Speaker 1: Quest Love Supreme is a production of iHeartRadio.
Speaker 2: What's Up QLs listeners, This is Sugar Steve. Thank you
Speaker 2: for tuning in to part two of our interview with
Speaker 2: Paradise Gray. Dice is a leading hip hop historian, a
Speaker 2: member of the Ex Klan, and a true raconteur of
Speaker 2: the culture. Before this, though, listen to part one, where
Speaker 2: Paradise Gray discusses his Bronx upbringing his earliest hip hop memories,
Speaker 2: and making his inroads to help making the Latin Quarter a.
Speaker 1: Legendary nineteen eighties landmark for rap.
Speaker 2: Take It Away, Team Supreme, and Paradise Gray.
Speaker 1: All right, so the question I want to ask you
Speaker 1: is what does this sound represent?
Speaker 3: You ready, yes, Ghost, that's about sex and sonic?
Speaker 4: What does it represent?
Speaker 5: That's the Latin Quarter? That was the Latin Quarter anthems?
Speaker 1: But explain to our listeners what happens when this comes
Speaker 1: o see what does that mean?
Speaker 5: For?
Speaker 3: See that?
Speaker 6: And it used to start to you know, it used
Speaker 6: to start go Brooklyn, Go Brooklyn, And it was a
Speaker 6: signal for fifty cent and the Brooklyn crew that go
Speaker 6: wild starts snatching chains and going wild in the club, which.
Speaker 1: Leads to my next question, and I've We've had every
Speaker 1: luminary of the Latin Quarters from Special Led to like
Speaker 1: literally everyone's come on the show and I asked them
Speaker 1: the same thing, knowing the likelihood.
Speaker 3: Of why did they play it?
Speaker 1: No, knowing the likelihood of something about to break out,
Speaker 1: a punch, a snatch, chains, chaos. Why would you risk
Speaker 1: your life for the love of hip hop? Why would
Speaker 1: you risk.
Speaker 3: Your life for them? Go there?
Speaker 5: Yes, because if you didn't go there, you was a
Speaker 5: punk dude it to First of all, the Latin Quarrier
Speaker 5: was all about location, location, location. It was right in
Speaker 5: the middle of Times Square, bro Like, right in the
Speaker 5: middle of forty eighth Street between Broadway and Seventh Avenue.
Speaker 3: Okay, this building is where the ball drops.
Speaker 5: Right then you got a big empty space where they
Speaker 5: fill up during New Year's Right then there was another
Speaker 5: building that had the Coca Cola bottle on it. The
Speaker 5: Latin Cola was in that building. It was right in
Speaker 5: the middle of Times Square, the busiest place in New
Speaker 5: York City bar none.
Speaker 3: Right, But what was.
Speaker 5: About Times Square? Time Square was all about sex, drugs,
Speaker 5: and violence. The American dream as American as apple and
Speaker 5: cherry pie. If people don't understand nothing else. They understand sex, drugs,
Speaker 5: and violence. Let me tell you what I did in
Speaker 5: Latin Quarters. Okay, you have in one hour, you have
Speaker 5: more traffic passed by our club than anywhere in the world.
Speaker 3: Right, So I took advantage of that.
Speaker 5: I used to advertise ladies free before eleven, right, and
Speaker 5: then I would make the lady's line go slow as hell.
Speaker 3: I would open the ladies line at.
Speaker 5: Ten to eleven, so every male driving by Times square
Speaker 5: a line of women going all the way around the
Speaker 5: block trying to get in free.
Speaker 3: And then I cheated again.
Speaker 5: I will walk that line and all the most beautiful
Speaker 5: women and all the women who had the least clothes on,
Speaker 5: I would bring them to the front of the line.
Speaker 3: That's how it started.
Speaker 2: I love this guy.
Speaker 5: So next week every chick in that line looked like
Speaker 5: Vanity six and everybody, I'm like, yo, I don't know
Speaker 5: where you're going tonight, but I'm going there.
Speaker 1: Who was your closest competition during this period between when's.
Speaker 5: The becket eighty five? Really they want to hear some
Speaker 5: crazy stuff. The real run of Latin Quarters that I
Speaker 5: had was eighty six to eighty eight, two years it
Speaker 5: was two and a half years.
Speaker 3: In two and a half years.
Speaker 5: That much impact incubated the golden era of hip hop.
Speaker 5: It seemed like it was fifteen years.
Speaker 4: Thought it was seven to eight.
Speaker 5: No, there was the Africa Islam and other people would
Speaker 5: do shows at Latin Quarters, but it was not a
Speaker 5: hip hop club. The Latin Quarters were the first and
Speaker 5: only legitimate hip hop dance club. Our competition that opened
Speaker 5: a few months after US was Union Square. They had
Speaker 5: Red Alert before I did well. Red work with me
Speaker 5: a little bit, but he worked at Union Square. He
Speaker 5: helped make that pop. But the difference was it was
Speaker 5: fourteenth Street, which is close to Brooklyn.
Speaker 1: Curious, I'm curious what is the going rate to hire
Speaker 1: Red Alert to be your Friday night DJ?
Speaker 4: And how long is he spending for.
Speaker 5: Red Alert used to come directly off of the air
Speaker 5: at Kiss on Friday night and go directly to the
Speaker 5: Latin Quarter and he would DJ for maybe he would
Speaker 5: get to the club around twelve midnight, like about fifteen
Speaker 5: after twelve, and he would DJ as much as he won.
Speaker 5: I had like four five house DJs that also dj there.
Speaker 5: So whenever Red took a break, you know, the party
Speaker 5: kept going, but I don't know if I want to
Speaker 5: divulge red paid this time, it was this way, it was,
Speaker 5: it was uh, it was the top of the game
Speaker 5: for the time.
Speaker 4: Okay, can you make a real living?
Speaker 1: Can you make a four figure living for a high three?
Speaker 3: He ain't taking.
Speaker 5: Okay now, but he already had a job at Kiss Radio,
Speaker 5: you know what I mean. He was the top djai
Speaker 5: on the radio.
Speaker 1: We now live in the era where a Diplo or
Speaker 1: Skrills makes two point five million, tell me about it, or.
Speaker 4: You know, in the case of Pretty Lights makes.
Speaker 3: We he'll make that every week.
Speaker 4: Well yeah, Pretty.
Speaker 1: Lights only spends ten times a year.
Speaker 4: He must meet his price. He ain't coming. So thus
Speaker 4: he meant to remember.
Speaker 5: We were struggling to exist back in these days. Remember
Speaker 5: hip hop. We was being dish left and right, you
Speaker 5: know by Elder Winford, Marsallis and James and two May
Speaker 5: and Larry Blackman from Cameo.
Speaker 3: They were talking mad shit about hip hop. They were haters.
Speaker 5: Yeah, but James and Toomey wound up being one of
Speaker 5: my best friends because my elder edwin Bird's song brought
Speaker 5: us together and I had a few conversations with James,
Speaker 5: and he understood what we were trying to do and
Speaker 5: he started advising us and supporting us. But the biggest
Speaker 5: supporter that saved hip hop was none other than elder
Speaker 5: Harry Belafonte.
Speaker 3: Rest in pe Smster.
Speaker 7: Beach talk about it, educate real quick.
Speaker 5: Harry Belafonte produced Beach Street when all the other elders
Speaker 5: were shitting on us.
Speaker 3: Radio stations had taglines like no rap.
Speaker 5: And they would play our instrumentals and not play our vocals.
Speaker 5: They were totally dissing us. We're not real musicians. We
Speaker 5: just steal their shit. You know, we don't we don't sing.
Speaker 5: You know, what we do is that dibbit when y'all
Speaker 5: gonna sing?
Speaker 4: You know.
Speaker 3: Then we were so disrespected.
Speaker 1: What are your top five live performance moments at the
Speaker 1: Latin Quarter?
Speaker 3: Wow, that's hard.
Speaker 4: Top five, no particular.
Speaker 5: Rock, sanne Chante, biz Markie and Big Daddy came. Okay,
Speaker 5: and then later Big Daddy came on his own a
Speaker 5: name my book, No half stepping. Because Big Daddy came
Speaker 5: was the epitome of the Latin Quarter. What was it
Speaker 5: about him? He had everything, He had the jewelry, he
Speaker 5: had the haircut, he had the look, the dance, the voice,
Speaker 5: the lyrical dexterity, and he had Marley Maul's beats, unfunckiable.
Speaker 5: Big Daddy came with nothing to mess with. You could
Speaker 5: not follow him at Latin Quarters.
Speaker 1: Did you know was he feared or respected? In other words,
Speaker 1: if you're like watching the show, I'm assuming you're watching
Speaker 1: from the booth or whatever, don't I don't even know
Speaker 1: what the.
Speaker 3: Put it this way, car Ris won this everybody.
Speaker 5: He dis the Juice Crew, but he did not this
Speaker 5: Big Daddy came and Big Daddy Kane wrote some of
Speaker 5: Sean Tay's This record against.
Speaker 3: Kr Ris one interesting.
Speaker 5: But it was a Latin Quarter family. You know, they
Speaker 5: had become family at the LQ. We didn't go against
Speaker 5: each other at the LQ. It was like the only
Speaker 5: thing that we don't have now that we had back
Speaker 5: then is each other. If twenty artists got on stage
Speaker 5: and performed that night, at the end of the day
Speaker 5: when the club is closing, or twenty of those artists
Speaker 5: that perform was still in the damn club. Nowadays you
Speaker 5: put five artists after they performed, I mean they leave
Speaker 5: and take their people that came to see them with them.
Speaker 3: Not at LQ.
Speaker 5: We stayed from the time that club open to the
Speaker 5: time it closed. Sometimes we closed eight nine in the morning,
Speaker 5: you know what I'm saying. And you know it's still
Speaker 5: be deep in the club. Whenever we close the.
Speaker 3: Door, we will lock the door at five.
Speaker 5: Ain't nobody else getting in. But if you already in there, man,
Speaker 5: the owner already bounced to let's keep the party going.
Speaker 3: It's not.
Speaker 4: Now, I'm you know.
Speaker 1: In the nineties and especially in the arts, like, I
Speaker 1: don't know of any club night existence without the fire
Speaker 1: marshal coming in to shut it down. You know, the
Speaker 1: inspector coming to see you. Guys never had those problems whatsoever. No,
Speaker 1: they didn't know that even they didn't know you guys existed.
Speaker 3: Or oh they knew we existed. You run in the
Speaker 3: middle of a Times Square. You couldn't help but notice us,
Speaker 3: you know.
Speaker 5: Uh, well, we had plenty of police on our payroll.
Speaker 5: We had six undercover cops as security, and a whole
Speaker 5: bunch more. And we had Mike Goldberg. It was such
Speaker 5: a brilliant business man. I loved that dude. And he
Speaker 5: gave a nineteen year old the keys to the club.
Speaker 3: Bro.
Speaker 5: Can you imagine you were nineteen at the time. I
Speaker 5: was nineteen years old when I saw running the Latin.
Speaker 1: Did you have any experience whatsoever in terms of negotiating
Speaker 1: or any of those things.
Speaker 5: Yeah, I used to I used to be a street DJ.
Speaker 5: I was a hustler. I'm from Highbridge. You know what
Speaker 5: I'm saying. I was a pool shark, but Latin But
Speaker 5: I was hanging out way before Latin Quarter. I was
Speaker 5: learning from South Abatilla at the disco Fever. I'm watching him,
Speaker 5: you know what I'm saying. I'm talking to Jungbug and
Speaker 5: Courtges blowing all of them.
Speaker 3: Learning from Russell Simmons.
Speaker 5: You know, I'm working with Russell Simmons, Rush Productions and
Speaker 5: Depth dam and since nineteen eighty three.
Speaker 3: You know, I'm in the studio with run dmc, Curtis,
Speaker 3: blow Ll cool J.
Speaker 5: I'm watching all of these things get created, and I'm
Speaker 5: learning every step of the way.
Speaker 3: I had Pete DJ Jones who owned.
Speaker 5: A bar one block from my crib. I'm learning from him.
Speaker 5: When I'm seven eight years old, I'm twelve years old.
Speaker 3: I'm DJing in the bar.
Speaker 4: So what's can.
Speaker 1: You tell me what the general modus operandi or just
Speaker 1: the general operation.
Speaker 3: Of what it takes to keep.
Speaker 1: That operation going on your nights, in terms of what
Speaker 1: you're doing from Saturday to Thursday night. Like flyers calls
Speaker 1: managers money.
Speaker 5: I never dealt with managers. I never dealt with promoters.
Speaker 5: I never dealt with booking agents. All of the artists
Speaker 5: hang out with me before Latin Quarters.
Speaker 3: I was like the hip hop concierge of New York.
Speaker 3: You know what I'm saying.
Speaker 5: On a Friday Saturday night, I'm hanging with Curtis Blow,
Speaker 5: Orange Juice, Jones, Run, DMC, the Fat Boys, Houdani. All
Speaker 5: these people are calling me.
Speaker 3: Yo, dice, where the party at.
Speaker 5: I'd be like, hold on, let me see, Oh, tonight
Speaker 5: is popping at the funhouse. I'll go to the club early,
Speaker 5: let them know who I got coming later and when
Speaker 5: they could.
Speaker 4: You go to other bars and lure them.
Speaker 3: Yep.
Speaker 1: So there was no like calling Carol Lewis.
Speaker 3: Or nah nah. We didn't do none of that. We
Speaker 3: dealt directly with the artists.
Speaker 5: They didn't have to pay no manager, they didn't have
Speaker 5: to pay no booking agent. And like you're already hanging
Speaker 5: out at the club right you drinking? You got a
Speaker 5: girl you want to go to the hotel, you roll
Speaker 5: up a yo dice, but you put me on. I'd
Speaker 5: be like all right, And it was just like yeah,
Speaker 5: I go to Mike Goldberger and say your Mike just
Speaker 5: dice on the rock.
Speaker 3: It's like cool. I was like, let's let's give him
Speaker 3: eight hundred.
Speaker 5: He'd be like, Okay, no hotel, no limo, He's right here,
Speaker 5: right now here, go ahead.
Speaker 3: So we didn't really even have to book artists.
Speaker 5: They already was in the club, you know, and then
Speaker 5: you you couldn't touch us. You show up Friday, on Saturday,
Speaker 5: Mike Tyson's hanging out, Bobby Brown's in there hanging out,
Speaker 5: The Cosmic Kids out in there hanging out. Yeah, you know,
Speaker 5: Chris Rock's in there hanging out, you know, and every
Speaker 5: major and independent artist in New York is there.
Speaker 3: There was no place else to be. Yeah.
Speaker 7: I think on this show Paradise, you should know that.
Speaker 7: I think where were we at twenty guests? At least
Speaker 7: twenty guests on this podcast alone. If told Latin quarter stories,
Speaker 7: and most of those people that you've already named.
Speaker 3: Mm hmm, I got one that you haven't spoken to.
Speaker 5: Who was who was the coach check girl heaven.
Speaker 4: She might get start. We were like what you lived
Speaker 4: in the Latin She literally lived in the.
Speaker 5: Latin Quarter, and she she was homeless, and she used
Speaker 5: to sneak in the club, but I just didn't let
Speaker 5: her in anyway. And here's something that most people didn't
Speaker 5: know at the time.
Speaker 3: She was homeless. She was in an art.
Speaker 5: Program in the village for homeless youth. And her teacher
Speaker 5: and mentor was Keith Haring.
Speaker 1: What and to this day what Heather's art.
Speaker 3: Yes, it's better than Keith having dude.
Speaker 1: Her her entire apartment is just like a bunch of sculptures,
Speaker 1: a photographer I didn't even.
Speaker 5: Know her, and a painter, and her paintings you could
Speaker 5: tell they have keep having influence, but they just so
Speaker 5: more alive and compelling.
Speaker 1: Her apartments standing there at museum, y'all done. But ye,
Speaker 1: murals and sculptures and all those things.
Speaker 7: And you had no idea fast forward that what she
Speaker 7: was going to evolve into in the I had.
Speaker 4: A little bit of a clue she was going to coach.
Speaker 8: I wanted to ask you about X clam Man And like,
Speaker 8: how y'all formed.
Speaker 3: At Latin courts? Really, Brother j and professor, you.
Speaker 4: Guys are regular dressing cats, and then you're here.
Speaker 5: I would never know regular dressing dude. Flip through that book.
Speaker 1: I'm looking you guys went through a street where that
Speaker 1: morphed into you sit a cover.
Speaker 4: Yes, that's me. Then I know this. Then morton to
Speaker 4: but yeah I do. I do want to know.
Speaker 1: Yeah, now you're in your sma, which is which is awesome. Yeah,
Speaker 1: but how did the band formed?
Speaker 5: I was working at the Latin Quarter and Lamomba Professor
Speaker 5: x Overseer aka Lamomba Carson. He called Heidi Smith from
Speaker 5: Rush Productions earlier in the day and he asked her
Speaker 5: if he could get some of their groups to perform
Speaker 5: at a fundraiser for anti drug concert in Brooklyn, and
Speaker 5: she was like.
Speaker 3: No, we don't do that kind of thing, you know.
Speaker 3: He's like really, She was like.
Speaker 5: Yeah, you need to find artists who are more young
Speaker 5: and independent, you know, because our artists do concert series
Speaker 5: and we don't do charity like that. So she said,
Speaker 5: I'll tell you what. Go to Latin Quarters and and
Speaker 5: see paradise. He knows all the new artists and he'll
Speaker 5: probably be able to help you put a show together.
Speaker 5: She called me, put him on the guest list, and
Speaker 5: he showed up one day and I let him in free,
Speaker 5: and he wound up becoming my partner because he talked
Speaker 5: to me. He saw the energy that we had at
Speaker 5: the club, and I helped him do event in Prospect Park, Brooklyn,
Speaker 5: and I brought half the artists from the Latin Quarter
Speaker 5: to the park, including Statsasonic, Ultra Magnetic Boogie Down production.
Speaker 3: It was crazy.
Speaker 5: We had like forty fifty thousand people show up in
Speaker 5: the park, no violence, and we tore it down and
Speaker 5: raised a whole bunch of money for the anti crack
Speaker 5: organization that we was working with.
Speaker 3: And from that moment, he was like paradise.
Speaker 5: If we could bring this youthful energy to my father's movement,
Speaker 5: we could change everything. And I was like, yeah, whatever,
Speaker 5: We're gonna make money, I.
Speaker 3: Hope, so I'm like cool.
Speaker 5: So he took me to the Slave Theater and on
Speaker 5: Fulton Street in bed Star and Al Sharpton, Reverend Al
Speaker 5: Sharpton used to own that theater and do rallies there.
Speaker 5: So today I went to meet his father Sonny Carson.
Speaker 5: They were doing a rally there and I walked through
Speaker 5: the door and I thought I had stepped into a
Speaker 5: time machine or a Saturday Night Live skip because all
Speaker 5: the elders was in there. They had big silver afros
Speaker 5: and they was wearing Dashiki's and here I am. I
Speaker 5: got hazel contact lendsers, Jemmy curl diamond rings. I got
Speaker 5: a fur coat on, a Louis Baton tam, a Louis
Speaker 5: Baton sweater, you know what I mean. I had some
Speaker 5: brown shark skin soup pants. You know. So I go
Speaker 5: in there and I'm looking at them like they was
Speaker 5: in costumes. I'm all costumed out myself, right. The mom
Speaker 5: what takes me over to introduce me to his father.
Speaker 5: He says, a brother, Sonny, this is my homeboy, Paradise
Speaker 5: I was telling you about. Sonny stares at me without
Speaker 5: saying nothing, looks me in my eyes, and he looks
Speaker 5: follows down head to toe, and then he looks at
Speaker 5: me and says, what kind of name is Paradise for
Speaker 5: a nigga? I said, well, actually, it's not a name.
Speaker 5: It's an invocation of my goals. I'm trying to achieve
Speaker 5: Paradise in my life. So every time someone says that name,
Speaker 5: it reminds me of my goals. He's smiled, did a
Speaker 5: deep lad. He said, Oh, you're a smart nigga too.
Speaker 4: Huh.
Speaker 3: I'll tell you what. You see that door that you
Speaker 3: walked in.
Speaker 5: If I was you, I'd walk out that door fast
Speaker 5: as I came in here, because if you stick around here,
Speaker 5: we're gonna mess up everything you think.
Speaker 3: You know. I was like really, He was like yeah.
Speaker 5: I was like, I think I'll stick around for a minute,
Speaker 5: and he smiled at me and gave me the deep
Speaker 5: belly laugh.
Speaker 3: Sonny Carson had moved Fossa's voice. You know what I'm saying.
Speaker 5: When Sonny speak, you know the police and anybody else
Speaker 5: do that.
Speaker 3: Sonny Carson was no joke. Baby, my elder.
Speaker 1: I literally didn't know that that was his his son
Speaker 1: Now makes sense, Yeah, Sonny Carson, La Mumba Carson.
Speaker 7: Was he right about what your life and how you
Speaker 7: should have walked out?
Speaker 3: It had changed? Hell?
Speaker 1: Yeah?
Speaker 5: And the beautiful thing about it is him or the
Speaker 5: elders never mentioned my hazel contacts. They never mentioned my
Speaker 5: gold and diamonds and the flamboyant way I dressed. They
Speaker 5: just responded to my intelligence and my promotion and marketing skills,
Speaker 5: and they just taught me who I was, So I
Speaker 5: got rid of the costume on my own.
Speaker 3: I didn't need it anymore.
Speaker 8: How did brother Jay? He was just one of my
Speaker 8: favorite MC's man and he had just that voice. Yeah,
Speaker 8: working on the first album, man, Like, how how did
Speaker 8: that come about?
Speaker 3: Sugar Chef used to be one of the violators. Oh okay.
Speaker 5: He used to hang with Chris Lighty and them dudes
Speaker 5: were Read Alert and he was one of the guys
Speaker 5: that would carry Red crates and records from the radio
Speaker 5: station to the Latin Quarter. One day, you know, he
Speaker 5: was on the subway, the two train going to Brooklyn.
Speaker 5: I was on the same train. We got off the
Speaker 5: train at the same stop. We looked at each other.
Speaker 5: I was like, yeah, where you live? He said, I
Speaker 5: live right around the corner. I said, yeah, I live
Speaker 5: right here. So he stopped going there in quartered with
Speaker 5: Red Alerts riding with me, and we became really good friends.
Speaker 5: And he kept telling me about his homeboy brother Jay,
Speaker 5: who was really good as a rapper and all this,
Speaker 5: and that I really wasn't working with artists on that
Speaker 5: level anymore, developing them, but him and Sugar Sap was
Speaker 5: like seventeen years old, and.
Speaker 3: I kind of let them hang with me.
Speaker 1: Wait he was seventeen with that voice, Brother Jay, motherfuckers
Speaker 1: sounded like my dad wrote.
Speaker 5: To the East black Wood was when he was seventeen
Speaker 5: years old and spit it when he was eighteen.
Speaker 3: How about that?
Speaker 4: Wow?
Speaker 5: So when people make excuses and say, oh, dudes are
Speaker 5: young and I no.
Speaker 4: But that's like with x Claan.
Speaker 1: To me, I just looked at him like, oh, okay,
Speaker 1: forty old pay y'all just looked like y'all looked like
Speaker 1: my cool ass uncle.
Speaker 5: Professor X was probably your cool last uncle, you know
Speaker 5: what I mean?
Speaker 3: He was bolder than.
Speaker 4: I didn't think I was older than one of y'all.
Speaker 5: Damn brother to thefinitely brother Jane sugar Shaft from my
Speaker 5: Little Brothers.
Speaker 1: Since you mentioned it now, one of our most infamous
Speaker 1: Latin quarter guests, sir mc search you still searching for.
Speaker 5: That guy where you go right right?
Speaker 3: All right?
Speaker 1: But wait wait, but no, no, no, But this also
Speaker 1: involves Pete as well, because it just hit me when
Speaker 1: I brought the EP the Cactus EP three Strikes five thousand,
Speaker 1: was there were some shots fired at the X Clan
Speaker 1: organization and then of course I forget the song the
Speaker 1: song where you guys start with pop goes the weasel?
Speaker 1: What was the unspoken, indirect, non passive aggressive shots fired
Speaker 1: between those clans? And I guess also if you want
Speaker 1: to add.
Speaker 3: It between love and hey.
Speaker 1: But also today when I was listening to sex and Violence,
Speaker 1: there was some satisfied there too, like so wait what
Speaker 1: happened between.
Speaker 5: When I first met Prime Minister Pete Nice. He was
Speaker 5: seventeen years old and he was going to Boys and
Speaker 5: Girls High School and he was managed by a gentleman
Speaker 5: named Robert Lamumba Carson Professor X before X claim really
Speaker 5: and he was in a group called sin Quinn and right.
Speaker 5: And then once Professor X met me, now he had
Speaker 5: access to care as one big daddy came just Nice.
Speaker 5: He neglected the groups he already was managing, right, which
Speaker 5: Pete Nice was one of them. So MC search was
Speaker 5: hanging at the Latin Quarter with me, and Pete Nice
Speaker 5: came to the Latin Quarter with Professor X. So Pete
Speaker 5: got frustrated because they didn't get any run or no focus.
Speaker 5: So Pete went to the moment and said, hey, death
Speaker 5: Jam is interested in signing me if you're not gonna
Speaker 5: do nothing with me? Could you release me? And Professor
Speaker 5: X laughed him out the door and released him death
Speaker 5: Jam's gonna sign you Ah, and Russell pulled the Beastie
Speaker 5: Boys two point zero. He took two independent artists that
Speaker 5: they were interested in and created Third Base. And Search
Speaker 5: was a cool dude, but he exaggerated a lot, and
Speaker 5: he was very popular at Latin Quarter, but he was
Speaker 5: not popular at Latin.
Speaker 3: Quarter for rapping. He got popular at Latin no Oh
Speaker 3: as a joke.
Speaker 5: I used to host the shows, me and read Alert
Speaker 5: and Bismarck. It would snap on each other, the warm
Speaker 5: the crowd up. And there was this real fat six
Speaker 5: foot three dudes in the crowd that called him heavy right.
Speaker 3: This dude was like butter and ice on the dance floor.
Speaker 5: He was so big, but he was so smooth, and
Speaker 5: so I would always pull him up on the stage
Speaker 5: to warm the crowd up. And while he would dance,
Speaker 5: run Alert would play some joints and I'd be like,
Speaker 5: go fat boy, go fat boy, and the whole crowd
Speaker 5: be screaming, go fat boy, go fat Boy, and mc
Speaker 5: search game running Can I go?
Speaker 3: I was like, oh God, here we go.
Speaker 5: Because mc search thought he could dance but he had
Speaker 5: two left feet.
Speaker 3: He was cool with us. We liked him.
Speaker 5: He was our dude. He was a great guy, but
Speaker 5: he could not dance. He would dance, don't know.
Speaker 3: He would try and.
Speaker 1: We would okay, with two left feet, I'm trying.
Speaker 4: I'm trying to be Switzerland here.
Speaker 7: I mean, I'm working on.
Speaker 4: And I got love for Peter.
Speaker 5: Corn was where brothers was dancing in that club. Dude,
Speaker 5: you're not their level period ever. So he would run
Speaker 5: on stage and Red would play dudey James and I
Speaker 5: would go gold, white Boy, Gold white Boy go in.
Speaker 3: The crowd would go crazy, and they loved him.
Speaker 1: Novel to see the white guy with rhythm. He took
Speaker 1: advantage of that, right, I.
Speaker 3: See, greatly.
Speaker 5: But then as he became third base, he seemed like
Speaker 5: he was trying to be a brother and he was
Speaker 5: going too far with it as far as we was concerned,
Speaker 5: Like when the camera zoomed up to the back of
Speaker 5: his head and he turned around like.
Speaker 3: It's the other man, it was like, what what did
Speaker 3: you talking about? Dude? Like what are you doing? You know?
Speaker 5: So he was an ultimate culture vulture, but he was
Speaker 5: accepted because he hung out with us and we accepted
Speaker 5: him hanging with us, you know, then he did the
Speaker 5: group would wound up being our good friend m F.
Speaker 3: Doom and the logo was a coon face and we
Speaker 3: didn't like that. KMD. Yeah, yeah, you know what I'm saying.
Speaker 5: So it was it was a lot of cultural problem
Speaker 5: that we was having problems with.
Speaker 2: Amir mentioned the Hip Hop Museum in his roll call.
Speaker 2: I just wanted to touch on that a little bit
Speaker 2: for our listeners who may not know what's going on.
Speaker 4: Wait, I'll get there eventually.
Speaker 5: Right, he still want to get to the part where
Speaker 5: Kenny Parker just did it.
Speaker 4: Right, I'll get there. Wait.
Speaker 1: You also didn't name the other four performers at the
Speaker 1: Latin Quarter. I was I'm starting not hoping to get
Speaker 1: the story of Melle Mail and the push ups or
Speaker 1: the sit ups.
Speaker 3: Melly Mail was the debo of the Latin Quarter. He
Speaker 3: was the filter. That's what I called him. If you
Speaker 3: got on stage and you was whag.
Speaker 5: Mellie Mail was Sandman, really self appointed Sandman. Him and
Speaker 5: Busy B were the most arrogant dudes ever. They were
Speaker 5: coming the club throwing elbows at dudes.
Speaker 3: Get out the way, Get out the way. The champions here,
Speaker 3: the champions here. Ain't none of y'all getting no money tonight,
Speaker 3: and y'all ain't getting no puts he tonight.
Speaker 5: The champs is here, and you be on stage rocking.
Speaker 5: All of a sudden, you hit the crowd going crazy.
Speaker 3: You're like, oh, I'm doing it tonight.
Speaker 5: And then you take a look to the sign and
Speaker 5: Mellie mel standing there with his shirt off, Muscle Simmons
Speaker 5: in his full glory. Then he started doing push ups
Speaker 5: real quick while you're.
Speaker 4: Trying to do a show.
Speaker 8: You like, So he's working out on the side of
Speaker 8: the stage, you know, on the stage.
Speaker 3: He's on the stage with you now.
Speaker 4: Doing what are you?
Speaker 1: Are you allowed to name some of the artists that
Speaker 1: he disrespected, who remembers them?
Speaker 8: So?
Speaker 1: Were there some artists that before him?
Speaker 3: Again they disappeared? He show him all right, you know,
Speaker 3: he jumped.
Speaker 5: On his feet, snatched the mic and say red alert,
Speaker 5: put on some real hip hop.
Speaker 3: I'm tired of this bullshit. And then he would rock
Speaker 3: the house.
Speaker 7: And never cause a fight. Nobody ever wanted to fight
Speaker 7: him after they I'm just man.
Speaker 3: So he got muscled.
Speaker 5: It was only a couple of dudes that had the
Speaker 5: balls or the size to deal with Melly Mel Justice
Speaker 5: and King's son. They can handle him physically, but ain't
Speaker 5: nobody wanted to try that.
Speaker 3: Plus he's the goat this Grandma's and Melly mal a
Speaker 3: child is born.
Speaker 5: Damn you ain't got no wins there until one day
Speaker 5: Belly Mel jumped on the stage with that bragg of dose.
Speaker 3: I got five hundred dollars. Anybody in here wanted come
Speaker 3: get it right now?
Speaker 5: Oh y'all, he's looking at run DMC and LL and
Speaker 5: all of them like and then you heard the crowd
Speaker 5: go crazy, and you look and krs one was standing
Speaker 5: there like this, okay, now, it already was some friction
Speaker 5: between the last generation and the new generation. The first
Speaker 5: shots across the bow that was successful was none other
Speaker 5: than LL cool J. LL was not having it Coolmo
Speaker 5: d iced tea whoever, he was not intimidated.
Speaker 3: And if you went at LL, he coming back at you.
Speaker 5: The first shots across the old school bow was.
Speaker 3: By LL cool J. So he got it right here.
Speaker 5: It was right here, and it was bubbling and then
Speaker 5: kr us one dropped the nail in the coffin.
Speaker 4: What happened that night, like can you describe well?
Speaker 3: Was it a song was n the battle.
Speaker 5: I handed car us One the mic and kr us
Speaker 5: One did a freestyle. First, he did this everybody in
Speaker 5: the club that he had beef with. He did about
Speaker 5: four people before going that Mail Rock, sand Sean tay Uh.
Speaker 5: He went at mc shan of course, coogie rap even
Speaker 5: you know, I am a professional.
Speaker 3: This is not a demo, Chris do a bunch of
Speaker 3: shots to grow.
Speaker 4: Oh no, I didn't even catch that. I am a professor.
Speaker 3: This is not it's a demo. It's a demos. It's
Speaker 3: a demos.
Speaker 4: I'm just catching that, see what I'm saying.
Speaker 5: So Chris was already set up to be that next
Speaker 5: dude because he had just smashed, which was difficult to
Speaker 5: do because Sham was as popular as LL back in
Speaker 5: the day. Sha was not no easy not to crack,
Speaker 5: you know what I'm saying. Sham was highly respected. And
Speaker 5: so Carrius One did a freestyle. He went at Mail
Speaker 5: and then he said, hey, yo, who won this battle
Speaker 5: and dropped the mic and the crowd went crazy and
Speaker 5: Melly mal he was so angry. The crowd was like
Speaker 5: going for Carris One and he didn't even rhyme yet.
Speaker 5: He start jumping up and down. It's not fair. I
Speaker 5: didn't get to go yet. I didn't get to go.
Speaker 5: I said, come on, y'all, this is melly Mao. You
Speaker 5: gotta least let the man spit. Mellie mal dug in
Speaker 5: that brilliant brain of his and came out with one
Speaker 5: of the dopest rhymes I ever heard.
Speaker 3: He was talking about spaceships.
Speaker 5: And battling aliens and molecules and scientific facts, and he
Speaker 5: killed it. But the crowd was like, no manoo, and
Speaker 5: some people cheered him. But Carris won won to day,
Speaker 5: and from that day on things started changing. You know,
Speaker 5: Big Daddy Cane got really ridiculous in there, rock him,
Speaker 5: came out of nowhere on them. Check out my melody.
Speaker 5: You know, Eric beat for president Red Alert, banging that
Speaker 5: like over and over.
Speaker 3: It was a new day.
Speaker 4: Well okay, so what are the other three that you
Speaker 4: can name?
Speaker 5: Uh?
Speaker 3: Other three that got dissed by Meloy man No, no, no no.
Speaker 1: The other three like life changing performances that happened at.
Speaker 5: The Big Daddy came, Man, Big Daddy came. When he
Speaker 5: first came out with schoob and scrap. He changed the game, bro.
Speaker 5: It was just I mean heavy dn of boys whoa
Speaker 5: when they rock miss the big stuff at Latin Quarters
Speaker 5: forget about it.
Speaker 3: Really yeah, man, that's.
Speaker 5: So sonic performed with my man Bobby Simmons with the
Speaker 5: live drum.
Speaker 3: That was crazy.
Speaker 5: I mean, it was just so many amazing, amazing performances,
Speaker 5: especially you know EPMD bro Oh my god. They used
Speaker 5: to tear the Latin Quarters down, and then out of
Speaker 5: nowhere came the native tongues. The tribe called Quest, the
Speaker 5: Jungle Brothers, Daylon Soul.
Speaker 3: So that could fly only love it was born there.
Speaker 1: Okay, I'm only asking that because it seems to me
Speaker 1: that the Latin Quarter seems more hard of me, no ob.
Speaker 4: Dapper dan variety.
Speaker 1: And then suddenly here comes like no backpackers. Yeah, like
Speaker 1: I would figure like they were the nerves and duebs of.
Speaker 4: So they were walkome with.
Speaker 5: Yeah, because they were already people who hung out at
Speaker 5: the Latin Quarters. Ninety percent of the artist that broke
Speaker 5: in Latin Quarters was always in the crowd. Kid and
Speaker 5: play was in the crowd at Latin Quarters. Their name
Speaker 5: was the Fresh Force Kid Cool Out and Playboy, and
Speaker 5: they had a song called off a Rock I'm a.
Speaker 4: Deis see I was gonna say, please don't say I'm.
Speaker 5: The They sampled Rocked Me and then a song off
Speaker 5: of rock Me a'madas and they had another song called
Speaker 5: She's a Skeezer.
Speaker 3: That song which is what I did this.
Speaker 1: Posts told me about that, okay, with the same beat
Speaker 1: for three days later.
Speaker 3: Yeah. But then they saw the I O U and
Speaker 3: the JAC dances.
Speaker 5: They changed their head sounds, they changed the way that
Speaker 5: they dress, and somehow the dance that was being done
Speaker 5: at the Latin Quarters became the Kiddn't play kickstep.
Speaker 1: So all those dances were born there. We're talking about
Speaker 1: like the Steve Martin, the Mark.
Speaker 5: Top Oh my god, dude used to kill when he performed.
Speaker 5: You know who else killed at lag Quarters, Schoolly d Yes.
Speaker 3: And remember this was New jack City, New York, Okay.
Speaker 5: You know this was around the time of Larry Davis
Speaker 5: and the Central Park five and Useph Hawkins murder. So
Speaker 5: there was a tension in the young black people at
Speaker 5: the time also, and.
Speaker 3: We were angry at a lot.
Speaker 5: You know, parth I was going on, Nelson Mandela was
Speaker 5: still in jail, you know what I'm saying. So there
Speaker 5: was a consciousness that took over the club because the
Speaker 5: Zulu Nation and the beginnings of the Black Watch movement
Speaker 5: and the five Percent Nation was heavy in the club.
Speaker 5: So we was all about the fifth element, knowledge, wisdom
Speaker 5: and understanding at the same time we was creating this music.
Speaker 3: So that is official.
Speaker 7: I was wondering when you look up hip hop sometimes, okay,
Speaker 7: the fifth element is knowledge, wisdom and understanding. All right,
Speaker 7: I felt like it came much later, can.
Speaker 3: You all right?
Speaker 1: Since the the sound system was ungodly?
Speaker 3: Yes?
Speaker 1: What did you guys think when y'all first heard Rebel
Speaker 1: without a pause? Because I heard it two in the
Speaker 1: morning on a radio with the volume down, and of course,
Speaker 1: like you know, I'm talking about clock radio. I can't
Speaker 1: imagine what it is to hear this teakettle noise of
Speaker 1: Public Enemy.
Speaker 5: That song saved Public Enemies career because Public Enemy got
Speaker 5: booed off the stage at Latin Quarters and their first
Speaker 5: show Grand Master and Mellie Mail.
Speaker 4: He was on the side doing push ups.
Speaker 5: No, he couldn't get to the stage, but he was
Speaker 5: in the crowd heckling him the whole.
Speaker 3: Time that shit ain't hip hop.
Speaker 5: They on stage with oozies and shit were trying to
Speaker 5: stop the violence. What is this, Russell Simmons, you need
Speaker 5: to sign grand Master flies in the previous five putting
Speaker 5: all this bullshit on stage, I had to I had
Speaker 5: to literally pull Melly Mal off the dance floor and
Speaker 5: explain to him what the s one w's were and
Speaker 5: why they had the plastic oozies. But then they came
Speaker 5: later with Rebel without a pause, and guess what it
Speaker 5: was a hip hop dance classic. You put that record
Speaker 5: on the IOU and the jay Z dances break their.
Speaker 3: Necks in the club off it.
Speaker 5: And that inspired Chuck to step up the tempo, and
Speaker 5: he realized, as you get up there.
Speaker 1: And dance at the LQ right right right, I get it.
Speaker 1: I see it now, I see it now, I see
Speaker 1: it now. So the next question I want to know
Speaker 1: is why did it end so early.
Speaker 3: Monday? Location? Location? Location? It was sitting on.
Speaker 5: That property that was way too valuable for them to
Speaker 5: keep just letting us little niggats.
Speaker 3: Have ain't back club there since.
Speaker 5: Exactly they built the hotel, which one isnaissance, yeah.
Speaker 4: We used to stay there.
Speaker 5: Wow, Okay, yep, the Union Square club had closed, so
Speaker 5: all the crazy ass Brooklyn.
Speaker 3: Niggas ain't have nowhere to hang out no more.
Speaker 5: So they came uptown to the Latin Quarters and they
Speaker 5: turned the Latin Quarters into the Okay carraal.
Speaker 4: All right, so it was the myth of Brooklyn.
Speaker 1: Real, I e Like, we just want to party and
Speaker 1: here come Brooklyn wounding out again.
Speaker 5: Hell yeah, that sh it was true because it wasn't
Speaker 5: just ghost steps to that set them off. That was
Speaker 5: the second song. There was another song that was more
Speaker 5: of a trigger than that, which was Brooklyn's than the
Speaker 5: House by d C dcly.
Speaker 1: So any Brooklyn song is just going to trigger.
Speaker 5: It's fifty cent and the Supreme Team and the Hollis
Speaker 5: Crew and the whole powder keg of different.
Speaker 4: So they were all paid.
Speaker 3: They get in yeah.
Speaker 1: Yoke and still change and no.
Speaker 5: Well at first, I mean it took a while because
Speaker 5: fifty would come to me, he respected me, and I
Speaker 5: would let them in free, give him drink to get
Speaker 5: treat him like they were stars too.
Speaker 1: He explaining who fifty was. And now we're not talking
Speaker 1: about Curtis Jackson.
Speaker 5: No, he was a little gangster ass Doug from Brooklyn,
Speaker 5: who was one of the original knuckleheads that you just
Speaker 5: he had no respect for nobody not even himself, and
Speaker 5: he would come to the club with two guns and
Speaker 5: a bulletpoof vest on.
Speaker 3: I would let him keep all let him in.
Speaker 5: I would look put it this way, okay, right, if
Speaker 5: you let him in, he could control the other ones
Speaker 5: that's lesser than him. So instead of going wild, now
Speaker 5: they had something to lose. Now they had status, and
Speaker 5: now they wouldn't just run up on somebody and rob them.
Speaker 5: They would come to me first and be like, yo, dice,
Speaker 5: is that your man? I'd be like, yeah, damn man
Speaker 5: told me, can't be coming up in here like that
Speaker 5: man organized.
Speaker 1: Crime and that would be ok what would they walking
Speaker 1: target look like? Ll WOJ tell me the story, jam
Speaker 1: Master J. I heard that story about dragging on the floor,
Speaker 1: but he held onto the chain I heard.
Speaker 5: Now he didn't drag the floor. His chain is solid.
Speaker 5: They don't have no clasp. Jam Aster J had the
Speaker 5: best chain in hip hop.
Speaker 1: But wasn't like royalty, like untouchable or is it like
Speaker 1: we gotta test.
Speaker 3: Your Jay had the Holly's Crew with him.
Speaker 5: Hurricane in about twenty twenty five other ones, so it
Speaker 5: was the first time it was an even match. Dude
Speaker 5: fifty tried to snatch Jay's chain. It don't pop. Jay
Speaker 5: went with the chain and J is no slouch, right right.
Speaker 5: I went out and pulled J out of the melee
Speaker 5: and he literally fought me. And when I looked in
Speaker 5: his face, he said, Yo, dice, my people was out there.
Speaker 3: I let him go. He went right back out there.
Speaker 3: You know who am I out to tell him? You
Speaker 3: know what I mean?
Speaker 5: But uh, yeah, jam Master J. Let me say something
Speaker 5: about him. He was the most humble and wonderful human
Speaker 5: being ever. You know, you go to the club. J
Speaker 5: would be at a club, no security, no homeboys.
Speaker 3: He'd be out on tour.
Speaker 5: You find jam Master J with a forty in the
Speaker 5: hood in the projects, four o'clock in the morning, smoking
Speaker 5: and drinking and telling stories and jokes with dudes he
Speaker 5: don't even know. And he had the total hood pass
Speaker 5: because he was Jammaster J. He was that dope. Yeah,
Speaker 5: he taught me how to act once I became popular.
Speaker 2: Can we talk about the Hip Hop Museum?
Speaker 6: Yes?
Speaker 4: See?
Speaker 1: Yeah, Now I'm told that you were collecting artifacts and
Speaker 1: whatnot since seventy.
Speaker 3: Nine, seventy eight.
Speaker 4: Okay, so yeah, how did you know.
Speaker 3: I was a kid?
Speaker 4: How did you know instantly.
Speaker 5: I shouldn't know instant. My brother Michael Michael Green coach Green.
Speaker 5: He was a baseball and football coach at de Wick
Speaker 5: Clinton High School in the Bronx, and my brother was
Speaker 5: four years older than me, and he did everything to
Speaker 5: influence me. I didn't respect or understand my brother when
Speaker 5: I was young because he wasn't a fighter.
Speaker 3: I had to fight every day.
Speaker 5: But as I got older, everything I do and everything
Speaker 5: I know really came from my brother. A photographer, a writer,
Speaker 5: an artist, and illustrator. But most importantly, he collected stamps
Speaker 5: and coins.
Speaker 3: I wasn't into that. I get out of here with that.
Speaker 5: Then he started collecting baseball cards, football cards, and comic books.
Speaker 5: That's when I lost my mind, you know, because I
Speaker 5: was an avid reader and comic book collectors and comic
Speaker 5: book readers. It's like oil and water. We really didn't met.
Speaker 5: So I start collecting my own comics. And then here
Speaker 5: comes hip hop flyers, Grand Master Flash, who DJ hurt
Speaker 5: the Herk Lords, you know, grand was it Theodore? It
Speaker 5: was like walking Marvel heroes in my hood who were
Speaker 5: doing those flyers. Buddy Esquire a whole bunch of good
Speaker 5: Phase two, but he Esquire and Phase two were the
Speaker 5: two most popular ones, but there was a whole host
Speaker 5: of people making flyers back then, and they were beautiful.
Speaker 5: When the hip hop universe was like the Marvel and
Speaker 5: DC universe to me, you know, so they would have
Speaker 5: cartoon characters. I got a fly with Iron Man on it,
Speaker 5: one with Spider Man on it, one with Muhammed Aldi
Speaker 5: on it, you know, fly girls and nice calls.
Speaker 3: It was amazing to me.
Speaker 5: So I kept them and me and my homeboy kids Zeep,
Speaker 5: we started trading with each other and it just became
Speaker 5: a thing in my hood that we would collect hip
Speaker 5: hop flyers, and later on it became everything with hip
Speaker 5: hop on it, Yo, MTV rap cards, you know what
Speaker 5: I'm saying, Magazines, Yo, rap Masters, the Sowres, Double Excel,
Speaker 5: if it had anything about hip hop.
Speaker 3: I was hip hop's biggest fan. I wanted.
Speaker 1: So, were you just naturally a pop culture junkie that
Speaker 1: just you know part Like I'm collecting stuff now, I
Speaker 1: don't know why I'm collecting it. I'm not saying to
Speaker 1: myself like Okay, one day I'm gonna have a museum,
Speaker 1: but like now, I mean I'm going hard on. I
Speaker 1: went hard on On HRT's auction. Now we're seeing the
Speaker 1: auction stuff. Yeah, so I'm like, I'm doing it. I
Speaker 1: guess I figure, like, okay, maybe when I'm sixty or seventies,
Speaker 1: I'll have these artifacts to pass on to a museum
Speaker 1: or that sort of.
Speaker 4: Thing in your mind.
Speaker 1: Are you saying, like, one day I'm going to open
Speaker 1: up the hip hop museum and I'm having these artifacts there.
Speaker 3: No, I didn't even consider that.
Speaker 5: I just knew what I liked and I loved, and
Speaker 5: I just catered to myself. I loved myself, so I
Speaker 5: tried to surround myself with beautiful things and things that
Speaker 5: make me feel good. I was a little ashy, skin
Speaker 5: nappy headed, dark skinned kid in the South Bronx with
Speaker 5: holes in the bottom of my shoe, and hip hop
Speaker 5: gave me my self esteem.
Speaker 2: How do you preserve everything through the years, with all
Speaker 2: the floods and robberies and everything that everybody goes through
Speaker 2: with moving one hundred times.
Speaker 3: I never had a flood, I never got robbed.
Speaker 5: My dad still live in the same apartment that we
Speaker 5: lived in since nineteen eighty.
Speaker 2: Wow, there's the answer there right there.
Speaker 3: Yeah, yeah, Okay, we had stability. So let me know
Speaker 3: what closet space.
Speaker 1: Okay, now I'm really asked the question that I always asks.
Speaker 4: You know, one answers. Yeah, You're given.
Speaker 3: One minute.
Speaker 1: To grab three artifacts and the rest you'll never see again.
Speaker 4: What three things are you grabbing?
Speaker 5: My original crown that I created, the first crown of
Speaker 5: x Crime, my wooden stick that I carved with a
Speaker 5: lion's face in the middle of a morph between the
Speaker 5: lion and the man.
Speaker 3: That staff is called the iron in lion Zion.
Speaker 4: Yes, yes, you carved too.
Speaker 3: Yeah.
Speaker 5: Yeah, that's why they called me the architect, baby architect,
Speaker 5: you know, yeah, did.
Speaker 1: You have dreams to be an actual architect?
Speaker 5: In term I went to Brooklyn Tech to be an architect,
Speaker 5: and I dropped out in the tenth grade because I
Speaker 5: couldn't go through high school with holes in my ship
Speaker 5: like I did junior high. My parents are from the South.
Speaker 5: My dad I told him what I wanted and he said, hey.
Speaker 5: He walked me to the front door and said, everything
Speaker 5: you want right outside this door. Everything you need, I
Speaker 5: got it in here. Go get what you want. So
Speaker 5: I said, okay, I'm gonna go get it. I went
Speaker 5: and I dropped out of high school, and within two
Speaker 5: years I was making more money than my mother and
Speaker 5: my father combined legally.
Speaker 3: Where are your parents from? North Carolina? What city?
Speaker 5: I was born in a little town called Washington, North Carolina.
Speaker 3: Washington.
Speaker 8: Yeah, I grew up in I lived all over over
Speaker 8: Fatteville of red s Range, Robinson County. Grew up in Greensboro,
Speaker 8: living Raleigh. But nah, man, that's that's so dope.
Speaker 3: I'm home from.
Speaker 2: So.
Speaker 5: I was born in nineteen sixty four in North Carolina
Speaker 5: Freedom Summer, and my mother decided when I was four
Speaker 5: years old that she didn't want me and my brother
Speaker 5: and sister to grow up picking cotton and tobacco. So
Speaker 5: she followed her sister, Helen, my aunt, to Harlem, and
Speaker 5: she stayed in Harlem with my aunt and sent me
Speaker 5: and my brother and sister to live in the Bronxdale
Speaker 5: Projects with my aunt's daughter, her niece, Susie Davis, and
Speaker 5: my little cousin who lived with us in Disco King
Speaker 5: Mario's building.
Speaker 3: His name is Aaron Davis.
Speaker 5: He wound up becoming a welterweight champion of the world,
Speaker 5: Aaron Superman Davis, and he knocked Mark Brelan out to
Speaker 5: take the belt.
Speaker 4: No, you're a sports expert.
Speaker 5: Well, I love hip hop and sports. I think hip
Speaker 5: hop was a sport us too.
Speaker 1: It is you know, surviving it is key. Well you
Speaker 1: didn't name the third thing, the third artifact that you
Speaker 1: were saying.
Speaker 2: Yeah, that first Flyer was the first time hip hop's
Speaker 2: mentioned on It's pretty cool.
Speaker 3: Yeah, but there's more important things.
Speaker 1: Yeah, okay, well record record things that I own or
Speaker 1: I mean like treasures.
Speaker 3: I mean, dude, I have so much in my collection.
Speaker 5: I'm not Bismarck status with my collection, but the hip
Speaker 5: hop part of my collection bigger than business hip hop collection.
Speaker 1: See, he's the one that got me into When I
Speaker 1: saw business stuff, I was like, oh, this is what
Speaker 1: I want to do. Spend my money. You got to
Speaker 1: spend your money on something. So that's the thing. Artifact historical,
Speaker 1: artifact wise, what do you have? Jeff just shared with
Speaker 1: me that he has the records from Grandmaster Grandmaster Flash
Speaker 1: used in Wild Style Sope.
Speaker 5: I still have a bunch of my original creates that
Speaker 5: I DJ with since the seventies in the Bronx. I
Speaker 5: still have my original vinyl, all my breakbeats.
Speaker 4: Okay, you know I.
Speaker 5: Have the big red, black and green flag that X
Speaker 5: Clan used to perform with and that we used to
Speaker 5: march in the streets of Brooklyn with Sonny Carson with.
Speaker 3: You know, I have a cutout of the Niles pharrowhead.
Speaker 4: From I Am Oh, yeah, I am record.
Speaker 5: Yeah, okay, yeah, I have the cutout of master P.
Speaker 5: You know, I've got the master P doll they go.
Speaker 4: Right.
Speaker 3: You know, I got so much artifacts, bro.
Speaker 1: I do want to know when do you feel as
Speaker 1: though the museum will have its grand.
Speaker 5: Opening fourth quarter for first quarter twenty twenty five in
Speaker 5: the location right where it is, right in the Boogie
Speaker 5: down Bronx one hundred and forty ninth Street and Bronx
Speaker 5: Point Baby, right on the Harlem River.
Speaker 1: Well, brother, this this has been long overdue. Yeah, thank you,
Speaker 1: thank you for sharing.
Speaker 5: We didn't have more time, and you know, I didn't
Speaker 5: really get to tell you a new stories.
Speaker 3: But it's all good.
Speaker 4: No, this is this is beautiful and we thank you
Speaker 4: for coming on the show.
Speaker 1: So we have a fontiicolo on paper bill Sugar Steve
Speaker 1: and like, yeah, this is quest Love is a great paradise.
Speaker 3: Gray.
Speaker 1: Yeah, support hip hop culture, collect your artifacts, don't dispose
Speaker 1: of things that you don't know will be you know,
Speaker 1: well man's trash, that next man's treasure.
Speaker 3: Oh yeah.
Speaker 1: Telling the history, yes, and share stories and.
Speaker 3: In the history.
Speaker 5: Because while it's good that we celebrated their fiftieth anniversary
Speaker 5: of hip hop make history, now it's our time to
Speaker 5: plot the next fifty years of hip hop. There you go,
Speaker 5: and to support young artists with the real support that
Speaker 5: we need to give them. And we need to stop
Speaker 5: being the old man sitting on the porch telling them
Speaker 5: to get off our Lawan hip hop was created by
Speaker 5: children and children will always rule hip hop. So if
Speaker 5: you owe and you feel like, oh I can't understand
Speaker 5: what they're saying, well maybe they're not talking to your ass.
Speaker 4: Oh and there it is, ladies, all right, we'll see
Speaker 4: all next cover.
Speaker 3: This is Sugar Steve.
Speaker 2: Thank you for listening to Quest Love Supreme. This podcast
Speaker 2: is hosted by a mere Quest of Thompson, Liah Saint
Speaker 2: Clair Fonte Coleman, Sugar Steve Mandel, and Unpaid Bill Sherman.
Speaker 2: The executive producers are a mere Quest of Thompson, Sean
Speaker 2: g and Brian Calhoun, produced by Brittey, Benjamin, Jake Payne
Speaker 2: and Liah Saint Clair, edited by Alex Conroy, Produced for
Speaker 2: iHeart by Noel Brown and Mike Johns. Audio engineering by
Speaker 2: Graham Gibson at Iheart's La Studio.
Speaker 4: Most Love Supreme is a production of iHeartRadio.
Speaker 1: For more podcasts from iHeartRadio, visit the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts,
Speaker 1: or wherever you listen to your favorite shows.