Speaker 1: Of Course, Love Supreme is a production of iHeartRadio. This
Speaker 1: classic episode was produced by the team at Pandora. Ladies
Speaker 1: and gentlemen, Welcome to Part two of Dj Jazzy Jeff
Speaker 1: on QLs Classic.
Speaker 2: Now this is a little bit different.
Speaker 3: Part one was courtesy of August twenty eighteen. We didn't
Speaker 3: even get to part two until almost a full year later.
Speaker 3: So here we are May fifteenth, twenty nineteen, almost a
Speaker 3: year later, with the great DJ Jazzy Jeff Part two
Speaker 3: QLs Classic.
Speaker 4: Let's go.
Speaker 2: Were we even breathe in two thousand?
Speaker 5: Right?
Speaker 6: Sma roll suprima, supremo, roll suprima, so prevo suprimah should
Speaker 6: it seven?
Speaker 4: Yeah? And Jessie Jeff repequestion, Yeah, I can't agree.
Speaker 6: So suppriva roll called, Suprema Suprema roll call.
Speaker 4: My name is Fante.
Speaker 2: Yeah, and I'm just kicking.
Speaker 4: It yeah on ql S. Yeah, with the magnificent Roma.
Speaker 6: So supprevo roll call, Suprema so supremo.
Speaker 4: Roll called. My name is Sugar, Yeah, Yeah, I'm always high.
Speaker 5: Yeah.
Speaker 4: Can we interview? Yeah?
Speaker 2: This guy.
Speaker 6: Sore supriva roll call, supriva sou so.
Speaker 2: Suprema roll call. First you grabbed the hat Yeah, then
Speaker 2: you grip the hat.
Speaker 4: Yeah, then you flip the hat. Yeah, make sure it's
Speaker 4: a Scotter Cato Suprema Son.
Speaker 2: Some Supreva roll called.
Speaker 4: That was Upprema Son Son Supremo.
Speaker 6: Roll call.
Speaker 4: I'm on pay Bill.
Speaker 2: Yeah, don't get it silly. Yeah, how could today? Yeah
Speaker 2: anymore Philly roll.
Speaker 6: Call Sun Suprema roll Suprema Sun Sun Supremo. Roll call.
Speaker 5: Yeah back with Jeff. Yeah, a better Aquarius. Yeah, I
Speaker 5: ain't met one yet.
Speaker 4: Roll call.
Speaker 6: Supreme Supremo Supremo.
Speaker 4: Roll came. My name is Jeff. Yeah this is true. Yeah,
Speaker 4: I'm back on QLs. Yeah for part two.
Speaker 6: Roll call Supreva Sun Sun Supremo. Roll call Suprema Sun Supremo.
Speaker 6: Roll call Suprema Sun Sun Supremo. Roll call Suprema Sun
Speaker 6: So Supreme roll.
Speaker 4: Call starter cap Okay.
Speaker 2: Okay, other role all would have been something about nine Yeah.
Speaker 4: That one.
Speaker 2: Okay, all right soon bell Yo.
Speaker 7: Shout out to bost Bill, who made it explicitly clear
Speaker 7: that he didn't want any eating on this show.
Speaker 4: And yeah we know why, right, I should have Yeah,
Speaker 4: I should have listened.
Speaker 2: It was almost died call like we have this. Shout
Speaker 2: out to the studio.
Speaker 7: We're still at uh in our Philly pilgrimage where at
Speaker 7: the Milk Boy Studio aka the studio, and they're fancy
Speaker 7: cheese here and.
Speaker 4: Fancy cheese.
Speaker 7: There's something about there's something about when that organ shrill starts,
Speaker 7: there's a level of panic in the air, and like
Speaker 7: the intro, that's.
Speaker 2: That's some early QLs reference for our listeners.
Speaker 4: Yeah, and I heard it.
Speaker 7: Oh yeah, my my love for Latin quarter stories. Yes,
Speaker 7: when those drums happened, that means someone's getting their ass
Speaker 7: beat at the Latin quarter.
Speaker 4: When that when those rules come in.
Speaker 7: Yeah, but when I heard the organ thing, I was like, oh,
Speaker 7: I'm eating cheese. Oh I don't know, I'll swallow it
Speaker 7: real quick.
Speaker 4: And then that was it. I was choking. So this
Speaker 4: is a historical first, ladies and gentlemen, we have our
Speaker 4: first repeat guests knew this movement was happening, kind of wow, well, okay,
Speaker 4: half the people weren't here at the time when Jeff
Speaker 4: came before. So this is this is the full the
Speaker 4: full throttle Jazzy Jeff episode with all the members present.
Speaker 5: But would you like to tell them why we had
Speaker 5: to have a part two?
Speaker 4: Why we didn't even get the Will Smith. Yeah, Will
Speaker 4: Smith was not even interpart. Woo, So we can start
Speaker 4: like the Biggie record previously over. He did die? So, Jeff,
Speaker 4: you were five years old when you got your first
Speaker 4: All right, Jeff, so in nineteen seventy eight. All right?
Speaker 7: We ended talking about the DMC battle and how Jeff
Speaker 7: wanted to It's one.
Speaker 2: Of my favorite episodes.
Speaker 7: I actually wow, not only mind narcissistic, I'm also a
Speaker 7: sponge full of information.
Speaker 4: I remembered that.
Speaker 7: He used the wrong turn tables and still won the
Speaker 7: battle against was it DJ Cheese?
Speaker 4: Yes, okay Cheese, that's ironic. You used like a belt
Speaker 4: drawer direct? What was wrong? It was two setups and
Speaker 4: one of them wasn't acting right, and everybody that used
Speaker 4: that setup lost, and he dissed me, and I got
Speaker 4: mad and I wanted to beat him on the bad setup.
Speaker 4: So I did beat him. So I did it?
Speaker 2: He whoofed his ass? Yes? So then once you're crown king, uh,
Speaker 2: what happens?
Speaker 4: Like? I mean, they gave me a big cup and
Speaker 4: you like all of the all of the DMCs after
Speaker 4: that or the New Music seminars, they gave a belt
Speaker 4: and they gave me a cup. I mean I appreciate
Speaker 4: the cup.
Speaker 2: You know, first you take the cup. Yeah, but you
Speaker 2: know I can't. I came home.
Speaker 4: I can't. The funny thing is I came home and
Speaker 4: went straight to W Das because you know, did you cut?
Speaker 2: Did you cut? Is that the night that you cut? Baby,
Speaker 2: let's go go. You went to Das.
Speaker 4: This is in the eighties, and you stayed on the
Speaker 4: only thing that a musquite and you cut big chump beat,
Speaker 4: a big drum beater four minutes straight. And it's what
Speaker 4: they that wasn't me, No, no, no, no, you were
Speaker 4: cutting it for a street.
Speaker 2: Yes, you were cutting big jump.
Speaker 4: Yes.
Speaker 2: I don't know if it's after this night particular. No,
Speaker 2: I probably wasn't.
Speaker 4: Well, you know we we lived in d A, Yes,
Speaker 4: you know we we we had kind of had car
Speaker 4: blocks that you just kind of show up stop. Yeah.
Speaker 4: Yeahs was like that. I like that. Yeah, shout out
Speaker 4: to uh everyone a d s uh j Ones and
Speaker 4: and well j Ones.
Speaker 5: Is now uh uh uh he's like the record, he's
Speaker 5: a record.
Speaker 4: J Ones is now the right hand man of DJA. Yeah.
Speaker 5: But you know that was doing the workdays.
Speaker 4: That's great.
Speaker 7: I mean that had their Yeah Mixed show at Friday
Speaker 7: nights between like nine thirty and Cut Master Butter and
Speaker 7: uh cut What was his name, Lawrence Levon?
Speaker 4: Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.
Speaker 2: Uh, that's also the night that Larry he's a guy
Speaker 2: from Philly.
Speaker 4: Yeah.
Speaker 7: There's always these glorious names that if your name, if
Speaker 7: you're a French name in black, dude, you're that's quite glorious.
Speaker 2: So I guess we can start with how did you
Speaker 2: meet Will Smith?
Speaker 4: Oh? Okay, Well, you know, back back then, it wasn't
Speaker 4: uh like a bunch of really big groups, you know,
Speaker 4: it was it was everybody had a DJ on their
Speaker 4: block and then they we would all kind of get together,
Speaker 4: you know, at the wind the Hotel, Philadelphia, Wagoner's ball Room,
Speaker 4: just all of the spots in the city. So I
Speaker 4: knew of Will. I knew, you know, he was on
Speaker 4: the flyer with me for a couple of shows. So
Speaker 4: I knew the group that he was with, this group,
Speaker 4: the Hypnotic mcskay. Yeah, And it was crazy because this
Speaker 4: is kind of well it's not kind of this is
Speaker 4: pre cell phone, pre anything. This is like, yo, I
Speaker 4: got to call you in the cre If you don't answer,
Speaker 4: we're done, and somebody called me and said, hey, I
Speaker 4: got a party for you on fifty ninth in Woodcrest tonight.
Speaker 4: And I picked up the phone and I called Ice,
Speaker 4: who is my MC? And Ice wasn't in the house. Wow,
Speaker 4: And you know, I was like, okay, you know, I
Speaker 4: got to go and do it. So, you know, we
Speaker 4: jumped in the car. We drove up there. Come to
Speaker 4: find out there was two doors away from Will. So
Speaker 4: when I came and set up, of course, you know
Speaker 4: Will and I want to come down in the basement
Speaker 4: and kind of see who's doing the party, and then
Speaker 4: realized it was me. It was like, oh man. So
Speaker 4: he was like, hey, where's Ice. I was like I couldn't.
Speaker 4: I couldn't find you. He's like, yo, you mine if
Speaker 4: I rock, And I was like nah, And we got
Speaker 4: on and it was just it was a anybody who
Speaker 4: DJ's or anybody who raps for a good DJ knows
Speaker 4: that there's this chemistry and you know, I my brain
Speaker 4: works in bat alright, so I kind of know, like, listen,
Speaker 4: your fourth bar is going to be your punchline for you.
Speaker 4: So I'm kind of like, yo, I'll drop out or
Speaker 4: just do a scratch there and it was just but
Speaker 4: it was also Will with somebody that watched and was like, Okay,
Speaker 4: Jeff does this with this hand, and he does this
Speaker 4: with this hand. So he would tell me to do something,
Speaker 4: but he would always tell me to do it while
Speaker 4: I was on the opposite hand to set it up
Speaker 4: so for me to realize that he paid that much
Speaker 4: attention and then him realized that I paid that much attention.
Speaker 4: It was kind of like one of those things like
Speaker 4: I was like, Yo, this is the best night of
Speaker 4: my life and this is crazy, and what you're doing tomorrow?
Speaker 7: I got a party to do tomorrow and you know,
Speaker 7: so essentially you two are having an affair with each other.
Speaker 2: Yeah, oh absolutely. How do you tell your respective cruise?
Speaker 4: Well, how do you know?
Speaker 2: I don't know how he handled it.
Speaker 4: I know you know what it was.
Speaker 6: It was.
Speaker 4: It was a couple of shows that Will and Ice
Speaker 4: did together and you could definitely tell the difference. Is
Speaker 4: there an age difference between the two.
Speaker 2: Ice might be a little bit maybe two years older
Speaker 2: than Will. Hmmm, so is that dog years and years?
Speaker 4: Like no, no, no, no, no, no, Well you gotta
Speaker 4: understand this was so early. You know, it might have
Speaker 4: been twenty rap records out period, so we're not even
Speaker 4: talking about the Rutgers. We're just talking about everybody. It was,
Speaker 4: you know, it was a main cruise in Philly, right,
Speaker 4: and it was just kind of like what year is
Speaker 4: by the way, eighty five?
Speaker 2: Okay, eighty five? And it was it was notice was
Speaker 2: it eighty five?
Speaker 4: Yeah? It was eighty five. You're still cutting a shout.
Speaker 4: We're doing all of that, you know, we were doing
Speaker 4: something with drum with a drum machine. I had a
Speaker 4: routine that I did with a nine on nine that
Speaker 4: was that I used to do this thing with a
Speaker 4: nine on nine and this boss foot pedal that on
Speaker 4: the back of the nine on nine there's a there's
Speaker 4: a trigger out and and the trigger out is the
Speaker 4: rim shot. So if you plug the boss foot pedal
Speaker 4: up to the trigger out, anytime you hit the trigger out,
Speaker 4: it's going to trigger the boss foot pedal. There was
Speaker 4: a mic input on a boss foot pedal, So me
Speaker 4: and Will used to do this thing called the copy
Speaker 4: rock that all you have to do is program a
Speaker 4: beat and just leave the space at the one that
Speaker 4: if he was you know, it was almost like supreme
Speaker 4: and he would say a punchline, and I would go
Speaker 4: from record to play and it would automatically play, and
Speaker 4: everybody was like, oh my god, Jeffrey Will, He's scratching
Speaker 4: Will's voice. Yeah.
Speaker 2: Yeah, we was always ahead of Wow.
Speaker 4: Well you were always ahead of it, like you and technology. Nah. Listen.
Speaker 8: I did a session with Jim in two thousand and
Speaker 8: six seven and he was recording vocals and ableton like
Speaker 8: back then.
Speaker 9: I want to say, I found out about Final Scratch
Speaker 9: from you. Yeah, yeah, somebody quoted you or something.
Speaker 5: Yeah, And I smoked my vote, my first baby pen
Speaker 5: with you.
Speaker 2: I'm all the way across the board technology game.
Speaker 4: Listen.
Speaker 7: You know so about and how are you finding about?
Speaker 7: You're not up on this next, like I don't think
Speaker 7: I don't think you are?
Speaker 2: You know you you you know.
Speaker 4: I grew up going downtown every day, going into funkal
Speaker 4: Mark every day and staring at the equipment that you
Speaker 4: can't afford, right, you know, and and then getting cool
Speaker 4: with them, like you know, listen, I bought a I
Speaker 4: bought an echo machine on layaway. People don't even understand
Speaker 4: the layerway. I was going down there putting three dollars.
Speaker 4: They got mad at me because of course, you know,
Speaker 4: they got to write every time you put money on
Speaker 4: the seat and my receipt that ship was going to
Speaker 4: the backside three dollars, and they like, listen, man, why
Speaker 4: don't you don't bring nothing down here less than the
Speaker 4: twenty because I can't do three, you know.
Speaker 2: But it was just so I could get on the
Speaker 2: mic and go.
Speaker 4: Do it, do it, do it? Wait?
Speaker 2: Were you were you ever that type of DJ where
Speaker 2: you did your.
Speaker 4: Own listen, shut up, you gotta understand listen. I was
Speaker 4: DJing before they were rappers. Wow, So like, what else
Speaker 4: are you gonna do? You get on the mic, y
Speaker 4: old shout out to such and such from fifty second
Speaker 4: and Addison go curl girl, girl, your mama's coming. Yeah, right,
Speaker 4: waiting for your mama's here. Yeah, I know them.
Speaker 7: So in doing these routines, then how do you guys,
Speaker 7: what's the next step?
Speaker 4: Is it? Word up records? And yeah?
Speaker 2: Well you know what. Everything happened really fast because Will
Speaker 2: was on his way to college. He was going to
Speaker 2: M I T. Whoa, oh yeah he was. Will was
Speaker 2: going to M I T.
Speaker 4: Like he was. He was serious, and it was kind
Speaker 4: of like we hooked up, like I want to say
Speaker 4: that this party had to be sometime in maybe January.
Speaker 4: And and I know you'll remember this like Phillip, Philly
Speaker 4: has a schedule. Philly has a calendar that you know
Speaker 4: from you got January February as soon as March come.
Speaker 4: Bartram would always have the first prom of any of
Speaker 4: the high schools, so that kicked off prim season. So
Speaker 4: every Friday it's Bartum, then it's mass Bomb and such
Speaker 4: and such and such. So if you were a DJ,
Speaker 4: listen you you worked, you know, not not even if
Speaker 4: you didn't do the Prime, you went with GQ Joe
Speaker 4: or for the after part after prom at the Wind,
Speaker 4: you know, either at the Wind or it was what
Speaker 4: was the joint on parkside chronicopia parks I eat your
Speaker 4: cornercope was the small ones, but all the schools they
Speaker 4: had good money was on park side.
Speaker 7: Wait time out, so spawn or engineer in the other
Speaker 7: room is put his hands up for cornicopia side note.
Speaker 2: I went to the wrong corner coopia.
Speaker 7: Oh no, there's there's a corner coopia bar on fifty
Speaker 7: second and Gerard, yeah, and I walked in that motherfucker
Speaker 7: like no, fifty second right right, And it was not
Speaker 7: the after So okay. So this is also because you
Speaker 7: gotta also explain that with hip hop culture in the eighties, Uh,
Speaker 7: we weren't going to the mainstream clubs or none of
Speaker 7: those things.
Speaker 2: Like all this was it was rented ballrooms. Like the
Speaker 2: Wind was a ballroom.
Speaker 4: The Wind wasn't a club you rented to win, you
Speaker 4: rented the hotel Philadelphia. We didn't have like I almost
Speaker 4: want to say that the first club that we actually
Speaker 4: had was after midnight.
Speaker 2: Wow, like after midnight was a specific was a club.
Speaker 4: Yeah, and you know that's what was the Spaghetti Factory. No, no, no,
Speaker 4: I'm talking about the first after midnight was the what
Speaker 4: was the eighth and Cherry. Yeah, the first after midnight
Speaker 4: was eighth and Cherry. Eighth and Cherries was l l
Speaker 4: understand the spaghetti warehouse after midnight. Oh, that ship lasted
Speaker 4: about three months. That that had the potential to be
Speaker 4: Philly's best club ever. And the people in the neighborhood
Speaker 4: was like, nah, y'all not doing that here. Oh they
Speaker 4: had a skating ringing after midnight. Yeah, listen, that was
Speaker 4: that was open for about three months. Really yeah, wow,
Speaker 4: but that that was That was eighth and Cherry Wow
Speaker 4: that was eight and Cherry Boss Bill. Were we allowed
Speaker 4: to play that freestyle? M No, I mean I rather
Speaker 4: ask permission or.
Speaker 2: Apologize, you know, follow trying to figure out you got that? Yes,
Speaker 2: you never heard it? Of course I heard it.
Speaker 4: I'm just shocked that you got Well, no, I'm not shocked.
Speaker 4: Do you know who he? I forgot who? No, I
Speaker 4: absolutely know who he is.
Speaker 2: So what historical shows that you've seen?
Speaker 4: Listen?
Speaker 2: I mean, you know everything that was that after midnight?
Speaker 4: Because like I said, you know, once after midnight came,
Speaker 4: we wasn't really going to the wind because we had
Speaker 4: a club. You know, that was kind of like, yo,
Speaker 4: this ship is popping every week. So you would go
Speaker 4: down there and you know, and and l would come through,
Speaker 4: and Big Daddy Kane would come through, and Stetsy Sonic
Speaker 4: would come through, and you know, it was it was
Speaker 4: it was the home. I finally got Big Daddy came
Speaker 4: to talk about the Jazz Fresh Battle. I got that.
Speaker 4: I got that. You have a battle on tape. Yeah, yeah,
Speaker 4: I got that. Chef sounds like there's gonna be a
Speaker 4: trade happening here. We don't ever trade. We just give
Speaker 4: each other stuff. We don't call it trading.
Speaker 7: Okay, yeah, I say, by the way, by the way,
Speaker 7: after midnight is definitely the Philly Latin Quarter, especially when
Speaker 7: I mean a big part of Philly's presence in late
Speaker 7: eighties hip hop also has to do with the fact
Speaker 7: that because with the exception of the muscle of Carol
Speaker 7: Lewis getting a fresh vest into maybe the Nassau Coliseum,
Speaker 7: Massive Square Garden really wasn't having that. So you really
Speaker 7: couldn't get good hip hop in proper venues. Thus you
Speaker 7: either going Latin Quarter or you're going down ninety.
Speaker 4: Five yeah to Philly to do uh dispatch the midnight
Speaker 4: Yeah yeah, oh right, the spectrum of course for that stuff.
Speaker 2: So how do you guys, how do you put.
Speaker 7: Routines together when it's time to do How long are
Speaker 7: these DJ gigs for starters?
Speaker 2: Oh?
Speaker 4: Man, you was playing for an hour? Wait? I mean, well,
Speaker 4: you got to keep them oud. It was ninety seven
Speaker 4: DJs on like it was always a million d Come on, man,
Speaker 4: you listen. Don't make me pull out them flyers and
Speaker 4: see how many people were on those shows.
Speaker 2: You weren't doing three to four hours a year.
Speaker 4: No, first of all, let me just explain because I
Speaker 4: think you invented that exactly. You ind man, you know
Speaker 4: how many people booked me. It was a quest love
Speaker 4: played for. I was like, yeah, they don't do that.
Speaker 2: I don't do that.
Speaker 4: I can't do that.
Speaker 5: Look what you did just an hour?
Speaker 4: Well listen back then, but well not just that. What
Speaker 4: you have to understand the the Live and Union Square
Speaker 4: show was twenty minutes. Wow, you didn't do shows for
Speaker 4: an hour.
Speaker 2: Ship we had two.
Speaker 4: Records, like they didn't know that. Yeah, but they didn't
Speaker 4: know that we were gonna fill in the gaps like that.
Speaker 4: Like that was you gotta understand. When we started doing shows,
Speaker 4: we just were taking what we were doing at the wind.
Speaker 4: We were taking what we were doing before we had records,
Speaker 4: and you would add that to your records. So it's
Speaker 4: kind of like, yo, I'm gonna start off and I'm
Speaker 4: gonna cut these three records. Ready Rocks, he gonna come out,
Speaker 4: he's gonna do the beatbox, and then we're gonna do
Speaker 4: these two records a variety. Yeah, exactly. So you were
Speaker 4: only there to do.
Speaker 9: Man.
Speaker 4: Everybody was that's it, that's it, and you just you know,
Speaker 4: it was kind of like, yo, we need to you know,
Speaker 4: we need to show up. Well, first of all, you
Speaker 4: gotta understand, we didn't know what they were doing. We
Speaker 4: thought what we were doing in Philly, we thought is
Speaker 4: what everybody else was doing, right, So we got to
Speaker 4: New York and started doing it, and it was just
Speaker 4: kind of like everybody's going crazy, and I'm just kind
Speaker 4: of like, what are you going crazy for? Y'all do
Speaker 4: the same shit.
Speaker 7: I found out when Reek first got to stretching, Barbidos
Speaker 7: thought everybody was freestyling.
Speaker 2: Oh no, no.
Speaker 7: So that's why Reek became such a stickler for freestyling,
Speaker 7: because again it's like whoa wu ting must be doing
Speaker 7: this and nas Mus be doing this and try to.
Speaker 4: Hear them same albums. Yeah, absolutely, so wow, okay, so okay,
Speaker 4: well making your twenty minute seven? Uh are you thinking
Speaker 4: of like, okay, song of the moment or nah? No,
Speaker 4: I mean everything was DJ are in it. You know,
Speaker 4: it's it's kind of like you knew the records that
Speaker 4: were DJ records. You know, it's typical you know, dances, drummers,
Speaker 4: beat this, this, this, this, you know, what is something
Speaker 4: that people know that you can manipulate that they can
Speaker 4: see what you're doing and you know and that they
Speaker 4: know that what you're doing is something special. So you
Speaker 4: just you just got these records that you would just
Speaker 4: do and you would just change them up. You know,
Speaker 4: if you got if if you you got a hundred
Speaker 4: different records that you can cut and you only needed
Speaker 4: to cut two, you know, that's fifty shows doing different routine.
Speaker 5: But when did you realize that certain records are hotter
Speaker 5: in other cities that you might not have been.
Speaker 4: Oh man, let's the drummers preat let's stand to the
Speaker 4: drummers beaten Houston. No no, no, I mean and trust me,
Speaker 4: it wasn't until we started going out that you started realizing.
Speaker 4: There was two things we I remember us doing. I
Speaker 4: remember us doing the Richmond Coliseum and I did a
Speaker 4: DJ routine and halfway through it, I looked up and
Speaker 4: everybody was just staring at me, and I was like,
Speaker 4: you have no idea what I'm doing. And it was
Speaker 4: like wow, Like if you pay attention, that's why on
Speaker 4: the Magnificent you hear will telling me what to do
Speaker 4: and then.
Speaker 5: I do it.
Speaker 4: Like we realized how you have to do it is
Speaker 4: you have to tell people Jeff scratch like a bird.
Speaker 4: And then when you do it, everybody's like, oh my god,
Speaker 4: like they didn't get it, Like hip hop hadn't come
Speaker 4: that far in all of those places, you know that
Speaker 4: to the point that people understood what a hip hop
Speaker 4: DJ was doing.
Speaker 2: So it was the same thing.
Speaker 4: That's kind of like, Okay, I'm I'm cutting dances, drummers,
Speaker 4: beat and then you get someplace and you do it
Speaker 4: and you got that look like, Okay, they have no
Speaker 4: idea what this record is. That's where Rock the Bells
Speaker 4: came from. That's where Peter Piper came from, because you
Speaker 4: cut records that everybody know. Like that was my biggest
Speaker 4: criticism when I used to watch DJs and DJ battles,
Speaker 4: that they would do these amazing routines off of records
Speaker 4: that nobody know. It's kind of like, how do they
Speaker 4: know what you did to it? Yeah, yeah, yeah, you
Speaker 4: have no perspective on it because I don't know what
Speaker 4: it is. Yeah.
Speaker 7: I'm trying to figure out that for stro right now,
Speaker 7: because still I feel like the only people that are
Speaker 7: truly mind blowing at what Stroe Elliott does and Jeremy
Speaker 7: as well, is the roots on stage, because the whole
Speaker 7: audience is just like a silent stunt like you know,
Speaker 7: occasional Instagram will be like oh stroeh.
Speaker 4: Like all all that is is just picking popular records,
Speaker 4: but he and he doesn't how they're supposed to be done,
Speaker 4: and then he flips it once we flips it the hip.
Speaker 2: Hop on one right, same basically the same concept.
Speaker 7: We got to figure out a way, Like when he
Speaker 7: was saying, like instructions like a bird and break it
Speaker 7: down right here, that sort of thing.
Speaker 5: And when do you decide, Like that's what I was asking,
Speaker 5: when do you decide when I go to DC. Okay,
Speaker 5: I'm gonna play my ship, but also I know I
Speaker 5: can play this because this this record was hot.
Speaker 4: Here and you almost have to go to find out,
Speaker 4: you know, because God blessed that time. Music was different
Speaker 4: in every place that you went to, you know, and
Speaker 4: you appreciated that. You know, I enjoyed doing those shows
Speaker 4: that Columbus, Ohio was different. You know, you go to
Speaker 4: you know, d C or Virginia. You know you got
Speaker 4: a little bit of that go go stuff that you
Speaker 4: can kind of add it. Like you you you heard
Speaker 4: what each territory musical taste was. You know, I'm scared
Speaker 4: of that today. Oh yeah, we don't have that. We
Speaker 4: don't have.
Speaker 9: The other day regional Like there's no regional sounds in none,
Speaker 9: only the foundation.
Speaker 5: Like I know, I feel like Jamaica Punk is like
Speaker 5: a regional record, Like it's like a DC to those
Speaker 5: kind of classes.
Speaker 8: How did you inject you and Will when y'all first?
Speaker 8: So your first deal wasn't directly with John?
Speaker 6: No?
Speaker 4: No, no, no, no, how was well? We did? You
Speaker 4: know what was funny? You know?
Speaker 2: Word up was an extension of pop art, which was
Speaker 2: you know, was l Lawrene Goodman?
Speaker 4: Yeah, oh yeah, well understand Dana Goodman owned World Up,
Speaker 4: so you know it's the Goodman So it was funny
Speaker 4: because Dana lived around the corner from Will. So me
Speaker 4: and Will did the demo of Girls Ain't Nothing but Trouble,
Speaker 4: and Will gave it to Dana because we were you know.
Speaker 2: We weren't even what did y'all even cut it on?
Speaker 2: Oh listen, I had a I had a drum machine
Speaker 2: and a four track and it was just kind of.
Speaker 4: The original was done on the fore track. Well understand,
Speaker 4: the original original was done over Moments in Love. Yes, I.
Speaker 2: Do on the shoe Yeah, do you still have that?
Speaker 4: No? I don't and I need that. I need that
Speaker 4: to Will Will go crazy for that, dude. I we
Speaker 4: lived on in London. We have that someone in my
Speaker 4: storage unit. I got that she had do do on
Speaker 4: the shoe, don't We got to go to the store
Speaker 4: unit tomorrow. There you go, yeah we do, but yeah,
Speaker 4: you know we we we did it. He gave and
Speaker 4: he gave the demo to Dana. So it was funny
Speaker 4: because Will called was like, Yo, Dana wants to come
Speaker 4: over and talk to us about putting out a record.
Speaker 4: And I was like, all right, So Dana comes to
Speaker 4: my house and Dana walks up on the porch and
Speaker 4: you know, you hear stories of Dana and Larrence. Dana
Speaker 4: walks up on my porch and my next door neighbor, Keith,
Speaker 4: looked at Dana and said pie and Dana looked at him.
Speaker 4: So first of all, I'm like, who the fuck is Pie?
Speaker 4: And Dana looked at him and said Hawk. So now
Speaker 4: I'm kind of like, who the fuck is off? And
Speaker 4: then they hugged and it was like.
Speaker 2: Yo, man, what's going on?
Speaker 4: How you doing? And he was like what are you
Speaker 4: doing here? And Dana was like, I'm coming to check
Speaker 4: out the young boy and his you know, in his demo,
Speaker 4: and Keith's face got really serious and he looked at
Speaker 4: Dana and he was like, pie, that's Jimmy Town's son.
Speaker 4: I mean, Jimmy Town's brother. Don't fuck with him. Oh,
Speaker 4: and I was looking like, what's going He said, that's
Speaker 4: that's family. That's I'll never forget that. It's like, that's family.
Speaker 2: So what did you just save you from that? You
Speaker 2: don't know what just happened?
Speaker 4: Well, well, I know Dana pulled a gun out on
Speaker 4: Will Wait what oh yeah, yeah, yeah, so it's a
Speaker 4: whole bunch of that. But yeah, none of that ever
Speaker 4: happened to me. Wow, okay, yeah, so let's talk about
Speaker 4: the let's not let's not gloss over it. Yeah, the
Speaker 4: crafting of Girls ain't nothing but trouble. What's some major
Speaker 4: ship Because it was like by that point you could choose.
Speaker 4: You could choose two squads. You could either go the
Speaker 4: schooly d squad of where everyone else was going. What
Speaker 4: I call like, uh, you know, blues is uh, blues
Speaker 4: is crafted. Uh you know, like the first chord, then
Speaker 4: the fourth and the fifth.
Speaker 7: In other words, you know you're set up lining right
Speaker 7: here and then your second set of line round here,
Speaker 7: and then your first set of line round and then
Speaker 7: the punchline and if.
Speaker 4: You no no no no no no, and then then
Speaker 4: I'll take a sister too. And with schooly D, it's
Speaker 4: the same thing with It's like the two set up lines.
Speaker 7: I went to no no no no no no no,
Speaker 7: and then I got no no no no no no
Speaker 7: no no no, and win no no no no no
Speaker 7: no no no no, and then the punchline something, and
Speaker 7: then I pulled my gun. Then y'all could easily went
Speaker 7: there because everybody in their mom was going to the
Speaker 7: schooly D narrative route you guys chose. I felt you
Speaker 7: guys were more trying to go the slick Rick route,
Speaker 7: which kind of Will's version of slick Rick click. He
Speaker 7: sort of carved his own lane, which I still don't
Speaker 7: know what people decided to call it or whatever, but
Speaker 7: it's it's more like, you know, I felt like that
Speaker 7: was the next step that dott he should have went for, yeah,
Speaker 7: for Doug and Rick, and it didn't.
Speaker 4: Now it's you guys.
Speaker 2: Yeah, So like, how did you guys craft? It was
Speaker 2: just like, okay, let's.
Speaker 4: Will was a great storyteller. So he he he had
Speaker 4: Girls at Nothing but Trouble written, and I just programmed
Speaker 4: the beat and grabbed the TV tunes record and play
Speaker 4: I Dream a Genie.
Speaker 2: Yeah, and and he wrote it.
Speaker 4: But you know, like I said, I remember doing shows
Speaker 4: playing that, you know, cutting the instrumental of moments in love,
Speaker 4: and Will would do moments you know, Will would do
Speaker 4: Girls in Nothing but Trouble. And I was blown away
Speaker 4: at how everybody was looking at his mouth like waiting
Speaker 4: for the next line. And I was like, yo, like
Speaker 4: this is crazy. Like this he's got some power, if
Speaker 4: you know what I mean. You're telling something that that
Speaker 4: that's that visual that you can kind of see it
Speaker 4: in your head.
Speaker 2: So he was always a start.
Speaker 4: He was all yeah, he always had that that level
Speaker 4: of writing. Uh, that was very visual. Now doing business
Speaker 4: with Goodman, yeah.
Speaker 2: I mean, listen, you know what this is. This is
Speaker 2: this is back in the day.
Speaker 4: There was I had no aspirations to make a record
Speaker 4: like that wasn't it you know, my in my brain,
Speaker 4: I had my life's set. I was about to go
Speaker 4: work at pg W because they had great benefits. I
Speaker 4: was going to take a two week vacation in wild would,
Speaker 4: and I was going to get a house on Coys
Speaker 4: Creek Parkway so I could look across the street at
Speaker 4: some grass, Like.
Speaker 2: I really thought that that was it path mark.
Speaker 4: So when it was kind of like, hey, let's put this,
Speaker 4: let's let's do this record, we go in the studio
Speaker 4: and basically, you know, take my drum machine and record
Speaker 4: it and fly Girls in that my trouble in and
Speaker 4: Will Will does it and he puts it out and
Speaker 4: it starts getting played on d A S and then
Speaker 4: it starts getting played on BLS in New York, and
Speaker 4: then we have to go to New York and then
Speaker 4: we do Latin Quarters and we do this and next thing,
Speaker 4: you know, when North Carolina like this, this was all
Speaker 4: happening really fast. Girls dropped two days before Will graduated
Speaker 4: from Overbrook. Oh wow, so like that listen that was
Speaker 4: oh man, like he was the the the graduation party,
Speaker 4: and you gotta he was balling.
Speaker 2: He was balling because it was a hit.
Speaker 4: Oh man, it was. It was playing it everywhere like
Speaker 4: and and and it was also in my brain, I'm like, okay,
Speaker 4: he about to go to college, like and we start
Speaker 4: we end up we go to LA and start doing stuff,
Speaker 4: and the next you know, we got a call like
Speaker 4: they you know, this is blowing up huge in London.
Speaker 2: They want you to come over and do Top of
Speaker 2: the Pops. And we didn't know what Top of the
Speaker 2: Pops was.
Speaker 4: A the top no listen, So we get over there
Speaker 4: and we didn't have work papers, so they wouldn't let
Speaker 4: us perform. So we literally flew over there for them
Speaker 4: to say, hey, this is DJ Judge Jeff for the
Speaker 4: first Prince and we said hi everybody, and they played
Speaker 4: girls ain't.
Speaker 2: Nothing but trouble, but you couldn't perform. No, we couldn't perform.
Speaker 4: I hate like but it was, you know, and it
Speaker 4: got to the point that it started gaining so much
Speaker 4: traction that Will kind of went to his mom and
Speaker 4: dad was like, you know, I gotta I gotta see
Speaker 4: where this's go, you know.
Speaker 2: And you know, it's crazy because it was played on
Speaker 2: the radio and us doing all of that traveling. You
Speaker 2: gotta understand, we didn't have a family member that had
Speaker 2: ever been to London, so it was kind of like, listen,
Speaker 2: I can't say nothing. I got okay, you know, and
Speaker 2: that was it, like it it started and never stopped.
Speaker 4: You know.
Speaker 2: We did Girls in that Much Trouble?
Speaker 4: Of course, you know Dana wanted to do Guys Ain't
Speaker 4: nothing but trouble because everybody wanted to do an answer.
Speaker 4: So he was right, let's let's answer our own record.
Speaker 2: So who's like is ice cream No?
Speaker 8: No?
Speaker 4: Like you know ice cream tea? I think Lady b
Speaker 4: knew ice cream tea. So we did Guys in that
Speaker 4: Much Trouble. Then we did just one of those days,
Speaker 4: which is the record that I hate with. Let me
Speaker 4: tell you, let me tell you why, let me tell
Speaker 4: you why. Listen.
Speaker 2: So Dana, Dana is in the studio.
Speaker 4: So first of all, the first lesson that it's girls
Speaker 4: in him, but Trouble comes out and that ship says
Speaker 4: produced and written by de Goodman, And I was just
Speaker 4: kind of like, okay, if he did that, I'm just
Speaker 4: trying to figure out what did I actually do? Like
Speaker 4: I'm I'm I'm trying to figure it out because I
Speaker 4: know we came in the studio and then Dana would
Speaker 4: give these instructions like turn the kick jawn up, and
Speaker 4: you could tell an engineer who was terrified of Dana
Speaker 4: that he's kind of like, I don't like I would
Speaker 4: watch him put his hand on the knob and never
Speaker 4: turn it, and he'd like turn the kick jawn up
Speaker 4: and he would turn the volume up. They had Ury
Speaker 4: speakers that the old Ury speakers had the light that
Speaker 4: when they would clip, the light would come on. Every
Speaker 4: time the light came on, he would be like, that's it.
Speaker 4: And I'm just saying, he just turned the volume up.
Speaker 4: But you know what, your secret is safe for me
Speaker 4: because I know he didn't really know what he was
Speaker 4: talking about.
Speaker 7: So Dana, wait time out. I believe that the studios
Speaker 7: on Jeff chest Okay, I thought it was. He also
Speaker 7: did the Goodman stuff, all.
Speaker 4: Right, Yeah, no, that was Joe the Butcher. So Dana
Speaker 4: felt that the hook of Girls Ain't Nothing but Trouble
Speaker 4: follow Me was too slow. The hook was too slow.
Speaker 4: So he kept saying, I want to speed it up,
Speaker 4: and I'm saying, you can't speed up the hook and
Speaker 4: not speed up the record. So they splice the tape
Speaker 4: and sped it up. So if you listen to just
Speaker 4: one of those days, oh yeah, get to the place.
Speaker 4: Oh wait, I know what.
Speaker 2: You're talking about. It gets really fast and it slows down.
Speaker 2: Always wondered about that.
Speaker 4: Yeah, that's it. With you again. I thought that was
Speaker 4: you You have to understand that the hair on the
Speaker 4: back of my neck is rising, that you're playing you
Speaker 4: wait over your life and you just can't sing right.
Speaker 4: And when you just hadn't say you said, man, it's
Speaker 4: just one of those.
Speaker 2: Hold on Washington chains, hold on.
Speaker 5: Just that part.
Speaker 2: Yeah, and he did it and he released it.
Speaker 4: Yeah.
Speaker 2: I always thought that was kind of weird, but I
Speaker 2: thought that was just no, no, no, no, that was
Speaker 2: that was so good.
Speaker 8: I mean when they were the street guys, like where
Speaker 8: the street the street guy, I mean, and and and.
Speaker 4: You know, not not taking anything away life. Yeah, I'm
Speaker 4: sure are they not incarcerating listen? I don't know. I mean,
Speaker 4: but you know. The funny thing is like Dana and
Speaker 4: Lawrence Goodman, especially Lawrence Goodman. When you think about it,
Speaker 4: Lawrence Goodman was the first death jam. Lawrence Goodman had
Speaker 4: salt and pepper, you know. Lawrence Goodman had like everybody,
Speaker 4: you know, everybody, he had everyone what happened you know?
Speaker 6: Man?
Speaker 2: You know sometimes you can't separate church and state.
Speaker 4: Damn.
Speaker 2: Because his sons, his sons were the.
Speaker 5: Young It's all coming together in my head now. I
Speaker 5: thought he worked for like PGW.
Speaker 2: Or something me, so, you know, it was and it was.
Speaker 4: It was crazy because then we put the album out.
Speaker 4: We went in the studio and recorded the album. Thank
Speaker 4: god he didn't spend anything up other than that or that,
Speaker 4: and the album comes out and the album starts to
Speaker 4: blow up. So the only money that we were ever
Speaker 4: making was from shows, like you know, and and you know,
Speaker 4: I knew, I knew where this was going. And then
Speaker 4: what happened was JOV reached out and was like, yo,
Speaker 4: they want to pick the record up. So I remember
Speaker 4: us going up to the meeting with Job and I
Speaker 4: was just praying, like because the only to me, the
Speaker 4: only chance of success that we would have is to
Speaker 4: get either off of World Up Records or have major
Speaker 4: distribution like we did with Job. Was he just the
Speaker 4: label or was he.
Speaker 2: No?
Speaker 4: No, no, no, no no he was. He was just
Speaker 4: a label. He was just a label. So when we
Speaker 4: signed or when he signed to Jive, you know, that's
Speaker 4: when we could officially get rid of the run DMC
Speaker 4: album cover.
Speaker 2: I love that though.
Speaker 4: Whose idea was that that was Dana's man? That ship
Speaker 4: was whack, that was whack. He took run DMC's album
Speaker 4: cover and we did it, and man, like, listen, fuck them.
Speaker 4: I felt some kind of way people was just like,
Speaker 4: how you gonna just had a run DMC cover?
Speaker 2: No, listen, that was not cool.
Speaker 4: That was so not cool. That was absolutely not cool.
Speaker 4: I mean I still have a copy of that, and
Speaker 4: I'm not getting rid of me. I was going to say, one,
Speaker 4: it's very expensive to fine. But I saw it as homage.
Speaker 4: I never saw that as we biting. Well, he was biting.
Speaker 4: It's called the house. He was rocked the house. He
Speaker 4: was biting. But you know, if it's under five years,
Speaker 4: then it's biting, but if it's over ten years, it's amage.
Speaker 4: Maybe that's the rule now homage. I mean, listen, Run
Speaker 4: DMC had just come out, So did they ever say anything? Okay, No,
Speaker 4: I mean, thank god, listen. The people who bought the
Speaker 4: word up vinyl did not equate to the people who
Speaker 4: bought the job. I get it.
Speaker 2: So the wholes of the word up rock the House?
Speaker 2: Was it the exact same record?
Speaker 4: Y'all did another version of Girls that wasn't on that
Speaker 4: wasn't on the album. That was yeah, yeah, but that
Speaker 4: was also after that was that was after parents, That
Speaker 4: was job with the Job chasing some ship.
Speaker 9: While we were talking about jiving you guys signed over,
Speaker 9: there was there any trepidation because they already had a
Speaker 9: jazzy Jeff.
Speaker 2: Well, you know what, let me tell you something.
Speaker 4: What saved me because he sued me really oh yeah,
Speaker 4: he tried to sue me for twenty million dollars, which
Speaker 4: I thought was that absolute joke because I was just like,
Speaker 4: where the fuck are you gonna get that at it?
Speaker 4: But when we sat down in that meeting talking about
Speaker 4: you know, like when we were doing the distribution deal,
Speaker 4: I said it, I said, wait a minute, are we
Speaker 4: going to have an issue because you have a jazzy
Speaker 4: Jeff signed to your label? And they said, no, we'll
Speaker 4: take care of it. By take care of it, they
Speaker 4: means stop promoting his record, you know, and Jeff like,
Speaker 4: what what was he was? It was?
Speaker 2: It was that was Jazzy Jeff fro the Funky four
Speaker 2: plus one more. Ah yeah, okay. He did a solo
Speaker 2: deal on Job.
Speaker 4: And then you know when when everything started, I don't
Speaker 4: know what happened with him, but you know, after some
Speaker 4: years he was just kind of like, yo, like you
Speaker 4: you took my name, and I'm like nigga. My name
Speaker 4: is Jeff.
Speaker 2: Jeff, you know, but did you have any other Yeah,
Speaker 2: did you have other options?
Speaker 9: Or?
Speaker 4: Man, I was mixed I was Mixed Master Jeff before
Speaker 4: I was Jazzy Jeff. But that ship was way too expensive.
Speaker 4: You tried going getting the shirt with Mixed Master Jeff
Speaker 4: paking twenty five cents a leven. I was like, you lucky,
Speaker 4: My ship wasn't j Jeff.
Speaker 9: Since we're on, since we're on the topic of the name,
Speaker 9: I want to fact check discogs really quick. Are you
Speaker 9: on this because all boys records? Yes, okay, corner Boys, yes, okay,
Speaker 9: that's all I need to know. Oh yeah, yes, And
Speaker 9: what were those records?
Speaker 4: They were?
Speaker 2: They were Philly groups, Philly groups that you I did
Speaker 2: scratches on like.
Speaker 4: This was eighty five yeah, oh wow, wow. Listen, you
Speaker 4: was just.
Speaker 2: Trying to be on the record, like I said, Man,
Speaker 2: I was.
Speaker 4: I was trying to get crad down at PGW, which
Speaker 4: is Philadelphia Gas Works, right, I was.
Speaker 2: Trying to be down there, like yeah, you know how
Speaker 2: just scratches on that.
Speaker 8: No, you didn't even look my name, you know, I
Speaker 8: didn't ship. That happened you mentioned earlier. You was talking
Speaker 8: about Goodman. They was like, you know, that's Jimmy Town's brother,
Speaker 8: So what was your brother? That was the seventies. You know,
Speaker 8: they was in all kinds of ship. So, you know,
Speaker 8: it was just like people people knew, Like I didn't.
Speaker 4: I didn't know the level of respect that my brother
Speaker 4: and my brother's friends had until after I got older
Speaker 4: that you realized, you know, like, okay, they was you
Speaker 4: know this is back gang Wars.
Speaker 2: Yeah, you know, yeah, you know, this is all of that.
Speaker 2: So you know, I think they knew, you know, they
Speaker 2: knew of each other.
Speaker 4: And evidently for him saying that had more to do
Speaker 4: with you know, I know how you get down and
Speaker 4: I'm just letting you know that's family. Wow, that's dope. Man,
Speaker 4: that's crazy. When when y'all did.
Speaker 8: The first album rocked the house when it went to Jive,
Speaker 8: was there any other who else was on?
Speaker 6: Yeah?
Speaker 2: So like who the other? I mean, what made y'all
Speaker 2: say I think this is a good fit for us?
Speaker 4: Well, well, first, let me just say any label was
Speaker 4: a good fit back then. So it wasn't like we
Speaker 4: was picking and choosing. It's like whoever came with, you know,
Speaker 4: because you really looked at it like the my closest
Speaker 4: path to success is getting this so that everybody can
Speaker 4: hear it, and everybody wasn't going to hear it on
Speaker 4: World Up records. And how did that? How did rock
Speaker 4: House did it go? Go? Yeah?
Speaker 6: Yeah?
Speaker 2: And you know that words before he's the DJ, I'm
Speaker 2: the rapper like no before okay, just America.
Speaker 4: It's just you know, and that was we got a
Speaker 4: chance to tour and we you know, that's we went
Speaker 4: on tour with Houdini and we went on to a
Speaker 4: run DMC and you know that's that's where everything starts,
Speaker 4: you know. And and in nineteen eighty six, it was
Speaker 4: it was us, it was Kid and Play, it was
Speaker 4: Salt and Pepper, it was Man Tronics, it was Kumo
Speaker 4: D Like all of us did a million shows together
Speaker 4: because we all came around and came out around the
Speaker 4: same time under the rush banner or not.
Speaker 2: Well no, it was just like you know, like I said,
Speaker 2: it wasn't that many hip hop groups.
Speaker 4: So the hip hop groups that came out and popped
Speaker 4: and were Jazzy, Jeffery Fresh, Prince, Salt and Pepper.
Speaker 2: You know, Man Tronics, cadn't play. Who am I missing?
Speaker 4: Who you know, well Houdini were already out there. Well,
Speaker 4: Eric bing Rockham like we all came out at the
Speaker 4: same time. Chuck d with w guys the Extra Strength Posse. Yeah, yeah,
Speaker 4: whenever I was like, damn what I always wanted to know,
Speaker 4: like if the roots were out back then, like what category.
Speaker 7: Instrumentalists number twelve? I was like, what I got to
Speaker 7: do to be the Extra Strength Posse?
Speaker 4: Do you acknowledge that you're the first person to use
Speaker 4: funky drummer?
Speaker 2: You know what's funny? Bam Bodis said that to me.
Speaker 4: Oh, Bam Bodis said that to me at the New
Speaker 4: Music seminar when I won Bambida because Bambada had heard
Speaker 4: The Magnificent and he was like He came.
Speaker 2: Up to me and he was just like you you're
Speaker 2: a bold motherfucker.
Speaker 4: And I remember looking at him and he was just like,
Speaker 4: because you you let the record go because people were scratched.
Speaker 2: No one ever let it go. And I was just like, Okay,
Speaker 2: I'm you.
Speaker 4: Know, I can't tell you the amount of times that
Speaker 4: I have tried how many times I've made pause tape
Speaker 4: just as this.
Speaker 2: When I heard this, I was like, what the hell
Speaker 2: is this. I would I would take.
Speaker 4: This to funkl Mark, you know, Bob down the market,
Speaker 4: Come on, Bob, rest in peace, Bob. I no one
Speaker 4: could tell you who it was, and for like at
Speaker 4: least a year and a half until I discovered in
Speaker 4: the Jungle group, like a year and a half later
Speaker 4: that I know where it came from.
Speaker 2: How come nobody use that break?
Speaker 4: I don't know. Listen, they weren't using breaks then?
Speaker 2: Were? You just said I was the first person to
Speaker 2: do it?
Speaker 4: People are the.
Speaker 9: First person I ever heard using pizza president. And I'm
Speaker 9: not just talking about just the door. You actually use
Speaker 9: the rest.
Speaker 4: Of this as we go we.
Speaker 8: Project Dana Brod project Oh okay, yeah, oh wait, yeah
Speaker 8: eighty seven idiot.
Speaker 2: Yeah, but you used it in a musical yeah.
Speaker 7: Way for more flushed out musical way, where Marley Mom
Speaker 7: just used project O as you know, a stab or
Speaker 7: that sort of thing.
Speaker 2: So okay, So in doing this record, can you give.
Speaker 4: Us any what was doing those uh post post Freshfest?
Speaker 4: I guess they were Deaf Jam tours by then or
Speaker 4: whoever's had at the time ll tours or what was that?
Speaker 5: Like?
Speaker 2: Oh man, that was that was amazing?
Speaker 4: You're it's twenty thousand people, twenty thousand people, and you're
Speaker 4: you know, and you're going, you know, you're, you're it's
Speaker 4: twenty thousand people in Albuquerque, New Mexico. So you also,
Speaker 4: like I said, you understand, I'm still thinking, I'm supposed
Speaker 4: to be at the gas company. What am I doing
Speaker 4: in Albuquerque, New Mexico? We were going to cities. By
Speaker 4: this point, you're still thinking, like when this in a
Speaker 4: real job?
Speaker 2: Oh man, I didn't think this ship was going to
Speaker 2: work out until a couple of years ago. I still
Speaker 2: think a couple of years ago.
Speaker 4: List So after rocking the house because that went gold,
Speaker 4: I mean, did that change financially? Like I mean you no, no,
Speaker 4: come on, come on. We talked about the music business.
Speaker 4: We ain't never been good. But what I will say is,
Speaker 4: you know you're making money doing these shows. You're doing tours,
Speaker 4: you know. And it was funny because I went through
Speaker 4: this thing of I remember, you know, Will and I.
Speaker 4: I don't even remember exactly how much we were getting paid.
Speaker 4: All I know is I was pretty much coming home
Speaker 4: with about two thousand dollars every show. So I would
Speaker 4: not put it in the bank like I put that
Speaker 4: shit in a box underneath my bed and until it
Speaker 4: got to the point that I don't have enough box
Speaker 4: underneath my bed with this, and you know, I was
Speaker 4: I was afraid to put it in the bank, like
Speaker 4: you you want me to take it? So I went
Speaker 4: to the bank, I opened up the bank account, probably
Speaker 4: gave them about fifteen thousand dollars. They put it in
Speaker 4: the bank, and I would come to the bank every
Speaker 4: week and pose it my my my show money. You know,
Speaker 4: you take some out, deposit my show money. And one
Speaker 4: time I went because when I wanted to buy my
Speaker 4: first car, I wanted to withdraw, and they said my
Speaker 4: signature didn't match.
Speaker 2: So I'm like, wait a minute.
Speaker 4: My signature matches every week when I make a deposit,
Speaker 4: but it doesn't match when I make a withdraw. And
Speaker 4: I got mad and asked to see the bank manager
Speaker 4: and pulled all no, it was what was citizens? It was?
Speaker 4: It was no, it was melon meon. I still got
Speaker 4: my red debit card when the debit cards first came out.
Speaker 2: But yeah, you know, you don't. I didn't think this
Speaker 2: was gonna be real, you know. And we we we
Speaker 2: got through the first album, and when we went in
Speaker 2: the studio to do He's the DJ on the Rapper.
Speaker 2: We actually did the DJ album because it was a
Speaker 2: double album. We did the DJ album first in Philly
Speaker 2: and then we went to London to do He's the
Speaker 2: DJ on the Rapper. And while we were in London,
Speaker 2: we got a call from Barry at Job saying Dana
Speaker 2: wants to sell the rights to Jazzy Jeff and the
Speaker 2: Fresh Prince completely the job. And I was like, oh,
Speaker 2: ship like because understand, any money that we would have
Speaker 2: gotten paid from Jive had to go to Dane at first.
Speaker 4: How that happened?
Speaker 2: I mean, come on, dude, we were signing the word up.
Speaker 2: Word Up signed the job, so they never signed direct
Speaker 2: the job, would he because.
Speaker 4: Listen, I don't know, you know, people getting you know,
Speaker 4: he needed something and you know, and it was it
Speaker 4: was this weird balance because he wanted to He wanted
Speaker 4: to sell it Monday. Then we get to call Tuesday,
Speaker 4: he said no. Then he went back Wednesday, Yeah, I
Speaker 4: want to sell it, and then he said no, and
Speaker 4: then it was kind of like we want X amount
Speaker 4: of dollars and then he came back and he wants more,
Speaker 4: and you know, it just kept fluctuating, and I remember
Speaker 4: the day that they called and said the deal is done.
Speaker 4: You're signed directly to jobs. So we at least, you know,
Speaker 4: once again, we think, okay, we this gives us the
Speaker 4: best shot. But that that sparked the call to mister
Speaker 4: Magic to get the cassette of Live at Union Square
Speaker 4: and say hey, let's put it on the album that
Speaker 4: you know.
Speaker 2: That that sparked parents just don't understand, and Nightmare on
Speaker 2: My Street.
Speaker 9: Yeah, you gotta tell tell the story real quick. The
Speaker 9: second album was always intended to be a double no no, no, no, no,
Speaker 9: we we.
Speaker 4: The whole idea was, Okay, everybody likes Jeffers a DJ,
Speaker 4: let's do a DJ.
Speaker 9: Album, so it would have been like a side for
Speaker 9: him and the side for you. No, it was really
Speaker 9: supposed to be like a DJ album.
Speaker 4: You know, these are beats and Jeff scratching and all
Speaker 4: the rest of this, and it was just kind of like,
Speaker 4: I don't know if the world is ready for this,
Speaker 4: and we did it and it just kind of sat there.
Speaker 4: So when we went to go into the studio to
Speaker 4: do the the Jeff and Will album, the idea came out,
Speaker 4: why don't we mix all of this up and make
Speaker 4: it a double album. Oh okay, and so all the
Speaker 4: all the the MC stuff y'all did in London at
Speaker 4: the at the Job studio in London.
Speaker 7: So the album initially the album that is side three
Speaker 7: and side floor side for was the DJ and that
Speaker 7: was completed as is.
Speaker 4: Yeah, we did.
Speaker 2: We did some extra stuff in London, like we did.
Speaker 4: We did. He's the D John the rapper in London,
Speaker 4: like a lot of the DJ stuff of me cutting
Speaker 4: and will rapping with just routines that we would do.
Speaker 4: Yeah like that, but that was all, you know, we
Speaker 4: would we would be at the y m c A
Speaker 4: and doing Job rhythm tracks and we'll just say, hey, Jeff,
Speaker 4: you know what do you think about such and section?
Speaker 2: You would answer is it too late?
Speaker 4: Is it too late?
Speaker 9: I gotta say, that's one of the strangest songs like
Speaker 9: I've ever heard on the radio. I grew up in
Speaker 9: Indiana and that song was always on the radio. Yeah,
Speaker 9: Raven tracks, house party style. Really yeah, they were just
Speaker 9: paying they would play it on the radio.
Speaker 4: You know what.
Speaker 7: I gotta admit that I was six seconds old. I'm
Speaker 7: now realizing that, Oh yeah, he's the DJ on the
Speaker 7: rapper is a MC side and the DJ side.
Speaker 9: Like even the sticker on the on the front of
Speaker 9: the album said it was comes with bonus DJ album
Speaker 9: or something like that.
Speaker 4: Yeah, damn I or scratch record I think they called it. Yeah.
Speaker 2: They was trying to work out I'm twenty.
Speaker 4: One seconds you're you're I'm twenty one seconds old. Like
Speaker 4: I'm just realizing that right now.
Speaker 5: Y'all had to live in London, y'all when you recorded.
Speaker 2: Now, we did it in a month.
Speaker 7: So was Battery Studios not fully developed in New York
Speaker 7: in the Jive building yet?
Speaker 4: No, it was so all fly to London in London.
Speaker 4: Estate was done in London. I see, I see, Okay,
Speaker 4: So making the video obviously wait time out Nightmare on
Speaker 4: My Street, please tell the story of the Fat Boys
Speaker 4: and well listen, we you know it was we did
Speaker 4: the record Nightmare on Myne Street. I used the piano
Speaker 4: line from Nightmare on My Street and this and this,
Speaker 4: the screech and all the rest of that, and it
Speaker 4: came out and the you know, parents of song stand
Speaker 4: came out and just went crazy and we knew we
Speaker 4: had Nightmare like it was. It was, you know, it
Speaker 4: was funny back then record companies would try to hold
Speaker 4: sit Cold records back, but radio stations were playing Parents
Speaker 4: and Nightmare at the same time, so it was kind
Speaker 4: of like you already know what the second single is
Speaker 4: gonna be. I'm just like, oh my god, it's big
Speaker 4: as Parents is. Nightmare is going to trump this by
Speaker 4: a million. We shot the video and and we went
Speaker 4: on tour. And what I didn't realize, like, we had
Speaker 4: a segment on tour that Charlie Mack would dress up
Speaker 4: when the sweater and he had a Freddie mask and
Speaker 4: Freddie glove and he would come on stage and he
Speaker 4: would kill me and the lights would go black and
Speaker 4: all like we had a whole skit. I didn't realize
Speaker 4: that New Line Cinema sent lawyers to follow us on
Speaker 4: the tour and they watched this, and then all of
Speaker 4: a sudden, we just got a lawsuit that was like
Speaker 4: New Line Cinema issuing you guys for Nightmare. So our
Speaker 4: lawyer basically went to New Line Cinema because radio. Unfortunately,
Speaker 4: New Line got the Fat Boys to do a Nightmare
Speaker 4: record and they had to promote. So now radio stations
Speaker 4: are doing the Nightmare contest, which record do you like
Speaker 4: the best? So we're blowing the fat boys out and
Speaker 4: they were getting met and it was almost kind of
Speaker 4: like we were trying to express to them that this
Speaker 4: is going to do nothing but help your movie, and
Speaker 4: just out of principle, they were like, nah, so they
Speaker 4: suit us, and well, I mean, we gave them a
Speaker 4: bunch of money and we had to agree to perform
Speaker 4: in two movies. Listen. So this is funny. We had
Speaker 4: to agree to perform in two movies, but it was
Speaker 4: up to us to accept or decline. So the first
Speaker 4: movie that they gave us the script for was House Party,
Speaker 4: because if you think about house Party, it's a DJ
Speaker 4: and a rapper. So they made House Party around me
Speaker 4: and Will and we were like, nah, that's weird because
Speaker 4: they they were wrong and just let the song na.
Speaker 4: That's why the whole thing of the video disappearing like
Speaker 4: I had a copy. No, I didn't you know it's back.
Speaker 4: Oh listen, it's the whole videos up now.
Speaker 5: Yes, I mean, but you have to have done a
Speaker 5: lot with new line since anyway, like, no, we did
Speaker 5: you ever do the too?
Speaker 2: No listen, like it was I don't even remember as
Speaker 2: the second movie was, and we just we were just.
Speaker 5: Like no, Will has never done a New Line movie.
Speaker 4: No, because I understand this was before, like we didn't
Speaker 4: look at it like they're offering us a movie role.
Speaker 4: This was kind of like, in fact, yeah, this is
Speaker 4: kind of like, yeah, you know, this is payment payment back,
Speaker 4: so we were just like it would have been for free. No, No,
Speaker 4: they probably would have paid. I'm very sure they would
Speaker 4: have paid a minute. But house Party was get cleaned. Yeah,
Speaker 4: but okay, you're talking about house Party as we know
Speaker 4: it now. Somebody giving you that script in nineteen eighty seven,
Speaker 4: nineteen eighty eight, you might not have thought that. You know,
Speaker 4: this is back when we don't know what to do
Speaker 4: with raps, so we don't even know if we want
Speaker 4: it on television. So let alone you're gonna try to
Speaker 4: put it in a movie. We're kind of like, listen,
Speaker 4: we're not trying to we're making rapping. Yeah rapp.
Speaker 2: Wait just one second, now, B Street was eighties. This
Speaker 2: is what they chose. I've heard this songbody once in
Speaker 2: my life. Sounds like Michael Jackson, right that silp slap
Speaker 2: face man. Yeah, that just yeah, that wasn't it.
Speaker 4: That wasn't it. New Line y'all fucked up?
Speaker 2: And then who who Deny came with the next one
Speaker 2: for the next movie.
Speaker 9: Anyway, I Gotta Swing it that was, and then the
Speaker 9: video was like taking place outside the the Nightmare ol
Speaker 9: Street House or something I missed because I was I
Speaker 9: was on be et every day after school, field knowledge
Speaker 9: every day after school.
Speaker 4: You serious it's called anyway I Gotta swing I'm pretty sure.
Speaker 2: Yeah, man, like the knife.
Speaker 5: That's a Nightmare on Elm Street song Welcome.
Speaker 4: Back Steve Man. How did for the like the samples?
Speaker 8: Because it wasn't until I got older a lot of
Speaker 8: the I was saying the samples that I was using,
Speaker 8: Like I mean, like Westchester Lady like she like that.
Speaker 4: How you were the first to use jazz samples? Pretty much?
Speaker 9: I'm a I'm I became a great digger because of
Speaker 9: a Touch of Jazz, Like I need to know what
Speaker 9: that Harlem River Drive sample was and and all that
Speaker 9: ship Like those were the first records I bought?
Speaker 2: Were the records that you used on Touch of Jazz?
Speaker 4: Was it?
Speaker 7: Was there a reason that you didn't go to everyone's
Speaker 7: using games? Well everyone, yeah, using the uh ultimate beats
Speaker 7: and breaks. You could have easily went there and just
Speaker 7: made a mix of that, but instead using records that
Speaker 7: weren't on Ultimate Beats and Breaks.
Speaker 4: Well, you gotta think this is what you also got
Speaker 4: to think about what volume of Ultimate Beats and Breaks
Speaker 4: was Dancing Drummers Beat three? Yes, So I had three
Speaker 4: volumes to choose from, Like this is what I'm saying,
Speaker 4: like this was so early. There were only three volumes
Speaker 4: out oh, Like it was.
Speaker 2: Like it was we didn't have this.
Speaker 4: Plethora of sampling information that we had. Then this tim
Speaker 4: my brother, you know my brother and the record you know,
Speaker 4: like I grew up with chick career, Herbie Hancock, Myhavish
Speaker 4: New Orchestra, you know, Stanley Clark, George Dude. Then my
Speaker 4: dad was Wes Montgomery, Jimmy Smith, all of us. I'm
Speaker 4: the sponge. So all I decided to do was kind
Speaker 4: of like, yo, let me go and grab some of
Speaker 4: the records that he would play. You know, I know
Speaker 4: those albums front to back, not just for the samples.
Speaker 4: It was just kind of like, you know, shit, at
Speaker 4: ten years old, I can't listen to Whudini.
Speaker 2: So I you know, I.
Speaker 4: Wasn't the Marvin Gaye, Stevie Wonder. I was the chick
Speaker 4: corea in return it forever. WoT Yeah, listen, I gotta
Speaker 4: give my brother credit. Like he My brother came in
Speaker 4: and he showed me how to take the record out
Speaker 4: the jacket, put the record on the turntable, don't put
Speaker 4: your fingerprints on it.
Speaker 2: And he was like, listen, I can if.
Speaker 4: He was like, you can use my.
Speaker 2: Stereo when I'm at work. My brother worked all day.
Speaker 2: So I was ten years old, and I would put
Speaker 2: a cassette in and I would make tapes. Wow, you know,
Speaker 2: and you know, like I said, I'm making chick corea tapes.
Speaker 2: You know, explain, Explain how you've told me this story
Speaker 2: like years ago.
Speaker 8: And I was just like, what the fuck? Explain how
Speaker 8: you were up for Grammy and yet y'all are broke.
Speaker 8: How does that happen?
Speaker 2: I mean, I think everybody in the room know how
Speaker 2: that happens.
Speaker 4: But you know it was.
Speaker 2: Is this the year you guys the Grammys?
Speaker 5: No?
Speaker 4: No, no, no, no, this was this was another year.
Speaker 2: This was after that.
Speaker 8: So on the rooftop okay, and that was for y'all,
Speaker 8: y'all were nominated for He's the DJ. Right, y'all got nominated?
Speaker 4: Yeah, okay. They didn't want to televise it right. You know,
Speaker 4: they were kind of like, nah, we think we should
Speaker 4: give another category to Garth Brooks were like, yo, he
Speaker 4: got nine, like you can give hip hop one, especially
Speaker 4: if hip hop is easily the one, two or three
Speaker 4: top selling genre of music like you. You know, you
Speaker 4: got nine country and Western categories like you. You know,
Speaker 4: but this was at a time that they were very
Speaker 4: much you know, you almost felt like you were on
Speaker 4: this scale of is hip hop gonna be here or
Speaker 4: is it not? Like and there were powers to be
Speaker 4: that kept saying it's not, it's not, and we would
Speaker 4: get mad every time somebody said that, because you know,
Speaker 4: this is this is your dream, like somebody's you know,
Speaker 4: basically trying to squish your dream. So you know, we
Speaker 4: felt like we needed to take that stance, you know,
Speaker 4: for for the for them to kind of understand. But
Speaker 4: you know, you you you have this vision of grandeur.
Speaker 4: You know, I'm signed to this label and this is
Speaker 4: how it's gonna be and you're gonna make this money
Speaker 4: and and you're gonna do this and you know, and
Speaker 4: we sold a bunch of records and you know, we
Speaker 4: we because the second album went, well, uh, he's the right, triple, triple, triple,
Speaker 4: and and and you.
Speaker 2: Made money, but you're never paying attention.
Speaker 4: Like the one thing that I've realized, especially back then,
Speaker 4: if you know, you're twenty two years old and you
Speaker 4: put out a record, and the record sells, and somebody
Speaker 4: gives you a two hundred thousand dollars check, I don't
Speaker 4: know a person alive that checked it to see if
Speaker 4: it was supposed to be two hundred or it was
Speaker 4: supposed to be nine hundred, Like you don't check it,
Speaker 4: and I you know, looking back at hindsight, they knew that,
Speaker 4: you know, they knew that, just like record companies knew that.
Speaker 4: You know. Listen, You're never gonna take this to an
Speaker 4: entertainment lawyer for him to read your contract. You're gonna
Speaker 4: take it to your cousin who's the plumber, because he's
Speaker 4: the most business savage person in your family. You know.
Speaker 4: Because if I'm trying to get a record deal, nine
Speaker 4: times out of ten, I need money, and you think
Speaker 4: I'm gonna take money and give it to a lawyer, like, no,
Speaker 4: I'm going to keep every dime.
Speaker 2: I have to be on the safe side.
Speaker 4: But they know that. So it was the same thing
Speaker 4: that you know, you get to the point that you know,
Speaker 4: you learn these terminologies like cross collaterzation. You know that
Speaker 4: you're just kind of like, you don't pay me my
Speaker 4: money before you have to give me the budget for
Speaker 4: the next album, and you say that the budget for
Speaker 4: the next album came from the money you're supposed to
Speaker 4: pay me, And I'm kind of like that shit makes
Speaker 4: no sense.
Speaker 2: Like it was gangster. It was gangster, but it was just.
Speaker 4: Kind of like, you're paying me with my own money,
Speaker 4: you know, like and and you you know, back then
Speaker 4: you couldn't really fight it, you know, you would you
Speaker 4: would say something, and then then you're deemed the troublemaker,
Speaker 4: you know if if you're asking questions that somebody don't
Speaker 4: really want you to ask.
Speaker 2: So, y'all, so this was for the third album, for
Speaker 2: the end in this corner.
Speaker 4: That well, no, like all of this stuff started to happen,
Speaker 4: you know, it started on the first album and it
Speaker 4: really came you know, it really came on He's the
Speaker 4: DJA and the Rapper and and and then the third album.
Speaker 7: How how different was the post YOMTV rap effect of
Speaker 7: your life? Once the second album comes out and blows
Speaker 7: up because you're saying that, Okay, the second ILM went
Speaker 7: triple platinum.
Speaker 4: But that was very unusual. Come from nineteen eighty eight. Completely,
Speaker 4: that was unheard of. Well, you know what, back then,
Speaker 4: you know, hip hop was solely urban. It was solely urban,
Speaker 4: like most black music that would come out. The whole
Speaker 4: idea is you have the black stations that are playing it,
Speaker 4: and then if it catches on, they would say that
Speaker 4: it's going pop, and that just meant it went over
Speaker 4: to the white station, you know, and that's when the record.
Speaker 4: So what I knew is everybody's idea is we you know,
Speaker 4: you know you got something when it goes pop. Girls
Speaker 4: Ain't Up with Trouble was a black record, Parents Just
Speaker 4: Don't Understand, came out as a black record and turned
Speaker 4: into a pop record, and that's when the whole Jeffrey
Speaker 4: Willer from the Suburbs and all the rest of this
Speaker 4: is happening, which confused the daylights out of me because
Speaker 4: I'm kind of like, to me, girls in Nothing but
Speaker 4: Trouble and parents are Don't Understanding the same record. This
Speaker 4: is different subject matter. How did you keep the secret
Speaker 4: sauce sample of that song?
Speaker 2: So, man, how did you keep it secret. I don't know.
Speaker 2: Is it still secret? I don't listen. Listen, I would
Speaker 2: not be sitting here if.
Speaker 4: Did you deal with it?
Speaker 5: No?
Speaker 2: I mean listen, I don't. But the song is so like,
Speaker 2: how did they not? I don't know. I have no idea, Man,
Speaker 2: I have no idea, and I don't believe that.
Speaker 4: I don't. I don't believe that the power is to
Speaker 4: be didn't hear it? I think it was kind of like,
Speaker 4: hey man, that ship is cool and just left?
Speaker 5: What was the time difference between parents? Just don't understand?
Speaker 5: And then because I felt like the TV show came
Speaker 5: in my I was just I dodn't want to know.
Speaker 5: I want to know that. That's what I want to know.
Speaker 5: Two years between okay and Yeah, it.
Speaker 2: Was that I bought it in This Corner album and
Speaker 2: like it just what was going on with y'all? Couarter?
Speaker 2: I was list wait time out the wait you about
Speaker 2: the slender in this corner?
Speaker 4: I was about we about to fight?
Speaker 2: Yeah?
Speaker 4: Because I love that? What what was y'all James?
Speaker 2: Everything?
Speaker 4: Yeah? Was my.
Speaker 2: Number one to use the bathroom? I was drafted. I
Speaker 2: was drafted. Girly had a mustache. If donut come on, brod,
Speaker 2: I was, I was, I don't know, I was all
Speaker 2: that glitter can Yeah, I could dig it.
Speaker 4: I feel it though.
Speaker 2: That's my favorite record of yours. Really, it's wow.
Speaker 4: I had a conversation with somebody and they were asking
Speaker 4: me about all of the albums, and what I told
Speaker 4: him is every last one of our albums signifies a
Speaker 4: time period for me. So you know, you got you.
Speaker 2: You know, Girls Ain't nothing but Trouble. It's new.
Speaker 4: You don't know.
Speaker 2: You know.
Speaker 4: I always tell everybody you have your whole life to
Speaker 4: make your first album. You only have from the town
Speaker 4: from your first album and your second album to make
Speaker 4: your second album. And but you know, we we did
Speaker 4: Girls Ain't Nothing but Trouble for the most part in
Speaker 4: my MoU's basement. We did. He's the DJ, I'm the
Speaker 4: rapper in London. So both of those rucords were done
Speaker 4: in solitude. So I came up with the idea of
Speaker 4: I want to do the third album at Compass Point
Speaker 4: in the Bahamas. Oh wow, Okay, So we went to
Speaker 4: the Bahama because you know, I'm I'm I'm just point. Well,
Speaker 4: first of all, it was flying because it was in
Speaker 4: the Bahamas.
Speaker 2: But I was being comfortable.
Speaker 4: I was really trying to keep the cycle going of
Speaker 4: solitude because we were so big when we went into
Speaker 4: the studio to do that album that we needed to
Speaker 4: go somewhere off the mat.
Speaker 2: What the problem is.
Speaker 4: We were big and had a lot of money, and
Speaker 4: let's talk about the fact that the Bahamas held all
Speaker 4: of our equipment and customs for about ten days.
Speaker 2: And we're down there on the beach with a casino.
Speaker 4: So it was, you know, we had a house on
Speaker 4: the beach and we were flying people down and you know,
Speaker 4: and it just we were not in the right headspace.
Speaker 4: Like that's what I'm saying, Like I can listen to
Speaker 4: that album and I understand everything that you're saying because
Speaker 4: we were in you know, like it was we you know,
Speaker 4: Will would write for twenty minutes and be like, Yo,
Speaker 4: I'm not feeling I'm about to go to the casino.
Speaker 2: Wow, you know.
Speaker 4: And we we left after a month with about two
Speaker 4: and a half records done, so of course it was
Speaker 4: kind of like, oh, we're in trouble. So we ended
Speaker 4: up in k Jam in Philly and we finished it.
Speaker 4: But when you think about it, girl, you know, girls
Speaker 4: ain't nothing but trouble is kind of relatable. Parents just
Speaker 4: don't understand is relatable. I think I could beat Mike Tyson.
Speaker 4: Only a motherfucker that know, Mike Tyson who's making some
Speaker 4: money would say that we didn't even pay attention to it.
Speaker 2: But but the thing is is that.
Speaker 7: It's kind of ship talking, which is relatable because everyone
Speaker 7: says that motherfuck up.
Speaker 4: But you know, in the video and all the rest
Speaker 4: of that now we was on because for me, I guess,
Speaker 4: like because I was a big Tyson fan and nobody
Speaker 4: thought that, like nobody really thought they could beat like
Speaker 4: you see.
Speaker 2: Like you watched the video and I don't think you
Speaker 2: believed it either.
Speaker 4: No, we didn't.
Speaker 2: I mean I think that was why the song. I
Speaker 2: think that's why I think the rollout, the.
Speaker 7: Rollout of that song kind of derailed and in this corner,
Speaker 7: which I still feel is a solid right, Yeah.
Speaker 9: I think it's a wow. And I have a story
Speaker 9: about the song. I think I can beat Mike Tyson.
Speaker 9: I believe it's fifth grade music class. Fifth grade music class.
Speaker 9: The assignment is everybody has to lip sync a song
Speaker 9: for the class. So I choose me and my friends
Speaker 9: we chose. I think I can beat Mike Tyson and
Speaker 9: the teachers. You know these films everybody's lip sync routines,
Speaker 9: and we're watching them while we're doing ours, and he's
Speaker 9: got this angry look on his face. And at the
Speaker 9: end of the performance, we're like, why, why are you
Speaker 9: so angry? He's like, oh, I turned the camera off.
Speaker 9: We're like, why you can't bring music with cussing in here?
Speaker 9: Apparently he didn't like when Will says, I'm getting the
Speaker 9: hell out here, and at the end when he's like, goddamn.
Speaker 4: So we got in.
Speaker 2: Trouble for that. Make out so much for.
Speaker 4: PG.
Speaker 2: Yes, yeah, I think, yeah, I have yeah, my I
Speaker 2: think one of my ends. So this was third grade
Speaker 2: for me.
Speaker 8: We had or fourth grade we had to recite like
Speaker 8: a poem or something or some ship, and I think
Speaker 8: I rapped Will's verse from time to chip.
Speaker 4: Like that was.
Speaker 2: That was my recital. I got a A on it
Speaker 2: on the assignment.
Speaker 7: But I gotta tell you I normally frowned at any
Speaker 7: use of the jam as a break.
Speaker 2: No more, Ono was the ship?
Speaker 4: That was the ship? Why did you have something against
Speaker 4: the jam and the break? Because them it's like it's
Speaker 4: like the end thing, like anytime I heard it, I
Speaker 4: just think of VH one. So then you don't like
Speaker 4: Ashley's roach clip either. I really don't like that.
Speaker 2: I respect it, but I never liked it and liked
Speaker 2: it ship boys.
Speaker 4: I never like Ashley's click. It just reminds me of like.
Speaker 2: And even if we're really gonna talk about it, that
Speaker 2: album was slapping.
Speaker 5: That was.
Speaker 9: While we're on the subjects for a second. I listened
Speaker 9: to that million album a couple of weeks ago, and
Speaker 9: people were only pissed off because the dudes on the
Speaker 9: cover didn't sing. The weren't the ones that were singing
Speaker 9: the record. It was a good record, so the quality
Speaker 9: of the songs didn't matter to nobody. No, And I
Speaker 9: think to the tragedy with them was that they were
Speaker 9: too ahead of their time. It wouldn't it wouldn't.
Speaker 4: Matter at all. That's that's going back to while everybody
Speaker 4: was pissed off about the Brandy mc cover m it
Speaker 4: wasn't up the e listen put out now and we'd
Speaker 4: be good, y'all were.
Speaker 8: I get it, settle, please settle along, you know, debate whatever,
Speaker 8: who summertime.
Speaker 4: Will it will listen. Let me tell you it's funny.
Speaker 4: Hold on, let me tell you what's funny for me
Speaker 4: to be there and to hear all of the like,
Speaker 4: understand that. The first time that I had experienced this
Speaker 4: was when we were on Fresh Prints and I started
Speaker 4: getting the Will stop the show so he can go
Speaker 4: car shopping. And I remember coming in mad, like, Yo,
Speaker 4: that shit never happened?
Speaker 5: How did it just go? Sit?
Speaker 4: And Will just started laughing like, yo, that's what they do,
Speaker 4: like they just blatantly lied. I was you know, I'm
Speaker 4: kind of like, you can't blatantly lie. So understand, Will
Speaker 4: wrote Summertime. Summertime was made for Will. You know what?
Speaker 4: It wasn't any.
Speaker 2: Who told us that the music was made for Rocky Him.
Speaker 2: I've heard it. I've heard that came from somebody that
Speaker 2: didn't want to pulling fingers someone.
Speaker 4: Was it search that?
Speaker 2: All I'm saying is like, I was there.
Speaker 4: You know what I mean.
Speaker 2: I'm like, so, no, it wasn't. It wasn't for rock Him.
Speaker 2: It wasn't written for rock Him.
Speaker 4: That song was birthed from Will being in in l
Speaker 4: A for the first year of the Fresh Prince, and
Speaker 4: of course the season's changed and it's not the same
Speaker 4: out there as it is in Philly. In Philly, first
Speaker 4: day today outside, everybody's outside cars blasting cars clean, the
Speaker 4: driving down the street.
Speaker 2: South Street is popping right now. That's that's what we
Speaker 2: all had.
Speaker 4: Anybody who has a four season climate know when spring comes,
Speaker 4: everybody comes out. The girl gained a couple of pounds
Speaker 4: and she looks great. She was skinny last year. And
Speaker 4: Will called and was just like, yo, what's up. I
Speaker 4: was like, yo, seventy five degrees out, just got mccar
Speaker 4: claim went to the plaque suns.
Speaker 2: We just having just Philly dialogue. And that was reminiscent
Speaker 2: to that.
Speaker 4: You know, that was something to him that that's what
Speaker 4: he wrote about, Like the whole versus Summertime is basically
Speaker 4: talking about the season changing from winner to to you know, wait,
Speaker 4: we're forgetting something, we're forgetting in a very important fact,
Speaker 4: if it were not for I think I could beat
Speaker 4: Mike Tyson, Will and Jeff wouldn't have performed that on
Speaker 4: the Arsenial Hall Show then, and Quincy Jones would have
Speaker 4: never seen that performance.
Speaker 2: So technically so that the show that song saved the first.
Speaker 4: Changed it was. It wasn't totally that they paid attention
Speaker 4: to parents because they've been watching. Oh yeah, they paid
Speaker 4: attention to parents, like from from parents on down. They
Speaker 4: were like, he can he can act. They kept except
Speaker 4: for the opening credits, you know, so you know, Quincy
Speaker 4: was just kind of like, that's something for you. I
Speaker 4: remember my mom being upset that they didn't use the
Speaker 4: mom from the video who was on what the pin
Speaker 4: and this was extras? I don't know, you know, yeah,
Speaker 4: Vanessa Williams. Vanessa Williams was the girl in the car
Speaker 4: with Will. That's right, Yeah, that's Vanessa van that's her. Yeah, yeah,
Speaker 4: and you know that's Nola Darling in the video right, yes, yeah?
Speaker 5: Were you always a part of that equation? They figured
Speaker 5: out the show stuff, just asked like he not the
Speaker 5: When did they realized? They was like, this, motherfucker right
Speaker 5: here we missing out.
Speaker 2: No listen.
Speaker 4: They Will did the pilot and then when they first
Speaker 4: started doing the episodes, they were just like, you know,
Speaker 4: because you and him had chemistry in the video, you
Speaker 4: should come and do the show. And I was like, nah,
Speaker 4: what I meant? First of all, I didn't. That wasn't
Speaker 4: what I wanted to do. It was also weird because
Speaker 4: when when Will went out and did the audition and
Speaker 4: came back and he was like, yo, I got a
Speaker 4: TV show. Understand. I'm thinking this is a dude holding
Speaker 4: the camp corner. I didn't think it was a TV
Speaker 4: show until he showed the pilot and then it was
Speaker 4: people that you've seen on television in the pilot. But
Speaker 4: then you realized that this is professionally done. I'm like,
Speaker 4: oh shit, this is like shit looked like The Cosby Show.
Speaker 4: So when they were like, hey, you know you want
Speaker 4: to do it, I was kind of like no, And
Speaker 4: they were like, listen, we want to put you in
Speaker 4: three episodes and and if you like it, you got
Speaker 4: two more to look forward to. If you don't like it,
Speaker 4: you got only two more to do. I hate to
Speaker 4: tell you this now my favorite cutting and scratching of yours.
Speaker 4: Oh my god. It's from the pilot when you're cutting
Speaker 4: up the uh the classical music, like I can tell you,
Speaker 4: I can tell you authentically cutting it. Yeah, but it
Speaker 4: is just the fact that you're doing set up cups
Speaker 4: for a stab that do.
Speaker 2: I was like, you saw that, you saw that. I
Speaker 2: was I had to being.
Speaker 4: Nothing.
Speaker 8: It was I love like I watched that so many times. Man,
Speaker 8: you talked before me and you've had conversation. You was
Speaker 8: talking about how the difference between music money and TV
Speaker 8: money and how TV takes so much better.
Speaker 4: Care of you. Listen. We you know, it was funny
Speaker 4: because you know, back in the day, you had a
Speaker 4: Nike connect and the Nike was saying, Nike was sending
Speaker 4: you some sneakers. They send you, you know, some Airmax
Speaker 4: or something. And then we get on TV and they
Speaker 4: are bringing boxes and boxes of stuff in, you know,
Speaker 4: so we was getting music stuff and TV stuff. The
Speaker 4: TV stuff was just ridiculous. They would have you go
Speaker 4: to the warehouse and you would just bring it. They
Speaker 4: would just you know, your car was full of stuff,
Speaker 4: you know, and they just took care of you. And
Speaker 4: what I didn't realize was there was an episode that
Speaker 4: we did of our senial hall and they would always
Speaker 4: black out the Nike swoons. They would put an X
Speaker 4: over it. They would always because you know, you couldn't
Speaker 4: sell it. And Arseno asked me something about me still
Speaker 4: living at my mom's house and I was like, listen, man,
Speaker 4: I love my mom. I'm comfortable here. And when he
Speaker 4: said it, I took my feet and I put it
Speaker 4: on the couch and I crossed my feet and that
Speaker 4: Air Jordan logo was there. Yo. I never got laced
Speaker 4: with that much stuff in my life ever, just from
Speaker 4: crossing my feet and that logo up there, because it
Speaker 4: was kind of like they couldn't blur it out. Ye man, listen,
Speaker 4: the boxes just kept coming.
Speaker 5: So outside of the money though, Jeff, when was the
Speaker 5: moment that you knew I kind of liked this shit TV? Yeah,
Speaker 5: the TV show whatever. At some point.
Speaker 4: I didn't you know what was cool? Well, first of all,
Speaker 4: you're doing a TV show and you're used to being
Speaker 4: on stage with twenty five thousand people. It's one hundred
Speaker 4: people there. So it was no, there was not an
Speaker 4: ounce of nerves, nerves at all because it's one hundred people,
Speaker 4: you know, and you don't but because your brain is
Speaker 4: not thinking of how many people are actually going to
Speaker 4: see that. And it was really different because it really
Speaker 4: changed that you're going out process. It wasn't you know,
Speaker 4: I could go to you know, I could go to
Speaker 4: Springfield Mall and and and kind of get away with it.
Speaker 4: You know, you do the TV show and you're going
Speaker 4: to Springfield Mall and it's sixty year old white women
Speaker 4: calling you jazz and they always somebody, yeah, no, we're
Speaker 4: not doing that. Is TV realized that secretly the Fresh
Speaker 4: Prince of bel Air is responsible for Friends, right.
Speaker 7: Really all right, so you know the you've seen the
Speaker 7: jay Z video for That's right, all right, So basically I.
Speaker 4: Don't want to.
Speaker 6: For it.
Speaker 4: So basically I heard about it, all right.
Speaker 2: I thought the one that he did for yeah, I
Speaker 2: saw that, so basically, uh, I don't.
Speaker 7: It was Brendon Tartakoff, still president of NBC at the
Speaker 7: time when you guys were doing Fresh Princes. Yeah, okay,
Speaker 7: so uh he had a chance to also get Living Single,
Speaker 7: and he he said one of his regrets was letting
Speaker 7: his his staff or his uh yeah, his staff or
Speaker 7: his uh uh coworkers talk him out of getting Living Single.
Speaker 7: He said, I always love that show, and their thing
Speaker 7: was like, well, we already got a Fresh Prince of
Speaker 7: bel Air, Like we don't need to it's basically the same,
Speaker 7: And so it went to Fox and and his regret
Speaker 7: he was like, yo, I always wanted a show like
Speaker 7: Living Single. So then he told marta coffin and then
Speaker 7: to make me a white living single and thus made friends.
Speaker 4: Wow.
Speaker 7: Yeah, but based on the fact that they already had
Speaker 7: the Black the Black Comedy Show on NBC, so we
Speaker 7: don't need a second one.
Speaker 5: So that's crazy. We have to wait ten years for
Speaker 5: a black person on there. Gabrielle Union and I was
Speaker 5: Tyler that you watched Friends.
Speaker 6: I might have.
Speaker 2: I didn't watch. I didn't watch it. I did not
Speaker 2: have the wait. But y'all watched Sex in the City.
Speaker 2: Though I didn't watch, I watched it watch. I just
Speaker 2: know that jesus Se City had sucking in it, soformatives.
Speaker 5: You know, didn't want people. It was one episode.
Speaker 4: Show.
Speaker 7: So with the with the meteoric rise of the Fresh
Speaker 7: Prince of bel Air and instead of this being a
Speaker 7: side gig to Jazzy Jeff for the Fresh Prince, how
Speaker 7: how are you now figuring out what your life is
Speaker 7: about to be? As far as oh, I was terrified,
Speaker 7: really well, I mean so that David Spade joke upset you,
Speaker 7: but joke never mind.
Speaker 5: I want to know.
Speaker 7: You remember the Hollywood minute where on Saturday Live they
Speaker 7: let him they'd let him just go wrote like Eddie Murphy. Uh,
Speaker 7: actually Eddie Charles would go back on life because of
Speaker 7: something that. But Charles Murphy came to.
Speaker 4: The Rock with David s Bates ass and David like
Speaker 4: his like actually stayed away from like.
Speaker 2: Like that's why he won't come back to any of
Speaker 2: the reunion specials to eight.
Speaker 7: He came back finally for the the fortieth celebration. Yeah,
Speaker 7: but he wouldn't do Bill Cosby jokes. But he came
Speaker 7: back at least. But you know, it's like Spade just
Speaker 7: going rogue for three minutes, and I guess the punchline
Speaker 7: was uh no no, no, no no, and Jazz you
Speaker 7: Jeff wants to know, are you going.
Speaker 2: To eat that? Oh wow, you got that joke instantly?
Speaker 2: Why would you get that joke? I think it's funny?
Speaker 2: So okay, at that.
Speaker 4: Time, you didn't, I mean, did you think that this
Speaker 4: is the end of the career and that we're just
Speaker 4: what I mean, you know what we You know, you
Speaker 4: got to understand that. Well, when you think about it,
Speaker 4: The Fresh Prince came out when we had summertime out,
Speaker 4: so we were actually on the biggest high we've ever
Speaker 4: been on.
Speaker 5: Show, the same album as Bee.
Speaker 4: Yeah, oh yeah, it was that was home but it's
Speaker 4: but you got to understand that it was you're also
Speaker 4: you know, paying attention to the trajectory of other rap people,
Speaker 4: and it's kind of like, okay, we had not gotten
Speaker 4: to the that we had any legacy artists, so it
Speaker 4: was kind of like, okay, I don't know if this
Speaker 4: shit is like three albums, four albums and then we're
Speaker 4: gonna go to something else. You know, understand, it was
Speaker 4: a huge accomplishment to have, you know, go from three
Speaker 4: million records to a million records on and in this
Speaker 4: corner was deemed a failure and come back with Summertime.
Speaker 4: There's there had never been a rap comeback, so you know,
Speaker 4: to kind of get to the point because like this
Speaker 4: would you have to keep in mind we want to
Speaker 4: we want to Grammy in nineteen eighty nine or eighty eight,
Speaker 4: eighty eight, and we won one in ninety three, Like
Speaker 4: who else won a Grammy in that time span that
Speaker 4: that was hip hop? So we were supposed to be
Speaker 4: old and done. So Summertime you're looking at it like, okay,
Speaker 4: we're back. But the thing that scared me is this
Speaker 4: is uncharted territory. I can't call it. I don't know
Speaker 4: if listen. And that was that was that was scary
Speaker 4: because you know, you like to be around with girls.
Speaker 4: The number of trouble parents just don't understand. And then
Speaker 4: Young MC came out with Bust to Move was a
Speaker 4: completely left field. Now we got tempo. Now you're dancing
Speaker 4: and ain't nobody was dancing the girls ain't number of trouble.
Speaker 4: So so you started seeing all these shifts and now
Speaker 4: you're trying to pay attention to what the shift is.
Speaker 4: So you know, we got and then the TV show
Speaker 4: came and I'm like, Okay, I'm a reoccurring character. The
Speaker 4: money is great, but this isn't what I'm trying to do.
Speaker 5: So but they're giving you more storyline. Now you're getting.
Speaker 4: Man kill off.
Speaker 5: Ain't from the Cosby showy.
Speaker 4: Or from the from be.
Speaker 5: Limp Malcolm Jamal Warner for over a decade.
Speaker 2: I like her?
Speaker 4: Wait really that was he was engaged to.
Speaker 2: What's your name?
Speaker 5: Justine?
Speaker 4: Yeah, that was the way after they Michelle Thomas.
Speaker 2: That's Michelle Thomas said Williams. Sorry.
Speaker 8: So like, how when y'all got to the to the
Speaker 8: last album on job, the co Red album, how did that?
Speaker 8: I mean because you would think that, Okay, we're on
Speaker 8: the TV show shows still popping like man, listen, So.
Speaker 4: We got to when we when when we did the
Speaker 4: promo tour for the the album after Home matter of fact,
Speaker 4: when we did the promo tour for Home Base, you know,
Speaker 4: we you know how you go into different regions, you know,
Speaker 4: the promotion got there and we got cool with a
Speaker 4: couple of them, and it was wild because I remember
Speaker 4: him saying to Will and I he said, ever since
Speaker 4: and in this corner, Jive has been betting against you.
Speaker 2: Guys.
Speaker 4: He's like, they don't they don't believe in you. He
Speaker 4: was like, you did you have the biggest record of
Speaker 4: your career and they think it's a flute.
Speaker 2: Wow.
Speaker 4: So they're they're really not, you know, believing in you,
Speaker 4: you know, and so you started to kind of feel
Speaker 4: that that it's kind of like, yeah, it was just
Speaker 4: you know because because you know, around that time was
Speaker 4: when they started messing with new kids on the block.
Speaker 4: You know, now now understand they got straight dedicated pop
Speaker 4: Actstreet and then you know, and then you know, so
Speaker 4: they're making money overhand over fists, you know, and you
Speaker 4: almost start to become this afterthought that the the only
Speaker 4: thing is we had the popularity vote because because of
Speaker 4: the television show.
Speaker 2: But they you know, they were kind of like, nah.
Speaker 4: So when we you know, we got to the last album,
Speaker 4: in my brain, I was kind of like, Okay, what
Speaker 4: other hip hop act do you know that has reached
Speaker 4: the last album? So I'm you know, so now now
Speaker 4: my business brain is going in. It's like, okay, you
Speaker 4: don't cross coladalize every album that we had. When you
Speaker 4: get to the point that you have nothing to cross
Speaker 4: it to, you gotta pay me all that back money.
Speaker 4: So I'm like, oh my god, like, you know, let's
Speaker 4: just keep up, you know, so that we don't have
Speaker 4: a complete failure, but we're gonna end up getting some money.
Speaker 4: So we The funny thing in our deal they had
Speaker 4: an option for greatest hits. Oh wow, So first of all,
Speaker 4: the greatest hits in hip hop deems your career. Yeah,
Speaker 4: you're done. So when we got to the last album,
Speaker 4: they were like, listen, you know, we want you guys
Speaker 4: to do the greatest hits. And we were like, well,
Speaker 4: we really don't want to do greatest hits because we're
Speaker 4: not done and we think this signifies to end. And
Speaker 4: they were like, well, we really want you to do
Speaker 4: the greatest hits. And it was wild because in the mail.
Speaker 4: A four hundred thousand dollars check came and it was
Speaker 4: for the album, and I was just like, yo, for
Speaker 4: the greatest Hits album. Oh yeah, Like as soon as
Speaker 4: we cast it, then we're liable. And what they didn't
Speaker 4: expect is we sent it back because we knew Liken.
Speaker 4: You know, we got TV show and all the rest
Speaker 4: of this. So we basically sat down, you know, we
Speaker 4: sat down and basically said, listen, you know what, we've
Speaker 4: been on job for ten years.
Speaker 2: You can't really say that for a bunch.
Speaker 4: We had a lot of success, but Will wants to
Speaker 4: go and really get deep into his movies. Jeff really
Speaker 4: wants to go and get deep in his production. Quietly,
Speaker 4: Will and I were looking to sign a really really
Speaker 4: big record deal with somebody else, and you know, they
Speaker 4: were like, hey, no one has ever come to us
Speaker 4: and said this. You know, we're gonna down and we're
Speaker 4: gonna think about it. And we were like okay, And
Speaker 4: two weeks later we got hit with a lawsuit.
Speaker 2: I lost from job.
Speaker 4: Oh yeah, oh listen. Jobs sued us because they said
Speaker 4: our extra curricular activities are interfering with us making.
Speaker 2: Music, and I'm like, wait a minute, didn't understand.
Speaker 4: I don't think it was Barry, like this goes beyond
Speaker 4: the president and the vice president and you know, but
Speaker 4: it's you know, it's just it really got to a
Speaker 4: point that I was kind of like, that was the wow.
Speaker 4: So this is my this is my retirement party. And
Speaker 4: I don't get a go watch. I don't get a party,
Speaker 4: I don't get a cake. I get a lawsuit.
Speaker 2: You know what I mean?
Speaker 4: Ten years, you know, me and Will probably collectively with
Speaker 4: albums and singles, sold ten million records for Jobs and
Speaker 4: we got a lawsuit. Like that's that's how we went out,
Speaker 4: Like and I said this, people don't understand. Will and
Speaker 4: I have zero ownership of any of the records. We
Speaker 4: did nothing. So everybody, oh my god, you know you guys,
Speaker 4: Summertimes is the anthem every time they play that shit.
Speaker 4: We get zero because we had to do that in
Speaker 4: the settlement with Job. Now, what I will say my
Speaker 4: redemption was that gave me my freedom. Everybody kind of
Speaker 4: looks at it like, you know, you and Will kind
Speaker 4: of split up. I could have I could have went
Speaker 4: with Will at to Sony. I couldn't go back into that.
Speaker 4: I just I was I just broke. It made so
Speaker 4: much sense for Will because Will had a movie deal
Speaker 4: at Sony, so the movie can tell me. But what
Speaker 4: I loved was the first record that Will did. Like
Speaker 4: every record that Will has done, I had some level
Speaker 4: of involvement it. First record Will did was the Wild
Speaker 4: Wild West soundtrack and that sold five million copies. The
Speaker 4: next record that Will did was Big Willie Saule twenty
Speaker 4: six million copies. We did the American Music Award and
Speaker 4: we got in the elevator with Barry. It was oh man,
Speaker 4: it was Barry the owner, Clive, it was a couple
Speaker 4: of other people, old job fevers, and we got we
Speaker 4: got in the elevator and the elevator door closed, and
Speaker 4: Barrier's like, hey man, you know, congratulations, you know to
Speaker 4: you guys, you know winning and you know, like, oh,
Speaker 4: thank you. And it got quiet, and I looked over
Speaker 4: at Will and it's kind of listen. I'm pretty sure
Speaker 4: you know, Rieke. You know when Reek is going to
Speaker 4: say or do something, we gotta look. We have got
Speaker 4: a conversation. And I looked and I when I looked
Speaker 4: and I saw Will's jawline bulging. I was like, oh.
Speaker 4: And Will turned around and he said yeah, this is
Speaker 4: really good for someone that you threw in the trash.
Speaker 2: And listen.
Speaker 4: It was no, we didn't do it. No, it wasn't
Speaker 4: like that in sudden sense, you know, and everybody calmed
Speaker 4: down and elevated doors opened and listen. I jumped on
Speaker 4: Will's back because that if there was ever a redemption
Speaker 4: to think that you did. You know, you you thought like, okay,
Speaker 4: it's over, it's over and done with, you know, and
Speaker 4: it was kind of like, okay.
Speaker 2: Cool, wow, wow, Wow, we got.
Speaker 4: A little home movie called Men in Black. You took
Speaker 4: residency of the studio four.
Speaker 7: Well, you always had residency there because when I was
Speaker 7: interning that Rose Records, you always had your studio there.
Speaker 7: So talk about developing the second phase of the Sound
Speaker 7: of Philadelphia, uh with Dre and Videll with CARV.
Speaker 4: I mean it's you know, it was always my passion
Speaker 4: for production, and I basically took all my money and
Speaker 4: bought equipment, you know. So I always had a room,
Speaker 4: you know, I always had a studio and it and
Speaker 4: it was just really the desire to have to have
Speaker 4: or find like minded people that wanted to make records. Understand.
Speaker 4: I remember when when I when I got the studio
Speaker 4: for and and I put the studio in. I almost
Speaker 4: had a meeting with all of the studio owners in
Speaker 4: Philly because they didn't they thought that I was trying
Speaker 4: to open up a commercial facility, and I was like, no, no, no, no, no,
Speaker 4: I'm opening up a production studio, which I knew they
Speaker 4: all thought I was crazy. And I was like, no,
Speaker 4: I'm I'm opening up a studio that's just going to
Speaker 4: be for music production that we do, because I know
Speaker 4: if I don't have this, I'm gonna rent one of
Speaker 4: your guys. I'm just I'm just with already on equipment,
Speaker 4: so let's do it. And it was just literally, you know,
Speaker 4: you start finding guys. I would. I would go to
Speaker 4: music stores, you know, and you would see somebody in
Speaker 4: the music store playing keys, and hey, what's up man?
Speaker 4: You know, you want to try to do such and such,
Speaker 4: and and it just started like we had no idea
Speaker 4: what we were doing, you know, and you just learned
Speaker 4: by experience. You learn, you know, by cutting stuff that
Speaker 4: wasn't good, doing stuff unorthodox, you know. It was. It
Speaker 4: was a lot of the records that I made, I
Speaker 4: did stuff that you weren't supposed to do. But that's
Speaker 4: how you learned to do with you know, with jazz
Speaker 4: and Jeff and the Fresh Prince. So it was the
Speaker 4: same thing the entire time. We had a touch of jazz.
Speaker 4: No one ever knew. We never had an engineer. It
Speaker 4: was never an engineer. Oh we did like feet out Keith,
Speaker 4: you know myself. We never had an engineer. And hear
Speaker 4: me when I say we never had an engineer. Jill
Speaker 4: Flow Atry Music, Oh no, we did all of that.
Speaker 4: Listen if you look at the back of Jill's album.
Speaker 4: You know who mixed Jill's album. George Glass. You know
Speaker 4: who George Glass is Marsha Brady's imaginary friend.
Speaker 2: I did wonder about that. I just figured there was,
Speaker 2: you know, George. They would not have accepted that I
Speaker 2: mixed that album.
Speaker 4: We weren't there yet. We weren't there yet. First of all,
Speaker 4: you got a hip hop guy that is responsible for
Speaker 4: this kind of music. Like I was smart enough to know,
Speaker 4: don't put your name on like like, I know people
Speaker 4: who and this is this is sidetrack. I know DJs
Speaker 4: that have mixers out that their name is on the mixer,
Speaker 4: and I'm like this, you know how hip hop is
Speaker 4: I'm sorry, it could be the this mix in the world.
Speaker 4: I can't use it if your name is on it. Like,
Speaker 4: I think it's the genius thing that we have people
Speaker 4: that run major music festivals behind the scenes that people
Speaker 4: don't know because they know this can't be the sus
Speaker 4: and such festival or the Sesson Like hip hop. Hip
Speaker 4: hop isn't based like that. So it was the same thing,
Speaker 4: like I'm not gonna fucking listen to anybody singing that
Speaker 4: Jazzy Jeff got something to do with it. Yeah, it's like,
Speaker 4: so you just puffed Addy Jeans John, you just don't
Speaker 4: you just don't say anything. But still.
Speaker 8: So all that, so all that ship, so all those guys,
Speaker 8: because I mean at the time when we first when
Speaker 8: I first really met you, was around that time. It
Speaker 8: was like oh two three when the listening it kind
Speaker 8: of just came out and everybody was telling us like, yo, man,
Speaker 8: Jazzy Jeff, I got to copy your album from Jeff.
Speaker 4: And I was like, he knows who we are, Like
Speaker 4: I didn't think you had no clue who tou we.
Speaker 4: I never stopped scouring for music, and I know Scott
Speaker 4: listening for people. You know, that was the whole thing,
Speaker 4: like it's it was a love before it was a job.
Speaker 4: So you just you know, it's kind of like you
Speaker 4: know you you it's when you hear something and it resonates,
Speaker 4: you want to pass it on. And that was that
Speaker 4: was another thing like with with with Jill when we
Speaker 4: did we I met Jill twice. My son's mom introduced
Speaker 4: me to Jill, and we saw each other and we
Speaker 4: talked and it was almost kind of like this ain't
Speaker 4: the right time. And I remember riding up the street
Speaker 4: and I rode past footworks when when Barbido and Rich
Speaker 4: had it and Jill was standing outside and she said, Hey,
Speaker 4: what's up? And I said what's up? We started talking Jill.
Speaker 4: I took Jill to the studio and I went through
Speaker 4: a bunch of music and I gave her a track
Speaker 4: and she left. And the next day Jill called and
Speaker 4: said I wrote something, And I picked Jill up and
Speaker 4: drove and we parked on Penn's landing and Jill sang
Speaker 4: me long walk from beginning to end WHOA And went
Speaker 4: to the studio and cut it and it was just
Speaker 4: kind of like tell V to al Dre listen, you know,
Speaker 4: we're cutting and we just all of Jill's songs. The
Speaker 4: bulk of Jill's first album was done in probably about
Speaker 4: nine days. Wow that she was just cutting and we
Speaker 4: would do it. What I did that was extremely unorthodox,
Speaker 4: especially at that time. I had a CD burner. I
Speaker 4: burnt those non songs and I gave it to everybody
Speaker 4: I knew that loved music, like because before you kind
Speaker 4: of don't.
Speaker 2: I gave it to everybody.
Speaker 4: But it was crazy because it actually ended up in
Speaker 4: the Sony office that the Sony executives thought it was
Speaker 4: something that they signed.
Speaker 2: Because everybody was playing it in the office. But that's
Speaker 2: how it got.
Speaker 4: It got to Jimmy Jame and Terry Lewis and they
Speaker 4: flew us out there because they wanted to sign it.
Speaker 4: And it's made it made its way to choose, well,
Speaker 4: you know, I didn't choose Michael Jordan. I choose Steve mckeev.
Speaker 4: At the time, it was like, Michael Jordan, let me, okay,
Speaker 4: so I'm gonna tell you half of this because I
Speaker 4: know I know you would understand the other half. I
Speaker 4: chose Hidden Beach because I knew they were going to
Speaker 4: let us do the album with no interference. Because I
Speaker 4: had a very good friend. We had a very good
Speaker 4: friend that I realized did some stuff that he didn't
Speaker 4: get credit for. And that was the deciding factor to
Speaker 4: make me go to Steve. I'm not listening. I'm not
Speaker 4: because I'm I know he would know, and you know,
Speaker 4: but it was it was crazy because it was almost
Speaker 4: like it's almost like you have a really good friend
Speaker 4: that tells you don't mess with this girl, right, and
Speaker 4: and that's why you chose the person that you're with now.
Speaker 5: And it was it was you know, so, wait, where
Speaker 5: was you got me in this equation? I'm just in the.
Speaker 4: Slightly around the corner. Wait, do you remember driving the
Speaker 4: yellow Pathfinder? I remember driving so all right, Remember I
Speaker 4: told you all the heavy D is going to kill me.
Speaker 2: Let me tell I told you all the heavy D
Speaker 2: is going to kill me?
Speaker 4: Story?
Speaker 7: Well, the original one the boys right was a mirror's
Speaker 7: first drive by. I was walking down like late at
Speaker 7: night on Chestnut Street in Philadelphia and this yellow Pathfinder
Speaker 7: drives by me and then stops and then like gray
Speaker 7: poopon style, comes backwards and rolls down the window and
Speaker 7: I was seeking sitting on myself. I was like, uh,
Speaker 7: this is where I die, Someone's gonna kill me in
Speaker 7: a yellow pathfinder.
Speaker 2: And somebody killing you in a yellow pathline and a.
Speaker 7: Banana yellow path find And it was Jazzy Jeff like
Speaker 7: what he's saying, Yo, you're in the roots right from
Speaker 7: Jazzy Jeff. Oh Jeff, I love you man, And then
Speaker 7: he sped off, and that was how I met him.
Speaker 7: But then I started working at Studio four and.
Speaker 5: You know, so then into jail and you got me.
Speaker 5: How did that timeline work?
Speaker 4: I first saw Jill there was a poetry slam fifty
Speaker 4: second in Baltimore, fifty fourth in Baltimore, like Deep West Philly.
Speaker 5: She was doing the sexy poems.
Speaker 4: Yo. That was recently. Yeah, no, I'm telling y'all, Jill
Speaker 4: was always poet poets and even the dudes. She It's
Speaker 4: something about Jill's voice similar to that of when Deanna
Speaker 4: Williams talking. It's like you will do anything, and it
Speaker 4: was just unexpected because everyone else was coming from you know, backstage. Okay,
Speaker 4: and up next we have a.
Speaker 7: Young brother from No no, no, no, no, no, give
Speaker 7: it up for Richmond, and ladies and gentlemen come on,
Speaker 7: do his poetry and leave Jill Scott decided to sit
Speaker 7: in the audience and so we had no clue. He said,
Speaker 7: up next, we got a sister from North Philadelphia, give.
Speaker 2: It up for Jill Scott.
Speaker 7: Lady Joe and no One came on stage and then
Speaker 7: this woman starts singing joonases freaking you.
Speaker 2: A cappella from the audience.
Speaker 4: She just marches right to the stage, and I was like,
Speaker 4: who is this woman? I put two and two together.
Speaker 4: I met Jill during the do You Want More? Era?
Speaker 7: Apparently her ex boyfriend not the old word, her ex boyfriend,
Speaker 7: not ex husband, not ex husband, was cheating on her
Speaker 7: with a girl that lived next door to me on
Speaker 7: South Street. Well, I don't know whatever, but the first
Speaker 7: word she said was I'm gonna cut that motherfucker's dick off.
Speaker 2: So that's how Jill Scott into my mind.
Speaker 4: So then I put two and two together that, oh,
Speaker 4: that's I'm gonna cut that motherfucker's dick.
Speaker 5: Also the Glamorous Life girl. Can y'all just is that
Speaker 5: a rumor?
Speaker 2: I am Cool's Glamorous Life video.
Speaker 4: I don't know.
Speaker 2: I never heard that heard it wasn't I heard it wasn't.
Speaker 8: Wasn't that you told me one time, Jeff that Jill
Speaker 8: initially when she came out, she didn't really want to sing.
Speaker 2: She really wanted to just do poetry. She was heavy on.
Speaker 4: Yeah, Like Jill did not want background vocals on her songs. Wow,
Speaker 4: you know, so we had to kind of convince her
Speaker 4: a lot of that. Like the funny thing is, I
Speaker 4: remember when we did is Getting in a way. She
Speaker 4: did not want to put background vocals on that, and
Speaker 4: Drey's mom was in the studio and Drey's mom actually
Speaker 4: sang backgrounds with her on that because Drey's mom was like, girl,
Speaker 4: if you don't get your button that booth. So that's
Speaker 4: Jill Andre's mom.
Speaker 5: Man, that was an official first single, right, No, you
Speaker 5: know what's funny.
Speaker 2: The first single was long Walk, Long Walk, you know
Speaker 2: what I said.
Speaker 5: I remember being at the radio station and being like that,
Speaker 5: you don't need to hear get.
Speaker 2: Through everybody off because their first single was a poem.
Speaker 5: Yeah, but that was the Streets. Wasn't ready for that?
Speaker 2: I remember being long Walk.
Speaker 5: It was no, it was the black stations. We need
Speaker 5: to do once was she gonna put the basoline on
Speaker 5: her face? And I remember selling that at the radio station.
Speaker 5: Like but then she gonna put it. Come on, everybody
Speaker 5: want to Philly Sorry? Fighting over soul records, the journeys
Speaker 5: were still fight.
Speaker 4: How did? How did?
Speaker 8: What was the difference between like say, the jail record
Speaker 8: and then the fluordry situation.
Speaker 4: Like success Like when I tell you that, like I said,
Speaker 4: it mirrors. You know, we we did Jill in music
Speaker 4: pretty much simultaneous. So for both of them to come out,
Speaker 4: we were on cloud nine. You know, they were just
Speaker 4: sending people down. It was it was weird because you know,
Speaker 4: they would send people down with instructions like they we
Speaker 4: want a jail record, and it's kind of like, well,
Speaker 4: we can't give you a jail record because we gave
Speaker 4: it to her. We can give you whoever you're sending record.
Speaker 4: And that was really the first time that I understood
Speaker 4: that record companies. Steve mckev said something to me that
Speaker 4: I never forgot. He said, everybody in the music industry
Speaker 4: wants to be second after everybody's everybody wants to be second.
Speaker 4: You reminded me of a story. So the day that
Speaker 4: we shot that Soul Quarium photo for Vibe, the beginning
Speaker 4: of the end, right, So okay, nine am we shot
Speaker 4: we did a shot in the same Vibe magazine with
Speaker 4: Jill the roots in Jill did their thing, right. It
Speaker 4: hit me that Lear Cohen knew that this shoot was
Speaker 4: going to go down and Vibe Magazine oh wow, and
Speaker 4: begged and begged.
Speaker 7: Please let Music inside of this photo you guys are
Speaker 7: doing because he's part at the time.
Speaker 2: Did I know music?
Speaker 7: No, I didn't know music. I had no clue. And child,
Speaker 7: yeah music soul, child, it just sounds Did I know music?
Speaker 4: I didn't know music.
Speaker 2: I believe that.
Speaker 4: Just to to force the will on us, no pun uh.
Speaker 7: They had Music and his people waiting downstairs in a
Speaker 7: car service to see if there was like a change
Speaker 7: of heart, and it was always like like, it's very
Speaker 7: unfortunate that That's how I was reminded, and I totally
Speaker 7: forget about the times where he came to the jam
Speaker 7: sessions and all that stuff, you like deliver pizzas or something, Yeah, exactly.
Speaker 5: And so because there was Balao too, so well yeah.
Speaker 4: It was like it was like literally like who who
Speaker 4: And the Vibe people were like, yeah, can we le
Speaker 4: or Cohen wants to add him in the photo as well?
Speaker 2: Can you shoot me?
Speaker 4: Just like yo, we know each other, like I don't
Speaker 4: know who music soul child. I had no clue who
Speaker 4: he was at the times.
Speaker 7: So it it just it started what could have been
Speaker 7: potentially an even worse taste once I did two and
Speaker 7: two and like oh the guy from filling oh he
Speaker 7: used to come. And then it was like cool whatever.
Speaker 7: But at the time I remember that music almost was
Speaker 7: in that photo. Almost in that photo.
Speaker 5: That was the house that Carvon and I even built.
Speaker 4: Yeah.
Speaker 8: Yeah, so so break down like the cruise when we
Speaker 8: talk about such a jazz it was Carving, was Dollinger
Speaker 8: and then so it was Pat.
Speaker 4: Shout, you know it was it was it was multiple
Speaker 4: you know, you had keV Brown Odyssey, you had peace,
Speaker 4: you know, peace move of Pat. Pat McClain James introduced
Speaker 4: me to Pat McLain.
Speaker 8: Okay, and he because I remember I think you told me,
Speaker 8: or maybe it was keV told me the on the
Speaker 8: on your album Africa Porter Prince.
Speaker 2: Yeah, that was a two track. That was everything Pam did.
Speaker 2: Everything he did was a two track. I love that shot.
Speaker 4: Pat was let me choose my words, eccentric. He was
Speaker 4: very eccentric, Like Pat would make the most beautiful song
Speaker 4: you ever heard, and he would say, you know what,
Speaker 4: the universe doesn't want this to come out, and they
Speaker 4: would cut his keyboard off and we would be in
Speaker 4: the room like like but see, you know he was
Speaker 4: also the guy that he would he would he would
Speaker 4: do a record and make some money and you would
Speaker 4: give him like three thousand dollars and Pat would leave
Speaker 4: out the studio. And the reason why ours is laughing
Speaker 4: is because she was there for all of this. That
Speaker 4: Pat would come in and say, God is gonna bless me.
Speaker 4: I just gave a homeless man three thousand dollars. And
Speaker 4: you were kind of like, Pat, you're homeless, Like you're
Speaker 4: a homeless big I gave a homeless man.
Speaker 5: And what's that music? Soul child?
Speaker 2: Because he was homeless to listen.
Speaker 8: So, but what with all thems that were there, like
Speaker 8: where there like Paulie, Baby Black?
Speaker 2: Where where?
Speaker 4: What's going on with those guys? Now?
Speaker 2: No?
Speaker 4: Wow? I mean, you know, Paul Paul. When I started
Speaker 4: going back out on the road, I took Paul. I
Speaker 4: took Paul when The Magnificent came out, because you know,
Speaker 4: I wanted that to be kind of a launching pad
Speaker 4: for Paul. And then you know, Baby Black chef chef,
Speaker 4: you know, just you know what's crazy is when I
Speaker 4: started going out on the road. I started going out
Speaker 4: in like ninety nine two thousand and went overseas. Was
Speaker 4: completely blown away at the fact that I'm in this
Speaker 4: club and it's two thousand people here, and I'm kind
Speaker 4: of like, well, who is performing. I'm used to the
Speaker 4: win Ballroom and it was a strong two fifty in there,
Speaker 4: and you know, when you start doing these and not
Speaker 4: just that, you know, just going through all of the
Speaker 4: issues in the music business. I'm playing for two thousand
Speaker 4: people and at the end of the night, somebody's handing
Speaker 4: me an envelope with four thousand dollars in it, and
Speaker 4: I'm kind of like, well, damn, I gotta wait like
Speaker 4: seven months for my four thousand dollars from the record company.
Speaker 4: And you just gave it to me afterwards, and I
Speaker 4: got to play tomorrow night, and the night after that
Speaker 4: and the night after that.
Speaker 2: So it really took that first tour.
Speaker 4: And I came home and you know, and everybody's asking
Speaker 4: when is the check coming, because everybody's waiting for a
Speaker 4: check at the record company, and you know, you got
Speaker 4: to wait until everybody delivered the signs and all the
Speaker 4: rest of this, and you know, the.
Speaker 2: Agent call was like, Yo, they loved it. They want
Speaker 2: you to come back.
Speaker 4: I went back, and the second time I lied to
Speaker 4: everybody and was like, I'm coming home a week later.
Speaker 4: So now I'm coming home with about forty thousand dollars
Speaker 4: to do all of my shopping and get all of
Speaker 4: the shit that I want. And no one knows I'm home,
Speaker 4: so the phone's not ringing, nobody's complaining. And then the
Speaker 4: third time when they called, I was like, you know what,
Speaker 4: I'm out. I'm out because I already see you know,
Speaker 4: I see this hamster wheel and I'm like, I can't
Speaker 4: keep running on I can't keep running on this, you know,
Speaker 4: you you like, there was a level of I felt,
Speaker 4: you know, even you know, even with like the Jill situation.
Speaker 4: You know, I felt that we were in a good
Speaker 4: cop bad cop situation that the record company is always
Speaker 4: the good cop, Like I would watch the record company
Speaker 4: buy her gifts and take her on trips and all
Speaker 4: the rest of this, and well.
Speaker 2: It wasn't even the fact that I was.
Speaker 4: It was really kind of like, you know, I felt
Speaker 4: like there was a certain point in time that Jill
Speaker 4: was looking like, how come you don't take me on trips?
Speaker 4: And I'm sitting like, because I'm waiting for the motherfucking
Speaker 4: money that the dude that took you on this trip
Speaker 4: to send me, you know, not understanding the record company regime.
Speaker 2: That is kind of like you're the good guy and
Speaker 2: I'm the bad guy.
Speaker 5: So you know, it was you became Dana in a way,
Speaker 5: not Dana the person, but I just mean, it's interesting,
Speaker 5: how yeah.
Speaker 4: And I was like, nah, no, I'm not doing that,
Speaker 4: so I tapped out. I was like, I don't I
Speaker 4: don't want to do that. I realized that, and and
Speaker 4: and also my second tour was a tour in Asia,
Speaker 4: and I went to Bangkok and why are you laughing?
Speaker 4: It's not what you think, So listen. I went to
Speaker 4: Bangkok and there's a mall in Bangkok that my man
Speaker 4: took me to, and everything in the mall was illegal everything.
Speaker 4: And you could go into this store and you could
Speaker 4: get DVDs, which you know, DVDs are big MP three's,
Speaker 4: which are small, and they were selling DVD MP three's.
Speaker 4: They were selling the Beatles Anthology, everything the Beatles ever
Speaker 4: made for twelve dollars and I remember you would go
Speaker 4: in and you would look in the book and you
Speaker 4: give them the number. You know, the Beatles were one
Speaker 4: hundred and such and such and they had jazz guitars.
Speaker 4: So I was like, okay, I sample this and get this,
Speaker 4: and you know, I'm giving this guy like thirty six
Speaker 4: dollars and he gave me all of these DVDs and
Speaker 4: all of this music. And I remember walking in the
Speaker 4: middle of the mall and I said, Yo, it's over.
Speaker 4: It's oh because this hadn't hit the States yet, and
Speaker 4: I was like, it's over. I just bought the Beatles'
Speaker 4: anthology for twelve dollars. How much is my shit worth? Like,
Speaker 4: I was like, I'm out. So I tapped out because
Speaker 4: of something I saw before it came here.
Speaker 2: I saw it come in and you know, and how did.
Speaker 5: Your soldiers feel about that though? Cause did you give him?
Speaker 5: How does that work?
Speaker 2: Well, I ain't get nobody don't know this. Listen.
Speaker 4: Listen.
Speaker 2: First, let me tell you something.
Speaker 4: If you tell everybody in the hood you moving, oh,
Speaker 4: you ain't gonna have no furniture, They're gonna steal all
Speaker 4: your shit. So trust me, I had a whole covert
Speaker 4: thing I had a guy that took all of my
Speaker 4: equipment and put it in storage. He came down and
Speaker 4: scouted out the studio, and you know, it was like,
Speaker 4: listen out, this is what I'm gonna take. I don't
Speaker 4: care about this. And you know, I knew the studio hours.
Speaker 4: I knew everybody staying until about four thirty five o'clock
Speaker 4: in the morning. So we came in at six o'clock
Speaker 4: and they cleaned the entire studio out and by the
Speaker 4: time everybody was going, oh man, they came and it
Speaker 4: was it was they opened that door and that shit
Speaker 4: just swung open with that wild, wild West breeze and
Speaker 4: something week But you know what, but like at the
Speaker 4: exact same time that I closed the studio, I actually
Speaker 4: moved out of Philly.
Speaker 2: Yeah, oh my god. Yeah, oh yeah.
Speaker 4: Interesting. So you know what's crazy, Everybody listen, this is
Speaker 4: the funny thing. The only person that I kept was
Speaker 4: I Rise, So I Rise knew all this COVID shit.
Speaker 4: She knew what I was.
Speaker 2: Listen, you know, she knew.
Speaker 4: And it was and it was crazy because everybody thought,
Speaker 4: like this is this is this is this will tell
Speaker 4: you something about the ego I needed. Everybody to think
Speaker 4: I was doing bad. And this was at a time
Speaker 4: that I just once I discovered that whole DJ thing,
Speaker 4: So I understand. I was in the DJ atmosphere before
Speaker 4: the DJ bubble hit. So I'm sitting here like, yo,
Speaker 4: I ain't never made this much money ever, and no
Speaker 4: one would expect that. And it was kind of like yo.
Speaker 4: So me closing the studio and moving, it was like, yo,
Speaker 4: what happened to John her? He's not doing too well?
Speaker 2: And you had to eat that. Like I was cool
Speaker 2: with eating that. I was cool with listen. I remember.
Speaker 2: I remember the first time.
Speaker 4: It might have been about seven eight months after I moved.
Speaker 4: I remember it was a fight coming on and I
Speaker 4: invited James down to my crib for the fights. James
Speaker 4: poison James and I stood in the door because when
Speaker 4: James pulled up to my house, James sat there and
Speaker 4: I know he was kind of like, I know this
Speaker 4: nigga only here, like get out of here. And I
Speaker 4: opened the door and my dog ran out, so he's
Speaker 4: kind of like this nigga got a dog, Like what
Speaker 4: is this?
Speaker 2: I had the paved ways and the lighting.
Speaker 4: And I was like hey, and James was like what
Speaker 4: and then I ended up breaking it down, you know,
Speaker 4: because you ended up you sold so your old crib
Speaker 4: crib you sold it to his mom.
Speaker 2: Yes, I did list so wait, I'm literally wait. I
Speaker 2: put it up for sale and the person backed out.
Speaker 4: The person backed out the Wednesday before Thanksgiving, and I
Speaker 4: think I text our mayor because our mayor said something
Speaker 4: to me. He was just kind of like, yo, damn,
Speaker 4: why didn't you tell me you were selling the crib?
Speaker 4: And I was like, oh, man, I didn't know. You know,
Speaker 4: I didn't know that. You know. I wasn't just gonna
Speaker 4: randomly pick up quest Love and be like, hey, I'm
Speaker 4: selling my credit, you know. And it was crazy because
Speaker 4: I hit him on Thanksgiving and I was like, yo,
Speaker 4: the sale of the crib fell through, let me know
Speaker 4: if you want it, and he said, I'll call you back,
Speaker 4: and he called me in ten minutes.
Speaker 2: It is like we want it.
Speaker 4: Listen. That was it.
Speaker 8: That was a that was a done disp We just furnished.
Speaker 4: We just read did the entire crib like you still
Speaker 4: got the deep front. We had to take all that.
Speaker 7: It's a brand new it's a two was at the
Speaker 7: nineteen house now, Miss Jackie.
Speaker 5: Dad that's the first time I met you. You don't
Speaker 5: even know that. I was driving in that apartment with
Speaker 5: Deanna and she saw you as you was coming out.
Speaker 5: We was coming in, and she said, it's Jersey Jeff.
Speaker 7: I said, Jeff, please tell us how you organized all right?
Speaker 7: First of all, yeah, it you moved to Delaware and
Speaker 7: we were all like why. But then you also like
Speaker 7: lured a lot of people to Delaware.
Speaker 4: I didn't know.
Speaker 5: For a minute, right he was there.
Speaker 4: I forgot even down there.
Speaker 7: But I meant, like James and Tuba, and like, I
Speaker 7: now see the allure of living in Delaware. However, can
Speaker 7: you explain what the playlist retreat is? It's it's almost
Speaker 7: like a secret that no one knows about or really
Speaker 7: understand what the magnitude this is.
Speaker 5: It's salty and jealous, even though they still know they
Speaker 5: shouldn't be there.
Speaker 4: You are literally like your playlist retreat is.
Speaker 2: It is the Illuminadi. It's the illuminadi of.
Speaker 4: Producers and musicians. And having gone there and seen.
Speaker 2: It myself, you had the first one. I was at
Speaker 2: the first one.
Speaker 4: One. I came late to the last one and had
Speaker 4: about four tacos, did and didn't realize that all the
Speaker 4: tacos were laced with.
Speaker 2: Scooching.
Speaker 4: I thought I was going to die. Y'all got math
Speaker 4: photos of me sleep on your couch.
Speaker 8: I was just like, yeah, I think my first time
Speaker 8: it was before it was before you ifically doing the playlist.
Speaker 8: But the first time I came to your crib, me
Speaker 8: and pool we did a little brother song and that, honestly,
Speaker 8: man like I never told you dude, that really changed
Speaker 8: my life. It totally made me rethink what it what
Speaker 8: success quote unquote look like. Because we got there and
Speaker 8: the first thing he did, Jeff cooked some chicken.
Speaker 4: I always do that.
Speaker 2: He made some chicken, and then we was like, all right,
Speaker 2: we're gonna you know.
Speaker 4: Kind of salty. We're doing this now here because I
Speaker 4: thought like we just go bro.
Speaker 5: Was can we do the next one? I'm sure it's
Speaker 5: gonna be a party.
Speaker 2: Three listen, y'all can the tree?
Speaker 5: Hey, you know you only got five women there at
Speaker 5: one time, serious women.
Speaker 2: We excluse diversity.
Speaker 5: I'm I'm making I'm auditing because I was like, is
Speaker 5: this some female music? Make us up? And now the
Speaker 5: localists be there?
Speaker 8: Yeah, but no, it was like you cooked chicken and
Speaker 8: then we went downstairs and you told me how like
Speaker 8: you got the Mexicans from home depot the studio. And
Speaker 8: then he was like, yo, I'm like all right, so
Speaker 8: we're going to see He was like, oh, I got
Speaker 8: these rooms and I just remember like sleeping at night.
Speaker 8: And I was like, yo, Jeff got a hip hop
Speaker 8: bed and breakfast, like you really like this is a
Speaker 8: whole nother business. And so like when me and my
Speaker 8: wife we bought our second crib, I was like, yo,
Speaker 8: I want to do that, Like I want to have
Speaker 8: a place where I got my studio. If we go late,
Speaker 8: somebody want to crash, it's the room right over here,
Speaker 8: you can crash.
Speaker 5: So now when they come to your studio, fante like
Speaker 5: they come spend the night, like when you said.
Speaker 8: Yeah, like well, when Madison came down, her and her,
Speaker 8: her and Ned, they stayed in the hotel right right
Speaker 8: around the corner. But you know, while we were in there,
Speaker 8: Ned was like, I'm gonna go lay down.
Speaker 2: He can go right in the next room.
Speaker 8: And it just it really just was a big inspiration
Speaker 8: for me to like so to the point where I
Speaker 8: quote unquote was in a booth not too long ago,
Speaker 8: in a session, and that shit felt totally like what
Speaker 8: is like that felts antiquated, like because we just did
Speaker 8: all that stuff right in the room together, you know
Speaker 8: what I mean?
Speaker 2: Yeah, Like you know, it's it's funny.
Speaker 4: I do a lot of work with Red Bull three Style,
Speaker 4: which is a global DJ competition, and maybe like the
Speaker 4: third or fourth year that we did it, they you know,
Speaker 4: each night they would have as special guest DJ, so
Speaker 4: you would se z trip, you see a track, you
Speaker 4: see crazy, you see all these guys. The third year,
Speaker 4: they decided to bring all of the DJs in and
Speaker 4: keep them there for the entire week. So this is
Speaker 4: what I realized. This is the first time that I
Speaker 4: have ever spent a week with one of my peers.
Speaker 4: Like i'd see you at a show, I see you
Speaker 4: that night. Like when you get to spend a week,
Speaker 4: you get to have a lot of conversations, you get
Speaker 4: to talk about the good stuff, you get to talk
Speaker 4: about the bad stuff, you start getting personal, you start
Speaker 4: swapping music. And when I realized that, that became my
Speaker 4: motivation and my energy to DJ for the entire year.
Speaker 4: Like everybody couldn't wait for threestyle because it's like we're
Speaker 4: gonna get together, We're gonna squat, We're gonna do it.
Speaker 4: So I was like, you know what, I want to
Speaker 4: have a DJ retreat, Like it really started off as
Speaker 4: a DJ retreat I did. How did you convince these
Speaker 4: people to travel from all points to the globe. These
Speaker 4: aren't people coming from like New York and from l A.
Speaker 4: This is like, yeah, you know, like when when I
Speaker 4: remember when my wife threw me a fiftieth birthday party.
Speaker 4: Matter of fact, Laiah and I was there. It was
Speaker 4: supposed to be there, but you show me.
Speaker 8: You so.
Speaker 4: But it was funny because the the level of preparation
Speaker 4: that was put into that birthday part. Like understand they
Speaker 4: I did a show for the NBA for their London
Speaker 4: game that I was accidentally put on the late flight.
Speaker 2: Like everything about this ship.
Speaker 4: I was mad, Like I'm getting mad right now because
Speaker 4: you know, I considered myself kind of a savvy person
Speaker 4: and I had no clue. Like my wife. To this day,
Speaker 4: I still think I knew. I had no clue that
Speaker 4: they sent me on a show out of the country
Speaker 4: and put me on the second flight because all of
Speaker 4: my friends from overseas were on the first flight. Wow,
Speaker 4: Oh they mapped it, so I, you know, we came back,
Speaker 4: I landed, wife picked me up in the airport. You know,
Speaker 4: it's kind of weird cause she picked me up. She's like, hey,
Speaker 4: you know, you know, I know you're gonna have cause
Speaker 4: she asked me what I wanted. I was like, I
Speaker 4: want to get together some of my friends and let's
Speaker 4: do a man dinner. And she's like, I know you're
Speaker 4: gonna do your man dinner, so I want to celebrate
Speaker 4: your birthday with you today. Okay, cool.
Speaker 2: So we drive.
Speaker 4: The whole crew leaves. We drive to a hotel and
Speaker 4: take a shower, change my clothes, she got my suit,
Speaker 4: she got everything. I'm kind of like, okay, this is cool.
Speaker 4: And we get in the car and she starts driving
Speaker 4: and we get on ninety five. So I was like, okay,
Speaker 4: I guess we're not going to dinner in Philly. So
Speaker 4: we driving and getting in a good conversation. We get
Speaker 4: off at my exit, so I'm like, okay, maybe we're
Speaker 4: going somewhere in Delaware, and she wants to kind of
Speaker 4: check up on the kids. So it wasn't until we
Speaker 4: got to the edge of the driveway that she stopped
Speaker 4: and she said Happy birthday, babe. And I said thank you,
Speaker 4: and she said close your eyes and I was like
Speaker 4: what and she said close your eyes and I.
Speaker 2: Was like, oh fuck, you got me and I closed
Speaker 2: my eyes. We drove down the driveway so I can feel.
Speaker 4: Instead of going to the back, she goes around the
Speaker 4: circle and she said, okay, you can open your eyes.
Speaker 4: And when I opened my eyes, it was two black
Speaker 4: dudes with parking attendant jackets and heat lamps.
Speaker 2: And I was like what the old man, man man?
Speaker 4: And it was so thought out and elaborate the way
Speaker 4: that my brain works that instead of saying, oh my god,
Speaker 4: this is great, I was like, we can pull this
Speaker 4: shit together. So the next day and the president's Serato
Speaker 4: was there. So the next day I was like, listen,
Speaker 4: I want to do a DJ retreat and such and such,
Speaker 4: and the president of the Serata was like, hey, you know,
Speaker 4: we'll be one of the sponsors. And we pulled out
Speaker 4: a yellow pad and we start writing the idea down.
Speaker 4: During that time, I was, you know, same thing me
Speaker 4: knowing about you guys. I would always collect music and
Speaker 4: I got linked into stro I got linked in the
Speaker 4: tall black guy got linked in the fourteen K t
Speaker 4: and it was one of those things that I got
Speaker 4: it and I started using Twitter because when I would know,
Speaker 4: you know, when I knew it was Stro, I just
Speaker 4: went to his Twitter page and just like, hey man,
Speaker 4: it's jazz Jeff, Yo, got some of your music, big fan.
Speaker 4: He hits you back, Oh my god, and then you
Speaker 4: end up getting a folder of music from him. So
Speaker 4: now I show up and I'm playing all this shit
Speaker 4: and everybody is like, Yo, what the fuck is that?
Speaker 5: What the fuck is you know?
Speaker 4: And you kind of get known for playing stuff that's
Speaker 4: really dope that no one knows. So and picking the
Speaker 4: DJs for the retreat, I was kind of like, well,
Speaker 4: why don't I invite them? What the fuck gods too?
Speaker 4: You know, like, because now what we can do Questlove DJs,
Speaker 4: Stro makes music. Wouldn't it be great if Stro made
Speaker 4: the music, give it straight to Questlove and chrest Love
Speaker 4: is the music messenger. And and that's how it started.
Speaker 4: Listen listen, you know. But it was it was really
Speaker 4: to kind of get people together and kind of collaborate.
Speaker 2: You know.
Speaker 4: I started feeling some kind of way is as much
Speaker 4: as I love my role as a producer, I started
Speaker 4: getting mad because it became extremely selfish. Nobody like, everybody
Speaker 4: got laptop, everybody's making their own beats. You know, the
Speaker 4: reason why I touched the Jazz was special, and the
Speaker 4: reason why the Roots Studio was special is because it
Speaker 4: was a hub where everybody kind of came and did
Speaker 4: music out. Everybody's hub is their computer and you can
Speaker 4: hear it in the music. There's no collaboration, and it
Speaker 4: was kind of like, no, no, no, no, we gotta
Speaker 4: let's figure out a way to get it back. Also
Speaker 4: with the biggest thing for me was I get mad
Speaker 4: that a lot of the equipment manufacturers make equipment without
Speaker 4: ever consulting the people who use it. Man, listen, and
Speaker 4: I'm kind of like, and then you get mad because
Speaker 4: you make some shit, and then I get it and
Speaker 4: I'm like, you know, I don't like this shit, and
Speaker 4: then you mad. I was like, well, maybe you should
Speaker 4: have talked about before you did it. So it was
Speaker 4: kind of like, I want to create. I want to
Speaker 4: I just want an open dialogue. I want to invite
Speaker 4: the manufacturers that you can tell us, make everybody sign
Speaker 4: an NDA, tell us the new shit that you got,
Speaker 4: and let us tell you if you should even do it.
Speaker 4: You know, No, that's not a good idea. I have
Speaker 4: you talked someone out of doing something that they thought
Speaker 4: was needed on the marketplace? Or wait, well we didn't.
Speaker 4: How do you remember that prod you with needleless turned
Speaker 4: to you the guy like I would think that you
Speaker 4: would at least want to hang on to.
Speaker 2: No, you know, I am a purist and I play
Speaker 2: for purists.
Speaker 4: What what happens is you get on this stage and
Speaker 4: it's me and one other guy using turntables.
Speaker 2: So now they don't care.
Speaker 4: They don't even put the cinder blocks under the table
Speaker 4: now they you know, And they got subs on the stage,
Speaker 4: and I'm listening to the dude before me sound amazing,
Speaker 4: and I'm telling the guy take all the base out.
Speaker 4: So now now I don't sound as good as he does,
Speaker 4: you know. So it starts to get to a point
Speaker 4: that you know, Okay, So I'm I'm the I'm the
Speaker 4: last Mohican. And it's not even that I switched. I
Speaker 4: still chose something that enables me to do everything that
Speaker 4: I do.
Speaker 7: So right now you're using needle arm I'm sorry, armless
Speaker 7: turntables right now do you feel?
Speaker 5: Now?
Speaker 2: See? Oh you're on some next oh yeah, wait, so
Speaker 2: are you in the visa right now?
Speaker 4: DJing? And you give me this interview? But what I
Speaker 4: will say, like, I leave Wednesday for a month long tour.
Speaker 4: My first show is Friday. Just check Instagram Saturday.
Speaker 2: Okay, are you?
Speaker 4: I can't imagine what's more mind blowing than DJing without
Speaker 4: a needle?
Speaker 2: Check Instagram Friday. He's gonna be DJing with his mind now.
Speaker 5: But I'm wrong? What I'm wrong when I say you
Speaker 5: did introduce to ratto to the at least to this market,
Speaker 5: because I feel like I remember when DJ's was like piss.
Speaker 2: Have a career if it wasn't, I was one of
Speaker 2: the early Serado guys. Yeah, I remember the first CDJ
Speaker 2: Jeff got me on.
Speaker 9: Jeff was how I found out about Final Scratch, which
Speaker 9: was predated to Soerado. Yeah, so well, actually, no, Ritchie
Speaker 9: Harden was how I found out about Final Scratching. Then
Speaker 9: I found out you used it and that kind of
Speaker 9: made it official. So are they with scratching now?
Speaker 4: Have they?
Speaker 5: Do?
Speaker 4: They have it?
Speaker 2: So you can pretty much scratch streams now? Yeah you
Speaker 2: can do that. Yeah, you just made uh what do
Speaker 2: you call title?
Speaker 4: Yeah? Titles?
Speaker 2: Have you tried that yet.
Speaker 4: Yeah. The only issue with that, which is smart because
Speaker 4: of course, you know, my brain is always trying to
Speaker 4: go into finding the workaround. You have to have internet.
Speaker 2: Yeah, that's why I don't like it.
Speaker 4: You have to have good internet. You have to have
Speaker 4: internet because because because I downloaded something, I downloaded something
Speaker 4: and it worked perfect, and then I cut my internet
Speaker 4: off and when I went to go load the track,
Speaker 4: and it was like, you need to sign on the
Speaker 4: internet for this, because think about it. You can record
Speaker 4: in Serrado, so you could basically stream that song and
Speaker 4: record it and not just that even if you have internet.
Speaker 4: See uh huh there. But this is the crazy thing
Speaker 4: when you push when you push record, it tells you
Speaker 4: that it's a song that you're playing that can't be recorded,
Speaker 4: and it stops the recording.
Speaker 2: So they found workarounds. So I was like, I'm cool,
Speaker 2: I'll just get the record. Do you think that, I
Speaker 2: would say, yeah, So do you think that'll replace the
Speaker 2: MP three?
Speaker 4: Do you think that?
Speaker 6: No? No?
Speaker 4: No, I mean listen, let me. You got to keep
Speaker 4: in mind that vinyl sales are at an all time high.
Speaker 4: But you know, is that because they're just charging like
Speaker 4: forty bucks for a single. Yes, well, now you know,
Speaker 4: it's just it's a new generation that, you know, when
Speaker 4: you really sit and think about it, there's a new
Speaker 4: generation that missed what vinyl gave you. Vinyl gave you
Speaker 4: a cover, Vinyl gave you credits, Vinyl gave you something
Speaker 4: to look at that not only could you listen, and
Speaker 4: you could touch it. So you know, there's a reason.
Speaker 4: You know, everybody who's who's tried to press vinyl in
Speaker 4: the past four or five years has seen a extreme
Speaker 4: significant time of getting your vinyl because of urban outfitters.
Speaker 4: Oh yeah, you know the records, you know. But yeah,
Speaker 4: I'm I'm about to I'm about to solve that problem.
Speaker 9: I've kind of stopped buying records and I've started buying
Speaker 9: CDs again, really really, and I'll tell you why, because
Speaker 9: I mean, I have I have accounts with multiple streaming services,
Speaker 9: and it only takes you know when to be like, yeah,
Speaker 9: it's it's like, take get rid of my favorite song
Speaker 9: off the stream service, and it's no longer there, so
Speaker 9: fuck it. I might as well just have the CD
Speaker 9: and my arsenal so I can rip that motherfucker into
Speaker 9: my iPhone whenever the fuck.
Speaker 2: I want to and taget how I want it.
Speaker 4: Yeah, now I'm with you. I still got all my CDs.
Speaker 8: I still haven't got rid of them, because you just
Speaker 8: never know, never like they just like I went on
Speaker 8: Spotify Monday and ThunderCats whole ship was going.
Speaker 4: It was like, what the fuck?
Speaker 2: Yeah, I mean it's back now, but it was just gone.
Speaker 4: I was like, I mean, I mean it's it's it's
Speaker 4: I supplement with my own personal streaming server. Now, all right,
Speaker 4: so you won't reveal let us know, but you know
Speaker 4: what it is. I think I want you to see it. Okay,
Speaker 4: don't don't want you don't because because I because I
Speaker 4: could have. I got it and I've done it in
Speaker 4: the house, and it was just kind of like, you know,
Speaker 4: you had that desire to just shoot it and just
Speaker 4: post it, and I was like, no, I want to
Speaker 4: be in front of a thousand people and do this
Speaker 4: ship and get that reaction and then I'll post it.
Speaker 4: Because once I posted, you know, it was kind of
Speaker 4: like when I used the Needless turntable and I was
Speaker 4: picking it up and you know, people freaked out.
Speaker 2: So another freaking tell us about the upcoming uh plate.
Speaker 8: Well, the play this project, the first one God, and
Speaker 8: that was in a week a week in a week,
Speaker 8: which I know I've done that before and I'll never
Speaker 8: do that again.
Speaker 4: Well, you know what it is, the trying to record
Speaker 4: it and release it in a week is hard. Recording
Speaker 4: it in a week piece of kate pec k and
Speaker 4: especially when you kind of get a routine and a
Speaker 4: method down like we we got.
Speaker 2: We got the method we you know we got.
Speaker 5: Don't ever stop.
Speaker 2: Part of releasing it now, because I mean all you
Speaker 2: got to do is just upload it. Well, no, you
Speaker 2: know what it was is we had to mix it.
Speaker 4: We had to mix it, and so it's kind of
Speaker 4: like we recorded and it was basically we with the
Speaker 4: first when we finished, Glenn cut his last Folk for
Speaker 4: about six pm Friday, and we needed to be done
Speaker 4: by midnight on Sunday. So vd Al and I basically
Speaker 4: stayed up for seventy two straight hours and not only
Speaker 4: mixed it, but there was a guy sitting in the
Speaker 4: mastering lab that as we mixed it, we had to
Speaker 4: send it to him and then he had to send
Speaker 4: it back and we had to prove it. So it
Speaker 4: was kind of like when we got there, I was
Speaker 4: like we ain't never doing this again. We ain't Listen.
Speaker 4: I'm in the bed at nine o'clock if I ain't
Speaker 4: doing the show, Yes you are.
Speaker 2: I'm happy with that. Listen. I get to see the
Speaker 2: sun set and rise.
Speaker 5: That's how you stay looking twelve listen, Hello, listen.
Speaker 2: I can't do that, so I can do with Mamuna.
Speaker 5: Is that already on the services?
Speaker 6: No?
Speaker 4: No, well no, will it be in June. It'll be.
Speaker 4: It'll be released in June. Okay, so it'll be released
Speaker 4: in June. But let me just say this for anybody
Speaker 4: that has been looking yep for anything. And I don't
Speaker 4: even like making comparisons ago. Yeah.
Speaker 2: Oh, listen, when I tell you.
Speaker 4: You have never in your human life heard someone sing
Speaker 4: and rap like her, It's always been there, it's all
Speaker 4: but yo, when I tell you when you hear them, yeah,
Speaker 4: like she went there.
Speaker 2: Oh man, she went.
Speaker 4: There, she went there. Yes, she went there. It's time. Yeah, time, brother, Jeff,
Speaker 4: thank you, Mom. We finally closed a chapter. Or no,
Speaker 4: we got to close it. We have to close it.
Speaker 4: At the retreat this year.
Speaker 5: I was about to say, you got we got that
Speaker 5: on tape.
Speaker 2: Listen, Well, this is this is the fifth year this
Speaker 2: is the fifth year.
Speaker 4: I never in a million years that we would get
Speaker 4: to year five because you have no idea what it
Speaker 4: takes to throw something like this, Like it is emotionally,
Speaker 4: physically and mentally draining, but it is worth all of it,
Speaker 4: you know, Like.
Speaker 2: Stro wouldn't be on in the roots if it wasn't
Speaker 2: for the retreat, you know.
Speaker 4: Indeed, you know we we we never posted it, but
Speaker 4: we put up almost like a chart of people and
Speaker 4: the connections that they made and records that they made,
Speaker 4: and it's absolutely ridiculous.
Speaker 8: One of my records, the particular old of me and
Speaker 8: Errol waiting for your record stroll and Paris and Rich.
Speaker 2: Yeah, that one that was a retreat record.
Speaker 5: And this is June, right because I'm about to start
Speaker 5: looking at August. It's in August. August, let the record show.
Speaker 2: August. I mean, I'm like, should I say this out when?
Speaker 4: When it is? Because it's early August, because you just
Speaker 4: got to understand, it's just you know, August Man. Shout
Speaker 4: out to Monta montez Is at the retreat every year.
Speaker 4: So first World Fight Club anyway, Jeff, we thank you
Speaker 4: very much. Shout out to Corey Towns like I get
Speaker 4: that shot, my dude, I text so disrespectful.
Speaker 2: I text her so that we me and Corey like slander,
Speaker 2: all kind of ship.
Speaker 4: It's so great.
Speaker 5: Too, because she brought us jail.
Speaker 4: I'm gonna go there.
Speaker 7: You go all right on behalf of the Bills and
Speaker 7: Corey and Sugar Steve and Fan Ticolo and Lady like
Speaker 7: Jazzy Jeff.
Speaker 4: Thank you very much, Yes, sir.
Speaker 7: Another great episode Supreme, only on Mandor Kick it Will.
Speaker 5: I was in a club one Friday.
Speaker 2: A lovely lady comes walking my way.
Speaker 4: She woke up and she said hello.
Speaker 2: I said, Hi, quest Love Supreme. It's a production.
Speaker 4: It's my Heart Radio.
Speaker 1: This classic episode was produced by the team at Cador.
Speaker 4: Know me, You'll never forgive me, I said, why? Then
Speaker 4: she bit me.
Speaker 3: For more podcasts from iHeart Radio, visit the iHeart Radio app,
Speaker 3: Apple Podcasts, or wherever you listen to your favorite shows.