Speaker 1: Quest Love Supreme is a production of iHeartRadio. This classic
Speaker 1: episode was produced by the team at Pandora.
Speaker 2: Hey, this is on paid Bill. This week's QLAS classic
Speaker 2: is with Chris Schwartz. In the September twenty four, twenty
Speaker 2: nineteen Combo, Chris talks about co founding rough House Records,
Speaker 2: growing up in Philly, and giving our very own Quest
Speaker 2: Love his first Internship episode one two.
Speaker 3: Here it is.
Speaker 4: Suprema s Sun Suprema roll call Suprema Suh suh Suprema,
Speaker 4: roll call, Suprema su su Suprema, roll call Suprema.
Speaker 5: This is not going to be Suprema. It's my turn. Yeah,
Speaker 5: live in you learn.
Speaker 3: Yeah, we're talking to the man.
Speaker 5: Yeah, who let me in?
Speaker 6: Turn Suprema s Supremo roll call Supreme Suck Suck Supremo.
Speaker 5: Rolets in the building. Yeah, and it must be said. Yeah,
Speaker 5: rough House Records.
Speaker 3: Yeah, they got all my breads.
Speaker 6: Suprema shun Sun Supremo role Suprema shut Supremo role called.
Speaker 3: My name is Sugar.
Speaker 7: Yeah.
Speaker 3: Last time I lived here, Yeah, I lived with a mayor. Yeah,
Speaker 3: that was a rough House.
Speaker 6: Supremo roll Suprema su su supprivo roll.
Speaker 5: Boss Bills in the House.
Speaker 3: Yeah, no, I ain't on a plane. Yeah, but I
Speaker 3: just might be a little Yeah insane in the pre.
Speaker 6: Supremat Supremo roll call Suprema So Supremo.
Speaker 5: Role my name, Yeah, and that's PRIs Swartz.
Speaker 3: Yeah.
Speaker 5: You may not know this, but he was my boss
Speaker 5: once Roll.
Speaker 6: Supreme Sun Sun Supremo roll call Suprema Sun Sun Supremo.
Speaker 8: Roll for sure hanging out Yeah, Quest Love Supreme.
Speaker 6: Suprema Sun Sun Suprema roll call, Suprema Son Sun Suprema
Speaker 6: Roll Call Suprema Sun Sun Supremo roll call.
Speaker 5: See it wasn't that pretty bad life? Ladies and gentlemen.
Speaker 9: Welcome to another episode of Quest Love Supreme. Uh, Quest
Speaker 9: Love and we have the team Supreme here.
Speaker 3: Hello. Hello, this is your life?
Speaker 9: Yes, I know, right in the house. Yeah yeah, and
Speaker 9: I'm paid. Bill is hear in spirit?
Speaker 3: I'm sorry. Yeah, he's recovering from Boss Bills in.
Speaker 9: The house and Sugar Steve good see man, Hey, how
Speaker 9: you doing good?
Speaker 3: See everybody?
Speaker 5: Yeah, it's nice to see. I will say that.
Speaker 9: Our guest today was instrumental in giving us a lot
Speaker 9: of classic nineties hip hop man listen that shaped us.
Speaker 3: Not to mention.
Speaker 9: This man also gave me one of my first jobs
Speaker 9: that got me into the industry, gave me an edge
Speaker 9: of vacation. I asked for an internship. It's like show
Speaker 9: up at ten in the morning, be on time, and
Speaker 9: then I was there.
Speaker 3: What can I say?
Speaker 9: Like Roughhouse Records, Philadelphia's premiere recording label that gave us
Speaker 9: Larry Lair, Cypress Hill, the Fuji's, the Goats, Criss Cross,
Speaker 9: a little unown group called Chris Cross. Uh, even jam
Speaker 9: oh Man Jamal Ski I used to play that John
Speaker 9: Don't do It started the Jamal ski started a slew
Speaker 9: of impostafarimators on their label. But even d M X
Speaker 9: not many people know that x is the first single
Speaker 9: was on rough House.
Speaker 3: Uh, I mean school.
Speaker 9: There's so many like uh, book coming out? Yes, when
Speaker 9: in the title of the book.
Speaker 5: Rough House from the streets affiliate to the top of
Speaker 5: the hippop.
Speaker 9: Yes, I didn't know what the practices is called Ladies
Speaker 9: don't give it. From the one and only Chris Wartz.
Speaker 8: Yes, thank you, thank you, thank you, thank you, thank you.
Speaker 3: Man full circle.
Speaker 9: Yes, yes, Worts, I mean last time I seen you man,
Speaker 9: you know we.
Speaker 8: Were I talk about this all the time. I remember, Oh,
Speaker 8: he's seeing you either at the airport or the trains.
Speaker 8: You were always on the move. And I remember I
Speaker 8: was telling Leyah, I was driving to thirty Street station
Speaker 8: with somebody from New York, and I said, I'll bet
Speaker 8: you right now, like twenty bucks that we're going to
Speaker 8: see a mirror.
Speaker 5: Right.
Speaker 8: So we got to the train station, you weren't there,
Speaker 8: and I forked over the twenty.
Speaker 5: But then when.
Speaker 8: We were leaving New York to come back, you were
Speaker 8: at the train station.
Speaker 5: See.
Speaker 9: I'm never well, See I'm the opposite of general. Never
Speaker 9: on time, but always there, never there. I have so
Speaker 9: many questions. I mean, I've known you for so long
Speaker 9: but never knew your true story? Right, but where were
Speaker 9: you born? Were you born in Philadelphia?
Speaker 5: In a hospital in Philadelphia? Technically? Yeah, I was worn
Speaker 5: at Jefferson Hospital.
Speaker 3: Okay, yeah, okay. What part of Philly did you grow
Speaker 3: up in?
Speaker 5: I grew up in I grew up out out in
Speaker 5: the farmlands.
Speaker 3: Okay, you say that with pride a lot of people. No, no, no,
Speaker 3: I'm not I'm not riky.
Speaker 9: I'm just saying that when people who are not in
Speaker 9: Philadelphia see me, they're like hey.
Speaker 5: I'm from Philly.
Speaker 3: I was like, oh we're we're part Evan. They get
Speaker 3: to seem like.
Speaker 8: No, no, no Salem or you know, come shocking. Yeah yeah, Devon,
Speaker 8: yeah Devon. Uh where I was, where I grew up.
Speaker 3: It was.
Speaker 8: Like farmland, and then my neighborhood was this little like uh,
Speaker 8: I guess it was like a World War two, you know,
Speaker 8: post World War two little development.
Speaker 5: And but you know, I.
Speaker 8: Left home at seventeen and uh joined the service and
Speaker 8: spent really yeah okay, which brings navy Okay, yeah wow,
Speaker 8: oh yeah, it's on the book.
Speaker 3: But never I'm that discipline cars.
Speaker 9: Yeah yeah, right, well that explains a lot.
Speaker 3: Uh what'd you I mean? Were you always uh sort
Speaker 3: of drawn to music or oh?
Speaker 5: Absolutely absolutely?
Speaker 8: I mean since uh, well I got I grew up
Speaker 8: in a family of ten kids. Wow, so uh at
Speaker 8: number seven? Okay, So I have four older brothers and
Speaker 8: two older sisters. So growing up, you know, you know,
Speaker 8: I'm I was born in nineteen sixty, so having old
Speaker 8: you see, it's the thing my family was set up.
Speaker 8: It was like two groups of kids. There was the
Speaker 8: older kids, right, and and then my parents had another
Speaker 8: five kids later on. So for instance, when I was
Speaker 8: I guess five or six, my oldest brother came home
Speaker 8: from he went to college and he started his first
Speaker 8: job and then he moved back from Ohio to our house.
Speaker 8: I didn't know who he was. I mean, yeah, literally, no,
Speaker 8: It's like one day, one day, I'm you know, my
Speaker 8: mother wake up and my mother's talking to this guy
Speaker 8: and you know, he's got like bushy blonde hair and
Speaker 8: a scraggly beard, and he's standing at the top of
Speaker 8: the stairs in his underwear talking to my mother. And
Speaker 8: my mother's talking to him like, you know, she's doing
Speaker 8: them all her life. And I'm like, I'm standing behinder
Speaker 8: like who, like who is this?
Speaker 6: You know?
Speaker 8: So but but but back to you know, so I
Speaker 8: grew up in a house like a lot of music
Speaker 8: from the sixties and the seventies, you know, was constantly
Speaker 8: playing from different rooms, and.
Speaker 5: So yeah, I.
Speaker 8: Was particularly you know, there was a lot there was
Speaker 8: two things going on. You had the definitive pop radio,
Speaker 8: which was AM radio, which was just pop hits, and
Speaker 8: then you had the progressive FM rock stage.
Speaker 3: So were you a wizard one hundred head?
Speaker 8: No, it was actually WFI l oh okay, Yeah, And
Speaker 8: then and then there you had WYSP and w WMMR
Speaker 8: WMMR for people from Philly. You probably don't know that
Speaker 8: it was actually one of the first underground FM rock
Speaker 8: stay in the country. Every Saturday at twelve o'clock at night,
Speaker 8: they play an entire album like new outline artists and you,
Speaker 8: and they would tell you how to set your dollby
Speaker 8: on your tape deck to record. It's really yeah, yeah,
Speaker 8: really yep, damn.
Speaker 3: I didn't realize that.
Speaker 9: So you you weren't You weren't part of the generation
Speaker 9: listenings up because I know that Wizard one hundred on
Speaker 9: the AM dial.
Speaker 5: Was kind of like that.
Speaker 8: Actually that actually may have been a little bit before
Speaker 8: my listening years.
Speaker 5: Okay, yeah, yeah.
Speaker 9: All right, No, I just you know, the house was
Speaker 9: always on my radio, like in the house, that radio
Speaker 9: was always on.
Speaker 3: House wasn't always on my radio. Radio was always on
Speaker 3: my house.
Speaker 9: Yeah, but usually on the weekends, uh, like Saturday and
Speaker 9: Sunday like Casey Casem's countdown we come on that station whatnot.
Speaker 9: But all right, so you straight up FM kid, Yeah,
Speaker 9: do you remember what the music environment was like in
Speaker 9: Philadelphia as far as the nightlife was concerned.
Speaker 3: Or anything, or did you have to go to New
Speaker 3: York too?
Speaker 8: Well, when I was, I mean it was like when
Speaker 8: I was, when I was like like a uh teenager,
Speaker 8: the music of Philadelphia was really more primarily known because
Speaker 8: of pir you know, it was really known as the
Speaker 8: you know, you had you had the you had Motown oheys.
Speaker 8: But Philly, Philly was known as is the place where
Speaker 8: you know, it played a big part of the disco era.
Speaker 8: You know, it did the tramps and everything like that. So, uh,
Speaker 8: but your coming of age was more.
Speaker 9: Post yeah, assuming twenty one, twenty two whatever.
Speaker 8: Like, yeah, well I would well I was, uh, I
Speaker 8: would have been twenty one in nineteen eighty eighty one
Speaker 8: eighty one, Yeah, yeah, nineteen eighty one.
Speaker 9: So what were the musical options after the initial primary
Speaker 9: disco duh?
Speaker 5: Well, oh so we're talking about that peak period.
Speaker 8: Yeah, yeah, nineteen eighty one it was it was uh,
Speaker 8: you know it you had Lady b Power ninety nine.
Speaker 5: Okay, yeah, that's so you were a head.
Speaker 8: Oh right, oh yeah, nineteen eighty one mostly yeah, Well,
Speaker 8: here's it was. It was two things. It was hip
Speaker 8: hop on one part of it, right, and then uh my.
Speaker 5: My sort of bass.
Speaker 8: Formative thing was I was really into electronic music.
Speaker 5: That was that was it? Like to me?
Speaker 8: Craft Work? Yeah, craft work, see because I had listen.
Speaker 8: I've been listening to craft Work since I was a kid.
Speaker 8: I mean I went to see I want to see
Speaker 8: them perform Audubon at the Valley Forge Music Fair because Audubon.
Speaker 5: Here's here's what a lot of people know.
Speaker 8: Wfi L used to play the entire album version of Audubon.
Speaker 8: The three longest songs in history of AM pop radio
Speaker 8: were Tubular Bells by Michaelfield, which was the because it
Speaker 8: was the theme for The Exorcist. Uh, and it Gotta
Speaker 8: Vita by Iron Butterfly, and then you had Audubon and
Speaker 8: they used to play it, you know, the entire thing
Speaker 8: on pop radio. So they they did a show at
Speaker 8: the Valley Forge Music Fair and I went there with
Speaker 8: my best friend.
Speaker 3: Yeah.
Speaker 5: No, no, no, no, no, that's the new value for it.
Speaker 5: That's the later on.
Speaker 8: Valley Forge Music Fair actually started as a tent really yeah,
Speaker 8: it was a big tent. It was like a seasonal thing.
Speaker 8: They'd have like you know, Fiddler on the Roof and
Speaker 8: stuff like that. And they had just built the first one.
Speaker 8: The first incarnation of it, right and uh yeah, and
Speaker 8: it was like I went there and was just two guys,
Speaker 8: you know, Ralph and Florian and like big stacks of
Speaker 8: keyboards and everything.
Speaker 5: Uh and it was it was. It was very cool.
Speaker 3: I was so futuristic. Yeah, they were the daft punk.
Speaker 8: Yeah, well it's it's funny if they they were, you
Speaker 8: know the way I kind of see it daft punk.
Speaker 5: Really yeah. If if there's been no craft.
Speaker 9: Works, I'm not sure craft work, yes, yeah, I see
Speaker 9: what you mean.
Speaker 3: Wait, is the Valley Ford's Music Fair still around today?
Speaker 5: I don't think so.
Speaker 8: I think there's a there's either a Red Lobster or
Speaker 8: damn something. Yeah, like Criss Cross show there, yea with
Speaker 8: Doctor Dre and Ed really yeah, it.
Speaker 5: Was, it was yeah.
Speaker 9: So yeah they closed in ninety six, really damn. Yes,
Speaker 9: there's always my dream to to play there, like my
Speaker 9: dad played there once. But like they would have a
Speaker 9: rotating stage in the round thing and yeah, one could
Speaker 9: get dizzy or lose their since. So yeah, depending on
Speaker 9: how many degrees the how fast the stage was turning.
Speaker 8: When I was thirteen, I worked at a banquet house
Speaker 8: down the street, washing dishes and all the whoever was
Speaker 8: playing at the Value Forge Music Fair used to come
Speaker 8: to stop. Yeah, they go there to eat and I
Speaker 8: met a lot of people like Mac Davis.
Speaker 3: Oh, Dann.
Speaker 5: I changed a flat tire for zero Mastell's limo.
Speaker 8: Really yeah, damn, gave me ride home, gave me fifty bucks.
Speaker 3: Wow, fix a limo and get a lift.
Speaker 9: Do you remember the club Cahoots There was like a Sheridan,
Speaker 9: a circular Sheridan hotel like in the area.
Speaker 8: Uh yeah, in Value Yeah. I never had reason to
Speaker 8: frequent the club. Yeah, but I know they had that.
Speaker 8: That's the place that had the themed hotel rooms.
Speaker 9: Yeah, top yeah, yeah, yeah, I'm going down Philly memory Lane.
Speaker 3: You know, I'm sorry.
Speaker 5: I always wanted to go.
Speaker 3: Yeah.
Speaker 9: So for you like listening to Lady B, Well, Lady
Speaker 9: B started off on w H A t Mary Do
Speaker 9: you remember Mary Mason?
Speaker 6: Yeah?
Speaker 5: Yeah, Mary Ma, she was still on h she was
Speaker 5: still Yeah.
Speaker 9: So, like they had a Saturday hip hop show, one
Speaker 9: of the very first ones that Philadelphia had.
Speaker 3: So I know that Lady B started.
Speaker 9: At H at like nineteen eighty till, which is weird
Speaker 9: considering that hip hop, you know, two years in having
Speaker 9: a two hour format you know, you only had like
Speaker 9: thirty records to choose from. Uh, so you had to
Speaker 9: play all those sixteen minute songs.
Speaker 8: And then they took her over the station that was
Speaker 8: the there was the uh I think it was w
Speaker 8: io Q right. Then they became uh, it was Yesterday's
Speaker 8: now Music Today.
Speaker 5: It was like new wave.
Speaker 8: Then I think they moved her there and they build
Speaker 8: up the ratings like they she was there, like it
Speaker 8: could have been you know, I might have my facts wrong,
Speaker 8: but I believe it. They would play it was all
Speaker 8: hip hop. It was massive. They sponsored shows at the
Speaker 8: after midnight and then they sold it. Oh really, And
Speaker 8: I think she went to Paradise.
Speaker 9: Yeh kicking out Once she came to parat nine eighty four,
Speaker 9: briefly had an afternoon Sunday show from like twelve in
Speaker 9: the afternoon till uh maybe five pm on Sunday afternoon.
Speaker 9: And I mean there she would play hip hop and
Speaker 9: uh the electronica of the day, so sort of like
Speaker 9: Nucleus and uh gem on, yeah.
Speaker 5: That sort of you know, anything that sounds like planet rock.
Speaker 9: And then she went away and then yeah, and then
Speaker 9: returned in nineteen eighty seven.
Speaker 8: Did you start out as management. First, Like, what was
Speaker 8: your first job in the industream I played? I played
Speaker 8: in bands, okay, and who did you play with? I? Well,
Speaker 8: my first my first thing when I when I when
Speaker 8: I joined when I joined the Navy, I played in
Speaker 8: I started a band with.
Speaker 5: A bunch of other sailors and we did a bunch
Speaker 5: of gigs.
Speaker 8: And when I came home, I regrouped with my best
Speaker 8: childhood friend, Jeff Coulter.
Speaker 5: He was a drummer.
Speaker 8: So when I was in the service, he started really
Speaker 8: getting into you know, because of craft work. He started
Speaker 8: getting into these other I mean craft work is kind
Speaker 8: of like at the at the apex of this whole
Speaker 8: like community, like of all these German groups like Klau Schultze, Tangerine.
Speaker 5: Dream, NOI, uh everything.
Speaker 8: And so when I came home, he had like literally
Speaker 8: over a thousand records of this stuff. And we get
Speaker 8: him at either Plastic Fantastic and Ardmore or the basement
Speaker 8: of basement of Third Street Jazz. You mentioned Plastic Fantastic,
Speaker 8: one of the greatest record stores ever.
Speaker 9: Right down the street from when I sold insurance on
Speaker 9: Lancaster Avenue.
Speaker 3: Yeah, yeah, I would take my entire sector.
Speaker 5: Yeah.
Speaker 8: Well, and here's the thing the the the basement of
Speaker 8: Third Street Jazz. That's all that was. And you would,
Speaker 8: you know, like a cloud Schultz import was like one
Speaker 8: hundred and twenty bucks, but you bought it because this
Speaker 8: was like, you know, Kloud's doing a like two sides
Speaker 8: of a duet with some famous cellis and Klouds is
Speaker 8: playing with the Gens computer and.
Speaker 5: You know, it's just very cool stuff.
Speaker 8: So so I had a set of Degan electro Vibes.
Speaker 8: It's a portable vibe set of vibraphones that you like
Speaker 8: a suitcase and the stands. So I bought all my equipment,
Speaker 8: had it shipped back, and him and I joined up
Speaker 8: and we started this group called Tangent and we were,
Speaker 8: you know, just devotees to electronic music. So you were, oh,
Speaker 8: well yeah with w XPN. So w XPN had two
Speaker 8: radio shows. One was called Diaspar and the other what's
Speaker 8: called stars End. They played and supported electronic music. We
Speaker 8: did shows. So we did a tape for them and
Speaker 8: uh I remember we drove down to their station on
Speaker 8: Spruce Street and jumped out of the car, double parked,
Speaker 8: ran in, knocked on the door. Some guy, you know,
Speaker 8: the buzzer opens the door, takes the tape, and like
Speaker 8: three nights later we're you know, every night, that's all
Speaker 8: we did was jam and record. And we stopped to
Speaker 8: listen to two Stars end and John de Liberto comes
Speaker 8: on and says, yeah, we got a new tape from
Speaker 8: a group from Philadelphia called Tangent Chris Schwartz and Jeff Culter,
Speaker 8: and we're hearing the stuff.
Speaker 5: Now.
Speaker 8: I've been at you know, I've been at the Navy
Speaker 8: now three months and I'm already you know. So they
Speaker 8: this week we went and played their picnic there that
Speaker 8: they had, and then we were we did a show
Speaker 8: at the East Side Club where we did Audubon. We
Speaker 8: played the whole version of Audubon there and uh met
Speaker 8: this this girl who was a filmmaker, and she introduced
Speaker 8: me to these guys had a band called Rhythm of Lines.
Speaker 8: Uh at this in this period in Philadelphia. Philadelphia had
Speaker 8: this really amazing live music scene for for bands, and
Speaker 8: there was you know, is when you go down the
Speaker 8: South Street or and you'd see these bills on on
Speaker 8: telephone poles and there'd be like shows every night. You
Speaker 8: could go out, you could go out and see any
Speaker 8: number of uh, the Stickman, the Vells, Pretty Poison, Yeah,
Speaker 8: Pretty Poison. So yeah, so so we joined. Jeff and
Speaker 8: I joined this bigger band called Rhythm of Lines, and
Speaker 8: it was more like a New Order Talking Heads type thing.
Speaker 5: And we we we.
Speaker 8: Did a bunch of shows opened up for Pretty Poison,
Speaker 8: the Vells, shows of the Stickman. We did shows at Blondies,
Speaker 8: Emerald Cities, Bigelow's, Phillies and the East Side Club and
Speaker 8: h But I wanted to get a record deal.
Speaker 5: That was my big thing. I wanted to, you know,
Speaker 5: get a record deal.
Speaker 8: And you know, the guys, the the other guys in
Speaker 8: the in the in the band, they weren't I don't
Speaker 8: know they they just had their priorities were in peculiar places,
Speaker 8: I'll know. So, uh, Jeff and I left. We uh
Speaker 8: we ended up moving to a house in West Philly.
Speaker 8: Uh that a friend of mine, Rich Murray, who was
Speaker 8: a Temple film grad. Yeah yeah, Rich, and so we
Speaker 8: all we moved in together. We uh we put a
Speaker 8: student we created put our studio.
Speaker 5: In one of the rooms.
Speaker 8: And so Jeff and I were now doing more traditional
Speaker 8: dance music and met this girl, Robin Carter, who was
Speaker 8: her they called her astro girl because she had this, uh,
Speaker 8: this total affinity for anything related to NASA and space travel.
Speaker 8: She actually went on to get her degree in astrophysics
Speaker 8: and she does work for NASA as we speak, really crazy.
Speaker 8: But she was a saxophone player. Her her her landlord
Speaker 8: was Jack right from Spring Guarden Music.
Speaker 5: So she you're naming.
Speaker 9: All these like Philly legends of record store owners and yeah,
Speaker 9: shout out to Michael mcquochan, also from Third Street Jazz.
Speaker 3: Yeah, you give me all the good ship.
Speaker 8: So we we uh, she she joined up with us.
Speaker 5: We came up with that. We called ourselves the Ultronics, right.
Speaker 8: And we we started doing gigs and she got us
Speaker 8: a gig at to get Llery Mall.
Speaker 5: It was a little different, you know.
Speaker 8: So you know, we're doing our thing and people are
Speaker 8: kind of coming there, standing there carrying their shopping bags.
Speaker 5: They're looking at us for about three or four minutes
Speaker 5: and walking away.
Speaker 8: But there was a group of kids who were like
Speaker 8: watching us intently the whole time, and they're like talking
Speaker 8: amongst themselves, right, and they're just like so when we're done,
Speaker 8: they kind of like they they they walk over and
Speaker 8: this kid introduces himself, his name is Clinton Shirley and
Speaker 8: his stage name was Kid Fresh and he and he said,
Speaker 8: you know, we're hip hop group and we'd like to
Speaker 8: know could you guys.
Speaker 5: Help us do some beats.
Speaker 8: So we bought them over to our house and like
Speaker 8: the next week and we did a bunch of tracks
Speaker 8: on the second floor and made this tape.
Speaker 5: And so.
Speaker 8: You know, by this time, we had amassed a bunch
Speaker 8: of twelve inch dance records. So I started looking through
Speaker 8: these records because I remembered there was a record label
Speaker 8: in Philadelphia and it was Virtue Virtue Records, and I
Speaker 8: got the phone number. Now I got to go back
Speaker 8: a little bit because Rich being you know, as a filmmaker,
Speaker 8: he was doing these videos for Philly World Records and
Speaker 8: he got me the gig as being.
Speaker 5: The caterer during these video shoots.
Speaker 8: Right, So I had met Donald Robinson and Donald came
Speaker 8: over to our house. I tried to get him to
Speaker 8: produce us, and he said, yeah, I get what you're doing,
Speaker 8: but your song suck.
Speaker 5: And I was like, all right, I get it.
Speaker 8: But but the thing is, it's that when I called
Speaker 8: the number on Virtue Recording, I I kind of took
Speaker 8: the liberty of bolstering the narrative and telling Frank Virtue
Speaker 8: that I was I was working with Donald Robinson. And
Speaker 8: that got Frank's attention and he said, come on up.
Speaker 8: So I went up to Frank and I played him
Speaker 8: this uh this stuff.
Speaker 5: He listened to it.
Speaker 8: Now, Frank had been working as a partnership with the
Speaker 8: guy named Vince de Rosa, who owned a company called
Speaker 8: Soundmakers in Jersey and for folks who might not know
Speaker 8: or maybe be interested, sound Makers in the eighties pressed
Speaker 8: up all the records for Next Plateau, Sleeping Bag, Tommy Boy,
Speaker 8: even Death Jam, Yeah, all the indie labels.
Speaker 5: So they were the disc makers of yeah oh yeah,
Speaker 5: oh wait.
Speaker 9: We should also know that Donald Robinson didn't he write
Speaker 9: Dreaming for Vanessa Williams?
Speaker 8: Yeah, yeah, yeah, Donald, Donald did lots of Uyah, Eugene Wilde,
Speaker 8: you know, to get you home to you know what
Speaker 8: I got to tell you, Well, that song, you know,
Speaker 8: that song was a was a was really just doing
Speaker 8: sexual healing right coming whole vibe.
Speaker 5: But it was still a great song, you know.
Speaker 8: Uh So yeah, well that's where I met Donald because
Speaker 8: I was a caterer on Rich was doing the video. Yeah,
Speaker 8: so so Frank Frank Virtue and for people to know
Speaker 8: he was a music industry old timer.
Speaker 5: He uh.
Speaker 8: He played in the Philadelphia Orchestra as a teenager. He
Speaker 8: was a prodigy violinist and he led he he he.
Speaker 8: They drafted him to the Navy to lead a big
Speaker 8: band dance band in the Navy. He got out and
Speaker 8: he had a group called the Virtues and the Virtue
Speaker 8: with the Virtues and the Virtuoso's, he had a couple
Speaker 8: hit songs. He had Guitar Shuffle Boogie, the Horse, the
Speaker 8: Return of the Horse. He toured with like Patty Page
Speaker 8: and somebody sent me something on Facebook the other day.
Speaker 8: He actually did shows with the Three Stooges. It's a
Speaker 8: warm a back row three Stooges. Yeah really yeah so
Speaker 8: so so we Frank and Vince formed this record company
Speaker 8: called Slice Records, and Clinton Shirley was one of their
Speaker 8: kid fresh was their first artists. So we we did
Speaker 8: these records up at Frank's and it was a pretty
Speaker 8: pathetic affair in terms of a label. The pressing plan
Speaker 8: hired this guy in a pickup truck to drive Clinton
Speaker 8: and his hype guy around.
Speaker 5: To the to the to the to the venues and everything,
Speaker 5: and nothing ever came of it. Uh. But Clinton later
Speaker 5: on uh changed his name to Mike Elliott. Oh yeah,
Speaker 5: I knew that I was lean up. Yeah. Yeah, Mike
Speaker 5: Elliott the Source. But you know, but here's the thing.
Speaker 8: He he He actually co wrote the What's the Kid
Speaker 8: the Sneaker the movie?
Speaker 9: No, Mike Kelly did the Source Awards. Well yeah, hang on,
Speaker 9: I gotta look. Yeah, Mike Elliot is one of the
Speaker 9: original uh source guy.
Speaker 5: Yeah. Yeah, I didn't wait, I didn't realize.
Speaker 9: I forgot. He also had his own video show. He
Speaker 9: had his own video show in Philadelphia. It's killing me now.
Speaker 9: He went in the movies. Uh, Mike Elliott developed the
Speaker 9: Carmen movie Most and most us birthing sometimes in this
Speaker 9: in this very room that we're in.
Speaker 3: Uh. But yeah, Mike Elliott is a fully legend.
Speaker 5: Yeah.
Speaker 3: He did the script Brown Sugar, I believe, so I
Speaker 3: know that he got into filmmaking heavy.
Speaker 8: Yeah he No, he did the something like Mike the
Speaker 8: about the kid in the orphanage.
Speaker 3: Yeah, like Mike, like Mike.
Speaker 5: No, something like Mike. Brown Sugar was his first. Uh No,
Speaker 5: but this here's the thing.
Speaker 8: Rich Murray and I were out in La this years
Speaker 8: later and we're we're at some some film company, some studio,
Speaker 8: and the guy were sitting there and somehow we hear
Speaker 8: Mike Elliott's names, like Mike Elliott, I know, Mike, Mike Elliott,
Speaker 8: and and he said, uh, oh yeah, you know he's
Speaker 8: a hot property right now because he did this the movie.
Speaker 8: It's about a kid in an orphanage and something to
Speaker 8: do with a pair of sneakers, like and Michael.
Speaker 5: George like Mike like Mike.
Speaker 3: Yeah yeah he did like Mike with bo.
Speaker 5: Yeah.
Speaker 8: So I'm sorry, so so so so I So then
Speaker 8: then the thing is the trade off was Frank would
Speaker 8: let me use the studio to develop acts.
Speaker 5: I had to help him. Frank had a gospel.
Speaker 8: Business, and what it would be is that, you know
Speaker 8: a lot of the bigger churches would record their gospel choirs.
Speaker 8: They press up the records and sell them to the
Speaker 8: congregation to raise money.
Speaker 5: And so that was a big business of Frank's.
Speaker 8: Frank actually, interestingly enough, had a a very you know,
Speaker 8: back before Sigma Sound and these companies, everybody went to
Speaker 8: Virtue to record. Kenny, Kenny and Leon did a lot
Speaker 8: of their early stuff up there and Frank, you know,
Speaker 8: I don't know if some many listeners don't know about
Speaker 8: the mastering process, but after record has made and mixed,
Speaker 8: it has to be mastered. And what mastering.
Speaker 5: Is is that you you.
Speaker 8: It's a process for making sure that the record that
Speaker 8: you made in the studio is reproduced everywhere else with
Speaker 8: the intended audio equalization. So the record has to get
Speaker 8: mastered for manufacturing. So it's a it's a whole other
Speaker 8: kind of mixing process. And uh, Frank had been doing
Speaker 8: it for years. He held patents on the mastering pro
Speaker 8: he met. He mastered the first couple of Beatles singles
Speaker 8: for Swan and Decca Records. So I did this whole
Speaker 8: thing with Frank for a while and it just kind of,
Speaker 8: you know, came came to nothing. And now like I'm
Speaker 8: working in Downies as a cook and living in West Philly,
Speaker 8: and I saw an ad in newspaper for record company
Speaker 8: looking for help, and I'm like, okay, it's you know something.
Speaker 8: And I called this guy up and he tells me
Speaker 8: he has a company called Nicetown Records in West Philly
Speaker 8: and his name was Ted Wing and one of his.
Speaker 3: Records was.
Speaker 5: Live and greater for.
Speaker 8: So yeah so Ted, Ted was formerly a prison guard,
Speaker 8: right and Ted helped actually helped Lawrence and Dana start
Speaker 8: pop art so so so so yeah, so you know
Speaker 8: cut the Rich and I you know, also did a
Speaker 8: video for pop art. We did the Rock Sands Rock
Speaker 8: Sands Revenge.
Speaker 3: Yeah yeah.
Speaker 5: We shot it at our house. As a matter of fact,
Speaker 5: yeah ye.
Speaker 3: Record.
Speaker 5: Yeah, I'll tell you this.
Speaker 8: I we shot at our house and it had everybody
Speaker 8: was involved in the actual story about how she got
Speaker 8: a record deal and got.
Speaker 5: Signed was in it. The shooting went till three in
Speaker 5: the morning.
Speaker 8: And I'll never forget coming downstairs in my in my
Speaker 8: living room. Uh, Marley Marr and mister Magic are in
Speaker 8: my living room on the couch under blankets, eating cereal
Speaker 8: and watching cartoons.
Speaker 3: Wait, can you take us a slight sidebar?
Speaker 9: And because whenever I get someone that tells a pop
Speaker 9: art story, usually.
Speaker 3: It's you know, told like and then I met Lawrence coopin.
Speaker 5: No, Dana was the dangerous one.
Speaker 3: Okay, well this is what I want to know.
Speaker 9: Obviously they had the makings to be a contender, yes,
Speaker 9: because they were deaf jam before death cham.
Speaker 5: Yeah, they had salt and Pepper. They had all of
Speaker 5: the for them.
Speaker 8: I'd never tried to get a deal with a major label, right,
Speaker 8: So how did they drop in the most diplomatic way
Speaker 8: you can say, or if you don't give a fuck,
Speaker 8: tells the truth, how do they drop the ball on
Speaker 8: pop art? They had something they had, I'll tell you
Speaker 8: what they had, man. They they they they they cracked
Speaker 8: the code right long before a lot of people.
Speaker 5: And here's what they realized hip hop.
Speaker 8: Music, right, yeah, you know it was a It was
Speaker 8: the purview of the indie labels because for the first
Speaker 8: time since the whole disco era, you could.
Speaker 5: Now be an independent label.
Speaker 8: You could make a record, you could get it out there,
Speaker 8: and because you're using you're facilitating uh, lifestyle marketing initiatives.
Speaker 5: And every stuff that doesn't cost a lot of money, but.
Speaker 8: Yet you have a product they can go out and
Speaker 8: sell big numbers.
Speaker 3: Right.
Speaker 8: And the it was kind of like, uh, you know,
Speaker 8: the majors were seeing this, you know, and they were
Speaker 8: they were coveting this whole thing. And the majors basically,
Speaker 8: and I know no other way to say it, man,
Speaker 8: but they colonized.
Speaker 5: The hip hop industry.
Speaker 8: I'm not talk about hip hop music. But the hip
Speaker 8: hop business they colonized. They colonized it. Yeah, and so
Speaker 8: so Lawrence and Dana figured it out earlier on before
Speaker 8: a lot of people because these companies like Next Plateau
Speaker 8: and Sleeping Bag and everything all went by the wayside
Speaker 8: because they all chose to remain fiercely independent. And I
Speaker 8: get that, but when the popularity of a music becomes
Speaker 8: so big, you know, you're not going to be able
Speaker 8: to deliver the manufacturing and distribution. So they figured it
Speaker 8: out that you had to get with a major. And
Speaker 8: so that's when they did the deal with Jive, right,
Speaker 8: And I watched that and I said to Joe, I said,
Speaker 8: that's that's where we need to be. That's that's what
Speaker 8: we need to do.
Speaker 9: So but they had such a hefty roster, lost them all.
Speaker 9: They had Jazzy Jeff Prince, they had Salt and Pepper,
Speaker 9: they had bizz.
Speaker 5: Ye, John tay Uh, the hill Top Hustlers.
Speaker 3: Stead they had them all and lost them all. Like
Speaker 3: were they just.
Speaker 5: Businessmen?
Speaker 3: Yeah?
Speaker 8: I think it's you know, the the for for what
Speaker 8: it's worth there this business. You know, let's face it,
Speaker 8: there there is no no prerequisite to get in the
Speaker 8: record business.
Speaker 3: You don't you don't need.
Speaker 5: A college degree, you don't need a resume, you don't
Speaker 5: need nothing. And as a result of that, and because.
Speaker 8: Of the the proliferation of all these visuals showing showing
Speaker 8: wealth and showing you know, status and everything like that,
Speaker 8: it attracts a lot of people, a lot of people
Speaker 8: who who feel like, oh, this is a business I
Speaker 8: could walk.
Speaker 5: In and become a millionaire overnight.
Speaker 3: Right.
Speaker 8: And they had they I always say, there were great
Speaker 8: an r guys, and they had the musical chops, but
Speaker 8: I think they they just lacked a lot.
Speaker 5: In the on the side.
Speaker 3: Of a business.
Speaker 5: Yeah, and just.
Speaker 3: Wow, man, I don't know, I want to do with
Speaker 3: bulletproof still around, I'm like they are.
Speaker 5: Because I still followed.
Speaker 9: Uh well, you know the youngster guys or they're ulsters
Speaker 9: now one of them is still working with Like, I
Speaker 9: don't know.
Speaker 5: How are you talking about the kids?
Speaker 3: Yeah, like one of them in her staff.
Speaker 5: But I'll tell you this. I'll tell you this.
Speaker 8: Lawrence and Dana were very they have very definitive ideas,
Speaker 8: you know what I mean.
Speaker 5: And that's what that's to me.
Speaker 8: It's like, you know, they they again they cracked the
Speaker 8: code they figured it out, because I'll tell you when
Speaker 8: they did the deal with Jive, and I'll never forget
Speaker 8: they came in the studio with their with their jackets
Speaker 8: at r c A and the hats and everything, and
Speaker 8: I'm like, I was kind of like, at first.
Speaker 5: I was like, oh man, they they sold out. They
Speaker 5: went with Jive and everything, you know.
Speaker 8: And then and then but then to hear him talk
Speaker 8: about it, it was like it was like the the
Speaker 8: you know, it's like, well, that's if you're unless it's network.
Speaker 5: Now, if you're not a major, you're gonna is what.
Speaker 3: You're gonna think. Yeah, okay, So all.
Speaker 8: Right, so we're at the Bill Cosby record, right right.
Speaker 8: So so Ted was a prison guard at great effort,
Speaker 8: and he was the director of the Prisoner's Activities Fund.
Speaker 8: And so I think Bill Cosby, I think the story
Speaker 8: was to get his PhD or is his thesis. I mean,
Speaker 8: for whatever you can say about the man, he he
Speaker 8: you know, this is the guy who who was shooting
Speaker 8: I spy right in the sixties and then flying to
Speaker 8: do casinos to do shows and getting his uh he
Speaker 8: constantly he continues his education all throughout the whole thing
Speaker 8: by doing these projects. So he told the prison you
Speaker 8: can have whatever how you want to exploit this state up.
Speaker 8: You can have it as long as the money benefits
Speaker 8: the prisoners activities fund. So so Ted ends up with
Speaker 8: this record and you know, he doesn't have any real
Speaker 8: artwork or anything.
Speaker 5: It's uh, he had some rendering done.
Speaker 3: It was just really headed boys.
Speaker 8: Yeah, so so he he. I walk from forty eighth
Speaker 8: in hazel to fifty second in Parkside looking for the
Speaker 8: address of this record company.
Speaker 3: My house.
Speaker 8: Yeah, so there's this daycare center right. Ted's mother answers
Speaker 8: the door. She's like very uninviting. She makes me wait
Speaker 8: for Ted. I have to sit in this chair that's
Speaker 8: like a foot high for little kids. And I'm sitting
Speaker 8: there for twenty minutes, like thinking this might not be
Speaker 8: the dream job I was thinking it is. Ted shows up,
Speaker 8: takes me up to the third floor of this building
Speaker 8: in a room with like crumbling plaster. The windows are
Speaker 8: nailed shut, and there's a desk and a chair and
Speaker 8: a phone, and he shows me the billboard charts and
Speaker 8: how to call these retailers and get the record charted.
Speaker 8: And he paid me, you know, a couple hundred bucks
Speaker 8: a week, and so I was working the Bill Cosby
Speaker 8: record and at the time Bill Cosby from The Cosby
Speaker 8: Show had done a jazz compilation, right, so there were
Speaker 8: two Bill Cosby's records out, and I definitely took advantage
Speaker 8: of the confusions.
Speaker 5: Yeah, I did. And I was calling retailers and and
Speaker 5: doing that. And so so.
Speaker 8: We had a session. Ted signed a bunch of artists.
Speaker 8: I can't even remember their names, except for Bunny Siglar.
Speaker 8: We did a Bunny Siga record that was pretty cool.
Speaker 8: But we we had a session booked at studio for
Speaker 8: one night and I'd only been to studio for once
Speaker 8: because I was involved in the WDAS Black History Month
Speaker 8: rap compilation that with Eddie d and everything. And so
Speaker 8: we go to the session and studio for and our
Speaker 8: engineers Joe Nicholo, and I'd never met Joe, you know,
Speaker 8: and we're in the session.
Speaker 5: We're starting now.
Speaker 8: Ted was a pretty boisterous guy in that he was
Speaker 8: always bragging him out.
Speaker 5: Yeah, I got this deal going on with MCA and.
Speaker 8: Doing this and doing that and everything, and he's doing
Speaker 8: this in the studio and and I guess at one
Speaker 8: point I kind of rolled my eyes, like out of
Speaker 8: you know, and Joe caught it right right. So when
Speaker 8: Ted walks out of the studio, Joe's like, how did
Speaker 8: you end up working for this guy?
Speaker 5: And he said, well, you know, it's not my dream job,
Speaker 5: but you know, I want to start a record label.
Speaker 5: And Joe goes like, yeah, well so do I.
Speaker 8: You know, so here's my number. You know we should
Speaker 8: get up at some point. Nice So that happened, right.
Speaker 8: So back at nice Town Records in West Philly, I
Speaker 8: was in Ted's all office talking about something and I
Speaker 8: see these these records, the yellow labels, and I pick
Speaker 8: it up and the song is called Gangster Boogie by
Speaker 8: Schoolide and it was on a record label called A
Speaker 8: Place to Be Records.
Speaker 5: Now, I had known.
Speaker 8: About Schoolie for a long time, right, and I know
Speaker 8: that you know you remember Bobby Dance and the wind
Speaker 8: Ball Oh yeah, okay, so fruit of Ism, security and
Speaker 8: all that good stuff. Uh. I knew about his whole thing,
Speaker 8: right yeah. And so I said to Ted, I said, so, what, like,
Speaker 8: what's going on with these? He goes, oh, yeah, school
Speaker 8: He came to me and he wanted, you know, me
Speaker 8: to do this and that for him. I told him
Speaker 8: I wasn't interested, and I'm like, what, like, let's playlet
Speaker 8: Bill Cosby record and Schoolly D comes in, You're not interested?
Speaker 8: So I filched school number out of Ted's Rolodex and
Speaker 8: I call him up and I said, look, you know,
Speaker 8: my name is Chris Schwartz, and uh, I think I
Speaker 8: can help you. And you know, I know distribution and everything.
Speaker 8: I think you should start your own label and all
Speaker 8: this stuff.
Speaker 5: And he goes, yeah, that sounds good man.
Speaker 3: You know.
Speaker 5: Come on, and where do you live?
Speaker 8: And he lives like like a couple of blocks bubb
Speaker 8: the daycare center. So we set up a.
Speaker 5: Time and I'll never forget this man. I go to
Speaker 5: his house. I step up on the porch. I knock
Speaker 5: on the door. He answers the door, and he's wearing
Speaker 5: a towel and he sees me on his porch. He
Speaker 5: sees me on his porch and then he kind of
Speaker 5: looks around to see who's seeing me.
Speaker 8: On his porch, right, you know, and he goes, yeah, man,
Speaker 8: I'm taking a shower and he shuts the door and
Speaker 8: I'm standing there like like, you.
Speaker 5: Know what what just happened?
Speaker 3: Right?
Speaker 8: So I call him up later on he goes, oh,
Speaker 8: you need to talk to my lawyer, Warren Hamilton. And
Speaker 8: before I could ask for Warren's number, he hangs up
Speaker 8: and I look up Warren. I met with Warren. Eventually
Speaker 8: we met all of us, three of us together. I said, look,
Speaker 8: I'm gonna, I'm gonna we're gonna shoot some videos. Uh,
Speaker 8: We're gonna do this whole thing. I'm gonna get your record,
Speaker 8: you know, distributed. Uh, and I'm gonna sit up distribution
Speaker 8: and uh. And that's how I started working with him.
Speaker 9: And so at the this is at the beginning of PSK. Yeah, yeah,
Speaker 9: so how did you he recorded?
Speaker 8: He just recorded PSK and Gucci Time, but he had
Speaker 8: not done the album yet, Okay, And we recorded the
Speaker 8: album this is a crazy thing. We recorded in Center
Speaker 8: City at a little eight trax studio that recorded the
Speaker 8: Philadelphia Orchestra and there.
Speaker 5: Was no no.
Speaker 8: No really equipment, and so we they had one of
Speaker 8: the old big plate reverbs, right like you know.
Speaker 5: What I'm talking about. Yeah, and it was just uh.
Speaker 9: We should also shout out, all right, spawn, what's Jeff's
Speaker 9: true last name?
Speaker 3: Because I keep on saying.
Speaker 8: Jeff Cheese state, No, Jeff Chestick, Jeff, yes, Jeff Why
Speaker 8: Are you ready?
Speaker 5: Are you ready about you want to hear Jeff Chesstick
Speaker 5: trivia fact?
Speaker 3: Yes?
Speaker 5: Hit me. Him and I went to junior high together. Really,
Speaker 5: I know that I knew Jeff Chestick since nineteen seventy two,
Speaker 5: seventy three.
Speaker 3: Jeff.
Speaker 9: Yeah, when Jeff used to mix here, I forgot what
Speaker 9: project I was working on, but he told me the
Speaker 9: very first story of and he never gave the title.
Speaker 3: Yeah, it was so you know, it's like I want
Speaker 3: more reverb, more reverb.
Speaker 9: And when he did this, I was like, yeah, this
Speaker 9: is just like in PSK.
Speaker 3: He's like, well, yeah, mixed that.
Speaker 5: And I know you're probably like what, You're like, what? Yeah?
Speaker 5: Can I tell you?
Speaker 8: Jeff Jessick we were in a V A V club together, right,
Speaker 8: and we did these av projects, right, And this is
Speaker 8: in seventh grade. He did this thing where, you know,
Speaker 8: because you have audio, you have video equipment, and he
Speaker 8: did this thing where it was an elevator going up
Speaker 8: in a store and opening up in the different.
Speaker 5: Departments and everything. It was really it was clever.
Speaker 8: You know, in the seventh grade, I thought the guy
Speaker 8: had real talent, you know, chops so so so basically
Speaker 8: we're now doing stuff and I was going through it
Speaker 8: was a lot of schooly up till then, have been
Speaker 8: doing primarily West Philly, North Philly hip hop shows and everything.
Speaker 8: And I started sending out his record to like remember
Speaker 8: Metro record well, Martin keone, Yes, I do. Next thing,
Speaker 8: you know, I'm getting phone calls like these clubs, white
Speaker 8: clubs right, loving schooly d right, And I'm sending out
Speaker 8: the record to like all these record all these one
Speaker 8: stops and independent distributors.
Speaker 5: And like City Hall.
Speaker 8: Records in San Francisco, West Coast Record Distributors, Schwartz Brothers
Speaker 8: Done in Baltimore, Maryland, Encore Distributors Up and Up in Brooklyn.
Speaker 8: And the thing about in the independent record distribution business
Speaker 8: at the time is that it's very hard to get paid.
Speaker 8: And the reason they're very difficult in paying you is
Speaker 8: because if you're a new independent label and you have
Speaker 8: a record that goes out there and sells, that's all
Speaker 8: fine and well, but what they don't want to do
Speaker 8: is pay you. And then when they get hit turns,
Speaker 8: they go to call up and your phone's disconnected, so
Speaker 8: you have to you have to have like and I
Speaker 8: used to go up. I remember driving up to Encore
Speaker 8: distributors in the.
Speaker 5: Car and the car.
Speaker 8: I'd have a car stacked with records in the back
Speaker 8: and in the trunk, and I'd sleep in the parking
Speaker 8: lot overnight, you know, wait for these guys to get it,
Speaker 8: get it, to get a check, and to give them
Speaker 8: the records. So at one point I got I set
Speaker 8: it up to where I was sending out the singles
Speaker 8: and they're paying half cod. So the pressing plant and
Speaker 8: I had a whole thing set up. And then uh,
Speaker 8: these kids would call in different areas and so because
Speaker 8: we had no radio airplay, so I started getting these
Speaker 8: kids to take the records to like barbershops, pool halls, retailers.
Speaker 5: Because it was just like on a Saturday, where do
Speaker 5: you go to find new music? You go to the
Speaker 5: record store, beat the market store.
Speaker 8: Yeah, so there is a whole thing where you could
Speaker 8: release a twelve inch right on a Friday.
Speaker 5: You you give it.
Speaker 8: To the clubs, you give it to the mix show.
Speaker 8: Saturdays you get to guys playing in the store. And
Speaker 8: Saturdays there again it's in the mix show and in
Speaker 8: the clubs. By Monday, you knew.
Speaker 5: If you had something right. It was that fast.
Speaker 8: That was the excitement of putting out putting out records.
Speaker 3: So they're calling you saying like I need five more.
Speaker 5: Yeah and so and so.
Speaker 8: Uh we we ran into a little schism with the
Speaker 8: sound makers because I was at Downtown Records and up
Speaker 8: in New York City one day and I saw that
Speaker 8: they had our PSK Gucci Time record and it's our label.
Speaker 8: Everything's the same except it says distribute through Warlock Records.
Speaker 5: And I thought, wow, this is the search. Yeah, Warlock Records.
Speaker 8: That's that's that's you know, Roulette, Morris Levy and Son
Speaker 8: Adam Lee or so. So I didn't call Warlock, but
Speaker 8: I'll never forget this man. I went to the counter
Speaker 8: and there was this guy who's like literally right out
Speaker 8: of Central Casting for for you know, big guys.
Speaker 5: Yeah Agad. I was about to say, were you your
Speaker 5: own collector?
Speaker 8: Big thick glasses and a cigar, you know, And he's
Speaker 8: sitting behind the count and he goes, yeah, at least
Speaker 8: Warlock can get the records pressed.
Speaker 5: Up and delivered when we need them, right, So what
Speaker 5: you mean collector?
Speaker 9: Like like you were your own distributed like you Yeah?
Speaker 5: I did. Yeah I was back in those days though,
Speaker 5: didn't you need some muscle. Oh no, no, no, no, no.
Speaker 8: The thing is took In terms of collecting, we had
Speaker 8: a we had a company set up. It was Schoey Records,
Speaker 8: and no I would send them to you know, distribuers,
Speaker 8: but we also operated kind of as our own one stop.
Speaker 5: Because here's the thing.
Speaker 8: Schooly on his own had started out, you know, Chino
Speaker 8: at Funko Mart given them records and everything. And that
Speaker 8: became a little bit issue issue because when I hooked
Speaker 8: us up with Universal, you know, uh, you know, they
Speaker 8: they they fronted us the money to press records and
Speaker 8: then they go to solicit Funko Mart and these plays
Speaker 8: and there.
Speaker 5: Yeah, that that was school. He was always doing ship
Speaker 5: like that.
Speaker 8: But so so so.
Speaker 5: We uh you know, but a lot of a lot
Speaker 5: of really.
Speaker 8: Crazy things happened, and and then it's it was amazing
Speaker 8: that that the record just suddenly took on this whole momentum,
Speaker 8: you know, and suddenly the orders started happening, you know.
Speaker 5: And it was and we you know the album.
Speaker 3: Were you in a place where like the demand was
Speaker 3: sort of demand demand what you could supply.
Speaker 8: Yeah, because because I every time I needed Schooy.
Speaker 5: To write a check to press up records.
Speaker 8: If I needed, you know, six hundred and forty two dollars,
Speaker 8: he'd give me two hundred and forty two dollars.
Speaker 3: You know.
Speaker 8: It was just it was just yeah, it was just
Speaker 8: say everything constantly a day late and a dollar short,
Speaker 8: you know, day late and a dollar short. I booked
Speaker 8: him in a bunch of rock clubs, and you know,
Speaker 8: in the in the early days of hip hop, hip
Speaker 8: hop promoters for the most part were guys that that
Speaker 8: didn't see doing one.
Speaker 5: Off hip hop shows. It's like career building blocks. It
Speaker 5: was more of a score for them.
Speaker 8: So artists get jacked all the time. And because of this,
Speaker 8: you know, Schoolly always demanded his money up front before
Speaker 8: he went on stage. And I get that, right, But
Speaker 8: when you're doing a rock club, right, that's a an
Speaker 8: established venue that you know that deals with booking agents
Speaker 8: and everything like that.
Speaker 5: They don't.
Speaker 8: They don't stiff bands because if they did, they'd be
Speaker 8: Persona and Grada. He'd never be able to book. But
Speaker 8: you know, we would do these shows and he'd won
Speaker 8: his money up front, and then the idea of these
Speaker 8: club managers and he'd have to count the money out
Speaker 8: of the receipts and everything. And then the next thing,
Speaker 8: you know, he gets on stage and what are hip
Speaker 8: hop artist shows in the eighties? Do they do their
Speaker 8: couple songs? Then they roll and you got these kids
Speaker 8: that drove from Delaware.
Speaker 5: And they're like, yeah, so that was that was a
Speaker 5: whole mess.
Speaker 8: And you know, but anyhow, so I called it Joe.
Speaker 8: I had that business card from Studio four.
Speaker 5: And we, uh, we.
Speaker 8: Got together, decided let's start this record label. And I
Speaker 8: was managing Schooly and my first office, you know the
Speaker 8: you know the building, you know the my first office
Speaker 8: was when you get down into that basement floor when
Speaker 8: you come through the door the Studio four built, right,
Speaker 8: they built because Larry. They built a b room for
Speaker 8: Larry to put Larry gold. But it's in clavier and there, well,
Speaker 8: there was a vestibule. There was a vestibule between that
Speaker 8: that room and the hallway right.
Speaker 5: That was my office.
Speaker 8: It was like four feet wide and uh, my desk
Speaker 8: was made of plywood covered with red vinyl because it
Speaker 8: was the original reception just for the studio, right, and
Speaker 8: I had a little lamp and Joe bought in like
Speaker 8: a pink princess phone from home, and that was that was.
Speaker 5: The phone and and that's.
Speaker 8: Where that's where we that's where the actual business started.
Speaker 5: And then we moved into that of the other room,
Speaker 5: which is.
Speaker 3: The bigger room that I know. Okay, wow, so.
Speaker 8: But no, yeah, and then we moved down the hall
Speaker 8: later on took over that whole area down the hall too.
Speaker 3: I missed.
Speaker 5: Yeah, you know what I gotta.
Speaker 8: Tell you, man, I Uh, it's funny because got years later.
Speaker 8: You know, you get you go thro these peers where
Speaker 8: you have gold platinum records every year and it's just
Speaker 8: never ending. But I look back on those days and
Speaker 8: I was like, I was always broke, but I just
Speaker 8: had so much fun, you know.
Speaker 3: The time of your life.
Speaker 5: Yeah.
Speaker 9: So when was rough House as we know it officially
Speaker 9: officially born?
Speaker 5: We we we first, first we started.
Speaker 8: We had this really stupid in ambiguous name, Pyramid Productions.
Speaker 8: I don't know how that came about, but that lasted
Speaker 8: for like about a couple months, and Roughhouse, I have
Speaker 8: to say, was probably born.
Speaker 5: I want to say eighty six, maybe.
Speaker 8: Eighty six, I don't, I know it's in my book
Speaker 8: because I had to put together a bunch of events
Speaker 8: to you know, to figure out when it happened, but
Speaker 8: I know where it happened. We were in Arthur Man's office,
Speaker 8: our attorney who later went on to found raich ODIs,
Speaker 8: the first CD label and the history of music, which
Speaker 8: was an amazing thing. And there was a cassette by
Speaker 8: some rock band called rough House roug h and Joe said,
Speaker 8: you know, that'd be a great name for a record.
Speaker 5: Label, and I was thinking, yeah, it's like, you know,
Speaker 5: and I.
Speaker 8: Had a pretty rough house growing up, you know, my
Speaker 8: childhood and everything. Uh, but we should change it to
Speaker 8: our U F F to keep it you know, yeah, keep.
Speaker 5: It rough And and that was really the birth of
Speaker 5: the label.
Speaker 8: Our first artist was a was an artist named uh
Speaker 8: Mac Money uh me and Mack Evans her. She she
Speaker 8: she was a Philly battle rapper who did a answer
Speaker 8: record to PSK. Really yeah it was actually it was
Speaker 8: really good, and so we we signed her. And about
Speaker 8: there was a group called the Dead Milkman.
Speaker 5: Do you remember the Dead Milkman rock group?
Speaker 3: Yeah?
Speaker 8: Uh, well their managers. They were distributed by a company
Speaker 8: on the West Coast called Enigma.
Speaker 5: Enigma was a.
Speaker 8: Was uh a company that did really obscure alternative like
Speaker 8: Nick Cave and the Bad Seeds right here. Let me
Speaker 8: tell you how obscure this music was. I was living
Speaker 8: on Gerard Avenue and uh I had body, a Jaguar and.
Speaker 5: X J six.
Speaker 8: Somebody broke into my car one night, and when we
Speaker 8: went out to Enigma, they gave us all these records
Speaker 8: to bring home, right, and so I had all these
Speaker 8: all these uh cassettes of all these different artists, these
Speaker 8: rock artists. Somebody broke into my car, went in the
Speaker 8: glove compartment and they took everything excepted anything that was
Speaker 8: released on Enigma. Whoever, whoever the car thief was, he
Speaker 8: basically took his time decided, deciding, deciding which, which which
Speaker 8: records he wanted.
Speaker 9: Steve, remember that happened to us. Yeah, someone broke into
Speaker 9: my car and.
Speaker 3: Left the roots albums. No they they they I had.
Speaker 9: Uh Johnny I just seen walked the line. So I
Speaker 9: was like, all right, let me buy everything, Johnny Cash.
Speaker 9: I went and brought the Johnny Cash box set all
Speaker 9: this stuff, and.
Speaker 3: Then I like brought Orange Johnson.
Speaker 9: Joni Mitchell's like working stuff, and they like left everything
Speaker 9: and I pair Converse sneakers and my door was open.
Speaker 9: I got there and I was like, wait, someone broke
Speaker 9: in my car. But I was like, why didn't they
Speaker 9: take anything? And Steve looked and he's like, this is
Speaker 9: why they didn't want another. Oh see, you guys started
Speaker 9: in eighty six. I remember you guys went through like
Speaker 9: a couple of logos. So that's how I know the
Speaker 9: progression of the label. I first heard of you guys,
Speaker 9: I guess through.
Speaker 3: Uh was Larry your first album signing.
Speaker 5: Or Larry Larr?
Speaker 3: Yeah?
Speaker 8: Uh no, we had a group called Blackmail. Larry Larr
Speaker 8: was one of the first. I don't know if he
Speaker 8: was absolutely the first, okay, but it's funny because he
Speaker 8: was definitely before Tim Dog.
Speaker 5: I was waiting.
Speaker 3: I was just waiting, Yeah Dog, is he all right?
Speaker 3: All right?
Speaker 5: What do you guess?
Speaker 3: Is okay?
Speaker 9: Where's he at? Where's Tim Dog? I know one of
Speaker 9: the joints he finessed.
Speaker 3: So you don't think you don't think he's dead. Oh,
Speaker 3: I don't think he's dead at all.
Speaker 5: You think no, I think I think he's dead. Man. Now,
Speaker 5: I hope I get I.
Speaker 8: Just said my book, I said in Memoriam, you know,
Speaker 8: to himself, I'm pretty sure.
Speaker 5: I'm pretty sure he passed away. Because he was sick.
Speaker 3: Oh yeah, okay, yeah, okay, So do you all know
Speaker 3: the scandal? Yes, Tim Dog?
Speaker 9: Yeah, yeah, what's the short of Tim Dog?
Speaker 10: He was basically like meeting chicks online and like finessing
Speaker 10: amount of money and ship and then he and then
Speaker 10: he died quote unquote, quote unquote putting that record out, man, Like,
Speaker 10: were y'all what was the thought?
Speaker 3: Were y'all worried about?
Speaker 9: You know?
Speaker 8: It was a it was it was a dicey proposition.
Speaker 8: But you know, I said to Tim at one point, right,
Speaker 8: I said, you know this is you can't you can't
Speaker 8: go and tour on the West coast, dude.
Speaker 5: It's just you know, you're and and he got this
Speaker 5: whole thing.
Speaker 8: Yeah exactly, he said, he goes, I'm just in gangs
Speaker 8: and everything and all that stuff. But you know, the
Speaker 8: crazy thing was is that that record, like I forgot
Speaker 8: where it charted. I think it went to maybe number
Speaker 8: seven or number five on on the on the Rap
Speaker 8: Singles chart. But it was the first ever music video
Speaker 8: that was sold as a commercial release. We sold, yeah,
Speaker 8: we sold over one hundred thousand vhs is for.
Speaker 5: Nine ninety nine.
Speaker 3: Wow.
Speaker 8: Yeah, sou And you know it's crazy to the album
Speaker 8: Penicillin on Wax.
Speaker 5: This is like hip hop at this point started really.
Speaker 8: Becoming, you know, like an album oriented thing where if
Speaker 8: you if you if you had a hit hip hop
Speaker 8: single in the early eighties and you did an album,
Speaker 8: it was a good guess that your album was going
Speaker 8: to do well.
Speaker 5: Because the single drove it.
Speaker 8: But then I think, you know, the fans really started
Speaker 8: to want more of a narrative, you know, and Tim Yeah,
Speaker 8: and Tim could not break out of that narrative, you know,
Speaker 8: his narrative. He could not, he could not expand on it.
Speaker 8: But the production on the album because some company he
Speaker 8: did created something it was like where you can mix
Speaker 8: in quad. It was really cool, and they let Joe
Speaker 8: hold onto this machine for for like a month or
Speaker 8: so and he mixed the Tim Dog album on it.
Speaker 8: And I'll never forget listening to that headphones. So I
Speaker 8: was like, God, this sounds so amazing. Just but yeah,
Speaker 8: the record didn't really.
Speaker 10: Yeah, I bought it because at that time that was
Speaker 10: when like just rough house, like I would buy anything.
Speaker 10: I saw the label on the label, so I was like,
Speaker 10: I'm like all right, and I came to appreciate that
Speaker 10: much later me a shout out to my man Jayson,
Speaker 10: who was like, we're like the only two people in
Speaker 10: the world at rob fendersing long wax. Oh yeah, it's
Speaker 10: I mean, if you look at it, it's like, I mean,
Speaker 10: it's comedy, but it's just it's just a man just
Speaker 10: hollering and that ship is amazing.
Speaker 3: He has a song.
Speaker 5: Robbed.
Speaker 9: Also, how did how did you guys get connected with Cyprus?
Speaker 3: So?
Speaker 8: I uh, while managing school starting the label, I also did.
Speaker 8: I promoted shows at post shows at the Chocadaro and
Speaker 8: the Chestnut Cabaret.
Speaker 5: Yeah and uh.
Speaker 8: I also managed a group called Executive Slacks. Executive Slacks
Speaker 8: for my best way to describe what they were it
Speaker 8: was nine Inch Nails.
Speaker 5: Years before Nine Inch Nails Wow.
Speaker 8: As a matter of fact, the same label Network Records
Speaker 8: up in Canada used to license the Slacks off of us.
Speaker 8: It was a It was a drummer named Bobby Ray
Speaker 8: who played standing up playing those electronic drums, and a
Speaker 8: keyboard player and a singer name and the play guitar
Speaker 8: named Matt Morello. I'll tell you one record that you know.
Speaker 8: I just tell everybody if they're even vaguely curious about
Speaker 8: this group. It's called Fire and Ice and it's an
Speaker 8: awesome record and it's real techno rock. But way back,
Speaker 8: long before this stuff really came of age. So so
Speaker 8: there was a A and R guy at Geffen Records
Speaker 8: in Los Angeles named Meo Vukovic and Mio was a
Speaker 8: DJ prior to becoming an A and R guy.
Speaker 5: And there was another guy who was an A and
Speaker 5: R guy who was a He was a lawyer for
Speaker 5: Warner Bros.
Speaker 8: Records, who became an A and R guy, and him
Speaker 8: and Meo kind of formed like a partnership. And MEO's
Speaker 8: two favorite artists in the world was schooly D and
Speaker 8: Executive Slacks. And so he called me up one day
Speaker 8: and we got to know each other. He flew out,
Speaker 8: we hung out, and him and Jeff had signed two
Speaker 8: hip hop artists to Geffen. One of them was a
Speaker 8: group called seven A three and they were produced by
Speaker 8: Lawrence Muggs Mugga Rood.
Speaker 5: And the other group was a group.
Speaker 8: Called Silk Times Leather Yeah, I remember, by Jermaine dupri So.
Speaker 8: Those projects were what they were, you know, they I
Speaker 8: just they just didn't happen. But Joe mixed them and
Speaker 8: I helped mark and pro the singles. Now you remember
Speaker 8: at this point, I also I also had a market.
Speaker 8: I was marketing records for other labels because all the
Speaker 8: labels that couldn't sign, you know, we end up signing
Speaker 8: school you.
Speaker 5: To Drive records.
Speaker 8: But every label, one of them, every budd Electra Warner's Capital,
Speaker 8: they all wanted to sign Schoolly. So the so the
Speaker 8: the guys that didn't didn't sign them, they signed their
Speaker 8: hip hop out act say, they called me up and
Speaker 8: they say, can you help us?
Speaker 5: Right, so now I have like this little company doing this.
Speaker 8: Uh Roseman who I was. I was engaged to Rose
Speaker 8: at the time, and she started doing retail promotion and
Speaker 8: Jackie Paul the rap chart editor for his magazine.
Speaker 5: So we had a little company, right.
Speaker 8: So we worked Easy E, n W A, Tone, Loak,
Speaker 8: Young MC, a whole host of other records. So we
Speaker 8: did this whole thing with with Geffen for seven eight
Speaker 8: three and Silk Time's Leather. Uh, we mark and promote
Speaker 8: the record and Joe mixed it and the records didn't happen.
Speaker 8: But you know, we started a relationship with Jermaine and
Speaker 8: his father Michael Malton Michael. Michael was the tour manager
Speaker 8: for the Fresh Fest and and did a lot of
Speaker 8: stuff with Russell and def Jam and everything. Right, So,
Speaker 8: so Joe was out in La working mixing Meloman Ace
Speaker 8: uh Mentor and Meloman is Send's brother from Cypress Hill,
Speaker 8: and so Meloman was telling Joe, you should check out
Speaker 8: my brother's hip hop group, which was coincidentally produced by Mugs.
Speaker 8: So Joe brings this cassette home and we listened to
Speaker 8: it and we're digging it and everything. And it's funny
Speaker 8: because we we went up to Columbia that day and
Speaker 8: I'll never forget because Joe's brother Phil came with us
Speaker 8: and we had a meeting with a schedule with Kep Woodley,
Speaker 8: who was our a R Kevin up there, and when
Speaker 8: we got there, they said Kevin's no longer here, and
Speaker 8: it's like, oh, well, what's thee know?
Speaker 5: Oh but yeah, you guys, you could talk to Kurt
Speaker 5: Woodley and Kurt replaced him.
Speaker 8: So one Woodley's out, the other Woodley's in no relation
Speaker 8: and Kurt, Kurt was kind of cut from a different
Speaker 8: cloth and are wise, he was more more i think,
Speaker 8: much more kind of in tune intuitive with everything that
Speaker 8: was going on, and Kurt wasn't feeling Larry Layer, and
Speaker 8: he was unapologetic about it, you know, and we went
Speaker 8: round and round, and Kurt's whole thing was it he
Speaker 8: felt that the Will Smith Dougie Fresh storytelling style of
Speaker 8: hip hop.
Speaker 3: You know. Yeah, you know.
Speaker 5: I didn't even tell the whole Cheeba story. But that's
Speaker 5: all right, we don't need to get in that.
Speaker 8: Cheeba was actually our first record with with Columbia, right
Speaker 8: when we did and and so when we left, as
Speaker 8: I'm leaving, I give him a copy of the Cypresil tape.
Speaker 8: I said, well, you might dig this in, right, And
Speaker 8: he called me up that night and he said, he goes, oh, man,
Speaker 8: that's Cypricil. He goes, I played that for Donnie. That's like,
Speaker 8: we got to do this.
Speaker 5: Yeah, Donnie. And and so.
Speaker 8: Cyprecil what happened to have been in the studio they
Speaker 8: were cutting five songs for their publishing deal of BMG,
Speaker 8: and so we offered a singles deal and they sent
Speaker 8: us the five songs and then it became an album deal.
Speaker 9: And so that was such a groundbreaking. If you remember
Speaker 9: who Hans Soeul was, I met my soul from well
Speaker 9: you were not the one that yeah, no imagination.
Speaker 3: He had like this spiked or this hair.
Speaker 5: Well he's a gospel rapper now.
Speaker 8: Yeah, but back then, back then, he was part of
Speaker 8: that that like that school of like like kuame and yeah,
Speaker 8: that whole.
Speaker 9: So we have met Hans so on the on the
Speaker 9: at the Motown Philly video and Hans lived about maybe
Speaker 9: twelve blocks away from me, but during the crack area,
Speaker 9: twelve blocks is you know, well twelve blocks that might
Speaker 9: be twenty blocks and crackers crackers. So it's like seven
Speaker 9: pm and he's like, yo, man, I just came back
Speaker 9: from New York's at he's I came, I came back
Speaker 9: from New York. Yo, I'm gonna change your life. He said,
Speaker 9: y'all got to get here. Me and Tarik we were
Speaker 9: like his little interns, you.
Speaker 5: Know whatever, always rolling around.
Speaker 9: Hans is really responsible for Tarik being the freestyle aster
Speaker 9: he is now because Hans used to do that a lot.
Speaker 9: So we like, all right, it's gonna be nighttime running
Speaker 9: through West Philly. Somehow we got to Hans's block and
Speaker 9: he's like he no build up. He just said, listen
Speaker 9: to this first song he plays the Summertime by Jazz.
Speaker 3: He's from the press, Prince and we couldn't guess. He's like, yes,
Speaker 3: who this.
Speaker 9: Is and we still didn't know that was Will and
Speaker 9: Jeff like by the second verse with rock.
Speaker 3: Him and then he puts pigs on ship.
Speaker 9: And we were like, what the hell?
Speaker 3: We just.
Speaker 8: We many have the scanners and everything, and see you
Speaker 8: know the machine I was telling you about that he
Speaker 8: mixed Pilson on wax with the quad. Use that for
Speaker 8: the police scanners, you know, like crazy, Yeah, No, Joe's
Speaker 8: no joke.
Speaker 10: Now that album sucked me up, man, that's.
Speaker 3: It, and it came from nowhere.
Speaker 5: Well here's here's here's the other thing too. It's that
Speaker 5: it's that we ship like thirty thousand plus albums.
Speaker 8: And you you're seeing the bugs bunny that you know,
Speaker 8: the thing where he jumps out on stage and there's crickets.
Speaker 5: That's what it was like.
Speaker 8: It was like nothing, nothing right, And the weeks are
Speaker 8: going by and it's like, what's going on here, you know,
Speaker 8: and people.
Speaker 5: Are calling DJ's are people we're loving this record? But nothing,
Speaker 5: and then uh, the B side of the One Killer
Speaker 5: Man ends up in Juice where omar but he's a
Speaker 5: Tupaka Shore's character is chasing Omar ev.
Speaker 8: You you could watch, you could sit there in the
Speaker 8: theater and you can suddenly see people like you know,
Speaker 8: and then it just exploded. Now it's on fifty thousand
Speaker 8: copies a week, and it's just.
Speaker 10: Like because I bought the Juice soundtrack thinking it was
Speaker 10: on that and it wasn't.
Speaker 3: But shoot him up on the Yah.
Speaker 8: Yeah, it's just it was just it's it's it was
Speaker 8: like just a real innovative master.
Speaker 5: Wait.
Speaker 9: Speaking of studio, for where is uh? Where is Kravits today?
Speaker 9: Studio for West Coast? He has a studio for in
Speaker 9: the West.
Speaker 8: It's I think it's in Venice Beach. Andy funky drummer,
Speaker 8: drummer Kravitz.
Speaker 5: You know what, I'm going to give props, you know,
Speaker 5: Andy to me and for where you know what I
Speaker 5: knew at the time, I just saw.
Speaker 8: But the guy was the most incredible gefted musician. You know,
Speaker 8: him and I, you know, we started out cool, and
Speaker 8: then there was a period where we didn't get along
Speaker 8: for a long time, you know, but then later on
Speaker 8: he ended up moving uh to a house near our
Speaker 8: our wives, you know, became friends and you know, uh,
Speaker 8: but he yeah, he started the Studio four West, Studio
Speaker 8: four West.
Speaker 9: Okay, the time that I met you at the one
Speaker 9: of those Philly Hall of Fame thing, my Jiggers or
Speaker 9: whatever you you and Roseman.
Speaker 5: Was there, yep.
Speaker 9: And really, I mean yeah, I was there to see
Speaker 9: my dad get inducted, but really I was trying to
Speaker 9: make a bee line to YouTube to see if that
Speaker 9: I could intern at Studio four. And this is right,
Speaker 9: this is right on the crest of Chris Cross, like, yeah,
Speaker 9: about to dominate the world. And yeah, I think you
Speaker 9: guys hired me on the on the on the on
Speaker 9: the strength of.
Speaker 3: That Chris Ross Cross was blowing up so fast.
Speaker 9: Yeah, because my first day there I was I felt
Speaker 9: like I was part of the Michael Jackson Dangerous Tour.
Speaker 5: I was mailing all these I remember.
Speaker 8: I remember the first time I ever saw you. You
Speaker 8: were sitting there at the big conference table. And the
Speaker 8: thing is, it's a tony. They gave me this Q
Speaker 8: and a thing for my book, and they you know,
Speaker 8: they one of the questions was about you and everything.
Speaker 8: And they said and I said, I remember you had
Speaker 8: a knapsack on, right.
Speaker 5: And you didn't take it off never and I thought.
Speaker 8: Like, so, so I'm walking, so I said, you know,
Speaker 8: this kid's got a knapsack on, like it must be
Speaker 8: kind of uncomfortable sitting there wearing a knapsack.
Speaker 5: Stuffing records and and everything.
Speaker 8: And then like I walked past a half hour lady
Speaker 8: had the knapsack on, and I thought, well, maybe he's
Speaker 8: afraid that somebody's gonna snatch it if he puts it down.
Speaker 9: You know, like you know, I always carry my soundtrack
Speaker 9: with me every every superhero needs some music.
Speaker 5: Yeah, Chris gross record. I'll tell you this.
Speaker 9: If if things start blowing up, then it's Tommy and
Speaker 9: Donnie and Kevin.
Speaker 3: Glin Kevin, Kevin's here. Okay, so he seemed philly. Yeah.
Speaker 9: So if it's like a major, if it's lynk Q
Speaker 9: or Larry Ladry, then it's like, oh that's what I.
Speaker 5: Felt, lynk Q. That's that's a good.
Speaker 9: But you know, if things start getting successful, then it's
Speaker 9: suddenly sony like, yes, that was all us.
Speaker 5: Oh yeah, oh yeah, no, I'll tell you what it was.
Speaker 5: It was so funny. What's the politics And well, oh
Speaker 5: my god, dude, I did.
Speaker 8: I was on CNN Power Lunch thing right doing an interview,
Speaker 8: and then my my cell phone rings and it's an
Speaker 8: executive from Columbia Records, who I just won't I don't
Speaker 8: want to embarrass him, so I'm not gonna mention his name.
Speaker 8: But he was saying, you know, Chris, you know, he goes,
Speaker 8: I gotta tell you something. You know, Tommy really likes you.
Speaker 8: I said, yeah, what I like Tommy. Yeah, but you
Speaker 8: know what, man, you know, Tommy likes his guys to
Speaker 8: be like, you know, laid back and so this and so.
Speaker 5: Here's the thing. This this guy is talking to me.
Speaker 8: He's coming through like on this frequency that I'd never
Speaker 8: heard from him before, you know. And then I kind
Speaker 8: of put it together that he's sitting there talking to
Speaker 8: me and Tommy's sitting right there, and then he starts
Speaker 8: telling me stuff like, well, you know, like you know, Tommy,
Speaker 8: like you know, he's really like, you know, Tommy's a star,
Speaker 8: He's a star, and all.
Speaker 5: This stuff and this whole thing.
Speaker 8: But when Crisscross happened, there was a picture of Tommy,
Speaker 8: Donnie and Me and Crisscross staying in front of us
Speaker 8: and Rolling Stone magazine like two weeks.
Speaker 5: Later there is the picture, but where did I go.
Speaker 8: Oh yeah, it was like that all the time.
Speaker 5: Really, yeah, yeah, I got When we get.
Speaker 8: To another when we get to another part of the story,
Speaker 8: I'll tell you something that's really just and I can't
Speaker 8: believe I had fallen for it.
Speaker 9: But but you became a star on your own, right though, Chris,
Speaker 9: because we see you on and everywhere.
Speaker 8: Yeah, but but you know, I wasn't. I wasn't trying.
Speaker 8: You know, I wasn't trying. I uh But the Criss
Speaker 8: Cross record, and I'll make I'll make an admission here
Speaker 8: that you know I talk about in the book. I
Speaker 8: I didn't like the song that wasn't When we got
Speaker 8: the Crisscross, Like the demos, they had a song little
Speaker 8: Boys in the Hood, right, and what it was about
Speaker 8: it was about two kids twelve years old trying to
Speaker 8: make that decision.
Speaker 5: Okay, well my.
Speaker 8: Role models are like, you know, these the gangsters with
Speaker 8: the clothes and the cash and the cars and ever
Speaker 8: that do I want to do that? Or do I
Speaker 8: want to do this? And I thought that was a
Speaker 8: really interesting thing for a hip hop record, you know,
Speaker 8: like that and coming from these little kids. So that's
Speaker 8: what I thought was going to be, right, Jump didn't
Speaker 8: happen until later on in the project, and it was
Speaker 8: it was I just kind of thought it was a
Speaker 8: noisy little song, you know, And it's a noisy, little
Speaker 8: like annoying, little like, you know thing, and so so
Speaker 8: Michael Maldon, David Kahn at Columbia Records and our guy,
Speaker 8: he said, you guys should put a baseline on this song.
Speaker 5: So Joe goes and puts a bassline on it, and
Speaker 5: they mix it.
Speaker 8: And I was leaving rough house one night and this
Speaker 8: one we had the one room office, the glass doors,
Speaker 8: and a fax came to remember facts is Facts comes
Speaker 8: through and it was from Michael Maldon and said, Chris
Speaker 8: Jump is going to be a number one song. Smash Michael,
Speaker 8: I should have kept that. I should have kept it, Okay.
Speaker 8: So here's what happened. We Rosie Perez was the talent
Speaker 8: coordinator for In Living Color and Rich had shot Rich
Speaker 8: Murray shot to Criscross video down at Lanta. It was
Speaker 8: the first time it ever snowed in Lanta, like thirty
Speaker 8: two years, right, And we shot the video for like
Speaker 8: eighteen thousand dollars right right, And they performed on In
Speaker 8: Living Color the next day.
Speaker 5: We're my wife and I. I lived on Sitting.
Speaker 8: Line Avenue, and my wife and I were at the
Speaker 8: Overbrook Diner and I was really hungover and my wife
Speaker 8: was giving me a bunch of shit and.
Speaker 5: And I was just like, all I wanted to do
Speaker 5: was just eat. And you know, it was the weekend.
Speaker 5: And but I'm hearing this older, middle aged couple sitting
Speaker 5: Caddy Quarter.
Speaker 8: From us, and the guy was going on and on
Speaker 8: about Crisscross.
Speaker 5: Right, this older white guy, he.
Speaker 8: Goes, these kids were so amazing and blah blah blah
Speaker 8: blah blah blah, And I thought, wow.
Speaker 5: I looked at Mer and I said, I think this
Speaker 5: record's gonna this record's gonna blow up. And uh yeah
Speaker 5: it was. Uh it was like a behemoth.
Speaker 9: Can I ask one question about Jump besides the money,
Speaker 9: but uh, can you clarify something? So obviously my guess
Speaker 9: is the backstory with Jump around?
Speaker 5: Oh yeah, I'll tell you all about.
Speaker 9: It, right of course the end of the record Joe
Speaker 9: the bier Nicola right.
Speaker 5: Which, Okay, My my guess is.
Speaker 9: That because both acts recorded for rough House not no wait,
Speaker 9: let me let me get my theory out.
Speaker 3: See if.
Speaker 9: Because Mugs producer jump Around was also a producer at
Speaker 9: at Rouse. My guess is and I always wanted to
Speaker 9: know this because I would do the same thing because
Speaker 9: the the the same midnight what's the what's the break
Speaker 9: of of uh pluck tuning midnight Manziel's midnight themes? Yeah,
Speaker 9: all right, so the midnight theme drums? Uh that Cyprus
Speaker 9: used on.
Speaker 3: Kill a Man? Right?
Speaker 5: Uh, that's all Mugs right. My guess is that.
Speaker 9: Okay, let me use some you know that some of
Speaker 9: Mugs's tools were utilized.
Speaker 5: Okay, besides the jump say exactly what happened? Okay, so
Speaker 5: we I passed on a lot of great artists, you know,
Speaker 5: and I passed on a House of Pain arrest development.
Speaker 5: What was that, Alicia Keys? I know that's painful. I mean,
Speaker 5: well now you know, but here's the thing. It's it
Speaker 5: if if you were there, you know what I mean.
Speaker 5: But any happen.
Speaker 8: Let me let me get back to this story of
Speaker 8: so so so so we got a we got the
Speaker 8: demo from MUGS for a House of Pain. Okay, it
Speaker 8: was good, but it wasn't in our humble estimation at
Speaker 8: a time there yet. But you know, who can hear
Speaker 8: what in a demo in this day and age. Right,
Speaker 8: But here's the bottom line. There was not a song
Speaker 8: called Jump on that demo. It wasn't there. Okay, number one,
Speaker 8: number one, number two, right. Amanda Cypress is one half
Speaker 8: the Cypress management team. A Manda Shear calls me up
Speaker 8: and she says, here's how She so, you guys have
Speaker 8: a song coming out called Jump, and I said, yeah,
Speaker 8: Criss Cross Jump. Well, House of Pain has a song
Speaker 8: called Jump, and you guys stole it and gave it.
Speaker 5: To Criss Cross, right.
Speaker 8: And I was like, that's the most insane thing I
Speaker 8: ever heard, because Jermaine dupri did everything right, you know.
Speaker 5: So she and I said, so where did we steal
Speaker 5: the song from?
Speaker 3: A many?
Speaker 5: Oh? Is on the demo?
Speaker 3: Right?
Speaker 5: And I said really, I said, hold on, right, and I.
Speaker 8: Go I got the demo and I'm sitting there on
Speaker 8: the film with her and I'm listing the songs. I said, so,
Speaker 8: I'll tell you what's here blah blah blah blah blah
Speaker 8: blah blah blah blah. Which one of those songs is?
Speaker 8: Which one did we take? And she goes, oh, well,
Speaker 8: the song's called Jump. I said, well, there's no song
Speaker 8: called jump on this demo. This is what Mugs gave us, right,
Speaker 8: but they couldn't let it, you know, everlast couldn't let.
Speaker 5: It go, couldn't let it Okay, Yeah, and.
Speaker 8: Here's the thing. Mugs told me. He never thought Joe
Speaker 8: Jack the song, he never thought. And the thing is
Speaker 8: that I can tell you this right now. I mean,
Speaker 8: Joe Nick Low God bless him. Man, I've known this man.
Speaker 8: You know intimately there is Joe.
Speaker 5: Joe's not.
Speaker 8: He doesn't have that thing right to take like he
Speaker 8: that would require much more time, effort.
Speaker 5: And energy and resources to do.
Speaker 8: Then Joe wants to expend you know what I mean,
Speaker 8: He's not He's not that kind of like you know.
Speaker 3: What was his reaction when he first heard it?
Speaker 5: Oh he loved it. He goes, yes, yeah, no, he said,
Speaker 5: oh yeah, he goes, you should see it in the video.
Speaker 5: He gets right up in the camera.
Speaker 9: And okay, I always wanted to know. Okay, there's something else.
Speaker 9: I'm just reminded of explaining nas situation. Yeah, you guys
Speaker 9: had him first, Yeah, and then what happened?
Speaker 3: All right?
Speaker 8: So so at this point, you know, we're when we
Speaker 8: got to Sony right to Clumb it with CBS at
Speaker 8: the time, it was like, you know, there's death Jam
Speaker 8: and there's you guys, right, and you're it. We're not
Speaker 8: doing any other hip hop right. And the next week
Speaker 8: we go up for our first meetings of like people
Speaker 8: like Angela Thomas or product manager, and I'll never forget
Speaker 8: Angela Thomas was eating a salad and Kevin Woodley walks
Speaker 8: us in and he goes, yeah, this is a Chris
Speaker 8: Schwartz and Joe Nicholo. That's their hip hop label, rough
Speaker 8: House that we.
Speaker 5: Just did a deal with.
Speaker 8: And Angela's kind of like she's got her mouthful of
Speaker 8: food because she just found out that they did Russia
Speaker 8: Associated labels, which is like thirty companies, right you. And
Speaker 8: she goes and she's like looking and she's like, oh,
Speaker 8: another label, and you could just see that that look
Speaker 8: on her face so so deaf jam. Then something happened
Speaker 8: and they left, they got you know, they went to
Speaker 8: they went through a renegotiation and it just didn't work out,
Speaker 8: and they went over to mc A, PolyGram whatever. And
Speaker 8: we were it right, and we were now doing really
Speaker 8: well and we had a lot of pipeline revenue coming
Speaker 8: to us. You know, the labels don't have to give
Speaker 8: it to you all at once.
Speaker 5: It's there.
Speaker 8: So so h mc search uh wanted to sign Nas
Speaker 8: now a couple of months prior to this. Uh there's
Speaker 8: a guy that he he was the manager of.
Speaker 5: A club called Revival, Philly. Yeah, Greg mcgara, Yeah, yeah,
Speaker 5: I lived at Revival. I was like, I was there
Speaker 5: all the time.
Speaker 8: Greg was the manager and we used to hang out
Speaker 8: to the wee hours and you know, and he constantly
Speaker 8: played me.
Speaker 5: This record.
Speaker 8: Live at the Barbecue, right, and he said, you know,
Speaker 8: you should find this kid Nas and sign him. But like,
Speaker 8: I know that this label, Wild Pitch was owned by
Speaker 8: Stu Fine, and I said, he's already signed. He's already
Speaker 8: signed to Wild Pitch, you know. So so I just
Speaker 8: that was it?
Speaker 3: Right?
Speaker 8: And so I get a phone call from Donnie Einer
Speaker 8: and he goes, Look, he goes, I want to introduce
Speaker 8: you to Search. He's got this artist that that you should,
Speaker 8: you know, look.
Speaker 5: At, named Nas. I was like, oh really, so awesome.
Speaker 6: Yeah.
Speaker 8: So Search comes down the Philadelphia with Faith Newman and Nas.
Speaker 8: We go to the Spaghetti Warehouse.
Speaker 9: After midnight, post the post, after post the original after midnight.
Speaker 9: I know those guys that ran Oh my god, all right,
Speaker 9: so so we uh we we do this deal and
Speaker 9: uh it was two things where we signed NOAs and
Speaker 9: we also did the deal for.
Speaker 5: The soundtrack as Zebrahead and uh.
Speaker 8: The first thing we do if NAS was halftime uh
Speaker 8: Rich Murray, Uh production protege James Brummel did the video
Speaker 8: for like three thousand dollars, you know, and then stuff
Speaker 8: started happening, you know, and uh, you know.
Speaker 5: John Scheckter. Let me go back to an earlier part
Speaker 5: of the Source.
Speaker 8: When I was we had the school D Records right, Uh,
Speaker 8: I was sending out thousands of records to retailers besides, you.
Speaker 5: Know, to do stuff.
Speaker 8: I mailed out the first issue of the Source in
Speaker 8: the school D Records package. So I knew John and Dave,
Speaker 8: Dave Mays and John Scheckter. And John Scheckter came down
Speaker 8: and his mission was to get a copy of the
Speaker 8: NAS songs, and I gave him like, I think five
Speaker 8: songs and then uh, I think he was like the
Speaker 8: first artist to get X amount of microphones and the
Speaker 8: Source or whatever.
Speaker 3: So now now shout out to miss info.
Speaker 8: Now there's a huge, huge thing happening with NAS. Right,
Speaker 8: everybody's excited, you know. And I get a phone call.
Speaker 8: Rose comes in and says, oh, Chris, I was just
Speaker 8: told by somebody at Columbia that that NAS was gonna
Speaker 8: be on Columbia proper.
Speaker 5: And I was like, well, how's that he signed to us?
Speaker 5: He's contracted to us, it's our you know.
Speaker 8: And uh I we called up Donnie and Joe and
Speaker 8: I go up there and Donnie shows us a it's
Speaker 8: a fax from Tommy and the subject.
Speaker 5: Matter is why is NAS signed to rough House?
Speaker 3: Right?
Speaker 5: So here's what happened.
Speaker 8: Search bought it to Columbia, and Columbia said, oh, we'll
Speaker 8: do it, but it has to be on rough House.
Speaker 8: Why because if it fails, then we end up eating
Speaker 8: it from our pipeline revenues. Right, It's no risk for
Speaker 8: them to put it on us, you know, And it
Speaker 8: backfired on them.
Speaker 5: It backfires continues. Yeah, sounds it feel like being their
Speaker 5: red headed step kid, like the red Headed step bitches,
Speaker 5: you know, was it not?
Speaker 3: I mean, were they not?
Speaker 9: Because as a label on their own, they weren't. They
Speaker 9: weren't doing jack.
Speaker 5: With hip hop. Yeah, I know, I know, but but
Speaker 5: here's what it is.
Speaker 3: Here's what it is.
Speaker 8: After was all said and done, you know, Donnie shows
Speaker 8: me this facts, right, and it's from Tommy and it
Speaker 8: says he's saying, quote unquote you fucking asshole. Right, that
Speaker 8: is what it's hit and exclamation points and underlined right.
Speaker 8: And Donnie was like, you know, Chris, I'm like in
Speaker 8: a thing here, can you please help us out?
Speaker 3: And so we did a deal.
Speaker 5: We let them, We let them buy us out. Should
Speaker 5: we have done it?
Speaker 8: You know, here's the thing it was, looking back in retrospect,
Speaker 8: probably not. But at the same time, it was kind
Speaker 8: of hard to say no when this is a guy
Speaker 8: who's kind of like your partner at the thing and everything,
Speaker 8: and you know, we hed done a lot for us
Speaker 8: and everything, and it was just a thing.
Speaker 5: And then I remember later on Faith Newman, you know,
Speaker 5: kind of.
Speaker 8: Conceded is that, you know, Chris, I said, part of
Speaker 8: the pressure with this is that is that we have
Speaker 8: nothing for Columbia proper, you know. And what they I
Speaker 8: guess they didn't want to see was that if rough
Speaker 8: House suddenly ups and leaves one day the way def
Speaker 8: Jam did, and can imagine like half your revenue stream
Speaker 8: walking out the door, right, you know, because you know,
Speaker 8: it doesn't for like really like a ten year period
Speaker 8: of time.
Speaker 5: We were their black music department, so so so, so yeah,
Speaker 5: that's what happened.
Speaker 8: But you know, it's funny. I would see Nas like over.
Speaker 8: I saw himong like over in Europe and everything, and
Speaker 8: he always said, he goes man, he goes. I just
Speaker 8: wanted to just stay on rough House so bad, and
Speaker 8: you know, and it's crazy. Yeah, so but he gave
Speaker 8: me a nice shout out in the Surviving the Times.
Speaker 9: My last day at rough House. Uh, two things happened.
Speaker 9: One freaking I don't even know if you're aware of this.
Speaker 9: My last day at rough House was Santy Gold's first
Speaker 9: day at rough House. Oh wow, as working under Da
Speaker 9: Vida gar right, and yeah, it was kind of like
Speaker 9: that dream Weaver moment like in Wayne's World.
Speaker 3: Yeah, who is that?
Speaker 9: I don't mean to creepy out Santi, Sorry, it was
Speaker 9: a long time. Santi was like she was Day of
Speaker 9: the Century. And Davida asked me for a favor and said, hey, uh,
Speaker 9: at you guys's signing party in two weeks, could you
Speaker 9: let one of our new acts open for you guys?
Speaker 3: And I was like, okay, who is it and she
Speaker 3: gives me.
Speaker 9: Blunted on reality, which at that point, which at that
Speaker 9: point was like it was a quiet two months. Like
Speaker 9: I was gonna say, nappy Heads didn't even have the
Speaker 9: remix yet. Early in the game, I knew when I
Speaker 9: saw the eight x ten because of the way that
Speaker 9: soap operas running my family's houses. Yeah, I was like, oh,
Speaker 9: that's the joint from As the World turn Yeah. Yeah,
Speaker 9: I didn't even know about Sister Act too yet. Sacha
Speaker 9: knew her as the trouble kid for me As the
Speaker 9: World Turns, So I loved it.
Speaker 3: I was like, yeah, hell yeah, let her do it.
Speaker 9: So how did like, so the fujis came to my
Speaker 9: attention two weeks like Thanksgiving of November ninety three, but
Speaker 9: she told me that you guys had had them long
Speaker 9: before that.
Speaker 5: Oh yeah, so how did you guys? We actually Roseman?
Speaker 3: Okay?
Speaker 8: Yeah, I mean, I I just you know, I'm real
Speaker 8: big on giving credit where credits.
Speaker 5: Due, you know, And was Roseman officially A and R?
Speaker 5: Like what was her job at? You know, who's an
Speaker 5: an R guy anymore?
Speaker 3: You know what I mean?
Speaker 5: Label?
Speaker 8: You know, Monica Lynch said the best music to came
Speaker 8: the biggest records that came the Tommy Boy came through
Speaker 8: their guy in the Puerto Rican guy in the mailroom,
Speaker 8: you know what I mean.
Speaker 3: Yeah. So, so.
Speaker 8: Remember the TV commercial Uh, I guess it was in
Speaker 8: the late eighties, early nineties. Uh, the the guys in
Speaker 8: the cab and the cab driver in New York City
Speaker 8: has the dreads.
Speaker 5: You know they showed that commercial. That's Hassan Scherie, Hassan Hassan.
Speaker 5: He was in Sphead, Yes, yeah, yeah, he always Oh yeah,
Speaker 5: so that's I guess that's a Zebrahead party. Is where
Speaker 5: he met Rose.
Speaker 3: Wow, and so he had night during their premiere.
Speaker 5: I guess I don't. I don't know how she meant him.
Speaker 5: That must have been because I rented a bus and
Speaker 5: took us all to New York City.
Speaker 3: I did. And that's that's the that's the ill fated
Speaker 3: night where.
Speaker 9: I remember Clark Kent went back and forth on in
Speaker 9: Vogue's hold On Nas freestyled, I have my one moment
Speaker 9: with romy with Nasty Nas back. You know, that was
Speaker 9: my one moment when I thought it was going to
Speaker 9: be emc and I gave it up after that for real. Uh, well,
Speaker 9: I just ad minute. This is twenty five years later.
Speaker 9: So you know, I hope nobody recorded that ship.
Speaker 3: But so he met her that night, he must have.
Speaker 3: That's crazy.
Speaker 5: So so what happened was she bugged the ship out
Speaker 5: of me for for a long time. She goes, you
Speaker 5: got to hear this. Listen to this group. Listen to scroup,
Speaker 5: Listen to group. So I'm in my car.
Speaker 8: And I put this tape in and the first thing
Speaker 8: that caught me was it like, oh, it's not like
Speaker 8: hip hop. Like it's hip hop, but there's you know,
Speaker 8: it had a whole different thing about it.
Speaker 3: And and then and and so, well you're familiar with
Speaker 3: that because you also have the goats.
Speaker 5: Yeah.
Speaker 8: Yeah, So so I thought, I thought, all right, so
Speaker 8: this is something a little bit unique and different. I
Speaker 8: didn't know their Haitian. You know, I'm embarrassed to say this.
Speaker 8: You know, I thought it was Jamaican. You know.
Speaker 5: This, what's new. So we go to the uh we we.
Speaker 8: Joe and I go up to their audition at David
Speaker 8: Sonenberg's office on the Upper East Side in this.
Speaker 5: Townhouse and.
Speaker 8: And there was like seven or eight people and but
Speaker 8: here's what what basically the thing that right away was
Speaker 8: that why Cleft the beat box and the acoustic guitar,
Speaker 8: and it was like, Okay, this is a little different,
Speaker 8: this is like and that That's what did.
Speaker 3: It for me.
Speaker 8: You know, you didn't hear a note from Lauren's now
Speaker 8: I'm I talked about in the book. I don't even
Speaker 8: remember her from the audition. And here's the thing. When
Speaker 8: we went, there was like six or seven kids, and
Speaker 8: at the end of the audition, why Clef like, it's
Speaker 8: now stripped doll's clothes off.
Speaker 5: He's in his boxers, going nuts and everything.
Speaker 8: And I'd found out later on they had a dussion
Speaker 8: for every major and independent we were their last shot.
Speaker 8: They said we were at So when we went to
Speaker 8: do the contracts, it was there was only three people
Speaker 8: and I was like, well, wait, what were where were
Speaker 8: all these other people that were there?
Speaker 3: Right?
Speaker 8: And so anyhow we did the album. Uh, most of
Speaker 8: my dialogue was with y Cleff and the manager, David Sonenberg.
Speaker 8: And when we got when I got the first batch
Speaker 8: of songs, it was really weird because like Prose was
Speaker 8: like the dominant rapper and I thought, you know, Prose
Speaker 8: was good, but he no, no, no, he he I'll
Speaker 8: tell you, but you're ready or not, you have to
Speaker 8: admit he's what he does on that track. Yeah, but
Speaker 8: I just wasn't feeling him carrying these songs. And I
Speaker 8: call up David and I said, David, you and I say,
Speaker 8: is this is a problem And he goes, well, he goes, yeah,
Speaker 8: it is a real problem. He says, because y clef
Speaker 8: is or Prose is why club's cousin.
Speaker 5: I'm like, oh shit, I gotta talk. But I said,
Speaker 5: fuck it. You know, lit a cigarette.
Speaker 8: You got Cleft on the phone, and I said, yo, man,
Speaker 8: I said, it's cool, but is there any way that
Speaker 8: you know, blah blah blah.
Speaker 5: It's diplomatic? Is possible? Clubs? Oh yeah, man, I got
Speaker 5: you right.
Speaker 8: Like a week later, different different thing. You know, pause
Speaker 8: is more pushed to the back, you know.
Speaker 9: Uh.
Speaker 8: And that first album and the touring and here here's
Speaker 8: the thing, man, you know, I always said this. There
Speaker 8: was like three groups, three hip hop groups from that day.
Speaker 8: The tour that was the Fujis Psychercil and the Roots
Speaker 8: constant touring. Yeah you're a constant god, those were they.
Speaker 8: I merried Scott Thomas, you know Scott Thomas over in
Speaker 8: the UK. Booking agent. Yeah, he would tell me, he said,
Speaker 8: he goes, yeah, all through those he you would always
Speaker 8: say those artists, those are the ones you know, Uh
Speaker 8: you had to but but ye, how about this. Two
Speaker 8: years after the release A Blunted on Reality, we're still
Speaker 8: selling six eight hundred copies a week SoundScan, right, So
Speaker 8: that's showing that this record. And I gotta tell you
Speaker 8: that whole thing with with Sony and Columbia was hanging
Speaker 8: not by.
Speaker 5: A thread, but by like a spiderweb thread like it was.
Speaker 8: Uh, they did a show in London and I wasn't
Speaker 8: at the show. But Luke Verge, who later on became
Speaker 8: head of every like he became my guy for Europe
Speaker 8: for everything. He was our He was head of international
Speaker 8: marketing for Columbia Records. He called, he's He's from Marseille
Speaker 8: and he calls me kiss.
Speaker 5: He was roaded a cat back with these guys.
Speaker 3: Last night.
Speaker 5: They're talking about dropping.
Speaker 8: You must do something, you know, and uh I called
Speaker 8: up Donnie and uh I said, Donnie, I said that
Speaker 8: they were gonna win Grammys.
Speaker 3: We just got it.
Speaker 5: We gotta stay with we gotta do this and.
Speaker 9: Stay with it and everything and do you know what
Speaker 9: it is like the lack of faith, because the thing is,
Speaker 9: I would even like to think that, like, Okay, the
Speaker 9: money by this point, you know, you have some gratitude
Speaker 9: because the money's good.
Speaker 3: You guys are doing the numbers.
Speaker 5: Yeah, Yet it's like each time out the out the gate.
Speaker 8: Well, no, I'll tell you this, at this point, at
Speaker 8: that point, I had a lot of confidence in the relation.
Speaker 5: I'll tell you this.
Speaker 8: When it when the first the first five years at Columbia, right,
Speaker 8: I was I was the wimpy kid, you know.
Speaker 5: I was easily easily bullied and and and you know,
Speaker 5: talk to to ship.
Speaker 9: In another diplomatic way. How how approachable is Tommy And
Speaker 9: is he one of the guys or is you know
Speaker 9: what you'd be like, hey, yo, but you.
Speaker 5: Kind of I got I got a little little story
Speaker 5: that that I'll get into. All right.
Speaker 3: So so.
Speaker 5: Lauren this record, right, the Miseducation of Lauren Hill.
Speaker 3: Yes, okay, uh, we allowed to talk about that record
Speaker 3: in here.
Speaker 8: No, the record, the record that the project is the
Speaker 8: vehicle for the story, right, but that she she was
Speaker 8: going to Japan to do a show for the Sony executives.
Speaker 8: We had just did this whole thing in in in
Speaker 8: the UK, and and I was going I was going
Speaker 8: with her to Japan. And this is shortly after my
Speaker 8: remember the phone call from the executives about you know,
Speaker 8: I am all right right, yes, so she's so we
Speaker 8: got this big thing happening, bought my ticket, all ready
Speaker 8: to go, and I get a phone call and it's
Speaker 8: Tommy's assistant. Oh, Chris, Tommy needs you to come up
Speaker 8: to a meeting with him and Danny DeVito. And who's
Speaker 8: the woman who runs Jersey Films you know I'm talking about, right,
Speaker 8: And and I said, oh, yeah, yeah, cool, right, so
Speaker 8: when's when's the meeting?
Speaker 5: She gives me a hey. I said, ah, impossible, I'm
Speaker 5: going to be over in Japan with with miss Hill, right,
Speaker 5: And she goes, oh, well, Tommy is really asking if
Speaker 5: you could, you know, make this It's really really.
Speaker 3: Important, you know.
Speaker 5: And I'm like, and I'm thinking, wow, Like, how can
Speaker 5: I say no?
Speaker 3: All right?
Speaker 5: So I said, all right.
Speaker 8: I go in the clickman's office and I said, yeah,
Speaker 8: it looks like I'm not going to the thing in
Speaker 8: Japan with miss I'm doing the Tommy wants to have
Speaker 8: this really important meeting with Danny DeVito. And all this stuff,
Speaker 8: and Kevin just laughs at me and he goes, he goes, Yeah,
Speaker 8: what's going to happen.
Speaker 5: The plane's going to take off.
Speaker 3: And then they're going to cancel.
Speaker 5: They're get to canceled the meeting. I said, I said, Nah,
Speaker 5: it ain't gonna happen, something like that. And of course
Speaker 5: the plane takes off. Call Oh, Danny had to do
Speaker 5: some reshoots.
Speaker 3: You know, and and so and so.
Speaker 5: How else could I look at this right and to
Speaker 5: think that that he didn't want me meeting the Sony guy,
Speaker 5: the Sony you know over there.
Speaker 8: But you know, the reality is like what what what
Speaker 8: would I do? You know, I'm just you know, what
Speaker 8: am I going to talk to these guys about? You know,
Speaker 8: I'm just there as part of the you know, with
Speaker 8: her and the show and everything. But but but you know,
Speaker 8: here's the reality. I could never prove this in a
Speaker 8: court of law, and it's only speculation on my part.
Speaker 8: But you know, but the only thing I could say,
Speaker 8: if that meeting was just so fucking important, how come
Speaker 8: it never got rescheduled? Because I had called up? So
Speaker 8: when are we doing the meeting with Danny? And it
Speaker 8: just kind of like, you know, yeah, So what was.
Speaker 10: Your breaking point, because you said that you probably was
Speaker 10: a pushover for the first like five years.
Speaker 8: But what was the moment when you were like it
Speaker 8: was the I guess the breaking the breaking point where
Speaker 8: it's no, I didn't suddenly become nasty and mean, it
Speaker 8: was just sort of when when you really like, I'll
Speaker 8: tell you this, there's a guy, uh, his name is
Speaker 8: Chris Blackwell, and he's the founder of Island Records. He's
Speaker 8: one of my best friends, and he's been my mentor
Speaker 8: for years. And when you really get a grasp of
Speaker 8: the type of money that those companies make, it's it's, uh,
Speaker 8: it's mind boggling.
Speaker 10: Uh.
Speaker 8: For instance, at the time, you know a major distribution
Speaker 8: power M right, Well, there's manufacturing costs, right, you deduct
Speaker 8: that you pay for your manufacturing. The company that's manufacturing
Speaker 8: the record is the same company, but you're paying, but
Speaker 8: you're paying for the man you like. In other words,
Speaker 8: they're paying you're you're paying them to manufacture. You're not
Speaker 8: getting any break on that, you know. So it's and
Speaker 8: then let's face it, uh, international Okay, I can tell
Speaker 8: you this that, uh, there was an old there was
Speaker 8: an old time industry account named Bert Padell.
Speaker 5: Yeah, well it's guy's got the.
Speaker 10: Biggest He was an accountant, big shouted him out on
Speaker 10: the ones.
Speaker 8: What Bert Padell was that, you know, when you go
Speaker 8: to do a co venture right as a label, they
Speaker 8: just don't get it to you. You know remember when
Speaker 8: Andre herald the fifty million dollar thing, right, they don't. Yeah,
Speaker 8: they just don't. When you renegotiate, you got it. You
Speaker 8: have to come to them with a whole plan, like
Speaker 8: a prospectus. You have to have projections, you have to
Speaker 8: have a pro forma, You got to have all that stuff.
Speaker 8: You have to because if in order for them to
Speaker 8: cut loose with that money, they have to be able
Speaker 8: to justify it to.
Speaker 5: Whoever the board of whatever whatever it is. But that's
Speaker 5: part of the process like in any business. Right.
Speaker 8: So so when I when we did our finally did
Speaker 8: the co venture, uh, I had to get Bert Padell
Speaker 8: to help us put that stuff together because he's got
Speaker 8: he's got.
Speaker 5: All that stuff. But what I the reason I bring
Speaker 5: him up is that the majors is that were they
Speaker 5: one place that they really get you at that time
Speaker 5: when we have when we relying on the physical product,
Speaker 5: which was the lifeblood of the business was international internationally.
Speaker 5: You think about it, you everything is all computerized.
Speaker 8: So and somebody renegotiates a record dealer or something, you'd say,
Speaker 8: okay for international, We're going to get this particular royalty
Speaker 8: rate and they raise it by you know, a couple
Speaker 8: pointsever But somehow somebody forgets to put that in the
Speaker 8: royalty accounting program.
Speaker 5: Right, So then when you go back and you do a.
Speaker 8: So we audit, you would believe the hundreds of thousands
Speaker 8: to millions of dollars that you find and Roughhouse if
Speaker 8: we were anything else worldwide, we were one of the
Speaker 8: biggest hip hop labels in the world because our artists
Speaker 8: were massive, you know, and and you know, we were
Speaker 8: making so much money for them. And so that's at
Speaker 8: that point I just kind of felt like, you know,
Speaker 8: I I knew you know what I mean. So that
Speaker 8: gave me a lot of confidence and and you know,
Speaker 8: dealing with them.
Speaker 3: So what did you When did you officially leave Sony.
Speaker 5: Uh in nineteen ninety nine.
Speaker 7: Oh wow, right after right after during the I was
Speaker 7: having I was having meetings with in La with like
Speaker 7: uh David Geffen uh, heads of like e am I
Speaker 7: and Warner Brothers.
Speaker 5: The day after the Grammys. Yeah, I forgot because with
Speaker 5: rough Nation, yeah uh uh? And then Proud of from
Speaker 5: Yeah that record, dude, you should see that. You should
Speaker 5: see the video they did with Liz Lighty. It's it's
Speaker 5: incredibly rich. Shot it in this place in Delaware. It's
Speaker 5: like it's a white psych.
Speaker 8: That goes around the room and it's a camera that's
Speaker 8: on this like robotic thing. So the way it's one
Speaker 8: continuous shot. So you see this video and you see
Speaker 8: like hundreds of people in it, but there's no edit.
Speaker 3: Oh, it just keeps going.
Speaker 8: It just keeps going, and it's this whole system with
Speaker 8: the computer and the camera. That's a really awesome video.
Speaker 8: I can't find it though online.
Speaker 5: So where did you?
Speaker 3: Where did Rough Nation?
Speaker 7: Was that?
Speaker 5: Warner or Warner?
Speaker 3: Okay?
Speaker 5: I want to be the guy to bring black music
Speaker 5: back to Warners.
Speaker 3: That was my goal.
Speaker 5: It wasn't even about money.
Speaker 8: I actually took less money to go with Warners because
Speaker 8: and to me, the last real things in regards to
Speaker 8: black music of any significance was iced Tea in prints, right,
Speaker 8: and if you want to talk about cold chilling, I'm
Speaker 8: not sure, but you know that that was it, And
Speaker 8: I felt like if I could come there and kind
Speaker 8: of inject that rough House DNA into into the gig,
Speaker 8: you know that I could do something significant.
Speaker 9: So at the time when I started at rough House,
Speaker 9: you guys were just implementing a new system. Sound Scan
Speaker 9: hadn't really started yet, right, So every day I'm hearing
Speaker 9: all your people call and saying, hey, I need five
Speaker 9: hundred pieces reported in Billboard for this.
Speaker 5: And it was a little more subtle than that.
Speaker 9: But my point was then there was a point two
Speaker 9: months later, Oh yeah, where all that stopped. I'm like, wait,
Speaker 9: how come you guys aren't And people are being letting
Speaker 9: go because they're like, well, we have sound scan now,
Speaker 9: we don't need that more.
Speaker 8: How crazy when the chick when they went, when it
Speaker 8: went from from regular, when it went from the bullshit charts,
Speaker 8: the sound scan suddenly labels like us where the King
Speaker 8: of the he look right right, we sat there, man,
Speaker 8: You're you're trying, you're you're working a record and you're
Speaker 8: legitimately selling records and yet you're like trying to break
Speaker 8: an artist and you're in the one hundred and ten
Speaker 8: spot and Billboard. But then you see some god awful
Speaker 8: thing like sitting at number fourteen that you know is
Speaker 8: not selling, right, it's there. And then when SoundScan happened,
Speaker 8: suddenly hip hop was like the first twenty, right, it
Speaker 8: was crazy.
Speaker 5: So how do you feel now today?
Speaker 9: Uh, the way streaming is and stream Facebook likes, Instagram blaks.
Speaker 8: Yeah, yeah, it's just overwhelming you Well now, you know,
Speaker 8: it's funny, not as much as I thought, like, say,
Speaker 8: a month ago.
Speaker 5: Uh, you know, I have I somebody I.
Speaker 8: Started Twitter account and Instagram count like years ago, but
Speaker 8: never paid attention. Then I just started looking like a
Speaker 8: couple of weeks ago and it's like I had over
Speaker 8: a thousand followers on each. I said, oh, that's a
Speaker 8: nice little start, you know, And so I just started
Speaker 8: figuring how to do that. I never paid attention to
Speaker 8: that stuff. But in terms of the industry, I'll tell
Speaker 8: you what I think is. First off, when the whole thing,
Speaker 8: you know, digital and streaming for the first time since
Speaker 8: the fifties, there's now level playing field. But if you
Speaker 8: look at global music revenues, eighteen percent of global music
Speaker 8: revenues are independent artists.
Speaker 5: And that that's a big thing. I mean, what would
Speaker 5: that have been twenty years ago. Point independent artists, no
Speaker 5: I'm not artists not signed to record labels.
Speaker 8: Artists putting out music make up eighteen percent of global
Speaker 8: music revenues. And so this year is the I guess,
Speaker 8: I think it's the third year that global music revenues
Speaker 8: have taken a northernly upturn, you know, because let's face it,
Speaker 8: ever since the death now the stranglehold in the early
Speaker 8: two thousands, you know. But so yeah, so it's it's growing,
Speaker 8: and it's growing, it's going to keep growing. And I'm
Speaker 8: starting to see you know, labels now being a little
Speaker 8: bit more speculative, you know, in terms of artists and
Speaker 8: everything like that.
Speaker 9: And so in walking I've never spoken to anyone that
Speaker 9: once had a label and then walked away from the
Speaker 9: distribution deal whatever. So what happens to like a group
Speaker 9: like Cypress Hill will be a legacy act, so that
Speaker 9: album will continue to sell over and over.
Speaker 5: But they they brought us out, they bought the artists.
Speaker 10: They yeah, yeah, yeah, wow, yeah, because the yeah, because
Speaker 10: it was ninety nine, so yeah, the Carnival that wasn't
Speaker 10: rough House.
Speaker 5: That was rough it was Yeah. As a matter of fact,
Speaker 5: I paid for that record personally when we started.
Speaker 10: Oh wow, I love that album, and that's like, well
Speaker 10: that was Here's the.
Speaker 8: Thing, you know, they they didn't like the carnival when
Speaker 8: I when I when I went to the meeting, When
Speaker 8: I went, when I when I went, Now when I
Speaker 8: went to the first meeting.
Speaker 5: Here's what happened, Why Clef, Why Cleff.
Speaker 8: Originally I'd gone to Haiti a couple of times with them, right,
Speaker 8: and we had this idea to do a Haitian traditional
Speaker 8: Haitian kind of pop record, right, but mix it with
Speaker 8: some like hip hop and everything.
Speaker 5: And it was this wasn't going to be like what
Speaker 5: we call frontline release. This was going to be like
Speaker 5: an independent project.
Speaker 8: I was going to maybe see if Chris blackwell when
Speaker 8: you get involved with it on palm and stuff. So
Speaker 8: we start doing this record and then next thing, you know,
Speaker 8: it starts to kind of turn into something else. And
Speaker 8: now we think like, okay, now this is like a
Speaker 8: frontline rough house release, right, and but I had, you know,
Speaker 8: spent money at this point, and why Clev calls me
Speaker 8: up on a Tuesday night with Sonenberg to tell me
Speaker 8: that he booked like an eighty piece orchestra for that Thursday,
Speaker 8: and it was like, I haven't even gotten to like
Speaker 8: a budget approved or anything. And I had a meeting
Speaker 8: with Donnie on a Wednesday and I played him. I
Speaker 8: gave him the CD of like the five five or
Speaker 8: six songs, puts it in, listens to it, and does
Speaker 8: one of the worst things ever that could happen to
Speaker 8: you when you're trying to get somebody to like something.
Speaker 5: He handed it back to.
Speaker 3: Were staying alive on there? Uh no, no, but.
Speaker 8: No no. But he handed it back and he goes,
Speaker 8: I don't know, he goes sounds like something like vacation.
Speaker 5: Music or something, and I'm like think, going, yeah, now
Speaker 5: we got the orchestra going and ship.
Speaker 3: But Larry worked on that one too, right, yeah he did.
Speaker 3: He did. Wow, I love that album.
Speaker 5: Man. Oh yeah, it's a brilliant record. Man, it really is,
Speaker 5: really is. But but here's the thing that that the
Speaker 5: miseducation was the really that was the struggle.
Speaker 8: That was, like they first off, they didn't want a
Speaker 8: solo record from her, yet they wanted another Fuji's record,
Speaker 8: And of course, who could blame them, right, another Fuji's
Speaker 8: Record's gonna sell eleventy billion, you know whatever?
Speaker 3: But the the.
Speaker 8: They say said, okay, so now she's a good dual record,
Speaker 8: but we want we want Puffy, we want this.
Speaker 3: We want all these.
Speaker 8: And the problem was I, you know, I had a
Speaker 8: a thing at my house like a barbecue, and I
Speaker 8: invited her to come, not thinking that she would come,
Speaker 8: you know, And her mother called me up and says, oh, yeah,
Speaker 8: we're coming out, and I was like, oh, okay, so
Speaker 8: and she came. We hung out for a little bit
Speaker 8: and I had my house at the time. I had
Speaker 8: this room, like this music room, and she started to
Speaker 8: tell me about this record and it was gonna be
Speaker 8: like sixties and seventies soul, like the hip hop and
Speaker 8: this whole but real organic, you know, if analog and
Speaker 8: this whole thing.
Speaker 5: And it's like cool all this.
Speaker 3: And when.
Speaker 8: We I was in Bath, England with my wife and
Speaker 8: it was like three o'clock in the morning and the
Speaker 8: phone rings and I knew who it was.
Speaker 5: I knew it was gonna be Tommy and Donnie and
Speaker 5: I had given them the five songs, five or six songs.
Speaker 3: And five six songs from Miseducation. Yeah okay, and they said, and.
Speaker 8: Tommy's on Speak, Donnie was on speaker phone. He goes, yeah,
Speaker 8: Tommy and I listened to the record and we think
Speaker 8: the songs.
Speaker 5: Are very, very very mediocre.
Speaker 3: Oh now now I hang up and in whatever, I
Speaker 3: hang up, and I'm.
Speaker 5: Sitting there in the dark, right and my wife's asleep,
Speaker 5: and she's like, Chris, what's the matter? I said, they
Speaker 5: don't like to record, you know.
Speaker 8: And I'm like, and you know, but you got it.
Speaker 8: This is but see for me, you know, Okay, I
Speaker 8: like I said, Yeah, I talk all this bravado.
Speaker 5: About my dealings with them and everything, but still these
Speaker 5: are two guys who are, for the all intensive purposes,
Speaker 5: pretty powerful guys in the music business, you know, who
Speaker 5: have years and years.
Speaker 3: Of an experience, you know.
Speaker 8: But the one thing that that I held on too
Speaker 8: was that they were wrong about the Cleft record, completely
Speaker 8: wrong about that. And the record was good. It was
Speaker 8: just like it just like, how how could they? You know?
Speaker 5: I didn't.
Speaker 2: I didn't.
Speaker 9: Okay, this is the thing, though, I don't think it
Speaker 9: matters if it's good or bad. Could they no, no, no,
Speaker 9: I'm just saying, but it's the truth. Could they not
Speaker 9: see that it was going to be effective?
Speaker 5: Like?
Speaker 3: How could they not?
Speaker 5: Because she could have done any okay by that point.
Speaker 8: Because they would have because these guys, right, I always
Speaker 8: used to say that.
Speaker 5: I used to tell her this all the time earlier on.
Speaker 8: I used to say, you could sing over five minutes
Speaker 8: of static kiss and it'll be a hit record. But
Speaker 8: they lived, They live in these monolithic glass and steel
Speaker 8: places where everything is about radio and Greatest Gainer and
Speaker 8: weekly this and all that, and everything is formatted and
Speaker 8: this and that, right, And it's like, yeah, but the
Speaker 8: thing is, like I saw both the Carnival and miseducation
Speaker 8: these to me, this was like circa nineteen sixty eight.
Speaker 5: WMMR FM radio. Like you know, this isn't about this
Speaker 5: is about a body of work, you know, And this
Speaker 5: is the thing is. It's like.
Speaker 8: I felt that that I wasn't thinking not thinking singles,
Speaker 8: you know, I'm thinking this. But you know, Michael Maldon was.
Speaker 8: You know, we did a white label twelve inch for
Speaker 8: Lost Ones.
Speaker 5: We did it.
Speaker 8: Rough House did it. Clumby had nothing to do with it,
Speaker 8: and we didn't even tell him about it. We just
Speaker 8: did it and we sent out it was her idea
Speaker 8: and we sent that out and oh my god.
Speaker 5: The ship hit the fan. All right, yeah, they ship
Speaker 5: hit the I mean there. Oh well, here's the thing.
Speaker 8: They were angry or Michael Maldon was angry, you know,
Speaker 8: because I you know, let's face it, he was had
Speaker 8: a black music department and I just and I just
Speaker 8: went and did that ship, right, But he said, Donnie's
Speaker 8: gonna get ready to blow up your phone.
Speaker 5: But you know what, I never heard from Donnie.
Speaker 8: You don't know why, because now, no, I never heard
Speaker 8: from Donnie because it was so incredible.
Speaker 5: The way it started, the whole thing. It was like
Speaker 5: that song lost Ones. What a perfect entree vus for
Speaker 5: a project like that.
Speaker 9: But they've literally had doubts that the album is going
Speaker 9: to work, even though oh yeah, so how do they
Speaker 9: feel about the score of then?
Speaker 5: Oh no, no, well well no, no, not at all.
Speaker 5: But but I'll tell you this.
Speaker 8: They they wanted they they wanted. Not only did they
Speaker 8: want that that all that crazy you know, commercial production.
Speaker 8: They they definitely wanted an a nineties female R and
Speaker 8: B singer style photography. Yeah, it's like sont so, so
Speaker 8: think about this, think about think about what the cover is,
Speaker 8: and think about what they're thinking about.
Speaker 5: Yeah, album, it's can have been another cover. Yeah, yeah, no,
Speaker 5: it was.
Speaker 8: Like and no, they eventually they gave in because I
Speaker 8: know this that there was a there was a marketing
Speaker 8: meeting and Miguel B. Gower and a bunch of people
Speaker 8: in the room all said that the anticipation and the
Speaker 8: early feedback and everything was that this record was not
Speaker 8: only going to be critically acclaimed, it was going to
Speaker 8: be massive and everything.
Speaker 5: And then then, of course, you know, because it was
Speaker 5: lost ones and to do to do.
Speaker 3: Yeah, I just can't believe that they didn't know that
Speaker 3: they had it easy. Yeah, especially after killing.
Speaker 8: Well, you know, killing Me Softly was never even uh,
Speaker 8: it was never supposed to be a single. Fuji's didn't
Speaker 8: didn't even really want their song on the record, and
Speaker 8: and they didn't want to promote it, as you know
Speaker 8: they did.
Speaker 5: We did a video and and it just they hated it.
Speaker 8: So we shot it with them in the movie theater
Speaker 8: throwing popcorn at each other like like a non video video.
Speaker 3: Right.
Speaker 5: But yeah, that song, you couldn't stop it was that
Speaker 5: all love That wasn't on Love Jones.
Speaker 9: That wasn't you think the sweetest thing. I think it's
Speaker 9: possible that both can be, right, I mean it's not.
Speaker 9: I'm not one of these die hard Then that album
Speaker 9: changed my technically, that album actually changed my life in
Speaker 9: a technical sense. It affected my life. But I think
Speaker 9: I'm just shocked that they couldn't see that this was
Speaker 9: a no brainer.
Speaker 5: Well, they just they were you know what, I'll tell
Speaker 5: you this.
Speaker 8: They didn't trust their record to have all of it
Speaker 8: to be pulled off by her and her alone, Okay,
Speaker 8: because at that point she had gotten rid of her management.
Speaker 8: She was disassociated with everything and everybody up there except me, right,
Speaker 8: and that was it. So it was kind of like,
Speaker 8: you know, they they would have loved that that the
Speaker 8: A list, R and B nineties hip producers.
Speaker 9: You know, they didn't realize that she was the answer
Speaker 9: to the coming backlash that no one saw coming up.
Speaker 3: Yeah.
Speaker 5: Yeah. And the thing is I heard all sorts of stories.
Speaker 8: Uh somebody said that, you know that Puffy had this
Speaker 8: big meeting and pulled everybody into a room and held
Speaker 8: up the record and says this is where we need
Speaker 8: to be going and all this stuff, and.
Speaker 3: It just it really, you know, that's crazy. Yeh. How
Speaker 3: did the lawsuits and stuff affect you guys? If it all.
Speaker 5: I don't want to.
Speaker 8: I don't want to say anything, you know, I know
Speaker 8: I knew Beta, right, But here's here's a simple reoity
Speaker 8: the fact that they claimed that they wrote lyrics and everything.
Speaker 8: How How because I know these songs and I know
Speaker 8: everything that she's talking about in the songs. You know,
Speaker 8: moving records on South Orange Ave right, Okay, I used
Speaker 8: to take records there, you know, to move in records
Speaker 8: on South Orange, AZ.
Speaker 5: So why would why would those guys come up with
Speaker 5: that reference in that song? Why would they? How could
Speaker 5: they have wrote lost?
Speaker 8: Like?
Speaker 5: It's so crazy? But here's the biggest.
Speaker 8: Thing, right, and and here's what it is, in the nutshell,
Speaker 8: if they, in fact were the ones who made this
Speaker 8: monumental contribution to this production, well why haven't they made
Speaker 8: a similar monumental contribution to somebody else's production since you
Speaker 8: know what I mean?
Speaker 3: And make Yeah, that's uh, you know, I guess with
Speaker 3: all these due respect, James is not here too.
Speaker 5: Oh no, no, James, James. I know what James DIDs.
Speaker 5: James he wrote the thing because I'm like, after a while,
Speaker 5: it was just like Lauren did everything, and then people
Speaker 5: was like, wait a minute.
Speaker 9: Hold up, Yeah, yeah, but I don't think one person
Speaker 9: does everything yet do everything?
Speaker 5: Yeah, exactly, but it was a nice mark. It was
Speaker 5: needed at the time.
Speaker 8: I'll tell you what I know of some major, major
Speaker 8: market name producers who are out there who are given
Speaker 8: the ultimate credit for projects that they basically, yeah, they
Speaker 8: would come in and listen to some mixes and say okay,
Speaker 8: do this and do that and go home.
Speaker 5: And there's quite a few of them, and they rely
Speaker 5: on a lot of people the team. Right.
Speaker 9: Yeah about Wow, the lessons we learned today, Well, Chris,
Speaker 9: we thank you, thank you, thank you, thank.
Speaker 5: You, thank you.
Speaker 3: Yet this year is the anniversary of rough House.
Speaker 5: No, yeah, I was like, wow, you know, we're just yes,
Speaker 5: we're what we're trying to do is to figure out
Speaker 5: the research.
Speaker 8: You get a definitive date and we're going to probably
Speaker 8: use when we really just started with Columbia.
Speaker 5: Is the real anniversary because that's when all the records. Yeah, yeah,
Speaker 5: that would be yeah, thirty, it will be thirty.
Speaker 3: We talk about DMX.
Speaker 9: I forgot about how did you find DMX and why
Speaker 9: did y'all not uh we did a we.
Speaker 8: We well, you know, you know what the biggest problem was,
Speaker 8: we never like it was a good song, but we
Speaker 8: didn't have the like I never really got to.
Speaker 5: Hang out with him or anything, you know. And we
Speaker 5: did this song Born Loser, which at the time it
Speaker 5: was it was a good track for when you look
Speaker 5: at the time when that came out, Yeah, that was good.
Speaker 5: But we only did a singles deal. And I think
Speaker 5: what happened was that by the time we started trying
Speaker 5: to figure out what the next move was, something had
Speaker 5: already elapsed.
Speaker 8: And I know that the rough Riders had already And
Speaker 8: you know, I'll tell you this, I didn't get upset
Speaker 8: or anything because well, if I if I was so like,
Speaker 8: you know, like, if.
Speaker 5: This was something that was important to me, I'd have
Speaker 5: been up on it.
Speaker 3: You know. Wow, who knew? Yeah, well, I'll end on.
Speaker 5: All right, Chris, We thank you very much. Thank you for.
Speaker 9: The bills, Sugar, Steve and Laya. This Quest Love, Quest
Speaker 9: Love Supreme and we will see you on the next
Speaker 9: go round, all right.
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