Speaker 1: Morning.
Speaker 2: Everybody's the ej Envy, Charlamagne the God. We are the
Speaker 2: Breakfast Club. You got a special guest in the building,
Speaker 2: a legend when it comes to this hip hop thing. Man,
Speaker 2: ladies and gentlemen, Fab five Freddy welcome, brother hey man.
Speaker 3: Pleasure to be here, man, what's happening.
Speaker 4: Pleasure to have you, brother man.
Speaker 3: Thanks so much. Man.
Speaker 4: First of all, how are you.
Speaker 3: I'm wonderful. Thank you for asking.
Speaker 4: Yeah, and you know, we just celebrated fifty years of
Speaker 4: hip hop.
Speaker 3: Incredible.
Speaker 4: What does that mean to Fab five Freddy?
Speaker 5: Wow?
Speaker 6: Man? Like I said, it's been I tell you, it's
Speaker 6: been incredible just going through the motions. But at that
Speaker 6: Yankee Stadium gig, the vibe in there amongst the people,
Speaker 6: the energy, that enthusiasm that like grown folks you know
Speaker 6: that lived through it, been through it hurt, all these
Speaker 6: hits having an incredible time. And then when the axe
Speaker 6: was on, I'm looking way up all around and people
Speaker 6: up in the highest points of Yankee Stadium rocking the house.
Speaker 6: So that hit me like, wow, this people really feel this.
Speaker 6: It's just hard to articulate how how much it resonated
Speaker 6: for the community that made this all happen, and to
Speaker 6: be in the Bronx like it was just it all
Speaker 6: came together for me.
Speaker 5: Did you ever think that hip hop would take it
Speaker 5: this farr to quote the lady, I know, I loved
Speaker 5: that call.
Speaker 3: Not at all, Not at all.
Speaker 6: I mean, I mean I was clearly thinking of, like
Speaker 6: you know, in terms of the moves I made, having
Speaker 6: some control over the narrative, you know, being that being
Speaker 6: aware that people that look like us in previous generations
Speaker 6: of our culture didn't have that ability to host the
Speaker 6: shows that you know, you know, the footprint that you
Speaker 6: guys have and the things that others like us in
Speaker 6: media and do these things. So that was like a
Speaker 6: super significant thing that I thought about from beginning. But
Speaker 6: to see it come to this point globally the most
Speaker 6: listened to form of music around the world, still, it's
Speaker 6: just astonishing.
Speaker 2: Let's let's go back for people that don't know who
Speaker 2: Fab five Freddy is. You started off as a graffiti artist, right, yeah,
Speaker 2: So let's let's start from the beginning how you got
Speaker 2: into this thing called hip hop and what you created
Speaker 2: Because you started off as a graffiti artist, right, and
Speaker 2: I'm sure you were tagging trains back in the day
Speaker 2: because that was the thing to do.
Speaker 6: The trains, that was the thing to do, the trains,
Speaker 6: the walls, the buses, right anywhere. It was an audacious
Speaker 6: thing to do when when I think back, so many
Speaker 6: New York teenagers back then in the seventies just felt
Speaker 6: like it was okay to put your name anywhere you
Speaker 6: felt it needed to be. And then the competition of
Speaker 6: that developed into a real, you know, refined and defined
Speaker 6: form of expression, ways of using them spray cans that
Speaker 6: nobody ever envision anywhere, Like you know, spray cans is
Speaker 6: just just you know, the pain and the old piece
Speaker 6: or whatever right around the house. Now we've created, you know,
Speaker 6: a way to make murals that kind of tell stories
Speaker 6: about who we are and what we you know, where
Speaker 6: we are and what we want to be and do
Speaker 6: and all those things. It was like a fantasy, you know,
Speaker 6: kind of like rap was that too. I'm going to
Speaker 6: invent myself and talk about all these things I want
Speaker 6: to do, And in graph as it began to really flower,
Speaker 6: it was like, you know, I'm a superhero and my
Speaker 6: name is Big and you know, all those things kind
Speaker 6: of took off in ways that and then you know,
Speaker 6: early on I got something clicked in my head that,
Speaker 6: you know, looking at pop art and what you know.
Speaker 6: I used to go to museums a lot as a
Speaker 6: kid and looked at what Andy Warholl and these pop
Speaker 6: artists were doing, and I was like, wait a minute,
Speaker 6: they're inspired by the same things that we were as
Speaker 6: graffiti artists, like like looking at popular culture names, comic
Speaker 6: book logos, you know. And then and that kind of
Speaker 6: made me want to be a visual artist like those
Speaker 6: guys were. And then that began a journey that I
Speaker 6: kind of helped lead, taking graffiti art into galleries, turning
Speaker 6: it into something called street.
Speaker 3: Art, which is also like a global thing.
Speaker 6: You know, probably heard of my homie Rest in Peace
Speaker 6: Jean michel Boski io young brother out of Brooklyn, and
Speaker 6: we met on that downtown scene. Had similar aspirations figure
Speaker 6: out a way to be artists, Like Malcolm X said,
Speaker 6: by any means necessarily, yeah, he used to Jean was tagging,
Speaker 6: but he was putting up these like poetic phrases, quotes
Speaker 6: that were not in any way like typical graffiti, but
Speaker 6: it was a part of graffiti.
Speaker 3: And nobody knew he was a young brother doing it.
Speaker 6: Initially He started out doing something called same O, which
Speaker 6: was sort of short for same O, you know what
Speaker 6: I mean.
Speaker 3: And then that developed and then we met and he
Speaker 3: was on the scene.
Speaker 6: He turned out to be a brother like he was
Speaker 6: doing stuff around Soho in the village area. People didn't
Speaker 6: know he was a brother, and we met at a
Speaker 6: party writer as I'm kind of stepping on that downtown
Speaker 6: art scene, and we both had similar aspirations to try
Speaker 6: to figure this out, so we began to you know,
Speaker 6: we kind of linked up and we're in the same circuit.
Speaker 6: Blondie was somebody that we met pretty much at the
Speaker 6: same time. I'm in their ear about this new culture,
Speaker 6: and then they kind of took us under their wings,
Speaker 6: so to speak, and brought out work some of the
Speaker 6: first people to buy paintings.
Speaker 3: For myself and Jean Michelle and then made.
Speaker 6: You know, took some inspiration from them stories I told
Speaker 6: them and made a record called Rapture Altho.
Speaker 2: We Got to Stay Here for a Minute was the
Speaker 2: first video on MTV.
Speaker 6: That was one of the MTV's first videos, which I'm
Speaker 6: featured in along with Jean Michelle. I tried to get
Speaker 6: flash was supposed to have come to be the DJ
Speaker 6: i'd met, because you know, it was working on the
Speaker 6: first hip hop movie while Style of It in that
Speaker 6: same time frame, early eighties. I said, Flash, come down
Speaker 6: and be in this video. You know, to think that
Speaker 6: there was no MTV at that time, so we did
Speaker 6: music video was not a thing. But still I'm like,
Speaker 6: they had this idea to create a music video. All
Speaker 6: the people we hung out with were in the video.
Speaker 6: Flash never showed up. So I said, Jean stand at
Speaker 6: the turntables, and I try to tell Majean just stood
Speaker 6: there with a grin on his face. So in the raption,
Speaker 6: so as Debbie starts to rap in the first line
Speaker 6: on this Fab five, Freddy told me everybody's fly.
Speaker 3: She's saying it to Jean and then she you know,
Speaker 3: the song goes on.
Speaker 6: So that turned out to be one of MTV's first
Speaker 6: videos when the channel launched, and close to ten years later,
Speaker 6: they would they were kind of pressured into trying to,
Speaker 6: you know, to do a show about rap music, and
Speaker 6: I got the call YOMTV raps.
Speaker 5: I want to hear more about Boski at but I
Speaker 5: want to talk about Blondie too, because we had these
Speaker 5: conversations about fifty years of hip hop, and when I'm
Speaker 5: starting to realize is the role that Blondie played and
Speaker 5: helping get helping get hip hop main screaming, we have
Speaker 5: all these conversations about white allies. Now, she was one
Speaker 5: back then because I saw something. I was watching the
Speaker 5: Ladies First documentary and she put shot, uh, Funky is
Speaker 5: the Funky Funky four plus Funky four plus one on CNL.
Speaker 6: That's right, And that was me because I had been
Speaker 6: in there are playing them old school hip hop party tapes,
Speaker 6: breaking it all down, and so a lot of the
Speaker 6: things that she's saying in the app with things that
Speaker 6: I told her, you know, flashes, fast flashes, coolrefaid. You
Speaker 6: told me everybody's fly on the early hip hop scene,
Speaker 6: it was fly guys and fly girls. So I'm telling
Speaker 6: her the slang, explaining how Flash was the fastest DJ
Speaker 6: and how that was a big thing. And I was
Speaker 6: amazed that they went out and made that record. I
Speaker 6: knew they were feeling me. Her and her boyfriend at
Speaker 6: the time, Chris Stein, that was the nucleus of Blondie.
Speaker 6: I would they would invite me to come hang out
Speaker 6: with them and we would just talk on pop culture.
Speaker 6: Chris Stine. He was from Brooklyn. He loved the graffiti
Speaker 6: on the train. So when I said, hey, I'm one
Speaker 6: of those guys, oh man, I love that stuff. And
Speaker 6: then I began to share my ideas trying to figure
Speaker 6: out a way to be a visual artist, trying to
Speaker 6: make it happen. It was actually them that took that.
Speaker 6: The first time I met mister Andy Walholl was through them,
Speaker 6: and then we you know, me and Andy and I
Speaker 6: became friends. He was a supporter of what we were doing.
Speaker 6: And yeah, they made that record and it went number
Speaker 6: one across the country and many countries around the world.
Speaker 6: And I don't I don't describe it as hip hop,
Speaker 6: but it was the first time people heard rapping in
Speaker 6: a context. And then also what she was, what she
Speaker 6: graciously did was shout me out and mentioned other things
Speaker 6: in the scene that I told her later. When Flash
Speaker 6: did this record, the Adventures of Grand Master Flasher on
Speaker 6: the Wheels of Steel, where he literally made a record
Speaker 6: an example of what he would do live, just masterfully
Speaker 6: cut up a series of records.
Speaker 3: It started with.
Speaker 6: Using that using that rapture song where you hear that thing,
Speaker 6: and then he cuts it into a whole bunch of
Speaker 6: different other songs are cut.
Speaker 5: In, which is how do you think people like Blondie
Speaker 5: avoided the label of culture vulture back then?
Speaker 6: You know what I mean, that's a good question, But
Speaker 6: that word culture volta as a concept didn't exist, and
Speaker 6: I think it was I mean, if you had really
Speaker 6: dived into hip hop, which wasn't that big of an
Speaker 6: audience outside of New York.
Speaker 3: Most people did know what the hell she was doing.
Speaker 3: They just were big Blondie fans.
Speaker 6: She sang as the record opened in her lovely voice
Speaker 6: and then broke into this rap and was pretty decent
Speaker 6: at it, you know, all things considered.
Speaker 3: It's not like I sat there.
Speaker 6: With her and tried to teach her how to rap.
Speaker 6: She had rhythm and just said, I'm going to make
Speaker 6: a record. Fat. I've been in her ear a lot,
Speaker 6: and this record was a reflection at It was such
Speaker 6: a gracious thing because it turned out to be a
Speaker 6: calling card for me. Nobody really knew who I was.
Speaker 6: I hadn't been on TV then, you know. And then
Speaker 6: when MTV happened and they decided to try it out immediately,
Speaker 6: it had the highest ratings any show had had at
Speaker 6: that time. Then people began to figure out, wait a minute,
Speaker 6: that's the guy that Blondie.
Speaker 1: Mentioned, let's go back to your TV raps. So your
Speaker 1: on TV raps.
Speaker 2: They flipped this channel and they create this hip hop
Speaker 2: show called Your MTV Raps. Right, I'm sure at the
Speaker 2: time it was kind of like a stab against Ralph
Speaker 2: McDaniel's Video Music Box.
Speaker 3: No, not at all.
Speaker 6: No, Ralph was definitely I was a fan of Ralph's
Speaker 6: show from the beginning in it. But they were resistant
Speaker 6: what MTV was trying to do. It's interesting that you
Speaker 6: you guys are now, you know, have this big position
Speaker 6: doing radio. The guys like you, well, you know, the
Speaker 6: thing was radio was pretty segregated, and in the American charts,
Speaker 6: I mean, England was different. That's why I referenced America
Speaker 6: pop pretty much meant white essentially, So no matter what
Speaker 6: kind of record you made, if you could, you know,
Speaker 6: make a record that was popping all the descriptive ways,
Speaker 6: the people doing it were black, they would most often
Speaker 6: off end up on the R and B or the
Speaker 6: soul chart or the dance chart. And so MTV was
Speaker 6: set up to try to mirror that a visual form
Speaker 6: of what of what American radio stations were and so
Speaker 6: when black acts got big, they were like, why am
Speaker 6: I not getting any love on there? And so, with
Speaker 6: the exception of a little line of Richie, a Little Prince,
Speaker 6: there was very little black music to be seen. And
Speaker 6: then I think it was Michael Jackson's label, Columbia's CBS
Speaker 6: if I'm not mistaken, Epic, whichever one of those really
Speaker 6: pressured them and they said, listen, we're going to pull
Speaker 6: all out other acts, which included Bruce Springsteen off of MTV.
Speaker 6: If you don't play Michael Jackson. I think that specifically
Speaker 6: was Billy Jean, and then they played it. The numbers
Speaker 6: went through the roof and then came Thriller and everything
Speaker 6: like that, so that really they had to realize that
Speaker 6: this time to change up that attitude. And then there
Speaker 6: with two young white guys at MTV, Peter Doughty and
Speaker 6: then Ted Demi Rest in Peace. Peter I've known on
Speaker 6: the downtown scene.
Speaker 3: He knew things.
Speaker 6: I was moves I was making with Blondie and hip
Speaker 6: hop's first film, Wild Style, and so he was in
Speaker 6: their ear. Like records were selling like Crazy Run dmcll.
Speaker 6: Some of those first early hip hop records were going crazy,
Speaker 6: no marketing, no promo, and so they said, okay, we're
Speaker 6: going to try try this out, and they tried it.
Speaker 6: Keep them and also I'd like to make There was
Speaker 6: a European version called The Yo Show that a female
Speaker 6: named Sophie Bromley, a frenchwoman North African French woman who
Speaker 6: was really cool, had hosted for a short period of
Speaker 6: time only on MTV Europe. And then they decided that's
Speaker 6: so that's where the Yo came from. There was a
Speaker 6: Yo and then they said, okay, well we're gonna call
Speaker 6: it Yo MTV.
Speaker 3: Raps and it went.
Speaker 1: And they called you first. You were the first.
Speaker 3: Yeah, because I knew Peter and they saw the moves
Speaker 3: I was making.
Speaker 6: They saw the Rapture video, they saw the film Wild Style,
Speaker 6: which you know I produced it all original music.
Speaker 3: For, and then you know, one of the lead characters.
Speaker 6: So I had a bit of a presence and they
Speaker 6: you know, made this argument and they said, let's give
Speaker 6: it a try. And the ratings were crazy from the jump,
Speaker 6: and so I held down the Saturday slot. They'd asked
Speaker 6: me about a year or two into it. They wanted
Speaker 6: to get a daily version of the show, and I
Speaker 6: didn't want to over expose myself.
Speaker 3: Plus, I'm I'm directing music videos at the time.
Speaker 6: The first video I did was my philosophy Carros one,
Speaker 6: Carross one, and then a whole string of videos.
Speaker 3: So I wanted to stay in my land. I didn't
Speaker 3: want people to be like, oh man, I'm tired of
Speaker 3: seeing him him on the screen.
Speaker 6: You know whatever, Like a lot of those other VJs
Speaker 6: would be on there for hours introducing all these you know, Duran,
Speaker 6: Duran and whatever else, and then they luckily found ed
Speaker 6: Love and Doctor Dre.
Speaker 2: How long were you working at Young TV raps before
Speaker 2: they brought in at Love and Dre?
Speaker 6: It was about it because it was close to two
Speaker 6: years the first two.
Speaker 2: If I'm not mistaken, and you wasn't you wasn't upset
Speaker 2: with leaving or you wanted to leave or was it well?
Speaker 6: When it ended about six or seven years in which
Speaker 6: was incredible run, it was kind of sad that it
Speaker 6: came to an end.
Speaker 3: But I realized, like, you know.
Speaker 6: Those acts that debuted on your TV raps were so pivotal,
Speaker 6: they were so defining of the culture. Like the first
Speaker 6: time people saw you know, Tupac Nwa, you know, Luke
Speaker 6: and then my go to these areas.
Speaker 5: Where were you invented that everybody that's doing these these
Speaker 5: these shows now where they go to where people are
Speaker 5: that's absolutely fab far Freddy, fab far Freddy invented on
Speaker 5: location conversation.
Speaker 3: Yeah, and that was motivated by the way MTV had
Speaker 3: been set up. The VJs would be in a room.
Speaker 6: They would have all these crooky images going on in
Speaker 6: the background, kind of a crazy you know, just mash
Speaker 6: up of visuals and they'd be on for two, three,
Speaker 6: four hours at a time, and it was like, I mean,
Speaker 6: they're like, man, I just want to see this video,
Speaker 6: you know, you know, slame dude on the screen.
Speaker 3: What's going on? So I just was all about lessons more.
Speaker 3: It was a thing for me.
Speaker 6: And yeah, so it was, it was, it was.
Speaker 3: It was a beautiful run.
Speaker 5: I know, we're gonna be all over the place because
Speaker 5: you just got such a great hit, so many gems
Speaker 5: like and I know you said you didn't see hip
Speaker 5: hop going as far, but as far as hip hop
Speaker 5: becoming mainstream, you played a big.
Speaker 4: Role in that.
Speaker 5: Like when I think of the movie Wild Style, like
Speaker 5: what did that movie mean to you and hip hop
Speaker 5: at that at that time.
Speaker 6: Yeah, well, you know, that was an idea that I
Speaker 6: had had to try to create a better look for us.
Speaker 6: A lot of times in the media when somebody was
Speaker 6: a young Black or Latin person when they were seeing,
Speaker 6: you know, some cool street person was almost always in
Speaker 6: a negative context, and I wanted to try to do
Speaker 6: something to change that narrative. Also as trying to be
Speaker 6: a visual artist, which was the main thing I focused on,
Speaker 6: but dabbling in other forms of creative expression.
Speaker 3: I wanted to just put us all in a better
Speaker 3: light and then show what we were doing.
Speaker 6: So the idea that I had had for a wild
Speaker 6: Style was to show a way to show the connection
Speaker 6: between all these elements that are part of hip hop
Speaker 6: now that didn't exist before. So the idea was to
Speaker 6: make a film that showed the connection between this rapping,
Speaker 6: this djang, the breakdancing, and the visual form of expression.
Speaker 6: Graffidi and I hooked up with this cat Charlie Ahearn,
Speaker 6: who was an underground filmmaker on the downtown scene in
Speaker 6: New York. He had made a super low budget movie
Speaker 6: about kung Fu that had caught my eye. When I
Speaker 6: linked with him, I basically pitched this idea for the movie,
Speaker 6: and he said, essentially, let's get busy.
Speaker 3: So then we started researching.
Speaker 6: Going to parties in the Bronx, going to the t Connection,
Speaker 6: the Ecstasy Garage, meeting Busy Bee, Cold Crush, Fantastic, Funky
Speaker 6: Four plus one more including shah Rock, and that was
Speaker 6: how to jump back to the Blondie thing. When they
Speaker 6: got the opportunity to host Saturday Night Saturday Night Live,
Speaker 6: they also got to pick who the support act was
Speaker 6: and they wanted to bring somebody hip hop on.
Speaker 3: So we talked about flashing the Furious Five.
Speaker 6: Of course they were big, but then I said, you know,
Speaker 6: the Funky Four, similar to Blondie, has a female like
Speaker 6: out front, and I thought it was a nice counterbalance.
Speaker 5: Now what they talked about in the Ladies first Dog,
Speaker 5: I don't know you've seen him, but like they break
Speaker 5: that whole thing down, Like it was all because of
Speaker 5: the shah Rock that Blondie wanted her to wanted them
Speaker 5: to be the group correct.
Speaker 3: So that was me behind that and that was incredible.
Speaker 6: I remember being at Saturday Night Live for the taping
Speaker 6: of that, and it was a young brother that had
Speaker 6: I didn't really get to kick it with him that
Speaker 6: much that had just joined the Saturday Night crew, and
Speaker 6: that was Eddie Murphy.
Speaker 3: Wow.
Speaker 6: Yeah, just started around and I remember seeing because it
Speaker 6: was another brother that used to be on Eddie Saturday
Speaker 6: Night Live in the beginning.
Speaker 3: Garrett Morris was.
Speaker 6: His name, absolutely, and then this young kat Eddie who
Speaker 6: would later like blow up all over the place a
Speaker 6: little bit.
Speaker 5: It's so interesting because you know, I keep hearing you
Speaker 5: talk about you wanted to make sure hip hop was
Speaker 5: presented in the right way, right, So I wonder, like,
Speaker 5: what are your thoughts on the genre of hip hop now?
Speaker 6: Well, you know, hip hop has continually amazed me with
Speaker 6: the different turns and the evolutions that have happened within it.
Speaker 6: That's been the most fascinating thing for me. And some
Speaker 6: of the things that I've hoped for have come to light.
Speaker 6: Like I remember the very early days when it was
Speaker 6: all pretty much throw your hands in the air waving
Speaker 6: like you just don't careybody say, oh, it's pretty much
Speaker 6: a party, uplifting kind of vibe.
Speaker 3: And that was cool.
Speaker 6: But then I said, man, if somebody can figure out
Speaker 6: a way to say something that was socially relevant, I
Speaker 6: knew that would elevate us, and that was the message
Speaker 6: broken glass everywhere, you know, don't push me because I'm
Speaker 6: close to the edge. Really articulated how a lot of
Speaker 6: people were living in New York and other hoods, and
Speaker 6: everybody got the memo that we can now throw our
Speaker 6: hands in the air and have a party, but we
Speaker 6: can talk about our realities in these streets.
Speaker 3: And that was exciting.
Speaker 6: And then so there's been things that have happened along
Speaker 6: the way that I've been really enthusiastic about. Obviously, when
Speaker 6: the conscious movement came in me working with KRS one
Speaker 6: in the beginning and Chuck d and everything, that opened
Speaker 6: up a whole another chamber that was incredible. Didn't see
Speaker 6: it coming, but it was definitely needed. And I think
Speaker 6: hip hop is gonna fit. It constantly figures out a way,
Speaker 6: it evolves. It's a it's like a living organism, and
Speaker 6: different affected come in and may go off the track
Speaker 6: a little bit with certain things, and then they'll come
Speaker 6: back with something that totally blows us away. Like I
Speaker 6: think the African even though it's not specifically hip hop,
Speaker 6: it's very inspired by the things that we've done. So
Speaker 6: the afrobeats and the Ama piano, which is a sound
Speaker 6: coming out of South Africa, a young kind of dance
Speaker 6: type sound which is unique, is incredible as well as
Speaker 6: well as what the cats in England have figured out.
Speaker 3: On the grime side.
Speaker 6: You know storm Z and those cats that were constantly
Speaker 6: early in the early days of what they were doing.
Speaker 6: They were constantly trying to emulate rap groups from over here.
Speaker 6: I went to England and covered them during the Your
Speaker 6: TV Raps era. I remember London Posse was one of
Speaker 6: the hottest groups at the time that had a New
Speaker 6: York East Coast kind of wrap flow. But they never
Speaker 6: really blew up as big as they wanted to in England.
Speaker 6: But then they figured out how to do it in
Speaker 6: their own way, with their own sl in their own
Speaker 6: way way of speaking, and they made some dope records
Speaker 6: and blew ups.
Speaker 2: What's your thoughts on a lot of the legends and
Speaker 2: ogs who are the founders and creators and made this
Speaker 2: platform where there are billionaires and people are millionaires, but
Speaker 2: they haven't got to just do financially and a lot
Speaker 2: of those brothers are not doing well now. But if
Speaker 2: it wasn't for them, you wouldn't have the sound. They
Speaker 2: wouldn't be the movies, the music, the DJs, the rappers.
Speaker 2: What's your thoughts on that? Because I always feel like, damn,
Speaker 2: should there be like a union for the creators of this?
Speaker 5: You know.
Speaker 3: Wow, there's something coming up that I'm involved in.
Speaker 2: I can't elaborate on it a lot because l said
Speaker 2: there something coming up that he said he can't elaborate
Speaker 2: on either yet.
Speaker 3: Yeah, ll is probably a where I'm a part of
Speaker 3: what he's doing with Rock the.
Speaker 4: By the way, he said, you one of the founders, Well, yeah,
Speaker 4: he reads you.
Speaker 3: Yeah, I have some equity in that.
Speaker 6: And he made an incredible presentation, flew me out to
Speaker 6: really pitch in a proper way.
Speaker 3: I was saying, I'd have got down with him.
Speaker 6: He didn't have to go that, but I was impressed
Speaker 6: that he wanted to demonstrate he had learned how to
Speaker 6: play that business game properly. And I got down with him,
Speaker 6: signed the papers, and I'm super impressed to see what's happening.
Speaker 6: So there's something that's coming up, which is something that's
Speaker 6: going to address that and do something significant towards people
Speaker 6: that haven't gotten there just do but that have had
Speaker 6: a significant impact.
Speaker 3: Trust me.
Speaker 6: In the fall, something's going to go down. You guys
Speaker 6: are going to get the memo and hopefully we can
Speaker 6: continue that and hopefully there'll be more versions of this
Speaker 6: that are a significant give back to pioneers. Unfortunately, because
Speaker 6: in that very very very early, almost pre record days
Speaker 6: or the beginnings of that, a lot of cats didn't
Speaker 6: figure out how to monetize and how to do the
Speaker 6: kind of good business that you guys clearly have both
Speaker 6: figured out, which is incredible.
Speaker 3: Brothers like those Earn your Leisure.
Speaker 6: Cats are laying out a road map for how we
Speaker 6: can be fiscally attuned and aware of ways of doing
Speaker 6: the proper things with our money all.
Speaker 4: The time, exactly.
Speaker 6: Yeah, the Aunlesia guys I met. I ran into them
Speaker 6: the other day. In fact, when when when you know,
Speaker 6: those cats were here in New York. And so that's
Speaker 6: a problem unfortunately that it just is what it is,
Speaker 6: you know, But I think there's been examples once once
Speaker 6: again on the positive side, you've had cats that figured
Speaker 6: out how to how to do business right, how to.
Speaker 3: Accumulate not just be rich, accumulate wealth.
Speaker 6: You know, it's difference between rich and wealthy, and it's
Speaker 6: great to see cats working on that now.
Speaker 5: Yeah, because I thought about that with y'all, like, what
Speaker 5: was the future for VJs back then? Like did y'all
Speaker 5: even know what the future looked like? Like what what
Speaker 5: did y'all aspire to be after the VJ thing?
Speaker 3: Well, good question. Thankfully for me, I was doing something prior.
Speaker 6: I was already making moves, you know, making art, you know,
Speaker 6: making films like Wild Style, and the VJ thing just
Speaker 6: came to me really honestly, which was great. People would
Speaker 6: run up to me, I want to do this, How
Speaker 6: do you do it? I was like, Man, I'd be
Speaker 6: awkward because I'm like, I can't tell you how to
Speaker 6: do There's no to go to VJ school do this.
Speaker 3: It was just a moment.
Speaker 6: Clearly MTV is a different you know, all that stuff
Speaker 6: like doesn't exist. People can do millions of people do
Speaker 6: that on YouTube, you know, if you will. So there
Speaker 6: wasn't really a clear path if you will, but if
Speaker 6: you like you say, like I think interestingly Ed lover
Speaker 6: going to radio along with Doctor Dre initially and being
Speaker 6: really good at it was a great transition. There were
Speaker 6: some people that had worked that radio behind the scenes
Speaker 6: and whatever that then came to MTV. Stephen Hill have
Speaker 6: been a radio person that then transitioned to become one
Speaker 6: of the producers at MTV.
Speaker 3: But yeah, that's a good one.
Speaker 6: Man. It wasn't too many clear paths other than radio
Speaker 6: or some type of TV announced it and maybe commercials
Speaker 6: or whatever.
Speaker 3: But for me, like I wanted to just get back
Speaker 3: to doing the things that I'm doing.
Speaker 6: I'm like an obsessive creative and so that's it, you know,
Speaker 6: it's just creating and that's still what I primarily do.
Speaker 5: I mean, you had to be right, and man, when
Speaker 5: you hear you talking, I'm like the role that art
Speaker 5: played in hip hop when you talk about Boskiyaut, when
Speaker 5: you talk about Warhol, I feel like, damn, that might
Speaker 5: be what's kind of missing, like that connection to art,
Speaker 5: like actual art.
Speaker 3: Yeah.
Speaker 6: Well, you know it's interesting too because of the continued
Speaker 6: success and awareness of Jean Michelle and other things that
Speaker 6: we've done. How street art like hip hop, is a
Speaker 6: global form of expression. People and countries around the world
Speaker 6: take it to the streets, so people are aware of
Speaker 6: art in a way, and I think that's a great
Speaker 6: thing about using this tech to inform ourselves. And because
Speaker 6: I'd like to say all this stuff that we really
Speaker 6: want want to know or to get a at least
Speaker 6: an overview is a few clicks away, and.
Speaker 3: You could you know who's Andy?
Speaker 7: Will you know?
Speaker 5: I was?
Speaker 6: You know like me, I was one of those cats
Speaker 6: that would go to the library and love spending some
Speaker 6: time in some books and which is a foundation of
Speaker 6: a lot of things I've done. But now you can
Speaker 6: you can click through it and see it and chat
Speaker 6: gpt it. You know, use those things before those things
Speaker 6: use you.
Speaker 5: Like is has gotten you know, put on him because
Speaker 5: of hip hop, and it's like back then he didn't
Speaker 5: get the opportunity because he died like before hip hop
Speaker 5: kind of took off that eighty eight.
Speaker 2: That was gonna ask were you surprised of the explosion
Speaker 2: because it came so late?
Speaker 6: Well it was, it was building though bese Jean was
Speaker 6: just a fascinating character. So there was a films and
Speaker 6: interest in his life once people heard, like, you know
Speaker 6: who he really was and the things he was doing
Speaker 6: in the moves he was making.
Speaker 3: And yeah, so it's it's been.
Speaker 6: It's just continue used to grow it like it feeds
Speaker 6: and it's like a it's like an organism. The the
Speaker 6: awareness of Jean and his work and then the exciting
Speaker 6: stories about his life and basically how we lived back then.
Speaker 6: You know, this young brothers trying to figure it out
Speaker 6: and figuring out a way to get in. It's just that, Jean,
Speaker 6: It's exploded in a significant way and inspired a lot
Speaker 6: of other people to just dig in and learn more
Speaker 6: about art. That was the thing that we both cut
Speaker 6: school and went to museums a lot as young kids
Speaker 6: and got comfortable with the idea of making art, standing
Speaker 6: in front of great paintings in the Metropolitan Museum, the
Speaker 6: Brooklyn Museum and things like that, the Museum a Modern
Speaker 6: Art and being comfortable with these important pieces that you
Speaker 6: would later see in different books and stuff, and then
Speaker 6: go and look, I can do this too, and I'm gonna.
Speaker 3: Figure out a way in. That was the the strategic thing.
Speaker 6: There was really no clear way in, so we would
Speaker 6: huddle and think about ways to get in that weren't
Speaker 6: the kind of formal ways in, and that was through
Speaker 6: connecting with other people that was making moves like Blondie,
Speaker 6: other people on the downtown New York scene at the time,
Speaker 6: pulled us in and then we like made things happen,
Speaker 6: put our shows up, you know, group shows and things,
Speaker 6: and then caught the tension of the major players that had.
Speaker 3: To acknowledge what was going on.
Speaker 1: How many pieces do you have?
Speaker 6: I've had work. Artists that are friends usually will trade
Speaker 6: things with each other. So over the years, me and
Speaker 6: him being cool, you know a few things would change hands.
Speaker 2: You know how many people called you and be like, yo,
Speaker 2: I know you got some crazy when it comes up
Speaker 2: some pieces, you know the numbers on his work.
Speaker 6: It's so crazy. It's such an awkward conversation. Now it's
Speaker 6: like somebody asking you about the value of things that
Speaker 6: you own or can buy now or whatever, which against
Speaker 6: kind of personal at a certain point, but the things
Speaker 6: got so crazy it's an awkward conversation app because you know,
Speaker 6: you think about the security and how you're gonna you know,
Speaker 6: how you're gonna hold it down, or can you keep
Speaker 6: this in the house now because it's so crazy, like
Speaker 6: does this make sense to keep this here?
Speaker 3: Or should you just find a safer place.
Speaker 2: Now that not not just being stolen, but you don't
Speaker 2: want the house to get flooded or catch five because
Speaker 2: it's an investment.
Speaker 1: At one piece that was just your your brother's art.
Speaker 1: Now it's like Jesus, you got a lie.
Speaker 3: I'm not saying I'm not gonna get it.
Speaker 4: To come to my credit, you got enough. You have
Speaker 4: to think, ain't nobody seen it before?
Speaker 3: Oh well, guys, I'm getting I'm getting I'm getting pressed.
Speaker 5: You know what?
Speaker 4: I do want to ask you about Boskout and Warhall
Speaker 4: or two things.
Speaker 5: What were those conversations like, because you see all these
Speaker 5: Andy Warholl quotes, Like one of my favorite Andy Warholl
Speaker 5: quotes is in the future, everybody will be world famous
Speaker 5: for fifteen minutes.
Speaker 4: Did he really talk like that?
Speaker 6: No, But he wrote a book called The Philosophy of
Speaker 6: Andy Warhol, From a to Being Back Again, and that
Speaker 6: was where he had a lot of other really smart things.
Speaker 6: Andy was very perceptive, very astute about the whole pop
Speaker 6: culture game before it it developed into.
Speaker 3: Where it is now.
Speaker 6: So he literally saw things that were coming, you know,
Speaker 6: And so that was a part of the genius of Andy.
Speaker 6: But then his public persona was kind of like simple
Speaker 6: answers like oh, g no, you know, so you would
Speaker 6: you would kind of come off like he wasn't that
Speaker 6: kind of savvy a guy that he but he really was.
Speaker 6: It was a very kind of a cultivated persona. So
Speaker 6: when you got to know him and you hanging out
Speaker 6: and talk, he really was like a big brother in
Speaker 6: many ways. And he saw that we were coming up,
Speaker 6: we were having exhibits, he would tell you, oh, this gallery.
Speaker 3: Watch out for that dealer. Oh my goodness, he's this
Speaker 3: and that. I'm like, oh wow.
Speaker 6: So he would be very chatty and very talky when
Speaker 6: you got to know him, but his public persona was
Speaker 6: a was a whole different thing. The Netflix doc that
Speaker 6: I took part in, and then I felt a little
Speaker 6: awkward because Andy was gay, and I didn't know he
Speaker 6: was gay in that regard because his whole perception was
Speaker 6: I'm a a sexual if you will. So I was like, Okay,
Speaker 6: you know, he's not messing with anybody, and I've never
Speaker 6: seen him around anybody that was his lover, girlfriend, what
Speaker 6: have you. But the Netflix doc got really deep into
Speaker 6: the relationships he had, and I felt like, almost almost
Speaker 6: embarrassed to get all this info that. I was like, man,
Speaker 6: he so, you know, he's so strategically kept it positive
Speaker 6: to see it all laid out, and I was in
Speaker 6: that dock. I took part in that, but I just
Speaker 6: it was a lot that I didn't really realize was
Speaker 6: going on. You care.
Speaker 4: He probably didn't even cared.
Speaker 3: Really, I didn't really care that.
Speaker 6: It was just interesting just how crafty he was and
Speaker 6: how on top of culture he was for a really
Speaker 6: long time, way before he you know, like into the
Speaker 6: early sixties, like the Walhall Factory and that scene. Almost
Speaker 6: anybody could have came up in there hang out and
Speaker 6: hang around, and that might be like Lou Reed, you know, uh,
Speaker 6: just a whole bunch of you know, Jim Morrison, Jimmy Hendrix,
Speaker 6: like artists, people just doing wild psychedelic drugs or whatever
Speaker 6: would all hang out and then somebody just walked up
Speaker 6: in there and basically shot him.
Speaker 4: You know.
Speaker 3: The chick said, you're.
Speaker 6: Controlling my life, like you know, the just the buzz
Speaker 6: on him had was driving her crazy. And so that
Speaker 6: then shifted him to shut down a bit and to
Speaker 6: close the gates, and then he went to another level
Speaker 6: with it.
Speaker 4: But but he got shut You got shot by somebody
Speaker 4: who's clearly a craze fan.
Speaker 6: Man. Listen, Okay, you controlling my life, stop tuning into me.
Speaker 4: Then that't got it to do with me.
Speaker 6: Yeah, So that that was a It was a wild story.
Speaker 6: But yeah, he was a definitely big influence on a
Speaker 6: lot of us. He had broke through in ways, and
Speaker 6: then when we started making Noise and he started coming
Speaker 6: to events we were having, it was a symbol that
Speaker 6: we were doing the right thing, and you know, he
Speaker 6: was acknowledging the work. And then it took it to
Speaker 6: the next level. Him and Jean Michelle collaborated on a
Speaker 6: series of paintings together and that was like unbelievable. So
Speaker 6: that got Andy to put the brush on canvas in
Speaker 6: ways that he hadn't done in many years.
Speaker 1: And was any of those pieces no No.
Speaker 5: When I think about y'all being, you know, young back then,
Speaker 5: it's like, yo, what and you I don't know what
Speaker 5: were y'all?
Speaker 7: What was youall aspirations? Like what did you and Oboskaya
Speaker 7: want to do? Like we were just you know, that's
Speaker 7: a good question, too, kind. We were just trying to
Speaker 7: have an impact as artists. We were trying to rock
Speaker 7: our scene, which was a downtown scene.
Speaker 6: This was obviously thinking this is pre the Internet and
Speaker 6: pre access where anybody can have instant access practically to anything.
Speaker 3: Going on in the world, pre big money. Yeah, but
Speaker 3: it was pre big money and big money.
Speaker 6: We were looking to be comfortable and be able to
Speaker 6: pay the bills and pay the rent and then you know,
Speaker 6: have good meals and take you know, hang out with
Speaker 6: our friends and party. We didn't have that.
Speaker 3: It wasn't like a like a like a focused on
Speaker 3: just getting paid.
Speaker 6: It was really making an impact with with your with
Speaker 6: our work and really being heard and being seen.
Speaker 3: That's something that led me.
Speaker 6: At a point when I'm making paintings and was doing
Speaker 6: pretty decent at it, I was getting a little restless
Speaker 6: with just painting, and Jean and I both had talked
Speaker 6: about using any medium we can get our hands on,
Speaker 6: so make music, which he dabbled with a bit, produce
Speaker 6: films as well as being films, which you know we
Speaker 6: both did at that time. And so that was one
Speaker 6: of the motivating things that a lot that we that
Speaker 6: we talked about and were just driven to kind of
Speaker 6: find ways of expressing ourselves.
Speaker 2: Do you remember how much and I know we asked
Speaker 2: a lot of questions. Do you remember this was a
Speaker 2: long time ago. Do you remember how much paintings went
Speaker 2: for back then when y'all soul paintings you or biscout
Speaker 2: to even warhole, what like what they were going for
Speaker 2: price wise back then in the beginning.
Speaker 6: If you could sell your work for a few thousand dollars,
Speaker 6: that's great. And then if things move, then those numbers
Speaker 6: could either quickly go up or go up at a
Speaker 6: nice moderate rate, because as people acquire to work, and
Speaker 6: you know, if the work is accepted and respected and
Speaker 6: you know, written about, and other people want to show
Speaker 6: the work, there's an incremental increase in the prices. And
Speaker 6: then at a certain point it can just go really
Speaker 6: really crazy, which it clearly did for Jean.
Speaker 3: But you know, he.
Speaker 6: Received a lot of that, like while he was alive
Speaker 6: and then sadly unfortunately, you know, passing really young at
Speaker 6: twenty seven, and then it just shifted into a whole.
Speaker 3: Nother level, which you know, was just a part of it.
Speaker 6: But I think the great thing though, is there's a
Speaker 6: lot more young artists, just artists of color, even artists
Speaker 6: that laid the foundation back in the times at the
Speaker 6: Harlem Renaissance, significant Black artists Jacob Lawrence, Romar Beard and
Speaker 6: Charles Austin.
Speaker 3: A lot of these artists.
Speaker 6: There's a long list of these artists that were from
Speaker 6: the Harlem Renaissance period that was strong and incredible that
Speaker 6: because of the way racism was at that time, they
Speaker 6: just didn't get the kind of love and acceptance.
Speaker 3: But a lot of that has been changing. A lot of.
Speaker 6: Institutions and museums are reaching out to realize, like we
Speaker 6: missed getting these significant works, which is a part of
Speaker 6: the story of American expression visual artists. So there's a
Speaker 6: lot there's a strong effort and a lot of dynamic
Speaker 6: young artists now making moves you know, in America now
Speaker 6: way more than whatever doing it that are getting like,
Speaker 6: you know, serious, top, top tier, you know, recognition collapses,
Speaker 6: et cetera, et cetera.
Speaker 5: What was it like for you in nineteen ninety one
Speaker 5: when The New Yorker named you the coolest man in
Speaker 5: New York City?
Speaker 6: Yeah, that was crazy, Susan Orlean wrote that article was
Speaker 6: a profile. I was about fifteen or sixteen pages in
Speaker 6: the New Yorker.
Speaker 3: Yeah, I was wow. I remember this.
Speaker 6: You know, I've been written about a lot at that time,
Speaker 6: you know, different articles about hip hop, different aspects of
Speaker 6: the culture, being on your TV raps. And here comes
Speaker 6: this woman who wants to do a piece on me.
Speaker 6: She comes and hangs out with me a few times.
Speaker 6: She knew nothing about hip hop. And what I loved
Speaker 6: most about that piece was how right she got it,
Speaker 6: how hard they worked to tell the story accurately.
Speaker 3: People had butchered.
Speaker 6: How to say my name.
Speaker 3: They would always ask.
Speaker 6: How long I think it was gonna last, meaning that
Speaker 6: they thought this was all like a brief passing fad.
Speaker 3: And here's this woman, Susan Orlean came and she.
Speaker 6: Got real curious and wanted to hang out with me
Speaker 6: while I'm taking your MTV raps, while I'm having meetings,
Speaker 6: planning from music videos I'm directing, and just.
Speaker 3: Listening to me talk. Obviously you know, I'm into a
Speaker 3: lot of stuff.
Speaker 6: And she caught it all and fifteen sixteen page piece
Speaker 6: for The New Yorker, which was incredible.
Speaker 3: The only thing about them being in New York at.
Speaker 6: That time, it wasn't read by a lot of a
Speaker 6: lot of people in the space that we were in
Speaker 6: at the time. Like Vanity Fair was kind of hot
Speaker 6: at the time, and I used to think, man, I'm
Speaker 6: kind of due for, you know, for like a nice
Speaker 6: write up and maybe you know, like in Vanity Fair
Speaker 6: something like that.
Speaker 3: And then the New Yorker came along, which.
Speaker 6: Is considered like the greatest magazine. Some of the greatest
Speaker 6: writers in American history have written for them. And here
Speaker 6: they doing a fifteen page profile on me. You know,
Speaker 6: it's hip hop person doing this cultural stuff. But it
Speaker 6: was pretty good and it's amazing that it still pops up.
Speaker 6: People see it on the Internet and stuff like that.
Speaker 4: Did you you go ever get out of control?
Speaker 6: Not really? You know the thing about my ego, I'm
Speaker 6: glad you you got you got good questions. I see
Speaker 6: why y'all saw y'all y'all both are so nice.
Speaker 4: That means the world coming from you.
Speaker 6: Thank you. So I had like people in my life,
Speaker 6: like my father grew up with a jazz legend named
Speaker 6: Max Roach who became my godfather. He to the drums
Speaker 6: is what Charlie Parker to the sacks, Miles to the trumpet,
Speaker 6: Dizzey Gillespie. He's in that category cast that defined a
Speaker 6: new form of jazz late forties fifties called be bop,
Speaker 6: be around. He's featured with his then wife Abby Lincoln
Speaker 6: in Summer of Soul, performing up in Harlem. And so
Speaker 6: he come by the house all the time, kick it
Speaker 6: with my dad, you know, always wanting to hug me
Speaker 6: and hey, man, what you doing? You know what I mean?
Speaker 6: And so he was just so cool all the goddamn time.
Speaker 6: I could never be like be on some stupid you know,
Speaker 6: you know, like with a crazy ego. And then even
Speaker 6: Blondie in them would treat me so good. I'd be
Speaker 6: up in their house hanging with them. The biggest pop
Speaker 6: group in the world, literally number one records all over
Speaker 6: the place. So I learned to, you know, always got
Speaker 6: to be cool with this.
Speaker 4: So you mean there was always people around that reminded
Speaker 4: you like, yeah, I'm not really a man.
Speaker 6: Can well you just can't. Can't go crazy. But you
Speaker 6: got to be humble and with this and appreciate the
Speaker 6: fact that you have these opportunities. You know, it's just
Speaker 6: you just but it's easy to get caught up in there.
Speaker 6: You have seen it happen too many times. But luckily
Speaker 6: you know some people that they can can pump the
Speaker 6: brakes and check themselves and realize, man, you know I'm
Speaker 6: out there being a clown. I'm being an asshole right now.
Speaker 6: I shouldn't be doing that.
Speaker 2: And so, and how did it feel when, you know,
Speaker 2: at the time, when you had all these rappers right,
Speaker 2: and these rappers are coming up and now they're not
Speaker 2: as local. They're selling millions of records. They're going, but
Speaker 2: they're mentioning you in their raps. Do you remember the
Speaker 2: first time you heard your name in a rap.
Speaker 3: Besides yeah, no, EPMD A couple of guys. Man, man,
Speaker 3: that was crazy.
Speaker 4: Man.
Speaker 3: It's just such a humbling experience to just be recognized.
Speaker 6: But you know a lot of casts that really has
Speaker 6: seen wild Style so early, like in your TV raps,
Speaker 6: A lot of people that was really dialed in on
Speaker 6: the game kind of knew who I was, which was
Speaker 6: really my first real audience was other people in in
Speaker 6: the in the culture really, which was so cool.
Speaker 3: And then that began to spread out.
Speaker 6: But yeah, you know that was a special, special, special dynamic.
Speaker 3: Do you uh?
Speaker 4: Do you do you remember that day you shot with
Speaker 4: nw A when you went out there?
Speaker 6: Yeah, that was a good one. Yeah, and it became
Speaker 6: a lot of people's favorite show. I remember vividly. We
Speaker 6: have been playing videos by Easy on the channel and
Speaker 6: Ted Demi and what he would talk to Easy often
Speaker 6: and Easy was like, man, I want you all to
Speaker 6: come out.
Speaker 3: We have a new group.
Speaker 6: And I remember them sending us a memo the day
Speaker 6: before us to listen. Nobody don't wear anything red or
Speaker 6: anything black. No, I'm sorry, red or blue were black,
Speaker 6: is what they said. And I was like, man, I've
Speaker 6: been to l A a bunch of times, but I
Speaker 6: didn't understand the dynamics in the hood, you know, I
Speaker 6: being West Hollywood in and out on some art business
Speaker 6: or what have you. And so we were like, okay,
Speaker 6: so we want to show people this scene. So let's
Speaker 6: run a flatbed truck and let's ride around, because you know,
Speaker 6: we hadn't seen like what the hood is like or
Speaker 6: any semblance of la And so we meet at the
Speaker 6: welcome the Compton sign and then we get on this
Speaker 6: flatbed truck and ride around and do segments from the truck.
Speaker 6: They take us to a swap meet and they give
Speaker 6: us a little insight on how they live. And it
Speaker 6: was crazy.
Speaker 3: I know it was gonna be a great show.
Speaker 6: I get back to the hotel and I put the
Speaker 6: Walkman on, got the cassette of the new album, the
Speaker 6: NWA album Straight out of Comptent. I listened to it
Speaker 6: for the first time and I'm literally snatching the headphones
Speaker 6: off my head can't believe the things that they're saying
Speaker 6: f the police and just the aggressiveness and the music
Speaker 6: was amazing and incredible, but the things they were saying,
Speaker 6: I was like, MTV is not gonna let this this happen.
Speaker 3: They gonna pull this.
Speaker 6: Man, we done shot this incredible show riding around. There's
Speaker 6: nothing's gonna happen. Well, the videos, they weren't able to
Speaker 6: play the video for Straight out of Compton, but they
Speaker 6: still had other videos and other content, and the interview
Speaker 6: played it and it took off.
Speaker 3: Man, it took off so lovely.
Speaker 5: And was there anything you saw and like Dre or
Speaker 5: Cube back then, you know, easy became as an icon too.
Speaker 5: Anything you saw in Drea Cube that lets you know, oh,
Speaker 5: I can see them being where they are now.
Speaker 6: Yeah. Well I couldn't predict how huge it was going
Speaker 6: to be. But they were so smart and they clearly sonically,
Speaker 6: particularly Dre had studied what Public Enemy had been doing
Speaker 6: sonically with them with the best right with the Bomb Squad,
Speaker 6: thank you, and the level of production and using those
Speaker 6: samples was the state of the art at that time,
Speaker 6: and they had did something similar. And I remember before
Speaker 6: I had listened to the record and really understood it.
Speaker 6: Cube a couple of times in between the interviews was like,
Speaker 6: your fab what's g rap?
Speaker 3: Like, what's up with g rap?
Speaker 6: And I said, Yo, g Wrap's cool and whatever. But
Speaker 6: then when I listened and I heard the aggressiveness of
Speaker 6: what they were saying, I saw that Cube happened studying grap.
Speaker 6: G Wrap was spitting harder than any at that time,
Speaker 6: you know, songs like Rykers Island. In fact, I directed
Speaker 6: a video for g Rap Road to the Riches, which
Speaker 6: is which was the first rap song, and then the
Speaker 6: video about the rise and fall of a New York
Speaker 6: crack dealer. I'm the first video to put an image
Speaker 6: of scarface in the thing, and that led to me
Speaker 6: getting in a social associate producer role on New jack
Speaker 6: City because when George Jackson came to talk to me,
Speaker 6: I'm finishing up Road to the Riches and he bugged out, said, man,
Speaker 6: this is what the this is the constant, this is
Speaker 6: the idea in the movie The Undercover Cop, which I
Speaker 6: see with play.
Speaker 3: I had a hand in casting all those guys. It
Speaker 3: was crazy wow. So that was a snapshot of that.
Speaker 6: And yeah, but Nwa man, genius and Cube, you knowing
Speaker 6: that he was a person that wrote a lot of
Speaker 6: that helped structure a lot of that record. It was
Speaker 6: just amazing and the fact that it it had the
Speaker 6: impact it had was just one of the great things
Speaker 6: in rap to see it come together. And then you know,
Speaker 6: in the process of doing that, I'm one of the
Speaker 6: first people that once again I'm interviewing these guys, I'm
Speaker 6: hearing this West Coast slang.
Speaker 3: I'm getting to hang out with them, and I'm like, money,
Speaker 3: what's what? What are the switches?
Speaker 6: When you're talk about witting switches before you knew like
Speaker 6: what one eighty seven was, are some of the things
Speaker 6: that they were dropping We just as I had to
Speaker 6: get the four one one, which is similar to what
Speaker 6: other people in other parts of the country had to
Speaker 6: do to figure out what we were saying.
Speaker 3: In New York, you know, they had to break down
Speaker 3: and slang.
Speaker 2: You know, since you've interviewed so many people and you've
Speaker 2: been to so many coaches, whether it was you know,
Speaker 2: La the South New York. When you're talking when you
Speaker 2: hear the mount Rushmore of hip hop, right, who is
Speaker 2: your on your mount Rushmore? As far as artists are concerned.
Speaker 6: Well, you know, when when I get asked those kind
Speaker 6: of questions, I'm basically like, I've loved so many and
Speaker 6: and I'm also aware that there's different errors where different
Speaker 6: people were the most important people at that time, right,
Speaker 6: so as the errors have evolved that my rushmore would
Speaker 6: it would be various versions based on but I'm a
Speaker 6: lyrics guy, primarily based on lyricism. Oh man, it'd be
Speaker 6: in the beginning, you know, I'll screw up, and I'm
Speaker 6: sure there's names I forget, But in the beginning, of.
Speaker 4: Course, you know, only before for every era, look at you,
Speaker 4: you know, uh Mo.
Speaker 6: D kaz uh you know, man, who else?
Speaker 4: Man, I'll screw this up?
Speaker 3: Cowboy? You know? And then going on further from that,
Speaker 3: you know Caine, rack him, uh g.
Speaker 2: Raph man, Jesus, people forget about g rap a lot,
Speaker 2: And I don't understand why, because when you listen to
Speaker 2: you clearly get it.
Speaker 6: His lyrical game was masterful, just incredible way he played
Speaker 6: with words.
Speaker 3: Who else was my mother?
Speaker 6: Forth from that in that early period, I guess I
Speaker 6: would have to put I'll drop a cube in there,
Speaker 6: you know, And then moving forward, you know, you know
Speaker 6: Biggie Pack, of course, you know Oh man, I'm stuck
Speaker 6: right now. I can't think of all the names that
Speaker 6: I would love, but pretty much those that you know,
Speaker 6: Nads of course, who I luckily got to direct his
Speaker 6: one of his first one one love Yeah, that that
Speaker 6: Q Tip produced, you know. So, man, just and then
Speaker 6: to see Noads still putting out incredible music on a
Speaker 6: consistent basis, it's.
Speaker 3: Like a jazz artist. It just look, I got something
Speaker 3: to say.
Speaker 6: I'm not pressure. It's not about the paper. If you will,
Speaker 6: I'm just want to express this. I'm gonna drop this
Speaker 6: on you.
Speaker 4: And so it's it's just probably he probably get from
Speaker 4: his pops.
Speaker 6: Yeah, yeah, Olu Dara who used to live near me
Speaker 6: in Harlem and we would talk because you know, and
Speaker 6: that's a key thing that Nads had a similar to
Speaker 6: something that rock Kim has.
Speaker 3: Both of them.
Speaker 6: Obviously nas Dad's a jazz musician. Rock Kim had jazz musician.
Speaker 6: It was a sing I can't remember her name, but
Speaker 6: earlier connection to jazz and that sensibility I think is
Speaker 6: a is a big part of his flow and his
Speaker 6: dynamic as an artist.
Speaker 4: You did Park's first interview the.
Speaker 6: First first time on National TV.
Speaker 3: A lot of those cats.
Speaker 6: The first time I interviewed Park was on this set
Speaker 6: of the movie Juice, and and then we held that
Speaker 6: show until the movie dropped a few months later, and
Speaker 6: then we added you know, and I'm also did a
Speaker 6: cameo in Juice as.
Speaker 3: Myself, you know, hosting your m TV reps while the
Speaker 3: DJ battle.
Speaker 1: Was going on and talk about that set Juice.
Speaker 3: That was crazy.
Speaker 1: I mean, you know, it was you know, I mean
Speaker 1: classic movie to this day.
Speaker 6: Man, amazing stars from them, Yeah, a lot of good stars,
Speaker 6: a lot of just really good dynamics. And I'm pretty
Speaker 6: sure Tupac definitely have excelled in acting and clearly would
Speaker 6: have been OSCAR nominated by now. His dynamism on the
Speaker 6: screen was just something I think, like like people like
Speaker 6: that have been able to do it in music and
Speaker 6: then do it on the screen. It's just a it's
Speaker 6: just a rare group of people that have been able
Speaker 6: to do that and still you know, resonate to us
Speaker 6: in such a powerful way. But your Pock and I
Speaker 6: were pretty tight. The second time I interviewed Pac once again,
Speaker 6: this was pre death Row. I like to that's when
Speaker 6: because it was the first time I knew his background,
Speaker 6: like he had a black Panther link family wise, and
Speaker 6: that was the first time he'd spoken about that when
Speaker 6: I pulled that out of him, and he explained how
Speaker 6: his mother was panther father, so that that fire and
Speaker 6: that awareness of what they were fighting for.
Speaker 3: Was a part of his consciousness, so which was really interesting.
Speaker 3: He was a.
Speaker 6: Dynamic cat like I mean, he could be the most
Speaker 6: militant f for a while, Fruit of Islam, Black Panther
Speaker 6: and then spin on a dime and just be the
Speaker 6: illess thug and that was I think a part of
Speaker 6: the actor in him. He could completely be those people
Speaker 6: or any other people. I'm sure he would have gotten
Speaker 6: to play in films. He would have been super effective
Speaker 6: and compelling. So that was a great loss. So you
Speaker 6: saw that back then even absolutely, because it was just
Speaker 6: talking to him and he you know, and then he
Speaker 6: flipped and be just super hood. And I think the
Speaker 6: persona that he remained in for most of his public
Speaker 6: life after was the persona of Bishop in juice like
Speaker 6: that was his character that you know, he wanted to
Speaker 6: become on everybody and as many people wanted to wish
Speaker 6: to have been a big dude on the New York scene,
Speaker 6: or a strong cat that conflex like in Harlem and
Speaker 6: all that, and juice.
Speaker 3: Was his way to do that.
Speaker 6: And because come on, he he wasn't that dude prior.
Speaker 6: But he stayed in that character largely, and then unfortunately
Speaker 6: got caught up and this that, and the third on
Speaker 6: the New York side, if you know, the drum, and
Speaker 6: then and went West coast, and you would think he
Speaker 6: was born in South Central the way he rapped, you know,
Speaker 6: on out there in Cali, which is so super effectively,
Speaker 6: but he could he was convincing in any of those
Speaker 6: genres or any of those formats he would put itself in.
Speaker 4: I know, you probably got to go. He's got a
Speaker 4: couple more questions.
Speaker 5: Why do you think commercially, because you was there from
Speaker 5: the exception, why do you think commercially the West Coast
Speaker 5: took off?
Speaker 4: It seemed like to me before the East Coast, like
Speaker 4: I'm talking about.
Speaker 5: With the massive mainstream success that we see in hip
Speaker 5: hop now interesting, I just I.
Speaker 2: Don't know that's but would you say that because he
Speaker 2: had run?
Speaker 3: I thought it was their term.
Speaker 6: Yeah, we we blew up big and dug out and
Speaker 6: planted a firm foundation. That's why this culture still rocks
Speaker 6: so hard to this day because the roots went deep
Speaker 6: without anything going viral too early or people jumping out there.
Speaker 4: Tucson, it was deth Row was a months.
Speaker 5: Snoop Dogg sold what eight hundred plus thousand his first
Speaker 5: and second week. He was like the first hip hop
Speaker 5: artist on certain magazine covers, like he really was.
Speaker 4: It was something else that was something else, and it
Speaker 4: started with NWA to me, but.
Speaker 3: Yeah, it was.
Speaker 6: It was a big thing.
Speaker 3: They had an incredible movement.
Speaker 6: It was I think it just followed they They added
Speaker 6: on nicely to the foundation that was laid right here
Speaker 6: in New York. And then once again, I was honored
Speaker 6: to get to direct Snoops first video for What's My
Speaker 6: Name and turned them into a dog. And then interestingly,
Speaker 6: you know, I'm in the cannabis business now with a
Speaker 6: brand called b Noble, which grew out of a film
Speaker 6: I made which you can see on Netflix called grass
Speaker 6: Is Green and got Snoop is in my film and
Speaker 6: Snoop tells the story which I didn't know that he Dre.
Speaker 6: I spent that whole summer living with Dre in Calabasas
Speaker 6: because the first day of shooting Snoops video him performing
Speaker 6: on VIP Records. Right after that, we changed locations in
Speaker 6: Long Beach. That turns into a near riot. That's like
Speaker 6: not more than a year after the LA riots. So
Speaker 6: we got shut down dress fabric. I gotta finish Snoop's album.
Speaker 6: If you can chill and hang, we will get the
Speaker 6: video done with. My priority is getting this record done.
Speaker 6: So I'm like, Dre, I'm here, Why.
Speaker 4: Was it right?
Speaker 6: Because you know, LA is deceptive. You can be in
Speaker 6: the hood and I'm a New York cast, so I
Speaker 6: see cats in the hood. I see cats on the corner,
Speaker 6: on the stoop. I can feel the tempo of the neighborhood.
Speaker 6: You know what I'm saying. In LA, you don't see
Speaker 6: cats out. So I'm scouting locations. I'm like, oh, Dre,
Speaker 6: I got this this And Dre was like, man, it's
Speaker 6: kind of crazy and Long Beach. But I'm like, man,
Speaker 6: I'm been there good. I didn't see the cast that
Speaker 6: really live in the hood. At the video shoot, everybody
Speaker 6: comes out. Everybody's in the crowd. So you got this set,
Speaker 6: that set, I got the foy on set as a
Speaker 6: security nobody that's like disrespecting, like a like a priest
Speaker 6: on Sunday. These dudes in Foi's face, you know, talker
Speaker 6: smack to them. And my assistant director came to me,
Speaker 6: I'm at video village checking the monitors, sitting next to Dre.
Speaker 6: They said, fab, you know the crew can't work. I said, Yo, Dre,
Speaker 6: is it possible? You know you can do to Drason man.
Speaker 3: I can't tell them cast nothing.
Speaker 6: So when I realized they wouldn't listen to Dre, I
Speaker 6: knew that was going to be a delicate issue. So
Speaker 6: when we finished that location, we went to the next location.
Speaker 6: These cats now was ready to get it in. By
Speaker 6: three four, fights had started and the police came. The
Speaker 6: helicopter swung and they basically shut us down. So it
Speaker 6: wasn't like a riot, but it was.
Speaker 3: It was ugly.
Speaker 6: They just had a riot, so they didn't want no
Speaker 6: massive gatherments like that. So that lets led me to
Speaker 6: and the rest of that summer out there hanging with
Speaker 6: Dre and the dog pown, getting to know them real well,
Speaker 6: seeing Dre's process in the studio, which was remarkable, and
Speaker 6: then we would get a moment to run out and
Speaker 6: get some scenes that would be other parts of the video,
Speaker 6: and then towards the end of the summer there was
Speaker 6: a big scene that I never got to shoot because
Speaker 6: Snoop got caught up famously.
Speaker 3: Murder was the case. I said, Man, I'm out of here.
Speaker 2: This is just enough.
Speaker 3: But you know it was interesting. Snoop tells a story that.
Speaker 6: The chronic had become the hot slang word for good
Speaker 6: cannabis on the street. He told Dre, the chronic is
Speaker 6: the hot thing, and call your album the Chronic, and
Speaker 6: Dre went with it.
Speaker 2: Was is this just amazing to get that story behind
Speaker 2: the scenes and see it come to fruition, see it.
Speaker 6: Coming fruition, and get that story years later, and then
Speaker 6: amazingly I make this film Grasses Greener, which looks at
Speaker 6: the connection between cannabis and America's music, So from jazz
Speaker 6: and Louis Armstrong, the greatest jazz people. That was their
Speaker 6: intoxicant of choice, because you know, you get really high
Speaker 6: on cannabis, you still can play your instrument. You know,
Speaker 6: you like, if you get really drunk, that's not happening, right,
Speaker 6: And so it was an important part of that and
Speaker 6: laying all that out, looking at all genres and music
Speaker 6: from jazz, all the way to hip hop and then
Speaker 6: looking at the criminal justice thing inspired me to create
Speaker 6: a cannabis brand called be Noble, and I'm really fortunate
Speaker 6: that we were able to partner.
Speaker 3: We own the company.
Speaker 6: We made a licensing agreement with the biggest cannabis company
Speaker 6: in America, Curely. We give back a ten per cent
Speaker 6: of what we earned to organization and we're in nine
Speaker 6: states organizations helping people victimized by non for non violent
Speaker 6: cannabis offenses, and we donate money and then we take
Speaker 6: care of the brother that we named the story that we.
Speaker 3: Focused on in the film.
Speaker 6: This brother was given a thirteen year sentence for two
Speaker 6: joints of weed and he served seven.
Speaker 3: His case was a big case.
Speaker 6: Many organizations were fighting to get this brother freedom, and
Speaker 6: when he finally got a parole, we flew back down
Speaker 6: to film him walk out of prison. And then shortly
Speaker 6: after that, I got inspired to create this brand which
Speaker 6: is doing really well and raising awareness about these issues
Speaker 6: while selling fireweed actually, which is a growing business now
Speaker 6: which New York, which has now gone legal, is expanding
Speaker 6: licenses going out. I mean, there's some bumps in a row.
Speaker 6: So that's a fascinating thing because once again, I feel
Speaker 6: so just blessed to be working in the space enlightening
Speaker 6: people about this powerful plant which has been vilified as
Speaker 6: a gateway drug and categorized next to heroin in the schedule.
Speaker 6: And there's a fight now because this obviously medical benefits.
Speaker 6: With the opioid crisis going on and hundreds of thousands
Speaker 6: of people dying, cannabis can be used and a lot
Speaker 6: of things that they prescribe opioids for, and it's so
Speaker 6: it's a beneficial thing. So that's been been a big
Speaker 6: thing that I've been working on now, as well as
Speaker 6: all the other creative stuff.
Speaker 3: Just to ship you.
Speaker 6: Didn't bring any ship, baby, I got something.
Speaker 3: We got you covered on that, baby.
Speaker 2: Well, you got the fifty Years of Hip Hop podcast series,
Speaker 2: and we'll talk about that before we get about it.
Speaker 4: I want to document fab You need.
Speaker 5: You need a document like you yourself, Like you have
Speaker 5: to tell your story because you know, I hear it
Speaker 5: in bits and pieces, whether I've seen Black TV interviews,
Speaker 5: you know, the New York articles and stuff.
Speaker 4: But I'm like, you need the proper telling of your tale.
Speaker 6: Well, I'm working on I'm gonna I'm gonna soon be
Speaker 6: working on my memoir and lay it all out and
Speaker 6: then hopefully out of that process we can get a
Speaker 6: doctor done.
Speaker 3: You know, it's funny.
Speaker 6: No, we don't have a deal yet, but I got
Speaker 6: an incredible collaborator who's a very accomplished writer that I'm
Speaker 6: most likely going to work with, and we've had a
Speaker 6: few conversations, like I had a brief convo with Questlove
Speaker 6: actually started a publishing impress.
Speaker 4: So I'd like to bid on it. Question I got
Speaker 4: my post called Blacker was publishing with Simon and Schuston.
Speaker 6: Man without questions charlam Man, I'm sorry, I really should
Speaker 6: have known that. But also it's great having you guys
Speaker 6: on the podcast that we did, uh, the fifty Years
Speaker 6: of Hip Hop podcast series, which.
Speaker 3: Was a fun I mean, I mean my man here King, Aaron.
Speaker 6: King, who worked with my very dear friend Rest in Peace,
Speaker 6: Combat Jackle Combat Jack Show. So it's great to work
Speaker 6: with him and to really, you know, tell some of
Speaker 6: those foundational stories about the culture. You can go anywhere.
Speaker 6: Your pod casts are living any platform as.
Speaker 4: A Black Effect production.
Speaker 3: Yes, yes, Dolly Bishop, who is on your team.
Speaker 6: We work together and you know, it's a it's a
Speaker 6: you know, it's an iHeart podcast, and that was fun
Speaker 6: to get to relive and tell some of these foundational stories,
Speaker 6: and especially with you guys when we did the show
Speaker 6: on on you know, hip hop radio, it really hit
Speaker 6: me like, you guys have gone at doing this at
Speaker 6: such an incredible level, remembering the Supreme Team, Mister Magic
Speaker 6: and Read Alert and when those when we just had
Speaker 6: an hour or two on the weekends. Now you guys
Speaker 6: are doing this at such a major level and sharing
Speaker 6: those stories were special. To be able to remind people
Speaker 6: of these journeys that we've been on. So easy to
Speaker 6: just get caught up in what we're doing now. But
Speaker 6: the greatest thing about this fifty years is we've been
Speaker 6: able to once again tell the story of this journey
Speaker 6: that we've been on and how this thankfully is still
Speaker 6: going on and going strong. And the main reason, I
Speaker 6: believe is because a lot of people stepped up and
Speaker 6: we've been able to take control once again. When Max
Speaker 6: Roach my godfather, and I'd hear my dad and those
Speaker 6: guys talk about stories and the Jazz era with Miles
Speaker 6: Davis and them, they wanted to have their own labels.
Speaker 6: They wanted to be able to control things that just
Speaker 6: wasn't happening in the nineteen forties and the nineteen fifties
Speaker 6: because of the way the dynamics and America racism and
Speaker 6: things like that. So it was always a part of
Speaker 6: me to want to be able to adjust that to
Speaker 6: a certain point and be able to put that narrative
Speaker 6: in there, which is things that I see you.
Speaker 3: Guys do, and I really appreciate that.
Speaker 4: One final question, how did you get your name?
Speaker 5: Because your name you predate Fab five from Michigan clearly,
Speaker 5: So how did you get your name?
Speaker 4: And I know that they probably got it from you?
Speaker 6: Yeah, they definitely the Fab five.
Speaker 3: Yeah.
Speaker 6: I became a part of a graffiti crew called the
Speaker 6: Fabulous Five. They were the one of the dominant groups
Speaker 6: of graffiti painters in New York which were known for
Speaker 6: doing murals on this side of the primarily on the
Speaker 6: Lexington Avenue number five train. I wasn't a part of that,
Speaker 6: but I wanted to take this whole thing to another level,
Speaker 6: and I collaborated and got down with a brother named
Speaker 6: Lee ken Jonis, who was a premium member of the
Speaker 6: Fab five graffiti group. And you know, they had kind
Speaker 6: of eased off painting the most of the Fab five,
Speaker 6: and I connected with Lee and shared these ideas about
Speaker 6: taking it to another level, like from the subways into galleries,
Speaker 6: museums and stuff like that. So with the blessing of
Speaker 6: Lee and the other members, I became a part of
Speaker 6: the Fab five. So what you would tag up was,
Speaker 6: you know, you tag your name and the group you
Speaker 6: was down with and then off. And then sometimes I
Speaker 6: would be referred to as, oh, that's Fab five Freddy.
Speaker 6: You know what I'm saying, that's fab fire fred And
Speaker 6: when Blondie made Rapture, it just embedded it and solidified it.
Speaker 6: When she dropped my name, when she basically was like
Speaker 6: Fab five, Freddy told me everybody's fly and I was like, man, wow,
Speaker 6: I never thought of it as the whole thing. But
Speaker 6: that's a good look, you know what I mean. She
Speaker 6: represented and gave me a look and it it booms.
Speaker 6: So that's how that really came together.
Speaker 2: Last last question, I know you said that, but I
Speaker 2: just want you to tell people how difficult it was
Speaker 2: to tag trains back in the day, because it was
Speaker 2: it wasn't easy. It's not like the train was just
Speaker 2: sitting there and you'll had eight hours to do what
Speaker 2: you had to do. I mean, y'all had to deal
Speaker 2: with police, you had to do with the train moving,
Speaker 2: you had to deal with the electricity in the trains,
Speaker 2: like y'all had some ish to deal with.
Speaker 1: It was so just just talk about that.
Speaker 6: There was a great documentary that was done at the
Speaker 6: same time we making Wild Style early eighties. There was
Speaker 6: a documentary called Style Wars that illustrates in fact, Kate
Speaker 6: Slay who's young graffiti rider named Dez is as a
Speaker 6: young graffiti rider and he's you see him in Star Wars. Yeah. Man,
Speaker 6: You had to know where the trains what we called
Speaker 6: called the called the layup or in times when the
Speaker 6: rush hour is not running, the extra trains are placed
Speaker 6: in different areas in the city, sometimes in tunnels, sometimes
Speaker 6: at the yards. So you had to know which train
Speaker 6: you wanted to get to get up on, where that
Speaker 6: train was going to be, whether in a tunnel or
Speaker 6: way up in the train yards at the end of
Speaker 6: the train line somewhere, and then you had to be
Speaker 6: stealthy on some ninja type energy to get up in there,
Speaker 6: because one of the objectives is also you know, not
Speaker 6: to get caught, and so you had to have all
Speaker 6: those pieces together to get in, get out, and hopefully
Speaker 6: not get caught.
Speaker 1: You ever got caught taken the tray?
Speaker 3: Never? Never, But what what would happen to you back
Speaker 3: when it was raging, which was not a good look
Speaker 3: if you get caught. One of your sentences was to
Speaker 3: go wash walls, So you.
Speaker 6: Overalls, You're your bucket and a bunch of chemicals, and
Speaker 6: you'd be at some platform and some station having the
Speaker 6: clean walls, feeling like, man, I got caught out here.
Speaker 3: I feel I'm like a herb now, you know.
Speaker 6: So it wasn't easy. It was a very difficult thing
Speaker 6: and to really develop it. So that's a crazy part
Speaker 6: that we didn't like to talk about a lot because
Speaker 6: a lot of the paint was actually uh liberated.
Speaker 4: You know.
Speaker 6: It's funny when you go in anywhere that sells spray paint.
Speaker 6: Now in New York City, they still have the spray
Speaker 6: paint in a cage. It's like under lock and key, yep.
Speaker 6: And I had a lot to do with that form
Speaker 6: of expression, you know something I'm sorry, yeah, no saying
Speaker 6: you know, I had to get that paint.
Speaker 5: It just something that people thought was just vandalism back
Speaker 5: in the day became something so synonymous part with New
Speaker 5: York City.
Speaker 4: It gave the city character. You see it in video games,
Speaker 4: cartoons and everything.
Speaker 6: That blows my mind. You know, graffiti fonts, you know,
Speaker 6: you can get a font and just use graffiti letters.
Speaker 6: So that's that's really satisfying to see that. That's a
Speaker 6: lot of these ideas we had have really worked. And
Speaker 6: I'm excited for the next fifty.
Speaker 2: All right, well, we appreciate you for Freddy.
Speaker 6: Thanks Freddy.
Speaker 3: Wanted to be up here with you guy.
Speaker 1: You brother absolute breakfast club.
Speaker 6: So I'm getting ready to head out. I'm on my
Speaker 6: way to Burning Man tomorrow. I'm a part of the
Speaker 6: Burning Man world. I'm also on the board of directors,
Speaker 6: so I would be in the Vada desert having a
Speaker 6: blast once again. I know it looks a lot of
Speaker 6: weird to people if you don't know, but it's an
Speaker 6: incredible creative experience where artists come make incredible sculpture. Everybody
Speaker 6: that nobody's trying to sell anything. It's just amazing work
Speaker 6: out in the desert. It's like being in a sci
Speaker 6: fi fantasy world of creativity.
Speaker 5: It's amazing and I just want to tell you man,
Speaker 5: you are the shoulders that so many of us stand on.
Speaker 5: Whether you are journalist, whether you're a radio personality, the podcasters.
Speaker 5: None of us would be here without the foundation.
Speaker 4: That a fab five friend. Are you back in the day, man,
Speaker 4: So we love you, and we value you, and we
Speaker 4: appreciate you. My brother, thank you.
Speaker 3: I appreciate that so much.
Speaker 2: Yes, it's the Breakfast Club, good morning.
Speaker 3: Yes,