Speaker 1: Against the Chronic goals. This is not your average shows.
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Speaker 2: The Streets. Welcome to the gainst the Chronicles podcast, the
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Speaker 3: Your father did or you know, I know my father
Speaker 3: was in the Navy and whatever whatever. Uh, But by
Speaker 3: the time you know, my generation rolled around, I guess
Speaker 3: you could say those choices that they presented to your
Speaker 3: dad's and your grandfathers were looked at in different lights
Speaker 3: coming from when I first stepped off the porch, You
Speaker 3: get me right, You know, of course, you know, of
Speaker 3: course it was sports. You know, our niggas could play
Speaker 3: sports type of ship. And then you know, I guess
Speaker 3: in our father's days it was like nigga go to
Speaker 3: the military.
Speaker 2: You found me.
Speaker 1: That was frowned upon when we was coming up as kids.
Speaker 3: You get uh, right, And and I don't know, you know,
Speaker 3: some of us probably tried to make those choices. Who knows,
Speaker 3: Before you know, you got introduced to what we talking
Speaker 3: about right now, the street life. Once you got introduced
Speaker 3: as far as our generation is concerned, once the street
Speaker 3: life was sent it to me, I thought that was
Speaker 3: the life choice, get me going to the military or
Speaker 3: trying to play sports. You know, after high school it
Speaker 3: was like man ship like like like did niggas feel
Speaker 3: educated enough to try something else? Or was it the
Speaker 3: was it was it that that life style out back
Speaker 3: the end of introduction in the eighties and the seventies
Speaker 3: of the drugs and the life and the money and all.
Speaker 3: Did that sway of nigga's options. You feel me because
Speaker 3: I think, you know, I'm a product of that.
Speaker 4: You know, at the high school played sports, but but.
Speaker 1: Then the streets too, you feel me.
Speaker 4: And no, maybe just kind of lean towards the streets
Speaker 4: too much and couldn't make up that lost time, you
Speaker 4: know what I'm saying. But yeah, definitely coming out of
Speaker 4: coming out of out of the low income situations and
Speaker 4: things like that. You know, we was out there taking chances,
Speaker 4: and we was trying to get us some money, some
Speaker 4: immediate money. So a lot of cats went to the
Speaker 4: streets to get that immediate money.
Speaker 1: Some cats was patient.
Speaker 2: You feel me.
Speaker 4: They saw the school thing through, you know what I mean,
Speaker 4: stuff whatever recreational situation they was in, whether football, basketball,
Speaker 4: whatever the arts.
Speaker 1: But I think it's just a situation.
Speaker 4: I just think it's about, you know, if your draw
Speaker 4: to the streets, you feel me, and then just.
Speaker 1: Being young and making them decisions.
Speaker 4: On your own like that, were not realizing how young
Speaker 4: we is in our own head. We think we're grown.
Speaker 4: You feel me, and it's not making the right choice.
Speaker 4: And we see that now. But back then, you know,
Speaker 4: nigga was bro good luck fam.
Speaker 2: Yeah, you know what you talk about. One time, Me
Speaker 2: and you was rapping the other day, man, and uh,
Speaker 2: I think people have this idea that when you were
Speaker 2: a rapper, when you signed a contract, you riched off
Speaker 2: the bat and you was telling me a story about
Speaker 2: how your moms had called you. You was out here
Speaker 2: in California messing with death Row, and your moms had
Speaker 2: called you because they was about to kick her off
Speaker 2: the call the projects and she needed some money.
Speaker 1: Oh yeah, yeah, definitely.
Speaker 4: This was on around the time when Men with Me
Speaker 4: and three two we was we had came out there,
Speaker 4: We're about to do the thing with death Row. But
Speaker 4: we had just got there, so business wasn't handled, but
Speaker 4: nothing like that. We we had probably just arrived, man,
Speaker 4: I don't know. I think we was there probably about
Speaker 4: a week or so. And I went to Sugar's office
Speaker 4: to call my mom. Actually, can I use the phone?
Speaker 4: He was like, yeah, you know, make the long distance call.
Speaker 4: So I called my mama and shit, and she.
Speaker 2: Was on the phone.
Speaker 1: She was telling me she was she was in distress,
Speaker 1: and she was like.
Speaker 4: Man, I need some money right And I'm like, damn,
Speaker 4: I ain't got no money right now. I just got
Speaker 4: out here with these folks. We ain't handle no business yet,
Speaker 4: you feel me. I'm like, what's going on?
Speaker 2: Yeah?
Speaker 4: Man, they about the victims out the project. We're standing
Speaker 4: in the project at the time. I'm the oldest side
Speaker 4: of nine kids, so the rest of the kids was
Speaker 4: in the house.
Speaker 1: I think one of my sisters.
Speaker 4: My sister was probably in Houston at the time, but
Speaker 4: this was day my mom was in New Orleans and
Speaker 4: mal Man, I'm hurt. I can't help my mom, you
Speaker 4: know what I mean. I'm sharing a few tears. She'll
Speaker 4: walk back in the office. He seen me on the
Speaker 4: phone shearing tears.
Speaker 2: He was like, who that is?
Speaker 4: I say, man, it's my mama. And he was like
Speaker 4: he got just got the phone for me, told me
Speaker 4: to wait outside. Came back outside. He was like, man,
Speaker 4: we finna get ready to go out. And I was like, well,
Speaker 4: my mama had. He was like, she's gonna call you tomorrow.
Speaker 4: Come back up here. She's gonna call you up here tomorrow.
Speaker 4: So the next day I had came up there, my
Speaker 4: mom called up there and she was.
Speaker 1: Like, Hey, tell your friend. I say thank you, I
Speaker 1: say what happened? She was like, yeah, send me five
Speaker 1: thousand dollars. We about to move.
Speaker 2: You feel me?
Speaker 4: And like, I say, five thousand dollars at that time,
Speaker 4: that was probably the most money my mamad held in
Speaker 4: her hand at one time.
Speaker 1: You feel me right now.
Speaker 4: It wasn't enough to go buy no house, right but
Speaker 4: went from the projects to a nice rent house. You
Speaker 4: did what I'm saying, So I'll never forget that gesture
Speaker 4: right there.
Speaker 2: I never get that, you know what. I'm glad you
Speaker 2: said that, man, because that's one thing I want to say.
Speaker 2: Everybody always talk about the bad stuff that should did it.
Speaker 2: Should did a game of that shit too.
Speaker 4: I can't, at least my testimony, you feel me about
Speaker 4: that incident. Yeah, that was real right there. That was
Speaker 4: real right there. You know what I mean. I didn't
Speaker 4: been in situations you know what I'm saying, Well, a
Speaker 4: motherfucker would probably try to take advantage of me in
Speaker 4: that situation. You feel me, right, Let you write a
Speaker 4: couple of songs, man, and you know what I mean?
Speaker 4: This and that, this and that you feel me? The
Speaker 4: man did it. He ain't even asked for it back.
Speaker 4: I had just got there, So I thought that was real.
Speaker 4: I thought that was real. That was one of the
Speaker 4: one of the realist gestures that that that that I
Speaker 4: was able to have the benefit you know what I mean.
Speaker 2: The scene, Yeah, that was a crucial period. Man, yo
Speaker 2: shoot yo was coming up. That was just like the
Speaker 2: dawn against the rep.
Speaker 4: The light had already started shining, but it was still
Speaker 4: kind of early.
Speaker 2: What year was that? What year was that?
Speaker 1: I think this was probably like this had to be
Speaker 1: like ninety one and ninety two, ninety one, Yeah.
Speaker 3: Yeah, yeah, I remember when y'all first came out this way. Yeah,
Speaker 3: they was, and she was around all that then. Yeah,
Speaker 3: I was around then. It was around I had an
Speaker 3: association and with you know, with through one of the
Speaker 3: producers unknown Yeah, used to work on our music. He
Speaker 3: was also in Incahoops with trying to I guess get
Speaker 3: some work for him and slip over at death Ro,
Speaker 3: you know, with knowing Dre and the history of Prey
Speaker 3: and the record crew. A non came from that era,
Speaker 3: you know know heja techno hop. You know, it's where
Speaker 3: I got my start. Dudes like King T and so forth.
Speaker 3: I tea so a known was around me and and
Speaker 3: uh that's how I sort of like the death Ro
Speaker 3: name came about, because you know, a known I think
Speaker 3: should with the name. Whatever the history is about that.
Speaker 3: We all sat down and thought of the name and
Speaker 3: it was felt differently and whatever. Anyway, Uh, yeah, he
Speaker 3: was over there as a producer, and that's how we
Speaker 3: got to know that big mic and three two came
Speaker 3: out Texas and Louisiana, uh, and was on Uh it
Speaker 3: was supposed to be the Fluge project on Death Row
Speaker 3: if if I'm not mistaken.
Speaker 1: Right, Yeah, we knew about you, about.
Speaker 3: The apartment and everything. I knew about all that ship man. Yeah,
Speaker 3: because like I said, no one used to go up
Speaker 3: there and uh, you know he's he was supposedly be
Speaker 3: doing work in music for Sugar and them.
Speaker 4: So just because he was working on the convicts app
Speaker 4: him and Big Slip mm hmm, there was. We was
Speaker 4: we started off grinding with them. Yeah, we had did
Speaker 4: and we did a handful of songs. I remember Slip
Speaker 4: had then the first version to own Straight Gangsterism M
Speaker 4: that wegains I got man. I wish I had a
Speaker 4: copy of that, but he did. Yeah, and Unknown he
Speaker 4: was putting it down too.
Speaker 2: Yeah, it was a record winding records.
Speaker 1: No, man, we would have to get that Slip for
Speaker 1: that record right there. Yeah, Slip had that ship man
Speaker 1: Slip did.
Speaker 2: Man got out. That's crazy. So you was out here,
Speaker 2: so that means you was working with Snoop and all them,
Speaker 2: d o C and all the other cats.
Speaker 4: Yep, yep, d C was there, Rage who most of
Speaker 4: the you know, the useful suspects.
Speaker 2: Uh, it was. It was.
Speaker 1: It was a heck of experience bro.
Speaker 4: Us coming out there, being out in California like that
Speaker 4: for the first time in the presence of people that
Speaker 4: we was listening to, you know what I mean, Doctor
Speaker 4: dray d o Ce, you feel me. We wanted we
Speaker 4: got eight up here We're seeing. It was just like
Speaker 4: you know, the Texas we fucked with the West Coast
Speaker 4: heavy back then.
Speaker 2: You feel me.
Speaker 4: They go ask youngsters right now, you know they it's
Speaker 4: really about your location now, you feel me, Jack, Yeah,
Speaker 4: we've rolled with the West Coast heavy back then. So
Speaker 4: to be able to come meet these guys, man, it
Speaker 4: was just like a dream come true. It was it was,
Speaker 4: it was, it was, it was. It was a hell
Speaker 4: of a high. I ain't gonna lie it was. It
Speaker 4: was a time for me in three two.
Speaker 2: That's crazy, man. So nineteen ninety one, shoot, I don't
Speaker 2: even know. I'm trying to think who was out she
Speaker 2: would have drop the record, but then huh by that point,
Speaker 2: h yeah, yeah, check yeah.
Speaker 3: I was on my second album around ninety one. Ninety two.
Speaker 2: Yeah, that's crazy.
Speaker 1: We'll drop We'll dropped the accomptant thing. And then I just.
Speaker 3: Dropped ninety two ropped, uh straight checking them with growing up.
Speaker 1: In the thing in the apartment, man, man, bang it
Speaker 1: on them trainks smoking that cat, We banging it. But yeah,
Speaker 1: it was. It was a cool time, man.
Speaker 4: I wish we would have had the opportunity to see
Speaker 4: the project all the way through, you feel me. But
Speaker 4: things happened. I got presented with an opportunity, you know
Speaker 4: what I mean. And it happened around the time when
Speaker 4: like production kind of slowed down on the Convicts thing,
Speaker 4: right because it was other things going on at the label.
Speaker 4: You feel me, and I had already had responsibilities by then,
Speaker 4: you feel me. So I was I was like, I
Speaker 4: was kind of like on the clock. I needed to
Speaker 4: get get in the situation. I need to release some music,
Speaker 4: you know what I mean. So another situation, the Ghetto
Speaker 4: Boys situation had came. It took me a second. I
Speaker 4: didn't jump on it right away. I pondered it for
Speaker 4: a while, and you know, decided to go that route
Speaker 4: kind of worked out from a little bit though I
Speaker 4: would have thought about it more in hindsight, you did
Speaker 4: what I'm saying, But yeah, that's what.
Speaker 2: We were doing.
Speaker 1: I'm sorry, ahead, Yeah, I'm sorry. Had you and three two?
Speaker 2: Uh?
Speaker 1: Had you and three two had done music together?
Speaker 3: And and how were y'all presented the death row situation?
Speaker 3: Basically being from being from where y'all were, who convinced
Speaker 3: y'all to come to Cali and try out the death
Speaker 3: row situation?
Speaker 1: Ah Man, So me and three two we had.
Speaker 4: We was introduced to each other by the label right.
Speaker 2: Well, yeah, I rapped a lot, right.
Speaker 4: They had this the the convicts concept right that they
Speaker 4: was they was putting together. So I was a solo
Speaker 4: artist and me and Tony Draper, Me and Toni Draper,
Speaker 4: we had worked at restaurant together, right.
Speaker 2: So.
Speaker 1: We would go we would go to the studio.
Speaker 4: Bro he would put he would take money out of
Speaker 4: his check put getting the studio.
Speaker 2: I'll do the.
Speaker 4: Same, and it was gonna be me and him and
Speaker 4: the demos that we was making.
Speaker 1: Through Tony. They got over there to rap a lot, right.
Speaker 2: So once.
Speaker 4: Once Jay had heard it, he probably wanted to have
Speaker 4: a meeting and he was like, look, I see what
Speaker 4: y'all doing. Right, We got this situation over here with
Speaker 4: the convicts. If you help me with this, then I'm
Speaker 4: gonna help y'all. You feel me, right, what you're doing,
Speaker 4: you feel me? So I looked at it, you know,
Speaker 4: tall about any things, and it led up to us
Speaker 4: doing that. So that's how me and three two had
Speaker 4: got into to each other, right, But it was automatic
Speaker 4: once we had met each other, it was automatic. We
Speaker 4: just clicked and so we have recorded the convicts album
Speaker 4: before right before we had came out there, the Convicts
Speaker 4: album was released. I think it was out. I don't
Speaker 4: even think it was out a whole year whatnot. But depending,
Speaker 4: it's all about who you ask. I know, people got
Speaker 4: different stories. But I one day I know how. I
Speaker 4: later found out the end the workings of the whole
Speaker 4: move once I got to California, right, But really it
Speaker 4: was like one day, man, they just hit us and
Speaker 4: was like, y'all going to California?
Speaker 2: Were young? You feel me?
Speaker 4: Why what I'm saying, let's go? Yeah, I was, man,
Speaker 4: And it was like the next day we had flew out. Nigga,
Speaker 4: ain't even have no clothes and ship you feel me?
Speaker 4: Motherfucker just caught out. But yeah, it was, it was,
Speaker 4: it was, it was.
Speaker 1: It was a few people in off in that in
Speaker 1: that whole move, but I just can't.
Speaker 2: Here around at that time.
Speaker 4: Tom was here, you are round at the time, but
Speaker 4: we would talk to him on the phone. Why you
Speaker 4: have yo, We would talk to him on the phone.
Speaker 1: I don't know. I know we was requested. So I'm trying.
Speaker 1: I'm trying to go back, man and run it all down, right.
Speaker 2: I know what you're doing.
Speaker 1: It's a lot to it. Yeah, but it's a lot
Speaker 1: to it. It was a lot to it.
Speaker 4: But it was a situation with Harry Yo and and
Speaker 4: Jay m hm. It was a situation with them and
Speaker 4: and that's in in in from my understanding.
Speaker 1: At first, that's what led to us going down there.
Speaker 4: You know, they was doing the death rope thing, and
Speaker 4: they was like the convicts on death Row, they thought
Speaker 4: it'd be a good move, and that's how we had
Speaker 4: wound up going down there. But like I say, it's
Speaker 4: a whole lot of other things that had came to
Speaker 4: light later on, right, and I was able to put
Speaker 4: the pieces together and see the whole in the workers
Speaker 4: of it.
Speaker 1: But it'll take a long ass time.
Speaker 4: But in short, right, it was it was talks between
Speaker 4: Harry Yo and Jay that that led to it. But
Speaker 4: I think it was a collective you know, with with
Speaker 4: with with with with the heads over there at death
Speaker 4: Row about making a move and and climbering about us, right.
Speaker 4: But I think because Harry Yo and Jay probably had
Speaker 4: a relationship, right, he was the one that instigated it,
Speaker 4: you did.
Speaker 2: So yeah, yeah, that's crazy, man, That's kind of like
Speaker 2: and that's history. People don't never talk about because you
Speaker 2: would have never thought of you know, Big Michael Lord
Speaker 2: three two was at Death Row.
Speaker 4: Oh yeah, yeah, yeah, we was. We was there. We
Speaker 4: had man, we was having fun. Man, We was turning
Speaker 4: on me new people.
Speaker 2: Man.
Speaker 1: We learned a lot down there.
Speaker 4: You know, we left, We left our mark down there, right,
Speaker 4: And I just wish that we was able to see
Speaker 4: it through right and finish the whole thing up. But
Speaker 4: you know, things happened like they happened. You can't you
Speaker 4: can't live with regrets, right. We was able to go
Speaker 4: back home and still put the match down.
Speaker 2: You know.
Speaker 4: But yeah, man, it would have been lovely. We was
Speaker 4: able to release that Convicts record on death Bro. It
Speaker 4: would have been super dope.
Speaker 2: Yeah.
Speaker 1: Yeah, we had with Warren g one G.
Speaker 2: We had.
Speaker 1: We had the song on that motherful with Snoop.
Speaker 2: Man.
Speaker 1: It was early in the game.
Speaker 4: But I know that that one is released on It's
Speaker 4: it's floating around there on line. It's called playing for Keeps. Yeah,
Speaker 4: we Snooped three two one G on the track. Yeah,
Speaker 4: but it was it was early production though, but that
Speaker 4: one is out came from good to hear it after
Speaker 4: so many years.
Speaker 2: Man. Warren used to do a lot of sampling back then.
Speaker 4: Everybody was sampling back then. Oh yeah, definitely, the just
Speaker 4: sampling back then. It wasn't just samplings. Niggas was able
Speaker 4: to chop them up, you feel me, But niggas was
Speaker 4: sampling was still keen back then.
Speaker 2: Well yeah, like a mother. It seemed like that sh
Speaker 2: it is a lost or. But you know what when
Speaker 2: you went back down there to to wrap a up,
Speaker 2: was the Ghetto Boys offer a life changeing situation.
Speaker 4: In a sense, right, I mean to the point like, Okay,
Speaker 4: the Ghetto Boys had already was making strides, right, they
Speaker 4: had already you know, especially down in age time, right,
Speaker 4: and to come back and pay for the hometown team,
Speaker 4: I guess it would become like the equipment of a
Speaker 4: homegrown product getting drafted and playing for the Texans up
Speaker 4: playing for the Rockets.
Speaker 2: Right.
Speaker 1: That's how That's how I.
Speaker 2: Have felt about it, you know.
Speaker 4: But yeah, it was it was an exciting time, you know,
Speaker 4: the anticipation about it and everything.
Speaker 1: But yeah, that's how that's how I felt about it.
Speaker 4: You know, I try to look at it like that,
Speaker 4: and and you know, I know at home it was
Speaker 4: well received. I don't know, some people say you know,
Speaker 4: you know they like the inner ration that Ghetto Boys
Speaker 4: were just really deep. Wish we can scar face. I
Speaker 4: could dig that too, But the Ghetto Boys was always
Speaker 4: like like like a franchise, right players, players leave you
Speaker 4: bringing more players, you feel me, And it was always
Speaker 4: like that. But for me, I was able to get
Speaker 4: my name out there. It led to me being in
Speaker 4: a position to drop my solo records. You feel me,
Speaker 4: to embark upon my solo career. So I used the
Speaker 4: opportunity to the best.
Speaker 2: So yeah, So at the completion of the Ghetto Boys album,
Speaker 2: you're like, hey, man, I want to offer you a
Speaker 2: solo deal for your services or yeah alreadyod or he came,
Speaker 2: he came, you have to get a boys out.
Speaker 3: And before you answer that question, Jay was behind the
Speaker 3: Death Row record. So what made him go, no, fuck that,
Speaker 3: come over here and do this Ghetto Boys record?
Speaker 1: Say that again.
Speaker 3: So Jay was in support of y'all as the convicts,
Speaker 3: going to get on the row and do a project
Speaker 3: over there. Yeah, why did he turn around and go
Speaker 3: fuck that, come back home and do this Ghetto Boys project?
Speaker 4: He didn't, he is he didn't say, he wasn't like
Speaker 4: fuck that, right, not in that sense, But it was
Speaker 4: separate fe okay, getting it wasn't yeah, continuing on me
Speaker 4: still performing or releasing the project with the convicts?
Speaker 2: Right? But was it was? It?
Speaker 3: Was it the fact that the Convicts project on death
Speaker 3: Row wasn't taken off fast enough? No? No, Is that
Speaker 3: what made you go back home and say fuck that?
Speaker 3: Or was it just I didn't really say for but
Speaker 3: that's what made me go back home? Like I said,
Speaker 3: I had already had had a couple.
Speaker 4: Of children, right, so I had I had responsibilities.
Speaker 1: I didn't, you know, I wasn't.
Speaker 2: I didn't.
Speaker 4: I didn't have the luxury of just hanging around and
Speaker 4: not being productive, you feel me? For a year, a
Speaker 4: year or two or whatnot. You know, I was trying
Speaker 4: to get in motion. So when the opportunity came, I
Speaker 4: guess when Willie D had left the group, and you
Speaker 4: know they probably took self inventory, right honestly, Right, if
Speaker 4: you're a CEO, you're gonna look round the label and
Speaker 4: be like, you know, who else can I get to
Speaker 4: fit the trio?
Speaker 2: Right?
Speaker 4: Because that's how the Ghetto Boys were operated, right? So
Speaker 4: my name, you know, it came to me, you feel me,
Speaker 4: it came to me. They hit me up when we
Speaker 4: was in La. Like I said, I didn't jump on
Speaker 4: it right away. I had thought about it. But then
Speaker 4: when things exactly like you said, when things had to
Speaker 4: when the production slowed down on the basically came to
Speaker 4: a hope on the Convicts project, right, I was like,
Speaker 4: I had to do what I had to do. If
Speaker 4: the Crime Convicts Project was still moving, who knows, who
Speaker 4: knows what I would have done, right, But it wasn't.
Speaker 4: So then I get the opportunity to go back home
Speaker 4: and play with the home team.
Speaker 1: It was, it was, it was, it was, It seemed
Speaker 1: it was the right move at the time.
Speaker 2: You feel me, it was lower three two salty.
Speaker 1: I don't. I don't. I don't. I wouldn't say he
Speaker 1: was Sautsi. He wasn't saut Sea.
Speaker 2: Yeah, think about it like this. He had you know,
Speaker 2: he over a death row and got a situation. Ain't
Speaker 2: nobody called him to come join the group. You feel
Speaker 2: what I'm saying? So you leave that kind of shorten
Speaker 2: his situation out, didn't it.
Speaker 4: Free Too was already gone before I had left some
Speaker 4: three twos. He had already went back went back to
Speaker 4: Houston before I had that.
Speaker 2: Wasn't the same thing. The records was taking too long.
Speaker 4: So it was on that Ghetto Boys album He's on
Speaker 4: straight Gangsterism Altham. He he wasn't South and he was family.
Speaker 4: It was it was it wasn't like that.
Speaker 1: We knew if if one of us get there, then
Speaker 1: all of us get there. He did what I'm saying,
Speaker 1: So it was it wasn't like that whatsoever.
Speaker 2: Yeah, that makes sense. If he was, especially if he
Speaker 2: was gone already, he probably wouldn't.
Speaker 3: Trust there was It was their other work going on
Speaker 3: a death row that was taking precedent over the convicts
Speaker 3: record is why it slowed down.
Speaker 4: So when we got there, of course dra was already
Speaker 4: They was already formulated the chronate, right, So I think
Speaker 4: they had justin did the deep cover soundtrack right, putting
Speaker 4: together the chronic.
Speaker 1: When Slope was able to be on deck right once.
Speaker 4: He was on deck, then I think they just went
Speaker 4: full ahead with that, you know what I mean.
Speaker 1: And that's understandable, right, So I was gonna have a.
Speaker 4: Song of mine gonna be on there anyway, mister Officer
Speaker 4: was gonna be on there. Later I found out Drake
Speaker 4: had wanted to record that straight gangster rhythm, right, But
Speaker 4: I was always I was already in the process of
Speaker 4: recording with the Ghetto Boys, so I had bought those
Speaker 4: songs over there, and but let me see, not to
Speaker 4: get off track, but hit me with that that last
Speaker 4: part of that question again, like like, like I said,
Speaker 4: was there other records that were taking more precedent.
Speaker 3: Over I was, Yeah. How many songs would you say?
Speaker 3: Y'all was deep into the Convicts record? Man, we probably like, like, well, damn,
Speaker 3: like when you start noticing shit was slowing down?
Speaker 1: Mm hmm. Man, we probably had to record it like.
Speaker 4: Maybe like four or five, like five songs between Slip
Speaker 4: and Unknown, right, and then we had the one from
Speaker 4: Warrant g So that's probably like six songs right there, right.
Speaker 4: How many songs was we putting on the album back then,
Speaker 4: ten or twelve? About ten about ten, Yeah, so I
Speaker 4: would say we was half played, right, but it was
Speaker 4: our pre production, right, it was reproduction, and then things
Speaker 4: had kind of slowed down. It was the incident that
Speaker 4: happened after things had slowed down that that Unknown was
Speaker 4: involved in. Yeah, we tried to We went back to
Speaker 4: work with her normal a little bit after that, but
Speaker 4: things had kind of slowed down because.
Speaker 2: What was the incident? Huh, who was the incident?
Speaker 1: He got, he.
Speaker 4: Got touched up, he got he got to Yeah, he
Speaker 4: came to the studio with us one night and it's
Speaker 4: darkest fucking the studio where you know, back then this.
Speaker 1: Bitch black and this like, Nigga, why you got some
Speaker 1: goodnesses on?
Speaker 3: Because we just kept we like, just why is this
Speaker 3: nigga win something like Okay, maybe he like you standing
Speaker 3: there for five minutes or so and you ain't trip,
Speaker 3: but we've been in here for about thirty minutes.
Speaker 1: Nigga, This nigga still got his sunglasses.
Speaker 2: Yeah, nigga, what the.
Speaker 3: Fuck is going on? And Nigga pulled them glasses off.
Speaker 3: Nigga boom.
Speaker 4: Yeah, man, I think it was behind, like the production
Speaker 4: had slowed down. I was, and we were like, hey,
Speaker 4: we ain't been to the studio.
Speaker 3: This is exactly what was was told because Slip was
Speaker 3: a part of that, right.
Speaker 2: Yeah.
Speaker 3: From what I heard was he went and got some
Speaker 3: money from sug to start production on the Compix project.
Speaker 3: But in the midst of that, Slip was working on
Speaker 3: music to drive by with me. So Sugar is requesting
Speaker 3: these beats Nigga even took my money, so where's the beats?
Speaker 3: Anne kept putting it off, like, well, you know, I'm
Speaker 3: busy working on h record.
Speaker 4: And once he heard that, Nigga okay, see I heard yeah,
Speaker 4: you're probably right right because I thought it was because
Speaker 4: the production had slowed down. Because it probably because when
Speaker 4: sug had asked me, I was like, should we ain't
Speaker 4: been to the studio? You know, and he was like,
Speaker 4: on who y'all been working with? I was like, man,
Speaker 4: we was working with Unknown with with slip and he
Speaker 4: was like, don't worry about it. I take care of it.
Speaker 4: Oh yeah, he took care of it.
Speaker 2: Yeah.
Speaker 4: And then one day when Unknown popped up we was
Speaker 4: going to the studio, he had them sunglasses on. Yes, yeah,
Speaker 4: he wearing them sunglasses for a minute, and when he
Speaker 4: got to his house, got to his studio, Bo took
Speaker 4: the sunglasses off. And that's when we found out what
Speaker 4: had happened. I kind of I was like, damn. I
Speaker 4: kind of felt bad because I thought it was because
Speaker 4: I had told him we ain't been to the studio, right, Yeah,
Speaker 4: But Mike, basically because it's one of those things when
Speaker 4: you ride and high, right, you know, we was having
Speaker 4: a little success, and when they was working on that album,
Speaker 4: because it was three two, we would be privy to
Speaker 4: some of the songs I was working on. Remember that intro,
Speaker 4: that figure a intro I came up with that.
Speaker 2: Yeah, yeah, Hey.
Speaker 4: We was like, oh, we couldn't believe we was here
Speaker 4: and this ship.
Speaker 1: You feel me? But shout out the slipped and shot
Speaker 1: out the unknown.
Speaker 4: I wasn't laughing at his situation, right, I was just
Speaker 4: recalling everything. But the brothers were still good brothers, you
Speaker 4: know what I mean. I enjoyed working with them cats.
Speaker 4: You know, I learned from everybody that be around, so
Speaker 4: I was definitely I definitely.
Speaker 1: Picked up on some things and learned some things.
Speaker 4: Man, and getting down over at West Coast Production, that
Speaker 4: really helped my float, You feel me? My float was
Speaker 4: already ready in the right direction, but that really helped
Speaker 4: refine it. You did, know what I'm saying?
Speaker 2: Like you a good nigga dog.
Speaker 4: Even though we didn't get to finish the project and
Speaker 4: stuff out there, I still learned some things right and
Speaker 4: was able to, you know, you know, upgrade my game
Speaker 4: a little bit from being just from being down there.
Speaker 1: You know what I'm saying so.
Speaker 3: But yeah, and sometimes when you're around other you know,
Speaker 3: when you're around other greatness in the make and you know,
Speaker 3: it just makes you refined and polished. Not that shit
Speaker 3: as a competition, but you know, being around motherfuckers who
Speaker 3: you feel have already set the tone for being you
Speaker 3: know great. You know, like, yeah, Dre was one of
Speaker 3: the motherfuckers. You know, Slip was one of the motherfuckers.
Speaker 3: Then being able to able to hang around you know,
Speaker 3: the Snoops in the in the Warren Gee's too, you know.
Speaker 1: You know at the apartment.
Speaker 2: Yeah, over there, you.
Speaker 3: Feel me because y'all already, like I said, y'all were
Speaker 3: y'all were looked upon as some great niggas already so
Speaker 3: being because y'all were the first ones to represent a
Speaker 3: California West Coast label coming from Texas. You know how
Speaker 3: niggas felt about the Convicts early projects. You feel ready
Speaker 3: rest in peace my nigga three too. Funny, motherfucker.
Speaker 2: Mike when they did put when they did put the
Speaker 2: three to the Convicts album out right, did they put
Speaker 2: a lot of promotion on that or was it just
Speaker 2: something that just kind of popped up?
Speaker 4: No? No, no, they just they put it out there.
Speaker 4: We had we had little promotion, you know what I mean,
Speaker 4: But it wasn't like no major roll out or nothing
Speaker 4: like that. You had to be a deep uh rap,
Speaker 4: a lot records connoisseur, you know, as far as the
Speaker 4: convicts is concerned. You have to be a real nigga
Speaker 4: who appreciated underground hip hop. You know what I'm saying, Because,
Speaker 4: like you said, y'all didn't get there, and I felt
Speaker 4: like I was in that same boat.
Speaker 3: A lot of us got mediocre motion because niggas really
Speaker 3: didn't know what to do with us. You feel me,
Speaker 3: you know, you have attention, You feel me. It that's valuable, right,
Speaker 3: motherfucker said.
Speaker 4: Damn, I ain't even putting no money behind this ship,
Speaker 4: but they making noise. Yeah, it's you know, some people
Speaker 4: get it up front. Some people got to grind a
Speaker 4: little bit more.
Speaker 3: Right, But you know, yeah, that's the That's the motto
Speaker 3: I tell my son today.
Speaker 1: Like some some niggas get it like you'd be.
Speaker 3: Like god, damn, like damn, that was fast, and then
Speaker 3: you look at itself and be like, Nigga, I've been
Speaker 3: grinding for a long time, But hey, fuck it. Sometimes
Speaker 3: it's just the way the route you have to go.
Speaker 3: Fuck it sometimes it's just like that, you know.
Speaker 2: Y'all wound up doing a couple hundred thousand copies of
Speaker 2: the album nont you know.
Speaker 1: On the Convicts album. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, the Convince
Speaker 1: getting around.
Speaker 2: Back in the days.
Speaker 3: So that was a pre that was that was appreciated
Speaker 3: back in those days.
Speaker 2: Though.
Speaker 3: In those early hip hop days, you could sell two
Speaker 3: hundred three hundred thousand. Yeah, motherfucker, look at you like
Speaker 3: you know, okay, you know that was that was. You know,
Speaker 3: ship nowadays? Ship you you can't. You ain't pushing triple billion, nigga,
Speaker 3: you ain't ship?
Speaker 1: Yeah, wea nowadays?
Speaker 2: You know, then it's two hundred thousand. And that was
Speaker 2: a lot of money back then, because you gotta remember, man,
Speaker 2: I had a record store. Labels was getting anywhere between
Speaker 2: sixty seven dollars back then. Man, you know, put that
Speaker 2: up man it you know it made about one point
Speaker 2: five two million, yeah off that album, you know what
Speaker 2: I'm saying.
Speaker 3: Yeah, that's been changed now when you're collecting about what
Speaker 3: sixty seventy cents? You know the point then point nigga,
Speaker 3: don't know a point of seven cents and ship. So nigga,
Speaker 3: you getting motherfucking you're getting. You're getting what eighty nine
Speaker 3: points in the album? Nigga, you look up there, that
Speaker 3: ship add up to about a couple of cents. Then
Speaker 3: you're turning around and they charging you for every stamp,
Speaker 3: every phone call, every fucking promo tour. You think like, oh, goddamn,
Speaker 3: I just sold half a million records. Niggat fit to be.
Speaker 3: They like, no, no, no, now they made money. But
Speaker 3: them motherfuckers turn around and go, nigga, oh, your budget
Speaker 3: was what two point fifty? Your videos added up to
Speaker 3: about another two seventy five, your pro one hundred.
Speaker 1: Really you owe us out of that?
Speaker 3: What out of that eighty six cents you getting, you
Speaker 3: owe us about motherfucking eight hundred and something thousands and shit.
Speaker 3: So you like, huh, but it just made thirty million dollars, Nigga,
Speaker 3: you owe us eight hundred and ninety thousand and some
Speaker 3: change out of that seventy two getting clazy nigga never recouping,
Speaker 3: and then the motherfucker turned around next year, go here,
Speaker 3: go another twoft give us another record you got with
Speaker 3: you nicking up advances in that show Gotta eat off that.
Speaker 1: That's how you gotta live.
Speaker 3: You gotta figure right away, like Homa, get my shit recorded,
Speaker 3: beat all that shit with this budget, and put some
Speaker 3: of this money in my pocket because I'm never gonna
Speaker 3: see a royalty check off of this project.
Speaker 1: Never.
Speaker 2: Never.
Speaker 3: I don't give a fuck. I gonna sell two million
Speaker 3: copies and motherfucking make them about forty fifty million. I
Speaker 3: still owe these niggas three millions. I have provided you
Speaker 3: with a real budget. Yeah, I don't put out two records,
Speaker 3: and I'm still in the red three million, and that's
Speaker 3: got to come out of seventy two cents.
Speaker 4: Like like to learn, but you learn not to ask
Speaker 4: for so much shit next time.
Speaker 1: Right, I don't.
Speaker 4: I don't need this this city, going to work with
Speaker 4: producer this and that. Yeah, fucking ads and the magazines,
Speaker 4: fuck all that shit, man. Right about now, I just
Speaker 4: want to go off a world of mouth for the streets,
Speaker 4: fucking because y'all charging a nigga for.
Speaker 1: Every game everything heighty they feel like they got to
Speaker 1: get get back.
Speaker 2: Keep in mind, not only are they connected collecting everything
Speaker 2: back out your seventy two cents, but they probably an't
Speaker 2: already made anywhere for one and a half to seven
Speaker 2: eight million dollars already, just just already, and they still
Speaker 2: charge your game.
Speaker 3: You sell them, You sell the motherfucking million copies for them.
Speaker 3: They they've done made some money because.
Speaker 4: What some of them how many seven dollars album?
Speaker 2: Yeah, that's thirty five million dollars album?
Speaker 1: What some of them flipping? What nine ninety nine?
Speaker 3: At the motherfucking one stops, they sending them up fourteen
Speaker 3: dollars thirteen.
Speaker 2: Up?
Speaker 1: They steal some of that, gangster Yeah, that's straight right there.
Speaker 1: I just do. Going into One Stops, nigga, I'm like,
Speaker 1: who album is out? Oh?
Speaker 3: Yeah, let me get that, Let me get that one,
Speaker 3: Let me get that one, Let me get that one. Yeah,
Speaker 3: go to the label, fucking anybody who was on the label, nigga.
Speaker 3: I'm going shopping, nigga. That's how I get all my music.
Speaker 3: Fuck ghet up the label, going there?
Speaker 1: Whose record out?
Speaker 2: Oh?
Speaker 3: Michael Jackson's record out? Yeah, let me get one of
Speaker 3: them for days? Who else is out?
Speaker 2: So?
Speaker 3: Yeah, because you ain't fing to see nothing, you better
Speaker 3: be smart and be able to budget that motherfucking advance
Speaker 3: they give you.
Speaker 1: Stick some of that, stretch it out.
Speaker 4: But then you know, you was able to get some
Speaker 4: money to get your published in right, and then after
Speaker 4: a while, you know them raw teas to catch up
Speaker 4: a little bit.
Speaker 3: Right, but when you start figuring out the game, because
Speaker 3: just say, yeah, at least some of us as artists
Speaker 3: came in this game young and uh, it's it's fortunate
Speaker 3: now that a lot of artists are able to to
Speaker 3: gain from that having the knowledge of of what we
Speaker 3: had to go through because we was getting.
Speaker 1: The game young, you was gonna get skinned.
Speaker 3: Up published, Nigga, that Nigga published, Nigga, I thought you
Speaker 3: just get a check for I thoughn't you just get
Speaker 3: a check.
Speaker 1: On the album covers?
Speaker 2: And ship?
Speaker 1: I'm like, what about being on the album covered? Check?
Speaker 3: At you know what I'm saying that it's publishing and
Speaker 3: did you get your mechanicals?
Speaker 1: And you're like, what the fuck is that you?
Speaker 3: We didn't. We didn't know that. We weren't able to
Speaker 3: figure that ship out until later on down our lives
Speaker 3: and our careers and shipping. Unfortunately, you know, there's some
Speaker 3: motherfuckers out there still eating off your work because you know,
Speaker 3: you write, you you wrote the songs, you did the music.
Speaker 1: You know.
Speaker 3: It's just that we came from that era that certain
Speaker 3: niggas felt like they deserved that more than you, and
Speaker 3: you the motherfucker who produced that situation. You know, a
Speaker 3: beat you might have undead, or a verse you might
Speaker 3: have wrote. Now youvene wrote every fucking verse on your
Speaker 3: album and you look up in somebody else's claiming the
Speaker 3: publishing on it.
Speaker 1: You know, I should even hit you to the game.
Speaker 2: You feel me I'm a hit you know, But.
Speaker 1: I don't know. Let me ask you this eight.
Speaker 4: If you was in a position back in the days
Speaker 4: to be a CEO, right, you win the head, You
Speaker 4: wasn't behind the mic, right right?
Speaker 2: Right?
Speaker 1: You got young, it's got some talent, you sign them
Speaker 1: on up. You gonna hit him to the game, or
Speaker 1: you're gonna let him learn through trial and error.
Speaker 3: Coming from the era that we came in, I'm gonna
Speaker 3: beat uh the CEO because, like I always tell the motherfucker,
Speaker 3: the object of that situation, as me as a CEO
Speaker 3: is to retain uh most of what we need as
Speaker 3: a company. And I'm gonna feel like in certain some
Speaker 3: situations now it all depends on how knowledgeable the artist is.
Speaker 3: I'm dealing with you get me. If I'm dealing with
Speaker 3: another young nigga and he coming in and we getting
Speaker 3: ready to do a deal, and I want to sign him,
Speaker 3: and he's knowledgeable about the situation and knowing like, Okay,
Speaker 3: my publishing is separate and WOOTI womp and blah blah blah,
Speaker 3: then I'm gonna have to give a young nigga credit
Speaker 3: and we're gonna have to come up with a deal.
Speaker 3: Like I said, the first situations, niggas are just not knowledgeable.
Speaker 3: So those are the situations where we got fucked. Because
Speaker 3: I'm one of those niggas. I wasn't knowledgeable about a
Speaker 3: lot of shit as a young seventeen year old kid
Speaker 3: coming up the neighborhood.
Speaker 1: I didn't have the guy.
Speaker 3: You know, my mom frowned upon that type the shit
Speaker 3: I was trying to do.
Speaker 2: At least you was on a major label, Mike, I
Speaker 2: give you. You didn't get no advance for that Convice album?
Speaker 2: Did you not?
Speaker 1: For that Convicts?
Speaker 4: We was you know, we was able to go in
Speaker 4: there and get fifteen hundred here, you know what I mean.
Speaker 4: One of those situations. Listen, to stay off this corner. Main,
Speaker 4: I need to have some money right, I ain't going
Speaker 4: to finish this.
Speaker 1: Record if I get caught up there on the block
Speaker 1: right now, you know you got to go make that
Speaker 1: kind of stance, right, But yeah, no, it wasn't.
Speaker 2: We didn't. We didn't.
Speaker 1: We didn't.
Speaker 4: We didn't get no no quote unquote advanced for the
Speaker 4: convicts record. But you know, we're hungry, be we was hungry,
Speaker 4: and we were just trying to put in some work
Speaker 4: so that we can get out there.
Speaker 1: Naturally, we don't, we are we are. We come in
Speaker 1: the game.
Speaker 4: Ninety percent of us that come in the game, we're
Speaker 4: not adept to you know, the business side of it, right.
Speaker 4: We just were really being trusted, right, going off, going
Speaker 4: off off. The people that we ride with decided to
Speaker 4: sign with their reputation right in the game, right, were
Speaker 4: looking at their success and were looking at it like, naturally,
Speaker 4: they want the artists to have success, right, they want
Speaker 4: the artists you feel me to to, you know, to
Speaker 4: come up right.
Speaker 1: It's a good look. But you know.
Speaker 4: When it comes to that pin game, man, they whipped
Speaker 4: you with that pen and they make you learn on
Speaker 4: your own right.
Speaker 3: To be just to be uh, not to be biased
Speaker 3: about the situation, but it was no difference between RAPP
Speaker 3: and being on Sony or Big beat Up under Epic
Speaker 3: or whatever.
Speaker 2: Yeah, it wasn't.
Speaker 1: It wasn't even.
Speaker 3: Like like like once I became knowledgeable about situations, but
Speaker 3: now I was on Sony in Capitol and got fucked
Speaker 3: for my first three hour. Nobody felt justifirebowing going this
Speaker 3: dude's writing all this music or whatever nigga I was
Speaker 3: getting somebody is somebody is getting picking up a check
Speaker 3: for two hundred and fifty thousand, and I'm going home
Speaker 3: with five grand in my pocket.
Speaker 1: You get me.
Speaker 3: There was no difference because it was an independent and
Speaker 3: a major. If a nigga could fuck you, they were
Speaker 3: gonna fuck you just period until you took a stand.
Speaker 1: I would say they would definitely take advantage rules. But
Speaker 1: I tell you that all the day.
Speaker 4: You feel me.
Speaker 2: Still.
Speaker 3: We have discussions about nigga's character today and how a
Speaker 3: nigga should be more you know, And I tell you shit,
Speaker 3: in this day and age, if a nigga can fuck you,
Speaker 3: he's gonna fuck you unless you know your business and
Speaker 3: know where you're coming from. If a nigga go, yeah,
Speaker 3: we got five, I should give him two fifty and
Speaker 3: take my two fifty.
Speaker 4: But you a way to give him seventy five and
Speaker 4: that just you know what, man, I'm.
Speaker 1: You get me unless you know I got.
Speaker 2: That this one.
Speaker 4: You don't know that that five I'm gonna figure out
Speaker 4: away now you saying that a nigga should just be
Speaker 4: credible and go, I got.
Speaker 1: This five for us to fifty you to you, but go,
Speaker 1: yeah I said.
Speaker 3: That, But now five is in my hand and it's
Speaker 3: like he don't even know that it's the file, right,
Speaker 3: this all.
Speaker 2: Look at it, this all, look at it. I look
Speaker 2: at it like this. All right, we got that five?
Speaker 2: Unless say I'm the label, right, Okay, I gotta pay
Speaker 2: for his studio time. Let's say, okay, I don't spend
Speaker 2: ten on the studio, right, I don't spend this that
Speaker 2: I don't been giving them money, but.
Speaker 1: Fifty let's say I don't. Let's I don't spend fifty thousand, right.
Speaker 2: Yeah, I'm gonna say, okay, you know what, I'm going
Speaker 2: to take three hundred this because you know, I gotta
Speaker 2: get my little bit of money back and I gotta
Speaker 2: make some money, and I'm gonna give you the other
Speaker 2: two hundred. You know the rest of it, right, you
Speaker 2: know what I'm saying.
Speaker 1: How they gonna give you that seventy five good?
Speaker 2: Not just give a nigga.
Speaker 1: That's kind of like right there, that's just a nigga's mentality.
Speaker 3: That's just it's it's like the bigger, the bigger the prize,
Speaker 3: the lesser nigga want to pay you for your contribution.
Speaker 3: And you could have you done done just as much,
Speaker 3: and and and I don't know why their mentality was
Speaker 3: this way.
Speaker 1: You get me.
Speaker 3: I have no idea when I first came in the
Speaker 3: game and I'm sitting up in the studio late nights
Speaker 3: and not seeing my kid, and not going to the
Speaker 3: hoods and participating in my activities with my my neighborhood,
Speaker 3: and you know, moms is tripping, I'm missing school. I
Speaker 3: didn't do all of that. So a nigga could go,
Speaker 3: he should get this, but I'm.
Speaker 1: Not.
Speaker 3: Just what because you the you, You the nigga who
Speaker 3: found me and walk me through the door.
Speaker 1: I'm still putting in the work.
Speaker 3: Though, it ain't like I'm just sitting here and in
Speaker 3: like like like a put together superstar. Right, were gonna
Speaker 3: get your wardrobe, We're gonna get your songs written. We're
Speaker 3: gonna get your music done, we gonna get your hair done.
Speaker 3: All you gotta do is sit there and when we
Speaker 3: go action, you do no nigga like create. I'm in
Speaker 3: there trying to figure out, Okay, what is gonna what
Speaker 3: is gonna make me?
Speaker 1: Oh you know?
Speaker 2: Oh Damn.
Speaker 1: I listen to this nigga song and his ship is
Speaker 1: all on that. I gotta come up.
Speaker 3: And Nigga's sitting in there at at three o'clock in
Speaker 3: the morning, and I'm missing my kids functions and I
Speaker 3: don't do this and do that all because I'm trying
Speaker 3: to create and be this artist. And when the money
Speaker 3: hit the table, you think you should take eighty five percent.
Speaker 4: Of it, Like God, damn dude, Like I don't like.
Speaker 3: But some niggas mentalities idiots like that. Some niggas is like, Nigga,
Speaker 3: we and this together. We started this shit.
Speaker 1: Nigga sua like that, right, half Familion hits.
Speaker 4: It's like, damn, I got this, just brought in five right,
Speaker 4: But he wasn't even brought in this five if it
Speaker 4: wasn't for me, not like it's a partnership, right. Some
Speaker 4: niggas had that mentality if it wasn't for me, and
Speaker 4: that's how that's how I felt like. Remember that night
Speaker 4: we had the homie on there and he was like figuring,
Speaker 4: he figuring, like, Oh, I'm the label, so without me, nigga,
Speaker 4: you can't get shit done.
Speaker 3: Nigga's gonna write some songs. Yeah, we're gonna getting studio
Speaker 3: and creation. So artist, if I wouldn't a dope, artist
Speaker 3: should not put it out, but guarantee you somebody gonna
Speaker 3: hear this shit and go we gotta do. Don't feel
Speaker 3: like if I didn't have this label, you would never
Speaker 3: be who you are as an artist?
Speaker 1: What do you mean?
Speaker 4: You can't do shit? You can't create a song, you
Speaker 4: can't make a beat.
Speaker 3: All you got is is a motherfucking mouthpiece and a
Speaker 3: little more dollars than I have. And if I was
Speaker 3: smart enough and was knowledgeable, I'd be independent, like you
Speaker 3: would start my own.
Speaker 1: Shit that you got money and you got a mouthpiece.
Speaker 2: Right, but this.
Speaker 3: Right, if you don't like your status as the label
Speaker 3: and as the whatever is where, well I should collect
Speaker 3: ninety percent. What do you mean if you didn't have
Speaker 3: this song, in this beat, in this artist, what would
Speaker 3: you promote?
Speaker 1: What would you mouthpiece.
Speaker 2: Well, you know what the crazy not not to cut
Speaker 2: you off a but you know what the crazy part
Speaker 2: is they almost just they justify all of that, the
Speaker 2: economics and how they do stuff and the structure of
Speaker 2: the deals because probably only one in five artists gonna
Speaker 2: be successful at the label. Think about all them records
Speaker 2: that Wrap a Lot put out? How many of them records? Actually? So, Mike,
Speaker 2: you think a lot of that ship was selling like that?
Speaker 1: Do you? But do you? But do you qualify?
Speaker 2: Huh?
Speaker 1: Rap a Lot had a following?
Speaker 2: Right?
Speaker 1: So the label itself, you know, the labor itself was
Speaker 1: seeing some was seeing some income because we had they
Speaker 1: had a lot. They had It was quite a few
Speaker 1: art this song Rap a Lot, right, and Rap a
Speaker 1: Lot had a following, you feel what I'm saying? So
Speaker 1: they they Rap a Lot ship.
Speaker 2: But like I saw some crazy CDs from him, Like
Speaker 2: I saw a white midget with a snake around his neck.
Speaker 2: Like it was supposed to be like an off brand
Speaker 2: version of the Ghetto Boys or whatever.
Speaker 1: That's why did you try master Pie? Did you try
Speaker 1: the master Piece? It beyond the Ghetto Man?
Speaker 4: And but yeah, yeah there was my homies though, but
Speaker 4: but yeah, yeah, yeah, it was like a spin off
Speaker 4: from the Ghetto Boy exactly.
Speaker 1: But and everybody was.
Speaker 4: But when you meet those guys, they was, they was
Speaker 4: their own original.
Speaker 1: You feel me right.
Speaker 4: That's where the comparisons stopped, just at the the optics
Speaker 4: of it, you feel me, But everybody had. Everybody had
Speaker 4: aspirations and hopes and dreams man as an individual and
Speaker 4: things like that, you know. But unfortunately, just like other
Speaker 4: artists that came be for the hip hop era, right,
Speaker 4: we talk about blues, R and B jazz artists that
Speaker 4: that was dealing with the music industry, you know what
Speaker 4: I mean, getting taken advantage stuff. You know, the white
Speaker 4: white artists just just covering black songs and putting them
Speaker 4: out like it's they songs. You feel me right, You
Speaker 4: would think that blacks in the business, after seeing and
Speaker 4: knowing that this kind of stuff and being a victim
Speaker 4: of this kind of stuff, that we would treat each
Speaker 4: other differently, you feel me right, and treat each other
Speaker 4: a little bit better, with a little bit more respect.
Speaker 2: Right.
Speaker 1: But it's not always like that because that money. You
Speaker 1: feel me when.
Speaker 4: They when a person is on got their own aspirations, right,
Speaker 4: and you're just a byproduct of that, you're just a
Speaker 4: means of you know what I'm saying, to help them
Speaker 4: get to where they want to be. Right. But you're like, okay,
Speaker 4: that's cool, right, because sometimes you got to get with
Speaker 4: somebody to get somewhere.
Speaker 1: Right.
Speaker 4: But at the same time, at the end of the day,
Speaker 4: you want to walk away with something as well.
Speaker 1: You feel me like you say.
Speaker 4: Hey, you don't want to be dedicating all of this time,
Speaker 4: all of this effort, right, all all it because it
Speaker 4: takes a lot of emotions to put them songs down,
Speaker 4: be in the studio, you know what I mean, all
Speaker 4: them hours and and and they do me we do
Speaker 4: music quick these days. And then it wasn't so quick
Speaker 4: to be put together.
Speaker 1: The song you feel Me Niggas is recording on reels
Speaker 1: and everything. But it's it's a learning experience, bro.
Speaker 4: And look we got more knowledge about it now, right.
Speaker 4: Some people came out less gay than others, right, But
Speaker 4: you know, it's just it's just one of them things, man.
Speaker 4: And but look look at them now. You know they
Speaker 4: able to go at least they able to go get
Speaker 4: a larger bag.
Speaker 2: Right.
Speaker 4: I wouldn't say workers of the business didn't change it's
Speaker 4: just enough month, it's just enough money to put bigger
Speaker 4: bait on the hook.
Speaker 1: I guess you feel me right real, Mike, let me
Speaker 1: ask you this, man, So you went on the run.
Speaker 2: I think a lot of people forget you put all
Speaker 2: three more records on rap a Up. You put off
Speaker 2: some serious and on that some serious album. You was
Speaker 2: the first one to really start fucking with PIMPC.
Speaker 4: That So I had met pimping them before we had
Speaker 4: came out to Los Angeles, so we had already knew
Speaker 4: the matter of fact, I was the one me and
Speaker 4: three two. We brought their music out there right and
Speaker 4: stooping them.
Speaker 1: But I own that ship.
Speaker 4: You feel me because let me get this tape. You
Speaker 4: feel me like man gone the niggas and the niggas U
Speaker 4: gally K. But they was already our homies before we
Speaker 4: had came out there. But I'm thinking because I had
Speaker 4: PIMC on the album. He did the hook on Halving Things,
Speaker 4: and he produced it. He produced the track. I had
Speaker 4: initially sung the hook, but after we finished the after
Speaker 4: we finished the song, him talking to me and talking
Speaker 4: and I'm hearing his voice, and I was like, man,
Speaker 4: to give the song more texture.
Speaker 1: You should go off in there and sing that hook.
Speaker 2: You feel me?
Speaker 4: Yeah, I said you should go off in there and
Speaker 4: sing that hook. And then Bun he was on the
Speaker 4: song car on the one. I should have both of
Speaker 4: them on the same song. I don't know why I
Speaker 4: broke it up like that, but it's the way that
Speaker 4: it had happened. Him had produced to having things we
Speaker 4: was working on there, and I just got him to
Speaker 4: do the to do the hook. But I'm just trying
Speaker 4: to think and make sure. But maybe I'm thinking like
Speaker 4: I'm probably like the first right Jack other than their
Speaker 4: own project that they had performed on, probably that they
Speaker 4: had featured on. Yeah, was out to Bun b Ip PIMC,
Speaker 4: you feel me? But yeah, man, I think that was
Speaker 4: I think man, matter of fact, Yeah, yeah, yeah, And
Speaker 4: we were just I was just looking out because I
Speaker 4: was I was there was my partners, and I was
Speaker 4: fans of them. You feel me, I had to have
Speaker 4: them only I should have had them both on the
Speaker 4: same song, right, But you know that just looking back
Speaker 4: in hindsight, but still with a strong showing on both songs.
Speaker 2: So yeah, well I'll tell you what I think you
Speaker 2: broke PIMC as a producer with that because I was
Speaker 2: hit the ug K. And that's how the rap a
Speaker 2: lot of music. That's how a lot of music got around.
Speaker 2: You hear one of your homies playing it, especially if
Speaker 2: they're from somewhere else. My homie Quentinsino, he was from Texas.
Speaker 2: He's Orange Texas and he was playing a short Texas record.
Speaker 2: But you GK yeah, back back back, I said, who
Speaker 2: was that? Man? Who was that? He dubbed me a
Speaker 2: copy of it. I went. I came back to California.
Speaker 2: They dubbed the copy for me. That's our music kind
Speaker 2: of got around.
Speaker 3: Oh yeah, definitely, some music got it down at a
Speaker 3: lot of UH, A lot of unknown ship and a
Speaker 3: lot of what we consider underground UH got promoted just
Speaker 3: by having word of mouth. And I would go to
Speaker 3: Mississippi and my cousin would have shipped from the East Coast.
Speaker 3: I never heard, and so I would dub that ship.
Speaker 3: Or I would come back to La hit up the
Speaker 3: Paramount Swap Meet and go digging through their twelve ventures
Speaker 3: and be like, oh, here this ship is. But you
Speaker 3: would never know because I didn't know who the fuck
Speaker 3: the niggas was.
Speaker 1: You get all the.
Speaker 3: Good doing them doing their mother fucking family reunion trips
Speaker 3: back to Mississippi. That's how I was connected because my
Speaker 3: older cousin he listened to a lot of East Coast music,
Speaker 3: so I didn't know about it, none of that ship.
Speaker 3: But I would listen to Ship in his car and
Speaker 3: then at the house on his record player, and then
Speaker 3: I would be like, oh, I'm by that ship. When
Speaker 3: I get home, rush straight to the paramount, schwap me
Speaker 3: and and and one didn't ask Ship for moms stereo
Speaker 3: in the living room, but fuck it, I'm finna go
Speaker 3: to swap me by this record and throw this motherfucking
Speaker 3: radio active on or that motherfucking the roof is on
Speaker 3: fire or some shit like that, and be like, Mars,
Speaker 3: be like, what the fuck is that ship?
Speaker 1: But that's how I got store. You ain't got to
Speaker 1: get the record, but you're going to see if it's
Speaker 1: there country music section, and come back and get my ship,
Speaker 1: because I know fucker they go taking the country music
Speaker 1: this motherfucker this record, come back.
Speaker 2: And get my and all.
Speaker 1: But yeah, man, that tape game was serious.
Speaker 4: Back then, boys used to have trash bags for the
Speaker 4: motherfucker cossets. You hear me, mother didn't, but you knew
Speaker 4: which was on each one of them motherfuckers, you know.
Speaker 4: But yeah, those those those those were simpler times back then.
Speaker 2: But you know, for a minute though, Mike, you was
Speaker 2: probably rapized big as artist for a minute for for
Speaker 2: for a second there, because some Serious went platinum, didn't it.
Speaker 1: Some Serious did some numbers.
Speaker 2: Yeah, some Serious went big because because Scarface hadn't dropped
Speaker 2: no ships yet, and you was like they maind for
Speaker 2: a moment, I bet they was treating you different as
Speaker 2: a motherfucker.
Speaker 4: With scar Face was already established. Yeah, Face was already
Speaker 4: established face Face Face was he was the flagship artist there,
Speaker 4: he was, sure.
Speaker 2: But you know what I'm saying, when you dropped some Serious,
Speaker 2: he hadn't dropped nothing. You were kind of dropped both.
Speaker 1: What you mean he had he had, he had solo
Speaker 1: albums already.
Speaker 2: Yeah. But when some Serious dropped Scarface and ever album
Speaker 2: all at that time, I don't think not a new one.
Speaker 1: He probably was working on it.
Speaker 2: Yeah, That's what I'm saying.
Speaker 3: Well, you as a you, as a label at in
Speaker 3: that position, you probably wouldn't want to have uh two
Speaker 3: of your big artists uh out at the same time,
Speaker 3: because it's really gonna contradict sales because for those for
Speaker 3: those niggas who you know are unable to uh have
Speaker 3: the benefit of purchasing both rock chatter time. Now I
Speaker 3: have to make a decision of what I want to
Speaker 3: saying until my next check you get being out at
Speaker 3: the same time, is gonna really contradict the label and sale.
Speaker 3: So if I drop a big Mic record, I'm knowing
Speaker 3: I'm not gonna put out the Scarface record for at
Speaker 3: least six months to the next year, and vice versa,
Speaker 3: because especially when I got two prominent projects coming out,
Speaker 3: you know, like even though I was signing to Sony,
Speaker 3: Sony would never put out my record, you know, in
Speaker 3: the vicinity of another Sony hip hop artist, like you
Speaker 3: don't want team with each exactly like we want all
Speaker 3: the sales. We don't want the fuckers to have to
Speaker 3: have a decision. Now, you couldn't do that for other
Speaker 3: labels who were figuring out were fuck it, if Big
Speaker 3: Mic gonna come out on the twelfth, We're gonna drop
Speaker 3: motherfucking so and so on the thirteenth. You know, that's
Speaker 3: how other labels with they artists would do. The Piggy
Speaker 3: back off or whatever was I'm in it at the time.
Speaker 2: You get me.
Speaker 3: You couldn't stop that competition. You just hope that fans
Speaker 3: would gravitate to your ship more than the next party.
Speaker 3: But if y'all both on my label, hell no, I'm
Speaker 3: gonna keep y'all releases at least six months apart.
Speaker 2: Yeah, Mike, I got one more question for you, man.
Speaker 2: So hard to hit? Was your last album on rap
Speaker 2: A Up, wasn't it? Yeah? Hard to hit? After that?
Speaker 2: You didn't have a lot of other ladys trying to
Speaker 2: come and get your procure your services.
Speaker 1: Well, I got hard to hit. That's when I got locked.
Speaker 1: I got locked around that time. But it was interest right,
Speaker 1: some other labels right looking to pick me up, you
Speaker 1: feel me? But after right after I lived with that,
Speaker 1: I got when I got my rap a Lot, that's
Speaker 1: my locks. I was on the run. But why they're
Speaker 1: catching up with me?
Speaker 4: But but yeah, I had got locked around that time,
Speaker 4: so it couldn't make no deals happened feeling from behind
Speaker 4: the balls.
Speaker 2: How many years did you do? I did? I did?
Speaker 2: I did? Folk?
Speaker 3: Yeah, was your situation? Was your situation of getting locked up?
Speaker 3: Was a result of the decline in music, or was
Speaker 3: it just some other ship that you had already had
Speaker 3: done and it finally called up to you? The reason
Speaker 3: why I got locked right, was it something that was
Speaker 3: already you know, something that was already present that you
Speaker 3: had already did, or you had to go back to
Speaker 3: doing a situation because of the decline and hip hop
Speaker 3: of your situation of not being able to you know,
Speaker 3: after you put our records would rap a lot and
Speaker 3: they started declining and then whatever whatever, you know what
Speaker 3: I'm saying. Was it something that you already had hanging
Speaker 3: over your head, or it was something that you had
Speaker 3: decided to do. It's what got you locked up. It
Speaker 3: was a situation, right.
Speaker 4: It was a situation that kind of like a rose right,
Speaker 4: just some typical shit contractual talks, you feel me, right?
Speaker 4: And it was a situation that it caught me by surprise.
Speaker 1: Do you feel me? The situation caught me by surprise,
Speaker 1: and and I had to react.
Speaker 2: Right.
Speaker 4: When I come sit down with y'all, then we can
Speaker 4: go more in depth. But if I was putting a
Speaker 4: situation where I had to react, right, you feel me?
Speaker 4: I was dealing with a grizzly bell, grizzly bear, attacked
Speaker 4: me right right, there's the bell gonna come back.
Speaker 1: You feel me if I.
Speaker 3: Don't, don't make against the grizzly bear.
Speaker 4: And you did, right, But like I said, we'll go
Speaker 4: in to detail about it. But yeah, it was a
Speaker 4: situation me and the label it had got ugly. You
Speaker 4: feel me slid into some gangster ship and you know
Speaker 4: that's what that's what eventually led to my my incarceration. Yeah,
Speaker 4: my part in it, you feel me.
Speaker 2: Yeah, you got up for retel you know, some ship.
Speaker 1: Basically, Yeah, but it's all good. I took my leak. Yeah,
Speaker 1: especially when.
Speaker 3: When you're put in a situation to where it's either
Speaker 3: put up or shut up, and you're feeling like, you know, hey,
Speaker 3: this is what has to happen. Ship, you give me like,
Speaker 3: ain't no if if it ain't no infens or but
Speaker 3: about it, I'm just this is just the way it
Speaker 3: go down, fucking and I might have to take my
Speaker 3: liquor whenever it comes to it, you have to take
Speaker 3: especially in the case like that, right, And I'm just
Speaker 3: gonna have to deal with it. But you know, you know,
Speaker 3: sometimes you put put in a situation where you feel
Speaker 3: like you have to do what you have to do.
Speaker 4: Now me thinking about it now, right, maybe I could
Speaker 4: have finessed the situation, right, but I'm a young man, right,
Speaker 4: stay different. Yeah, my mind stayed different. I'm a young man.
Speaker 4: I'm hurt, I'm in baddis right, I'm looking at I survive,
Speaker 4: thank God.
Speaker 2: Right, But.
Speaker 1: It was the chance that I might not have survived.
Speaker 2: Right.
Speaker 4: But but the Lord Jesus Christ, he had something else
Speaker 4: in store for me.
Speaker 2: Right, So.
Speaker 4: But still I even with that, I didn't realize that
Speaker 4: till later. I didn't realize God's hand in it till later. Right,
Speaker 4: I was going to strictly off the emotion. You feel me,
Speaker 4: and I'm retaligating it on the streets. My move is justified.
Speaker 4: Exactly on the streets, my move is justified. You did
Speaker 4: what I'm saying. You gonna tell any other care you
Speaker 4: put it that, nigga, be like man, I would have
Speaker 4: had to do what I had to do.
Speaker 2: You feel me?
Speaker 1: So on the street, move was justified.
Speaker 4: And that's that's the rules I was playing by coming
Speaker 4: from the streets.
Speaker 1: You feel me, People think about your career. You an'y
Speaker 1: think bro?
Speaker 4: Hell now yeah, like you feel me? You understand I
Speaker 4: ain't thinking about none of that. I got to get
Speaker 4: these motherfuckers off of me.
Speaker 2: I think people get a man before you anything else.
Speaker 1: Exactly, you know. But like I say, you know, I
Speaker 1: took my knee here.
Speaker 4: You feel me still living my life getting older, and
Speaker 4: that itself, that too was the experience as well.
Speaker 2: Right.
Speaker 4: So I got I got, I got, I got, I
Speaker 4: got real time testimony, right, And I'm just being short
Speaker 4: with everything because I am working on I'm working on
Speaker 4: a memoir. You feel me, and I want to just
Speaker 4: sitting there, so I do want to leave some things,
Speaker 4: you know.
Speaker 1: That's why I'm being shot like that. I know y'all
Speaker 1: kind of tell I'm being short.
Speaker 4: Still still be trying to hit you with questions to
Speaker 4: kind of like, but I got to be short with
Speaker 4: you right now.
Speaker 1: Still we'll talk. I gotta be something for the literature.
Speaker 4: But yeah, man, people you know, people basically got an
Speaker 4: idea of.
Speaker 1: What happened and things like that.
Speaker 2: You know.
Speaker 1: Yeah, man, end up going.
Speaker 4: To the penitential, getting back out, having go through the
Speaker 4: whole struggle of reiterating myself back in society, getting back
Speaker 4: on my feet.
Speaker 1: You feel me, I won't even say unfortunately, but for.
Speaker 4: Me, I didn't have that fan fare waiting for me
Speaker 4: like that, Like some rappers go to jail and then
Speaker 4: niggas get out hey waiting for them.
Speaker 2: It wasn't like that.
Speaker 4: It wasn't like that for me, right, I think because
Speaker 4: why I was locked up, and this was pre social media, right,
Speaker 4: So motherfucker locked up, and you don't have homeboys that
Speaker 4: have access to the media, right, You had to have
Speaker 4: somebody that had access to the media to keep your
Speaker 4: TV shouting you out, you feel me, to even be
Speaker 4: able to go to the radio station, have a reason
Speaker 4: to be at the radio station where they can shout
Speaker 4: you out and things like that.
Speaker 1: You did what I'm saying. So my niggas was in
Speaker 1: the streets.
Speaker 4: They wasn't rappers and things like that, so they didn't
Speaker 4: have access to the media. You did what I'm saying, Right,
Speaker 4: I'm getting all of this through letters and pictures. That's
Speaker 4: how I'm getting my support, you feel me.
Speaker 2: Right.
Speaker 4: At the time, the source had reached out to me, right,
Speaker 4: and I was locked up in their paths, so and
Speaker 4: they wanted to they wanted to come interview me, but
Speaker 4: I didn't see how it would help my situation because
Speaker 4: I was going through a real situation at the time, right,
Speaker 4: and it was it was.
Speaker 1: It was a real trial for myself and for my family.
Speaker 4: You did what I'm saying, and I just wanted to
Speaker 4: go through it and get it done right, So I
Speaker 4: didn't see the benefit of sitting there being interviewed from behind.
Speaker 4: Boy and listen, I'm a studio head. I love to
Speaker 4: be in the studio creating recording. You did what I'm saying,
Speaker 4: even though I was in the I'm in the business
Speaker 4: to where we have to be in front of the camera,
Speaker 4: right and make ourselves accessible to the media and things
Speaker 4: like that. I was never Listen, I'll be shooting videos.
Speaker 4: I'll be sweating profusely at my own video shoot. It
Speaker 4: could be cold outside because I just was never like
Speaker 4: comfortable in front the camera.
Speaker 2: And things like that. Right.
Speaker 4: I can get on staging through my thing, but all
Speaker 4: of that revolved around the music.
Speaker 1: You feel what I'm saying, Right.
Speaker 4: I could eventually get in there and get my mind
Speaker 4: right to do the videos, and I had got.
Speaker 1: Better with it, but I was never that kind of cat.
Speaker 2: Right.
Speaker 4: That's why I'm a little bit behind with the social media,
Speaker 4: not because when it was happening, I wasn't. I didn't
Speaker 4: gravitate towards it like that, you did, you know what
Speaker 4: I'm saying. So geez, So we got to ease into it, right,
Speaker 4: and then we were gonna we're gonna perfect where we're
Speaker 4: getting our bread at.
Speaker 1: Oh, this is what we gotta do.
Speaker 2: Damn.
Speaker 1: You know what I'm saying.
Speaker 4: The motherfucker go from there. But yeah, so I didn't.
Speaker 4: I didn't seek out the media or nothing like that. Right,
Speaker 4: people be like, you know, man, come down here and
Speaker 4: interview me. I just wanted to get through that. We
Speaker 4: got with my family, you know what I mean? And
Speaker 4: and I did. I wanted seven year sentence and I
Speaker 4: didn't have to stay the whole seven, right, I did
Speaker 4: the rest in the streets.
Speaker 1: So that was a blessing. And I learned a lot
Speaker 1: down there.
Speaker 4: My relationship with the Lord crew, right, I'm sure that
Speaker 4: he didn't want me behind bars, right, but it was
Speaker 4: other things in my life, right. I was undisciplined, right,
Speaker 4: and he was giving me time on my own to
Speaker 4: to to correct that, right. And then sometimes you got
Speaker 4: to sit down, right, you got to suit you down
Speaker 4: so he can isolate you. You didn't know what I'm saying,
Speaker 4: but the you know, like I said, that's what I
Speaker 4: gained from from the whole situation, right, I gained a
Speaker 4: situation from my relationship with God.
Speaker 1: I saw him moving my life in.
Speaker 4: A real way, and and and and that's part of
Speaker 4: my testimony. And maybe that's why I was placed in
Speaker 4: the line of fire like that. Right, Maybe it's bigger
Speaker 4: than all the pieces on the board, right, all the
Speaker 4: people involved.
Speaker 1: Maybe it's bigger than all of that.
Speaker 2: Right.
Speaker 4: So I'm able to do that now now that I'm
Speaker 4: past the the letdown of it, the anger of it all. Right,
Speaker 4: now I'm able to you know what I mean, to
Speaker 4: really see the workings of it and pull the positive
Speaker 4: up out of it.
Speaker 2: You know. But yeah, it had gotten.
Speaker 4: Into some gangster ship. It was real, dope, it was real,
Speaker 4: do you know what I mean?
Speaker 2: So you know, yeah, Man, we go ahead, this sit
Speaker 2: down in person, man, like we talked about this. This
Speaker 2: is a precursor of that.
Speaker 1: Man, it's crazy, right, I'm gonna get out there.
Speaker 4: I'm gonna get out there and fuck with y'all. Man, Definitely,
Speaker 4: we're gonna sit down. And by then, man, I've been
Speaker 4: had had this music that I've been working on, so
Speaker 4: I could lay on y'all and we could talk about
Speaker 4: that as well.
Speaker 2: Yeah, Mike, you gotta get Mike on a new album though, Yo, you.
Speaker 1: Already know, you know, I ain't.
Speaker 4: I know when the time is right, it's gonna happen.
Speaker 4: You feel I know when the time is right, it's
Speaker 4: gonna happen. But maybe the time is coming. Though it's coming.
Speaker 2: That's easy right there, for sure, Mike, Man, he said, Man,
Speaker 2: we gonna get back together and do this. Person. Man,
Speaker 2: we don't have you in here for hours some change, y'all.
Speaker 2: I only asked you to give me our You gave
Speaker 2: me so much more. I feel like if we don't stop,
Speaker 2: we're gonna keep on going.
Speaker 1: And I got to get back to these playoffs lame.
Speaker 2: Right quick.
Speaker 4: This salute man, Love y'all brothers, man, and I see
Speaker 4: y'all on the other side all ready.
Speaker 2: You know we got here all reck