the so the one thing that
Speaker 2: has occurred to me and then you shoot Your Cousin
Speaker 2: came out in twenty fourteen, so we're going on the
Speaker 2: tenth year and I probably have done twenty thousand hours
Speaker 2: of DJing. Now, the DJing that I've done post twenty
Speaker 2: fourteen is different than the dj and I've done pre
Speaker 2: twenty fourteen, in which, you know, jams.
Speaker 1: Are foreign between And I'm the kind of guy that,
Speaker 1: unless like I'm doing a gold.
Speaker 2: Party or like it's a high pressure situation where it's like,
Speaker 2: all right, well Drake syah, so let me play some
Speaker 2: trap like the shit he knows, I'm always the guy that,
Speaker 2: like I now know how to read my audience in
Speaker 2: a way that I didn't before, Whereas before I was
Speaker 2: obsessed with letting you know, yeah I got that Japanese
Speaker 2: prints that you don't got, and you know, I'm not
Speaker 2: looking at the floor clearing and none of that shit.
Speaker 2: I'm so I'm so hyper aware of what works and
Speaker 2: what doesn't work as a DJ that now as a creator,
Speaker 2: I can't divorce myself from it. So now I'm thinking
Speaker 2: of like, is this the right bpms? Where's the melody at?
Speaker 2: What should we talk about? Like things I never thought
Speaker 2: about before, like well this resonate with the audience.
Speaker 1: In recent years.
Speaker 4: You know, like when a mayor gives me a beat
Speaker 4: or like an idea for a composition, he does a
Speaker 4: whole separate track now of just like a guide track
Speaker 4: of him saying okay, like you know, okay, the first
Speaker 4: can start here, you talk about this here, and then okay,
Speaker 4: like here you can do something like what was like
Speaker 4: now I'm like Nigga just right around. But yeah, he's
Speaker 4: definitely uh you know, uh, just paying attention to a
Speaker 4: lot more of the detail with anything that I think.
Speaker 1: That's a good thing. I mean, it's a beautiful thing. Yeah,
Speaker 1: because you have new information. Yes, I'll be calling you joy. Oh,
Speaker 1: I mean okay, but as soon as I concentrate.
Speaker 2: But also, like the movie was unexpected, Like you know,
Speaker 2: the movie was a thing that, oh, let me just
Speaker 2: pass the time in the pandemic, and now it's like,
Speaker 2: oh god, now I got two careers.
Speaker 8: So both of y'all, y'all schedules are crazy between the
Speaker 8: both of you.
Speaker 2: Okay, So I'm trying to think of things that like
Speaker 2: the Internet always wanted to know. I'm not asking any
Speaker 2: masterpiece theater questions because it's like.
Speaker 1: Dude, he's done like swimming records.
Speaker 2: But what I will ask is what five m sees
Speaker 2: that are least expected for us to know?
Speaker 1: You dig?
Speaker 2: Because the second time we talked about rap shit, he
Speaker 2: sold me on turn this mother Out. And I'm like
Speaker 2: Hammer and I joked, I joked once on what had
Speaker 2: happened was that I'm almost certain that our love of
Speaker 2: Apache or rhyming over Apache had more to do with
Speaker 2: Turn this Mother Out than it did men at work.
Speaker 2: But Tarik is like, instantly, Tarik sold me on it. Yo,
Speaker 2: you know about n w A And I'm like, dude,
Speaker 2: they got Jerry Curls. I ain't listening to shit, and
Speaker 2: he's like, but listen to this. And then he played
Speaker 2: me turn this Mother Out, and I'm like you like
Speaker 2: MC hammer, I didn't. I thought like, great, nice was
Speaker 2: corny and he's like.
Speaker 1: No, man.
Speaker 2: But that's the thing, Like Tarik has a way of
Speaker 2: listening to anything, Like I go on the tour of
Speaker 2: b US and listen to A Paul and MJG. Yeah.
Speaker 2: I was like, I'll never listened to Pastor Choy in
Speaker 2: this lifetime, and then suddenly like I'm Pastor Joy's number
Speaker 2: one fan. So it's like Tarik's put me on to
Speaker 2: so much unorthodox things that normally my snobby East Coast
Speaker 2: era ass like what what MC's are like, you're under championed,
Speaker 2: non obvious ones, non king non.
Speaker 1: Like of from back in the day or period.
Speaker 4: Karen, You know, I think Special Led is an unsung
Speaker 4: you know hero in that you know his album The
Speaker 4: Youngest in Charge, you just talk about just the power
Speaker 4: of youthful expression, and he was specially that was fourteen
Speaker 4: years old.
Speaker 1: I look at my kids at fourteen.
Speaker 4: It's like, you know, I when it's like, if I'm
Speaker 4: in a moment where I have to just rap a rap,
Speaker 4: I'm gonna pull from you know, anywhere I rapped from
Speaker 4: anybody's catalog, shit that you.
Speaker 1: Don't even remember you wrote.
Speaker 4: But one of the you know rhymes that I often
Speaker 4: do is, you know, I was proven effective by a
Speaker 4: clinical test because some couldn't come to believe I'm the best,
Speaker 4: so they to me and now they're in the clinic.
Speaker 4: They almost arrested me because I did it, but I
Speaker 4: didn't mean to do it. You had to mess with
Speaker 4: me and then you blew it. Now you gotta chew it,
Speaker 4: swallow it all. I guess that's the way that you
Speaker 4: bounce the ball like this is a fourteen year old
Speaker 4: wrote that, and that's a that's timeless, Like I can
Speaker 4: you know depend no matter what the the soundbit is,
Speaker 4: the music that I put it over like those bars
Speaker 4: will forever like rain poetic and you know what I mean,
Speaker 4: like bring something up and folks that hear it was
Speaker 4: my one. You wish you could that was my That
Speaker 4: was another I mean, especial levels, just super dope. So
Speaker 4: I think he's he's one of those ones. I think,
Speaker 4: you know, cool Keith, you know what I mean for
Speaker 4: the whole I think cool Keith Man shit. I mean,
Speaker 4: he was like, you know, the thelonious monk of this
Speaker 4: shit in that you know, I mean, his shit didn't
Speaker 4: even have to rhyme, you know what I'm saying. And
Speaker 4: they were him and said like ultra magneticum seeds were
Speaker 4: ahead of their time in so many ways. So yeah,
Speaker 4: I think, you know, cool Keith is another one, Greg Nice,
Speaker 4: you know what I mean? I think just geniuses that
Speaker 4: I was able to recognize and latch onto, and that
Speaker 4: it's something from their body of work that I've extracted
Speaker 4: that you know, I mean, I still these are I
Speaker 4: kicked all it all, all of the above.
Speaker 1: I kicked their bars every day, like the ship just
Speaker 1: came out.
Speaker 9: Is there anybody currently?
Speaker 1: Yeah? Absolutely?
Speaker 4: I mean, you know, we saw you in the roots
Speaker 4: forced to use rocking ma comedy and yeah, yeah Mack, Yeah,
Speaker 4: that's that's my ace, you know what I'm saying.
Speaker 1: He was in the studio with It's just the other
Speaker 1: night Mark, you know. Yeah.
Speaker 4: I think he's one of those ones, you know, someone
Speaker 4: who again understands just a sensibility of you know, a
Speaker 4: person who's been around since the nineties, but who's also
Speaker 4: in just some ways just feels you know, still cutting edge, right,
Speaker 4: and I think his association with the whole Griselda family
Speaker 4: in that movement, but the way that he's distinctly you know, different,
Speaker 4: is huge too.
Speaker 1: You know what I mean? I saw you did. We
Speaker 1: were on the same album Your Drew.
Speaker 4: That's that's the second person I was about the name man, Yeah,
Speaker 4: and you Rold Drug is Actually he's my connection to
Speaker 4: my comedy.
Speaker 1: But he's another one. You know.
Speaker 4: When Your Old Drew came out, I didn't rock with
Speaker 4: it because I felt like, yeah, I thought his voice,
Speaker 4: I thought he sounded too much like nads and I'm
Speaker 4: not you know, I'm.
Speaker 1: Huge on you know, just you know, being being originally,
Speaker 1: you know what I mean.
Speaker 4: And I was like, nah, you know, I'm not rocking
Speaker 4: with this shit, like you know, I think it was
Speaker 4: Hoodie season or one of those first joints, you know.
Speaker 4: But I met him on the road opening up for
Speaker 4: Royson and Premiere when they were doing their prime tour
Speaker 4: and we sort of hit it off. And you know
Speaker 4: what I mean, I've been you know, I talk about
Speaker 4: mentorship and you know, just artists that we shared demos
Speaker 4: with one another, and I'm able to just you know,
Speaker 4: offer sage wisdom and they're not gonna catch feelings if
Speaker 4: I say I don't like this one and I like
Speaker 4: that one. He's been one of those artists and over time,
Speaker 4: you know, I was trying to get at Mock and
Speaker 4: he was non responsive until Drew put us on the
Speaker 4: same song and then you know, like sort of connected us,
Speaker 4: you know what I mean. Then now yeah, you know
Speaker 4: he and I, me and Mak be rocking. But yeah,
Speaker 4: your old Drew. He's another the one man. He's just
Speaker 4: super dope, and uh, you know, I had to I
Speaker 4: had to give it up. You know what I'm saying,
Speaker 4: because he proved that he was a real deal.
Speaker 8: I need everybody to realize, who hasn't read this book
Speaker 8: that we probably only covered about.
Speaker 9: Two to three of his talents.
Speaker 8: Now in this book, there is history that gives you
Speaker 8: history on his gourmet cooking talents because yes, he's a
Speaker 8: gourmet chef. There's history to his visual arts talents because
Speaker 8: that's what he went to school for.
Speaker 9: There's also history sing just about to stay that the
Speaker 9: man sank in the choiet and.
Speaker 1: I was shocked. I was like, but I I can
Speaker 1: sing fine, taking sad.
Speaker 8: Yes, yes, yes, yes, yes, But I just I just
Speaker 8: wanted to throw that out there as we are, you know,
Speaker 8: wrapping this up, and I just feel like it's just what.
Speaker 1: Most people say, read the book, read that.
Speaker 4: But no, man, I just want to say, man, before
Speaker 4: we go, dude, you have really been you know what
Speaker 4: I'm saying. I mean, first is even say that you
Speaker 4: felt threatened. I mean, that's just the crazy shit. Ever,
Speaker 4: because when I got that call, I I was jumping
Speaker 4: off the damn wall. I was like, what, like, hell yeah, so,
Speaker 4: but nah, man, you've been one of the people that
Speaker 4: I watch just and has been an example of how
Speaker 4: to age in hip hop, like how and how.
Speaker 1: To do it gracefully and tastefully, you know what I mean.
Speaker 4: So my question for you was who or did you
Speaker 4: have anyone as an example to say, Okay, this is
Speaker 4: what hip hop looks like at forty or fifty, like
Speaker 4: this is a model.
Speaker 1: Did you have that? I mean, you know, not that
Speaker 1: I didn't.
Speaker 4: I mean, yes, I did have that, but I don't
Speaker 4: know that I was as aware of it or just
Speaker 4: tapped into the example as it was being set.
Speaker 1: But you know, I look at people like you know,
Speaker 1: the ll who J's of the world, and even.
Speaker 4: Though it's been a long time, you know what I mean,
Speaker 4: since he's done a tour, right, you know what I mean,
Speaker 4: just the example of being one of the earliest like
Speaker 4: multi hyphenates, right, you know what I mean, just the
Speaker 4: whole polymath of it all, Like with the example of
Speaker 4: him in iced Tea, you know, like set as far
Speaker 4: as like reinvent. I think it was dope and I think,
Speaker 4: you know, just you know, the example of being a
Speaker 4: class act, you know what I mean, is what resonated
Speaker 4: with me, like the most with artists like you know,
Speaker 4: the reason LLL is around and still matters and you know, like.
Speaker 1: People care, you know about all these other endeavors.
Speaker 4: What it is that he's doing is because he's personable
Speaker 4: and he's you know, he's nice to folks, and you
Speaker 4: know he you know, is conscious about leaving a place
Speaker 4: or a personal thing better than he sort of found it.
Speaker 4: And I learned that the first time I inducted, like
Speaker 4: we inducted maybe I've inducted ll into like three you
Speaker 4: know what I mean, National Archives at this at this time.
Speaker 1: But the first time I.
Speaker 4: Did it, it was me and Eminem and Jazzy Jeff
Speaker 4: and it was like the hip Hop Honors thing and
Speaker 4: he called me the next day. I'm like, he found
Speaker 4: my number, you know what I mean? Boom, you know
Speaker 4: they call me yo to reach my on the phone
Speaker 4: for you Yo, cool Jay. I'm like, yeah, yeah, I
Speaker 4: just wanted to thank you for you know what I'm saying, Yo,
Speaker 4: the wave represented be last night's huge, huge.
Speaker 1: Like yo, But it's those those.
Speaker 4: You know, Elverson call you ll Ella is going to
Speaker 4: send you a handwritten thank you new you know what
Speaker 4: I'm saying, you know, sent L L A D M.
Speaker 4: Jokingly like Yo, I see everybody you know, doing these
Speaker 4: boombox I'm boxing they you know, uh uh rock the
Speaker 4: bells jackets with my joint at like you know ship
Speaker 4: seventy two hours later, this is from Mellow Cool J.
Speaker 1: You know what I mean, I got my jacket. Yeah, yeah, yeah,
Speaker 1: it's just like you know, I think, I think you
Speaker 1: know that.
Speaker 4: Is is an example of how to you know, to age,
Speaker 4: to grow, to evolve gracefully in this game. I think
Speaker 4: another dope example has been set by Danna, like Queen Latifa,
Speaker 4: you know what I'm saying, just you know, and these
Speaker 4: are people.
Speaker 1: Who like what they do.
Speaker 4: The challenges that they're able to continue to rise to
Speaker 4: is what gives me reassurance.
Speaker 1: Like yo, I probably could do all the ship.
Speaker 4: You know, out of all the people that I know, right,
Speaker 4: I've never known anyone in my circle or even remotely
Speaker 4: you know, distantly connected to my circle that has never
Speaker 4: given up on a thing and didn't you know, make it.
Speaker 1: You know what I'm saying.
Speaker 4: It's like everybody that I know who shit didn't work,
Speaker 4: who you know what I mean, fell off the rails,
Speaker 4: they gave they gave up, quit, they quit niggas who
Speaker 4: I know I know a bunch of people who didn't
Speaker 4: quit and they've all gone on to greatness, you know,
Speaker 4: so I think there's something in that. And did I
Speaker 4: try to, uh, you know, just be more cognizant of
Speaker 4: those examples again, like when they're being set, because you know,
Speaker 4: a lot of the ship is a blur.
Speaker 2: Nah man, look, I will say, without being as mushy
Speaker 2: as possible, and this is this this and this is
Speaker 2: real maturity right here.
Speaker 1: Well, Toreq, you know, no one ever gets that reference
Speaker 1: and no, no, no, no, here's the deal. In my
Speaker 1: first book when they.
Speaker 2: Were like, all right, do a dedication, moidment right right,
Speaker 2: and there was like do a dedication, and I was like,
Speaker 2: I just want to say, well, Torique, and that's it.
Speaker 2: And you know the publicshers like, well, lips this after it,
Speaker 2: I said, he's going to get he's going to understand it. No, Like, well,
Speaker 2: Toriq was always And the way that manifesting works is
Speaker 2: whenever we would like to take the trains back from
Speaker 2: like busking or whatever, like we would have a ritual
Speaker 2: of like getting famous aime as cookies in orange Juice
Speaker 2: and either watching do the Right Thing or Cape Fear,
Speaker 2: and as we're walking home like two in the morning.
Speaker 1: Very related films as one does on the other. I'm
Speaker 1: with it.
Speaker 2: I just did streaming, but we have options now, we have,
Speaker 2: you know. And the thing was, I do some sillies
Speaker 2: with like well Toeriq. Man.
Speaker 1: We just did like two months in Europe straight that.
Speaker 2: But I'm saying shit as if it were never going
Speaker 2: to happen to in lifeline, like damn Treiq. We just
Speaker 2: playing in front of like twelve thousand people at the
Speaker 2: Philadelphia Spectrum, man, and we're only home for like three
Speaker 2: hours before we got to get up at four morning
Speaker 2: and catch this flight to like Colorado. We be laughing
Speaker 2: like a man like this whatever, and not knowing that
Speaker 2: we're literally manifest. So I would always start some ship
Speaker 2: with well to reek Uh, and I'll just simply say
Speaker 2: thank you, And that's a very loaded thank you without
Speaker 2: being super mussy about it.
Speaker 1: And I'm a mussy person.
Speaker 5: Good just fight again, Yes.
Speaker 1: And fan.
Speaker 2: Mama here, thank you. Thank you for having me the
Speaker 2: great to reach out to or in quest love Supreme.
Speaker 2: You guys can stop asking me a week's episode. See
Speaker 2: you the next go around, y'all.
Speaker 1: Thank you.
Speaker 6: This is Sugar Steve. Thank you for listening to Quest
Speaker 6: Love Supreme. This podcast is hosted by a mere Quest
Speaker 6: Love Thompsona Saint Clair, Fonte Coleman Sugar, Steve Mandel, and
Speaker 6: paid Bill Sherman. Executive producers are a mere Quest of Thompson,
Speaker 6: Sean g and Brian Calhoun. Produced by Britty Benjamin, Jake.
Speaker 5: Payne and Liah Saint Clair.
Speaker 6: Edited by Alex Conroy. Produced for iHeart by Noel Brown
Speaker 6: and Mike Johns.
Speaker 1: Bost Love Supreme is a production of iHeartRadio. For more
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Speaker 1: or wherever you listen to your favorite shows.