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Speaker 1: If the into the Gangster Chronicles James McDonald, Rixie Reright Jr.
Speaker 1: And Alex Tomanso on the Digital Soapbox Network Material Witness
Speaker 1: on an aggregated battery. I was a hang gun and
Speaker 1: um they believe this might be in retaliation to her testimony.
Speaker 1: Good morning, good afternoon, and good evening. Welcome to another
Speaker 1: episode of The Gangster Chronicles. And I am Alex Alonso
Speaker 1: from Street TV a k a. Street Gangs dot Com.
Speaker 1: And I'm here with my co host James McDonald from
Speaker 1: Gangster Chronicles James McDonald, And uh, we gotta give a
Speaker 1: shout out to our third co host because the last
Speaker 1: time he called in James last week, he was a
Speaker 1: little bitter saying that we forgot all about him. So
Speaker 1: Reggie Wright Jr. He's only here in spirit, but he's
Speaker 1: not here in the presence because he's sitting down right
Speaker 1: now for a minute at Atwater Federal Camp, Federal Penitentiary.
Speaker 1: Well he's actually he's not an f CI, So he's
Speaker 1: in the penitentiary. Anytime you somewhere where you can't go
Speaker 1: home when you want to, you in jail. Yeah, I don't.
Speaker 1: I don't think you can call it camp a penitentiary
Speaker 1: though it is part of the penitentiary. It's just a camp.
Speaker 1: But the Campaign Penitentiary, I've been there. It's Campaign penitentiary.
Speaker 1: The f c I Penitentiary. So if you go to
Speaker 1: the whole, if you go to it's all the same thing, Alex,
Speaker 1: but they call him this time. It's just the name
Speaker 1: to the ship. What makes a difference, Yeah, I mean,
Speaker 1: but I mean it's a difference between y A and
Speaker 1: Juvenile Hall. You're still locked up. What's the difference. You're
Speaker 1: still fight, you still get stabbed. Everybody got a date
Speaker 1: to go home, so don't what's the difference. Jail is jail?
Speaker 1: Why why? Y is a little bit more serious than
Speaker 1: juvenile Hall. Now you have been to juvenile I've never
Speaker 1: been to jive. Juven A Hall prepped you to get
Speaker 1: where you're going. Yeah, you you're gonna fight in the
Speaker 1: gym and juvenile hard you got the one. I've never
Speaker 1: been to jail for everybody, it's alright. So this this
Speaker 1: is episode thirty one. I mean, I'm going backwards this
Speaker 1: episode thirty seven. And if you're new to the podcast,
Speaker 1: please go back and listen to some of our previous episodes.
Speaker 1: If you're listening on Apple Podcasts, please give us a
Speaker 1: rating and review. And for the last couple of weeks,
Speaker 1: we haven't been able to address any of the questions
Speaker 1: but next week I'm gonna go to all your questions
Speaker 1: and I'm gonna bring them on the show, and I'm
Speaker 1: gonna ask James some of these questions. So don't forget
Speaker 1: to go to to the Apple podcast and give us
Speaker 1: a rating and review. Give us a one to five
Speaker 1: star rating if you love the show. You can give
Speaker 1: us a one if you hate the show, but ninety
Speaker 1: seven percent of the people that give us a rating
Speaker 1: give us a five, which is a good thing. And
Speaker 1: if you don't have Apple or iTunes, you can listen
Speaker 1: to us on Google Play, Spotify, and for those who
Speaker 1: have laptops and desktops, you can download radio dot com
Speaker 1: and listen to our show there. Or you can listen
Speaker 1: to the show the way my mom does. She used
Speaker 1: a serie. She just says, Siri, can you play my
Speaker 1: son's podcast, The Gangster Chronicles, And it will come on
Speaker 1: that way as well. And don't forget. We got video
Speaker 1: portions available of this show and all our previous show
Speaker 1: on the Digital Soapbox Network on YouTube, and those videos
Speaker 1: are produced by Smooth Cut Productions. So let's get right
Speaker 1: into it, man. I'll do some of the fact checking
Speaker 1: a little bit later, but we got a guest today
Speaker 1: that there's no doubt part of Los Angeles West Coast
Speaker 1: hip hop history. Just about every single name that is
Speaker 1: relevant in hip hop that is a producer or a
Speaker 1: rapper came through him pretty much. Um, this guy started
Speaker 1: early in the game when when this type of music
Speaker 1: was new. In fact, I think he started before they
Speaker 1: was even calling it hip hop, you know, before they
Speaker 1: was calling it rap pretty much. And um, the guy
Speaker 1: you keep hearing say pretty much is Alonzo Williams father.
Speaker 1: West Coast hip hop was happening with you. Well, let
Speaker 1: me ask you. You started in this man fresh out
Speaker 1: of high school, and it wasn't really called rapping hip
Speaker 1: hop back man. We you know, we were we were
Speaker 1: pop not we was locking and you know we was
Speaker 1: they had uh it was locking once to dance and
Speaker 1: you had groups like uh cats out of Watch Watch
Speaker 1: Profits doing the rap. But it wasn't hip hop. It
Speaker 1: was just you know, they had a rap group. And
Speaker 1: you had the guys that was locked up in the prison.
Speaker 1: Uh you talking about the Watch Profits. All these all
Speaker 1: these guys, they were rappers back in the seventies. M
Speaker 1: D was a member of that and he had an
Speaker 1: album in nineteen sixties six called Rapping Black in a
Speaker 1: White World. Technically that would be the first rap album ever.
Speaker 1: Technically he was rapping in the nineteen but it wasn't
Speaker 1: hip hop. It wasn't hip hop. Right, and I'm still around,
Speaker 1: he's almost about eight years. You know about those cats,
Speaker 1: We knew about those cats, but you know, we wasn't
Speaker 1: following those footsteps. We just was trying to figure out
Speaker 1: how to get you know, how to lock and how
Speaker 1: to how to do the thing that Don Campbell was
Speaker 1: doing at Centennio. You know, that's we did, you know,
Speaker 1: so you know hip hop was you know, it wasn't
Speaker 1: even a term yet, what was it? A term in
Speaker 1: l a right right, right right. They was definitely floating
Speaker 1: that term out and on the East Coast since the
Speaker 1: early seventies, Don Campbell legendary. Would you say a locker
Speaker 1: or a popper locker? Locker? Locker? He invented locking. He
Speaker 1: brought that at while crazy hopping and know your knees
Speaker 1: and jumping around to uh to soul train. That's we
Speaker 1: first I thought on soul Train. But a couple of
Speaker 1: the guys that um danced with him, one of them
Speaker 1: with Centennial and uh, he brought it to Compton and
Speaker 1: we tried, we tried our best to immulate that stuff. Man.
Speaker 1: So he was from Compton, I don't know. I can't
Speaker 1: say he was from Compton. I know his boy, Steve,
Speaker 1: one of his guys, Steve dad was Don Campbell on
Speaker 1: Soul Train. He was from Compton, and uh he was.
Speaker 1: He brought it to he brought it to us and
Speaker 1: we tried our best to get our you know, get
Speaker 1: our lock on. That's crazy. So did you do a
Speaker 1: little bit about yourself? I tried. It was the thing
Speaker 1: that lock, but lock. It wasn't getting you laid though,
Speaker 1: So I didn't really I left that alone real quick. Well.
Speaker 1: Ship locking got a lot of people introduced in movies
Speaker 1: and and right, the kind of stuff, right, you know,
Speaker 1: so locking was popular. Locking got you on Soul Train. Yeah, okay, yeah,
Speaker 1: you had to be good to get on Soul Tracker.
Speaker 1: I tried my best. I'm one of my friends. Uh
Speaker 1: was Freddie Maxie from Compton and she was on Soul Train.
Speaker 1: She was a Soul trained regular. She would give us
Speaker 1: locking lessons over there of a Ward and Long Beach Boulevard. Yeah,
Speaker 1: my boy, she was a regular. On soul Train, and
Speaker 1: we I never I never, I never got the Soul
Speaker 1: train as a locker performer. Nothing. Man. Oh yeah, that's
Speaker 1: so trained. Was the place to be in the seventies.
Speaker 1: Man ship, Yeah I got. I got used my my
Speaker 1: college vocabulary and my street vocabulary, which when I gotta
Speaker 1: use anyone you want, okay, alight, want to make sure
Speaker 1: we try to keep it. But y'all in the nice building,
Speaker 1: you know, you know, I don't make sure that y'all
Speaker 1: get throw the body here. I got some Samuel Jackson
Speaker 1: ship sometimes so I have to works mouth. So alright,
Speaker 1: that's good. I'm glad to hear that. I can feel
Speaker 1: free trying to do me James, the curse a little
Speaker 1: less sometimes, not only it's because sometimes, uh, we want
Speaker 1: our our content to reach a large audience, okay, and
Speaker 1: some people just be hating on the cursewords for some reason.
Speaker 1: You know what curs wars man. People love Samuel Jackson.
Speaker 1: They know he could custom. He was a custom motherfucker.
Speaker 1: But then if you do it, oh that's not that's
Speaker 1: what we do sometimes. So you grew up talking about
Speaker 1: where you grew up just outside of Countin. I was
Speaker 1: born in Compton off of Magnolia and want me too.
Speaker 1: But we left there and moved right there by Vanguard
Speaker 1: off in the in the l A County. But everything
Speaker 1: I did and with the Vanguard St Albert's Cintennio, so
Speaker 1: everything I did, pay phone bills, everything but the right. Yeah,
Speaker 1: that was I first tried to do the swamps over there.
Speaker 1: I never missed the swamps. But swamp was right around
Speaker 1: the corner from St. Alberts. Yeah, the swamps on that side,
Speaker 1: on the other side, and I Campanella was my park.
Speaker 1: Although I lived near Anthens, Campanella was my park because
Speaker 1: I walked past there every day. I played baseball the Campingella,
Speaker 1: huge baseball park. I played baseball the Campanella on the
Speaker 1: braves and stuff. And I'd walked from Saint Albert's hanging
Speaker 1: out the park and go to practice. So that part
Speaker 1: is right outside of Compton. I think they'd called it
Speaker 1: what a Rosewood at the time. Rosewood is tech Rosewood
Speaker 1: is actually Compton. I'm I'm I'm like an Anthen's almost.
Speaker 1: I don't even know what they called my neighborhood, man,
Speaker 1: It's just yeah. I think they went through a few
Speaker 1: name changes over the years. Part of the gentrification. Gonna
Speaker 1: name it this. I think that was called Domingus or
Speaker 1: Domingus not quite, not quite. I don't know about the
Speaker 1: Mingus and more. I won't say more rods West Dominas.
Speaker 1: Never heard West Domingas. No, I never heard that. I've
Speaker 1: seen a sign over there, but that's like we Compton
Speaker 1: in Atlantic. Yeah, yeah, I don't know. I don't know, man,
Speaker 1: the linement is the east side. West Domingas will be
Speaker 1: on the west side as the West Dominus. I know
Speaker 1: they turned that over there of Dominius. I don't know.
Speaker 1: I saw a sign one day and said Westernminia like
Speaker 1: that every part of company. So you lived in the
Speaker 1: sort of area that was changing names. The city with
Speaker 1: the county wasn't even we had we had Firestone back
Speaker 1: of the day. Okay, that's who were trolled by Firestone.
Speaker 1: Let me start getting patrolled by Carson then, because I
Speaker 1: started getting patrolled by h Alameda okay, and he just
Speaker 1: got crazy Centry. I'm sorry, Sentry, and it's always been
Speaker 1: wildfar that's concerned. So what inspired you man to really
Speaker 1: get Because when I was a kid um in the
Speaker 1: early eighties, you know, I was just eleven twelve, and
Speaker 1: I always heard your name, always heard your name and
Speaker 1: years old, and I always said, down, I wish I
Speaker 1: could meet this guy. Be like in a group of
Speaker 1: dudes that are rapping and singing, and your name would
Speaker 1: come up. And I never knew what you look like
Speaker 1: or who you were, just your name would always come up.
Speaker 1: Eight one, eighty two, eighty three, eighty four. He was
Speaker 1: a man for the party. Yeah, yeah, I used to
Speaker 1: go to even at the dark, and you know that's
Speaker 1: where all of us, everybody, everybody years to even after
Speaker 1: dark come out, even over the nineteen seventy nine second
Speaker 1: nineteen sent me nine. Well we was, we was going
Speaker 1: over there in the eighties and uh what what what
Speaker 1: it was is it was cool because you can go
Speaker 1: in there because they had a dress code. We most
Speaker 1: of us y'all used to let some of the cast,
Speaker 1: some of the homies and just flamed up. But if
Speaker 1: I didn't know you, you're gonna come in here with
Speaker 1: with shirt pants and you're gonna you're gonna look presentable.
Speaker 1: And it was cool because every time after after the
Speaker 1: club closed, we had something to do. All or we
Speaker 1: went and did were on radio. But that that used
Speaker 1: to crack Foot. I'm talking about every Blood and Compton
Speaker 1: are around that every year was there. Everybody we had
Speaker 1: part rules, we had we had a few crips come
Speaker 1: through the time of time. It was my brother. Here's
Speaker 1: some kids, some crazy ship. My brother was the only
Speaker 1: cat I ever known had dual game relationships. He was
Speaker 1: We lived in Blood Territory, but he went to Gardena
Speaker 1: and he ran with the shot shotgun payback, payback, paybacks.
Speaker 1: He remember the paybacks at Gardena. But he came home
Speaker 1: with my mom and ran with the cats on Crosson
Speaker 1: Avenue and Jarvis, Uh, you know, there was all this home.
Speaker 1: It was all we all grew up together. But you
Speaker 1: know they gave him a pass on both ends. Everybody
Speaker 1: kne where he lived at. Everybody now way he went
Speaker 1: to school at. So when I got the club up,
Speaker 1: he invited something to cast from Payback to come hang
Speaker 1: out the club and it was an issue, but he
Speaker 1: was able to squash it and it just worked here. Yeah,
Speaker 1: So that was Jarvis prou back then, I think that
Speaker 1: kind of got it was just Jarvis Man. Jarvis didn't go,
Speaker 1: didn't didn't go. Rue Man to almost the nineties, it
Speaker 1: was like maybe a little earlier, but maybe Jarvis was Jarvis.
Speaker 1: Yeah it was. Yeah, I think I think Jarvis was
Speaker 1: Paru back when we were when you don't remember Down Turner, Yeah,
Speaker 1: Don Turner in the eighties. Maybe in the eighties star
Speaker 1: claiming Pru okay um because he called himself trying to
Speaker 1: be the neighborhood gangster, and uh he wasn't. He wasn't
Speaker 1: the gangster per se. He just had the big mouth
Speaker 1: he was. He was a catty. He couldn't fight, but
Speaker 1: he talked a lot of ship. Well on on our
Speaker 1: side of town back then, they was Putting, Putting, you
Speaker 1: know what I'm saying. Right, Putting was the the big
Speaker 1: homie to all, right, from the West side, right, he
Speaker 1: was big to all. So all those other cats was
Speaker 1: coming up and and and talking, just running their mouth
Speaker 1: was getting tested back. We was a little cat. So
Speaker 1: it was. It was a big difference growing up watching
Speaker 1: the big homies get down opposed to these fake cats
Speaker 1: coming out and and and just doing stupid ship. Yeah,
Speaker 1: I was an old TC and Paru boys sent the nets.
Speaker 1: Nobody liked our old TC and me and Putting and
Speaker 1: a couple of other homies got into it. And uh
Speaker 1: we had it was a fight when my boys got
Speaker 1: into a fighter Centennial. The fight got broke up by
Speaker 1: security guards. But were coming through Enterprise Park about three
Speaker 1: days later and we lived. We had to go through
Speaker 1: Enterprise Park to go home, and uh, they caught us
Speaker 1: in the park. But my homie, who was well respected,
Speaker 1: I don't know if you're the name Kenny Clay. Kenny
Speaker 1: Clay was a cat from New York. But he ran
Speaker 1: with the Parru boys and he wouldn't let them jump us.
Speaker 1: And one of my boys would head up with another,
Speaker 1: not not putting, but another one of Pararu boys, and
Speaker 1: he did pretty well. He didn't beat him up, but
Speaker 1: he did better these poles two and that nigga should
Speaker 1: nigga took a dive, let it be done. But now
Speaker 1: he did. He had his business and next thing I know,
Speaker 1: they had a hit on our OTC And I never
Speaker 1: went back to the again strikes this uniforms gardna. Here
Speaker 1: I come. So he was around all this gang stuff
Speaker 1: going on. The first jumped off what you didn't never bang? Though? No,
Speaker 1: I never banged. How did the influence not take over you?
Speaker 1: I never really got into it. Um, I don't know
Speaker 1: why maybe um my dad was kicking my kicking my
Speaker 1: ass on. She kept me busy all the time. I
Speaker 1: was cutting lines and ship so a centtennio. I ran
Speaker 1: with the r OTC crew, some of them cats, and
Speaker 1: back then everybody it wasn't like you had to claim
Speaker 1: a set. And I was a skinny kid. So back
Speaker 1: in the day in the game banging, it wasn't about
Speaker 1: the number, it was about the quality of the cats.
Speaker 1: What I'm saying, it was about you had to be
Speaker 1: you had to have hands or whatever the case. Maybe
Speaker 1: as they said, you to be able to thup. Okay,
Speaker 1: and my neighborhood with the guys I read what. I
Speaker 1: didn't have the gang bang, but because I had a
Speaker 1: car that I was the homie and he looked out
Speaker 1: for me. So when they did dirt, they run my
Speaker 1: ass off, okay, but they still looked out for me.
Speaker 1: If I had a problem with another gang banger, they
Speaker 1: would intervene. But if it was just a regular civilian,
Speaker 1: I had to had on my own business. And that
Speaker 1: was kind of the colde back there. You know, gang
Speaker 1: bangers didn't really mess with civilians. If you did, you know,
Speaker 1: if you didn't, you just didn't cross somebody because I've
Speaker 1: been one time, me and uh me and Ralph Carter
Speaker 1: had an issue with a vanguard. Ralph Carter snatched back
Speaker 1: then we catch war hats to school. Were dressed. Okay,
Speaker 1: I had on a nice ass hat tilting and ship,
Speaker 1: but I had a big ass natural and he grabbed
Speaker 1: my hat, took it and he grabbed my hat. He
Speaker 1: snatched my hair, and dude, it was on. Okay. I
Speaker 1: didn't know who he was, you know, but he gave
Speaker 1: it back to me because my boy saw what happened.
Speaker 1: No man can take his hat, dude, so he gave
Speaker 1: it back to me. And after that was it was squashed. Okay,
Speaker 1: but that was that was a kind of relationships cast
Speaker 1: had back then. Oh no, I'm not him to give
Speaker 1: him hat back. It was some the crips. I never
Speaker 1: forgetting one of the guys had I wore another another
Speaker 1: coach to school. One day I was talking to a girl,
Speaker 1: came up. A guy came up behind me, put me
Speaker 1: in the headlock and choking the shot out of my ass.
Speaker 1: Okay for that leathern jacket, and I'm I'm butting it.
Speaker 1: I'm butting it back and man ain't my coat. It
Speaker 1: ain't my give a damn And my partner saw that,
Speaker 1: Hey man, you can't take the Niger coat. That didn't
Speaker 1: go man. Hatch coaching, biscuits, hat coaching business. Baby, if
Speaker 1: you gotta had coaching, especially Waits lines. Yeah, you think
Speaker 1: have a bad day. So the RTC. That's sort of
Speaker 1: like military pre military, right, Yeah, But what did you
Speaker 1: have the music inspiring you at that time? I mean
Speaker 1: I got the music bug at Camp Anola, not like
Speaker 1: fifteen fifteen years old, because back in the day they
Speaker 1: would do dances at Camp another Gonzalez Park, Lotus Park,
Speaker 1: and if you went to the dances, you know you
Speaker 1: see that, you see this vibe. Excuse me? And I
Speaker 1: remember um Rolling buying him from KGFJ was a camping
Speaker 1: on the park and they was rocking, and I just
Speaker 1: want to do what he did. And I didn't know
Speaker 1: you you didn't have to be a radio DJ to
Speaker 1: do that. I thought you had to be a radio
Speaker 1: DJ to play at the park. When I left Centennio
Speaker 1: went to Guardina, they had this little thing come around
Speaker 1: for twelfth grader, is what you want to do? And
Speaker 1: you guy to school. I was already working at the
Speaker 1: hospital on Avalon. I got tired of changing bed pans
Speaker 1: and stuff, so I want to try something different. I
Speaker 1: checked off radio and I got a little scholarship to
Speaker 1: go to a broadcast school just so I could come
Speaker 1: back and play a Campita of the Park. Never played
Speaker 1: Camping in the Park, but I would say Regina Chelly
Speaker 1: all the time. That was my first major. My first
Speaker 1: regular gig with Regina Chelly is all girls school right
Speaker 1: there on the cross street from Saint Alberts. So what
Speaker 1: you're doing like DJ and every other week man. And
Speaker 1: it was different because I said this in my book,
Speaker 1: um in w waiting now without Alonso a little quick plug. Um.
Speaker 1: When I first started DJ and Regina Chiley, the nuns
Speaker 1: was the only security guards they had. You know, there
Speaker 1: was there was gang activity, but it wasn't that rough,
Speaker 1: you know what I'm saying. They was more in Kathery
Speaker 1: put in the shine, their biscuits. They stations and come
Speaker 1: to their pants to come hang out, taste the girls.
Speaker 1: And after the set it might be a fight, some
Speaker 1: mighty might get jumped on, but for the most part
Speaker 1: they respected the nuns. And it wasn't until later on,
Speaker 1: after about a year or so it got a little
Speaker 1: after our bringing security guards because cass will get jumped
Speaker 1: in Sant Albert's. But it was never that bad. Cash
Speaker 1: got stalped out, you know what I'm saying. I was
Speaker 1: talking to my boy Yellow Ice about that uh ship
Speaker 1: about two weeks ago. We was laughing about that, how
Speaker 1: he would go to Saint Albert's and you know, they
Speaker 1: pick out cats to jump on, but they just bank
Speaker 1: them up a little bit, put hands on them and
Speaker 1: them know, hey, man, this is our hood. Blah blah
Speaker 1: blah about their business. That's a o G west side
Speaker 1: piro right there, you dog. Um. St Albert's for those
Speaker 1: who don't know, is right there there on Compton Boulevard,
Speaker 1: just off of Avalon, right there between Ronando Beach and Campton.
Speaker 1: Because it kind of yeah or yeah like a chicken
Speaker 1: and um. I heard there was always a lot of
Speaker 1: entertainment when I talked to some of the old cats
Speaker 1: from Campanella, always parties at Saint Albert. Did you ever
Speaker 1: go down to the West Side to some of these parties?
Speaker 1: A lot of parties in I went to the two
Speaker 1: dollar party, that the gym's, the house parties. I've been
Speaker 1: all kind of parties. How about the Saint Albert something, No,
Speaker 1: I don't know. I don't remember the name of it,
Speaker 1: but I've been to a lot of parties because that's
Speaker 1: directly walking distance from Campanella Park directly, Yeah, like three
Speaker 1: and four minute walk. And I remember talking to some
Speaker 1: of O g from Campanella. He said that before the Campanella's,
Speaker 1: the and and the Swamps really got into gang bang
Speaker 1: and they were all friends. The Swan boys and the
Speaker 1: Campanella boys are friends, and they would all hang out
Speaker 1: at functions at saying it just get guys want the
Speaker 1: guys with the Enterprise, guys with the Vanguard, and it
Speaker 1: was no issue because Swamp mostly went the Enterprise and
Speaker 1: everybody else with the Vanguard and or or either willer Brooks. Okay,
Speaker 1: those are the major junior high schools and cats with trip,
Speaker 1: but it wouldn't be no major trip. And then after
Speaker 1: a third point time it got territorial. And you know,
Speaker 1: you know we got from there, so you must have
Speaker 1: to really navigate all this gang stuff. Um as a
Speaker 1: musician and putting on events and functions. You know what, man,
Speaker 1: it was funny. I was telling somebody man. As one
Speaker 1: of the first DJ's out of Compton turntables and records
Speaker 1: got me into an into and out of a lot
Speaker 1: of ship there. Okay, I mean the DJ. Come. Nobody
Speaker 1: really mess with the DJ because if we leaving no party. Yeah,
Speaker 1: and then when you're doing that, everybody know who you
Speaker 1: are anyway already at this time, they know you ain't
Speaker 1: with the right They knew what they know. I never
Speaker 1: came bang, so they're cool. Man. I played for I
Speaker 1: played over in the front hood. I play uh. Gregory
Speaker 1: Cross was one of my one of my favorite promoters,
Speaker 1: Gregut He was from our front hood and he was
Speaker 1: promoting parties and he would he bugged me to do something.
Speaker 1: And now I loaded my truck. He gave me my
Speaker 1: money up front. No no questions was, no questions asked.
Speaker 1: And you know I did ship for everybody, so you know,
Speaker 1: it just was a different time. Man. The turns. I
Speaker 1: did a lot of essays sets true story. I'm doing
Speaker 1: the essay setting in uh Whittier backyard booging. They started fighting,
Speaker 1: to essay, gangs started fighting. These motherfucker's for real, call
Speaker 1: the time out, Hold on homes, hold on homes. Let
Speaker 1: the DJ gold Man. I'm not bullshit. And they gave
Speaker 1: my cousin a surance sticky. He hired a motherfucker. He
Speaker 1: can't help me do nothing, the essays both sides. Help
Speaker 1: me load my truck up. They gave me my money,
Speaker 1: help me get my cousin high asking the truck, and
Speaker 1: we pulled up. They got the fighting again. No bullshit.
Speaker 1: See that's the crazy stuff you had to deal with
Speaker 1: all that, that that kind of ship. Because at that time
Speaker 1: I was one a few as one of the only
Speaker 1: DJs around. I'm gonna say I was the first. I
Speaker 1: don't know no about everybody's business, but I know I was.
Speaker 1: I was working my ass off from I was doing
Speaker 1: lou Alls and Russian ship and pigs in the goddamn ground,
Speaker 1: the whole nine yards, and I'm doing the Gang of
Speaker 1: Kiss and Ship all over the city. When the dram
Speaker 1: started coming around you, I just see drading until about
Speaker 1: eighty two eighty three. Now when when when you met
Speaker 1: Dre and a lot of people got this misconception of
Speaker 1: Dre being his thug out as cat and I was
Speaker 1: mentioning that to your early one thing I hated when
Speaker 1: they did straight out of confidence. Drey was beating up
Speaker 1: some shuer security. And if anybody know Dre and you know,
Speaker 1: is that the type of cat that that wasn't his
Speaker 1: get down, that wasn't need to get down. Uh, Drey
Speaker 1: was always real aid back dude. He never really got
Speaker 1: in that kind of stuff. Um, we had issues. Understand me,
Speaker 1: I'm eight years older than Dre, I'm five year older
Speaker 1: than Yellow and Cube by my twelve yethold in these cats,
Speaker 1: so there was an issue. I had to treat them
Speaker 1: cats like kids, you know, the grown folk problem. You'll
Speaker 1: go set your ass down because you don't know what
Speaker 1: you're doing. Okay, you're gonna do. You're gonna be a liability.
Speaker 1: The same reason why I couldn't be a game banger
Speaker 1: back in the day, because I wouldn't I was, I
Speaker 1: was a skinny kid. I'm gonna be a liability. And
Speaker 1: you think it's got the answer to my mama for
Speaker 1: letting me get beat up, so before I do all that.
Speaker 1: And because they respected my mama something terrible in the hood,
Speaker 1: they could go home, drop us off and go home,
Speaker 1: or be just around the corner in twenty minutes. Okay,
Speaker 1: that kind of thing. So it was almost the same
Speaker 1: thing that but with these cats when they were we
Speaker 1: did have problems they weren't involved in and our problems.
Speaker 1: You know, I had a cruel of guys that even
Speaker 1: after Dark Roscoe and Unknown DJ and some mother cats
Speaker 1: that you know, we was frontline. Okay. But before that though,
Speaker 1: usually I don't have to worry about the whole lout
Speaker 1: of that because Yellow I maintained the outside and all
Speaker 1: the homies. Okay, we had that relationship. Lazo ain't then
Speaker 1: going down. But we love what you're doing, man, blah
Speaker 1: blah blah. We ain't that. Nobody messed up just right
Speaker 1: here now, y'all gotta take care of your other stuff
Speaker 1: on the inside. And that's what we did a little bit.
Speaker 1: He wasn't security. He just was a homie that just
Speaker 1: me and him has always been cool. Me and his
Speaker 1: cousin was cool. And I've never been the club free
Speaker 1: and he just made you man, no wordy about nothing
Speaker 1: I got. I got discovered. You know, I like what
Speaker 1: you're doing, man, just to keep you know, just keep
Speaker 1: doing what you're doing. That's that's that's our relationship. I
Speaker 1: moved to Dodos. I hired him and uh Marvin and
Speaker 1: some other in the f O Y and Reggie's dad
Speaker 1: and them from Compton p D to do my security dodos.
Speaker 1: So you know, I had different levels of security. These
Speaker 1: Reggie's dad and them. They were like the guys that
Speaker 1: knew everybody that kept the ship down for the most
Speaker 1: part because they knew they was the police. I had
Speaker 1: the f O I to wash the doors because they
Speaker 1: was cheaper than Reggie than Reggie's dad and them, and
Speaker 1: then Keith and you know Ice and I'll rested the
Speaker 1: cast that I had on my team. They just walked
Speaker 1: the floor mation. Nobody starting ship in the club. Was
Speaker 1: that Marvin Zy Marvin with the diving in this two? Yeah, yeah,
Speaker 1: Marvin and big Uh what's a big big man named
Speaker 1: damn uh? The big Lieutenant. I forgot this sting. But yeah,
Speaker 1: there was about that was due that's above eighty five.
Speaker 1: I lived. I was kind of in transition between I
Speaker 1: was chesting do those out when old Man wanted to
Speaker 1: shut the eve down. I mean, the cops is have
Speaker 1: an issue that at the Eve. I figured I'm going
Speaker 1: around the corner. But Ship, you know, it was like
Speaker 1: that's Compton. What my people follow me to Compton although
Speaker 1: its right around the corner. Whole different mindset because you
Speaker 1: right there on Pyrou Heaven you and Pyrou Central. If
Speaker 1: you don't get a pass, we ain't coming, okay, And
Speaker 1: I think we get a pass that though. It was risky.
Speaker 1: But after I talked to Yellow Ice or some other
Speaker 1: man to get a couple of guards to keep keep
Speaker 1: the keep the fools down, We're having the rest. It
Speaker 1: was like that, and it was cool. You didn't get
Speaker 1: that many fights, but you had fights. You had fights. Yeah,
Speaker 1: I mean one of the one of the biggest things
Speaker 1: we ever had. We had no edition there, man, you know,
Speaker 1: and it worked out and everything was cool. It's about
Speaker 1: one forty five and that ship kind of blew up.
Speaker 1: Why do y'all stop? Do those? Why shut now record record?
Speaker 1: Who blew up? That's why I left Dodos. I was
Speaker 1: doing I was doing do Thos on Friday, skate land
Speaker 1: on Saturday. We always don't come to p D shut
Speaker 1: that down because there was so many cats. I know,
Speaker 1: Reggie Wright was there, Reggie Philip Bailey with my cousin
Speaker 1: and uh so he ran to swap meet with Reggie
Speaker 1: and a couple of other cats from from the p
Speaker 1: D here Retaylor, these all these cats. They hadn't even
Speaker 1: got all they stripes yet, and we just had a
Speaker 1: good relationship with him, so we I didn't had no
Speaker 1: problem about the city at all. It just that I
Speaker 1: blew up wrecking crew wise. We started getting gigs. We
Speaker 1: were doing Dodos on Friday, scared Land on Saturday, and
Speaker 1: then people started calling to do gigs out of town.
Speaker 1: Not making just as much money, if not more money,
Speaker 1: gigging and going out of town, and like what ship
Speaker 1: that I came back? Uncle James arm me trying to
Speaker 1: run do to try to run skate Land and that
Speaker 1: ship didn't last that long. Now, you guys kind of
Speaker 1: butt heads, right, we butt we butt ahead from day
Speaker 1: one the very beginning was it with Roger Clayton, specifically,
Speaker 1: me and Roger was really pot this man. We was buddies.
Speaker 1: We worked at the same place together in Compton. There
Speaker 1: was on Walnut. There was a record distributor on Walnut
Speaker 1: in Central called record Shack. We both worked there. And
Speaker 1: when he formed his idea to start his production company,
Speaker 1: I was at the DJ at Alpine Village and we
Speaker 1: worked together for a while, and then people started booking
Speaker 1: me at the DJ to do other shows at Alpine.
Speaker 1: He got pissed at me, and then after that I left.
Speaker 1: When to started even the dock, I offered him a partnership,
Speaker 1: and man, too many show mayor too many gangbagers. Well
Speaker 1: I do all the share man nothing makers. So I'm
Speaker 1: gonna do this with with without you. And you know,
Speaker 1: after about five or six months, the ship blew up.
Speaker 1: So basically your success inspired him. We had a we
Speaker 1: had a love hate rivalry. Man. You know, my thing
Speaker 1: was always consistency. You know, I don't like moving around.
Speaker 1: Fucking DJ equipment is heavy, Okay, to move to do
Speaker 1: a party in different places every Friday and Saturday night
Speaker 1: was like moving a small bedroom or one room apartment
Speaker 1: like four or five times and one night, because you
Speaker 1: gotta take it out the house, put in the truck
Speaker 1: load of ship, and then you might not make no money.
Speaker 1: And that my old man knew. The old man, the
Speaker 1: old own even after dark, they were drinking buddies. So
Speaker 1: I cut a deal. I ain't got to move no more,
Speaker 1: but I still kept doing Alpine Village and uh Queen
Speaker 1: Mary Convention Center my hotel, and bring everybody back to
Speaker 1: the Eve for the after party because the evening closed.
Speaker 1: The five six o'clock in the morning. Sometimes we had
Speaker 1: a smooth thing. We had a real smooth thing. So
Speaker 1: back in you got your wrecking crews blowing up. Yeah,
Speaker 1: Uncle James Armies blowing up, blowing up. And then you
Speaker 1: also had greg Ever. Gregory Ever was doing ultrawave. Um.
Speaker 1: Did you have a relationship with Gregory? Every mean, I
Speaker 1: didn't know Gregory back then. We got a real tight
Speaker 1: of the last past fifteen years because we laugh about
Speaker 1: those times now, because they was they was trying to
Speaker 1: compete with us. I want to compete with nobody. I
Speaker 1: had to even I wasn't. I had no part. I
Speaker 1: had no no, I had no competitions. Well, you had
Speaker 1: the streets. That's why I had. We had we had to.
Speaker 1: We had the the east side. What nobody coming to
Speaker 1: the east side, Okay, you had to be a certain
Speaker 1: cat to go to the east side. Anything on this
Speaker 1: side of Crenshaw. I had no competitions. You know, everybody
Speaker 1: was afraid to come over there. And you know, I've
Speaker 1: been there so long, you know, think about it. You know.
Speaker 1: The one person to try to was Roger Eskatel, and
Speaker 1: he had a couple of shows that was successful, but
Speaker 1: nobody had to tenure to. I had on the east side,
Speaker 1: and then I guess Gregory saw an opportunity for the
Speaker 1: west side because all his ultrawave stuff was on the
Speaker 1: west side of town. It was even in like Culver City, right,
Speaker 1: he had the he had the same spot that Roger
Speaker 1: opened up, the Vegelans Uditory. Uncle Jam's army. The rod
Speaker 1: in the sixties followed everywhere they went, so everywhere they
Speaker 1: went there was some ship. So greg me and Greggy
Speaker 1: laughed about that. He said what he did. He went
Speaker 1: in with a nonprofit and was able to get the
Speaker 1: Vegeans Uditorium through his nonprofit of mom or somebody had
Speaker 1: a nonprofit or whatever the case may be. That they
Speaker 1: didn't get that. Roger was piste off and he started
Speaker 1: doing the sports arena and ship like that, and that
Speaker 1: ship worked out for a while the sixties. That for him,
Speaker 1: it's always like some gangship is always involved, and no
Speaker 1: matter what's going on in this town, business with gangs,
Speaker 1: it ain't gona work. Even if you try to stay
Speaker 1: away from it, it's not see what happens. Let me
Speaker 1: tell you about this. Let me let me tell you
Speaker 1: the real reason why cats go for the gang ship
Speaker 1: because when gangs show up, they showed, they show up deep.
Speaker 1: You got you know, even too dark. When when the
Speaker 1: Nickerson showed up even to dark, they're making sixty cats
Speaker 1: with them. But if you got f Y, if you
Speaker 1: have f O Y just as deep, then they would
Speaker 1: be able to no not y former. Yeah, but see
Speaker 1: you got sixty cats from Nickerson Gardens. They may be bloods,
Speaker 1: but they not messing with Eugima Village. Okay. And they're
Speaker 1: bloods too, So you got you know, you got the
Speaker 1: numbers game now and see the promoter, I'm winning no
Speaker 1: matter what because I got village Yuhima Village, they got
Speaker 1: thirty five forty cats. I got another fifty sixty cats
Speaker 1: from from Nickerson Gardens. And everybody is is I'm making
Speaker 1: money for everybody, but everybody ain't getting along. Okay, you
Speaker 1: got everybody would Centennial. You don't know what happened to Centennial.
Speaker 1: And it's a personal ef. Nickinson Garden's got him out numbered. Okay,
Speaker 1: they can they can pock them, Okay, they can park them.
Speaker 1: And this is what happened when you when you were
Speaker 1: bringing gangs into any kind of venue, you got as
Speaker 1: a as a as a businessman, I'm winning short term,
Speaker 1: but long term I'm gonna loose. Now, James, you said
Speaker 1: it's possible, you think because it seems like any big
Speaker 1: thing you got going on in this town, whether you're
Speaker 1: on the west side of the east side, some gang
Speaker 1: is gonna be on your head. Everybody think that that
Speaker 1: just because that statehood, you owe them something, you know
Speaker 1: what I'm saying. Even in our hood, if you came
Speaker 1: and wanted to to to give out free turkeys, well
Speaker 1: you better give us a few of the turkeys just
Speaker 1: for doing it. And you know a lot of cats
Speaker 1: think like that, you know what I'm saying. But just
Speaker 1: just bringing in, say fancies, you got the show going on,
Speaker 1: and you want to bring me to do security. The
Speaker 1: home is gonna come just because I'm there, you know
Speaker 1: what I'm saying. Then then everybody knows, okay we're doing this.
Speaker 1: You got catch coming from everywhere being a part of that.
Speaker 1: I want to be around it, so you gott catch that.
Speaker 1: Don't like this cat, just like you were saying, now,
Speaker 1: you gotta worry about a big old thing going on nowadays.
Speaker 1: Ain't no talking, ain't no conversation. It's just pop pop pop,
Speaker 1: your show was over over, especially if they didn't like
Speaker 1: you and knew you were throwing the gig. Man, We're
Speaker 1: gonna come over and go over there and shoot it up.
Speaker 1: Turn it out. You ain't gonna make your money. We
Speaker 1: know that. Yeah, that's why we do. And you see,
Speaker 1: that's that's one of the reasons why we don't have
Speaker 1: a lot of stuff in the hood right now, because
Speaker 1: you have to understand there's a hit in hand behind
Speaker 1: all business that most people don't understand. That's the insurance companies.
Speaker 1: When you got when you have incidents, repeated incidents and lawsuits,
Speaker 1: your insurance is going through the roof. It costs more
Speaker 1: money to insure businesses in l a Compton and wats
Speaker 1: any place in the city. And they know it's a
Speaker 1: lot of gang activity, whether it be a liquor store, loundramatic,
Speaker 1: be anything. So if you if you go over only
Speaker 1: on the west side and enshore the same building for
Speaker 1: two thousand dollars a month a year and you're going
Speaker 1: on the east side and then is ten thousand, perfect example,
Speaker 1: even after dark. We went from five thousand a year
Speaker 1: twenty grand. We had a business. I ain't at the
Speaker 1: more that the insurance. The insurance went from fifteen with
Speaker 1: from five thousand to twenty thousand. And I ain't do
Speaker 1: I don't do it no more. So that's one of
Speaker 1: the reasons why you went over to skate Land. That's
Speaker 1: just happened this year. I wasn't even start forty years man,
Speaker 1: thirty nine years, and in six months I was. I
Speaker 1: had the keys and had the relationship thirty nine years.
Speaker 1: I didn't run it consistently thirty nine years with me
Speaker 1: and the old man. I'd go back every few years
Speaker 1: to do parties, whatever the case may, because we had
Speaker 1: that relationship. And then, uh, you know, we had a
Speaker 1: couple of issues, and then they found out we was
Speaker 1: doing met exotic and female exotic. And that changes everything
Speaker 1: because now you look as a strip club and see
Speaker 1: first we had a problem because they didn't know what
Speaker 1: was doing it. But then we started putting flowers on
Speaker 1: the internet. Oh these thinking just do a stripping the
Speaker 1: We're gonna put them with a stripper bill here twenty grand,
Speaker 1: so they charge you more. Hell yeah, well you got
Speaker 1: away with the wait for a good little why I
Speaker 1: ain't man, ain't man all right? Um? I interviewed, Uh,
Speaker 1: legendary l A radio DJ Greg Macy a couple of
Speaker 1: months ago and he said that, uh, he didn't really
Speaker 1: have a great relationship with Roger, but he linked up
Speaker 1: with you and he said that, Um kind of that's
Speaker 1: how the Mixed Masters was birthed at k Day, taking
Speaker 1: a couple of your DJs and putting them on the radio,
Speaker 1: right me and Greg. When Gregg first touchdown in l A,
Speaker 1: I was when the first cast he met. And uh, um,
Speaker 1: he wasn't about the dances. I just shut the eve
Speaker 1: down about to open up the dodos and I invited
Speaker 1: Hi much to do those one that he saw big
Speaker 1: it was. He said, man, what if I could get
Speaker 1: you some acts like who I'm making you climax? Uh
Speaker 1: so and so, and he brought me new Edition and
Speaker 1: like happened. That's how new Edition out here, you know.
Speaker 1: He Gregg was a programming director for kDa, and we
Speaker 1: had even we was making underground mixes. We had even
Speaker 1: done a legit record yet I don't think and uh,
Speaker 1: Greg but had by he being a programming the director,
Speaker 1: he had a lot of in pull radio or record companies.
Speaker 1: So he gave me dodos. He gave me to act
Speaker 1: for Dodos on Friday, take him out to the valley
Speaker 1: on Saturdays, and everybody was winning. You know, we did
Speaker 1: he did the consta. He did Uh I forgot to
Speaker 1: name the skate Land skate ring out in uh Valley,
Speaker 1: and then uh we started doing ship I would I
Speaker 1: have a group at Dodo's Friday, another group at skate
Speaker 1: Land right next door Saturday night. And then you think
Speaker 1: about constant commentar real consta and then he do the consta.
Speaker 1: So we had a thing, and then you know many
Speaker 1: By the time the eighties gotten got in full forth
Speaker 1: about eight six eighty seven, it stopped being worthwhile to
Speaker 1: do teamship in l A because games was sucking up
Speaker 1: everything we didn't. Hip hop kind of start going commercial
Speaker 1: a little bit too, and people were the big record
Speaker 1: companies were coming in at that time, maybe squeezing you out.
Speaker 1: We never really got squeezed out, per see, we got uh.
Speaker 1: They started to compete with us more because we first
Speaker 1: started doing this with nobody checking for hip hop. Hip
Speaker 1: hop it just was born right after hip after the
Speaker 1: disco it died, so people everybody thought hip hop was
Speaker 1: gonna take the same rotors as disco. Died flow deaf,
Speaker 1: you know, blah blah blah, but disco mean hip hop
Speaker 1: came around and ship that ship was it was baby
Speaker 1: in the people chore Baby, But that motherfucker lived and
Speaker 1: they lived on and got a healthy It's fucked. Hey.
Speaker 1: I was watching the Fat Boys on Soul Train in
Speaker 1: my dad, and my dad said, why are you into
Speaker 1: this music so much? He said, in about five or
Speaker 1: six years, just like you said about how disco died.
Speaker 1: He said, about five or six years, this rap music,
Speaker 1: this hip hop is gonna be dead. And my dad
Speaker 1: was usually right on stuff, but he was completely wrong
Speaker 1: on that. I'm sure you probably you just said that
Speaker 1: they told me because disco didn't last ten years. Maybe
Speaker 1: the school lasts like four years, four years, seventy nine,
Speaker 1: But no, no, uh, disco was hot in seventy five
Speaker 1: because in seventies six I named my first DJ name
Speaker 1: was disco Linzo. Okay. By seventy seven, I just go
Speaker 1: back to this Linzo okay. But they still have some
Speaker 1: disco hits. In seventy nine, they Stephen Michael Jackson's Off
Speaker 1: the Wall was inspired. Kind of right, you figured, let's
Speaker 1: say five years, didn't it was last dude, disco you
Speaker 1: want Disco died though, because white people can't dance. Well,
Speaker 1: they was loving John. They would loving but John, but John,
Speaker 1: but but but the average disco. You go to the disco,
Speaker 1: you know white people, white people dance that ship. It's like, yeah,
Speaker 1: that's it. Actually just make you laugh. Both of white
Speaker 1: guys can't dance right now after the disco? When did
Speaker 1: When did you get with Dre? Now? I got with
Speaker 1: drey Man about I said about eight I I brought
Speaker 1: Curtis Blow to Even after Dark And that's from drey
Speaker 1: show about eight two. He came to the customer and
Speaker 1: came at the customer to come in on DJ. He
Speaker 1: come out that he was he was supposed to been DJ,
Speaker 1: and I heard he was a DJ, one of my
Speaker 1: young homies. He gotta check out this kid named Dre
Speaker 1: and uh and his name is Tim. Some people take
Speaker 1: credit for that. It was it wasn't. It wasn't. It
Speaker 1: wasn't Tim to take credit for another Tim from the
Speaker 1: neighborhood that worked worked at Even after Dark, and um
Speaker 1: I heard about him and I got folk d J.
Speaker 1: I don't he know more DJs? And then Dre came
Speaker 1: to the club one night and then somehow another the
Speaker 1: brother ended up on my turn tables and he didn't
Speaker 1: ask me. I don't know who he talked to, but
Speaker 1: he ended up on the turn tables. And that's how
Speaker 1: this ship started. He was good, He was good. He
Speaker 1: had this little mix he did with Mr Postman and
Speaker 1: uh job rhythm tracks and like I said in his documentary,
Speaker 1: um niggas was dancing, but they was dancing confus you
Speaker 1: they don't know what the dance to the slow track
Speaker 1: or the fast track. And they were like, but that
Speaker 1: ship is dope, and I'm saying here, what then is
Speaker 1: he doing? And when he got through, we had we
Speaker 1: had to have a conversation. So this was in DUDOS.
Speaker 1: He just went dark. You have the dark, so he
Speaker 1: just goes up there some kind of way d d J.
Speaker 1: That's the birth of dre then right there and even
Speaker 1: after dark, right after that, he came Easy. He came
Speaker 1: with Easy, but Easy couldn't get in. I wasn't that
Speaker 1: easy eat. Easy was still thugged out. I would mean
Speaker 1: because even if I had a dress code like you
Speaker 1: like you like we had a dress code. They came
Speaker 1: one week I turned I turned them both away. But
Speaker 1: people would people. People don't realize Me and Drey lived
Speaker 1: on the same street. He meant his dad and his
Speaker 1: his uh, his dad and his uncles was my age.
Speaker 1: So we all hung out. So when Drake came back,
Speaker 1: Hey man, I'm Theodore's son. You know what you're doing.
Speaker 1: My uncle's Teddy and Deborah and you know blah blah blah. Okay, Cold,
Speaker 1: change your clothes, come on back. He did, and I
Speaker 1: gave him a pass. But he came back with Easy.
Speaker 1: Easy didn't change. Not so easy to go home and
Speaker 1: change clow just to pissy mom let d up to
Speaker 1: piss Easy off. So it's safe to say that Easy
Speaker 1: was the one that was actually really game banging. Easy
Speaker 1: was easy with most street. Okay, I never all the
Speaker 1: years I know him Easy, I never known him to
Speaker 1: claim a set. Now, I could be wrong. I never done.
Speaker 1: He was. He was, He had that attire, he had
Speaker 1: that look. Okay, I never know him to claim the
Speaker 1: set now. So I saw Easy not the second time
Speaker 1: I saw Easy he came to my house. It's true
Speaker 1: stories in my book. Easy not with w A, not
Speaker 1: with Alonzo. Easy I was biggest fuck like Drey. What
Speaker 1: happened your boy? Man, oh this girl hit him in
Speaker 1: the him the g I Joe Lunchbell. Wow. So that
Speaker 1: was my first real noticing him, Like, damn, dude, what
Speaker 1: you do to her? Oh? Man, I don't want to
Speaker 1: talk about it. We had a different relationship. I mean,
Speaker 1: this is the part that people don't understand about Alonzo.
Speaker 1: Why wouldn't you be a part of this because I
Speaker 1: know these dudes. They wasn't easy. They wasn't these Okay,
Speaker 1: they wasn't the dudes that people have they belcome understand. Also,
Speaker 1: they was younger, they was kids straight, was still in
Speaker 1: high school when he came to me. Cube was still
Speaker 1: going to Washington when he came to here, like fourteen.
Speaker 1: But when they started, when they started n w A
Speaker 1: and was was straight out of Compton, niggers with attitudes
Speaker 1: and they run this persona as they was like straight
Speaker 1: gangsters and and I mean you didn't see that. It's crazy,
Speaker 1: like you ain't even gangster? Like wait wait wait wait
Speaker 1: wait wait it worked, wait wait wait it worked. Understand this.
Speaker 1: Y'all want y'all want the real y'all with some bulls
Speaker 1: yet Okay, this is the chronicles yea, Yeah, y'all want
Speaker 1: the really with some bulls. Yeah yeah, yeah, no, no
Speaker 1: that do though. Understand this. You gotta fifteens, you gotta
Speaker 1: cube was seventeen when he left my house and going
Speaker 1: to Arras on the state. They wasn't gang panging, Okay,
Speaker 1: he was going to school to be an architect. Okay,
Speaker 1: Dre was with me multiple kids already, Yellow damn sure,
Speaker 1: wasn't no game banger. Okay, Easy was around. He was
Speaker 1: the only one that had the tough image. Okay. But
Speaker 1: Easy was so laid back, you know. Easy was not,
Speaker 1: you know, in your face kind of guy. I've never
Speaker 1: seen Easy piste off. Okay. So for them, and then
Speaker 1: they was around my house doing the demos, all the
Speaker 1: ships you saw and straight out of Compton. Easy doing
Speaker 1: the demos was done at the house I live in
Speaker 1: right now. I've been in my house for thirty some
Speaker 1: fo years, all that ship, the early ship, until I
Speaker 1: walked out the door and say, you got a Dre
Speaker 1: with at my house that supposed been in my house. Okay.
Speaker 1: So when they brought Easy demo in from the studio
Speaker 1: into my living room, my dining room for us to
Speaker 1: see it, niggas laughed. The only thig that didn't laugh
Speaker 1: was Linzo. The reason why Liso didn't laugh, because I
Speaker 1: understood the record business to know that when you got
Speaker 1: a record on the radio already at that time called
Speaker 1: picking Bookers and it's a hit by business market. Just
Speaker 1: think I got a shot too, Okay. Everybody else laughed,
Speaker 1: so they couldn't tell you that the trade out of
Speaker 1: competence like that. You saw like you saw a lot
Speaker 1: of ship in the trail of the compting that you
Speaker 1: know what, that didn't fly like that? Okay. So when
Speaker 1: I saw it, I'm like, damn, dude, I don't even
Speaker 1: want to talk. Had a shot. But again, boys in
Speaker 1: the Hood was a street song. It wasn't a game
Speaker 1: banging song. It wasn't you know it was. It wasn't
Speaker 1: even about him per se. Okay, it was. It was
Speaker 1: a street song. Boys in the Hood is always hard.
Speaker 1: If you talking that ship, they'll pull your card anything,
Speaker 1: I'll pull your card, They'll pull your card. Okay. So
Speaker 1: when you understand and you see the evolution of Easy eating,
Speaker 1: if you watched this evolution like I did, even after
Speaker 1: Easy blew up, Easy still would come by my house. Okay.
Speaker 1: He had the two big bodyguards and he had Yellow
Speaker 1: was doing Parno at my house in the back. Okay,
Speaker 1: Yellow first started doing Parno. He was doing it in
Speaker 1: my studio. So you had big Man, you had the tooth,
Speaker 1: someones and Easy. They would come to the pad and
Speaker 1: hang out some time and just chill and chip on
Speaker 1: the girls and you know. And once when I picked
Speaker 1: their head and see what's happening, I said, Easy, how
Speaker 1: you like how you like? How you like being a gangster?
Speaker 1: He said, he said, lies, Oh with a bottle, I'm
Speaker 1: gonna sell it. Okay. If you remember, Easy was never
Speaker 1: trying to be in the front. I'm not trying to
Speaker 1: just the brother by no means, I'm not trying to.
Speaker 1: I'm not trying to just show that. He wouldn't when
Speaker 1: you put Easy voice with Dre's beats, and then I
Speaker 1: was sudden. You you you find something, It's like it's
Speaker 1: like when you find a niche, you you go for it.
Speaker 1: It was magic, okay, And you know he went forward.
Speaker 1: He made it work for him. I can't get mad
Speaker 1: about that, man, I can't get me. You know, it
Speaker 1: wasn't I don't know how hard, how hard he was,
Speaker 1: Kelly Park, I didn't know him like that. Okay, but
Speaker 1: I knew he got down because some of the people
Speaker 1: he got down with I knew them too, Okay, but
Speaker 1: they had enough respect for me not to break it
Speaker 1: to my house. Yeah, okay. So once you understand what
Speaker 1: you see it from my perspective, See, I'm not just
Speaker 1: uh if you if you look at this ship from
Speaker 1: being a like a concert, I'm not just. I'm not
Speaker 1: in the front row. I'm a backstage and just motherfucker. Okay.
Speaker 1: I was there when the when they were bringing in
Speaker 1: the South since and they was putting the stage together.
Speaker 1: I'm not just a ticket buying cats. So the ticket
Speaker 1: buying cats have a perspective that the people from the back,
Speaker 1: from the backstage, got a whole different perspective. I started
Speaker 1: for they went to the dressing room, So why you
Speaker 1: didn't have a bigger part into a n w A.
Speaker 1: We know what here it is, doc n w A.
Speaker 1: I'm born in fifty seven. I'm sixty two fucking years old. Okay,
Speaker 1: at that time, I was thirty about thirty thirty years old, Okay,
Speaker 1: I from I'm a kid from the sixties. Man, I'm
Speaker 1: a I'm a kid from the civil rights uh uh movement. Okay,
Speaker 1: I'm I grew up on Curtis Mayfield and ship like that.
Speaker 1: So the word nigger, although it was used in my house,
Speaker 1: it was used in closed doors. I never thought that
Speaker 1: that name. If anything I hated on was the name.
Speaker 1: It wasn't so much the music. It was like, how
Speaker 1: y'all call yourself niggas with attitude? I Linzo Williams could
Speaker 1: not take nigga's attitude to Gerald Busby or Larking Arnold.
Speaker 1: These guys are one in double A CP Awards. How
Speaker 1: the funk am I gonna take them? Niggas with attitudes?
Speaker 1: Jerry Heller, you was cool with Jerry Heller. I knew
Speaker 1: Jerry Helen that Jerry Heller had that and he went
Speaker 1: and pitched them to the You gotta understand Jerry Heller
Speaker 1: pitched that ship with what a motherfucking pitch for it?
Speaker 1: Way away? Okay, when when when I took not introduced
Speaker 1: Easy either Jerry Heller because in the movie you see
Speaker 1: easy Jerry Heller carrying boxes bullshit. He don't carry nam
Speaker 1: box never. Okay, Record Crew got a deal with Jerry
Speaker 1: Heller was trying to be my manager. He was trying
Speaker 1: to be Record crews manager. Okay, I didn't need no
Speaker 1: manager because CBSC Sony had already offered us a hundred
Speaker 1: racks to come over to Sony on my own, just
Speaker 1: on the fact that I was I was a new
Speaker 1: rap group out of l a hey Man, we got
Speaker 1: a hundred racks. We gotta come over here. Wha cool.
Speaker 1: I called my lawyer up and said, man, do I
Speaker 1: need a manager? He said, now what you didn't manage
Speaker 1: it for? You want to give away twenty grand I
Speaker 1: said no, He said, well funk it. Then come over
Speaker 1: to my office, give me a check, and I will
Speaker 1: do negotiate your contract and you're gonna learn the music
Speaker 1: business firsthand. So what happened was one I learned the
Speaker 1: music business firsthand. It cost me ten thousand to do that,
Speaker 1: but I saved twenty because I had to give it
Speaker 1: to Jerry. You followed me. I had enough business since
Speaker 1: already from running to eve after dark to no basic
Speaker 1: terms of business percentages, blah blah blah, and I didn't
Speaker 1: get to my my my my grades of school wasn't
Speaker 1: that bad. So I knew some ship, Okay, I wasn't stupid.
Speaker 1: So when Jerry came around, when when uh, we got
Speaker 1: to deal with CBS. We were short some money and
Speaker 1: I went to Jerry to ask, you know, hey, man,
Speaker 1: could you possibly find this money for us? He said cool?
Speaker 1: And when he found the money, everybody wanted to be
Speaker 1: down with Jerry Heller, which was cool for me because
Speaker 1: just by this time record crew was blowing up. We
Speaker 1: gotta we gotta record deal, we got a new album,
Speaker 1: we got people calling for dates. It's just too big
Speaker 1: for me, okay. Plus I was having fun being in
Speaker 1: the group as opposed to just running the record labor,
Speaker 1: and I was independent. It wasn't no thing. But now
Speaker 1: we we're on a major. So after we did the
Speaker 1: deal with CBS, Jerry found think it was like five
Speaker 1: six grand for us. That was at the Union. When
Speaker 1: he found that money at the Union, Drey and Yeller
Speaker 1: thought he was, oh my god, he found money for us.
Speaker 1: They alright got broke. And when Drey and Yeller was
Speaker 1: talking so much about Jerry Heller around easy easy, I
Speaker 1: wanted to meet that Jerry Heller guy. And that's when
Speaker 1: Alonzo came in. Well, now what the problem was? I
Speaker 1: tell my book and untill the thousand times, when Drey
Speaker 1: cut the deal, when Dre and Easy cut the deal
Speaker 1: to get Dre out of jail. He wanted Dre to
Speaker 1: do some beach for him. Well, like I told him,
Speaker 1: Dre went to diet jail, not Linzo. The studio is mine.
Speaker 1: What you're doing beats, I don't care, but that nigets
Speaker 1: to push record. You got to give me my money,
Speaker 1: so easy olden studio time, okay for cutting Boys in
Speaker 1: the Hood and everything else he did over there, they
Speaker 1: cut the demos. Yeah. So now he wants to meet
Speaker 1: Jerry Heller. All right, okay, fine, but I need to
Speaker 1: get paid first. When I give you, give you the
Speaker 1: money that I owe you. No, Nick, you can't give
Speaker 1: him what you owe meeting and you still want a favorite,
Speaker 1: pay me my money and put some on top of that,
Speaker 1: and then we'll make it happen. So we're talking about
Speaker 1: So now he gave me another two fifty to make
Speaker 1: it happen with Jerry, and Jerry tell you that he uh,
Speaker 1: he paid him seven fifties just to meet him. Now,
Speaker 1: the nigga old me five hunted, and he gave me
Speaker 1: another tool hunted to hook it up with him and Jerry.
Speaker 1: Once I hooked him and Jerry up Jerry didn't want
Speaker 1: to work with Easy at all, even after he met him.
Speaker 1: He didn't want to sunk with him. He don't know him.
Speaker 1: Plus Easy with a different kind of cat. Easy ain't
Speaker 1: like Lines though, Egyptian Lover and Rudy from the Dream
Speaker 1: Team that was the cast he was working with at
Speaker 1: the time. Easy walking around with his money in his sock.
Speaker 1: Jerry coming to me on the man, who is this guy?
Speaker 1: Where he gets his money from? He don't know shit,
Speaker 1: He don't know ship. So he's coming to Lines because
Speaker 1: Lines brought the guy to him. Hey man, who is
Speaker 1: this guy? What's happened with him? What do you think
Speaker 1: about this group Nigga's attitude? How should I? How should
Speaker 1: I did with that? I said, hey man, very carefully, okay,
Speaker 1: very carefully. I'm a Jewish guy from the valley. How
Speaker 1: do I have managed group called Nickel's Attitude? And That's
Speaker 1: what I told him, very carefully, dude. So now they're
Speaker 1: doing their thing. They dropped the Deposse album in w
Speaker 1: and the Posse that was mccola. Okay, then um, I
Speaker 1: think they took it over to um to um. What's
Speaker 1: that priority? Okay? They redistributed that priority and then they did.
Speaker 1: Then they um my company. Me and my boys informed
Speaker 1: their own distribution company called West Coast Record Distributors. We
Speaker 1: had Braby and Prince bought my boy um Rudy from
Speaker 1: the dream team JJ FAB. We had that first j
Speaker 1: J Fab was on the flip side of another song.
Speaker 1: Thing was called another whole Boty Dust or something like that.
Speaker 1: It blew up at West Coast. Arabian was going to
Speaker 1: funk with draym over at uh at Ruthless so he
Speaker 1: could have deal. Ruthless could a deal with Rudy to
Speaker 1: buy the single so dra can make the album. And
Speaker 1: that's why and that's how Rufus got paid off the
Speaker 1: jj FAD album. That's why j J Fad was kind
Speaker 1: of pissed. It wasn't walking to death row. These dudes
Speaker 1: just cutting demos in your at your house what they
Speaker 1: demos in my house. But again when Jerry came in, uh,
Speaker 1: I just didn't. I didn't. I didn't feel it per se.
Speaker 1: It was cool, but at the time when the demo
Speaker 1: that you heard was cussing and ship easy. He came
Speaker 1: to me, I took him to Greg Matt, Greg, I
Speaker 1: can't play this man is cussing in it. I can't
Speaker 1: play this. So being Greg, it was Alonso had the
Speaker 1: club Dodos and skate Land. Alonso had a relationship with
Speaker 1: Greg mat with k D. I could go to k
Speaker 1: drop off a cassette and before I got on the
Speaker 1: ten for one one one ten freeway, it was on
Speaker 1: the radio. As long as it was it was clean,
Speaker 1: so easy. Knew I had all these relationships, so he
Speaker 1: wanted to He want to take advantage of So when
Speaker 1: Jerry Heller came around, I was just to connect man.
Speaker 1: It's like it's like anything else. I just connected him.
Speaker 1: I had no idea, nobody knew that was gonna work
Speaker 1: with Jerry. Didn't know what was gonna work. Jerry talked
Speaker 1: that ship in his book like or his documentaries. Oh
Speaker 1: and I meant easy with like meeting John Lennon. Bullshit,
Speaker 1: I didn't. I didn't like. I didn't like Jerry Heller
Speaker 1: and I knew personally that that he was full of
Speaker 1: ship and he was a scary motherfuck too. I ain't
Speaker 1: mad at the man deal, but he did. He changed
Speaker 1: the game. I could not have done that. I being
Speaker 1: twine years old, I could not be in a new
Speaker 1: game banging everybody from the content new laws. There ain't
Speaker 1: no fucking game banger. How come on doing now? But
Speaker 1: I put you on the on the outside of the game,
Speaker 1: not on the inside. But then the game banker. The
Speaker 1: only want that actually was or looked like a game
Speaker 1: banger was Easy until Jill Ren and all of them
Speaker 1: started coming with the Jerry curls and the jackets, the
Speaker 1: batche the guns and all his other ship. Right, so
Speaker 1: they those. If you're game banging, you know who's the
Speaker 1: game banger. You can't say Easy didn't look the part.
Speaker 1: And because he was shortened everybody and even worked even
Speaker 1: better for it. Okay, it because he because of his height,
Speaker 1: it makes it looks even better. You got your little
Speaker 1: cat five five five with all these six ft okay,
Speaker 1: and he running ship okay, So here I am not
Speaker 1: how the funk I'm gonna look old ass motherfucker six
Speaker 1: ft two pounds behind these young niggas. It wouldn't work
Speaker 1: for he stayed in the background and and head out
Speaker 1: and you've never seen him. He let Easy to do
Speaker 1: all the work, and but he got paid to One
Speaker 1: thing about one thing about this record busness, it's about relationships.
Speaker 1: I didn't had the relationships they should be bullshit, okay.
Speaker 1: And had it had a relationship in the priority, you know,
Speaker 1: if Lionzo had it took them in the beginning of
Speaker 1: this ship right here, Linzo had enough problems trying to
Speaker 1: get wrapped played period. Okay, Now I'm gonna take up
Speaker 1: some niggers group of Nickel's attitude to the majors and
Speaker 1: with a bunch of cousins and a bunch of other ship.
Speaker 1: Oh no, man, come on the they' gonna work for me. Now.
Speaker 1: It worked for him because in the beginning, in the beginning,
Speaker 1: in the beginning, Jerry always claimed, I worked for ruthless.
Speaker 1: I worked for Eric. He kept he kept big enough
Speaker 1: distance so if ship blew up, it wouldn't getting none
Speaker 1: on him. It was always Eric. It was always easy, okay.
Speaker 1: And once the ship, you know, once the ship jumped off,
Speaker 1: he just lit his ass sitting there, looked a lot tighter. Okay,
Speaker 1: by that time, does you dial? But by that time,
Speaker 1: you know, it was all it was all the all
Speaker 1: the cussing. They stopped running over ship and with bulldozers,
Speaker 1: and to see the Lord's tucker was out of the pitching.
Speaker 1: And you know, it was a whole different game. Now
Speaker 1: the ride jumped off. Everything changed. So now everybody loved
Speaker 1: because they didn't remember remember this in the when the
Speaker 1: ship jumped off, Niggas wasn't checking for him. In fact,
Speaker 1: Jerry Heller did become eventually become my manager. He had
Speaker 1: he was booking me, uh An Easy and nd up
Speaker 1: Way on the same show he was booking us, which
Speaker 1: was showed with Iced Tea and just Ice and we're
Speaker 1: the only nine gangsters on the Motherfucker and Shower. But
Speaker 1: E V E and n W A was opening up
Speaker 1: for us Wrecking Crew. I got battle Cat and Richie, Richard, Mona,
Speaker 1: Lisa doing Wrecking Crew songs dre and Yellow on the
Speaker 1: sideline looking at us, Dude, looking at them, dude, they
Speaker 1: fucking part on their song. And the cold part about
Speaker 1: that they were getting bowled in the beginning, I'm the
Speaker 1: fucking headline was getting bowled like a motherfucker. They wouldn't
Speaker 1: check it for that ship man at the part. This
Speaker 1: is the part of people don't understand. I've been initihip
Speaker 1: from from day one. I'm a true day one. When
Speaker 1: they come to this ship right here, when wreck and
Speaker 1: Crew blew up me and Dred and then blew up, left,
Speaker 1: broke up, turn off lights hadn't even hadn't even dropped yet.
Speaker 1: We broke up like no blew up. We dropped it around.
Speaker 1: Actually I did drop it, but it needn't getting no
Speaker 1: airplace after the first year because back in the day,
Speaker 1: from November till January, they did what they call a
Speaker 1: freeze on the playlist. They didn't playing a new records,
Speaker 1: come new come come January one, all new records come out,
Speaker 1: so they thought we were still on Phoebs. So when
Speaker 1: they heard turn off Lights, they loved that ship. I
Speaker 1: got the Black National anthem. I ain't got a group.
Speaker 1: I turned down probably about Honey Grand with the with
Speaker 1: the gigs, because I don't know how to deal with
Speaker 1: this ship. Okay, I go from having all these niggers
Speaker 1: at my house. I got d Barns rolls, I got
Speaker 1: a tone load coming through. I got Coolio coming through,
Speaker 1: I got Easy coming through, I got pool coming through,
Speaker 1: all these cats coming through my house on a regular basis.
Speaker 1: All of a sudden, ain't nobody there and I gotta
Speaker 1: hit record. So I'm like, Jerry, this me, that's what
Speaker 1: the reason why me and Jerry stayed cool because Jerry
Speaker 1: he kind of counsel with my ask, Look, man, you
Speaker 1: gotta get hit record. You're missing money, You're getting offered
Speaker 1: ten racks a night, sevent night. How long you're gonna
Speaker 1: play this? I'm playing prince role. I'm like, oh, I'm hurt.
Speaker 1: I'm crushed this And then all of a sudden, fifty
Speaker 1: fifty Si. I missed about six years ship. I miss
Speaker 1: quite a bit of money. So I hadn't find me
Speaker 1: a group, so I wouldn't got battle Cat, a nineteen
Speaker 1: year old battle Cat. I got another cat from Rich
Speaker 1: named Richie Rich, who UH work with with the l
Speaker 1: A Dream Team. And I got Mona Lisa who sang
Speaker 1: but us the first time. And we hit the road
Speaker 1: along with the Oozy Brothers. Okay, and we hit the
Speaker 1: road and we're on tour with Iced Tea, just Ice
Speaker 1: and n w A and n w A is an
Speaker 1: opening act. Ain't nobody feeling their asses? The ship didn't
Speaker 1: get live. The record crew came on. So record crew
Speaker 1: got all the girls at the dressing room at the hotel,
Speaker 1: and that ain't what dray they They wasn't used to
Speaker 1: that ship. So the whole tour was really fucked up.
Speaker 1: It's like going to the prom with your ex girlfriend
Speaker 1: and her new boyfriend in the same limo. It was
Speaker 1: fucked up, but we dealt with the ship and then
Speaker 1: they ship flipped up because we we didn't even talk
Speaker 1: on the whole fucking tour. Man. We didn't even talk.
Speaker 1: Me Yell and Drady didn't say shopped each other the
Speaker 1: whole tour and y'all was cool though we was cool
Speaker 1: before then, but we didn't hand then to see each
Speaker 1: other on tour. I hugged with my people, they hung
Speaker 1: with their people, and it was just that kind of awkwardness. Man.
Speaker 1: So this is the kind of ship peoplen't understand. We
Speaker 1: never had the chance. We never even talked about this
Speaker 1: ship to them. And twenty years ago, I mean to,
Speaker 1: I mean to this year. So you still talk to
Speaker 1: Dre right now today? No, I haven't talked to him lately.
Speaker 1: We have had a conversation me and Cube and communicate.
Speaker 1: Me and Cube never had an issue because Cube ship
Speaker 1: he left after the first fucking album and um when
Speaker 1: he went to Priority, Brian Turner called me up hey,
Speaker 1: because I just did a Cube twelve inch c I
Speaker 1: a he called me up to buy them. Motherfucker. He
Speaker 1: didn't want to, you know, before the internet, and I
Speaker 1: don't want to shoot out. Give me a number. I
Speaker 1: gave him a number, He gave me a check and
Speaker 1: we was cool. I think cool. Uh. I was the
Speaker 1: only one that had his his own mind and it
Speaker 1: would jump if if he ever had to um. He
Speaker 1: didn't look like it, but you could tell that that
Speaker 1: he was somewhat front line. I believe you know, he
Speaker 1: was cool. And again, man, you got to understand, they
Speaker 1: was never tested around me. Okay, they would never test.
Speaker 1: They were all kids. Okay, I was frontline, unknown DJ
Speaker 1: was frontline. You know I had I had another front line.
Speaker 1: These casts were still in you know, in little league.
Speaker 1: Far as I was concerned they that they was never
Speaker 1: around when we we had issues. Yellow came to a
Speaker 1: couple of problems we had. We would you know back
Speaker 1: to the day we went your ass for testing our
Speaker 1: posters down. We had an all little form of gang banging.
Speaker 1: You know you stressed up posting you flicking the ass
Speaker 1: with him. Okay. Record crew was known for putting them,
Speaker 1: putting them, putting the assle on the promoter's asked by
Speaker 1: our posters. But we didn't gang bang against gangbangers. We
Speaker 1: gang against promoters. Okay, and Drey we never we only
Speaker 1: I don't recall them ever being around that. I ain't
Speaker 1: saying he wouldn't do nothing. We never had to go
Speaker 1: there to find out. Put it that way. When I
Speaker 1: Skip was around you, was that during the CIA days
Speaker 1: with Sir Jinks. Yeah, yeah, they I when I got
Speaker 1: I got picked We got picked up with CBS. They
Speaker 1: actually to have another group. Technically I didn't, but I'm
Speaker 1: like she had been niggling hum the streets. Yeah, I
Speaker 1: gotta group holed on? How many five these motherfuckers? They
Speaker 1: had just took taking place at a rap contest that
Speaker 1: Katia gave over the world on wheels. And I knew
Speaker 1: Cuban in my song around the Pad a couple of times.
Speaker 1: And y'all want to get a record deal? Yeah yeah, yeah,
Speaker 1: So dre put together this song called She's the Skag
Speaker 1: in the studio, took it to Larking Arnold. He gave
Speaker 1: us a single deal. The ship lasted about you know,
Speaker 1: everybody was signed about the year. We both got dropped
Speaker 1: the next year. But then when we got dropped, we
Speaker 1: was all we was all the family by the end.
Speaker 1: So we went back to the studio. We did an
Speaker 1: EP and we changed the name from Stereo Crew to
Speaker 1: c I A. And then we dropped the house calls
Speaker 1: the EP. So who was on c just them too?
Speaker 1: It was Jens, Jens, Katie and ice Cube. Yeah, and
Speaker 1: then it actually put out an album. Now they just
Speaker 1: put out we just had a three songs EP because
Speaker 1: UM I was When I was talking with Greg mac
Speaker 1: he he said that uh, Sir Jenks was always paying
Speaker 1: a lot of good attention and he seemed like he
Speaker 1: was really trying to soak up all the games, the
Speaker 1: music game at that time. What people don't understand is
Speaker 1: um Jinks was a big part of the Long Beach connection.
Speaker 1: My boy Kelvin Anderson v I P. Long Beach bought
Speaker 1: um uh SP twelve Huntred and Jinks ran that thing
Speaker 1: because he saw Dre doing it. He took the same
Speaker 1: concept down the Long Beach with the v I P. So, Yeah, Jinks,
Speaker 1: Um he had skills. Yeah. I think he's kind of underrated,
Speaker 1: very much under It's a lot of underrated cats. When
Speaker 1: you've got somebody's biggest dray quick is the underrated cat
Speaker 1: out of Compton one of my favorite cats. He's but
Speaker 1: he's underrated, quick, quick, quick, He's underrated. But because everybody
Speaker 1: under the umbrella love Dre okay, so you know, and
Speaker 1: to come from that same Warren g same thing. All
Speaker 1: these cats come from that same um brolla. But you
Speaker 1: knows what it is. So what is it that makes
Speaker 1: Dre just so unique? Is it the way he samples
Speaker 1: old songs, the way he listens to these old vinyls
Speaker 1: and brings in the life with the modern hip hop
Speaker 1: flayer to it. Drey has. Drey has a great ear
Speaker 1: as a DJ, and he when he DJ with me,
Speaker 1: he had a great ear at the DJ and he
Speaker 1: learned to not just sample, recreate. So you got to
Speaker 1: understand also that a lot of the players that was
Speaker 1: on Ruthless came from my neighborhood. Standy guitar man, we
Speaker 1: actually cut this cast line. I was a kid l
Speaker 1: a Dre Western Peace. He was from the neighborhood. We
Speaker 1: all from that Cintennio um uh the avalon Offegundo neighborhood.
Speaker 1: And we had, you know, we had he had. He
Speaker 1: had the ability to get with players, but most cats didn't.
Speaker 1: Everything he couldn't do he has somebody that can do it.
Speaker 1: You know, Drey wasn't a um. Dre wasn't. They had
Speaker 1: a group called the Torture Chamber. You know, l Adre
Speaker 1: had a group called Torture Chamber. He worked with Ice Cube,
Speaker 1: but some other folks on. But he also l Adre
Speaker 1: was a musician, so he knew other musicians. So when
Speaker 1: it came time to put things together, he knew what
Speaker 1: he knew. The phone calls to make and we want
Speaker 1: to reproduce this Leon, this Leon Haywood song. Okay, let
Speaker 1: me hear there. It is Luke that ship. Now you
Speaker 1: got a song. Andre had to h He worked with
Speaker 1: Donovan uh the engineer. Plus he we was doing wrecking
Speaker 1: crew stuff. He learned how to cut stuff, uh get
Speaker 1: the ship fat to Bernie Grabman. So he had a
Speaker 1: headstart and everybody else. Plus he was in my studio endlessly, endlessly.
Speaker 1: He would be in my studio all that sometime wake
Speaker 1: up to get you. I mean, I'm trying to get
Speaker 1: this b straight. There's this original studio that you have
Speaker 1: still exists. Yeah, not that the room does not, not
Speaker 1: the equipment, but we could walk there and yesterday where
Speaker 1: all the magic had he was there yesterday. Yeah yeah.
Speaker 1: Let me ask you if if Easy would have never
Speaker 1: started rapping, which he was never intended to, which that
Speaker 1: shows in the movie, you think n w A would
Speaker 1: have been successful. I have the rep besides Easy, Cute okay,
Speaker 1: Cuban Wren were the best spiders to me, and ran
Speaker 1: as an underrated rapper. I thought Random used to spend
Speaker 1: some of the best bars. But the one thing about Easy,
Speaker 1: Easy with the character okay, easy with to put he
Speaker 1: put on them goddamn u straight jackets, and Easy would
Speaker 1: do all kind of crazy ship and the easy one
Speaker 1: on the Arsenio Hall Show and putting that goddamn roll
Speaker 1: with barefoot. Okay, he did that just for the hell
Speaker 1: of what you're thinking about, man, I mean, I just
Speaker 1: ask him fun. But I'll send your hall clown his feet.
Speaker 1: Look at the video. I'll send your hall clown his
Speaker 1: feaking Easy don't wear. He don't wear heartthrow shoes. So
Speaker 1: the nickn feed as flat as fun. They almost wear
Speaker 1: at the bottom. Okay, the like dreds, they don't wear.
Speaker 1: We're at tennis. She was too long. You lose your
Speaker 1: fucking arts and your feet gets flat as fucking okay.
Speaker 1: So when he put them feet up on the damn
Speaker 1: on the on the on the pedestal, there ar Cenio
Speaker 1: cloudy and he put them down. Oh man, she didn't
Speaker 1: have my feet, you know, you know, and all I
Speaker 1: said said was feature this funny thing. Easy immediately got
Speaker 1: self conscious because at the first time he pulls something
Speaker 1: off and he walked out there in the rope. Everybody
Speaker 1: thought it was cool. But then he got cloud on
Speaker 1: the feet, you know. Then he got cocky with talk
Speaker 1: talking about the drede the thing. Do you think that
Speaker 1: you and Roger will maybe ever collaborate on a project together? Die?
Speaker 1: Is that brand still around the one of my one
Speaker 1: of my partners? Uh? Is he's still He finally got
Speaker 1: the name copyright or either copywritten or he gotta he
Speaker 1: gotta protected somebody from a fashion Yet so back then
Speaker 1: they never copyrit the names ain't come on. I think
Speaker 1: it's just dead ship. Yeah, and you know, um, we
Speaker 1: you know, we didn't We didn't have no domains and
Speaker 1: nothing like that, so we you know, we wouldn't worry
Speaker 1: about the Internet, and Internet has been advantage yet, so
Speaker 1: you know, it just was you just did some ship.
Speaker 1: You know z cars and you know you just stole
Speaker 1: some you know, Uncle James Army was stolen from George Clinton's.
Speaker 1: Yet it's an album, said uncle James, Abby want you
Speaker 1: they stole that ship? Yeah, you know, it wasn't an album.
Speaker 1: It wasn't a group of nothing, so it wasn't a
Speaker 1: big trip. And then he took it a man with it,
Speaker 1: and you know, his his disdained for us, you know,
Speaker 1: drove him to want to be the biggest promoter. I
Speaker 1: just never wanted to be the biggest promoter. I just
Speaker 1: want to be a club owner, and that's what I was.
Speaker 1: I've owned six night clubs in the last patch forty years.
Speaker 1: Just retired from that game this year and ain't going back.
Speaker 1: So what are your your plans now? Um? Actually I
Speaker 1: want to ask you about this, Like the music is
Speaker 1: significantly changed with the Internet and with streaming, and you
Speaker 1: don't really go buy CDs and cassettes no more. I
Speaker 1: don't think we buy anything anymore. It's pretty much all free.
Speaker 1: It's all about touring, merchandizing and creating a persona that
Speaker 1: the people want to see. Uh, how do you look
Speaker 1: at how the music changed with the with the advent
Speaker 1: of the Internet and social media. We know what, man,
Speaker 1: everything changes, and like I tell people, a lot of
Speaker 1: these cats would not be superstars if people had to
Speaker 1: go to the record store and actually buy the ship. Okay, yeah,
Speaker 1: you know, if you had to go to the record
Speaker 1: store and buy a lot of this ship right now,
Speaker 1: it never would have got off the ground. But because
Speaker 1: SoundCloud and the other other various platforms have a way
Speaker 1: of if you type a little Wayne music, anything that's
Speaker 1: sound on a little Wayne come right behind it. So
Speaker 1: you've got guys getting streams and plays they normally wouldn't got.
Speaker 1: Would wouldn't wouldn't would have gotten if you had to
Speaker 1: go somebody had to play on the regular radio station.
Speaker 1: You know what I'm saying. Oh yeah, So so with
Speaker 1: the advent of the internet and social media, Okay, you're
Speaker 1: actually saying that people have to go buy their records,
Speaker 1: some of these people want to be started out. Man,
Speaker 1: it would be that would that be started if you
Speaker 1: had to go out and go to v I P.
Speaker 1: Hitting your car and go buy the feet that's the
Speaker 1: actual physical product, the cassette. Because you know, people don't
Speaker 1: make albums no more. And most of these casts got
Speaker 1: singles that blow up on the internet. But again, if
Speaker 1: you had to go spend your hard earned money on
Speaker 1: this ship, you probably wouldn't do it. That's pretty one.
Speaker 1: That's a radical change in the music company because what
Speaker 1: you're basically saying is that some weak mofos can blow
Speaker 1: ups have blown up ship. Let's keep it real, man. Yeah,
Speaker 1: if you don't want to be I don't call me ship.
Speaker 1: Y'all know, for your stuff, some weak motherfucker to blowed up.
Speaker 1: Let me ask you about this as a as a
Speaker 1: DJ and someone that will you probably, I'm assuming you
Speaker 1: had techniques turn. Every time I go to a party
Speaker 1: an event when there's a DJ, there's no more turntables.
Speaker 1: It's I don't even know what these things are. They're
Speaker 1: a little tiny, ye little I don't know if they're CD.
Speaker 1: I don't know what it is of little tiny spinners.
Speaker 1: And I always check out the DJ and laptops. Yeah, laptops,
Speaker 1: loptops and a little controller. Yeah, I mean, it's part
Speaker 1: of the evolution. It's changing. But I do miss seeing
Speaker 1: someone dropped that needle on the on the record and
Speaker 1: then you know, transition to the second record. Most of
Speaker 1: these gas laptops go out and go down. You gotta
Speaker 1: call them the DJ quick if you have good you can't.
Speaker 1: A lot of these niggas turn tables they would know
Speaker 1: what to do with and they probably try to eat
Speaker 1: off of them. You know, I never actually figured out,
Speaker 1: like what what is the DJ doing that with? With
Speaker 1: the laptop and this digital equipment? You know what? Man,
Speaker 1: as a DJ, you can do a lot. You have
Speaker 1: a lot more flexibility because you basically can edit the
Speaker 1: song or edit your edit your uh, your your performance
Speaker 1: right there live because you got the buttons and quick
Speaker 1: start buttons and hot the hot hot spot buttons, whatever
Speaker 1: the case may be. And that allows you to get
Speaker 1: those little bu the stet of steps and sometimes some
Speaker 1: of the other stuff, and you can loop a lot easier.
Speaker 1: I mean, that's you unless you be more creative. The
Speaker 1: creativity it's a different kind of creativity. It's it's a
Speaker 1: digital creativity. Whereas you got cats like Joe Cooley Egyptian
Speaker 1: Lover that you know, backs being record, welcome backwards the
Speaker 1: whole nine yards. They you ever see a real cat
Speaker 1: go down like battle Cat, battle Cat can get out
Speaker 1: on both of them turntables and um a platform, a
Speaker 1: digital platform, I mean you got these guys mixed with
Speaker 1: the elbows. You've got guys like Bob Cat, one of
Speaker 1: the cats. I've got this guy's name, damn it out
Speaker 1: of Compton Man, one of the baddest boys ever, one
Speaker 1: of the first casts out of Compton to win the
Speaker 1: the DJ Award Show. I didn't uh New York. Damn.
Speaker 1: I can't think of his name. Um anyway, he elbows,
Speaker 1: chins everything. So that was the platform that I grew
Speaker 1: up on. That's those are the guys I learned to
Speaker 1: respect digital platforms. That's cool, don't get me wrong, but
Speaker 1: it's just, you know, it's different. You know you mentioned
Speaker 1: makola earlier. I always wondered why mccola didn't become like
Speaker 1: an actual record company because they had all this talent
Speaker 1: here in l A. Which I guess they were just
Speaker 1: the presser's right, they just pressed vinyl. Mccola was a
Speaker 1: pressing plant. He used to be uh work there was
Speaker 1: it should be a pressing planted called Cadet Records or
Speaker 1: on slaws in the Normandy about that far from swapped meat.
Speaker 1: They had a big plant there. Mcdim McMillan was the
Speaker 1: uh he was deforming there when they shut that down.
Speaker 1: Was when seventy eights died, they shut that down. He
Speaker 1: turned it to a to a twelve inch company on
Speaker 1: Santa Monica and he was just pressing records because he
Speaker 1: knew how to press records right. His cat named Duffy Hooks,
Speaker 1: which is he's passed on the Also Duffy new distribution
Speaker 1: independent distribution. Independent distribution is different from major distribution. Back
Speaker 1: in the day, they had people all over the country
Speaker 1: that specialized in independent artists. It's like they had independent
Speaker 1: radio stations. So you had independent radio stations that would
Speaker 1: play independent artists. So the independent distributors in the independent
Speaker 1: labels had their own little underground that they can make
Speaker 1: records because nikel sell records. Because the big boys like
Speaker 1: the care Earth and the Kids their films, they wouldn't
Speaker 1: messing with independents. They only mess with the majors. So
Speaker 1: Duffy understood that platform Don. He convinced Don started doing
Speaker 1: distribution and it was it was like a cash and
Speaker 1: carry situation. And then hip hop came right behind that, okay,
Speaker 1: And when hip hop came took mclan to the next level.
Speaker 1: But Don was a thief. He didn't see pass. You know,
Speaker 1: some people only, some people only have short term vision.
Speaker 1: He'd rather eat the seed than let the seed turned
Speaker 1: into a fruit and eat the whole harvest. Let me. Actually,
Speaker 1: this could could have McCulla been turned into what Death
Speaker 1: Row became if they had a different business model of
Speaker 1: thinking about growing artists, managing artists and on that level. Yeah,
Speaker 1: but Don wasn't a got to run it though. You know,
Speaker 1: Don had some other partners coming at one time, and
Speaker 1: they were some record guys, but they were some different
Speaker 1: kind of cats. And he ever seen uh what you
Speaker 1: call that ship um good good fellows. He had some
Speaker 1: good fellows type cats coming there, and they ran his
Speaker 1: bill up and broke his ship down and put his
Speaker 1: ass into bankruptcy on me about four hundred thousand dollars
Speaker 1: at the potential. But he, you know, he tried to
Speaker 1: you know, can everybody start Once they realized he was stealing,
Speaker 1: everybody started leaving l A Dream team went to UH
Speaker 1: went to some went to Universal Record Crew went to
Speaker 1: UH Sony. We were the first one to leave. He
Speaker 1: had time Max Social Club, Egypt left, dred M left,
Speaker 1: and everybody started leaving. And then he called in some
Speaker 1: help with some more money, got himself into too much debt,
Speaker 1: and then they just liquidated the ship. By that time,
Speaker 1: me and my fellows l a dream team Egyptian Lover,
Speaker 1: Unknown DJ and myself we formed the own distribution company
Speaker 1: called West Coast Record Distributors, and we started doing our
Speaker 1: own thing and UH we we We were popping for
Speaker 1: about a year, maybe eighteen months, and uh grossed over
Speaker 1: a million dollars the first year, and Nigga's Egos took
Speaker 1: over and that ship defunct. Also, egos and money don't
Speaker 1: never mix. Damn Death Row is probably a great example
Speaker 1: of that example. You know. Yeah, that was I was
Speaker 1: telling uh Norman yesterday. That was one of the situations
Speaker 1: if somebody had to pull six chain and let nigger
Speaker 1: you want sit down, be cool. You win in okay,
Speaker 1: And if you don't know when you win, you're gonna
Speaker 1: keep playing the same game over and over again, and
Speaker 1: you gonna end up running yourself into a whole. That
Speaker 1: was one of my biggest regrets, not not like really
Speaker 1: pulling him to the side and getting that right. I
Speaker 1: got any but I didn't check this out. You're doing this.
Speaker 1: But Sugar had his own mind, and if sug shut down.
Speaker 1: He knew he missed something right he was he was
Speaker 1: just just a worker, horlid, and he mixed that with
Speaker 1: with his pleasure and everything else all that want. So
Speaker 1: she was really a tired cat because it was every
Speaker 1: day if he went to sleep. Just say, for instance,
Speaker 1: she got on the plane, that's where he slept. When
Speaker 1: you hear that the wh was here the ground, she
Speaker 1: was upstanding up, ready to get out of there to
Speaker 1: do what he had to do. So mixing business with
Speaker 1: pleasure because when he first started, my whole thing that
Speaker 1: should was you don't need to be taking pictures. You
Speaker 1: don't need to be over here doing this. And you know,
Speaker 1: I mean, we was getting everything like going to Ruthless Records,
Speaker 1: getting the Jerry didn't those contracts for Dre and Mr La.
Speaker 1: You don't have to go, you know what I'm saying.
Speaker 1: But he had to go because he had he knew
Speaker 1: how to talk to you. And when he went in
Speaker 1: there with Jerry close though, y'all do y'all thing. You
Speaker 1: know what I'm saying, she will came out of there
Speaker 1: with what he wants. But after he got what he wants,
Speaker 1: she was was totally different. So she had different mentality
Speaker 1: totally and and even on a relaxed time, just ting
Speaker 1: it should had to be this dude, you know what
Speaker 1: I'm saying, He couldn't stop moving and and and his
Speaker 1: downfall was was drugs and drinking. He didn't do none
Speaker 1: of that ship at the beginning. So when he introduced
Speaker 1: that ship to his daily routine, it's over. You know
Speaker 1: what I'm saying. Man with the homies, you know what
Speaker 1: I'm saying. None of the homies can do what you do.
Speaker 1: What you're doing. You know what I'm saying, you should
Speaker 1: they do exactly, And a lot of people get get
Speaker 1: that wrong misconception of it. You know, when I say
Speaker 1: Tupac was not a game banger, shouldn't have been looked
Speaker 1: at as a game banging. He's an artist with his
Speaker 1: money and him working, none of us gonna get paid.
Speaker 1: You gotta protect that cat. That's when you protect. So
Speaker 1: I see where you at. And and you know, but
Speaker 1: I think, man, i'd have had a contract with draining
Speaker 1: them or something contracts with them, but they was you know,
Speaker 1: they was expired. I mean, it's it's real hard to
Speaker 1: it's hard to explain it, especially retroactive. It's like somebody said, man,
Speaker 1: how could you sell that stamp that stand for worth
Speaker 1: ten million dollars? Let's stand with birthday? Nine said, when
Speaker 1: I bought the motherfucker was only worth today nine cent.
Speaker 1: I bought the motherfucker from from the boast office. I
Speaker 1: licked at something to put on the goddamn letter nine
Speaker 1: ain't worth ship. But you know somebody had dollar's worth
Speaker 1: thirty million dollars. Okay, you don't know that. Okay, I
Speaker 1: mean how many acts had come through My Dre hadn't
Speaker 1: developed this year. We hadn't had no big hits yet.
Speaker 1: When Drey left, the only the best thing, best thing
Speaker 1: Dre left me was turned off the lights turned off
Speaker 1: lights had even hits yet, and we broke up. They
Speaker 1: didn't want to do turn off lights. Record Crew was
Speaker 1: such a uh groundbreaking group. Man in n w A
Speaker 1: was right behind them. We did the When Record Crew
Speaker 1: first came out, we didn't perform with other acts. There
Speaker 1: was no other action perform with on the on the
Speaker 1: West coast. We didn't see no real acts and um
Speaker 1: no other actions until maybe a year after we started
Speaker 1: doing that thing. Then we started performing with cats like
Speaker 1: Rapping Duke l A dream team in Egyptian lover, but
Speaker 1: that was all local. We were go on tour. We
Speaker 1: was touring with the Barcades Mary Jane girls more than
Speaker 1: the time, so we didn't have the option of wearing
Speaker 1: jeans and sweatshirts and tennis shoes and ship. We had
Speaker 1: to look like the cats we were playing with. And
Speaker 1: then the ship shifted from the east because the first
Speaker 1: the East was Mellie mil and Curtis Blow and Mulicole
Speaker 1: Modico Modi was leather every day run uh uh. Curtis
Speaker 1: Blow always wore something fly okay, and Mellie Mill and
Speaker 1: uh previous five the niggas was wearing feathers. Okay, I
Speaker 1: ain't wearing no motherfucking feathers. Okay. Then Marcus looking like Indians.
Speaker 1: Fuck that that louds am ain't doing that ship. So
Speaker 1: we had our all little West Coast flavor. That's why
Speaker 1: we came up with the sequence and the Jerry curls.
Speaker 1: And because it was the eighties, nigger was a little
Speaker 1: outline and I ain't I ain't nigga, I ain't in
Speaker 1: the shame none of that ship. Okay. That was the
Speaker 1: motherfucking eight these okay, do print. We were sucking with
Speaker 1: Martha at the time. Okay, we uh bark. Then when
Speaker 1: when Nigga's barks, what diaper man ship? Okay, we fresh
Speaker 1: at the George Clinton. The niggers had had yarn and
Speaker 1: they harried ship. So we're in a different era, okay,
Speaker 1: and it's real hard. Gangsters wasn't even around in Okay,
Speaker 1: even the gang bankers I knew, was the cleanest things
Speaker 1: in the set. To be a gangster back in the day,
Speaker 1: nigger had to be he had to be stacy down
Speaker 1: iron iron. It was like being in the military. Okay,
Speaker 1: the gangsters was the cleanest niggers around. Tell me if
Speaker 1: I'm right wrong. Before when Crack came in and the
Speaker 1: gangster started to make some money to the impact what
Speaker 1: you was doing, hell yeah, it fucked everything up. Okay
Speaker 1: because now understand how crack not only fucked up my business,
Speaker 1: but it fucked up the hood because you got mama's
Speaker 1: back up. My mama was one of the most respected
Speaker 1: people in my hood. When I was about fifteen, I
Speaker 1: walked past the boys in the hood, Mr Fellas, they're
Speaker 1: smoking cigarette not weed. Cigarettes. I got. I lived on
Speaker 1: the hill, walked down the hill, saw the nigga smoking cigarettes,
Speaker 1: kicking with him, go home. I smell like cigarettes, smoke.
Speaker 1: My mama walked me and my cigarette smoking the ass
Speaker 1: backing up the hill and told all of them, nigga,
Speaker 1: I mean you didn't come to look. Damn, my boy
Speaker 1: can't become on my smelling like cigarettes. Blah blah blah blah. Yes,
Speaker 1: Smith Williams, Yes, Smith Williams, Yes, MTh Williams. We went
Speaker 1: home and every time when nigga saw me, if they
Speaker 1: were smoking cigarettes, nigga across the street. I want to
Speaker 1: hear mama's mouth in the eighties, in the eighties, them saying,
Speaker 1: niggas at your house, kicking them with your mama. Your
Speaker 1: mama is cooking crack for these same niggas. Your mama
Speaker 1: might be sucking dick for crack. How are you gonna
Speaker 1: keep respect for your mama's like you see, the ship changed, man.
Speaker 1: So if your mama, if you come home and your
Speaker 1: mama is geting in with the homies, your MoMA getting
Speaker 1: smashed by one of the homies, you got a different
Speaker 1: attitude about your mom. Okay, And all that ship is
Speaker 1: is a byproduct of the crack era. Dot you know.
Speaker 1: So you got then you got the grown men in
Speaker 1: the hood who you know is doing ship for crack.
Speaker 1: How young nigg gonna respect the old nigga if you know,
Speaker 1: if I know you're out there, you're sucker. Niggas dick
Speaker 1: for crack. Okay, these are the kind of ship they cracked,
Speaker 1: funked up. So you got your young kids, got to
Speaker 1: become responsible because the parents is on crack and you
Speaker 1: know all that, all that that that that devastation man
Speaker 1: would come from the eighties. And then cats had to
Speaker 1: piece up together because now we always had crack. We've
Speaker 1: always had dope and gangs in the black community. The
Speaker 1: gangs initially was fighting the white boys spook hunters ship
Speaker 1: like that out of Lyndwood, And it wasn't until the
Speaker 1: seventies and they started fighting each other. But when the
Speaker 1: crack came around, nigga's gotta be to kill each other.
Speaker 1: It's a whole different thing. You put money in that scenario,
Speaker 1: you got you got niggas like I think I'm getting
Speaker 1: ten thousand a week. You're gonna come taking you You're
Speaker 1: gonna die, Okay. So then you got shortly after that,
Speaker 1: you got here, you got some theme music like nothing
Speaker 1: nothing like nothing else. Okay, you got n W A
Speaker 1: and various other groups given Crack Dealer's theme music when
Speaker 1: when I was coming, when I was coming up, the
Speaker 1: Black Man, the Black Revolutionaries had the theme music, Okay,
Speaker 1: the Panthers had the theme music with flyod Stone and
Speaker 1: Curtis Mayfield. People getting ready to change is coming. Keep
Speaker 1: your head up like that. That's what I was raised on.
Speaker 1: So it's hard for me to go from you know,
Speaker 1: keep your head up to fucking you know, uh, whatever
Speaker 1: the case may be. It's a different mindset. That's just
Speaker 1: a change with time. But like you were saying, when
Speaker 1: the crack came, being in the hood was totally different.
Speaker 1: Catch you grew up with from day one, you know,
Speaker 1: you disrespecting them. You know, you go to first we
Speaker 1: all hang at one house. Now I got to crank niggas.
Speaker 1: Can't come through it anymore because I'm on something else.
Speaker 1: Then you got the homie, got the daddy out there,
Speaker 1: pops out there doing this thing. So the kids left
Speaker 1: at home, you know what I'm saying, So they we
Speaker 1: we could do whatever, well we want to do, you
Speaker 1: know what I'm saying. So it definitely tore us down
Speaker 1: it took the respect that that that we have for
Speaker 1: each other, because if you make it more to me,
Speaker 1: you might you thinking totally different from me. I'm gonna
Speaker 1: set you up so you don't have this. I'm jealous
Speaker 1: now you know what I'm saying. And now you're getting
Speaker 1: all the pretty chicks. Now you got this car. Oh no,
Speaker 1: this ain't gonna happen. Right My status is is stronger
Speaker 1: than his. I've been in the hood, loaner than this
Speaker 1: cat while you got this like that, that's what it
Speaker 1: rung to the neighborhood. So it just to everything. And
Speaker 1: then you hear about its being found at dumpsters and
Speaker 1: trunks of cars, and said, may come on, dude, I
Speaker 1: mean that this is the kind of ship that I'm like.
Speaker 1: Nd you know, you hear about your boy. That was
Speaker 1: a ship right here about your boy who so so
Speaker 1: if I'm just asking the trunk, they get three three
Speaker 1: in their head. No ship. They wasn't doing DJs like that.
Speaker 1: They wouldn't do a club owners like that, you know.
Speaker 1: So for me that was like, okay, I ain't funking
Speaker 1: with this right here. There was that club owner that
Speaker 1: got killed the Balling Hills a few years and that
Speaker 1: was a boy boy from from Dynasty. Yeah, and his
Speaker 1: name was Alone though too. Somebody just pulled up on
Speaker 1: it in front of his house. His stepson. Man, it's
Speaker 1: motherfucker's step son. That's what the cameras trying to step
Speaker 1: son steps step So that's that's that's what the rumor was.
Speaker 1: The stepson. Uh, because he was a cool dude pimp type,
Speaker 1: you know, blah blah blah. But you know the stepson
Speaker 1: wanted something the morning he could give it and you
Speaker 1: know when they could take to take T three right here.
Speaker 1: You probably cover this in your book, not without Alonso
Speaker 1: for those who want to get his books. But the
Speaker 1: Wrecking Crew tree of music has so many people coming
Speaker 1: out of it for at least ten years or more,
Speaker 1: um because I would say death Throw was part of
Speaker 1: that branch brand. Just break it down for all those
Speaker 1: people who may not know what what did the Wrecking
Speaker 1: Crew spawn musically record record Cruise spawn n W A
Speaker 1: ice cube ship fifty cent eminem Kendrick Lamar Uh the
Speaker 1: seed you're gonna lamar? You got Kendrick from Compton, You
Speaker 1: got DJ Quick from Compton. DJ Quick would tell you, man,
Speaker 1: I would I used to watch Lions even I mean
Speaker 1: a dudos and I was fourteen years old. Okay, uh
Speaker 1: Kendrick Damar, he worked with Dre Okay, so that Dre
Speaker 1: Kendrick DeMar watching Dre in Tupac on the swap meat
Speaker 1: doing uh doing with California love. You know that was
Speaker 1: the influence. So then you got uh jj fag you
Speaker 1: know that. That's another situation. Afroman with one of my
Speaker 1: boy I got. I found a video of Afro recently
Speaker 1: when he was when the a for a wig and
Speaker 1: one of my one of my showcases. So Afromn another
Speaker 1: brother who who at school back in the day, still
Speaker 1: doing great. He was doing this thing before we was
Speaker 1: even legal, and when he such a big publishing deal
Speaker 1: that naked straight. You know he's straight. He's still hustling himself.
Speaker 1: I told him talked about to stay independent. He stayed independent.
Speaker 1: He still get his money. He's still doing great. Okay,
Speaker 1: um DJ pool d DJ, I say quick, um. I
Speaker 1: got a whole bunch of men with in my book.
Speaker 1: There's a there's a chart and I missed a couple
Speaker 1: of guys. I got cutted. Think it went out to me. Okay,
Speaker 1: battle Cat, battle Cat came to me when he was
Speaker 1: seventeen years old. He replaced Dred when Drey left go
Speaker 1: on the wrecking crew. So anything battle Cat came came
Speaker 1: the Battlecat to put to put his hands on. It
Speaker 1: is a direct descendant, you know. It's it's a it's
Speaker 1: like any other down line of a family tree, you know.
Speaker 1: Between my group, my company, Crew Cut Records, my Club
Speaker 1: After Dark, and me personally. All these things have spawned
Speaker 1: from uh what I did, what I did, or what
Speaker 1: either what I did or what I owned. The Barnes
Speaker 1: from Pump It Up was at my house when they
Speaker 1: called her and told hey, come, you know you got
Speaker 1: the job. She had a group. My roommate uh at
Speaker 1: the time was Rose Hutchinson. They had a group called
Speaker 1: Body and Soul. They on Delicious Vinyl. On Delicious Vinyl.
Speaker 1: I remember when they were kind of popping during the
Speaker 1: um that that was one of the craziest ship And
Speaker 1: I saw what happened to them. Man, Uh, do you
Speaker 1: know the Delicious Vinyl story? No, but I know the road.
Speaker 1: I know the Body and Soul story. And I saw
Speaker 1: what happened to them because they came out they was
Speaker 1: trying to uh package them at the West Coast Salt
Speaker 1: and Pepper. They had the geometric haircut and the short
Speaker 1: dresses in the whole nine yards. Well, the girls Gold
Speaker 1: and Me were queen the Tifa up in New York.
Speaker 1: And then they changed their whole vide become back when
Speaker 1: the Kentee cloth and ship and they've already done the
Speaker 1: album and when they did their video and that uh
Speaker 1: more powers the caldin't take cloth stuff. You never heard
Speaker 1: from him again. That's let's me know, and let me
Speaker 1: know there back then the Directord companies ain't ship that.
Speaker 1: All they want to sell the sex. Okay, this is
Speaker 1: they're both were good looking girls, okay, and when they
Speaker 1: want to do something that was gonna be positive made
Speaker 1: with that you couldn't back in the days, you couldn't
Speaker 1: be fat. You couldn't have a chin if you ain't sexy.
Speaker 1: And and and now they they they groom you for it.
Speaker 1: But now you see fat women, you know, you know Lizzo,
Speaker 1: Liz Lizzo, she she did for big girls with Biggie,
Speaker 1: different big dudes when Biggie came out back in the day,
Speaker 1: you know Biggie, because everybody at that time was what
Speaker 1: it was big, It was big Marquis or the fat boys. Okay.
Speaker 1: He was one of the first cats from that era
Speaker 1: that was being taken serious. That was a big dude, okay.
Speaker 1: He you know, he was the Bostilono hats and and
Speaker 1: the suits and the Gucci ship and big, big, big,
Speaker 1: big g he he became the poster child for big dudes.
Speaker 1: And I remember that. I remember laughing about this because
Speaker 1: I remember seeing Nigga's coming to the club. I had
Speaker 1: a club, uh currently Fair in Inglewood and niggers come
Speaker 1: into just like Biggie Smalls. Okay. But Lizzo was doing
Speaker 1: the same thing for big girls, big girls. You know,
Speaker 1: big girls always they always had people that love big girls.
Speaker 1: But she's putting them out front. She's like the spokesperson.
Speaker 1: Now you know it's working for now. What's so incredible
Speaker 1: about the branch of wreck and Crew in the chart
Speaker 1: that you have in your in your book, James, is
Speaker 1: the value that they've created during this period, and it's
Speaker 1: got to be in the billions billions it's got. It's
Speaker 1: definitely over a billion billions, probably over to probably pushing
Speaker 1: three billions. And what came out all starting from the
Speaker 1: Wrecking Crew and that crazy I'm not eaggerating that billions. Culturally,
Speaker 1: you're worth billions culturally. I tried to spend that ship.
Speaker 1: Literally that my check boun but I tried to spend
Speaker 1: my cumft about you. Oh yeah, but yeah culturally for
Speaker 1: what you contributed to the West Coast scene, it's worth um,
Speaker 1: you know, maybe one day I'm a I'm a quantifyed this,
Speaker 1: like what you're thinking about. If trades were eight hundred
Speaker 1: fifty millions by itself, everybody was what was death row
Speaker 1: at the type worth James, If you're several hundred millions,
Speaker 1: there we go. That's one point. We hadn't even talked
Speaker 1: about a bunch of other people and all that. I
Speaker 1: don't know if Yellow knew got it like that, but
Speaker 1: just whatever Yellow Man in the porn industry. That's another
Speaker 1: branch of the crew, right, that's true. Well, it's definitely history.
Speaker 1: I mean you're still at the house where they was
Speaker 1: all there, and I mean that's just like having Motown
Speaker 1: pretty much. Man. That's like motown, man. You can go
Speaker 1: back and revisit where it all started, like like the
Speaker 1: tempt you know all of them, you see how they
Speaker 1: do it. All these guys was created or did something
Speaker 1: at your house in the basement in the garage. Just
Speaker 1: wish I was there and I was able to do
Speaker 1: what was crazy though, Man, my neighbor he did. He
Speaker 1: did the next door to us, to me all this time,
Speaker 1: he never knew nothing about this ship. He went to
Speaker 1: college for a while, he said, he soa Australia content.
Speaker 1: He said, Man, you guys are doing this at the house.
Speaker 1: Try the only person knew about what we did with
Speaker 1: my neighbor across the street. He always call the cops
Speaker 1: on us, because at that time, that's when Catherine just
Speaker 1: came out with the banking systems, and they had the
Speaker 1: big wolfers and ship, and they would always go out
Speaker 1: in front of the house and pop them, got them
Speaker 1: canssetts in there and turn the ship up. And she
Speaker 1: called the cops on us every fucking time. So there
Speaker 1: must have been a lot of traffics coming in and
Speaker 1: out with the neighbors. One like why it was like
Speaker 1: which I had one nosey ass neighbor, and she always
Speaker 1: would call the cops on us. He run in the studio.
Speaker 1: He got them I think he failed, dope. He got
Speaker 1: them boys over there. He got a jaguar in the
Speaker 1: cop one day, no ship the cop. I was sitting
Speaker 1: in my living room, one of my boys, one of
Speaker 1: my clown nests, buddies. Hey, man, police want to speak
Speaker 1: to you. Man. Fuck you, Lazo, the cops want to
Speaker 1: speak to you. Man. Quit funking with me. And I
Speaker 1: walked up east man, Lazo, the police want to speak
Speaker 1: to you. And I got nigger. The police ain't out
Speaker 1: there and show enough the cops. Hey, can I speak
Speaker 1: to you for a minute? And I knew the law already.
Speaker 1: The law is loans of the private studio. Ain't no problem?
Speaker 1: Heard you in the studio? Yeah, I sa, I'm a songwriter.
Speaker 1: I got a couple of hits. I gave him one
Speaker 1: of my albums. Oh, and I got guys come protend
Speaker 1: their songwriters too, Okay, no problems. I bought my house
Speaker 1: from Johnny Otis the Blue Singer. If you ever seen
Speaker 1: Um Cadillac Records. At the end of the movie when
Speaker 1: the homeboy died at the James crying right, he bought
Speaker 1: me a house. He loved me. Or the house is
Speaker 1: on the corner where I lived at James Lives in
Speaker 1: that neighborhood she lived. She looked the neighbor. She had
Speaker 1: one trim melted the house and I their own and
Speaker 1: the James was a friend of mine. So it's amazing. Man.
Speaker 1: People don't understand how intricate my ship is. Okay, and
Speaker 1: and I tell people this year, I tell you it's
Speaker 1: just historical tidbits. But Edie James was a personal friend
Speaker 1: of mine. But she also played the jeff Dy's actually
Speaker 1: had hell of the parties at her house back in
Speaker 1: the day. I would invite my daddy, should go, my dad,
Speaker 1: because like the motherfucker, I didn't go back then. But yeah,
Speaker 1: she has she had a nice pool kid, right, Yeah,
Speaker 1: but yeah, there was all the same neighborhood because at
Speaker 1: my house, Johnny Oldis old my house and he goes
Speaker 1: some blues history. You might see little esther um Johnny Oldess.
Speaker 1: Johnny Oldis was a Greek guy that passed for white
Speaker 1: or he passed for Creole, but he actually was a
Speaker 1: Greek and he had a label um. I forgot what
Speaker 1: it was called, but I still get notices for checks
Speaker 1: that artists that Johnny lived in the house and then
Speaker 1: the police killed you, love not too far from where
Speaker 1: you lived at that time. That was I live on
Speaker 1: I live on Hunt twenties. She lived, I think that
Speaker 1: was on ninety second. Wasn't far at all. It was
Speaker 1: a damn the same same police department that's for the hunting.
Speaker 1: They all right, Well leave us with some final thoughts
Speaker 1: before we wrap up this episode of The Gang to Chronicles.
Speaker 1: Oh man, you know what, um, I always got to
Speaker 1: promote by my projects, my nonprofit and Lyrical Revolution. Um.
Speaker 1: I work with a lot of cats, um, just getting
Speaker 1: out of jail, and they got skills. In fact, I
Speaker 1: was doing one of my sessions for I came out
Speaker 1: here and you know, one of my things always I've
Speaker 1: always been a cat, just like educating the folks. And
Speaker 1: I found a nonprofit called Lyrical Revolution Revolution Look Revolution
Speaker 1: dot org. I work with out of guys, constressed, fresh
Speaker 1: out of jail, who want to who got something to
Speaker 1: say for? You got something to say? I help you
Speaker 1: say it? Okay? I got my got my own podcast
Speaker 1: on YouTube. Uh n w A Stories with a Lionzo Williams. Uh,
Speaker 1: please subscribe and check it out? Um what else? Uh huh,
Speaker 1: I'm just YouTube n w A Story but Alonzo, that's
Speaker 1: the channel. The name of the channel, n w A
Speaker 1: Stories with a Lionzo on YouTube and my website on
Speaker 1: my Instagram is a real live n w A. If
Speaker 1: you want to email me same thing, n w THROW
Speaker 1: Real Alonso n w A at gmail. And uh, I'm
Speaker 1: just I'm doing my own documentary. I've been doing that
Speaker 1: for the last past two years and we're just starting
Speaker 1: to edit that right now. So that's also gonna be
Speaker 1: called in w A, not without Alonzo. So all right, well,
Speaker 1: I want to thank you for coming down and chopping
Speaker 1: it up with James and myself for another episode of
Speaker 1: The Gangster Chronicles. Really appreciate you coming through. And you
Speaker 1: can find James on Facebook at James McDonald the one
Speaker 1: with the red Harley as his icon, and you can
Speaker 1: also hit James McDonald up at B I G G
Speaker 1: J thirty six thirty six. He still has those shirts,
Speaker 1: so hit him up and get those death Row shirts
Speaker 1: at nine zero nine eight hundred zero four. And you
Speaker 1: can find me at Street TV or Street Gangs dot com.
Speaker 1: Just click on the contact link and send me your
Speaker 1: questions or comments. And I'm also on all social media
Speaker 1: platforms at Alex Alonso one zero one, and don't forget
Speaker 1: to check out Alonzo Williams at Lyrical Revolution dot org.
Speaker 1: He's also got a YouTube channel called n w A
Speaker 1: Stories with Alonso, and you can also find him on
Speaker 1: Instagram at Rio Alonso, n w A and We Are Out.
Speaker 1: This has been a digital Soapbus Network production.