Speaker 1: Hey, this is Julia Beverley, photojournalists and rap historian. You
Speaker 1: can catch me on the Bootleg keV podcasts.
Speaker 2: It's not the Plan Boutleg cav podcast. We got a
Speaker 2: special guest in here, Julia Beverley.
Speaker 1: I am here.
Speaker 2: Welcome, Welcome, a hip hop historian, publisher, photographer, author, what else.
Speaker 1: I like it?
Speaker 2: Yeah?
Speaker 1: Photographer. I really consider myself a photographer, but I have
Speaker 1: I wear a lot of hats. I do what needs
Speaker 1: to be done.
Speaker 2: I was going to say it's a job done. So
Speaker 2: you would consider like photography your main like passion would be.
Speaker 1: Like yes, Ever since I was probably like ten or eleven,
Speaker 1: I've just taken a million photos of everything going on
Speaker 1: in my life, So I kind of carried that over
Speaker 1: into my once I became a hip hop you know,
Speaker 1: journalist or whatever, that's still what I love to do.
Speaker 2: So you're from er Orlando, Florida, right, I am shout
Speaker 2: out to the four fun.
Speaker 1: Fact I grew up. I spent a couple of years
Speaker 1: in San Berardino, actually California. Yes for you, so nice?
Speaker 2: Was there?
Speaker 1: I was like nine years old, rolling the streets in
Speaker 1: my little bike, you.
Speaker 2: Know, dodging meth labs in San Bernardino.
Speaker 1: Yeah, I don't think that was a part of my
Speaker 1: experience back then, but they probably were there.
Speaker 2: It's a wild place, man, San Bernardino's wild place.
Speaker 1: I've heard that. It's like, you know, going a little downhills.
Speaker 2: Yes, but it's hey, we shout out to San Bernardino.
Speaker 2: Cyrus Is. That's where he represented I went.
Speaker 1: I went to school and everything in Orlando, so that's
Speaker 1: where I came up. Started Ozone Magazine, which is a
Speaker 1: term for Orlando.
Speaker 2: You know, we were trying to be correct or whatever
Speaker 2: kind of so for people who don't know, because Ozone
Speaker 2: was kind of I feel like ahead of its time
Speaker 2: a little. But in a world in which there was
Speaker 2: so much representation for media outlets on the East Coast,
Speaker 2: I mean really it was the East Coast driven thing
Speaker 2: hip hop media as an industry, even though you know,
Speaker 2: the West Coast didn't really have a I mean, yeah,
Speaker 2: the West Coast don't really have anything to really represent
Speaker 2: them without some sort of East close bias. But Ozone
Speaker 2: Magazine pops up as a magazine that really championed like
Speaker 2: a whole new wave that was going on in Southern
Speaker 2: hip hop. So what was give me kind of the
Speaker 2: rundown on how ozone was started.
Speaker 1: And I'm gonna say it was almost like not an accident.
Speaker 1: But I never set out to be like, Okay, let
Speaker 1: me represent you know, Southern rap. I used to read,
Speaker 1: of course, the Source, double XL all these magazines, and
Speaker 1: I would see the photos and be like, how do
Speaker 1: I become that photographer? I was. I was really young,
Speaker 1: you know, eighteen nineteen, just started got a camera, just
Speaker 1: started going to all these events. I remember the first,
Speaker 1: like one of the very first events I went to
Speaker 1: was like this radio show John Rules headlining or whatever,
Speaker 1: and I shot, you know, I'm like broke, like eighteen
Speaker 1: in Orlando, Yeah, and so shoot the show and go
Speaker 1: backstage and they had like the whole catering tent and
Speaker 1: it was like, oh, I can get like free food.
Speaker 1: That was that was like a big incentive. So I
Speaker 1: always joke about that, you know, the industry. Free food
Speaker 1: in the industry and was like half of the attraction
Speaker 1: at the time. But so I wanted to shoot for
Speaker 1: these magazines, so I started like trying to get in
Speaker 1: contact with them, and you know, being a kid in
Speaker 1: Orlando and like how do I get in touch with
Speaker 1: these you know, New York publications. So there was a
Speaker 1: graphic designer in Orlando called Mert Design is what he
Speaker 1: went by. And so he had started this magazine which
Speaker 1: he actually called it Orlando Source, so he literally just
Speaker 1: took a little Orlando on the top. And so I
Speaker 1: had got referred to him for his second issue, and
Speaker 1: that was he wanted me to come, you know, work
Speaker 1: with him. The first thing I said was like, I
Speaker 1: think you probably need a new logo. I don't think
Speaker 1: take their logo. I think they did actually send a
Speaker 1: CS and assist at one point, but he changed the logo.
Speaker 1: We did that together for about a year, and for me,
Speaker 1: it was just I had this envisioned in my head
Speaker 1: that I was gonna, you know, get discovered like Sort
Speaker 1: or whoever, was gonna be like, oh, this photographer is great, like,
Speaker 1: let's hire her. And so ultimately what happened like me
Speaker 1: and him kind of fell out at a certain point
Speaker 1: or didn't. We weren't seeing eye eye where we wanted
Speaker 1: to go with it. So I had finished that I
Speaker 1: was doing the creative side. He was doing the business side,
Speaker 1: which is where the conflict came in because he would
Speaker 1: be like, yeah, they paid. They only paid four hundred
Speaker 1: for an ad and I would find they paid seven hundred.
Speaker 1: We were supposed to be splitting the money, you know. Anyway,
Speaker 1: that's how that all kind of unraveled. But we we
Speaker 1: had gotten to a point where he said, I'm not
Speaker 1: going to do this anymore, and I had already finished
Speaker 1: the next issue. And so Mercedes was one of our
Speaker 1: street team people, and she was like, well, why would
Speaker 1: you stop, Like, why don't you just change the name?
Speaker 1: I mean, you got you know, everybody, You've got all
Speaker 1: the advertisers. And so that's kind of where it started
Speaker 1: from because we did already have a base of like,
Speaker 1: we had a lot of local companies that would advertise,
Speaker 1: and so originally, even the early issues of Ozone, it's
Speaker 1: like Orlando music or Florida Music, which is very heavily
Speaker 1: you know, Latino influence. You got a lot of Caribbean influence.
Speaker 1: So we had a lot of reggae artists, reggae tone
Speaker 1: like it was kind of everything happening.
Speaker 2: Was the first issue. And two who was on the
Speaker 2: cover Red Dog, Yes.
Speaker 1: He's from Orlando, Oh State.
Speaker 2: Orlando Hip Hop Encyclopedia goes to uh Caskie what's the
Speaker 2: guy's name? I will ever with a street Yes, S
Speaker 2: Miles and South Star. The dude was in jail with
Speaker 2: the dreasy cut him off. Fuck, I played shit in
Speaker 2: the club. The song is called pussy n Words.
Speaker 1: Wow, that's a new one to me. I mean, like
Speaker 1: there was there was a lot of groups that had
Speaker 1: like a couple of records.
Speaker 2: Yess in South Star.
Speaker 1: Kaya came out of Kaya actually shot her first album
Speaker 1: cover in our office.
Speaker 2: Is Kay from Orlando? She's from Tampa, Okay, That's what
Speaker 2: I thought. Yeah, yeah, she earned a lot of bridges. Yeah,
Speaker 2: everybody in Tampa, I know, was just they just have
Speaker 2: terrible things to say about Kaya, And I'm like Jesus,
Speaker 2: like I guess.
Speaker 1: Well, I put it whoop. I printed all her mugshots
Speaker 1: in one of our early issues. So she had been
Speaker 1: arrested like twenty something times, and I just thought it
Speaker 1: was a great visual. So we printed all the mug
Speaker 1: shots and I remember, I don't know if it was
Speaker 1: officially her people, but like somebody ran up on me
Speaker 1: in the club and was like you know, and then
Speaker 1: she ended up. I think she put it out as
Speaker 1: a mixtape cover or something like that.
Speaker 2: So you did her favorite that's for sure. Yeah, it's
Speaker 2: crazy because like, yeah, I mean, she had an iconic record,
Speaker 2: still was getting sampled and getting Yeah, for sure, I
Speaker 2: was gonna say, like Florida hip hop in O two
Speaker 2: oh three, that's like there's really not like right now
Speaker 2: we think of Florida hip hop and it's just I mean,
Speaker 2: it's so massive the state has blown up between I mean,
Speaker 2: we just had like three rappers from Tallahassee alone at
Speaker 2: the BT Radio.
Speaker 1: Well, it just happened to be in the right place
Speaker 1: at the right time when you had I mean t
Speaker 1: Pain from Tallahassee, I mean Pibble, Rick Ross floor rider.
Speaker 2: Kalid was a.
Speaker 1: Big influence when we ultimately ended.
Speaker 2: Up doing because he has so much roots in Orlando.
Speaker 2: Him and Nasty were in Orlando right early on to.
Speaker 1: Do or maybe still does. Calid used to do the
Speaker 1: Temple his birthday bash every year, so every artist you
Speaker 1: could think of would come out and it would just
Speaker 1: be like really organic, like you know, Diddy grabs a
Speaker 1: mic and hands it's you know, kids or whatever, just
Speaker 1: like this big party. So when we ultimately did the
Speaker 1: Ozone Awards, I had Cali come do the opening set
Speaker 1: because that was the like the inspiration was like his his.
Speaker 1: I was like, just do what you do with your
Speaker 1: you know, your birthday back. So we had like Trick
Speaker 1: Daddy and Pitbull and Ross and uh this is when
Speaker 1: Ross had the hustling. So I was just there when
Speaker 1: a lot of them had been bubbling for a while
Speaker 1: and we're kind of on the precipice of just breaking
Speaker 1: you know, breaking through. And so when I started interviewing
Speaker 1: a lot of people, like like a pit Bull would
Speaker 1: talk about how it was a blessing that he had
Speaker 1: never got signed earlier. He was like, well, the New
Speaker 1: York labels, you know, they ignored me so for so long.
Speaker 1: It forced me to like build up this fan base.
Speaker 1: I traveled around, I did all these shows. So, you know,
Speaker 1: artists today it's almost like it's too easy, Like they
Speaker 1: could be very young. If they get the right record,
Speaker 1: then they're.
Speaker 2: Immediately they're in the game right away without without a
Speaker 2: lot of them have.
Speaker 1: The history of the struggle traveling, you.
Speaker 2: Know, staying in shitty hotels, going to a radio station
Speaker 2: in the morning to just try to you know, for sure,
Speaker 2: that's all part of the experience, one hundred percent. So
Speaker 2: a lot of the.
Speaker 1: Artists were experiencing the same thing I had experienced on
Speaker 1: the journalism side, because I had tried to I mean,
Speaker 1: I did some stuff here and there, like for The
Speaker 1: Source and you know, some little freelance stuff, but they're
Speaker 1: reached a certain point where I was kind of like, oh, like,
Speaker 1: we're actually onto something here with this magazine. I don't
Speaker 1: need to try to go work for a New York magazine.
Speaker 1: So a lot of artists like pit Bull or PIPC
Speaker 1: would talk about the same experience they had where they
Speaker 1: were trying so long to get accepted by New York
Speaker 1: and it just never happened. And finally they were like,
Speaker 1: all right, I'll just I'll just do it my own way,
Speaker 1: make my own.
Speaker 2: Did the traditional magazines at the time were they peyton
Speaker 2: or they did they embrace you? Because at the time,
Speaker 2: there's like this weird like I don't know, man, there's
Speaker 2: like The Source really turned into like a weirdo magazine
Speaker 2: for a little bit. And then you know, obviously Elliott
Speaker 2: Wilson was running it up, running circles around him at
Speaker 2: XXL for a sec and you know, it felt like
Speaker 2: such a competitive space.
Speaker 1: I have some funny stories about that. I mean, and
Speaker 1: so we're moving a little forward, like by this time,
Speaker 1: you know, two thousand and five ish, like I'm realizing,
Speaker 1: like there's really some money in this. And I think
Speaker 1: what showed me too, Like the early issues I might
Speaker 1: send I'd send like a box to like Montgomery, Alabama
Speaker 1: or something, and I'd send like four boxes to Miami,
Speaker 1: thinking like, oh, Miami's a bigger market. And people in Miami,
Speaker 1: I mean, they liked it, but they're kind of like
Speaker 1: they have you know, three radio stations, and they.
Speaker 2: Have Miamis, they have boom and city.
Speaker 1: Places to go. Like the artists there don't really need
Speaker 1: a platform, whereas I would get like one hundred calls
Speaker 1: from Montgomery, all these DJs, artists, people that want to
Speaker 1: get down. So I started to see there was a market.
Speaker 1: And you know, the South is full of Tallahassee, Jacksonville,
Speaker 1: you know, Birmingham. I mean, there's there's so many like
Speaker 1: sort of mid level markets that just don't have At
Speaker 1: that time, they didn't have social media. So if they're
Speaker 1: there's an artist they're trying to get on, they don't
Speaker 1: have YouTube to show people what they look like. So
Speaker 1: you know, they would advertise in the magazine, so I
Speaker 1: saw that there was a real market. So Elliott Wilson
Speaker 1: saw him yesterday a couple days ago, so, I mean,
Speaker 1: we're cool and stuff. But he's always been one to
Speaker 1: kind of like take shots at different people. So funny
Speaker 1: story about him. Well, I remember at one point I
Speaker 1: would go to New York and I would like drop
Speaker 1: off magazines places. So I stopped by Double XL one
Speaker 1: time just to drop off some magazines and he was
Speaker 1: like the only person in the office. I think it
Speaker 1: was like eight o'clock in the evening or whatever, and
Speaker 1: I just remember him he said, Oh, you're not from
Speaker 1: around here, are you like it? To me, it was
Speaker 1: like people in New York kind of I don't know
Speaker 1: if he meant it to be like like I took
Speaker 1: it a certain way. I don't know that he meant
Speaker 1: it that way. But to me, somebody from if I
Speaker 1: asked somebody where they're from and they say, like Houston
Speaker 1: or the Bay or LA, like, I kind of have
Speaker 1: a sense of like where they're from and what kind
Speaker 1: of you know, environment they're dealing with. And I felt
Speaker 1: like New Yorker's had this idea like you're either from
Speaker 1: New York or you're not, and it's one or the other,
Speaker 1: you know what I mean. That's that's kind of how
Speaker 1: I perceived. It was like, Oh, you're not from here,
Speaker 1: so you're just I don't really care where you're from.
Speaker 1: I don't know where you're from.
Speaker 2: You're just not from here.
Speaker 1: So that's kind of how I took it. But later on,
Speaker 1: like maybe a couple of years down the road, we
Speaker 1: had never been able to get a distribution deal. Not
Speaker 1: that I don't know that I put a whole lot
Speaker 1: of effort into it, but it was always like a
Speaker 1: street kind of thing.
Speaker 2: You're getting printing done and you're.
Speaker 1: Everything, load up the van, drive to you know, yeah,
Speaker 1: because I would see your guys and stuff at like
Speaker 1: record stores, like small like independent record stores like I think.
Speaker 2: I might have saw it at like Tower Records.
Speaker 1: We eventually did get a distribution deal, so I had
Speaker 1: been trying. There's there's really at that time, there might
Speaker 1: have been like two or three distributors, but there's really
Speaker 1: only like one big distributor, which is Curtis, And they
Speaker 1: did you know, double Excel and Source and all that,
Speaker 1: and I had.
Speaker 2: Thought they were the same distributor, so they were. They
Speaker 2: were distributing both.
Speaker 1: They were distributing like any news stand you go to,
Speaker 1: you know, pretty much goes through Curtis at least from
Speaker 1: what I recall. And I had, you know, send them
Speaker 1: copies of the magazine. They sent us like this standard
Speaker 1: like rejection letter or whatever, and I hired a consultant
Speaker 1: to try to harass them and try to get us
Speaker 1: a distribution deal. But I had something about double Excel
Speaker 1: in my editorial and Elliott responded like he put a
Speaker 1: little line or something about ozone or whatever, and so
Speaker 1: I copied it and sent it. It was always taking
Speaker 1: shots at you know, the sauce and like all this stuff,
Speaker 1: but he said something about like go down South with
Speaker 1: the ozone or like it was something that could be
Speaker 1: interpreted as like a dispack to us. So I copied it,
Speaker 1: sent it to the distributor, and I don't know if
Speaker 1: that was what did it, or the consultant or whatever,
Speaker 1: but we got a distribution deal. And so it kind
Speaker 1: of felt like, you know, if you're distributing this product
Speaker 1: and they're like, you know, if you're battling with somebody,
Speaker 1: they're an equal basically. So but the source, I mean,
Speaker 1: I started, I met bou Rosario pretty early on. He
Speaker 1: was a music editor or one of the music editors
Speaker 1: at the Source, and he did the photo galleries in
Speaker 1: the back. So I started sending him stuff and I
Speaker 1: would be super excited if I got, like, you know,
Speaker 1: my little.
Speaker 2: Nare getting sometimes in the back of the sourcetography.
Speaker 1: I would send them like hundreds of pictures and they
Speaker 1: might pick, you know, two or three might make it,
Speaker 1: but I'd be excited about that. And so I met
Speaker 1: Kim and you know, shout out to Kim when she
Speaker 1: was she was an editor at that point, she had
Speaker 1: come down to Miami, I think to shoot Trina or something,
Speaker 1: and you know, I would kind of throw it out there, like,
Speaker 1: you guys should hire me to you know, work this out.
Speaker 1: I didn't feel like anyone took that super seriously, but
Speaker 1: they did start giving me like a little assignment here
Speaker 1: and there. And that's when they were I think starting
Speaker 1: to fall apart as far as the yeah, on the
Speaker 1: on the business side, and then also the eminem thing
Speaker 1: was going on. It was it was a lot happening.
Speaker 2: It was a lot happening.
Speaker 1: Ben Zino left me the voicemail.
Speaker 2: I don't know if you remember that, but I don't
Speaker 2: what you know, what there's Listen, my brain is so
Speaker 2: hip hop Friday at this point. Please catch me up
Speaker 2: because I'm sure.
Speaker 1: Oh gosh, I mean, we're skipping a lot, but we're
Speaker 1: going to go back, all right. The Benzino voicemail, Oh
Speaker 1: my gosh. Yeah, So I had been I'd been freelancing
Speaker 1: for the Source like here and there, and I think
Speaker 1: they owed me it might have been like eighteen hundred
Speaker 1: dollars or something like that, which to again like I'm young. Yeah,
Speaker 1: that's I mean, definitely rent in the cardinal like.
Speaker 2: That's you know, sure, that's serious chunk of change back
Speaker 2: especially back then.
Speaker 1: Yeah, And so I think it had been it had
Speaker 1: been maybe like a year, and you know, I had
Speaker 1: like email the you know, corporate office. Nobody's responding, and
Speaker 1: I think I didn't have the concept of what was
Speaker 1: going on there at the time, like they were kind
Speaker 1: of falling.
Speaker 2: Apart, right the house was burning.
Speaker 1: My little eighteen hundred or whatever it was was not
Speaker 1: really a priority. But I ran into Dave somewhere in Miami,
Speaker 1: and I mean shout out to Dave. He you know,
Speaker 1: I respect what he did with the.
Speaker 2: Source, And yeah, and he's got a.
Speaker 1: He's got a break or break.
Speaker 2: Yeah, he bounced back him for sure.
Speaker 1: Yeah. I mean I always have respect for for David
Speaker 1: what he accomplished with the Source. But I do think,
Speaker 1: you know, there was like some missteps in the in
Speaker 1: the later years. But on this particular occasion, like I
Speaker 1: had run into him somewhere in Miami, and I think
Speaker 1: I was feeling myself a little bit because they let
Speaker 1: me in the club before him, like we both.
Speaker 2: You're in Miami.
Speaker 1: Well I was at the time like that was like
Speaker 1: my Like everybody knew me. The doorman was always like
Speaker 1: her in, you know, and so they let me in.
Speaker 1: They let us both in, but they let me.
Speaker 2: In first, and I was like, okay, check us out.
Speaker 1: Yeah, but and I was trying to be respectful. I
Speaker 1: was like, you know, hey, is there somebody I can
Speaker 1: contact corporate? Like I've been trying to get this invoice
Speaker 1: paid And got back and he was like he was
Speaker 1: like maybe smoking weed or something. He kind of he
Speaker 1: just kind of blew me off, like, you know, just
Speaker 1: didn't really answer me, went inside, and so I kind
Speaker 1: of I was like feeling some kind of way. And
Speaker 1: so we did this year end issue that was like
Speaker 1: the year end awards. I mean, I mean we might
Speaker 1: have even took that idea from the source. I don't know,
Speaker 1: but it was supposed to be like humorous awards we
Speaker 1: were given to people. So the time, the talk around
Speaker 1: the industry is about how Benzeno is extorting Dave. You know,
Speaker 1: Iyane's book and and you know heard I think I
Speaker 1: don't know if Kim's book was out yet, but you
Speaker 1: know this, this has been out for a while, Like
Speaker 1: people who work there have been talking about this. So
Speaker 1: I've said something about Ben's you know, extorting Dave, and
Speaker 1: then trying to be like a proper journalist, I said,
Speaker 1: you know, disclaimer here. They owe me money. That's why
Speaker 1: I'm talking shit and send it to print. And when
Speaker 1: you do a magazine, I mean, you write something and
Speaker 1: by the time it actually reaches the public, it's six
Speaker 1: weeks later at least. So six weeks later, I'm just
Speaker 1: sitting at home at like midnight, and this number I
Speaker 1: don't know calls me and is like fuck you hangs up,
Speaker 1: and I'm like, okay, somebody calls back. So's Dave called
Speaker 1: me the first time. Second call is Benzino and you know,
Speaker 1: it took me like a minute honestly to even remember.
Speaker 1: I'm like what did I like, what is this about?
Speaker 1: And then I'm like, oh, yeah, I forgot about that
Speaker 1: thing I wrote, And so Benzino cussed me out for
Speaker 1: like it was like a ninety minute call.
Speaker 2: Like he just he seems like, yeah, he seems like
Speaker 2: the kind of guy. He has a short time pow
Speaker 2: to scream a lot for sure. Yeah, because I've seen
Speaker 2: seen the way just unravels online rather quickly with people.
Speaker 1: So I'm like scrambling running around the house like I'm like,
Speaker 1: I know, I have a recorder here somewhere, like I
Speaker 1: got to record this, you know.
Speaker 2: He's just yeah, going off. Well.
Speaker 1: It was kind of funny because it was like very
Speaker 1: like if you're going to insult somebody and hurt them,
Speaker 1: there has to be like a little kernel of truth
Speaker 1: in it. But it was like very He was like,
Speaker 1: you're just a fat bitch, and I mean I weighed
Speaker 1: like one hundred and ten pounds or something else, like
Speaker 1: we are you talking to?
Speaker 2: He's like, you you fat blind bitch.
Speaker 1: It was just a lot of really generic like stuff
Speaker 1: you might throw at a female just you know, I'm
Speaker 1: gonna send this, you know, like an insult.
Speaker 2: Board for women. Yeah, like stuarts at it. It was
Speaker 2: like you're a whore.
Speaker 1: But I remember I was on an AOL instant messenger, like.
Speaker 2: You know, everybody would get everybody was on it, ever, And.
Speaker 1: So I was on the computer after this call and
Speaker 1: DJ Quest popped up from from Fort Myers and we
Speaker 1: were just talking. I was like, you won't believe what just.
Speaker 2: Happened to me. He's still there too, right, yeah, shout.
Speaker 1: Yeah, shout out to Quest. He was always our our
Speaker 1: Fort Myers connect. But I was like, you won't believe
Speaker 1: this call I just got. And he's he's like, oh,
Speaker 1: I wish you had recorded that. I put it on
Speaker 1: my mixtape. I'm like, yeah, I know. And so I
Speaker 1: go to the office like a few days later or
Speaker 1: whatever and check the voicemail and he had actually called
Speaker 1: there first and left this voicemail. He called me a
Speaker 1: slut monkey, which I don't even know what that means.
Speaker 2: I'm taking that, but uh monkey. Yeah.
Speaker 1: So I sent it to I sent it to a Quest.
Speaker 1: I'm like, here, you go, put it on your mix.
Speaker 1: He sends it to Tony Neil, who had the cord
Speaker 1: Tony sends it to everybody, and next I know, like
Speaker 1: funk Master Flex is calling me. We got to get
Speaker 1: you on the air to talk about this because I
Speaker 1: think they.
Speaker 2: Had Yeah, yeah, I think everyone had a situation with
Speaker 2: Benzino in a certain point in time.
Speaker 1: Yeah, so it it. It definitely made the rounds because
Speaker 1: I remember not too long after that, I went overseas
Speaker 1: with with Trey Songs and we were in like I
Speaker 1: want to say, Denmark or Sweden or something, and I
Speaker 1: would always bring magazines give it to the DJ. So
Speaker 1: I go up to the DJ moth and give the
Speaker 1: guy a magazine and he didn't even speak English, and
Speaker 1: he was like, what the monkey like you he knew?
Speaker 2: I was so wow.
Speaker 1: It wasn't And we did kind of like squash things
Speaker 1: at a certain point after that. So yeah, I mean it,
Speaker 1: but it's a great story though.
Speaker 2: I was gonna so okay, So the first issues, what
Speaker 2: was the guy's name, Red Red Dog?
Speaker 1: We had smiles and South Stars.
Speaker 2: Shout the smiles and South Stars.
Speaker 1: I tried to photoshop them large above the city of Orlando.
Speaker 2: Yeah, they had they had some jokes. Those guys are
Speaker 2: Orlando legends for sure. What was the first issue of
Speaker 2: the magazine that you realized, well, how about this? Was
Speaker 2: there like a pivotal issue for you guys that really
Speaker 2: like changed the trajectory of like, oh we could do
Speaker 2: this for real and get some real money off of
Speaker 2: this or I'm sure there was a momentum let up
Speaker 2: to it, But do you remember what that that issue was.
Speaker 1: For a couple, I mean we did, and definitely some
Speaker 1: of the stuff we did was modeled after like the
Speaker 1: source or just taking ideas from other I mean, there's
Speaker 1: nothing under the sun, you know, they were they were
Speaker 1: imitating Rolling Stone basically, but they would do the Power
Speaker 1: thirty issue. I don't know if this is where I
Speaker 1: got the idea, honestly, don't remember. But we did a
Speaker 1: we did a Florida Power issue which Kalid was on
Speaker 1: the cover with dog Man, who's a promoter from Orlando.
Speaker 1: That hit. Dog Man's a character and he was another
Speaker 1: one that had he had kind of like given me
Speaker 1: a lot of street game because I'm like this young
Speaker 1: white girl. I don't write anything, you know, Like him
Speaker 1: and my original partner, they're like, you know, they're like
Speaker 1: street hustler dudes, Like they're not like not like illegal stuff.
Speaker 1: But they're just they're gonna get money anyway possible. And
Speaker 1: so I learned a lot like just hanging out with them.
Speaker 1: But Kalid was on the cover with with dog Man,
Speaker 1: the first Florida Power issue, and so it put me
Speaker 1: in a position where I was traveling all around the
Speaker 1: state to interview like the thirty most powerful people. So
Speaker 1: I met all these program directors and DJs.
Speaker 2: Orlando Davis make the list.
Speaker 1: Yes, oh, Tampa Peedie right, Yeah, yeah, I'm almost certain
Speaker 1: he was on list.
Speaker 2: Yeah. What about Chris John d J Christ John.
Speaker 1: I don't know if he was around that baby, he
Speaker 1: might have come. He might have come on the scene
Speaker 1: like shortly after. I mean definitely nasty and pro style
Speaker 1: were like you know, made early days. I remember Kalid
Speaker 1: had come to do the photo shoot and we didn't
Speaker 1: have like I think we're gonna have him like lifting
Speaker 1: a weight or something like Florida Power, and we didn't
Speaker 1: have one, So he was just like posing with like
Speaker 1: a broomstick or something like that.
Speaker 2: Did you guys photoshop the weight in there?
Speaker 1: We did, Yes, I was good with the photoshop back
Speaker 1: in the day. I was just telling somebody this story
Speaker 1: that was actually pre pre Ozone. I was doing like
Speaker 1: graphic design stuff, and this guy brought me a pass.
Speaker 1: He had a pass for a jay Z party, like
Speaker 1: it was like a Tracing Brady jay Z party, And
Speaker 1: he said, can you duplicate this because it was like
Speaker 1: an old school like red paper. Absolutely, so I made
Speaker 1: like ten for him and made one for myself.
Speaker 2: I feel like, if you were good at like if
Speaker 2: you were good at photoshop back in the day, that
Speaker 2: was a fucking career like you nowadays, I feel like everyone.
Speaker 1: People I still get paid to this day. People ask
Speaker 1: me to photoshop stuff for them.
Speaker 2: It's just crazy though, because I just feel like it
Speaker 2: was it was almost like making beats. It was so
Speaker 2: hard back in the day. So it's like now like
Speaker 2: I could AI could do do a graphic if I
Speaker 2: really wanted to, Like, it's a lot easier now.
Speaker 1: No, so.
Speaker 2: Did you because but you got so pivotal issues.
Speaker 1: I mean Florida Florida Power was one. We did an
Speaker 1: issue early on where it was like the sex issue.
Speaker 1: I might have took that idea from the source.
Speaker 2: Who's who's on the cover of that.
Speaker 1: I want to say it was JACKIEO.
Speaker 2: Chat to JACKIEO.
Speaker 1: I think it was Jackie Slide, but we did. We
Speaker 1: did a groopy confessions column that I don't remember how.
Speaker 1: Oh no, I do remember how it got started. I'm
Speaker 1: not gonna put her on blast though, but I happened
Speaker 1: to know a lot of like a lot of friends
Speaker 1: of friends would have like little rapper stories and like, hey,
Speaker 1: tell me the story anonymously. We put it in the magazine,
Speaker 1: and we did want about jay Z, And there was
Speaker 1: always a disclaimer like, hey, I wasn't I.
Speaker 2: Don't know if this is true.
Speaker 1: I can't guarantee that this actually happened, but it was
Speaker 1: generally people that I kind of like knew through a friend,
Speaker 1: right to be like somewhat credible. But I think it
Speaker 1: was the New York Post had picked it up, and
Speaker 1: you know, you talk about jay Z's sex life. That's
Speaker 1: like New York headline news. I thought it was great.
Speaker 1: I'm like, oh, we got all this press.
Speaker 2: I was gonna say, like it could have been a
Speaker 2: better topic. But we always would hear like back in
Speaker 2: the day, like the source would take money from labels
Speaker 2: for like ratings, certain stuff. Did you guys ever get
Speaker 2: paid to do covers or back covers?
Speaker 1: Was always for sale?
Speaker 2: So the cover was always I.
Speaker 1: Never thought that was controversial until like way after the
Speaker 1: fact people would say that that was controversial somehow the
Speaker 1: way that I viewed it, and this was Mertz started
Speaker 1: that I would have never thought to do that. But honestly,
Speaker 1: the magazine would have never survived if we had the cover.
Speaker 1: That's what people were willing to were some of the
Speaker 1: people paid. But at the same time, everyone pay for a.
Speaker 2: Cover, everybody. So if the cover was if somebody was
Speaker 2: on the cover, they kind of check.
Speaker 1: I want to say, there was no one who ever
Speaker 1: was on the cover without paying for it. There may
Speaker 1: have been one that I'm forgiving, but it was the
Speaker 1: same as I mean, it's it's a first of all,
Speaker 1: we were not a newsstand publication, not primarily it was
Speaker 1: it was a promotional. We gave these ways about tens
Speaker 1: of yeah for sure. Yeah, so it was kind of
Speaker 1: like a label doing I mean.
Speaker 2: Remember like hundreds and hundreds of pictures of people just
Speaker 2: holding up O zone.
Speaker 1: I mean it's like a label doing it. Labels putting
Speaker 1: together a marketing campaign. They might they might do a
Speaker 1: gangster rills with drama, they might do a re least party.
Speaker 2: Yeah.
Speaker 1: Well in our defense too. It wasn't like just anybody could.
Speaker 1: There's still had to be like yeah, and then when
Speaker 1: we did the features, it wasn't It was a little
Speaker 1: different from the way that the future might be presented
Speaker 1: in other publications. It was kind of we would generally
Speaker 1: just do.
Speaker 2: A Q and A.
Speaker 1: So I'm not putting it out there and saying you're
Speaker 1: like great, I'm not giving you my opinion. This is
Speaker 1: the greatest rapper ever's this is what Jesus said. Yeah,
Speaker 1: it was like a Q and A.
Speaker 2: Man. If you guys, if YouTube is a thing back then,
Speaker 2: would have been crazy some of the I'll bet sure
Speaker 2: you have some. You probably have so much stuff in
Speaker 2: the archives, right, just I wish I.
Speaker 1: Had videotape more you. I don't have a lot of
Speaker 1: video I have a ton of ton of audio license. Yeah,
Speaker 1: I do have some audio. I have a ton of photos.
Speaker 1: I mean, you've probably seen my stuff on like Unsung
Speaker 1: Behind the Music or Hip Hop Evolution, like a lot
Speaker 1: of those documentary series I licensed stuff for. I have
Speaker 1: a lot of early I'm gonna put out another book
Speaker 1: with my photography.
Speaker 2: It's like, is it just a photo book.
Speaker 1: It's a photo book with kind of like stories.
Speaker 2: Like little stories cliff notes about where what happened. Absolutely,
Speaker 2: it's crazy because you mentioned pit Bull earlier, and I
Speaker 2: remember when Pitbull first came out, he was like rapping,
Speaker 2: like like he had a song.
Speaker 1: I still have old pit Bull records.
Speaker 2: Well, he had he had a he had a song
Speaker 2: with nas that never think got dropped. But it was
Speaker 2: like on Napster called Imagine. It was like sampling like
Speaker 2: John Lennon. It was so far. But it's so crazy
Speaker 2: to see, like I'm guessing they couldn't clear that. I'm
Speaker 2: assuming not right, But like, did you like being around
Speaker 2: pit Bull so early? Did you have any inclination that
Speaker 2: like he would end up being such a worldwide superstar,
Speaker 2: Like when you google pit well, the dog doesn't even
Speaker 2: come up when you google pit Bull. That's funny, he
Speaker 2: comes up first. It's it's just that's like.
Speaker 1: At least he spelled it correctly. That's how famous felt,
Speaker 1: like Ludacris and fabulous. I can't spell the.
Speaker 2: World the rapper. How do you spell Ludacris? Don't?
Speaker 1: Yeah, I mean Pitbull was he was always just a hustler,
Speaker 1: like in certain people. You know when you see that
Speaker 1: work ethic. You're like, they're I mean, they're gonna make it.
Speaker 1: And I was a fan of the music. Like I
Speaker 1: remember hearing him. I was driving over the causeway like
Speaker 1: four o'clock in the morning, leaving the beach, and he
Speaker 1: was on the radio freestyle or maybe it was recorded,
Speaker 1: I don't know, but like welcome to Miami, you know,
Speaker 1: just a little freestyle, and I was like, this is
Speaker 1: where can I find this? Like how could I find
Speaker 1: this rapper? And as soon as I met him, I
Speaker 1: was like, yeah, he's you know, he's gonna make it
Speaker 1: because he's I've told this story before. I was supposed
Speaker 1: to interview another artist who was I want to say
Speaker 1: he was signed to Jive, another artist. He just got
Speaker 1: like a big label deal, and it was like all
Speaker 1: over the radio, like this is the next big thing
Speaker 1: for Miami and I'm waiting, waiting, waiting for him to
Speaker 1: show up. I think he was. It was like the
Speaker 1: second time and he just didn't show up, and I
Speaker 1: was on a deadline and I'm like, what am I
Speaker 1: going to put in this magazine? I have these pages
Speaker 1: I got to turn in. And Pitt Bull's manager at
Speaker 1: the time, Big Teach, was like in the our adjoining office.
Speaker 1: We were all on this like music industry kind of
Speaker 1: central office in downtown Miami. And I go over and say, hey, teach, like,
Speaker 1: how quick could Pittbull get here? I got to get this,
Speaker 1: you know, turn into the printer and Pitt was like, oh,
Speaker 1: I'll be there in ten minutes. And we went downstairs,
Speaker 1: did a photo shoot on the beach, which incidentally that
Speaker 1: photo is in the Smithsonian now, which is crazy or
Speaker 1: it's part of the Smithsonian collection.
Speaker 2: Wow.
Speaker 1: And we did an interview and sign it to press.
Speaker 1: And so to me, if you're an artist and you're
Speaker 1: trying to get.
Speaker 2: On, like, that's the added that's the attitude of like
Speaker 2: you gotta be you know, if you.
Speaker 1: Need somebody to come drive a free sell.
Speaker 2: Like listen, that just happened. I just had Jadakiss at
Speaker 2: my table and this kid from Phoenix has an amazing rapper,
Speaker 2: Americam snuck his way into the BADT media room. So
Speaker 2: he was telling me how much he I was like,
Speaker 2: who do you like this? Up with companies? I mean,
Speaker 2: I just like that real rap. So I like I
Speaker 2: was like, oh, get macas. So he ran over right now.
Speaker 2: So I had him the mic and he freestyle for
Speaker 2: Jadakis and killed it. It was it was dope. Now
Speaker 2: that's what it takes, you know for sure. Got to
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Speaker 2: let's get back to the interview. No, it's crazy because
Speaker 2: like I think, like back then there was ozone, and
Speaker 2: then I feel like the West Coast, we kind of
Speaker 2: had like Murder Dog, Murder Dog. Yeah, murder Dog.
Speaker 1: Was like they were even like a little more grimier.
Speaker 2: Than they were grimy as fuck. Murder Dog was crazy
Speaker 2: and it was almost like murder Dog.
Speaker 1: But I feel like I was trying to make an
Speaker 1: effort to be like a little more I don't want
Speaker 1: to say mainstream, but but yeah, when your magazine called
Speaker 1: the Murder a little more polished, Yes, I was real
Speaker 1: serious about the editing, like typos and the presentation of it.
Speaker 1: I wanted, even if the subject matter was like street
Speaker 1: and like authentic, I wanted to like look a certain way.
Speaker 2: What what was the first Ozone Awards like? And what year?
Speaker 2: And what year was Okay, so this is four years
Speaker 2: after the magazine launches in Orlando.
Speaker 1: Yeah, I just remember that. Honestly, There's so much I
Speaker 1: don't remember from those weekends because I did literally did
Speaker 1: not sleep, like the Ozone Awards, definitely in in Orlando,
Speaker 1: Definitely in Houston. I'm talking like four days without sleep.
Speaker 1: You start to hallucinate things like when I woke up
Speaker 1: the morning after, I remember looking up looking around the
Speaker 1: room and seeing like wrist bands and stuff, and I
Speaker 1: really thought it had been a dream. I was like
Speaker 1: that we didn't actually like that actually happened. Yet that
Speaker 1: was a crazy day. I mean, I gotta say that
Speaker 1: David Banner really saved that show because he was the
Speaker 1: host and I was in like just it was just
Speaker 1: so much that happened that weekend, because it wasn't just
Speaker 1: the awards. We did a four day or maybe it
Speaker 1: was three days at that time. We teamed up with
Speaker 1: TJ's DJs.
Speaker 2: Which was s TJ. Chapman.
Speaker 1: Shout out to TJ. And I couldn't have pulled that
Speaker 1: out without him. I mean, he had a lot more
Speaker 1: in terms of structure, and he had staff and voluntary
Speaker 1: I've always been for better or worse, like I do
Speaker 1: everything myself. I'm not really great at delegating stuff. She
Speaker 1: did from right, he's from Tallahowsee. Yeah, And that first weekend,
Speaker 1: like we had basically we had paid for this whole hotel,
Speaker 1: and they told us back then like, oh, we're going
Speaker 1: to be doing some renovations or whatever, but it'll be
Speaker 1: done by the timer event comes around. They literally brought
Speaker 1: a bulldozer in the lobby of the hotel three days
Speaker 1: before the Ozone awards, and it was the whole lobby
Speaker 1: was gone, like they had took out the escalator. It
Speaker 1: was dirt. And so I got a call from one
Speaker 1: of our staff like three days before the awards, I
Speaker 1: think you should come see the hotel where we're having
Speaker 1: our event in three days. It was just so much
Speaker 1: that it was just so much that went wrong that weekend,
Speaker 1: to the point where by the time the awards come around,
Speaker 1: I'm like, how are we gonna pull this off? You know?
Speaker 1: And I'm like, just it was just so much going on.
Speaker 1: Back then, I had a BlackBerry, and like you know,
Speaker 1: the the messages were coming in so fast. I was
Speaker 1: getting like the next day, I got a message from
Speaker 1: Ludicrous manager like we're at the airport. Where is the car?
Speaker 1: Like I'm getting messages from the day before, Like that's
Speaker 1: how crazy it was. And I performed the first year
Speaker 1: literally everybody just every remember being backstage and all the
Speaker 1: pictures from that Night's funny because I'm in like a
Speaker 1: white T shirt because I never even had time to
Speaker 1: like change in anything, and I hadn't slept, so I'm
Speaker 1: just like all over the place. But I was kind
Speaker 1: of freaking out backstage. Like then the guy who was
Speaker 1: supposed to prepare our video packages, like the nominees are.
Speaker 1: It's assuring me like, oh yeah, it's great, it's coming along.
Speaker 1: He just disappeared, so he had no video presentation. So
Speaker 1: I'm freaking out, Like the day of the event, and
Speaker 1: Banner was the host, and he kind of like grabbed
Speaker 1: me and corralled me like in a corner somewhere, and
Speaker 1: he was just like, you gotta get it together because
Speaker 1: if if you look like everything's fine, people are gonna
Speaker 1: think everything's fine. If you look like everything's fucked up,
Speaker 1: people are gonna be like what am I doing here?
Speaker 1: So I, you know, held it together. He hosted it
Speaker 1: with and Trina as well. David Banner and Trina hosted
Speaker 1: the first show. So I had asked Kalid to do
Speaker 1: the opening sets, so Calid brought. I mean everybody you
Speaker 1: know with frosted hustling actually applies opened the show and
Speaker 1: nobody in the industry knew who Plies was. But he
Speaker 1: was like the hottest thing in the streets in Florida,
Speaker 1: Like it just dropped.
Speaker 2: From four Myers, right, he.
Speaker 1: Is from fours Yeah, And I remember like Pimpsey asking
Speaker 1: me about him after the show, like yo, you know,
Speaker 1: I get his mixhaping his number, so we helped him
Speaker 1: out a lot with that. That was like a big
Speaker 1: look for him. Wow Supplies performed, Rick Ross Cool and
Speaker 1: Dre came out, Trick Daddy, Pitbull, t Payne uh and
Speaker 1: then we had like Young Jock, Pimsey and Bunbee for
Speaker 1: the first time since Pimpa got out. Geez came out
Speaker 1: on stage with him. But honestly, Wayne was supposed to
Speaker 1: be the headliner. Like Wayne performed last, but people thought
Speaker 1: it was over after Bunn. They were like, we can't talk.
Speaker 1: Ludacris performed. I think he was filming. I think it's
Speaker 1: on his MTV diary.
Speaker 2: We had.
Speaker 1: I mean I got texts afterwards. I think, uh, well,
Speaker 1: Bunn was there, but I think I think Little John
Speaker 1: didn't make the show, but he was texting me afterwards,
Speaker 1: and like Bunn was texting me like I can't believe
Speaker 1: you or no. Bun Bun got up and accepted their
Speaker 1: award and he was like, honestly, I didn't know if
Speaker 1: I was gonna come to this thing, basically, like I
Speaker 1: thought it was gonna be just I'm glad. I mean
Speaker 1: it was. It was hood like it wasn't it wasn't
Speaker 1: polished at all. But he was like, you know, this
Speaker 1: is this is for the South, Like I'm glad we came.
Speaker 1: And you know, people were texting me like you know
Speaker 1: you like to get a text from Little John like wow,
Speaker 1: I heard that what you pulled off was amazing, Like
Speaker 1: I can't can't really top that. So that was a
Speaker 1: crazy time.
Speaker 2: And how many awards shows did you guys?
Speaker 1: Do? Three?
Speaker 2: Three of them? And then so kind of take me
Speaker 2: to what ends up?
Speaker 1: I learned that I hated organizing events.
Speaker 2: Yeah, live events are tough, especially with so many varia.
Speaker 2: It's different to do like a concert and there's one
Speaker 2: guy performing, but the variables that are involved in pulling
Speaker 2: together travel idea.
Speaker 1: That when you know they do the BET Awards and
Speaker 1: they do the Source of Awards, they have production companies
Speaker 1: that do this for.
Speaker 2: You were the production company.
Speaker 1: I was the production company, and I would never put
Speaker 1: myself through that.
Speaker 2: Oh I can imagine it because you're talking all the
Speaker 2: managers Miami.
Speaker 1: I had Wayne on this phone, management arguing with the
Speaker 1: security didn't want to let him in with his bags
Speaker 1: or whatever. I had Gezy here with one hundred I
Speaker 1: need one hundred tickets because he's beefing with PIMPC. It
Speaker 1: was just.
Speaker 2: About the GZ Pimps thing. I remember that.
Speaker 1: Wow, Pimpse did not come to the Ozone Awards because
Speaker 1: of that. Somebody wise talked him out of coming because
Speaker 1: he was texting me like you're gonna have blood on
Speaker 1: the floor, and it was. I did write about it
Speaker 1: in the book, but I'm glad that that. Uh, I'm
Speaker 1: glad that that was resolved with no no bloodshed. But yes,
Speaker 1: I had a seven d page book on PIMPC. Does
Speaker 1: touch on these fun times with the Ozone Awards.
Speaker 2: I was gonna ask you what was because we always
Speaker 2: we know about the legendary Source Award drama and I
Speaker 2: mean BT Award drama. And was there ever anything that
Speaker 2: popped off?
Speaker 1: Oh yeah, what was not to the not to the
Speaker 1: Source Awards level. But well, that first year when we
Speaker 1: had all the Miami artists, all the Florida artists perform,
Speaker 1: Trick was the final performance, and I think there was
Speaker 1: something I don't know, something with him and Ross or whatever,
Speaker 1: but he's so he ended his set like there's you know,
Speaker 1: I'm the Uh, there's only one mayor in Miami and
Speaker 1: all are my protege is or whatever. He threw the
Speaker 1: mic down, and so that was they had like a
Speaker 1: little something backstage or whatever.
Speaker 2: Ross has had some some something's backstage with a few people.
Speaker 2: So that was that the worst that it ever got
Speaker 2: where there was like an altercation because look, when you
Speaker 2: have everyone under the same roof and it's like you said,
Speaker 2: you're the production company, so this is not like MTV,
Speaker 2: and there's like like you're handling everything. So like, well,
Speaker 2: Houston was the craziest.
Speaker 1: We had the fire marshal trying to shut us down
Speaker 1: and the riot police like they had them wind up outside.
Speaker 2: Who was attending at the same time. Where you were
Speaker 2: most worried about with Houston.
Speaker 1: Well, I wasn't. I wouldn't say that I was worried.
Speaker 1: It was just a lot going on. But Trey and
Speaker 1: Trey punched Mike Jones. I didn't actually see it and.
Speaker 2: Trade the truth punch Mike Jones at this Ozona a warts.
Speaker 1: And then Mike's came up. I mean, to his credit,
Speaker 1: Mike still came up and did whatever presentation he was
Speaker 1: supposed to do with the little band aid or whatever
Speaker 1: in his face. So I don't really know what that
Speaker 1: was about. I'm not sure what they were.
Speaker 2: That's a professional.
Speaker 1: I'm not sure what the issue was, but I remember
Speaker 1: respect him for that.
Speaker 2: You know, Hey, that was that so, I mean Houston
Speaker 2: had their their their moment, they had their Swisher House.
Speaker 1: It was the right time to do in Houston. Well,
Speaker 1: we did the Pimpsy tribute too, so we had all
Speaker 1: these artists come out and do Pimpsy covers at that show.
Speaker 2: You know, I got to ask you because obviously you
Speaker 2: were so close with PIMPC. You obviously wrote his book
Speaker 2: if like you said, seven hundred pages. If you ever
Speaker 2: want to know anything about PIMC.
Speaker 1: It's in there.
Speaker 2: Well, like like how many phones did he have? Because
Speaker 2: I had always heard this dude was like very into
Speaker 2: cell phones, like he had like a lot of phones
Speaker 2: or it was like something like he just like, you know,
Speaker 2: I don't I.
Speaker 1: Don't remember him having more than one. I remember that
Speaker 1: he I mean, yeah, he really liked he had like
Speaker 1: the flip phone. Right, Like I did a photo shoot
Speaker 1: with him when he had first got out of prison.
Speaker 1: I think he really wanted to. I think his mom
Speaker 1: talked about this. I remember his mom talking about how
Speaker 1: he really wanted a razor, like that was the thing.
Speaker 1: When he was locked up, he wanted a motorola razor.
Speaker 2: Yeah yeah, yeah yeah.
Speaker 1: So when he got out, they had the motorola for him,
Speaker 1: and so he wanted to do a photo shoot with it. Actually, well,
Speaker 1: what happened was I had been corresponding with him. I
Speaker 1: interviewed him while he was in prison, and so I
Speaker 1: hear that he's getting out, and I'm like, should I go?
Speaker 1: You know what I mean? And I didn't really have
Speaker 1: a I think it's like a week out. So I'm like,
Speaker 1: I don't really have any way to reach him, and
Speaker 1: be like, do you want me to be there? Because
Speaker 1: you know some artists coming out of prison, I'm like,
Speaker 1: do they want the media there? They want their family.
Speaker 1: And so I think I had called Bun and Bun
Speaker 1: was like very like noncommittal, like didn't really give me
Speaker 1: an answer one way or the other. So I'm like,
Speaker 1: I mean, I'm always one. I'm just going to go
Speaker 1: for it, you know, And I said, well, I'll go
Speaker 1: and I'll just hang back. If he doesn't want to
Speaker 1: take pictures, I just wasted a trip. It is what
Speaker 1: it is. But he did let me take pictures and
Speaker 1: but then he kind of called me a few days
Speaker 1: later and was kind of like, that's not how I
Speaker 1: want to be presented. You know, he'd just come out
Speaker 1: of prison. He wants he wants the car and the
Speaker 1: jewelry and the photo. So he's like, come back to Houston,
Speaker 1: we'll do a photo shoot. So he had got the
Speaker 1: Bentley at that point, he got all the jewelry, he's
Speaker 1: got the razor, and so he's posing with the phone
Speaker 1: like every shot he's got the you know, the phone
Speaker 1: out hanging out the car with the phone in his hand,
Speaker 1: like so that's a great and this is this is
Speaker 1: a good story too. This was or I don't know,
Speaker 1: it's kind of a bad story. I did this whole
Speaker 1: photo shoot with him at a video shoot in Miami.
Speaker 1: It was R Kelly, R Kelly T Pain R Kelly
Speaker 1: video shoot, and we did this whole shoot with him
Speaker 1: with the mink and it was supposed to go to
Speaker 1: Vibe magazine. And I had sent Vibe like one picture
Speaker 1: like a little small low here's what we got today.
Speaker 1: Drive to Atlanta, go to the TI release party, leave
Speaker 1: all my luggage in the car like a rookie, come
Speaker 1: back out of the club and.
Speaker 2: It's everything's gone.
Speaker 1: Photo shoots just disappeared. So all I have is the
Speaker 1: one little picture that I emailed the Vibe. So that's
Speaker 1: how I had an artist crazy photo shot that would
Speaker 1: have been amazing.
Speaker 2: How sweaty was he in Miami wearing that? Because I
Speaker 2: had heard that's a great question. I heard a quote
Speaker 2: that he said that, uh that that uh TV don't
Speaker 2: got temperature.
Speaker 1: Yeah, or maybe it came somewhere else first, but I'm
Speaker 1: sure he had. He had to have been pretty hot.
Speaker 1: I don't know.
Speaker 2: Yeah, it's crazy because you've obviously, I mean, you know,
Speaker 2: for you, like, you know, being able to kind of
Speaker 2: tell like the Pimp Sea story in a way that
Speaker 2: is very comprehensive, very thorough. Do you kind of look
Speaker 2: at yourself as like somebody who is like a historian
Speaker 2: of hip hop at this point because you were there
Speaker 2: for so much of an era that I think, like
Speaker 2: now we look back, I don't you know. I always
Speaker 2: tell people like, especially in sports, I'm like, you don't
Speaker 2: realize like what we're watching or what we're a part of,
Speaker 2: or what we're seeing on TV, Like you don't know
Speaker 2: about like you're not gonna appreciate Lebron until ten years
Speaker 2: from now when he's gone, you know, And I feel
Speaker 2: like that era of Southern hip hop and everybody who
Speaker 2: came out of that who's still relevant? Who are still
Speaker 2: I mean you've mentioned Rick Ross and Chezy and all
Speaker 2: these people were just still staples of our culture. Like,
Speaker 2: but you were like in the just front row of
Speaker 2: the rented, like really the beginning of all of this stuff.
Speaker 2: So do you kind of like I'm glad I was there?
Speaker 1: Yeah, I do consider myself a historian. I mean not honestly,
Speaker 1: not just for hip hop, but just I'm into history period, right.
Speaker 1: I really look at not only our time period, but
Speaker 1: just you know, I have all kinds of weird theories
Speaker 1: about like even just how we live, like our lifestyles,
Speaker 1: Like people did not always live this way like we live.
Speaker 1: I mean, you know, I've been on some other like
Speaker 1: I'm off adventuring like hiking. It just makes you think
Speaker 1: about different you know, people didn't always live like this.
Speaker 1: We don't really need like these big houses and cars
Speaker 1: and stuff. Like there's people who have been satisfied.
Speaker 2: I dive down so many van life YouTube rabbit holes
Speaker 2: where I'm just like interested in seeing how people live
Speaker 2: in a van.
Speaker 1: So I live in a van.
Speaker 2: Did you know that?
Speaker 1: Do you? Yes?
Speaker 2: You van life?
Speaker 1: I mean half half. I'm like, I'm like fifty percent
Speaker 1: and sometimes I'm like, Okay, I gotta go to the
Speaker 1: BT Wars weekend and do the interviews and stuff. But yeah,
Speaker 1: I just I've just spent a week in Yosemite in
Speaker 1: my van. Is it a van or it's not a Sprinner,
Speaker 1: it's a pro Master. It's a cheaper sprinner. Sprinter's out
Speaker 1: of my bro.
Speaker 2: So your van is because okay, I'm into this because
Speaker 2: I've watched so many YouTube So you have like solar panels.
Speaker 1: I thought you brought that up because you knew that
Speaker 1: I had no idea. So this is what happened. I mean,
Speaker 1: I've always been in traveling, but like twenty twenty, I
Speaker 1: had all these trips, but like I had planned.
Speaker 2: The whole year out right.
Speaker 1: So I went to Cape Town January twenty twenty. You
Speaker 1: go to Cape Town. I forget where I went in February,
Speaker 1: somewhere else. March. I go to Argentina, Chili. I was
Speaker 1: in Chili when COVID happened. I mean it kind of
Speaker 1: when I flew out of the US. It was like
Speaker 1: you kind of.
Speaker 2: Heard heard about China.
Speaker 1: So I'm in the middle of nowhere, like you could
Speaker 1: only get serviced like once a day. So like every
Speaker 1: day I'm getting like a few texts and my friends
Speaker 1: are like, uh, things are getting canceled. You probably should
Speaker 1: come home.
Speaker 2: Yeah, Like I don't know if you're going to get
Speaker 2: back in.
Speaker 1: That's really what happened. So I was on one of
Speaker 1: the last flights back to Atlanta before they shut everything down.
Speaker 1: I got back to the airport and the airport is
Speaker 1: completely empty, and I'm like, what is.
Speaker 2: Going Like this is different, the craziest.
Speaker 1: Drive on the freeway, like no one's cars. I'm like,
Speaker 1: so abruptly, I'm like, my whole year is just I
Speaker 1: got to cancel everything, Like what's what's gonna happen? So
Speaker 1: I'm just bored watching down this rabbit hole for like
Speaker 1: two weeks of YouTube videos, and I'm like, you know
Speaker 1: what I could do that bought a cargo van. I'm like, Okay,
Speaker 1: now I'm committed. Now I got to build this thing.
Speaker 1: So I build a camper van.
Speaker 2: During So in your van, do you have like the
Speaker 2: uh little sink and little like you could in there, and.
Speaker 1: I learned so much. I mean I could. I feel
Speaker 1: like I could really build a house. Now maybe I couldn't,
Speaker 1: but yeah, I have to. I have solar panels, I
Speaker 1: have a whole desk, I have satellite internet.
Speaker 2: Do you have the shower? Do you have this?
Speaker 1: Yeah?
Speaker 2: Starlink? Yeah, the starlink work.
Speaker 1: I'm not really elon fan. Yes, the starlink works. It
Speaker 1: does not work if there's trees. You have to have
Speaker 1: a clear, clear, clear view of the horizon.
Speaker 2: Wow.
Speaker 1: And last year it didn't work past a certain I
Speaker 1: went to the Arctic Ocean last year and it didn't
Speaker 1: work past a certain.
Speaker 2: How do you get to the Arctic Ocean?
Speaker 1: I drove to the Arctic Ocean.
Speaker 2: Where is that?
Speaker 1: It's at the very top of the continent, so you
Speaker 1: had to get I sent my brother like Canada thing like,
Speaker 1: look at where I am.
Speaker 2: So it's like the top of Canada. Yes, what it's.
Speaker 1: Called tuck twy tuck. There's only one place you can
Speaker 1: drive to the Architic Ocean, and it's this little Indian well,
Speaker 1: I don't want to say Indian. They call the first
Speaker 1: nation in Canada Native American Canadians and it's called a hamlet,
Speaker 1: so they don't call it a city. But it was
Speaker 1: very interesting place. I met some like like some little
Speaker 1: girls came out. We're talking to me.
Speaker 2: You have a pet? No, okay, because you know you'll
Speaker 2: see these guys online they always got a little dog
Speaker 2: with them.
Speaker 1: Now I've considered it. You know, dogs are not really
Speaker 1: welcome at all the parks because they tend to tear
Speaker 1: up the ecosystem, is what. They're very destructive to the ecosystem,
Speaker 1: is what I've been told. So I don't really want.
Speaker 2: So you're you're you're a nomad.
Speaker 1: Absolutely yes. So it took me a year and a
Speaker 1: half to build the vand so I mean and by
Speaker 1: this time, like the world the sort of started to
Speaker 1: return to people. And now I'm like, now I have
Speaker 1: liked job. I have to finish. It was a lot
Speaker 1: of work. I can imagine you watch the YouTube videos
Speaker 1: and you're like, okay, cool with that.
Speaker 2: Those YouTube videos make it seem so easy. Absolutely do Yeah,
Speaker 2: you'd be like, damn, this guy did this in four
Speaker 2: hours or something like.
Speaker 1: It's a lot of work. But I think probably, I mean,
Speaker 1: the first one is the hardest because you're like, there's
Speaker 1: a little curve with everything.
Speaker 2: But so you love it. Yeah, so you love it.
Speaker 2: So you're pretty much for you on a normal basis
Speaker 2: when like you're in town for BT Awards, right, that
Speaker 2: just happened right for you.
Speaker 1: Though, like now I do not do the van in cities.
Speaker 1: I will say that I'm not I'm not in the
Speaker 1: van in l A. I mean, if you're in a
Speaker 1: van in l A, you are just homeless. If you're
Speaker 1: in a van, and if you're in a van in scis,
Speaker 1: San Francisco, you're homeless, homeless. If you're in now now,
Speaker 1: if you're in but you're if you're in like the
Speaker 1: desert in Utah, or if you're at the art Gosan,
Speaker 1: then you're fucking cool because you I spent the night
Speaker 1: at the edge of the Arctic Osan watching the northern lights,
Speaker 1: cook myself dinner and took a shower in the van
Speaker 1: that I built. That's peak, Like.
Speaker 2: That's amazing. I wasn'tnna ask you.
Speaker 1: Like doto, So where's wait, where's the.
Speaker 2: Where does the van stay?
Speaker 1: Her name is Carmen van Diego.
Speaker 2: By the way, she's she where does she stay?
Speaker 1: She's a nomad, so she like because you're.
Speaker 2: Obviously at home base for you used to the south? Is
Speaker 2: it Atlanta?
Speaker 1: Atlanta? Yeah?
Speaker 2: So does the van just you got a spot like little.
Speaker 1: No, that's a terrible drive to I keep it out
Speaker 1: anywhere out west.
Speaker 2: I found an airport with So do you have do
Speaker 2: you have an apartment?
Speaker 1: But I have a house?
Speaker 2: Okay, so you have a house.
Speaker 1: I'm not I'm not totally down the rabbit hole.
Speaker 2: Wow. Yeah, that's pretty sick. So you've seen some pretty uh.
Speaker 1: But you know what, I don't know how much longer
Speaker 1: I keep it though, because it's it's ten thing to
Speaker 1: just be like, yeah, let me.
Speaker 2: Just well because you could probably sell that thing for
Speaker 2: a serious amount of change because people people would rather
Speaker 2: not do what you well, you know, people really aren't.
Speaker 1: No, I'm talking about the house. If I was gonna
Speaker 1: sell anything else, who the house.
Speaker 2: I mean, it's not a bad idea. It's not a
Speaker 2: bad idea. Yeah, I'm intrigued by the van.
Speaker 1: No it is. I mean, it is nice to have
Speaker 1: a a place to go back to that's permanent for sure.
Speaker 2: For sure, keep some things, But I think I could
Speaker 2: do the van life full time.
Speaker 1: I really was like dedicated to it.
Speaker 2: But you have to have seen some crazy ship though,
Speaker 2: just traveling the country.
Speaker 1: Let me think what I mean, going to the Arctic
Speaker 1: Ocean was definitely.
Speaker 2: Has anyone tried to break in?
Speaker 1: Come on, now, don't don't bring that up.
Speaker 2: I don't know. I don't know. You're at a truck stop.
Speaker 1: It's like I said, I will not go to I
Speaker 1: won't go to San Francisco, I won't go to l A.
Speaker 1: I'll leave it somewhere else and fly to the city.
Speaker 1: I don't. I don't do the big city.
Speaker 2: That's pretty cool.
Speaker 1: So I mean, so far I've I've I'm not gonna
Speaker 1: say I haven't had any crazy experiences. But yeah, it's
Speaker 1: that's the that's so. That's the two questions men asked
Speaker 1: about the van. Where's your weapon? Have you had sex
Speaker 1: in the van?
Speaker 2: Those?
Speaker 1: Those are the two questions.
Speaker 2: Do you have a weapon in there?
Speaker 1: I'm not going to answer you.
Speaker 2: Bet.
Speaker 1: I did get it cool. I saw a cool front
Speaker 1: plate that this guy had that said if the van
Speaker 1: is rocking, don't come knocking. So I got one just
Speaker 1: because I thought.
Speaker 2: It's a long drive.
Speaker 1: It depends on where you're starting from, obviously, but the road,
Speaker 1: it's it's an eighteen hour dirt washboard road. It's terrible,
Speaker 1: terrible girl, that's once you. Yeah, you're all the way
Speaker 1: in northern Yukon. So the crazy thing is I almost
Speaker 1: got stuck there, Like, well I did get stuck there,
Speaker 1: but there's one road, only one way up and down,
Speaker 1: and so I was driving up and it's it's beautiful,
Speaker 1: like it's the scenery is amazing, but it's and it's quiet,
Speaker 1: but it's not quiet to the point where you could
Speaker 1: just stop your car and get out of the car.
Speaker 1: And it's also you can't leave the road because it's permafrost.
Speaker 1: So the road is like specially designed so if you
Speaker 1: if you pull this heavy van off the road, you're
Speaker 1: gonna just sink into the ground because it's it's permafrost,
Speaker 1: So you can't leave the road. You can't really get
Speaker 1: out of the car. So I'm like this whole eighteen hours,
Speaker 1: I'm like I wish I could. I haven't got my camera.
Speaker 1: I drone. I'm like, this is fucking beautiful, Like I.
Speaker 2: Can't even get out.
Speaker 1: Yeah, so I get up there. It was it was
Speaker 1: amazing when I I sixty degrees a swim in the
Speaker 1: Arctic Ocean, like I said, like, how was that? It
Speaker 1: really wasn't as cold as you would think as I
Speaker 1: thought it would be. I just swam in it just to.
Speaker 2: Be like I did. I came all this way, I
Speaker 2: might as well get in.
Speaker 1: Spent the night, saw the northern lights. It's incredible of
Speaker 1: there because you're so far north, they're.
Speaker 2: Like above you, right.
Speaker 1: So I just was like this all night, just watching
Speaker 1: the lights or whatever. So next day I started driving
Speaker 1: back down and there's there's also like ferry crossings. It's
Speaker 1: something about they can't support the bridges because of the
Speaker 1: permafrost or whatever, so you have to say ferries at
Speaker 1: certain points. So I'm on the ferry and the guy
Speaker 1: in the ferry is like, hey, did you hear the
Speaker 1: bridges closed? And I'm like no, He's like, yeah, the
Speaker 1: bridge is closed. So there's a bridge halfway. So it's
Speaker 1: like a mile or hour nine of this eighteen hour journey,
Speaker 1: and I guess there was a construction happening. This guy
Speaker 1: had his boom up on the construction truck and he
Speaker 1: hit the bridge. So the Canadian government or whatever puts
Speaker 1: out this alert. That's like and you don't have service
Speaker 1: up there because the starlink didn't didn't work up there
Speaker 1: at that point. I think it does now, but there's
Speaker 1: there was like one spot where I could get a signal,
Speaker 1: and so I, you know, get to this one spot
Speaker 1: that's like a higher point or whatever and check online
Speaker 1: and it says bridges closed for thirty days and I'm like,
Speaker 1: uh yeah, I kind of can't really hang out in
Speaker 1: the I'm above the Arctic circle like it's and it's
Speaker 1: like September, so I'm like it turns, you know, really fast,
Speaker 1: it gets cold, and so I'm like freaking out, like.
Speaker 2: Definitely freaked out.
Speaker 1: There was like twenty maybe like twenty of us in
Speaker 1: RVs and stuff that were above the art circle, so
Speaker 1: it was interesting. It was like a throwback to like
Speaker 1: the old days where you didn't have social media and
Speaker 1: stuff like that. So you if you see anyone driving like, hey,
Speaker 1: have you heard anything? Like, because it's it's there is
Speaker 1: a small town, so it's not like you're just totally
Speaker 1: but you know, they get their supplies from down there too,
Speaker 1: so they're like, how are we gonna get Yeah, how
Speaker 1: are we going to get food?
Speaker 2: That's crazy.
Speaker 1: So it ended up being so three days later they
Speaker 1: had to have like engineers come up from the big
Speaker 1: city and you know, white Horse or whatever, and they
Speaker 1: analyzed like safe. So we ended up getting to cross
Speaker 1: three days later. They had all these engineers out there
Speaker 1: and they're like one at a time and they did
Speaker 1: all these calculations on the bridge was you know, sturdy
Speaker 1: or not. So for three days it was Labor Day weekend, actually,
Speaker 1: so Labor Day weekend, and it finally dawned. I mean,
Speaker 1: I'm like, this is my fucking dream. Like what I'm
Speaker 1: mad about this? Like, I get this whole area to myself.
Speaker 2: Right, No, it's yeah.
Speaker 1: So I got the drone out. I'm like driving everywhere.
Speaker 2: That's fine.
Speaker 1: I know it makes me sound like a nerd because
Speaker 1: most people will be like not into this, but I
Speaker 1: thought it was fucking awesome. So I got to spend
Speaker 1: my Labor Day weekend driving around the Arctic with my
Speaker 1: cameras and my drone took all these cool pictures and
Speaker 1: then they were like, go ahead, you can go home.
Speaker 2: I like that.
Speaker 1: That was probably my best van life adventure yet.
Speaker 2: You obviously have a very close relationship with Jay Prince,
Speaker 2: who is you know, you know, listen, he's a pioneer.
Speaker 2: We talk about Pioneers. He kind of kicked off so
Speaker 2: much for so much of just everything we see now
Speaker 2: we think about wrap a lot records, and he kind
Speaker 2: of laid the blueprint on how to do this label
Speaker 2: thing for a lot of people. You helped him with
Speaker 2: his book, Like, how did you and him end up
Speaker 2: becoming a point to where he could kind of confide
Speaker 2: in you and trust to kind of help help with
Speaker 2: his story.
Speaker 1: I mean, I've known Jay for a long time. I
Speaker 1: mean definitely like two thousand and five ish when I
Speaker 1: started going out to Houston pretty heavy. This is when
Speaker 1: you know PIMPC was coming out of prison and he
Speaker 1: was doing a lot I think rap a lot was
Speaker 1: through asylum at that point.
Speaker 2: Yeah, yeah, because that's.
Speaker 1: Asylum would send us a lot of work because they had.
Speaker 2: They had all the Southern Ship.
Speaker 1: Yeah, they had a lot of Texas artists were really
Speaker 1: having their moment, and that was one thing I kind
Speaker 1: of went into the history of that in the book.
Speaker 1: This ended up being just more more than just PIMPC
Speaker 1: was kind of Southern rap in general. Actually, what happened
Speaker 1: was that south West Wholesale, which they started distributing rap
Speaker 1: because of UGK, was like the first album that they
Speaker 1: actually distributed. It wasn't something they did before, and it
Speaker 1: showed them this could be a really profitable business model.
Speaker 1: So for all that time between I want to say
Speaker 1: early nineties and two thousand and five, all these Texas
Speaker 1: artists had access to Southwest Wholesale, which was selling like
Speaker 1: hundreds of thousands of units without them being signed to
Speaker 1: a major. So you know, the slim thugs, you know,
Speaker 1: all these guys had access to a distribution outlet where
Speaker 1: they can make a lot of money and not have
Speaker 1: to go through a major. Certain things transpired, and honestly,
Speaker 1: it's been eight years since I wrote this, so I
Speaker 1: don't remember all the specifics, but it's in the book
Speaker 1: as far as on the business end, how Southwest fell apart,
Speaker 1: they went out of business or I think they just
Speaker 1: went bankrupt. And so at that point, that's why all
Speaker 1: the Houston artists started to get signed around two thousand
Speaker 1: and five, because now they didn't have a distribute, so
Speaker 1: they had to go get deals, and that's why you
Speaker 1: saw this explosion.
Speaker 2: Of art Star Trek and then right right, everybody, I
Speaker 2: feel like asylum really.
Speaker 1: Yeah yeah, but yeah, so I got to spend a
Speaker 1: lot of time with Jay around that time, just being
Speaker 1: in Houston. I mean, if you're in Houston, like you
Speaker 1: kind of have to you know, he's he's a part
Speaker 1: of everything out there. So but to his uh, to
Speaker 1: his credit definitely, I mean he would always kind of
Speaker 1: take me under his wing and just you know, not
Speaker 1: he's not someone who's gonna, you know, I want to say,
Speaker 1: give you like a lot of instruction, but it's more
Speaker 1: like he'll just kind of let you watch the way
Speaker 1: that he handles situations. And I'm that's how I like
Speaker 1: to learn anyway, like just just I just like to observe.
Speaker 1: So he would allow me to kind of be around
Speaker 1: for a lot of business type situations and just kind
Speaker 1: of observe how he handles it. And so I learned
Speaker 1: a lot that way. And I don't know for a fact,
Speaker 1: you know, if this was a factor in him putting
Speaker 1: out his book. But I did a chapter on j
Speaker 1: Prince in Books and it's I probably went like a
Speaker 1: little left field with it. I mean I definitely put
Speaker 1: a lot of extra context, but I just felt like
Speaker 1: it was a great story and it also helps you
Speaker 1: understand what was happening at the time when Pimpsey got arrested.
Speaker 1: It was I believe it was nine days earlier. There
Speaker 1: was a congressional hearing, or maybe it was the Senate.
Speaker 1: I don't remember. There were large government hearings about rap
Speaker 1: a lot because there was a huge, like de a investigation.
Speaker 1: They were determined to find and they couldn't find anything, and.
Speaker 2: They were following them. And I mean, I remember he
Speaker 2: told he told a pretty crazy story that Joe Rogan.
Speaker 2: I was just like, yeah, it's pretty crazy.
Speaker 1: Yeah, yeah. The Senate is part of Congress, right, I
Speaker 1: should know this clear.
Speaker 2: No Congress, Congress of the Senate are different. That's a part.
Speaker 2: They're the part of the judicial branch.
Speaker 1: But yeah, you're right, the Senate hearing would be it
Speaker 1: was a congressional Senate hearing. I think I'm saying that
Speaker 1: there's there's like a three hundred I don't know, it's
Speaker 1: like a three four hundred page transcript of that hearing
Speaker 1: is like the craziest thing I have ever found on
Speaker 1: the internet. And I read it all like this is
Speaker 1: fucking amazing. I have to make this a chapter. But
Speaker 1: when you understand, you know Pimpsy at that time, he's
Speaker 1: beefing with master P. He's running around talking a lot
Speaker 1: of shit. He's wearing a rap a lot peace. And
Speaker 1: the DEA has been investing, like they spent who knows
Speaker 1: how much money. They had all these agents on full
Speaker 1: time payroll for like a whole summer trying to find
Speaker 1: something on. So they're investing a lot of money, the
Speaker 1: federal government, the Houston Police, they're investing a lot into
Speaker 1: trying to find something on this company. And so Pimpsy
Speaker 1: is representing this company well, and he and so he
Speaker 1: got in an altercation with a woman at a mall
Speaker 1: and all he did was allegedly like flashed a pistol
Speaker 1: at her because she's she said something about master P. Oh,
Speaker 1: I don't fuck with you, I fuck with Master P.
Speaker 1: And he showed her he had a pistol. In Texas,
Speaker 1: that's aggravated assault.
Speaker 2: Really, he never touched her.
Speaker 1: She wasn't injured.
Speaker 2: It feels like she was a booster. It feels like
Speaker 2: a not a non Texas thing to be aggrevated. I
Speaker 2: feel like in Texas, you know what I mean, I
Speaker 2: feel like, you know, I feel like in Texas day
Speaker 2: they'll they'll give you a tax break if you flash
Speaker 2: your Yeah. Well, now it is that back then. It
Speaker 2: wasn't for sure.
Speaker 1: Back then, well, he just had he had really terrible timing.
Speaker 1: When you look at you know, what was happening in
Speaker 1: the criminal justice system, mass incarceration. The DA is investigating
Speaker 1: rap a Lot, So it helps you understand how he
Speaker 1: ended up in prison over this relatively you know, minor situation.
Speaker 1: But I say all that to say, you know, my
Speaker 1: book came out and then Jay, I believe, had done
Speaker 1: a draft of his book with Jasmine Waters, and so
Speaker 1: I think it it may have prompted him. You know, hey,
Speaker 1: if I don't tell.
Speaker 2: My story, you know it's somebody else. Somebody else is
Speaker 2: going to tell it and tell your own story. Yeah,
Speaker 2: you got to control your narrative.
Speaker 1: So when I talk to him, I mean the whole
Speaker 1: you know, rap a Lot from the beginning has always
Speaker 1: been about doing an independent same as Ozone. So he
Speaker 1: obviously he in a position where he could get a
Speaker 1: publishing deal and you know, get a check to just
Speaker 1: put it out through somebody else. And I said, well,
Speaker 1: you know that doesn't really fit your you know, the
Speaker 1: rap a Lot spirit, that's the way. So I had
Speaker 1: learned a lot about the distribution side doing my own book,
Speaker 1: nobody wanted to give me a publishing deal for pimp C.
Speaker 1: Everybody in New York publishers are like, who what pimp?
Speaker 1: So I put it out myself, learned a lot, and
Speaker 1: so I basically helped him create a publishing arm book
Speaker 1: Publishing Arm of rap a lot to put out the
Speaker 1: book independently. So yeah, that was a great. Uh. We
Speaker 1: had a great run doing doing promo and stuff for that.
Speaker 1: We came and did your show.
Speaker 2: Yep, yep. I was gonna say, is it because because I.
Speaker 1: Think when it did the Daily Show that was the
Speaker 1: highlight for me.
Speaker 2: I was wanted to go to Trevor. Was it John Stewart? Yeah,
Speaker 2: shout out to Trevor. I love Trevor. Noah, I don't
Speaker 2: know who's gonna do it now.
Speaker 1: Actually it was BT Awards weekend. We that was a
Speaker 1: crazy weekend.
Speaker 2: We did twentiesen T Awards.
Speaker 1: After party eighteen twenty eighteen. Yeah, I think that was
Speaker 1: the year I climbed over the fence to get to
Speaker 1: Jamie Fox's house. Might have been the year. Maybe it
Speaker 1: was a year. Yeah, I had to get into the
Speaker 1: after party. Any means, I'm gonna hop this fence over
Speaker 1: and then went to the airport to fly to New
Speaker 1: York to do the Daily Show.
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Speaker 2: the interviews with Like, So now we see J Prince,
Speaker 2: he'll get on social media now, right, I.
Speaker 1: Gotta say that was he didn't want to have an Instagram.
Speaker 1: I set up his Instagram, so you.
Speaker 2: Said him up, he's into it, because now he's into it.
Speaker 2: Now he'll be on there.
Speaker 1: He'll be he'll be I don't know if that's I
Speaker 1: don't know if that's him personally, but he'll.
Speaker 2: Be by the pool, he'll be. You know, I love
Speaker 2: when J. Prince throws his like you know, he'll he'll
Speaker 2: put his little like he'd be wise if you you
Speaker 2: stood down, you can read in his voice, right, like
Speaker 2: what he just said about the NBA young boy. I
Speaker 2: was like, I just hear it, hear him speaking like
Speaker 2: I'll read the caption in his voice, as I say,
Speaker 2: what would in your opinion be or not even in
Speaker 2: your opinion, but as you know him, something that you
Speaker 2: think is the biggest misconception about J Prince Because I
Speaker 2: feel like when I met him, he just seemed like
Speaker 2: such a nice guy. And I feel like when we
Speaker 2: think of J. Prince, we think of this like figure
Speaker 2: that you got to go to Texas, you got to
Speaker 2: check out with J Prince or his son. But I
Speaker 2: feel like there's a whole side of him that not
Speaker 2: a lot of people probably see.
Speaker 1: That's a good question. I mean, I mean, he's he's
Speaker 1: a very smart, you know, really really smart guy, knows
Speaker 1: how to maneuver, and yeah, I don't he's not a
Speaker 1: big you know, boogeyman or anything to me. I mean,
Speaker 1: I guess if you listen to internet commenters, that might
Speaker 1: be the that might be the perception.
Speaker 2: But I mean he he also was I mean, I
Speaker 2: want to say, one of Floyd Mayweather's first managers. So
Speaker 2: he's like, yeah, he's he's he's got got.
Speaker 1: His hands in a lot a lot of stuff. Definitely
Speaker 1: very savvy businessman and uh yeah he's been good to me.
Speaker 2: Shot to J Prince, what ended up leading to Ozone
Speaker 2: magazine ending.
Speaker 1: The recession?
Speaker 2: Uh so like eight o nine?
Speaker 1: Was we stopped in twenty ten? And yeah, I mean
Speaker 1: it was it was really just budget label budgets not
Speaker 1: really being what they were making sense anymore? Right, Yeah, people,
Speaker 1: a lot of labels otis money. And I think I
Speaker 1: for me personally, I think I probably was over it
Speaker 1: a while before that. I mean for me to have
Speaker 1: I did it for eight plus years, For me to
Speaker 1: do anything for eight years is like a lot a lot. Yeah,
Speaker 1: I tend to want to just get on to the next.
Speaker 2: What was the last issue? And was it was it?
Speaker 2: Was it marketed as the last issue?
Speaker 1: No, I want to say it was ross, but.
Speaker 2: You didn't did you know it was going to be
Speaker 2: the last issue? Or was it?
Speaker 1: Like?
Speaker 2: No, yeah, all that guys, that's it guys.
Speaker 1: I was pushing to keep it going. But yeah, I
Speaker 1: mean there was there was a certain point where definitely,
Speaker 1: like the label budgets just kind of dried.
Speaker 2: Up, right, And that was kind of such a lifeline
Speaker 2: for your business?
Speaker 1: Was I think I was? I was intending, I mean
Speaker 1: I tried to do like some TV stuff, and I
Speaker 1: was intending to kind of spin it into something else.
Speaker 1: As far as the brand and then that At that
Speaker 1: point I started traveling a lot overseas. I went on
Speaker 1: tour with flow Rider. We went to like every continent
Speaker 1: you know.
Speaker 2: For me, yeah, it energy bags.
Speaker 1: I was telling somebody recently about like one of the
Speaker 1: places we went, like Malaysia. Like you'd go to some
Speaker 1: country you've never heard of before and they would have
Speaker 1: like five police escorts lined up to take us to
Speaker 1: the hotel and there'd be like the hotel staff I'll
Speaker 1: be there with like warm rags and champagne to welcome you,
Speaker 1: like a line. It was like next level stuff, and
Speaker 1: I think for me it really showed me like at
Speaker 1: that point I was probably still trying to like keep
Speaker 1: the magazine alive, but it was like I can't really
Speaker 1: to produce a whole magazine every month, Like you are
Speaker 1: married to that, Like that.
Speaker 2: Is right, and you want to see the world, you
Speaker 2: want to have life experiences. Yeah, I want to go.
Speaker 2: You know.
Speaker 1: We went swimming in the Great Barrier Reef Australian, So
Speaker 1: it kind of opened up for me. It opened up
Speaker 1: a lot more like, oh, I can actually have time
Speaker 1: to like do stuff besides just editing twenty four to seven.
Speaker 1: So yeah, I feel like social media for me, it
Speaker 1: allows me to do a lot of the things I
Speaker 1: was doing with Ozone without having to pay a printer
Speaker 1: every month. You know, I always wanted my work to
Speaker 1: be seen like photography and just kind of have a voice.
Speaker 1: So it was good times. It served its purpose then,
Speaker 1: and then also social media came along, and I think
Speaker 1: once artists could put their own platform, have a platform
Speaker 1: to like express themselves the way they wanted to. You know,
Speaker 1: that's kind of the purpose that.
Speaker 2: Of a magazine. Hey, I want to go do this
Speaker 2: interview because I need to. I need to really need
Speaker 2: us correct. Yeah, correct the narrative and yeah, now they
Speaker 2: can just they're like overexposed now they use they're overexposed
Speaker 2: for sure. Have you considered doing like a podcast or
Speaker 2: anything like that in terms of like, as you know,
Speaker 2: you have so many stories you could tell, You have
Speaker 2: so much you could talk about, you have so many relationships.
Speaker 1: A lot of things that I'm working. I am doing
Speaker 1: a podcast, not about myself necessarily.
Speaker 2: But they told us a little bit about that.
Speaker 1: Scripted podcast series. I can't can't quite that put out
Speaker 1: there just yet, but coming soon I will have a
Speaker 1: photography book out at some point, tell some of my
Speaker 1: good hip hop stories.
Speaker 2: I love it.
Speaker 1: I do have some good stories. You've got some good
Speaker 1: stuff out of me. Yeah, you felt like I've done
Speaker 1: a van Life podcast Van Life. I know, we do
Speaker 1: tour from there.
Speaker 2: Do a YouTube channel, the Van Life thing. There's I mean, listen,
Speaker 2: I know there's a lot of Van Life YouTube channels,
Speaker 2: but that ship is interesting.
Speaker 1: You would have time.
Speaker 2: It's just I just like, oh, fan life Van Life.
Speaker 1: Department has been suggested before you.
Speaker 2: I saw some guy turned a coup and some guy
Speaker 2: I'm just like my algorithm on YouTube is like lived
Speaker 2: in a corvette for thirty days. And there's like a
Speaker 2: guy who put a sink in the passenger seat of
Speaker 2: his corvette and like lives in the back seat. No,
Speaker 2: it's not even a Corvette, it's Camaro. And then like
Speaker 2: the trunk, the back seats I cut out, so he
Speaker 2: like lays half his body in the truck.
Speaker 1: It's I mean, I've been working on the podcast in
Speaker 1: the you know, in the van. I love that I
Speaker 1: could like I could go, you know, hype some mountain
Speaker 1: in the morning and then actually get some work.
Speaker 2: Done, yeah, and not have to Yeah, and you're kind
Speaker 2: of not distracted. You can focus. I love it. Well, Look,
Speaker 2: Julia Beverly, we appreciate you coming through. Thanks for having
Speaker 2: me look forward to the book and everything else you're
Speaker 2: working on. Thank you for coming boom. He appreciate y'all
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Speaker 2: If you're watching this, you're at the end of the interview. Though,
Speaker 2: much love