Speaker 1: Questlove Supreme is a production of iHeartRadio.
Speaker 2: What's Up Everybody, It's Sugar Steve from Team Supreme. June
Speaker 2: marks Black Music Month. We often speak about it on
Speaker 2: Questlove Supreme and we've had some of the legends responsible
Speaker 2: for the recognition on the show. Every day this June,
Speaker 2: we are running a different episode from the QLs archives
Speaker 2: to honor the tradition and a tent of Black Music Month.
Speaker 2: This week we are focusing on some of the great
Speaker 2: hip hop conversations in the QLs catalog. Our leader Questlove
Speaker 2: has a new book out.
Speaker 3: Called hip Hop Is History.
Speaker 2: Check it out at questlove dot com. Today we are
Speaker 2: airing an interview with Philadelphia's own Lady B, who is
Speaker 2: not only a pioneering force at radio, but is also
Speaker 2: one of the first hip hop artists.
Speaker 3: To release a record.
Speaker 4: Ladies and gentlemen, welcome to another episode of quest Love Supreme.
Speaker 4: I will say that this is a highly personal episode
Speaker 4: for myself in my professional.
Speaker 5: Eddie in our SiO territory right here.
Speaker 6: Yes, no, no, it's not gonna be Edie.
Speaker 4: I will say that in my my thirty plus years
Speaker 4: of being in this business, I never thought the day
Speaker 4: would occur that my first interview with the person who
Speaker 4: literally introduced me to hip hop. Whatever happened on my platform.
Speaker 4: I mean, that's that's that's how often I dreamed of
Speaker 4: like being on her show. I mean even when I
Speaker 4: was listening to her, I didn't have dreams of being
Speaker 4: in hip hop. But literally, what what you know, what
Speaker 4: Greg Mac means to kd A y in La, what
Speaker 4: mister Magic means for New York City.
Speaker 6: I will say that this, this young lady.
Speaker 4: Was not only crucial for the Tri State area, but
Speaker 4: in hip hop in general, because I mean, at one point,
Speaker 4: Philly was the second largest hip hop market in the
Speaker 4: in the first formative years of hip hop being on
Speaker 4: Wax between like seventy nine and eighty nine. Yeah, just
Speaker 4: any major first, you know, the first time I heard
Speaker 4: cutting scratching on Grand Master Flash on the Wheels is Steel,
Speaker 4: The first time I heard Pumpkin play a breakbeat on
Speaker 4: on Spoony G's Love Rap, the first time I heard
Speaker 4: Sucker C's, the first time I heard anything by the
Speaker 4: Juice Crew, the first time got the moment I first
Speaker 4: heard Rebel without a pause, It's it's this young lady
Speaker 4: on our show for are you Roots? Officionados. Of course,
Speaker 4: her voice might be familiar to you if if you
Speaker 4: hold Our Things Fall apart album Hear and Deers. She's
Speaker 4: on the without a doubt.
Speaker 7: That was the best session ever.
Speaker 4: She is the first female to be on WAX as
Speaker 4: an MC, A pioneering DJ.
Speaker 6: Ladies and gentlemen, welcome to the person who introduced me
Speaker 6: to hip hop, Lady B.
Speaker 7: But oh, I feel so touched by that.
Speaker 8: But you know what, as I approach, you know, because
Speaker 8: as I approached his fortieth anniversity, I've been doing a
Speaker 8: lot of reflecting and just getting in my spirit with
Speaker 8: God and just thanking him for being the person who
Speaker 8: did what you just said that I did to introduce
Speaker 8: a genre of music that little had faith in, a
Speaker 8: political crap connected to that to get it on the radio.
Speaker 7: And you're right, I know you say that is the
Speaker 7: second no I want. I want. I want to tell
Speaker 7: the facts.
Speaker 8: And here's another thing I decide to do for my
Speaker 8: fortieth I'm usually very humble.
Speaker 7: No moment, come on, bring it out.
Speaker 8: When people say you're a pioneer, you're an icon, you're this,
Speaker 8: you're that, And then I start thinking, just the other day, well,
Speaker 8: all here, I swear to God, I was like, you
Speaker 8: know what, onw this is the onus because you did it.
Speaker 8: And too many times the brothers get all the accolades
Speaker 8: and we, as sisters, we don't. So yeah, I'm gonna
Speaker 8: putting my fists in the air and I'm gonna say
Speaker 8: it with my chest out that it wasn't just as
Speaker 8: far as you know, people always say New York was
Speaker 8: first and then Philly was the second biggest market. First
Speaker 8: of all, all due respect to the only man who
Speaker 8: shared my same story, and that is mister Magic in
Speaker 8: New York. I missed his brother so much, but he's
Speaker 8: the only one that is parallel with my life and
Speaker 8: what we did and to fight to get it on
Speaker 8: FM radio, And so you have to understand that I
Speaker 8: was the first one to play it on FM radio.
Speaker 8: But Magic and what we're doing was a college thing.
Speaker 8: I kick y'all off on AM and then in Power
Speaker 8: ninety nine put us on FM that that made stations
Speaker 8: across the country follow suit. Yes, you understand what I'm saying,
Speaker 8: Like I started this avalanche of a culture, and I'm
Speaker 8: so proud to say that I did that. And when
Speaker 8: I think back on just how much freaking fun I
Speaker 8: had doing that. I am so full of joy right
Speaker 8: about now, like I'm doing a lot of reflecting and
Speaker 8: I'm like, wow, I did that. I knew these millionaires
Speaker 8: when they were broken, had roaches in their apartment, and
Speaker 8: I'm so glad to have helped them follow their dreams
Speaker 8: and do what they do.
Speaker 7: It's it's amazing.
Speaker 8: It's it's you have no you have no idea how
Speaker 8: many brick walls I came across people.
Speaker 7: Oh my, don't.
Speaker 6: Give it away.
Speaker 9: I'm I got time this Look, this ain't a radio show.
Speaker 7: Let me fall back and calm down. I'm sorry.
Speaker 6: Let me just say.
Speaker 4: Let me just say that, you know you you revealed
Speaker 4: how many decades around the sun that you were before
Speaker 4: we went on air, and I have to say that
Speaker 4: you were still a timeless teenager to me. You you
Speaker 4: literally have not like this is when she was nineteen.
Speaker 4: As as on air personality, this is the same one,
Speaker 4: Like nothing has changed, nothing has changed at all, you know,
Speaker 4: this is I feel like this is my first real
Speaker 4: conversation with you, like we've seen each other in passing.
Speaker 6: And whatnot we do.
Speaker 7: It is, I think it is.
Speaker 4: But I'm glad to finally get a moment to rapt
Speaker 4: you because I have so many questions about my hometown
Speaker 4: and what. You know what, I didn't get the experience
Speaker 4: that you know, you also helped pave the way.
Speaker 6: Well. First of all, are you from Philadelphia.
Speaker 8: Born and raised Philadelphia or were you born in saying? Well,
Speaker 8: I was born my family. My mother owned a bar
Speaker 8: on Woodland Avenue in Southwest Your mom owned the alley
Speaker 8: Alley's Alley.
Speaker 6: Yes, that's your mom's jorn.
Speaker 7: That was my I grew up in that avenue. That
Speaker 7: is correct.
Speaker 8: Alley's Alley is my grandmother's name Ali? Yes, yes, yoh?
Speaker 6: Because I used to catch the thirty six trolleys.
Speaker 8: That's exactly where he wasn't the trolley barnh Yeah?
Speaker 6: Wow?
Speaker 7: It was my mom's bar.
Speaker 8: And then she raised us in Windfield, so I was
Speaker 8: literally I literally grew up from kindergarten right two blocks
Speaker 8: and where Will and his mom lived.
Speaker 9: And talk about your your people real quick, because you
Speaker 9: have an interesting background like ethnically.
Speaker 8: My Malaysian African American connection, yes, we like to call it.
Speaker 8: My grandfather is from Malaysia. He's Malaysian born in Singapore.
Speaker 5: Wow.
Speaker 8: And my grandmother was a prevate thing to little mixed
Speaker 8: up everything. And they married and had ten children and
Speaker 8: they raised them right there on Willing Avenue.
Speaker 7: Because so, yeah, I had yeah my mother.
Speaker 8: My mother had ten siblings, five with Arabic names, five
Speaker 8: with Christian names.
Speaker 7: Is very blended, very interesting family.
Speaker 6: So you were always like around forty ninth with Woodland.
Speaker 8: I yeah, I did my homework at that bar because
Speaker 8: I watched the glasses.
Speaker 4: Yeah alright, yo, because literally that that little grocery store
Speaker 4: next door to Alley's Alley.
Speaker 7: It's the reason I don't have any teeth now. All
Speaker 7: that candy.
Speaker 8: Remember that damn candy to mister Luther. I used to
Speaker 8: tell them, you want to play my dnnis Bill. I
Speaker 8: go in there, I go in my mom's bar. I
Speaker 8: get like three dollars and that's penny candy. That's three hundred.
Speaker 7: That's a candy, right, and I would buy.
Speaker 6: It in that store next door.
Speaker 4: Not to mention Jack Myers across the street, this might
Speaker 4: turn into our city on Eddie.
Speaker 6: I'm sorry, sorry, y'all.
Speaker 8: Talk y'all shit, man, but rat but yeah, so yeah,
Speaker 8: that's that's where I Wentfield West, Philadelphia.
Speaker 4: Girl, my grandmother used to live on forty ninth and
Speaker 4: King Sessing.
Speaker 8: So okay, my grandmom lived one block over, so it
Speaker 8: was that forty nine forty eighth street. Move probably her
Speaker 8: house Yep, right behind right off the Paschal.
Speaker 4: Oh wow, because I know that sister Sledge and their
Speaker 4: grandmam lived on.
Speaker 7: Did they can't they? Yeah? Kathy's grandmom and them came
Speaker 7: from around the area too.
Speaker 4: Yeah, they were like in the backyard of where my
Speaker 4: grandmam lived.
Speaker 6: That's where their grandmam lived.
Speaker 7: My brother took all of them on the Prime.
Speaker 8: Their mom wouldn't allow them to have prime dates, like
Speaker 8: he took at least three sister Sledges on their proms.
Speaker 7: Every three year altogether. Ms Blow wouldn't let them go
Speaker 7: out on dates.
Speaker 6: You're right now.
Speaker 7: It was like the stand in prime. Dude.
Speaker 4: Dude, everyone has a misflowed story about how strict she
Speaker 4: was with their daughters.
Speaker 6: What you had to I guess you had to do
Speaker 6: that that back then? You know, of.
Speaker 7: Course she did.
Speaker 8: They were beautiful, talented and if she hadn't there would
Speaker 8: they would not be where they are today.
Speaker 4: Okay, So, because your your story is so loaded, I
Speaker 4: want to I kind of want to start with the session.
Speaker 4: That will start with to the beach. Y'all your twelve
Speaker 4: inch single? Okay, So how how did that come to be?
Speaker 8: So I'm the youngest of four, my oldest sister I
Speaker 8: learned and did way too much before my time, but
Speaker 8: I followed behind her like a little puppy dog, which
Speaker 8: landed me in the club scene. Kim Gray's Whispers serendipity.
Speaker 8: It was that back then Philly had a club night
Speaker 8: every night, like at Tuesdays you went here, Wednesdays, you
Speaker 8: went there Friday.
Speaker 7: That was popping. That was kind of.
Speaker 6: The neighborhood clubs or No, these.
Speaker 8: Were all like downtown like Kim Grays was twenty, Nathan Samson,
Speaker 8: Sarah Jipas was down there. Club Whispers is like off
Speaker 8: a thirteenth and Walnut. So it's kind of like a
Speaker 8: simmer City, okay, a downtown type thing. And I befriended
Speaker 8: World be Free, the basketball player and Darryl Dawkins, and.
Speaker 7: They hung out with my sisters. They were older than me.
Speaker 8: I was kind of like the little yeah, the little
Speaker 8: one that followed behind, just trying to hang out with
Speaker 8: the older kids.
Speaker 7: Exactly.
Speaker 6: You said, there's ten of you. You said, there's ten
Speaker 6: of you. What's the girl boy ratio of your siblings?
Speaker 8: Two and two and it's just me and my brother.
Speaker 8: Now I am the youngest, and there are all.
Speaker 7: Three years aparts and eight years later.
Speaker 8: Yeah, my mother went to get her appendix taken out
Speaker 8: and they found an embryo here.
Speaker 6: I am wow, oh.
Speaker 7: Definitely definitely not planned. Yeah.
Speaker 8: So anyway, I started hanging out in the club scene,
Speaker 8: hanging out with World and them and going up to
Speaker 8: New York, you know, and I start here.
Speaker 7: In hip hop. I'm like, this is dope, you know.
Speaker 8: And I was on the courtyards and the jacks, walking
Speaker 8: up to pissy elevators and shit like, listening.
Speaker 7: To hip like in the hip hop like. I went
Speaker 7: to see what their culture was about.
Speaker 8: And then I was working call myself, getting a little
Speaker 8: part time job before I went back to college, before
Speaker 8: I went to college in the first place, and did
Speaker 8: you go I wanted to go Listen, My plans were
Speaker 8: to go to Howard.
Speaker 7: All this got kicked to the curb. Me tell you
Speaker 7: the story. That was my plan.
Speaker 8: I wanted to be a lawyer, a corporate lawyer, is
Speaker 8: what I wanted to do with my life. This is
Speaker 8: before this happened. And being in the club there was
Speaker 8: a DJ, Lawrence Levon, and he would break down these
Speaker 8: break beats and I would put my trade down.
Speaker 7: I was a cocktail waitress. I put my trade down.
Speaker 8: Had no business being in there. Mind you, I'm not
Speaker 8: twenty one yet. Put my put my trade down and go.
Speaker 8: You know, do what I heard, world, and I'm doing
Speaker 8: busting rods.
Speaker 7: I want a breakway. I was about to say, yeah,
Speaker 7: he was a world. No, he took me around people
Speaker 7: that did it. You don't see what I'm saying.
Speaker 8: And then I no, seriously, like we I went shopping
Speaker 8: for him for his first twelve hundreds and we set
Speaker 8: up the tables in the living room like it was
Speaker 8: a whole thing with us, like his crew.
Speaker 7: Daryl. You couldn't tell Daryl Dawkins he wasn't a rapper.
Speaker 8: He had the whole, remember Quass, I don't know, Oh,
Speaker 8: you might be too young, but he had this whole
Speaker 8: I don't He had this whole setup in his crib.
Speaker 7: He was chocolate, thunder W d U n K. Like
Speaker 7: they were. If that's how I.
Speaker 8: Got introduced to hip hop. These old these older basketball players,
Speaker 8: they were and young at that time to me, they
Speaker 8: were eight years my older. And and then so I'm
Speaker 8: doing this and this becomes popular and Kim Grays now
Speaker 8: they're telling me put the trade down, going in and
Speaker 8: do your thing.
Speaker 7: Go go do one of them rhunds.
Speaker 8: So that Perry Johnson, that was the da of doctor
Speaker 8: Perry Johnson from w D A S.
Speaker 7: Yes, he's a real doctor now. Actually went and got
Speaker 7: a doctor. He's in LA.
Speaker 4: Who hang on a second, you got to slow down.
Speaker 4: Second second, we'll get up for our listeners. So doctor
Speaker 4: Perry Johnson was probably.
Speaker 7: One of our franky crocker.
Speaker 4: Yes, he was one of the most crucial DJs of Philadelphia.
Speaker 4: If you're a fan of Bohannon's Let's start the dance.
Speaker 6: Come on and do it, Come on and do it.
Speaker 4: He's boom, there's there's a special remix with a guy
Speaker 4: doing like DJ rapping like shake a boom, boom, shake
Speaker 4: a like if you just look up Bohn and let's
Speaker 4: start the dance.
Speaker 6: Doctor Perry Johnson.
Speaker 4: Like his his rapping over that song was just as
Speaker 4: famous as the original song itself.
Speaker 6: But it's such a he's a real doctor now.
Speaker 7: He's a real doctor now And an author.
Speaker 8: He had a book signing here, maybe not that long
Speaker 8: before COVID.
Speaker 6: I got to meet that brother man. I got to
Speaker 6: we can make that happen.
Speaker 7: I have his number in my He would be so
Speaker 7: to wow. Sh he would be so touched.
Speaker 8: But anyway, he approaches me to do this hip hop
Speaker 8: song and I'm remember calling world, like, yo, they want
Speaker 8: me to do a record doing what you do, like
Speaker 8: what the sugar Hill guys did, and blah blah blah.
Speaker 7: He's like, you're going to do it. I'm like, I
Speaker 7: don't want.
Speaker 8: To do that. And long story short, me me brown
Speaker 8: another well on DJ and my sister sat up drinking
Speaker 8: or doing whatever they were doing, and took these three
Speaker 8: by five cards and kept telling me to tell them
Speaker 8: all my rhymes, and they put them on cards and
Speaker 8: they stuck them on the board. And every next day
Speaker 8: I was in the studio and I cut to the beach.
Speaker 8: All when people wonder why I hate the song so much,
Speaker 8: even though it will go down in history as the
Speaker 8: first female on WAX, it was to a direct current
Speaker 8: song that they really didn't make any money off of,
Speaker 8: so they rather than do a new track, they made
Speaker 8: me rap over this black so mad about that. And secondly,
Speaker 8: come to find out that the guy who owned the
Speaker 8: label didn't even really wanted to really hit. It was
Speaker 8: more of a tax write off thing to him. He
Speaker 8: was kind of a crook. He didn't pay Frankie Smith
Speaker 8: for double Dutch bucks either. Yeah, he was a real
Speaker 8: he was a real shyster. And it was a one
Speaker 8: take song. Like I was like, but I can do
Speaker 8: that part. They were like, no, it's fine print, right.
Speaker 6: But was this on WM O T Records?
Speaker 8: It was before yet mot was Tec Records. It's a
Speaker 8: yellow label with black writing. Wowaving yeah, so anyway, but
Speaker 8: but here's the bright side of my to the Beach
Speaker 8: all Lady B experience. To give you a little hip
Speaker 8: hop history. I feel like I'm writing a book and
Speaker 8: telling my truth. No, honestly, this is the I've never
Speaker 8: told these stories before, but I will say this. I
Speaker 8: didn't I got financially taken advantage of with this gentleman,
Speaker 8: and I didn't get the money. Would turned around to
Speaker 8: the song being the first female and no one knew
Speaker 8: that hip hop was gonna be that popular and messed
Speaker 8: around to win gold so and Doude wasn't paying me.
Speaker 7: But then mister gangster himself, mister Joe Robinson, owner of
Speaker 7: Sugar Hill Records. Step the dude got my master, pressed
Speaker 7: it up and paid me for my son.
Speaker 5: Wow O. Stories about Joe.
Speaker 7: Like that, right, they laugh.
Speaker 6: It's a big joke.
Speaker 7: It's a big joke amongst me and God, everybody else
Speaker 7: on the label. They was like, Lady B was only
Speaker 7: want to get paid. Joe was like a dad to
Speaker 7: be not.
Speaker 8: To forget that I'm the one playing all of these
Speaker 8: records coming out of his campus.
Speaker 7: I don't think he was pretty stupid. He's very smart
Speaker 7: to be friend of me at that time.
Speaker 6: Were you a communications major in college? Like, did you have?
Speaker 7: I was not? So here we go. So I remember
Speaker 7: I was going to go to college or whatever.
Speaker 8: And my mother, my my paternal father passed when I
Speaker 8: was three years old from a heart attack. My mother
Speaker 8: remarried and my stepfather passed when I was about twelve
Speaker 8: eleven twelve, So I had you know, when when you're
Speaker 8: in the service, both of them were in the Service,
Speaker 8: you can go to college for free. It's paid for
Speaker 8: it because your dad was in the Service. So now
Speaker 8: I'm stuck because I got this record out and I'm
Speaker 8: getting shows and I'm going up to Harlem and I'm
Speaker 8: staying on stage with a micro. But it's crazy, But
Speaker 8: I want to go back to school because I got
Speaker 8: free school just sitting there. So I came up with
Speaker 8: the great idea. Once I got you know, the record
Speaker 8: came out and I go to hat and I get
Speaker 8: this job and an office job, and I'm start begging
Speaker 8: them to let me play hip hop. I said, well,
Speaker 8: you had to have a license to be on the air.
Speaker 8: You don't have to anymore, but back then, the FCC
Speaker 8: required a license. So I went to broadcasting school while
Speaker 8: I was at the station and got it for three years,
Speaker 8: and got my license.
Speaker 7: For three years. Damn it a long time broadcast. I
Speaker 7: wanted it extra.
Speaker 8: There was different levels of it, and I wanted Yeah,
Speaker 8: I wanted to do more than radio. Got a license,
Speaker 8: like to do TV here, whatever you do. It's not
Speaker 8: like that anymore. The FCC done changed on. They you
Speaker 8: could just walk up the street and get a damn
Speaker 8: radio show.
Speaker 9: Now.
Speaker 6: Look, yeah I got my radio, Jose.
Speaker 4: Yeah, so for for our listeners, uh listening, She mentioned
Speaker 4: h h A T w h A T was an.
Speaker 6: AM radio station. I knew as a kid.
Speaker 4: I knew it because, like my I mean the way
Speaker 4: that people always listening to talk radio. Now, we had
Speaker 4: a woman by the name of Mary Mason in Philadelphia,
Speaker 4: who I owe grand mom, And I mean, I don't
Speaker 4: know how typical it was for a black woman to
Speaker 4: have her own platform to that of like, uh, I mean,
Speaker 4: who's pop.
Speaker 6: In terms of like Alex what's his name?
Speaker 7: Like, let me let me just share one Mary Mason stories.
Speaker 6: Please.
Speaker 8: Yeah, I'm eighteen years old and Nancy Reagan walks into
Speaker 8: the lobby the Secret Service with her blah blah blah.
Speaker 7: She just doesn't pop up right stop by to say
Speaker 7: how to marry? This is how politically strong she was.
Speaker 7: And she told me, and I quote, tell that bitch.
Speaker 7: I don't want to tell what I'm trying to get
Speaker 7: carter and off.
Speaker 8: Oh here I am, so here, I am, y'all eighteen
Speaker 8: Like how do I.
Speaker 7: Oh, she told you to tell that bitch.
Speaker 8: Yes, so I gotta go out here and look this
Speaker 8: lady in her face and like, ma'am, I'm so sorry,
Speaker 8: but miss Mason, it's a flattered that you stopped by. However,
Speaker 8: her schedule, you know, I had to go through the
Speaker 8: whole shebang.
Speaker 7: But that's what she told me.
Speaker 8: I've heard her hurst at the mayor and hang up
Speaker 8: on them about her Philly's tickets, like she.
Speaker 7: Miss Mason was a be. She is the reason I
Speaker 7: have the backbone and that my shoulders are back.
Speaker 8: And I've never let anyone talk to me or or
Speaker 8: or try to get over at least not knowing me.
Speaker 8: I mean they ended up a couple of times anyway,
Speaker 8: but they had to sneak and do it. I've never
Speaker 8: allowed anyone to be blatantly disrespectful in my face, if you.
Speaker 4: Will that to mean she was like the original Russe Limbaugh.
Speaker 4: Like she's very controversial also like I know she supported
Speaker 4: like Frank Brazil or.
Speaker 7: He was a politician on the radio. Is what Mary was.
Speaker 8: And I will have to say that she walked her walk.
Speaker 8: She was dedicated to this community of people. She got
Speaker 8: on the air and talked about things that other people
Speaker 8: wouldn't even touch and called people on it like she
Speaker 8: she she may she I witnessed this woman changed lives.
Speaker 6: Yeah, and she was something.
Speaker 9: And then you took some baton and now you do
Speaker 9: the same thing well.
Speaker 8: Later, because I mean I didn't take the time from
Speaker 8: her then because we take it.
Speaker 7: I mean she when she passed that the time. To me,
Speaker 7: I was doing hip hoop. I was crazy. We was
Speaker 7: having fun. Y'all was having fun. You just said it.
Speaker 7: I was playing all that good stuff with y'all. I
Speaker 7: just came. I just came into my Mary Mason vibe.
Speaker 7: Right now, That's what it is.
Speaker 6: Yeah, okay.
Speaker 4: So I remember like discovering your show around like late
Speaker 4: nineteen eighty early eighty one. You know, every Saturday afternoon whatever,
Speaker 4: we my brother and I would just record.
Speaker 8: Like everybody says, I remind them of Paul's record.
Speaker 7: Paul's record. Whenever I see Banie Segull, he goes, Paul's record.
Speaker 4: All right, no oh, you're world famous, fat get your part,
Speaker 4: press your pause, press your pause button. But to have
Speaker 4: a radio show, and you were on for like two
Speaker 4: to three hours, but I'm thinking, like back in eighty one,
Speaker 4: was there even two to three hours worth of quality
Speaker 4: hip hop to play?
Speaker 7: I like to explain it like this.
Speaker 8: I laugh every time I hear the term digging into crates,
Speaker 8: and that's crazy with an nets because when I started
Speaker 8: playing hip hop.
Speaker 7: On the radio, there was a crate. One crate was
Speaker 7: it full. It was full to the max. I mean
Speaker 7: not everything was. I was picky. It was was good
Speaker 7: enough to play right.
Speaker 8: You know when when we first started, when we realized
Speaker 8: we could take what we were doing in our backyards,
Speaker 8: in our neighborhoods and our courtyards and put it on
Speaker 8: wax and that you know, this was possible. Everybody tried
Speaker 8: to do it, whether they could rap or not, but
Speaker 8: I was very I think the thing that Number one,
Speaker 8: you have to understand when hip hop started, it was
Speaker 8: its purpose was to stop a terrible disease in the
Speaker 8: black community that was full of violence and gang war,
Speaker 8: and it was it was crazy. It was getting a
Speaker 8: little out of hand with it. So hip hop gave
Speaker 8: I mean, I'm sure if you spoke to an Africa
Speaker 8: band body he would co sign this. But hip hop
Speaker 8: gave us away to battle each other and represent our neighborhoods,
Speaker 8: not with knives and guns, but with turntables and microphones.
Speaker 8: And it became this thing like you had to rep
Speaker 8: your neighborhood with your rhymes, and God forbid, if you've
Speaker 8: biden anybody else's rhyme, you had to come with your
Speaker 8: shit and it had to be real, and it had
Speaker 8: to be raw and it had to be authentic, and
Speaker 8: everybody couldn't do that. Some people just thought they could
Speaker 8: just get out a book of words that rhyme and
Speaker 8: put some shit together and hand it to me to
Speaker 8: get on the air.
Speaker 7: That happened a lot.
Speaker 8: But if I couldn't understand number one, what you were saying,
Speaker 8: like I no disrespect to what people like these kids
Speaker 8: like today or whatever, but mumble rat, it just makes
Speaker 8: my skin call because for me, a good MC is
Speaker 8: very articulate.
Speaker 7: You can hear everywhere. I don't care what if he's
Speaker 7: saying something wrong, disrespectful.
Speaker 8: I have to hear what you're saying or why did
Speaker 8: you waste that banging ass beat?
Speaker 7: Like why are you here?
Speaker 9: B do you remember like your first show and the
Speaker 9: records that you had to play out of the crate,
Speaker 9: like all right, it's my first show.
Speaker 7: I gotta get so so well, you have to understand
Speaker 7: then we kind of got you know, we did? You know?
Speaker 8: I laugh when I see Jeff and Cash and and
Speaker 8: Richard Dean and them casts and U quest and and Biz.
Speaker 8: May he rest in peace go deep into this this
Speaker 8: DJ thing. But you have to understand when hip hop
Speaker 8: start is when we first learned how to cut and
Speaker 8: scratch a brake beat. So that took up so much time.
Speaker 8: Not only am I gonna just take the train, but
Speaker 8: I'm gonna take the train for about good twelve fourteen
Speaker 8: damn minutes with a lot of time.
Speaker 6: On the riad.
Speaker 7: You know what I mean.
Speaker 6: Yeah, you're going You're gonna.
Speaker 7: Cut that joint what suck mcs And then you got
Speaker 7: the flip side.
Speaker 8: Then you got the instrumental that you could cut in
Speaker 8: with that joint, then you got another DJ. At one
Speaker 8: time on Power ninety nine, it was so dope, me
Speaker 8: and Jeff Mills.
Speaker 7: May he rest in peace.
Speaker 8: Had he got two turns, Yes, he had two turntables
Speaker 8: on his side. I had two turning turnative tables, and
Speaker 8: we had a reel to reel, so.
Speaker 7: We have six elements coing in. I'm cutting it up
Speaker 7: the songs in the minute. People it was blowing people's
Speaker 7: my cross my mind.
Speaker 9: I'm gonna just have a real dumb moment because I
Speaker 9: know I'm not alone in this. I don't think it
Speaker 9: ever crossed my mind as you were literally mixing records
Speaker 9: like that.
Speaker 8: I remember run and and Dale coming to my studio
Speaker 8: for the first time. They're like, so you're gonna mix
Speaker 8: the record and interview us.
Speaker 5: I was like, yeah, right, you were more than just
Speaker 5: a personality. It's like I was.
Speaker 8: A big girl on a radio and I still am.
Speaker 6: Yeah, I was gonna say that.
Speaker 4: You also, you guys would at least on like the
Speaker 4: like the midpoint or at least the last hour of
Speaker 4: the w h A T portion of your show, like
Speaker 4: you were also playing like craft work, like what would
Speaker 4: become like b boy, you know, like it's time.
Speaker 8: Well, you have to understand, break dancing was a major
Speaker 8: element for us in the beginning of this thing, So
Speaker 8: if you couldn't break to it, it definitely didn't get played.
Speaker 8: And they demanded it because you have to understand, I
Speaker 8: am taping the only hip hop y'all gonna have for
Speaker 8: the week, and then y'all with Jones until the next week.
Speaker 8: Like I was the only one with PEPSI understand, I'm
Speaker 8: the only place you can get it. People were driving
Speaker 8: you canna ask Chuck d They would drive down to
Speaker 8: Philly to take my show. Yes, So it was like that.
Speaker 8: It was it was like this thing and everybody had
Speaker 8: to have it, and it was just so much freaking
Speaker 8: fun doing and it.
Speaker 9: Was so and Mary Mason never said she never pulled
Speaker 9: your coat on anything, not a record.
Speaker 7: Nobody ever said listen, I can't be playing that no more.
Speaker 7: It was never.
Speaker 6: We won't even mention the discomboblated booblator.
Speaker 7: No, I'd love this combined.
Speaker 6: That anymore.
Speaker 4: That all right, I'll get the nineteen eighty six in
Speaker 4: a second. Hang on, we had a small controversy with
Speaker 4: mc breeze discoboblated boobulator. But wait before before I go on,
Speaker 4: there's two things I gotta ask you. One, how often
Speaker 4: did you record your own shows on w h.
Speaker 7: A t he wants them?
Speaker 8: I know so everybody tap Money, every DJ has asked
Speaker 8: me this question. So in my possession, I have not
Speaker 8: gone through them. I do have some real deriels, but
Speaker 8: as far as cassettes, people have been given them to
Speaker 8: me over the years, I meet a listener on the
Speaker 8: air and sendate they used to take me, and they
Speaker 8: still have them. As a matter of fact, I've been
Speaker 8: asking people to give them back or I can make
Speaker 8: a copy off them of them and give them back
Speaker 8: to them. Because I and I didn't even have a
Speaker 8: cassette player in the house, but my niece and nephews
Speaker 8: brought me one last year, so it's fly little joint.
Speaker 8: It looks like a boombox, but his Bluetooth compatible is
Speaker 8: so cute. But I have was sitting there here on
Speaker 8: my desk. But I now want to get the cassettes
Speaker 8: so I can hear them. But I do have, like
Speaker 8: I do have some of those real to reels.
Speaker 6: You got to convert those in like I have to.
Speaker 7: I know I'm getting to the point.
Speaker 8: COVID did allow me to do a lot of purging,
Speaker 8: so there is a little order to my madness. So
Speaker 8: I'm getting it all together. At least I know tapes
Speaker 8: are here, rial the reels are here, and now I
Speaker 8: just got to dive into them.
Speaker 4: Okay, I gotta ask a question. There's a record you
Speaker 4: used to always play, and I thought it was a
Speaker 4: Philly record, and I'm just finding out that this guy
Speaker 4: is from New York. But do you know the whereabouts
Speaker 4: of r c loa Rock aka the mic stro.
Speaker 8: Are you ready hold your hat, hold your hand, because
Speaker 8: you're not gonna believe it is right here? Hit me
Speaker 8: Sunday night. My show is sold out, by the way,
Speaker 8: at the Dell Music Center.
Speaker 7: It's been sold.
Speaker 3: It is.
Speaker 8: It's my fortieth anniversary in radio and hitting the stage
Speaker 8: for the very first time at the Dell. We'll see
Speaker 8: everybody around the nation because I have to fulfill my
Speaker 8: obligation and set you on a gutification.
Speaker 4: But you don't no, no, you found our sealer rock
Speaker 4: the mic stroke. Yo.
Speaker 8: He's so hyped about doing this show that me and
Speaker 8: Charlie Mack are like, I don't know how old is now?
Speaker 8: And I'm like, does anybody told me he's gonna have
Speaker 8: to put a track behind him because he's not going
Speaker 8: to make her do all the lyrics.
Speaker 7: Like, there's no way.
Speaker 6: Me and Turk will drive down and do the lyrics
Speaker 6: for him.
Speaker 3: Yo.
Speaker 7: I was this is nine day.
Speaker 8: I expecting Sunday night at the Dell. B there or
Speaker 8: B Square?
Speaker 6: Who else?
Speaker 7: Oh, you don't want to know. You ain't ready. I've
Speaker 7: never had EPMD.
Speaker 8: They will be in the building because I've been doing
Speaker 8: this for ten years now. I've never had nice and smooth.
Speaker 7: They will be in the building. I have my iconic
Speaker 7: Sugarhill game Melo Email and his crew.
Speaker 8: I have I've said shantee, I always try to have
Speaker 8: a female every year she's my female. This year EPMD
Speaker 8: nice and well CuMo d will be in the and
Speaker 8: my headliner is Big Daddy came.
Speaker 4: Oh man, Yo, you know where the mixtro is.
Speaker 7: He's gonna be on my state. You gotta see this video.
Speaker 7: I gotta. I'm gonna say, send me your number. I'm
Speaker 7: gonna send you this video that he did. He is,
Speaker 7: He's He's the mice Trup. That's all I can say.
Speaker 9: Wow.
Speaker 8: You want somebody old lady beatings your bull? Or see
Speaker 8: the rock I'm coming down here to rock the joint
Speaker 8: or it's like a b The promo videos for everybody
Speaker 8: people were doing Oh when you have to do one too.
Speaker 8: People are doing happy fortieth anniversary videos. We're trying to
Speaker 8: make a last table. Happy fortieth lady be spread the word,
Speaker 8: get everybody to do it.
Speaker 7: Let's blow the spot up.
Speaker 8: I will hashtag happy fortieth lady beat Let's go woo
Speaker 8: woo wow.
Speaker 4: So I remember when you you came to Power ninety nine.
Speaker 4: I believe in eighty four, around fall of eighty four.
Speaker 7: I'm not even around that time.
Speaker 4: I mean I religiously remember this, but there was a
Speaker 4: period in which you were off of what between. I
Speaker 4: guess like around eighty three or whatever. What happened in
Speaker 4: that gap year? Like I didn't hear.
Speaker 6: Like I went from no.
Speaker 8: I went from Hat to Power ninety nine. Then Power
Speaker 8: ninety nine fired me and I went up to New York.
Speaker 7: I was on BLS.
Speaker 4: Okay, so your original Sunday afternoon show on Power ninety nine.
Speaker 8: My original radio gig was thirteen forty am. First time
Speaker 8: hip hop was ever played on X. Then I was
Speaker 8: approached by Das And this is when Power was just born,
Speaker 8: and you know it used to be a country station, right,
Speaker 8: this is when they decided to make it, you know,
Speaker 8: an urban station. They both made an offer, and honestly,
Speaker 8: being a Das child and raised by Butter doubably one
Speaker 8: of his bonus chill ldren, it was Butter who gave
Speaker 8: me the name Lady B.
Speaker 7: By the way, wait, I don't know.
Speaker 6: What your real name is. Do we know what your
Speaker 6: real name is?
Speaker 7: I have a government name, my family. Bye. Everybody calls
Speaker 7: me bahya. That's what the bee stands for.
Speaker 6: By wow.
Speaker 8: Okay, Yeah, So anyway, they both made an offer, but
Speaker 8: ninety nine's offer was more, and I went to Butter
Speaker 8: kind of teary because I'm a kid and I really
Speaker 8: wanted my dream is to work for Das And he
Speaker 8: told me, and I quote and I love him forty
Speaker 8: cent Baby, I'm gonna need you to go get that money.
Speaker 7: Oh, good for you. And I was like, but brother,
Speaker 7: he was.
Speaker 8: Like, listen here you will shine. Fly fly my child, fly,
Speaker 8: go get that money.
Speaker 4: By this point in eighty four eighty five, when we're
Speaker 4: going into the second phase of what hip hop is
Speaker 4: with the deaf jam era, with the rush era, who
Speaker 4: did you mean.
Speaker 7: When Russell finally got the deal with CBS.
Speaker 4: Yes, that the whole what I call the Fresh Best era,
Speaker 4: where you're introducing us to the Fat Boys, where you're
Speaker 4: introducing us to the Beastie Boys and run DMC and whatnot.
Speaker 6: I do know that New.
Speaker 4: York's resistance to hip hop UH being performed at least
Speaker 4: in Manhattan opens the door for Philadelphia UH to become
Speaker 4: the second biggest market, because you know, Chuck East always
Speaker 4: tell me that the most you know they could they
Speaker 4: could play in Long Island at that stadium, but they
Speaker 4: could never play Madison Square Gardens.
Speaker 6: So to them, playing the spectrum was just as important.
Speaker 7: Those are the brick walls.
Speaker 8: I was telling you about quest like people think that, oh, yeah,
Speaker 8: you know, we start doing this and everybody, you know,
Speaker 8: open their arms and and and and loved on it.
Speaker 7: No, we had to fight for a lot of.
Speaker 8: Stuff that people take for granted. Now, in my opinion,
Speaker 8: you have no idea we had politicians. I don't I
Speaker 8: remember picketing at radio stations, no more rat advisory. Yeah,
Speaker 8: we went through so much. We went through so much.
Speaker 8: But you know, God bless Russell forgetting that deal with CBS,
Speaker 8: because that's when you know, now we see the monetary
Speaker 8: value of it, and we see that. You know, you
Speaker 8: got executives at CBS who were saying, damn public enemy,
Speaker 8: and the BC boards are selling just as much as
Speaker 8: Luther and Michael.
Speaker 7: Wait, wait a minute, let's take a look at this, right,
Speaker 7: and those kind of numbers and the masses that a
Speaker 7: national distribution deal brought to hip hop made it. It
Speaker 7: was combustible. It exploded, if you will. It touched a globe,
Speaker 7: something that was created in the burroughs of New York
Speaker 7: and by me hanging out with those crazy older people
Speaker 7: hadn't been this hanging out with bringing it to phildelp
Speaker 7: and and all of us collectively fighting for the time
Speaker 7: on the radio. Here's the thing.
Speaker 8: When I was on AM, the woman who owned the
Speaker 8: station even know my name. This woman walked by me
Speaker 8: every day, never spoke to me, never said anything. I
Speaker 8: had these little show for a couple of hours on
Speaker 8: a Saturday. It grew to a Sunday. They saw the
Speaker 8: numbers started to grow. It grew to a weekly show,
Speaker 8: and she started speaking to me more of the story. Hi,
Speaker 8: miss Clark, how are you, Miss die How are you?
Speaker 8: She didn't care nothing about me, but I started making
Speaker 8: her so much money. Like Billboard did this big article.
Speaker 8: I broke records on AM ratings. AM had never gotten
Speaker 8: ratings like that. So that's what happened to fast forward
Speaker 8: to where you're talking about. When you know it's not
Speaker 8: an out your trunk, you go to the press and
Speaker 8: plan and press up your own type.
Speaker 7: Situation, which is what it was. It was like drugs.
Speaker 8: You know, you didn't bag it up, you pressed it up,
Speaker 8: and then you said up to the community.
Speaker 9: So by the time they got to Power ninety nine, though,
Speaker 9: where was where was hip hop in this relationship with radio?
Speaker 9: Because like, by this time, where there are other cities.
Speaker 8: By the time, you have to understand that power is
Speaker 8: where I played Girls of the World.
Speaker 7: Ain't nothing but trouble first, Okay, well, yeah, this is
Speaker 7: when Jeff and and and this is when Steady Be
Speaker 7: and Will were battling on the radio. I remember that
Speaker 7: he had Naked Break. So there's West Coast hip hop
Speaker 7: rat some.
Speaker 8: Of the some of the songs, they couldn't even wait
Speaker 8: to get it to the press.
Speaker 7: I played a lot of assetates. You know what that is?
Speaker 7: Plus you know, right, so I played a lot of those.
Speaker 4: I don't believe the acetates that I still can't find.
Speaker 4: It's a whole different mix.
Speaker 8: I have assetates here in my storage that I will
Speaker 8: not part with a sentimental value. But I played it
Speaker 8: off cassette, you know what I mean. Before they even
Speaker 8: got they wanted to heavy up and get it out.
Speaker 4: What what should also be noted is that, I mean
Speaker 4: ninety nine wasn't your only platform.
Speaker 6: And what I want to know is.
Speaker 7: Ustlers. I was a little promoted. I did all the
Speaker 7: hip hop parties we did after midnight.
Speaker 4: Yeah, I was gonna say after midnight the.
Speaker 8: Mecca, the mecca of that.
Speaker 4: That's Philadelphia's rich. That's Philadelphia's you know, I don't know
Speaker 4: what's New York venue. I could compare it to.
Speaker 7: But second Latin Quarter, right Latin Quarter.
Speaker 4: That was quarter that it went down.
Speaker 6: This is what I want to know though.
Speaker 4: Now I was for I was forbidden to go to
Speaker 4: after midnight because of course, you know, parents were like too.
Speaker 6: Violent was after night.
Speaker 4: It was after midnight as bad as all the authority
Speaker 4: figures in my life told me that it was.
Speaker 7: First of all, God bless the authority figures in your life.
Speaker 7: Really not everyone.
Speaker 8: Survived the era after midnight. I will say that it was.
Speaker 8: I wish I knew their history. The owner passed away
Speaker 8: not too long ago too. But I want to say,
Speaker 8: before it was a hip hop club, it was some
Speaker 8: kind of seedy underground because it had like a movie
Speaker 8: theater in it. I had these obscure to the side. Well, no,
Speaker 8: he took and brought the spaghetti warehouse and tried to
Speaker 8: make it. But that would it would nothing would ever
Speaker 8: be as the undergrounds roll down was. You're going down
Speaker 8: these steps into this basement, and once you enter, you're
Speaker 8: in a whole different world.
Speaker 6: You know.
Speaker 8: Me and Shante, she brought me to tears where we
Speaker 8: were talking about the first time she and Bizz.
Speaker 7: Had performed there, and picture this. This is one of
Speaker 7: my favorite nights with business Shante.
Speaker 8: So you know how Philly is with our fans are ignorant.
Speaker 8: So Shante's up there with her little squaky voice.
Speaker 7: I'm Shante.
Speaker 8: So this so this is her beatbox. He's beatboxing. There's
Speaker 8: no record playing, he's beatboxing for it. And this nigga
Speaker 8: and Philly yells out, yo, fucking you suck you at
Speaker 8: some something something disrespectful, and she she turned around, she
Speaker 8: looked at Bis. She said, give me a good beat, Biz,
Speaker 8: and she came off the stage and off the top
Speaker 8: of her head tore this boy down. You're a bum
Speaker 8: yuro bum yuro bum youurro bum like she just everything
Speaker 8: that he was wearing. She talked about. She tore him
Speaker 8: up down to his sneakers, how his hair was messed up,
Speaker 8: his breathstank. It was And all you see is people
Speaker 8: are standing there like, oh snap, like that up and
Speaker 8: like no, I will never forget that night, like not ever.
Speaker 7: It was the best.
Speaker 4: It was for the infamous jazz Fresh Big Day came Battle.
Speaker 4: I've heard about this but did.
Speaker 7: It listen, you don't even know. I don't know if
Speaker 7: do you remember when? What was it called?
Speaker 8: Like, yea, the World Supremacy Contest that Philadelphia DJs kept
Speaker 8: winning the DM they had had the Marriott then you
Speaker 8: know before that this was a convention. It was the
Speaker 8: World Supremacy Contest for the best DJ and.
Speaker 7: Yeah, before your.
Speaker 8: Time, Jeff One missed one and Cash Money one. So
Speaker 8: one year I'm I'm judging and Jeff One, I'll never
Speaker 8: forget that. That's the year he took the basketball out
Speaker 8: and put on the turntable and Will was jumping over
Speaker 8: the table and we're freaking out because he won because
Speaker 8: this is for all the DJs.
Speaker 7: Around the world.
Speaker 8: And then the next year I'm on the judging panel
Speaker 8: again in Cash Money one, and they were like, I
Speaker 8: was influencing the judges.
Speaker 7: It's not fair.
Speaker 8: Then he keeps winning because Lady b is you know. No,
Speaker 8: they were just saying, like I was yelling at the other,
Speaker 8: at the other d the other the judges, like you
Speaker 8: can clearly see it's not because I'm from Philly, Like
Speaker 8: that was dope, Like they had a little tricks. Yeah,
Speaker 8: it was a DJ contest. So the following year, they
Speaker 8: said I had to MC the contest. I couldn't be
Speaker 8: a judge, so we want to dispel you know that rumor,
Speaker 8: and then this one, and then there's one.
Speaker 7: I wasn't even a judge that year. So right, Philly, Philly,
Speaker 7: they got the best DJ. That's will.
Speaker 8: We did something and we still we still are the
Speaker 8: best when it comes to the cutting and the scratching
Speaker 8: and the transforming. I lived and worked up New York
Speaker 8: for five years on the radio, and I always whipped
Speaker 8: my chest out.
Speaker 7: I'm not scared of you. I'm like, okay, hip hop
Speaker 7: was born here. Y'all got some dope mcs. When it
Speaker 7: comes to the tables, Philly wins hands down that.
Speaker 8: Train record of a mix that y'all do up there,
Speaker 8: and records are not playing them long enough.
Speaker 7: Yes, oh my god.
Speaker 4: Are there any other legendary after midnight stories?
Speaker 6: Like? Is there artists? Who is an icon?
Speaker 7: Now, I'm gonna tell you this is where, this is where.
Speaker 8: This is why your parents didn't want you to come
Speaker 8: to after midnight. So we literally checked at the door.
Speaker 8: We had the whole the wines with the metal projectors
Speaker 8: and whatnot. And I guess this guy got a little
Speaker 8: twenty five in in his Timberlain and Chuck b in
Speaker 8: flavor on stage is public enemies on stage and we
Speaker 8: hear pop, pa pop, and everybody starts to scramble and run.
Speaker 8: And that's the day I found out that the s
Speaker 8: one w's were really really security. That wasn't a prop.
Speaker 8: All I remember is being folded in half. And next
Speaker 8: thing I know, I was down the steps in the
Speaker 8: dressing room. I don't even know how it got there.
Speaker 8: That's how fast they moved me. How often they gently
Speaker 8: took my stomach and that didn't happen. That was the
Speaker 8: only gun incident, but it was one that I will
Speaker 8: always remember because they literally took my stomach and with
Speaker 8: their hand, and they put my head down, and then
Speaker 8: two brothers had my elbows and the next thing I know,
Speaker 8: I was downstairs Jesus proud.
Speaker 4: Yeah, I'll never forget the night that you premier Rebel
Speaker 4: without a pause.
Speaker 6: I talk about this in my book Like You and Snow.
Speaker 6: First of all, where is Snow?
Speaker 8: I just saw him at a balloon release. And memory
Speaker 8: of a friend that we lost, Big Bob.
Speaker 7: Do you remember Big Bob? Yes, that passed away?
Speaker 8: Well, his mom he died during COVID and we really
Speaker 8: couldn't do anything special. And the only year anniversary not
Speaker 8: too long ago, his mom asked that we.
Speaker 7: All come to the house and release some balloons in
Speaker 7: his name, and we did. We all showed up. That
Speaker 7: was cool, Big Bob.
Speaker 9: I'm guessing God not talking about the informer. Okay, no,
Speaker 9: but you're talking.
Speaker 7: So I wanted to get snow.
Speaker 4: Was this dope ass white boy? He came up with
Speaker 4: the term. He used to say dope backwards, So.
Speaker 8: I'm glad to say the word dope on the air.
Speaker 8: We couldn't say that was dope. So he made the epod.
Speaker 6: Oh wait, you weren't allowed to say dope.
Speaker 8: Yeah, we got in trouble for saying dope apod, so
Speaker 8: hefted and said it was.
Speaker 7: No.
Speaker 8: That was our way of saying it without saying it.
Speaker 8: But anyway, let me tell you about public Enemy. I
Speaker 8: had a boss who said that I couldn't play public Enemy.
Speaker 7: That's what I wanted to know. Okay, forbid me to
Speaker 7: play public Enemy and I quit my job.
Speaker 6: Is this not Harry?
Speaker 7: No, this is before Dave dropped no names. It was
Speaker 7: actually the guy before d doesn't even matter he didn't
Speaker 7: want me to play public enemy. Oh the black guy.
Speaker 7: M okay, okay, okay, No he wasn't the black guy.
Speaker 7: But anyway, I quit my job.
Speaker 8: I said, if I can't play them, then I quit,
Speaker 8: and uh forced their hand in there. I went back
Speaker 8: in the studio when I played him really and I
Speaker 8: had to put my foot down.
Speaker 6: Yeah, I was gonna say.
Speaker 4: The night you premiered Rebel without a Plause was like
Speaker 4: if you guys are familiar with Orson Wells and the
Speaker 4: original War.
Speaker 6: Of the World Original.
Speaker 4: The World's when in nineteen thirty people thought aliens were
Speaker 4: invading the United States. I thought they thought it was
Speaker 4: a real like news report, and when it was just
Speaker 4: like back when they used to listen to radios, you
Speaker 4: know that sort of thing. And all I remember was
Speaker 4: Chuck d got to Power ninety nine around one in
Speaker 4: the morning, and the city I've never heard like it
Speaker 4: was the It was the kind of silence like when
Speaker 4: someone dies on a sitcom, like all laughing.
Speaker 6: It was like you snow, you know I used to
Speaker 6: go to school with Monanka.
Speaker 7: Oh yes, she worked for me.
Speaker 4: I know. So all of y'all were quiet in the
Speaker 4: studio and you was like, look, I'm gonna go to
Speaker 4: commercial right now, but I need y'all to get your tapes.
Speaker 4: I'm gonna play something for you, bet you just I
Speaker 4: can't describe what I'm about to play for you.
Speaker 7: I they're my favorites to today.
Speaker 8: But I'll never forget the day being up in death
Speaker 8: Jam and New York and Russell saying You're not gonna believe.
Speaker 7: This, this this thing, hank it Hanka Chuck, and I'm like,
Speaker 7: let me hear it. I fell in love. I felt
Speaker 7: I rapped that. I said all the way back down
Speaker 7: and turn bright.
Speaker 6: I feel you.
Speaker 7: It was sope.
Speaker 6: In general. What was the protocol for like hip hop
Speaker 6: promotion back then?
Speaker 4: Because I'm besides mister magic, I mean again, like you
Speaker 4: are a major portal, so like is it relationships with
Speaker 4: Like when someone wants to break a new act open, Like,
Speaker 4: how does someone approach about the Fat Boys?
Speaker 8: They had to bring it to me, you know, everybody
Speaker 8: had to come to everybody had a record rep that
Speaker 8: came and it.
Speaker 7: Was the only gig in town, right b Like literally.
Speaker 8: Club, I'm gonna tell you, I lived in this duplex
Speaker 8: apartment and you're right, I was so broke. Wow, it
Speaker 8: was my very first apartment, and I remember the lady downstairs.
Speaker 7: She was cool with me.
Speaker 8: She would let me leave the the door that we
Speaker 8: shared open because they would just come and stick the
Speaker 8: records and leave them in my hallway, right yeah, and
Speaker 8: they just leave them there for me. They've got to
Speaker 8: know where I live. Like all the promotion men hung
Speaker 8: out at my crib. It was like a damn yeah.
Speaker 7: And that was never a problem. Damn Come. When I
Speaker 7: was young, it was like no ever, you never felt
Speaker 7: in no harm's weight. That's like, that's a beautiful thing.
Speaker 7: Is another time. I gotta understand.
Speaker 8: I still got my crazy older sister around me too,
Speaker 8: and then there's that I mean, you know, and may
Speaker 8: she rest in peace. My sister was a straight gangster,
Speaker 8: so I didn't fear too much.
Speaker 4: So what I want to know is, was there an
Speaker 4: act that a label or manager tried to push off
Speaker 4: on you that you weren't feeling at the time or whatever,
Speaker 4: and you were like, all right, boll oh, are you
Speaker 4: How honest are you allowed to be when it comes
Speaker 4: to like I like that, I don't like this?
Speaker 8: I no, I definitely that was one thing I played
Speaker 8: when I wanted to play.
Speaker 7: And when have you been wrong? I was wrong a
Speaker 7: couple of times. I was wrong about Hammer.
Speaker 6: Well you never know I played you never played like
Speaker 6: I did.
Speaker 8: An honest maker to break it. I've let the listeners vote.
Speaker 8: They didn't vote. I broke the damn records. Not my
Speaker 8: fault to feel you in like it.
Speaker 6: I forgot about making it or break it.
Speaker 5: And I remember I.
Speaker 8: Would literally crack the record. You could hear all the
Speaker 8: vinyl fall on the ground.
Speaker 7: That was a real thing.
Speaker 5: What was the record? What was the Hammer record that.
Speaker 8: Everyone he ever gave us like? And then it went
Speaker 8: pop and then it came back around. I remember the
Speaker 8: spectrum of Hammer senting security people to come get me,
Speaker 8: and he was mad.
Speaker 7: I went and dressing.
Speaker 8: When he's like, while you break my record, I'm like,
Speaker 8: it's a contest, dude, I.
Speaker 7: Didn't do it. Philly broke your record. I didn't break it.
Speaker 7: I mean, I'm just a messenger.
Speaker 4: In on something. Hammer's biggest fan. In nineteen eighty seven,
Speaker 4: Black thoughts Trotter.
Speaker 8: The close cloth he depends, No, it was the way
Speaker 8: he went side to side.
Speaker 7: What would explain?
Speaker 8: Because I just just lost so many points with me
Speaker 8: just now and I love.
Speaker 6: I'm gonna tell you why don't make me throw it at.
Speaker 8: The wait let me that was I'm gonna say. I
Speaker 8: didn't say I didn't like and I'm just it wasn't
Speaker 8: very popular.
Speaker 4: No, no, no, I'm gonna tell you loves the Apache break
Speaker 4: beat so much that.
Speaker 6: Nobody, nobody's doing any wrong on it.
Speaker 8: Oh so it was the beat that got you because
Speaker 8: I'm not.
Speaker 4: Just loved turn his mother out and I think it was.
Speaker 4: But literally, like the two acts that Tik forced me
Speaker 4: to get onto that I wasn't feeling initially was hammer
Speaker 4: and believe it or not in w A because really
Speaker 4: I just looked at n w A and just said, oh,
Speaker 4: they're gonna be whack, you know.
Speaker 8: Okay, but here's here wait wait, wait, wait, because now
Speaker 8: you're blow in my mind because you are my drummer
Speaker 8: forever in my head, like I put you synonymous with
Speaker 8: the beat.
Speaker 7: So now you're scaring me, so you don't understand way
Speaker 7: wait wait wait.
Speaker 8: So there's there's Hank Shakley and Public Enemy, and there's
Speaker 8: Rebel and his fight the Power. It's all of that.
Speaker 8: It's all that that drummage, all that fly ass beats
Speaker 8: which n w A emulated, So how in the hell
Speaker 8: with all those banging beats, doesn't questlove not like n
Speaker 8: w A. You're gonna explain that ship the me.
Speaker 6: I'm gonna, I'm gonna, I'm gonna bring it back to
Speaker 6: the roots.
Speaker 4: That's simply because I looked at n w A without.
Speaker 6: It was the look I saw, I was all right.
Speaker 7: So without saying I get that part, I get that part.
Speaker 6: This happens to us.
Speaker 7: Conceded, I get that part.
Speaker 6: To this day, NAS will deny it.
Speaker 4: But I realized, Okay, we did a show at Radio
Speaker 4: City Music Hall once and NAS was like to do
Speaker 4: a walk on with us, and we're sound checking, and
Speaker 4: like Nas was losing his mind at soundcheck. Now mind you,
Speaker 4: this is like two thousand and eight, okay, and you
Speaker 4: know I'm I'm in the aire, like I have a
Speaker 4: special microphone that all only Roots and Roots staff can
Speaker 4: hear me. And I was like, yo, man, that is
Speaker 4: really giddy about us, like in a way that I
Speaker 4: never expected. And then ten minutes later it just hit me, oh,
Speaker 4: this is the very first time that Nas in two
Speaker 4: thousand and eight is listening to the Roots because he
Speaker 4: was on the phone like with this boy, like, Yo,
Speaker 4: they sound just like the record.
Speaker 6: They he could play.
Speaker 4: Break beats and da da da da Da Da da
Speaker 4: da and so in my mind, I was like, oh, yeah,
Speaker 4: so you were one of them.
Speaker 6: People that looked at us in ninety four ninety.
Speaker 7: Five like that was his very first time seeing you guys.
Speaker 6: It's look, I'm just telling you that.
Speaker 4: In case in point is that freestyle that he did
Speaker 4: on fund Master Flex. A lot of it, A lot
Speaker 4: of the elation of people looking at Tarik doing that
Speaker 4: freestyle was the fact that they just never sat.
Speaker 7: For the point. Now, I got it, I get it,
Speaker 7: I get it all right, okay.
Speaker 4: I mean it's like it's like it's like Dame Dash
Speaker 4: from the Kanye record, Like, oh ship, it's not whack
Speaker 4: like that? What was getting okay on that? So like
Speaker 4: I looked at n w A and it was just
Speaker 4: like they whack.
Speaker 6: Yeah.
Speaker 4: Then Tarik played me side one and straight out Compton.
Speaker 4: I was like, wait, they sound like East Coast Like
Speaker 4: I didn't know they were real.
Speaker 6: So it's just got to it.
Speaker 8: And I'm going to be honest, I not only did
Speaker 8: I think that they were corny and not. I don't know,
Speaker 8: I just didn't believe it. I had never been to Compton.
Speaker 8: And like I said, I love to beat my sister.
Speaker 8: Like I said, she was crazy. She was a gangster.
Speaker 8: She I called her Dre until the day she died.
Speaker 8: That was her nickname. And she loved n w A
Speaker 8: so much. But she blasted and and But then you know,
Speaker 8: I went to Compton, I went out west and I
Speaker 8: saw it, and then I had a new respect for
Speaker 8: n w A after seeing that. Back then, it was
Speaker 8: another thing you couldn't do. You couldn't rap about something
Speaker 8: that you weren't like. You can't you couldn't front like
Speaker 8: you talk and knewing you was a little punk like.
Speaker 8: You couldn't do that. That was forbidden for me. You
Speaker 8: had to be what you were talking about. And when
Speaker 8: I went out there, remember was ice tea?
Speaker 5: Uh.
Speaker 8: I had an artist ice cream tea and it was
Speaker 8: her first it was her first trip out west. She
Speaker 8: had a couple of gigs lined up and I had
Speaker 8: these kids. I had to get their parents to sign
Speaker 8: waivers and all this stuff. And I turned around and
Speaker 8: he had taken all my kids to Compton.
Speaker 5: Like what.
Speaker 6: I mean, ice cream tea?
Speaker 7: Yeah, that was my artist anything.
Speaker 6: Oh, by the way.
Speaker 4: Yeah, we just did an episode with uh Tracy Ellis
Speaker 4: Ross's dad, Bob Ellis, and I know that ice Cream
Speaker 4: Tea was also signed on that same level on.
Speaker 6: Mc A City Record with Busy be and whatnot. Yeah.
Speaker 8: Yeah, Bob was a big family Bob Bob Ellis was
Speaker 8: one of the nicest men I ever met in my life.
Speaker 8: But I had I entered into a business venture. I
Speaker 8: made a bad deal with a brother. I won't say
Speaker 8: his name, but I started the first hip hop magazine.
Speaker 8: It was called Strictly hip Hop.
Speaker 6: I've read Strictly hip Hop.
Speaker 7: Yes, that was my magazine.
Speaker 6: I know that.
Speaker 7: Yeah, that's my name in the back of it.
Speaker 3: Wow.
Speaker 8: But anyway, Bob Ellis, I went to court with my partner.
Speaker 8: It turned out to be a disaster, but Bob Ellis
Speaker 8: was very helpful and helping me come and come up
Speaker 8: with cash for litigators and up.
Speaker 7: I did fight a good fight end up. But yeah,
Speaker 7: he was very He was very helpful to me, really
Speaker 7: nice guy.
Speaker 9: Bob was like our fifth guest that had a lady
Speaker 9: b story. I'm trying to remember some of the other folks,
Speaker 9: but he.
Speaker 7: Was cool people. He was he was real cool. I
Speaker 7: think it was premiere on some other people.
Speaker 4: But wait, okay, I got to ask though, like I
Speaker 4: do know that when we were younger, like you were
Speaker 4: like everybody's crush, you literally everyone's crush. How did you
Speaker 4: I could only imagine. I mean, if we're now just
Speaker 4: dealing with the politically correct correctness, a very toxic male atmosphere,
Speaker 4: and you know, especially in the music business, how did
Speaker 4: you handle that back then?
Speaker 8: Again, I was just as funny that you asked that,
Speaker 8: because I was just we were just having a conversation,
Speaker 8: me and Lee Daniels. I grew up across the street
Speaker 8: from me, and really, yeah, he's like my brother.
Speaker 6: Yeah.
Speaker 7: Yes, everything about Philly, all of the Damns.
Speaker 8: Are named after us. All the characters are named after
Speaker 8: like Cookie. I want to say that Cookie, the character
Speaker 8: of Cookie and Expire, Empire, was my sister.
Speaker 7: Oh, sister, you was my sister.
Speaker 8: I mean, I think that he got a lot of
Speaker 8: what my sister was and our upbringing out created that character.
Speaker 8: Now I don't know, because left, what happened, you know,
Speaker 8: what happened to be Emir left and kind of got
Speaker 8: a little famous, and so his trips to Philly were like,
Speaker 8: so doing that part, you was really superd You was
Speaker 8: really getting the dup me.
Speaker 4: Me and Lee been talking on the phone for like
Speaker 4: almost a year and a half because I was supposed
Speaker 4: to score Billy Holliday. Not once did he ever tell
Speaker 4: me he was from philadelph because.
Speaker 7: Hero that you knew.
Speaker 8: But Annie who asked me about what was the question
Speaker 8: of me to me too things? So yeah, and explaining
Speaker 8: who my sister was again. So me and Lee were
Speaker 8: having this conversation and we were just talking about, you know,
Speaker 8: some of our friends who had had some difficult times
Speaker 8: and and things happened to them or whatever. And I
Speaker 8: have to honestly say I didn't have too many meat
Speaker 8: definitely no bad ones, but not too many even small
Speaker 8: me too stories because people were scared of my.
Speaker 7: Sister that I got more than you, and you came
Speaker 7: like I remember, I remember a guy. I thought he
Speaker 7: was fine.
Speaker 8: I wanted to go out with this guy so bad
Speaker 8: at the biggest question is drug dealer D I hopped
Speaker 8: my ask in his car and we went for this
Speaker 8: ride and We're pulling up to this CD hotel in
Speaker 8: Jersey and I'm like, what are we doing? Why are
Speaker 8: we here? You know, just got no bit is being
Speaker 8: out or in this man's card, and he said, and
Speaker 8: he was like, oh, we're just going to chill here
Speaker 8: for a minute to go to the movies. I was like, well,
Speaker 8: I got to call my sister and tell her.
Speaker 7: And said it was your sister. And I told him,
Speaker 7: and he put me in the card ross the bridge
Speaker 7: and he let me out in front of my house.
Speaker 7: I never heard from him. But wait, d everybody, ain't everybody?
Speaker 9: Everybody tell me in your career, nobody has trying to
Speaker 9: test you.
Speaker 7: Oh well, I'm sure they have.
Speaker 8: I'm just saying I don't have any moments where I
Speaker 8: would have to, uh, you know, take anybody to court
Speaker 8: and all this drama.
Speaker 6: I said.
Speaker 7: And it's funny because we were saying, somebody something to me.
Speaker 7: I would if you this.
Speaker 8: I laughed the other day and I said this, and
Speaker 8: this is a quote. If you bothered, touch me wrong,
Speaker 8: or disrespected me. On Tuesday at two o'clock.
Speaker 9: By two o five, I was telling like, we not
Speaker 9: what that's beautiful if you have somebody to tell because
Speaker 9: you was at home what.
Speaker 7: Oh yeah, people approached me.
Speaker 8: Yeah. I was back into a corner like, oh, I'm
Speaker 8: telling my sister better move that's beautiful.
Speaker 9: Just you know, it's also rare that radio people never
Speaker 9: have to move away from home. So the fact that
Speaker 9: you got to stay at home and that you did
Speaker 9: nothing but community, that's such a blessing.
Speaker 7: Blessing.
Speaker 8: And my sister traveled with me. But that was just
Speaker 8: the way I was raising then. My brother, you know,
Speaker 8: the nerd, the Harvard grad he you know, just by
Speaker 8: bullying me all my life and tickling me and wouldn't
Speaker 8: you know, sitting on me, wouldn't let me up.
Speaker 7: I learned how to fight pretty well, just getting out
Speaker 7: of those headlocks and stuff with it.
Speaker 9: How do you feel now fast forward that a lot
Speaker 9: of like, you know, not for nothing. Some of your
Speaker 9: brothers that you came up with and made famous are
Speaker 9: now kind of in the spotlight in that way, and
Speaker 9: the times are changing the things that weren't acceptable, you know,
Speaker 9: kind of.
Speaker 8: Like said, but I will say that they say success
Speaker 8: can make or break you. I mean, I've seen some
Speaker 8: brothers people that I know that little very disappointing and
Speaker 8: heart wrenching to see where they ended up, to see
Speaker 8: that money and fame.
Speaker 7: Maybe I don't know what to blame it on.
Speaker 8: I can't tell their story changes for I'm very, I'm very.
Speaker 7: I'm proud to be.
Speaker 8: Where I'm where I am now and stand in these shoes,
Speaker 8: and I like to raise every my nieces and and
Speaker 8: all the young women that I can teach to put
Speaker 8: those shoulders back and don't let you men treat you.
Speaker 7: I remember when the R. Kelly tape came out and.
Speaker 8: I walked into the radio station and the guys were
Speaker 8: in the conference room looking at it. Yes, and they
Speaker 8: were really scrambling looking for the remote to have it
Speaker 8: off by the time I hit the door. Oh, and
Speaker 8: that said a lot because they were not going to
Speaker 8: be watched that in front of me.
Speaker 7: That's the respect that I demanded, you.
Speaker 8: Know what I'm saying. And I remember, you know, like
Speaker 8: Shamar were coming to me. Why don't they talk to
Speaker 8: you the way they talked to me? And I was like,
Speaker 8: because you allow them. See when you stop somebody in
Speaker 8: their tracks and go I have to say it. You know,
Speaker 8: I'm a sports girl and I hang out with the guys,
Speaker 8: but the conversation a little left.
Speaker 7: Excuse me, lady in the room. I see it all
Speaker 7: the time. Wait wait, I went too far and I
Speaker 7: went too far. Bring it back. You have to demand
Speaker 7: that kind of respect.
Speaker 6: Was there ever.
Speaker 4: A time where you just felt like, okay, this this
Speaker 4: might be above my not above my pay perraade, but
Speaker 4: just sort of like where you might have gotten exhausted
Speaker 4: and not really know like.
Speaker 6: Where you were where you stood with hip hop.
Speaker 4: I know, I know that people often get to that
Speaker 4: place where it's sort of like, okay, what is this?
Speaker 8: I remember getting burnt out. I remember being angry that
Speaker 8: it got so.
Speaker 6: Diluted water?
Speaker 3: Which hero was that?
Speaker 8: I want to say, most of the time when I
Speaker 8: was up there in New York, like nineteen ninety two
Speaker 8: three up in that area.
Speaker 6: What station in New York were you one?
Speaker 7: WBLS?
Speaker 6: Wow? Okay, you know I didn't even realize I.
Speaker 8: Was there when Frankie Crocker was the program director and yeah.
Speaker 6: What was he like?
Speaker 8: He was a I'm not not a not a nice guy,
Speaker 8: that's a dependent on You're.
Speaker 6: The only person I know that actually worked in proximity
Speaker 6: of him.
Speaker 7: Like there's a story, there's a story. He would call
Speaker 7: these staff meetings crazy early in the morning and basically
Speaker 7: talk about itself for like the first forty five minutes.
Speaker 5: The first five minutes.
Speaker 8: The first forty five minutes, na el Roy, I know
Speaker 8: so U yeah yeah. And then I remember I'm just
Speaker 8: being so or casting and I was just like, you know,
Speaker 8: Red Alert has all these contests.
Speaker 7: Because I was going up against Red Alert over at
Speaker 7: Kiss at the time, and I'm like, y'all don't have
Speaker 7: any contests or anything for me to give away. How
Speaker 7: am I going to compete?
Speaker 8: I'm not from New York, you know, I gotta come here,
Speaker 8: and you know, I'm getting my.
Speaker 7: Feet wet, but y'all I need some help.
Speaker 8: And he said, well, what do you want, Lady B
Speaker 8: And I said, well, can you I don't know, can
Speaker 8: they win a date with Big Daddy Kane or something?
Speaker 7: And he, you know, just showing off.
Speaker 8: He picked up the phone. He gets Warner Brothers on
Speaker 8: the phone. Of course, he said, that's done deal.
Speaker 7: You want anything else? And I'm like, no, that'll be enough.
Speaker 7: And it happened. So it happens so Bugsy. So we
Speaker 7: do the whole promotion.
Speaker 8: Cane goes on a date with the girl, you know,
Speaker 8: he do the pictures, blah blah blah, and we come
Speaker 8: back and Bugsy is on the air signing on.
Speaker 7: He's on He's on serious now and he's still on
Speaker 7: kiss I think so. He He'school's crossover with Frankie Clocker,
Speaker 7: and Frankie Crocker says.
Speaker 8: Yeah, lady Be's jeans are fitting a little too tight today.
Speaker 8: I might have to fire her because you can't mess
Speaker 8: with company personnel. Wow, And I was so, I was
Speaker 8: so insulted. So I immediately started the west the Woolland
Speaker 8: Avenue and he came out quass and I'm.
Speaker 6: Like, who the.
Speaker 7: Kane, Big Daddy Kane saved my job and he put
Speaker 7: his hand over my mouth.
Speaker 6: Wow, was like, it.
Speaker 7: Was that happened?
Speaker 5: God, that happened.
Speaker 7: She's that happened. So those are some of my stories.
Speaker 7: I don't believe I'm sharing these stories in public. It's
Speaker 7: mary y'all not gonna tell us how the song came together.
Speaker 5: Boop scoop or whatever.
Speaker 7: No, but that too, well, I was talking about the
Speaker 7: roots Jawn. But yes, that too.
Speaker 8: They said, they said that I said it on the
Speaker 8: air all the time. They said, I said, I didn't
Speaker 8: remember this, but Tyreek and Meir said that I said
Speaker 8: something on the air without a doubt all the time.
Speaker 7: And then they took school school. He's beat right, Yeah,
Speaker 7: And they.
Speaker 8: Asked me to come in the studio and I'm like,
Speaker 8: come in the studio and do what they said. We
Speaker 8: just want you to say what you say on the
Speaker 8: radio without a doubt.
Speaker 7: I'm like, that's all I gotta say. They were like yeah,
Speaker 7: I'm like, all right, what.
Speaker 6: Yeah, we had a tape of an old of an
Speaker 6: old show of hers.
Speaker 4: But you know, back then it was EFN radio and
Speaker 4: sometimes static would be I mean, now you know, I
Speaker 4: embraced in perfection and mistakes and all those things, so
Speaker 4: I would gladly sample someone with e FIN radio static
Speaker 4: back then.
Speaker 7: I love it. It's coming back to people.
Speaker 6: This sounds like a cheap radio. Let's get in to
Speaker 6: do it for real.
Speaker 8: So and it was the best session. They were blazing.
Speaker 8: I was like, we're allowed to do this in here.
Speaker 7: This is amazing.
Speaker 6: Yeah, I will say that.
Speaker 4: Fun fact, the Without a Doubt is the one song
Speaker 4: that we made that wasn't recorded directly.
Speaker 6: We didn't do a lot of the tracking. We didn't
Speaker 6: do that at Sigma.
Speaker 4: Initially we had to use the studio on consha Hocken
Speaker 4: and when we got to the studio.
Speaker 7: But I was in Sigma, but that's where I came
Speaker 7: to you.
Speaker 6: Did you did?
Speaker 7: I did my part.
Speaker 6: We did.
Speaker 4: We did the tracking in consha Hocken and we did
Speaker 4: it on Rick James's knave board that he did for
Speaker 4: street songs. And the engineer and the owner of the
Speaker 4: studio that purchased James h collected all the cocaine residue
Speaker 4: that that board had for at least seven years.
Speaker 6: And I swear to god it can fit like a garbage.
Speaker 8: So let me tell you my Rick James story that
Speaker 8: scared me. And I know you're not lying. So when
Speaker 8: I was a young girl, another one of my jobs
Speaker 8: at the radio station was to get the artists to
Speaker 8: do drops. You know, we need to do drug This
Speaker 8: is j When I'm in town, I listened to whatever whatever,
Speaker 8: so I never forget it. Crazy little rock and roll
Speaker 8: white guy was our engineers.
Speaker 7: I loved him. Name was Alan. He was like all
Speaker 7: over the place. And Rick James walks into the studio
Speaker 7: and he just does He just lays.
Speaker 8: Down his long line on the console in the radio
Speaker 8: stage the radio station, and I'm standing like, oh crap.
Speaker 7: I ran back and told my boss.
Speaker 8: I was like, y'all do this off the ja like
Speaker 8: he's just doing lines right there and then Alan, He's crazy.
Speaker 7: He was like, dude, I want some and it was
Speaker 7: just a whole thing.
Speaker 8: And it was a girl, girl, It was a whole
Speaker 8: I was.
Speaker 7: Like this like the book.
Speaker 4: Sorry, I was going to say, outside of hip hop,
Speaker 4: like you also had interactions with, you know, non hip
Speaker 4: hop artists as well, and like, at any point during
Speaker 4: your first five to ten years of being a radio personality,
Speaker 4: did you also do non hip hop radio as well?
Speaker 6: Like this is Luther bandrooms.
Speaker 7: No no, No, three.
Speaker 6: Tour tickets for the Jackson's Like.
Speaker 7: I mean, yeah, I had to. We did, We did
Speaker 7: that other stuff on the station. Yeah sure, I mean
Speaker 7: you know who didn't.
Speaker 8: No, I didn't go into regular format for like you,
Speaker 8: Like you said at the beginning of this conversation from
Speaker 8: you know, seventy nine eighty nine, it was just all
Speaker 8: I was.
Speaker 9: I understand listening audience, the privilege that you are listening
Speaker 9: to not only does she DJ, not only does she speak,
Speaker 9: she picked her own records. For ten years as a
Speaker 9: radio person it just don't happen.
Speaker 7: It just it don't does that doesn't happen anymore. I'm
Speaker 7: gonna tell you enough.
Speaker 8: Well, sometimes I guess I could tell this because he's
Speaker 8: no longer with us, But Mary Mason Son.
Speaker 7: Was my job, was my boss.
Speaker 8: And I remember he got into an argument with the
Speaker 8: guy at uh what was running.
Speaker 7: Profile and.
Speaker 5: Many many Okay.
Speaker 7: I want to say his name is Manny. Anyway, they
Speaker 7: got in this big fight and I wasn't allowed to play.
Speaker 8: D And I remember taking a marker because he didn't
Speaker 8: know one rapper from the other, Like he wasn't into
Speaker 8: hip hop, so I blacked out the labels so when
Speaker 8: he came in the studio wouldn't get caught.
Speaker 4: What I know, you have a billion of these stories, man,
Speaker 4: like you know the things that you got that about.
Speaker 7: Yeah, I had to do that.
Speaker 8: He would kill He would come back to life and
Speaker 8: kill me if you knew that, But yeah, I would
Speaker 8: black it.
Speaker 7: Was I just love sucker m see so much like
Speaker 7: it's no way I'm not playing this.
Speaker 9: Be you the reason I rebelled. And then you want
Speaker 9: to say.
Speaker 7: A.
Speaker 4: Lady, b can you can you settle this this this
Speaker 4: Philadelphia rumor?
Speaker 8: Okay, I'll try. I mean I smoke just as much
Speaker 8: as the rest of you. My memory could be going,
Speaker 8: but go ahead, no.
Speaker 4: No, no, I mean this is This is thirteen year
Speaker 4: old ninth grade a mirror asking this question.
Speaker 7: Oh god, yes, I'm here. What can I do for you?
Speaker 8: Dear?
Speaker 4: Were you at all engaged to BJ in the morning
Speaker 4: from Power ninety nine or was that a rumor?
Speaker 8: Okay, so let me tell you how that story started
Speaker 8: you what? So, first of all, we had a promotions director,
Speaker 8: so listen, we had a promotions director at the radio station,
Speaker 8: and I want to say it was the Inquirer. Anyway,
Speaker 8: there was an article written and about all the radio
Speaker 8: stations in Philadelphia and they left us out.
Speaker 7: They left out Power ninety nine. We got no mention.
Speaker 8: And this promotions director, she's pissed. She's like, how the
Speaker 8: hell can they leave us out? Were the number one
Speaker 8: urban station? Blah blah blah blah blah. She goes, we
Speaker 8: have to come up with a real great gimmick.
Speaker 6: Oh no, I felt no.
Speaker 7: Listen, listen, patients, my brother patients.
Speaker 8: So she says, uh, Felicia Astride was just proposed to
Speaker 8: by her husband.
Speaker 6: What was his name?
Speaker 8: He proposed on the sports show remember right whatever on TV?
Speaker 8: Everybody knew I saw, so, uh, she says, you guys
Speaker 8: should do some kind of you know, like, gag like
Speaker 8: that and act like Bjay's proposing to you.
Speaker 7: So he we set it up.
Speaker 8: It happens post game of a Sixers game. It goes
Speaker 8: up on the screen, the whole nine. We couldn't tell
Speaker 8: our co workers. Only the program director knew, and it's
Speaker 8: in his and this lady. We had to act like
Speaker 8: to really sell it. We had to act like with
Speaker 8: our co workers that we were, you know, dating, and
Speaker 8: they're like, oh, let me see you kids, and not
Speaker 8: fake kissm and uh they he proposed to me at
Speaker 8: the game.
Speaker 7: It goes up on the screen.
Speaker 8: The crowd is yelling, say yes, hey, no, the crowd's
Speaker 8: going crazy, and I'm laughing so hard, so I grabbed
Speaker 8: my girlfriend. I put my head down on her shoulder
Speaker 8: as if I'm crying, but I'm really laughing. But I
Speaker 8: got to try to play this off so everybody thinks
Speaker 8: I was crying and I you know, and I've just
Speaker 8: ran off, like you know, I can't give an answer now,
Speaker 8: blah blah blah. Then we milked it on the air.
Speaker 8: BJ proposed to me, Well, she say yes, blah blah blah.
Speaker 8: The whole it just got out of it just got
Speaker 8: out of hand. So then we're hosting the new Edition
Speaker 8: show at the Spectrum and we come out and we
Speaker 8: make the announcement. He goes, I want to introduce you
Speaker 8: to my new edition. The lady B said yes, we
Speaker 8: came out the stage.
Speaker 7: He say yes.
Speaker 8: But in all of this hanging out and pretending, he
Speaker 8: ended up really cracking on me. Oh, and he ended
Speaker 8: up really proposing to me what and yeah, he proposed
Speaker 8: by putting the diamond ring in an ice tray and
Speaker 8: told me to go get him some ice or something.
Speaker 8: And we got.
Speaker 7: Some ice and he was like, look at the ice,
Speaker 7: and he was like, look at that. I was like,
Speaker 7: what is this? It was the whole thing. Anyway, it
Speaker 7: turned out to be.
Speaker 8: A very horrible relationship that I might say, may he
Speaker 8: rest in peace too. It turned out to be horrible,
Speaker 8: one of the worst relationships in my life. But at
Speaker 8: first it was a gag and then it really happened,
Speaker 8: and then I really ran away from it.
Speaker 4: I just remember the day after I guess the Sixers
Speaker 4: thing happened. Just every that's all you know. And this
Speaker 4: is before social media.
Speaker 7: So right, we were our home solid.
Speaker 4: This was a very viral thing that it was the
Speaker 4: talking to barbershop.
Speaker 6: Yes, exactly, and I always wanted to do that.
Speaker 4: Wait, Fante, I gotta explain to you, because I know
Speaker 4: we'll skip thiscombobulated boob belated.
Speaker 7: He really wants to know that.
Speaker 5: I really want what about to talk about?
Speaker 6: Yea?
Speaker 5: What is that?
Speaker 9: You?
Speaker 6: You would know him as Joey b Ellis.
Speaker 5: All right, the Rocky five Digga, right, But.
Speaker 4: Before he was Joey b Ellis, the singing, the original Drake,
Speaker 4: the singing rapping.
Speaker 6: No, No, that was a big deal.
Speaker 4: Like his thing was like I sing and I'm rap,
Speaker 4: you know, and you know, people like what about TJ.
Speaker 6: Swan He's like, well he can't rap.
Speaker 4: Like so that was his little niche right, So in
Speaker 4: about like eighty five eighty six, he comes out, you know,
Speaker 4: after school, he came out to do PSK and totally
Speaker 4: just revolutionized, yeah, fully hip hop.
Speaker 6: Right.
Speaker 4: Then there came a whole slew of other Philly acts
Speaker 4: with their little yellow labels with hand drawn cartoons and
Speaker 4: all that stuff.
Speaker 7: Design their own labels, made their own clothes.
Speaker 6: Right, and that person was he was. He was called
Speaker 6: the singing the mc breeze before he was Joey b Ellis, Wow,
Speaker 6: and he did.
Speaker 4: He did a song that was so popular, but unfortunately,
Speaker 4: like the last verse was about a melee that happened
Speaker 4: in a Chinese restaurant, and of course you know he's
Speaker 4: playing all the stereotypes of Chinese people about that.
Speaker 7: He was like, yeah, that was the song was.
Speaker 4: Like number instantly, number one, and I remember that Lorraine
Speaker 4: Bauer morol.
Speaker 7: Oh no with Asian.
Speaker 4: Yeah, like Lorraine ba Moore was very offended of the
Speaker 4: song and like gave a special news like that's the
Speaker 4: first time we heard about like you can't perpetuate stereotypes
Speaker 4: and this.
Speaker 7: Is very exactly. So he was just like that's hip hop.
Speaker 8: School Indeed, why didn't you haven't you asked me about
Speaker 8: how much problem I had with Schoolie.
Speaker 4: I didn't even get. I didn't even know it was.
Speaker 4: You played BSk and all his records so much.
Speaker 8: So Schoolly came to me right on, I just got
Speaker 8: my job on FM. You can't tell me nothing.
Speaker 7: I'm on the radio radio, like this is this is real.
Speaker 7: It was just a joke before this is real real.
Speaker 8: I got a whole job, right and here comes School
Speaker 8: with his record with I don't know at least twenty
Speaker 8: five thirty curse words. I'm like, school, what am I
Speaker 8: supposed to do with right? And he started crying, you
Speaker 8: won't play my record. He's sitting on the curve.
Speaker 7: He's so dramatic. I can't ask school. He School. He
Speaker 7: will tell you the story.
Speaker 8: I believe that I made his ass cry that he
Speaker 8: was sitting on the curve and I wouldn't play a song.
Speaker 8: So he would bring me like a six minute song
Speaker 8: that had about, like I said, a skillion fuck's in it.
Speaker 8: And I remember me and Jeff Mills taking it, putting
Speaker 8: it on real to reel and doing our own cut
Speaker 8: tape edit on a real to reel like yep, take
Speaker 8: out his curse word tape back up, put the tapes
Speaker 8: a lot back on the real and after I took
Speaker 8: out the cousin words, school, he song went from like
Speaker 8: six minutes to about two point fifty.
Speaker 7: And that's the and that's the.
Speaker 8: Part I played until the company had to do me
Speaker 8: at radio edit.
Speaker 7: But at the beginning I had to do my own
Speaker 7: radio edit, and thats the way. We didn't have the
Speaker 7: equipment and stuff, you know, the technology we have now.
Speaker 4: One of my one of my favorite nights of yours
Speaker 4: was the the aforementioned uh Steady be versus Will Smith battle.
Speaker 7: Yeah, now that's the tape I can't find.
Speaker 4: Dude, Okay, So Will Smith will forever, He'll forever have
Speaker 4: my respect because he somehow got the call. He freestyled
Speaker 4: that Steady Bee was a munchie chi and I just
Speaker 4: remember at that point Steady Bee actually wanting to fight
Speaker 4: Will and then like.
Speaker 8: And I did not help matters any because I thought
Speaker 8: it was the funniest is I had ever heard. And
Speaker 8: I think the fact that we all laughed made him
Speaker 8: really angry.
Speaker 6: Yo, we were all laughing.
Speaker 8: But that was the era when Shante stepped off that stage.
Speaker 8: That was the era when you had to come off
Speaker 8: off the top of your head.
Speaker 7: And just you just had that. That was actually what
Speaker 7: you call free styling. That was freestyling people that environment.
Speaker 4: They underestimated Will because they were like, well, you're not
Speaker 4: real hip hop, you're suburban, you talk all proper.
Speaker 7: First of all, he was a suburban. He lived in
Speaker 7: my neighborhood. Exact that he wasn't out there.
Speaker 8: Gang banging and talk about it, be grabbing his jawn
Speaker 8: and acting.
Speaker 7: And you know, we didn't come up in a one
Speaker 7: parent household.
Speaker 8: We didn't learn how to respect women and stuff just
Speaker 8: because he wasn't raised like that. Wow, not mean he
Speaker 8: wasn't a part and just as authentic and true to
Speaker 8: hip hop as everybody else. That is what I love
Speaker 8: the most about him. That's when Will was the first one,
Speaker 8: you know who made me. His lyrics made me smile.
Speaker 8: I'm card happy hip hop and.
Speaker 7: Everybody else was all bravado.
Speaker 8: I got a big back Cadillac, I got just no,
Speaker 8: you don't you live in your mama house?
Speaker 6: I stopping right?
Speaker 7: You know what I mean?
Speaker 6: Fact?
Speaker 8: But Will was like the first one. I mean, you
Speaker 8: know it was. It was It was funny, it was fun,
Speaker 8: it made you smile, and then you put a dope
Speaker 8: DJ like Jeff with him and it was just the
Speaker 8: greatest combination ever.
Speaker 6: Wow.
Speaker 4: I can I can go on and on nerding out forever.
Speaker 9: It's been beautiful seeing your friendship too, and how it's
Speaker 9: evolved and stuff you Jeff and Will, and how they
Speaker 9: still come out and support you.
Speaker 7: That shit is dope.
Speaker 8: I just texted the guy that saw the movie set
Speaker 8: with him. I'm like, tell well, I need a one
Speaker 8: minute video of him congratulate me for my fortieth.
Speaker 7: They got text back. He's doing it as soon as
Speaker 7: he gets out of such and such and like thank you.
Speaker 6: He lives for Instagram posts.
Speaker 8: So you know, Jay you missed was my thirties and
Speaker 8: he came home to surprise me, Like I didn't even
Speaker 8: know he was coming to the show.
Speaker 7: Really, he performed with Salt and Pepper. He did what
Speaker 7: a man.
Speaker 8: He performed with Chuck and flave. He got out there.
Speaker 8: He was a whole s one w he did lot
Speaker 8: of He stayed on stage all night and wait and
Speaker 8: there's more. It rained torrn your rain. It was like
Speaker 8: the hip hop woods Stock people did not leave. They
Speaker 8: stayed in the rain. Will was shaking me. Are you
Speaker 8: having as much fun as me?
Speaker 7: I'm like, I don't think. Wow, he stayed on stage
Speaker 7: all night and surprised me. It was the dopest thing ever.
Speaker 6: Well, you deserve all your flowers, you know, eighty one.
Speaker 4: You just you literally introduced me to the world that
Speaker 4: I get to that I built it in an empire.
Speaker 6: Wow, that says a lot. You know.
Speaker 9: Forget about your radio mentees around here, because she got
Speaker 9: a lot of those in the world too.
Speaker 7: Oh yes, I love that one.
Speaker 8: That's that's my little mini lady because she only and
Speaker 8: does she sit up here and and act like she asked.
Speaker 8: But he ain't let nobody say nothing to her either.
Speaker 7: She was the only one who was stabbed and he
Speaker 7: was to speak up. Yeah, that's right. He watched me.
Speaker 8: He watched me one right there, proud of that one
Speaker 8: right there, and you watched me get fired to girl.
Speaker 7: So it's all good.
Speaker 5: You have any you got any children?
Speaker 6: Like?
Speaker 7: No?
Speaker 8: I I tried, but my sister again, I talk about
Speaker 8: her so much.
Speaker 7: She's been going for two years now.
Speaker 8: No, my sister uh gave me kids and then my
Speaker 8: old man passed away on me and he left me kids.
Speaker 8: So am I a mother and a grandmother? Yes, to
Speaker 8: every extent of the word. I have taught him to walk, talk.
Speaker 7: Potty trained, school meetings.
Speaker 8: I am a mother and a birth and I am
Speaker 8: a grandmother and I know I literally you know. I
Speaker 8: remember when my sister took ill, she had a stroke,
Speaker 8: and I was taking care of her in her latter years,
Speaker 8: and the doctor asked her, you know, you don't have
Speaker 8: a high blood pressure or anything. You don't do you
Speaker 8: worry about anything? It says you have three children and
Speaker 8: seven grandchildren. She says, no, I don't do that my sister, and.
Speaker 6: She meant it.
Speaker 7: I raised her kids. She was She called me her
Speaker 7: baby daddy.
Speaker 8: She sent me cards on Father's Day. You the dopest
Speaker 8: dadd Yeah, but that's dope. Yes, they walked right past
Speaker 8: their mother come to me.
Speaker 10: Crazy, discombobulated. But I'm not what is this that that title?
Speaker 10: What is what was that song?
Speaker 4: I don't know, but if you you that was the
Speaker 4: that was the I didn't know that was that was
Speaker 4: the offensive.
Speaker 5: That I didn't know that was the Georgie got it yea,
Speaker 5: got it Google.
Speaker 4: If you remember the follow up the girls in None
Speaker 4: but Trouble, a song called just one of those days,
Speaker 4: just right?
Speaker 6: When when when answer.
Speaker 7: To that too, we did Boys of the World ain't nothing.
Speaker 8: Guys of the World ain't the answer.
Speaker 7: But that was my song.
Speaker 4: Like him, I'm just saying, when Will talks about kicking
Speaker 4: the Felix cat, he's giving a reference to yeah brisk Bobla,
Speaker 4: where yeah, yeah, verse one, he kills the cat, he
Speaker 4: throws it.
Speaker 6: On the roof and the.
Speaker 7: Roof in the year Yeah, it's it's very.
Speaker 6: Nothing exactly exactly.
Speaker 8: Charlie Mack asked Breeze opened up my show Sunday, and
Speaker 8: I'm like, I don't they don't think we have enough time.
Speaker 7: No, I don't mean that disrespectfully. I don't matter. It
Speaker 7: sounded like, yeah, no, it's just that we have so
Speaker 7: many artists on. I wouldn't mind. He opened up for
Speaker 7: the Juice.
Speaker 8: Crew bat he still and he did every word of
Speaker 8: this Combobie Beauty Don't get It Twisted?
Speaker 6: Wow, Yeah I.
Speaker 8: Would if I had the time. I literally have seven acts,
Speaker 8: and you know they put us out.
Speaker 6: Of the Dell. Yeah.
Speaker 8: I probably won't even I probably won't even get the MC.
Speaker 8: I'll probably be like I'm.
Speaker 4: Next, Well, I won I really hope that you seriously
Speaker 4: start preserving your archives because you are the history of
Speaker 4: hip hop.
Speaker 5: So that's why I am man.
Speaker 7: I'm going to donate some of them.
Speaker 8: I wish you could see my, my, my, she came
Speaker 8: down here because.
Speaker 6: I have your house in two seconds, I.
Speaker 7: Have every gold album.
Speaker 8: I'm looking at run DMC, I'm looking at L Jeff
Speaker 8: and Will. I'm looking at this is hip hop history
Speaker 8: down here on the world.
Speaker 5: The ass you beat.
Speaker 10: So I'm just thinking, now, what was your relationship with
Speaker 10: with the pop art guys like Lawrence Goodman, Like what
Speaker 10: was what was that?
Speaker 9: Like?
Speaker 6: Yeah, can you tell us what Laurence? No one wants
Speaker 6: to talk about Lawrence Goodman?
Speaker 7: Put the He'll sue you.
Speaker 8: I was just gonna saying either, do I because Bill
Speaker 8: talked about him and he freaking sued him.
Speaker 7: Because I can tell you some ish.
Speaker 8: I can tell you, Yeah, coming in my house threatening
Speaker 8: me and stuff.
Speaker 7: Ye yeah, see these days, is he.
Speaker 8: Still I did see him not too long ago.
Speaker 7: He's got all this great hair, is really long beard.
Speaker 7: I did.
Speaker 8: But it's a shame that you can't say things because
Speaker 8: people might sue you.
Speaker 6: Yeah, man, you never know, people might get super ltis.
Speaker 4: So yeah, I've heard many a story about uh the
Speaker 4: pop art these but.
Speaker 8: Well, just to let you know, like I said, prefra
Speaker 8: to my sister again, my sister shafted them and thought
Speaker 8: of them as some kind of jokes.
Speaker 7: She wasn't scared, So I truly wasn't gonna be scared.
Speaker 9: Well, can you just tell Lee Daniels that, yes, we
Speaker 9: would watch the movie because I know he's thinking.
Speaker 6: He needs to do that.
Speaker 8: Yes, yes, funny, yes, who only man keeps asking him
Speaker 8: you should.
Speaker 7: Do a movie lady b blah blah blah blah blah.
Speaker 7: He gonna listen, he gonna listen. You know who's gonna play?
Speaker 6: You be?
Speaker 7: Who is it?
Speaker 9: Who?
Speaker 7: What's her name?
Speaker 6: Who's gonna be?
Speaker 7: We're not We're not, No, We're not.
Speaker 6: Okay, that's a good one.
Speaker 7: I'm taking it. I'm taking I've told you all enough.
Speaker 7: I'm taking the rest of my grave. Oh okay, so
Speaker 7: you got it in your mind? You just want to
Speaker 7: share it? Ye, okay, Okay, y'are a stupid This is
Speaker 7: cool the first time somebody's hanging up with us.
Speaker 3: I love it.
Speaker 7: A drum lesson. You can try to deny me all
Speaker 7: you want, but I want.
Speaker 6: Time.
Speaker 7: I see you. Don't even say hello.
Speaker 6: I see him like drum lessons. Yes, I don't even
Speaker 6: say hell.
Speaker 8: First, No, I'm grown and what and what? I don't
Speaker 8: have any more patience in the house to take care
Speaker 8: of the kids are going. I can actually get me
Speaker 8: a set and bang out, I say.
Speaker 7: This, wake up the name.
Speaker 6: I'm gonna have to send a drum set now, Okay, should.
Speaker 7: My God, I would die. I would die.
Speaker 4: That's that's that's the least I could do for you
Speaker 4: for changing my life again. Congratulations on your forty years
Speaker 4: as as a pioneer for changing all our lives.
Speaker 6: We're all the better for it.
Speaker 4: And another forty another four hundred years of your legacy,
Speaker 4: may it last.
Speaker 6: Thank you for doing our show.
Speaker 7: Thank you so much.
Speaker 8: This has been so much fun. I felt like I
Speaker 8: just had a whole conversation with my homies.
Speaker 6: You did, you did?
Speaker 5: Did feel like word?
Speaker 6: Absolutely well. I'll see you all the next round, y'all.
Speaker 4: This is Quest Love on behalf of Lady b fon Sigolot,
Speaker 4: Sugar Steve, Today, Bill and Lying.
Speaker 6: Yeah, all right next time. Hey, this is Sugar Steve.
Speaker 11: Make sure you keep up with us on Instagram at
Speaker 11: q LS and let us know what you think you
Speaker 11: should be next to sit down with us. Don't forget
Speaker 11: to subscribe to our podcast.
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