Speaker 1: Quest Love Show is a production of iHeart Radio. Ladies
Speaker 1: and gentlemen. Welcome to the Quest Love Show. I can't wait.
Speaker 1: I kind of want to even skip the long accolades
Speaker 1: just so I can get started with the questions. But
Speaker 1: this interview has been a long time coming. Many of
Speaker 1: you asked about getting him on the show. It's only
Speaker 1: right that I check in with him for starters. You know,
Speaker 1: one of the founding members of Cypercial, not to mention
Speaker 1: for Cypercal seven A three, so many other associations. We
Speaker 1: can go to Soul Sat, we can. We'll be here
Speaker 1: all day if we're just doing the accolades. I was
Speaker 1: about to say, you pioneered hip hop at Geffen. Yeah,
Speaker 1: I have so many questions about that. Of course, he's
Speaker 1: keeping the Soul Assassin's brand alive right now with the
Speaker 1: new sci fi film and an album alongside the La
Speaker 1: rapper TF called them called me Lucky. It's out now, man,
Speaker 1: I've been waiting for this.
Speaker 2: Thank you, DJ Muggs, thanks for having me. Bro mean
Speaker 2: it's a lot.
Speaker 1: Welcome, Welcome, welcome, welcome. All right. I will start with you,
Speaker 1: as I start with most of my guests. What is
Speaker 1: your first musical memory in life.
Speaker 2: Growing up, My uncle was my mom's little brother, was
Speaker 2: my roommate. I was about four or five six those ages,
Speaker 2: and he had velvet posters, black lights, a tract tapes
Speaker 2: on the wall, right, and beads incense. You know, he
Speaker 2: was in the rocks. So listening to the Led Zeppelin,
Speaker 2: Jimi Hendrix, you know what I mean? That was like
Speaker 2: my intro to music right there.
Speaker 1: This explains the first night pressil record. Absolutely. Okay, Now
Speaker 1: I'll see where this is about to go. First of all,
Speaker 1: where were you born? I was born in Queen's Okay, yeah,
Speaker 1: Jamaica hospital. All right, how long were you there before?
Speaker 1: Because of course now we associate you with you out here,
Speaker 1: But how long were you in?
Speaker 2: I moved out here when I was thirteen go to
Speaker 2: high school. Yeah, the summer before high.
Speaker 1: School, so in for the first thirteen years. Like, have
Speaker 1: you had any hip hop experiences whatsoever? Like growing up
Speaker 1: in New York or Yeah?
Speaker 2: It was pretty much just the music, you know. I
Speaker 2: think I fell in love with hip hop or rappers delight, right,
Speaker 2: I caught the fever. I was just sitting by the
Speaker 2: radio all day waiting for the song to come on.
Speaker 1: Tape it yep, got you, got you well. You mentioned
Speaker 1: the albums that were like in your household. Do you
Speaker 1: remember the very first album that you purchased with your own.
Speaker 2: Money, own money? I think it was War. It had
Speaker 2: Lowrider on it. Why Can't We Be Friends Out? Yeah,
Speaker 2: And I was when I heard low Writer. I was
Speaker 2: I would just play Lowriter all the time. My mom
Speaker 2: had got me into forty five and then you know
Speaker 2: I wanted that album.
Speaker 1: I wanted it to what else they had? Ah Man,
Speaker 1: all right, you mentioned that, And I was four when
Speaker 1: that came out. And if you remember the album covered
Speaker 1: that smiley face on it, if you're four years old
Speaker 1: looking at that smiley face, even though like it just
Speaker 1: looked real evil to me. And I used to hide
Speaker 1: that record in the basement. My dad cut so one
Speaker 1: of my first punishments, He's like, where's my War record?
Speaker 1: And like I buried it, like I couldn't. I couldn't
Speaker 1: stand that smile man like that and shame on the
Speaker 1: world by the main ingredient, like those two album covers,
Speaker 1: I'd always hide in the basement. So, like, my memories
Speaker 1: of the war were a little different. So what technically
Speaker 1: brought you to Los Angeles.
Speaker 2: My mother moved here about a couple of years before.
Speaker 2: I didn't want to leave, so I stayed in New
Speaker 2: York live with my aunt, and then you know, I
Speaker 2: started just getting a little trouble. She was like, you
Speaker 2: got to get out of here and go live with
Speaker 2: your mother, the fresh Princess. So I went from you know,
Speaker 2: one of the most culturally diverse places in the world,
Speaker 2: to move into a neighborhood called Bell Gardens where it
Speaker 2: was ninety nine point nine percent Mexican. Okay, so it
Speaker 2: was a culture shock for me.
Speaker 1: What was it like adjusting in this time period? For you?
Speaker 2: It was hard, man, because you know, I'm used to
Speaker 2: jump on trains and everything was right down the block,
Speaker 2: and in Bell Gardens there was no trains. There was
Speaker 2: nothing there. You know, you had to go to a
Speaker 2: whole nother city to get anything. So, you know, I
Speaker 2: didn't like it at all. I would go back to
Speaker 2: New York, jump on a Greyhound, go back every summer,
Speaker 2: go back for Christmas vacation. Anytime I can get out
Speaker 2: of here, I'll just try to get out of here.
Speaker 1: Okay. What were your aspirations as a well, I guess
Speaker 1: we would call them tweens now like twelve thirteen fourth
Speaker 1: What were your aspirations? What did you want to do?
Speaker 2: I wanted to play sports, football, baseball. I played football
Speaker 2: and baseball, okay, and I was like, I'm gonna be
Speaker 2: I'm gonna play sports when I grow up. So I
Speaker 2: just played summer leagues, you know, anywhere I can get
Speaker 2: on a team. I just Pop Warner baseball. That's all
Speaker 2: I did little league.
Speaker 1: So did you start out as a DJ?
Speaker 2: Like?
Speaker 1: How does music enter your life?
Speaker 2: And now it's like I got the fever for breakdancing,
Speaker 2: So breakdancing came out. We started breakdancing, and then we
Speaker 2: was in the basement one time and the homie had
Speaker 2: a little turntable and we was all trying to copy
Speaker 2: Rockety DST. Everybody was a little turntable with the cassette
Speaker 2: in it, you know, with the radio in it all
Speaker 2: I so we didn't know what the scratch pad was.
Speaker 2: We was in there trying to cut it. The needles
Speaker 2: was jumping, and that's when I called started catching the
Speaker 2: fever a little bit. And then when I seen DST.
Speaker 2: I think it was the American Music Grammy that turned
Speaker 2: me out right there. Okay, I was like, oh shit,
Speaker 2: what is this? It was like some futuristic ship.
Speaker 1: So that was your that was your come to GC
Speaker 1: moment with it. Did you have any experiences with any
Speaker 1: cruise pre seven A three or like.
Speaker 2: Well, Cypress. I was down with Cypress before. The crew
Speaker 2: was called DVX Devastating Vocal Excellence and it was about
Speaker 2: seven eight of us, Melimennace be Real, send T Bone,
Speaker 2: who actually ended up being in the Funk Dubias.
Speaker 1: So you were all a crew.
Speaker 2: It was before they got to see how I met
Speaker 2: in Yeah, and then one of my boys was went
Speaker 2: out the Hollywood. He's like, yo, I just met these
Speaker 2: two kids from Brooklyn. You got to meet him. Came
Speaker 2: out to Hollywood, met them, and I was throwing a
Speaker 2: jam in a park in Bell Gardens and seven eight
Speaker 2: three had a record out of my Cola Records called
Speaker 2: seven A three Were Rocky, which was a remake of
Speaker 2: We Were Rocky, and I was like, Yo, you guys
Speaker 2: want to come play my party. We didn't know nobody
Speaker 2: would a record out at that time, so that was
Speaker 2: big for us. So they came and the DJ didn't
Speaker 2: show up, so I DJ for him and they said,
Speaker 2: you want to be on DJ. We're doing three shows
Speaker 2: with Ice Team next week, and one was at Osco's,
Speaker 2: you know. A couple of them was there was a
Speaker 2: club where the Beverly Centers now. We played there and
Speaker 2: we did the three shows, and then about three months
Speaker 2: later we was in the studio recording for Colors saw
Speaker 2: Mad Mad World.
Speaker 1: Okay, And that's how you guys become. So you're saying
Speaker 1: you were throwing jams, like what as a promoter or
Speaker 1: just as a DJ or DJ promoter.
Speaker 2: We got together with a couple of little promoters around
Speaker 2: in the neighborhood, and we knew the guy at the
Speaker 2: park because we would always go to the park, you know,
Speaker 2: play carms and basketball and dodgeball and you know, playing
Speaker 2: Little League at the park and shit. And she gave
Speaker 2: us the little hall at the park five dollars to
Speaker 2: get in and through the jam and it was banging,
Speaker 2: and that was the beginning of it all.
Speaker 1: Okay. So I've always heard of the folklore of early
Speaker 1: hip hop starting out in the parks and what not, police,
Speaker 1: athletically whatever, back in New York, but out here like
Speaker 1: because the only times I've heard of jams are literally
Speaker 1: like uncle jam stories walk me just through, like what
Speaker 1: a typical party is that's not in a non club atmosphere.
Speaker 1: In the eighties of California.
Speaker 2: Most of it was backyard parties. Two dollars to get
Speaker 2: in a keg, you know what I mean. Everybody come
Speaker 2: in and all the little local promoters would throw them.
Speaker 2: It was a lot of freestyle music. Nobody wanted to
Speaker 2: dance to hip hop. It was too slow, you know
Speaker 2: what I mean. So it was that and I used
Speaker 2: to actually go and go to Uncle Jam's. I would
Speaker 2: go out by the airport that'd have it in a
Speaker 2: hotel anything I can.
Speaker 1: Please tell me what that was like.
Speaker 2: It was just a lot of gangsters, a lot of
Speaker 2: gangsters just pop locking, a lot of pop locking, and
Speaker 2: then you know, and I would just sit in the
Speaker 2: corner and just watch and listen. And then I started
Speaker 2: going to World on Wheels, Costant Communi Rial was the
Speaker 2: other one.
Speaker 1: Of them, Wheels, Rodska Stating Ring.
Speaker 2: Yeah, Greg Mac used to do that with Tony G
Speaker 2: and then.
Speaker 1: Walking Ice Cuban the mix started.
Speaker 2: Yeah, there was World on Wheels, there was Skateland USA
Speaker 2: and uh, and then I'll go to the Radio Tron
Speaker 2: Radio Tron by MacArthur Park downtown and just absorb it
Speaker 2: because there was nowhere to see it or here you
Speaker 2: had to go, you know, So any anywhere I can
Speaker 2: get there, I would just take a bus, and the
Speaker 2: bus would take me two hours to get there, you
Speaker 2: know what I mean. So I would just get on
Speaker 2: the bus and go to the go to the ship.
Speaker 1: Okay. So in developing seventy three for starters, I got
Speaker 1: familiar with these guys because you know, once Iron Nation
Speaker 1: to millions, then I needed anything associated with the bomb squad,
Speaker 1: so they produced it. I brought the entire records and
Speaker 1: study the ball. What's different about seventy three is that,
Speaker 1: at least texture wise, it was way ahead of its time.
Speaker 1: Like there's rock rap hybrid on there, which I'm assuming
Speaker 1: now that I know Joe Nicholas associated with it. So
Speaker 1: wherever joke goes, I'm pretty sure Andy Kravitz is behind him,
Speaker 1: and Andy was there in all the Yeah, the usual
Speaker 1: suspects in Philly. I'm from Philly, so like drums is
Speaker 1: steal and all that stuff to me was like shit
Speaker 1: that the goats wound up doing. And then rage against
Speaker 1: machine and all that stuff. Were you guys like aware
Speaker 1: of how radical that record was in terms of a
Speaker 1: few things on that album will eventually become commonplace, like
Speaker 1: fifteen years from then or twenty years from then. Like
Speaker 1: I mean at the time when in doing like live
Speaker 1: hip hop with First of all, I know that's Andy
Speaker 1: Drummond because I know his drum texture. He was on base,
Speaker 1: was it, Mike, Mike No, not Blonde from School Love? Yeah. Yeah,
Speaker 1: he's on MTV and plug with LL playing. Mama said
Speaker 1: that was him. Yeah, yeah, I was gonna say, what
Speaker 1: is by the way, Mike Tyler? Yes, okay. How receptive
Speaker 1: were you to those ideas when when it was presented
Speaker 1: to you?
Speaker 2: Well, it was interesting because I had all these ideas,
Speaker 2: I had records like and you know, I was eighteen,
Speaker 2: and they wasn't going to give I didn't produce nothing yet.
Speaker 1: How much agency did you have in suggesting.
Speaker 2: We was in Philly because Jeff Finster signed us a guffin.
Speaker 2: Then there was big There was big fans of PSK,
Speaker 2: so got it. They want Joe to Butcher to work
Speaker 2: And it was the.
Speaker 1: First school shoutout is from school e D School.
Speaker 2: He actually programmed drums on a couple of songs.
Speaker 1: Yeah, Okay. I heard the word schooly cash.
Speaker 2: Wandy jazz, jazz, jazz jazz, and I think it was
Speaker 2: Robbie Robbie. What was the rappers in Robbie g Robbie
Speaker 2: b Okay, yeah, they all they all programmed. They all
Speaker 2: would come in a program and I was I didn't
Speaker 2: I didn't produce it. I didn't have a drum machine.
Speaker 2: I just had all these ideas. So I just sat
Speaker 2: and watched and just absorbed everything and learned. I got
Speaker 2: a crash course and to make music in a month.
Speaker 1: Back then, what was your weapon of choice? Based on
Speaker 1: the sonic of it, I'm assuming that's a twelve hundred
Speaker 1: bad twelve hundred.
Speaker 2: I didn't have a twelve hundred yet though. So the
Speaker 2: seven eight three album we worked on it. I had
Speaker 2: these ideas. I got back and I didn't love the record,
Speaker 2: to tell you the truth, because I wanted it to
Speaker 2: be darker and harder.
Speaker 1: You know. I was.
Speaker 2: I was in the Yo Bum Rush, the show, I
Speaker 2: was in the Ultramagnetic, I was Bebop was a big
Speaker 2: inspiration on me. The Ramloz record, So this is what
Speaker 2: I wanted. So when I got home, I was like, fuck, man,
Speaker 2: I wanted the record to sound like this, so I
Speaker 2: saved up my money, saved up my money and got
Speaker 2: me an SP twelve hundred, and then I just started
Speaker 2: kidnamed Blau that was down with Rhym Syndicate. He showed
Speaker 2: me i'd call him up if I got stuck. And
Speaker 2: I made wag beats for about a year, you know,
Speaker 2: and then one day we did Real Estate and it
Speaker 2: just sounded like it.
Speaker 1: It sounded like a record.
Speaker 2: And our demos we had a big ass boombox with
Speaker 2: a double cassette, so I'd run the drum machine right
Speaker 2: into it. We put the mic right into it, pushed
Speaker 2: record on the cassette, and biro just one take, and
Speaker 2: that was our demos. And that's how we That's how
Speaker 2: we started out.
Speaker 1: That's how y'all got a deal.
Speaker 2: Damn okay, Well no, that was how we made That
Speaker 2: was how we made real Estate. And I would send
Speaker 2: the demos to Joe and Joe was like, Oh, this
Speaker 2: shit's hot. And then then we got a publishing deal
Speaker 2: with BMG and they gave us some money to go
Speaker 2: in the studio. Then we recorded Funky Feel, One Light
Speaker 2: Another and Kill a Man and a song called Caliente
Speaker 2: which was a Spanish song that wasn't on the record,
Speaker 2: and thought that was our demo. Okay, that got us
Speaker 2: the deal.
Speaker 1: So you've made all those even before. But once you
Speaker 1: got the deal, did you remake those records again? Are
Speaker 1: you just trying to know?
Speaker 2: I think it was like a three year period while
Speaker 2: we was working until we got the deal. Two years.
Speaker 2: So if you notice all the breaks and those songs,
Speaker 2: it was just me getting bored and just revisit them,
Speaker 2: just keep adding and adding and adding over that period
Speaker 2: of time.
Speaker 1: Yeah, I was gonna say, so, what makes you guys unique?
Speaker 1: At least in my opinion, was that, you know, ninety
Speaker 1: one was sort of the cutoff year where a lot
Speaker 1: of the hip hop establishment was using primarily ultimate beats
Speaker 1: and brakes.
Speaker 2: Like, oh, I couldn't wait for the next one to
Speaker 2: come out.
Speaker 1: A different combination. See I discovered an eighty nine when
Speaker 1: like all twenty were already out. But so you were
Speaker 1: getting them in real time, and yeah, how long would
Speaker 1: releases be in between?
Speaker 2: I don't remember exactly, but I go up to forty
Speaker 2: second Street. There was a spot on forty second Street,
Speaker 2: and I'd just go up there and you know, just pillage,
Speaker 2: what's going what's coming out? Next One's the next one
Speaker 2: coming out, So I would just always look forward to
Speaker 2: the next one, because, you know, digging it was a
Speaker 2: little bit different back then. I didn't have the money
Speaker 2: for the record, so I'd be in the ninety nine
Speaker 2: cent bend and just pulling out the ninety nine cent
Speaker 2: ben and using breaks and beats. But you know, also
Speaker 2: back then, you couldn't use anything. If it was used,
Speaker 2: you was whack, you know, so if people use the
Speaker 2: sample before you, it wasn't something you'd want to put out.
Speaker 2: And I almost didn't put Kill a Man out because
Speaker 2: we had the demo, and then EPMD came out with Rampage,
Speaker 2: and I was like, man, we can't put this shit out.
Speaker 2: I'm glad we did, though, because I remember you remember
Speaker 2: making that record. All the homies was driving around bumping
Speaker 2: it every day. You know, we'd give cassettes out in
Speaker 2: the neighborhood, and I was like, man, I'm glad we
Speaker 2: put that shit out because it would have been cold
Speaker 2: if we didn't.
Speaker 1: I think the day that you guys mastered. So I
Speaker 1: started interning at rough House right when Black Sunday came
Speaker 1: out or slightly before, but Han Soul had gotten a
Speaker 1: copy of you Guys's cassette. And this is right when
Speaker 1: Tarik and I were first just like busking on the
Speaker 1: streets or whatever, and so you know, we saw Hans
Speaker 1: Soul and that was like, oh God, Philadelphia celebrities checking
Speaker 1: us out, and so he gave us a lift in
Speaker 1: he played that entire record on the way home. We
Speaker 1: were just like mind blowing, like we just never heard
Speaker 1: no shit like that in our lives. You know, most
Speaker 1: people would credit ninety one for being the kind of
Speaker 1: the hip hop renaissance period. And a lot of your
Speaker 1: contemporaries went jazz. Pete Rock was going, jazz, Premiere was
Speaker 1: going jazz, key Tip, you were going aychaedelic rocking psychedelics,
Speaker 1: so especially blues, and I assume that's because of the
Speaker 1: influence that you grew up and listening to.
Speaker 2: You've grown up with dad and all the you know,
Speaker 2: all the Vietnam rock, Concrete its clear water, you know,
Speaker 2: all that type stuff.
Speaker 1: And also I tend to judge people not on like
Speaker 1: the hit singles, but the filler. So just all the
Speaker 1: crazy psychedelic shit you're doing on stone is the way
Speaker 1: of the walk and especially at the end, like just
Speaker 1: you talking about the process of putting that record together,
Speaker 1: because it just sounds like nothing that was ever released
Speaker 1: in a lot of rule breaking on it, like.
Speaker 2: Yeah, very unorthodoxed, you know what I mean, and just
Speaker 2: trying to find our own sound, because it was important
Speaker 2: then to have your own sound, your own look, and
Speaker 2: have your own slang too, you know what I mean.
Speaker 2: And it was interesting because you have I was inspired
Speaker 2: by New York production, so you had a New York
Speaker 2: production with West Coast slang on it in West Coast MC,
Speaker 2: so it was a whole new sound and style. And
Speaker 2: we'd do the demos at the house. By that time,
Speaker 2: I got a task Camp four track, and if it
Speaker 2: didn't sound good on the four track, we wouldn't record
Speaker 2: it in the studio, and you know, just piecing away,
Speaker 2: piecing away, and we almost didn't put hand on the
Speaker 2: pump on there. I was actually just going from couch
Speaker 2: to couch on my Homies and we were staying at
Speaker 2: the oak Wood with Bread from seven A three and
Speaker 2: I played that beat and he's like, yo, I like
Speaker 2: that beat, and I go, I don't like it because
Speaker 2: let me write to it. I'm like, all right, let
Speaker 2: me let you write to it. He wrote, hand on
Speaker 2: the pump, oh word okay. He wrote the first verse
Speaker 2: the hook, and the second he goes, and he wrote
Speaker 2: it for be real and it sounded cool. We recorded it,
Speaker 2: but we went into the studio. It came alive, man,
Speaker 2: and I was high as hell in the studio, and
Speaker 2: I didn't have patience to wait for them to hook
Speaker 2: the media up to the drum machine. So all they
Speaker 2: ate a weights I played live. They was on, someone
Speaker 2: were a little in front, some are a little behind,
Speaker 2: and then going into the hooks boom boom bom boom
Speaker 2: boom boom, and all the little sounds. I play them
Speaker 2: all live. So I didn't really care about quantizing. I
Speaker 2: didn't care about it being a little off. I didn't
Speaker 2: care about sound quality. It was more about a vibe
Speaker 2: and what felt right to us.
Speaker 1: You guys came to act to Philadelphia to actually record it.
Speaker 1: How many weeks or months did it take to record
Speaker 1: the album?
Speaker 2: Most of it was recorded. I think we was probably
Speaker 2: in Philly for about a month, staying at the Comfort
Speaker 2: in Okay, same place we stayed with seven A three
Speaker 2: Just walk over to four four four fourth Street, go
Speaker 2: down to the basement, get myself some chicken soup or
Speaker 2: something like the little stand they head right there. Yeah,
Speaker 2: go downstairs and just lock in man, And most of
Speaker 2: the record was done. We recorded I think Latin Lingo
Speaker 2: in Philly, and then probably the only extra song we
Speaker 2: recorded in Philly was that one. Then the album was
Speaker 2: pretty much done. I came back to La and Joe's like,
Speaker 2: we need two more songs, and then that's when we
Speaker 2: did Holding the Head and we did Stone Is the
Speaker 2: Way of the Walk?
Speaker 1: Could you talk about the after effect? Did you expect
Speaker 1: this album to do what it did in terms of
Speaker 1: not even the numbers, but just your nariety, your.
Speaker 2: Nah man, I just wanted to make a record where
Speaker 2: all my peers gave me respect. That was the main thing.
Speaker 1: Make a record.
Speaker 2: I figured we set about a one hundred fifty thousand
Speaker 2: if we did out. Everybody I loved was selling about
Speaker 2: that many records, you know what I mean. So I
Speaker 2: was like, man, if we could do that, we're good.
Speaker 2: And the record came out. We shipped sixty thousand, sold
Speaker 2: about two records. We came out the same time as
Speaker 2: Tim Dog he was signed, So we went on a
Speaker 2: promo tour with Tim Dog and he was fuck Compton
Speaker 2: was banging. So you know, we was doing going to
Speaker 2: one stops, playing in front of twenty people in the morning,
Speaker 2: eating it while they're eating eggs. We did playing the
Speaker 2: clubs sixteen people, you know what I mean, doing the
Speaker 2: morning shows, doing the mix shows, doing the local press,
Speaker 2: just doing everything, going city to city and it wasn't popping,
Speaker 2: but everybody loved our record. We was like, what's going on?
Speaker 2: And then we had two days off on tour. We
Speaker 2: was on a Naughty by Nature tour or and we
Speaker 2: was doing b E t in DC. Two days off
Speaker 2: and we drove up to New York. We shot kill
Speaker 2: a man and we shot hand on the Pump back
Speaker 2: to back. That's why they're in New York.
Speaker 1: I was gonna ask, why did y'all shoot in New York?
Speaker 1: And this is another thing I always thought the top
Speaker 1: of the second verse, I always thought that was send Dog.
Speaker 1: But I remember watching you. I'm like, wait a minute,
Speaker 1: I didn't know you rapped, but was that sind Dogs?
Speaker 2: It was sind Dog on the thing, but send Dog
Speaker 2: had that backup voice. So we was like, let's let's
Speaker 2: just I'll do the video. He was like, you do
Speaker 2: the vid? He looked like it threw it off a
Speaker 2: little bit right, right, you know? So then MTV raps
Speaker 2: started playing it right, but they started playing it twice
Speaker 2: a week, and that was like the Bible. You couldn't
Speaker 2: wait to get home and watch MTV Raps every day
Speaker 2: because that was the only place you could issue. So
Speaker 2: the combination of that stretching Barbito playing our record, and
Speaker 2: then Juice, the Juice soundtrack, and all those things coming together,
Speaker 2: we just we went all the way to three. We
Speaker 2: started selling sixty seventy eighty thousand records a week, touring
Speaker 2: like a punk rock band because we knew we had
Speaker 2: a tour to get in front of people, because we
Speaker 2: weren't going to get radio with how I could kill
Speaker 2: a man, right.
Speaker 1: Just the synergy between the three of you. At what
Speaker 1: point did you realize that a rapper's voice becomes an instrument?
Speaker 1: But clearly in this group, I mean especially, I mean
Speaker 1: be real. Of course he has a natural gift with
Speaker 1: his voice. But I know Flave has pioneered a second
Speaker 1: general role as in hype Man or the second guy
Speaker 1: in the back of the Captain. But in my book,
Speaker 1: like sin Dog is one of the greatest backing voices
Speaker 1: of all time hip hop. And you hear his confidence
Speaker 1: each song, each you know, each step of the way,
Speaker 1: you hear his confidence get better. Why why would you, guys?
Speaker 1: And I understand that Juice was a high profile thing,
Speaker 1: but for me, like shoot him Up deserved to be
Speaker 1: on an album so that people would know what I mean.
Speaker 1: Juice was successful, so people knew. But yeah, why I
Speaker 1: threw that away?
Speaker 2: Well, we made that specifically for the movie God. So
Speaker 2: you know, we went in and we was in New York.
Speaker 2: I think I think Chris Shaw from Public Enemy engineer
Speaker 2: one of theirs, he was in the studio with us,
Speaker 2: and we had to go make a song for the soundtrack.
Speaker 2: And then you know, I think Hank did the put
Speaker 2: all the music together and Hank picked that song for
Speaker 2: that scene for the actual main scene in the movie
Speaker 2: kill a Man. Yeah, but shoot him Up. He is
Speaker 2: just made for the soundtrack.
Speaker 1: I would say, like around the time that Black Sunday's
Speaker 1: coming out, would you say that there is such a
Speaker 1: thing as being too successful? Because the thing is I
Speaker 1: acknowledge you guys more than anything, as far as the
Speaker 1: groups that we looked to as far as touring kind
Speaker 1: of outside of the box in terms of like, you
Speaker 1: guys were the first group that I was like, Oh,
Speaker 1: I didn't know that hip hop groups could only be
Speaker 1: locked into doing hip hop shows. Can just talk about
Speaker 1: the whole experiences in doing like all tours and with
Speaker 1: Lolla Palus and the whole different audience embracing you gut.
Speaker 2: Yeah, it was we had we had that rock and
Speaker 2: roll energy. Our bandit which which you know, Public Enemy
Speaker 2: had that rock and roll energy, Beastie Boys had it,
Speaker 2: Run had it, you know what I mean. So we
Speaker 2: had that energy. So the first thing was they started
Speaker 2: putting us on these different tours to you know, open
Speaker 2: up the fan base. And first time we did it
Speaker 2: was Lo La Palouzsa was the second stage and we
Speaker 2: killed it. Everybody came killed and killed it, and then
Speaker 2: you know, just started opening up things and just started
Speaker 2: putting some with different people. We played with Metallica one night,
Speaker 2: next show, We're playing with York you know what I mean.
Speaker 2: So it was like we just our music worked in festivals,
Speaker 2: which was because it had that energy and it had
Speaker 2: that rock and roll energy, but it was still hip hop.
Speaker 2: But like I said, we came from the bands. I
Speaker 2: just mentioned them. Hip hop bands all had that energy,
Speaker 2: you know, So that was a big influence for us
Speaker 2: at that time.
Speaker 1: Speaking of your live show, can you talk about bringing
Speaker 1: Eric Bobo into the fold and his energy as a
Speaker 1: percussionist and whatnot, like definitely brought the show up even higher,
Speaker 1: Like talk about.
Speaker 2: Bobo was with the Beastie Boys and he became our
Speaker 2: friend on tour. Beastie Boys didn't smoke. They was vegan
Speaker 2: and everything, so Bobo would come on our bus smoke weed, right,
Speaker 2: you know. And then we was doing Woodstock and be
Speaker 2: really invited Bobo to come play Woodstock with us. So
Speaker 2: that was the first time he was on stage with
Speaker 2: us like that. So he came and after that show
Speaker 2: he pretty much told the Beastie Boys, I retire, I'm
Speaker 2: going to start rolling with Cypress. We invited him in
Speaker 2: the band at that point. We liked the dynamics would
Speaker 2: have brought on stage. The percussion was killing. It fit
Speaker 2: right into what we was doing and shit. So that
Speaker 2: was big for us to add Bobo.
Speaker 1: Since you know, the days of Fat Fro Freddie trying
Speaker 1: to bring the punk thing together with the hip hop thing.
Speaker 1: In the village in downtown New York. There's always been
Speaker 1: a connection between the two. But I'll say that when
Speaker 1: we started entering the game and doing the same things
Speaker 1: for the best Boys and then doing stuff with Beck
Speaker 1: and certain rock groups raged against the Machine and whatnot, Like,
Speaker 1: I always felt that you guys made it easier for
Speaker 1: us to get the lay of the land. But how
Speaker 1: jarring was it to play these venues that weren't necessarily
Speaker 1: audiences that were there to see a hip hop show.
Speaker 2: Like, we loved it because they were wild. They start
Speaker 2: slam dancing, you know, the kids was just losing.
Speaker 1: So they were open to it and wide open to it.
Speaker 2: They loved us. Yeah, they loved it. So we just
Speaker 2: embraced it. Man. We just rolled with it and like,
Speaker 2: what's going on next? Let's go, you know.
Speaker 1: So, can you talk about the pressures of the follow
Speaker 1: up record? Now? I always feel like the sophomore record
Speaker 1: is the album which a lot all the pressure in
Speaker 1: the world's on you to.
Speaker 2: We was torn when we toured like seven months that
Speaker 2: for that record, first album, and the label hit us
Speaker 2: was like we need this album right now for the
Speaker 2: fourth quarter. So we was like shit, man, We went
Speaker 2: in the studio. We worked on it for a month.
Speaker 2: If you notice, like three songs already came out, you know,
Speaker 2: A to the motherfucking K. To the K was out
Speaker 2: hand on the glock was a remix on the back,
Speaker 2: you know what I mean. And then we went in.
Speaker 2: I think we recorded ten new songs and quick. It
Speaker 2: was a little crazy touring that much because I was
Speaker 2: used to taking my time on beats and just you know.
Speaker 1: Where did you record the second album? New York? Okay?
Speaker 2: Yeah, the second album was in New York and then uh,
Speaker 2: you know, went down to Philly and mixed it and
Speaker 2: recorded it. And I'd said I would never rush a
Speaker 2: record again and the rest of my life like I'm
Speaker 2: taking my time moving forward. But at that time, you know,
Speaker 2: it was a new thing for us to hurry up
Speaker 2: and make a record. We was used to take the
Speaker 2: first albums three years. First album is pretty much our
Speaker 2: whole lives right right, every idea we've ever had, right,
Speaker 2: So you know, the second one was rushed, and.
Speaker 1: History shows that rush jobs yield also the most successful. Yeah,
Speaker 1: I can name you twenty songs that were literally made
Speaker 1: like on the like Aisley Brothers have this story, can
Speaker 1: shout literally in seven minutes, they had seven minutes left, like,
Speaker 1: let's do that church on real quick, mma, freestylet it.
Speaker 2: And I was listening to Black Sabbath a lot and
Speaker 2: a group called Ministry, you know, listen in the Ministry.
Speaker 2: And so that's probably a reason the record got real
Speaker 2: dark on that second one, you know what I mean.
Speaker 2: There wasn't a lot of experiment and trying different things.
Speaker 2: It was pretty much I made this beatless rap on
Speaker 2: this beat. I made this beatless rap on this beat.
Speaker 1: What is your creative process in terms of putting things together?
Speaker 1: Because I meant, you know, the foundation of your work
Speaker 1: is hip hop, but also your accessory noises, all those
Speaker 1: things are also just as important to your sonic overlay,
Speaker 1: like the universes that you paint. Do you just listen
Speaker 1: to the records completely and then take notes on I'll
Speaker 1: take that, I'll take that.
Speaker 2: Or I'll always take notes. I'd always go back listen
Speaker 2: to things, write it down. I'd always like to bring
Speaker 2: a sound in, like halfway through the verse, like introduce
Speaker 2: a sound. Always introduce a sound on the chorus that
Speaker 2: wasn't in the verses. Second verse comes in, either put
Speaker 2: a break that you haven't heard yet, or introduced a
Speaker 2: new sound that didn't play yet, you know what I mean.
Speaker 2: And then just try to keep it moving. And wherever
Speaker 2: I got bored, that's where you would hear me flip it.
Speaker 2: And that's just for me hearing the song over and
Speaker 2: over and over and over. We're okay, I'm bored of
Speaker 2: this section right here. It needs some life right here,
Speaker 2: a little flavor. So then I would just start adding
Speaker 2: things on to it, and the songs would change. They
Speaker 2: would change and change and change and b rooud. It
Speaker 2: wouldn't end like it started, you know what I mean.
Speaker 2: Some songs i'd remix and just I had time, can
Speaker 2: I make this better? And I just go in and
Speaker 2: flip it, put a new beat on it.
Speaker 1: I was going to say the break and kill a man,
Speaker 1: that eight second or eight bar break that you do
Speaker 1: before the last verse. The way we would just reestyle
Speaker 1: over that part. It make pause tapes over that, like.
Speaker 2: That was a whole nother beat that that was good,
Speaker 2: Like for that eight seconds, it's amazing, But when you
Speaker 2: hear it for two minutes, it was like, this is boring,
Speaker 2: you know what I mean. So I was like I
Speaker 2: would just take these other beats that I thought were banging,
Speaker 2: but they weren't banging for a song, and then I
Speaker 2: would use those for the breaks. So a lot of
Speaker 2: those breaks were actually other beats I.
Speaker 1: Made, Like especially with the Cipher's Hill timeline. You hear
Speaker 1: the metamorphosis of the group, like I hear stuff that
Speaker 1: you make or in twelve hundred. I guess twelve hundred
Speaker 1: still your your favorite weapon of choice.
Speaker 2: But I'm in the box now pretty much. I'm all
Speaker 2: in the box really, yeah, just for time. You know,
Speaker 2: I got a lot of things to do, so I
Speaker 2: go in, but I've learned. It took me a minute
Speaker 2: to just know how to manipulate it, to get my sound,
Speaker 2: learning to use the right plug in time.
Speaker 1: How hard is it to let go of what you know,
Speaker 1: like the back of your hand, muscle memories.
Speaker 2: Oh it was hard at the beginning, Like you know,
Speaker 2: at the beginning, it was hard. But I think on
Speaker 2: the third album, I started using the ASR ten and
Speaker 2: I started using more live instruments as well a lot
Speaker 2: of live fretless basses.
Speaker 1: What prompted you to make that change?
Speaker 2: I needed more sample and time because at one point
Speaker 2: I was having three or four s P twelves lined
Speaker 2: up are using bomb squads. I only had, you know,
Speaker 2: ten seconds of sample in time, and I wanted like
Speaker 2: an eight second sample, like for illusions. It's a long sample.
Speaker 2: And I was like, how do I do this? You
Speaker 2: know what I mean? So Alchemist is the one who
Speaker 2: had ASR ten, and he was like, yo, you could
Speaker 2: loop it in here, so you put it in there.
Speaker 2: And I was like, oh shit, I could do that
Speaker 2: with this machine. So then I got that machine, set
Speaker 2: it right by the SP twelve hundred. But all the
Speaker 2: drums would happen in the SP twelve hundred. I don't
Speaker 2: like how the ASR sounded for the drums, but I'd
Speaker 2: put samples in the ASR ten, the long samples.
Speaker 1: Okay, so your musical stuff would go into ASR two. Yeah,
Speaker 1: you still kept your all the drums and drums all right?
Speaker 1: So for you, what's your best kick? Your best there?
Speaker 1: I know it's super nerdy, but trust me, we want
Speaker 1: to know these things, like what is your go to
Speaker 1: as far as like your best texture. I had.
Speaker 2: I had a couple of kicks I would use on
Speaker 2: a lot of songs. I would use tramp a lot.
Speaker 2: That kick from Tramp, and I'd put it underneath a
Speaker 2: lot of those first couple of records.
Speaker 1: Is there an isolated kick in tramp that will?
Speaker 2: You know? There's fifteen versions of tramp, right.
Speaker 1: So.
Speaker 2: Noticing, so I grabbed that one and I had one
Speaker 2: eight awaight I would always use, and then a lot
Speaker 2: of snares I would get from hip hop instrumentals, you know.
Speaker 2: I was like, oh, that's a that's a hit song
Speaker 2: that Snarees banged, so that means it's a hit on
Speaker 2: that one. It's going to be a hit on this one,
Speaker 2: you know. So I take your customer snare even for
Speaker 2: Killer Man. For the drums, I actually took the Day
Speaker 2: Last Soul had a little break from the Manzel record.
Speaker 2: I didn't have the original Manzel record, so I got
Speaker 2: it from the Day Last Soul and it still had
Speaker 2: the eight awaits in it if you listen to it.
Speaker 2: Plug tuning was my ship. That blew my mind when
Speaker 2: I heard that, so Killer Man started off. I wanted
Speaker 2: to make plug tuning words. So that was me trying
Speaker 2: to you know, my version of plug tuning.
Speaker 1: Even you hear the bass.
Speaker 2: Doom doom, doom, doom, doom.
Speaker 1: To hear it do do do?
Speaker 2: Do you know what I'm saying?
Speaker 1: You got to hear. I don't know if you recently
Speaker 1: heard it, but you know, because of the anniversaries coming
Speaker 1: up for like all the day Off stuff, they put
Speaker 1: the original like Muddy for track demo to man Yeah
Speaker 1: and Potholes and.
Speaker 2: All those Prince Paul records. Man, like that Daylight Soul
Speaker 2: changed my life when I heard it. And you knew
Speaker 2: in the eighties, from eighty seven to like eighty nine,
Speaker 2: every week the hip hop was reinvented, right, you know,
Speaker 2: And I was just like.
Speaker 1: Damn, all right, question I've been dying to ask you.
Speaker 1: And this this is strictly from this. This is a
Speaker 1: mirror the intern at rough House asking these questions. If
Speaker 1: you listened to the first Criss Cross record, did anything
Speaker 1: like sound familiar to you at all as far as
Speaker 1: all those drums were concerned. Yes, okay, it wasn't just me.
Speaker 2: I even there's even a little squeak in the record. Dog,
Speaker 2: you know what I'm saying?
Speaker 1: Literally like okay. At one point when we finally got
Speaker 1: a record deal, I think we made I think we
Speaker 1: mixed like five songs in Studio four and I went
Speaker 1: to the back of like Andy's room, which like all
Speaker 1: where all the tapes are, and literally I saw the
Speaker 1: first entire Cypress Hill record and then I went and
Speaker 1: grabbed my keyboard player. I was like, I bet you
Speaker 1: any amount of money. This is where Jermaine got his
Speaker 1: drums for it, because literally it was like four songs.
Speaker 2: I was like wow, Like it was like, you know
Speaker 2: Cypres Hill meets Naughty by Nature. It's like they tell
Speaker 2: all the Naughty by Nature and it was.
Speaker 3: Like I wanted to know how you felt about that.
Speaker 2: Like, yeah, I'll tell you an interesting story. Though I
Speaker 2: sent you the Butcher the Jump Around demo.
Speaker 1: Now I want to get you that part too, And they.
Speaker 2: Wanted to sign it. Before that, I had already heard
Speaker 2: that I was going to Jack the rapper, and I
Speaker 2: heard the Cris Cross demos. They played them to me
Speaker 2: in the car and Jump wasn't on there on the demos.
Speaker 2: One day they go, oh, we don't want to sign
Speaker 2: House of Pain. No more cool. Then cut a few
Speaker 2: months later, then I had to jump demo. That's why
Speaker 2: you get this is dedicated to.
Speaker 1: You know.
Speaker 2: And it wasn't that I probably wasn't Joe, but somebody
Speaker 2: heard the record you know.
Speaker 1: And I was going to say, how awkward is that
Speaker 1: where it's like your label head is kind of your target,
Speaker 1: but you still have a working relationship with him.
Speaker 2: But well that was everlast. He's like, don't take that
Speaker 2: off the song. I'm leaving that fund say to you.
Speaker 2: Joe was like, Muggsy, what's going on. I had nothing
Speaker 2: to do with it, wasn't. I was like, yeah, but Joe,
Speaker 2: it's kind of funny.
Speaker 1: We gave me the record.
Speaker 2: It wasn't on their demo. You played me the demo
Speaker 2: and all of a sudden you don't want to sign us,
Speaker 2: But now you have a song called Jump.
Speaker 1: Have you seen this the recent commercial where they actually
Speaker 1: kept that part in which one damn jump around just
Speaker 1: recently got license for a commercial that I saw during
Speaker 1: the Super Bowl, all right, for the Volkswagen Yeah, and
Speaker 1: in the fade out they still kept it dedicated. Just
Speaker 1: I was like, wait, shit, yeah, well, I mean they
Speaker 1: cut it off right before they say his name. But
Speaker 1: I always wanted to know how that went down. I
Speaker 1: forgot about the whole Jump comparison. I just meant, like,
Speaker 1: your drums and your text right For the longest I
Speaker 1: would ask, like, I know the SP twelve hundred pads
Speaker 1: are here somewhere, like they gotta be here. Let me
Speaker 1: hear his drums, but not the case. What are the
Speaker 1: five records that nineties era mugs would save in a
Speaker 1: fire in terms of just your all time favorites that.
Speaker 2: You would probably Jimmie Hendricks if you hear kill him
Speaker 2: and I sampled him in the chorus. Of course, you
Speaker 2: know that that record tramp for sure. At the time
Speaker 2: it was tramp. It was anything with a jazz stand
Speaker 2: up base, whatever that might be. At the time, I
Speaker 2: was all about putting jazz stand up bases in there.
Speaker 2: And then barkas Barks. I sampled a lot of barks
Speaker 2: little pieces though, because you know, with the SP twelve
Speaker 2: you didn't have a lot of sampling time, so it
Speaker 2: would be a lot of little pieces all mixed up
Speaker 2: in there.
Speaker 1: And then did you mind the digital distortion of a
Speaker 1: twelve hundred or did you feel that that added to it,
Speaker 1: like if you had the machine that sort of made
Speaker 1: it perfect and sheen, would you have embraced that more or.
Speaker 2: I kind of dug it because you know, we didn't
Speaker 2: have no sampling time, so I would have the beat
Speaker 2: on and then I'd match the sample perfect and then
Speaker 2: I put it on forty five sampling it to the
Speaker 2: drum machine and had to pull it down. That's how
Speaker 2: we doubled our sampling time. So that was just part
Speaker 2: of it. I didn't care because out here we was
Speaker 2: listening to KD and KD at night. A Spanish station
Speaker 2: would come on around six o'clock, so you'd hear it's
Speaker 2: AM radio first of all, right, and then you get
Speaker 2: the Spanish station, so it's dusty. It sounds like shit,
Speaker 2: So you were used to it. How did you say
Speaker 2: that sounds?
Speaker 1: Yeah? Because especially like let me think of a good example,
Speaker 1: you know, cold feet using all the staff, like all
Speaker 1: of your the who did cold feet? Albur king? Yeah,
Speaker 1: like those stabs you know, once processed through the twelve hundred,
Speaker 1: it's digitally distorted it, which I always wanted to know
Speaker 1: if people embraced the distortion of it all or if
Speaker 1: they were longing for a day were now you know, yeah,
Speaker 1: sonic perfection I was.
Speaker 2: I didn't care about being sonic perfectionist at all. I
Speaker 2: was about vibe, just straight vibe, one hundred percent. Joe
Speaker 2: cleaned it up a little later, you know what I mean,
Speaker 2: he cleaned it up a little bit, but I was like,
Speaker 2: don't clean it up too much, Like I want my
Speaker 2: shit dirty.
Speaker 1: All right, So you're a house opinion production. Did you
Speaker 1: do the entire first? No?
Speaker 2: I did about eight because we was on the road
Speaker 2: so much. Then their DJ didn't make beat yet, but
Speaker 2: he came. He came over my house when I was
Speaker 2: doing the demos and he just watched and he went
Speaker 2: home and started making beats. If you notice a lot
Speaker 2: of that shit sounds like I did it.
Speaker 1: So did you do come get some of this? Yeah?
Speaker 1: Shake kickers? Yes, all right? What I care about Danny Boy? No,
Speaker 1: I knew it. I was like, Danny Boys is a
Speaker 1: little too clean for it. I was trying to differentiate
Speaker 1: between the two for jump Around at least, did you
Speaker 1: expected all that that was going to take off as
Speaker 1: much as it did? At all?
Speaker 2: Bro, Like it's forever I had that beat, and like
Speaker 2: I would demo beats with different rappers and to come through.
Speaker 2: But if you didn't kill it, you couldn't have the beat.
Speaker 2: His son Dooby rapped on it. He used to rap
Speaker 2: on a lot of beats because he was just he
Speaker 2: was sixteen years old. He was the homie. He was
Speaker 2: Shawn's homie from seven eight three, okay, so he lived
Speaker 2: down the Blox. He'd come over and just rap on shit.
Speaker 2: So he rapped on it. I demoed it with Daddy
Speaker 2: Freddy okay because I did like four joints with him
Speaker 2: because I was a big rag muffin hip hop fan.
Speaker 1: Yeah, and then.
Speaker 2: I actually played it for Cube, passed on it, and
Speaker 2: then you know, recorded House of Pain and it was cool.
Speaker 2: I liked it, you know, we shopped it around, nobody
Speaker 2: was biting on it, and then hit me he was
Speaker 2: working at Priority Flexing and wanted to sign it. Offered
Speaker 2: a sixty five thousand, and then one day I got
Speaker 2: a call from Tommy Boy, which was Monica Lynch and
Speaker 2: she's like, mugs, this reminds me of she She's irish.
Speaker 2: She goes this reminds me of my brothers. They go
Speaker 2: to church, then they go to the bars and get
Speaker 2: drunk in their fights, right, and it was the perfect place.
Speaker 2: So I told House of Pain, you know, let's roll
Speaker 2: with her. And then we got the same guy to
Speaker 2: do their video, Shady Perez, the same Mike Miller to
Speaker 2: shoot their album covered, the same guy that did us.
Speaker 2: We got the same management, and you know she knew
Speaker 2: what to do with the whole Irish vibe. And you
Speaker 2: know they went to the Irish Date Parade and that
Speaker 2: song took off and you never expect nothing like that
Speaker 2: to happen.
Speaker 1: You know. I liked the record.
Speaker 2: I didn't think it was a great record, but I
Speaker 2: liked the record.
Speaker 1: I feel like that song is the September of hip hop. Yeah,
Speaker 1: like earth Wind and Fire had, you know, all these
Speaker 1: songs that identify them, but the end of the day,
Speaker 1: it's like a filler song from the Greatest Hits album
Speaker 1: that winds up. Same with Ronde. It's tricky like that
Speaker 1: might wind up being their signature song once the smoke clears,
Speaker 1: even though you know it's Peter Piper and all that shit,
Speaker 1: and like like when the smoke is clear, like jump
Speaker 1: around will never not be played at sports, anthems never
Speaker 1: not be played at celebrations, Like to this.
Speaker 2: Day, it just gets bigger and bigger and bigger.
Speaker 1: It's crazy, all right. Question I've been dying to ask you.
Speaker 1: Did you produce sometimes the Neighborhood for Call the Wild?
Speaker 2: No, I didn't, And I remember you asked me one
Speaker 2: time a fight. You know, I need that single and
Speaker 2: I didn't have any and you was like, yeah, right,
Speaker 2: you don't got any. I think we was on the
Speaker 2: Smoking Grooves. Yes, I think Shawn C produced that record.
Speaker 2: What I think Shawn C might have produced it? That
Speaker 2: and Clouds of Smoke.
Speaker 1: Well, I mean I want to ask about Daddy Freddy
Speaker 1: and Funk Dubis also, But where did they come from?
Speaker 2: The call the Wilds from the polo grounds, you know,
Speaker 2: one hundred fifty fifth and Saint Nick and I met
Speaker 2: them and then I just started working with him, and uh,
Speaker 2: you know, I was busy and stuff. We was doing
Speaker 2: demos and then they was doing records with with Shawn C.
Speaker 2: Was up in their neighborhood. So they came with that
Speaker 2: one day and I was like, Yo, that beat is crazzy.
Speaker 1: To this day, that beat rules my life. Shout out
Speaker 1: to Cosmic Kevin Philadelphia for put me onto that. He
Speaker 1: just spun the Jesus out of it on radio one day,
Speaker 1: and I to this day that that rolling pianos down.
Speaker 2: Oh man, and it flips the pitch change and comes
Speaker 2: back has ruled, yes, umps and everything. I actually got
Speaker 2: to call the Wild album. We never put it out.
Speaker 2: I got a whole album. It's banging too wait web
Speaker 2: it we signed, uh, we signed to Chris. Chris Schwartz
Speaker 2: signed us. They were going to be on rough House, Yeah,
Speaker 2: and then they wanted a commercial record. We tried a couple,
Speaker 2: We tried a couple, sampled some you know, uh, I
Speaker 2: don't know, fucking some Marvin Gaye or some shit. We
Speaker 2: try to do some of those those soul records. I
Speaker 2: was out at the time and it wasn't working. And
Speaker 2: then they was like, we don't want to do this.
Speaker 2: I go, hey, man, this is the record. We don't
Speaker 2: want to do a commercial record. And then we just
Speaker 2: asked them if we can get dropped, and so they
Speaker 2: let us go. Chris was cool as l let us go.
Speaker 1: Do you still have that record? Yeah? I got to
Speaker 1: hear that record, man, I'll shoot it over to please
Speaker 1: absolutely God damn.
Speaker 2: And the group broke up in the middle of all
Speaker 2: that and everything, and Smooth actually stayed with me for
Speaker 2: a while. He's out on the fourth Cypress album on
Speaker 2: like about four songs.
Speaker 1: Okay. That's a shame, man, because every day I was
Speaker 1: going to like records, anything new, anything new, and it
Speaker 1: never came out. What did that twelve innuch come out on?
Speaker 2: Then I started the label's a east Side Records just
Speaker 2: printed up ourselves, make like a few hundred copies and.
Speaker 1: Damn all right, So I got lucky cool. I'm down. Yeah.
Speaker 1: Talk about like as far as building the arsenal of
Speaker 1: your sonic family, like, how did funk Dubious come into
Speaker 1: to play? That was?
Speaker 2: So we had Son who was trying to be big
Speaker 2: Daddy Kane dressed like kinge rap like came you know,
Speaker 2: he was Sean's little homie. And then we had t
Speaker 2: Bone who was down with Cypress from the DVX crew,
Speaker 2: and then Ralph em was Kid Frost DJ and so
Speaker 2: we was like, let's put these guys together and make
Speaker 2: a group. Bireu had a song called the Funk Dubius
Speaker 2: that was actually on the A to the K beat
Speaker 2: before we did at the k Okay, and we was like,
Speaker 2: let's call them the funk Dubius from your song. So
Speaker 2: we gave them the name, put them together and got
Speaker 2: them their deal. There wasn't a lot of rappers around us.
Speaker 2: Most of our homies didn't rap, so we was like,
Speaker 2: they rapped, let's make a group of them.
Speaker 1: I got the unveiling or the unleashing of the mug
Speaker 1: sound in hip hop? Was your collaborative work with ice Cube, right,
Speaker 1: which you know, I'm dying for the day for someone
Speaker 1: to start playing Tear this motherfucker up, which is definitely
Speaker 1: made for where we are now and these times. But
Speaker 1: I always wanted to know, And I don't know if
Speaker 1: they were added as an afterthought or whatnot. But do
Speaker 1: you know why dos never actually dropped a verse on
Speaker 1: check yourself? Like you just had them for the course
Speaker 1: or that.
Speaker 2: Was all Cube is? Yeah, Cube was after he had
Speaker 2: sent him to be He's like, I'm gonna get dis
Speaker 2: effects on this.
Speaker 1: Okay, So you would just send the beat, send the
Speaker 1: tapes out, and then let them do it.
Speaker 2: They had none to do it. I mixed it, but
Speaker 2: that was.
Speaker 1: It, okay, Okay. Normally, when a DJ from a crew
Speaker 1: gets prominent as a producer, nine times out of ten,
Speaker 1: like I'll see a situation in which they'll get a
Speaker 1: replacement touring DJ the tour of the group, especially a
Speaker 1: group like Cypress Hill, which is always touring, so that
Speaker 1: said DJ producer can go home and make stuff Like
Speaker 1: at any point did you consider just permanently leaving the
Speaker 1: group and just being.
Speaker 2: Yeah, I have about probably about the last twelve years
Speaker 2: I stopped torn. So you're not I don't tour on function, okay, Na.
Speaker 2: I just wanted to make sure. You know, I used
Speaker 2: to watch behind the music and everything, and I've seen
Speaker 2: every rock star's biggest regret was not being able to
Speaker 2: raise their children, you know what I mean. So I
Speaker 2: was like, now I'm going to make sure I raise
Speaker 2: my kids. And I just like being in the studio
Speaker 2: and being creative, you know, because sometimes doing the same
Speaker 2: set list night after night and being on the road,
Speaker 2: it just felt like a robot. I want to switch
Speaker 2: the set list up and you know, do crazy things
Speaker 2: on tour. But I was just like, man, getting boring
Speaker 2: and it was hard.
Speaker 1: It was hard.
Speaker 2: Was that it's hard to make beats back then. Now
Speaker 2: it's easy with the computers, but trying to compete with,
Speaker 2: you know, the biggest producers and be on tour for
Speaker 2: seven months a year was hard. And you know, I
Speaker 2: wasn't making beats fast. I make beats.
Speaker 1: Did you feel competitive, especially in that era of like
Speaker 1: who's going to get this break first?
Speaker 2: And yo, I'd be on tour and come home and
Speaker 2: be writing the studio, go back on tour, come home
Speaker 2: and be writing a studio. Doing that, there was never
Speaker 2: a break, so you know, I wasn't used to moving
Speaker 2: like that. So six years of that shit, it's driving
Speaker 2: you crazy. I didn't know it was driving me crazy
Speaker 2: until I look back at the time. There was no breaks,
Speaker 2: and it was hard. It was hard to like make beats.
Speaker 2: You know, probably when.
Speaker 1: Do you have a little operation on your tour bus.
Speaker 2: I tried, but you're trying to play a record in
Speaker 2: the bus is bounce and you're trying to record everybody's
Speaker 2: on the bus. We had twelve people on the bus,
Speaker 2: so it wasn't and you're tired on tour and shit.
Speaker 2: So it was hard. And you know, I was making
Speaker 2: about a beat a week back then, so I'd have
Speaker 2: to come home and I got to turn this album
Speaker 2: and you know, a month, so I just have to
Speaker 2: make trying to make I learned to make beats faster,
Speaker 2: but at that time it was a little bit difficult.
Speaker 1: Man, every producer I know has a one that got
Speaker 1: away in terms of like, well, you mentioned that you
Speaker 1: were almost not going to release kill Man Been Criminal,
Speaker 1: But has there ever been like a particularly sample that
Speaker 1: you had something for that you held back of the
Speaker 1: last minute because it's already out there.
Speaker 2: And so after Black Sunday, after the record got so
Speaker 2: big and you know, and saying it to bring Blue
Speaker 2: the fuck up, then we started getting the backlash. Oh,
Speaker 2: they sold out, they did this, they went rock. So
Speaker 2: I was like, you was doing what you were doing exactly.
Speaker 1: The brain could have been on the first record.
Speaker 2: We never went out of our way to make it hit.
Speaker 2: It's the same records we made. And what I knew
Speaker 2: was insane in the brain. I was like, they didn't
Speaker 2: get enough for that sound yet, so let me make
Speaker 2: another version. To kill a Man is what insane in
Speaker 2: the brain was. Let me make let me if you
Speaker 2: listen to the bassline, Okay, so they put the brakes
Speaker 2: in it and shit. So I was like, they didn't
Speaker 2: get enough of this sound, so let me feed them
Speaker 2: a little bit more of this sounds, you know what
Speaker 2: I mean. So when it was time for the third album,
Speaker 2: I was like, I'm gonna make the darkest record I
Speaker 2: can make, you know, And so I just sat. But
Speaker 2: we did a song that's a banger, and I hear
Speaker 2: it now and I was like that was a hit
Speaker 2: single that should have been the first single on Temple
Speaker 2: of Boom, which one us to go with. And it's
Speaker 2: called in the City of Angels. Okay, in the City
Speaker 2: of Angels, where the hustlers play and the ballers be
Speaker 2: dropping a vapid all day. It's a banger.
Speaker 1: You mentioned something about texture. You gotta you gotta sell
Speaker 1: this once and for all. Jump around, h what is
Speaker 1: the shrill noise for? There's there's there's this battle.
Speaker 2: I never cleared the sample though, so you want to
Speaker 2: beep it out.
Speaker 1: Look, if it's who I think it is, that person's
Speaker 1: has been long gone for ten years.
Speaker 2: It's not Prince Dog.
Speaker 1: Okay, so it is indeed, but you hear what we hear.
Speaker 2: Prince thought it was Prince too.
Speaker 1: He came to you.
Speaker 2: Yeah, when we was in Minnesota one time they go.
Speaker 2: We was playing in the club. He was upstairs. We talked,
Speaker 2: We had a little conversation for a minute, but it
Speaker 2: wasn't Prince and I told him who it was and
Speaker 2: he got it.
Speaker 1: Wait, what so how did he approach you about it?
Speaker 2: But he was downstairs, and I guess he was upstairs
Speaker 2: and somebody had you know, Boom and I went upstairs
Speaker 2: and just talked to him for a second and let
Speaker 2: him know, and he just looked at me, like, Okay,
Speaker 2: I think once he heard. I think once he heard
Speaker 2: what it was, it made say.
Speaker 1: You know what. Okay, So I went back and heard it.
Speaker 2: But I couldn't mistake it. I couldn't mistake it for that.
Speaker 1: I still love the lure of we We all thought
Speaker 1: that the get off yell was a distorted whatever the
Speaker 1: distorted shrill is in jump Around, when, of course it
Speaker 1: was just and.
Speaker 2: We just got popped for that sample I think about
Speaker 2: five years ago. Wait, so it's still just We just
Speaker 2: had to pay for it obviously. But you know, thank
Speaker 2: god the laws got changed. They only was able to
Speaker 2: go back three years and get royalties. If they was
Speaker 2: able to go back twenty years, it would have been
Speaker 2: cold as cold as ice for us. But yeah, it
Speaker 2: was Chubby Checker for what song. I can't remember this,
Speaker 2: that's Chubby Checker. Yeah, it's that. And then it just
Speaker 2: goes into a hole. It goes into some hole of
Speaker 2: the ship.
Speaker 1: Okay, wow, I didn't know that.
Speaker 2: And it's the same drums from hand on the pump,
Speaker 2: same tramp. It is tramp drums and the same the
Speaker 2: same high hats at the whole the same kit.
Speaker 1: Like how exhausting was that period of hip hop? I mean,
Speaker 1: that's the period I missed the most where it was
Speaker 1: just the goal rush wild West of sample clearing and
Speaker 1: not sample clearing.
Speaker 2: Just putting records out, this barrage.
Speaker 1: Of samples on top of each other, which I miss
Speaker 1: it so money too, But how Nightmaries was it just
Speaker 1: to make a record and say nineteen ninety five or
Speaker 1: ninety six, where your hands are sort of tied behind
Speaker 1: your back because what you're known for sonically you can't.
Speaker 2: Well the first album when it was done, Chris Schwartz
Speaker 2: told me like this, he is, we ain't going to
Speaker 2: clear these samples. This record will never come out. We're
Speaker 2: just gonna put this record out and deal with it later.
Speaker 2: And we got hit for samples for the next fifteen years,
Speaker 2: you know what I mean.
Speaker 1: Oh, so you did have to pay a proble.
Speaker 2: We played fifty grand for Duke of earl Ah. You know,
Speaker 2: we paid, We paid, We paid for everything. And I
Speaker 2: told ice Cube that one day he goes fifty grand
Speaker 2: for a hit, I'll do that any day. And then
Speaker 2: it made me go, oh, that should make sense to me.
Speaker 2: I never thought about it like that. But by the
Speaker 2: time I got the Temple of Boom, I started implementing
Speaker 2: a lot of more live instruments. So there's a lot
Speaker 2: of live baselines on there with just you know, live
Speaker 2: organ sounds and stuff. All ran through the SP twelve
Speaker 2: hundred to give them that dust. But at that time
Speaker 2: I just was like, then I had to start turning
Speaker 2: samples in the be and Sam was looking at me like,
Speaker 2: better clear these fucking samples. Man, this is costing us
Speaker 2: a lot of money. When we get another you know,
Speaker 2: fifty hundred thousand dollars lawsuit, then we got hit forum
Speaker 2: sil Johnson in Alude on Black Sunday because I'm Black. Yeah,
Speaker 2: twenty million dollar lawsuit. Wait what twenty million dollars froze
Speaker 2: everybody's publishing, froze everybody's royalties for a couple of years.
Speaker 1: Where'd they get twenty million from.
Speaker 2: Some ambulance chasing lawyer from Chicago and trying to say
Speaker 2: that the reason this album's a hit is because of
Speaker 2: that interlude. And I was like, no, it don't work
Speaker 2: like that. The hit songs, the single and drove it.
Speaker 2: I go, that's a thirty one second record.
Speaker 1: For a fact that I first heard is it becomes
Speaker 1: I'm black on that record, right, and I'm one of
Speaker 1: the dueves and nerds that will read the sample credit
Speaker 1: or whatever or no, and then by Cel Johnson and
Speaker 1: then by more Cel Johnson, me too, and absolutely they
Speaker 1: logically can't see that that's benefiting them.
Speaker 2: I don't think he's seen it like that. I think
Speaker 2: he was just trying to get as much as he can.
Speaker 2: So thank god I've recorded. I got it from the
Speaker 2: forty five, which I think the laws changed by the
Speaker 2: time they started, by the time it was on the
Speaker 2: album for the songwriters, right, they ended up getting three
Speaker 2: hundred thousand, and then they appealed it and then the
Speaker 2: judge got mad. He goes, you know what, now you
Speaker 2: don't get ship. Now you got to pay their law fees.
Speaker 2: So it ended up working out. It ended up working
Speaker 2: out good for us man the guy that he got
Speaker 2: real greedy and they was aggressive in the in the
Speaker 2: I had to sit down and get testimonies and all
Speaker 2: this shit. Lawyers were yelling at us. It was like
Speaker 2: three days of sitting down, depositions and shit like that.
Speaker 2: What you had to go through before an interlude. I
Speaker 2: was like, God, damn, well, this shit I gotta go through.
Speaker 2: And then, you know, and that's the to answer your question,
Speaker 2: that's when it's like, I can't sample shit no more.
Speaker 2: And then they was hitting you hard for samples at
Speaker 2: that time because they knew what they can get, you
Speaker 2: know what I mean. So, you know, then we just
Speaker 2: started having to figure other things out. I think it
Speaker 2: took away from the vibe, you know, moving forward to
Speaker 2: like the fourth fifth album, you know, not being able
Speaker 2: to just be free and sample anything you wanted at
Speaker 2: any time. You know, you had to be very cautious,
Speaker 2: especially once you get success. If he was putting underground
Speaker 2: records out, it's a different thing. But now at that point,
Speaker 2: as soon as that record comes out, they're playing that
Speaker 2: they're looking for shit, right, and the label don't want
Speaker 2: to give up their masters, you know, so the labels
Speaker 2: extra too, you know, they're writing that ship in the
Speaker 2: context you are liable for all the samples now.
Speaker 1: In prime cypercial touring. Lord, how hard was it being
Speaker 1: advocates of cannabis use and we use in kind of
Speaker 1: an outlaw form like you know, yeah, yeah, where there's
Speaker 1: some towns in which you guys knew you had to
Speaker 1: go dry.
Speaker 2: And the cops stay, don't light up, You're going to jail.
Speaker 2: Cops waiting on the side of the stage, like a
Speaker 2: lot of that, you know what I mean. That's when
Speaker 2: it was actually fun. Though when it was the outlaws shit,
Speaker 2: you know what I mean, That's when I actually dug it.
Speaker 2: But yeah, there was times, you know, especially Texas, Arizona,
Speaker 2: Theavid cops waiting for us, waiting for us, don't light up.
Speaker 2: They were set. They're standing there waiting for you to
Speaker 2: light up. So we got a lot of that, especially
Speaker 2: like in the Bible belt and how would you handle it,
Speaker 2: which wouldn't smoke on stage that night?
Speaker 1: Really? Yeah? Okay, So I directed the Saturday Night Live
Speaker 1: documentary about music acts on the show, and I had
Speaker 1: it been a multi series, I would have definitely gotten
Speaker 1: to you guys, because you guys are part of a
Speaker 1: very small club of people who got in trouble for
Speaker 1: certain acts on sn L. Can you talk about the
Speaker 1: whole sn L incident because you actually came from behind
Speaker 1: the turntables and set it off and said.
Speaker 2: I said in New York, can I light my joint?
Speaker 2: You know. So we're in the green room doing rehearsals
Speaker 2: and I'm just rolling some weed and don't light up
Speaker 2: on stage, and I'm like, of course, okay, don't light
Speaker 2: up on stage. Fifteen times I had no problem. Then
Speaker 2: I was just like, you know what, I was planning
Speaker 2: on it. But after they was telling me, I started
Speaker 2: second guestsing myself and I was like, man, fuck damn,
Speaker 2: I'm gonna light up on stage, but don't do it
Speaker 2: on the first song because they're not going to let
Speaker 2: us come back out. So I waited to the second song.
Speaker 2: That's when I go, Yo, can I light my joint?
Speaker 2: They told me. The phone line started going crazy, the
Speaker 2: crowd started looking around. Everybody's calling in what the fuck
Speaker 2: they're doing? What the fuck they're doing, and you know,
Speaker 2: start smashing the turntables because we would. We would smash
Speaker 2: all our turntables like the Who. So you know, on tour,
Speaker 2: smashing smashing everything like insane in the brain, so you know,
Speaker 2: doing all that. And after after the show, well they
Speaker 2: let me have it. The label the executives up there
Speaker 2: being Sam was mad at me, and I was just like, man,
Speaker 2: fuck this ship, you know what I mean, that's what
Speaker 2: it is, so you know, I never knew it would
Speaker 2: go this far and still be alive like this. You know,
Speaker 2: it was just something we did.
Speaker 1: It was it's legal, and like.
Speaker 2: Now now it's now. Now it's corny. Everybody's it's boring.
Speaker 2: Now I'm saying it was good when you was the
Speaker 2: bad guy and you ain't supposed to do this, you
Speaker 2: know what I mean. And you know, we we just
Speaker 2: took the torch from a Bob Marley, from you know,
Speaker 2: the Rolling Stones, all the rock and roll guys that
Speaker 2: was smoking. That's what that's what. That's what we came.
Speaker 1: Have you guys over the dispensary at least? Yeah, Bibro
Speaker 1: has I was about to say, if there's not a
Speaker 1: cypress really a dispensary, then this is off or not.
Speaker 2: It's called the green thumb, okay, And you know, it's
Speaker 2: just we just took the torch from Bob Marley, you
Speaker 2: know what I mean, and all the acts of the sixties,
Speaker 2: and it was like, let's just bring this this thing
Speaker 2: and just's try to make this legal. So we was
Speaker 2: doing fundraisers for Normal, the National Organization for Former Marijuana Laws,
Speaker 2: doing fundraisers trying to get money so they can go
Speaker 2: to Congress with their lobbyist groups and you know, get
Speaker 2: this shit legal, you know what I mean. So for
Speaker 2: years we did that and we pushed, we pushed for that,
Speaker 2: and then once it got legal, I was like, I
Speaker 2: just boring now.
Speaker 1: I figured as much at the height of just the
Speaker 1: fringy that was Cypersal. I always wanted to know, has
Speaker 1: Hollywood ever come calling to you guys at all, like
Speaker 1: especially in terms of like what Cheach and Chong films
Speaker 1: meant in the seventies or whatever that at any point.
Speaker 2: They haven't. They haven't, really. No. The only thing we
Speaker 2: did close enough was we did I think we have
Speaker 2: a scene in how High, Yeah, and just doing the
Speaker 2: music for Fridays, But we never they never approached us
Speaker 2: to do a film, which in hindsight, if I would
Speaker 2: have known what I know now, we would have done
Speaker 2: a film back then, probably been on volume five by now.
Speaker 1: Were you involved at all with the okay As a
Speaker 1: long time since Simpsons fan of course Simpson's heads know
Speaker 1: that there was a Cypress Hill joke, maybe with the
Speaker 1: London vill Harmonic whatever, And then I think recently or
Speaker 1: maybe a year ago or two years ago, it finally
Speaker 1: that joke finally came.
Speaker 2: To life with yeaitis there was I wasn't there. DJ
Speaker 2: Lord tours with him now from public and okay, okay,
Speaker 2: yeah he's dope. Okay, damn See you didn't have to
Speaker 2: deal with that.
Speaker 1: I want to talk about your your collaboration al Preeze
Speaker 1: that you've done. Soul Assassins was your your very first
Speaker 1: outing outside of the group as far as.
Speaker 2: Soul Assassins is a crew like, so once we start
Speaker 2: putting out albums we had I mid the combination. Oh yeah,
Speaker 2: that was my first thing outside the group. And you know,
Speaker 2: I was never I went to I didn't like selling
Speaker 2: beats to people because I went to a couple of
Speaker 2: little studio sessions and there's ten producers waiting for their
Speaker 2: turn to go play beat battle call. And I walked
Speaker 2: into one of those and I looked around and I
Speaker 2: was like, I'll be right back. I'm gonna go to
Speaker 2: the store. And I never went back, you know. And
Speaker 2: I was talking to a famous producer one day. I go, man,
Speaker 2: I love your shit. He goes, nah, Man, he goes,
Speaker 2: you're doing it right. He goes, I'm waiting for the
Speaker 2: next phone call to sell a beat. He goes, you
Speaker 2: build your own world, and then I was at that point,
Speaker 2: I was like, you know what, I just want to
Speaker 2: build my own worlds and be in full control of
Speaker 2: my worlds. So that's the reason I didn't do a
Speaker 2: lot of production outside. I've done records, but I just said,
Speaker 2: you know what, I'm going to build my own worlds
Speaker 2: for now on and work with artists and produce the
Speaker 2: whole record and do the Sol Assassin's records now.
Speaker 1: In the cattle called era of you know, make me beat,
Speaker 1: made me beat? Like who? Well, I know you got
Speaker 1: someone Goodie Mob?
Speaker 2: Well there was my friends.
Speaker 1: That was what to say.
Speaker 2: That was a very random I used to go to
Speaker 2: Atlanta and just ran a studio for a week and record,
Speaker 2: like I was probably got five or six Morecodie Mob songs,
Speaker 2: you know.
Speaker 1: So what was it about Atlanta that called you there?
Speaker 2: I just connected with them. When I met Goodie Mob,
Speaker 2: we just became friends. So I would go down there
Speaker 2: just just to go fuck with them. Okay, I'm right
Speaker 2: in the studio, y'all in town. Just go down there
Speaker 2: to make beats and then they pull up when they
Speaker 2: could pull up and just record. When we ended up
Speaker 2: doing one record we did was just a song. It
Speaker 2: was on Still Standing, the second album. No, that was
Speaker 2: in Shalah, Yes, No, but we did just a song
Speaker 2: for a Spike Lee movie Bamboozled.
Speaker 1: Yeah.
Speaker 2: Yeah, oh shit, yeah, I gotta I gotta play the
Speaker 2: original It's fucking fire, Okay.
Speaker 1: If anything, I always felt that you were the next
Speaker 1: logical step. Your your sound is like between especially between
Speaker 1: ninety one and ninety four, your sonic texture would have
Speaker 1: been the actual place where Pe should have landed in
Speaker 1: terms of what to do next after Apocalypse ninety one?
Speaker 1: Like what are some of the news that you didn't do?
Speaker 1: As far as like collaborations.
Speaker 2: Wasn't a lot? Like what wasn't a lot? Because I
Speaker 2: just wouldn't even put myself out there like that.
Speaker 1: Oh you know what I mean?
Speaker 2: I just made sure I stayed in. I did what
Speaker 2: krs wan.
Speaker 1: You know what, while we're talking about this, you did
Speaker 1: a remix for you two once and Numb.
Speaker 2: It was numb first song Edge ever Edge rapped on it.
Speaker 3: Yeah, dude, I was going to say that I always
Speaker 3: knew the album version chat on Yeah. Fact, I was
Speaker 3: going to say that when I got that twelve inch
Speaker 3: I was like, yo, like now this sounds this sounds official.
Speaker 1: Like their version was more like at Rock or whatever.
Speaker 1: They were like switching their style up for that particular album.
Speaker 1: But uh yeah, I was going to say that that
Speaker 1: was an incredible remix that I felt that should have gotten.
Speaker 2: Yeah, that one was banging. I was a banger. I
Speaker 2: like that one got further into it and he kind
Speaker 2: of rapped on it.
Speaker 1: You know.
Speaker 2: So I made that, man, you definitely made it.
Speaker 1: You brought out more, at least as far as your
Speaker 1: collaborative projects that you've done. I mean, You've done stuff
Speaker 1: with the Jizza dude. The rock Marciano album is like
Speaker 1: definitely one of my favorites. You work with Old Bill,
Speaker 1: like all these acts, Planet Asia, six Jacket, all these
Speaker 1: like of all the collaborative projects you've done, like would
Speaker 1: have been like your favorites as far as your highlights.
Speaker 2: The rock record, the Makami records, I did, Rome Streets.
Speaker 1: Yeah, for where hip hop is now, like the post
Speaker 1: rock Marciano Griselda. We could put Action Bronson's last three
Speaker 1: or four records into there. I love where it's going,
Speaker 1: which is weird because I'm a drummer and kind of
Speaker 1: the one thing, thanks Alchemist, the one the one element
Speaker 1: that's missing is it's drumless. But somehow I feel like
Speaker 1: it fits into your world perfectly, Like how do you
Speaker 1: feel now about And I know every.
Speaker 2: You know this sounds morphine And even even with when
Speaker 2: there are drums, they're mixed lower now and it's funny
Speaker 2: when you mix them higher, it just sounds like boom
Speaker 2: back from the nineties, right, But when you bring the
Speaker 2: drums down a little bit more let the music shine.
Speaker 2: It's with the sound of Now you know what I mean,
Speaker 2: I've been drumless. I've done I'm born to get busy.
Speaker 2: On the first Cypressouth, I didn't have no drums the
Speaker 2: song with under Soul Assassins will call the Wild Yeah,
Speaker 2: no drums, you know Scooby Doo with Cypress Hill, no drums.
Speaker 2: So we tapped into that now. But now it wasn't
Speaker 2: a thing then, but now it's a thing.
Speaker 1: Is it odd for it not to have that? Because
Speaker 1: even what I'm trying to make now, I'm like Jesus
Speaker 1: like the latter, I turn my drums up. I'm like
Speaker 1: sneaking back to my ninety six ninety seven thing, and
Speaker 1: I'm trying to figure out like how to recontextualize the music.
Speaker 1: But for you now that we're in loop based right
Speaker 1: era hip hop, Like, how do you feel this is
Speaker 1: right up your alley?
Speaker 2: Yeah? Yeah, it's right up my alley. Sometimes you got
Speaker 2: a loop and you try to put drums on them,
Speaker 2: it just fucks it up. It don't sound good, you know.
Speaker 2: So a lot of times I would just put drums
Speaker 2: in there, even with Cyprus, and put the drums low
Speaker 2: so it doesn't mess up the loop, you know, especially
Speaker 2: if you're trying to put a snare on the snare
Speaker 2: and it just takes the vibes. So if it works,
Speaker 2: it works. And I make sure half the records usually
Speaker 2: have drums, and then you know, parts of the records
Speaker 2: don't have drums. And what I'm working on these days,
Speaker 2: you know what I'm saying. And I don't pick the
Speaker 2: beats for the rappers. I give them a folder, like
Speaker 2: here's the thirty beats. I like, you know, pick what
Speaker 2: you like. Sometimes they was like, man, I didn't like
Speaker 2: those beats. I didn't pick them.
Speaker 1: Nice Alchemist right now is like killing the game. Can
Speaker 1: you just talk about like just mentoring him and from
Speaker 1: the days of the hooligans to where he is now
Speaker 1: as a producer and developing him. How would you first
Speaker 1: meet him?
Speaker 2: I met him because actually are for our manager back
Speaker 2: then called me one day he goes, Mugs, you want
Speaker 2: to make a lot of money, and I'm like, why not?
Speaker 2: I got this rap group, two little white kids from
Speaker 2: Beverly Hills. I said, get the fuck out of here.
Speaker 2: I don't want to talk show, get out of here
Speaker 2: with this shit. And so they called be Real next.
Speaker 2: You know, they want affiliated with Cypress. So b Real
Speaker 2: ended up working with him and he executive produced the
Speaker 2: first album and got some producers that were down with
Speaker 2: the management team to produce their first record. So during
Speaker 2: that I met Al and then Al realized during that
Speaker 2: record like, oh, Muggs is the sound beside Cypress Hill.
Speaker 2: So I seen him he was about fourteen, and I
Speaker 2: seen in him what I've seen in me at that age,
Speaker 2: like mans, just his hunger and his dedication. And I
Speaker 2: was but you know I was. I didn't have nobody
Speaker 2: to show me like how this shit works. I remember
Speaker 2: walking in the studio the first time when we was kids.
Speaker 2: I walked into the studio in Hollywood Boulevard and we
Speaker 2: want to make a record. I thought the music was
Speaker 2: already in the studio for you. I don't know how
Speaker 2: to make the music and bring it there. So I
Speaker 2: was like, all, this kid needs to be exposed and
Speaker 2: be around it. So him being him being in the studio,
Speaker 2: I take him on tour with us every place we
Speaker 2: can go. He went to Atlanta with me, you know,
Speaker 2: and I'd just take him around and anything I did,
Speaker 2: I just brought him with me and just exposed him.
Speaker 2: And he's a sponge and he's a little genius, you
Speaker 2: know what I mean. And I just knew he just
Speaker 2: needed to be around it to soak it up, because
Speaker 2: that's how I learned with Joe the Butcher, just being
Speaker 2: in the studio. Oh that's how you do it. That's
Speaker 2: how this is. And you know, it's just it's just
Speaker 2: a fucking quantum leap, you know, into into the future.
Speaker 2: So all these all the shit you might have had
Speaker 2: to deal with, you can just kind of like just
Speaker 2: learn from being around the shit.
Speaker 1: Now that you're almost four decades into making music, where
Speaker 1: does the passion still lie? Like what is your process
Speaker 1: today like tomorrow? When do you normally make beats? Are
Speaker 1: you a morning person. Are you a night person?
Speaker 2: I'll flip it up because if sometimes I get up
Speaker 2: at six and just go to the studio, but then
Speaker 2: after three or four days, I'm bored of that, you know,
Speaker 2: so I might do that. Now I'll just try to
Speaker 2: make I'll go in for six hours and make a
Speaker 2: beat every half an hour. But I don't finish beats
Speaker 2: no more, because I remember sitting down and listening to
Speaker 2: about fifty beats I never used, and I spend fucking
Speaker 2: days on them, and I go, how much time did
Speaker 2: I just waste on these beats that never came out?
Speaker 2: So now I just ideas. I don't finish the beats.
Speaker 2: I come up with ideas. So I'll go in three
Speaker 2: days a week, make twelve beats a day, and then
Speaker 2: when somebody wants to use it, then I finish it,
Speaker 2: you know. So I just I get to scratch idea.
Speaker 1: Where is the sort of the pile up? How many
Speaker 1: would you reckon? Are in your cannon right now? As
Speaker 1: far as like, do you have an entire collection of
Speaker 1: every beat that you've ever made.
Speaker 2: From the last ten years?
Speaker 1: Yeah?
Speaker 2: I got hundreds and hundreds and hundreds of beats.
Speaker 1: Have you kept the original s B twelve hundred discs
Speaker 1: from the.
Speaker 2: Got all those discs still okay, you know, and they
Speaker 2: work all right, No, that's important.
Speaker 1: That's important creatively. Now what still, what's still motivates you?
Speaker 2: I think now it's like working with younger artists and
Speaker 2: being able to just inspire and maybe help, like, you know,
Speaker 2: oh I like this motherfucker. Oh but if he did this,
Speaker 2: I could take him to the next level, you know,
Speaker 2: and then you got to put the work in, obviously,
Speaker 2: but just just the kind of music we love. I
Speaker 2: just want to keep inspiring the next generation of kids
Speaker 2: to keep doing what we love. And I think they
Speaker 2: got to, you know, go and do this style or
Speaker 2: I got to do trap records or nothing like this style. Right,
Speaker 2: here's this shit. So you know, I see me now
Speaker 2: as just being an inspiration to the next generation.
Speaker 1: Has there ever been a time period where you thought
Speaker 1: you might have to be a suit an executive? Never
Speaker 1: working at a I always wandered, all right, So this
Speaker 1: is the thing. Artists often complain about suits and just
Speaker 1: the politics of the industry. But I always said that
Speaker 1: I can't wait for the day in which like music
Speaker 1: cats actually run the music business. It would be so
Speaker 1: much different, Like your version of what you think is
Speaker 1: dope right right, could mean the world of difference for
Speaker 1: least like five or six quality records to come out,
Speaker 1: because I know that you least have immersed yourself and
Speaker 1: dipped the toe inside of actual music, whereas you know
Speaker 1: your average A and R.
Speaker 2: Well, Andrew Shack a Priority actually brought me in to
Speaker 2: run the A and R department, but then Priority went
Speaker 2: out of business like two months later.
Speaker 1: Hey they sold.
Speaker 2: But that's I feel the same way about press and
Speaker 2: what you guys are doing is great because it's actually musicians.
Speaker 2: What Nori's doing is great, What Cam is doing great.
Speaker 2: You know. I'm glad that's happening because there was a
Speaker 2: lot of people over here judging your music that never
Speaker 2: went on tour, that didn't know how hard it is
Speaker 2: to have a relations journalists, Yeah, to go on tour
Speaker 2: and then be on tour for seven months and then
Speaker 2: you know, fighting with your wife and then having the
Speaker 2: pressure to go make a hit song. Like they're just
Speaker 2: going to sit back and talk about your records, and
Speaker 2: it's like, you know, so when I did the Bullworth record,
Speaker 2: methemat and had a line they talk about it while
Speaker 2: we live it, you know, and it's like to be
Speaker 2: able to sit down and talk to journalists who actually
Speaker 2: do this with us, it's like, oh fuck, it's refreshing.
Speaker 2: Just when even when I watch sports and there's sports
Speaker 2: guys that are the journalists. Now it's like, oh, this
Speaker 2: is the shit, you know what I'm saying. But you know,
Speaker 2: I've been I've been blessed to be able to save
Speaker 2: my money make a lot of really good investments. So
Speaker 2: I don't make music for money no more. It's just
Speaker 2: strictly being creative. And you know, there's a few times
Speaker 2: a year I go, I never want to do this
Speaker 2: shit again, you know. But then I just go on vacation.
Speaker 2: And then as funny, soon as I get out of
Speaker 2: my comfort zone and I get somewhere, I'm like, oh,
Speaker 2: the ideas start coming and they just start piling and right,
Speaker 2: you know what I mean. And I just get home
Speaker 2: and I got the fire again. But I know myself,
Speaker 2: well enough I go out here, I'm here again. I
Speaker 2: need to let me get out of town for me,
Speaker 2: let me go do something else.
Speaker 1: Do you have a self care routine where people believe
Speaker 1: in vacations and time out.
Speaker 2: And definitely it's necessary, you know, And I end up
Speaker 2: making beats in the morning. If I'm in Hawaii, I'll
Speaker 2: get up for an hour and just bang out a
Speaker 2: couple of ideas and then just go swim all day,
Speaker 2: you know what I'm saying. So I'm as myself as
Speaker 2: a man to understand like my ebbs and flows. But
Speaker 2: now I'm not a producer, you know. I'm more of
Speaker 2: an artist where I'm going to sit down and make
Speaker 2: full projects and try to teach these dudes find out
Speaker 2: what the best thing is for them. Some people don't
Speaker 2: want to listen. I'm like, I give them some advice.
Speaker 2: I don't want to listen. I'm like, cool, all your ideas,
Speaker 2: all your thinking got to you exactly where you are today.
Speaker 2: If you want to stay where you are, keep going.
Speaker 2: But if you want to listen, I could help you
Speaker 2: get to that next place where you want to get,
Speaker 2: you know what I mean, and level up a little bit.
Speaker 2: So the motherfuckers who want to listen. And then after
Speaker 2: they've done work with me and I actually put the
Speaker 2: work in, I see the jump and they come. I mean,
Speaker 2: I appreciated my life changed after I work with you,
Speaker 2: you know, And other dudes who are just like, Nah,
Speaker 2: this is how I do my shit, and this is
Speaker 2: who I am. Oh I cool down, homie. Yeah, there's
Speaker 2: the record. We're done.
Speaker 1: God bless you anything left on your bucket list as
Speaker 1: far as things that you want to achieve creatively.
Speaker 2: I'm doing films now. So this is my second short film. Okay,
Speaker 2: So I think next year I'm going to get into
Speaker 2: some features. That's the next move. And that actually made
Speaker 2: the third Soul Assassin album. We made fun because I
Speaker 2: was like, man, I've done one hundred and fifty music videos.
Speaker 2: I'm tired of doing videos, you know, I'm tired of this.
Speaker 2: I was like, what else can I do? Man? And
Speaker 2: so Death Valley. I got with Jason Goldwatch and did
Speaker 2: Death Valley, which actually started inspiring a couple of different
Speaker 2: people to make films.
Speaker 1: You know.
Speaker 2: Al told me he's like, man, you inspired me to
Speaker 2: make the film he made last year with them, was it, Gibbs.
Speaker 2: It's just being able to just something that just keeps
Speaker 2: my brain ticking and stuff, you know. So sometimes I'll
Speaker 2: go in and bring my musicians in and be like,
Speaker 2: all right, let's play some shit like this. I'll play
Speaker 2: records and we'll just flip them in and I'll just
Speaker 2: He'll play me shit and I'll just flip the samples.
Speaker 2: And other days I just go in and sample and yeah, man,
Speaker 2: it's just shit's got to come out. I just enjoy
Speaker 2: going in the lab and just making music.
Speaker 1: Still, what was the advice that you're glad that you
Speaker 1: didn't take it?
Speaker 2: Make your shit on the metronome. Your shit's dusty, you
Speaker 2: need to clean it up.
Speaker 1: You don't quantize sometimes, no Ah, nice, you need.
Speaker 2: Your shit soft beat. It's it's dusty, it's not quantized,
Speaker 2: and uh, you know, and I was like, fuck it.
Speaker 2: I like it. I like unorthodox shit that doesn't make sense,
Speaker 2: you know what I mean? And that's been I live
Speaker 2: by that and die by that shit.
Speaker 1: Who is your longest friendship in this industry and as
Speaker 1: far as your journey as DJ months.
Speaker 2: Oh shit, probably my Cypress boys, you know, Me and
Speaker 2: B still tight, you know what I mean. And just
Speaker 2: my regular homies, you know what I mean. I met
Speaker 2: a lot of good people along the journey, you know
Speaker 2: what I'm saying. But yeah, just the fact we still
Speaker 2: got a good brotherhood. Anybody's cool.
Speaker 1: Who's the one person in your life that keeps you
Speaker 1: in check in check. I mean a lot of times
Speaker 1: I think when you get status, you go into it.
Speaker 1: Can't tell me nothing.
Speaker 2: It's just my regular friends. Just my regular friends. Work,
Speaker 2: we clown you know. If I walk in with some
Speaker 2: funny ass socks on, you know, they let you have it,
Speaker 2: you know what I mean. So you know, just my
Speaker 2: homies are just some regular motherfuckers. They don't they don't
Speaker 2: make me music and nothing. So it's just keeping your
Speaker 2: core group of homies around all the time.
Speaker 1: All right, I'll close with this, why do you still
Speaker 1: do it? Why do you still want to make music?
Speaker 1: What keeps you going? You know?
Speaker 2: I think my biggest fear is waking up one day
Speaker 2: and just not having an inspiration, like not having that
Speaker 2: no more, you know what I mean. And so I
Speaker 2: just appreciate the blessing I was given, you know what
Speaker 2: I mean. And I will never disrespect this blessing, so
Speaker 2: I actually enjoy it, you know what I mean. And
Speaker 2: early in my career is about the ego and about
Speaker 2: me and being successful, you know what I mean, and
Speaker 2: getting out there and you know, trying to be one
Speaker 2: of the best producers and then you know, you achieve
Speaker 2: that and now It's about finding the next generation and
Speaker 2: finding little diamonds in the rough and shining them up
Speaker 2: a little bit and getting in the lab with them,
Speaker 2: you know. Like like the kittf I'm working with now,
Speaker 2: I thought he was one of the best dudes that
Speaker 2: I like in La So I was like, I could
Speaker 2: take watch when this album's done, You're going to start
Speaker 2: torn in Europe. You're going to start seeing a lot
Speaker 2: of doors open for it that didn't open, you know.
Speaker 2: Hence you know Rome Streets, same situation. Where as Freshco
Speaker 2: from Canada. You know what I mean, Just working with
Speaker 2: these kids that are open and they're excited, and they're
Speaker 2: just they're hungry, and I'm like, oh, that's how I
Speaker 2: felt in nineteen eighty eight, you know what I mean.
Speaker 2: And being able to help them achieve their dreams and
Speaker 2: all their goals and their ambitions, you know, and when
Speaker 2: you see the light on in them that they really
Speaker 2: want to work and do this and put the put
Speaker 2: more energy into the project, then you'll put I'm like, yeah, Okay,
Speaker 2: that's what I feed off of now.
Speaker 1: I know. You know, people will come up to you say, oh,
Speaker 1: this is a classic, this is a classic.
Speaker 2: Oh it was the movie with hit Boy Goldfish. Yeah,
Speaker 2: when I was at the screen and Owl gave me props,
Speaker 2: he was like, man, we did this because of Mugs.
Speaker 2: I got inspired by Death Valley.
Speaker 1: Oh okay.
Speaker 2: So you know those are the things, those are the
Speaker 2: things that keep me doing and I think, you know,
Speaker 2: I'm still trying to push the limits in the underground
Speaker 2: music and try to push things. So like I'll get
Speaker 2: into features and just do different things and hopefully I
Speaker 2: could inspire, like I said, just keep inspiring motherfuckers to
Speaker 2: keep doing what we like. Because there was a minute
Speaker 2: there with this kind of hip hop was kind of
Speaker 2: it was getting less and less, you know what I mean.
Speaker 2: It's like it was it was hanging by a string,
Speaker 2: you know what I mean. But you know, and just
Speaker 2: you know, seeing ship like Na's coming back and doing
Speaker 2: his ship and everything he's doing with MASSI appeal like
Speaker 2: that's inspiring, you know, coming back and bringing all the
Speaker 2: OG's back and everything. So that's what we got to do.
Speaker 2: This game gave me a lot, man, you know what
Speaker 2: I mean, People I met, places, I've been, things I
Speaker 2: got to do, and so I just want to keep
Speaker 2: giving back to it.
Speaker 1: And you know, well sir, I thank you for coming
Speaker 1: on the show.
Speaker 2: Yeah, Bro, thank you. I appreciate your artistreet, thank you
Speaker 2: very much. Brother everything you shot everything DJ.
Speaker 1: Muggs on the Quest Love Show yep, and we will
Speaker 1: see y'all on the next go around. See y'all later.
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