Speaker 1: Quest Love Show is a production of iHeartRadio.
Speaker 2: Ladies and gentlemen.
Speaker 1: This doesn't happen often. This is the Quest Love Show.
Speaker 1: I'm literally not gonna waste time and introducing our guest today.
Speaker 1: Normally I'll take five minutes out and do the life
Speaker 1: achievement accolades. Look at his face, he's not having it. However,
Speaker 1: I am going to do a misslid and say, first
Speaker 1: of all, this man needs no introduction whatsoever. But that said,
Speaker 1: let me remind you that he does have a project
Speaker 1: with the legendary drummer and Questlove Supreme guest John Dinsmore
Speaker 1: of the Doors. It's called Dope and their album No
Speaker 1: Country for Old Men is out now. And besides making music,
Speaker 1: our guest has his hands in many a project his
Speaker 1: uh rap Central Station magazine to bring the noise app
Speaker 1: We'll get into that, Chuck d I thank you this.
Speaker 1: This is one of the highlights of me doing this platform.
Speaker 1: I literally created this platform so I could have a
Speaker 1: normal way to ask you all the questions I ever
Speaker 1: wanted to ask you as just two artists talking.
Speaker 2: So thank you for coming to the show. My heroes. Yeah, topic,
Speaker 2: I remember you know when you first started it. You know,
Speaker 2: you was the laptop man on a run in between
Speaker 2: between the tonight show, my rehearsals and show. I'm still
Speaker 2: in that person. Yeah, I know you still all right, and.
Speaker 1: You know this also deserves to be you know, Jimmy
Speaker 1: jam holds the record for a seven hour interviews. Now
Speaker 1: we're not doing that right exactly, so I have to
Speaker 1: we rather pick yes. Yeah, I'm being selfish for this
Speaker 1: episode and asking the questions that I want to know.
Speaker 1: If you guys knew inside baseball, then go ahead.
Speaker 2: You know, you know I give great respect to the
Speaker 2: FOI for the Islam and the foh the fuck out
Speaker 2: of the funk out of here over to you know,
Speaker 2: organizations I uphold very daily in my heart.
Speaker 1: Okay, let me start with my first question, and this
Speaker 1: is gonna be a rapid fire, all of the place questions. Okay,
Speaker 1: of all the James Brown backdrops to make a jam too.
Speaker 2: Mm hmm.
Speaker 1: What was it about blow your head that sparked a
Speaker 1: light bulb idea reaction? Because that song was not familiar
Speaker 1: in terms of the James Brown cannon. This is how
Speaker 1: we meet public getemy through public enemy number one? What
Speaker 1: was it about a noisy buzzy synthesizer.
Speaker 2: Roller skating, I Rose roller Rink where we had basically
Speaker 2: DJ's come out. They played records for roller skaters because
Speaker 2: skating was a thing in the seventies and I was
Speaker 2: a badass skater, right, you were a skater skater like
Speaker 2: a motherfucker. Right.
Speaker 1: Did you ever live in Atlanta?
Speaker 2: Yeah? Of course.
Speaker 1: Did you participate in any roller skating on Sundays.
Speaker 2: Every once in a while. But before that Atlanta had
Speaker 2: that scene. I was, you know, a roller rink was
Speaker 2: up the block. I didn't go there for that. Roosevelt
Speaker 2: roller Rink is where it all came together. People came
Speaker 2: out the Roosevelt. That's where the concerts came That's where
Speaker 2: the DJ's were able to do their thing. But in
Speaker 2: the roller skating, of course, you know, to work on
Speaker 2: your skills, you go on a Tuesday matinee, Wednesday, Thursday,
Speaker 2: you to that level. That's when you bust your ass
Speaker 2: because nobody was there. You know what I'm saying. You got,
Speaker 2: you know, like six year old kids and the matinee
Speaker 2: or whatever. But the night were really jumped off. Friday night,
Speaker 2: Saturday night, Thursday night even, you know, and let's say
Speaker 2: you know they say couples, let's say they playing like
Speaker 2: Reunited by Peaches in her a couple of in forever.
Speaker 2: And to ask a girl to skate with you, you
Speaker 2: better have some skills because she ain't trying to fall
Speaker 2: with a non skating dude, right, So not only do
Speaker 2: you have to crack the ice by asking them to
Speaker 2: skate with you, right, that's the number one cracked ice.
Speaker 2: Number two, you gotta skate well, and if she don't
Speaker 2: know how to skate, you gotta make sure that she
Speaker 2: don't fall. That's the type of skater I was. However,
Speaker 2: after the slow jam, they would say all skaters and
Speaker 2: those that did not get a partner the skate or
Speaker 2: said basically, after slow jams, it was time to give buck.
Speaker 2: And that was one of the sorrows that I say.
Speaker 2: Big up the DJ cossume.
Speaker 1: He might have had the twelve inch blow your head,
Speaker 1: all skaters, man, like, you're all right, all right homegirl, go.
Speaker 2: Way seconds again. Now you got like the fourteen fifteen eighteen,
Speaker 2: you got the cats that really get rowdy on the wheels, right, right,
Speaker 2: So they all kind of went when when who who?
Speaker 2: When when? And by the time it hits that when
Speaker 2: and that beat dropcast chaos Chaos and cats used to
Speaker 2: do this the Rosevelt roller ring dudes used to like
Speaker 2: hold each other's shoulder but come around and just throw
Speaker 2: them bowls typed I've knocked it was the But the
Speaker 2: thing about it, right, DJ's wasn't quick enough. Yeah, I
Speaker 2: was gonna say, how do you catch the breaks? They
Speaker 2: never did, And in my mind it was like, you know,
Speaker 2: and by that time they moving on to like maybe
Speaker 2: knee deep later on or because they could not sustain
Speaker 2: the break, But what do you think was going on
Speaker 2: in my head? I gotta make it joint the litit
Speaker 2: only they could next, right, you know what I'm saying,
Speaker 2: got it? I know? Right. So that's a weird but
Speaker 2: very practical way that this whole thing started because I
Speaker 2: was like, Okay, there's no DJ to extend this break.
Speaker 2: Nobody's fast enough or skilled enough. Even Flash ain't. It's
Speaker 2: very short. As a matter of fact, when we made
Speaker 2: the loop for the demo Public Enemy number one, I
Speaker 2: was doing it as a drop for W B A U.
Speaker 2: And I did you know, off of two tape decks,
Speaker 2: so they was kind of pause I pause taped, so
Speaker 2: you know, like the thing about it, and I'm glitchy
Speaker 2: on my timing. However, the vocals fixed all the holes
Speaker 2: in it. So that's where the well you trying to
Speaker 2: it had no it had no timing in it. And
Speaker 2: then of course, you know, you get into the end
Speaker 2: of the first verse, which ends on whatever bar that
Speaker 2: it decided to end it want want ho ha, and
Speaker 2: all that that actually was just you know, just a
Speaker 2: combination of a bunch of different sounds and samples. Did
Speaker 2: you guys lose the tape when you made it?
Speaker 1: Now, that was a difficult thing. Tell me about the
Speaker 1: art of looping that way, and art of.
Speaker 2: Looping actually came from what I think yuk I was
Speaker 2: gonna say, ya did this wout did it right? And
Speaker 2: then showed Stevett. So when we went in the studio
Speaker 2: to like, we were like number one. We could not
Speaker 2: put it together by sampling it, especially with the equipment
Speaker 2: at the time. And even when we did, it was
Speaker 2: like this shit sounds like sacchering. Man, it's fake, it's
Speaker 2: for Gayzy, it ain't happening right. It's got to kind
Speaker 2: of kind of be kind of constructed in the same
Speaker 2: Frankenstein manner. But can maybe keep a little bit more time,
Speaker 2: and Flavor was also instrumental on on pressing a kayak
Speaker 2: he did later on with Rebel Ala pause Flavor's timing,
Speaker 2: which was good timing but bad at the same time.
Speaker 1: Wait, he would play the drums on top of that.
Speaker 1: That's him, him and Saddler. So is that why the
Speaker 1: the bongos sound a little off a little bit? Because
Speaker 1: when Q tips sampled it on Footprints, Now.
Speaker 2: This is weird.
Speaker 1: I will say that, you know, I give a lot
Speaker 1: of credit to Jay Dillar for the sort of messed up,
Speaker 1: sloppy thing. But in my mind, the very first time
Speaker 1: I'm hearing like quite off bongos is the public ene
Speaker 1: meaning number.
Speaker 2: One, because I'm one of the most offbeat, sloppiest motherfuckers
Speaker 2: ever could tell you. Man, he'd come in my car
Speaker 2: and I have a Buster speaker in the car and
Speaker 2: he's like, you're not going to fix that, and I'm like, no,
Speaker 2: I want it loud, and matter of fuck, he's even looking.
Speaker 2: So the time it might be off, the sound might
Speaker 2: be muffled, but what's going to come out of there
Speaker 2: is something that you can feel as opposed to hear,
Speaker 2: as opposed I can win these times of sing. So
Speaker 2: that was the whole premise of blow your head of
Speaker 2: like deliver what you feel. I had none to lose
Speaker 2: because I'm making a radio promo. As a matter of fact,
Speaker 2: when I actually had it as a demo, it is
Speaker 2: like December of eighty four, Jay Jamster j was up
Speaker 2: at the Bau studios because he was just bringing up
Speaker 2: seriously fine and he was turning them into a group
Speaker 2: of Arista. And so Jay was up there with Dre
Speaker 2: Andre Brown, our doctor Dre. We say, I handed it
Speaker 2: over Jay's lap to Dre and Dre played it and
Speaker 2: from that point on it took on a life of
Speaker 2: his own, the demo. So to make the demo over
Speaker 2: again in the public at mean number one, it was
Speaker 2: three years later. Three years we had to say, and then,
Speaker 2: you know, like how do you construct this Frankenstein back
Speaker 2: into Frankenstein for records? And it wasn't easy. So Stevett
Speaker 2: took the two inch stutter okay and looped it around
Speaker 2: a microphone stand around the room. So it was a
Speaker 2: real loop of tape going around and then we filled
Speaker 2: in the blanks and cut out parts and emulated without
Speaker 2: the emulator.
Speaker 1: Got it, you know, question number two, where's your ninety eight?
Speaker 2: Oh man, it was bought for a little bit and
Speaker 2: it got banged up, and then I tried to get
Speaker 2: a Delta eighty eight. My brother hijacked my cars and
Speaker 2: it always ended bad.
Speaker 1: So right now it's in a junk shop. It's not
Speaker 1: nowhere preserved in history.
Speaker 2: Long long on that in the Bronco Before nineteen ninety one,
Speaker 2: they were both out of here. Bronco broke down on
Speaker 2: the Williamsburg Bridge. Yeah, brock down that Williamsburg. That Williamsburg
Speaker 2: and the same Williamsburg. I go to date night on
Speaker 2: Williamsburg Bridge nineteen ninety or something like that, and that
Speaker 2: same Bronco. I wrote Terry dome In. You wrote the
Speaker 2: lyrics inside that car, Yeah, driving to hangout and reading PA.
Speaker 1: You just had a dictaphone or some sort of casette
Speaker 1: like No, I spent years doing.
Speaker 2: Maybe what got Harry Chapin in trouble. It's like I
Speaker 2: was a messenger. I drove and I kept writing lyrics.
Speaker 2: I write lyrics like without looking at the at the
Speaker 2: I would write lyrics in the past. That's how I wrote.
Speaker 2: By Mersca show. I wrote lyrics with my right hand.
Speaker 2: But I never looked at the seat, always kept my
Speaker 2: eyes on the road, and I had tape decks. And
Speaker 2: so where I write, I go like this. Now, the
Speaker 2: half of the problem is it is later on deciphering it.
Speaker 2: But you know I wrote Terror Dome and a Dog
Speaker 2: driving the Ready Pennsylvania. Listen to Chuck Chill Outs Show,
Speaker 2: and I'm writing like this, so you know, like later
Speaker 2: on I'm looking at Okay, you.
Speaker 1: Prove my theory though, Okay, So I believe that driving
Speaker 1: is equal to dancing. No no, no to sleep no
Speaker 1: no no, no, driving in sleep are the same to me.
Speaker 1: So you drive a lot, yes, especially in California. So
Speaker 1: I know people bitched about California traffic or whatever, but
Speaker 1: I love driving. So the reason why I do it
Speaker 1: is Okay, So during the pandemic, when I'm really quote
Speaker 1: unquote doing the work, therapy all that stuff, I go
Speaker 1: deep into kind of my neurology bag as far as
Speaker 1: studying how the brain works. And I discovered that you know,
Speaker 1: the five parts of the brain, alpha, beta, theta, delta, gamma, that.
Speaker 2: Any of those parts scare you none, dude, I'm so
Speaker 2: my metaphysical bag. Now.
Speaker 1: So the deal is that I learned that the way
Speaker 1: that we retain information, Like I used to be one
Speaker 1: of those people that would like studying, say like what
Speaker 1: my phone number was two one five? And you don't
Speaker 1: retain information by repetition. You retain information when you're not
Speaker 1: paying attention.
Speaker 2: All right. I kind of get that, so I would
Speaker 2: test it out because I'm terrible at lyrics all my life.
Speaker 1: I'm gonna tell you, you're gonna help me. You're on this,
Speaker 1: You're already on the.
Speaker 2: Path, but think so, because I mean, there's nobody ever
Speaker 2: like your partner black thought. There's nobody like this dude ever. Ever,
Speaker 2: I don't understand. I'm gonna tell you the secret.
Speaker 1: The secret is basically all right, when I would give speeches,
Speaker 1: try to like study in the mirror and do it.
Speaker 1: I don't do that no more. I literally play it
Speaker 1: on loop while I'm asleep. And that's how you retain
Speaker 1: the information. The other way is when I want to
Speaker 1: read a book, I will drive.
Speaker 2: I will drive for four hours around.
Speaker 1: New York City just loop Manhattan, listening to a book.
Speaker 1: Because the thing is, I'm hyper aware. Because your life
Speaker 1: is online, you gotta watch traffic and everything.
Speaker 2: Keep your eyes on the road looking out the front window.
Speaker 1: Right, So your mind is in a fada state. Your
Speaker 1: fatas state is how you retain information. And when I
Speaker 1: want to study something, I will play what it is
Speaker 1: and listen to it. It's literally the same as sleeping.
Speaker 2: Well, you know what, man, you're extraordinary in here. Here's
Speaker 2: I don't care how many times you can explain playing
Speaker 2: the drums. I still don't know how to fuck you
Speaker 2: do that. I don't think about it. Yeah, yeah, okay,
Speaker 2: you don't think about a god on there. And I
Speaker 2: could put in ten thousand hours. It's no way in
Speaker 2: hell I'm gonna be a fucking good drummer. Dude, either
Speaker 2: you got it or you don't. I believe in that
Speaker 2: you need a talent. You need a Yes, you need
Speaker 2: a talent. For example, my talent is I could sit
Speaker 2: in this room and fifty years later, right blind or whatever,
Speaker 2: I could draw exactly what I saw to the smallest
Speaker 2: increment spec But I can't remember a word or a
Speaker 2: sentence that I made a long time ago or recent.
Speaker 2: I have always been terrible lyrics or memorized. If I listen,
Speaker 2: if I could memorize lyrics, and I've never had writer's block.
Speaker 2: I'd be the baddest MPC of all time.
Speaker 1: Well, guess what you are one of the sim seasonal time.
Speaker 2: Like an outfielders that you could do it all except
Speaker 2: for run or some shit like that. History will say. Otherwise,
Speaker 2: God will actually give you what you could give and
Speaker 2: and be like you ain't got these things? How many takes? All? Right?
Speaker 1: Let me start with bring the noise, your level of
Speaker 1: breath work first of all, your rhyme and of stuff
Speaker 1: that's like I mean, don't believe the hight was slow
Speaker 1: at ninety nine bpms, but whereas the typical bpms on
Speaker 1: this record is somewhere between one fifteen and one twenty.
Speaker 1: I literally listen to your entire vocal take just a
Speaker 1: cappella on Nation of Millions?
Speaker 2: You rarely younger. Yeah, what was the longest song that
Speaker 2: it took for you to master? On Nation of Millions?
Speaker 2: I wasn't. I wasn't a quick take, guy, I was
Speaker 2: never that one or two takes all. Fuck it, I
Speaker 2: would be you know, you know what was the test
Speaker 2: of all of us? When I get a headache. I've
Speaker 2: only had five headaches since nineteen eighty two. Like you know,
Speaker 2: like the people talk about migraines, and I don't know
Speaker 2: what a headache is, so my headaches off a record
Speaker 2: would come self induced, where I was just like, okay, psychological, well, no,
Speaker 2: I'm just going to keep pushing myself into the point
Speaker 2: where you know, oh yes, your shit has swolled up,
Speaker 2: and then you're going to get a headache that's got
Speaker 2: like out of Like, all right, you did eighty takes
Speaker 2: because you're not happy.
Speaker 1: I was going to say, with righteous bombing and weaving
Speaker 1: and Taro Dome, I hear a punch and glitch that
Speaker 1: was slightly off.
Speaker 2: Yeah, this very very little punches up in a pee
Speaker 2: stuff and early piece stuff.
Speaker 1: Yeah, but for you, like, it's just a stance at
Speaker 1: a time until who's the judge that will determine.
Speaker 2: That to take all of us, all of us me
Speaker 2: doing it, somebody on the other side. For example, the
Speaker 2: Rebel with all the pause that we hear was a
Speaker 2: second day attempt. Wasn't what I was not happy with
Speaker 2: the first stand tamp. It was a bear too because
Speaker 2: we had to go in stages with Rebel. We had
Speaker 2: to be like, okay, now we got to take this
Speaker 2: thing from a demo stage, which always sounded the best.
Speaker 2: Now we got to make a recording. Okay. Wow. In
Speaker 2: the minute of our testing to see if we had
Speaker 2: to write was Buster and Charlie Brown and leaders who
Speaker 2: happened to be in there as we were getting that.
Speaker 1: Buster told me he cried riddle tears when he first
Speaker 1: heard Rebel.
Speaker 2: I had to tell him stop running around the goddamn
Speaker 2: place and s yo, get up out of here. Y're
Speaker 2: gonna be running all over the damn fucking place going downstairs,
Speaker 2: you know. But they were like at that particular moment
Speaker 2: that they happened to hang around. They were right there
Speaker 2: when we were comember. We were trying to make something
Speaker 2: out of that, you know, and that record happened. I
Speaker 2: happened to get that record. I think I told you
Speaker 2: this before the Food for Thought record. Yeah, who did you?
Speaker 1: You said you took it from someone's crib.
Speaker 2: Yeah. I was telling me the story from soup to Nuts. No,
Speaker 2: I was gonna give you from super Nuts. I would
Speaker 2: just say that I went down to it. I was
Speaker 2: talking to this girl right and you know, it was
Speaker 2: in the basement and it was a long night that
Speaker 2: never went anywhere, but I had to I broke out
Speaker 2: and I was like can I baw this record? That's it?
Speaker 2: And I bawled the record. I was supposed to bring
Speaker 2: it back. I found out that was on the record,
Speaker 2: you know, and I was like, okay. But then this
Speaker 2: was like seven years before I actually maybe five years
Speaker 2: before I actually you know. Yeah. So the point of
Speaker 2: the matter is is like it went through phases and
Speaker 2: stages of what I can hear in my head, Like
Speaker 2: I have never ever done what I really have heard
Speaker 2: in my head. I'm only half of the sonic guy
Speaker 2: Hanker's other guys like he ain't really ever heard really
Speaker 2: what he heard. He is in his head to actually
Speaker 2: do it.
Speaker 1: If you guys have the technology now what we do
Speaker 1: it's called AI, but that's what I meant. If you
Speaker 1: have the technology. Now, do you think that these albums
Speaker 1: would have been even albums?
Speaker 2: Oat meal? Now? Bro? Everything's part of the blood and
Speaker 2: oatmeal now is it? Like? Anything is everything? There's no comparison.
Speaker 2: There'll never be another Roots, you know? Why? Why what's
Speaker 2: the second band to the Roots? Right now? Let's see cricketsickets?
Speaker 2: The work wasn't the work that you turned down? Who's
Speaker 2: picking up the scraps? Oh yeah? Roots turned down ten
Speaker 2: thousand jobs make history every night on National TV. Who's
Speaker 2: the second band? This is the biggest difference between thirty
Speaker 2: or forty years of.
Speaker 1: That's actually a shame, though it's all right, here's the deal.
Speaker 1: Though Rebel comes out, I swear.
Speaker 2: To God the next not the next week.
Speaker 1: Two weeks later on Lady b Show, suddenly dismasters part
Speaker 1: time hustler, wrong by Big Daddy King and I the
Speaker 1: whole bridge thing versus whatever. But immediately in fourteen days,
Speaker 1: New York responds to Rebel without a pause, changing the
Speaker 1: whole entire paradigm shift happens.
Speaker 2: Rebel comes after the Latin quarter wildness of Public Enemy
Speaker 2: number one as an instrumental setting, setting some kind of
Speaker 2: fire in there. And then I hear but that wasn't
Speaker 2: received well when it was first played or wrong MC
Speaker 2: cadence at the time Rock Him and Kris One changed
Speaker 2: the whole game with their Cadence and South Bronx really
Speaker 2: poetry by Chris One Productions. And Kris One is telling
Speaker 2: you straight out that I'm changing the way that we
Speaker 2: actually speak deliver, and then you rock Him, would Eric
Speaker 2: be for President? And then more importantly, my melody changed
Speaker 2: the whole way that they were like Louis Armstrong, you know,
Speaker 2: and Ellen and to the way you phrase things, and
Speaker 2: it changed. So my favorite album, and this is another thing,
Speaker 2: and I'm glad I'm here to say that. You know,
Speaker 2: we're in the fortieth year. I'm talking about a shame.
Speaker 2: We're in the fortieth year anniversary of what I consider
Speaker 2: the greatest album of all time because not only was
Speaker 2: it groundbreaking, it busts through the Colosseum doors and crowded
Speaker 2: floors and arenas. And that's Raising Hell by Run DMC.
Speaker 2: I forgot that. It's the fortieth fortieth to this point
Speaker 2: right now, right then, it's also the fortieth anniversary of
Speaker 2: the Raising Hell Tour, which was a third national tour
Speaker 2: subsequently after the first Fresh Rest one and Fresh Rest two,
Speaker 2: and then Raising Hell really put the hammer to the
Speaker 2: nail because Rundium C. Houdini, who never gets talked about,
Speaker 2: right because because not only recording wise did they do
Speaker 2: the thing with John Lelle Ecstasy and Graham Master D.
Speaker 2: But by nineteen eighty six, I mean, you got a
Speaker 2: group that's coming on right four run in D and J.
Speaker 2: That's really seriously the closing this building out because they
Speaker 2: got now they got you know, funky beating all these
Speaker 2: other records and they hitting it like wow.
Speaker 1: There's two groups that have not seen in action and
Speaker 1: even on YouTube. I mean the Freees come out of
Speaker 1: the ninth video gives you just an inkling of what
Speaker 1: their show was, and for some reason, not one person
Speaker 1: thought to pull out a camera to catch that's the
Speaker 1: sonic cat there.
Speaker 2: People. Lucky you had listen. The problem is you got
Speaker 2: one tens out there that catch still. And you know,
Speaker 2: when you had a one ten camera, you know half
Speaker 2: of the half of the film because especially if you're
Speaker 2: shooting your one ten and a dark arena, right then
Speaker 2: you go to Walgreens and come to find out you
Speaker 2: got three pictures out of like what twenty Nah, I'm
Speaker 2: at video cameras, Yeah, like i've video cameras is nineteen ninety,
Speaker 2: nineteen ninety one.
Speaker 1: No eighty cash Money. DJ cash Money is documented his.
Speaker 2: Entire from like eighty six. I know they you know
Speaker 2: what it was one of those things man back then,
Speaker 2: it's like we're not letting you in this arena with anything.
Speaker 2: They checking metal detect, especially after Long Beach and stuff
Speaker 2: like that. But yeah, there should be more somewhere like
Speaker 2: the closest we get to see Whudini before the show,
Speaker 2: like just like I said, and the priests come out
Speaker 2: at night, which also what they did escape with. They
Speaker 2: also did escape as well is when you see Jermaine
Speaker 2: dupri and everybody getting on. That made people want to
Speaker 2: be at MC more than just seeing what happened on
Speaker 2: the stage. It's like the buses, it's like yow. You know.
Speaker 2: My first years on tour, the only way I could
Speaker 2: put is that I was older and I felt like
Speaker 2: a camp counselor it was like summer camp because tours
Speaker 2: only took place in the summer.
Speaker 1: How many buses would be What was your first tour?
Speaker 2: Nineteen eighty seven. Beastie Boys licensed l April first, nineteen
Speaker 2: eighty seven, and we played at the Passaic Theater which
Speaker 2: is down down, and then the New Hayn Coliseum on
Speaker 2: the fifteenth of April eighty seven, and that's torn down.
Speaker 2: The crazy thing about it, I played in more torn
Speaker 2: down arenas and that's the and I was able to
Speaker 2: still play stadiums and arenas today. But it's really weird
Speaker 2: because you go and see a place and it's like,
Speaker 2: you know, like this is The thing about old heads.
Speaker 2: When you're old head, when you go to a place,
Speaker 2: if you know, if you're open enough, you.
Speaker 1: Still see an old building, just like, oh so when
Speaker 1: you come to Philly, you still think of the spectrum.
Speaker 1: Of course I see the spectrum, actually get it, just
Speaker 1: like old heads, old heads when they could go to
Speaker 1: a new spot and be like, oh, yeah, that's where
Speaker 1: so and so was. I go up Broad Street and
Speaker 1: I still remember when Conniemac Stadium was there because I had,
Speaker 1: you know, family down in Philadelphia and always wondered, like,
Speaker 1: why we keep coming to Philly and why are we
Speaker 1: going while we keep going to Polymore.
Speaker 2: You know. So that's why I couldn't even watch The
Speaker 2: Wire Man, because the wire just reminded me of times
Speaker 2: I did not want to actually just read familiar, for
Speaker 2: I didn't think it was a joke man. To me.
Speaker 2: I thought it was real serious that Baltimore was so
Speaker 2: close to DC and just being for to.
Speaker 1: Me in the condition that it was, Yeah, exactly, it's just.
Speaker 2: Like we're gonna wreck Baltimore on purpose, to show so
Speaker 2: close to the nation's capital, we're gonna make Baltemore the
Speaker 2: worst place for black people. So That's why I just
Speaker 2: sometimes you know, I mean, you know, and sometimes with
Speaker 2: my statements I catch l's, But it's okay to catch
Speaker 2: l's in the lifetime you're human, Yeah, exactly.
Speaker 1: I wanted to know, like, for you, what was the
Speaker 1: hardest song to execute as far as like stage and song,
Speaker 1: not stage, just record like You're Louder than Bomb. I
Speaker 1: don't know how you got through that. There's a lot
Speaker 1: of words, a lot of simple.
Speaker 2: Like here's another thing that people don't understand. I've been
Speaker 2: on the other side of what they considered old age
Speaker 2: for MC's for a long time. A lot of things
Speaker 2: can affect the MC teeth, of course, you know, I
Speaker 2: mean you I had an important was it mola or whatever?
Speaker 2: And they couldn't do a rooking now on it. But
Speaker 2: it seemed like that was the key to power and
Speaker 2: how you else are you gonna explain it? So you
Speaker 2: could take it out and remove it and put a
Speaker 2: bridge over or whatever. But somehow that being connected in
Speaker 2: your skull and your head was a strong anchor tooth.
Speaker 2: Did you eventually get it fixed? You're never going to
Speaker 2: replace it though, And I was going to ask did
Speaker 2: it change your of course, matter of fact that, you know,
Speaker 2: like after the age of forty, so you're going to
Speaker 2: lose something in there. Even if you get a wisdom
Speaker 2: tooth removed two of them in the back, something's gonna move.
Speaker 2: So if you actually a vocalist and you don't have
Speaker 2: the same original whatever that they had, your command over
Speaker 2: certain words is just not going to happen, especially if
Speaker 2: you're like, yeah, we keep up with it, but at
Speaker 2: sixty five, it ain't no way in hell I'm going
Speaker 2: to have the same stuff I had at you just not,
Speaker 2: especially if you're a vocalist. You know, vocalist singers like
Speaker 2: they always worried about their their pipes and can I
Speaker 2: hit the notes? Can I hit the tones? Or do
Speaker 2: I have enough breath and stuff like that, you know,
Speaker 2: I think rappers, it's like okay, your teeth, your gums,
Speaker 2: you know. And then here's another thing, like songs like
Speaker 2: louding the bomb. I used to do those songs and
Speaker 2: run and jump around. See. Our whole thing is like
Speaker 2: we gotta do the songs, and we gotta move. You
Speaker 2: gotta move like you play. We played, I mean when
Speaker 2: I was younger, we played together, like we never did
Speaker 2: those songs like standing up like Solomon Burke. You know what,
Speaker 2: I'm like, you still move half of his muscle memory.
Speaker 2: You don't get no props on something that you did
Speaker 2: for like the last thirty forty years because it kicks
Speaker 2: and I could bring the noise backwards and all that.
Speaker 2: I do bring the noise on roller skates and all that.
Speaker 2: But that's muscle memory. The joy. The joy to me
Speaker 2: I wish I could do, but I'm kind of aged
Speaker 2: and timed out. Is writing a song and being able
Speaker 2: to do that really well, I haven't been able to
Speaker 2: do that like like thirty years. I mean, let's say
Speaker 2: if I learn a new song, let's say we play
Speaker 2: together on tonight's show. I'm shipping bricks man because I'm like,
Speaker 2: I got to learn this new song, man, and it's
Speaker 2: like it take me forever. But you might have helped
Speaker 2: me out by like going to sleep with one although
Speaker 2: I like to sleep with no noise. Oh no, I.
Speaker 1: Got to sleep the tones and all that stuff.
Speaker 2: Man, you a miracle man, That's all I told you,
Speaker 2: My hero. Thank you.
Speaker 1: I'm trying to accept those flowers flowers, they're called flowers flowers.
Speaker 1: I'll take those two Cbe says that the origins of
Speaker 1: America's most one. It was him and Jinks going to
Speaker 1: you guys' record dungeon.
Speaker 2: And picking out the records. You know, the origin really
Speaker 2: was me and Cube and Glendale in front of a
Speaker 2: CVS and me tell him to go and giving him
Speaker 2: a dollar and go and get a notebook and to
Speaker 2: write a solo record out kind of like sketch out.
Speaker 2: Because Cube comes from an architectural background. So the first
Speaker 2: thing is having a blueprint before you even rhyme, before
Speaker 2: you say a word, before you write a word. It's
Speaker 2: like simple things. Don't repeat yourself twice. Yeah, you might,
Speaker 2: you might want to come out of the you know,
Speaker 2: a b as a b into pe, but take your
Speaker 2: time gradually fade into what we're doing instead of like
Speaker 2: jumping into it. Little tricks like that would that that
Speaker 2: really got nothing to do with the rhyme, a mission
Speaker 2: statement or yourself because nobody could teach you like nobody
Speaker 2: could teach a talent like Cube. Cube is a dude
Speaker 2: that got three brains in his head. You too, you know,
Speaker 2: are you a hey new album? Time, let's start work?
Speaker 1: Or is it always just like we got songs that
Speaker 1: were creating and once we got nineteen of them. My
Speaker 1: thing is like this, man, It's it's like I've always
Speaker 1: paid attention to the rockheads that said never repeat yourself twice.
Speaker 2: Hank Cow has a lot of that too. Where if
Speaker 2: if there's something that really worked for us, damn if
Speaker 2: that shit is coming back, we're all weird. Those we
Speaker 2: better go into an area of making you try to
Speaker 2: like what you probably would hate hearing at first. Now,
Speaker 2: who does that?
Speaker 1: So when you're talking about we wanted to be Music's
Speaker 1: worst nightmare, you really were trying to.
Speaker 2: I'm not trying to grin that it worked. That's where
Speaker 2: the car time comes in, because the only time you
Speaker 2: celebrate is not with awards, not with the hooplah, not
Speaker 2: with the crowd. You celebrating the car by your damn self.
Speaker 2: It's saying, hmm okay, that seems like a w in
Speaker 2: that and you keep driving. I know right. It's like
Speaker 2: the ain't gonna be no other public enemy because all
Speaker 2: the all the parts to it, we're all crazy. Man.
Speaker 2: It's almost like Roosevelt long Alan becomes a group. You know,
Speaker 2: Roosevelt Hempstead and you had Bill Stephanie had Eric Sadler
Speaker 2: from him Stead it was something that happened once, ain't
Speaker 2: gonna happen again in that way, just like I mean
Speaker 2: with your group, it's not gonna be another route. The
Speaker 2: dynamics of just like unrepeatable. It's last century, bro. It's
Speaker 2: like what we like to talk about. We like to
Speaker 2: talk about like who is doing something now and probably
Speaker 2: the ones that's catching the most heat for it of
Speaker 2: probably doing the most transcending and pioneering without it actually
Speaker 2: having an end result to it. It doesn't necessarily have
Speaker 2: to have an end result to it to be a
Speaker 2: stain in the sands of time. So yeah, I mean,
Speaker 2: so I'm always writing, and I'm always writing to write something.
Speaker 2: But at the same time, I come from an art
Speaker 2: background where I'm not making music or anything for somebody else.
Speaker 2: I had to compromise with my other contributors because I
Speaker 2: am the lyric writer. I have to take everybody's sitting
Speaker 2: at the table's point of view in consideration. I tell people,
Speaker 2: I said, it's like when I do my art, I'm
Speaker 2: not doing my art for somebody else. It's like fuck it,
Speaker 2: you like it or you don't. Matter of fact, if
Speaker 2: you don't, I even love that more, you know, that's
Speaker 2: that takes a weird type of thing. But you know why,
Speaker 2: And I tell this to younger people all the time,
Speaker 2: like why go to the mirror and go outside and
Speaker 2: ask somebody how to look? Okay, that's that's pretty much
Speaker 2: art in mind.
Speaker 1: Because people just weren't affirmation.
Speaker 2: You know people well, like I said, and people are strangers, like.
Speaker 1: All the time, people you know will ask like, well,
Speaker 1: tell me what you think, which they want the co sign.
Speaker 1: I'll take a picture with you, hold it, let me see,
Speaker 1: like I said, No, you trying to see if you
Speaker 1: look good in it or look well the way you
Speaker 1: want to look at it?
Speaker 2: Right?
Speaker 1: I don't care, so which gets me in trouble with
Speaker 1: my daughter because I tell you she's got the ash
Speaker 1: radar going on.
Speaker 2: She'll call me up if I'm on TV like that.
Speaker 2: I don't know who lets you go do that? And
Speaker 2: and I because he's just incredible, Hey don.
Speaker 1: Assuming that I think I know the answer to this.
Speaker 1: Most of hip hop had built a lot of their
Speaker 1: arsenal Sonic arsenal off of the Ultimate Breaks and Beats compilations,
Speaker 1: which DJ's you know needed them to rock a party.
Speaker 2: There was a great compiling because we had three rooms
Speaker 2: of records before.
Speaker 1: But what I wanted to say was how did you
Speaker 1: guys mass such a vast array of records? Because half
Speaker 1: the stuff you guys were using weren't on the compilations,
Speaker 1: so I could tell that you actually.
Speaker 2: Own those records. When I saw your record room in Philly,
Speaker 2: it was like so reminiscent that had to go in
Speaker 2: at an early stage and age and had to categorize
Speaker 2: three rooms of records. And that's Hank Shockley and Keith
Speaker 2: Shockley collecting Roose records those years. Yeah, yeah, before digging
Speaker 2: was a thing, right, you know so, but the thing
Speaker 2: about here and here's here's another thing. No, all you
Speaker 2: DJ or record collectors and stuff like this, they used
Speaker 2: to always make the same mistake of trying to a
Speaker 2: carry crates of records to one gig, so you're not
Speaker 2: playing ninety five percent. You know. This is years before
Speaker 2: Serrado gave everybody a choice, And even that backfires too,
Speaker 2: because if you don't know the record and you just
Speaker 2: have it, then how you know what to play? Just
Speaker 2: because like I mean, people go in, I've been playing
Speaker 2: the front end of a record, but you never heard
Speaker 2: three quarters into the record. You never played the back end.
Speaker 2: That's how I found Bouncy Lady for Kings of Pressure. Yeah,
Speaker 2: because at the end, because Pleasure never gets talked about
Speaker 2: as a band. And also what's it called zantce up
Speaker 2: in Fantasy the way they mastered records, As you know,
Speaker 2: it's like every record that came out of Fantasy happened
Speaker 2: to have some oomph to it on the bass and
Speaker 2: the drums.
Speaker 1: Well, I would think in general that was that Saul
Speaker 1: zants Right. Yeah, albums released on the Fantasy label had extra.
Speaker 2: Yeah, all those Pleasure albums had it. But anyway, you know,
Speaker 2: like so a lot of DJs made the mistake. It's like, okay,
Speaker 2: we're collecting records, right, So when you have a collection
Speaker 2: of records and you go from one room to two
Speaker 2: rooms and you got to go out there and do
Speaker 2: a gig, right, how do you categorize these recordespecially if
Speaker 2: you're part of a record.
Speaker 1: Well, who's the person that was the meticulous?
Speaker 2: Well number one got stupid for us After a while,
Speaker 2: after we moved from Missus Boxley's basement into our own
Speaker 2: spot on five ten, then we was able to spread
Speaker 2: out with the records. Before they was very concealed and
Speaker 2: the type basement you have to take the record crate,
Speaker 2: and Hank and Keith created a system for us as
Speaker 2: mobile DJ's in the late seventies where we had these crates,
Speaker 2: but getting in the basement we had to make a
Speaker 2: sharp right concrete term. And what I mean by sharp
Speaker 2: right concrete urn is like the back of your hands.
Speaker 2: With this crate. You got concrete and you got this
Speaker 2: turn so many a times. And maybe we were too
Speaker 2: stupid to wear gloves. Sometimes we did, sometimes we didn't.
Speaker 1: You know, it built built up, you know this this area,
Speaker 1: but it.
Speaker 2: Was just got okay, we gotta find a better way.
Speaker 2: So we went to five to ten. Then the records
Speaker 2: was vast. We still carry records, too many records of
Speaker 2: the gig. So I say, you know what, man, two
Speaker 2: crates load in the van. Go. But you know what,
Speaker 2: we could always go in and figure out what you're
Speaker 2: gonna take to the to the appropriate gig that fits right.
Speaker 2: So we got a room growing into two rooms of records,
Speaker 2: and we got another DJ, EJ and the DJ who's
Speaker 2: on the other side, it said time out. The biggest
Speaker 2: mistakes that record collectors made back in the day, as
Speaker 2: DJs is alphabetical order. That will always get you in trouble.
Speaker 2: That right, right, and John Wi sometimes we'll get you
Speaker 2: in trouble too. At least you know where your jazz
Speaker 2: stuff is. You still got the shelf systems and the
Speaker 2: day are what they are. I had to do it
Speaker 2: one record to four thousand, one by one, which means
Speaker 2: that yeah, bt express you know, do it to your
Speaker 2: satisfied one.
Speaker 1: Patrick Cowley, Wait, so what was the order of how
Speaker 1: you would know where stuff is?
Speaker 2: Book? You just go through the book instead of the spine.
Speaker 2: You can't keep to a regular regard book. So Keith man,
Speaker 2: y'all want to kick me out the glove God? No, no,
Speaker 2: Keith yo man, God get the record boom boom, boom boom.
Speaker 2: It's easy to go through the book, then it needs
Speaker 2: to go through. You can't go through the spine. Yo.
Speaker 1: Is your mind blowing right now?
Speaker 2: How you going to go through the spines? You can't
Speaker 2: read anything on the spine. What is the spine? You're like,
Speaker 2: all right, I think that says you know you can't
Speaker 2: read that. And at the same time, even yeah, this
Speaker 2: genre areas, but also we belong to a record pool
Speaker 2: and a record pool is giving you ninety percent of bullshit.
Speaker 2: I mean, I don't want to say recording is bullshit, but.
Speaker 1: How many people are contributing to this pile of record
Speaker 1: madness that you guys are building?
Speaker 2: I mean, people who actually you think could contribute to
Speaker 2: the madness that you are Usually it comes down to
Speaker 2: two and three.
Speaker 1: Well, yeah too, But I'm trying to figure out who's
Speaker 1: in the Spectrum City. In terms of Keith Hanking, we're upstairs,
Speaker 1: Eric and Vietnam. He's downstairs because he's a band studio,
Speaker 1: so bands are coming in there rehearsing, so he has
Speaker 1: nothing to do with the records upstairs. So it's me
Speaker 1: Keith and Hank and his others contributed in and out.
Speaker 1: But as far as doing that those menial tasks, it's like.
Speaker 2: I got books of Chuck's handwriting, writing out five thousand titles,
Speaker 2: and you know, it's just that you had to do
Speaker 2: it that way made it easier because when you got
Speaker 2: new records, you could just find a new shell system
Speaker 2: like okay, and then you kind of know kind of
Speaker 2: like it's like a little telepathic It's like, oh, that's
Speaker 2: that's the JB area over there, because that's where a
Speaker 2: lot of shit is over there.
Speaker 1: And when you're been shopping, like it's your job to
Speaker 1: categorize everything.
Speaker 2: Eventually, after you set up a system, anybody could do it.
Speaker 2: And then that sounds and let me let me tell
Speaker 2: you at that time, no, no, that was easy. At
Speaker 2: that time, my handwriting was like matter of fact. I
Speaker 2: went through college right and where everybody had the type,
Speaker 2: they looked at me. It was like, because I'm an
Speaker 2: art student, I'm over there in the art school. They
Speaker 2: were like, listen, everybody's supposed to type, but you good.
Speaker 2: And to found out that professors only wanted type in
Speaker 2: so they ain't trying to read everybody's handwriting. And so
Speaker 2: they said, listen, everybody got to give us the same font.
Speaker 2: So that's where we are.
Speaker 1: That's where we are even on social media where somebody's like,
Speaker 1: how good your penmanship Back in the day as my daughter,
Speaker 1: you know, like calligraphy level or I've fallen off in
Speaker 1: so many different areas.
Speaker 2: But back then it's too actively right now all the time, man,
Speaker 2: I don't I've never touched the screen. I don't touch screens.
Speaker 2: I use this is gold. This might be a commercial
Speaker 2: for you guys, okay, and my wow, so you're still right.
Speaker 2: I've been using a stylist man ever since the beginning
Speaker 2: of Apple iPhones because Toyne Julia, you know toy Ane. Yeah,
Speaker 2: she gave me the first iPhone. I forgot what I
Speaker 2: was on. I was on something using the stylist at
Speaker 2: the particular have some single wireless stuff in two thousand
Speaker 2: and six, and toy Anne said, here we are in
Speaker 2: New Orleans. I think one of the essence bests. She says,
Speaker 2: she doesn't get enough credit for all the stuff that
Speaker 2: she's done. She's back there.
Speaker 1: She's literally dated me to the digital world.
Speaker 2: Yeah, exactly, Yes, she's back there in the jobs days. Yes,
Speaker 2: so she's like, boom, all on one device. Yes, I
Speaker 2: heard about it. I got my iPod over here that
Speaker 2: you gave me two years ago. He says, yeah, this
Speaker 2: is all on one and she goes like this. I'm
Speaker 2: like that, that's not even chicken grease friendly. I mean,
Speaker 2: I ain't touching no screen. She says, you will, or
Speaker 2: you'll figure it out, because they even have stylists. And
Speaker 2: she goes like this. She says, take this. I'm like yeah,
Speaker 2: but I mean I got to leave the phone that
Speaker 2: I got. So that was my introduction to the iPhone,
Speaker 2: and I had everything. He used a stylist. I always
Speaker 2: use a stylist. Man like that. When people do this,
Speaker 2: I understand how they do any of this. I am not.
Speaker 2: It ain't like I'm like, oh, I can't touch the screen.
Speaker 2: It's just like I wouldn't even know where to begin.
Speaker 2: And my dad, you know, he passed ten years ago.
Speaker 2: His hands were so thick. I couldn't even ever see
Speaker 2: him typing. His hands was like like damn near like
Speaker 2: half this table. So he could learn. So how do
Speaker 2: you just do all that? You do that? Well, yeah,
Speaker 2: because you had to followers like in two thousand and
Speaker 2: two or something like that.
Speaker 1: I mean, I forced myself to learn it. You know,
Speaker 1: I think watching Tarik do it. He now writes all.
Speaker 2: His rhymes and his thing. Now that I don't get
Speaker 2: staying that dude, I don't that dude. That dude is
Speaker 2: Leonardo da Vinci of Our Times. Man. Well, he gets up.
Speaker 1: He has a he has a system that he it
Speaker 1: works for him. He in bed around a thirty PM.
Speaker 2: Well, that's one thing I ain't I'm never doing. He
Speaker 2: gets up three point thirty four in the morning.
Speaker 1: And this is the thing, like especially again, if you
Speaker 1: if you study how the whole again, I'm obsessed with
Speaker 1: how the brain works, you'll get probably your best work
Speaker 1: out if you're tired. This is why you hear about
Speaker 1: people getting up meditating at four in the morning.
Speaker 2: Five in the morning, when you're kind of in.
Speaker 1: This groggy state when you want to press news, that
Speaker 1: is when your magic will happen. Like this is also
Speaker 1: Quincy Jones will call a session around six pm. They'll
Speaker 1: get to the studio and he'll have everyone's favorite restaurant there,
Speaker 1: some you know, steak restaurant or something feeds them, feeds them,
Speaker 1: has red wine. They get nice, they start to fall
Speaker 1: asleep in the break room. He lets him nap. Around
Speaker 1: one in the morning. He'll be like, all right, guys,
Speaker 1: let's cut. He purposely wants them tired. Literally, He's like
Speaker 1: every session from Thriller, the musicians would do it late
Speaker 1: at night till two in the morning because when they're
Speaker 1: in this state of what he says, the alpha state of,
Speaker 1: they won't argue back with them because they're too tired.
Speaker 2: They won't overthink any because everything is sweet and wonderful,
Speaker 2: and Quincy Jones made a hundred years of the best
Speaker 2: music of all time. We went in the studio like
Speaker 2: it was war. We got two hours. The clock is ticket.
Speaker 2: They don't want us anyway, We will come here, try
Speaker 2: to take your head to night though though right you
Speaker 2: has it all feet hours, did you not? It didn't matter.
Speaker 2: I always came in there like they was trying to
Speaker 2: kick me out. So agree, I ain't trying to spend
Speaker 2: a lot of time. We ain't trying to spend Hank
Speaker 2: later on because he was taking on different sessions and
Speaker 2: different artists and people like that. But my job was like,
Speaker 2: come in there, don't waste time. Like even with you know,
Speaker 2: I saw the interview with you and Kim Gordon. It
Speaker 2: was like, you know they in studio b we in
Speaker 2: studio A. They ordering food. Okay, I'll take that. Boom
Speaker 2: Hey you think you you know, come in the studio
Speaker 2: and check us out and they're making Google you know
Speaker 2: cool whatever, Bam, knock it out, bam back in our room.
Speaker 1: So there wasn't time wasting at all.
Speaker 2: The key is at the end of those records, especially
Speaker 2: Hank's genius comes in the mix, but not only in
Speaker 2: the mix, because you gotta kind of like find the
Speaker 2: pulse of it all. Then it's got to be in Okay, yeah, man,
Speaker 2: trust me, he's got people on his ass, like damn
Speaker 2: he made that mix. Bro, whoever you got to take
Speaker 2: it to Howie and laid off Baladamella can't have master
Speaker 2: and fucked us up, Michael managing everything.
Speaker 1: No, no, but kind of everybody knows that, you know,
Speaker 1: like nobody wants you there anyway.
Speaker 2: We got the upside down ugliness of it all. We
Speaker 2: were presenting the ugliness the other side, shit that like
Speaker 2: make kids run out of the room type shit. There
Speaker 2: was no way to explain why public ennem you should
Speaker 2: work so our whole thing even with it's like, yo, man,
Speaker 2: we're not presenting anything that you're supposed to like, matter
Speaker 2: of fact, it's talking about stuff over here. It's got
Speaker 2: sounds from over here. You know, we're older as his right.
Speaker 2: Everybody else is nineteen and eighteen and twenty right. We're
Speaker 2: twenty eight and twenty nine, growing ass men in many cases,
Speaker 2: so it ain't nothing here you're supposed to like. However,
Speaker 2: there's gonna be something in there that you're gonna say whatever.
Speaker 2: So so we took it you know, very seriously every stage,
Speaker 2: not to be up in the studio, but to kind
Speaker 2: of like get up out of there. And when you
Speaker 2: bring a whole bunch of people together, you can't be
Speaker 2: wasting people's time.
Speaker 1: I took four years out to teach at NYU, and
Speaker 1: one of my co professors was Nix su Zenna.
Speaker 2: Okay, every time I see Nick, Nick was like this
Speaker 2: cause his wires were popping out of Nick's head and
Speaker 2: to make it a fear and nations. But later on
Speaker 2: it's just like Nick was always tired, so that Quincy
Speaker 2: Jones thing probably always worked with Nit.
Speaker 1: Well here's the thing, though, he told me the most
Speaker 1: mind blowing shit of all time. My third year, I
Speaker 1: wanted to move to hip hop.
Speaker 2: And I had an idea.
Speaker 1: I told Harry Wagner at Universal.
Speaker 2: I said, look, I said, is.
Speaker 1: There any way I can get the entire stems of
Speaker 1: nation to millions? And maybe we could teach it to
Speaker 1: the class so they get it for me. And I'll say,
Speaker 1: maybe I got this a month before we started, and
Speaker 1: I was like, let me see if I could try
Speaker 1: to match this.
Speaker 2: Note for note.
Speaker 1: I don't know how you guys made like literally just
Speaker 1: listening to it fragmented, and I wish I could convey
Speaker 1: the world how mind blowing the construction of cold lamp
Speaker 1: and went flavor is. It's shit I can't describe. So
Speaker 1: the thing is, I'm going through all the boxes and everything,
Speaker 1: and when I get the base heads, the meticulous amount
Speaker 1: of note taking literally bar thirty eight this sample bar
Speaker 1: forty two da da da one hundred and sixteen slow
Speaker 1: down to David Bowie's thing. So I go to Professor
Speaker 1: Nickson the next day and I was like, wait a minute,
Speaker 1: did they pre produce this or like I'm okay. So
Speaker 1: the Beastie boys were in class like two weeks earlier.
Speaker 1: They talked about the making a Paul's boutique. They would
Speaker 1: take one loop at a time, get the drums right,
Speaker 1: all right, now, let's get this based one match it
Speaker 1: to the drums. They didn't have technology and pro tools
Speaker 1: to shift, so they basically would just make perfect loops
Speaker 1: of each thing until it all fit together. He told
Speaker 1: me that you guys would actually pre program everything. He's like,
Speaker 1: I barely did any Yeah, post production mixing on this
Speaker 1: as far as like like I al will spend hours
Speaker 1: on it.
Speaker 2: Yeah, you got number one is going to be a monster.
Speaker 1: But what's the division of labor as far as.
Speaker 2: Save save the labor in the mix. Save the labor
Speaker 2: in the mix, because number one, we coming in front heavy.
Speaker 2: If you come in front heavy like kind of like
Speaker 2: it's all up in the air and you got a
Speaker 2: million possibilities. You coming into the mix like scratching your head,
Speaker 2: like where do we go from here? So you got
Speaker 2: to come in here like, yo, man, this is gonna
Speaker 2: have to be it's setting stone. For example, not live
Speaker 2: in base says is a perfect example. And this is
Speaker 2: why it's hard for one person to talk about it.
Speaker 2: If you had me, Hank, Eric and Keith talking about
Speaker 2: it later on me Hank and Gary talking about me,
Speaker 2: you can't trust it and shut things like that, you
Speaker 2: start to fill in the blanks by everybody talking at
Speaker 2: the same time, because that's how a lot of the
Speaker 2: stuff was built. So then you start to remind it.
Speaker 2: Like the other day, me and Hank was up doing
Speaker 2: something and he reminded me something that I forgot. I
Speaker 2: don't forget a lot, but he reminded me that we
Speaker 2: worked at the same place for a little while at
Speaker 2: the same time, and he was in the record area
Speaker 2: and I was in automotive, and I was like, that's
Speaker 2: what we did? You know we did work together? Job
Speaker 2: was this TSS Tom Square Stores and him. So you
Speaker 2: guys didn't know. We didn't know. It was like, oh
Speaker 2: but we forgot. I forgot that we did. I remember
Speaker 2: that me and Keith changed tires at Seas in Hicksville
Speaker 2: for a whole summer. That was another experience. Really, yeah,
Speaker 2: we changed tires. Man. I had eighteen jobs before this
Speaker 2: became my occupation. Man, So what else were they? What
Speaker 2: other jobs did you do? I never would fix people's
Speaker 2: food or cut people's hair. I ain't doing that. Those
Speaker 2: are danger areas. But cleaning warehouses. I wrote for bum
Speaker 2: Russell Show as a messenger. Yeah, I learned how to
Speaker 2: basically get long weeks. What's your last job before you
Speaker 2: knew that you could make a living in public? And
Speaker 2: I tell everybody in music number one, just like to
Speaker 2: tell you in basketball, the game will tell you what
Speaker 2: to do.
Speaker 1: In music if you dope, it will tell you when
Speaker 1: to't leave the job. It will tell you when you
Speaker 1: could leave your regular.
Speaker 2: Monday to Friday or whatever, pay your rent or pay
Speaker 2: or paying you to eat. Because we all furnaces. You know,
Speaker 2: you got to eat right. It will tell you what
Speaker 2: told me. I had a job. I was a messenger
Speaker 2: for about two years in him Stead. I delivered photo
Speaker 2: packages right to places across Long Island in Queens Great.
Speaker 2: Why because I didn't have a clock on me, I
Speaker 2: didn't nobody looking over my shoulder. And I loved driving.
Speaker 1: When Flavor's talking about remember when we were driving out
Speaker 1: to that was another job.
Speaker 2: That was a job that we we moved for me
Speaker 2: and Flavor move furniture. That's a movie in itself because
Speaker 2: either him at the wheel and where he at the
Speaker 2: wheel and me in the passage seat or vice versa,
Speaker 2: and were yelling at people get up out of the way.
Speaker 2: Hours Stern is playing on the radio. It was a
Speaker 2: crazy time. But we're moving furniture from my pops all
Speaker 2: throughout New York metropolitan areas. But that was just like
Speaker 2: my pops. You know, it wasn't my only job. So
Speaker 2: one job, the job I had before I went on
Speaker 2: tour was delivered these photos government photos, really high end
Speaker 2: photos out of a refined photo lab. So I wrote
Speaker 2: bum Rush the show in that car in the passing seat,
Speaker 2: of course, recording at night, going out to I in
Speaker 2: s studio in Manhattan, going to work the next day.
Speaker 2: You develop things like your sleep, what they call long winks,
Speaker 2: like you had to stop light. Long wink you make.
Speaker 2: You get about a thousand long weeks. You make up
Speaker 2: for the lost sleep. Sometime people tell you, like yo, man,
Speaker 2: you can't make up for lost sleep. Yes, you can
Speaker 2: long winks like I mean even sometimes.
Speaker 1: Been doing bum Rush the show, you have to report
Speaker 1: to your I gotta be somewhere ten thirty to pick
Speaker 1: up a delivery o'clock.
Speaker 2: But that job, I've had a little bit of flexibility
Speaker 2: that allowed me to write the record and listen to
Speaker 2: what I wanted to listen to. Sometimes even like get
Speaker 2: a package, go home and then go out to like
Speaker 2: Brookhaven at the end of Long Island, and then come
Speaker 2: back and then sometimes oh, you don't have to come
Speaker 2: back and just pick up that package and bring it
Speaker 2: in them all. It was a great job. EPD was
Speaker 2: the name of the company owned by a black husband
Speaker 2: and wife, and there was a major company. I thought
Speaker 2: they were inspirational in it in itself. So the business
Speaker 2: will tell you what to do. We had already had
Speaker 2: bum Rush to show and then there was an opening
Speaker 2: and a license ill to it the bottom end of
Speaker 2: it because Fishbone had to go in and finish their album.
Speaker 2: We're all CBS artists back then before it became Sony,
Speaker 2: and we had an opening slot for Public Enemy guys
Speaker 2: thousand dollars a night. But we had two management companies
Speaker 2: and a booking agent. So that's there, fifteen percent there
Speaker 2: and then ten percent you know there. But we did
Speaker 2: the fifteen dates in the van and they was like, oh,
Speaker 2: there's no way you could do it. Hell, we don't
Speaker 2: have to give you a loan. No, we can do
Speaker 2: it well. So I drove from the first day of
Speaker 2: Passaic all through the northeast, played Syracuse, Rochester, New Haven,
Speaker 2: and ended up played Lehigh Valley. These were the first
Speaker 2: markets that were opening up because of the Beastie Boys,
Speaker 2: I mean the Fresh Veester. They playing like major urban city.
Speaker 2: We're playing like so you're benefiting the beastie boy the
Speaker 2: ill effect. We're not playing Boston, We're playing Wooster got It,
Speaker 2: We're playing the Centrum. It's like like you're looking at
Speaker 2: ten twelve thousand, you know, white kids, because they're coming
Speaker 2: out to see Beastie Boys. Murphy's Law Public Enemy, and
Speaker 2: we were totally antithesis to It's like what the hell
Speaker 2: with a siren?
Speaker 1: And the so the caption on the bit before Teradom
Speaker 1: where the guys like talking about their gentlemen in cages
Speaker 1: and oozies, and that was real.
Speaker 2: It was somebody who called Alan Combe's show who actually
Speaker 2: saw us with the Beastie Boys and was pretty much
Speaker 2: appalled by Yeah, I seen him and now they had this.
Speaker 2: When I first seen him, they were like this, and
Speaker 2: I was appalled when I saw them, and.
Speaker 1: You were there in the studio as he's describing that.
Speaker 1: You know, I think that there's scum too.
Speaker 2: And yeah, I got the tape of the show and
Speaker 2: maybe the song out of it. I would always be
Speaker 2: and you you're the same guy back in the day.
Speaker 2: Matter of fact, I did a voiceover document or audio
Speaker 2: documentary for you guys. Back in the day. I would
Speaker 2: be someplace I'm doing an interview and I was like,
Speaker 2: can can you tape it? Can I get the tape?
Speaker 2: That's how the crowd came in and takes the nation
Speaker 2: a million yeah, because I was like, Okay, can I
Speaker 2: get that the audio tape? So I bring back to
Speaker 2: green Street. I got the tape. I think we can
Speaker 2: kind of insperse the you know, interactor, and so we
Speaker 2: don't have to go record by record by record by record,
Speaker 2: cause we didn't want to the monotony of a record
Speaker 2: just going so on by raising hell did that? So
Speaker 2: how do we break it up? There was two influential records,
Speaker 2: one Gratitude Earth win in Fire Why because they're kind
Speaker 2: of doing this that's the way of the world songs,
Speaker 2: but they're live, but it seems like it's not live.
Speaker 2: But wow, it's like, so the crowd is what really
Speaker 2: brought more people to Earth Winn Fire.
Speaker 1: Because I speaking to what it was their version of
Speaker 1: live the apollo for James Yeah, yeah, and so that
Speaker 1: was very influential. And I said, you know what, it's
Speaker 1: never really been done because whatever's been done live in
Speaker 1: hip hop, the recordings still ain't doing what the tapes done.
Speaker 1: And the tapes would have a bunch of although they
Speaker 1: were kind of rudimentally rudimentary recorded, you still heard like
Speaker 1: somebody saying, oh, you want to hear like yeah, as
Speaker 1: opposed somebody say, oh and it was recorded right, but
Speaker 1: you don't hear nobody right. So in house recording was
Speaker 1: probably the tape that did the most because it had
Speaker 1: the interaction.
Speaker 2: He said, two.
Speaker 1: Albums, Gratitude was one. What was the other one for you?
Speaker 1: The other one not Live of the.
Speaker 2: Apollo or no, no, no Gratitude And I'm having a
Speaker 2: brain fog at the minute. Okay, I told people, I said,
Speaker 2: we want to make of what's going on of rap? Gotcha?
Speaker 2: But that was you know, like you kind of talking
Speaker 2: shit before you even did it. But it is. Yeah,
Speaker 2: but the name of the album was supposed to be
Speaker 2: count down the Arm Again, is it.
Speaker 1: True that side too was supposed to be side one?
Speaker 2: Inside? Side two? Was side one? You were starting the
Speaker 2: record with she watched channel zero but this is but
Speaker 2: what the hell? But this is where No, no, it
Speaker 2: was gonna start with showing what you got. Well, yeah,
Speaker 2: I know that, I know. It's an intro last second,
Speaker 2: the last minute, Howie Weinberg. Hank was like, that's when
Speaker 2: the DJ instant keeping because back then, you know, the
Speaker 2: century line was very important. Why everybody's songs had to
Speaker 2: especially if you black, it had to result in movement.
Speaker 2: What's the body movement with today's music, It's not dance.
Speaker 2: You got dancers that kind of exhibit themselves. But would
Speaker 2: you say today if somebody is twenty one savage or whatever,
Speaker 2: that's kind of old school now, right.
Speaker 1: All right, But I'm just saying telling you though, yeah, yeah, yeah,
Speaker 1: it's like because in my mind twenty seventeen was like
Speaker 1: last year, not ten years ago.
Speaker 2: But also, music is not sound anymore, sight, sound, story, style,
Speaker 2: all the elements, and you might have people that might
Speaker 2: not even know what something sounds like, but it's like,
Speaker 2: but it's the same way I might listen to Paul Chambers.
Speaker 2: Am I listening to Paul Chambers? Or am I looking
Speaker 2: at the jacket and the cover and it's all of
Speaker 2: a background noise to me, you know what I'm saying.
Speaker 2: So the aesthetica of blues and jazz always hit me
Speaker 2: more than what it sounded like. It's just like to
Speaker 2: people to talk about mumble rap. You could go from
Speaker 2: mumble to gibberish real quick or word salad and all that.
Speaker 2: But it's kind of like the same with me with
Speaker 2: singing records. You probably study the lyrics and singing records
Speaker 2: more than me, Like what are they saying? And get away?
Speaker 2: You know what I mean? So isn't that a little
Speaker 2: bit like mumbling or what I mean, singing it.
Speaker 1: I never really once said singior senseless songs to the mindless.
Speaker 2: I mean, but it wasn't necessary to talk about that.
Speaker 2: I mean, look, I mean, what what's what's the other? Well?
Speaker 2: I just recently found cause I listened to a lot
Speaker 2: of uh serious sixties and seventies all the time, religiously,
Speaker 2: maybe a little bit too much. I didn't know that
Speaker 2: Steve Miller. I had no idea what he's saying a
Speaker 2: game I as. I was always thinking he's talking about
Speaker 2: some New Carolina. He ain't a camera. Oh yes, I
Speaker 2: was like, what the fuck is he saying?
Speaker 1: And didn't care.
Speaker 2: So how is that much different from mumbo rap?
Speaker 1: It's a feeling, Well, mumbo rap is a generation that's numb.
Speaker 2: You know what I'm talking about. Who's doing it and
Speaker 2: how they do it, their execution vocally, they're not gonna
Speaker 2: have words, and you're not gonna get like a bag
Speaker 2: of words. But they might just like and I've I've
Speaker 2: done that with some songs like in Terror Dome, I
Speaker 2: glossed over some shit. I didn't know what the fuck
Speaker 2: I was talking about.
Speaker 1: If you would ask me, right Now, what is the
Speaker 1: top run DMC song their signature song. I hate to
Speaker 1: disappoint people, it's gonna be it's tricky.
Speaker 2: It's when the smoke clears. Wow.
Speaker 1: But say with September, it was supposed to be Shining Star.
Speaker 1: It was supposed to be was this tricky, right? But
Speaker 1: for some reason it's tricky.
Speaker 2: They're running them. Ever tell you that I just recently
Speaker 2: found this one out. But that run said Larry Smith
Speaker 2: tried to make planet and that's how it's like that
Speaker 2: came along. He makes sense. He's trying to make a
Speaker 2: planet rock, right, So all right, here's the kick, the
Speaker 2: big boom boom boom right. I always had the theory,
Speaker 2: and I've known these guys forever, right, But I'm asking
Speaker 2: studio questions two years ago and we all got together
Speaker 2: for Hip Hop fifty right, So I'm like saying, what
Speaker 2: brought the big beat sound to the first time I
Speaker 2: heard it's like that woom whoa, whoa whoa and also
Speaker 2: sucking them seas boom bom bomb right, groundbreaking sound? I said,
Speaker 2: was it soul sonic force looking for the perfect beat
Speaker 2: when we were all looking for the perfect beat, and
Speaker 2: finally they go beat this boom bomb ba bomb and
Speaker 2: off the Baker made it kind of big. Did that
Speaker 2: do anything to you? And Larry and Run said yeah,
Speaker 2: because when we did action all over again, they said,
Speaker 2: why don't we throw our whole joint like that? Right? Right?
Speaker 2: Oh shit, right, you're right. I'm conscious, Yo, man, you
Speaker 2: know what I did? I punched Run so hard on
Speaker 2: the chest. Right, He's like, yo, brokilling, I said, it
Speaker 2: was sitting in my head for so long. Man. That
Speaker 2: what made them go from and then from after that,
Speaker 2: like Trevor Horn and all those guys tried to do that.
Speaker 2: It's like Arthur Baker one. They because we were looking
Speaker 2: for the perfect beat, and the perfect beat wasn't it
Speaker 2: except for one little little breakdown. I'm like, okay, this
Speaker 2: is what this is what we're getting. When Joey and
Speaker 2: them went like next to next year, they said okay,
Speaker 2: and Joey said, yo, man, just throw that whole joint
Speaker 2: in that boom boom boom. And that's how they came
Speaker 2: up with it like that. That's how they came up
Speaker 2: with those big beats. Man. Right.
Speaker 1: Well, my whole point was terdom to me. I know,
Speaker 1: fight the power is supposed to be the signature song.
Speaker 1: I think Rebel without a Pause is the song that
Speaker 1: some can say saved you, established you, you know, and
Speaker 1: bring the noise to me is a miracle because very
Speaker 1: rarely will you find a follow up song that literally
Speaker 1: could match or surpass. I don't think once I remember
Speaker 1: without a pause. I just thought like, Okay, this is
Speaker 1: the one song that you guys get one time to
Speaker 1: change our lives.
Speaker 2: That's how it is, one person, and that's what The
Speaker 2: next song that we recorded after that was Don't Believe
Speaker 2: the Hype, which I felt was a purposeful like, let's
Speaker 2: set like, here's the letter to the fastball, like, yo,
Speaker 2: you're not you're getting an ephis like and when we
Speaker 2: tried the but that was smart though, well we because
Speaker 2: it let us down a little bit. You can't repeat that.
Speaker 2: I mean listen, when Hank had the master and we
Speaker 2: had acetate, we gave it the Chuck chill out man.
Speaker 2: By the time I got back down to the car,
Speaker 2: Chuck had put it on the radio. Man. It's like, yo, man.
Speaker 2: When that was when that was mastered, that's what I
Speaker 2: was like, yoo, who could die them? All? That record
Speaker 2: got a life of its own. It's gone no matter what,
Speaker 2: and there's nothing can stop that.
Speaker 1: How many records did you guys go through before you
Speaker 1: settled on the most unlikely place, which is chub Rock's
Speaker 1: rock and roll Dude.
Speaker 2: I didn't even know rock and roll dude existed. I
Speaker 2: remember because we would do a thing with fredman Neale
Speaker 2: and Select Records, and I remember Fredmanale telling true mathematics.
Speaker 2: Yeah yeah, okay, he's telling me and he said this
Speaker 2: is this is like the Chubby Check of hip hop.
Speaker 2: And he tells her about tub Rock, who later on
Speaker 2: does probably one of the most public relations thoughtful so
Speaker 2: human resource songs ever. Would treat him right because the
Speaker 2: most of all time, yeah, all the time, it's like
Speaker 2: artist ship. Matter of fact, before you start your career,
Speaker 2: listen to Chubb Rock, and I think a whole lot
Speaker 2: of people might have not gotten shot robbed notes. I
Speaker 2: took notes such a blessing us.
Speaker 1: But before he really got big, I didn't know about
Speaker 1: that first record.
Speaker 2: Yeah yeah, yeah, I did not that record terminated and
Speaker 2: found that part rock and roll dude, and he used
Speaker 2: it because Norman says, okay, we're making sort of like
Speaker 2: bring the noise, like a rock type record maybe and
Speaker 2: First of all, we're working to the early morning, like
Speaker 2: like Pete Rock says on on runs record, Yeah, so
Speaker 2: we're sleeping and he's doing this and it sounded like
Speaker 2: gibberish and it was like nah, man, it was like
Speaker 2: number one. That record was like a Frankenstein construction. Anyway,
Speaker 2: it was like we are we will all with this.
Speaker 2: And I think Hank took the or one of us
Speaker 2: took Eric took out the base on the scratch and
Speaker 2: made all the sense in the world. Wow, that's how
Speaker 2: it wound up. Yeah, because the base was conflicting with
Speaker 2: the other stuff and it was just like jumbled, and
Speaker 2: we took the base out and it was like glass
Speaker 2: and it became a signature for Norman for years to come.
Speaker 2: Where is truth Manics? By the way, who was truth Mathematics?
Speaker 2: He's a great artist or writer named Kenny Spam. And
Speaker 2: I would give the names right because I would be
Speaker 2: the pretty much giving you.
Speaker 1: The So you named leaders of the New School young
Speaker 1: Black Teenagers, son of Berserk.
Speaker 2: If I didn't name it, then Hank would name it,
Speaker 2: and we're just like, it's got to be better. And
Speaker 2: then I would make logos for artists too, because I'm like,
Speaker 2: you're going to come through here. You're going to have
Speaker 2: an identity when you leave. You coming in here with talent,
Speaker 2: but your talent developing the skill. You gotta have something
Speaker 2: to go out there, even long Allen, it's got to
Speaker 2: be us against the world, So you gotta show like
Speaker 2: you got something. It really ain't got a long stone
Speaker 2: in the throat now, because it ain't like it was
Speaker 2: five years earlier where you had to go up against
Speaker 2: Mo d and all all those those are super human
Speaker 2: hip hop gods. These guys are right here in Queens.
Speaker 2: They ten fifteen minutes away. This ship is reachable. So
Speaker 2: True Math was Kenny Spam. We're like, well, listen, if
Speaker 2: you take this name True Mathematics, and I would look
Speaker 2: in Ebony and I saw this guy True Mathematics, who
Speaker 2: coincidentally later on became known as hok Islam. That's how
Speaker 2: you named him. The name True Mathematics was dope because
Speaker 2: you know, it wasn't far off. Everybody was familiar with
Speaker 2: five per centers and no, hell no, this kid where teens.
Speaker 2: It was Kenny Spam. Okay, it was like we went
Speaker 2: for Spam. Ideas.
Speaker 1: Always make him sound like he's talking through the CB.
Speaker 2: We had to figure out something that wouldn't give him
Speaker 2: a style, you know, as as a rapper. Though for
Speaker 2: the money was my shit.
Speaker 1: I love the shit out this long, all right, because
Speaker 1: we look at you kind of in superhero mode and
Speaker 1: always asking about your career or whatever. I mean, you
Speaker 1: revealing about you roller skating was the most human Chuck
Speaker 1: d story I've ever heard.
Speaker 2: Backwards, these are ron backwards in roller skate back back then.
Speaker 1: Yeah, so I'm still trying to get that out. Look,
Speaker 1: I once went rollerskating with Prince.
Speaker 2: We did. Oh wow.
Speaker 1: He called me at eleven pm. Prince, his the ex wife,
Speaker 1: Larry Graham, Tina Graham, Eddie Murphy, Nicole Murphy, me and
Speaker 1: my ex girlfriend at the time, eight of us in Glendale.
Speaker 2: Okay, what did they shut it down? This was dude.
Speaker 1: It was like one in the morning and Prince walks
Speaker 1: in and pulls out a briefcase Paul Fiction style, opens
Speaker 1: it and the ship is and the first thing he said,
Speaker 1: now this is like two thousand and five, He's like,
Speaker 1: put your phone away, like social media doesn't exist yet,
Speaker 1: Twitter doesn't exist, none of this thing. I had a
Speaker 1: palm pilot. I was like, what do you teachs No,
Speaker 1: I don't want to see this on the internet. I'm like,
Speaker 1: see what? And then he pulls out these translucent skates.
Speaker 2: That light.
Speaker 1: And there's a Xana do effect to the ship where
Speaker 1: like the more it's on wood. I don't know if
Speaker 1: you've ever been to the Glen Tell roller Ring, but
Speaker 1: like the sparks of the wheel are also having friction on.
Speaker 2: The like it's literally a xanag. Me and Eddie Murphy
Speaker 2: literally like we can't believe we're seeing this right now.
Speaker 2: Like literally.
Speaker 1: Eddie and I talked about this ten years later. I said, Yo,
Speaker 1: you remember the night we went roller skate with Prince.
Speaker 1: He says, Yo, you didn't hear the after you left.
Speaker 1: And then this is when Prince was heavy on his
Speaker 1: Jovah's Witness thing. He's like at one point Prince like
Speaker 1: jumped and then backwards and.
Speaker 2: Said Edie Murphy, when you're going to come to Kingdom
Speaker 2: Hall with me? And then literally like just literally went
Speaker 2: the hip surgery like a year later. Exactly wasn't the
Speaker 2: dancing in the splits, it was that roller skating.
Speaker 1: No, it was he fell off a piano and like
Speaker 1: a lank City and damaged his back.
Speaker 2: All right, My.
Speaker 1: Final question is Steve, last meal on the earth? What
Speaker 1: would it be? Last meal? Yes, I'm asking human questions.
Speaker 2: It would probably be fish that when it came down
Speaker 2: to fish, right, I always thought that Rock Kim's line
Speaker 2: was foreign to me back then, and I ended up
Speaker 2: being a good fish either.
Speaker 1: I mean everyone got to have the fish sandwich like.
Speaker 2: Yeah, but you know, yeah, yeah, okay, maybe that.
Speaker 1: Everyone knows like a good When you get sixty five, man,
Speaker 1: you were really getting into that area.
Speaker 2: What you better not have? So even at the last meal,
Speaker 2: so you know what, avocados have jumped on me in
Speaker 2: the last ten years, this count for you. Yeah, and
Speaker 2: having an avocado tree is really good. All right.
Speaker 1: If not the leader of one of the greatest groups
Speaker 1: of all time, what would you have been?
Speaker 2: Oh, illustrator, no, hands down and a kick ass one too.
Speaker 2: I am where you're you're I've worked with these with
Speaker 2: the guys, I mean what you call freestyle freelance. So yeah,
Speaker 2: I don't know anybody looking over my shoulder, and I'm
Speaker 2: pretty much an abstract illustrator like I am an MC.
Speaker 2: I could be a fine artist you are if I
Speaker 2: want to, But I also like to be It's a
Speaker 2: difference between being fine artists, graphic artists, illustrator quick at it.
Speaker 2: And during the pandemic, I was able to work on
Speaker 2: my speed skills.
Speaker 1: Okay, yeah during prime PE. Uh your your first ten
Speaker 1: years a pe? What three figures had you starstruck?
Speaker 2: Like autographs living at the time, Yeah, like in your
Speaker 2: in your your travels, like what three figures? Was like,
Speaker 2: holy shit, I'm meeting I mean, I mean because I've
Speaker 2: come across a lot of people from mister Farrakhan and
Speaker 2: in that whole circle in Reverend Jackson, and I met
Speaker 2: James Brown once but never really met him. Did he
Speaker 2: know you were? Yeah? But let me this is this
Speaker 2: is I'll be short. At the turn of the century,
Speaker 2: I think I was giving Prince All Award. I forgot
Speaker 2: what the name of this award show was. And so
Speaker 2: it was out here somewhere and I was backstage and
Speaker 2: as I was getting ready to go on the stage
Speaker 2: and present Princess Award and that was a crazy backstage night. True.
Speaker 2: I leave and I go to the green area and
Speaker 2: I see this guy turned around. He had like a
Speaker 2: suit and hair, and I was like, and I knew
Speaker 2: that all my James James Brown Studies. I was, well, well,
Speaker 2: if it is him, you better have mister in front
Speaker 2: of that name mister Brown, right And I tapped him
Speaker 2: on the shoulder and he turned around. Hey, how you doing,
Speaker 2: mister Brown? My name is Chuck and Chuck Dee from
Speaker 2: public to me and anyone? Oh, And I said, can
Speaker 2: you hold it right there? And I this is before
Speaker 2: cameras right right right? Anybody got camera? Anybody can camera.
Speaker 2: I finally get somebody's camera. Give back to that area.
Speaker 2: He's on stage with Genuine. Say what Yeah, he's on
Speaker 2: stage with Genuine. So I'm going around on it. I'm
Speaker 2: trying to catch him. Maybe leave stage left. So I
Speaker 2: get to stage left real quick with the camera right
Speaker 2: and I'm gonna get him when he comes off or whatever.
Speaker 2: And I'm with you, who am I talking to? I'm
Speaker 2: talking to Denzel. So so we're waiting. We're waiting. He
Speaker 2: leaves stage right. I run around. He's out of there.
Speaker 2: Only time meet James Brown and he was excited. Damn well, at.
Speaker 1: Least you got that out of him. At least you
Speaker 1: got that.
Speaker 2: Hoh. I'm like, hold it right there, came back nothing.
Speaker 1: What was the first concert you ever attended?
Speaker 2: Did I even attended and bought with my own money? Yes?
Speaker 2: Madison Square Garden, nineteen seventy eight, October Right, O Jay's,
Speaker 2: Commodore's Brothers Johnson, What on line? Who who went on
Speaker 2: last brother? Johnson's opened up? Oh, Jay's closed brother, Commodo's
Speaker 2: closed it out? Okay?
Speaker 1: Is there a song that makes you cry for no reason?
Speaker 1: Either prompts a memory or man, it minds me of
Speaker 1: Big Mama, or just is there a song that makes
Speaker 1: you emotional.
Speaker 2: For no reason? My Girl Temptations, your Mommy and my
Speaker 2: Daughter's nice? Nice?
Speaker 1: What song are you ashamed to say that you actually like?
Speaker 2: Ashamed?
Speaker 1: Do you know the worst of Macarena or something?
Speaker 2: Or like, I'm never ashamed of any song I like?
Speaker 2: Or Rick Astley's never going to give you up? But no, no,
Speaker 2: no body. Every time I think about like my forward Road,
Speaker 2: you know, I always think, I don't think I'm ashamed
Speaker 2: of it, like running on empty Jackson Brown, that's respectable, Yes,
Speaker 2: I got respectful. But there's gotta be a song in
Speaker 2: there that like I have a problem, you know what
Speaker 2: my problem is? Or I can't turn songs off in
Speaker 2: my head? How do you do that. I have a song.
Speaker 2: I have a song really seriously playing in my head
Speaker 2: for like the last eight weeks and I can't get
Speaker 2: it out and I want it out of my head.
Speaker 2: What song is it? I just forgot.
Speaker 1: What shore do you hate doing around the house today
Speaker 1: that I hate doing?
Speaker 2: Oh? Man, let me tell you Number one, don't mess
Speaker 2: with electric work. If you ain't electrician, don't touch nothing.
Speaker 2: And I really the actual word no, no, no, I
Speaker 2: mean I always knew that. I like, I'm not trying. Look,
Speaker 2: when you get to a point, you better pay people
Speaker 2: who are experts at what they do and stop playing around. Man.
Speaker 2: You know, I will drag the you know, the garbage
Speaker 2: cans out. I would. I would wash my own dishes,
Speaker 2: although sometimes to come to my house and look at
Speaker 2: my dishes that I washed. I had eye surgery like
Speaker 2: six times or like the last two years, right, and
Speaker 2: had cataract surgery and the eye and all that. So
Speaker 2: I'm not one of those og unks and aunties that
Speaker 2: kind of like, yeah, you wash the dishes, but you
Speaker 2: kind of like didn't wash them, right, I think I do.
Speaker 2: I just don't use a dish washer team. So I
Speaker 2: mean mistakes with me. Yeah, so chores. I think when
Speaker 2: you get somebody just doing like gardening and hedge clipping.
Speaker 2: One thing I know when I was a kid. I
Speaker 2: grew up, you know, in a house on Long Island,
Speaker 2: and we had kind of like a big plot of
Speaker 2: land for our town. And one thing I said I
Speaker 2: would not do the rest of my life is bag
Speaker 2: leaves or rake them. Can I say the words fuck that? Yes,
Speaker 2: bag leaves or rakingly because you get them right in
Speaker 2: that area. I had callouses, scars, cuts all up it
Speaker 2: because of raking and all that. I totally said when
Speaker 2: I turned twenty one, I'm never raking again. And my
Speaker 2: brother will be like, all right, you guys, go rake
Speaker 2: it right, and he find a way that just leave
Speaker 2: halfway through and I gotta rake it, bag it take
Speaker 2: oh man, I don't like the end of fall. I
Speaker 2: don't like winter time. You know, I got to deal
Speaker 2: with them, but you know, seriously, all right.
Speaker 1: Second and last question, who is your longest friendship?
Speaker 2: Longest friendship? That's kind of different at sixty five because
Speaker 2: you pick up where you left off. So the guys
Speaker 2: I grew up with as sports fans, I haven't been
Speaker 2: around them in a long time. The people in music,
Speaker 2: they kind of we pick up where we left off.
Speaker 2: Guys like Bill Stephanie is like, okay, I met Bill
Speaker 2: as a college. We all pick up where we left off.
Speaker 2: I could go see Dre Harry Allen. You know it's
Speaker 2: weird half of that. So I Hank the other day,
Speaker 2: Keith so in those. But the whole key is that
Speaker 2: when you're moving, you know, to pick up where you
Speaker 2: left off. Man, you got to pick up where you
Speaker 2: left off because you got to allow people to be themselves.
Speaker 2: And I come from a.
Speaker 1: Group, so at the top of the group, and you,
Speaker 1: I guess you know this too, at the top of
Speaker 1: the group, but you do a lot of bottom rolls
Speaker 1: because you cannot be the guy that everybody is going
Speaker 1: to like.
Speaker 2: Hey, let's see it. No, so Flavor, don't mean if
Speaker 2: Flavor is not like that, bags come off off of
Speaker 2: the truck. I'll get my bag, my help somebody. Flavor's
Speaker 2: moving right on to the tell as he should, though,
Speaker 2: So one of us got to be that guy, right.
Speaker 2: He is that guy, and by him being that guy
Speaker 2: allows me to be the guy I am, which is okay,
Speaker 2: I will diplomatically hear you out give a discussion see
Speaker 2: if this works. But I really really appreciate the way
Speaker 2: Flavor has really evolved. Well, he's at nine, like he's
Speaker 2: always revolving. He's sixties. Like yes, when people count Flavor out,
Speaker 2: Flavor is going to come back even harder than ever.
Speaker 2: He is the poster child for what the attention spans
Speaker 2: of now and the outer sight out of mind or
Speaker 2: evaporating thought of. He is the poster child. But I
Speaker 2: know in the relationship with him, he in his sixties
Speaker 2: has gone in the areas I've never seen him before.
Speaker 2: He's gone in the areas of being a guy in charge,
Speaker 2: making sure he's on point. He'll go here, there, whatever
Speaker 2: to me. You see the difference. I see it, and
Speaker 2: I welcome it.
Speaker 1: I love this.
Speaker 2: I love it because I tell you, being that mister
Speaker 2: everything everywhere man for so many years, I look at
Speaker 2: sixty five is like, yeah, I did my time in
Speaker 2: that and now yeah I might get a little bit
Speaker 2: uncle you know, you on my lawn type of thing.
Speaker 2: But I enjoyed my space that I'm in now. But
Speaker 2: I said, in order for pe to do things, I
Speaker 2: told him, I said, especially after the pandemic, I said,
Speaker 2: you're gonna have to be that guy because I don't
Speaker 2: really have it to that full tilt anymore, because where
Speaker 2: I've already had it, I'm already doing it in other areas.
Speaker 2: So when we come together, we tell we tell each
Speaker 2: other that I don't know if I'm making your or
Speaker 2: your Keith or I'm Keith sometimes when you're mixed. But
Speaker 2: you know what, when we come together, it's automatic, you know,
Speaker 2: and every other part fits in, like like the line
Speaker 2: up today is gonna work. When I played with Terminator
Speaker 2: and Griff in a minute, I play with them in
Speaker 2: a minute. But it's also got to agree with the
Speaker 2: people who are there, gotcha. You can't move people out.
Speaker 2: Labor has to agree. So I'm the type of person
Speaker 2: that not only have I had an open door policy,
Speaker 2: but half sixty five man, Thomas Short, I got no door.
Speaker 2: Damn no door policy. That's a mic drop. All right,
Speaker 2: I will let.
Speaker 1: You go because your daughter is going to kill me
Speaker 1: right now. I thank you for doing this for me,
Speaker 1: doing the solid the great Chuck D.
Speaker 2: I'll catch me again. May let me let me hey
Speaker 2: to show me over, Yeah right, chuck me, packing.
Speaker 1: Us up, yeah, kicking us out, Chuck D. Thank you
Speaker 1: very much. We got to do this again because I
Speaker 1: swear got seven hours more questions.
Speaker 2: Man, let me tell you, man, when I tell people
Speaker 2: about you all the time, you're my hero. I felt
Speaker 2: that in the soil of like way without actually you know,
Speaker 2: going beyond you know, myself on this. I thought like
Speaker 2: when you came along in the industry, I felt that
Speaker 2: there was somebody to pass the bation too that would
Speaker 2: even maximize anything that I did, because you know, back
Speaker 2: in the agies and nineties, they had to ask questions
Speaker 2: for rap. We put together this documentary, we're doing this thing,
Speaker 2: and let's go call Chuck and it's like, wow, you know, okay,
Speaker 2: all right, you feel like a lone spokesperson. Oh god,
Speaker 2: I mean you know, yeah, you're dealing with times and
Speaker 2: all that, and you seem to understand. And I said, yo, man,
Speaker 2: it's got to be somebody else, because after a while
Speaker 2: you got wise sparkling in your head, and then you
Speaker 2: came along, and then I'm like looking for an outside.
Speaker 2: You have to say, oh, thank God for quests, love, dude.
Speaker 1: I literally quit my job by a side to you
Speaker 1: a nation of millions to do what I do now,
Speaker 1: And I thank you for that.
Speaker 2: Man, Thank you, catch up the crew. I said hello,
Speaker 2: I will you know? And and and that super genius
Speaker 2: computer friend of yours he's coming with some ship man.
Speaker 2: All right, all right, get out of here, yes, sir.
Speaker 1: Quest Left Show is hosted by Me Mirror, Questlove Thompson.
Speaker 1: Executive producers are Sean g Brian Colvin and Me. Produced
Speaker 1: by Britney Benjamin and Jacob Payne. Produced for iHeart by
Speaker 1: Noel Brown, Edited by Alex Conwoman. iHeart Video support by
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Speaker 1: thanks to Sugar Steve Mandel. Please subscribe, pain review and
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