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Speaker 1: The Quest Loft Show is a production of iHeartRadio. All right, welcome back to the Quest Love Show.

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Speaker 2: Now.

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Speaker 1: Last week we gave you part one of my end studio conversation with Fab five Freddy.

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Speaker 2: His memoir Everybody's Fly is out now. Now we spoke about.

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Speaker 1: Fred's Brooklyn childhood, is coming up from a family ties with legendary figures and jazz and activism, and he schooled me on the late nineteen seventies graffiti scene.

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Speaker 2: You haven't heard that? Check it out all right now with part.

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Speaker 1: Two as a reminder, please please please drop us a rating.

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Speaker 2: A review, or tell a friend.

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Speaker 1: Okay, without further ado, here is Part two with Fab five Freddy on The Quest Love Show. Of course, in the mainstream you hear about celebrated artists. You hear, of course Herring and Boskyat hear other names like Lee ky On and on that. Yeah, who's the unsung hero that just never got any flowers? Even in the age of us celebrating all these great.

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Speaker 2: Writers like well, you know, that's a good question. I couldn't give you a clear answer right now, because there's been many that didn't get and that's an objective determination. Who got what? They really deserved because when we transitioned a charge that I led into these other spaces of people, I can really look at our work for its esthetic value as opposed to the criminal illegality of it, which we've just kind of talked a bit about. But that was the idea, is to move us into space because for a lot of guys doing this, like I said, were primarily teenagers, and at a point when you're eighteen nineteen and it's like it's time for college, it's time to grow up and be an adult, paid to pay rent and stuff like that, it's like, you know, most guys would grow out of it, so to speak. And I was like, man, this is I saw some value that really represented something a lot stronger that could transition and could live on in that way. So understanding how to move in the art world is the education process that a lot of other cats didn't really grasp. There were people that I pulled in, if you will, under my wing, so to speak, Rammelz Futura, what we did with Wild Style and the graffiti painters that we included, Crash Days Pink, these guys learned quickly how to make moves in the art world and go out and like for themselves and know how to move in that space.

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Speaker 1: Was there ever a you know, like some artists are, they'll get in their own way. Was there ever a fear of like a man like the commercialization of it all?

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Speaker 2: Or there was some people In fact Zephyr, who is a legend in the graffiti space and is in Wild Style and plays a character a lot like how he was, he's like a purist. So literally we have a confrontation in the film Wild Style where he's trying to tell Lee, whose character is Zorro, man, I'm bringing the publicity. There's a journalist coming to cover what's going on, and we have this confrontation where he said, no man. Later for this chick, he wants to bring a reporter intoto the yard. Nah man fucked that. And then classic like Q Tip used to always laugh and people go, I go, man, fuck this guy. I know how the publicity machine works. You might not get the money like right now, but you'll have money like Barry White. But it was so cool doing that scene because what we decided to do in Wild Style was use all the real people enrolls comparable to what they were doing. So Zephyr This was how he really got down. He was purists and still is in a way. In fact, Zephyr matriculated into painting the freight trains, which is a huge ongoing scene that mirrors exactly what we were doing on the subways. A great documentary if you google freight train graffiti painting that came out of just a couple of years ago. Roger Gassman was involved producer. He's a brother cap from behind the Streets and I was blown away to see that these freight trains run coast to coast. There's guys in their fifties with families that are out still painting freight trains and having beefs with each other. This guy in the other state, if I catch him, I'm a whip his ass. I'm like, holy shit, it's still going on the same shit that I've talked about Star Wars, So that still goes on. So but like I said, there have been guys that didn't get but those that transitioned into galleries somewhere a to get recognition and be able to move on some touch galleries, but weren't able to figure out how to navigate those spaces. So there's a lot of guys. But what has been good is there were legendary guys that painted the trains. Like there was one that was a huge inspiration to me. He passed. It was about ten years ago now Stay High one forty nine, and this was an older brother that people when you heard about this guy, I mean he was one of the most prolific. He had this little stick figure character smoking a joint that always went alongside his name. He would make these New York City subway maps and he would embellish them with his tag. He gave me one of them things. Man. Literally for me, it was like meeting Michael Jackson to kount of Stay High. He was that huge. Phase two was another cat that was a pivotal pioneer that then make the transition into the art world. He was like a scholarly cat. In fact, he was inspiration from my character in Wild Style because I'm one of the few people literally acting. A lot of people think I'm from the Bronx. On the strength of me, I thought of it. Yeah, that's what because.

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Speaker 1: That it saw to me, it was almost like the first reality show. Was there an actual script or was it like that.

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Speaker 2: Was a semblance of a script, but because when she got stuck in them, when her car broke down there, that was that was sort of scripted what we said and how it was said. We left leeway. Okay, here's the idea, you've got to say this, but say it how you say it. We didn't like adhere to say every line on the page. The idea was, Okay, here's what needs to happen in this scene, say it in the way you would actually.

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Speaker 1: Say, like a reality show. That's how it is very much.

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Speaker 2: Like reality, which is a kind of a step son of the documentary format, if you will. If you want to look at the origins of the reality genre, it grows out of the documentary kind of context, if you will. So yeah, we did do that in wild styling. We allowed people to have leeway and how they would say it to keep it authentic. Hence the scene between me and Zephyr, he's pretty much freestyling, but it's a lot of the passion that comes down in that scene is how he really felt, and that's what we wanted to do and that's what we were successful doing.

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Speaker 1: You've closed the thing for me because basically, as a soul train head, there's a moment where Don Cornelis is interviewing Mike David Beastie Boys.

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Speaker 2: Okay, and he actually quotes that.

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Speaker 1: He's like, yeah, you know, we're just out here trying to get money like Barry White, and the joke.

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Speaker 2: The joke didn't quite land silly, but I instantly knew, yeah, that's wilden. I just thought very White was one of my favorites, and it was an album where he had like all his gold jewelry and stuff lade out on some mink. I mean, Barry was everything.

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Speaker 1: And well, I think I know how the legend of that. There is an episode, there's a seventy seven episode of Soul Train in which Don actually goes offset and host it from Barry White's crib.

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Speaker 2: Oh wow, it was like opulent and you know it's like.

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Speaker 1: Waterfalls and everything like and he performs its ecstasy.

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Speaker 2: Like in his pool. I love to see that.

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Speaker 1: Yeah, it's crazy, and yeah, I think that's where the myth of Barry White get money, Like it was a complete episode of Soul Train at Barry White's mansion.

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Speaker 2: Yeah that was yeah. I just thought Barry White was so cool, the where he was like kind of talk singing his vibe. The whole image of him was just incredible. His love unlimited Orchestralian. I was a big Barry White fan.

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Speaker 1: I have a Quadrillian wild style questions, but I'll look down to a few.

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Speaker 2: Number one. Okay, let me just get this out the way.

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Speaker 1: Sure, because the flash scene seems very disconnected, because let me not say that how hard was.

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Speaker 2: It to get flashed? It wasn't hard at all. So let me explain what happened with getting flashed and why wasn't there more footage? Yeah, because what happened was the flash scene where I'm in his home as he's cutting in his kitchen, which has now become an iconic moment. You've seen it if you follow the culture, you've seen it before. Yes, that literally was me. There was some dialogue that a company that with me getting him to bring the group to perform at what was the final concert moment in the film. Okay, we'd film that moment with the original flash in the Furious Vive the Cold Crush, and we had a couple of thousand kids come out. We screwed up the audio for that big moment, as well as the other big performances at the Dixie Club. We screwed up. Back then, you would record sound on a recording device called a Nagra, and we had a stereo NAGRAA. This was like a super heavy duty, little real to real machine. We didn't know what the hell we were doing. We didn't have the sound adjusted right. We screwed up all the audio, so we had to go and live audio. The audio was garbage. In fact, somebody just mentioned to me and I ran it by Charlie hey Man, you know AI AI. If we can get some AI experts to reach out to us that may want to help with this, because it's the restoration of it all so that we don't haven't seen once again there you've seen the Wild Style film, the performances at the Dixie Club, but you see busy Bee, Double Trouble, Cold Crush, Fantastic in a club that's the Dixie Club. Then we have the big final jam outside at the park the Amphitheater, the climax of the movie. We had to reshoot all of that. So what you see now is what we reshot because we screwed up all the audio and we had just restage and reshoot all of those moments because we had a big boobo in what we did. The audio came back. This is the classic old school where we have the Steinbeck editing. We got the film separate, we got the audio septing. You put it on the machine and you know, it's the old school film editing analog, classic analog, and we put this audio one and we couldn't believe it. Sound with shit was like, what the hell happened? And we just totally botched. We didn't have the machine set up right. This is classic independent filmmaking. This is what happened, so we.

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Speaker 1: Could have seen an authentic Grandmaster Flash and the furious fire performance of that era.

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Speaker 2: I'll never forget because by the time we reshot six months later, how the long it was flashing, those guys had elevated. Now they're opening for Rick James and they're going on real R and B big tours and they were gone, Like, we blew that moment. So using that flash seen, we had a brilliant editor, rest in Pece Steve Brown, who intercut that with the breakdancers, and we just had these moments. So you know, it's somewhat disjointed based on what the original idea was, but still when people this is Grandmaster Flash, doing the amazing things he did the world had not seen any of this yet, and for most people, this is their first look at what a DJ does and watching Flash do that. When he spinned around, he had the classic gram Aster flash letters. Yes, press on letters. I'm just sitting there loving it because I mean, that was everything to see him. It was such a mystery at that point in time. And like I said, it was so remarkable that and I detail all of this and how we set all this up in the book Everybody's Fly, But it was just such a remarkable that we got up that we were able to pull a film out of all of this, because it was we had some we had a few problems here and there, as you offer.

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Speaker 1: Can you talk about the scoring of it all? Like I'm assuming that Christine is part of the solution.

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Speaker 2: Well, yeah, so what happened was I wanted to use the original breakbeats. I mean, it was so early on I'm really just grasping the essence of what this coach is about. It was super underground. It were little to know maybe Rappers D Light had maybe come out by then. I'm like, Charlie, let's use the original music. Charlie thankfully. It was like, no, no, no, we can't fred somebody will eventually come for us. I was like, ah, it's okay, I'll go and make so is that why they're not rhyming over catch a Groove and impeach the President?

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Speaker 1: Like the original breakbeat? I always wonder. I'm like, what, everyone has a copy of this one record, so here's what now?

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Speaker 2: I lost classic and shit, thank you so much. So what I did was I said, Okay, let me figure this out. So of course I'm friends now with Christine and me. I've met all these cool people on the new wave post punk scene. We're all tight, and I go, okay, I'm gonna definitely was bouncing everything off of Chris anyway, because they were super supportive and helpful. I said, okay, so I'm going to produce this. So I one of the things that the Supreme Team's radio show would do is they would have a section where they would play breaks, and these were the real break beats that the real hip hop, early hip hop DJ's used, So he would play these, and I had a recording of some dope stuff. So I got this cat named Lenny Ferrari. His actual name was Lenny Ferraro, but we would call Lenny Ferrari, who was a real cool cat, white cat, but he had played for Rita Franklin. I mean he was a dope ass drummer, So I said Lenny. I didn't really understand how the recording process. I later learned I should have had the bass and drums record together, but I did the drums separate. Oh so the drums were first. Drums are first. I know, we're figuring it, making it up as we go along. Went to a rinky dink studio that I'll never forget. The studio had tubes, and I know that became my hot thing of late people trying to recreate the quality of those early sixties seventies recording. Yes, this two bit studio I found, which I remember was on the same block as the Beacon Theater. I can never remember the name of it. It was upstairs they had. It was affordable enough. I know it wasn't twenty four maybe a twelve track whatever, but I know the board had tubes because I remember you look, I said, oh man, there's there's tubes. You know. It was typical TV's old school high fives had tubes. Anyway, I record the drums there. Later get a buddy of mine who played bass to lay the bass down. That's when I learned, oh, you should do the bass and drums together. Because it was a couple of points when they were yelling. He kind of wasn't yelling myself. I was able to get it. And then Chris Stein came in, brought Christen. I think we went to another studio at the time, because Chris would do a lot of stuff out of a studio called blank tapes, and Chris had all these effects and things that he could trigger from his guitar, all these little toys that he would so I said, Chris, we got to make them. So basically it was like the whole idea was I'm going to make a record of break beats. Nothing is going to be longer than a minute. The purpose being the DJs when we film would be able to cut pladies live as the rappers rap, and that becomes the soundtrack, not quite the score, yeah, but whatever. And so Chris comes in and with these ten to twelve different little tracks, he makes up different little sounds and plays different things. He triggers it all from his guitar, all these little toys he had, and that's how we create the original break beats, and down by Law becomes the most popular among the rappers, which most people use for performing.

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Speaker 1: At the time, were you feeling like a man, I'm making TMU breakbeats? Like this is not the authentic what data the real shit we need? Like at the time, do you?

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Speaker 2: And you know? I wasn't quite feeling like that, because once again, hip hop is at a point where very few people understand what this is about. Is the first rap records that come out, especially what sugar Hill and them did, hip hop hadn't got yet. House bands playing whatever they knew. The popular records were their kids liked in the street. But the idea of hip hop understanding how to recreate the grit and the dirt and the funkiness of the sound, the patina, if you will, that would come later people like Molly Mahr and even what Malcolm McClaren did with the Buffalo Girls record used incorporated all the elements in a really interesting way. But overall that wasn't known yet. Cats were working to get to that point. So I wasn't tripping if my main barometer was when I So what we did was when I finished all those records. We pressed up one hundred pieces of vinyl, I believe at forty five speed, and I went around and gave each of the DJ's two copies. So that was Tony Tone and Charlie Chase from The Cold Crush? Was it theadore just white labels? No, just white label I judhit a couple that popped up any originals left? Sorry, so what man? Listen? I remember meeting DJ Mark the forty five King and every real DJ cat wa y'all, what's up with those records? I'd be like, yo, we got a couple months, so those all went. But later as the nineties really kicked in, it became the super sought after what the hell did they use? Because everybody assumed I had sampled something. Nobody knew this story that I'm telling you, so when I would meet guys, I would explain it. I remember meeting Jazzy B from Soul to Soul and they were able to grab a couple of sections of down by Law off the soundtrack and looped together his own kind of instrumental, if you will. Because people became obsessed. I was blown away to learn.

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Speaker 1: That that's provided many a deep snare many and open drum, you know God.

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Speaker 2: So that became a really fun thing. In fact, I used on the audio book for Everybody's Fly. I used some of the actually down by law, and I tell the story of how we This is a story I just shared with you how luckily because you know now Rogers was a friend and I got now to get us the ability to use good times in the end at a decent rate. Okay, Marti Gras is what Flash is actually cutting cutting but instead of yeah, he's just Mardy Gras, Bob James. But then one of the reissues that we did some years back, we weren't able to get that cleared. So I had to find some guys that came in and did a close a pretty good approximation. It wasn't the real deal. Real heads would be like, yo, it's not you didn't. But the recent reissue of Wild Style that just happened, we were able to get it cleared, he explained.

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Speaker 1: Or give me the history of making Change the Beat twelve inch, which, of course, yeah, all uhip hop historians know that the last second of that record has been cut up many times.

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Speaker 2: This stuff is really fresh. Who's saying as that Bill Lasmo is that you. For a long time I assumed it was me because it was put together after I had recorded, and I was always like, yeah, that was me, because the term fresh had just really begun, and I remember casting the Bronx was like, Yo, this is fresh. The Fantastic Romantic popularized that term first because a part of their routine they would go, we're fresh out the pack and you gotta stay back. We got one Puerto Rican and the rest are black. Being fresh out the pack was their thing, and they just abbreviated to fresh, and so I knew where that came from. But it turns out that it was Bill's Laswell's manager. I think Roger Trilling had said it goofing around in the studio. So when they presented it to me, they were like, yo, do you approve this? Because they tacked it on to the B side of the record with the female that was my French teacher, I decided to use her on the B side as opposed to the B side being instrumental, which was the typical thing for rap singles at the time. She sounded great to me when she emulated mimicked me with the rhythm. She didn't had the rhythm, but her French was perfect, her voice was sexy. Right, what am I going to be called? I got to come up with a rap name. I'm like, well, you're going to be on the B side. She was like, yep, B side, that's it. I'm gonna call myself B side. So that's how she was on. She would make a few other records after that, and so basically I approved this weird sound on the B side. Now, what makes it go viral if you will. Back in that time was Grand mixer DST. Now d XT was the first shit to use it on Herbie Hancock's Rocket Bill aswell. Bill Laswell producer like Glaswell produced that he met Herbie through our little connection that we all connected, and Bill brings he's trying to turn Herbie onto this. Herbie's open because working with Miles Davis. Miles was open to working with doing different things, you know, as he did electrifying the horn and everything. So Herbie, coming from working with Miles, Bill Lazo says, hey, man, here's this new thing popular. He takes Herbie to the Roxy whatever and then they give him the basis of that track and DXT goes crazy. In fact, it's Herbie that said ds he's a pianist, he's a guitarist, you're a turntableist. That term really begins with Herbie telling DXC you're a turntableist, because he had DXC going a tour with him or run a tour as part of the band. Yeah, and that was the first at that time, and so DXC uses it and it becomes the ubiquitous example of scratching because so many other DJs on so many other records used that sound, which became synonymous with this idea of scratching.

00:23:36
Speaker 1: And that's my record, and not once have you tried the because literally, if you had ten dollars for every time that shit was used, yea, you'd be a trillionaire. It's a water, it's bread, it's just part of the fiber. Look, it's been a blessing. I gotta get to MTV. I gotta get I'm skipping so much. No, we must buy the book.

00:23:58
Speaker 2: No, it's a lie for you. The NWA episode, Yeah, there's so many I have to ask you, but yeah, that was a great one. What most people's favorite episode?

00:24:11
Speaker 1: Well, yeah, like that was my first. What even made you? Because I was resistant to them. You know, I saw Jerry curls and whatever, like what are they doing?

00:24:20
Speaker 2: Lay? Yeah?

00:24:20
Speaker 1: And then I saw that episode and then we all ran to get that out.

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Speaker 2: Like what was that? Like? Man, it was incredible, Like, you know, we had already developed a reconnection with Easy because he had we Want Easy and Ted Demi rest in Peace, one of the original producers, and Easy had developed a really close friendship and Easy was like, hey, man, we come on out to LA and I got a new group. I'd like, you got you know, the showcase to group. So we One of the things was instrumental with your MTV raps with different groups is finding a concept to interview the group that we could show the audience where the group's from, so we could really you know, this is now wrap spreading around the country. And so the idea we came up with is We're gonna rent a flatbed truck and ride around LA. Now I've been to LA a bunch of times, but I didn't really go too much out of West Hollywood, and I didn't know about Compton and the hood yet. I didn't know that stuff. So they said, we're gonna rent his flatbed truck. We're going to ride around with Easy in this new group. But he said, but listen, Fab, this is the night before he said, listen, don't wear anything red or anything blue. So I was like, okay, Well I didn't know what that meant. So I had a black outfit. No problem. I show up the groups all in black and we were at the Welcome to Compton sign. Was the first segment of that show. I asked everybody to introduce themselves. One of the people there, who is a great story? Now? Who's going to be a part of the next paid and full benefit that we I'm a part of is the doc And I don't know who any of these guys are except Easy. Ice Cube is in my ear in between segments. It's asking me about g Rap. You're Fab, what's up with g Rap? Keep in mind I haven't listened to the album yet, so he's like, I'm like, g Rap is cool. You know. Later, when I listened to the record and I snatched the headphones on five times, I can't believe what they Oh my god, he's not gonna let this shit play. I mean, they're going stand so edgy. But I get why Cube kept asking me about g Rap because he was the edgiest at that time on what would become Gangster and I said, oh, I get it. Anyway, that goes on to blow up and that was my introduction to really meeting NWA and the revolutionary aspect of the game. I would later direct Snoops. First video me and Dre crazy was that video shoot for the first day to shoot after he performs on the top of VIP Records when we change locations as a near riot, so the police flew in helicopters. They shut us down and Dre tells me, look, fab, that was crazy. I knew Long Beach is a very crazy place, he said, but if you can hang out, I've got to finish Snoop's album, we will get the video done. I ended up spending the rest of that summer with doctor Dre at his house, really bonding with him way until they finished the Rector. Well, we would shoot, moments would come up and we would schedule some time to shoot this. We would shoot that scene. It was different pieces of the video, the whole picnic with all the I had dog trainers and stuff. I had morphing technology going in, so it was a lot of pieces. It was a very complex video. That took a lot of little elements, and in between we would Dre would let me know, look, I'm gonna be good on this day that there, so I schedule some pieces to the video. Sadly, the end of that summer happened with the murder. Was the case Snoop got charged with murder because he was in a car when some guy got shot. Snoop wasn't he didn't pull the trigger. But there was a whole morphing set up. I never got to pull off of getting his hair braided. No, there was going to be a woman petting a dog and that was going to morph. But anyway, I was able to get the video done. It's called What's My Man? Introduced Snoop to the world. And I also remember the Wu Tanger episode was craziest.

00:28:15
Speaker 1: But the one episode that I think was probably the craziest of them all was you were there when the leaders of the news school included yeah, what so?

00:28:27
Speaker 2: What happened was they literally broke up, literally implode. And luckily this is the genius of what happened. The video shooter the cameraman had grabbed some footage I had interviewed them initially on the show when they first popped off, it was a wild great show. Dink O d Charlie Brown, Buster, they guys were incredible Today. First record came out, they blew up in the interim period and I'm not sure exactly what they were beefing about, but Buster has become a star. Scenario happens. He might have guessed it on whatever else. Buster was off in a moment. Buster was having a moment they reconnect for this next video, next album, and they go off to a huddle on the side, and the huddle goes from five to fifteen to twenty minutes and we're like, we're all waiting around. So the cameraman grabbed a few moments of them having this huddle. One of the moments you may have remembered seeing was Buster turned to the camera and it says, Yo, b please don't don't shoot this man. You know this is you know this business. So I was like, oh, what happened was they were doing a Yo MTV like special and they pull that footage because the show never was shot. Because after this huddle, Buster comes to me and says, you're fab man. I have to apologize, man, but we're not going to be able to shoot this, so the beef that they were having and talking about was got so intense. I think they literally were breaking up right at that point. Yes, but we never had had an actual episode that we filmed. Once again, the cameraman had grabbed a moment and that moment completed visually telling this, So that never came on with never because I've seen it as an episode. It was your TV wrapped retrospective look back, and they were able to then shape that to tell the story. This is what happened and what really emphasized it when when Buster looks at the camera like he's just getting a little b roll waiting to do something because we all there to shoot, and the Buster turns this is na be you know, It's like with a real serious Dowur look. The group was literally so I.

00:30:40
Speaker 1: Know, Charlie Brown says something like, you know, I'm I'm look out for Ce brown Man, you know, I gotta look.

00:30:45
Speaker 2: Out for myself or whatever, and I see Buster look at him like and what I thought, once again without getting confirmation, it just felt like Buster was on fire. He clearly was getting paid for the moments he you know, was on fire for I kind of assumed they thought they were supposed to be a part of That is what I just assumed in my own accord without knowing the specifics.

00:31:10
Speaker 1: All Right, So I first met you at this uh kind of a I think it's Deanna Williams's I AM convention. It came to DC or whatever, and you had given us I mean, we just started, so I don't even think you knew we were I definitely knew, but you had these guys from Chicago with you that were.

00:31:33
Speaker 2: Dressed real crazy Crucial Conflict.

00:31:35
Speaker 1: Yes, and you said, I guarantee you've never seen nothing like this before. It's almost like, I mean, now it's like bounce, But back then we looked at him like, what was this country rap or something? And you played, hey, yes, hey the first time. I remember like us driving back and mind you, we just never heard of hip hop in that bpm before that speed wrap. The way they was acting the video was crazy. What was your involvement with Crucial Confce.

00:32:04
Speaker 2: What happened was after having directed so many music videos, you'd have a connection with a certain artist that you know, we can continue this. Just like a great producer create some good music, you'd want to continue that incredible synergistic relationship you. Oftentimes I'd do a video I should I felt like we should work some more, and the label would go off and you'd see the visuals not be up to par, and based on my judgment, I'd always say to myself, man, I wish I could have At one point, I wish I could have a label or a runner label, so I could control the whole imaging of a group video, the whole nine yards. The opportunity came up. It was a wealthy Japanese man that had gotten involved in this label called Palace Records. I knew some of the people involved. They weren't going good. They came begging for me to come in and help, and I was like, hmm, I wasn't trying to, you know, I mean like a creative prome, Like, wait a minute, this could be my opportunity to direct a label and run a label and create the whole imaging. So we took over this label, and me and my business partner at the time, brother named Roy Cormer, had talked about, you know, to us, most of the country feels and has a Southern vibe, even though they might not be from the South, but from us New York Northeasterners. We knew that guys that sound like that are going to be looking for their own heroes eventually, so that was the target to find a star artist GROUW. So you knew that there was an underserved community. Yes, we definitely knew because everything Dominant was from New York and also Philly, like there was the Northeast. They all just what we wanted. No, so when other people were trying to immulate New York, but they weren't being who they really were. So this demo comes across the table at Palace Records and me and Roy lose our minds. We like, you know, what are my hearing? We hadn't heard anything like it. Some of their harmonies were a little bit bone thugs in harmony, but their rhythms and everything when we connect and lean in, they had developed their own iconography. They had this southern western hay in the middle of the bond, the rodeo. Their style of music, they call it giddy up. I was like, oh my god, this is perfect. But the surprising thing was these guys were from Chicago, so I was always curious about Chicago and in developing and signing and working with this group. I immersed myself in the Chicago scene, looked into the blues history, knowing that it was when these southern Mississippi Delta blues acts go to Chicago, they get electricity and the electric guitar for the first time. So I was like, this is the shit that the beatles. I was like, let me, I need to really understand what's going in. So I went into the rabbit hole, signed this group and they blew the hell up. But what was surprising is black folk folks that migrated to Chicago in the Great Migration, those that went to the West Side of Chicago retained a lot of their Southern flavor. The whole energy was Southern. And the group literally told me, look, man, we was trying to get on and the one thing we realized we all had was a Southern country vibe. We was like, let's just build on it. That was the genius thing that they did.

00:35:26
Speaker 1: And when that thing, it was nothing like it.

00:35:29
Speaker 2: And I went to work. I did the first videos, we imaged them, we put an independent team together, we got a couple of gold records. We could have went a lot further, unfortunately we did. They were literally rock stars. There was some street shit. Unfortunately too often times is the case that really made it all go sour. I mean, Kanye was in this peripherals because they had a deal and we Kanye was I think he might've been with a group then, but we were hearing about all these other little things that was twisted. It was there was Oh man, it was an interesting thing around them. That was incredible because I'm like, this is a megacity. How come Chicago hasn't emerged with a hip hop group yet? And it was our turn and they were ready and we were able to have some success with them at that point in time.

00:36:32
Speaker 1: All right, So I luckily and then, as I explained earlier, that we moved to Europe where half the people I met, half the girls I met, Like that's how they're learning English.

00:36:46
Speaker 2: Yeah, but was through through TV reps.

00:36:51
Speaker 1: I've heard that story to do is what cigarettes are to prison, while tapes of Yodam.

00:36:57
Speaker 2: TV raps was literally some of my favorite stories is hearing people share about how they viewed the show from Yeah, I would VHS tapes, I go home and then bring it back to Europe and it was like I was the Internet.

00:37:11
Speaker 1: So we were lucky enough to get on the last week of the show.

00:37:16
Speaker 2: But the ED and dre version, how did your TV reps end? Like I know they may not recall, I just want to refreshment. I'm so glad you put that up. So it was just a whole bunch of things going on, the videos having to be cut this out, got to cut that out, can't wear this brand, can't wear that brand, and that would be on the labels to have to make these edits when the videos were already getting exposed on other platforms, whereas we had had the free reign, the standards and practices as you know. But you guys had come in and did a performance and we turned that performance into a music video that we would play. If you may not recall that you guys had performed in the studio from my show your TV raps, and we filmed it two or three cameras, there's the basic cameras in the studio and we cut I can't remember it was from the first album, and we cut that into a video clip that we were that we then would air because we were so into what you guys were doing. Even though stets A Sonic bill themselves as a hip hop band, you guys were an actual band. We don't say that I want to smoke Daddyo. I mean no, Daddyo was definitely a band, but it was like the Roar jazz group. I'm like, okay, I'll be but you guys had a full on band. You remember that, you know, the upright base playing the whole star of course, and I love Daddy Yo. I directed talking all that job. I know you this that's a son which I love. But but you guys were great and we just loved what you were doing. You came in with instruments and we cut a performance you had did on the stage into a video. Anyway, we was just huge fans. Wow, thank you guys. Like, how did the show end? Well? Once again? Because we kept having to edit. I guess you know, look, I didn't want to be married to doing it. I felt like it had it had a good run, could have maybe could have maybe got another year out of it, but we were getting so much competition. It just they've just pulled the plug.

00:39:10
Speaker 1: But it's weird because like when y'all ended, that's when hip hop really became big ass business.

00:39:15
Speaker 2: Yeah, so we kind of planted those seeds and set the stage for it to do what it did. Look it was a miraculous thing that happened. I detail in the book. Peter Darty was one of the original good friend of mine that lobbied up and down the hallways to get this show on the air. Pitched me as the host. I always thought that was a pie in the sky, get out of hire, Peter, ah whatever, but he kept at it. Ted Demi came into the mix. He was a huge rap fan. He was campaigning along with Peter. They gave it a shot. Ratings broke. They thought the Nielsen machine broke. Was it debatable or like? Was it like, we don't know this is gonna work for we TV. Early on was following the radio playlist, so to speak, which was pretty much segregated. Pop meant white. They had to soul the R and B. There wasn't even a rap chart yet. A lot of black folks wasn't checking for rap. It was too ghetto five. It was they were trying to move on up George Jefferson's style. It wasn't trying to be cats holding their dick stand on the corner looking thuggish, the Frankie Crackers the Dawn Corner even know Frankie was a hero. These cats, I understood that wasn't their thing. They were trying to put the three P seed on and popped air collar and they wasn't trying to represent that. And so but once again MTV was following the model of radio, which was essentially segregated, essentially structured racism, and that's what it was. And Rick James threatened to sue and other groups made a big stink. We all know that Michael Jackson stories. How yetting the car threatened to pull all all the stuff that we heard Peter lobbying. These guys really got them to give it a go, and the numbers went through the roof. So we had an incredible run. What makes the run for me so significant and important, It wasn't obviously just the fact that I was hosting, but it was so many pivotal groups define different moles of the culture. The first time you saw ice Cube, you know, Nwa slick Rick, We'd go to Philly. Somebody just shot me the link. And when I went to Philly and did three times Jazzy Jeff, I'm getting cheese steaks, that was we got to do that. The Gettle Boys in Houston We got to go to Liberty City and film when it was Luke skywalking the two live crew, so to show that for the first time and to really shake up the viewership of the country. Black, white, and otherwise all tapped in at a pivotal time when those groups all emerged. Tupac, who was on the show numerous times, so so many people that defined the culture even to this day. If you will, you got to first see them along with me and also Ed and Dre on YourTV raps. What was your favorite episode? Like what is your Well, the NWA episode ranks high, but I feel like an important episode. Yeah, no, it's an important episode. But my favorite episodes because I'm a globalist, we got to travel. A lot of people don't know that MTV was sort of a franchise at that time. We were the only show that was on in every other market around the world, so that was MTV Europe, MTV Asia, MTV Brazil. So to get to travel to those places and film your MTV rap to be in real interviewing hip hop acts was incredible for me because I'm like, I can't believe I'm here doing this. To go to Japan in the early nineties and interview hip hop, to to find Japanese rap groups and showcase the culture there, to go to Europe to be in England. So the times when I went out of the country were for me the most significant and important because I knew that the show was being seen in Europe and just to be to see I'm curious and fascinated. How did you guys connect with this was a big thing for me. What episode were you not able?

00:43:19
Speaker 1: Like, surely there has to be an episode that you thought was going to happen and didn't happen, or like.

00:43:26
Speaker 2: Well, what becomes that episode is that leaders of a leader school breakup. It was only a moment that the cameraman caught that showcases what was happening, but it would have. It's just one of the most incredible things that occurred. Unfortunately, a really impactful group and Buster goes on to become a superstar. I'm sure the other guys would have as well, but it was just it was a lot of great moments, I tell you. One of the greatest moments for me early on was when the Grammys finally decided to represent hip hop, but not to televise top episode. The episode and So what we came up with was we're gonna give a post Grammys boycott the Grammy party that everybody showed up at this was the big thing, including little Richard, including Malcolm Forbes, the billionaire owner Forbes magazine, Dennis Hopper, a whole array of people like I couldn't believe I'm getting the interview, these people on young TV raps in support of this something that now you know is rappers get the television time when the Grammys happened, But it didn't happen at that point.

00:44:41
Speaker 1: Okay, as I wind down, Yes, my final questions. Look, I know y'all like you didn't ask about trust me. I got Jimmy jam this and literally make this a six hour interview.

00:44:53
Speaker 2: But Jimmy jams this like a seven hour interview. I got a day job. Though.

00:44:59
Speaker 1: So as far as your artifact or your art collection, which I'm sure now is in the Schamberg.

00:45:05
Speaker 2: Has a lot of stuff, is what is what is your not most valuable?

00:45:10
Speaker 1: What is your most prized possession as an artifact collector?

00:45:15
Speaker 2: Well, you know, I don't know if it's most prize. I have collected and saved a bunch of stuff. What is your art game, like I always wanted to know. You know, listen, when you're an artist and your other friends are artists, you typically give each other work. So among my friends that were artists, Keith, Jean Michelle, Boskiya Futura two thousand, Lee Kenyonis, we would give each other work. I have work from my friends that made art. They have work of mind. That's the greatest art collection of all. It's not the greatest, They're not the most important pieces, you know, but I have work and they're like mementos from friends that you just look at as almost this is my friend, you know what I mean. It's not like, oh, I have this thing and it's now worth this because that it's kind of crazy, particularly around Jean Michelle. You know, those numbers went so out of this is that feel to see the I wish there was a better word than the commercialization of it all. But would you ever.

00:46:13
Speaker 1: Imagine the day where, like with Harry and with Mosco, that there now.

00:46:18
Speaker 2: It's unimaginable the level of success. But what's so satisfying is that this was what we all planned and talked about when we were homies hanging. We basically aware and that's what grew me and Jean Michelle to be close because from a very young age, cutting school and going to museums, which is a big adventure of mine as a kid, I learned about and became very comfortable around the idea of making art. I read about Giorgio Vasari, the person that literally invented the idea of the Renaissance, and understood the significance and why I and Jehan and Keith wanted to force ourselves into that space and find the way around the kind of gatekeepers to be looked at and accepted as visual artists. The fact that we were able to pull that off is remarkable. The fact that Jean Michelle and Keith are not here is satisfucked because clearly, you know, they just fit this. You know, live fast, die young model if you will. That's unfortunate, it's a part of whatever. But the things that particularly Jean would have went on to do. We both talked about making music, making film, being involved in other areas. Jean put his foot in those waters and would have continued. He starred in a film called Down Tent eighty one that all of our crew is also in. He made a record after I turned him on the hip hop. He took rammel Z and this kid k Rob into the studio and made this record Beatbop, and he would have went on to do a lot more of that. We would have probably produced films together. Keith was very fascinated with animation early on in the Times the spectrum board in Times Square, which was this little digital thing. It looks like a pixel. It's so low budget looking compared to where we are now with digital imagery. I remember when Keith got to put his little characters on that spectrum and all of us went to Times Square to watch his stuff in Times Square. That was exciting. He would have went on to do so much more with animation, probably would have came up with a family guy type of animated it. Because these are other interests that we had and wanted to pursue. So it's sad that these dear friends of mine are no longer here, but it is so satisfying to see their legacies thrive and undisputed like major figures in modern art. And that's just incredible that that happened.

00:48:54
Speaker 1: Okay, so, because you're a renaissance person, what would you say, You're three proudest that you and everything that you've done.

00:49:02
Speaker 2: Helping people, Probably the first and foremost and somehow connected is the idea that I brought to Charlie for Wild Style, is to show these forms as coming from one place or space, so to speak. There was no connection between this idea, and keep in mind everybody doing graffiti wasn't into hip hop and vice versa. But to make it a strong representation of youth culture in New York at that time, I wanted to tell this narrative and that was what I proposed to Charlie Ahearn, who said, let's make this movie. There was no previous connection between this music, this dance, and this form of visual art as such. And the idea was to make a film that showcased that, because not just that I want to create a platform for myself a visual artist, but I wanted to represent us in general, because there was only negative depictions of young, hip, urban black and brown youth in New York press. It was always connected to some negative criminal shit. I'm like, we are more than that. And I didn't want to be perceived as a folk artist outside of artists, you know. And I didn't come from a fly expensive art school, but I wanted to like figure out a way to slip in and get in. That was the mission. When I connected with Jean Michelle, he was in sync with that whole shit you feel me, and we got busy and that was an underlying thing. And then we wanted, when we got the door open, one to pull other heads in with us. So we was able to get a lot of that done, I'm happy to say. And I go deep into all of that, and everybody like you better get your copy, baby, stop fronting it. And the audiobook is crazy. Audiobook is crazy, by the way.

00:50:56
Speaker 1: You said something, and it just hit me. I had an epiphany. So we are now living. I will call him the real hip hop Mayor with Madonna.

00:51:07
Speaker 2: That's incredible, Yes, real hip hop. I have a dream and that dream is.

00:51:15
Speaker 1: Like I think he will allow if there's some sort of art week or graffiti week or whatever, like, what is the likelihood if he were to greenlight a project in which you guys were, let's take ten trains and tag the shit like really, just and it doesn't have to be every New York City train, but just I have a dream, and I believe that we are of age, which we now see it as art and we'll actually be there at eight o seven am to go to work to see on the Freddy train or.

00:51:51
Speaker 2: Kill like would you be willing to like how is your hand now? As far as it's there, I mean, it could happen. But I'm a big fan of the man. I'm so happy that listen as a filmmaker. His mom's films be Salaam, Bombay, Monsoon Wedding. I mean, big fan of those films. Even Kama Sutra was my major date movie back day. Already know, I get him over to watch Kama Sutra and no, it's really going down with the Kamma Sutra. Baby, that was like a joint. You know, I've got a second out this DVD. I think we should watch so nah, but I'm super excited about the man, anxious to meet him, and I dig the fact, you know, a thing that we didn't touch on. So I made a film about cannabis about five or six years old, called Grass's Greener, which led me to become a part of the cannabis business. I created a brand called b Noble, inspired by a gentleman that was given a thirteen year sentence for two joints worth the week. So we've been working with kure A Leif wherein We've been in different states around the country with this, and we've expanded our business internationally and we've set up in Kenya and also about to do medical cannabis in Uganda. So my business partner, Ron Samuel, who's over there right now, has met people in Uganda who told him before he got elected. Yo, I know this dude. We used to rap. We used to all hang out and rap together. I'm like, and my man told me. I was like, what are you talking about? And then he gets elected. I see the clips, I see his videos. Yes, so the cannabis connection is real and mom DOMMI, yeah, I'd like to talk. And I'm sure he's going to support the efforts for the hip Hop Museum which hopefully it was soon open in the Bronx and all that good stuff. So yeah, super super excited about all that. I've always wanted to have this conversation with hang out with you. I'm a big fan forever. Remember I used to try to get at you about doing a Max roach. Yes, yes, much. Yeah, we probably have this conversation. Thank you for coming.

00:53:56
Speaker 3: Thank you for having me, Thank you huge roots Fan Forever and Everybody's Fly best and one of the top five mcs that ever did it. Thank you Huge Fan, Thank you, Fradi Freddy, thank you Everybody's Fly Please buy it.

00:54:10
Speaker 2: Yeah, we'll see you on the next go round. Think the Quest Love Show so pleasure. That's a pleasure to be here with a lavely discussion Quest.

00:54:21
Speaker 1: The show is hosted by Me Amir quest Love Thompson. The executive producers are Sean g Brian Calhoun and Me. Produced by Britney Benjamin and Jacob Payne. Produced for iHeart by an Old Brown, Edited by Alex Conroyman iHeart Video support by Mark Canton, Logos Graphics and animation by Nicko Halovie.

00:54:49
Speaker 2: Additional support by Lance Coleen Special thanks to Kennedy Wrong.

00:54:56
Speaker 1: Special Thanks to Sugar Steve Mandel. Please subscript, I break the view and share The Quest Love Show wherever.

00:55:03
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00:55:04
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00:55:20
Speaker 2: Quest Love Show is a production of iHeart Radio