Speaker 1: Quest Love Supreme is a production of iHeartRadio. This classic
Speaker 1: episode was produced by the team at Pandora.
Speaker 2: Hey, what's up y'all? Leten you man Fonte fonticawiciclo and
Speaker 2: right now, this is yet another Quest Love Supreme classic
Speaker 2: from February first, twenty seventeen pre Rome when we sat
Speaker 2: down with hip hop mogul Kevin Loud where he talked
Speaker 2: about the early Baltimore scene, his rise to president of
Speaker 2: Deaf Jam, and the value of hard work and also
Speaker 2: a lot of people didn't know his his very little
Speaker 2: known role in writing a song called Girl. You know
Speaker 2: it's true. This is an amazing episode, so listen check
Speaker 2: it out. Y'all know where to get it. Fontikolo Quest
Speaker 2: of Supreme Classic Deserve.
Speaker 3: Supremo, Suprema Roll Call, Suprema su Suprema roll call, Suprema
Speaker 3: Son Supprea role call Suprema something something.
Speaker 2: Suprema roll card.
Speaker 1: I am Quest Loved Girl, Yeah, I am Quest Love Girl.
Speaker 2: Yeah, I am Quesse loved Girl. Yeah. And this is true.
Speaker 3: No supprima, roll call, Suprema Son Son Suprema Rod.
Speaker 2: My name is Fante, Yeah, feed me Seymour. Yeah. Shout
Speaker 2: out to all my Yeah, niggas out and be more.
Speaker 3: Suprema roll call Suprema Sun Suprema.
Speaker 4: Roll call.
Speaker 5: Name is Sugar Yeah with Kevin Lyles. Yeah, Quest loves Suprema. Yeah,
Speaker 5: don't change that time Rod.
Speaker 3: Suprema son Son Suprema, roll call Suprema so something Suprema roll.
Speaker 6: Called pay Bill Yeah, going wild Yeah, Quest love Supreme.
Speaker 2: Yeah, Kevin Loud roll.
Speaker 3: Call Suprema Suprema, roll call Suprema.
Speaker 7: So Suprema roll call.
Speaker 4: It's like yeah, m yeah, I have another ladies. Yeah,
Speaker 4: these dudes, God damn roll.
Speaker 3: Supreme Rod Suprema Suprema roll calls.
Speaker 2: Receive his whack, yeah, says Bob Bill. Yeah yeah I
Speaker 2: said that ship. Yeah, just keeping it. Roll call Supreme,
Speaker 2: roll call.
Speaker 8: My name is Kevin.
Speaker 7: Yeah, I guess I'm here.
Speaker 8: Yeah, I want to tell you.
Speaker 2: Yeah, I have no fear.
Speaker 3: Roll call Suprema Suprema, roll call Suprema Suprema.
Speaker 2: Rolls were.
Speaker 8: Roll up.
Speaker 2: Roll Oh man, that's so much just happened.
Speaker 1: That's first fucking.
Speaker 2: Comown. Ladies and gentlemen walking.
Speaker 9: Into the engineer all up in your video.
Speaker 2: Calm down, come to question, smoking, Come on, ladies.
Speaker 1: And gentlemen, welcome to another edition, our first February Black
Speaker 1: History Month Editionbruary to uh question, Love Supreme?
Speaker 2: Did I say February with a Brew?
Speaker 1: I don't know, because I say February but without the Brew.
Speaker 2: Yeah, yeah, February. This is weird Wednesday. Those are like
Speaker 2: names that like it's like a black teenage mother name those.
Speaker 2: This is all these extra letters in that part of
Speaker 2: Africa's in February come from.
Speaker 1: I stole that from the pound cake speech from Bill Cosby.
Speaker 5: That Bill Cosby, he's a.
Speaker 2: Oh my god.
Speaker 1: H well you know this this is uh well, it's
Speaker 1: not necessarily a special addition to quest Love Supreme, but
Speaker 1: we have a very special guest who, in my opinion, uh,
Speaker 1: he's the example of excellence and tireless determination and work
Speaker 1: and long hours. From interning in the mail room to
Speaker 1: ordering in the lunch room.
Speaker 2: I feel like Jesse Jackson.
Speaker 10: In the mail room, to order in the lunch room,
Speaker 10: to the ball room, to meetings in the late meeting.
Speaker 2: In fire and iron in the boardroom.
Speaker 1: Ladies and gentlemen, please give it up for mister Kevin Laws.
Speaker 2: I welcome and welcome man. Okay.
Speaker 1: I have to say, first of all, thank you for
Speaker 1: accepting and clearing your schedule because you are probably the
Speaker 1: hardest working executive I've ever known.
Speaker 8: I can tell you no, So I.
Speaker 2: Do my research.
Speaker 1: Really, I mean to me, the difference between you and
Speaker 1: another well known public figure, CEO is that you're not
Speaker 1: about the spotlight.
Speaker 2: You're the one that didn't want to be up on
Speaker 2: all the videos and dance.
Speaker 1: Can I ask you, once you realize that that was allowed,
Speaker 1: did you like regret like, well, I'm the one that
Speaker 1: actually had to hit can't.
Speaker 8: I can't dance? So I'm good? No, I'm good. I
Speaker 8: enjoy the culture, I enjoy the opportunity that that that
Speaker 8: God gives me, and I miss the work. You know,
Speaker 8: I don't. I think you lead by example. You don't
Speaker 8: just do it for the job or do it for
Speaker 8: the glory. I think there's a lot of gut before
Speaker 8: the glory, you know what I mean. So that's me,
Speaker 8: you know.
Speaker 1: I mean, just based on your history and where you
Speaker 1: know a lot of your lean years, the work that
Speaker 1: you put in, I have to also say that you
Speaker 1: also might be a glutton for punishment. Because we're going
Speaker 1: to get into that. We're going to get into that.
Speaker 1: Take a little bro what happy uh February.
Speaker 4: Happy February.
Speaker 2: It is black history buff right, Why is it? I
Speaker 2: thought we were last month?
Speaker 4: Because because I'm black, you know, real black, so have
Speaker 4: you know, just you in this room.
Speaker 2: You blackness gets to claim a whole month.
Speaker 4: Episode.
Speaker 2: It is still about Quansas because that was a long
Speaker 2: time ago.
Speaker 1: We regret that because I had to look up who
Speaker 1: uh uh that who's no the person that you doctor
Speaker 1: York Coolery.
Speaker 4: No, Miles, what happened on a previous episode was that
Speaker 4: Fante like to compare the founder of Doctor York and Scamra.
Speaker 1: That's the that's the rabbit fl down Joe How come
Speaker 1: I are you late? Yeah?
Speaker 2: I was late.
Speaker 1: I'm also in my forties. Would have to know about
Speaker 1: Joey and this camera?
Speaker 2: Yeah, I only know just from Twitter that you know.
Speaker 2: That was how I found out.
Speaker 4: Butt research on you see. That's why it's like your
Speaker 4: mom because I'm black.
Speaker 2: I mean, you know.
Speaker 1: Once Chuck Woolery agreed with the Fante, then off and
Speaker 1: we'll be back into Okay, okay, okay, anyway, mister Lyles,
Speaker 1: we usually start with the timeline of the beginning.
Speaker 2: So you're you're from.
Speaker 1: Be more correct, yes, be more you're claiming Baltimore too.
Speaker 4: I'm sorry, sir, I should say yes because I went
Speaker 4: to Morgan State, so every city it's thirty minutes away.
Speaker 2: But DC in Baltimore, don't.
Speaker 4: They're very different.
Speaker 8: Well, cousins their cousins. You know, we're family doesn't always
Speaker 8: like each other, right, shout out to Glizzie. You know,
Speaker 8: I'm I'm. I got a lot of family in d C.
Speaker 8: You know, a lot of family and be more. The
Speaker 8: whole d m V is like I made my tracks there,
Speaker 8: so you know, I love all of it.
Speaker 4: You know, you know, I'm surprised you still have your
Speaker 4: Baltimore accent, Like I still hear your two's and you're
Speaker 4: do you.
Speaker 8: Cut me up and I be more? You know that
Speaker 8: that's just what it is. And I've been accepted uh
Speaker 8: here in New York I made for twenty five years,
Speaker 8: so it's like, you know, I'm guess some from New
Speaker 8: York too, you know what I mean? So but you
Speaker 8: cut me open them be more forever.
Speaker 2: I didn't know that too. And you that that's a jow,
Speaker 2: that's a jawn, or that's I.
Speaker 4: Don't think Baltimore has a jawn. It's just the what
Speaker 4: do you call the you know what tho?
Speaker 1: Okay, not that I should hold near and dear what see.
Speaker 1: I don't want to be that person that references the
Speaker 1: wire like, well on the wire I saw. But I
Speaker 1: actually heard Snoop's character use the word jawn when describing.
Speaker 2: Like wiggle it jiggle it came on young young Wait
Speaker 2: he was, Yes, he was. Did you say that you
Speaker 2: were still there, that I was there? Okay? I thought
Speaker 2: I was because of Baltimore. You were there? I was
Speaker 2: there at that time?
Speaker 8: To you?
Speaker 2: Okay?
Speaker 1: Well yeah, basically like Snoop use the word jawn.
Speaker 4: She might have said Joe because Joe is kind of like,
Speaker 4: but no.
Speaker 8: She meant like that's my joint. Yeah, we used that too. Yeah, Yo,
Speaker 8: you know.
Speaker 4: Y'all use yo for everything.
Speaker 2: I thought it was a New York then asn't it.
Speaker 4: But I appreciate you because you you still go back.
Speaker 4: You would just at Morgan like writing that recently, Like
Speaker 4: you constantly go back and give back to Morgan State.
Speaker 8: Yeah. And I try to tell people you nothing without
Speaker 8: bringing people with you. So I just go as a
Speaker 8: beacon of light. We're raising two hundred and fifty million
Speaker 8: dollars for Morgan and if you go there. When I
Speaker 8: went there, you know, we stated Cummings and now it's
Speaker 8: like one of the top you know, five universities for engineers,
Speaker 8: the number one African American university for engineers, you know
Speaker 8: what I mean. So I'm a former engineer, so it's
Speaker 8: a blessing to go back all the time. My whole
Speaker 8: family's there too, so it's like.
Speaker 4: The most up north HBCU as well.
Speaker 1: Yes, yes, man, you are really giving back, Like I
Speaker 1: feel bad, Like I think I gave a drum set
Speaker 1: to my high school.
Speaker 4: In Baltimore. You are there, oh yeah, yeah and everything.
Speaker 8: Yeah, that's my city. You know. One thing when you
Speaker 8: come from humble beginnings and you know, like I tell people,
Speaker 8: most of my journey comes from real life shit, you
Speaker 8: know what I mean. So like I didn't, I've been
Speaker 8: in it. You know, you talk about the why that
Speaker 8: was my that was the error, you know what I
Speaker 8: mean of like you know, my uncles and everybody, and
Speaker 8: for me to be here and just talk about it
Speaker 8: still talk about my city. Just recently Kean Copperta who
Speaker 8: went to Woodland after me, younger than me, but I
Speaker 8: built the stadium. He would always pay for the Falcons.
Speaker 8: He came home. He would always do a class for
Speaker 8: kids who wanted to play football, track and field and
Speaker 8: things like that, and developed a great friendship. And one
Speaker 8: thing about Baltimore. If something ever happened in Baltimore, I
Speaker 8: get it. I get it. So not to start off
Speaker 8: in a but you know, I always gotta be spiritual.
Speaker 8: So he was playing for Son, and you love this
Speaker 8: quest in a way, but you also it was a
Speaker 8: sad moment. But playing for Son, made a mistake and
Speaker 8: hit his head, went into a coma and at you know,
Speaker 8: thirty nine years old. Past. Now tell that story, because
Speaker 8: when you talk about Baltimore, you owe it to where
Speaker 8: you're from, to always go back because something it's going
Speaker 8: to happen to somebody at some point in time, and
Speaker 8: people need light, they need something positive, They need something.
Speaker 8: One of the reasons why you do the show, you
Speaker 8: know what I mean. People need light, people need guidance.
Speaker 8: And you know when people speak about Baltimore, that's like
Speaker 8: that's my city, that's like it's really my city, you
Speaker 8: know what I'm saying. So to me, I just love
Speaker 8: and I don't know how I went there and there,
Speaker 8: I guess it was on my heart, so fuck it.
Speaker 2: So how did you?
Speaker 8: No?
Speaker 1: No, no, I mean, but I want to talk about that,
Speaker 1: like my depiction, Like I used to go to Baltimore
Speaker 1: a lot, Like I had an uncle and aunt down there.
Speaker 1: We go like summertimes, you know, weekends, they're.
Speaker 2: Sort of things.
Speaker 1: And I didn't see the Baltimore that's you know, depicted
Speaker 1: on TV. I mean, like does it do you feel
Speaker 1: some sort of way when you hear the I guess
Speaker 1: there's somewhat fetishizing of the Wire culture with other I mean,
Speaker 1: the inside joke is always like more white people love
Speaker 1: the Wire than black people, do you know, like they will.
Speaker 1: I've seen many Wire references in every like high brow
Speaker 1: comedy show on TV or whatever. It's just always like
Speaker 1: some inside joke about it. But you know, it's a
Speaker 1: lot of people the Wire is like what they feel
Speaker 1: is Baltimore.
Speaker 2: And like, how do you, I mean, how did you?
Speaker 1: What was your Baltimore you growing up and and like
Speaker 1: your experiences with the city.
Speaker 8: All at all that all that, and I have to
Speaker 8: be honest with you. So when I grew up, it
Speaker 8: was probably highlight you know, well the dope scene, you
Speaker 8: know what I mean? And you know, if you want,
Speaker 8: it was there. It was everywhere. I always say, you know,
Speaker 8: you have the drug store, the liquor store, the church,
Speaker 8: in the dope corner. It was there. It was just there.
Speaker 8: So that's what people talked about. That's what people were.
Speaker 8: You want to know how to make money. You wanted
Speaker 8: to be with that guy who was on the corner.
Speaker 8: He always had the money and he was giving back
Speaker 8: to the kids. And that all everything that the wire
Speaker 8: trolled a true depiction of what was happening in that
Speaker 8: that the city at the time, to the point where
Speaker 8: when it got to where people were saying, it's the
Speaker 8: home or the wire. Martin O'Malley, who was at that
Speaker 8: time mayor about to go for a governor a friend
Speaker 8: of mine said, that's not what I want us to
Speaker 8: be known for, not under my you know, my jurisdiction.
Speaker 8: And he actually went It was one of the guys
Speaker 8: to say, hey, we shouldn't go, you know, we should
Speaker 8: stop it and do something. And from that point on,
Speaker 8: Rich Carlton Four Seasons turned the whole in a harbor. Johns.
Speaker 8: Hopkins invested into Fell's Point, like so many big things
Speaker 8: in Morgan State, went to a different level. But you know,
Speaker 8: to say why I appreciate life and why I appreciate moments,
Speaker 8: you know, even like this, it's because you know, I
Speaker 8: come from very humble beginnings. I said, I didn't grow
Speaker 8: up with a silver spoon in my mouth. My ship
Speaker 8: was rusted, you know what I mean. So I know
Speaker 8: I know what it is. So it was like that.
Speaker 4: Though, what's crazy is Martin O'Malley was really depicted in
Speaker 4: the wire as Mayor Garcetti, who was very.
Speaker 8: Yes, mess Martin and all, and these are all people,
Speaker 8: you know, we just retired, well she retired herself of
Speaker 8: Senator mccowsky and you know you I'm forty eight now,
Speaker 8: so I've seen it, you know what I mean. Even
Speaker 8: from a very young age, you know, back may of smoke.
Speaker 8: Back then. I was always thought that if if you
Speaker 8: had politics, if you could put yourself with position of
Speaker 8: power by being around that. And so I've been with
Speaker 8: every mayor, governor, city council member, the whole nine. Also,
Speaker 8: when people got in trouble, I can get him out.
Speaker 8: I could always wear some things out. So it's just
Speaker 8: a you know, it's it's the truth. Though I loved
Speaker 8: the Wire, though I loved. It was a homing and
Speaker 8: cultural uh history to me for TV, for HBO. I
Speaker 8: think it was one of those soprano moments for our culture,
Speaker 8: you know, for the while.
Speaker 1: So you saw places and those things, just you saw
Speaker 1: memories and you.
Speaker 8: And I need to go, you not need to take
Speaker 8: a walk Baltimore. And I'm being the way I'm the
Speaker 8: way I'm being serious about because I think I could.
Speaker 8: I could show you the older and new. I can
Speaker 8: show you some of the stuff that was happening back
Speaker 8: then where it's happening now. But also I mean you
Speaker 8: can go have tea at the Four Seasons, you know
Speaker 8: what I mean? And you and I can go and
Speaker 8: visit Johns Hopkins and go to the Morgan to see
Speaker 8: the new engineer and building, you know what I mean.
Speaker 4: Gentrifying.
Speaker 1: Yeah, I was gonna say, is it going through a
Speaker 1: gentle yesifaication? And are they phasing out the residents or
Speaker 1: is it inclusive?
Speaker 8: No comment? Mm hm m, no comment.
Speaker 4: Because my apartment was four hundred and eighty dollars.
Speaker 2: Ain't that nothing.
Speaker 8: I see? I see Let's take a let's take a
Speaker 8: walk this year though, that definitely I would love to.
Speaker 2: Do with you I'm down you joined us, like, yeah,
Speaker 2: I would love to.
Speaker 4: I love to see where Baltimore is gone.
Speaker 2: I'll go.
Speaker 4: I got people in Baltimore you can call if it
Speaker 4: go down.
Speaker 2: Yeah, don't everybody.
Speaker 5: Me and Bill go, but we're staying in our harbor.
Speaker 8: Cool me too.
Speaker 1: So in your in your where does where does music play?
Speaker 1: Because before, I mean, most people know you as an executive,
Speaker 1: but there there might be millennials whatnot, uh that don't
Speaker 1: know that you were actually an artist yourself. So what
Speaker 1: was music music's role in your life? And did did
Speaker 1: Baltimore really have a music culture?
Speaker 8: Like did we Well?
Speaker 1: Okay, I know that there's this whole d M v
Speaker 1: idea of this unity thing, but you know, for most
Speaker 1: people that I speak to from d C, they're just
Speaker 1: claiming Go Go and not Baltimore. And then Baltimore is
Speaker 1: like claiming house music and nothing else.
Speaker 2: And I'm not sure where Virginia and North Carolina falling.
Speaker 2: They trickled down. It was just everything. Yeah, so you
Speaker 2: guys had an active go go. We didn't. Well, we
Speaker 2: had it, but it was it was transplants. I mean
Speaker 2: the thing with North Carolina was that you know, back
Speaker 2: to what Kevin was saying with the drug trade, Uh,
Speaker 2: North Carolina was you know, it was on the route
Speaker 2: if you were going south, so pretty much. And we
Speaker 2: had where I grew up in Greensboro, we had like
Speaker 2: a lot of colleges. It was a college town, so
Speaker 2: you had a lot of Northerners coming up and going
Speaker 2: to school down south, and they were bringing their music
Speaker 2: with them. So go go, I mean, go go was
Speaker 2: like crazy.
Speaker 4: I mean the reason that college was the reason go
Speaker 4: go Coultur, Yeah.
Speaker 2: So alloted all the go go then, I mean all
Speaker 2: the classic you know early eighties, you know New York
Speaker 2: hip hop stuff. I mean that's what we would listening to.
Speaker 2: So that was why, like when we came out as
Speaker 2: a little brother, they were like, y'all don't sound like
Speaker 2: y'all from the South, and it was, well the South
Speaker 2: that we were from. That's what we listened to because
Speaker 2: that was that was our biggest influence. That's coming down
Speaker 2: the seaboard.
Speaker 4: Baltimore Club, our house music was that.
Speaker 2: Didn't make it. The Baltimore Club didn't make it. I didn't.
Speaker 2: I didn't figure out the Baltimore Club until it was
Speaker 2: later because that was like really hate what I know
Speaker 2: as Baltimore house music.
Speaker 1: That made it sort of entry in hipster's lives, like
Speaker 1: two thousand and two, two thousand and three, was.
Speaker 2: That always a thing, always a thing, always the thing.
Speaker 2: So how far.
Speaker 8: Back depends what you saw you want to go. I mean,
Speaker 8: like so with me, i'm a I started as an MC,
Speaker 8: but also DJ our whole thing with new marks. Uh.
Speaker 8: We had ten turntables and so we would mix. We
Speaker 8: would do our mixes with ten turntables, you know. I mean,
Speaker 8: somebody would play the bass beat and then people scratched
Speaker 8: records over top of it and blended and we went
Speaker 8: around doing that. And then the whole rap thing came
Speaker 8: with run DMC and thing, and it was like yo,
Speaker 8: my man said, yo you rap. I said, no, I
Speaker 8: write poetry. He said, well, so we're gonna be Roden
Speaker 8: KG and I was KG, and I was like cool.
Speaker 8: And then this was back when in Baltimore there was
Speaker 8: a group called We Rock Crew Charm City Crew and
Speaker 8: a couple of them, and we would battle all over
Speaker 8: the city, you know what I mean. And so I
Speaker 8: don't want to say the house music thing. You know,
Speaker 8: I did all that too. I mean, you can go
Speaker 8: like North Avenue record I made about the street that
Speaker 8: we used to run up and down with the cars.
Speaker 8: I love that because that was Baltimore music. But what
Speaker 8: was really in me was hip hop. And I was
Speaker 8: like a true Fano. I lost my mind when I
Speaker 8: heard some records. And you know, so I can take
Speaker 8: you back to when the radio station was w EBB
Speaker 8: and all they played was for four hours is the
Speaker 8: Mac James Show. To now every radio station talking about
Speaker 8: the station. Hip hop and R and B. It's all day.
Speaker 8: You know, they played every day, you know, I mean
Speaker 8: that's everywhere now. But back then I had to slept
Speaker 8: on the floor mixed wrapped. I opened up. You loved this,
Speaker 8: So I think my record got a little big or whatever.
Speaker 8: And so LLLL was coming to a place called forty
Speaker 8: six or four Liberty Heights, and so I opened up
Speaker 8: for l L No. I'm on, somebody pulled a gun.
Speaker 8: They started shooting in there, and up in the judgment
Speaker 8: with Tar, he said, yo, y'all crazy. I said, that's
Speaker 8: you good, don't don't worry about it. So but not
Speaker 8: just him, run DMC. I opened up for Salt and Pepper.
Speaker 8: I opened up for Rob Base, Rob Base and the
Speaker 8: vert I went on tour with. I mean like when
Speaker 8: you when you talk about it, it's like, this is
Speaker 8: why I know how to treat an artist, because I
Speaker 8: know what it is. I know how I wanted to
Speaker 8: be treated. Will Smith.
Speaker 2: They actually they they would actually let.
Speaker 8: You let me. I was big in the city quest
Speaker 8: I was big, arena big throwing your hands in the air.
Speaker 8: I was arena big.
Speaker 1: Well, no, just like today artists, I mean not even today,
Speaker 1: like you just come in, you get on the mic,
Speaker 1: and then you out, like I can't remember the last
Speaker 1: time the other big in I met little Brother because
Speaker 1: like the Route show got rained out and I was like,
Speaker 1: all right, let me walk in the audience and shake
Speaker 1: some hands. When I was there, Yeah, I want to
Speaker 1: got the demo and I wanted to tweet about it
Speaker 1: or tweet it.
Speaker 2: Well okay, playered about it. But I'm just.
Speaker 1: Saying that what what made you well, not what made
Speaker 1: you want to in your mind. Were you like, Okay,
Speaker 1: I'm going to be a diplomat to these you know,
Speaker 1: for the city and and give it these artists or
Speaker 1: it was just like hip hop was so scarce in
Speaker 1: the mid to late eighties that you just had to
Speaker 1: know every MC or act that came down.
Speaker 8: No, you know what, you know what it was, I
Speaker 8: ran the streets, so it's like I knew everybody, and
Speaker 8: then the promoters would tell artists, Hey, you're gonna do
Speaker 8: the show where we got to put this group New
Speaker 8: Marks on because they local, they're gonna bring about, you know,
Speaker 8: tickets and things that, so you should put them on.
Speaker 8: And the way we used to run because we DJ'ed
Speaker 8: on the radio for four or five hours and we
Speaker 8: used to do shows. We kind of like ran the
Speaker 8: city when it came to music, you know what I mean.
Speaker 8: So it's like they just loved having us open up.
Speaker 8: And then me always treated it like a business, you
Speaker 8: know what I mean. It wasn't about me hanging out
Speaker 8: with people or just meeting somebody. I wanted to have
Speaker 8: a value proposition, so I made sure when artists came
Speaker 8: down that they felt like they got to be more love,
Speaker 8: you know what I mean. It was something special about
Speaker 8: them coming down. So one artists would tell another artist that, yo,
Speaker 8: them kids, you got to they could take you where
Speaker 8: you got to go. They can get you anything you want,
Speaker 8: and they don't. So that was really my mindset.
Speaker 2: Who always in New Mark. So who were the other
Speaker 2: members of the group.
Speaker 8: One of the original founders was DJ Spen. He still
Speaker 8: plays house music today shout out to Spin and beat Master.
Speaker 8: Moll was a kid named Wayne Mallory. He's married and
Speaker 8: in Florida. Junie Jam was one of my neighbors and
Speaker 8: his cousin Rod was Rod Rod and KG you know me.
Speaker 8: So it was five. It was five of us. And
Speaker 8: when it yeah, kind of, it was at the time
Speaker 8: of I I can truly tell you man that you know,
Speaker 8: being from Baltimore, and they had had a certain soundings
Speaker 8: before the house music thing was hip hop and they
Speaker 8: started to develop back I meant Crystal Waters and the
Speaker 8: Basement Boys and all like. This was all stuff that
Speaker 8: we did. I'm coming up. It was a place called
Speaker 8: Paradox that people used to go to for for club music.
Speaker 8: But then Frank Ski, which you know, you know, he
Speaker 8: used to do this thing called Hammer Jacks. Hammer Jacks
Speaker 8: was a club like it's like a house of blues,
Speaker 8: but it was in Baltimore. And when I tell you,
Speaker 8: we brought you know, and I started interning for Death Jam.
Speaker 8: I brought everybody from DMX man Method Man Blah, blah
Speaker 8: blah everybody as even when I became the president, but
Speaker 8: everybody would come. We had to do Hamma Jacks. It
Speaker 8: was like the spot in the city we had to do. So,
Speaker 8: you know, although I was you know, I grew up
Speaker 8: on the house, hip hop was always like part of it,
Speaker 8: you know what I mean. So I always try to say, Yo, guys,
Speaker 8: we really gotta gotta have that the edge with us,
Speaker 8: that the thing with us, you know what I mean.
Speaker 8: Even though I did the Girdy Knows true thing, it's
Speaker 8: still like, you know, you gotta have that edge, you
Speaker 8: know what I mean.
Speaker 1: All Right, I want to let's let's bring up the
Speaker 1: elephant in the room right now. Let's kid, all right, well,
Speaker 1: let's play the elephant in the.
Speaker 2: Room right now.
Speaker 4: Oh, let's do it. So what are you doing that?
Speaker 8: Well, a setback and thought about the things we used
Speaker 8: to do together. They really meant a lot to me.
Speaker 7: Yes, you know it's true.
Speaker 1: No, even even though I've heard this on and off
Speaker 1: since I found out that you were the author of
Speaker 1: A Girl, you know it's true. But in preparing for
Speaker 1: this interview and listening to it about a good three times,
Speaker 1: that was a well crafted song.
Speaker 8: Thank you.
Speaker 1: Now this is the other thing, Uh, everyone knows about
Speaker 1: my Soul Train addictions. And I happened to be watching
Speaker 1: an eighty six episode of.
Speaker 2: Soul Train with Star Point.
Speaker 1: And Don and then we're talking about you know, they
Speaker 1: were just making a big thing of Maryland and Baltimore
Speaker 1: and everything, like you guys are the biggest thing to
Speaker 1: come out there, and you know what I mean, they
Speaker 1: were embellisting like, yeah, you know, we can't even walk
Speaker 1: in the malls.
Speaker 2: All people asked Bar.
Speaker 1: And then May at the end of the interview they
Speaker 1: were like, yeah, you know, we want to develop more
Speaker 1: acts and everything. Like they really played it like they
Speaker 1: were the bell, the ball of Baltimore area. And I mean,
Speaker 1: you know, they had object they had hits. I think
Speaker 1: they were the next show He Wants My Body? Or
Speaker 1: what was the joint with Teddy Roley?
Speaker 2: I want you? You want you don't?
Speaker 1: You don't, I can't Teddy Roley produced their eighty A joints.
Speaker 1: But my point was that, like, were there being as
Speaker 1: though they were the biggest act of the eighties, Were
Speaker 1: they at a presence at all in.
Speaker 2: And were they at all in your radar like during
Speaker 2: that time period?
Speaker 8: So you. You want to hear the craziest thing. There's
Speaker 8: a guy and stopped pointing in Kai, Yeah, Kai, did
Speaker 8: I love you?
Speaker 2: I wait what?
Speaker 8: Seriously he wrote the lyric.
Speaker 2: I love you.
Speaker 7: Exclusive exclusive.
Speaker 1: Wow, wait a minute. I I just thought my whole
Speaker 1: point was that, like star Boy was really playing, like yeah,
Speaker 1: we were thinking Baltimore. I didn't even know that y'all
Speaker 1: cross baths.
Speaker 8: I was just the did we cross bas Bill Petaway,
Speaker 8: who works with Tim land Now, had this let's tell
Speaker 8: you a little bit about the record, had this record
Speaker 8: this track, and you know, I was a rapper, so
Speaker 8: I wouldn't really didn't write the songs, so you know,
Speaker 8: I do all that. But he said, yo, we probably
Speaker 8: need Ki to help us to say ky. I didn't
Speaker 8: really know like that, you know what I mean? So
Speaker 8: he said yeah stop. I said, oh, okay, cool, I
Speaker 8: think I some hits that this is right there. So
Speaker 8: he wrote that part of the record and it's one
Speaker 8: of the That's why I say the group I have
Speaker 8: to give him pay respect. And the other other group
Speaker 8: was rations you know what I mean. They the Drumma,
Speaker 8: the drummer from RASCS was my engineer for my first album.
Speaker 8: I mean, I actually made an album too, but I
Speaker 8: think we can. You can look that up.
Speaker 4: You recorded in the Oxen Hill, Maryland right.
Speaker 8: Oxen Hill, Maryland Studio Records, yep.
Speaker 4: The last record that was made in Auxton Hill, Maryland.
Speaker 1: Last work, all right, I got to do more homework.
Speaker 2: I have to do more homework. Yeah, actually.
Speaker 1: We got it, don't We don't have a turn here
Speaker 1: getting on war Yeah, shout out to Ard war So.
Speaker 2: Explained to me the journey of Girl you not. It's true.
Speaker 1: For our fans that are.
Speaker 2: Born after nineteen it's a lot.
Speaker 1: I mean, this song was bigger than life and basically
Speaker 1: pretty much it was one of the biggest singles of
Speaker 1: nineteen eighty eight for the Aristo label and caused an empire,
Speaker 1: Like just the entire story, Like I want to know
Speaker 1: the journey of the song, but then I just want
Speaker 1: to know what your reaction was that you helped build
Speaker 1: an empire and the fall of that empire and the
Speaker 1: scandal that broke out, And I mean, how many times
Speaker 1: were you like but that's me, Like how many people
Speaker 1: came up to you, Like I thought you were a
Speaker 1: gazillionaire because your song? First of all, why didn't you
Speaker 1: or did you like, how close were you guys to
Speaker 1: actually trying to bring this to a major or take
Speaker 1: it to a major label. And cause it's a well
Speaker 1: crafted song for a local record, it is a very
Speaker 1: well crafted song.
Speaker 8: So here's the thing. It was inspired by I Need Love.
Speaker 8: I'm taught ell and I I wasn't doing it to
Speaker 8: be a big artist like that, to be honest with you,
Speaker 8: you know what I mean. I was doing it because
Speaker 8: I like.
Speaker 1: On purpose, or you just didn't think, oh, this song
Speaker 1: could actually with one hundred kids through college.
Speaker 8: Or honestly, it was just another another record. There's actually
Speaker 8: another record I love more than it. But when creating
Speaker 8: that record, I knew it was special. I knew it
Speaker 8: was special. Every time we would play it, people would
Speaker 8: just freak out over and then I knew when we
Speaker 8: performed it, it's like the whole crowd saying yeah, I
Speaker 8: knew it was special. So we sold like one hundred
Speaker 8: thousand copies with Studio records. And I remember I'm home
Speaker 8: chilling and with this girl and I said, they turn
Speaker 8: the radio off, and she said, that's not the radio.
Speaker 8: I said, what do you mean, it's not the radio off?
Speaker 8: She said, no, I said, baby, it's the radio. I
Speaker 8: don't have a video for the record. She said, I
Speaker 8: know that's not you, but that's that's that's your record
Speaker 8: right there. And it was really really performing my record.
Speaker 8: That's how I found out on TV.
Speaker 2: So so Frank Farion for those that don't know, going
Speaker 2: in there. All right, So here's the deal.
Speaker 1: So Frank Farian was a producer and a member of
Speaker 1: a seventies funk outfit called Bonie M. Steve's laughing because
Speaker 1: he knows the story I'm gonna tell. Side note, I
Speaker 1: once thought I was hired to do a Bonie M
Speaker 1: record in the late two thousand.
Speaker 2: Then fucking around was Bonie James. Now I can't get
Speaker 2: rid of him. He's my BF. But at the time
Speaker 2: I thought I was doing a Bony M session. I
Speaker 2: was like, wait a minute, it smooth jazz, like what.
Speaker 1: Marcus Miller anyway, Yeah he I guess he heard this
Speaker 1: on a German night club and an army base or
Speaker 1: something like.
Speaker 8: So. Unbeknownst to me, my label Studio Records, we're getting
Speaker 8: calls off all over the world for Grave Nose True
Speaker 8: the New Box right, and instead we want Chrysalis Records.
Speaker 8: Came and said, we want to pick you guys up.
Speaker 8: I didn't. This is I didn't. This is all I
Speaker 8: found out afterwards through the court. And he he said, well,
Speaker 8: I want money, and so he wanted to cash advance
Speaker 8: and Bluebird, whoever the label was, gave him the money.
Speaker 8: But Christlis wanted to develop the group, but he didn't
Speaker 8: care about that part of it. He cared about getting money,
Speaker 8: you know what I mean.
Speaker 2: So the label you released it on, was it your label?
Speaker 2: Per se?
Speaker 8: No? No, no, okay.
Speaker 2: So the person who's the head of.
Speaker 8: The label at that time was a guy named Franco
Speaker 8: something I forgot his name, okay, But he sold it
Speaker 8: to Bluebird. Bluebird didn't distribute it through z y X
Speaker 8: and the what do you call that? Denilux countries in
Speaker 8: Japan and was on some label and France is on
Speaker 8: some label. And in the club they were playing my
Speaker 8: version of the record. And so C W Shaw, who
Speaker 8: was an Army veteran, he was in the Army, he
Speaker 8: sends me this long letter. You don't know me. I
Speaker 8: actually sung your record and Milli Vanilli's singing, acting like
Speaker 8: they singing. He actually I got a letter from C. W. Shaw,
Speaker 8: who actually said I'm the voice.
Speaker 2: So he's that guy that's singing and rapping.
Speaker 8: From here from Houston. He said, I love you guys.
Speaker 8: I love your version of it. They came and asked
Speaker 8: me to re sing the record. He said, it's not
Speaker 8: out yet. And so now this is when the record
Speaker 8: is eighteen many copies and I'm working on the second album.
Speaker 8: You know, I did, I did that one girls true,
Speaker 8: what's my Diane Warren did blame it on the range.
Speaker 8: So we think about what we're gonna do next with
Speaker 8: the next album, and then the whole thing thing blew up.
Speaker 8: You couldn't have wrote the story, you know what I mean.
Speaker 8: You couldn't wrote the characters.
Speaker 2: And so Diane Warren did blame it on the rain
Speaker 2: on New Walks first.
Speaker 8: No no, no, no, no no. I'm saying I met
Speaker 8: her because I had Gery norstru which was the first single,
Speaker 8: and she did blame it on the ring.
Speaker 4: It was only one voice for that was one. I
Speaker 4: didn't even realize that that was one man.
Speaker 8: No, he did, he did, he did this. It was
Speaker 8: really two of them, but I only know the one
Speaker 8: uh c W shot so shout out. You know. He
Speaker 8: told me about it, but I didn't know what was
Speaker 8: going on. I was making money because I sued and
Speaker 8: got my publishing and my writer stuff back.
Speaker 2: I'm saying, like they didn't even clear it with you.
Speaker 8: And I woke up a girl said, that's you on
Speaker 8: the radio on the TV. That's how I found out,
Speaker 8: and so I had to get a lawyer, like that's
Speaker 8: my song. Yeah, hurt beyond. I wasn't. I wasn't mad.
Speaker 8: It was that how can so, how can somebody do that? Like?
Speaker 8: And it was that that moment that I said, I
Speaker 8: don't want to be in the music business. I want
Speaker 8: to be in the business of music. It was at
Speaker 8: that moment and I changed everything the whole folk.
Speaker 1: So that made you want to get behind the camera,
Speaker 1: behind in the boardroom instead of in front of the microphones.
Speaker 8: Yes, I never wanted to happen again. I never wanted
Speaker 8: to happen to anybody again.
Speaker 1: You know, you wanted to be this person because you
Speaker 1: wanted to protect someone from getting ganked and and well
Speaker 1: from the situation that happened to you.
Speaker 8: Yes, yes, it really made me want love the bit
Speaker 8: I started to see things differently than I would go
Speaker 8: to a show and say, damn, that's a lot of
Speaker 8: glows sticks. I wonder how much they cost? Damn the
Speaker 8: tickets price is this? And I would start thinking the
Speaker 8: business of everything around me. And so that's what made
Speaker 8: me go back and said I'm an intern because I
Speaker 8: didn't understand enough, you know what I mean?
Speaker 1: How long for a situation like that, especially without the
Speaker 1: internet or something to help rush the process of information?
Speaker 1: I mean, how long was it of you crying wolf? Like, wait,
Speaker 1: I wrote this song, I wrote the song and getting
Speaker 1: an answer and eventually getting to Clive Davis or like,
Speaker 1: I can't even believe that they would be so careless
Speaker 1: as to release a song, markt a song, sell the
Speaker 1: song without checking to see, if.
Speaker 2: You know, do some research everything.
Speaker 1: I'm clear, it's like with us, like even a minuscule
Speaker 1: sample is a wait that laughing and mirror?
Speaker 2: What's that laughing on that thing? Is that pink Floyd?
Speaker 1: And you know, like you're you gotta So how long
Speaker 1: was it from the moment you heard the record in.
Speaker 2: Eighty eight till like they finally did right by you and.
Speaker 8: Said, well, I don't think I don't think. I don't
Speaker 8: think people ever did did right by say you don't
Speaker 8: when you do right. You do right when you have
Speaker 8: to sue, that's not doing right, you know what I mean.
Speaker 2: So, oh so that was the last resort. Did you say.
Speaker 8: That was the first resort?
Speaker 2: Oh? You just okay?
Speaker 8: I'm phil Asbury. Shout out to phil Asbury, Philadelphia.
Speaker 4: Philadelphia International.
Speaker 8: Phil Asbury showed them what it is to be you know,
Speaker 8: don't don't mess with kids, because I was when I
Speaker 8: wrote the record. I think I was sixteen, version was
Speaker 8: eighty eighty seven seven. I don't even remember, since you're
Speaker 8: right on my record, that was when the album came out.
Speaker 8: Oh okay, so I'm not sure. I'm not somewhere around there.
Speaker 8: I think I wrote it though in eighty three. Wow,
Speaker 8: originally me and my partner and you know, just a
Speaker 8: weird time. But I never I didn't. I didn't play
Speaker 8: with it though. It wasn't It wasn't. It was something
Speaker 8: I felt like, like you said, y' y'all had audacity
Speaker 8: to not check do it?
Speaker 4: So?
Speaker 8: Eighteen million copies?
Speaker 2: And then did they try to deny it?
Speaker 8: No, you couldn't. No, they just well.
Speaker 1: They said, we live in twenty sixteen, where the lies
Speaker 1: of the truth, we are not sixteen at least right
Speaker 1: the lover course, So seventeen seventeen, John seventeen, it's definitely February.
Speaker 2: I forgot where we were. No, I'm just saying, you know,
Speaker 2: the lie could be the truth.
Speaker 1: And you know, Black Heaven Baltimore says, we stole song
Speaker 1: like we're we're an empire.
Speaker 8: It was a little bit and listen at a shout
Speaker 8: out to Cloud and it was never I never faulted them.
Speaker 8: I always fault at Frank Ferrion. I always faulted uh,
Speaker 8: Steve Franco, the owner of Studio Records, because I might
Speaker 8: be sitting here as an artist. You know what I mean,
Speaker 8: if they would have did the right thing, you know
Speaker 8: what I mean, I could have never did for Gerdyos true,
Speaker 8: what Billivy nearly did for Gerdios true. You know what
Speaker 8: I mean. I'm not wearing tight pants, i ain't jumping
Speaker 8: up like that. I'm not doing this and all that.
Speaker 8: Those things that happened, and so I think God made that.
Speaker 2: If anything, this is kind of a blessing in disgust.
Speaker 8: It was, and I always tell people, if I had
Speaker 8: to do it all over again, I would allow it
Speaker 8: to happen because a lot of things came up and
Speaker 8: I made a lot of money at a young age
Speaker 8: off the record, I traveled the world. Off of the record,
Speaker 8: I opened up for people who eventually were signed to me.
Speaker 8: Depth there I developed friendships that to this day we're
Speaker 8: raising kids. Now you know what I mean. I've became
Speaker 8: the I became an intern and was ab come to
Speaker 8: president in seven years of Deftem because I knew how
Speaker 8: artists should be treated because I was one. I traveled,
Speaker 8: I did did everything that they could do. So to me,
Speaker 8: why would I want to write it differently? I couldn't.
Speaker 8: I couldn't imagine doing nothing. Yea, it's still the next
Speaker 8: one too, if you want. You know, all right, this
Speaker 8: is quest of Supreme.
Speaker 1: We're here with Kevin Lyles and he's telling us the
Speaker 1: story behind the song he co wrote called Girl.
Speaker 2: You know it's true?
Speaker 1: So am I to assume that Newmark's kind of imploded
Speaker 1: around this time as well? And nah, so you guys
Speaker 1: still went strong, Like how long did the group last time?
Speaker 8: Well, we went from five members down to three members
Speaker 8: and it became me and uh Rod and DJ Spin
Speaker 8: and we started to do quote unquote more uh Baltimore
Speaker 8: music along with hip hop stuff that I like. There's
Speaker 8: a record that we put out on we put our
Speaker 8: own label because we had a little money then called
Speaker 8: Max Brothers Records, And there was a record we put
Speaker 8: out called drop Down to Your Knees and a record
Speaker 8: we called do You Want To? And they were to
Speaker 8: probably the last records that I made, But we kept
Speaker 8: going and doing it and then again.
Speaker 2: Or what made you?
Speaker 1: Well, what was the deciding factor of this straw that
Speaker 1: broke the camel's back, Like maybe this isn't the route
Speaker 1: to take and I should do something else.
Speaker 8: The Milli Vanilla, the middle of Vanilli thing really paid
Speaker 8: played a role in it. But then the internship at
Speaker 8: Deaf Jam.
Speaker 2: Yeah, so how does that happen?
Speaker 1: Like you're at least a a compensated, established figure and
Speaker 1: how did you How did you get in the sights
Speaker 1: of Russell Simmons for him to say you're going to
Speaker 1: work in the mail room? Was it just a job
Speaker 1: test for you? Like, no, I'm going to start you
Speaker 1: at the very bottom and literally remember Jack the rapper? Yes,
Speaker 1: remember impact on concerts. I used to go there and
Speaker 1: be the mad rapper. Why I know I want to
Speaker 1: sign me? I sold records I did this, y'all know.
Speaker 1: That's why I was mad, you know. And then I
Speaker 1: ran into uh my mentor, Wes Johnson, God rest his soul.
Speaker 8: West says cab man. You know when I was in
Speaker 8: Baltimore used to play your records. I said, yeah, West,
Speaker 8: I know you used to play my records. You know me?
Speaker 8: He said, you know, I'm the senior vice president of
Speaker 8: marketing promotions for death Jam. Now I said, get out
Speaker 8: of here. I said, well, sign me to death Jam.
Speaker 8: He said, I on really sign them in promotions. I said, well,
Speaker 8: give me a job. He said no, but you can
Speaker 8: in turn. Now what you said, I was making money, okay,
Speaker 8: I said, intern in turn deaf Jam intern Cool. So
Speaker 8: Wes Johnson said, you know what I'm had this guy inter.
Speaker 8: He said, By the way, we're hiring a guy named
Speaker 8: Kevin Mitchell from Boston.
Speaker 2: Vin Mitchell. I'm kidding.
Speaker 8: This is that Yes, a guy from Boston, and we're
Speaker 8: gonna put him in the mid Atlantic. We like him. Uh,
Speaker 8: and you can intern for him.
Speaker 2: So I said, you were Kevin Mitchell's intern.
Speaker 8: Kevin Mitchell's interns Mitchell.
Speaker 2: Kevin, all right, I'm thinking the same thing.
Speaker 1: He's gonna let you know, Kevin Mitchell was but for
Speaker 1: the roots if you know, of course, like no roots
Speaker 1: are listening to my radio show, so I will tell
Speaker 1: them about this. When we signed to Geffen, I mean
Speaker 1: basically because.
Speaker 2: There was no staff, but they had millions.
Speaker 1: They did some unheard of shit was basically, here, you
Speaker 1: take the credit cards, show us the receipts.
Speaker 2: Don't overspend.
Speaker 1: Like again, you know, Dale's record was made for like
Speaker 1: twenty thousand, ciper Seals records made for like sixty thousand.
Speaker 2: They just gave us an open credit card.
Speaker 1: And also like two employees from loud RCA and three
Speaker 1: employees from deaf Jet, which were Francesca Spiro, Derreck Jackson,
Speaker 1: and Kevin Mitchell, they would they would uh moonlight uh
Speaker 1: with Geffen.
Speaker 2: And my our experience with Kevin was that he was
Speaker 2: mister McGoo. He was blind.
Speaker 1: He was the cartoon figure that had thick bottle glasses
Speaker 1: when he's driving. One night, he was just asleep at
Speaker 1: the wheel and we were on the other side of
Speaker 1: the road like in dumb and dumber, like he just
Speaker 1: somehow wound up with oncoming traffic at three in the morning.
Speaker 2: We woke up like like we were going to die.
Speaker 1: So yes, But Kevin Mitchell's my man besides trying to
Speaker 1: kill us, he was. He's a really great friend and
Speaker 1: still a friend to us now. But you were his intern.
Speaker 8: I was Kevin's intern. And it was so fun craziest
Speaker 8: thing I've heard in my life. It was you you
Speaker 8: love the story. So keV didn't know Baltimore whatever. So
Speaker 8: keV h hissed me. He said, Wes West said, you're
Speaker 8: gonna help me out. I said, yoh, yeah, whatever you need.
Speaker 8: Wes my man. Now again, I'm making money. I'm good.
Speaker 8: I ain't worried about it wasn't the money thing. So
Speaker 8: Kevin called me and said, Yo, I'm downstairs at V
Speaker 8: one o three, but I can't get upstairs. I said,
Speaker 8: you can't get upstairs? So what you called me for?
Speaker 8: He said, because your man is on Frank.
Speaker 2: I said yeah.
Speaker 8: I said, so you calling me to get you upstairs
Speaker 8: and that's your job and they paying you to do this. Now,
Speaker 8: I had a little attitude about it, I said, So
Speaker 8: I called Frank Frank yo my man. He one of us.
Speaker 8: He good and me and Frank Frank was my wedding.
Speaker 8: That's my guy guy. So he he said, keV, I'll
Speaker 8: see him whatever you want me to do, blah blah
Speaker 8: blah this, And it was that moment where I always
Speaker 8: paid respects to Kevin Mitchell. Kevin got on the conference
Speaker 8: because he will let me listen on the conference calls
Speaker 8: to learn. Kevin said, my intern is going to run
Speaker 8: the company, and y'all gonna act crazy if y'all want,
Speaker 8: because the ship he can pull off. Here I'm and
Speaker 8: so that's really how he let me. He let me live,
Speaker 8: and I did work, but he let me live, you know,
Speaker 8: I mean.
Speaker 1: All right, I'm gonna let you know something because most
Speaker 1: of the industry folklore that at least people my age
Speaker 1: know about is the story of Sean Combe's getting on
Speaker 1: a train every day at Howard and going to New
Speaker 1: York every day and you.
Speaker 2: Know, uptown records blah blah blah blah blah. But I'm
Speaker 2: gonna tell you something.
Speaker 1: There's two stories I always heard that set or at
Speaker 1: least set me on the path for how I dealt
Speaker 1: with interns. You don't even know this. You don't even
Speaker 1: know this one was you. You always heard stories of
Speaker 1: James Brown. James Brown used to always tell like all
Speaker 1: his band members, find the the the lowest.
Speaker 2: He would call him the coffee boy, the water boy.
Speaker 1: He says, they don't I guess the term intern wasn't
Speaker 1: out back in the fifties or sixties, but James Brown
Speaker 1: used to always say, find the coffee boy, the water boy,
Speaker 1: and make him feel like he's on top of the world,
Speaker 1: because one day, in twelve years, he's.
Speaker 2: Going to be signing your checks.
Speaker 1: My my an r Wendy Goldstein told me a story
Speaker 1: where she was like, look, we're gonna have to do
Speaker 1: real grassroots stuff. It's not gonna be glamorous whatever. You're
Speaker 1: going to do these college radio shows and stuff, you know,
Speaker 1: because then we had lofty goals.
Speaker 2: It was ninety four.
Speaker 1: You're seeing all these videos and everything, and you're like, well,
Speaker 1: when's our hype William's video moment going to happen, and
Speaker 1: you know, we're like nineteen to a van and all
Speaker 1: that stuff. And she just told me like, look, patients,
Speaker 1: stay the course and whatever you do, always be nice
Speaker 1: to the interns and the lowly people because it's going
Speaker 1: to pay off in ways you don't know. And she
Speaker 1: told me a story. You know, Kevin Long, he wrote
Speaker 1: col you know it's true and still was there. She
Speaker 1: would tell me the stories of like, I guess your
Speaker 1: reputation was that you would show up to work earlier
Speaker 1: than anyone.
Speaker 2: And lead the latest just to let them know. And
Speaker 2: she told me that, and like that stuck with me.
Speaker 1: It's not like I was like WHOA, Okay, well be
Speaker 1: nice to but because it just always stuck with me.
Speaker 2: And I'll say to this day, every CEO.
Speaker 1: Or a head of a company that I've ever done
Speaker 1: business with, at least in the last ten years between
Speaker 1: two thousand and six and twenty sixteen, and I've done
Speaker 1: a lot of business like pay my mom a house
Speaker 1: off business, they it all starts with the same story
Speaker 1: that I forget, which is, hey, I don't know you
Speaker 1: don't remember this, but this is one time we were
Speaker 1: at Brown University, and you know, I was interned at
Speaker 1: this college media station and I asked you if I.
Speaker 2: Could do an interview.
Speaker 1: You gave me like a nine hour interview, only one
Speaker 1: in five minutes and no.
Speaker 3: No.
Speaker 2: And that's because I always remember it really shocked the
Speaker 2: host of the podcast. Yeah, well, I'm like, okay, I'm
Speaker 2: I'm chatty, but I'm just saying that Heaven.
Speaker 1: Kevin and Wendy and Franchessica and Derek like always tell
Speaker 1: me make sure that when you go to these colleges
Speaker 1: you treat the intern like that stuck with me and
Speaker 1: you were like always their example. So I mean you
Speaker 1: entered death Chamman in ninety one, ninety one, so this period.
Speaker 2: Dark days Man, not quite. I feel like it was
Speaker 2: the last. I feel like ninety one is the last
Speaker 2: good year of the of the old death jam woman.
Speaker 3: You know.
Speaker 2: Yeah that was not for real, that was like the
Speaker 2: classic logo death Jammy. That was the last period.
Speaker 1: So when you were there, what were your duties as intern?
Speaker 8: Well, you know, I was still in Baltimore, so was
Speaker 8: whatever Kevin Mitchell needed, you know what I mean. And
Speaker 8: at that time was Deaf Comedy Jam was coming and
Speaker 8: all these things were being created and Fat Farm and all.
Speaker 1: So so Russell's having you work all the products, not
Speaker 1: just yeah. Yeah, it was to shut them down, remix
Speaker 1: and make sure these DJs get it.
Speaker 8: We used everything for everything. So we used to do
Speaker 8: radio programs where we fly people into Deaf Comedy Jam.
Speaker 8: So I flopped fire all the program directors, artists, everybody
Speaker 8: in promotion. They wanted to close the wear so it
Speaker 8: would give them fat fat farm. You know, so we
Speaker 8: we did everything. It kept evolving, so it wasn't and
Speaker 8: it wasn't work quest. To be honest with you, I
Speaker 8: got to wear.
Speaker 1: So you wanted to remember names and shake hands and
Speaker 1: kiss babies.
Speaker 8: And I wanted to make people feel like they met me,
Speaker 8: not like they shook my hand.
Speaker 2: But what was the end game for you?
Speaker 1: Like back in ninety one, if you're like, Okay, I'm
Speaker 1: meeting this figure and.
Speaker 2: Da da da da da da da.
Speaker 1: Are you singing down the line like one day I'll
Speaker 1: start my own label or not.
Speaker 8: I just I'm that's a different dude. If I'm cooking,
Speaker 8: I want to make the best meal. If I'm intern,
Speaker 8: I want to be the best intern. If I'm rapping,
Speaker 8: I want to be the I just wanted to be
Speaker 8: the best. So I never thought about being the president.
Speaker 8: Do you think coming from Baltimore that I would be
Speaker 8: the president CEO? No, nobody knew me. I don't have
Speaker 8: family in any.
Speaker 1: But the thing is that because you were kept because
Speaker 1: that you were Kevin Mitchell's intern in ninety one, and
Speaker 1: byen ninety nine you're the president of the damn label
Speaker 1: that tells me that you had a.
Speaker 2: Very marksmanlike determination and ambition.
Speaker 1: I'm sorry where you well, No, no, no no, I don't
Speaker 1: mean like a a scandalous way.
Speaker 8: I'll give you some point. I never I never wanted
Speaker 8: to be president.
Speaker 2: I never.
Speaker 8: I never knew what it was, to be honest, which
Speaker 8: I never didn't know what it was. I thought Russell
Speaker 8: would be there forever. I thought thought Leo would be that.
Speaker 8: I never knew that was attainable from a kid from me.
Speaker 2: But what told you, first of all is that folklore
Speaker 2: I heard that was true. Mitchell would say.
Speaker 1: Like you'd show up at eight in the morning like
Speaker 1: most people get into ten eleven.
Speaker 8: I'm serious.
Speaker 1: So what tells you I need to be there at
Speaker 1: eight thirty a m. Every day before everyone gets there.
Speaker 8: I went to school to be an electrical engineer. My
Speaker 8: scholarship was from Nassau. I wasn't playing with.
Speaker 2: From Baltimore CPI.
Speaker 8: No, I was. I was again I was. I guess
Speaker 8: I was a cool NERD you know what I mean.
Speaker 8: I always wanted to be the best, and I remember
Speaker 8: when I came to death sand was the joke that
Speaker 8: I would say, oh, come in when I came to
Speaker 8: New York, and I'm like, why people come here at
Speaker 8: ten thirty eleven o'clock You missed the radio station is
Speaker 8: on twenty four hours a day, seven days a week.
Speaker 2: Why you what you mean?
Speaker 8: And then by the time you get there, get your coffee,
Speaker 8: head of water cooler. Movement to lunch was there was there.
Speaker 1: A teacher's pet kind of uh uh scarlet letter attached
Speaker 1: to your shoulder, like you know, Kevin, like they us.
Speaker 8: Look. They tried to throw me out the building a
Speaker 8: couple of times. People would tell on me. I had
Speaker 8: people flip over desk in front of me. I had
Speaker 8: somebody tried to get me fired at Howard because I
Speaker 8: left them because they were late and I had to
Speaker 8: get the group to the radio station. So I don't
Speaker 8: play that. I'm about the group doing what they're supposed
Speaker 8: to do. So I left them. So they sent this
Speaker 8: long letter, and so I had to be you know,
Speaker 8: being an engineer, you know you you do weird stuff.
Speaker 8: So I had to write a response to that letter.
Speaker 8: Mine was like this this after every single thing it was,
Speaker 8: you kept notes weirdo, I kept it was weird. Oh shit,
Speaker 8: you know what I mean? But but I tell you,
Speaker 8: but it taught me all the engineering I used to
Speaker 8: manage a telemarketing office of four hundred people three different shifts.
Speaker 8: Taught me how to rate, how to communicate. Engineering taught
Speaker 8: me to be thoughtful, and being an artist that's taught
Speaker 8: taught me how to treat people how you know I
Speaker 8: want to be treated and so I would really work hard.
Speaker 8: Like I said, it wasn't easy because they tried to
Speaker 8: throw me out the building. I remember my first mistake,
Speaker 8: well not my first stake, well one of the mistakes
Speaker 8: they almost got me looked at crazy. I did a
Speaker 8: show with Biggie Small's method Man, Redman, Onyx and somebody.
Speaker 8: But I did it in a museum doing Howard Homecoming,
Speaker 8: Oh logo on the building, Death College jam on the building.
Speaker 8: Three hundred thousand dollars. Later, after they destroyed the place,
Speaker 8: come on and I had to explain why I would
Speaker 8: think doing a show in the museum displaying the rationale.
Speaker 8: So I said, well, first off, nobody would throw a
Speaker 8: show a museum, and I think hip hop is art.
Speaker 8: Hip hop deserves to be in the museum. Secondly, I
Speaker 8: feel like if you shine your logo like a bad
Speaker 8: time people come to it, So I had two thousand
Speaker 8: people out inside and another three thousand people outside. Thirdly,
Speaker 8: I thought by having Biggie Smalls and method Man performed
Speaker 8: the what for the first time had this opportunity that
Speaker 8: I thought it would be a moment. The other time,
Speaker 8: honest never been in the museum, so it was just
Speaker 8: a moment of time. And and Leor said, what did
Speaker 8: you learn? I said, I learned that I would do
Speaker 8: it again, but I would have insurance.
Speaker 4: And what does it feel like twenty years later when
Speaker 4: Picasso Baby comes out and it's.
Speaker 8: Like, I'm only I'm only telling you. Like I, it's like,
Speaker 8: wanted to be That's not to interrupt you. Sorry, I
Speaker 8: never wanted to be president. Matter of fact, in ninety
Speaker 8: six they came to me and said, you know, we
Speaker 8: want to make you president. I said, but I don't
Speaker 8: know the world. I don't I don't how can I
Speaker 8: be president? And I don't know the world. I don't
Speaker 8: know what hip hop looks like in London or in Paris,
Speaker 8: and in Japan, I don't really know what it looks like.
Speaker 8: So I need more time. So then ninety seven came
Speaker 8: around and it was like, yo, you really have to,
Speaker 8: we really want to, you know, And then in ninety
Speaker 8: eight I said, you know, I'm ready.
Speaker 2: Now, Okay, there's a common denominator for this show.
Speaker 1: We're still a baby, and I feel like next to
Speaker 1: Stories of the Tunnel. For New York Rappers, the second
Speaker 1: common denominator is the leor element, either imitating leor or
Speaker 1: kind of.
Speaker 2: What did Lee or leor yeah? Whatever has leor ever
Speaker 2: thrown anything at you?
Speaker 8: I don't believe you saying this question.
Speaker 2: Over here. Question?
Speaker 1: So of course you you got to work in uh
Speaker 1: pre yoga, Russell's deaf jam, uh maybe lunch.
Speaker 2: Throwing lee Or's deaf jam?
Speaker 1: What was okay aside from working in Baltimore. I mean,
Speaker 1: I'm sure there were a few times you stepped in
Speaker 1: the actual building in New York Elizabeth.
Speaker 2: I was there.
Speaker 8: I was when Russell used to live on top of
Speaker 8: Tower records. You know what I mean.
Speaker 2: I was, I was.
Speaker 8: I was in Baltimore. But I was doing so well
Speaker 8: that they would say, come up to New York and
Speaker 8: help with this program, will help with this, or.
Speaker 2: See you work outside of your markets.
Speaker 8: Yo. I remember Mike Caser love my man. He said, Yo,
Speaker 8: I don't have my life, and shit, can you come
Speaker 8: up and get the eighteen passed the van and bring
Speaker 8: Whodini down? Then you know who don He wasn't no
Speaker 8: death Dann but we managed him rush. So I actually
Speaker 8: drove up came to pick the group up in and
Speaker 8: this is how like again I didn't have to do it,
Speaker 8: I'm the intern, but it was a way for me
Speaker 8: to meet who Deini get it in the rush, talk
Speaker 8: tough and do something for somebody who was a friend
Speaker 8: of mine. Gods, you know what I mean. So I
Speaker 8: did that, you know what I mean? So to me,
Speaker 8: it wasn't everything.
Speaker 2: So what was what was the building? Like I try
Speaker 2: to ask Faith.
Speaker 1: I try to ask Faith Newman this question, and she's
Speaker 1: rather diplomatic and not too descriptive. But I mean for
Speaker 1: a person, and you know this is not this is
Speaker 1: not about like throwing people under the bus or whatever.
Speaker 1: But it's just that I've heard so many stories of
Speaker 1: like deaf jam but between eighty five in ninety or
Speaker 1: pre PolyGram so ninety one ninety two, the Christmas parties,
Speaker 1: the you know which which model is now working in
Speaker 1: the room, you know, during the whole griff JDL situation
Speaker 1: and all the guards that had to be out front
Speaker 1: and all that stuff, and just like, what was it like,
Speaker 1: give me a deaf jam, an old politically incorrect death jam.
Speaker 2: Story, like wow that you won't get arrested for a while.
Speaker 8: Rock and roll? Man, I mean, I mean, every every
Speaker 8: bit of everything you could imagine. I never really considered it.
Speaker 8: It just it was. It was really. When I tell
Speaker 8: you rock and roll, everything was happening that could ever happen.
Speaker 8: I'm gonna give you a story. I'm just trying to
Speaker 8: get you to.
Speaker 2: The story said.
Speaker 1: When when the roots finally got to like the industry,
Speaker 1: everything just stopped, Like nineteen ninety five, everybody was like vegetarian.
Speaker 2: Y'all missed the party, and you know the word platonic gotten.
Speaker 1: It's just my paler over there.
Speaker 2: You know.
Speaker 8: Now listen, all like I say, is this there were
Speaker 8: no rules, You were morally incorrect, period, This was nothing.
Speaker 8: The only thing we would know we had to do
Speaker 8: was work hard. That's what the mindset was. Work harder
Speaker 8: than anybody else. But when I tell you, sodam more,
Speaker 8: I'd have seen so much stuff. And but it's understand
Speaker 8: we were kids too, so we and with money and
Speaker 8: you know, growing and people having people growing up together.
Speaker 8: I got I have friends. So I've been to me
Speaker 8: and Learr's twenty five years now, so he was twenty three, no,
Speaker 8: thirty somewhere around there and I was twenty three.
Speaker 1: Would you think you weren't intimidated about Leor? Because I
Speaker 1: even the even people that love and respect, even people
Speaker 1: that respect Leor, if I first, if I gained the
Speaker 1: trust and first mentioned his name, I mean, at least
Speaker 1: a minuscule eye roll happens like Leor, Like the thing
Speaker 1: is like people have their Have you dealt with Leor
Speaker 1: when you guys were Atlantic?
Speaker 8: We did.
Speaker 2: We had a meeting with him. Uh it was interesting,
Speaker 2: you know, I be real with you like I mean,
Speaker 2: and I hopefully we haven't on the show. He probably
Speaker 2: remember the joint. But for me, my meeting with Leo
Speaker 2: was very much to bring it back to the wire.
Speaker 2: It was the canard that's Omar. That was my moment.
Speaker 2: I was, it was like that's Omar because to me,
Speaker 2: like he was like we were talking about it was
Speaker 2: around the town when our album, I think Mitchell Show
Speaker 2: had just came out, and so we had a meeting
Speaker 2: with him and it was just very impromptble. We were
Speaker 2: just like in the hallway and he was like eating
Speaker 2: a sandwich or something and he was just kind of
Speaker 2: standing up. And you know, again from seeing him like
Speaker 2: in documentaries and stuff, he's like a very like intense,
Speaker 2: like he looks like that kind of guy. But then
Speaker 2: I met him and he was just like, oh, yes,
Speaker 2: so Kanye Drife slow. I loved that song, like I
Speaker 2: left Kanye and I was just like, oh, yeah, that's
Speaker 2: a cool song. But our album about come out a nigga,
Speaker 2: what You're gonna do? And so it was just you
Speaker 2: know whatever. I remember it was me, it was it
Speaker 2: was all of us. It was three of us, me,
Speaker 2: Poo and Knife and manager though, and then James Lopez
Speaker 2: who used to be and he was there. Yeah, and
Speaker 2: so we just had that brief interaction and then we
Speaker 2: walked off and I remember asking James, I said, man,
Speaker 2: what do you think that is what just happened? Yeah,
Speaker 2: I was like, what do you think is gonna mean?
Speaker 2: He was just like, man, I don't know. And that
Speaker 2: was it, you know what I'm saying. But that was
Speaker 2: the only real time I had had amusement. But the
Speaker 2: times I had just that one instance and then he
Speaker 2: came to our show the opening night we did it,
Speaker 2: uh at bb King's. Uh, there was like a released
Speaker 2: party or something like that. I can't remember, but we
Speaker 2: were on tour when the album just came out, and
Speaker 2: I mean sold out show. How many minutes? How many
Speaker 2: minutes did he stay? Yeah, I want to say he
Speaker 2: stayed for like a good he stayed. Maybe called like
Speaker 2: the opening set. He probably be called like the first
Speaker 2: like fifteen to twenty minutes. Wow, I think yeah, because he
Speaker 2: you want to know my death jam president minute?
Speaker 8: I love a minute.
Speaker 2: I think. I think jay Z and Beyonce watched one
Speaker 2: verse ship and I turned you know, black man, what happened?
Speaker 2: You said? I can't. Yeah, yeah, they Yeah, they came,
Speaker 2: he gave. I want to say, I don't know if
Speaker 2: you were there. I know the time that me and
Speaker 2: Kevin it was when we did the Uh it was
Speaker 2: a listening part and it was somewhere downtown. I can't remember,
Speaker 2: but apparently, like I remember, the fire alarms kept going
Speaker 2: off that night and we had to cut it short.
Speaker 2: But Uh, that was the first time that me and
Speaker 2: you had met outside the office, and I remember you
Speaker 2: came up and uh, but yeah, I mean my time
Speaker 2: working with him. Again, this is post ninety. You know,
Speaker 2: everybody you know, stop start doing yoga, stop doing cocing shit.
Speaker 2: So it's different.
Speaker 1: But so wait if you if you're just shooting in
Speaker 1: the request love Supremum, been doing.
Speaker 2: We're here with Kevin Lownes.
Speaker 3: Uh.
Speaker 2: We're trying to get uh le Or Cohen stories.
Speaker 1: The thing is, I you know, I respect Leor. I know,
Speaker 1: like it's basically I've heard everything about le Or Cohen.
Speaker 1: He's liar Cohen, or he's an asshole, or he's a
Speaker 1: good businessman, or he's honest with you. I mean, I
Speaker 1: respect because the people in my circle are so blunt
Speaker 1: and so you know, just outright with what they are,
Speaker 1: like they don't hide the truth or anything.
Speaker 2: I meant I can respect that.
Speaker 1: So for for you, what was it about lear I mean,
Speaker 1: did Leor intimidate you in the beginning?
Speaker 8: Or I always said, man that it just must be
Speaker 8: some brotherly love or such respect. He never and this
Speaker 8: might sound weird to you, guys, Learr never yelled at me.
Speaker 7: What did you do to not get from Baltimore?
Speaker 2: Maybe he was?
Speaker 1: And where and be honest with yourself, what was the perception.
Speaker 1: What's the perception of you as you're slowly First of all,
Speaker 1: how long did you intern before they said this guy's
Speaker 1: kind of valuable, let's cut him a check.
Speaker 8: Two years.
Speaker 1: It took two years for them to finally and you
Speaker 1: didn't complain once already?
Speaker 2: No, I didn't. I did like it, really I was.
Speaker 8: I was doing it for the experience and be honest
Speaker 8: with you.
Speaker 1: So if Onyx is throwing oranges at you because the
Speaker 1: Shifty single didn't get added the MTV or something, you're
Speaker 1: not having a They don't pay me enough for this moment.
Speaker 1: Like I looked at not making fun of you, because.
Speaker 8: I looked at it. They were all they were all
Speaker 8: counterparts to me. They were colleagues. I wasn't working for them,
Speaker 8: and I just looked at it differently. It's like, yo,
Speaker 8: I know what you need. I'm gonna go. I'm gonna
Speaker 8: get it done. I'm gonna make sure. Because I was
Speaker 8: like by we, I felt like I'm living. You understand
Speaker 8: some once you're an artist and then you get on
Speaker 8: the other side. I'm really living through all of them.
Speaker 8: So the songs they make when they throwing the guns
Speaker 8: in there and m met A and they read I'm
Speaker 8: living when I say I would be on stage. And
Speaker 8: the joke is even to this day. If you ask
Speaker 8: for what a my artists, they saw, where's Kevin stage?
Speaker 2: Right?
Speaker 8: I said, I alway, sudden, YO, tell me what the
Speaker 8: ad lib you need me to make? If they jumped
Speaker 8: in the crowd, I would jump in the crowd after
Speaker 8: I was just it was just a fatherly kind of like, yo,
Speaker 8: we cruise. So I never I never looked at it
Speaker 8: like that. The time I got was kind of funny.
Speaker 8: When a Kevin Mitchell was moving up, you know, he
Speaker 8: did such a great job in the mid Atlantic, moving
Speaker 8: up to Nashville, take Barbido's job right at Mickshew. So
Speaker 8: they said, well, Kevin, you know you should come interview
Speaker 8: for the job. I've been interning for two years doing
Speaker 8: the job and y'all want me to come interview for
Speaker 8: the job. Cool. So engineer keV had to come back out.
Speaker 8: So I put my whole pack, I got my briefcases,
Speaker 8: put my suit on, got my whole discography of everything,
Speaker 8: got everything I did. I go up there. I'm sitting
Speaker 8: in the room, so everybody laughing at me.
Speaker 2: Y'all in a suit was in a briefcase.
Speaker 8: I said, I came here to take the job. That's
Speaker 8: what I came here to do. I'm gonna show him
Speaker 8: everything that I've done. They said, well, you know, good interview,
Speaker 8: you know great, and appreciate all the paperwork. One month
Speaker 8: go by, two months go by, three months go by. Uh.
Speaker 8: I'm starting to feel a certain way, right because I
Speaker 8: know it's nobody better than me, especially in that area.
Speaker 8: Nobody's better than me in that Philadelphia, DC, Baltimore, Virginia.
Speaker 8: So then I get a call. I remember, Julie calls
Speaker 8: me and says, Kevin Lowles was that of a marketing gig?
Speaker 8: She said, this is Julie from Deaf jam and West's assistant.
Speaker 8: We we think we want you to We want you
Speaker 8: to come work with us. I said, great, I said.
Speaker 8: She said, well, we want to pay you thirty thousand
Speaker 8: dollars like you realize.
Speaker 2: Make it okay?
Speaker 8: Okay? I said, well, I said, well I can work
Speaker 8: with y'all for that. Julie said, no, you'll work for
Speaker 8: us for that. That's my Julie's story. Yeah, so we
Speaker 8: it's I just never worried about it. Man, What about
Speaker 8: the money? Anything? To me?
Speaker 1: That's interesting to hear because I, at least for me
Speaker 1: Le or Lyles, Julie sometimes Mike, Like, all your names
Speaker 1: are synonymous with each other. So you guys all started
Speaker 1: together at death Jam minus Lee or at at in
Speaker 1: lower positions, like when Julie came in?
Speaker 2: When did she.
Speaker 8: Julie was Wes's was Julie was interning and working at Rush.
Speaker 8: Then when when Leo went over to death Jam, Julie
Speaker 8: came was working with Wes assistant Leo a little bit
Speaker 8: and then started working with Wes. Mike Coser was working
Speaker 8: at at Tower Records, and Russell lived on top of Tower.
Speaker 2: Wait, that's how Mike got hurt.
Speaker 8: So he said, yo, you do you do a good
Speaker 8: job with that? You know you want to do?
Speaker 7: Ready all wait a.
Speaker 11: Minute, I'm editing the story a little bit.
Speaker 8: But that's he met him in Tower Records and we
Speaker 8: that's how he started. We read. I remember said I
Speaker 8: was in Baltimore in I remember them saying, yo, you're
Speaker 8: gonna do rhythm radio. And I'm like, well, damn, rhythm
Speaker 8: radio is white. Why do you give it to the
Speaker 8: car Why do they give it them? But they put
Speaker 8: guys in the desks and so you're gonna do rhythm radio.
Speaker 8: He became one of the number one rhythm radio you
Speaker 8: know people out there.
Speaker 2: And that's that's my I mean, did he have experience.
Speaker 8: He worked at Tower Records, like research.
Speaker 2: You know, that's the that's that's the truth.
Speaker 8: But yeah, but you gotta understand something with so every
Speaker 8: time Julie went you know me, we were like brother
Speaker 8: and sisters, you know what I mean. So it's like
Speaker 8: that's like fam Like people talk about Lee. I never
Speaker 8: I Leeo's the kind of guy if we went to
Speaker 8: war today, he's gonna be throw me the fucking bullets.
Speaker 8: I don't take offense to that because we're war.
Speaker 2: I understand.
Speaker 8: And it's intense that I understand.
Speaker 2: I don't.
Speaker 8: That's not you know what I mean, Not no idiot,
Speaker 8: I say, that's he just never went there with me.
Speaker 8: And but here's the other thing though, when he looked
Speaker 8: to his right, when he looked stage right, he know
Speaker 8: he ain't worry about that either. That's the different I'm not.
Speaker 8: I'm gonna be there before him. I'm gonna make sure
Speaker 8: everything's right to this day. I'm gonna make sure it's right.
Speaker 2: Russell.
Speaker 8: I'm gonna make sure it's right to this day. They
Speaker 8: changed my life. They change the trajectory of my family,
Speaker 8: They changed they they gave me first generation money something else, baby,
Speaker 8: So I'm not always pay respect.
Speaker 2: To was did you really did you have a relationship
Speaker 2: with Russell?
Speaker 1: And where is Like if you think def Jam, you're
Speaker 1: always gonna think Russell Simmons. But you know, I know
Speaker 1: that in ninety one he had sort of this octopus
Speaker 1: vision of developing the closed line and developing uh, defy
Speaker 1: def comedy Jam was like more than ninety two ninety three, Yeah,
Speaker 1: but still, uh, I know that the higher upset Sony
Speaker 1: were kind of indifferent And then like, can you explain
Speaker 1: the the ral here because the russ associate labels period.
Speaker 2: Because from my point.
Speaker 1: Of view, as a fan who always read Billboard every
Speaker 1: week and charted stuff, I always loved the fact and
Speaker 1: kind of hated the fact that you guys dep GM
Speaker 1: used to formally flaunt well, you know, we've only been
Speaker 1: out for five years with five artists, and you know
Speaker 1: it's just like ll the slick rick and that's it,
Speaker 1: and then third base and then that's it. And then
Speaker 1: one day in nineteen ninety it was like all these
Speaker 1: Rust associated artists came.
Speaker 2: Through the door Resident Alien and the Dawn. Yeah yeah,
Speaker 2: oh yeah, yeah yeah.
Speaker 1: So with all with suddening, like twelve to thirteen acts
Speaker 1: to deal with and kind of losing their uniqueness, what.
Speaker 2: Do you know what the environment.
Speaker 1: Was with with with Matola and Donnie Iron and the
Speaker 1: Sony higher ups with def Jam and what caused the
Speaker 1: eventual exodus to PolyGram was next correct, So what was
Speaker 1: that period between ninety one and ninety three where things
Speaker 1: were a little cloudy with what made def Jam wants
Speaker 1: just the powerhouse.
Speaker 2: That it was like?
Speaker 1: What was what was that environment like, especially like with
Speaker 1: you and Russ, were you more a Leor guy or
Speaker 1: a Rust guy?
Speaker 2: Like was Russ the Beatles? And Leor was the Rolling Stones?
Speaker 8: And you had to choose, never had to choose, because
Speaker 8: Russell was a visionary Leor was tasked with. All I
Speaker 8: wanted to do was be the greatest recommend He didn't
Speaker 8: care about fat farm or comedy. That wasn't his thing.
Speaker 8: You know. He really wanted to build a great American
Speaker 8: record company, and at that time it was he got
Speaker 8: the rock. So Russe associated labels quote unquote Russell and Leor.
Speaker 2: That's what I never knew that.
Speaker 8: It was Russell, that the Russell lear So it was
Speaker 8: just before it's time. Now, I'm gonna sound kind of
Speaker 8: nerdy here. Sometimes as visionaries you try to put things
Speaker 8: into uh play that it's not just time. We didn't
Speaker 8: have the infrastructure built to support a quote unquote associated
Speaker 8: label venture. But if you think about four or five
Speaker 8: years later, after the infrastructure stability, people came to work
Speaker 8: and all that kind of stuff, we were able to
Speaker 8: do Rockefeller America and piece it was. It was a
Speaker 8: great vision, but the in too early, too early at
Speaker 8: the time because the infrastructure.
Speaker 2: It gave me hope.
Speaker 8: The infrastructure wasn't right, but it was those days. Man,
Speaker 8: Like I said, everybody want you know, Rick was gone
Speaker 8: and everybody wanted to prove they were the next upgrade
Speaker 8: an R and this one knew this one. But the
Speaker 8: real fact that most of the artists that I've ever
Speaker 8: signed in my life were referred to me by other artists.
Speaker 7: Hmm, like, wait, we're not going to get there, he
Speaker 7: let me.
Speaker 8: Did you say, I'm saying like that? That was really like,
Speaker 8: if you think about it, to me, a six degrees
Speaker 8: of separation you want to you got E. P and
Speaker 8: D on the road and his kid kurrn uh scratches crates.
Speaker 8: His name is Redman. Yeah, I mean I can you
Speaker 8: know Shaka Zulu, who we both know worked for me,
Speaker 8: was at the college radio station. He had a friend
Speaker 8: called Chris Love of Lover who was on the radio.
Speaker 8: He wanted to you know.
Speaker 2: You lived in Atlanta as well.
Speaker 4: I transferred from Morgan and went to see a three
Speaker 4: for Brad Street where he was. He was against Chris
Speaker 4: Love a Lover and Poon Daddy and La.
Speaker 1: I don't trust nobody that has more than twelve addresses before.
Speaker 2: By the way, I'm going to continue.
Speaker 8: So no, it's like, so I always met people through
Speaker 8: other people, and it wasn't until the whole research thing
Speaker 8: came that I started to see things outside of the
Speaker 8: people that I knew. But I knew everybody who knew
Speaker 8: you could touch somebody with any you know. We just uh,
Speaker 8: I can't say. But there's this kid that is going
Speaker 8: up someplace right now and we just did a big
Speaker 8: did a deal with him and it's we heard it.
Speaker 8: Somebody said it was popping and we got in and
Speaker 8: got it, you know first. So it's like it's changing now.
Speaker 8: But I really believe we got to I got to
Speaker 8: kill Johnny Stevens from Holly Suspect rock band, number one
Speaker 8: rock record right now. I believe he's gonna find the
Speaker 8: next star in rock. I believe that we did the
Speaker 8: deal with Young Thug for ys L. I believe that
Speaker 8: Young Thug puts out so much music and everybody wants
Speaker 8: to held track he is.
Speaker 1: And so I just believe you believe you believe in
Speaker 1: connectors and bridges. Yes, yes, that's an important thing.
Speaker 2: It is important.
Speaker 1: So when def jam, what was the what was the
Speaker 1: transferring from leaving Sony to PolyGram?
Speaker 2: Were you at all worried.
Speaker 1: That you guys might lose your cachet or your uniqueness,
Speaker 1: or that it might go under or having to deal
Speaker 1: with like who is who is the Matola in the
Speaker 1: the Donnie iron Or of PolyGram at this point when
Speaker 1: you guys go there in ninety four.
Speaker 8: Mm, Wow, the Hitten distribution was Jim Capeo. I think, uh,
Speaker 8: who is the Wow? I really, honestly, I can't remember.
Speaker 2: Damn is that bad?
Speaker 8: That bad? My mind is that bad?
Speaker 2: Okay?
Speaker 8: I can't remember. Let me tell you what I never
Speaker 8: you put you put Leo and Russell together. I don't
Speaker 8: see how you feel. So I never didn't. I see.
Speaker 2: How was it that Sony just didn't understand them or No?
Speaker 8: I think it was we were welcome. You can yell
Speaker 8: at people so much to a point where people might
Speaker 8: and you understand, this was early early days of our culture,
Speaker 8: you know. And so you're going up into Tommy's.
Speaker 1: Has there been a Tommy Lee or a moment of
Speaker 1: sandwiches exchanged?
Speaker 8: I never saw. I never saw it. Heard about some conversations,
Speaker 8: you know, I heard Russell flipped over a couple of
Speaker 8: deaths and things like that, but I never never experienced myself.
Speaker 1: Wow, Okay, So I know that at least my perception
Speaker 1: is that in ninety four, the the anchor record of
Speaker 1: that year that really established def jam to the next
Speaker 1: decade was Orange's album.
Speaker 8: Now it was written let me tell you really what
Speaker 8: it was, the first record we released from Columbia to
Speaker 8: program something the PolyGram Domino. It was Saturday Morning, Yeah,
Speaker 8: Ghetto Jam, Ghetto Jam.
Speaker 2: Yeah. Okay.
Speaker 1: So by that point, you know, you were heavy at
Speaker 1: least in your your knowledge of East Coast from you know,
Speaker 1: the Baltimore. I would assume that you were the d
Speaker 1: m V guy, the Tri State area guy you might
Speaker 1: have known down south markets. Did you know West Coast
Speaker 1: at all? Like who was there to really let you
Speaker 1: guys know? Or was it just like the chronics ripple
Speaker 1: was so strong that it was like we gotta grab
Speaker 1: whoever guessed.
Speaker 2: It on Doctor Dre's chronic record and give them a deal. Now, Like.
Speaker 8: I mean, I'm saying I can't put it so you
Speaker 8: can me open them hip hop So n w A,
Speaker 8: you couldn't talk too short that. I'm like, I was fan.
Speaker 8: I was a fan. I'm young still I'm a fan.
Speaker 1: So to me, wait, I just want to say, as
Speaker 1: an East Coaster, I want to meet a person that
Speaker 1: had my my viewpoint on what the West Coast.
Speaker 2: Was because I wasn't getting I wasn't open to West
Speaker 2: Coast hippop.
Speaker 1: I mean until I mean I heard fuck the police,
Speaker 1: and like I gave him. Okay, I'll give you guys
Speaker 1: an exception and ice cue working with the bomb squad,
Speaker 1: But like, for the most part, there's no way you
Speaker 1: could tell me that the West Coast was going to
Speaker 1: outdo the East Coast ever culturally.
Speaker 2: Or sales wise.
Speaker 1: And then suddenly one day it was like New York
Speaker 1: just lost it's it's it's steemed.
Speaker 8: Yeah, but why can't you tell I never looked again.
Speaker 12: Well, I was young and dumb, weirdo, because I looked
Speaker 12: at it the story that needed to be told needed
Speaker 12: to be told by different tongues, and a Baltimore story
Speaker 12: in New York story.
Speaker 8: There's still a ghetto story in the West everywhere you know,
Speaker 8: never where you go. And so to me, I really
Speaker 8: looked at it as storytelling. Now one was a joke,
Speaker 8: but then there was the police, but they both saying
Speaker 8: kind of the same thing to me. So I really
Speaker 8: looked at it as storytelling. And we went into it
Speaker 8: with def jam West Paul Stewart. UH hired P and
Speaker 8: P hired him. First record I think was this is
Speaker 8: how we do it. But prior to that, this is
Speaker 8: how I learned the West Coast. There was a group
Speaker 8: called a guy called Mellow from Compton and a group
Speaker 8: called South Central Cartel Original. So they said they want
Speaker 8: to do a West Coast promo tour and they loved
Speaker 8: how I put together promo toys. UH and so I
Speaker 8: got in a car. We went from Seattle all the
Speaker 8: way down to San Diego. Over to Phoenix in Colorado.
Speaker 8: You canna tell me nothing about that. I know the
Speaker 8: West Coast, I wrote the Bible of what should be done.
Speaker 8: But I hung. I was in Compton. I remember my
Speaker 8: first I'm gonna tell you what. Sorry, I'm gonna let
Speaker 8: you go. I'm in Compton and it we call but
Speaker 8: you know their version of the bodega. So I'm getting
Speaker 8: some ice tea back then, and bottles started checking. So
Speaker 8: I'm like, who the fuck is back there? What the
Speaker 8: fuck are you doing? I'm mad, Like, yo, stop sucking
Speaker 8: with me. The lady said, in the middle of an earthquake,
Speaker 8: And that was the north Ridge.
Speaker 4: Big So you was in the corner store.
Speaker 7: I was in Compton. I said, what you know why?
Speaker 2: Because I got them started.
Speaker 1: Damn you know every references commercial goodness.
Speaker 8: I don't know I told that story but that. But
Speaker 8: that's my love, my love for I lived there twice
Speaker 8: in my life, and now I just appreciate storytellers being
Speaker 8: able to tell that, no matter what it was. I
Speaker 8: just appreciated people telling the story.
Speaker 1: So, I mean you had no Internet back then. I
Speaker 1: mean now anyone could have the power. I mean the
Speaker 1: power that you had googling something finding out? Okay, where
Speaker 1: can I, uh you know, where can I promote this
Speaker 1: record or hang these posters or or bring my group
Speaker 1: to meet those things?
Speaker 2: But you you're.
Speaker 1: Saying you're writing the Bible on this, Like how do
Speaker 1: who's giving you your research to know this particular market?
Speaker 1: That particular market, this particular market.
Speaker 8: Like touching the people? You tell you you you find
Speaker 8: a hot girl and the god the hustler, and you
Speaker 8: go and you go to the mall. You say, where
Speaker 8: y'all going to?
Speaker 2: This was real? You generally like people.
Speaker 7: Because because we were to take.
Speaker 1: We were to take a quest Love Supremes. All right,
Speaker 1: Slight Detour Special World twenty.
Speaker 2: Do you like people?
Speaker 1: Oh, sugar Steve, do you like people?
Speaker 5: I love good people. I hate shitheads.
Speaker 2: You're lying out already know you hate people everyone?
Speaker 4: I love people?
Speaker 2: You know I do?
Speaker 4: I love people?
Speaker 2: Bill? Do you believe it? I don't believe anything, she says, Margaret.
Speaker 6: I mean you've lived in too many places to tell perk.
Speaker 1: I think I think unpaid Bill is the only person
Speaker 1: in the circle that actually likes.
Speaker 2: But you know what I think. I mean just from
Speaker 2: my people for the record. Now I'm with you. I
Speaker 2: love you guys, not with you this what's the same
Speaker 2: hell as other people. But no, I think from listening
Speaker 2: to what he's saying, from what he was saying, you
Speaker 2: know when you're talking about how it wasn't about you know,
Speaker 2: I plan to be the president. You just want to
Speaker 2: add value to a situation, that value proposition.
Speaker 8: You know what I mean.
Speaker 2: And so to me, like I'm in that way, like
Speaker 2: I don't do I like people know, but if you
Speaker 2: give me a job and say do this job, then
Speaker 2: I'll do what I gotta do because I want to
Speaker 2: deliver on the job. So if I got to go
Speaker 2: talk to people, if I can't, just look how many
Speaker 2: followers through this, nigga got like I gotta really actually
Speaker 2: do that, I would do that. So it makes it
Speaker 2: makes sense. My joint is like, all.
Speaker 1: Right, my my goal And this is not like a
Speaker 1: thing where you're singing riches and all that stuff. But
Speaker 1: in general, my thing was always like, yo, I just
Speaker 1: want to take care of my mom.
Speaker 2: And sugar Steve.
Speaker 5: Reparations for the diabetes.
Speaker 1: No, just take care of my mom. Put out some fires. Yeah,
Speaker 1: and sure Steve put out some fires. Was basically take
Speaker 1: care of If you're black, you're automatically taking carefully seven
Speaker 1: to fourteen people in your life just to put out
Speaker 1: the fire, you know, Like, did I think back in
Speaker 1: nineteen ninety eight, like okay, let me, oh, I'm gonna
Speaker 1: be on the late night show one time? You know, No,
Speaker 1: hell no, I didn't. Somebody sees that far though, I
Speaker 1: get you not seeing that, but you do kind of
Speaker 1: have this live each day's the fullest connect with people,
Speaker 1: remember names, you know, and never burn a bridge.
Speaker 2: At like I don't hear.
Speaker 1: Kevin Lowell stories like I hear and I'm gonna get
Speaker 1: to you and dame history, but I never hear Kevin
Speaker 1: Lowle stories like I hear.
Speaker 4: Like is he really that nice as he perceives?
Speaker 2: Not even nice?
Speaker 1: But I mean, like your reputation even even if like
Speaker 1: like there's not even rumors about you doing someone shady
Speaker 1: or any.
Speaker 2: Of those things.
Speaker 8: I tell you, so some people with Here's what I
Speaker 8: get from people. I might not remember everybody's name, but
Speaker 8: obviously it's like like tonight, I have to get something
Speaker 8: from each one of you guys, or why be in
Speaker 8: the room. So I'm meeting you and sharing things, and
Speaker 8: I'm meeting people all over the world but obviously God
Speaker 8: put me in that place for reasons, so I have
Speaker 8: to share a part of myself. So I wear my
Speaker 8: heart on my sleeve. When you wear your hard and
Speaker 8: the sleeve, you fear none. You just don't worry about
Speaker 8: You just make people feel like they met you, not
Speaker 8: like you.
Speaker 2: Just But what about the ship heads.
Speaker 5: You're not talking about the ship heads.
Speaker 8: So so let me tell you about ship I met
Speaker 8: a couple of of ship heads. But but I even
Speaker 8: understand them. Some people that's the only way they could survive.
Speaker 8: And so, and I'm not trying to get philosophical, will
Speaker 8: be this is what we do. I just, I just
Speaker 8: I really believe that I was put here for a
Speaker 8: greater purpose, and that purpose might Jesus. Jesus walked amongst
Speaker 8: the thieves, the killers, the liars to make away ship
Speaker 8: here's cool' You're not gonna change. You're not gonna change
Speaker 8: who I am. Matter of fact, I'm gonna work on
Speaker 8: being so nice, so nice that hopefully you understand that
Speaker 8: you don't need to be as much of a ship.
Speaker 2: Hit as well. I wish I knew you. Is that
Speaker 2: like where my first GM audition?
Speaker 6: Anyway, I want to get some motivational speaking from lyles
Speaker 6: like in the morning when awake up.
Speaker 4: Yeah, exactly, But seriously, how do you maintain that? Is
Speaker 4: that is that motivation? Motivation? Is medita or was that
Speaker 4: you was it?
Speaker 1: Is this hindsight speaking or is this in nineteen ninety four?
Speaker 1: I'm not well, Okay, Now I want to get to
Speaker 1: the artist you have to deal with because or you
Speaker 1: got to put on that ship to use right, because
Speaker 1: I'm saying that as an artist, I know the the
Speaker 1: plight of the artist, and I know the plight of
Speaker 1: employee at the label and management company. And some of
Speaker 1: the biggest clashes ever in mankind are are with artists
Speaker 1: and managers or the other side of the table. So
Speaker 1: that said, uh, okay, now that def jam is ten
Speaker 1: years old at least in this timeline, how are the
Speaker 1: older established well minus Ll who actually weird enough, had
Speaker 1: the biggest mark of his career ten years into his career.
Speaker 1: I mean, I assume that missus Smith's surpassed. Mama said,
Speaker 1: knock you out as far as comebacks to concerned. But
Speaker 1: I mean, at this rate, a lot of your first
Speaker 1: generation acts, you guys were dealing with Slick Rick and
Speaker 1: his his jail incidents.
Speaker 2: First of all, how.
Speaker 1: How did you guys even manage to get eighteen songs
Speaker 1: out of Slick Rick with six weeks of his life
Speaker 1: before he's about to do five years or herd?
Speaker 8: Like?
Speaker 2: What was that? What was that period?
Speaker 8: Like? I was a that was more so like a
Speaker 8: intern period. It for me, you know, I was just
Speaker 8: coming up and the Slick Rick story was. Rick was
Speaker 8: a storyteller, so he just knew he had to do
Speaker 8: write a lot of records. And it was man. He
Speaker 8: would no, he would listen when I tell you Rick
Speaker 8: and Rick is a good, good friend. And I hope
Speaker 8: I answered the question right because it's I'm gonna go
Speaker 8: outside of Rick. I think my job at that time
Speaker 8: was to preserve legacy with those guys and understand that
Speaker 8: that tired. You put the D in death jam, public enemy,
Speaker 8: you put the E in death jam, Slick Rick, you
Speaker 8: put the F in death jam. You know I had
Speaker 8: to so I treated them like that. I didn't treat
Speaker 8: them like they were old. I didn't treat them like
Speaker 8: they were yesterday. I treat them like they were important
Speaker 8: and today. And this is why to this day, you know,
Speaker 8: Rick and Mandya called me and say hey, we just
Speaker 8: wanted to tell you we love you. Tired to say yo,
Speaker 8: you know, come me and Simone doing this chucker hit
Speaker 8: me and say yo podcasts with you know, I still
Speaker 8: get and and so that moment. And I remember when
Speaker 8: we did behind Bars, he was like, you.
Speaker 2: Know, yeah, war you know that was my ship man.
Speaker 2: I love that joy. That was.
Speaker 8: How'd y'all do that? How'd y'all make a record? And
Speaker 8: then I did it again with Sean when he was
Speaker 8: behind Bars. I did his.
Speaker 2: Uh that the Godfather Buried Alive?
Speaker 8: Yes, I did it.
Speaker 1: And when they're recording under this dress, like how I'm
Speaker 1: just trying to figure out, how are they able to
Speaker 1: even produce uh results with with with that imaginary guns
Speaker 1: in their head like they have to.
Speaker 8: I don't think when you when it's when it's it's
Speaker 8: what you do. It's like saying telling a guy you
Speaker 8: got to build a house in the set of a year,
Speaker 8: you got to build it in six month. It might
Speaker 8: be impossibly, he still knows how to build a house.
Speaker 8: And so I think that I think that at the
Speaker 8: end of the day, these uh, these kids, I think
Speaker 8: that the day they they felt that they gonna decide
Speaker 8: to feed their family. And when you how you when
Speaker 8: you're working to feed your family, you're not writing records right,
Speaker 8: you're surviving, you know. Well.
Speaker 1: Speaking of behind Bars, I gotta give a shout out
Speaker 1: to the warrant you remix to.
Speaker 2: This is behind Bars on Quest Love Supreme.
Speaker 1: We're here with U, super Guru, Kevin question of Supreme.
Speaker 11: You are bro check this out this warn g you
Speaker 11: know what I'm saying. Chilling with my man slick Rick,
Speaker 11: you know, and we're gonna give y'all a little tail
Speaker 11: about that jail stuff. You know, So, Rick, why don't
Speaker 11: you running homie kids?
Speaker 12: Then Islamic colord, I'm innocent, Lord played which he wasn't
Speaker 12: having anything out and raised the lads.
Speaker 2: Situation seemed mad and Roles, Hey your money?
Speaker 8: What size?
Speaker 1: Neither pony to one of us sprang up. That was
Speaker 1: behind bars by a slick Rick. That's right, the Warren
Speaker 1: g remix of behind Bars on Questlove Supreme. There's one
Speaker 1: question I want to ask you. So by this point
Speaker 1: in ninety four, I can say that you're safely in
Speaker 1: the death Sham office not an intern.
Speaker 2: What was.
Speaker 1: What was you guys reaction to music.
Speaker 2: In our message by Public Enemy. Oh my god, because.
Speaker 1: I remember the day. I remember the day that Ursula
Speaker 1: Smith and well back when Set to Run, you guys
Speaker 1: had so many Rush associated companies, but when Ursula became
Speaker 1: her own publicity firm, she was our first, the roots
Speaker 1: first publicist, and I used to just always hang out
Speaker 1: her office and she called me in says or I
Speaker 1: got the new Public Enemy album, you want to hear it?
Speaker 2: And that was.
Speaker 1: That was one of the most coldest days ever because
Speaker 1: because every Public Enemy album from nation to millions, well
Speaker 1: every there's three right, yeah, before I forgot what even
Speaker 1: with bum rust the show, Like every time I listened
Speaker 1: to a Public Enemy album for the first time, it
Speaker 1: was such a life changing moment and for me it
Speaker 1: was like, wow, can.
Speaker 2: They do this to me for a fifth time? The no,
Speaker 2: the answer was yes, but it was it was in
Speaker 2: the wrong way. But in hindsight.
Speaker 1: They were onto something because they were five years before
Speaker 1: the rage against the machine, you know rock wrap thing.
Speaker 1: But I mean I had the same reaction that had
Speaker 1: the same open mouth drawl jopped are they allowed to
Speaker 1: do this?
Speaker 2: Like?
Speaker 1: It was such a radical album? What were you guys?
Speaker 1: Please be explained.
Speaker 2: Chuck's been very honest.
Speaker 1: About how you guys felt about it when you got
Speaker 1: the record.
Speaker 2: What did y'all talk.
Speaker 8: About didn't know what to do?
Speaker 1: Like did Chuck played in front of you guys and
Speaker 1: looked at your faces or just like didn't know what
Speaker 1: to do because at least like, okay, figure that I
Speaker 1: can work with that.
Speaker 8: I don't know what but but but but here's the
Speaker 8: great thing about Gren about deaf Tam. Once you proved yourself,
Speaker 8: who am I to judge? That's where we're going. I
Speaker 8: don't know what to do, but okay, we're gonna see
Speaker 8: what it is.
Speaker 1: Well, it was also well not the second the last album,
Speaker 1: because that was he got game. But well, like there
Speaker 1: was there was just no precedent for I mean, there
Speaker 1: was the Goats. You know, the Goats were kind of mixing,
Speaker 1: they were rocking and wrapped and raised against the machine,
Speaker 1: had one album out beforehand. But did you guys at
Speaker 1: least have a warning that you know, because by that point,
Speaker 1: even even though I mean, Wu Tang still wasn't a
Speaker 1: fully formed figurehead and you know, the group that we
Speaker 1: will worship, so in my mind, like Public Enemy still
Speaker 1: had run DMC status to that point.
Speaker 2: In ninety four and then.
Speaker 1: I don't know, maybe I just felt they were so
Speaker 1: angry at Were they angry at you guys?
Speaker 2: Were they angry?
Speaker 8: Was it just like a lot of anger, a lot
Speaker 8: of anger.
Speaker 2: What was the relationship like?
Speaker 1: Because I would think that they were your crown jewel,
Speaker 1: like you know this, this is the group that gets
Speaker 1: the white critics respect, and.
Speaker 8: They always they always would be the crown jewel. But
Speaker 8: you you gotta understand when when your kids and you
Speaker 8: grow up together, sometimes a big brother little brother thing
Speaker 8: comes into to play. And when you finally got a
Speaker 8: point where you sold the Left records, you want to
Speaker 8: do what you want to do too, So a lot
Speaker 8: of that has to had to you gotta they were
Speaker 8: young kids, man, you're talking about back then, you know
Speaker 8: Todd fifteen sixteen, and they going all over the world,
Speaker 8: you know what I mean, public enemy, you know, people
Speaker 8: with them, people not with them, people against them, people
Speaker 8: they fighting wars that you know, Griff, I guess it's
Speaker 8: so much so you had to allow that to happen.
Speaker 8: And what I I'll see and talk to you about it.
Speaker 8: But when a rock act or a pop act, when
Speaker 8: they make that album that you don't what's that. We
Speaker 8: just say it was just a time for them. Republican
Speaker 8: had that moment again. They were early. I'm with you,
Speaker 8: they were just early and we wasn't built for that.
Speaker 8: We just wasn't built for it. And that was the
Speaker 8: and but that was the expression. So who were we
Speaker 8: to judge?
Speaker 1: Was their disappointment and their end of you guys not
Speaker 1: finding because even then I just thought like, oh, they're over,
Speaker 1: they lost.
Speaker 2: It, and I had no clue that. It was later.
Speaker 1: When I found out, like, oh, because Ursula, their publicists
Speaker 1: had to figure out how to market them, and somehow
Speaker 1: she got glowing reviews out of Vibe magazine and the
Speaker 1: well tore roasted them with like a two star review
Speaker 1: of Rolling Stone. But for the most part, she got
Speaker 1: a lot of rock alternative press love that I wasn't
Speaker 1: even expecting them to get. And thus they started slowly
Speaker 1: creeping in to alternative tours out the norm that lane
Speaker 1: for them, right, not just rap sures like like oh okay,
Speaker 1: there are see white people and rockheads that want.
Speaker 2: To hear bring the noise right this stuff And I didn't.
Speaker 8: That was that was the message to you. You could
Speaker 8: in hip hop create many lanes and what they did
Speaker 8: was you got to think back then, nobody was thinking that,
Speaker 8: even with Beastie being what it was, nobody would ever
Speaker 8: think Pee would go there. You know what I mean,
Speaker 8: you got a certain thing from Pe. You know what
Speaker 8: I mean, nobody ever thought they would go there. But
Speaker 8: what what I just Chuck was saying, And again I
Speaker 8: can't quote it because I don't remember that this is
Speaker 8: where we are. It's just where we are.
Speaker 1: One of the more amazing comeback stories in my mind
Speaker 1: for Death Chair was that mister Smith album and I
Speaker 1: did I personally didn't think he could do it a
Speaker 1: third time. You know, it's like no, well, it's like yes, yes,
Speaker 1: initial well his initial l nel l elness run And
Speaker 1: even though I was a fan of walking with the Panther.
Speaker 2: They were the only one in the room.
Speaker 1: Look, it came out the last day of school. It
Speaker 1: was a special home and I graduated. That was my
Speaker 1: soundtrack of the summer.
Speaker 2: I like dropping them.
Speaker 1: And then and then uh, you know, mom said, knock
Speaker 1: you Out was like the comeback, even though we weren't
Speaker 1: supposed to call that.
Speaker 2: And then, you know, once.
Speaker 1: The thing was I read the source review of fourteen
Speaker 1: Shots Shots.
Speaker 8: Which Backseat was on fourteen.
Speaker 2: Yeah, backseat and how coming? What was the other scene?
Speaker 1: But not that remix? The remix was not on that record.
Speaker 1: The remix wasn't had that remix, but on the record.
Speaker 1: I would have gave it something different and the right
Speaker 1: I would get a half. But you know, I mean,
Speaker 1: the legend is that Russell lost his mind at the
Speaker 1: Source review and words were exchanged and all this stuff.
Speaker 8: But all that happened pretty much.
Speaker 1: People counted Ell out, and I guess he wisely just
Speaker 1: stayed silent for a year, all of ninety four, and
Speaker 1: then uh, the first we saw him with his new
Speaker 1: ball head and stuff was in the Flavor in Your
Speaker 1: Ear remix. So was there was there a marketing plan too.
Speaker 2: Two bring Ll back? Or was it just like there's some.
Speaker 1: Spaghetti and throw it on the wall and see what sticks.
Speaker 8: Todd And if you speak to him, he'll tell you.
Speaker 2: Let me tell you something phenomenal, phenomenal.
Speaker 8: He was like his good luck charm and the Smith,
Speaker 8: mister Smith, you know, Chris. That was the last Todd
Speaker 8: album we worked on together because he left soon after that.
Speaker 8: You gotta understand something L L Cool day is hot.
Speaker 8: I usually DJ Man you couldn't tell me now, no,
Speaker 8: rapp up, I was a fan fan, So you mean
Speaker 8: to tell me that llll no, that's he's He was
Speaker 8: hakon to me. I wanted to Todd, So there was
Speaker 8: no way that he was then. He was that. He
Speaker 8: was always going to be this to me, To me,
Speaker 8: so I treated him like that.
Speaker 1: And you're saying this means you're pointing up on a
Speaker 1: higher level.
Speaker 8: Yeah, he God, he was always that to me and
Speaker 8: so to me. I never looked at it as him
Speaker 8: making a comeback. I thought every album was an experimentation
Speaker 8: of where he was as an artist and certain things
Speaker 8: he tried. You know what I mean, because even on
Speaker 8: fourteen Shots, you know, I was trying to say, your
Speaker 8: back back seat is the record, you guys, is the
Speaker 8: back seat is the record? I said that Pink Cookie,
Speaker 8: what we talked talk We gotta have a conversation about.
Speaker 1: That, that backseat.
Speaker 8: Yeah, I said, we had that real conversation, but it
Speaker 8: was I have to be honest with you. That is
Speaker 8: why today we're still friends, because we went through every
Speaker 8: moment that you can go through. I remember when when
Speaker 8: he dropped Headstrong uh record and he uh that was
Speaker 8: his last number one album, two hundred thousand copies, and
Speaker 8: he called me and said, you always believed in me.
Speaker 8: You never stopped believing in me. I'm gonna love you
Speaker 8: better record, he said, you never stopped until this day.
Speaker 8: Just so I never looked at it like come back
Speaker 8: and come that. I never looked because again, these were
Speaker 8: they were friends too. So what you know now, do
Speaker 8: we have to go to work? Do we have to
Speaker 8: do things differently? Do we had to go see different Yeah?
Speaker 8: We had to do that. But that's what it's all about.
Speaker 8: To me, That's what evolution is all about. It's not
Speaker 8: about I'd rather have the hard time. How about this?
Speaker 8: Let me do that because you can remember me. You
Speaker 8: gonna know I went there, was with you the whole
Speaker 8: time and figured it out with you.
Speaker 1: So for a record like mister Smith, and for the
Speaker 1: potential singles that it had, there's one important element in
Speaker 1: the story that we kind of didn't mention, which was
Speaker 1: the the the uprise and the power that a certain
Speaker 1: New York radio station had, which was Hot ninety seven.
Speaker 2: Hope I'm allowed to say that, you know.
Speaker 1: On my own show, Scott Ye was that allowed?
Speaker 2: They're good? Okay? Okay? I just need to be technical.
Speaker 1: Not that I would expect you to give me the
Speaker 1: dirty low down, but I mean, by this point, especially
Speaker 1: with nineteen ninety six coming up in the race, what's
Speaker 1: the telecommunications that?
Speaker 2: Yeah?
Speaker 10: Tell god, what the fuck? You like a paralegal? You
Speaker 10: you deserve your own noise?
Speaker 2: Don't for a fact check? That was and then you
Speaker 2: looked at the fact checker.
Speaker 1: I know that you guys were playing to win. I
Speaker 1: know that by this point bad boys really established, trying
Speaker 1: to established themselves as as the sheriff of the block.
Speaker 2: Oh god, I didn't even mention death Row.
Speaker 1: You know, there are other labels that are vying for
Speaker 1: that number one spot, and we know that. And for
Speaker 1: the most part, in an hour, you could probably squeeze
Speaker 1: in six to seven songs. You guys are starting your
Speaker 1: muscle period at least of you know of about to
Speaker 1: you know, show what No.
Speaker 7: But I'm just saying that it's true though.
Speaker 4: That's a nice way to say it.
Speaker 1: You know, is this some Mars Levy Part two?
Speaker 2: Things like.
Speaker 1: How do you muscle radio to stay on your side?
Speaker 2: Like?
Speaker 8: Is it?
Speaker 2: Like?
Speaker 1: Yo, I'm really feeling that song doing it? Okay, I'm
Speaker 1: gonna just play it a whole forty two billion times?
Speaker 1: Or is it a new level of taking hands and
Speaker 1: kiss some babies that you probably can't technically get into?
Speaker 2: Like has that ever stopped? U?
Speaker 8: Let me let me say this to you. And I
Speaker 8: couldn't say this, not one thing but Hot ninety seven
Speaker 8: with okay with I'm telling him he's actually about how
Speaker 8: we talked Hot ninety.
Speaker 1: Seven right, Well yeah, I mean, well, you know, we
Speaker 1: live in New York City and Hot ninety seven is
Speaker 1: the station that if flex is feeling it, then chances.
Speaker 2: Are that the ripple effect's going to happen.
Speaker 1: And this guy in Cleveland's going to play it, this
Speaker 1: station Seattle's going to play it.
Speaker 2: But the thing is is that.
Speaker 1: I I wouldn't believe that. Okay, a fan is calling in, Yes,
Speaker 1: I need to hear doing it by llo Like.
Speaker 8: Again, let me give you the truth though, So.
Speaker 1: Like you, you're you're a guy that had hits, You
Speaker 1: have hits under your belt. How do you make sure
Speaker 1: those hits keep coming and that they're and I mean,
Speaker 1: like a song for you, A good day of radio
Speaker 1: rotation is how many times at its height, how many
Speaker 1: times do you want your hit song played?
Speaker 2: A day on one station? Is it thirty five times
Speaker 2: a day?
Speaker 8: I don't think any one particular record will play thirty
Speaker 8: five times a day, because if it did, it would
Speaker 8: play thirty five times seven whatever. But let me give
Speaker 8: you this.
Speaker 1: And I'm not This is not a hostile gotcha question, No,
Speaker 1: I just I just want to know that the science
Speaker 1: of how like for me growing up and remembering radio,
Speaker 1: it was like the DJ wants to be the cool dude,
Speaker 1: and hey, I'm gonna put you onto this record. Oh,
Speaker 1: I might play this album cut where Now it's like,
Speaker 1: I don't think you know you guys, A label would
Speaker 1: frown on an album cut, Like if it were up
Speaker 1: to me playing mister Smith, I would play that no airplay,
Speaker 1: play right airplace you wouldn't play, y'all, No, I see,
Speaker 1: I would play the Eric Eric Sarmon remix the thing
Speaker 1: I actually girl, you know it's true and didn't get
Speaker 1: caught and I don't want to mention it and get
Speaker 1: a lawsuit on I'm going to say that. Okay, a
Speaker 1: record like doing it, what are you expecting? Hot ninety seven?
Speaker 1: How many times do you want to hear it in
Speaker 1: a twenty four hour period? Heavy rotation I mean, is
Speaker 1: that eighteen times a day?
Speaker 8: So I think at that particular time that was probably
Speaker 8: most probably sixty two times in a week.
Speaker 2: So if you oh, so you're going by week, you're
Speaker 2: not going by.
Speaker 8: Daily, no, because that you because program changed over the weekend.
Speaker 8: They go to weekend programming. It's it's different stuff. And
Speaker 8: back then it was call out, you know what I mean?
Speaker 8: Where if the record called out? And then it still
Speaker 8: is now and now it's PPM and all these ferent
Speaker 8: kind of metrics and that are going on. But I
Speaker 8: have to say what people forgot and what we try
Speaker 8: to radio was the last stop with us. Okay, we're
Speaker 8: doing it of ques. If you came to the tunnel
Speaker 8: with me and heard what cap did God rest his
Speaker 8: soul in the walking hour? And then what flex did
Speaker 8: doing it? Drinks got spilled everys soon as that beginning
Speaker 8: came on, it was and we made all made sure
Speaker 8: all our records that we went to radio with they
Speaker 8: had to get. We called it the tunnel tests. If
Speaker 8: you play between twelve and three o'clock and the tunnel
Speaker 8: get at me dog. When we dropped out of the door,
Speaker 8: we knew it wasn't going to be a big radio record,
Speaker 8: but it lit the tunnel up redmen the method man
Speaker 8: how no no, yeah, rock water those the two verses
Speaker 8: and the but you go when you went to the
Speaker 8: tunnel the place with And so my thing is, so,
Speaker 8: who do you.
Speaker 1: Have to convince at whatever radios? And I'm not even
Speaker 1: gonna sing on Hot ninety seven, who do you have
Speaker 1: to convince?
Speaker 2: At?
Speaker 1: First of all, are you at this point talking to
Speaker 1: a Clear Channel person who control or who controls one
Speaker 1: hundred staces across the area.
Speaker 8: Then back then, so you had individual individual program directors.
Speaker 8: So back then it was Steve Smith and Tracy Clardy
Speaker 8: at Hot ninety seven. Today is THEO Mitcham and g
Speaker 8: where's at power one oh five? Just for New York.
Speaker 8: I mean there's a lot of but then there's now
Speaker 8: there's clusters too. So THEA runs a cluster, and there's
Speaker 8: Doc Winner who runs the urban cluster for all of
Speaker 8: Clear Channel, and then there's Jay Stevens for Radio one cluster,
Speaker 8: and then Ken Johnsen and foot one of those down
Speaker 8: the south whatever. So it's it's clustered now, but back
Speaker 8: then it was individual program director. Is the music directors?
Speaker 2: Okay?
Speaker 1: So I'll say a few episodes back, we have Former
Speaker 1: President Beat Former Still President and BT.
Speaker 2: No I'm sorry.
Speaker 1: It is February and Stephen Hill mentioned one of his
Speaker 1: regrets when he first worked at MTV was that he
Speaker 1: probably could have lit a fire under them to really
Speaker 1: give more support to your all. I need to get
Speaker 1: by by Method Man and Marriag J Blige and now
Speaker 1: in my head, I was like, wait, that record was everywhere,
Speaker 1: So of course he's like nope, He's like, it could
Speaker 1: have been even stronger. It could have been so much
Speaker 1: more and bigger and way ubiquitous. So for a record
Speaker 1: like that, you know, how do you convince? First of all,
Speaker 1: why would people resist? Why would people have resistance to
Speaker 1: it because it was just an unorthodox sounding street song.
Speaker 8: Or I think method Man had more to do why
Speaker 8: people didn't go immediately on that record.
Speaker 1: I was just like, oh, this is an instant hit.
Speaker 8: It was an instant hit. But you got to understand something.
Speaker 8: So back then people wanted to be safe, and method
Speaker 8: Man wasn't safe for them.
Speaker 2: That wasn't safe.
Speaker 8: The record was safe. Method Man the personality also, yes, yes, yes, listen,
Speaker 8: I had a record. So I'm gonna give you a
Speaker 8: uh I would say, what you know, migos right now,
Speaker 8: record bad bad, and Bougie.
Speaker 1: About to say, yes, life has changed for you since
Speaker 1: Donald Glover a long time ago during the one or
Speaker 1: two back gave a shout out now, shout out.
Speaker 8: To Donald Glover. G So we couldn't get migos on
Speaker 8: late night TV.
Speaker 2: Mm hmm, bro, I'll talk to you about that.
Speaker 8: But we couldn't. We couldn't.
Speaker 2: I would love them.
Speaker 8: Magazines couldn't get certain things, and so the group was like,
Speaker 8: well why can't, why can't we? And then a moment
Speaker 8: happened and now everybody fighting over everybody, And so I
Speaker 8: can only say this to you to say Radio didn't
Speaker 8: see them. There's a club group. You know. Radio didn't
Speaker 8: see them a certain way. TV didn't see him a
Speaker 8: certain way. And you gotta think about method man.
Speaker 4: At that time, he was kind of dirty looking.
Speaker 8: He started to cook. That was the moment we started
Speaker 8: to clean them up.
Speaker 2: I thought he was the accessible.
Speaker 4: But can I just say, just for the record, somebody
Speaker 4: pred told me once that the Roots didn't have enough personality,
Speaker 4: Like if you really think that is not like that?
Speaker 4: It's like really, And I was like, what are you
Speaker 4: talking about that. I told you that, like what are
Speaker 4: you talking about? But does this and you'd be surprised
Speaker 4: that the whole personality thing.
Speaker 1: Just well, that's the thing, like what really determines a hit?
Speaker 1: Like can we because you know, I came from an
Speaker 1: era where it was like, hey, if we just get
Speaker 1: somebody sing some R and b H, you guys are
Speaker 1: going to have a hit. And that's not necessarily the case.
Speaker 1: And then you know it's like if you fall into
Speaker 1: a nepotism loop.
Speaker 2: Okay, let's take Foxy.
Speaker 1: Brownsment I shot you was her first appearance or was it?
Speaker 2: Ain't? No, Like no, got shot you? Was not anything five.
Speaker 8: I think I think that shot to be honest with you,
Speaker 8: I think her first appearance was I shot you and
Speaker 8: then it was ain't. No. It's twenty years ago, so it.
Speaker 1: Would have been would have been a hard sale for
Speaker 1: you guys to push got to get you home or
Speaker 1: or uh uh uh, I'll be good, I'll be the
Speaker 1: angel right. Would have been harder for you guys to
Speaker 1: promote her had she not had the nepotism association of
Speaker 1: being on a Posse cut, doing first, doing a good
Speaker 1: job on a Possey cut. But I don't even think
Speaker 1: doing a good job or doing a bad job even
Speaker 1: matters today in two thousand and six times, But no,
Speaker 1: back then, it was like, oh shit, she right and
Speaker 1: she looked good. So this is a can't lose situation,
Speaker 1: like to break out an artist of that level? Was
Speaker 1: it a hard cell? Like do you have to have
Speaker 1: pinpoint board and whiteboard and do all these like mathematic
Speaker 1: theories for radio programmers to see your vision on a
Speaker 1: Foxy Brown or a job someone to unprove it.
Speaker 8: So it's okay. So our secret sauce was we never
Speaker 8: worked just the record. We always believed we were working
Speaker 8: a brand. So Foxy wasn't about what was the record, uh,
Speaker 8: the big record get your Home? It wasn't just get
Speaker 8: you home. It was about as much as get you
Speaker 8: home as a shatcha. It was both. It was the
Speaker 8: same amount of effort because we were building a brand,
Speaker 8: and in building a brand you gotta lay a solid foundation.
Speaker 8: So it's never about radio. To me, it was just
Speaker 8: not the radio became Okay, I got the street lot,
Speaker 8: I got the sheet. People respect it. Okay, we put
Speaker 8: it with this person, Okay, we put on this tour. Okay,
Speaker 8: now we ready for.
Speaker 1: That, But does it help to also have the deft
Speaker 1: cham logo in other words like uh, well not.
Speaker 2: Have you ever got what's what's it? What's what's a.
Speaker 1: Heartbreaking know that you got during your stretch? Okay, Jay
Speaker 1: hates and I think he does it just to be asshole.
Speaker 1: Sometimes he hates in my lifetime, like just the I
Speaker 1: think you know.
Speaker 2: I don't like it. Whatever Volume one, Volume one, yeah, yeah, yeah,
Speaker 2: well no, no.
Speaker 8: No, is that the one that had touched my heart?
Speaker 2: Yeah?
Speaker 1: Sunshine now doing like Sunshine? How are you guys working Sunshine?
Speaker 1: And to the point where now Dame's like, yo, we
Speaker 1: got to make a street movie real quick and get
Speaker 1: him back to home base and establish the street cred
Speaker 1: because I didn't even see it as like, oh, you're
Speaker 1: losing your street cred by rhyming over with Babyface.
Speaker 8: It was reach but wait, it's.
Speaker 1: It's almost like I'm sorry only because the Flaming Lips
Speaker 1: were recently on The Tonight Show a long time ago,
Speaker 1: and I think about the whole New I think about
Speaker 1: the whole New Rock Uh Flaming Lips video fiasco where
Speaker 1: it's like where it was like that was, and I'm like,
Speaker 1: you shot the video with him, like, how did you
Speaker 1: not know that? But for me, he recorded the record,
Speaker 1: he made the video and he was obviously reaching.
Speaker 3: Yeah.
Speaker 2: It's like it's a committee. Like Nick, It's like saying
Speaker 2: I accidentally posted a picture Instagram. I know you didn't
Speaker 2: you know how many steps to take the post picture Instagram?
Speaker 8: I think he experimented, made made a record.
Speaker 1: But why could a song like Sunshine, which by the
Speaker 1: numbers should have won.
Speaker 2: But that's just wasn't a good song though like that,
Speaker 2: but what is a good song? During that period? It
Speaker 2: effective or not right that it was ineffective.
Speaker 1: But the thing is is that Okay, give me, okay,
Speaker 1: what's that I'm.
Speaker 2: Trying to think, give me, give me, give me a job.
Speaker 2: Will either put it on me or I mean all
Speaker 2: of them, job put on me? You want to do?
Speaker 2: I do sample everybody living it up? That was the
Speaker 2: living it up. It's the formula.
Speaker 1: Okay, okay, let's take a living I actually would give
Speaker 1: the advantage to living it up. But I'm trying to
Speaker 1: think of like just a hit for def Jam that.
Speaker 2: Was like it's a hit. Uh, okay, let's go with
Speaker 2: Gotta Get You Home? That was That was a jam.
Speaker 2: Well it was it because it was a hit. It
Speaker 2: was like you were told Illmatic was a classic? Was
Speaker 2: it a classic? You instantly?
Speaker 1: You were told instantly I read it Illmatic right, it
Speaker 1: was like it's almost.
Speaker 2: Like like your hand was forced on it.
Speaker 1: Like why why wasn't Why wasn't the machine that built
Speaker 1: by nineteen ninety seven, you guys had a formula so
Speaker 1: amazingly like bulletproof.
Speaker 2: Why couldn't that work for Sunshine?
Speaker 8: Because I believe good records work and bad ones don't.
Speaker 2: Wow, that shit won't.
Speaker 8: And by the way, like the record, and I worked
Speaker 8: the record, I was mad at people, y'all not gonna
Speaker 8: play Babyface Foxy and y'all not gonna play that, and
Speaker 8: I took offense to it. But the art of being
Speaker 8: a promo guy, there will be another record. I'm never
Speaker 8: worried about whether people would uh play the record or not,
Speaker 8: because I'm gonna come back with him back and guess
Speaker 8: what Jay's next album. I reminded him.
Speaker 1: Okay, wait, wait, wait, time out time, because I really
Speaker 1: want to talk to you about your rock and feller
Speaker 1: relationship with Damon Dash and I know you're so tired
Speaker 1: of talking about the jackets and argument.
Speaker 8: I was never tired of talking about the jackets.
Speaker 2: He was.
Speaker 8: To day.
Speaker 1: So he comes at you, guys with the song that's
Speaker 1: like seventy seven beats per minute. It wasn't even it
Speaker 1: wasn't even a jam. So right, life, what in my
Speaker 1: life is a hard song to blend in mixing. It's
Speaker 1: very slow in today's environment where the average song is
Speaker 1: eighty two. Yeah, like she could work in twenty sixteen,
Speaker 1: but back in nineteen ninety eight, there was no the
Speaker 1: average meter was was was ninety seven, ninety eight, ninety nine.
Speaker 1: He's coming at you with the record that's eighty two bpms.
Speaker 1: There's a bunch of kids singing.
Speaker 2: You know. It was a risk, like a Broadway song.
Speaker 8: Delivery is weird.
Speaker 2: Yeah, how did you guys? Now? That? To me was
Speaker 2: the hell Mary throw of all hell Marys.
Speaker 9: I think the novelty was part of it, just because
Speaker 9: of the fact that it was a very slow song
Speaker 9: with the whole.
Speaker 2: The ironic song, because he tried it again with anything
Speaker 2: that didn't work.
Speaker 8: Yeah, I think it was a moment in time. I
Speaker 8: don't think that could ever be repeated, and it was
Speaker 8: a jay Z moment.
Speaker 2: But was there what do you call it? Catalyst when
Speaker 2: you when you're a gun?
Speaker 1: Was there a sort of a gun side thing like
Speaker 1: we can't fumble this one and wait because let's not even.
Speaker 2: Look at it as a fumble because the album went platinum.
Speaker 8: Yeah, I don't think it would. To be honest with
Speaker 8: you again, I never looked at it. Jay Z's brand
Speaker 8: to us, Rockefeller's brand to us, because we had things
Speaker 8: that was very successful and then we had things that
Speaker 8: didn't work, you know, but his brand was so important
Speaker 8: to us, his friendship was so important to us that
Speaker 8: it just wasn't about one particular record. I know would
Speaker 8: hove He's gonna always make that record because I believe
Speaker 8: he's that guy. That's another one of those you know
Speaker 8: what I mean that that I that I would do
Speaker 8: anything for it because I know his he's he's it's
Speaker 8: just as an EMC that he won of those man
Speaker 8: and heart knocked like you got that couldn't work for everybody.
Speaker 8: Everybody couldn't do They couldn't do that that they couldn't do,
Speaker 8: and so he was just it was the one on
Speaker 8: one for him.
Speaker 1: If you're just suiting him, we're heading to our final
Speaker 1: hour with Kevin Lowne was talking about his time as
Speaker 1: president of def JAM at the turn of the century.
Speaker 1: What was it like daily just dealing with Dame dash
Speaker 1: and on on one line? By this point, I know
Speaker 1: it was IRV got it a hard uh. I know
Speaker 1: you're gonna say that nobody was hard to.
Speaker 8: Know, I'm gonna tell you, but intensely Dame was challenging.
Speaker 2: Okay, good.
Speaker 8: IRV. And if you talk to him to this day,
Speaker 8: IRV to me when I left, if IRV didn't implode
Speaker 8: the way he did around his whole thing and Dame
Speaker 8: didn't implode the way he did, they were being prime
Speaker 8: to take over. And I'm just today would they were
Speaker 8: real record gud? I mean, I'm being honest.
Speaker 1: Do you still feel that they have have the business
Speaker 1: acumen too? At least advance the wisdom that they've gained,
Speaker 1: because I just refuse to believe that they're that damn disposable.
Speaker 2: Right, It was like a moment in time.
Speaker 8: I don't I don't think they I don't think they
Speaker 8: moment in times. I think they made choices and decisions
Speaker 8: that they have to live by. And I think if
Speaker 8: IRV wanted to be in the business, he could be
Speaker 8: in the business. I think that Dame has chosen a
Speaker 8: different You got to understand something Dame came it was
Speaker 8: it was atrofected with them, you know what I mean.
Speaker 8: So I'm sure that goes through you know, some people.
Speaker 8: It's like I said, I know I can do it
Speaker 8: by myself, but I don't want to do it by myself.
Speaker 8: That's why me and they have been together, you know,
Speaker 8: my whole career per se. So some people don't want
Speaker 8: to do it byself. I really don't think Dame wants
Speaker 8: to do it byself. And that's just to be quite honest.
Speaker 8: You know, I'm not sure why. But and Irv I
Speaker 8: talk to every day. We we we were friends.
Speaker 1: Well, not to put you on the spot, but if
Speaker 1: he I'm saying there's a mail room position that three
Speaker 1: hundreds right right, I don't mean that. But are there
Speaker 1: people in this industry that you would rather not choose
Speaker 1: to work with again? Or is it just like you'll
Speaker 1: find where your system is right now?
Speaker 8: And let me I'm gonna try to put this in
Speaker 8: the right.
Speaker 2: Way because I want to know, like the genius and the.
Speaker 1: Stronghold of Rockefeller, I'm trying to figure out if that
Speaker 1: was Dame's constant intensity or was that jay Z's lucky streak,
Speaker 1: like who had the fifty one to forty nine advantage.
Speaker 8: I think it's always gonna be Hole because he was
Speaker 8: the one that kept the lights on building. But every
Speaker 8: team needs a Dennis Robin And I think Jay wasn't
Speaker 8: a big talker. Dame did the talking. Biggs wasn't a
Speaker 8: big talker at all. He didn't really talk, you know
Speaker 8: what I mean, he just you know, did did not
Speaker 8: and say yo.
Speaker 13: So that's a well that said if okay, let's let's
Speaker 13: trade off. Let's take Let's take Dash out of the situation.
Speaker 13: Let's put Chris Lighty in that situation. Now, Chris Lighty
Speaker 13: is the right hand to Hove.
Speaker 1: Will we have the same results or do you need
Speaker 1: someone that is just the flavor to a chuck.
Speaker 8: D like a Let me let me say this to you.
Speaker 8: I think there's a lot of things that put that
Speaker 8: whole situation uh into the stratosphere at where it was
Speaker 8: at that particular time. I'll be I'll be a a
Speaker 8: sucker and a bitch if I didn't sit and say
Speaker 8: that Dame's contribution to Rockefeller was not a lot I'll
Speaker 8: be corny and whack to say that Biggs didn't, and
Speaker 8: I also be disrespectful to say Hove was not the reason.
Speaker 8: You know what I'm saying. So you can't, you can't,
Speaker 8: you can't put.
Speaker 1: You don't do because I wouldn't know that because I've
Speaker 1: never seen. I know Jay's very ambitious, and I know
Speaker 1: that he it's kind of a chess player and thinks
Speaker 1: in terms of moves.
Speaker 2: But I always thought, like you.
Speaker 1: Need you needed a trojan horse or a battering ram
Speaker 1: to at least how be it revisioned as history or not.
Speaker 1: I mean you you'll hear everyone's tale.
Speaker 2: Of well I made it happen. Well I made it happen.
Speaker 2: You know, you hear like all these versions of it.
Speaker 2: So it's just like.
Speaker 8: We never looked at it like that. I think them
Speaker 8: being with us helped a lot. I think we provided
Speaker 8: a platform to them to be great entrepreneurs. We gave
Speaker 8: them a lot of opportunity, taught them a lot of things,
Speaker 8: and to be quite honest, they taught us some things.
Speaker 8: Taught us about taking risks, taught us about just believe that. Again,
Speaker 8: it might sound funny, but from all them guys, I
Speaker 8: really feel like we were just meant to be the
Speaker 8: reason we ran the boards, because we were meant to
Speaker 8: be together, meant to be together. I'm talking you talking
Speaker 8: about wars, we'd have minded some things.
Speaker 1: Yeah, I was gonna say, knowing that your history, were
Speaker 1: you meditating at this point at least?
Speaker 11: Like?
Speaker 2: How are you surviving?
Speaker 1: Because I mean, I'm I'm probably a passive aggressive boss
Speaker 1: in at least twelve.
Speaker 2: Of my ventures. I just you know, what are you
Speaker 2: pointing me for? No? This is the Have I been
Speaker 2: aggressive to you? Have I been aggressive to you?
Speaker 8: You'll have.
Speaker 2: Yes, I have been very aggressive.
Speaker 4: Said you are a passive aggresive boss. Yes, that is
Speaker 4: the truth. You already said it's school.
Speaker 2: Oh well you had to intensify to.
Speaker 4: That level for a witness. I just want you to
Speaker 4: know there was.
Speaker 2: Yeah, you didn't have to agree that dare anyway.
Speaker 1: But my point is that how how does this not
Speaker 1: land you in the hospital? How's this not?
Speaker 8: Actually?
Speaker 2: Did should? I did not know that?
Speaker 4: Not?
Speaker 8: Not not? I didn't realize it that at the time.
Speaker 8: But when you work with my life, you know, And
Speaker 8: I'd gotten so big I was three hundred and twenty pounds.
Speaker 2: Jesus Christ I totally forgot.
Speaker 8: That all that, and so the issue I realized my
Speaker 8: my addiction was food and the reason and because I
Speaker 8: was on the road all the time, I never really
Speaker 8: cared about I just ate in the eight and eight
Speaker 8: stress and then I started stressed, you know, And so
Speaker 8: I started to realize that ship something wrong. Blood clot
Speaker 8: here bye by this And I remember Leo said this,
Speaker 8: he said, I went to think about this. They had
Speaker 8: five hundred million dollars. Am I going to give it
Speaker 8: to you fat fuck? Or am I gonna give it
Speaker 8: to the healthy guy? Wow? Moment moment. And so I
Speaker 8: only say that I didn't realize that at that time.
Speaker 8: And sometimes you don't realize what you're going through. But
Speaker 8: that addiction to food stress eating is, as people called it,
Speaker 8: almost cost him my life. Diabetes the whole thing.
Speaker 2: So where you diagnosed with diabetes? Yeah? All that?
Speaker 8: Yeah, when I was in digestion problems, I was, I
Speaker 8: was at when I tell you, you know, a very
Speaker 8: reggie red, very big cap. All these guys were overweight,
Speaker 8: dieing in the whole nine How old are you at
Speaker 8: this time? At my biggest probably thirty two?
Speaker 4: Wow, that was a big yeah, because your initial weight
Speaker 4: loss was a lot, Like you dropped a lot of pounds.
Speaker 8: I went from three twenty I'm now where one ninety.
Speaker 2: Wow, that's like, oh no, I'm current, I'm five down.
Speaker 2: That a small No. Yeah.
Speaker 1: I had a similar scare. And I'm like in my
Speaker 1: second month of being a vegan, which I got to ask,
Speaker 1: is there ever a time where you just stopped counting
Speaker 1: the days like a prisoner?
Speaker 2: Like I dream of pancakes vegan?
Speaker 1: But every I have a diary and I'm like day
Speaker 1: forty four, like I'm that series like in Blood.
Speaker 8: I changed it's lifestyle now it's I look at food.
Speaker 8: I eat food for energy.
Speaker 4: So you're not a no sugar, no dairy anymore because
Speaker 4: you were.
Speaker 8: It was a no sugar still fr no fried foods,
Speaker 8: dairy and cheese. You know what I mean? I do?
Speaker 8: I'm people know me. I eat the same thing every day,
Speaker 8: you know what I mean? So egg whites in the morning, mushrooms, onions, peppers,
Speaker 8: sliced turkey, meat inside.
Speaker 2: Sumer look like Kevin.
Speaker 4: Let's get to lunch now.
Speaker 8: Lunches normally fish and Brussels sprouts or broccoli rob and
Speaker 8: then then I'll eat some seafood Weber shrimp, Alaskan king
Speaker 8: krab legs, but always protein and vegetables the same. And
Speaker 8: now I made a commitment, you know, forty eight by fifty,
Speaker 8: I want to be in the best shape in my life.
Speaker 8: So I'm doing CrossFit three days a week and I'm
Speaker 8: doing rowing every day. You know what I mean?
Speaker 2: I hate rowing. Do you do that machine where you
Speaker 2: have to do the two thousand?
Speaker 8: Yeah? Yeah, yeah, I love so much that I put
Speaker 8: it in my house. I bought one from my.
Speaker 2: Yes, exactly.
Speaker 1: Yeah, I purposely try to break the chair on that machine.
Speaker 8: Shout out the coach, Greg, I'll be there to mariw o'clock.
Speaker 4: Inspiration.
Speaker 2: Jesus, So I got that answer you asked, But.
Speaker 8: I'm gonna tell you question that's on the weight thing.
Speaker 8: So many people look at you and follow you. You
Speaker 8: know what kind of light you would shine if you
Speaker 8: did become healthy. And I'm not saying you're not healthy,
Speaker 8: but just if you did, the light that you would bring.
Speaker 1: To people just where Because people think that I'm now
Speaker 1: the Nazi asshole for like all the health stuff of
Speaker 1: them putting up.
Speaker 4: I do know you, not the people who don't know
Speaker 4: they are looking at you great. Yeah, just us, but
Speaker 4: people more people think it's great.
Speaker 8: I think I think you'd be such an inspiration to people,
Speaker 8: and you touch people's lives. I can't tell you. People
Speaker 8: who send me messages that you know forget me being
Speaker 8: who I am and the things that I've done, just
Speaker 8: the commitment because I've been I've lost weighting. It's now
Speaker 8: going to ten years. I don't count count days or anything.
Speaker 8: I really truly eat for energy. You may only eat
Speaker 8: enough stuff. I don't want to feel full. Fool is
Speaker 8: nasty to me. Full makes me feel sluggish in a
Speaker 8: certain way. So I pray for you, and I hope
Speaker 8: that you find you know the light enough to follow
Speaker 8: the light and shine light on other people.
Speaker 2: Wow. Things I feel like I just got blessed.
Speaker 4: By al would eat is Rick Ross and it's like
Speaker 4: a pure blessing.
Speaker 1: Who the sugar Steve is our resident diabetes.
Speaker 4: Uh got up during that part.
Speaker 1: Yeah, he's probably smoking a cigarette, like eating the cake
Speaker 1: coming like what I mean?
Speaker 2: Yeah?
Speaker 1: So, uh what your your actually Actually the three of
Speaker 1: you left def JAM at the same time.
Speaker 2: Correct two thousand and six. Uh, it was four when
Speaker 2: they were there when we signed to Atlantic.
Speaker 8: So leor left first, I was there at President CEO
Speaker 8: Deaf jam Uh. Julie was there as the execu Press
Speaker 8: President Island President Allen. She left and then and I
Speaker 8: always tell a story, So it's me in l A.
Speaker 8: And I felt like.
Speaker 2: What was was the synergies the same.
Speaker 8: I mean it was it was my company, you know
Speaker 8: what I mean. We ran it. I just so I
Speaker 8: had the keys, but I didn't have the house. So
Speaker 8: So and Doug and them, they just didn't know. They
Speaker 8: didn't trust me enough because I was Lear's guide, you
Speaker 8: know what I mean. And so they told me you
Speaker 8: should come and you know, stay and understand. I said, listen,
Speaker 8: I love La. It's my my friend. It's like somebody
Speaker 8: as another guy that I think the world of, and
Speaker 8: we can do great We don't do the same thing,
Speaker 8: you know what I mean, we can do great things together.
Speaker 2: Were disappointed that they didn't offer you the I wasn't.
Speaker 8: I wasn't say again, I wasn't that it was meant
Speaker 8: to be, so I don't. I don't live in So
Speaker 8: it was the only time I got this point where
Speaker 8: they said, you got y'all gonna give me the job.
Speaker 8: That was the only time I was this point other
Speaker 8: than that, I take life for what it has to
Speaker 8: give me. But that's why I'm so critical on my
Speaker 8: choices and the things that I do and how I
Speaker 8: treat people. So with LA, I looked at it. I said, Yo,
Speaker 8: so I don't want people doing the LA's people and
Speaker 8: Kevin's people. Then I'm not gonna let them do that
Speaker 8: to two African Americans at an institution like death. Jam.
Speaker 8: I can't do that, Yo. So I'm out, my man,
Speaker 8: but I gotta go, he said, Yo, no, no, I
Speaker 8: said no, But I'm doing this for us. I'm doing
Speaker 8: this for us because you deserve and respect for what
Speaker 8: you have and respect what you've done as an executive.
Speaker 8: You don't need a hindrance to you doing what you
Speaker 8: need to do. This is deaf Jam, you know what
Speaker 8: I mean? This is Alan deaf Jam. I need you
Speaker 8: to have full control and anything. So I'm a help
Speaker 8: as much as I can, but I think it's best
Speaker 8: that I give you. You have the house, I give
Speaker 8: you the keys also. So that's what it was.
Speaker 1: So in your success, it was Jay right or Jay?
Speaker 2: Was that?
Speaker 1: What do you think of that period? Like were you
Speaker 1: shocked or did you feel that that was not natural,
Speaker 1: But like was it was it something that you.
Speaker 2: Believed in?
Speaker 8: Or I think it was it was you gotta it
Speaker 8: was necessary. Two, because you gotta understand some I'm ten
Speaker 8: years now, I'm fifteen years there, and so people there's
Speaker 8: some kids who don't know Russell was president in the
Speaker 8: death jam, you know, I mean there's some millennials that
Speaker 8: don't know that. They think it was me. You know,
Speaker 8: I found it in that old thing. So you know
Speaker 8: the issue I think that they had with Liro and
Speaker 8: me not being there. They had to have someone there
Speaker 8: with enough gravitas, enough like the attraction and success that
Speaker 8: would stop the bleeding, you know what I mean.
Speaker 4: But why do you think the art it didn't during
Speaker 4: that time, it seemed like the artists on roster weren't
Speaker 4: as happy as they were before, some of the people
Speaker 4: who had been there for a while.
Speaker 8: I think it's management styles, I think.
Speaker 1: And how do you deal with a fading light like
Speaker 1: EPMD's situation for instance, Like you know, how do you
Speaker 1: take a legacy act that might not necessarily be as open?
Speaker 2: I mean, am I to assume? I don't? I don't,
Speaker 2: like I never know what ELL's processes.
Speaker 1: He just seems to me that he's just open to
Speaker 1: ideas and if it's and if it's a good idea,
Speaker 1: I'll go with it.
Speaker 2: I know plenty of artists.
Speaker 1: That would, you know, turn their back on a hip
Speaker 1: for fear of like I don't want to look bad
Speaker 1: for my boys singing da da Da da da. But
Speaker 1: how do you take a legacy act that was good
Speaker 1: for the label like E p MD or Eric Sermon
Speaker 1: and that sort of thing, like if the expiration is
Speaker 1: up and they're like, okay, well we're back in business
Speaker 1: or that thing like was the Ninetess back in business?
Speaker 2: Out of business?
Speaker 8: I did all those albums, so that could have produce.
Speaker 8: I mean, that's why we're going to It's a question.
Speaker 1: So for that for those comeback records, like are they
Speaker 1: having these like uh, these frothy goals of like ah, man,
Speaker 1: we're back to our you know, our regular platinum status
Speaker 1: and you know the world's gonna know who.
Speaker 8: We are because I said they were never a platinum,
Speaker 8: they were gold. What I'm trying to say is their
Speaker 8: expectation was to be able to go out on the
Speaker 8: road and perform for their fans. Serm Eric Sermon, Uh,
Speaker 8: his expectations was to be the produce you gotta. You
Speaker 8: gotta remember when we did back in business and then
Speaker 8: there was another one out. You know, these were albums
Speaker 8: done out of love. It wasn't like that. It wasn't expectation,
Speaker 8: Oh we're gonna go and get jet. It was not that.
Speaker 8: It was that, Yo, we still want to do it,
Speaker 8: so help us do it. And that's what I That's
Speaker 8: what I did, and I think we did. Eric did
Speaker 8: some great Eric did the four three two one remix
Speaker 8: for me, and I always say, so, if he can
Speaker 8: bless me there, I have to be able to work
Speaker 8: with them. And the joke was the group was called
Speaker 8: k EPM D because I was. I was always stayed
Speaker 8: right with them too, you know what I mean. So
Speaker 8: that was I mean through all that, I went through
Speaker 8: all the thick and so.
Speaker 4: That must have been a part of the culture shot
Speaker 4: because I remember when you left ll it seemed like
Speaker 4: it was definitely a difference in him, like a mirror.
Speaker 4: I'm not not got your moment. However, he definitely made
Speaker 4: it known how he felt about the new administration and
Speaker 4: how did that affect you? Because it just seemed like
Speaker 4: the whole camaraderie, whatever you brought, that joy that you
Speaker 4: brought to that building, it got him done.
Speaker 8: I think it's a different I mean, you got to
Speaker 8: look at different administrations coming every four years, and I
Speaker 8: think that, but you learned how to deal with them.
Speaker 8: I think, Okay, maybe that feeling wasn't there, but Rihanna's dead, right?
Speaker 8: But did he?
Speaker 2: But did?
Speaker 4: I mean y'all are friends, so I'm sure he like
Speaker 4: called you like I can't deal?
Speaker 8: Did you have to? I think people knew, people know
Speaker 8: me and hope you know what I mean. People know
Speaker 8: that if he called me today and said, Yo, I
Speaker 8: need you to to run this or do this, that's
Speaker 8: my guy. I'm gonna do whatever I can for him.
Speaker 8: But vice versa. Like other people can't call him, I
Speaker 8: can call him and say, yo, I need It's not
Speaker 8: money thing, you know, and he'll He'll be there and
Speaker 8: the rest of these kids. I always told him when
Speaker 8: I left, it was emotional for me. You know, you
Speaker 8: got to understand something. I took that badge and the
Speaker 8: only thing I don't have is a tattoo with that jam.
Speaker 8: And these were brothers and sons and daughters that and
Speaker 8: aunts and people who I came up with in the business.
Speaker 8: But at the end of the day, they have to
Speaker 8: do what's best for their families. Like I had to
Speaker 8: do what's best for my families, and I got I
Speaker 8: got some of the calls. But I will always say,
Speaker 8: remember when Rick, and when Rick left, there was Lear
Speaker 8: change the administration. When Lera we grew so big, Lear
Speaker 8: had to have Kevin Lowles change administration. And the same
Speaker 8: way some of the artists people. It's people who felt
Speaker 8: that death jam when I came in. When they named
Speaker 8: me president, some people left, some people threw ship all.
Speaker 8: They couldn't believe.
Speaker 2: How they left.
Speaker 8: They couldn't they couldn't believe how they named me. People
Speaker 8: cried that.
Speaker 1: So so even despite you coming in first and leaving last.
Speaker 8: What wasn't wasn't about that because the culture wasn't about
Speaker 8: how can I say the team? It was more so
Speaker 8: about we death jam and and and what it wasn't.
Speaker 8: And to me, I'm okay with being in the back
Speaker 8: seat driving being I'm gonna being on the roof, put
Speaker 8: me in the trunk. I'm okay with whoever, as long
Speaker 8: as we accomplished the goal and what's the greater good?
Speaker 8: And so I just think it's the difference. When new
Speaker 8: administrations come in, they have to cater to the artists,
Speaker 8: and when you don't cater to art the paint starts appeal.
Speaker 8: And so that's what I think, you.
Speaker 2: Know, I want to I want to ask.
Speaker 1: If you can name me three three artists or three acts.
Speaker 8: Don't get me a trouble question.
Speaker 1: Kevin Lowbes, I love you, man, I'm not got you.
Speaker 1: Name me three acts that got away? I could have
Speaker 1: had blah blah blah, like damn if we just they
Speaker 1: went somewhere else, Like what three acts could you could
Speaker 1: you have signed or had that got away?
Speaker 8: Nelly?
Speaker 2: WHOA?
Speaker 1: How close was Nelly negotiations with Deft Chair and what
Speaker 1: caused it to not happen? I know someone had to say, oh,
Speaker 1: this guy will never sell this.
Speaker 8: I just think it was a time and issue, and
Speaker 8: we were we were a really like coast based label,
Speaker 8: East Coast and West Coast and didn't understand it.
Speaker 2: I think Leard didn't like it.
Speaker 8: I mean, I think fifty Wait a minute, you trying
Speaker 8: to tell me Chris Lidi managed them?
Speaker 2: Yeah, yeah, what had happened? I never thought of that.
Speaker 1: So if Lady would have signed fifty cent Andi Rule
Speaker 1: was on the label at the same time.
Speaker 2: Yeah, that would have been crazy. I didn't.
Speaker 8: Listen or was that an issue? No, the best thing
Speaker 8: for everybody, And again, I deal with a greater good.
Speaker 8: Fifty had an opportunity to be with Dre. I believe
Speaker 8: if fifty would have been with us.
Speaker 1: You mean you had a when he signed the Columbia
Speaker 1: the first time, or like you know, after period after Columbia,
Speaker 1: after y'all could have tooke nim.
Speaker 2: Like mixtape.
Speaker 8: I mean, I mean we could have signed fifty, but
Speaker 8: the greater good called and the greater good was Yo.
Speaker 8: I think that's the better situation. And I think that
Speaker 8: because of doctor Drake, because of the whole thing that
Speaker 8: came along with and I think that because of the
Speaker 8: choice that he made. I think, uh, he became the
Speaker 8: artist that he is. I don't think we could have
Speaker 8: did it as great of a job with with him
Speaker 8: as they did. So I think that was one. And
Speaker 8: then who else said you got me three man?
Speaker 1: I mean, it doesn't have to be hip hop. I'm
Speaker 1: sure there's some singer rock band too, because.
Speaker 8: Let me see, uh, I mean, it ain't that many
Speaker 8: that if we wanted them we didn't get now the brag, No,
Speaker 8: I really like, I'm I can't in doing my era.
Speaker 8: I can't think I'm another number numb act that if
Speaker 8: we really wanted them, that we didn't get him. Fifty, Yeah,
Speaker 8: I would say, and and by the way, they're both
Speaker 8: very good friends. I went on to manage Nelly, you know,
Speaker 8: for a period of time. Of course he did, so
Speaker 8: he's shout out to Nellie, shout out to fifty.
Speaker 4: Do you have a favorite era of deaf Jam? I mean,
Speaker 4: because we didn't even talk about death Show or anything else.
Speaker 4: But I'm just curious because I remember that was like
Speaker 4: a big deal in twenty steath, so so I'm just
Speaker 4: curious you have a I don't.
Speaker 8: I mean, this is great. I don't have a favorite
Speaker 8: era era.
Speaker 4: That meant the most you. I guess the favorite word
Speaker 4: is a.
Speaker 1: Are you one of those like I never looked back once,
Speaker 1: I'm looking towards the touchdown goal?
Speaker 8: Yeah, I said, I'm just I'm not doing this, okay, nothing, no,
Speaker 8: none of that, because I really believe if you stay
Speaker 8: in the state of evolution, you make change. I don't.
Speaker 8: I don't feel like I don't want to be stagnant.
Speaker 8: So therefore, I don't spend my time just reflecting on
Speaker 8: the roses. I smell them, but I don't sit back
Speaker 8: and look, you know at what I what I did.
Speaker 8: That's why I like now I can sit here and say,
Speaker 8: you know, when streaming started and uh, we had the
Speaker 8: first artist of stream a billion streams with fedtie wat.
Speaker 8: I can sit here today and say it got the
Speaker 8: number one rock record with high suspect. I see in
Speaker 8: the day and say I got Migos. I'd rather talk
Speaker 8: I say it and say I got a guy named
Speaker 8: young Doug. That's you know, putting out so many records
Speaker 8: that I can say all these things in a sense.
Speaker 8: But now if you want me to go back and
Speaker 8: talk about.
Speaker 4: It, we can talk about and how you managing and
Speaker 4: having labels at the same time and doing so much.
Speaker 8: Yeah, all that, But you know, I just really look
Speaker 8: forward to what God has prepared, you know. But I
Speaker 8: gotta work at it though, you know. I tell people,
Speaker 8: you really don't want it, if you're not willing to
Speaker 8: give up everything for it, really don't really don't want it.
Speaker 8: And a lot of kids today they don't want it.
Speaker 8: They act like they want it, but they don't want.
Speaker 2: It, they don't want it as and if they don't
Speaker 2: have the drive that you had.
Speaker 8: It's not about It's not about drive. I mean, see,
Speaker 8: I believe, I believe every day I'm I'm I'm trying
Speaker 8: to prove to you that I'm Michael Jordan every day
Speaker 8: still to this day, still Michael Jordan, still Michael Jordan,
Speaker 8: not not no, not coach, no, no, Michael Jordan's I play.
Speaker 8: I play okay, I play hard.
Speaker 1: So in your world like it's not about okay, Well,
Speaker 1: you know I should be in coach position or even
Speaker 1: owner position.
Speaker 8: Or what's funny? Is you gotta I own a piece
Speaker 8: of death jam at twenty eight, I don't know what
Speaker 8: I don't know what it is not to be owner.
Speaker 8: I own Warner Music Group, I own three hundred you know,
Speaker 8: I don't know our own kW I don't know what
Speaker 8: it is not to own, So I don't. I don't,
Speaker 8: but I don't know what I would do if I did,
Speaker 8: couldn't play?
Speaker 4: Do you think your journey could exist in twenty seventeen
Speaker 4: like the way did you started your journey? Continued your journey.
Speaker 1: Like right now that's still at your office making sure
Speaker 1: that so ten years from now.
Speaker 2: We're going to.
Speaker 8: Now. I got I got a lot of a lot
Speaker 8: of young kids who I feel like, do.
Speaker 2: You feel millennials even have that drive at all?
Speaker 8: I think some do. I think some do. Think you
Speaker 8: find the right ones. I think CJ's one. I think
Speaker 8: I got another kid in my office who was like
Speaker 8: the third person that out of Google class and interns.
Speaker 8: I think Ash is one. I think I got another
Speaker 8: marketing person named Raina who's I mean, they're there, you
Speaker 8: know what I mean. But what happened quest is that
Speaker 8: there's a period of time in our culture where mentorship
Speaker 8: was lost because everybody, everybody got everybody got scared for
Speaker 8: their jobs, got selfish, and they got selfish and so.
Speaker 2: And it's it's called flexing.
Speaker 8: The only reason I came reason I came back like
Speaker 8: like like I have it is because I don't need
Speaker 8: If you look at it, all of the diversity and
Speaker 8: the music business and things like that, there's not enough
Speaker 8: of us and and and But I tell people, you
Speaker 8: got to be prepared for the moment. And being prepared
Speaker 8: for the moment is making sure you the best you,
Speaker 8: and you're having the biggest value proposition. And a lot
Speaker 8: of kids that's wasn't there, And so I demand excellence.
Speaker 4: Your teaching and you just use that phrase twice and
Speaker 4: it's this wholes Can you say that again? The value
Speaker 4: people say stuff they don't know what it is, and
Speaker 4: that's kind.
Speaker 8: Of deep, but you just so I believe there's a
Speaker 8: value publish proposition on both sides. People who come to me,
Speaker 8: can you give me a job? I said no, but
Speaker 8: you can create a position with me. What's your value proposition.
Speaker 8: I'm not gonna pay you what You're going to create
Speaker 8: your position and create your position and then we'll talk
Speaker 8: about it.
Speaker 1: So if someone with the gravity ties and nerve that
Speaker 1: Rockefeller had, when I guess they told you guys.
Speaker 8: Like Dame had, not Rockefeller, Okay, but no, no, no, no, no,
Speaker 8: in the way of saying everybody had that role. That
Speaker 8: was it, that was his role and he played well.
Speaker 2: Oh okay, well no, no, no again.
Speaker 1: A lot of this, I'm just going on folklore that
Speaker 1: you know, you always hear stories of, and I just remember,
Speaker 1: at or at least what I was told was that
Speaker 1: when they had the initial death Jam meeting, it was like, no,
Speaker 1: we want to be our own label, not just to
Speaker 1: be an artist.
Speaker 8: J Damon Biggs came to my office. IRV said, Yo,
Speaker 8: y'all want to get your records played, you gotta go
Speaker 8: see Kevin Lows okay. And so they came to my
Speaker 8: office with a bag of money, a brown paper bag
Speaker 8: and whoa. I said, Yo, let me hate the music.
Speaker 8: You know, I just want to know. I know life
Speaker 8: that I heard you know in my lifetime, said let
Speaker 8: me the music. So I said, Yo, why don't you
Speaker 8: try to sign hit? Jay said, we Rockefeller?
Speaker 4: Cool?
Speaker 8: All right, cool? So, but Yo, we should stay in touch.
Speaker 8: And I helped them get the record on the radio,
Speaker 8: and then they did the record with Foxy and we
Speaker 8: put that on Rush Hour soundtrack, the first one in
Speaker 8: the rest is history.
Speaker 2: That's really that's though, because.
Speaker 8: That's listen another time he said it. When we all
Speaker 8: went to the Warner Music Group, Jay said, Yo.
Speaker 1: And how did y'all get him to agree to that?
Speaker 1: He Kevin's all smiles.
Speaker 8: Now, No, it's it's when you it's when you always
Speaker 8: think it a greater good. So, when Jay had the
Speaker 8: opportunity to work with us again, because he got did
Speaker 8: the whole lot next thing, finished his commitment there, he
Speaker 8: brought his album over to us at Atlantic.
Speaker 2: Which the Kingdom come or the UH part three Blueprint
Speaker 2: Blueprint three.
Speaker 8: Okay, And and he didn't have to do that. He
Speaker 8: could have did it anywhere in the world, but he chose.
Speaker 2: He could have.
Speaker 8: You know, he could have did it anywhere in the world.
Speaker 8: And the reality of it was that's because of the
Speaker 8: greater good, you know, man, and I believe we all
Speaker 8: work together again. And I believe I'm now with Lee
Speaker 8: or at YouTube, there's gonna be a lot of opportunity
Speaker 8: for more things to happen, and our culture is going
Speaker 8: to even continue to grow more.
Speaker 1: I just want to wrap up to where you are now,
Speaker 1: which is of course between kW L and three hundred entertainment.
Speaker 2: Why would you want to be a manager?
Speaker 1: Which means that I'm certain that your phone are ringing
Speaker 1: off that CJ's already confirming. Do you dread when the
Speaker 1: phone rings between eleven?
Speaker 2: I'm sure you have a batphone, that batphone, which is like, do.
Speaker 1: Not call this phone unless it's an emerged right, Okay,
Speaker 1: you always showed me all forty two billions.
Speaker 2: So when phone number three rings at.
Speaker 8: Two in the morning, that's in a call.
Speaker 2: Are you is there tremors? Are are you?
Speaker 8: Like? Oh God, so where I'm at in my life? People? Now,
Speaker 8: I have a eighteen year old, sixteen year old, five
Speaker 8: year old, two year old, I have a wife. I'm
Speaker 8: not answering the phone at a certain time, but it's
Speaker 8: out of respect. But I make sure before I lay
Speaker 8: down that everything's done. It's not an issue. And if
Speaker 8: I do get a four o'clock in the morning call
Speaker 8: like I did last week, yeah, okay, it's already handled
Speaker 8: to a point that I just got to give the blessing,
Speaker 8: you know, because I got people of a company. It's
Speaker 8: not just just me.
Speaker 2: I have people who are You're at the top of
Speaker 2: the very.
Speaker 8: Competent an and I have to just say I don't
Speaker 8: I never wanted to manage. I don't even feel like
Speaker 8: I managed right now.
Speaker 1: You don't want to manage. You didn't want to be president,
Speaker 1: you didn't want to want artist. What do you want
Speaker 1: to do, Kevin Lowlson?
Speaker 8: Okay, let me tell you really want to do. I
Speaker 8: want to change people's lives, and right now I'm doing
Speaker 8: it through music.
Speaker 2: I can't accept that it's good because.
Speaker 8: The truth, that's all I want to do, and I really,
Speaker 8: honestly I tell you and then we can wrap up.
Speaker 8: So when I left for Warner Music Group, I was
Speaker 8: done with the business. I said, I don't I said,
Speaker 8: you don't want to sign Chris Brown. You're trying to
Speaker 8: tell me about you want to get rid of this artist.
Speaker 8: I said, yeah, I can't do that. So I'm an
Speaker 8: EXECTI vice president, So I don't have a label. I'm
Speaker 8: the whole company, you know. And I said, I think
Speaker 8: it's the business is about the change. I think I
Speaker 8: should look at the new business model. Takes some time off.
Speaker 8: And so I worked out something with Warner and for
Speaker 8: you know, three years, and everything's great. My whole crew
Speaker 8: there and everything. And I met this kid, Trey while
Speaker 8: I was there. He said, yo, I got rid of
Speaker 8: my manager. I said, so, who's your manager? He said Delante.
Speaker 8: I said, Delante was my first intern ever in the
Speaker 8: music business. He said, what's the problem. Well, well, I said, yo,
Speaker 8: He said, keV, I want you to man. I said, yo,
Speaker 8: I'm not manager. I'm not waking up telling you I'm
Speaker 8: not doing nothing that we are y'all talking about management.
Speaker 8: And I said, but go out and talk to everybody
Speaker 8: and then come back and talk to me. And let's
Speaker 8: make a decision. So his mom calls me and says,
Speaker 8: I am keV. My son don't want a manager. He
Speaker 8: wants you. He said. He looks at you as a
Speaker 8: father figure. I said, oh jeez, no he didn't. He
Speaker 8: didn't call me, he said. So then he called and said, yo,
Speaker 8: I promise you. I'm gonna do whatever I need to
Speaker 8: do to be and I'm not going to act up.
Speaker 8: You know what I mean? I said, I don't think
Speaker 8: you're going to act up. I said, but you got
Speaker 8: to understand it's really you have to be my partner.
Speaker 8: I'm not your manager. Really, I'm your partner, and we're
Speaker 8: gonna have to figure it out. And so I agreed
Speaker 8: to do that. And then ten thousand other people called.
Speaker 8: But that was out of necessity. Our friend was out
Speaker 8: of necessity. It wasn't not it was I didn't I
Speaker 8: say I want to man it. It was out of necessity.
Speaker 1: I was about to say, what can we do to
Speaker 1: not make d'angelo's fourth album come out in twenty thirty seven?
Speaker 8: Right label love? Man, I can just I can be
Speaker 8: honest with you.
Speaker 1: I know it's frustrating, you know, and then you see
Speaker 1: it perform and it's like all's forgiven.
Speaker 2: This is me.
Speaker 8: He wanted us listen, relationship, right, it's like a relationship.
Speaker 8: He's one of those I can say, listen, whether he
Speaker 8: makes ten albums, five albums, two albums, for whatever he
Speaker 8: decides to make, it'll be Danzel. It's only one of those.
Speaker 8: And that's how I feel about it. And it's out
Speaker 8: of necessity. That's my brother, you know what I mean.
Speaker 8: That's somebody who like, I'm gonna be there for him,
Speaker 8: you know, whether he's writing music, performing, whatever he's doing,
Speaker 8: I'm gonna be there for him. This is right, but
Speaker 8: stayed right. But but again it's out of necessity. That
Speaker 8: was out of necessity. I have some acts that I
Speaker 8: do because they want to beat but they all want
Speaker 8: to beat me for different reasons, and so it's out
Speaker 8: of necessity, you know.
Speaker 2: With that, Who are the acts that you manage? Now?
Speaker 8: P and B Rock Philly Shout out to Philly. Shout
Speaker 8: out to P and B. Do you still have l No,
Speaker 8: don't have her? K Michelle?
Speaker 2: Who else?
Speaker 8: I well, Wes Walker from another Philly white rap who
Speaker 8: Charles Jenkins Big Pastor out of Chicago. Shout out to Charles.
Speaker 8: I'm forgetting somebody. I'm forgetting somebody, really, oh, London on
Speaker 8: the track and if I forgot you, I'm sorry, it's late.
Speaker 2: I'm sorry.
Speaker 1: Well, I thank you very much. Give it up for
Speaker 1: our guests.
Speaker 2: Kevin le the guru, the guru.
Speaker 8: I'm gonna take that, though I might that may be my.
Speaker 1: I can't be the first person that ever called.
Speaker 8: You a guru. Russell called me a priest. Wow. Rare
Speaker 8: calls me the covenor instead of the governor. That because
Speaker 8: I cover everybody, but you you the first guru definitely.
Speaker 2: Wow.
Speaker 8: Oh. Russell called me.
Speaker 1: Buddha now or fifteen years ago?
Speaker 8: Now, okay, yeah, he said, he said, you don't have
Speaker 8: to I have to meditate because I have to meditate.
Speaker 8: I said, you don't have to. He said, you don't
Speaker 8: have to meditate. You just nice. I said, yeah, I
Speaker 8: said okay, cool.
Speaker 1: Well, much success to you, man. I appreciate your energy
Speaker 1: and and and and your your wisdom and your insight.
Speaker 8: Thank you very much, man, Thank you, guys, bless you off.
Speaker 2: Thank you.
Speaker 1: That was a very enlightening and positive. Do you think
Speaker 1: we will just get one person to tell us the
Speaker 1: most debauchery death jam stories of all time he was about.
Speaker 6: To did you notice that he was He was getting
Speaker 6: up to one, and then we changed the subject. He was, yeah,
Speaker 6: I thought he.
Speaker 2: Was gonna there was he he was.
Speaker 6: What he said was like Solomon Moore. It was like
Speaker 6: bla and then someone sets up else. It was like now'
Speaker 6: not yeah, And I have fish for lunch and fish
Speaker 6: for dinner and fish legs.
Speaker 2: On my home ele vegetables smells of rich vegetables.
Speaker 1: I was praying to ask if he remembered the little
Speaker 1: brother period of was that That.
Speaker 2: Was my first time meeting him. That was my first time.
Speaker 2: But I mean, but a lot of what he was saying,
Speaker 2: you know, and and even you know, to back up
Speaker 2: what he was saying, you know, for for all into
Speaker 2: the purposes. I mean, they let us make the album
Speaker 2: we wanted to make. I mean, that album, regardless of
Speaker 2: what it did, you know, financially, uh number for to
Speaker 2: the mental show. You know, that record came straight out
Speaker 2: of our hard drives to the world. And I don't
Speaker 2: know if too many artists who can really say that,
Speaker 2: you know, certainly at that time, you know what I mean,
Speaker 2: you know, we that album came out exactly the way
Speaker 2: we envisioned it and so uh, you know, they were
Speaker 2: always album cover. It's of an album. We had to
Speaker 2: change some of the album cover. But but other than that,
Speaker 2: I mean, yeah, they were very They let us do us,
Speaker 2: you know what I'm saying. So I always be thankful
Speaker 2: to uh, keV and Julie and Craig. I like to
Speaker 2: get on on on the show. I think Julie would
Speaker 2: be real, raight. I think Julie would be the one
Speaker 2: that will be She would she would give it up wrong.
Speaker 2: I don't know everybody else now is like doing yoga
Speaker 2: and ship. I think Julie. I think Julia would go in.
Speaker 2: Did I ask you what you learned? Oh no, Kevin Lyles,
Speaker 2: what I learned? I learned that to me, the most
Speaker 2: the people that are a lot of times that are
Speaker 2: most successful in the business. You know, when he talks
Speaker 2: about just wanting to add value to things, that's something
Speaker 2: that's very amiable. That's something that I've always kind of
Speaker 2: tried to live my life by and that if I
Speaker 2: don't think I can make something better, it doesn't have
Speaker 2: anything to do with the money or you know whatever.
Speaker 2: It's just like, if I don't think I can make
Speaker 2: this better, then your check really don't mean nothing, you
Speaker 2: know what I'm saying, Because if I'm not adding some
Speaker 2: kind of value to it that I know only I
Speaker 2: can add, then you know I'm doing you a disservice
Speaker 2: by taking the money, and I'm just gonna end up
Speaker 2: making us both look bad. So that was something that
Speaker 2: really ranged out to me, and also to just a
Speaker 2: thing of him just kind of not really playing for
Speaker 2: the paper, but just playing for the position, agreeing to say, hey,
Speaker 2: I'll drive Houdini because of what that's going to mean.
Speaker 2: Not necessarily. There may not be a big payoff in
Speaker 2: it for me immediately, but it may pay off for
Speaker 2: me down the line and him even.
Speaker 1: I'm still trying to digest that though you mean what
Speaker 1: you mean in what way? Well, I mean, I had
Speaker 1: no reason to believe that. You know, he's fibbing to me, right.
Speaker 2: But that's a rare character trait to.
Speaker 1: Uh, I don't know, to be so prepared and so
Speaker 1: willing to work and so on time, and so resourceful
Speaker 1: and so ready without a destination or endgame or even
Speaker 1: a dream.
Speaker 14: Well, I think he said one of the things he
Speaker 14: said was that he wanted to be the best at
Speaker 14: whatever he was whatever, It wasn't necessarily like he was
Speaker 14: looking for the touchdown. It was just like, if this
Speaker 14: is who I am, then I'm going to be the
Speaker 14: best at it.
Speaker 2: That's the same because you have aspirations.
Speaker 4: No, it's just somebody else's story, just a journey different.
Speaker 1: Does that make me a bad person? If I see
Speaker 1: a monetary landing at the end of this.
Speaker 4: Leap, it doesn't make you a bad person. But at
Speaker 4: some point it's got to be something else. And I'm
Speaker 4: with you on that. More than money.
Speaker 2: It's got because after a while, it's like.
Speaker 4: Kevin and helping his people and going to more, you know,
Speaker 4: going to Morgan, being in Baltimore, being available, Like what
Speaker 4: is that?
Speaker 2: Money?
Speaker 4: Don't feed your soul.
Speaker 1: But James Brown says Republican James Brown says in soul
Speaker 1: power and deliberated broke.
Speaker 4: Well, you can do both though. That's what Kevin Lowles
Speaker 4: is doing. That's what Richard Branson is doing.
Speaker 1: Yeah, I'm trying to change lives too, but I definitely
Speaker 1: know that ain't nothing going on but the rent. Okay,
Speaker 1: what any other bill?
Speaker 2: What did you learn this episode?
Speaker 6: What I learned to two things? Kevin Leles, Yes, that's
Speaker 6: there is that which goes off what you were saying.
Speaker 6: It's like, it's like you all getting to the room
Speaker 6: for reason, right, you have a talent or you're in
Speaker 6: the room for reason, but you stay in the room
Speaker 6: because you're fun to hang around with. That's like, I
Speaker 6: feel like that's about everything, And that was kind of
Speaker 6: what he was getting. He's like, he's a nice guy
Speaker 6: and like he would do all this ship and do
Speaker 6: all this crazy stuff, but he succeeded at the end
Speaker 6: of the day so profoundly because he's a good dude.
Speaker 6: He's just like a he's not an asshole. And secondly,
Speaker 6: he kept on saying stuff about storytelling, which I thought
Speaker 6: was interesting, which we were disagreeingb on, which is like
Speaker 6: East Coast versus West Coast, Like it wasn't that one
Speaker 6: thing ended and another thing began. It's just it's just
Speaker 6: that's where it was. And because I feel like I
Speaker 6: was thinking about this as he was saying this, it
Speaker 6: is like our life is like that, Like you're in
Speaker 6: we were into the Hamilton thing for a minute, and
Speaker 6: now that's kind of you know, it's not it's still
Speaker 6: this thing, but it goes away and then something else
Speaker 6: kind of pops up. You just kind of follow around
Speaker 6: this thing and just hope that you can attach yourself
Speaker 6: to the pulse of it as long as you can,
Speaker 6: because that's what we're doing.
Speaker 2: That's artistry, whatever we're doing, you know, And that's I
Speaker 2: thought that was. You just keep working, Yeah, you just
Speaker 2: just keep working.
Speaker 6: Career, just have yes, But but our career is based
Speaker 6: on the fucking weirdest thing in the world.
Speaker 8: Like so.
Speaker 1: Would Learne large Margie.
Speaker 2: Large large.
Speaker 4: All right, yeah, no, minus short, I just learned it.
Speaker 4: I guess you really can be a good guy in
Speaker 4: his business. Although I'm still waiting for a bad story
Speaker 4: about Kevin Lows because it's so hard to believe that
Speaker 4: you can be a good cop. Like that's amazing.
Speaker 1: Yeah, yeah, right, like that's amazing.
Speaker 4: And a sea of le Or and Russell Kevin.
Speaker 2: Yeah, I trust me.
Speaker 1: I've heard Russell Simmons name as Hustle Simmons.
Speaker 2: I've heard lee Or. I've never heard I've never heard
Speaker 2: Kevin Lies. I've never heard that. I've never heard that once.
Speaker 2: Bill me.
Speaker 9: Yeah, Yeah, what did I learn, boss, Bill? I didn't
Speaker 9: really learn anything. I just got a lot of things reinforced.
Speaker 9: I really wish this was a conversation that I could
Speaker 9: have been a part of. On May fourth, two thousand
Speaker 9: and two, before I started my first job music industry, Steve,
Speaker 9: you know what you didn't learn?
Speaker 4: Yeah?
Speaker 2: Do you know what you did not learn?
Speaker 5: How to get back into this room.
Speaker 2: I've been getting.
Speaker 6: Text messages all the way from Steve who every time
Speaker 6: here you.
Speaker 2: Left the room in such a glorious moment.
Speaker 5: For you and create places.
Speaker 4: That's what happened when you were you.
Speaker 8: Did?
Speaker 5: What did I not learn?
Speaker 2: Were you at the window like banging on the window.
Speaker 5: I wish I was that close.
Speaker 4: Elevators because what did I not learn?
Speaker 5: Does he manage Billy Joelis?
Speaker 2: That would be your sugar?
Speaker 8: Oh?
Speaker 2: Yeah, yeah, you guys were brothers.
Speaker 6: And then he talked about his diet, and then we
Speaker 6: made fun of your diet, and then you here that
Speaker 6: was fine, and then yeah, and.
Speaker 4: Then he blessed the mirror.
Speaker 8: It was beautiful.
Speaker 5: It was I did learn some things.
Speaker 2: What did you learn? He wrote?
Speaker 15: Well, Well, I want to hear one of these songs
Speaker 15: with with ten turntables, right, I mean I've put it
Speaker 15: together in my Head's five guys right each with two.
Speaker 6: Good math buddies, good math.
Speaker 2: That's one thing.
Speaker 1: That's the one thing, and that we didn't clearly explain
Speaker 1: that when he was talking about that he kept the bass.
Speaker 1: Like the thing of of Baltimore house music was that
Speaker 1: they would turn any song into a four on the
Speaker 1: floor song. So it doesn't matter. It could be like
Speaker 1: Jump by Van Helen. Somebody would spin Jump by Van Helen.
Speaker 5: That somebody scratching and somebody playing a bassline.
Speaker 11: Right.
Speaker 1: Yeah, So he was saying that his job was just
Speaker 1: to keep the steady eight weight. In Chicago, they would
Speaker 1: actually have a guy play the eight weight live in
Speaker 1: the booth. So I don't know if he had an
Speaker 1: eight weight machine or he was just spinning records that
Speaker 1: had a consistent Yeah, but yeah, you turn you turn
Speaker 1: every song into a four on the floor song.
Speaker 15: So are there albums that the listeners can can reference
Speaker 15: to hear ten turntables playing.
Speaker 2: Well, I mean that's a live experience.
Speaker 4: It's more of a live I'm about to say that, like,
Speaker 4: how did that now?
Speaker 6: Right?
Speaker 4: Like now?
Speaker 1: The only person I've seen that that actually played more
Speaker 1: than four at once? Uh, well, yeah, the scratch pristal
Speaker 1: or or the executioners at one point we're doing that.
Speaker 15: The other stuff I learned was, uh, I think this
Speaker 15: must be the only person in the world who took
Speaker 15: an internship when he had all that money, right, Yeah,
Speaker 15: I mean that's that's something special, you know. I mean,
Speaker 15: obviously you take internships.
Speaker 1: To get your fright the internship without a goal at
Speaker 1: the end too.
Speaker 5: I don't believe that part.
Speaker 6: But then didn't take the boss job for two years
Speaker 6: like in ninety Is that humble?
Speaker 2: Right? He's like, I don't know it yet. I would
Speaker 2: do that. I would do that. I would actually you
Speaker 2: say that, but like, no, I wouldn't do that. But
Speaker 2: that's if you know you're not ready, you're not gonna
Speaker 2: put me in the position up.
Speaker 6: I come from a different places, which is like to
Speaker 6: learn on the job someone.
Speaker 2: That you know, you know, the white thing is you're
Speaker 2: my brother. But I'm just saying like, because the thing
Speaker 2: is if I learn on the job and fuck up
Speaker 2: another nigga for twenty years, me like I'm sucking.
Speaker 14: Up for everybody, but also running a label and crashing
Speaker 14: and burning it. It's a big, high profile thing you
Speaker 14: wouldn't want to do.
Speaker 6: So Telecommunications Act, got it.
Speaker 2: We all remember Andrew Rowe and then the whole motown man. Yeah,
Speaker 2: he never lived. I mean, how many streets did we see?
Speaker 11: Of?
Speaker 2: I remember that? I just have one in my head.
Speaker 2: It's one of It's a shot from behind, sitting there
Speaker 2: with a cigar, with a cigar and the sweater draped
Speaker 2: on the back of the chair. I think his name
Speaker 2: on it. That's all I remember of his tenure. Mood Town.
Speaker 2: That's all I remember to no music, Remember, no jam
Speaker 2: was coming.
Speaker 5: I learned more ship?
Speaker 2: All right, say one thing? Did you yourself that it's
Speaker 2: good stuff? What else did you learn, Steve?
Speaker 15: Well, you know that nice guys don't always finish last.
Speaker 15: This guy seems to be the exception to the rule,
Speaker 15: you know, And that's nice to see, if I mean,
Speaker 15: unless he's playing.
Speaker 5: Us ship and I had I did no, No, I don't,
Speaker 5: I don't, did you.
Speaker 2: I don't.
Speaker 5: I think I think he made it on.
Speaker 15: Humility and and and probably honesty and hard work and
Speaker 15: all these really these nice things that we should all
Speaker 15: people remember you when you yes, yes, people remember that ship.
Speaker 1: Well, what else can I learn more than two three
Speaker 1: things in three hours?
Speaker 2: Steve is talking about supreme mana.
Speaker 5: I had an idea.
Speaker 15: I think if you want to get one of these
Speaker 15: real juicy stories to come out about the deaf jam
Speaker 15: years that you're always trying to get. You got to
Speaker 15: find some cleaning lady who used to work there instead
Speaker 15: of one of these executives.
Speaker 5: Lose and just and then you know we interview her.
Speaker 1: Well, look, you guys definitely echoed the same sentiments about
Speaker 1: what I learned. I definitely know that I want to
Speaker 1: hear uh Dame Dash's side of the story. So I'm
Speaker 1: putting this out there in the atmosphere, Dame Dash, We're
Speaker 1: gunning for you and a cleaning lady and the deaf
Speaker 1: jam Flex will not be here, so don't be afraid.
Speaker 2: Shots damn.
Speaker 1: Everything, Okay, all right on belf Fan, Ticcolo, Sugar, Steve, Boss, Bill.
Speaker 2: Like You aka Angry Margarete.
Speaker 16: Unfaiville and even Scott ya Yo and nice staff here
Speaker 16: w n y C this Quest Love Supreme or Pandora,
Speaker 16: we will see you on the flip side.
Speaker 1: Thank you, Quest Love Supreme. It's a production of iHeartRadio.
Speaker 1: This classic episode was produced by the team at Pandora.
Speaker 1: For more podcasts from iHeart Radio, visit the iHeart Radio app,
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