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Speaker 1: Quest Love Supreme is a production of iHeartRadio. So, ladies

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Speaker 1: and gentlemen, welcome back to Quest Love Supreme. We are

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Speaker 1: here this morning or this afternoon, as I paid.

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Speaker 2: Bill has already corrected me.

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Speaker 1: We normally do our episodes at nighttime, so this is

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Speaker 1: one of the rare moments where.

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Speaker 3: We're doing a daytime episode.

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Speaker 1: We attended to do a daytime episode Will Smith, but

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Speaker 1: I thought Will was trying to pull the Mariah and

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Speaker 1: I thought it was one am in the morning. I

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Speaker 1: didn't realize we were doing it in the afternoon, so

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Speaker 1: you know, so, yeah, daytime Quest Love Supreme should be

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Speaker 1: very interesting. So you know, at the time when we

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Speaker 1: were talking to our guest Monica Lynch, I didn't realize.

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Speaker 1: Of course, I knew every potential QOLS episode could possibly

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Speaker 1: delve into Jimmy Jam territory.

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Speaker 3: Every time we refer to Jimmy Jam.

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Speaker 1: It's usually to the fact that you know that that

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Speaker 1: particular episode was what six and a half hours I

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Speaker 1: believe half hours, Yeah, six and a half hours.

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Speaker 4: Monica, you could take any one of the acts that

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Speaker 4: you discovered and that could be a whole episode by

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Speaker 4: itself exactly.

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Speaker 1: Yeah, of those so you know lately we've been since

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Speaker 1: our new home at iHeart, we kind of crammed our

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Speaker 1: show down to normal. You know, when we first started,

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Speaker 1: I think the our standard was to be a three

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Speaker 1: hour episode. I realized that sometimes a person's story arc

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Speaker 1: goes over ninety minutes, and I guess towards the end

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Speaker 1: of that episode, I didn't want to just skim over

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Speaker 1: casual moments in history. So our guest today was very

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Speaker 1: kind to oblige us a part two kind of a

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Speaker 1: first in our In our show, usually we just you know,

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Speaker 1: do an entire show for four hours, and then you

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Speaker 1: might run the risk of the ire of say Hall

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Speaker 1: and Notes, who were clearly running out of gas after.

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Speaker 5: His eyes said when is this done? Because it better

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Speaker 5: be soon. Yeah, you couldn't even see his eyes, but

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Speaker 5: they still said that ship.

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Speaker 1: QLs fans are going to be so angry because like

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Speaker 1: I like, you know, I like to build up from

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Speaker 1: the beginning of their lives to the peak of their thing.

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Speaker 1: And I really didn't even get the nerd out on

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Speaker 1: kind of the the glory the Glory Beard of Darryl.

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Speaker 1: I was like, yeah, so I can't go for that.

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Speaker 1: So anyway, you got a solo record out.

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Speaker 3: Now.

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Speaker 6: I remember somebody just told us that they had to go.

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Speaker 6: Who was recently somebody was just like, yo, I got

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Speaker 6: to go.

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Speaker 1: John Notes. John Notes pulled to George Clinton. All right,

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Speaker 1: so y'all have fun. I'm out my dinners.

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Speaker 5: Yeah, wow, this interview is long. We're like, we.

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Speaker 3: Gotta know.

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Speaker 2: That was funny.

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Speaker 1: There's some people that are Guessed on the show that

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Speaker 1: are fans of the show that know that we nerd

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Speaker 1: out on stuff. But you know, a lot of times,

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Speaker 1: like Steven Stout was another example where he was just

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Speaker 1: shocked that we wanted to know the the but now

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Speaker 1: minutia of his career. Like you imagine Steve Stout doing

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Speaker 1: an entire interview. Did we even mention the puffy bottle situation?

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Speaker 1: And well, yeah, yeah, I mean but if that were

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Speaker 1: drink champs, you know, that would have been Nory's first question.

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Speaker 3: You know, so how many stitches did you get?

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Speaker 1: But all that to say is we're very grateful, uh

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Speaker 1: for our guess today.

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Speaker 3: Monica Lynch, president of Tommy.

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Speaker 1: Boy Records and arguably one of the most uh successful

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Speaker 1: I guess storied labels, not even hip hop labels, because

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Speaker 1: a lot of their success came outside of hip hop.

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Speaker 3: You could tell just got done listening.

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Speaker 1: To I've been nerding out on what had happened was

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Speaker 1: so I feel like open my equal now.

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Speaker 3: Like the way that I'm asking questions anyway.

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Speaker 1: I know way way to cross promote other Yeah, right,

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Speaker 1: I spread the love anyway. Monica Lynch, thank you very

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Speaker 1: much for for obliging us around two oh.

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Speaker 7: Man, say it's great to be back because you know,

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Speaker 7: like I was telling your crew, I've been hearing from

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Speaker 7: everyone now have kids. I used to babysit for. I said, Yo,

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Speaker 7: you're in West Love supreme. I can't believe it. You're

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Speaker 7: legit now, Like, thank you so much.

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Speaker 3: You give us the credibility.

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Speaker 6: And this is the first time that a guest can

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Speaker 6: actually come back on the show and tell us about

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Speaker 6: the feedback because we get such a quick turnaround.

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Speaker 3: This is dope.

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Speaker 1: I like that, right, Oh, I like that so, Monica.

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Speaker 1: So when we kind of last left the previous episode,

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Speaker 1: we kind of put the pump the brakes on signing

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Speaker 1: DAYLA and really not sensing that there was going to

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Speaker 1: be a part too. You know, again, as I said,

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Speaker 1: I was skimming through a lot of questions, but Now

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Speaker 1: that I have a little more time on my hands,

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Speaker 1: I kind of want to ask one more question. So,

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Speaker 1: you know, with the problems with the problems of having

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Speaker 1: well we discussed with Planet Rocke at least, the problems

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Speaker 1: of having massive demand and very little staff and knowing

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Speaker 1: you know your history, you guys are sort of churned

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Speaker 1: out not just street cred records, but actual pop hits.

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Speaker 3: Like Tender Love and Lean On Me.

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Speaker 1: You told the Tender Love story, but can you kind

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Speaker 1: of speak on how you guys connected with Jay King

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Speaker 1: of Club Nouveau and I guess the facto manager of

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Speaker 1: time AX Social Club. I always felt like Club Neuveau

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Speaker 1: was a quick response group to the imploding of time

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Speaker 1: X Social Club with having such a massive hit, and

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Speaker 1: with that group, I felt there was a precursor to

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Speaker 1: what did he became because Jay King clearly looked out

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Speaker 1: of place on stage as Okay, that guy's clearly the

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Speaker 1: CEO of the label trying to promote himself with an

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Speaker 1: actual group of musicians.

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Speaker 3: But can you talk about how that whole story came

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Speaker 3: to be?

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Speaker 7: Yeah, thank you. The you know time ex Soocial Club

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Speaker 7: was one of those hits that came out of the

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Speaker 7: West coast, and not just the West coast, Sacramento, of

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Speaker 7: all places, you know, Saca Potatoes. You know, the only

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Speaker 7: thing in Sacramento back then was of course, it was

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Speaker 7: the head course of Tower Records. So it wasn't really

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Speaker 7: from a scene that was already you know, uh set,

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Speaker 7: like in l A or the Bay Area or New

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Speaker 7: York or where have you. But that that record was

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Speaker 7: a huge record, was on everybody's radar, of course, and

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Speaker 7: I think it really broke on the West coast. But yeah,

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Speaker 7: so you had Jay King, you had Denzil Foster and

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Speaker 7: Thomas McElroy, you know, great producers who went on to major,

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Speaker 7: major success. And I can't even remember who the female

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Speaker 7: voice was of.

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Speaker 1: The group Valie showns. I think Vali her he first

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Speaker 1: name is Valie. And Samuel L who also had.

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Speaker 3: A Samuel that's right, did you show you?

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Speaker 7: Yeah? But it was actually this was one of those

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Speaker 7: unique situations because we were already in a deal with

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Speaker 7: Warner Brothers. And shortly after that deal started, which was

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Speaker 7: around I guess eighty five maybe eighty six, whenever Tender

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Speaker 7: Love came out, there was a guy that was hired

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Speaker 7: at Warner Brothers named Benny Medina.

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Speaker 2: Yes, indeed.

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Speaker 7: Yeah, and Benny was made the head of Black Music

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Speaker 7: A and R.

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Speaker 3: He started in eighty six, I think around.

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Speaker 7: Eighty see, I think it was circa eighty six. Yeah,

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Speaker 7: I'm not sure.

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Speaker 1: For our listeners out there, we've mentioned Benny a few

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Speaker 1: times on the show. Benny is technically the fresh Prince

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Speaker 1: of bel Air. The you know, the life of what

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Speaker 1: Will Smith is playing is actually based on Benny Medina's story,

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Speaker 1: and I guess Lenny Kravitz sort of mentioned on his

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Speaker 1: episode that you know, Benny started out kind of as

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Speaker 1: who was Diddy's psychic with the Umbrella. Yeah, he was

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Speaker 1: kind of the fonds Worth Bentley to kind of second

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Speaker 1: seventies early eighties era Barry Gordy, and he formed a

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Speaker 1: very interesting disco rock band called Apollo.

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Speaker 3: I've only seen him perform, yes, I put quotes on it.

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Speaker 2: A lot of work.

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Speaker 3: Yeah something, No, you just google Benny Medina Apollo.

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Speaker 1: I've only seen him on Soul Train and Dance Fever,

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Speaker 1: And you know, even at the age of eight, I

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Speaker 1: was like, Wow, this is weird. But of course Apollo

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Speaker 1: contained Carrie Gordy, who was also became a kind of

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Speaker 1: got a day job as a as an executive. You know,

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Speaker 1: Carrie's younger brother was a rock well of Somebody's Watching

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Speaker 1: Me fame. But so when she mentions Benny Medina, you know,

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Speaker 1: Benny Medina starts off as the real life fresh Prince

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Speaker 1: of bel Air, works at Warner for some time period

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Speaker 1: and then becomes like supermanager of j Lo and Will

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Speaker 1: Smith and everyone.

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Speaker 3: So sorry, I got to do footnotes for.

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Speaker 7: Yeah. No, man, this is you're breaking it down. But yeah,

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Speaker 7: he was. He had lived at the Gordie family at

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Speaker 7: some point after Apollo. Uh, he was hired by Moe

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Speaker 7: Austin at Warner Brothers and he was made the head

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Speaker 7: of Black an R, Black Music A and R and

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Speaker 7: his you know, his very early signings. Uh. I don't

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Speaker 7: know if you remember the female Body Inspectors. No, wow, fbi, FBI,

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Speaker 7: I've heard of.

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Speaker 2: This before you.

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Speaker 6: Today kids just used to say it on the playground.

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Speaker 6: I didn't know it was at your discuss.

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Speaker 7: And then there's there was another guy named she I

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Speaker 7: think Cedric or Sedrick or he was he was sorry,

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Speaker 7: I had that West Coast. Uh, you know, curl activate

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Speaker 7: going on?

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Speaker 2: Are you talking about Sharrick Shrek?

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Speaker 3: Wait? A minute.

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Speaker 1: Is that Shreck? Is that the Shrek that's part of

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Speaker 1: Wendy Whims's story?

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Speaker 2: Yes, yes it is.

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Speaker 3: Wow?

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Speaker 7: Why why what?

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Speaker 8: Wait?

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Speaker 3: Schrek? Didn't he do call your name?

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Speaker 2: Just call?

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Speaker 7: It was?

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Speaker 2: You can't call me what you want? Hey? Just it

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Speaker 2: was like the greatest Luther song that Luther never sang.

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Speaker 2: But right, I love that record.

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Speaker 3: I believe.

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Speaker 1: At the top of Wendy Williams's UH story, her biopic

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Speaker 1: kind of the beginning of her trauma starts with UH,

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Speaker 1: an unfortunate vision visit to his hotel expert. Yeah, an

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Speaker 1: unfortunate visit to his hotel room sort of begins the

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Speaker 1: beginning of Wendy's trauma era.

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Speaker 6: This is cool, okay, all right, man, I.

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Speaker 3: Got fane on this show.

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Speaker 6: Man.

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Speaker 1: I got to keep up with helpful, useless and about

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Speaker 1: R and B.

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Speaker 3: Actually never heard of so much.

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Speaker 7: Oh many's all right. So Betty was making his way.

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Speaker 7: You know, he'd had a couple of signings, nothing had

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Speaker 7: really blown up, you know, big time. But he uh

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Speaker 7: got a hold of Jay King when time Ax Social

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Speaker 7: Club broke and you know, Jay King was really very intense,

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Speaker 7: kind of difficult. He would like he would have you

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Speaker 7: believe that he would have you believed that. Yeah, he

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Speaker 7: was a rather compact guy.

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Speaker 3: Short record executive.

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Speaker 1: Scare the shit out of me, So all right, no, yeah,

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Speaker 1: yeah I prayed of Sugar Night at all, but short dudes, No, yeah.

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Speaker 7: He looked like he was buying his suits on Broad

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Speaker 7: Street and Newark. You know, you're fifty nine ninety nine,

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Speaker 7: you know, Sunday Church Special episodes, and you know, because

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Speaker 7: he just did. He had this whole other look. And

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Speaker 7: I've got a fantastic photo of me, Bennie and Jay

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Speaker 7: King together from that era, and it sort of says

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Speaker 7: a lot just in this one photo. But anyway, it

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Speaker 7: was Bennie who brought in Jay King and what became

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Speaker 7: Club Nouveaux. I think that the group was already sort

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Speaker 7: of at falling apart, and there was power struggles because

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Speaker 7: Jay was a very you know, he ran things with

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Speaker 7: an iron fist in that organization. But so Club Nouveau was,

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Speaker 7: you know, when time X fell apart, Club Neuveau was

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Speaker 7: the answer. Yes, you're right about that. And the album

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Speaker 7: came out through Warner Brothers and through Bennie and our

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Speaker 7: deal with Warner Brothers. Tommy Boy released all of the

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Speaker 7: Club Nouveaux twelve inch singles, which was very significant because

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Speaker 7: they had a bunch of hits, you know. And again

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Speaker 7: this was a group that was like, who the hell

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Speaker 7: are they? You remember all the album cover and twelve

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Speaker 7: inch cover artwork, Yes, new faults like silhouette or you

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Speaker 7: can it looked like well, kind of looked like the drawings.

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Speaker 7: It looked like prison art.

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Speaker 1: Yeah really yes, Wow, Monica could be borderline a Q member.

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Speaker 4: And they have like the backdrop exactly, it looked like that, right.

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Speaker 7: It did look like that. It kind of looked like

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Speaker 7: outsider art or something you put next to the you know,

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Speaker 7: the albums.

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Speaker 9: They listen to the message in Life, Love and matter

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Speaker 9: of fact, I did not buy Life, Love and Pain

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Speaker 9: because I didn't like the album cover as it Dang,

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Speaker 9: that is crazy.

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Speaker 6: But it's just her face. It does look like a prison.

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Speaker 3: I forget the first album, not the second half.

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Speaker 7: Somebody needs to look up who did the artwork on

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Speaker 7: all those because there was the same person who did

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Speaker 7: all that artwork, and I think, in fact, it was

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Speaker 7: the same woman who was portrayed on those all those covers,

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Speaker 7: and it was ingenious because nobody really knew what Club

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Speaker 7: neu Veaux looked like. But there was such a strong

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Speaker 7: branding and identity with those covers. You knew when you

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Speaker 7: went into the store if you bought Situation number nine,

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Speaker 7: that you knew what jealousy. You know, you could say, oh,

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Speaker 7: it looks like jealousy. You know, buy them all, collect

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Speaker 7: the whole set.

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Speaker 3: Bad Situation number nine, glean on me. They all had

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Speaker 3: the same.

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Speaker 7: Yeah, they all had the same artwork style, same artist,

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Speaker 7: and I think it was the same female model that

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Speaker 7: was used, like she was going through different phases of

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Speaker 7: emotions on the cover artwork and all this. But you know,

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Speaker 7: that sound was such a it was a sound that

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Speaker 7: really traveled quite well. I mean, we never had any

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Speaker 7: records that sounded like Club Nouveaux, not a New York

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Speaker 7: you know sound even remotely. And but in the South,

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Speaker 7: the West, Midwest, all these places, people love those Club

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Speaker 7: neu Veaux records. They may not know who Club neu

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Speaker 7: Veaux is, though they love their vou records.

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Speaker 1: Well, I mean they were kind of close to what

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Speaker 1: Jimmy jam and Terry Lewis were doing. Like you could

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Speaker 1: almost say that Club Neuvau was probably a precursor to

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Speaker 1: the new Jack sound. Mm you could rhyme over rumors,

285
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Speaker 1: like back in the day, rumors could.

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Speaker 3: Have been a beat on Whodini's record.

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Speaker 1: Like, I guess they sort of took the time where

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Speaker 1: Larry Smith wasn't able to carry very.

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Speaker 7: Melodic you know, sort of funky, sort of slower. Yeah,

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Speaker 7: and I think I think you're right. You know, Jimmy

291
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Speaker 7: and Terry's influence was being widely you know, their sound

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Speaker 7: as being widely copied.

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Speaker 1: At that point at the time when time X Social

294
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Speaker 1: Club imploded. Kind of my only Internet at least with

295
00:16:10,520 --> 00:16:14,560
Speaker 1: real time news was always like Lee Bailey's radioscope. So

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Speaker 1: around that time period, there was a lot of back

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Speaker 1: and forth between Jay King and the time Ax Social Clubs,

298
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Speaker 1: guys like dissing each other. This is the first time

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Speaker 1: I'm seeing like what I considered an R and B situation,

300
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Speaker 1: Like it's one thing for like Ll and mc shan

301
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Speaker 1: to go to eat each other because okay, they're rappers,

302
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Speaker 1: They're supposed to.

303
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Speaker 3: Do that, but you know, not to this level.

304
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Speaker 1: But that said, were you guys even allowed to have

305
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Speaker 1: an audience with Denzel and Thomas for their production or

306
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Speaker 1: did you did you get a sense that they were

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Speaker 1: doing all the work musically well.

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Speaker 7: First of all, I would say Denzel and Thomas were

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Speaker 7: really nice guys, you know, cool, easy to deal with,

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Speaker 7: you know, just cool guys. Jay was kind of a

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Speaker 7: more sort of paranoid type of guy, and like I said,

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Speaker 7: he really was had He was a bit of a

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Speaker 7: control freak. Really, I could see where anyone would chafe

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Speaker 7: under his leadership. And I don't know what the business

315
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Speaker 7: was that they had arranged, but I'm having I have

316
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Speaker 7: a feeling it probably wasn't particularly advantageous for Danny and Tommy,

317
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Speaker 7: so Denzil and Thomas. So I don't recall. I just

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Speaker 7: remember Jay always being a guy that was quick, quick tempered,

319
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Speaker 7: you know, very controlling, you know, not an easy guy

320
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Speaker 7: to get along with, tightly wound. But to his credit,

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Speaker 7: I would say also that he had a pretty strong

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Speaker 7: vision about what he wanted and that it worked. So,

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Speaker 7: you know, they had a brief and glorious run. And

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Speaker 7: it's of course what was the put five on? It

325
00:18:02,280 --> 00:18:04,040
Speaker 7: was much saying I got five on it?

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Speaker 3: Yeah, why you treat me so bad?

327
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Speaker 7: Why you treat me so bad? Yeah? So but I

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Speaker 7: after Lena on me, I don't know whatever happened to

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Speaker 7: you know, Jay King or anyone, you know, Denzel and

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Speaker 7: Thomas of course went on.

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Speaker 1: With nineteen eighty six being the the I mean, with

332
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Speaker 1: that marriage of Warner Brothers and Tommy Boy. I noticed

333
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Speaker 1: that was the only label that you saw both logos on.

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Speaker 3: Was there a reason for that?

335
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Speaker 1: Like, is there a reason why three ft Hind Rising

336
00:18:42,280 --> 00:18:45,840
Speaker 1: and Naughty and all the other subsequent Tommy Boy releases

337
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Speaker 1: also didn't have the Warner Brothers logo on it.

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Speaker 7: Oh, it's actually a pretty simple explanation. The deal with

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Speaker 7: Warner Brothers was that we would have discussions so I

340
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Speaker 7: mutually agree on what artists and albums would be best

341
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Speaker 7: suited to go through Tommy Boy's independent distribution system. And

342
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Speaker 7: there were select artists like four MDS for example, who

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Speaker 7: where they had a shot at getting you know, top

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Speaker 7: ten black radio hits. And Warner Brothers had an in

345
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Speaker 7: house you know, black music promotion and marketing department that

346
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Speaker 7: we didn't have, and so we would mutually agree upon

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Speaker 7: which releases would go through you know which system.

348
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Speaker 1: So the palatable R and B non hip hop stuff

349
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Speaker 1: went through one or sometimes yeah, I.

350
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Speaker 7: Mean, and there wasn't like there was that much of it.

351
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Speaker 7: I mean the four mds might be might have been

352
00:19:49,480 --> 00:19:52,639
Speaker 7: the only one, but there was That's not true either.

353
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Speaker 7: Information Society was silent mourning.

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Speaker 6: Wow, well.

355
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Speaker 3: Every kid in uh oh wait, that wasn't Information Society.

356
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Speaker 7: It was close. It was no Silent Morning, I think

357
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Speaker 7: was Noel.

358
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Speaker 3: Was that a Tommy Body.

359
00:20:09,720 --> 00:20:13,200
Speaker 7: You're thinking Running, Well, you know it's a uh. Information

360
00:20:13,400 --> 00:20:18,639
Speaker 7: Society was where their first record was Running, And they

361
00:20:18,640 --> 00:20:23,119
Speaker 7: were from Minneapolis and they were They had an interesting

362
00:20:23,240 --> 00:20:28,520
Speaker 7: story because they actually were on a label up in Minneapolis.

363
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Speaker 7: I think it's called Twin Tone, an indie sort of

364
00:20:33,359 --> 00:20:36,520
Speaker 7: I don't know, alternative rock type of label, and they

365
00:20:36,520 --> 00:20:38,600
Speaker 7: had this record called Running. It was and it was

366
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Speaker 7: actually a little Louis Vega who was working as a

367
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Speaker 7: DJ at El Nido del Diablo The Devil's Nest, which

368
00:20:46,720 --> 00:20:52,960
Speaker 7: was club which was Salabatiello's other club running the Fever

369
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Speaker 7: Disco Fever. But you opened this place called The Devil's

370
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Speaker 7: Nest and Louis Vega, who along with Joey Gardner at

371
00:21:01,119 --> 00:21:03,680
Speaker 7: Tommy Boy, was also one of the pioneers of the

372
00:21:03,680 --> 00:21:09,160
Speaker 7: whole Latin freestyle scene and sound picked up on this

373
00:21:10,480 --> 00:21:15,080
Speaker 7: Information Society record and turned Joey Gardner onto it, and

374
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Speaker 7: that it was Joey who brought Information Society to Tommy Boy.

375
00:21:20,240 --> 00:21:23,160
Speaker 7: Joey is my neighbor. He lives upstairs from me, and

376
00:21:22,880 --> 00:21:26,199
Speaker 7: we're like family. You know, he's a kid I plucked

377
00:21:26,200 --> 00:21:29,639
Speaker 7: out of Crazy Eddies twelve inch department, like back in

378
00:21:29,720 --> 00:21:31,160
Speaker 7: nineteen eighty two or eighty.

379
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Speaker 1: Three, Crazy Eddies. Wow Eddies was a player in selling records.

380
00:21:36,920 --> 00:21:41,000
Speaker 1: You mentioned Information Society. They did a Also, I want

381
00:21:41,080 --> 00:21:42,040
Speaker 1: to know what.

382
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Speaker 3: Do you think?

383
00:21:42,560 --> 00:21:44,439
Speaker 7: You tell me, yes, your energy.

384
00:21:45,160 --> 00:21:48,520
Speaker 1: Yeah, so, I mean even with groups like that sort

385
00:21:48,520 --> 00:21:51,760
Speaker 1: of coming ahead of the curve of like I don't

386
00:21:51,800 --> 00:21:54,000
Speaker 1: know what you would call like depeche Mode or kind

387
00:21:54,040 --> 00:21:58,399
Speaker 1: of like those type of yeah, well, post New Waves

388
00:21:58,440 --> 00:22:02,040
Speaker 1: sort of like I mean, it's not pop, it's not rock,

389
00:22:02,080 --> 00:22:03,280
Speaker 1: but it's definitely synth based.

390
00:22:04,240 --> 00:22:05,840
Speaker 3: I guess. For me, my question.

391
00:22:05,760 --> 00:22:11,359
Speaker 1: Is is it possible for an independent label, which I mean

392
00:22:11,400 --> 00:22:13,280
Speaker 1: I imagine that you guys were sort of like the

393
00:22:13,280 --> 00:22:18,080
Speaker 1: equivalent of trying to navigate a tricycle on the four

394
00:22:18,160 --> 00:22:24,280
Speaker 1: h five, So, you know, is it possible for an

395
00:22:24,320 --> 00:22:29,040
Speaker 1: independent label to navigate itself in the age of majors?

396
00:22:29,480 --> 00:22:32,480
Speaker 1: You know, like, is A M truly the last independent

397
00:22:33,440 --> 00:22:38,399
Speaker 1: major that could operate as a major label? And you

398
00:22:38,400 --> 00:22:42,399
Speaker 1: know what held you guys because I actually feel like

399
00:22:42,760 --> 00:22:45,000
Speaker 1: you guys were in that Motown, A and M lane

400
00:22:45,040 --> 00:22:50,000
Speaker 1: where Tommy Boy could have actually became a major. But like,

401
00:22:50,760 --> 00:22:52,800
Speaker 1: is someone cutting you guys off at the knees at

402
00:22:52,800 --> 00:22:54,320
Speaker 1: the top ord? Like, how does that happen?

403
00:22:54,640 --> 00:22:56,800
Speaker 7: Well, you know, it's interesting because you go back to

404
00:22:57,040 --> 00:23:03,240
Speaker 7: really distribution because there was in the early eighties there

405
00:23:03,280 --> 00:23:08,600
Speaker 7: were A and M, Motown and I think it was

406
00:23:08,800 --> 00:23:11,840
Speaker 7: might have been Ariston, I'm not sure. There were three

407
00:23:11,880 --> 00:23:16,720
Speaker 7: of the very very large independent labels were they were

408
00:23:16,760 --> 00:23:20,439
Speaker 7: independently distributed and then they became majors, and so it

409
00:23:20,560 --> 00:23:25,879
Speaker 7: left this entire different field of smaller labels that were

410
00:23:26,000 --> 00:23:31,280
Speaker 7: that constituted the indies and independent distribution. But the independent

411
00:23:31,320 --> 00:23:35,160
Speaker 7: distribution distributors really sort of got the rug pulled out

412
00:23:35,560 --> 00:23:39,439
Speaker 7: from under them when Motown and A and M left,

413
00:23:40,880 --> 00:23:44,879
Speaker 7: So it actually presented opportunities for labels like ours. But

414
00:23:45,000 --> 00:23:47,359
Speaker 7: when you so that's that might have been in the

415
00:23:47,560 --> 00:23:50,800
Speaker 7: very early eighties, maybe late seventies when that happened. But

416
00:23:51,359 --> 00:23:54,400
Speaker 7: fast forward to you know, circa eighty six or so,

417
00:23:55,200 --> 00:23:57,119
Speaker 7: you know, be it Tommy Boy or any of the

418
00:23:57,200 --> 00:24:03,480
Speaker 7: other independent labels. It was almost impossible to even contemplate

419
00:24:03,600 --> 00:24:10,639
Speaker 7: having pop records and cracking top forty radio or even

420
00:24:10,920 --> 00:24:13,320
Speaker 7: it was a pretty rare event to even have, you know,

421
00:24:13,480 --> 00:24:15,520
Speaker 7: be able to have a top five or top ten

422
00:24:16,240 --> 00:24:19,159
Speaker 7: black radio single. You know, we just didn't have the

423
00:24:19,200 --> 00:24:22,040
Speaker 7: sort of muscle. I mean, these are labels that had

424
00:24:22,119 --> 00:24:27,800
Speaker 7: full on departments, and they had a lock on the slots.

425
00:24:28,200 --> 00:24:30,280
Speaker 7: You know, it was not an even playing field.

426
00:24:30,840 --> 00:24:32,880
Speaker 1: You know, a lot of is it a thing where

427
00:24:33,040 --> 00:24:36,000
Speaker 1: is it a thing where let's say, like Walter Yetnikov

428
00:24:36,240 --> 00:24:41,159
Speaker 1: at Sony or you know where Okay, you guys are

429
00:24:41,200 --> 00:24:45,320
Speaker 1: basically fighting for at least thirty or forty positions at

430
00:24:45,440 --> 00:24:49,080
Speaker 1: a major label, And is it a thing where it's

431
00:24:49,160 --> 00:24:52,760
Speaker 1: just an unspoken given that you know, we got to

432
00:24:52,800 --> 00:24:56,680
Speaker 1: save at least fifteen spots for a Sony artist, a

433
00:24:56,800 --> 00:24:57,960
Speaker 1: Michael Jackson shade.

434
00:24:59,160 --> 00:25:03,680
Speaker 7: I wouldn't even say unspoken, you know, uh, it was spoken. Yeah,

435
00:25:03,680 --> 00:25:06,359
Speaker 7: it was spoken. I mean, you know it was be

436
00:25:07,440 --> 00:25:10,280
Speaker 7: it wasn't even uh, you know, it was just so

437
00:25:10,400 --> 00:25:14,680
Speaker 7: much muscle, so much leverage. You know, you want Springsteen tickets,

438
00:25:14,760 --> 00:25:19,240
Speaker 7: you want to do the giveaways for you know, you know, refrigerator,

439
00:25:19,320 --> 00:25:21,960
Speaker 7: you know, you've got this, you've got that. We just

440
00:25:22,000 --> 00:25:25,200
Speaker 7: didn't have those those sort of resources, those tools. It's

441
00:25:25,200 --> 00:25:26,080
Speaker 7: not like things.

442
00:25:26,440 --> 00:25:29,119
Speaker 1: Your success was word of mouth, like, wow, I really

443
00:25:29,200 --> 00:25:31,040
Speaker 1: like this lean on Me song, so let me add it.

444
00:25:31,760 --> 00:25:34,320
Speaker 7: The any hits that we had had to have much

445
00:25:34,400 --> 00:25:39,120
Speaker 7: more muscle and hit power behind it to even get

446
00:25:39,119 --> 00:25:42,320
Speaker 7: a shot. Really, but you know, uh, but lean on Me,

447
00:25:42,520 --> 00:25:45,560
Speaker 7: of course was unique in that it was a cover,

448
00:25:46,440 --> 00:25:49,560
Speaker 7: It was in a big film, it was on a

449
00:25:49,560 --> 00:25:54,640
Speaker 7: big soundtrack, you know, so uh, you know, it had

450
00:25:54,720 --> 00:25:57,440
Speaker 7: a lot of uh, there was a lot of support

451
00:25:57,520 --> 00:26:00,320
Speaker 7: mechanisms with that particular rack.

452
00:26:00,840 --> 00:26:03,000
Speaker 6: And did the club DJs help with that too? Like

453
00:26:03,040 --> 00:26:04,760
Speaker 6: it was seemed like a lot of club New World

454
00:26:04,800 --> 00:26:07,040
Speaker 6: records were working in the club. So did that worked

455
00:26:07,040 --> 00:26:08,280
Speaker 6: for you? Off favor a little bit more?

456
00:26:08,680 --> 00:26:12,159
Speaker 7: I would say, actually, their biggest hit, being lean on Me,

457
00:26:12,400 --> 00:26:13,280
Speaker 7: was probably.

458
00:26:12,920 --> 00:26:16,480
Speaker 6: Not really it wasn't It wasn't yeah, No, it wasn't.

459
00:26:16,240 --> 00:26:19,280
Speaker 7: A club record. The other records were much more you know,

460
00:26:20,040 --> 00:26:23,000
Speaker 7: street and club type of records and radio record black

461
00:26:23,080 --> 00:26:28,240
Speaker 7: radio records, but lean on Me was I forget. I

462
00:26:28,280 --> 00:26:30,760
Speaker 7: can't even remember the name of the movie lean On Me.

463
00:26:31,400 --> 00:26:34,360
Speaker 7: All right, well there you go, there you go, so.

464
00:26:35,160 --> 00:26:37,640
Speaker 1: You know, but that's also after the fact because lean

465
00:26:37,680 --> 00:26:39,760
Speaker 1: On Me came out in like eighty nine, whereas a

466
00:26:39,840 --> 00:26:42,399
Speaker 1: single camp you know, Club New Vote came out in

467
00:26:42,440 --> 00:26:45,760
Speaker 1: eighty six. But yeah, you know, it's it's a thing

468
00:26:45,760 --> 00:26:49,080
Speaker 1: where it's a song where both generations gen Z, gen

469
00:26:49,359 --> 00:26:53,280
Speaker 1: X and Baby Booners knew the song. And it was

470
00:26:53,320 --> 00:26:56,280
Speaker 1: weird to hear, you know. It was like, you know,

471
00:26:56,720 --> 00:26:59,320
Speaker 1: the beat felt like post Rick Rubin def Jam, So

472
00:26:59,359 --> 00:27:03,720
Speaker 1: it was definitely yeah, yeah, yeah.

473
00:27:03,119 --> 00:27:06,439
Speaker 7: And there was a great woman who worked for many

474
00:27:06,480 --> 00:27:11,960
Speaker 7: many years at MCA Records named Kathy Nelson. And Kathy

475
00:27:12,480 --> 00:27:18,480
Speaker 7: was really one of the pioneers of that soundtrack era

476
00:27:19,119 --> 00:27:22,520
Speaker 7: that was so huge in the late eighties and early nineties,

477
00:27:22,560 --> 00:27:27,399
Speaker 7: and she put a lot of black artists on those

478
00:27:27,480 --> 00:27:32,760
Speaker 7: soundtracks where that wasn't necessarily happening as much prior to that.

479
00:27:33,160 --> 00:27:37,160
Speaker 7: She was always like she'd said, Pica, you've got anything,

480
00:27:37,359 --> 00:27:40,560
Speaker 7: I'm looking for a track for this record? How about

481
00:27:40,600 --> 00:27:43,399
Speaker 7: that Club New Veaux. She had a funny way of talking.

482
00:27:43,560 --> 00:27:46,359
Speaker 7: She was great. She's had a lot of energy, very dynamic,

483
00:27:46,480 --> 00:27:49,399
Speaker 7: redheaded Gal. She was a powerhouse. She worked there with

484
00:27:49,480 --> 00:27:53,680
Speaker 7: Al Teller. I don't know if you remember Al Taller. No, yeah,

485
00:27:53,720 --> 00:27:57,760
Speaker 7: so in any case, but she was it was her

486
00:27:58,040 --> 00:28:02,200
Speaker 7: through her that we got that placement, you know. And

487
00:28:02,440 --> 00:28:04,359
Speaker 7: also I just want to say, you may before we

488
00:28:04,359 --> 00:28:07,680
Speaker 7: get off the topic entirely of Benny Medina. Benny played

489
00:28:07,720 --> 00:28:12,119
Speaker 7: a very critical role with Tommy Boy in that he

490
00:28:13,440 --> 00:28:16,679
Speaker 7: brought in Uh. It was through him actually that Naughty

491
00:28:16,720 --> 00:28:22,119
Speaker 7: by Nature landed on Tommy Boy. And it's a circuitous route.

492
00:28:22,800 --> 00:28:24,560
Speaker 3: Yeah, tell us the story.

493
00:28:25,440 --> 00:28:28,000
Speaker 7: Well, I want to make sure I get it all right,

494
00:28:28,040 --> 00:28:30,560
Speaker 7: but I probably won't. But but the thing is is

495
00:28:30,600 --> 00:28:36,240
Speaker 7: that once upon a time we were pitched to sign

496
00:28:37,200 --> 00:28:39,920
Speaker 7: Naughty by Nature, but they weren't Naughty by Nature at

497
00:28:39,920 --> 00:28:45,360
Speaker 7: that time. They were called somebody helped me the new

498
00:28:45,440 --> 00:28:52,640
Speaker 7: style and you style. Yeah, and and they were actually

499
00:28:52,680 --> 00:28:56,160
Speaker 7: on a label called Bona Me, which was part of

500
00:28:56,320 --> 00:29:01,600
Speaker 7: Sylvia and Joe Robinson's empire. And they were wearing and

501
00:29:01,600 --> 00:29:02,840
Speaker 7: they wore zoot suits.

502
00:29:02,920 --> 00:29:05,400
Speaker 6: No they didn't, No, no, not Vinnie, No.

503
00:29:05,600 --> 00:29:10,880
Speaker 3: They did not. They did. I seen a photo, yeah, yeah,

504
00:29:10,880 --> 00:29:11,400
Speaker 3: had a photo.

505
00:29:11,480 --> 00:29:15,160
Speaker 7: Yes, So they weren't they were not Naughty by Nature

506
00:29:15,520 --> 00:29:20,320
Speaker 7: yet and they did, whether in sound, attitude, style, nothing,

507
00:29:20,720 --> 00:29:24,600
Speaker 7: you know, they were in a different larval stage of

508
00:29:24,640 --> 00:29:25,600
Speaker 7: their career.

509
00:29:26,120 --> 00:29:30,200
Speaker 1: So can I ask, did you guys truly know what

510
00:29:30,240 --> 00:29:33,719
Speaker 1: you had? Because only in retrospect I will say that

511
00:29:33,840 --> 00:29:41,440
Speaker 1: Naughty by Nature is probably the best storied example of

512
00:29:41,560 --> 00:29:45,760
Speaker 1: riding the thin line between authentic hip hop because as

513
00:29:46,040 --> 00:29:49,240
Speaker 1: as an MC and a lyricist, you know, Tretch was

514
00:29:49,280 --> 00:29:52,200
Speaker 1: no joke. Truch was an influential MC, like so good

515
00:29:52,240 --> 00:29:55,400
Speaker 1: almost like he's in ELL's lane where you know you're

516
00:29:55,440 --> 00:29:56,640
Speaker 1: so good you don't get credit.

517
00:29:57,440 --> 00:29:58,320
Speaker 6: Yes, that's Tretch.

518
00:29:58,400 --> 00:30:03,920
Speaker 1: Yes, And but these songs, like they wrote massive anthems

519
00:30:03,960 --> 00:30:06,760
Speaker 1: and like the their knack for really good pop hooks?

520
00:30:07,040 --> 00:30:10,200
Speaker 3: Did you know instantly? Oh we can really?

521
00:30:10,400 --> 00:30:14,360
Speaker 1: Because I mean they're coming out post wild thing, postbuster

522
00:30:14,480 --> 00:30:17,120
Speaker 1: move where like a pop wrapper really has to go

523
00:30:18,120 --> 00:30:21,200
Speaker 1: non threatening rat to get to the other side, Like,

524
00:30:21,280 --> 00:30:24,400
Speaker 1: did you guys know instantly what you had? Or was

525
00:30:24,440 --> 00:30:27,080
Speaker 1: it sort of like a learning process where oh, wait

526
00:30:27,080 --> 00:30:29,960
Speaker 1: a minute, we can do another one and another one

527
00:30:30,000 --> 00:30:30,680
Speaker 1: and another one.

528
00:30:30,840 --> 00:30:33,240
Speaker 7: Well no, no, I think that. Well, first of all,

529
00:30:33,560 --> 00:30:36,800
Speaker 7: they weren't all all those records and not been recorded,

530
00:30:37,560 --> 00:30:41,400
Speaker 7: you know at single point I think anyone who heard

531
00:30:41,400 --> 00:30:44,160
Speaker 7: OPP knew that they were listening to a smash it.

532
00:30:44,240 --> 00:30:47,240
Speaker 7: There was a one listen record, nobody, you know, you

533
00:30:47,280 --> 00:30:49,520
Speaker 7: didn't have to you'd have to have a real ten

534
00:30:49,600 --> 00:30:51,120
Speaker 7: ear not to hear OPP.

535
00:30:52,600 --> 00:30:54,280
Speaker 6: Was that the response from radio when they when you

536
00:30:54,280 --> 00:30:56,120
Speaker 6: played it for them, Monica, I'm just curious, they were like,

537
00:30:56,160 --> 00:30:56,720
Speaker 6: oh yeah.

538
00:30:56,600 --> 00:31:00,360
Speaker 7: Man, well before radio, I mean, radio was not always

539
00:31:00,400 --> 00:31:03,560
Speaker 7: the first stop, you know. But here's the thing, here's

540
00:31:03,600 --> 00:31:08,360
Speaker 7: the stage setting that. When Naughty by Nature came around

541
00:31:08,400 --> 00:31:12,600
Speaker 7: and they had OPP, these were guys from New Jersey,

542
00:31:13,480 --> 00:31:17,240
Speaker 7: and nobody was really checking for New Jersey at that point.

543
00:31:17,360 --> 00:31:21,120
Speaker 7: New Jersey was not the most legit place to be

544
00:31:21,280 --> 00:31:24,840
Speaker 7: from as an MC at that point in time. You

545
00:31:24,880 --> 00:31:26,280
Speaker 7: had to be from the five Burgh.

546
00:31:26,880 --> 00:31:29,440
Speaker 3: Did it matter, Yeah, it did matter.

547
00:31:30,080 --> 00:31:32,320
Speaker 7: It did matter because you were you were in that

548
00:31:32,400 --> 00:31:35,880
Speaker 7: era of sort of clicks and cruise and who you

549
00:31:36,080 --> 00:31:38,840
Speaker 7: down with and who's your producer? Pretty red man?

550
00:31:38,920 --> 00:31:39,120
Speaker 6: Right?

551
00:31:39,240 --> 00:31:39,320
Speaker 10: Like?

552
00:31:39,440 --> 00:31:42,000
Speaker 2: So, yeah, what the album was? Ninety two?

553
00:31:42,320 --> 00:31:42,680
Speaker 6: Okay?

554
00:31:42,800 --> 00:31:46,600
Speaker 7: Okay, yeah, I mean I forget. Maybe somebody, can you know,

555
00:31:46,680 --> 00:31:47,200
Speaker 7: tell me what.

556
00:31:49,520 --> 00:31:50,560
Speaker 2: Is the first Naughty album?

557
00:31:50,600 --> 00:31:53,360
Speaker 7: Okay? So, so OPP came out before this. I might

558
00:31:53,360 --> 00:31:56,360
Speaker 7: have been ninety or early ninety one. But the thing

559
00:31:56,440 --> 00:31:59,000
Speaker 7: is is that no one was really checking for Naughty

560
00:31:59,000 --> 00:32:04,000
Speaker 7: by Nature. The opp however, was one of those records where,

561
00:32:04,600 --> 00:32:07,240
Speaker 7: you know, I always I have always said this, the

562
00:32:07,280 --> 00:32:09,520
Speaker 7: best records you can ever get are the ones that

563
00:32:10,040 --> 00:32:13,240
Speaker 7: a two year old and one hundred and two year

564
00:32:13,280 --> 00:32:17,560
Speaker 7: old can get into, you know, because it crossed all

565
00:32:17,720 --> 00:32:21,120
Speaker 7: party lines, and you had that Jackson five sample that

566
00:32:21,240 --> 00:32:25,000
Speaker 7: people knew it was part of the musical DNA for

567
00:32:25,400 --> 00:32:29,000
Speaker 7: damn near everybody. But the thing that really was a

568
00:32:29,160 --> 00:32:34,600
Speaker 7: very big turning point for Naughty by Nature being you know,

569
00:32:35,080 --> 00:32:38,960
Speaker 7: elevated and checked in a different way, was when the

570
00:32:40,800 --> 00:32:42,720
Speaker 7: premiere issue, well I should say it was sort of

571
00:32:42,800 --> 00:32:47,360
Speaker 7: like the test run issue of Vibe came out, and

572
00:32:47,400 --> 00:32:49,600
Speaker 7: in fact it wasn't even called Vibe yet, it was

573
00:32:49,640 --> 00:32:54,080
Speaker 7: called Volume. And I was friends with the guy who

574
00:32:54,120 --> 00:32:56,200
Speaker 7: was the editor, the first.

575
00:32:56,040 --> 00:33:00,520
Speaker 1: Editor, Alan Alan Light No No No.

576
00:33:00,640 --> 00:33:04,840
Speaker 7: Allen was later the little gray cells are not what

577
00:33:04,920 --> 00:33:08,440
Speaker 7: they used to be. He's a big writer for a

578
00:33:08,440 --> 00:33:11,320
Speaker 7: lot for Vogue and a lot of other places now, but.

579
00:33:13,880 --> 00:33:22,120
Speaker 8: No first editor Vibe, Jonathan van Meter, and I was

580
00:33:22,200 --> 00:33:25,280
Speaker 8: kind of friendly with him, and this guy named Gil

581
00:33:25,400 --> 00:33:31,000
Speaker 8: Rogan at time, uh, Time Warner Publications, Time Magazine and

582
00:33:31,000 --> 00:33:32,320
Speaker 8: all the publications that they had.

583
00:33:32,600 --> 00:33:37,200
Speaker 7: Anyway, it was just it was Quincy Jones project. Of course. Anyway,

584
00:33:37,440 --> 00:33:42,280
Speaker 7: somehow I said, oh, you know what if I went

585
00:33:42,400 --> 00:33:46,920
Speaker 7: to uh, you know, god, what is his name now,

586
00:33:46,920 --> 00:33:50,160
Speaker 7: the photographer that did the the big photo. I went

587
00:33:50,200 --> 00:33:55,280
Speaker 7: to this, No, this is all before Jonathan Mannion, but

588
00:33:55,320 --> 00:33:58,600
Speaker 7: he's really incredibly well known photographer. Said oh, you know,

589
00:33:59,280 --> 00:34:02,720
Speaker 7: we could do this story about all of the hip

590
00:34:02,800 --> 00:34:09,600
Speaker 7: hop artists who are starting to wear tattoos, and wow,

591
00:34:09,800 --> 00:34:11,919
Speaker 7: it was a thing. Well, you know, this is very

592
00:34:11,960 --> 00:34:16,000
Speaker 7: early nineties and there was a lot of kids who

593
00:34:16,080 --> 00:34:20,640
Speaker 7: were really starting to get into the tattoos scene. And

594
00:34:20,640 --> 00:34:27,680
Speaker 7: and so I lined up this photo session and I said, oh, yeah,

595
00:34:27,680 --> 00:34:32,279
Speaker 7: I get you know, I got Puffey and the guys,

596
00:34:32,640 --> 00:34:35,640
Speaker 7: I got Naughty and a bunch of people from different

597
00:34:35,640 --> 00:34:39,280
Speaker 7: groups and different camps. And he did the photo session

598
00:34:39,560 --> 00:34:42,160
Speaker 7: and the big, the big photo that came out of

599
00:34:42,200 --> 00:34:48,399
Speaker 7: it was Tretch with his shirt off, arms up like this,

600
00:34:49,920 --> 00:34:54,160
Speaker 7: and that landed on the cover of what was really

601
00:34:54,200 --> 00:34:56,879
Speaker 7: the first issue of Vibe. And like again I guess

602
00:34:56,920 --> 00:34:59,879
Speaker 7: it was. It was a test run issue. I think

603
00:35:00,040 --> 00:35:02,839
Speaker 7: at that point they called it Volume and they had

604
00:35:02,880 --> 00:35:05,399
Speaker 7: to change the name because the word volume was owned

605
00:35:05,400 --> 00:35:08,040
Speaker 7: by some other publication in the UK.

606
00:35:08,560 --> 00:35:09,360
Speaker 3: Albert Watson.

607
00:35:09,880 --> 00:35:14,040
Speaker 7: Albert Watson, thank you, Yes it was Albert Watson, great guy,

608
00:35:14,440 --> 00:35:20,600
Speaker 7: really an amazing photographer. And uh but in any case, uh,

609
00:35:20,719 --> 00:35:23,480
Speaker 7: of course, you know, Scott Pols and Brian came up

610
00:35:23,520 --> 00:35:26,400
Speaker 7: with a much better name for for the publication. But

611
00:35:26,440 --> 00:35:31,920
Speaker 7: it was that cover that women saw a Trench cover

612
00:35:33,200 --> 00:35:33,759
Speaker 7: game over.

613
00:35:34,000 --> 00:35:36,080
Speaker 3: Yeah, yeah, so that was the game changed.

614
00:35:37,360 --> 00:35:47,279
Speaker 10: Gone machete, you know it, machete, the huge chains and

615
00:35:47,360 --> 00:35:49,120
Speaker 10: trash like this.

616
00:35:50,080 --> 00:35:53,680
Speaker 7: Women just totally watched it and it was like, so,

617
00:35:53,680 --> 00:35:56,440
Speaker 7: so Trench is all of a sudden a sex symbol

618
00:35:57,520 --> 00:36:04,440
Speaker 7: and Naughty continues having really amazing hits and KG you know,

619
00:36:05,320 --> 00:36:09,280
Speaker 7: I think also underrated Frankly as a producer, a really

620
00:36:09,320 --> 00:36:13,680
Speaker 7: great producer, and Vinnie was like, you know, such the

621
00:36:13,719 --> 00:36:16,279
Speaker 7: spark plug of the group. They were fantastic as a

622
00:36:16,320 --> 00:36:21,839
Speaker 7: live act, and they kept having these great records. Yeah

623
00:36:21,920 --> 00:36:24,320
Speaker 7: but they but at that point, you know, when OPP

624
00:36:24,520 --> 00:36:28,600
Speaker 7: came out, it really new Jersey was not really happening.

625
00:36:28,960 --> 00:36:31,600
Speaker 7: And one of the other things that was really big

626
00:36:31,600 --> 00:36:34,080
Speaker 7: about OPP is when we did the video for OPP

627
00:36:34,200 --> 00:36:36,359
Speaker 7: and we did. This is a crazy thing, but this

628
00:36:36,440 --> 00:36:39,560
Speaker 7: is how it was independent labels back then. We just

629
00:36:39,600 --> 00:36:42,960
Speaker 7: made these little stickers. They cost nothing to make, it

630
00:36:43,000 --> 00:36:47,600
Speaker 7: says you down with OPP right, And they featured prominently

631
00:36:47,640 --> 00:36:50,520
Speaker 7: in the video, and we would hand out packs of

632
00:36:50,560 --> 00:36:52,719
Speaker 7: one hundred and a thousand stickers. They were, you know,

633
00:36:52,880 --> 00:36:54,680
Speaker 7: hand them out all over the place. It was like

634
00:36:54,800 --> 00:36:59,000
Speaker 7: having your own street army of kids spreading the word

635
00:36:59,040 --> 00:37:01,480
Speaker 7: on OPA, just with those damn stickers.

636
00:37:01,520 --> 00:37:03,400
Speaker 6: And then everybody wanted the stickers. It was like, you

637
00:37:03,440 --> 00:37:04,320
Speaker 6: gotta want them stickers.

638
00:37:04,320 --> 00:37:04,879
Speaker 7: You got them sticks.

639
00:37:04,880 --> 00:37:07,799
Speaker 6: I don't put on my traffic keeper by exactly.

640
00:37:08,160 --> 00:37:10,280
Speaker 7: It's like when you give a kid a pack of stickers.

641
00:37:10,280 --> 00:37:13,120
Speaker 7: They were like deputized locker.

642
00:37:13,360 --> 00:37:21,160
Speaker 4: Yes, was there any truth to the rumor? I've read

643
00:37:21,280 --> 00:37:23,080
Speaker 4: this a lot of places. Was there any truth to

644
00:37:23,080 --> 00:37:25,759
Speaker 4: the rumor that trech or someone from not I don't

645
00:37:25,760 --> 00:37:29,200
Speaker 4: know the tretch brought a bag of snakes?

646
00:37:29,600 --> 00:37:33,640
Speaker 7: Yes, it's not a rumor, it's truth. And I'm happy

647
00:37:33,640 --> 00:37:39,680
Speaker 7: to share that story. Yes, because someone someone asked me

648
00:37:39,680 --> 00:37:43,760
Speaker 7: about this recently and I said, yeah, here's the story.

649
00:37:43,840 --> 00:37:50,040
Speaker 7: Man on a weekday morning, a Tommy boy And again

650
00:37:50,120 --> 00:37:53,319
Speaker 7: we're talking about maybe crack of dawn, like ten am

651
00:37:53,480 --> 00:38:00,239
Speaker 7: or something. I was in my office and the receptionist said, hey, hey,

652
00:38:00,719 --> 00:38:05,799
Speaker 7: Trenches here with some of his guys, Pooky and I

653
00:38:05,840 --> 00:38:09,319
Speaker 7: forget who there maybe three guys. I think always there's

654
00:38:09,360 --> 00:38:12,000
Speaker 7: always a Pooky, and I still remember Pooky. Pooky's actually

655
00:38:12,239 --> 00:38:17,680
Speaker 7: a nice guy. But they're here. They're demanding to see Tom.

656
00:38:18,120 --> 00:38:22,920
Speaker 7: They're kind of upset. And Tom wasn't there and so

657
00:38:23,360 --> 00:38:27,320
Speaker 7: and his office door was closed. So they marched around.

658
00:38:27,320 --> 00:38:31,320
Speaker 7: They march around the around the corner to my office.

659
00:38:31,400 --> 00:38:35,880
Speaker 7: My office at Tommy Boy was across from the only bathroom.

660
00:38:35,920 --> 00:38:39,600
Speaker 7: There were no windows in my office, you know, poor ventilation.

661
00:38:40,000 --> 00:38:42,319
Speaker 7: You know, I got the whole smell of vision in

662
00:38:42,360 --> 00:38:46,719
Speaker 7: my office. But it was But they just showed up

663
00:38:46,719 --> 00:38:50,440
Speaker 7: in my office and Tretch he was, you know, Treutch

664
00:38:50,520 --> 00:38:53,080
Speaker 7: is actually kind of a quiet guy. He was a

665
00:38:53,120 --> 00:38:56,360
Speaker 7: man of few words. Really wasn't like, you know, he

666
00:38:56,440 --> 00:39:00,960
Speaker 7: wasn't like yelling or you know whatever, hopping off or anything.

667
00:39:01,320 --> 00:39:05,560
Speaker 7: He just had this shoe box, uh, and he opened

668
00:39:05,560 --> 00:39:11,640
Speaker 7: it and he dumped out what were really like garter

669
00:39:11,880 --> 00:39:16,680
Speaker 7: snakes and mice. These were the type of things that

670
00:39:16,719 --> 00:39:21,759
Speaker 7: you would have gotten at a pet supply store and mice, yeah, mice,

671
00:39:21,840 --> 00:39:27,520
Speaker 7: and okay and so and and of course like I'm

672
00:39:27,640 --> 00:39:29,560
Speaker 7: you know, mortifed, like what the fuck? And they just

673
00:39:29,760 --> 00:39:32,000
Speaker 7: you know, and then they just ran out. There's no

674
00:39:32,239 --> 00:39:33,920
Speaker 7: like explanation or anything.

675
00:39:34,400 --> 00:39:37,120
Speaker 3: Well, come to friend one of your more successful groups.

676
00:39:38,239 --> 00:39:41,439
Speaker 6: Yes, yes, that's the ones that was getting loved.

677
00:39:41,480 --> 00:39:45,399
Speaker 1: Well, ghetto Bastard wasn't didn't go double platinum or it's

678
00:39:45,440 --> 00:39:46,160
Speaker 1: the one wasn't.

679
00:39:46,400 --> 00:39:51,200
Speaker 7: Here's why it happened. So it was a dumbest fucking ship.

680
00:39:51,960 --> 00:39:55,960
Speaker 7: There had been a dispute that really involved the business

681
00:39:56,040 --> 00:40:01,480
Speaker 7: affairs guy and the group's attorney, and it was over. Now,

682
00:40:01,520 --> 00:40:04,279
Speaker 7: when I talk about the most mundane shit, it's sort

683
00:40:04,320 --> 00:40:07,640
Speaker 7: of mundane when you had cause that's where the you know,

684
00:40:07,800 --> 00:40:12,480
Speaker 7: such a probably the number one format at that time

685
00:40:13,800 --> 00:40:18,400
Speaker 7: for albums, and there was a big dispute over the

686
00:40:18,560 --> 00:40:22,799
Speaker 7: J card for the album that was coming out, because

687
00:40:22,840 --> 00:40:24,479
Speaker 7: you know how like when you get a J card

688
00:40:24,520 --> 00:40:28,960
Speaker 7: and sometimes it would be folding out and advertising stuff

689
00:40:29,120 --> 00:40:32,680
Speaker 7: or whatever, lyrics and blah blah blah. Well there's a

690
00:40:32,760 --> 00:40:36,439
Speaker 7: dispute because Naughty had started making their Naughty.

691
00:40:36,160 --> 00:40:39,400
Speaker 2: Gear gear yo, okay, and they wanted.

692
00:40:39,880 --> 00:40:43,920
Speaker 7: They wanted to have a free panel on the J card,

693
00:40:44,160 --> 00:40:46,960
Speaker 7: and lawyers being lawyers, they were sort of dicking each

694
00:40:47,000 --> 00:40:49,800
Speaker 7: other over about, well, if you're going to have this panel,

695
00:40:49,880 --> 00:40:52,920
Speaker 7: you're going to have to pay point zero seven cents

696
00:40:52,960 --> 00:40:56,440
Speaker 7: per panel. Blah blah blah. By the time this is

697
00:40:56,560 --> 00:41:00,359
Speaker 7: translated to the group, you know, it has become World

698
00:41:00,440 --> 00:41:05,600
Speaker 7: War three. And I wasn't even really aware of what

699
00:41:05,760 --> 00:41:09,400
Speaker 7: the issue was. But the thing is is that what

700
00:41:09,480 --> 00:41:12,120
Speaker 7: year did this happen? The snakes and.

701
00:41:13,320 --> 00:41:14,520
Speaker 3: The mic.

702
00:41:16,080 --> 00:41:17,800
Speaker 7: I don't remember what year this was. I mean, I

703
00:41:17,840 --> 00:41:20,359
Speaker 7: would guess this is probably ninety one ninety two when

704
00:41:20,360 --> 00:41:25,520
Speaker 7: this incident happened is before we moved downtown. So but

705
00:41:25,560 --> 00:41:30,160
Speaker 7: it was in the age of maybe beepers and you know,

706
00:41:30,600 --> 00:41:34,359
Speaker 7: stuff like that. So by the time word made its

707
00:41:34,360 --> 00:41:36,880
Speaker 7: way downtown to the source and the rest of the

708
00:41:36,960 --> 00:41:41,160
Speaker 7: hip hop world, it had become like yo. And then

709
00:41:41,200 --> 00:41:47,920
Speaker 7: he brought an anacondas and rats and it became, you know,

710
00:41:48,000 --> 00:41:52,520
Speaker 7: within ten to fifteen minutes, it was like, you know,

711
00:41:52,880 --> 00:41:53,920
Speaker 7: the biggest event.

712
00:41:55,520 --> 00:41:57,040
Speaker 6: It would have made more sense if you would have

713
00:41:57,080 --> 00:42:00,319
Speaker 6: had anaconda's and boro constrictors, because like gardens make some

714
00:42:00,360 --> 00:42:01,800
Speaker 6: small like pet store.

715
00:42:02,200 --> 00:42:02,759
Speaker 3: My sight.

716
00:42:03,440 --> 00:42:05,800
Speaker 7: Well, he was making a statement, and I guess a

717
00:42:05,840 --> 00:42:07,440
Speaker 7: statement he wanted to make us. Hey, you know you

718
00:42:07,440 --> 00:42:08,520
Speaker 7: guys are rats and.

719
00:42:08,480 --> 00:42:12,480
Speaker 5: Snakes, snakes on your desk. You wouldn't hear fuck what

720
00:42:12,560 --> 00:42:13,040
Speaker 5: kind of snakes?

721
00:42:13,120 --> 00:42:14,839
Speaker 6: No you're right? No, no, no, you forgot no, no no no.

722
00:42:15,000 --> 00:42:17,080
Speaker 6: I saw water bug last night, almost diagnosed.

723
00:42:17,760 --> 00:42:21,760
Speaker 7: So then so then about less than an hour after

724
00:42:21,800 --> 00:42:24,480
Speaker 7: the incident, I get a call from Shot Kim. And

725
00:42:24,560 --> 00:42:30,560
Speaker 7: Shot Kim is Latifa's business partner and also managed a

726
00:42:30,640 --> 00:42:35,719
Speaker 7: naughty and he was apologizing. Man, I you know, he

727
00:42:35,880 --> 00:42:39,720
Speaker 7: just was smoking some strong stuff this morning or whatever

728
00:42:39,800 --> 00:42:41,680
Speaker 7: it was. He was really pissed off and I'm sorry

729
00:42:41,760 --> 00:42:44,920
Speaker 7: that happened. Blah blah blah. But it already it became

730
00:42:45,320 --> 00:42:49,040
Speaker 7: one of those things of hip hop lore. So but

731
00:42:49,080 --> 00:42:49,760
Speaker 7: that's the story.

732
00:42:49,960 --> 00:42:52,120
Speaker 6: But I added to their whole Chrissona.

733
00:42:53,239 --> 00:42:55,279
Speaker 7: Yeah, yeah, it was a you know, listen, it's one

734
00:42:55,280 --> 00:42:57,480
Speaker 7: of the look we're sitting here in twenty twenty two,

735
00:42:57,680 --> 00:43:02,400
Speaker 7: you're asking me about you know, obviously it's lived on

736
00:43:02,560 --> 00:43:04,000
Speaker 7: in infamy.

737
00:43:04,200 --> 00:43:06,720
Speaker 3: Were your offices located on First Avenue?

738
00:43:07,360 --> 00:43:11,080
Speaker 7: Yes, we were, Okay, I'd say we were in the

739
00:43:11,160 --> 00:43:16,800
Speaker 7: hip hop hinter lands. It was York Avenue, First Avenue,

740
00:43:17,120 --> 00:43:20,799
Speaker 7: in an area called Yorkville. We're very close to where

741
00:43:20,840 --> 00:43:26,320
Speaker 7: the Mayor's you know, I'm.

742
00:43:26,120 --> 00:43:27,960
Speaker 3: Only asking that's it's an inside joke.

743
00:43:29,680 --> 00:43:32,480
Speaker 1: I never knew it's it's it's one of those moments

744
00:43:32,520 --> 00:43:38,920
Speaker 1: where Dayla had jokingly credited uh a fictional like a

745
00:43:39,000 --> 00:43:42,880
Speaker 1: song what was the B side? To me myself, and

746
00:43:42,920 --> 00:43:45,279
Speaker 1: I fante, oh, what's more?

747
00:43:44,800 --> 00:43:45,239
Speaker 2: What's more?

748
00:43:45,480 --> 00:43:50,080
Speaker 1: What's more was credited to uh being a song on

749
00:43:50,120 --> 00:43:52,320
Speaker 1: the soundtrack to Hell on First Avenue?

750
00:43:53,480 --> 00:43:56,160
Speaker 3: And I was like, wait, is that a real movie?

751
00:43:56,520 --> 00:44:00,160
Speaker 1: And I didn't know if they told me that if

752
00:44:00,160 --> 00:44:03,960
Speaker 1: Tommy Boy was on referring to Tommy Boy, but probably.

753
00:44:04,040 --> 00:44:07,600
Speaker 7: Yeah it was. You know, it's funny because uh, we

754
00:44:07,600 --> 00:44:10,320
Speaker 7: were up there. We had these offices above a soccer

755
00:44:10,400 --> 00:44:15,760
Speaker 7: store called Dos Soccer and but Jive Records was actually

756
00:44:15,880 --> 00:44:19,760
Speaker 7: just a couple of blocks over over on Lexington, and uh,

757
00:44:20,040 --> 00:44:21,960
Speaker 7: you know I used to walk over there sometimes and

758
00:44:22,000 --> 00:44:24,920
Speaker 7: Brenda K. Starr lived across the street from the Tommy

759
00:44:24,920 --> 00:44:28,840
Speaker 7: Boy offices, and uh, yeah no, actually it was a

760
00:44:28,840 --> 00:44:31,040
Speaker 7: great run at those offices. Yeah.

761
00:44:31,560 --> 00:44:36,320
Speaker 1: Actually, fun fact, I believe the roots shot there proceed

762
00:44:36,400 --> 00:44:40,919
Speaker 1: two video with roy Ayres on the rooftop of Tommy Boy.

763
00:44:41,480 --> 00:44:42,280
Speaker 7: Oh you're kidding?

764
00:44:42,360 --> 00:44:43,400
Speaker 3: Why I believe?

765
00:44:43,520 --> 00:44:47,480
Speaker 1: I believe this is This is how I got to

766
00:44:47,520 --> 00:44:49,960
Speaker 1: know who the Jazzy Fad Nasties were, because when we

767
00:44:49,960 --> 00:44:53,080
Speaker 1: were done shooting that video and I went down and

768
00:44:53,120 --> 00:44:55,520
Speaker 1: had to pass your offices, there's a poster of the

769
00:44:55,560 --> 00:44:59,080
Speaker 1: for the on the wall, and then I guess someone

770
00:44:59,160 --> 00:45:02,520
Speaker 1: told put someone had to be listening to their music.

771
00:45:02,520 --> 00:45:04,120
Speaker 1: And I was like outside the door, like, what the

772
00:45:04,120 --> 00:45:06,160
Speaker 1: hell is This is crazy shit I ever heard, and

773
00:45:06,640 --> 00:45:10,319
Speaker 1: someone explained that, you know, Quentin had gotten a label

774
00:45:10,360 --> 00:45:12,120
Speaker 1: deal with you guys and whatnot, and they gave me

775
00:45:12,160 --> 00:45:14,080
Speaker 1: a tape and I listened to it in the car

776
00:45:14,160 --> 00:45:18,600
Speaker 1: obsessively and then stalked them. And then they moved into

777
00:45:18,640 --> 00:45:21,359
Speaker 1: my house for the next fourteen years and they were left.

778
00:45:24,000 --> 00:45:27,239
Speaker 1: You probably they're still in my house right now.

779
00:45:27,400 --> 00:45:29,520
Speaker 3: No, it was.

780
00:45:29,560 --> 00:45:33,799
Speaker 7: Actually an A and R guy named alb Ragusa who

781
00:45:34,719 --> 00:45:38,680
Speaker 7: was involved in bringing the Jazzy Fat Nasties are. When

782
00:45:39,000 --> 00:45:44,040
Speaker 7: I loved what they were doing. It was totally different,

783
00:45:44,320 --> 00:45:49,560
Speaker 7: cool out there like incredible. You know. My recollection though,

784
00:45:49,640 --> 00:45:52,560
Speaker 7: is I think that at that point the group themselves

785
00:45:53,480 --> 00:45:55,080
Speaker 7: were not entirely.

786
00:45:55,480 --> 00:45:57,520
Speaker 3: Uh yeah, they were slowly imploding.

787
00:45:57,600 --> 00:45:59,959
Speaker 1: But I mean from what I heard, you know, jays

788
00:46:00,080 --> 00:46:04,000
Speaker 1: Swift was really gearing them up to be. If the

789
00:46:04,080 --> 00:46:08,400
Speaker 1: foreside debut album were sung by women, it would have

790
00:46:08,400 --> 00:46:10,200
Speaker 1: been like, I've never heard such a.

791
00:46:10,200 --> 00:46:12,319
Speaker 3: Bolder, more adventurous record ever.

792
00:46:13,000 --> 00:46:17,640
Speaker 1: Yeah, And kind of my chagrined is that they came

793
00:46:17,680 --> 00:46:20,240
Speaker 1: to us and I felt like the thing that really

794
00:46:20,320 --> 00:46:23,040
Speaker 1: made them awesome we got rid of.

795
00:46:23,680 --> 00:46:26,080
Speaker 3: So but that's neither here nor there.

796
00:46:26,320 --> 00:46:28,399
Speaker 7: Well, you know, it's too bad that that didn't come

797
00:46:28,440 --> 00:46:30,840
Speaker 7: together because I think that there were they would the

798
00:46:30,920 --> 00:46:33,319
Speaker 7: lane was was going to be wide open for them.

799
00:46:34,160 --> 00:46:35,759
Speaker 7: There wasn't. There hadn't been anything.

800
00:46:36,520 --> 00:46:39,279
Speaker 1: Yeah, like before my fandom for Slum Village, like I

801
00:46:39,320 --> 00:46:41,400
Speaker 1: was about Jazzy Fatnastics.

802
00:46:41,080 --> 00:46:43,400
Speaker 6: That record ever come out, y'all? Can people find the

803
00:46:43,560 --> 00:46:44,640
Speaker 6: Jazzy's on Tommy Boy?

804
00:46:44,840 --> 00:46:49,160
Speaker 1: I mean I found maybe like seven songs, Like I'm

805
00:46:49,160 --> 00:46:53,000
Speaker 1: sure there's rough mixes somewhere, but yeah, sure, Jay Swift

806
00:46:53,000 --> 00:46:54,880
Speaker 1: as it somewhere, you know.

807
00:46:55,400 --> 00:46:58,799
Speaker 7: And plus you know, they're they're another great example, you know,

808
00:46:58,960 --> 00:47:01,960
Speaker 7: like Dala Soul and other acts that we've had where

809
00:47:01,960 --> 00:47:05,880
Speaker 7: the name itself like we have a great name. It

810
00:47:05,920 --> 00:47:09,600
Speaker 7: really helps, you know, jazz fant nasties, what a cool

811
00:47:09,719 --> 00:47:11,240
Speaker 7: name is perfect?

812
00:47:11,280 --> 00:47:13,280
Speaker 6: But can we just say in this moment, everything happens

813
00:47:13,320 --> 00:47:15,240
Speaker 6: for a reason, because if this didn't happen, we wouldn't

814
00:47:15,280 --> 00:47:16,640
Speaker 6: have had the Black Lily, which means there may not

815
00:47:16,680 --> 00:47:18,759
Speaker 6: have been a Jazzmine Sullivan, a Kindred the family, so

816
00:47:19,000 --> 00:47:21,440
Speaker 6: a flowadry, I mean, the listens goes on and on.

817
00:47:21,480 --> 00:47:24,160
Speaker 6: So it's literally like everything happens for a reason.

818
00:47:24,200 --> 00:47:25,480
Speaker 3: Yeah, everything happens for a reason.

819
00:47:25,600 --> 00:47:29,880
Speaker 1: Yeah, so Monica, that that said about imaging, we we

820
00:47:30,040 --> 00:47:33,960
Speaker 1: briefly glossed over it the last episode, but you know

821
00:47:34,440 --> 00:47:37,480
Speaker 1: it's the irony is not lost. Don't mean that, you know,

822
00:47:37,680 --> 00:47:40,239
Speaker 1: kind of the the nightmare stories about the office are

823
00:47:40,239 --> 00:47:43,200
Speaker 1: also happening from your most successful groups. How are you

824
00:47:43,200 --> 00:47:49,040
Speaker 1: guys feeling about the time when constantly like if you're thinking, okay,

825
00:47:49,040 --> 00:47:52,200
Speaker 1: we got da La Soul on the ll Cool J tour,

826
00:47:53,360 --> 00:47:57,279
Speaker 1: there should be smooth sailing for them, and yet night

827
00:47:57,280 --> 00:48:01,640
Speaker 1: after night, every tale of violence and pugilism and fighting

828
00:48:02,640 --> 00:48:06,759
Speaker 1: are coming from the one group that, at least on paper,

829
00:48:06,800 --> 00:48:08,680
Speaker 1: isn't supposed to represent that, which.

830
00:48:09,400 --> 00:48:10,560
Speaker 3: I mean, I get their point.

831
00:48:10,600 --> 00:48:13,680
Speaker 1: That they felt that they were pegged in a hole

832
00:48:13,760 --> 00:48:15,919
Speaker 1: which they would have to sort of whatever prove their

833
00:48:16,920 --> 00:48:20,799
Speaker 1: machismo in an age where manchismo was everything in hip hop.

834
00:48:20,840 --> 00:48:25,000
Speaker 1: But when you guys are getting reports back that you know,

835
00:48:25,160 --> 00:48:31,239
Speaker 1: every night DAYLA is kind of getting tested by the

836
00:48:31,320 --> 00:48:34,880
Speaker 1: kids in the yard, especially on tour, and they eventually

837
00:48:34,920 --> 00:48:38,719
Speaker 1: get kicked off of the tour, are you like, are

838
00:48:38,800 --> 00:48:41,560
Speaker 1: you guys starting to think like, well, maybe we went

839
00:48:41,600 --> 00:48:44,200
Speaker 1: too far with the marketing or whatever. I mean, from

840
00:48:44,239 --> 00:48:46,600
Speaker 1: my end that's said it was a lifesaver because it

841
00:48:46,640 --> 00:48:50,360
Speaker 1: gave me something to relate to. But like, in hindsight,

842
00:48:50,680 --> 00:48:53,000
Speaker 1: what do you think it was that sort of put

843
00:48:53,000 --> 00:48:57,040
Speaker 1: them in the position that they really sort of disassociate

844
00:48:57,120 --> 00:48:58,840
Speaker 1: themselves from three F hind and rising.

845
00:48:59,600 --> 00:49:03,359
Speaker 7: Well, okay, there's a lot a lot to unpack there.

846
00:49:04,320 --> 00:49:08,719
Speaker 7: First of all, I think that when they came to us,

847
00:49:08,840 --> 00:49:14,160
Speaker 7: they were very young. They were you know, like eighteen nineteen.

848
00:49:14,360 --> 00:49:20,560
Speaker 7: They came from much more inward type of place than

849
00:49:20,560 --> 00:49:23,080
Speaker 7: an outward like a place. And the reason I say

850
00:49:23,120 --> 00:49:25,200
Speaker 7: this is because it wasn't like they came up like

851
00:49:25,280 --> 00:49:29,240
Speaker 7: a lot of rappers came up doing battles, doing shows,

852
00:49:30,520 --> 00:49:34,440
Speaker 7: you know, they were already experienced live and all that

853
00:49:34,440 --> 00:49:37,200
Speaker 7: stuff that was not De la Salt. They didn't have

854
00:49:38,160 --> 00:49:42,880
Speaker 7: live chops at that point. They did their one I

855
00:49:42,880 --> 00:49:44,919
Speaker 7: think I mentioned this the last episode that they did

856
00:49:45,640 --> 00:49:49,200
Speaker 7: that first, you know, I think it was an album

857
00:49:49,239 --> 00:49:53,120
Speaker 7: release party at Payday and they did this incredible show

858
00:49:53,600 --> 00:49:56,960
Speaker 7: where they had the holding up the placards with the

859
00:49:57,080 --> 00:50:01,000
Speaker 7: lyrics and it was great and everyone, oh, this is incredible,

860
00:50:01,040 --> 00:50:04,520
Speaker 7: this is so different, this is the coolest shit. And

861
00:50:05,040 --> 00:50:08,359
Speaker 7: we had three feet high and rock rising out and

862
00:50:08,400 --> 00:50:13,920
Speaker 7: it had this really unbelievably cool and different type of

863
00:50:13,960 --> 00:50:17,239
Speaker 7: imaging and marketing. And again it was sort of I

864
00:50:17,280 --> 00:50:20,080
Speaker 7: guess for better and for worse, because I think that

865
00:50:20,640 --> 00:50:24,200
Speaker 7: you know, people embrace the entirety of Dylasol because the

866
00:50:24,320 --> 00:50:27,680
Speaker 7: album was so different. The sound was so different, the

867
00:50:27,760 --> 00:50:30,640
Speaker 7: language was so different, their look was so different, the

868
00:50:30,719 --> 00:50:36,120
Speaker 7: imaging was so different. But yeah, they weren't road tested,

869
00:50:37,080 --> 00:50:40,000
Speaker 7: and I think when they got out in there on

870
00:50:40,200 --> 00:50:44,320
Speaker 7: the road with you know, be it Ll or whoever

871
00:50:44,360 --> 00:50:47,960
Speaker 7: else they were traveling with, and they hadn't done the

872
00:50:47,960 --> 00:50:51,280
Speaker 7: grind and they hadn't done those type of live shows

873
00:50:51,280 --> 00:50:55,480
Speaker 7: on a steady basis, I think that it was they

874
00:50:55,520 --> 00:50:58,960
Speaker 7: probably did feel like they had to somehow defend themselves

875
00:50:59,080 --> 00:51:03,400
Speaker 7: or prove them so elves. I'm speculating here because I

876
00:51:03,440 --> 00:51:06,759
Speaker 7: was not out on the road with them, but I

877
00:51:06,800 --> 00:51:10,759
Speaker 7: think the general thing that I have taken away from

878
00:51:10,760 --> 00:51:14,480
Speaker 7: it all these years later is that they they they

879
00:51:14,520 --> 00:51:19,160
Speaker 7: weren't a great live act in the beginning, and then

880
00:51:19,200 --> 00:51:23,160
Speaker 7: they became a great live act, you know, once they

881
00:51:23,200 --> 00:51:26,120
Speaker 7: gained their confidence and they had more experience and they

882
00:51:26,120 --> 00:51:30,200
Speaker 7: were doing it on the regular. They you know, found themselves.

883
00:51:30,800 --> 00:51:34,759
Speaker 7: But but I can't really put all that, you know,

884
00:51:35,680 --> 00:51:37,520
Speaker 7: put the blame for that. Well, jeez, if we hadn't

885
00:51:37,560 --> 00:51:40,520
Speaker 7: done you know, a Daisy Age album cover, none of

886
00:51:40,520 --> 00:51:43,960
Speaker 7: this would have happened, you know. I think now, you know,

887
00:51:44,000 --> 00:51:49,239
Speaker 7: the group has actually re embraced that imagery and it's

888
00:51:49,280 --> 00:51:53,560
Speaker 7: part of their legacy. So if they had some rough

889
00:51:53,719 --> 00:51:57,040
Speaker 7: patches there, you know, finding their way from point A

890
00:51:57,160 --> 00:52:00,160
Speaker 7: to point B, well they came out of it and

891
00:52:00,200 --> 00:52:03,840
Speaker 7: they you know, and then years later, I say, many

892
00:52:04,920 --> 00:52:07,640
Speaker 7: day La Soul performed, they were fantastic. You know, So

893
00:52:08,480 --> 00:52:08,839
Speaker 7: this is.

894
00:52:08,760 --> 00:52:12,560
Speaker 3: Such a class thirty years after the fact. What what

895
00:52:12,560 --> 00:52:15,279
Speaker 3: what were your feelings on day Los Soul is dead? Then?

896
00:52:16,480 --> 00:52:22,960
Speaker 1: And now you know, in my opinion of their entire canon, uh,

897
00:52:23,239 --> 00:52:27,560
Speaker 1: that's probably my favorite album of their of their lot,

898
00:52:27,800 --> 00:52:31,279
Speaker 1: and it's probably the album that kind of built me.

899
00:52:31,719 --> 00:52:33,239
Speaker 3: Like and it's weird.

900
00:52:33,280 --> 00:52:35,360
Speaker 1: I know, people talk in hindsight like it's such a dark,

901
00:52:35,920 --> 00:52:38,719
Speaker 1: nasty record. I think it's actually their funniest record.

902
00:52:38,800 --> 00:52:40,520
Speaker 2: Like it's yeah, I didn't think that is dark.

903
00:52:40,680 --> 00:52:45,160
Speaker 1: It's the funniest ship. It's humor, it's biting sarcasm. Yeah,

904
00:52:45,239 --> 00:52:47,920
Speaker 1: and you guys really did a I mean, the marketing

905
00:52:47,960 --> 00:52:50,000
Speaker 1: for it was awesome, Like they got on the cover

906
00:52:50,040 --> 00:52:56,120
Speaker 1: of Rolling Stone, which was truly unheard of back then,

907
00:52:56,400 --> 00:52:59,000
Speaker 1: and especially you know once the source came into play,

908
00:52:59,040 --> 00:53:02,120
Speaker 1: and that was something in credible them getting five mics there.

909
00:53:02,800 --> 00:53:05,640
Speaker 1: You know, just just in general, like what what were

910
00:53:05,680 --> 00:53:07,759
Speaker 1: the execs at Tommy Boy?

911
00:53:07,800 --> 00:53:11,120
Speaker 3: Thinking, well, were there execs at Tommy Boy? Was just

912
00:53:11,200 --> 00:53:13,040
Speaker 3: you and Tom?

913
00:53:13,280 --> 00:53:16,560
Speaker 7: Well, I mean exacts. I mean we weren't exactly the

914
00:53:16,600 --> 00:53:19,000
Speaker 7: most you know, It's like we didn't have c sweeps

915
00:53:19,080 --> 00:53:22,400
Speaker 7: or anything like that. Like I said, my office was

916
00:53:22,600 --> 00:53:26,080
Speaker 7: like a very sort of claustrophobic type of place. The

917
00:53:26,560 --> 00:53:28,720
Speaker 7: so I wouldn't say like, oh my god, the ripple

918
00:53:28,719 --> 00:53:31,640
Speaker 7: effects through the executive ranks of Tommy Boy. It wasn't

919
00:53:31,760 --> 00:53:37,319
Speaker 7: quite like that. I mean, listen, the group was reacting,

920
00:53:38,360 --> 00:53:42,960
Speaker 7: you know to the you know, pushing back and reacting

921
00:53:43,000 --> 00:53:47,799
Speaker 7: to the Daisy Age imagery that I think at that

922
00:53:47,920 --> 00:53:50,719
Speaker 7: point they sort of feel had been thrust upon them

923
00:53:50,760 --> 00:53:53,359
Speaker 7: and they were trying to shake it off. And uh

924
00:53:53,400 --> 00:53:56,160
Speaker 7: and and and they did. Frankly, you know, I mean,

925
00:53:56,239 --> 00:54:00,800
Speaker 7: look at the cover is so but it's an incredible albums,

926
00:54:00,960 --> 00:54:06,000
Speaker 7: So you know, I don't I don't remember get having

927
00:54:06,040 --> 00:54:12,319
Speaker 7: any particular you know, Zura's about the whole thing. Uh

928
00:54:12,440 --> 00:54:15,439
Speaker 7: Dyala Sula is dead. In fact, I thought it was like, oh,

929
00:54:15,480 --> 00:54:18,680
Speaker 7: this is great. You know, this is gonna be keep

930
00:54:18,719 --> 00:54:22,239
Speaker 7: a story going, and and it's a great album. If

931
00:54:22,239 --> 00:54:24,439
Speaker 7: it was if the album sucked, who would fucking care.

932
00:54:24,480 --> 00:54:25,520
Speaker 7: But it was incredible.

933
00:54:25,640 --> 00:54:30,440
Speaker 1: So did you guys worried at all about them putting

934
00:54:30,440 --> 00:54:34,880
Speaker 1: Renee King's number on the uh Ring Ring Ring Haha?

935
00:54:34,880 --> 00:54:40,920
Speaker 1: He I would call her often pick up at at

936
00:54:40,960 --> 00:54:44,080
Speaker 1: the top of Ring Ring Ring. I guess a woman

937
00:54:44,360 --> 00:54:47,120
Speaker 1: for our listeners out there, there's a woman that pass

938
00:54:47,800 --> 00:54:51,319
Speaker 1: uh met at the New Music Seminar named Renee King,

939
00:54:52,080 --> 00:54:54,960
Speaker 1: and uh she just called and called and called and

940
00:54:55,000 --> 00:54:57,880
Speaker 1: called and called and called and called, left messages after messages,

941
00:54:58,480 --> 00:55:01,840
Speaker 1: and they decided to leave one of her messages on

942
00:55:01,960 --> 00:55:03,120
Speaker 1: Passa's answer machine.

943
00:55:03,640 --> 00:55:06,200
Speaker 2: Two one five two to two four two nine.

944
00:55:06,320 --> 00:55:09,520
Speaker 3: You know that number I'm calling in reference to the music,

945
00:55:10,000 --> 00:55:12,239
Speaker 3: remember who you're talking about? Of course he does. He

946
00:55:12,360 --> 00:55:12,879
Speaker 3: called it too.

947
00:55:13,480 --> 00:55:15,680
Speaker 2: I did not call it. Hell man, my mom would

948
00:55:15,680 --> 00:55:16,200
Speaker 2: have been last.

949
00:55:16,200 --> 00:55:17,440
Speaker 6: I called it longest.

950
00:55:19,560 --> 00:55:24,440
Speaker 1: Bad bad day sold Did I call that number often?

951
00:55:24,480 --> 00:55:26,479
Speaker 1: And spoke to Renee King like she kept that number

952
00:55:26,560 --> 00:55:28,960
Speaker 1: till like. I mean the last I call it was

953
00:55:29,040 --> 00:55:35,279
Speaker 1: like ninety four, but you were a want.

954
00:55:34,000 --> 00:55:35,680
Speaker 3: Do you want to people to go? It was like, hello,

955
00:55:35,760 --> 00:55:36,960
Speaker 3: is this Renee King? Yes?

956
00:55:37,080 --> 00:55:37,480
Speaker 7: This is me?

957
00:55:37,960 --> 00:55:41,080
Speaker 3: Oh wow, it is the like, well, let me.

958
00:55:41,080 --> 00:55:43,359
Speaker 7: Put you this way. I don't think that that would

959
00:55:43,400 --> 00:55:47,520
Speaker 7: have flown today at all. It would be like doxing

960
00:55:47,680 --> 00:55:52,680
Speaker 7: someone but an album, you know, stocking or harassment to

961
00:55:52,760 --> 00:55:56,400
Speaker 7: put somebody's phone number, and I don't even you know.

962
00:55:56,800 --> 00:56:00,400
Speaker 7: That's a good point though, because legally, I'm I'm wondering

963
00:56:00,480 --> 00:56:02,600
Speaker 7: if there was a line that was crossed putting her

964
00:56:02,640 --> 00:56:03,200
Speaker 7: phone number.

965
00:56:03,760 --> 00:56:05,920
Speaker 3: I mean, obviously she had to get permission. I mean,

966
00:56:06,120 --> 00:56:06,640
Speaker 3: she never.

967
00:56:06,600 --> 00:56:10,440
Speaker 7: Retaliated obviously, though I'm not so sure it was obvious.

968
00:56:11,800 --> 00:56:12,600
Speaker 3: She welcomed it.

969
00:56:17,400 --> 00:56:21,360
Speaker 1: I always wanted to know, why didn't you guys release

970
00:56:21,400 --> 00:56:25,200
Speaker 1: a video? Well, I think I'm answering my question right

971
00:56:25,239 --> 00:56:27,600
Speaker 1: now as I say it. For Millie pulled the pistol

972
00:56:27,640 --> 00:56:32,759
Speaker 1: on Santa, very weird choice for a third single. Why

973
00:56:32,920 --> 00:56:34,680
Speaker 1: didn't that come with the video? Because I mean, the

974
00:56:34,800 --> 00:56:39,080
Speaker 1: song was clearly like levels of storytelling, like on Slick

975
00:56:39,160 --> 00:56:42,959
Speaker 1: Rick's level, but instead you guys focused on the B side,

976
00:56:43,000 --> 00:56:46,880
Speaker 1: which was keeping the faith. But I mean, at the

977
00:56:46,920 --> 00:56:49,760
Speaker 1: time and you heard it, like, did you guys truly

978
00:56:49,800 --> 00:56:51,280
Speaker 1: feel like that could have been a single?

979
00:56:53,040 --> 00:56:59,600
Speaker 7: I don't recall your honor, okay years ago, no, I

980
00:56:59,760 --> 00:57:02,080
Speaker 7: I I seriously, I don't recall, but I can tell

981
00:57:02,120 --> 00:57:04,120
Speaker 7: you it sounds like the type of thing where I

982
00:57:04,160 --> 00:57:08,080
Speaker 7: would have said, I don't know, maybe you know, are

983
00:57:08,080 --> 00:57:10,680
Speaker 7: we going to get you know, well, yo, MTV raps

984
00:57:10,800 --> 00:57:13,759
Speaker 7: play this. I don't know, Well this clear you know

985
00:57:15,280 --> 00:57:18,840
Speaker 7: standards practices, although I'm sure there would have been a

986
00:57:19,000 --> 00:57:22,360
Speaker 7: very artistic, interesting way to approach the whole thing. But

987
00:57:22,520 --> 00:57:23,919
Speaker 7: I don't even recall all those.

988
00:57:23,840 --> 00:57:24,959
Speaker 2: Songs about what it's about.

989
00:57:25,080 --> 00:57:27,720
Speaker 3: So how do you write one thing. I don't know

990
00:57:29,160 --> 00:57:30,560
Speaker 3: when did you leave, Tommy Boy.

991
00:57:31,720 --> 00:57:35,200
Speaker 7: I left in February of nineteen ninety eight, so.

992
00:57:35,280 --> 00:57:37,440
Speaker 1: You were there for like stakes as high and I

993
00:57:37,560 --> 00:57:40,240
Speaker 1: never knew like when your era ended, and like what

994
00:57:40,400 --> 00:57:41,560
Speaker 1: albums you weren't there for.

995
00:57:42,200 --> 00:57:46,320
Speaker 7: The last album that I gave a green light too

996
00:57:47,360 --> 00:57:51,760
Speaker 7: was Everlast, everlast solo album.

997
00:57:51,640 --> 00:57:56,240
Speaker 3: That Dante Okay Okay produced, and that was.

998
00:57:56,920 --> 00:57:59,280
Speaker 7: The last one that I said, yep we had and

999
00:57:59,400 --> 00:58:02,440
Speaker 7: it didn't didn't happen very easily either, But that was

1000
00:58:02,480 --> 00:58:04,160
Speaker 7: the last What.

1001
00:58:04,400 --> 00:58:06,680
Speaker 2: Was how did you have to sell it? What made

1002
00:58:06,720 --> 00:58:07,240
Speaker 2: it difficult?

1003
00:58:07,720 --> 00:58:11,480
Speaker 7: Well, no, it was because there was internal drama that

1004
00:58:11,680 --> 00:58:16,080
Speaker 7: was happening at the label that involved business affairs director

1005
00:58:17,080 --> 00:58:19,600
Speaker 7: kind of having a dick war with Everlast attorney, and

1006
00:58:19,680 --> 00:58:23,360
Speaker 7: it almost didn't happen, but thank god it did because

1007
00:58:23,480 --> 00:58:25,600
Speaker 7: that was a huge you know that might have I mean,

1008
00:58:25,680 --> 00:58:27,440
Speaker 7: that album I think did three millions, So.

1009
00:58:29,480 --> 00:58:30,840
Speaker 2: Yeah, put your jersey in the rest.

1010
00:58:31,560 --> 00:58:34,040
Speaker 7: But I left February February ninety eight.

1011
00:58:35,000 --> 00:58:38,320
Speaker 1: But just in general, with each Daylight record coming out

1012
00:58:38,560 --> 00:58:45,560
Speaker 1: and getting more darker and kind of taking subtle or

1013
00:58:45,720 --> 00:58:51,560
Speaker 1: not so settled jabs at the industry, I mean, that's

1014
00:58:51,680 --> 00:58:53,800
Speaker 1: that's the one thing if I could change anything about

1015
00:58:53,880 --> 00:58:58,800
Speaker 1: Daylight I remember my an R Wendy Goldstein telling me, like, Yo,

1016
00:58:59,040 --> 00:59:02,280
Speaker 1: no matter what y'all do, never do a song about

1017
00:59:02,400 --> 00:59:05,280
Speaker 1: how fucked up your label is because nobody cares. Like,

1018
00:59:05,480 --> 00:59:09,360
Speaker 1: nobody cares about the label fucking you over, like anything

1019
00:59:09,560 --> 00:59:12,280
Speaker 1: but the label fucking you over? Like, did you guys

1020
00:59:12,400 --> 00:59:16,960
Speaker 1: feel a certain way about the subtle jabs that are

1021
00:59:17,160 --> 00:59:20,920
Speaker 1: artistic expression? Because even with Balloon Mind State, which seems

1022
00:59:20,920 --> 00:59:23,680
Speaker 1: to be everyone's general favorite Daylight record, at least when

1023
00:59:23,680 --> 00:59:26,360
Speaker 1: you ask the average person, you know, when they're talking

1024
00:59:26,360 --> 00:59:29,400
Speaker 1: about like uh, Patty Duke and all that stuff, Like

1025
00:59:29,560 --> 00:59:33,440
Speaker 1: a lot of these songs are specifically aimed at how

1026
00:59:33,480 --> 00:59:35,760
Speaker 1: we're not stars anymore and we didn't make it and

1027
00:59:36,000 --> 00:59:39,160
Speaker 1: we used to be the shit now like in focuses

1028
00:59:39,240 --> 00:59:42,840
Speaker 1: that way and whatnot. Like, did you guys just let

1029
00:59:42,920 --> 00:59:45,280
Speaker 1: them go off from their own creativity or was someone

1030
00:59:45,320 --> 00:59:47,720
Speaker 1: there to just be like, hey, guys, like, no one's

1031
00:59:47,720 --> 00:59:50,720
Speaker 1: going to relate to the fact that you know you're

1032
00:59:50,760 --> 00:59:52,120
Speaker 1: not getting properly promoted.

1033
00:59:53,760 --> 00:59:56,040
Speaker 7: Well, okay, I mean, first of all, I don't think

1034
00:59:56,120 --> 00:59:58,920
Speaker 7: there's any label person in the world who's gonna sit

1035
00:59:59,000 --> 01:00:01,240
Speaker 7: back and say, man, it was great when that dig

1036
01:00:01,400 --> 01:00:06,760
Speaker 7: really came at me. Of course, it's like, you know,

1037
01:00:07,800 --> 01:00:10,880
Speaker 7: it's uncomfortable. It can be a little mortifying. It's like,

1038
01:00:10,960 --> 01:00:14,120
Speaker 7: oh shit, you know. And yes, I mean I saw

1039
01:00:14,200 --> 01:00:19,160
Speaker 7: the references to Duck season on the which is actually,

1040
01:00:20,040 --> 01:00:22,160
Speaker 7: you know, it's that's cool too. I mean, I actually

1041
01:00:22,200 --> 01:00:26,440
Speaker 7: have a really good relationship with Rizza. But the thing

1042
01:00:26,600 --> 01:00:30,280
Speaker 7: is is that the I think even worse. The worst

1043
01:00:30,320 --> 01:00:34,080
Speaker 7: thing you can do is interfere. And I don't there

1044
01:00:34,200 --> 01:00:37,240
Speaker 7: wasn't anyone telling them you can't say this or don't

1045
01:00:37,320 --> 01:00:40,080
Speaker 7: say that, you know. I think if they needed to

1046
01:00:40,160 --> 01:00:42,200
Speaker 7: work that out, however, they wanted to work it out

1047
01:00:42,280 --> 01:00:46,120
Speaker 7: and say it publicly. It's fine. And and you know

1048
01:00:46,320 --> 01:00:50,480
Speaker 7: sometimes people, you know, there are people say, well, you're airing,

1049
01:00:51,120 --> 01:00:53,760
Speaker 7: you know, you're you're dirty launder. No one really cares

1050
01:00:53,880 --> 01:00:57,360
Speaker 7: about this sort of drama that's going on over here.

1051
01:00:57,640 --> 01:01:01,760
Speaker 7: It's sort of industry, uh, about what's happening in the industry.

1052
01:01:01,840 --> 01:01:04,800
Speaker 7: But no, there was no I don't recall there ever

1053
01:01:04,920 --> 01:01:10,520
Speaker 7: being anyone's trying to issue a corrective about what they

1054
01:01:11,160 --> 01:01:14,880
Speaker 7: could or should say or how they were saying it. So,

1055
01:01:15,600 --> 01:01:18,320
Speaker 7: and and in fact, even if you wanted to, would

1056
01:01:18,320 --> 01:01:22,200
Speaker 7: probably be feutile and just you know, make you as

1057
01:01:22,240 --> 01:01:24,120
Speaker 7: a you know, as a label or an a n

1058
01:01:24,240 --> 01:01:26,920
Speaker 7: R person. Look, you know, then you really setting yourself

1059
01:01:27,080 --> 01:01:30,640
Speaker 7: up for you know, for criticism. So now.

1060
01:01:32,360 --> 01:01:34,120
Speaker 3: How do you how are you guys building your staff?

1061
01:01:34,200 --> 01:01:34,240
Speaker 7: Like?

1062
01:01:34,360 --> 01:01:37,960
Speaker 1: How does Dante come to your attention? How does what

1063
01:01:38,160 --> 01:01:43,360
Speaker 1: other notable Uh? Yeah characters are at Tommy Boy helping

1064
01:01:43,440 --> 01:01:47,080
Speaker 1: the machine run? Well, you know our beloved Dante Ross, yes,

1065
01:01:47,280 --> 01:01:48,160
Speaker 1: of course, and.

1066
01:01:48,960 --> 01:01:52,520
Speaker 7: There's I'm glad you brought that up because this came

1067
01:01:52,640 --> 01:01:55,120
Speaker 7: up in a conversation recently because a lot of times

1068
01:01:55,240 --> 01:01:58,760
Speaker 7: when people will do interviews and they they always want

1069
01:01:58,760 --> 01:02:01,280
Speaker 7: to talk about the artists. Of course that's natural. But

1070
01:02:02,000 --> 01:02:04,240
Speaker 7: you know, one of the things that I would say,

1071
01:02:04,840 --> 01:02:07,120
Speaker 7: all these years later is I'm them very proud of

1072
01:02:07,360 --> 01:02:10,000
Speaker 7: is all the people that I had a hand in

1073
01:02:10,120 --> 01:02:13,200
Speaker 7: hiring or that I did hire and who have gone

1074
01:02:13,240 --> 01:02:20,360
Speaker 7: on to really pretty amazing careers themselves. And Dante, of

1075
01:02:20,440 --> 01:02:23,640
Speaker 7: course is one of them. Dante Uh is a is

1076
01:02:23,800 --> 01:02:26,440
Speaker 7: quite a rock on tour in his own right. And

1077
01:02:27,160 --> 01:02:33,120
Speaker 7: I hired Dante uh very shortly after he left leor

1078
01:02:33,240 --> 01:02:38,240
Speaker 7: Cohen's employ I think it was rather unceremonious parting of

1079
01:02:38,320 --> 01:02:38,680
Speaker 7: the ways.

1080
01:02:39,280 --> 01:02:43,040
Speaker 1: So is that an awkward thing like if you're one,

1081
01:02:43,240 --> 01:02:47,080
Speaker 1: are you friends with other CEOs of other labels? And

1082
01:02:48,440 --> 01:02:52,600
Speaker 1: is there an unspoken rule about poaching you know, their

1083
01:02:52,680 --> 01:02:54,560
Speaker 1: particular employees to come and work for us?

1084
01:02:54,640 --> 01:02:57,640
Speaker 3: And it carried on the stick thing like only.

1085
01:02:57,600 --> 01:03:00,640
Speaker 7: Only if only if there's what they I guess would

1086
01:03:00,640 --> 01:03:07,959
Speaker 7: be called tor's interference with a contractual uh situation, tortia's interference.

1087
01:03:08,040 --> 01:03:10,480
Speaker 7: I'm no lawyer, but the but but but basically, if

1088
01:03:10,520 --> 01:03:13,880
Speaker 7: someone's under contract and you interfere and try and hire

1089
01:03:13,960 --> 01:03:17,480
Speaker 7: them or sign them and they're under already under contract

1090
01:03:17,880 --> 01:03:23,080
Speaker 7: with with the label, you are risking you know, legal action. Yeah. So,

1091
01:03:23,480 --> 01:03:26,240
Speaker 7: but but let me tell you le Or did not

1092
01:03:26,320 --> 01:03:30,640
Speaker 7: have Dante under contract, and uh and those two, you know,

1093
01:03:31,160 --> 01:03:34,280
Speaker 7: I think we're happy to be out of each other's way.

1094
01:03:34,840 --> 01:03:38,880
Speaker 7: So so I hired Dante, and you know, it's his

1095
01:03:38,960 --> 01:03:43,000
Speaker 7: first day in our job, and you know we uh

1096
01:03:43,400 --> 01:03:46,840
Speaker 7: de La Soul was already on the label, and that

1097
01:03:47,080 --> 01:03:50,440
Speaker 7: was the first project that I gave him to oversee,

1098
01:03:50,680 --> 01:03:55,360
Speaker 7: was the album. So uh so he's obviously gone on

1099
01:03:55,520 --> 01:03:58,520
Speaker 7: to great renown and great success. But there's a lot,

1100
01:03:58,600 --> 01:03:58,880
Speaker 7: but there.

1101
01:03:58,840 --> 01:04:01,920
Speaker 6: Are others, you know, please tell Yeah, well, you know,

1102
01:04:02,040 --> 01:04:02,560
Speaker 6: one guy that.

1103
01:04:02,640 --> 01:04:06,439
Speaker 7: Comes to mind is a guy named Rod Houston who's

1104
01:04:06,480 --> 01:04:07,400
Speaker 7: from Philadelphia.

1105
01:04:09,920 --> 01:04:10,120
Speaker 8: Yeah.

1106
01:04:10,200 --> 01:04:14,160
Speaker 7: And Rod started actually as Tom's assistant. And one of

1107
01:04:14,200 --> 01:04:17,120
Speaker 7: the great things about when the label was really small

1108
01:04:17,400 --> 01:04:21,560
Speaker 7: is that it's not like we had all these different departments,

1109
01:04:21,720 --> 01:04:24,640
Speaker 7: you know, like if people started somewhere, they could very

1110
01:04:24,720 --> 01:04:27,560
Speaker 7: easily sort of shift into like, oh, guess what we

1111
01:04:27,680 --> 01:04:30,320
Speaker 7: need videos? Wait, we don't have someone to do videos. Rod,

1112
01:04:30,360 --> 01:04:33,320
Speaker 7: You're going to oversee videos now. And that's in fact

1113
01:04:33,520 --> 01:04:36,280
Speaker 7: kind of how it happened. Rod was Tom's assistant, but

1114
01:04:36,440 --> 01:04:40,240
Speaker 7: Rod was also in charge of calling the hip hop

1115
01:04:40,320 --> 01:04:44,560
Speaker 7: mixed shows. And then he Oh my.

1116
01:04:44,640 --> 01:04:46,480
Speaker 6: God, I just looked at h I'm so sorry. I

1117
01:04:46,600 --> 01:04:48,280
Speaker 6: realized the reason I know him is not because of

1118
01:04:48,360 --> 01:04:51,600
Speaker 6: this career, but it's because of his second career, right Houston?

1119
01:04:51,840 --> 01:04:57,720
Speaker 7: Yes, yes, so then he and then he was you know,

1120
01:04:57,960 --> 01:05:01,600
Speaker 7: pretty handy with you know, technical and video stuff. So

1121
01:05:01,760 --> 01:05:04,320
Speaker 7: he all of a sudden, Rod's like in charge of

1122
01:05:04,680 --> 01:05:08,840
Speaker 7: overseeing videos for Tommy Boy, and he's a really incredibly

1123
01:05:08,960 --> 01:05:13,120
Speaker 7: great smart I but what you know, Rod uh from

1124
01:05:13,200 --> 01:05:17,000
Speaker 7: time to time, he started doing voiceover work and he

1125
01:05:17,080 --> 01:05:19,520
Speaker 7: would uh say, hey, Mo, do you mind if I

1126
01:05:20,560 --> 01:05:22,640
Speaker 7: can leave you over to Ariston wants to know if

1127
01:05:22,680 --> 01:05:27,360
Speaker 7: I can go, you know, do a radio spot for them,

1128
01:05:27,400 --> 01:05:30,480
Speaker 7: and yeah, sure, blah blah blah. Well what was starting,

1129
01:05:31,080 --> 01:05:35,560
Speaker 7: you know, pretty modestly back then exploded into this wildly

1130
01:05:35,800 --> 01:05:40,600
Speaker 7: successful career. Is one of the most you know, he's died.

1131
01:05:44,160 --> 01:05:48,640
Speaker 7: I cannot turn on the TV or the radio or

1132
01:05:48,760 --> 01:05:53,240
Speaker 7: anything without hearing Rod Houston's voice. He's that successful in

1133
01:05:53,400 --> 01:05:54,680
Speaker 7: the voice field.

1134
01:05:56,440 --> 01:05:56,800
Speaker 3: Office.

1135
01:05:59,440 --> 01:06:03,200
Speaker 7: He always had a reverb machine with himself. Now he

1136
01:06:03,280 --> 01:06:06,000
Speaker 7: always had that voice, you know, which made him great

1137
01:06:06,040 --> 01:06:09,600
Speaker 7: on the phone. You know, having a good own voice

1138
01:06:09,800 --> 01:06:12,120
Speaker 7: is important if you're going to be doing radio promotion,

1139
01:06:12,920 --> 01:06:18,640
Speaker 7: you know, or retail promotion, with any sort of promotion. Really, so, uh,

1140
01:06:19,240 --> 01:06:25,560
Speaker 7: he's one guy Chris Atlas started, Yeah, wow, I love.

1141
01:06:25,480 --> 01:06:28,240
Speaker 6: The old neighs in those mixes out those mixed CDs.

1142
01:06:29,080 --> 01:06:33,320
Speaker 7: But his first job was I'm almost certain it was

1143
01:06:33,320 --> 01:06:35,520
Speaker 7: his first job in the industry was a Tommy boy

1144
01:06:35,680 --> 01:06:40,760
Speaker 7: doing like street promotions and marketing fat man Scoop.

1145
01:06:41,160 --> 01:06:44,840
Speaker 3: What in your job there?

1146
01:06:46,040 --> 01:06:49,760
Speaker 7: He was doing? Scoop had been working Actually, I think

1147
01:06:49,840 --> 01:06:54,640
Speaker 7: at Harlem Hospital. And it was through Alb Ragusa that

1148
01:06:56,080 --> 01:06:58,040
Speaker 7: I met Scoop, and Alb said, oh, this guy is

1149
01:06:58,120 --> 01:07:01,160
Speaker 7: going to be good, and so Scoops started doing He

1150
01:07:01,320 --> 01:07:05,920
Speaker 7: was also doing mixed show promotion, you know. And but

1151
01:07:06,080 --> 01:07:09,520
Speaker 7: then you know, Scoop was always such a character, and

1152
01:07:10,360 --> 01:07:13,200
Speaker 7: I started putting him in the some of the ads

1153
01:07:13,640 --> 01:07:15,840
Speaker 7: on the back cover of the Source magazine.

1154
01:07:17,000 --> 01:07:17,160
Speaker 8: You know.

1155
01:07:17,320 --> 01:07:19,880
Speaker 7: He soon went on to his own brand of stardom

1156
01:07:19,920 --> 01:07:24,000
Speaker 7: as or like the ultimate hype man, doing those hype records.

1157
01:07:24,960 --> 01:07:25,959
Speaker 7: Uh your riding?

1158
01:07:26,920 --> 01:07:31,840
Speaker 1: Were you the marketing person at Tommy Boy? I was

1159
01:07:32,880 --> 01:07:35,320
Speaker 1: my uh well like those jackets and everything.

1160
01:07:36,120 --> 01:07:39,160
Speaker 7: Yeah, As the president of Tommy Boy, I was overseeing

1161
01:07:39,360 --> 01:07:42,760
Speaker 7: all the creative of Tommy Boy. So that was A

1162
01:07:42,960 --> 01:07:48,920
Speaker 7: and R, the imaging, advertising, marketing, promotion, you know, and

1163
01:07:49,040 --> 01:07:53,240
Speaker 7: when we got into doing and all the different taschkas

1164
01:07:53,360 --> 01:07:56,240
Speaker 7: and merchandising materials that we made, like we had all

1165
01:07:56,280 --> 01:08:01,960
Speaker 7: the lanyards. Yeah, we did all these. Albi Ragusa, who

1166
01:08:02,040 --> 01:08:06,000
Speaker 7: was another person who started out doing rap promotions and

1167
01:08:06,840 --> 01:08:12,080
Speaker 7: segued into doing A and R, was a really had

1168
01:08:12,200 --> 01:08:16,400
Speaker 7: really great style. He was very connected with sort of

1169
01:08:16,400 --> 01:08:25,960
Speaker 7: the emerging downtown hip hop Skateboard UK, New York, access

1170
01:08:26,160 --> 01:08:29,760
Speaker 7: of style. He knew the people at Union, he knew

1171
01:08:30,760 --> 01:08:34,240
Speaker 7: James Leavell, he knew Sean Sae, he knew all these

1172
01:08:34,360 --> 01:08:38,800
Speaker 7: cats when they were just coming up. And so I

1173
01:08:38,920 --> 01:08:43,240
Speaker 7: always looked to alb as you know, as a great

1174
01:08:43,320 --> 01:08:47,280
Speaker 7: sort of style and fashion eye. And he was very

1175
01:08:47,479 --> 01:08:51,680
Speaker 7: involved when we did a line of clothing. And it

1176
01:08:51,920 --> 01:08:54,040
Speaker 7: was you know, when we did the car Heart Jacket,

1177
01:08:54,160 --> 01:08:59,639
Speaker 7: which became a very iconic piece. It was Albi's connection

1178
01:08:59,800 --> 01:09:04,840
Speaker 7: to Sean Stussy that resulted in that fantastic logo on

1179
01:09:05,000 --> 01:09:08,800
Speaker 7: the front, uh front breast right, breast pocket. I think

1180
01:09:09,000 --> 01:09:10,240
Speaker 7: I forget which pocket.

1181
01:09:10,000 --> 01:09:12,960
Speaker 1: But you know it was those were official Tommy boy.

1182
01:09:12,960 --> 01:09:15,000
Speaker 1: I always thought those were like bootlegs. So that was

1183
01:09:15,040 --> 01:09:16,040
Speaker 1: commissioned through you guys.

1184
01:09:16,520 --> 01:09:19,800
Speaker 7: Oh, absolutely no, No, we produced those things, and uh,

1185
01:09:20,439 --> 01:09:22,840
Speaker 7: you know, the car Heart Jacket became sort of got

1186
01:09:23,040 --> 01:09:27,599
Speaker 7: its status, uh because we you know, the thing back

1187
01:09:27,680 --> 01:09:31,599
Speaker 7: then was to really you know, we had a sort

1188
01:09:31,640 --> 01:09:34,840
Speaker 7: of a list of people that we would see lace

1189
01:09:35,320 --> 01:09:40,639
Speaker 7: when lacing was a thing, you know, taste makers, artists

1190
01:09:40,880 --> 01:09:43,680
Speaker 7: and things like that. So I think it was that

1191
01:09:43,920 --> 01:09:46,360
Speaker 7: Car Heart jacket in particular was like one of those

1192
01:09:46,400 --> 01:09:50,519
Speaker 7: things that people like, oh shit, you know, either I

1193
01:09:50,720 --> 01:09:54,240
Speaker 7: have it or I wish I had it, and uh

1194
01:09:54,760 --> 01:09:57,000
Speaker 7: you know so uh And it was sort of the

1195
01:09:57,040 --> 01:10:01,000
Speaker 7: beginning of when labels started to branch out into doing

1196
01:10:02,680 --> 01:10:04,479
Speaker 7: you know, clothing and things like that.

1197
01:10:04,800 --> 01:10:07,360
Speaker 6: Three thousand to five thousand dollars on auction. I'm just

1198
01:10:07,479 --> 01:10:08,200
Speaker 6: saying last time.

1199
01:10:08,400 --> 01:10:09,479
Speaker 3: Yeah it was one available.

1200
01:10:09,680 --> 01:10:13,000
Speaker 7: Yeah, that was my it was my jacket.

1201
01:10:14,560 --> 01:10:17,519
Speaker 1: There's a hip hop hip hop shop and Philly caught

1202
01:10:17,520 --> 01:10:20,920
Speaker 1: the layup that my current Uh oh god.

1203
01:10:21,200 --> 01:10:23,200
Speaker 3: I've been with Keith almost thirty years now.

1204
01:10:23,920 --> 01:10:27,240
Speaker 1: My production manager used to run it and he had

1205
01:10:27,360 --> 01:10:31,760
Speaker 1: a Tommy Boy jacket and I remember like saving up

1206
01:10:31,840 --> 01:10:34,360
Speaker 1: for three weeks to buy that thing because I wanted

1207
01:10:34,400 --> 01:10:37,439
Speaker 1: to lead people under the impression that Tarika and I

1208
01:10:37,640 --> 01:10:40,000
Speaker 1: had signed to tom Records.

1209
01:10:41,439 --> 01:10:44,120
Speaker 3: Everywhere everywhere.

1210
01:10:45,200 --> 01:10:48,000
Speaker 7: Thank you for sharing that. Well.

1211
01:10:48,080 --> 01:10:51,559
Speaker 1: Speaking speaking of your staff, there's one thing I didn't ask.

1212
01:10:51,880 --> 01:10:55,000
Speaker 1: Were there any close but no cigar movements in terms

1213
01:10:55,080 --> 01:11:00,000
Speaker 1: of almost having an artist that you could have sign

1214
01:11:00,240 --> 01:11:02,559
Speaker 1: but lost like at the last eleventh hour.

1215
01:11:03,560 --> 01:11:07,439
Speaker 7: Oh wow, Well listen, I'll tell you that there are

1216
01:11:07,560 --> 01:11:10,519
Speaker 7: always quite you know a question. I always go, well,

1217
01:11:10,560 --> 01:11:13,679
Speaker 7: how come you all didn't sign Tupac. That's a big one.

1218
01:11:13,760 --> 01:11:18,360
Speaker 3: Because Digital Underground I forgot oh.

1219
01:11:18,360 --> 01:11:20,400
Speaker 6: Yeah, oh why.

1220
01:11:21,920 --> 01:11:27,439
Speaker 7: Yeah. You know Digital Underground of course was had done

1221
01:11:27,760 --> 01:11:30,400
Speaker 7: very well on Tommy when I was close with Shock

1222
01:11:30,920 --> 01:11:36,200
Speaker 7: uh and and also with their manager Atron Adrian Gregory,

1223
01:11:36,720 --> 01:11:39,920
Speaker 7: and I knew Tupac from you know, when he started,

1224
01:11:40,040 --> 01:11:44,040
Speaker 7: when he was a dancer with Digital and he you know,

1225
01:11:44,120 --> 01:11:49,040
Speaker 7: he's a very charismatic. Uh, he's kind of flirty, very

1226
01:11:49,400 --> 01:11:52,160
Speaker 7: very much more so of like you know, clown dropping

1227
01:11:52,240 --> 01:11:56,200
Speaker 7: Trough on stage. You know, it wasn't necessarily the Tupac

1228
01:11:56,360 --> 01:11:59,760
Speaker 7: that people came to know, you know, just a few

1229
01:12:00,160 --> 01:12:06,280
Speaker 7: later Bishop, yes, well that that role Bishop and Juice.

1230
01:12:06,600 --> 01:12:08,679
Speaker 7: You know, I've always said that was the big turning

1231
01:12:08,720 --> 01:12:12,679
Speaker 7: point for Tupac because when Tupac, when the first single

1232
01:12:12,800 --> 01:12:18,320
Speaker 7: came out trapped it was Interscope and uh that was

1233
01:12:18,600 --> 01:12:22,719
Speaker 7: not you know, that record took some time to break.

1234
01:12:23,240 --> 01:12:26,800
Speaker 7: A guy named Steve Berman over at Interscope. You know

1235
01:12:26,880 --> 01:12:28,519
Speaker 7: this is they were trying to really make a big

1236
01:12:28,600 --> 01:12:30,000
Speaker 7: push into that marketplace.

1237
01:12:30,200 --> 01:12:32,840
Speaker 3: And the Steve Berman that's in dre d a video.

1238
01:12:33,520 --> 01:12:38,479
Speaker 1: Yeah, is that actual Steve Berman the video problem or

1239
01:12:38,560 --> 01:12:40,120
Speaker 1: is that a guy portraying Steve Berman.

1240
01:12:40,400 --> 01:12:44,559
Speaker 7: Well, Steve Berman has a very specific look uh to him.

1241
01:12:44,600 --> 01:12:45,679
Speaker 7: I haven't seen the video.

1242
01:12:46,040 --> 01:12:48,320
Speaker 1: I think in Drey Day when like the guy's like

1243
01:12:48,439 --> 01:12:51,200
Speaker 1: talking to Easy, the Easy character that what's his name?

1244
01:12:51,320 --> 01:12:51,679
Speaker 2: Comedia?

1245
01:12:52,880 --> 01:12:56,160
Speaker 3: He just passed away? He just passed away? Right, Yeah, yeah,

1246
01:12:56,160 --> 01:12:58,880
Speaker 3: I think that Steve Berman in that video and he

1247
01:12:59,040 --> 01:13:00,720
Speaker 3: I know he's in an in.

1248
01:13:00,760 --> 01:13:04,400
Speaker 7: An eminem record that as is Steve Burman's name, and

1249
01:13:04,680 --> 01:13:10,000
Speaker 7: ye he's always Violet Browns on that track. But the

1250
01:13:10,120 --> 01:13:13,040
Speaker 7: thing is is that the role of Bishop I think

1251
01:13:13,320 --> 01:13:16,800
Speaker 7: was you know, listen, uh pop was you know, he

1252
01:13:17,040 --> 01:13:19,720
Speaker 7: was really best friends with Tretch. Him and Trench were

1253
01:13:19,880 --> 01:13:23,600
Speaker 7: five running buddies. Uh here in New York. Uh. The

1254
01:13:23,680 --> 01:13:27,320
Speaker 7: guy Neil Meritz I think was the name of the

1255
01:13:27,400 --> 01:13:31,519
Speaker 7: producer of that film. I remember, you know he you

1256
01:13:31,600 --> 01:13:33,559
Speaker 7: know told me one but oh, you know, I think

1257
01:13:34,560 --> 01:13:38,080
Speaker 7: you know, Tupac. This was a huge turning point for

1258
01:13:38,200 --> 01:13:42,400
Speaker 7: Tupac when he had that persona of that dark, brooding,

1259
01:13:43,400 --> 01:13:47,200
Speaker 7: you know, character that was very different really from what

1260
01:13:47,520 --> 01:13:50,960
Speaker 7: people had seen of him. I think it was something

1261
01:13:51,240 --> 01:13:56,160
Speaker 7: that brought out you know that already it extended into

1262
01:13:56,680 --> 01:13:59,639
Speaker 7: you know, his his career as a as a as

1263
01:13:59,800 --> 01:14:03,400
Speaker 7: a as a rapper. So but but he was, but

1264
01:14:03,520 --> 01:14:05,800
Speaker 7: he was always I think he always was, you know,

1265
01:14:05,920 --> 01:14:10,720
Speaker 7: that complex guy. He just what But you didn't see

1266
01:14:10,800 --> 01:14:14,320
Speaker 7: that necessarily in his role with Digital Underground. But the

1267
01:14:14,400 --> 01:14:18,160
Speaker 7: long story short is that, well actually it's a short story.

1268
01:14:18,280 --> 01:14:23,400
Speaker 7: Long is that the Atrin had given me, uh the

1269
01:14:24,120 --> 01:14:29,040
Speaker 7: demo tape for Trapped, and we passed on it. I

1270
01:14:29,200 --> 01:14:32,599
Speaker 7: still I held on to the cassette and it's now

1271
01:14:32,720 --> 01:14:35,760
Speaker 7: in the TUPAC exhibition at Los Angeles. If you want

1272
01:14:35,800 --> 01:14:36,639
Speaker 7: to go check it out.

1273
01:14:38,200 --> 01:14:40,960
Speaker 3: I'm actually going to see that tomorrow. Well maybe you know,

1274
01:14:41,040 --> 01:14:41,280
Speaker 3: but you.

1275
01:14:41,320 --> 01:14:45,000
Speaker 7: Said earlier, I mean you said earlier. Things happened for

1276
01:14:45,080 --> 01:14:49,439
Speaker 7: a reason. And there's there's artists that just because you know,

1277
01:14:49,760 --> 01:14:52,920
Speaker 7: I think that Steve Berman and Interscope had the time

1278
01:14:53,040 --> 01:14:56,080
Speaker 7: and the muscle and the desire to really break TUPAC

1279
01:14:56,760 --> 01:14:59,080
Speaker 7: and it was the right fit and it was and

1280
01:14:59,240 --> 01:15:04,639
Speaker 7: it worked. There are artists that, for one reason or another,

1281
01:15:05,400 --> 01:15:07,000
Speaker 7: you know, it just didn't come to pass.

1282
01:15:08,680 --> 01:15:09,600
Speaker 3: You know, I have all the.

1283
01:15:11,640 --> 01:15:13,560
Speaker 7: A lot of the demo tapes.

1284
01:15:13,439 --> 01:15:19,000
Speaker 2: Of Riza was Yeah, like Rizza. His first is Prince

1285
01:15:19,080 --> 01:15:20,559
Speaker 2: Rakkim deal, how did Yeah?

1286
01:15:20,880 --> 01:15:22,600
Speaker 7: And it was sort of again it was serving that

1287
01:15:22,840 --> 01:15:28,360
Speaker 7: interstitial period when he was metamorphosizing from Prince Raccom into Riza.

1288
01:15:28,680 --> 01:15:30,560
Speaker 6: Did you like the way that was portrayed on the

1289
01:15:31,200 --> 01:15:32,080
Speaker 6: the Wu Tang saga?

1290
01:15:32,680 --> 01:15:33,400
Speaker 3: You know, people have.

1291
01:15:33,840 --> 01:15:37,160
Speaker 7: People who sat me, uh, I have texted me pictures

1292
01:15:37,200 --> 01:15:39,120
Speaker 7: of the lady who plays me, and I'm like, oh

1293
01:15:39,200 --> 01:15:44,160
Speaker 7: my god, that's hilarious. So yeah, it was.

1294
01:15:49,600 --> 01:15:51,960
Speaker 4: This song was inescapable. I wasn't the biggest fan of it,

1295
01:15:52,080 --> 01:15:55,880
Speaker 4: but you know, we couldn't escape it. Gangs Is Paradise or.

1296
01:15:56,040 --> 01:16:00,240
Speaker 1: Just how you guys found Polio? Yeah, well he was

1297
01:16:00,320 --> 01:16:01,800
Speaker 1: part of the Was he part of the w C

1298
01:16:01,920 --> 01:16:02,400
Speaker 1: Matt Circle?

1299
01:16:02,479 --> 01:16:06,240
Speaker 2: Yeah he was. He was on w and again he

1300
01:16:06,320 --> 01:16:06,840
Speaker 2: was in the video.

1301
01:16:08,040 --> 01:16:11,840
Speaker 7: Coolio was fantastic. He was also you know, he had

1302
01:16:11,880 --> 01:16:15,240
Speaker 7: some troubles too, but he was pretty. He was great

1303
01:16:15,280 --> 01:16:17,560
Speaker 7: to work with, and he was a character and and

1304
01:16:17,680 --> 01:16:23,679
Speaker 7: those were great records. You know, Gangster's Paradise was also

1305
01:16:24,920 --> 01:16:28,720
Speaker 7: a track that benefited from a significant film placement. And

1306
01:16:28,920 --> 01:16:31,720
Speaker 7: and you know, it kind of surprised me that there

1307
01:16:31,760 --> 01:16:34,960
Speaker 7: hadn't really been a record up until that point that

1308
01:16:35,080 --> 01:16:40,880
Speaker 7: had used pastime Paradise as effectively as that. Did you know,

1309
01:16:41,400 --> 01:16:43,400
Speaker 7: this is one of those records, like today you could

1310
01:16:43,760 --> 01:16:47,519
Speaker 7: you still hear Gangster's Paradise all the time. Yesterday was

1311
01:16:47,960 --> 01:16:52,160
Speaker 7: you know, we had Saint Patrick's Day here recently, jump around.

1312
01:16:52,640 --> 01:16:58,200
Speaker 7: You know, that's an anthem. You know, there's certain opp

1313
01:16:58,680 --> 01:17:02,719
Speaker 7: is an anthem. We were Humpty Dance is an anthem.

1314
01:17:03,080 --> 01:17:06,920
Speaker 7: We were blessed to have lace first, you know, we

1315
01:17:07,240 --> 01:17:10,560
Speaker 7: were blessed to have some records, me and myself and I.

1316
01:17:10,920 --> 01:17:16,200
Speaker 7: You know anthems, you know, and that is yeah something

1317
01:17:16,280 --> 01:17:18,200
Speaker 7: that Supermodel is an.

1318
01:17:18,080 --> 01:17:20,639
Speaker 3: Anthem, you know, you know, I was just thinking Ponte.

1319
01:17:21,160 --> 01:17:25,760
Speaker 1: It's almost like I think Coolio he's gangster adjacent, Like

1320
01:17:25,880 --> 01:17:28,240
Speaker 1: he's almost he feeled the lame that I think Ludicrous

1321
01:17:28,760 --> 01:17:33,120
Speaker 1: wound up doing in the arts, Like looks the role,

1322
01:17:34,000 --> 01:17:35,440
Speaker 1: but it's kind of gangster.

1323
01:17:35,160 --> 01:17:38,640
Speaker 2: Adjacent, like big pop hits. Yeah yeah, I.

1324
01:17:38,680 --> 01:17:41,960
Speaker 1: Mean the same thing as Naughty, Like yeah, look the

1325
01:17:42,080 --> 01:17:46,280
Speaker 1: role and somehow. I mean, but did you guys imagine

1326
01:17:46,360 --> 01:17:49,559
Speaker 1: that he would be as big as he was because

1327
01:17:49,560 --> 01:17:53,320
Speaker 1: you guys had like at least four to five major

1328
01:17:53,400 --> 01:17:55,320
Speaker 1: hits on him with Coolio?

1329
01:17:55,840 --> 01:18:00,160
Speaker 7: Yeah yeah, you know, man, you never know. You just

1330
01:18:00,280 --> 01:18:04,240
Speaker 7: never know, because I don't think we didn't hear Gangster's Paradise.

1331
01:18:04,360 --> 01:18:07,240
Speaker 7: It hadn't been recorded when we put out the first.

1332
01:18:07,120 --> 01:18:11,160
Speaker 1: Track, you know, so no, but even with like Fantastic

1333
01:18:11,240 --> 01:18:15,200
Speaker 1: Voyage and the other there's I remember he had, Yeah,

1334
01:18:15,200 --> 01:18:17,480
Speaker 1: a couple of joints, remember.

1335
01:18:17,240 --> 01:18:23,880
Speaker 7: Why, but there's two records that really.

1336
01:18:24,880 --> 01:18:27,040
Speaker 2: I mean the two but I want to say to

1337
01:18:28,680 --> 01:18:32,640
Speaker 2: five at least, yeah, y'all, So y'all also signed l V.

1338
01:18:35,160 --> 01:18:40,479
Speaker 7: YEP. I am LV yeah, but we didn't have any hits.

1339
01:18:40,360 --> 01:18:41,360
Speaker 3: With LV NO.

1340
01:18:42,840 --> 01:18:44,240
Speaker 2: I mean, he was a cool song, but.

1341
01:18:46,880 --> 01:18:50,200
Speaker 1: I didn't even get Latifa out. Got you when you like,

1342
01:18:51,479 --> 01:18:54,840
Speaker 1: how did she come to the label and how? Because

1343
01:18:54,880 --> 01:18:57,240
Speaker 1: I know that had to be specific marketing on on

1344
01:18:57,400 --> 01:18:59,360
Speaker 1: your end at least, like what was your idea, like

1345
01:18:59,479 --> 01:19:03,400
Speaker 1: what did you see in her that you accentuated or.

1346
01:19:05,240 --> 01:19:07,479
Speaker 7: What was well. I've always said this that there was

1347
01:19:07,680 --> 01:19:13,400
Speaker 7: three people that I will always credit for Latifah coming

1348
01:19:13,600 --> 01:19:17,479
Speaker 7: through Tommy Boy, and that would have been Dante, Dante Ross,

1349
01:19:18,520 --> 01:19:22,680
Speaker 7: forty five King and Fab five Freddy And they all

1350
01:19:22,720 --> 01:19:26,320
Speaker 7: played very critical roles in her early career as well,

1351
01:19:27,920 --> 01:19:30,639
Speaker 7: but they were all they all kind of were talking

1352
01:19:30,640 --> 01:19:34,200
Speaker 7: to me about her and she came to the office

1353
01:19:34,360 --> 01:19:37,080
Speaker 7: the first time she came to the office, and Dana

1354
01:19:37,240 --> 01:19:40,439
Speaker 7: was very young. She's an older you know people forget,

1355
01:19:40,600 --> 01:19:43,360
Speaker 7: you know, like I mean, she was like eighteen, I think,

1356
01:19:44,200 --> 01:19:47,720
Speaker 7: you know. And she again this sort of around the

1357
01:19:47,760 --> 01:19:51,280
Speaker 7: way jersey girl. And she came to the office and

1358
01:19:51,400 --> 01:19:55,879
Speaker 7: she just had on like jeans and the sweatshirt, no makeup,

1359
01:19:56,400 --> 01:19:59,599
Speaker 7: she had her hair done, and you know when gals

1360
01:19:59,600 --> 01:20:02,439
Speaker 7: were wearing like there's a like curled on the top,

1361
01:20:02,560 --> 01:20:05,040
Speaker 7: is short on the sides type of look and everything.

1362
01:20:05,720 --> 01:20:12,160
Speaker 7: And she just was so unassuming and but clearly she

1363
01:20:12,560 --> 01:20:21,000
Speaker 7: was very intelligent. She was had a great bearing and presence,

1364
01:20:21,600 --> 01:20:27,000
Speaker 7: and and she had enormous charisma. She had this thing

1365
01:20:27,680 --> 01:20:31,599
Speaker 7: that it doesn't matter if she's got you know, full

1366
01:20:31,640 --> 01:20:34,160
Speaker 7: hair and makeup and a great outfit on or something.

1367
01:20:34,479 --> 01:20:39,200
Speaker 7: She just was like, had this really unbelievable presence for

1368
01:20:39,280 --> 01:20:42,599
Speaker 7: a young eighteen year old woman who hadn't really been

1369
01:20:43,200 --> 01:20:46,000
Speaker 7: you know, I hadn't been off the turnip truck yet.

1370
01:20:46,120 --> 01:20:49,479
Speaker 7: You know, she's she'd worked at Burger King and you know,

1371
01:20:49,720 --> 01:20:54,599
Speaker 7: had had her own little group in high school. Uh uh,

1372
01:20:55,040 --> 01:20:56,679
Speaker 7: you know MC group in high school.

1373
01:20:56,840 --> 01:20:58,640
Speaker 6: And but she was just.

1374
01:21:00,120 --> 01:21:04,920
Speaker 7: Calm, cool, collected, and she's always had this quality that

1375
01:21:06,479 --> 01:21:09,479
Speaker 7: I think has served her incredibly well over many years.

1376
01:21:09,880 --> 01:21:13,360
Speaker 7: And she really could walk into any room, she could

1377
01:21:13,400 --> 01:21:19,120
Speaker 7: go on to any stage, she could basically, you know,

1378
01:21:19,600 --> 01:21:24,320
Speaker 7: mc any event, and she's got that gift. I saw

1379
01:21:24,479 --> 01:21:27,160
Speaker 7: her in the very early days at this place called

1380
01:21:27,240 --> 01:21:32,280
Speaker 7: Hotel Amazon doing one of her very early shows. And

1381
01:21:33,800 --> 01:21:36,960
Speaker 7: you know how I mean the Hotel Amazon was down

1382
01:21:37,080 --> 01:21:40,640
Speaker 7: in Lower East Side and one of these places that

1383
01:21:40,760 --> 01:21:43,240
Speaker 7: they guess they just were doing hip hop nights on

1384
01:21:43,320 --> 01:21:46,839
Speaker 7: the weekend, and it was kind of it was funky.

1385
01:21:47,040 --> 01:21:50,679
Speaker 7: It wasn't like some you know, playing at the Beacon

1386
01:21:50,880 --> 01:21:52,720
Speaker 7: or some other place where they're all set up for

1387
01:21:52,880 --> 01:21:55,439
Speaker 7: sound and lights. This place was not that at all.

1388
01:21:55,560 --> 01:21:58,439
Speaker 7: It was the opposite. And the sound went out, and

1389
01:21:58,520 --> 01:22:00,800
Speaker 7: you know how like a lot of times, you know,

1390
01:22:00,960 --> 01:22:03,360
Speaker 7: if it's the guy, a lot of these guys, fuck

1391
01:22:03,439 --> 01:22:07,360
Speaker 7: the sound guy, you toss the mic on the floor

1392
01:22:07,439 --> 01:22:12,320
Speaker 7: and stomp off the stage, oh angry, she didn't even flinch.

1393
01:22:12,760 --> 01:22:16,280
Speaker 7: She just like kept rocking and even though the sound

1394
01:22:16,439 --> 01:22:19,080
Speaker 7: was off and the crowd just nobody missed a beat

1395
01:22:19,280 --> 01:22:23,400
Speaker 7: and they were just you know, and and that is her,

1396
01:22:24,080 --> 01:22:27,840
Speaker 7: That is her. She just doesn't get flustered that way.

1397
01:22:28,439 --> 01:22:33,519
Speaker 7: And she has. She's also she is so musical. I mean,

1398
01:22:33,600 --> 01:22:37,559
Speaker 7: she's a singer, you know, she she's incredible. It's an MC.

1399
01:22:37,960 --> 01:22:40,840
Speaker 7: You know, she's got this beautiful flow and presence on

1400
01:22:40,920 --> 01:22:43,280
Speaker 7: the mic. But she's a great singer. And her mother

1401
01:22:44,680 --> 01:22:47,880
Speaker 7: was her late mother's was a tremendous influence on her.

1402
01:22:48,240 --> 01:22:52,800
Speaker 7: And to this day we're very you know, I'm still

1403
01:22:53,080 --> 01:22:56,360
Speaker 7: close with Dana, and I had was able to work

1404
01:22:56,400 --> 01:22:59,479
Speaker 7: with her after I had left Tommy Boy and she

1405
01:22:59,600 --> 01:23:03,640
Speaker 7: had gone, you know, into her incredible career as an

1406
01:23:03,720 --> 01:23:07,519
Speaker 7: actress and doing all other sorts of things. But actually

1407
01:23:07,600 --> 01:23:12,599
Speaker 7: A and R two albums of her her her jazz albums.

1408
01:23:13,520 --> 01:23:17,280
Speaker 7: She was incredible to work with. I loved working with

1409
01:23:17,439 --> 01:23:23,360
Speaker 7: Dana and and and forty five King. I think, you know, uh,

1410
01:23:23,760 --> 01:23:27,519
Speaker 7: he's another guy that I think probably doesn't necessarily get

1411
01:23:27,560 --> 01:23:28,599
Speaker 7: as much credit.

1412
01:23:28,720 --> 01:23:33,840
Speaker 3: And yeah, yeah, ast definitely he's one of my book

1413
01:23:33,840 --> 01:23:34,320
Speaker 3: of these people.

1414
01:23:34,680 --> 01:23:36,760
Speaker 7: Yeah, I mean, because it was that that whole little

1415
01:23:36,800 --> 01:23:41,320
Speaker 7: basement crew and Mark's house that you know, the whole

1416
01:23:41,400 --> 01:23:44,240
Speaker 7: sort of flavor unit posse emerged out of that and

1417
01:23:44,280 --> 01:23:46,880
Speaker 7: it was and Mark was the you know, it was

1418
01:23:47,200 --> 01:23:48,960
Speaker 7: that was the he was the center of all that

1419
01:23:49,960 --> 01:23:52,040
Speaker 7: if you watch the O M t V Raps interview

1420
01:23:52,400 --> 01:23:56,400
Speaker 7: where Freddie goes out to to the to their basement.

1421
01:23:58,560 --> 01:24:02,600
Speaker 3: Yes, I don't know, but I saw have on my

1422
01:24:02,720 --> 01:24:03,839
Speaker 3: VHS cassette.

1423
01:24:04,680 --> 01:24:06,799
Speaker 7: Yeah. And you know, she didn't start as Queen Latifa.

1424
01:24:06,880 --> 01:24:10,320
Speaker 7: She started as Latifa and then she became Queen Latifa.

1425
01:24:10,640 --> 01:24:14,280
Speaker 7: And that's a situation where you know, like you know,

1426
01:24:14,600 --> 01:24:17,160
Speaker 7: the press, you can really tell sometimes with the press

1427
01:24:17,200 --> 01:24:21,760
Speaker 7: immediately like it's like, oh yeah, I get that. I

1428
01:24:21,880 --> 01:24:25,000
Speaker 7: can really get my head around that. And that was Latifa,

1429
01:24:25,600 --> 01:24:25,800
Speaker 7: you know.

1430
01:24:26,080 --> 01:24:28,439
Speaker 6: Because there was a fable around that, Like I always

1431
01:24:28,479 --> 01:24:30,640
Speaker 6: heard that the queen came from her being involved, not

1432
01:24:30,720 --> 01:24:33,519
Speaker 6: being involved with her relationship with like five percenters or

1433
01:24:33,560 --> 01:24:35,639
Speaker 6: something like that, but that could have been urban legend.

1434
01:24:36,520 --> 01:24:38,720
Speaker 7: I never heard her say that. I mean, I know

1435
01:24:38,840 --> 01:24:41,880
Speaker 7: that the word Latifa means delicate and sensitive. I'm not

1436
01:24:42,040 --> 01:24:46,440
Speaker 7: sure exactly when and who or if she just bestowed

1437
01:24:46,479 --> 01:24:49,840
Speaker 7: the queen crown upon herself, which I think is great,

1438
01:24:50,080 --> 01:24:52,080
Speaker 7: but she's you know, one thing about her too, is

1439
01:24:52,120 --> 01:24:55,200
Speaker 7: that you find that to this day, like women who

1440
01:24:55,520 --> 01:24:59,320
Speaker 7: are were young and in their teens when she was

1441
01:24:59,400 --> 01:25:04,240
Speaker 7: first coming up, we're hugely influenced by Latifa. You know,

1442
01:25:04,640 --> 01:25:07,639
Speaker 7: I always hear from women like saying, yeah, oh man,

1443
01:25:07,680 --> 01:25:09,840
Speaker 7: when I was in high school and ladies spurs came

1444
01:25:09,920 --> 01:25:13,760
Speaker 7: out or unity you know, or what you know, whatever

1445
01:25:13,800 --> 01:25:16,280
Speaker 7: it might have been. She had an enormous influence on

1446
01:25:17,000 --> 01:25:20,240
Speaker 7: a generation of women. And she's and there's also I

1447
01:25:20,360 --> 01:25:23,479
Speaker 7: say about Latifa because she's one of those people like

1448
01:25:24,320 --> 01:25:28,000
Speaker 7: you say, you know, I don't like rap, but I

1449
01:25:28,160 --> 01:25:29,360
Speaker 7: like that Queen Latifa.

1450
01:25:29,920 --> 01:25:31,000
Speaker 2: You know that's funny.

1451
01:25:31,000 --> 01:25:34,120
Speaker 7: You're right, you know, your great Ann Gert out in Idaho.

1452
01:25:34,840 --> 01:25:36,000
Speaker 7: I love Queen Latifa.

1453
01:25:38,800 --> 01:25:42,240
Speaker 1: So there's one more artist on your label that sort

1454
01:25:42,240 --> 01:25:45,880
Speaker 1: of reached icon status that was not the labeled ninety three?

1455
01:25:45,920 --> 01:25:48,080
Speaker 3: Can you talk about how RuPaul came to the label.

1456
01:25:48,360 --> 01:25:52,719
Speaker 7: Oh yes, please, yeah, thank you for asking about RuPaul.

1457
01:25:53,400 --> 01:25:56,559
Speaker 7: The dance music editor over at Billboard named Bill Coleman.

1458
01:25:56,680 --> 01:25:59,760
Speaker 3: Bill Coleman, Yes, and let's do that.

1459
01:26:00,560 --> 01:26:04,200
Speaker 7: Yeah, real, sweetheart. He's a great DJ, still doing this

1460
01:26:04,360 --> 01:26:09,320
Speaker 7: thing now. And he uh actually got in touch with me,

1461
01:26:09,400 --> 01:26:12,280
Speaker 7: he might. I think this is even maybe before email.

1462
01:26:12,720 --> 01:26:15,400
Speaker 7: You know, he called me and said, you know, hey, uh,

1463
01:26:16,120 --> 01:26:19,680
Speaker 7: these guys, uh Randy and Fenton have this artist named

1464
01:26:19,760 --> 01:26:23,080
Speaker 7: ru Paul and there's this trick. I thought maybe you'd

1465
01:26:23,160 --> 01:26:25,400
Speaker 7: want to hear it. I thought maybe you'd you'd be

1466
01:26:25,439 --> 01:26:27,120
Speaker 7: good for this, So I said, yeah, send it over,

1467
01:26:27,760 --> 01:26:30,360
Speaker 7: and and I heard, actually knew who ru Paul was

1468
01:26:30,840 --> 01:26:36,639
Speaker 7: because that whole sort of downtown weeknock lady bunny scene

1469
01:26:36,680 --> 01:26:41,759
Speaker 7: that was happening already the Downtown's are a drag scene,

1470
01:26:42,160 --> 01:26:44,280
Speaker 7: and so I knew who it was, and so we

1471
01:26:44,400 --> 01:26:46,920
Speaker 7: got the I got the tape. I listened to it.

1472
01:26:47,040 --> 01:26:49,400
Speaker 7: It's like again, it's one of those things where you

1473
01:26:49,520 --> 01:26:52,280
Speaker 7: listen to and you say, oh, this is great, this

1474
01:26:52,439 --> 01:26:55,240
Speaker 7: is a great pop record, and.

1475
01:26:57,280 --> 01:26:57,760
Speaker 3: Oh it was.

1476
01:26:58,000 --> 01:27:05,800
Speaker 7: It was. It was supermodel the work exactly, and it

1477
01:27:05,960 --> 01:27:08,400
Speaker 7: was again it sort of fell into that category of

1478
01:27:08,640 --> 01:27:10,720
Speaker 7: it's either going to be a huge hit or a

1479
01:27:10,880 --> 01:27:13,840
Speaker 7: huge failure, and those I think are always the best

1480
01:27:13,920 --> 01:27:17,200
Speaker 7: decisions to be confronted with, you know.

1481
01:27:17,439 --> 01:27:20,799
Speaker 1: And so there's a sound of See and See Music Factory,

1482
01:27:20,800 --> 01:27:24,360
Speaker 1: where like House was now entering the mainstream and wasn't

1483
01:27:24,439 --> 01:27:26,800
Speaker 1: underground anymore. But at the time, did you think that

1484
01:27:26,960 --> 01:27:29,280
Speaker 1: RuPaul was just going to be like a one off

1485
01:27:29,560 --> 01:27:32,840
Speaker 1: kind of like at least if I'm looking at K seven.

1486
01:27:33,280 --> 01:27:34,960
Speaker 3: I'm thinking, come baby, coming whatever.

1487
01:27:35,000 --> 01:27:40,120
Speaker 1: The song was like, Okay, but did you at all

1488
01:27:40,400 --> 01:27:43,800
Speaker 1: see the or think that RuPaul had the potential to.

1489
01:27:43,880 --> 01:27:49,160
Speaker 3: Be the icon that I think?

1490
01:27:50,280 --> 01:27:52,679
Speaker 7: Well, no, I'd be lying through my teeth if I said,

1491
01:27:52,720 --> 01:27:56,160
Speaker 7: oh yeah, I saw this, you know, you know, No,

1492
01:27:56,640 --> 01:28:01,000
Speaker 7: I mean I thought we got an early super Model

1493
01:28:01,080 --> 01:28:03,000
Speaker 7: is going to be a big hit, because that video

1494
01:28:04,120 --> 01:28:09,160
Speaker 7: that his managers directed and put together was astounding.

1495
01:28:09,439 --> 01:28:10,760
Speaker 2: It was that.

1496
01:28:11,520 --> 01:28:15,120
Speaker 7: And also the other thing that I was very involved

1497
01:28:15,160 --> 01:28:20,559
Speaker 7: with was placing that record in some key fashion Week shows,

1498
01:28:22,520 --> 01:28:27,000
Speaker 7: specifically TODDLD and Isaac Msrahi, because this is back when

1499
01:28:27,120 --> 01:28:31,320
Speaker 7: fashion Week was like a cool thing and you know,

1500
01:28:31,439 --> 01:28:33,400
Speaker 7: and all the shows that were going on and so

1501
01:28:33,760 --> 01:28:37,160
Speaker 7: supermodel and it was also really the era of supermodels,

1502
01:28:37,640 --> 01:28:41,360
Speaker 7: so Naomi and Linda and you know, Christy and all

1503
01:28:41,400 --> 01:28:44,120
Speaker 7: these people, you know, all that being name checked in

1504
01:28:44,200 --> 01:28:47,040
Speaker 7: the record and that scene being really hot and the

1505
01:28:47,160 --> 01:28:49,719
Speaker 7: drag scenes are coming up. But you had Rue Paul,

1506
01:28:50,640 --> 01:28:57,400
Speaker 7: who is like basketball tall and you know, just no

1507
01:28:57,560 --> 01:29:00,360
Speaker 7: one could walk past Ruge. Oh my god. You know,

1508
01:29:00,479 --> 01:29:06,479
Speaker 7: this towering goddess ru had had and had tremendous ambition.

1509
01:29:07,200 --> 01:29:10,400
Speaker 7: And you know, all of all the artists that I've

1510
01:29:10,439 --> 01:29:12,960
Speaker 7: ever worked with Rue, I think had to work the

1511
01:29:13,160 --> 01:29:15,600
Speaker 7: hardest because if you want to say, well we're going

1512
01:29:15,680 --> 01:29:17,599
Speaker 7: to do a day of in stores or oh we're

1513
01:29:17,600 --> 01:29:19,920
Speaker 7: going to have you do press or go to an event,

1514
01:29:20,240 --> 01:29:23,320
Speaker 7: well he has to spend hours getting ready. You tell

1515
01:29:23,439 --> 01:29:27,720
Speaker 7: that to any rapper was like, really, I think so,

1516
01:29:28,240 --> 01:29:31,280
Speaker 7: you know, so Rue had to really you know, it

1517
01:29:31,360 --> 01:29:34,360
Speaker 7: was a big undertaking to do all that stuff and

1518
01:29:35,080 --> 01:29:40,920
Speaker 7: and MTV uh really broke help break that record too,

1519
01:29:40,960 --> 01:29:43,920
Speaker 7: and is the top forty dance record. And we did

1520
01:29:44,000 --> 01:29:47,040
Speaker 7: get feedback from I should say it was no one

1521
01:29:47,120 --> 01:29:49,120
Speaker 7: really would say it to my face, but I knew

1522
01:29:49,240 --> 01:29:54,280
Speaker 7: that there was discgruntlement with a few artists about RU

1523
01:29:54,400 --> 01:29:55,599
Speaker 7: being on Tommy BOYD.

1524
01:29:55,720 --> 01:29:57,880
Speaker 6: There was oh yeah, I know the rappers wouldn't happen.

1525
01:29:57,880 --> 01:29:58,920
Speaker 6: It is what's going on here?

1526
01:29:58,960 --> 01:29:59,400
Speaker 3: What are we doing?

1527
01:29:59,439 --> 01:30:02,000
Speaker 6: But you don't the label me?

1528
01:30:02,560 --> 01:30:08,640
Speaker 7: Yeah? Yeah, not comfortable in certain cases, but yeah, So

1529
01:30:09,160 --> 01:30:11,519
Speaker 7: really broke a lot of barriers. And a lot of

1530
01:30:11,560 --> 01:30:14,120
Speaker 7: people did say, you know, I don't think any label

1531
01:30:14,160 --> 01:30:16,280
Speaker 7: but Tommy boy could have done that with Ru. Paul,

1532
01:30:16,439 --> 01:30:19,280
Speaker 7: So I thought that was always high praise.

1533
01:30:21,000 --> 01:30:23,920
Speaker 3: How do you generally feel about music now?

1534
01:30:26,000 --> 01:30:28,320
Speaker 1: Are you still is the seventeen year old inside you

1535
01:30:28,520 --> 01:30:33,280
Speaker 1: still excited about anything musical or is everything in your

1536
01:30:33,400 --> 01:30:34,400
Speaker 1: rear view mirror now?

1537
01:30:35,040 --> 01:30:38,160
Speaker 7: Oh man, this is I'm so happy you asked that question,

1538
01:30:39,000 --> 01:30:42,240
Speaker 7: because when I left Tommy Boy in ninety eight, I

1539
01:30:42,280 --> 01:30:45,719
Speaker 7: always sort of joked that I left the music industry

1540
01:30:45,800 --> 01:30:50,800
Speaker 7: to learn more about music. I left, I was at

1541
01:30:50,840 --> 01:30:53,640
Speaker 7: a very personally, I was at a low point and

1542
01:30:53,880 --> 01:30:57,200
Speaker 7: the industry was changing a lot. I was pretty bummed

1543
01:30:57,240 --> 01:31:03,040
Speaker 7: out and depressed, quite frankly. And I start working part

1544
01:31:03,120 --> 01:31:06,240
Speaker 7: time at a record store after I left Tommy Boy,

1545
01:31:06,760 --> 01:31:11,840
Speaker 7: a place called Footlights Down On. It was on Twelfth Street.

1546
01:31:12,080 --> 01:31:15,519
Speaker 7: It's a place that specialized in soundtracks and jazz and

1547
01:31:15,720 --> 01:31:19,160
Speaker 7: vocals and things like that. So I would be working

1548
01:31:19,200 --> 01:31:23,000
Speaker 7: there part time. And then I started I got on

1549
01:31:23,160 --> 01:31:28,679
Speaker 7: the staff at WFMU, which is a freeform radio station

1550
01:31:28,880 --> 01:31:33,479
Speaker 7: in Jersey City of some renown, and started doing a

1551
01:31:33,520 --> 01:31:37,200
Speaker 7: weekly show there. For over fifteen years, I'm still a

1552
01:31:37,280 --> 01:31:40,080
Speaker 7: staff member there and still do radio shows. And there's

1553
01:31:40,160 --> 01:31:42,800
Speaker 7: nothing I love more than listening to new music and

1554
01:31:43,080 --> 01:31:46,240
Speaker 7: old music. I listened to music all the time. I

1555
01:31:46,600 --> 01:31:50,479
Speaker 7: constantly have Spotify open and have a million playlists. You know,

1556
01:31:50,680 --> 01:31:55,040
Speaker 7: I've nicked quite a few things off of shows that

1557
01:31:55,120 --> 01:31:59,320
Speaker 7: you've done when you were doing those regular shows on Instagram.

1558
01:31:59,439 --> 01:32:04,120
Speaker 7: I loved the playlist that you did for Greg Taate. Yeah,

1559
01:32:04,160 --> 01:32:04,920
Speaker 7: it was really great.

1560
01:32:05,400 --> 01:32:05,560
Speaker 2: You know.

1561
01:32:05,720 --> 01:32:08,360
Speaker 7: So I'm into all sorts of music, all sorts of

1562
01:32:08,479 --> 01:32:11,439
Speaker 7: music from all different eras. I love it more than ever.

1563
01:32:11,920 --> 01:32:17,840
Speaker 7: And yeah, I love checking out new stuff. I love reissues,

1564
01:32:18,280 --> 01:32:21,400
Speaker 7: and you know, I love going down the rabbit holes.

1565
01:32:21,520 --> 01:32:26,200
Speaker 7: So yeah, totally. Yeah. Where do you find music? Where

1566
01:32:26,240 --> 01:32:28,519
Speaker 7: do you find music? I'm alway good question. I was

1567
01:32:28,560 --> 01:32:33,160
Speaker 7: always curious to find out what your means of discovery are.

1568
01:32:33,800 --> 01:32:36,160
Speaker 3: My favorite my favorite game is playing.

1569
01:32:37,080 --> 01:32:40,200
Speaker 1: You know, you play a song on your streaming weapon

1570
01:32:40,280 --> 01:32:44,160
Speaker 1: of choice, and you know you always look at the bottom,

1571
01:32:44,920 --> 01:32:49,080
Speaker 1: go down at the operations, right, and then look through

1572
01:32:49,160 --> 01:32:51,160
Speaker 1: that artist and then looking in their artists and looking

1573
01:32:51,200 --> 01:32:55,080
Speaker 1: their artists. And Okay, not only that, I would say that,

1574
01:32:55,800 --> 01:32:58,080
Speaker 1: you know, as a fan of these these current shows

1575
01:32:58,120 --> 01:33:01,920
Speaker 1: that are on HBO, you know your euphorias, your insecures

1576
01:33:01,920 --> 01:33:02,400
Speaker 1: and whatnot.

1577
01:33:02,640 --> 01:33:06,360
Speaker 3: Like those they go super deep and artists I might

1578
01:33:06,439 --> 01:33:07,479
Speaker 3: not have heard before.

1579
01:33:08,400 --> 01:33:11,040
Speaker 1: And then I'm fans of theirs or just in general,

1580
01:33:11,840 --> 01:33:16,080
Speaker 1: I'm not afraid or ashamed of Shazam anything. So I'll

1581
01:33:16,120 --> 01:33:18,280
Speaker 1: be in a supermarket, I'll be in a club and

1582
01:33:18,560 --> 01:33:22,280
Speaker 1: if I here something cool, I'm examining it. Ty I

1583
01:33:22,400 --> 01:33:25,120
Speaker 1: fold down, I fall down a rabbit hole, like I

1584
01:33:25,200 --> 01:33:28,160
Speaker 1: don't agree that. You know, most people say, like, well,

1585
01:33:28,280 --> 01:33:30,080
Speaker 1: music's dead now, it's just so much more of it.

1586
01:33:30,200 --> 01:33:31,800
Speaker 1: You just got to know where to look. I think

1587
01:33:31,840 --> 01:33:35,000
Speaker 1: what's dead is like the taste maker, like you know,

1588
01:33:35,720 --> 01:33:38,519
Speaker 1: to have this is kind of why I wish like

1589
01:33:39,560 --> 01:33:41,800
Speaker 1: I really had Okay player up and running in a

1590
01:33:41,840 --> 01:33:45,160
Speaker 1: way that was running back in ninety ninety thousand, where

1591
01:33:46,000 --> 01:33:50,200
Speaker 1: I could always guarantee twelve people would put me onto.

1592
01:33:50,040 --> 01:33:51,519
Speaker 7: Something that was true.

1593
01:33:51,760 --> 01:33:56,680
Speaker 1: But yeah, it's still there. But Monica, I thank you

1594
01:33:56,840 --> 01:33:59,120
Speaker 1: for doing this for us. You know, one of the

1595
01:33:59,160 --> 01:34:02,000
Speaker 1: perils of doing that afternoon is your lunch break is

1596
01:34:02,000 --> 01:34:03,479
Speaker 1: over and you got to go back to your day job.

1597
01:34:06,680 --> 01:34:15,400
Speaker 1: Thank you so much, Bonica for doing this, and Sugar

1598
01:34:15,479 --> 01:34:18,800
Speaker 1: Steven and Bill and Fante and Maya and we will

1599
01:34:18,840 --> 01:34:19,920
Speaker 1: see you next go around on court.

1600
01:34:20,000 --> 01:34:23,760
Speaker 3: Love Supreme. Thank you, m H.

1601
01:34:25,600 --> 01:34:25,800
Speaker 7: West.

1602
01:34:25,840 --> 01:34:32,559
Speaker 1: Love Supreme is a production of Iheartened Radio. For more

1603
01:34:32,640 --> 01:34:36,640
Speaker 1: podcasts from iHeart Radio, visit the iHeart radio, app, Apple podcasts,

1604
01:34:37,080 --> 01:34:38,759
Speaker 1: or wherever you listen to your favorite shows.