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Speaker 1: Quest Love Supreme is a production of iHeartRadio. This classic

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Speaker 1: episode was produced by the team at Pandora. What Up

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Speaker 1: It's Unpaid Bill.

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Speaker 2: On this classic episode of Quest Love Supreme, we travel

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Speaker 2: back to March eight, twenty seventeen. Tom Zila, the founder

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Speaker 2: of Tommy Boy Records, tells Team Supreme about some of

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Speaker 2: the legendary music this company put out and creating a

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Speaker 2: pathway to make sampling more affordable for producers. Listeners can

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Speaker 2: also check out our twenty twenty two two part interview

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Speaker 2: with former Tommy Boy president Monica Lynch.

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Speaker 1: Enjoyed all here on uls.

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Speaker 3: Supremo, Supremo, Suprema So Supremo Ro, Supremo, Sun Sun Supremo

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Speaker 3: Roll So Supreme Sun Supremo Ro.

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Speaker 1: This is your cult leader. Yes you are my sheep. Yes,

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Speaker 1: Tommy's in the place.

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Speaker 4: Yeah, Supremo Roll Call, Suprema Son Supremo Ro.

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Speaker 1: The name. Yeah, here's an example. Yeah, let me clear

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Speaker 1: my throat.

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Speaker 5: Yeah, but not no samples Supremo Suprema s RO.

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Speaker 6: Good morning Tommy from Tommy Boy. Yeah, my name is

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Speaker 6: Sugar from Bagel Boys.

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Speaker 4: Supremo, Supremo, Son, Son Supremo.

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Speaker 2: Roll pay Bill, Yeah, Steve say, oy, Yeah, about to

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Speaker 2: throw down.

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Speaker 1: Yeah, Tommy Ro Supremo. So you guys, Supremo Bill is frantic?

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Speaker 5: Yeah, looking through my jacket. Yeah, must have misplaced on

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Speaker 5: my sex packets.

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Speaker 4: Roll Supremo Son Supremo, roll call Suprema Son Supremo.

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Speaker 7: Role Yeah girl, Yeah, and I'm too excited.

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Speaker 1: Yeah world Ro.

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Speaker 4: Supremo Supremo, roll call Supremo some some Supremo role ca.

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Speaker 8: Yeah, I'm Tommy boy. Yeah, I wasn't prepared for this annoying.

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Speaker 9: Supreme Supremo Rome Suprema Son Son Supremo, Roll call Supremo

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Speaker 9: Son Son Supremo, Roll call Suprema some Supremo ro.

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Speaker 1: He said, come on, it's hard to promise things, ladies

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Speaker 1: and gentlemen. Uh, and welcome to you another edition of

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Speaker 1: course Love Supreme. How are you guys doing, say a

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Speaker 1: little Team Supreme? Yes, everybody, mama, okay.

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Speaker 5: Uh.

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Speaker 1: I have to say that our guest, in my opinion,

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Speaker 1: probably on paper, his his label probably spoke to me

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Speaker 1: more than because usually when you think of the consummate

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Speaker 1: hip hop label or the consumant label, of course, the

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Speaker 1: D word is always the first thing that comes to mind.

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Speaker 1: But uh, as far as pushing the boundary and innovations

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Speaker 1: and one of the greatest logos of all ties, one

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Speaker 1: of the most boy logos of all time. I have

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Speaker 1: to say that that for me, Tommy Boy Records kind

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Speaker 1: of pushes the envelope just a little bit further as

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Speaker 1: far as innovation and trying out new ideas. And that's

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Speaker 1: what I feel. Our our steam guest today is about

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Speaker 1: lady and gentlemen. Please give it up for mister Tommy Silverman. Yeah,

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Speaker 1: thank you. How are you today?

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Speaker 8: Very good? Very good? Starting my fast Day one might

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Speaker 8: as well good day to start it. Wednesday?

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Speaker 1: You're right, you're right. How long are you going for?

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Speaker 8: How long it's humpty day? You know it's Wednesday. How

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Speaker 8: long do you go for? I don't know. I you know,

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Speaker 8: I as long as I still feel good. I'm drinking

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Speaker 8: water that you know. I'm starting out drinking water. We'll

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Speaker 8: see if I go to fancy restaurant, I might have

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Speaker 8: to eat. We'll have to see.

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Speaker 1: But this is day one.

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Speaker 8: Yeah, this is day one. Man.

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Speaker 1: The crank is going to start.

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Speaker 8: But it gets good. Yeah, you're turning about the detox, right, Yeah,

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Speaker 8: that's going to be pretty clean.

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Speaker 1: I feel for you make well, okay, I know there's

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Speaker 1: a lot that I don't know about you, but I

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Speaker 1: mean I know of your your general story, but I

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Speaker 1: do know that your love and your appreciation for music

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Speaker 1: runs deep.

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Speaker 8: So yeah, starting with your dad.

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Speaker 1: That's that's how we first met. I have to say

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Speaker 1: that I didn't think that anyone in the current music

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Speaker 1: world even really knew of the do wop world or

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Speaker 1: any of that stuff. And that's the first thing you

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Speaker 1: came up to me and said, like, I know your

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Speaker 1: dad is I was really so am I to believe

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Speaker 1: that your first passion of music was duop.

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Speaker 8: No. But you know, I discovered duop just like you

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Speaker 8: talk about how you discover things through sampling and that,

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Speaker 8: you know, I hear heard new things and I went

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Speaker 8: back and discovered roots, and so doop was a route

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Speaker 8: that I discovered. I was way way too young to

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Speaker 8: know doop, but I discovered it, you know, when it's

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Speaker 8: sort of the shinnan nah kind of a thing came

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Speaker 8: around and I wanted to know. Yeah, and you know,

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Speaker 8: I had Lee Andrews and the Heart's album, which, like

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Speaker 8: most people only know the singles, right, you know, I

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Speaker 8: got really deep into it and it's definitely one of

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Speaker 8: the top five or ten do op artists of all time.

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Speaker 8: And then to find that you actually played with those

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Speaker 8: guys in the garden when you were thirteen made me

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Speaker 8: have like a different kind of respect. I already respected,

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Speaker 8: of course hip hop and the people in the world,

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Speaker 8: you know, more than almost everyone else. But then to

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Speaker 8: hear that you also had that was you know, because

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Speaker 8: I when I started hip hop and I was working

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Speaker 8: with Ben Bada in the Bronx in nineteen eighty, it

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Speaker 8: was the same corners that duop started from where hip

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Speaker 8: hop started, like literally the same streets in the same neighborhoods,

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Speaker 8: you know, the Belmont Avenue. There was the Italian section,

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Speaker 8: and there was the Black section, and there were kids

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Speaker 8: singing on every street corner, and it was the same

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Speaker 8: corners that kids plugged in, you know, their mixers, into

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Speaker 8: street polls and started. You know, it wasn't that far apart.

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Speaker 8: So I thought there was a relationship, and I you know,

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Speaker 8: I always search for that relationship, even to the point

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Speaker 8: of signing the Force MDS, which I thought was sort

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Speaker 8: of the synthesis of duop and hip hop.

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Speaker 1: So were you born into a musical family or a

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Speaker 1: musical collective family.

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Speaker 8: Creative but not musicough. My mom is an artist and

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Speaker 8: my dad is a writer.

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Speaker 1: Are you Are you born New York.

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Speaker 8: YA, Westchester, White Plains?

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Speaker 1: Okay, okay, So like what are your first musical experiences

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Speaker 1: at least.

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Speaker 8: Out early when I was Yeah, when I was like,

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Speaker 8: my dad was really into jazz and so you know,

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Speaker 8: he used to like play air saxophone to Coleman Hawkins

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Speaker 8: when I was like five years old, and those are

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Speaker 8: my earliest memories. And he used to play Miles Davis,

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Speaker 8: early Miles Davis records and he had like a big

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Speaker 8: high fight. This was way before stereo and built into

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Speaker 8: the wall and the house that we lived in, and

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Speaker 8: you know, and he was you know, they played Billie

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Speaker 8: Holliday and they were really into that kind of music.

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Speaker 8: So that was the music that I grew up with

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Speaker 8: at the time.

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Speaker 1: So you weren't listening to the The Battle, Dave Crockett

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Speaker 1: or anything that Middle America was into.

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Speaker 8: You guys were except for show tunes because that you know,

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Speaker 8: you know, that was the mut that had to be

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Speaker 8: in there too. That was a combination of like of

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Speaker 8: bebop and show tunes. It's a weird combination. But yeah,

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Speaker 8: that's what played in my house before I was had

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Speaker 8: my own musical exploration, which probably started in sixty five

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Speaker 8: or sixty six when I started buying my first records.

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Speaker 1: What was the first record you purchased?

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Speaker 8: Tommy James and the Schondell's Hanky Panky on Roulette, Ah

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Speaker 8: Roulette turned about forty fives? Yeah?

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Speaker 1: Yeah, okay, okay, So was it an everyday occurrence like

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Speaker 1: buying bubblegum or was you like buying for forty fives

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Speaker 1: and records? Like was that like?

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Speaker 8: Yeah? But it was expensive. I mean, you know, for

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Speaker 8: a little kid with you know, on a tiny allow,

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Speaker 8: how much were forty fives back competed? It was either

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Speaker 8: baseball cards or records?

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Speaker 1: You know, how much were forty fives back?

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Speaker 8: Now? Forty five is like sixty nine cents or something

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Speaker 8: like that, or maybe even forty nine cents if you

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Speaker 8: went to Corvette's, where would you go? I went to

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Speaker 8: the local store where I bought comic books, you know,

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Speaker 8: and they had records, some records on forty five's.

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Speaker 1: Okay, But was there a place in New York that

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Speaker 1: was like the Holy Mecha center of.

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Speaker 8: Not at that time, not at that time. I'm talking about, like,

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Speaker 8: you know, sixty five, sixty six, sixty seven. You know,

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Speaker 8: it's an interesting era too, because you know, then there

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Speaker 8: was New York radio then you know, it was all

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Speaker 8: I AM. There was no effort radio yet, so it

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Speaker 8: was ABC, MCA. Those were like the pop stations, and

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Speaker 8: then there was l I, B N r L, which

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Speaker 8: was the black stations, okay, you know, and I didn't

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Speaker 8: even find out about the black stations until I got

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Speaker 8: into junior high school.

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Speaker 1: So as far as your your foray into music, by

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Speaker 1: the time you started collecting, I mean, were you then

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Speaker 1: collecting the music of the time as far as your.

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Speaker 8: I was into blues and duops. Those were the things

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Speaker 8: that were now cast your friends. Totally nobody knew that's

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Speaker 8: what I wanted to do. But by the way, that

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Speaker 8: wasn't just about music. That was about the way I

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Speaker 8: dressed and the things I was into. I mean, I

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Speaker 8: used to get kicked out of school for wearing a

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Speaker 8: Lenen pin or you know, carrying Mao's Red Book to

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Speaker 8: school when I was in ninth grade and stuff. I

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Speaker 8: would wore Bush jackets with American flag upside down on

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Speaker 8: the back, which was like the signal for distressing. I

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Speaker 8: wrote the underground newspaper with another couple of guys in

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Speaker 8: my junior high school. You know, I was like, kind

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Speaker 8: of whatever it was, I was against it. So you

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Speaker 8: know I was a contra against the against the system

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Speaker 8: even in high school. Well, you know, I looked look

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Speaker 8: at everything that is and say what isn't you know?

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Speaker 8: What's missing? What's not you know? And so I try

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Speaker 8: I look at I invert everything and say, okay, what

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Speaker 8: are the opportunities for change? And kind of that may

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Speaker 8: be the reason why Tommy Boy and the D label

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Speaker 8: have a different philosophy. I was always looking to do

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Speaker 8: something nobody had ever done before. I wasn't looking to

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Speaker 8: have the biggest hit today. You know, I was looking

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Speaker 8: to do something, you know, where there was no competition.

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Speaker 8: I wasn't trying to trash the competition. I wanted to

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Speaker 8: be the first.

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Speaker 1: What makes a person want to do that? Because it

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Speaker 1: would have been so easy for you to just statisfied,

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Speaker 1: kind of blend in with the status quo and kind

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Speaker 1: of reap the benefits of the time and right off

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Speaker 1: into the sunset, Like what makes you?

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Speaker 8: I guess when I was a little kid, I wasn't

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Speaker 8: the fastest or the strongest. I get picked last in

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Speaker 8: the sports team. I wasn't the best looking, so I

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Speaker 8: didn't get invited to the party. So I had to say, sorry,

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Speaker 8: I guess we have to make my own world, you know.

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Speaker 8: And so I kind of had to reject the status

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Speaker 8: quot because the status quo rejected me. And by the way,

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Speaker 8: if you look at the entire world, everything that moves

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Speaker 8: society forward happens because people are rejected.

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Speaker 1: How many how many siblings do you?

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Speaker 8: I have two younger brothers, Okay, Oh you're the oldest.

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Speaker 1: I was going to say, were you the middle child

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Speaker 1: or the Okay? I was trying to get super over analytical.

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Speaker 8: And my brothers aren't. Aren't this way I see. So

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Speaker 8: I don't know if it's karma genetic or if it's

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Speaker 8: the results of behavioral rejection when I was younger, but

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Speaker 8: I think, you know, like if Gandhi hadn't got kicked

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Speaker 8: off of train in South Africa, he wouldn't have gotten

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Speaker 8: to India and done what he did. You know, he

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Speaker 8: wouldn't even have thought about that, you know. But he

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Speaker 8: was seeing as colored in South Africa at the time,

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Speaker 8: and and he was going along. He'd gone to Oxford

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Speaker 8: or somewhere for law school, and he said, what's this about?

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Speaker 8: And when he became a reformer because of rejection, and

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Speaker 8: you you know, Jesus Christ, you know, you look at

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Speaker 8: everybody in history has been rejected. It's gone and gone

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Speaker 8: on to do great things.

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Speaker 1: So for me, so for you was music more. You're

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Speaker 1: you're calming, your your your your sanctuary.

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Speaker 8: Yeah, I was also an exploration, you know, like so

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Speaker 8: I was into the Rolling Stones when I was really young,

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Speaker 8: and then I got into all the blues artists that

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Speaker 8: influenced them. So I started buying you know, old blues

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Speaker 8: albums and learning about blues that way.

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Speaker 1: You know, it's easy now, especially with the with the

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Speaker 1: oncelot of the internet, to get information quick fast. But

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Speaker 1: you know, like if you're listening to uh, say, like

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Speaker 1: if you're listening to zep too, if you listen a

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Speaker 1: Whole Lot of Love or whatever, like who's there to

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Speaker 1: let you know about a Willie Dixon or Blind Lemon

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Speaker 1: Jefferson or.

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Speaker 8: So I'm looking at the liner notes of course, and

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Speaker 8: you know when you're watching you listen to the record

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Speaker 8: in your room, you're listening to the record on a

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Speaker 8: record player in your room. You have plenty of time

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Speaker 8: to read liner notes, and the liner notes are big

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Speaker 8: because records are big, and you can see that Spoonful

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Speaker 8: by Cream was written by Willie Dixon, so I had

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Speaker 8: to find out what else Willy Dixon did or whatever,

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Speaker 8: you know. And then I got crazy into Muddy Waters

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Speaker 8: because you know, his songs were covered by everybody else,

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Speaker 8: and so you know, then I you know, and then

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Speaker 8: I said, oh, well, he's playing a telecaster, so maybe

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Speaker 8: I should try to get a telecaster. So then I

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Speaker 8: learned to play guitar, and that was like, I try

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Speaker 8: to be like Albert King or whatever.

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Speaker 1: You know, So you initially wanted to start off as

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Speaker 1: a blues musician.

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Speaker 8: No, I just wanted to be a musician. And actually

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Speaker 8: Albert King played the least notes, so it was easiest

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Speaker 8: to do.

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Speaker 1: So no high school band experience, so you know, I.

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Speaker 8: Wasn't you know, as I said, I wasn't picked first

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Speaker 8: for anything. I was picked last for most things, so

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Speaker 8: you know, I wasn't getting it. I wasn't the most

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Speaker 8: popular kid. So you know, if I could be, you know,

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Speaker 8: a guitar player, maybe I could get laid someday, you know,

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Speaker 8: there was that possibility.

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Speaker 1: So by the time you're playing guitar, like, are we

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Speaker 1: talking about the seventies period or the.

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Speaker 8: No still sick? Oh well early maybe sixty to sixty

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Speaker 8: nine and seventy. Yeah, Okay, this is the advent of

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Speaker 8: FM radio and you know, psychedelic rock and stuff.

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Speaker 1: So once FM, what was that? Okay, so Zeppelin one

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Speaker 1: the entire side. Okay, So I need someone who was

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Speaker 1: there in real time to explain to me because I

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Speaker 1: always wanted to know. You know, a lot of people

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Speaker 1: when they explained to me the power of AM radio

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Speaker 1: listen to music, when their transition radios and all this stuff,

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Speaker 1: how magical it was, Like was it really that foreign?

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Speaker 1: Once FM high fidelity radio came into play, Like the

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Speaker 1: clarity of it all, Like, was it a revelation to you?

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Speaker 8: No, definitely not.

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Speaker 1: I mean, yes, I hear some people actually prefer the

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Speaker 1: lo fi AM radio station sound as opposed to which well, at.

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Speaker 8: The beginning, you know, AM radios were small. You know,

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Speaker 8: they're transistor radio, so you could almost put them in

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Speaker 8: your pocket. So that was the first portable music AM

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Speaker 8: radio and it was in the cars only AM. So

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Speaker 8: when FM came. They it wasn't in cars yet, it

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Speaker 8: wasn't in transistor radio. They didn't have AM FM transistor

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Speaker 8: radios for the first few years. So you know, it's

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Speaker 8: kind of probably like that HD channel now right. You know,

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Speaker 8: they exist all over the world, but nobody listens because

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Speaker 8: nobody even knows how to tune in, you know, so

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Speaker 8: you know, you had to you had to make it easy,

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Speaker 8: and it was hard. You know, you had to find

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Speaker 8: the stations, and everyone listened to the same station. So

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Speaker 8: w ABC was playing at one time Joni mitchell ty

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Speaker 8: Yellow Ribbon around the old I mean, the most wackist

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Speaker 8: mainstream kitty rock, and then they were playing Monosabongo Solamakosa

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Speaker 8: at the same time and a country record like behind

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Speaker 8: closed ABC. I think that Radio one in the UK

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Speaker 8: is a little bit like that. They play like diverse music,

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Speaker 8: you know, they would play like hip hop and rock

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Speaker 8: and all kinds of music and still do. So people

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Speaker 8: get exposed to more stuff, and as the band got

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Speaker 8: split and stations started to specialize, people gravitated toward one

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Speaker 8: kind of music as a way of sort of appreciating

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Speaker 8: that music but also avoiding every other kind of music.

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Speaker 1: So you're saying at Efen radio actually started the idea

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Speaker 1: of genres or segregating music.

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Speaker 8: Yeah, rock radio happened dead FM only, and you know,

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Speaker 8: people who listened to that only got rock, so they

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Speaker 8: didn't have to hear you know, Charlie rich anymore. So

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Speaker 8: now no more country influence, now, no more black influence.

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Speaker 8: Everything was that, you know, you know, Richie Havens was

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Speaker 8: as black as it got, or the Chambers Brothers. You know,

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Speaker 8: it was the only kind of things that would get

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Speaker 8: played on those radio stations. So that began the segregation.

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Speaker 8: And that's why at the you know, for years Rolling

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Speaker 8: Stone magazine never had black people and never on the

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Speaker 8: cover or even writing about them, except for maybe Slide

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Speaker 8: because they played at Woodstock. Anyone, if you played on Woodstock,

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Speaker 8: you were allowed in the club.

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Speaker 1: You know, that was a wow. Okay, I never even

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Speaker 1: thought about that. I thought, you know, because the idea

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Speaker 1: of Eppen radio men playing like complete sides and playing

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Speaker 1: the full version of a particular song and that sort

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Speaker 1: of thing would have made it better.

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Speaker 8: But you know, well it did. I mean there were

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Speaker 8: great things about it, and the quality was better and

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Speaker 8: people talk to you more in a different way. They

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Speaker 8: weren't shouting at you as much. It was a more

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Speaker 8: laid back kind of a thing, you know. And then

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Speaker 8: I got when I went to college, I got involved

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Speaker 8: in college radio immediately and became the music director of

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Speaker 8: the college radio station Where'd you go Colby and Maine.

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Speaker 1: Okay, so what was your vision for your college radio years?

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Speaker 8: Like? So, you know, I did a So initially I

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Speaker 8: start started doing my own radio station, and I did

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Speaker 8: a du op show, you know, cruising Tom's College of

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Speaker 8: Musical Knowledge every Sunday night. And then I started doing

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Speaker 8: a party show, you know, by seventy four and seventy five,

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Speaker 8: and I play Party Records, which was you know, mostly

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Speaker 8: R and B and funky records. I may have been

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Speaker 8: the first person in America to play Lady Marmalade.

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Speaker 1: Really yeah, okay, So because DJ culture really wasn't a

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Speaker 1: thing in seventy three seventy.

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Speaker 8: Four, it was just beginning.

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Speaker 1: How do you Okay, So take me to what your

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Speaker 1: rider is. In seventy three, DJing for a college like

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Speaker 1: are the idea of big speakers?

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Speaker 8: I mean, yeah, I mean you do this is radio DJ,

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Speaker 8: not live DJ. Oh Okay, live DJing didn't exist yet.

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Speaker 8: Like that, except maybe in cool Hair. It was happening,

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Speaker 8: you know, on Sedgwick, but there wasn't many other places.

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Speaker 8: It was just starting there really at that point in time.

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Speaker 1: And so all just bands were still playing the music

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Speaker 1: of a day.

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Speaker 8: And yeah, and I was in a fraternity house and

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Speaker 8: I used to book the bands that would come in,

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Speaker 8: and they were blues bands mostly that's what I could get,

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Speaker 8: or disco bands. So in seventy five, disco started to

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Speaker 8: take off. And then Saturday Night Fever came out, So

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Speaker 8: disco started, and then Saturday Night Fever came out. So

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Speaker 8: I was doing my a disco radio show. And then

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Speaker 8: a club opened, A disco opened in Waterville, Maine, and

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Speaker 8: I started djaing there with a mixture I built myself

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Speaker 8: from radio shack parts. Didn't have queueing, but just like

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Speaker 8: two giant knobs, and I had like two record players.

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Speaker 8: They weren't really turntables, you know, like you know whatever.

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Speaker 1: I listening to the record before with headphones.

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Speaker 8: Well, I knew the record and I knew what it was.

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Speaker 8: But the first DJ, arguably the first American DJ in disco,

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Speaker 8: was David Mancuso, who just passed last year. At the

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Speaker 8: loft and he started playing in seventy two, and he

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Speaker 8: played every record to the end, and then he started

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Speaker 8: playing in another record, you know, And when disco started

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Speaker 8: around the world, that's the way happened. The idea of

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Speaker 8: mixing came much later. There weren't really mixers that had

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Speaker 8: queuing until probably seventy four.

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Speaker 10: Is that when you started the disco news while you

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Speaker 10: were in college?

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Speaker 8: Okay, so that started. We'll get there anyway. Yeah, so

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Speaker 8: I'm playing black music for a totally white college.

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Speaker 1: You know, there was one What were they accepting of it?

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Speaker 8: There was like eleven black people in the school and

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Speaker 8: there are only two black families or four black families

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Speaker 8: in the whole state of Maine, and maybe two record

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Speaker 8: stores in the whole state of Maine.

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Speaker 1: Was what was the outreach? Was it just the college or.

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Speaker 8: Like it reached. We had a ten watch signal, which

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Speaker 8: is what most colleges had, but we were on the

397
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Speaker 8: top of a hill, so we reached like forty miles.

398
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Speaker 8: It was pretty amaze, and there wasn't a lot of

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Speaker 8: other radio stations interfering up there. So we used to

400
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Speaker 8: get We used to do crazy stuff and get away

401
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Speaker 8: with crazy stuff on the radio station. It was pretty radical,

402
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Speaker 8: but you know, playing black music was pretty radical, and

403
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Speaker 8: people would always call up and request me to play

404
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Speaker 8: Derek and the Domino's Leila, and I tell no. In fact,

405
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Speaker 8: I was the music director. I took the record out

406
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Speaker 8: of the stacks and no one could play because you know,

407
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Speaker 8: the idea here is we're supposed to introduce new music,

408
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Speaker 8: and you know, both led Zeppelin and you know and

409
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Speaker 8: Derek and the Dominoes, those were the most played records

410
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Speaker 8: and it was so every show would play them every time,

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Speaker 8: so it was like top forty radio, and that wasn't

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Speaker 8: the concept. So I pulled them out of the stacks

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Speaker 8: so nobody could play.

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Speaker 1: Did you feel like it was arm rustling. I mean

415
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Speaker 1: I usually when I hear stories of taste makers, and

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Speaker 1: especially like with Tastemaker DJs, it's always a moment where

417
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Speaker 1: it's like I'm the almighty, all knowing expert of music

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Speaker 1: and you're going to love anything I play and there's

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Speaker 1: no resistance. But you know, today if I go to

420
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Speaker 1: a club and play like an unknown demo or something

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Speaker 1: that I think is like really incredible piece of music,

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Speaker 1: it's it's a struggle, like, you know, half a dance

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Speaker 1: floor might clear. I know we live in a different

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Speaker 1: time now, but I mean, but to really get people

425
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Speaker 1: to get into something and yeah that only you're into.

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Speaker 8: I have this discussion, by the way, with the founder

427
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Speaker 8: of Pandora on a regular basis, who's a friend of mine.

428
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Speaker 8: And mainly because you need to be able to play

429
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Speaker 8: an unfamiliar record enough times to make it familiar. And

430
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Speaker 8: the greatest records of all time have to clear the

431
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Speaker 8: dance floor. The records that change the world, nobody will

432
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Speaker 8: understand the first time they hear them. It's impossible because

433
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Speaker 8: if it sounds like everything else, it's not moving anything forward.

434
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Speaker 8: So something that's different, no one's going to like, right,

435
00:22:36,320 --> 00:22:38,760
Speaker 8: you know. So you know, it was that way in

436
00:22:38,840 --> 00:22:41,240
Speaker 8: the early days of hip hop. You know, Black radio

437
00:22:41,280 --> 00:22:44,080
Speaker 8: didn't want to play hip hop records, but when they

438
00:22:44,080 --> 00:22:46,320
Speaker 8: did play it, the phones would light up. And then

439
00:22:46,359 --> 00:22:49,920
Speaker 8: they stopped using the phones as a way of identifying stuff,

440
00:22:49,920 --> 00:22:52,600
Speaker 8: and they did call out research to you know, middle

441
00:22:52,600 --> 00:22:56,240
Speaker 8: aged women, housewives at home who hated hip hop. And

442
00:22:56,320 --> 00:23:00,320
Speaker 8: so there was always this negativity about hip hop at

443
00:23:00,320 --> 00:23:00,879
Speaker 8: black radio.

444
00:23:00,920 --> 00:23:03,320
Speaker 7: What about those eleven students that were at school with you,

445
00:23:03,400 --> 00:23:05,960
Speaker 7: like those eleven black students. Did they ever communicate with

446
00:23:06,000 --> 00:23:08,280
Speaker 7: you to or did they add to it? Like, did

447
00:23:08,320 --> 00:23:09,200
Speaker 7: you hear his record?

448
00:23:09,320 --> 00:23:10,919
Speaker 8: There was one guy who was a good friend of

449
00:23:10,920 --> 00:23:14,439
Speaker 8: mine who came from the Bronx who actually turned me

450
00:23:14,440 --> 00:23:16,520
Speaker 8: onto a lot of stuff. He was actually a DJ

451
00:23:16,920 --> 00:23:20,760
Speaker 8: in seventy five in the Bronx and he was a

452
00:23:20,840 --> 00:23:22,760
Speaker 8: year older, I think, and he ran track with me.

453
00:23:22,800 --> 00:23:24,840
Speaker 8: So I was I ran track and so that in

454
00:23:24,920 --> 00:23:27,440
Speaker 8: high school, you know, being on the track team was

455
00:23:27,640 --> 00:23:30,760
Speaker 8: sixty percent black. In White Plains High school. You know,

456
00:23:30,800 --> 00:23:34,639
Speaker 8: we had a silver medalist at the Mexican fist Olympics,

457
00:23:35,080 --> 00:23:38,320
Speaker 8: you know from you know, from our school, and he

458
00:23:38,400 --> 00:23:44,199
Speaker 8: was the slowest guy on the on the relay, the

459
00:23:44,600 --> 00:23:48,720
Speaker 8: quarter mile relay. He was the slowest guy. But he's

460
00:23:48,760 --> 00:23:51,520
Speaker 8: the only one who went to college. The other guys,

461
00:23:52,240 --> 00:23:55,280
Speaker 8: you know, got drunk or did whatever they did. But

462
00:23:55,440 --> 00:23:59,240
Speaker 8: you know, I remember joining the track team in ninth grade,

463
00:23:59,400 --> 00:24:02,680
Speaker 8: you know, and going to indoor tract the first time

464
00:24:03,119 --> 00:24:07,440
Speaker 8: and being like one of you know whatever twenty white

465
00:24:07,480 --> 00:24:10,639
Speaker 8: guys on a team of one hundred people and getting

466
00:24:10,640 --> 00:24:13,920
Speaker 8: to hear the music and getting to know what they

467
00:24:13,920 --> 00:24:14,439
Speaker 8: were into.

468
00:24:14,680 --> 00:24:16,960
Speaker 1: And by the way, this was Black Power time.

469
00:24:17,440 --> 00:24:19,879
Speaker 8: You know, this is when you know, you know, the

470
00:24:19,920 --> 00:24:22,800
Speaker 8: fifth pick was in everybody, at the back of everybody's head,

471
00:24:23,200 --> 00:24:27,000
Speaker 8: just the beginning of that era. And we had race

472
00:24:27,080 --> 00:24:28,919
Speaker 8: riots at White Plains High School and they took the

473
00:24:28,920 --> 00:24:32,080
Speaker 8: word planes off, so it's at White High School. And

474
00:24:32,920 --> 00:24:35,960
Speaker 8: the Italians would come to school with baseball bats, and

475
00:24:36,080 --> 00:24:39,080
Speaker 8: you know, the Blacks picketed, and you know, and I

476
00:24:39,160 --> 00:24:43,080
Speaker 8: was part of the resolution committee trying to you know,

477
00:24:43,440 --> 00:24:45,439
Speaker 8: get people talking to each other. And it was just

478
00:24:45,480 --> 00:24:49,280
Speaker 8: an amazing time to be alive, really because everything was changing,

479
00:24:49,760 --> 00:24:51,840
Speaker 8: and you know, it was the beginning of that revolution

480
00:24:51,960 --> 00:24:53,400
Speaker 8: that made today possible.

481
00:24:58,240 --> 00:24:59,960
Speaker 1: When did you graduate college.

482
00:25:00,080 --> 00:25:02,600
Speaker 8: I graduated high school in seventy two, college seventy six,

483
00:25:02,640 --> 00:25:05,240
Speaker 8: and then I went to graduate school thinking that there

484
00:25:05,359 --> 00:25:07,680
Speaker 8: was no way I could get into the music business.

485
00:25:07,720 --> 00:25:11,000
Speaker 8: So I you know, continued my path, which was environmental science,

486
00:25:11,040 --> 00:25:14,600
Speaker 8: and went to graduate school in environmental geology in Michigan

487
00:25:14,600 --> 00:25:15,320
Speaker 8: and Kalamazoo.

488
00:25:16,440 --> 00:25:21,160
Speaker 1: Was there any music as you do? That was out

489
00:25:21,200 --> 00:25:21,960
Speaker 1: of nowhere? Yeah?

490
00:25:22,000 --> 00:25:24,320
Speaker 8: Right? And then after two years there, just before I

491
00:25:24,320 --> 00:25:27,720
Speaker 8: finished my masters, my old roommate from college called me

492
00:25:27,760 --> 00:25:30,000
Speaker 8: who was working for cash Box, which was the competitor

493
00:25:30,040 --> 00:25:31,920
Speaker 8: or Billboard at the time, he was doing the R

494
00:25:31,960 --> 00:25:34,480
Speaker 8: and B charts, and he said, hey, you're you know,

495
00:25:34,680 --> 00:25:37,440
Speaker 8: you were way ahead of it. You were into disco

496
00:25:37,480 --> 00:25:40,120
Speaker 8: back in seventy five. It's blowing up. It's a giant thing.

497
00:25:40,200 --> 00:25:43,280
Speaker 8: This is after Saturday night fever. Let's start a tip sheet.

498
00:25:43,320 --> 00:25:46,520
Speaker 8: Let's move to New York. And I had sent out

499
00:25:46,520 --> 00:25:48,480
Speaker 8: two hundred resumes to try to get a job in

500
00:25:48,560 --> 00:25:52,040
Speaker 8: water pollution and water quality and got two interviews and

501
00:25:52,200 --> 00:25:54,840
Speaker 8: no job offers. That I was super depressed about it

502
00:25:54,960 --> 00:25:59,879
Speaker 8: in the letters at that time, and I said I'm out,

503
00:26:00,160 --> 00:26:02,119
Speaker 8: and I said, I left school and I went to

504
00:26:02,119 --> 00:26:05,399
Speaker 8: New York. I set up this newsletter for DJs in

505
00:26:06,119 --> 00:26:09,600
Speaker 8: nineteen seventy eight in New York City. And then the

506
00:26:09,600 --> 00:26:12,560
Speaker 8: guy came moved quit cash Box and came and started

507
00:26:12,600 --> 00:26:14,119
Speaker 8: it with me, and we started and we ran it

508
00:26:14,119 --> 00:26:16,080
Speaker 8: out of our apartment, and then we got to know

509
00:26:16,160 --> 00:26:19,320
Speaker 8: all of the DJs who were doing everything. So that

510
00:26:19,440 --> 00:26:20,560
Speaker 8: sort of opened the door forward.

511
00:26:20,600 --> 00:26:22,359
Speaker 10: Case it explain to me exactly you say it was

512
00:26:22,359 --> 00:26:24,160
Speaker 10: a tipsy, exactly what does that mean.

513
00:26:24,280 --> 00:26:27,199
Speaker 8: So it means that we talked. We talked to record

514
00:26:27,200 --> 00:26:29,920
Speaker 8: pools who gave the records to the DJs and found

515
00:26:29,960 --> 00:26:33,000
Speaker 8: out what was happening from them. We talked to record stores,

516
00:26:33,280 --> 00:26:36,720
Speaker 8: we talked to radio stations when radio stations went disco.

517
00:26:37,119 --> 00:26:42,119
Speaker 8: We talked to everybody, and we had like regional representatives

518
00:26:42,119 --> 00:26:44,119
Speaker 8: from around the country in Canada that would tell us

519
00:26:44,119 --> 00:26:46,680
Speaker 8: what was breaking, and we would talk to people about

520
00:26:46,720 --> 00:26:49,240
Speaker 8: imports that were hot that were coming in. We did

521
00:26:49,280 --> 00:26:53,200
Speaker 8: a top eighty chart that we compiled when we took

522
00:26:53,240 --> 00:26:57,040
Speaker 8: everybody's information every week, and it was a checklist and

523
00:26:57,080 --> 00:26:59,000
Speaker 8: it had the beats permitted of every record. And in

524
00:26:59,000 --> 00:27:02,159
Speaker 8: those days beats it was really big because everything was

525
00:27:02,200 --> 00:27:04,679
Speaker 8: records and nobody knew what beats per minute were of

526
00:27:04,720 --> 00:27:07,560
Speaker 8: what was so they needed a mixing tool. So, because

527
00:27:07,600 --> 00:27:10,520
Speaker 8: at this point, you know, mixing was starting to become

528
00:27:10,560 --> 00:27:12,359
Speaker 8: really big, and in order to be great at mixing

529
00:27:12,400 --> 00:27:14,399
Speaker 8: you had to know what the bpms were. There was

530
00:27:14,440 --> 00:27:17,080
Speaker 8: a guy in Albany who had this disco Bible and

531
00:27:17,119 --> 00:27:20,280
Speaker 8: he'd run these computer reports and send them out every

532
00:27:20,400 --> 00:27:23,639
Speaker 8: once a month with all of the records bpms on them,

533
00:27:23,680 --> 00:27:26,000
Speaker 8: and people would pay this guy like one hundred dollars

534
00:27:26,040 --> 00:27:27,800
Speaker 8: a month for a subscription just to know what bus.

535
00:27:27,720 --> 00:27:32,080
Speaker 10: He's still available, So y'all were kind of like a filter,

536
00:27:32,160 --> 00:27:35,960
Speaker 10: I guess, like y'all told people what was that We.

537
00:27:36,280 --> 00:27:38,959
Speaker 8: Did the research because in that point there was no Internet.

538
00:27:39,000 --> 00:27:41,080
Speaker 8: There's no way else to find any information out and

539
00:27:41,119 --> 00:27:43,239
Speaker 8: DJs needed to know what they didn't have, that they

540
00:27:43,280 --> 00:27:46,040
Speaker 8: needed to get, what was coming up, what they needed

541
00:27:46,040 --> 00:27:48,080
Speaker 8: to play, and what was really big beats, per minut

542
00:27:48,080 --> 00:27:51,520
Speaker 8: it and things like that, and you know, records companies

543
00:27:51,560 --> 00:27:54,880
Speaker 8: would advertise and record stores would advertise, and we used

544
00:27:54,880 --> 00:27:56,520
Speaker 8: to sell it in record stores around New York like

545
00:27:56,600 --> 00:27:59,280
Speaker 8: Rock and Soul down the Street here and a few

546
00:27:59,280 --> 00:28:01,800
Speaker 8: of the other record stores here, and we were you know,

547
00:28:01,840 --> 00:28:04,480
Speaker 8: we got to like subscriptions and sales of over three

548
00:28:04,560 --> 00:28:08,400
Speaker 8: thousand or four thousand copies. We were reaching about five

549
00:28:08,440 --> 00:28:13,040
Speaker 8: thousand DJs by you know about you know, nineteen eighty

550
00:28:13,680 --> 00:28:14,280
Speaker 8: or eighty one.

551
00:28:14,440 --> 00:28:17,720
Speaker 7: How much for each addition to a buck.

552
00:28:17,560 --> 00:28:19,879
Speaker 8: Or something like that, it was maybe a dollar fifty

553
00:28:19,960 --> 00:28:20,720
Speaker 8: or something like that.

554
00:28:20,960 --> 00:28:23,719
Speaker 10: They were the original too Dope boys, right, y'all were

555
00:28:23,720 --> 00:28:26,199
Speaker 10: the first blog, right exactly it was.

556
00:28:26,240 --> 00:28:28,119
Speaker 8: And it was like a newsletter. We had to print

557
00:28:28,160 --> 00:28:29,879
Speaker 8: it and you know, and we type set it on

558
00:28:29,920 --> 00:28:32,120
Speaker 8: a typewriter at first, and then we bought a type

559
00:28:32,119 --> 00:28:34,120
Speaker 8: setting machine. We had all this stuff in the apartment

560
00:28:34,359 --> 00:28:35,560
Speaker 8: and we were running it that way.

561
00:28:35,840 --> 00:28:40,840
Speaker 1: It's interesting, so much work was it? Was it completely

562
00:28:41,000 --> 00:28:44,480
Speaker 1: national or just like was international? Oh so you even

563
00:28:44,520 --> 00:28:48,200
Speaker 1: took we took information from you two cample, two people.

564
00:28:48,280 --> 00:28:51,040
Speaker 8: You're calling all these details, three of us and yeah,

565
00:28:51,120 --> 00:28:53,360
Speaker 8: and we were all there were three of us that

566
00:28:53,440 --> 00:28:56,400
Speaker 8: all went to school at Kolbe and we were calling.

567
00:28:56,440 --> 00:28:58,200
Speaker 8: We were selling the ads, we were doing the editorial,

568
00:28:58,280 --> 00:29:00,400
Speaker 8: we were setting the type, we were doing you know,

569
00:29:00,440 --> 00:29:02,680
Speaker 8: we're having it printed and bringing it to the record

570
00:29:02,680 --> 00:29:05,600
Speaker 8: stores and putting the stickers on and you know, the

571
00:29:05,720 --> 00:29:08,680
Speaker 8: name stickers for each one, and you know, and keeping

572
00:29:08,720 --> 00:29:11,200
Speaker 8: the subscription list and all of that we were doing.

573
00:29:11,320 --> 00:29:12,320
Speaker 8: It was unbelievable.

574
00:29:12,560 --> 00:29:17,480
Speaker 1: So at no time did a bigger shark like Billboard,

575
00:29:18,280 --> 00:29:21,760
Speaker 1: you know, any any of these other music industry people

576
00:29:21,840 --> 00:29:26,520
Speaker 1: think like to lease you guys, or to purchase the

577
00:29:26,560 --> 00:29:30,680
Speaker 1: business to work for them wasndented other people.

578
00:29:30,840 --> 00:29:34,400
Speaker 8: Billboard had a disco section that was very significant, and

579
00:29:34,440 --> 00:29:37,680
Speaker 8: they already ran a disco conference called the Billboard Disco Form,

580
00:29:38,040 --> 00:29:40,080
Speaker 8: which all the DJs would come to. And when I

581
00:29:40,120 --> 00:29:43,560
Speaker 8: first moved to New York. I remember August of seventy

582
00:29:43,600 --> 00:29:46,280
Speaker 8: eight going to the Billboard Disco Form, and disco was

583
00:29:46,400 --> 00:29:48,840
Speaker 8: very gay at that point. I mean it was you know,

584
00:29:49,400 --> 00:29:52,480
Speaker 8: the people who controlled disco music and the leaders in it.

585
00:29:52,480 --> 00:29:54,400
Speaker 8: It was a very gay thing. And you know, I

586
00:29:54,480 --> 00:29:56,080
Speaker 8: was one of the few people in the business that

587
00:29:56,240 --> 00:29:58,360
Speaker 8: wasn't so you know, when I would go to the

588
00:29:58,360 --> 00:30:00,520
Speaker 8: disco form, it was hard for me to get into

589
00:30:00,520 --> 00:30:03,360
Speaker 8: the label suites like the Kaza Blanc or the TK

590
00:30:03,440 --> 00:30:07,640
Speaker 8: suites because I wasn't gay. You know, I haven't launched

591
00:30:07,680 --> 00:30:11,520
Speaker 8: a publication yet, but anyway, you know, the publication, you know,

592
00:30:11,840 --> 00:30:15,080
Speaker 8: built up and built up. By nineteen eighty we started

593
00:30:15,120 --> 00:30:18,240
Speaker 8: the New Music Seminar with another publication to compete with

594
00:30:18,280 --> 00:30:19,520
Speaker 8: the Billboard Disco for him.

595
00:30:19,560 --> 00:30:25,280
Speaker 1: Okay, most people and our listeners know about Studio fifty

596
00:30:25,280 --> 00:30:27,640
Speaker 1: four and that, but I know there had to have

597
00:30:27,640 --> 00:30:31,720
Speaker 1: been for every Jordan. There's like twelve guys on the

598
00:30:31,760 --> 00:30:34,760
Speaker 1: playground that are justice talented and ready to whoop possess. So,

599
00:30:35,240 --> 00:30:37,480
Speaker 1: I mean, what were the other clubs in New York

600
00:30:37,480 --> 00:30:41,960
Speaker 1: City besides the Folkal or Studio fifty four or.

601
00:30:42,160 --> 00:30:45,360
Speaker 8: So, there were probably four accesses in dance music during

602
00:30:45,360 --> 00:30:47,680
Speaker 8: the period of time there was that sort of studio.

603
00:30:47,720 --> 00:30:52,280
Speaker 8: Fifty four was the Si Shi Club set the international

604
00:30:52,320 --> 00:30:56,040
Speaker 8: people and you know, the stars, but it wasn't known

605
00:30:56,080 --> 00:30:58,959
Speaker 8: for music. Richie Ksor was the DJ. Didn't really play,

606
00:30:59,440 --> 00:31:02,320
Speaker 8: you know, played good music, but you know, nobody considered

607
00:31:02,360 --> 00:31:04,440
Speaker 8: him the best. Of course, Paradise Garage at the same

608
00:31:04,480 --> 00:31:07,480
Speaker 8: time was Larry Levan and he was playing the most

609
00:31:07,520 --> 00:31:10,360
Speaker 8: amazing music. And the sound system was a Howard Long,

610
00:31:10,480 --> 00:31:13,760
Speaker 8: sick crazy sound system in the place. You know, even to.

611
00:31:13,720 --> 00:31:16,640
Speaker 1: This day year it was Paradise, it was like.

612
00:31:16,680 --> 00:31:18,720
Speaker 8: Seventy eight to eighty one.

613
00:31:19,320 --> 00:31:23,480
Speaker 1: And all the folklore of those speakers and the lights

614
00:31:23,560 --> 00:31:24,240
Speaker 1: and all that stuff.

615
00:31:24,280 --> 00:31:26,000
Speaker 8: I used to do interviews and go to the house

616
00:31:26,040 --> 00:31:28,840
Speaker 8: of the guy who built the sound system, who built it,

617
00:31:29,720 --> 00:31:34,280
Speaker 8: Howard Long, Richard Long, Richard Richard Lungs Sociates RLA. It

618
00:31:34,360 --> 00:31:37,800
Speaker 8: was amazing and you know, the subworfs would you'd walk

619
00:31:37,840 --> 00:31:39,960
Speaker 8: by them, you know, your pants would flap from the

620
00:31:40,000 --> 00:31:42,360
Speaker 8: wind book and they moved so much air. And then

621
00:31:42,360 --> 00:31:45,200
Speaker 8: they had tweeters, those piez of tweeters hanging from the ceiling,

622
00:31:45,600 --> 00:31:48,200
Speaker 8: you know, and he had you know, in the booth.

623
00:31:48,480 --> 00:31:51,600
Speaker 8: He used to play on thor AND's belt drive turntables,

624
00:31:51,920 --> 00:31:55,920
Speaker 8: which is crazy because most DJs only play on direct drive.

625
00:31:56,360 --> 00:31:59,560
Speaker 8: And they had built some kind of a rubber band

626
00:31:59,760 --> 00:32:02,920
Speaker 8: or uh spring suspension for the so that they wouldn't

627
00:32:03,040 --> 00:32:06,680
Speaker 8: keep it from and usually and also from skipping, you know,

628
00:32:06,800 --> 00:32:09,680
Speaker 8: and even though they still would skip sometimes. And he

629
00:32:09,800 --> 00:32:11,600
Speaker 8: was the first guy who had like three turntables. And

630
00:32:11,640 --> 00:32:13,800
Speaker 8: I used to hang out in the booth all the

631
00:32:13,840 --> 00:32:17,160
Speaker 8: time and listen to the stuff he would play, which was,

632
00:32:17,400 --> 00:32:19,840
Speaker 8: you know, more amazing. And then there was another part

633
00:32:19,960 --> 00:32:23,080
Speaker 8: of the business that was Latin. There was clubs that

634
00:32:23,240 --> 00:32:27,160
Speaker 8: were more Latin oriented and they played more salsa oriented

635
00:32:27,200 --> 00:32:29,160
Speaker 8: dance music, which there was a lot of that too.

636
00:32:29,440 --> 00:32:31,120
Speaker 8: People don't know about it because if they were one

637
00:32:31,240 --> 00:32:33,480
Speaker 8: then you know, then there were the gay clubs, which

638
00:32:33,680 --> 00:32:36,600
Speaker 8: was you know, twelve West and you know Roy Thoade

639
00:32:36,640 --> 00:32:39,280
Speaker 8: and DJs like that, and they played much higher beat beat,

640
00:32:39,280 --> 00:32:42,440
Speaker 8: permantent euro disco. They were running, they were tweaking, so

641
00:32:42,480 --> 00:32:44,680
Speaker 8: they were running one hundred and thirty beats per minute,

642
00:32:44,840 --> 00:32:47,280
Speaker 8: you know. The black and then there was the and

643
00:32:47,320 --> 00:32:49,920
Speaker 8: there was and then there was so Pardise Garage was

644
00:32:49,920 --> 00:32:52,040
Speaker 8: black gay so they were playing a little bit more

645
00:32:52,080 --> 00:32:55,560
Speaker 8: down temple. Then there was straight black clubs, you know,

646
00:32:55,640 --> 00:32:58,040
Speaker 8: and they were playing even more down temple. But you know,

647
00:32:58,520 --> 00:33:00,840
Speaker 8: it depends, and then I would go up to nineteen eighty.

648
00:33:00,880 --> 00:33:04,440
Speaker 8: I discovered the Tea Connection in Africa, Benbada, and I

649
00:33:04,480 --> 00:33:06,480
Speaker 8: went up to hear him spin and he was doing

650
00:33:06,480 --> 00:33:08,800
Speaker 8: a whole nother thing that was a mine trip that

651
00:33:09,000 --> 00:33:11,880
Speaker 8: was made everything else that I had ever seen obsolete.

652
00:33:12,240 --> 00:33:15,200
Speaker 1: So the Tea Connection, first of all, always wanted to do,

653
00:33:15,320 --> 00:33:19,400
Speaker 1: is there any connection to the band? Tea Connection?

654
00:33:19,640 --> 00:33:23,680
Speaker 8: And t was the guy's name, I guess that owned

655
00:33:23,680 --> 00:33:26,600
Speaker 8: the space, and it was one floor walk up, just

656
00:33:26,640 --> 00:33:29,960
Speaker 8: a big space with like another like a balcony, and

657
00:33:30,000 --> 00:33:32,840
Speaker 8: then there was located. It was located on White Plains Road,

658
00:33:32,920 --> 00:33:38,480
Speaker 8: right near the l the elevated trains there. You can

659
00:33:38,520 --> 00:33:41,120
Speaker 8: Google it and find it on Google Maps, which I've

660
00:33:41,160 --> 00:33:41,880
Speaker 8: done recently.

661
00:33:41,600 --> 00:33:43,960
Speaker 1: Because I'm not in New York. White Plains is.

662
00:33:43,960 --> 00:33:49,479
Speaker 8: White Plains Road the Bronx. It's it's kind of in

663
00:33:49,480 --> 00:33:51,800
Speaker 8: the Central Bronx. It's definitely not in the South Bronx.

664
00:33:51,840 --> 00:33:54,920
Speaker 8: Everyone talked about the South Bronx and maybe Cedric could

665
00:33:54,920 --> 00:33:58,600
Speaker 8: be considered the South Bronx, but this was you know, Africa.

666
00:33:58,640 --> 00:34:02,240
Speaker 8: Benbada was from Bronx River Center, which was more central

667
00:34:02,280 --> 00:34:05,720
Speaker 8: Bronx off off of the Cross Bronx Expressway. You can

668
00:34:05,800 --> 00:34:08,200
Speaker 8: kind of see it from It's just north of the

669
00:34:08,200 --> 00:34:12,120
Speaker 8: Cross Bronx Expressway and Knightsbridge is just south of it,

670
00:34:12,239 --> 00:34:14,520
Speaker 8: so you know, you could see. And I've learned more

671
00:34:14,560 --> 00:34:17,040
Speaker 8: about this only as I've sort of studied the evolution

672
00:34:17,120 --> 00:34:19,200
Speaker 8: of hip hop over the last five years and how

673
00:34:19,680 --> 00:34:22,840
Speaker 8: you know, the different parts, you know, the different crews

674
00:34:22,880 --> 00:34:25,480
Speaker 8: that came up, came up around them where the projects were.

675
00:34:26,000 --> 00:34:30,160
Speaker 8: So the projects concentrated people and then they made it

676
00:34:30,239 --> 00:34:33,719
Speaker 8: possible actually for gang the gangs to start, and then

677
00:34:33,760 --> 00:34:36,879
Speaker 8: the gangs turned into DJ Cruise also and they all

678
00:34:36,880 --> 00:34:39,280
Speaker 8: came out of That's why the early rap they always

679
00:34:39,280 --> 00:34:41,280
Speaker 8: talk about their their project.

680
00:34:41,560 --> 00:34:43,840
Speaker 1: The one common thread that a lot of the guests

681
00:34:43,880 --> 00:34:46,680
Speaker 1: that are on the show that have experiences with early

682
00:34:46,760 --> 00:34:52,440
Speaker 1: hip hop, I think that the most common theme is

683
00:34:52,480 --> 00:34:59,480
Speaker 1: that no amount of fear will ever surpass their need

684
00:34:59,800 --> 00:35:07,560
Speaker 1: to you hear quality music or quality DJs. So i'man

685
00:35:07,800 --> 00:35:11,880
Speaker 1: in seventy nine eighty, when you're traveling to the Bronx

686
00:35:12,480 --> 00:35:15,640
Speaker 1: White guy traveling to the Bronx, Like to you, there

687
00:35:15,680 --> 00:35:19,920
Speaker 1: was no were you alone? Like was alone any and

688
00:35:20,040 --> 00:35:22,319
Speaker 1: for you the music was too exciting and the scene

689
00:35:22,400 --> 00:35:25,680
Speaker 1: was too exciting for you to even consider like maybe

690
00:35:25,719 --> 00:35:27,000
Speaker 1: I don't belong here.

691
00:35:27,480 --> 00:35:29,160
Speaker 8: So I just never thought about it, you know, it

692
00:35:29,200 --> 00:35:31,759
Speaker 8: never It was a weird thing for me because I

693
00:35:31,880 --> 00:35:34,719
Speaker 8: just because I was rejected always myself. I never really

694
00:35:34,760 --> 00:35:36,520
Speaker 8: thought about us and them and I. You know, when

695
00:35:36,520 --> 00:35:38,640
Speaker 8: I went into these places, the thing I noticed is

696
00:35:39,040 --> 00:35:42,400
Speaker 8: I might have been like twenty twenty five or twenty

697
00:35:42,400 --> 00:35:45,400
Speaker 8: six at the time, and going up the steps to

698
00:35:45,440 --> 00:35:47,319
Speaker 8: the T connection because Ben Boda had put me on

699
00:35:47,320 --> 00:35:49,520
Speaker 8: the list, I was for sure the first white person

700
00:35:49,560 --> 00:35:52,600
Speaker 8: that had ever been there. And you know, so no

701
00:35:52,640 --> 00:35:55,000
Speaker 8: one looked at you where like everybody was You're lost.

702
00:35:55,239 --> 00:35:56,760
Speaker 1: No, everybody was super cool.

703
00:35:56,800 --> 00:35:58,759
Speaker 8: They must have figured that I was from downtown and

704
00:35:58,800 --> 00:36:01,000
Speaker 8: maybe I was a record or something like that. So

705
00:36:01,040 --> 00:36:03,919
Speaker 8: there's there was decent respect. But you know, I wasn't

706
00:36:03,920 --> 00:36:05,960
Speaker 8: thinking about it. I was just going up there. I

707
00:36:06,000 --> 00:36:07,759
Speaker 8: just didn't know where to go. I hadn't been there before.

708
00:36:07,760 --> 00:36:09,840
Speaker 8: I was much more concerned about getting lost and finding

709
00:36:09,880 --> 00:36:13,920
Speaker 8: the place than it was about that, and you know,

710
00:36:14,200 --> 00:36:16,080
Speaker 8: it's never been an issue for me. I never really

711
00:36:16,120 --> 00:36:19,480
Speaker 8: thought about it, you know, even when I'm in you know,

712
00:36:19,520 --> 00:36:21,960
Speaker 8: Harlem World and I hear shots go off, I really

713
00:36:22,000 --> 00:36:25,239
Speaker 8: never really was never thought that I could get hurt

714
00:36:25,320 --> 00:36:27,960
Speaker 8: or something like that. I mean, other people are think

715
00:36:28,000 --> 00:36:29,839
Speaker 8: about that shit a lot. I just don't think about it,

716
00:36:29,880 --> 00:36:30,080
Speaker 8: you know.

717
00:36:30,280 --> 00:36:33,160
Speaker 1: Now, I have a lot of those tapes from the

718
00:36:32,719 --> 00:36:35,920
Speaker 1: Tea Connection of you know, like Coal Crust Brothers and

719
00:36:36,000 --> 00:36:39,680
Speaker 1: flashing them performing there. How big is the Tea Connection.

720
00:36:39,920 --> 00:36:41,680
Speaker 8: Like the size of it a little bigger than the

721
00:36:41,680 --> 00:36:44,080
Speaker 8: size of the sleep with a balcony up on top

722
00:36:44,160 --> 00:36:47,640
Speaker 8: where when I first walked in, I saw Bembodis in

723
00:36:47,640 --> 00:36:50,799
Speaker 8: front of the turntables and on one side Jazzy Jay

724
00:36:50,840 --> 00:36:52,239
Speaker 8: and the other side read Alert.

725
00:36:54,320 --> 00:36:54,640
Speaker 1: Wow.

726
00:36:55,880 --> 00:36:58,040
Speaker 8: When I went up and Avengers and that was the

727
00:36:58,120 --> 00:37:00,680
Speaker 8: day I met them all cast.

728
00:37:00,600 --> 00:37:03,480
Speaker 1: Leave the Avengers over there. So I'm saying the average

729
00:37:03,480 --> 00:37:06,000
Speaker 1: club size is like one hundred and fifty maybe two

730
00:37:06,080 --> 00:37:10,000
Speaker 1: hundred people get get in. Yeah. See, when I'm listening

731
00:37:10,040 --> 00:37:13,000
Speaker 1: to it sounds yeah like And then it's just hitting

732
00:37:13,080 --> 00:37:17,239
Speaker 1: me that a lot of the game changing aspects of

733
00:37:17,280 --> 00:37:21,640
Speaker 1: the culture were slightly under three hundred.

734
00:37:21,880 --> 00:37:25,160
Speaker 8: Yeah, the Grills was small, but the Bronx River Center

735
00:37:25,239 --> 00:37:27,359
Speaker 8: was a lot bigger, you know. And the other thing

736
00:37:27,400 --> 00:37:29,440
Speaker 8: you had to consider is that this is all ages.

737
00:37:29,520 --> 00:37:31,640
Speaker 8: You know. The kids in there were average age, probably

738
00:37:31,640 --> 00:37:34,480
Speaker 8: sixteen or seventeen, so they were making their dollar at

739
00:37:34,520 --> 00:37:37,440
Speaker 8: the door, three dollars or whatever it costs, you know.

740
00:37:37,920 --> 00:37:39,960
Speaker 8: And you know then I met ben Bada that day

741
00:37:39,960 --> 00:37:42,759
Speaker 8: and he gave me his business card that said Africa Bambada,

742
00:37:43,000 --> 00:37:44,239
Speaker 8: Master of Records.

743
00:37:46,760 --> 00:37:48,120
Speaker 1: Where did you first meet him? Was he?

744
00:37:48,280 --> 00:37:50,360
Speaker 8: I was there? You're right there that day. That was

745
00:37:50,400 --> 00:37:52,719
Speaker 8: the day I had found out about him by going

746
00:37:52,719 --> 00:37:55,960
Speaker 8: to Downstairs Records to do an interview about this new

747
00:37:56,040 --> 00:37:57,640
Speaker 8: room that they'd open because they were one of the

748
00:37:57,680 --> 00:38:01,520
Speaker 8: reporters to Dance Music Report, uh, and they were talking

749
00:38:01,520 --> 00:38:03,640
Speaker 8: about they just opened a new room that was like

750
00:38:03,640 --> 00:38:05,799
Speaker 8: the size of a walk in closet that was called

751
00:38:05,840 --> 00:38:07,960
Speaker 8: the break breaks Room or the Breakbeat Room.

752
00:38:08,120 --> 00:38:12,600
Speaker 1: Is this the subway version of Downstairs or the boy.

753
00:38:11,600 --> 00:38:15,320
Speaker 8: Right here on forty third and sixth Avenue down on

754
00:38:15,680 --> 00:38:17,480
Speaker 8: the mezzanine before you go into the subway.

755
00:38:18,239 --> 00:38:25,480
Speaker 1: So am I too assume that I'm not too I'm

756
00:38:25,520 --> 00:38:27,560
Speaker 1: not too knowledgeable in the history of the owners of

757
00:38:27,719 --> 00:38:30,359
Speaker 1: Downstairs Records. But am I believe that they're the ones

758
00:38:30,400 --> 00:38:36,480
Speaker 1: that first started the idea of comping breaks and put

759
00:38:36,480 --> 00:38:39,000
Speaker 1: them on one record like the No, they're not the guys,

760
00:38:39,200 --> 00:38:41,720
Speaker 1: they're not. This was when they first sold it though right.

761
00:38:42,000 --> 00:38:43,799
Speaker 8: They might have sold records, they weren't the ones who

762
00:38:43,800 --> 00:38:46,200
Speaker 8: made it. That was like record Lenny and Paul Winley,

763
00:38:46,280 --> 00:38:48,399
Speaker 8: those were the guys who did that.

764
00:38:49,200 --> 00:38:52,719
Speaker 1: We had something to do with with the guys at

765
00:38:52,719 --> 00:38:53,640
Speaker 1: Downstairs Records.

766
00:38:53,680 --> 00:38:56,200
Speaker 8: Like, no that that store had been there for years.

767
00:38:56,239 --> 00:38:59,680
Speaker 8: It wasn't it. It wasn't a black record store, but

768
00:38:59,760 --> 00:39:02,319
Speaker 8: it was in the subway, so you know, everyone went

769
00:39:02,320 --> 00:39:05,040
Speaker 8: by it anyway. That's where I bought my disco records.

770
00:39:05,080 --> 00:39:07,200
Speaker 8: That's also where I bought my duop records. They had

771
00:39:07,200 --> 00:39:09,960
Speaker 8: a huge do hop collection. They had, you know, all

772
00:39:10,120 --> 00:39:13,239
Speaker 8: of like the indie kinds of things. There was a

773
00:39:13,320 --> 00:39:15,560
Speaker 8: couple of record stores that were in the subways. There

774
00:39:15,760 --> 00:39:18,200
Speaker 8: used to be one that was around the Times Square

775
00:39:18,239 --> 00:39:20,600
Speaker 8: shuttle that was a Latin record store that used to

776
00:39:20,600 --> 00:39:23,000
Speaker 8: walk by all the time because there's a huge amount

777
00:39:23,040 --> 00:39:25,640
Speaker 8: of traffic that goes by, and that was in that

778
00:39:25,800 --> 00:39:27,840
Speaker 8: was in the subway. This one was before you went in.

779
00:39:28,800 --> 00:39:31,319
Speaker 1: I think I'm gonna bring that back. It's it's still there.

780
00:39:31,440 --> 00:39:32,600
Speaker 8: That record? Is that one there?

781
00:39:33,080 --> 00:39:35,800
Speaker 11: The one by the the one Latin Times Square?

782
00:39:37,160 --> 00:39:38,759
Speaker 8: I don't know what it's called a Latin name, right,

783
00:39:39,200 --> 00:39:39,719
Speaker 8: I think so.

784
00:39:39,840 --> 00:39:41,720
Speaker 11: I think that's where you get have your jest stuff.

785
00:39:41,760 --> 00:39:43,520
Speaker 11: Now right now, I mean I went in there a

786
00:39:43,560 --> 00:39:44,680
Speaker 11: couple of times. It's weird.

787
00:39:46,920 --> 00:39:49,160
Speaker 1: What's what do they sell in there? Now? They do

788
00:39:49,200 --> 00:39:51,640
Speaker 1: they sell wax? Do they sell a little old stuff?

789
00:39:51,680 --> 00:39:54,680
Speaker 8: But yeah, yeah, they're still sell vinyl? Yeah, other stuff too.

790
00:39:54,760 --> 00:39:56,920
Speaker 11: Where's this It's like in the time, it's right by

791
00:39:56,960 --> 00:39:59,319
Speaker 11: where you're saying, by the by the shuttle, yeah, by

792
00:39:59,320 --> 00:40:02,000
Speaker 11: the at the path shut up the s train in

793
00:40:02,120 --> 00:40:02,640
Speaker 11: Times Square.

794
00:40:03,840 --> 00:40:07,399
Speaker 1: I forget what it's called. Make a pilgrimage there, yeah,

795
00:40:07,880 --> 00:40:12,360
Speaker 1: I I think I'm embarking that. Like I have a

796
00:40:12,440 --> 00:40:16,560
Speaker 1: dream of opening a spot that sells forty fives in

797
00:40:16,640 --> 00:40:19,840
Speaker 1: the subway, like a small boutique, kind of like Jero

798
00:40:20,040 --> 00:40:22,400
Speaker 1: does in Japan. Like oh yeah, right, I mean he

799
00:40:22,480 --> 00:40:31,720
Speaker 1: charges fifteen milso forty five for five.

800
00:40:35,360 --> 00:40:36,719
Speaker 7: Security New York.

801
00:40:37,600 --> 00:40:44,520
Speaker 1: I'll make seers in the village somewhere so exactly.

802
00:40:45,120 --> 00:40:46,560
Speaker 8: So, uh.

803
00:40:48,000 --> 00:40:50,920
Speaker 1: Are you routinely coming to the tea connection.

804
00:40:51,480 --> 00:40:53,560
Speaker 8: I mean I went two or three times to the

805
00:40:53,560 --> 00:40:56,000
Speaker 8: tea connection, but that very night at the tea connection,

806
00:40:56,560 --> 00:40:58,279
Speaker 8: when I watch what he's doing. I watched how he

807
00:40:58,280 --> 00:41:00,320
Speaker 8: played the records. I saw the marks on the records.

808
00:41:00,320 --> 00:41:02,879
Speaker 8: I sort of label steamed off the records. I saw

809
00:41:02,920 --> 00:41:04,600
Speaker 8: the tape on the records. You know, all of the

810
00:41:04,600 --> 00:41:07,879
Speaker 8: things he did. You know, at that point I got

811
00:41:07,920 --> 00:41:10,040
Speaker 8: to know benbody. I asked him, I said, do you

812
00:41:10,080 --> 00:41:11,960
Speaker 8: want do you want to make a record that sounds

813
00:41:12,000 --> 00:41:15,640
Speaker 8: like this? Because he was playing you know, Billy Squire,

814
00:41:16,440 --> 00:41:20,680
Speaker 8: sly Stone, the Monkeys, you know, craft Work, all of

815
00:41:20,680 --> 00:41:22,800
Speaker 8: this stuff together and all of these kids were dancing

816
00:41:22,880 --> 00:41:24,760
Speaker 8: and it was just to me it was a revelation.

817
00:41:24,840 --> 00:41:26,759
Speaker 8: I'd never seen anything like it. I said, this is

818
00:41:27,320 --> 00:41:32,720
Speaker 8: what heaven is supposed to be. You know, everybody, everything together,

819
00:41:33,000 --> 00:41:35,520
Speaker 8: it's all okay. If you could dance to it, come on,

820
00:41:36,080 --> 00:41:39,000
Speaker 8: and you know that inclusiveness has been was Ben Boda's

821
00:41:39,040 --> 00:41:43,360
Speaker 8: theme with the Zulu nation throughout. You know, everybody was

822
00:41:43,400 --> 00:41:46,480
Speaker 8: always welcome to the party. He invited anybody who wanted

823
00:41:46,520 --> 00:41:49,000
Speaker 8: to come, and that would happen at the Bronx River

824
00:41:49,080 --> 00:41:52,879
Speaker 8: Center for all of the Zulu Nation anniversary parties every year,

825
00:41:52,920 --> 00:41:54,920
Speaker 8: people would come from every country the world. And that's

826
00:41:54,960 --> 00:41:58,279
Speaker 8: where all of the film crews came from Japan and

827
00:41:58,360 --> 00:42:02,360
Speaker 8: from France and from Belgium or Holland and brought and

828
00:42:02,440 --> 00:42:05,719
Speaker 8: brought video back and exposed the whole thing that was

829
00:42:05,760 --> 00:42:07,760
Speaker 8: happening with hip hop and the pillage of hip hop,

830
00:42:08,239 --> 00:42:11,120
Speaker 8: and you know, planted the seeds. So you know, if

831
00:42:11,160 --> 00:42:14,040
Speaker 8: anybody is the Johnny apple Seed of hip hop, it's

832
00:42:14,040 --> 00:42:16,799
Speaker 8: Africa Bambada. And I helped.

833
00:42:20,080 --> 00:42:26,440
Speaker 1: So to start a label in in the early eighties.

834
00:42:27,520 --> 00:42:29,959
Speaker 1: What does it take? I mean, now, when people want

835
00:42:30,000 --> 00:42:35,759
Speaker 1: to do stuff, you just put it SoundCloud there it is.

836
00:42:35,880 --> 00:42:40,920
Speaker 1: But if you're seriously now that you you've studied distribution

837
00:42:41,160 --> 00:42:45,640
Speaker 1: and DJs and you have connections, how much does if

838
00:42:45,680 --> 00:42:48,520
Speaker 1: you're you know, starting a label, how much does it

839
00:42:48,560 --> 00:42:50,640
Speaker 1: cost to start a label today? In nineteen No, in

840
00:42:50,719 --> 00:42:51,320
Speaker 1: nineteen eighty.

841
00:42:51,719 --> 00:42:54,160
Speaker 8: Well, so I borrowed five thousand dollars from my parents,

842
00:42:55,520 --> 00:42:57,520
Speaker 8: and because I already had my rent covered, you know,

843
00:42:57,560 --> 00:42:59,880
Speaker 8: I was doing the publication. I already had a medium

844
00:43:00,040 --> 00:43:01,960
Speaker 8: I could advertise in for free because I already had

845
00:43:02,000 --> 00:43:04,319
Speaker 8: the publication. So I had a connection to DJs, and

846
00:43:04,360 --> 00:43:07,359
Speaker 8: I could using DJs. I could break the music through

847
00:43:07,400 --> 00:43:10,200
Speaker 8: the DJs too, So I was dependent on that.

848
00:43:10,880 --> 00:43:13,719
Speaker 10: But so by this time it's dance did discos not

849
00:43:13,800 --> 00:43:14,279
Speaker 10: Disco News?

850
00:43:14,280 --> 00:43:15,600
Speaker 1: Is Dance Music Report officially?

851
00:43:15,680 --> 00:43:19,000
Speaker 8: Yeah? I think so, yes. By seventy nine it became

852
00:43:19,080 --> 00:43:21,480
Speaker 8: dance When disco died in seventy nine, we changed the

853
00:43:21,560 --> 00:43:24,879
Speaker 8: name to Dance Music Report. Yeah, yes, definitely. And then

854
00:43:25,120 --> 00:43:28,800
Speaker 8: so yeah, you know this was by this is nineteen

855
00:43:28,840 --> 00:43:31,880
Speaker 8: eighty one. You know, I'm saying, like, let's start. So

856
00:43:31,960 --> 00:43:34,400
Speaker 8: I work with Ben Boda. I cut a demo for

857
00:43:34,440 --> 00:43:37,719
Speaker 8: what would become Planet Rock and eight track demo and uh,

858
00:43:37,960 --> 00:43:40,319
Speaker 8: and I was starting the label up and deciding what

859
00:43:40,320 --> 00:43:40,600
Speaker 8: to do.

860
00:43:41,680 --> 00:43:48,680
Speaker 1: Quick question. The effects of the disco sucks uh period?

861
00:43:49,000 --> 00:43:54,760
Speaker 1: The regulation Yeah, racism m no, but the after effects

862
00:43:54,760 --> 00:43:56,680
Speaker 1: of it, it was actually more homophobic than it was.

863
00:43:58,280 --> 00:44:06,680
Speaker 1: But did it did that effect or deter anyone from starting? Uh?

864
00:44:06,840 --> 00:44:11,680
Speaker 1: Independent labels? Because I assume that the independent labels of

865
00:44:11,719 --> 00:44:15,640
Speaker 1: the seventies were primarily to make disco records them.

866
00:44:15,360 --> 00:44:20,160
Speaker 8: And sees, yeah, Prelude, TK, you know west End that

867
00:44:20,320 --> 00:44:23,000
Speaker 8: you know, Yeah, they were serving that community, the DJ

868
00:44:23,080 --> 00:44:26,160
Speaker 8: community because it was so hard to get records played

869
00:44:26,239 --> 00:44:29,439
Speaker 8: on radio, just as it is today. In fact, it's

870
00:44:29,440 --> 00:44:32,640
Speaker 8: worse today. But as you know, there were less radio

871
00:44:32,640 --> 00:44:35,840
Speaker 8: stations then and it was hard, but there were no chains,

872
00:44:36,000 --> 00:44:38,400
Speaker 8: so each radio station made their own decisions. So you

873
00:44:38,440 --> 00:44:41,759
Speaker 8: can go to one radio station and convince that programmer

874
00:44:41,960 --> 00:44:43,480
Speaker 8: that it would be a good idea for them to

875
00:44:43,480 --> 00:44:46,560
Speaker 8: play that record, if you know what I mean. Wink wink,

876
00:44:46,960 --> 00:44:50,919
Speaker 8: and yeah.

877
00:44:49,239 --> 00:44:55,680
Speaker 1: Hit man. What's his name of Frederick Gan Records Stories.

878
00:44:55,800 --> 00:44:57,719
Speaker 8: Yeah, he was one of my mentors. You know, I

879
00:44:57,760 --> 00:45:02,239
Speaker 8: have plenty of more the shows to share worse right now.

880
00:45:03,000 --> 00:45:05,759
Speaker 8: But so was dominated again and you know Chris Blackwell

881
00:45:05,800 --> 00:45:06,760
Speaker 8: and mal Austin.

882
00:45:06,840 --> 00:45:08,760
Speaker 1: So you've worked with Mars Levy.

883
00:45:09,120 --> 00:45:10,680
Speaker 8: I didn't work with him, but you know I spent

884
00:45:10,800 --> 00:45:13,040
Speaker 8: some time in his office, you know, having meetings.

885
00:45:13,080 --> 00:45:17,960
Speaker 1: Can you can you give us some Marris Levy wisdom

886
00:45:18,000 --> 00:45:24,880
Speaker 1: that you're allowed I saw while I was So does

887
00:45:25,040 --> 00:45:26,200
Speaker 1: everybody know the.

888
00:45:27,800 --> 00:45:33,120
Speaker 8: You know, what's the what's the famous movie where where

889
00:45:33,760 --> 00:45:35,640
Speaker 8: the guy owes him five bucks and he wants to

890
00:45:35,680 --> 00:45:37,880
Speaker 8: chase him across the Bronx tails, you know, in that

891
00:45:38,040 --> 00:45:39,319
Speaker 8: Bronx tail and he is I want to get my

892
00:45:39,360 --> 00:45:41,400
Speaker 8: money back, and he says, forget it for five dollars.

893
00:45:41,560 --> 00:45:44,080
Speaker 8: It's the cheapest way to ever get rid of somebody

894
00:45:44,120 --> 00:45:46,200
Speaker 8: you don't want in your life. So I'm sitting in

895
00:45:46,719 --> 00:45:50,640
Speaker 8: follow that rule. So so I'm sitting in in Morris

896
00:45:50,719 --> 00:45:55,200
Speaker 8: Levy's office and a guy calls and asks him to

897
00:45:55,200 --> 00:45:57,719
Speaker 8: borrow ten thousand dollars or something like that, or five

898
00:45:57,760 --> 00:46:01,799
Speaker 8: thousand dollars. And he says, okay, I want it back

899
00:46:01,880 --> 00:46:03,480
Speaker 8: in a week. If I don't get it back in

900
00:46:03,520 --> 00:46:07,600
Speaker 8: a week, don't ever call me again. I don't know you.

901
00:46:08,640 --> 00:46:12,400
Speaker 8: And he hangs up the phone. He gets he calls

902
00:46:12,440 --> 00:46:17,360
Speaker 8: his assistant or somebody said, have have somebody write up

903
00:46:17,400 --> 00:46:19,520
Speaker 8: a check for five thousand dollars for this guy. He's

904
00:46:19,560 --> 00:46:21,600
Speaker 8: coming to pick it up this afternoon, just like that,

905
00:46:22,080 --> 00:46:25,880
Speaker 8: not a question. And so that was that rule. But

906
00:46:25,920 --> 00:46:28,040
Speaker 8: he tells the guy in advance, which was the honorable

907
00:46:28,080 --> 00:46:31,160
Speaker 8: thing to do. And then he pays the guy, gives

908
00:46:31,160 --> 00:46:33,400
Speaker 8: the guy money that it's not money he owed him,

909
00:46:33,400 --> 00:46:35,920
Speaker 8: it's money the guy needed. And Morris Leeve he's always

910
00:46:36,080 --> 00:46:38,960
Speaker 8: helped people who had gambling debts or other things not

911
00:46:39,000 --> 00:46:43,000
Speaker 8: get killed by paying the debts off, but taking you know,

912
00:46:43,080 --> 00:46:45,719
Speaker 8: George Goldner's catalog and why the Fool's fall in love?

913
00:46:45,760 --> 00:46:48,719
Speaker 8: And that's why it says Lymon Levy, but it used

914
00:46:48,719 --> 00:46:50,759
Speaker 8: to say Limon Goldener, by the way, so he just

915
00:46:50,800 --> 00:46:54,200
Speaker 8: took George Goldner's share of the label. It's why the

916
00:46:54,239 --> 00:46:58,960
Speaker 8: Beatles that were originally signed to their first record came

917
00:46:59,000 --> 00:47:01,400
Speaker 8: each of the black owned label out of Chicago. But

918
00:47:01,680 --> 00:47:04,400
Speaker 8: because they didn't have their business straight, they lost the

919
00:47:04,480 --> 00:47:07,600
Speaker 8: record to Swan and then Capitol picked it up after that.

920
00:47:08,120 --> 00:47:11,480
Speaker 8: You know, history could be different if the Beatles had

921
00:47:11,520 --> 00:47:14,120
Speaker 8: been signed for their entire career to a black.

922
00:47:13,880 --> 00:47:16,720
Speaker 1: Old Left Chair Records, right.

923
00:47:16,840 --> 00:47:21,239
Speaker 8: Or a VJ would have been could you imagine?

924
00:47:24,440 --> 00:47:27,840
Speaker 1: So were you at all worried about what the climate

925
00:47:27,920 --> 00:47:30,160
Speaker 1: was going to bring in the eighties by starting your

926
00:47:30,200 --> 00:47:35,760
Speaker 1: own label, especially with the idea of killing off disco

927
00:47:35,840 --> 00:47:40,640
Speaker 1: culture or the backlash that it was facing, like for

928
00:47:40,719 --> 00:47:41,920
Speaker 1: the independent label.

929
00:47:41,680 --> 00:47:44,480
Speaker 8: At least, What do you mean no, Because I think

930
00:47:45,160 --> 00:47:47,800
Speaker 8: disco never really died. That was a press thing because

931
00:47:47,920 --> 00:47:50,400
Speaker 8: in nineteen seventy nine the music business had a recession.

932
00:47:50,400 --> 00:47:53,040
Speaker 8: It was the first recession the business had been growing,

933
00:47:53,400 --> 00:47:55,799
Speaker 8: I guess off the back of cassettes and then all

934
00:47:55,840 --> 00:47:59,640
Speaker 8: of a sudden, maybe it was I forget what it was,

935
00:47:59,680 --> 00:48:04,400
Speaker 8: but for some reason, catalog peaked and the record sales

936
00:48:04,440 --> 00:48:06,560
Speaker 8: dropped and they needed a escapegoat and they used disco

937
00:48:06,600 --> 00:48:10,239
Speaker 8: as the scapegoat. Ironically, the same year, disco died out

938
00:48:10,239 --> 00:48:12,480
Speaker 8: of the top ten records of that year in nineteen

939
00:48:12,560 --> 00:48:14,960
Speaker 8: seventy nine, like seven of them were club hits, club

940
00:48:15,040 --> 00:48:18,680
Speaker 8: dance records, including Michael Jackson Jackson's and stuff like that.

941
00:48:18,800 --> 00:48:21,520
Speaker 1: So I'm always hearing about like this is the worst

942
00:48:21,560 --> 00:48:26,400
Speaker 1: time for music, Like even when Quincy Jones and Michael

943
00:48:26,480 --> 00:48:32,560
Speaker 1: and Bruce Udina starting a thriller, their first mantras We're

944
00:48:32,560 --> 00:48:35,399
Speaker 1: here to save the music industry. So I'm always hearing

945
00:48:35,440 --> 00:48:38,120
Speaker 1: of this time where like sales are down or we

946
00:48:38,200 --> 00:48:41,560
Speaker 1: need to save the industry. I mean, in your mind,

947
00:48:41,600 --> 00:48:46,759
Speaker 1: when was the quote the glory years of the industry.

948
00:48:47,280 --> 00:48:50,000
Speaker 8: Well, there's two ways to answer that question. There's the

949
00:48:50,040 --> 00:48:52,480
Speaker 8: aesthetic way in the financial way. The financial way is

950
00:48:52,480 --> 00:48:55,080
Speaker 8: easy because twenty or nineteen ninety nine two thousand was

951
00:48:55,080 --> 00:48:59,719
Speaker 8: the peak revenue. By twenty ten, the combined revenues of

952
00:48:59,719 --> 00:49:02,279
Speaker 8: the US record business were about the exact same after

953
00:49:02,400 --> 00:49:05,960
Speaker 8: inflation as they were in nineteen sixty six, so we

954
00:49:06,080 --> 00:49:08,960
Speaker 8: lost about sixty percent of all of the employees in

955
00:49:09,000 --> 00:49:11,120
Speaker 8: the music business and all of the value of the

956
00:49:11,200 --> 00:49:14,520
Speaker 8: music business during that period of time. So but now

957
00:49:14,719 --> 00:49:17,560
Speaker 8: this year the business is up between eight nine percent

958
00:49:18,040 --> 00:49:21,560
Speaker 8: for the first time since nineteen ninety seven, and last

959
00:49:21,640 --> 00:49:23,600
Speaker 8: year it was up two percent. So we have two

960
00:49:23,680 --> 00:49:25,719
Speaker 8: years of growth, the first two years of growth since

961
00:49:25,719 --> 00:49:29,160
Speaker 8: two thousand and one. Two thousand, really two thousand, actually yeah,

962
00:49:29,160 --> 00:49:32,200
Speaker 8: two thousand was the last year of growth, any growth

963
00:49:32,400 --> 00:49:35,680
Speaker 8: at all. Okay, So yeah, and then aesthetically, I can't

964
00:49:35,719 --> 00:49:38,279
Speaker 8: really say because you could say nineteen fifty four when

965
00:49:38,360 --> 00:49:42,600
Speaker 8: rock and roll started, you know, you could say nineteen

966
00:49:43,400 --> 00:49:46,640
Speaker 8: forty nine when bebop started, or you know, a certain

967
00:49:46,680 --> 00:49:48,839
Speaker 8: kind of jazz started, you could say, but in your

968
00:49:48,840 --> 00:49:52,080
Speaker 8: heart of hearts, nineteen seventy five when disco started. You

969
00:49:52,080 --> 00:49:56,920
Speaker 8: could say nineteen eighty one or eighty when hip hop started.

970
00:49:57,360 --> 00:50:01,240
Speaker 1: But in your heart of hearts, what's your My passion

971
00:50:01,320 --> 00:50:03,560
Speaker 1: lies with this year, like what's your.

972
00:50:04,920 --> 00:50:07,040
Speaker 8: Well because I'm in the duops that era and I

973
00:50:07,080 --> 00:50:09,080
Speaker 8: was born in fifty four, so that was my ear

974
00:50:09,239 --> 00:50:12,040
Speaker 8: like of shit, you know, that really touched me and

975
00:50:12,080 --> 00:50:14,480
Speaker 8: made me cry. And made me feel like love you know,

976
00:50:15,400 --> 00:50:18,560
Speaker 8: through music and connected to me. But the same thing

977
00:50:18,600 --> 00:50:21,839
Speaker 8: happened to me when that day at tea Connection, when

978
00:50:21,840 --> 00:50:23,880
Speaker 8: I saw what Bam Boda was doing in the Connection,

979
00:50:24,000 --> 00:50:26,479
Speaker 8: I said, this is going to change the whole game,

980
00:50:26,880 --> 00:50:29,400
Speaker 8: you know. And people talk about the four pillars of

981
00:50:29,480 --> 00:50:32,560
Speaker 8: hip hop, you know, because it wasn't it wasn't just music.

982
00:50:32,600 --> 00:50:35,960
Speaker 8: It was obviously it was this introduction of rapping on

983
00:50:36,160 --> 00:50:40,000
Speaker 8: sort of a formalized way, and you know, turntable to them,

984
00:50:40,400 --> 00:50:42,160
Speaker 8: you know. And then clearly, you know, there was a

985
00:50:42,280 --> 00:50:44,399
Speaker 8: dance element and there was an art element to it.

986
00:50:44,560 --> 00:50:46,680
Speaker 8: But there's a fifth element that nobody talks about, and

987
00:50:46,680 --> 00:50:49,040
Speaker 8: Bamboda always talks about knowledge is the fifth pillar. But

988
00:50:49,560 --> 00:50:53,840
Speaker 8: the fifth pillar also is sampling, the idea of taking

989
00:50:53,880 --> 00:50:57,359
Speaker 8: something old and recontextualizing it and making it something new.

990
00:50:57,560 --> 00:51:00,600
Speaker 8: Bamboda did that live, Cool, Heirk did that live. You know,

991
00:51:00,760 --> 00:51:04,279
Speaker 8: the early DJs, you know, Theodore and those guys took

992
00:51:04,360 --> 00:51:08,279
Speaker 8: little bits of things and made them into elements that

993
00:51:08,520 --> 00:51:12,080
Speaker 8: you know, became famous later. And so sampling is clearly

994
00:51:12,120 --> 00:51:14,399
Speaker 8: the fifth I don't know if there could be hip

995
00:51:14,400 --> 00:51:18,759
Speaker 8: hop without sampling. I think I can't even imagine the

996
00:51:18,800 --> 00:51:21,320
Speaker 8: first ten years of hip hop if there wasn't sampling,

997
00:51:21,920 --> 00:51:24,480
Speaker 8: you know, or you know, the sampling equivalency that happened.

998
00:51:24,640 --> 00:51:26,040
Speaker 8: I don't even be derivative.

999
00:51:26,080 --> 00:51:28,120
Speaker 1: I mean, but that's with music, I mean, because that's

1000
00:51:28,120 --> 00:51:31,919
Speaker 1: what everything really, that's what's Samplin and Lollen Stones was doing.

1001
00:51:32,000 --> 00:51:34,839
Speaker 8: And cover records are that, but you know even more

1002
00:51:35,160 --> 00:51:38,600
Speaker 8: interpolations which have happened before. So before I prepared for

1003
00:51:38,640 --> 00:51:41,600
Speaker 8: the show by going online because I know we were

1004
00:51:41,600 --> 00:51:45,640
Speaker 8: going to talk about sampling here. And I want to

1005
00:51:45,719 --> 00:51:49,520
Speaker 8: quote Isaac Newton from sixteen seventy five, Sir Isaac Newton

1006
00:51:49,560 --> 00:51:53,279
Speaker 8: who said, we stand on the shoulders of giants. I'm

1007
00:51:53,320 --> 00:51:56,320
Speaker 8: only here because I'm standing on the shoulders of giants,

1008
00:51:56,600 --> 00:52:00,480
Speaker 8: and every sample is a sample of a giant that

1009
00:52:00,560 --> 00:52:02,919
Speaker 8: came before. And even if you go to that song,

1010
00:52:03,000 --> 00:52:05,280
Speaker 8: there was an influence. They were on someone else's shoulders.

1011
00:52:05,280 --> 00:52:07,640
Speaker 8: So you got the ripples fifty people that go back

1012
00:52:07,719 --> 00:52:11,040
Speaker 8: till the first guy was hitting something with a stick,

1013
00:52:11,400 --> 00:52:15,600
Speaker 8: you know. So you know, it's a really it's a

1014
00:52:15,640 --> 00:52:19,640
Speaker 8: real big issue that we can't find the past and

1015
00:52:20,280 --> 00:52:24,240
Speaker 8: give today's creators access to the past to create new futures.

1016
00:52:24,480 --> 00:52:26,600
Speaker 8: That's what hip hop is about. And to me, that's

1017
00:52:26,640 --> 00:52:29,560
Speaker 8: the revolution of it. To add new context to old

1018
00:52:29,560 --> 00:52:34,040
Speaker 8: content is to reinvent the world. That's the ultimate recycling.

1019
00:52:34,160 --> 00:52:37,719
Speaker 8: That's you know, it's a divine science and art, and

1020
00:52:37,800 --> 00:52:39,840
Speaker 8: I think it needs to be liberated.

1021
00:52:40,400 --> 00:52:43,640
Speaker 1: So when was Tommy Boy born? And why did you

1022
00:52:43,719 --> 00:52:44,080
Speaker 1: name it.

1023
00:52:44,600 --> 00:52:47,839
Speaker 8: Eighty one Tommy Boy?

1024
00:52:47,920 --> 00:52:50,719
Speaker 1: Well, no, no, no, I mean what were the other options? Like,

1025
00:52:50,760 --> 00:52:53,080
Speaker 1: did you have any other options for label names?

1026
00:52:53,560 --> 00:52:57,239
Speaker 8: So I was studying a lot about this and and

1027
00:52:57,480 --> 00:53:00,560
Speaker 8: you know, the label that was existing since seven nine

1028
00:53:00,560 --> 00:53:03,000
Speaker 8: that was sort of inspirational for me was sugar Hill.

1029
00:53:03,920 --> 00:53:09,920
Speaker 8: And you know, in nineteen eighty when we started the

1030
00:53:10,280 --> 00:53:15,440
Speaker 8: New Music Seminar, we you know, at that point we

1031
00:53:15,440 --> 00:53:19,160
Speaker 8: were sort of looking at what was happening and what

1032
00:53:19,560 --> 00:53:23,040
Speaker 8: the changes were happening. And that's when I was, you know,

1033
00:53:23,320 --> 00:53:27,960
Speaker 8: sort of discovered Bambada and jumped into what hip hop

1034
00:53:27,960 --> 00:53:30,000
Speaker 8: culture was becoming. Because, by the way, in nineteen eighty

1035
00:53:30,000 --> 00:53:31,960
Speaker 8: it wasn't called hip hop yet. Nobody talked about hip

1036
00:53:31,960 --> 00:53:34,680
Speaker 8: hop till nineteen eighty two. You know, it was break

1037
00:53:34,880 --> 00:53:38,040
Speaker 8: music or breaks or bee boy music or something like that.

1038
00:53:39,440 --> 00:53:42,399
Speaker 8: Bambadas told me I wrote an article in Dance Music

1039
00:53:42,440 --> 00:53:45,920
Speaker 8: Report and interviewed Cool Hurricane in Africa Bambada, and it

1040
00:53:46,000 --> 00:53:47,560
Speaker 8: must have been writing in nineteen eighty. I have to

1041
00:53:47,600 --> 00:53:51,719
Speaker 8: find that article still when and he was. You know,

1042
00:53:51,719 --> 00:53:53,840
Speaker 8: they were telling me the story of the roots of

1043
00:53:53,880 --> 00:53:56,960
Speaker 8: this music and how this music evolved, because to me,

1044
00:53:57,040 --> 00:53:59,640
Speaker 8: I thought we covered every kind of dance music, and

1045
00:53:59,719 --> 00:54:02,160
Speaker 8: you know, we covered reggae, dance oriented rock, every kind

1046
00:54:02,200 --> 00:54:04,640
Speaker 8: of music, and you know, this was a new kind

1047
00:54:04,680 --> 00:54:07,319
Speaker 8: of dance music, at least to our readers, and you know,

1048
00:54:07,360 --> 00:54:09,480
Speaker 8: I wanted to cover the evolution of it. In nineteen

1049
00:54:09,520 --> 00:54:13,359
Speaker 8: seventy nine, when Rappers Delight came out, it changed the world.

1050
00:54:13,440 --> 00:54:15,560
Speaker 8: It's you know, it was a game changer everywhere. That

1051
00:54:15,680 --> 00:54:18,120
Speaker 8: was like lightning in a bottle. That record, you know,

1052
00:54:18,560 --> 00:54:20,319
Speaker 8: was a real wake up call. And that's sort of

1053
00:54:20,320 --> 00:54:22,759
Speaker 8: when I started building my business plan for Tommy Boy.

1054
00:54:23,239 --> 00:54:25,960
Speaker 8: You know, if they can do this, you know, then

1055
00:54:26,120 --> 00:54:29,600
Speaker 8: it's possible that others can. You know that I could

1056
00:54:29,640 --> 00:54:32,040
Speaker 8: possibly do it too. You know, I didn't think there

1057
00:54:32,120 --> 00:54:35,640
Speaker 8: was a special magic between Joe and Sylvia Robinson. You know,

1058
00:54:36,200 --> 00:54:38,880
Speaker 8: they might have had more pull with Frankie Crocker or

1059
00:54:38,880 --> 00:54:42,200
Speaker 8: something like that, but I didn't really think that, you know.

1060
00:54:42,480 --> 00:54:45,080
Speaker 8: I was also influenced by reading books about the drifters

1061
00:54:45,120 --> 00:54:48,160
Speaker 8: and how how labels didn't pay artists in the duop era,

1062
00:54:48,560 --> 00:54:50,279
Speaker 8: you know. And one of the reasons I wanted to

1063
00:54:50,280 --> 00:54:52,040
Speaker 8: start a label was I wanted to try to say

1064
00:54:52,120 --> 00:54:54,000
Speaker 8: is that could you start a label and do the

1065
00:54:54,040 --> 00:54:56,880
Speaker 8: right thing and pay people and do what you're supposed

1066
00:54:56,920 --> 00:54:59,480
Speaker 8: to do and be fair, you know, with artists, And

1067
00:54:59,520 --> 00:55:02,400
Speaker 8: so that was like a driving you know issue for me.

1068
00:55:02,719 --> 00:55:04,880
Speaker 8: But it was, you know, I knew I wanted to

1069
00:55:04,920 --> 00:55:07,120
Speaker 8: do something, but until I saw what Ben Boda was doing,

1070
00:55:07,120 --> 00:55:09,200
Speaker 8: I didn't see a path to do it. And then

1071
00:55:09,239 --> 00:55:11,920
Speaker 8: Ben Bod actually gave me the first record, you know,

1072
00:55:11,960 --> 00:55:13,680
Speaker 8: he was sort of the A and R guy, you know,

1073
00:55:13,719 --> 00:55:15,640
Speaker 8: he said, this is a great record. You should put

1074
00:55:15,640 --> 00:55:18,040
Speaker 8: this record out. And it was Cotton Candy, which was

1075
00:55:18,040 --> 00:55:19,879
Speaker 8: the first record I released that wasn't a hit.

1076
00:55:20,640 --> 00:55:21,640
Speaker 1: Who did Cotton Candy?

1077
00:55:21,800 --> 00:55:24,239
Speaker 8: Cotton Candy was the group. The name of the song

1078
00:55:24,360 --> 00:55:27,920
Speaker 8: was having Fun and it wasn't really a record. That

1079
00:55:28,040 --> 00:55:32,280
Speaker 8: was TB eight eleven catalog number, first Tommy Boy release.

1080
00:55:32,600 --> 00:55:35,479
Speaker 8: The second one was Jazzy Sensation, was was the first

1081
00:55:35,480 --> 00:55:38,919
Speaker 8: Bemboda record, so Bam Boda found like you know, three

1082
00:55:39,000 --> 00:55:40,640
Speaker 8: or four and then I'd go to the you know,

1083
00:55:41,400 --> 00:55:44,120
Speaker 8: to his things and I'd discover the four c mds

1084
00:55:44,160 --> 00:55:47,880
Speaker 8: at the Zulu Nation anniversary party that Bronx River Center

1085
00:55:47,960 --> 00:55:51,400
Speaker 8: or you know Cold Crush Brothers, which I didn't get tough.

1086
00:55:51,920 --> 00:55:56,320
Speaker 1: Uh you know, Scott, were you there for the Jazzy

1087
00:55:56,360 --> 00:56:00,400
Speaker 1: Sensation sessions? Who was that? Do you know the house was?

1088
00:56:01,320 --> 00:56:03,279
Speaker 8: I don't remember who the house bend was there was

1089
00:56:04,160 --> 00:56:07,640
Speaker 8: it was Pumpkin and All Stars, I don't think, so, okay,

1090
00:56:08,280 --> 00:56:11,239
Speaker 8: it was it was Arthur Baker that produced that. And

1091
00:56:11,360 --> 00:56:14,360
Speaker 8: after I had given Arthur already the demo that I

1092
00:56:14,360 --> 00:56:17,480
Speaker 8: had cut for what would become Planet Rock, which which

1093
00:56:17,520 --> 00:56:20,279
Speaker 8: had like replays of samples that were built into it

1094
00:56:20,920 --> 00:56:22,880
Speaker 8: more than the ones that were ended up being on

1095
00:56:22,920 --> 00:56:25,080
Speaker 8: Planet Rock, and I gave it to him and he, uh,

1096
00:56:26,400 --> 00:56:28,960
Speaker 8: he said, can I produce this? And I said, yeah,

1097
00:56:29,000 --> 00:56:31,120
Speaker 8: that'd be great. But it came up that we wanted

1098
00:56:31,160 --> 00:56:35,279
Speaker 8: to do sort of a take on Funky Sensation, So

1099
00:56:35,360 --> 00:56:36,280
Speaker 8: we did that one first.

1100
00:56:36,680 --> 00:56:40,840
Speaker 1: Because that's night and Day. If anything I can, like,

1101
00:56:40,880 --> 00:56:44,839
Speaker 1: I consider enjoying sugar Hill. It's like Okay, are they

1102
00:56:44,880 --> 00:56:47,440
Speaker 1: the first hip hop labels? Are they last?

1103
00:56:47,680 --> 00:56:47,839
Speaker 8: Right?

1104
00:56:47,920 --> 00:56:51,320
Speaker 1: The last of the disco labels? And like I'd consider

1105
00:56:51,400 --> 00:56:56,759
Speaker 1: Tommy Boy really the first hip hop true like modernized

1106
00:56:57,080 --> 00:57:00,880
Speaker 1: between you and Profile, like the Real established a modern

1107
00:57:00,960 --> 00:57:02,120
Speaker 1: hip hop label, which.

1108
00:57:01,960 --> 00:57:05,839
Speaker 8: Is another story. Is I brought Corey Robbins to the

1109
00:57:06,280 --> 00:57:09,080
Speaker 8: Tea connection to see Benbo to spin he wasn't a

1110
00:57:09,160 --> 00:57:11,479
Speaker 8: hip hop label before he was. He ran a label

1111
00:57:11,520 --> 00:57:15,360
Speaker 8: called Panorama before that, and then he started, uh, Profile

1112
00:57:15,400 --> 00:57:18,440
Speaker 8: Records and Profile Records. Was it like Tommy Boy was

1113
00:57:18,480 --> 00:57:19,840
Speaker 8: supposed to be a dance label because I had a

1114
00:57:19,920 --> 00:57:23,080
Speaker 8: dance publication and my DJs were you know, everything in

1115
00:57:23,160 --> 00:57:26,480
Speaker 8: hip hop was disco the beginnings of people don't think

1116
00:57:26,680 --> 00:57:29,000
Speaker 8: they think hip hop is something else. It's not. It's

1117
00:57:29,040 --> 00:57:32,120
Speaker 8: like it's just like Jesus was a Jew, you know,

1118
00:57:32,840 --> 00:57:39,960
Speaker 8: hip hop was this? Is this the last supper? Was

1119
00:57:40,000 --> 00:57:45,680
Speaker 8: the say come on you know yeah on ash Wednesday?

1120
00:57:45,840 --> 00:57:56,040
Speaker 1: Exactly? So so one with Planet Rock and what it's

1121
00:57:56,080 --> 00:58:03,000
Speaker 1: done for technology and really just taking hip hop's leaves

1122
00:58:03,040 --> 00:58:08,800
Speaker 1: and bounds above, I mean really starting modern electro music.

1123
00:58:10,080 --> 00:58:14,080
Speaker 1: How what's what's this? The story behind it? Like how

1124
00:58:15,560 --> 00:58:17,240
Speaker 1: it was it just like hey, I have this craft

1125
00:58:17,240 --> 00:58:20,360
Speaker 1: work record, and how can we make it sound robotic

1126
00:58:20,400 --> 00:58:22,520
Speaker 1: and futuristic like this? And Arthur Baker's like.

1127
00:58:22,480 --> 00:58:23,840
Speaker 8: Oh no, because I told you I already had the

1128
00:58:23,840 --> 00:58:25,400
Speaker 8: demo that had been done a year and a half.

1129
00:58:25,440 --> 00:58:26,720
Speaker 8: A year before that.

1130
00:58:26,800 --> 00:58:28,480
Speaker 1: Was an A Rock was done in eighty.

1131
00:58:28,640 --> 00:58:31,440
Speaker 8: No, there was an eight track demo that included the

1132
00:58:31,440 --> 00:58:34,440
Speaker 8: elements that ended up being in Planet Rock, plus just

1133
00:58:34,520 --> 00:58:37,800
Speaker 8: the instrumental part and three other things that we ended

1134
00:58:37,880 --> 00:58:40,919
Speaker 8: up not using, you know, besides craft work.

1135
00:58:42,360 --> 00:58:43,720
Speaker 1: You're saying the track was done a year, but.

1136
00:58:43,880 --> 00:58:48,760
Speaker 8: I originally had envisioned using I like it by BT

1137
00:58:48,920 --> 00:58:55,840
Speaker 8: express the beat from that exactly, and Rick James give

1138
00:58:55,880 --> 00:58:59,760
Speaker 8: it to me baseline, you know so, and those things

1139
00:58:59,800 --> 00:59:04,600
Speaker 8: were worked into the original demo as well. Really yeah, okay,

1140
00:59:04,920 --> 00:59:06,800
Speaker 8: and then we decided we didn't need that much. It

1141
00:59:06,840 --> 00:59:09,480
Speaker 8: was too confusing. Does that exist? Does that the original

1142
00:59:09,440 --> 00:59:12,600
Speaker 8: deal will still exist anywhere? I don't have it. It

1143
00:59:12,640 --> 00:59:16,240
Speaker 8: probably does. Arthur Baker might have it as a cassette.

1144
00:59:16,840 --> 00:59:18,160
Speaker 8: It must have. It must exist.

1145
00:59:18,240 --> 00:59:19,000
Speaker 1: Some last question.

1146
00:59:20,320 --> 00:59:23,160
Speaker 8: Search, Let the search begin. We got to find it.

1147
00:59:23,720 --> 00:59:25,200
Speaker 8: Everything exists somewhere.

1148
00:59:25,480 --> 00:59:27,320
Speaker 1: He still alive. Yeah, he's doing great.

1149
00:59:27,360 --> 00:59:29,479
Speaker 8: He just produced the eight oh eight movie, the movie

1150
00:59:29,480 --> 00:59:31,200
Speaker 8: on eight o eight, which is getting ready to be

1151
00:59:31,280 --> 00:59:34,760
Speaker 8: the story thank you. So what we're talking about here

1152
00:59:34,840 --> 00:59:38,080
Speaker 8: is we had no money, so we decided to buy

1153
00:59:38,240 --> 00:59:40,320
Speaker 8: one reel of two inch tape and record at fifteen

1154
00:59:40,360 --> 00:59:43,360
Speaker 8: ips because thirty would have been too much. And the

1155
00:59:43,440 --> 00:59:45,760
Speaker 8: idea here with Arthur was that we're going to make

1156
00:59:45,760 --> 00:59:47,800
Speaker 8: a rap record with what we're doing here, and then

1157
00:59:47,800 --> 00:59:50,720
Speaker 8: we'll also do a vocal record with the same tracks,

1158
00:59:51,360 --> 00:59:55,400
Speaker 8: you know, because there was too yeah you got it, see,

1159
00:59:55,680 --> 00:59:58,520
Speaker 8: And so so we go, we go into the studio

1160
00:59:58,880 --> 01:00:02,000
Speaker 8: and it's a studio. It's on eighty fifth Street in

1161
01:00:02,040 --> 01:00:06,440
Speaker 8: an old school building that has that we have to

1162
01:00:06,440 --> 01:00:08,600
Speaker 8: walk up five flights of stairs with all the equipment

1163
01:00:08,840 --> 01:00:12,760
Speaker 8: to this recording studio called what was the name of

1164
01:00:12,800 --> 01:00:16,360
Speaker 8: the studio, Intergalactic, which was a perfect name to start

1165
01:00:16,400 --> 01:00:20,840
Speaker 8: electro musical and and uh, I think with the engineer

1166
01:00:20,880 --> 01:00:23,240
Speaker 8: and everything, all of the costs, I think it costs

1167
01:00:23,360 --> 01:00:26,200
Speaker 8: eight hundred dollars to make the record, you know up there,

1168
01:00:26,320 --> 01:00:29,240
Speaker 8: and the studio had a fairlight synthesizer in it. We

1169
01:00:29,280 --> 01:00:33,240
Speaker 8: rented in eight oh eight. I remember with Arthur looking

1170
01:00:33,280 --> 01:00:35,960
Speaker 8: to try to because there was this guy record Lenny

1171
01:00:36,000 --> 01:00:38,400
Speaker 8: that I saw, you know that used to record all

1172
01:00:38,440 --> 01:00:42,280
Speaker 8: of the sessions he recorded, like a famous section at

1173
01:00:42,440 --> 01:00:45,240
Speaker 8: Lincoln High School which was Flashed the Beat. It became

1174
01:00:45,320 --> 01:00:47,160
Speaker 8: Flashed to set on sugar Hill. But originally it was

1175
01:00:47,200 --> 01:00:52,880
Speaker 8: a plate that a plate means yeah, yeah, we have

1176
01:00:52,920 --> 01:00:53,480
Speaker 8: to explain to you.

1177
01:00:54,520 --> 01:00:57,560
Speaker 1: I'm sorry, did you explain? All right? So Flash to

1178
01:00:57,600 --> 01:01:01,280
Speaker 1: the Beat is uh okay. You would probably not as

1179
01:01:01,320 --> 01:01:04,760
Speaker 1: the drum genesis of gang Stars, you know, my Steez

1180
01:01:06,160 --> 01:01:10,120
Speaker 1: the real but it's really grand Master Flash flashes on

1181
01:01:10,160 --> 01:01:14,160
Speaker 1: the bead box Plane play on a very primitive drum machine,

1182
01:01:14,440 --> 01:01:18,080
Speaker 1: Grandmaster Flash and the Furious Five doing routines.

1183
01:01:18,320 --> 01:01:20,200
Speaker 8: It started out as a plate. We used to call

1184
01:01:20,280 --> 01:01:22,560
Speaker 8: them plates, but their acetates and those place you used

1185
01:01:22,600 --> 01:01:25,040
Speaker 8: to go to to get an acetate made of a

1186
01:01:25,080 --> 01:01:27,920
Speaker 8: tape and so some people but they'd wear out fast,

1187
01:01:27,920 --> 01:01:29,240
Speaker 8: but people would play acetates.

1188
01:01:29,960 --> 01:01:33,120
Speaker 1: And then a label independent Bonzo Mika which I have

1189
01:01:33,200 --> 01:01:39,280
Speaker 1: no idea, eventually released it. And that's that boot leg

1190
01:01:39,360 --> 01:01:41,200
Speaker 1: of a boot leg of a boot leg like that

1191
01:01:41,400 --> 01:01:44,560
Speaker 1: just made the rounds across the Tri State area. Gotch

1192
01:01:45,240 --> 01:01:52,800
Speaker 1: which when even when Mattel invented uh since since sonics yeah,

1193
01:01:52,920 --> 01:01:56,160
Speaker 1: back in nineteen eighty one, Like I got that for

1194
01:01:56,200 --> 01:01:58,840
Speaker 1: my tenth birthday so I could do pretend flash and

1195
01:01:58,880 --> 01:02:04,360
Speaker 1: the beat. Yeah, so in your mind you was that

1196
01:02:04,440 --> 01:02:08,000
Speaker 1: you're I mean, besides the whole idea of slashtone, there's

1197
01:02:08,000 --> 01:02:12,560
Speaker 1: a rite going on and what Eure was doing with technology.

1198
01:02:12,640 --> 01:02:16,080
Speaker 1: In your mind, you wanted to bring that sound to

1199
01:02:16,920 --> 01:02:17,480
Speaker 1: the studio.

1200
01:02:17,880 --> 01:02:19,720
Speaker 8: Well, I used to play craft Work on my radio

1201
01:02:20,000 --> 01:02:22,720
Speaker 8: station back you know, back in nineteen seventy three, so

1202
01:02:22,800 --> 01:02:24,600
Speaker 8: I was already into craft work. That's why it blew

1203
01:02:24,640 --> 01:02:26,720
Speaker 8: my mind so much that Ben Boda could play it

1204
01:02:26,880 --> 01:02:29,960
Speaker 8: in front of a sixteen year old black audience and

1205
01:02:30,280 --> 01:02:32,360
Speaker 8: get away with it work and make it work, and

1206
01:02:32,440 --> 01:02:35,040
Speaker 8: so you know, that's what changed the game. So that

1207
01:02:35,160 --> 01:02:39,560
Speaker 8: was the one that stood out as the most radical

1208
01:02:39,640 --> 01:02:42,880
Speaker 8: departure from what you know, black music or funk music

1209
01:02:42,920 --> 01:02:46,320
Speaker 8: would have been considered at that time. So you know,

1210
01:02:47,080 --> 01:02:49,160
Speaker 8: that's the one I thought we should go with, you know,

1211
01:02:49,240 --> 01:02:52,600
Speaker 8: for that, But it wasn't. It wasn't because this sounded

1212
01:02:52,640 --> 01:02:54,760
Speaker 8: like that, because this doesn't really sound like craft work

1213
01:02:54,800 --> 01:02:58,320
Speaker 8: at all. Ben Boden's style is very different than flashy style,

1214
01:02:58,360 --> 01:03:02,200
Speaker 8: and I really only just recently gotten to meet Flashing,

1215
01:03:02,280 --> 01:03:05,280
Speaker 8: you know, through the get down and being on panels

1216
01:03:05,280 --> 01:03:08,040
Speaker 8: with him and stuff over the last two years. You know,

1217
01:03:08,040 --> 01:03:09,680
Speaker 8: I don't really know him very well at all, but

1218
01:03:09,880 --> 01:03:12,200
Speaker 8: I have mad respect for him. You know. There were

1219
01:03:12,240 --> 01:03:14,680
Speaker 8: two different universes. There was the Flash universe in the

1220
01:03:14,720 --> 01:03:18,720
Speaker 8: Banbodi universe, and I never really entered Flash's universe. You know.

1221
01:03:18,760 --> 01:03:21,800
Speaker 1: But even at the time when you're constructing this, like,

1222
01:03:21,960 --> 01:03:25,800
Speaker 1: you have no idea that you're metaphorically speaking, getting in

1223
01:03:25,840 --> 01:03:33,560
Speaker 1: a delurean and going ninety years into the future because essentially, like,

1224
01:03:33,640 --> 01:03:36,360
Speaker 1: all the elements that are in this song will determine

1225
01:03:38,120 --> 01:03:42,760
Speaker 1: thirty years later with EDM music, with trap music. I mean,

1226
01:03:42,800 --> 01:03:49,440
Speaker 1: all the ingredients are there. And so at no point

1227
01:03:50,000 --> 01:03:51,720
Speaker 1: was this like a meeting like, yo, we got to

1228
01:03:51,760 --> 01:03:53,920
Speaker 1: go to the future because it would have been easier

1229
01:03:53,960 --> 01:03:58,600
Speaker 1: to just get a house band to recreate the next.

1230
01:03:59,400 --> 01:04:01,320
Speaker 8: Would have been more expensive though we didn't have enough

1231
01:04:01,320 --> 01:04:02,320
Speaker 8: money to pay for a base.

1232
01:04:02,400 --> 01:04:04,360
Speaker 1: See, I would have thought it was more because That's

1233
01:04:04,400 --> 01:04:05,880
Speaker 1: why I wanted to know how long did it take

1234
01:04:05,920 --> 01:04:09,640
Speaker 1: the craft because first of all, it's a seven minute song,

1235
01:04:10,840 --> 01:04:13,680
Speaker 1: like Who's essentially like putting the pieces together.

1236
01:04:13,960 --> 01:04:17,080
Speaker 8: Okay, so Jaa is the is the engineer.

1237
01:04:17,640 --> 01:04:22,560
Speaker 11: Engineer was always the person playing together we have learned anything.

1238
01:04:23,000 --> 01:04:25,520
Speaker 8: But but then there's the assistant engineer was Bob Rosa,

1239
01:04:25,640 --> 01:04:28,080
Speaker 8: who went on to become super famous himself as a

1240
01:04:28,200 --> 01:04:31,640
Speaker 8: as an engineer and a mixer, both of those guys.

1241
01:04:31,920 --> 01:04:35,480
Speaker 8: And then you know, we had a synth player that

1242
01:04:35,520 --> 01:04:38,480
Speaker 8: we brought in, you know who, who played the lines

1243
01:04:38,520 --> 01:04:42,120
Speaker 8: on it, and and Arthur Baker was the you know,

1244
01:04:42,200 --> 01:04:44,480
Speaker 8: the producer, you know, and all of us were up

1245
01:04:44,520 --> 01:04:47,800
Speaker 8: there just contributing whatever ideas we had using all the technology.

1246
01:04:48,080 --> 01:04:50,120
Speaker 8: There was a massive amount of technology. And I started

1247
01:04:50,120 --> 01:04:52,480
Speaker 8: playing around with this fairlight synthesizer that was in the

1248
01:04:52,560 --> 01:04:54,840
Speaker 8: room and it had like a light pen and a

1249
01:04:54,880 --> 01:04:57,440
Speaker 8: green screen you had to touch to change the things.

1250
01:04:57,760 --> 01:05:00,120
Speaker 8: And I was I found this orchestra sound and you

1251
01:05:00,160 --> 01:05:04,280
Speaker 8: could play polyphonic orchestra hits and create this giant sound.

1252
01:05:04,640 --> 01:05:05,920
Speaker 1: That's why I wanted to know where did that?

1253
01:05:06,720 --> 01:05:08,880
Speaker 8: Yeah, So I just said, can we figure out a

1254
01:05:08,920 --> 01:05:11,240
Speaker 8: way to use this? And then Robie John Roby was

1255
01:05:11,280 --> 01:05:13,560
Speaker 8: the you know guy who did all the keyboards and

1256
01:05:13,560 --> 01:05:16,040
Speaker 8: stuff on that and played the melodic parts, came over

1257
01:05:16,080 --> 01:05:19,920
Speaker 8: and did that. And so you know, we utilized that

1258
01:05:20,000 --> 01:05:21,840
Speaker 8: we had rented an eight o eight because we couldn't

1259
01:05:21,840 --> 01:05:25,600
Speaker 8: find Flashes drum machine, and we brought that in And.

1260
01:05:25,680 --> 01:05:27,520
Speaker 1: Did you guys think for a second, like can we

1261
01:05:27,560 --> 01:05:28,800
Speaker 1: ask him if we could borrow it?

1262
01:05:28,960 --> 01:05:33,400
Speaker 8: Or But they don't, I mean, because they were different.

1263
01:05:33,440 --> 01:05:37,200
Speaker 8: It was the castanover crew. That's the castanover crew. You know,

1264
01:05:37,320 --> 01:05:40,600
Speaker 8: it's like gang stuff, you just you don't. I wasn't

1265
01:05:40,600 --> 01:05:41,840
Speaker 8: going there, I mean.

1266
01:05:41,920 --> 01:05:44,360
Speaker 1: Like Africa. I wasn't afraid to go.

1267
01:05:44,400 --> 01:05:46,080
Speaker 8: And I probably wouldn't have been afraid to go to

1268
01:05:46,160 --> 01:05:49,439
Speaker 8: see Grandmaster Flash either, because you know, I wasn't thinking

1269
01:05:49,480 --> 01:05:53,000
Speaker 8: about that either. But I didn't want to create a con.

1270
01:05:53,760 --> 01:05:55,200
Speaker 1: To ask like, oh, I know, Flash, he'll let me

1271
01:05:55,240 --> 01:05:55,880
Speaker 1: borrow Yeah.

1272
01:05:55,720 --> 01:05:57,800
Speaker 8: I don't know. I mean I don't know that that

1273
01:05:58,160 --> 01:06:01,160
Speaker 8: he had. They both had relationships with Kurt with herk

1274
01:06:02,000 --> 01:06:03,760
Speaker 8: but I don't know what kind of relationship they had

1275
01:06:03,760 --> 01:06:05,880
Speaker 8: with each other. I mean, even watching the get Down,

1276
01:06:05,920 --> 01:06:08,960
Speaker 8: I still learned how because because Flash was you know,

1277
01:06:09,080 --> 01:06:12,640
Speaker 8: consulting and a producer on the get Down, so to me,

1278
01:06:13,040 --> 01:06:15,560
Speaker 8: I learned a little bit about you know these that

1279
01:06:15,640 --> 01:06:18,840
Speaker 8: was written from the Flash perspective more than the banbody perspective.

1280
01:06:19,280 --> 01:06:21,600
Speaker 8: You know that there are two different you know, there's

1281
01:06:21,640 --> 01:06:24,280
Speaker 8: a world according to def Cham where you know, Russell

1282
01:06:24,320 --> 01:06:26,600
Speaker 8: has his vision of what hip hop was and where

1283
01:06:26,600 --> 01:06:28,960
Speaker 8: it came from, because he used to hang out at

1284
01:06:29,000 --> 01:06:32,080
Speaker 8: Sal's place, which was disco Fever, and I never went there.

1285
01:06:32,120 --> 01:06:34,320
Speaker 8: I mean that was where the drug dealers went, you know,

1286
01:06:34,760 --> 01:06:36,680
Speaker 8: I went where the kids went. And to me, the

1287
01:06:37,000 --> 01:06:40,200
Speaker 8: hip hop, the dancers, the creators, they were all young,

1288
01:06:40,360 --> 01:06:42,640
Speaker 8: really young. The older guy the guys that were wearing

1289
01:06:42,640 --> 01:06:45,960
Speaker 8: suits and drinking drinking splits of moet where all, you know,

1290
01:06:46,040 --> 01:06:49,760
Speaker 8: and they had like, you know, velvet pictures of James

1291
01:06:49,760 --> 01:06:50,880
Speaker 8: Brown on the walls and stuff.

1292
01:06:51,000 --> 01:06:54,000
Speaker 1: By the way, were these afternoon parties or night parties?

1293
01:06:54,280 --> 01:06:55,440
Speaker 8: The night parties, but they were.

1294
01:06:55,560 --> 01:06:57,600
Speaker 1: They weren't cardon back then, that's hard.

1295
01:06:57,640 --> 01:07:00,200
Speaker 8: And they had day stuff two in the park. But

1296
01:07:00,320 --> 01:07:02,360
Speaker 8: I didn't go to those because I was working. But

1297
01:07:02,480 --> 01:07:04,280
Speaker 8: you know, i'd go after I worked, I'd go out

1298
01:07:04,320 --> 01:07:08,480
Speaker 8: at night and and and see him there. The Bronx

1299
01:07:08,600 --> 01:07:11,600
Speaker 8: river ones were even earlier because they were in a

1300
01:07:11,800 --> 01:07:14,240
Speaker 8: wreck room in in the project.

1301
01:07:14,480 --> 01:07:16,920
Speaker 1: All right. I own an eight o eight drum machine

1302
01:07:17,200 --> 01:07:23,600
Speaker 1: and it as hard as hell too program it and

1303
01:07:24,520 --> 01:07:27,200
Speaker 1: really get it to do what you wanted to do

1304
01:07:27,320 --> 01:07:29,920
Speaker 1: execution wise, Who was the eight o eight monster? Was

1305
01:07:30,280 --> 01:07:30,800
Speaker 1: that author?

1306
01:07:31,520 --> 01:07:33,800
Speaker 8: Uh? I think Roby figured it out. He was the

1307
01:07:33,800 --> 01:07:39,800
Speaker 8: more technically savvy guy. But and Arthur Baker both worked

1308
01:07:39,840 --> 01:07:43,720
Speaker 8: on it together and and figured out what they wanted

1309
01:07:43,720 --> 01:07:45,960
Speaker 8: to do, and they might have actually had done some

1310
01:07:46,000 --> 01:07:50,400
Speaker 8: programming in advance. I can't remember a lot of that

1311
01:07:50,480 --> 01:07:55,120
Speaker 8: happened all spontaneously there, including the you know, the guys

1312
01:07:55,160 --> 01:07:57,800
Speaker 8: had written their rhymes, and a lot of the stuff

1313
01:07:57,800 --> 01:08:01,840
Speaker 8: that happened with the rhymes was spontaneous too, like, yeah, exactly,

1314
01:08:01,920 --> 01:08:04,560
Speaker 8: I forgot the lyrics. How I forgot the lyrics? And

1315
01:08:05,200 --> 01:08:07,880
Speaker 8: you know, Arthur wanted to take it over again. I said, no,

1316
01:08:07,960 --> 01:08:10,040
Speaker 8: that's good, let's just leave that. You know that was better.

1317
01:08:10,360 --> 01:08:14,280
Speaker 1: So when it's over and said and done and mixed,

1318
01:08:16,720 --> 01:08:19,320
Speaker 1: are you too involved in it to really realize that

1319
01:08:19,400 --> 01:08:23,800
Speaker 1: you guys might have read Yeah.

1320
01:08:23,760 --> 01:08:25,240
Speaker 8: You never know until you play it in front of

1321
01:08:25,240 --> 01:08:27,439
Speaker 8: an audience. The first time we had an inkling that

1322
01:08:27,520 --> 01:08:31,200
Speaker 8: something was going to be crazy, you know, was when

1323
01:08:31,240 --> 01:08:33,000
Speaker 8: you played it in front of an audience. By the way,

1324
01:08:33,040 --> 01:08:35,599
Speaker 8: this was the second bout of Tommy Boy record Jazzy

1325
01:08:35,600 --> 01:08:38,600
Speaker 8: Sensation had come out already the year before and was

1326
01:08:38,640 --> 01:08:42,559
Speaker 8: a hit. It did like forty thousand copies, which for

1327
01:08:42,680 --> 01:08:46,880
Speaker 8: me painted by parents back alone right away. And you know,

1328
01:08:46,920 --> 01:08:50,000
Speaker 8: I remember, very important thing to remember is bringing that

1329
01:08:50,040 --> 01:08:54,559
Speaker 8: record to WHBI to Mister Magic show, because Mister Magic

1330
01:08:54,680 --> 01:08:59,120
Speaker 8: was the first person in the world the radio was

1331
01:08:59,120 --> 01:09:01,760
Speaker 8: he polite to you, He was cool, he was you know,

1332
01:09:01,800 --> 01:09:03,519
Speaker 8: he was he was super cool. And I went up

1333
01:09:03,560 --> 01:09:06,000
Speaker 8: there and there was in the fantastic Alems were up

1334
01:09:06,040 --> 01:09:09,280
Speaker 8: there at the same time. Wow, Twins, they're bringing their

1335
01:09:09,320 --> 01:09:12,160
Speaker 8: record up the same day, Hooked on Your Love or

1336
01:09:12,160 --> 01:09:14,800
Speaker 8: whatever on Near Records, which was their label, and you know,

1337
01:09:14,880 --> 01:09:16,920
Speaker 8: those guys were from the hood, and I was totally

1338
01:09:16,960 --> 01:09:19,200
Speaker 8: not for the hood. So I was going into you know,

1339
01:09:19,720 --> 01:09:22,880
Speaker 8: and they already knew Magic and I was just meeting them,

1340
01:09:23,240 --> 01:09:26,599
Speaker 8: and they played both records. But Benbada had such an

1341
01:09:26,640 --> 01:09:29,240
Speaker 8: audience in the Bronx that the phones went absolutely nuts,

1342
01:09:29,280 --> 01:09:31,960
Speaker 8: and I got orders for five thousand records the next Monday.

1343
01:09:32,200 --> 01:09:35,160
Speaker 8: That's when I knew I had something one spin ten

1344
01:09:35,200 --> 01:09:39,400
Speaker 8: thousand watt or fifty thousand watts station that had you know,

1345
01:09:40,200 --> 01:09:44,200
Speaker 8: hasidic jews. Afterwards, doing Talmut time and you know Brooklyn

1346
01:09:44,600 --> 01:09:49,840
Speaker 8: Rasta's doing you know whatever deep reggae before and you know,

1347
01:09:49,920 --> 01:09:52,120
Speaker 8: he had his little three hour splot. So it wasn't

1348
01:09:52,160 --> 01:09:54,800
Speaker 8: like a radio station people tuned into. It was a show,

1349
01:09:54,920 --> 01:09:57,439
Speaker 8: the only show, but it was the only place you

1350
01:09:57,479 --> 01:10:01,360
Speaker 8: could hear hip hop. So everybody listened into it. And

1351
01:10:02,080 --> 01:10:02,720
Speaker 8: who was into it?

1352
01:10:02,920 --> 01:10:05,639
Speaker 10: And at this time, like there was simple clearianicses. Even

1353
01:10:05,680 --> 01:10:09,800
Speaker 10: the things like with the craft Work sample, it wasn't

1354
01:10:09,840 --> 01:10:10,719
Speaker 10: a sample, it was played.

1355
01:10:11,880 --> 01:10:14,280
Speaker 1: So did the guys that did the Mexican were they like, hey,

1356
01:10:14,720 --> 01:10:16,040
Speaker 1: that's our melody.

1357
01:10:15,720 --> 01:10:17,280
Speaker 8: Or so we didn't have an issue with that one

1358
01:10:17,680 --> 01:10:19,760
Speaker 8: because they probably stole it from the Good to Bad

1359
01:10:19,800 --> 01:10:22,160
Speaker 8: and the Ugly and it was really any of morricone,

1360
01:10:22,600 --> 01:10:25,800
Speaker 8: you know. So I don't know what. So that's the

1361
01:10:25,840 --> 01:10:28,160
Speaker 8: only reason I can think that after all the years,

1362
01:10:28,160 --> 01:10:32,120
Speaker 8: nobody ever came out. But you know, after Planet Rock

1363
01:10:32,200 --> 01:10:36,080
Speaker 8: became pretty big, I got a letter from the publishing

1364
01:10:36,120 --> 01:10:39,640
Speaker 8: company of uh of kraft work. I didn't know. I

1365
01:10:39,680 --> 01:10:42,599
Speaker 8: didn't I didn't really understand copyright law. You know, I

1366
01:10:42,680 --> 01:10:44,479
Speaker 8: wasn't that you know, I was pretty young, I was

1367
01:10:44,680 --> 01:10:47,720
Speaker 8: just starting my company. I got a shock treatment when

1368
01:10:47,760 --> 01:10:50,400
Speaker 8: I got the letter and we had to figure out

1369
01:10:50,400 --> 01:10:51,840
Speaker 8: a way to settle, and you know, it was like

1370
01:10:51,880 --> 01:10:55,759
Speaker 8: one of the early settlements.

1371
01:10:57,760 --> 01:10:59,479
Speaker 1: What is your distribution game?

1372
01:10:59,560 --> 01:10:59,640
Speaker 8: Like?

1373
01:10:59,800 --> 01:11:03,479
Speaker 1: Is are you in a position now where you're getting

1374
01:11:03,479 --> 01:11:06,760
Speaker 1: more orders than you have and you can handle that?

1375
01:11:06,880 --> 01:11:09,120
Speaker 1: You can handle? Are you like I need a full

1376
01:11:09,320 --> 01:11:10,439
Speaker 1: time staff now to.

1377
01:11:11,320 --> 01:11:13,960
Speaker 8: I had two employees I had once I got the

1378
01:11:14,040 --> 01:11:16,320
Speaker 8: letter from craft work to hire a lawyer full time.

1379
01:11:17,160 --> 01:11:21,800
Speaker 1: Well not even I'm talking about to even get the record. Yeah,

1380
01:11:21,880 --> 01:11:24,519
Speaker 1: forty thousand records and that many records.

1381
01:11:24,760 --> 01:11:26,960
Speaker 8: Just tell the pressing plant we need more, you know,

1382
01:11:27,000 --> 01:11:29,280
Speaker 8: and you know, and we have to pay up front.

1383
01:11:29,320 --> 01:11:31,040
Speaker 8: So yeah, we need to get cash. So we had

1384
01:11:31,080 --> 01:11:33,640
Speaker 8: to go sell records directly to the record store for

1385
01:11:33,680 --> 01:11:36,720
Speaker 8: two dollars instead of two fifty, and we get cash

1386
01:11:36,800 --> 01:11:38,840
Speaker 8: so we could pay for the presses, you know, so

1387
01:11:39,040 --> 01:11:41,400
Speaker 8: you could turn cash flow around fast. Or we give

1388
01:11:41,439 --> 01:11:44,160
Speaker 8: the distributor or a discount and they would pay us

1389
01:11:44,240 --> 01:11:47,040
Speaker 8: up front instead of paying or half up front. There

1390
01:11:47,040 --> 01:11:49,160
Speaker 8: were ways in those days where you could get money

1391
01:11:49,360 --> 01:11:51,080
Speaker 8: if you had a hit and it was a big demand.

1392
01:11:51,320 --> 01:11:53,360
Speaker 8: The distributor is happy as hell because it was the

1393
01:11:53,400 --> 01:11:56,040
Speaker 8: big record driving it for them, and they needed to

1394
01:11:56,080 --> 01:11:57,760
Speaker 8: make sure that we had cash flow to pay the

1395
01:11:57,760 --> 01:12:01,280
Speaker 8: pressing plan, so they'd squeeze us for an extra discount

1396
01:12:01,280 --> 01:12:03,000
Speaker 8: and give us money upfront so we could pay the

1397
01:12:03,000 --> 01:12:03,639
Speaker 8: pressing plant.

1398
01:12:03,760 --> 01:12:05,120
Speaker 1: Were you your own distributor?

1399
01:12:05,240 --> 01:12:05,320
Speaker 8: Or?

1400
01:12:05,320 --> 01:12:06,120
Speaker 1: Who were you using?

1401
01:12:06,800 --> 01:12:09,840
Speaker 8: No, I had twelve distributor to cover America in those days,

1402
01:12:09,880 --> 01:12:11,960
Speaker 8: you had to have twelve distributors. There's we had a

1403
01:12:11,960 --> 01:12:16,040
Speaker 8: New York distributor, Philly distributor Universal in Philly. We had

1404
01:12:16,080 --> 01:12:27,200
Speaker 8: a distributor in Washington, Baltimore, Miami, Atlanta, Chicago, you know, Cleveland, Boston, Hartford.

1405
01:12:27,840 --> 01:12:29,040
Speaker 1: I'm telling you it's crazy.

1406
01:12:29,320 --> 01:12:34,799
Speaker 8: San Francisco, La Texas, and New Orleans.

1407
01:12:35,000 --> 01:12:37,360
Speaker 1: And then what about a nationally Shreveport is separate one

1408
01:12:37,400 --> 01:12:39,439
Speaker 1: in Shreeport in New Orleans? What about internationally?

1409
01:12:39,439 --> 01:12:40,800
Speaker 8: How did you do it? And nastually? We didn't know

1410
01:12:40,800 --> 01:12:44,400
Speaker 8: what we're doing. We licensed the record internationally to a

1411
01:12:44,439 --> 01:12:48,599
Speaker 8: PolyGram subsidiary called twenty one and they gave us whatever

1412
01:12:48,720 --> 01:12:52,640
Speaker 8: like a twenty thousand dollars advance for the world.

1413
01:12:52,360 --> 01:12:58,439
Speaker 1: As a president of the label. How are Africa, Bimbata

1414
01:12:59,600 --> 01:13:03,880
Speaker 1: and the Sonic Force doing this song and concert? Are they?

1415
01:13:04,160 --> 01:13:08,000
Speaker 1: Is there demand to bring them like is I mean,

1416
01:13:08,040 --> 01:13:10,040
Speaker 1: how are you guys dealing with your statics.

1417
01:13:09,680 --> 01:13:11,479
Speaker 8: Of Like we had to make it, we made it.

1418
01:13:11,520 --> 01:13:13,320
Speaker 1: How do you make it work on Well, I saw

1419
01:13:13,360 --> 01:13:15,360
Speaker 1: the video, but how do you make it work on stage?

1420
01:13:16,600 --> 01:13:16,680
Speaker 8: Like?

1421
01:13:16,760 --> 01:13:18,720
Speaker 1: Are we getting a band to try and recreate this?

1422
01:13:19,000 --> 01:13:19,599
Speaker 1: Is there?

1423
01:13:19,840 --> 01:13:23,360
Speaker 8: No? The bembodis DJ it Because the other thing the

1424
01:13:23,360 --> 01:13:27,640
Speaker 8: time we boy did was we were innovating in the

1425
01:13:27,720 --> 01:13:29,760
Speaker 8: records themselves. First of all, a lot of the twelve

1426
01:13:29,800 --> 01:13:31,800
Speaker 8: inches at the time were forty five, so we only

1427
01:13:31,800 --> 01:13:34,400
Speaker 8: did thirty threes. We put the beats permitted on the

1428
01:13:34,439 --> 01:13:36,439
Speaker 8: record so the DJs would know what the beats permitt

1429
01:13:36,479 --> 01:13:38,479
Speaker 8: It was, By the way, what's the beats permitted in

1430
01:13:38,520 --> 01:13:46,240
Speaker 8: a plant Rock? Anybody? On twenty nine? Very good? Yeah.

1431
01:13:46,280 --> 01:13:49,880
Speaker 8: But we also put bonus beats on that record, the

1432
01:13:49,920 --> 01:13:52,840
Speaker 8: first record ever that had bonus beats, because we wanted

1433
01:13:52,840 --> 01:13:55,599
Speaker 8: to give DJs tools because we knew who our audience was.

1434
01:13:56,000 --> 01:13:58,320
Speaker 8: Sugar Hill didn't think that they thought their audience was

1435
01:13:58,360 --> 01:14:02,000
Speaker 8: record bised. We thought our audience DJs, and the DJs

1436
01:14:02,120 --> 01:14:05,320
Speaker 8: became record biers, and record biers followed started buying with

1437
01:14:05,360 --> 01:14:08,040
Speaker 8: the DJs. But even though they weren't DJs, so you

1438
01:14:08,040 --> 01:14:10,759
Speaker 8: know twelve inches, which were just a DJ market until

1439
01:14:10,800 --> 01:14:14,720
Speaker 8: like seventy eight or seventy nine started becoming Planet. I

1440
01:14:14,760 --> 01:14:20,040
Speaker 8: think the first record that really probably went multi platinum

1441
01:14:20,360 --> 01:14:24,640
Speaker 8: off twelve inch was probably Wrap His Delight or Heartbeat

1442
01:14:25,439 --> 01:14:26,719
Speaker 8: by Tony Gardner.

1443
01:14:27,000 --> 01:14:30,920
Speaker 1: Do you know the Heartbeat story with Larry Levan? I

1444
01:14:31,000 --> 01:14:33,160
Speaker 1: wanted to say this earlier when he mentioned down tempo

1445
01:14:33,479 --> 01:14:38,320
Speaker 1: how he played So Larry Levan defiantly oh yeah.

1446
01:14:38,200 --> 01:14:40,280
Speaker 10: Yeah, yeah, how he played it like twenty times in

1447
01:14:40,320 --> 01:14:41,320
Speaker 10: a row.

1448
01:14:40,880 --> 01:14:43,519
Speaker 1: Well they said three hours, but I feel like he

1449
01:14:46,320 --> 01:14:48,280
Speaker 1: it might have been under twenty times in a row.

1450
01:14:48,439 --> 01:14:51,240
Speaker 1: That's how he broke it at Paradise. Yeah, he literally

1451
01:14:51,320 --> 01:14:53,519
Speaker 1: was going to force them to dance to down tempo

1452
01:14:54,000 --> 01:14:58,160
Speaker 1: as opposed to disco, and their thing was to have

1453
01:14:58,240 --> 01:15:00,920
Speaker 1: a sit in. So for the first or five times

1454
01:15:01,200 --> 01:15:03,599
Speaker 1: people were sitting under dance. His audience was like, no,

1455
01:15:03,640 --> 01:15:07,439
Speaker 1: we're leaving, and Larry Levan was like, no, I'm I'm

1456
01:15:07,520 --> 01:15:10,479
Speaker 1: the controller here. You don't you know you're not hold

1457
01:15:10,520 --> 01:15:10,960
Speaker 1: me hosted.

1458
01:15:11,040 --> 01:15:11,519
Speaker 7: Don't try that.

1459
01:15:11,560 --> 01:15:12,479
Speaker 1: Don't try to sell me.

1460
01:15:12,520 --> 01:15:14,000
Speaker 8: A few people can get away with that.

1461
01:15:14,280 --> 01:15:16,160
Speaker 1: He was like, I will, I will play what you

1462
01:15:16,200 --> 01:15:18,360
Speaker 1: want to hear after I see them dance to this,

1463
01:15:18,600 --> 01:15:21,280
Speaker 1: and so after the twentieth time, they're like, all right,

1464
01:15:21,360 --> 01:15:22,960
Speaker 1: damn it, and then they started and then they have

1465
01:15:23,000 --> 01:15:27,839
Speaker 1: been He literally stock him, cindered them into.

1466
01:15:27,479 --> 01:15:29,320
Speaker 7: That's good to know though, but that heart that heartbeat

1467
01:15:29,320 --> 01:15:31,800
Speaker 7: record was the transition and so that is not it's

1468
01:15:31,840 --> 01:15:33,439
Speaker 7: not disco, but it is downbeat.

1469
01:15:33,439 --> 01:15:37,400
Speaker 1: And then yeah Tuesday, Yeah, like he literally forced them

1470
01:15:37,400 --> 01:15:40,800
Speaker 1: by gunpoint to you know, it was radical at the

1471
01:15:40,800 --> 01:15:44,240
Speaker 1: time because it was like ninety one bpms, where the

1472
01:15:44,280 --> 01:15:47,920
Speaker 1: average record was disco fied and so yeah.

1473
01:15:47,840 --> 01:15:50,240
Speaker 8: Yeah, but and he already played dow tempo compared to

1474
01:15:50,800 --> 01:15:53,679
Speaker 8: the White Gate you know discos where they were playing

1475
01:15:53,680 --> 01:15:56,519
Speaker 8: one hundred and twenty ninety thirty so Africa. So the

1476
01:15:56,560 --> 01:15:58,160
Speaker 8: other thing we did was we had an instrumental B

1477
01:15:58,320 --> 01:16:00,880
Speaker 8: side and a version that had Tina Bee on it,

1478
01:16:00,920 --> 01:16:03,200
Speaker 8: which was Arthur's wife, Tina Baker.

1479
01:16:03,280 --> 01:16:07,360
Speaker 1: Okay she be yeah, oh crap, I did not know.

1480
01:16:08,720 --> 01:16:12,879
Speaker 8: And that allowed us to get play on in clubs

1481
01:16:12,880 --> 01:16:15,280
Speaker 8: that were gay clubs because it was the right tempo

1482
01:16:15,560 --> 01:16:16,960
Speaker 8: and they weren't going to play a record with a

1483
01:16:17,040 --> 01:16:19,719
Speaker 8: rap on it. So that so our record got played

1484
01:16:20,040 --> 01:16:24,479
Speaker 8: everywhere everyone could play our record. Also, you know, punk

1485
01:16:24,560 --> 01:16:26,840
Speaker 8: rock was fast, so a lot of the you know,

1486
01:16:26,880 --> 01:16:29,880
Speaker 8: people who liked to play rock music couldn't play early

1487
01:16:29,960 --> 01:16:31,559
Speaker 8: hip hop because it was too slow for what they

1488
01:16:31,560 --> 01:16:33,880
Speaker 8: were playing, but they could play Planet Rock. So Planet

1489
01:16:33,960 --> 01:16:37,160
Speaker 8: Rock was a breakthrough record on so many levels. Also,

1490
01:16:37,320 --> 01:16:40,400
Speaker 8: Latin kids went nuts, Asian kids went nuts because this

1491
01:16:40,479 --> 01:16:44,320
Speaker 8: whole you know, this was the Pa pac Man Asteroids

1492
01:16:44,439 --> 01:16:47,160
Speaker 8: versus pac Man kind of period where people were hearing

1493
01:16:47,200 --> 01:16:50,960
Speaker 8: these electronic sounds in video games and going crazy over

1494
01:16:50,960 --> 01:16:54,880
Speaker 8: them and you know, hearing electro music. We also had

1495
01:16:55,280 --> 01:16:58,040
Speaker 8: real support in Detroit, which was like the funk capital

1496
01:16:58,040 --> 01:17:00,519
Speaker 8: of the world, from the Electrifying Mojo, who was the

1497
01:17:00,560 --> 01:17:03,599
Speaker 8: big DJ who broke all the early George Clinton stuff

1498
01:17:03,680 --> 01:17:07,080
Speaker 8: on the air and he was god in Michigan and

1499
01:17:07,160 --> 01:17:09,360
Speaker 8: so you know, he broke it through the whole funk

1500
01:17:09,840 --> 01:17:13,639
Speaker 8: you know scenario. So we got really great support from

1501
01:17:13,680 --> 01:17:16,200
Speaker 8: the record because we put elements in it that were

1502
01:17:16,280 --> 01:17:19,400
Speaker 8: inclusive that look, this record isn't just for the Bronx.

1503
01:17:19,600 --> 01:17:22,519
Speaker 8: This record is for everybody. If you're gay and into

1504
01:17:22,600 --> 01:17:25,280
Speaker 8: euro disco, play the B side, you know, if you're

1505
01:17:25,320 --> 01:17:27,400
Speaker 8: having trouble getting into it, use the bonus beats to

1506
01:17:27,439 --> 01:17:30,120
Speaker 8: get into it. We gave everybody everything they needed, and

1507
01:17:30,160 --> 01:17:33,360
Speaker 8: to me, that was a breakthrough part of the record too.

1508
01:17:33,400 --> 01:17:35,080
Speaker 8: It made it easier for the record to catch on

1509
01:17:35,120 --> 01:17:36,799
Speaker 8: when you only have two employees in the company.

1510
01:17:37,360 --> 01:17:37,880
Speaker 1: Jo Top.

1511
01:17:37,960 --> 01:17:39,880
Speaker 7: Not to jump the gun, but because you keep talking

1512
01:17:39,880 --> 01:17:42,479
Speaker 7: about how well versed you were on the diversity of

1513
01:17:42,479 --> 01:17:45,360
Speaker 7: the gay community, is that when you like ran into

1514
01:17:45,439 --> 01:17:47,559
Speaker 7: like a young RuPaul, because I mean that's a person

1515
01:17:47,600 --> 01:17:48,400
Speaker 7: of a certain age.

1516
01:17:48,479 --> 01:17:49,680
Speaker 1: I was just curious.

1517
01:17:49,320 --> 01:17:50,360
Speaker 8: Because I was much later.

1518
01:17:50,680 --> 01:17:52,720
Speaker 1: Paul was right.

1519
01:17:52,760 --> 01:17:54,400
Speaker 7: I didn't know because he's certain.

1520
01:17:55,360 --> 01:17:57,880
Speaker 8: He used to intern at the New Music Seminar for us.

1521
01:17:58,240 --> 01:18:01,360
Speaker 8: He used to perform perform at a show at the

1522
01:18:01,360 --> 01:18:05,439
Speaker 8: Saint at the New Music Seminar once, you know, uh,

1523
01:18:05,520 --> 01:18:10,040
Speaker 8: and he was an amazing performer. But you know, Monica really,

1524
01:18:10,160 --> 01:18:12,599
Speaker 8: you know, Monica Lynch was the president of Tommy Boy,

1525
01:18:12,640 --> 01:18:15,439
Speaker 8: actually not me, and she, you know, she was the

1526
01:18:15,479 --> 01:18:18,080
Speaker 8: one that brought that in. And you know, because she

1527
01:18:18,160 --> 01:18:20,920
Speaker 8: understood that, you know, she was came from Chicago and

1528
01:18:20,960 --> 01:18:23,880
Speaker 8: she came out of that culture, you know, the the

1529
01:18:24,360 --> 01:18:26,439
Speaker 8: gay disco, the ball culture and stuff like.

1530
01:18:26,360 --> 01:18:28,599
Speaker 1: That, coming out of a Planet Rock.

1531
01:18:28,680 --> 01:18:30,680
Speaker 10: A lot of the stuff y'all followed up with I

1532
01:18:30,680 --> 01:18:32,519
Speaker 10: guess it fell under like the I guess theyould call

1533
01:18:32,600 --> 01:18:35,439
Speaker 10: it freestyle at the time. Was it like the Latin

1534
01:18:35,520 --> 01:18:38,240
Speaker 10: hip hops? Yeah, Latin hip hop? Who was first they.

1535
01:18:38,200 --> 01:18:41,280
Speaker 1: Called it Latin hip hop? Then they called it freestyle? Okay, okay, gotcha?

1536
01:18:41,800 --> 01:18:43,000
Speaker 1: Who was some of those artists?

1537
01:18:43,080 --> 01:18:44,880
Speaker 8: T K A. That was the big one. We had

1538
01:18:44,960 --> 01:18:48,920
Speaker 8: K seven t K A. So the K K seven

1539
01:18:49,000 --> 01:18:51,000
Speaker 8: is the K and t K A Tony K.

1540
01:18:52,000 --> 01:18:54,519
Speaker 1: Society, I mean didn't really start with Information Society.

1541
01:18:54,560 --> 01:18:58,280
Speaker 8: Was the Information Society which was salabout Yellow who had

1542
01:18:58,280 --> 01:19:01,240
Speaker 8: the fever, had a club called it Devil's nest Alnido

1543
01:19:01,280 --> 01:19:04,680
Speaker 8: del Diablo in the Bronx also, and Louis Vega used

1544
01:19:04,680 --> 01:19:08,120
Speaker 8: to spin there, and Louis Vega discovered this record and

1545
01:19:08,360 --> 01:19:12,240
Speaker 8: brought them in from Minnesota. These guys are like Vikings

1546
01:19:12,240 --> 01:19:15,280
Speaker 8: from Minnesota, and they came they came in the you know,

1547
01:19:15,360 --> 01:19:17,439
Speaker 8: this white group came in and played an all Puerto

1548
01:19:17,479 --> 01:19:19,679
Speaker 8: Rican club in the Bronx and.

1549
01:19:19,800 --> 01:19:23,679
Speaker 1: They were white. Never saw the video, not only white

1550
01:19:25,240 --> 01:19:26,479
Speaker 1: way original white.

1551
01:19:27,760 --> 01:19:29,400
Speaker 8: They weans from.

1552
01:19:29,520 --> 01:19:31,840
Speaker 1: You know, because Silent Warning like all that stuff just

1553
01:19:31,880 --> 01:19:34,880
Speaker 1: sounded and all the Puerto Rican kids in my high school.

1554
01:19:35,200 --> 01:19:37,080
Speaker 1: I just thought they were Puerto Rican because I guess

1555
01:19:40,000 --> 01:19:40,559
Speaker 1: Puerto Rican.

1556
01:19:41,400 --> 01:19:44,240
Speaker 8: So yeah, So that was probably eighty four, like two

1557
01:19:44,320 --> 01:19:47,679
Speaker 8: years after playing Rock, or maybe late eighty three because

1558
01:19:47,760 --> 01:19:49,840
Speaker 8: Running was the first record which used a eight o

1559
01:19:49,960 --> 01:19:53,320
Speaker 8: eight in it. Also, so when you know it was

1560
01:19:53,360 --> 01:19:56,439
Speaker 8: discovered and Louis played, these guys thought they were playing

1561
01:19:56,479 --> 01:19:57,880
Speaker 8: to a rock odings because they thought they were a

1562
01:19:57,960 --> 01:20:01,120
Speaker 8: rock band and when they saw they didn't know who

1563
01:20:01,120 --> 01:20:03,080
Speaker 8: their audience was, and we sort of had to do

1564
01:20:03,160 --> 01:20:06,280
Speaker 8: an adjustment so they can understand you can try and

1565
01:20:06,320 --> 01:20:10,120
Speaker 8: play rock music or you can embrace this this audience here.

1566
01:20:10,240 --> 01:20:11,839
Speaker 8: It was really amazing to see.

1567
01:20:11,760 --> 01:20:15,920
Speaker 1: Well imagine that a group going against their will, playing,

1568
01:20:16,040 --> 01:20:19,160
Speaker 1: playing and surviving off audience. They who would ever have

1569
01:20:19,240 --> 01:20:21,439
Speaker 1: thought that would ever happen to a group. Again, I

1570
01:20:21,479 --> 01:20:25,160
Speaker 1: feel as though everything that you've brought to the table,

1571
01:20:26,240 --> 01:20:29,439
Speaker 1: uh from Tommy Boy Records, especially in the first ten

1572
01:20:29,520 --> 01:20:35,679
Speaker 1: years of the label, was a foot forward as far

1573
01:20:35,800 --> 01:20:38,240
Speaker 1: as the culture and innovation, and of course you know

1574
01:20:38,240 --> 01:20:41,519
Speaker 1: you are established that as the natural contrarian, you were

1575
01:20:41,520 --> 01:20:43,639
Speaker 1: trying to go to the places other people weren't going.

1576
01:20:45,680 --> 01:20:51,160
Speaker 1: And I guess probably the second most notable signing of

1577
01:20:51,200 --> 01:20:59,120
Speaker 1: your label ghost. That's no the ford the MDS tell

1578
01:20:59,160 --> 01:21:02,840
Speaker 1: me about. Well, first of all, changing the four sim

1579
01:21:02,920 --> 01:21:06,000
Speaker 1: C's from Staten Island to the four m.

1580
01:21:06,040 --> 01:21:07,960
Speaker 8: DS was doctor Rock and the four sim C's.

1581
01:21:08,040 --> 01:21:13,120
Speaker 1: Yeah, so how did you how did you run into

1582
01:21:13,120 --> 01:21:17,400
Speaker 1: them and and sort of groomed them and like did

1583
01:21:17,400 --> 01:21:20,639
Speaker 1: they already come package as they were swetters? And because

1584
01:21:20,640 --> 01:21:21,519
Speaker 1: I feel like that's.

1585
01:21:21,360 --> 01:21:24,600
Speaker 8: You, that's me, you know, I already said that, you know,

1586
01:21:24,640 --> 01:21:29,479
Speaker 8: but I saw I saw him perform at one of

1587
01:21:29,520 --> 01:21:32,920
Speaker 8: Africa Bambadi's Zulu Nation events. They were Zulu. I mean

1588
01:21:32,920 --> 01:21:37,160
Speaker 8: there were people that were affiliated with the Zulunation in Olbers.

1589
01:21:37,160 --> 01:21:39,640
Speaker 8: They're from Staten Island, so you know, all of the

1590
01:21:39,640 --> 01:21:41,920
Speaker 8: Staten Island hip hop that came out of Staten Island

1591
01:21:42,360 --> 01:21:44,880
Speaker 8: grew up on four m DS. And you know, they

1592
01:21:44,920 --> 01:21:47,280
Speaker 8: had Jesse d who was the singer who used to

1593
01:21:47,320 --> 01:21:50,519
Speaker 8: do Michael Jackson invitations on the on the Staten Island

1594
01:21:50,560 --> 01:21:55,000
Speaker 8: ferry and raise money that way. And yeah, they were

1595
01:21:55,120 --> 01:21:57,360
Speaker 8: but they were super talented and I heard him sing

1596
01:21:57,400 --> 01:22:00,800
Speaker 8: a song that blew my mind at this show. It

1597
01:22:00,840 --> 01:22:04,080
Speaker 8: was hip hop and hip hop beats, but they did

1598
01:22:04,120 --> 01:22:08,639
Speaker 8: this beautiful four part harmony or five part harmony routine

1599
01:22:08,760 --> 01:22:15,000
Speaker 8: to the f Troop theme song, which was really amazing for.

1600
01:22:15,080 --> 01:22:19,479
Speaker 1: Our listeners out there. Like a lot of early hip

1601
01:22:19,479 --> 01:22:26,080
Speaker 1: hop routines were just based on TVs do ron Stone,

1602
01:22:26,160 --> 01:22:32,360
Speaker 1: Cowboy and and by yeah exactly. So a lot of

1603
01:22:32,360 --> 01:22:36,280
Speaker 1: these early hip hop routines are based on uh u

1604
01:22:36,400 --> 01:22:41,800
Speaker 1: h F whatever that is u HF channel uh reruns

1605
01:22:41,800 --> 01:22:47,320
Speaker 1: and about the weird out who wants to be on

1606
01:22:47,400 --> 01:22:50,640
Speaker 1: Quest Love Supreme way he bring it? Yeo, yeah, I will.

1607
01:22:51,120 --> 01:22:54,559
Speaker 1: So back to the Foursome ds. So you saw them

1608
01:22:54,640 --> 01:22:56,639
Speaker 1: do this routine and you.

1609
01:22:56,920 --> 01:22:59,640
Speaker 8: Yeah, I thought that, you know, they were super commercial

1610
01:22:59,800 --> 01:23:03,719
Speaker 8: and and I thought that this concept of harmony over

1611
01:23:04,320 --> 01:23:08,559
Speaker 8: hip hop beats might be another departure point because you

1612
01:23:08,600 --> 01:23:13,320
Speaker 8: have to understand also at this time, the DJ was

1613
01:23:13,360 --> 01:23:16,080
Speaker 8: the main person in a rap group, not the rappers,

1614
01:23:16,479 --> 01:23:19,640
Speaker 8: and the DJ usually had the musical idea and their

1615
01:23:19,720 --> 01:23:23,520
Speaker 8: name always was first it was Africa Bembada and Grandmester

1616
01:23:23,560 --> 01:23:26,639
Speaker 8: Flesh and Eric B. And you know it was because

1617
01:23:26,920 --> 01:23:29,960
Speaker 8: the person with the records was the master. You know,

1618
01:23:30,280 --> 01:23:34,479
Speaker 8: the the DJs were fungible, I mean the MC's were fungible.

1619
01:23:34,520 --> 01:23:38,439
Speaker 8: There's everybody wanted to be an MC. Also didn't cost

1620
01:23:38,439 --> 01:23:40,479
Speaker 8: money to be a MC. It costs money you had

1621
01:23:40,479 --> 01:23:42,680
Speaker 8: to invest to have the equipment, the records and all

1622
01:23:42,720 --> 01:23:45,680
Speaker 8: that stuff. So they were the guys, and often they

1623
01:23:45,720 --> 01:23:48,639
Speaker 8: came with a musical idea. Jazzy Jeff and the Fresh

1624
01:23:48,680 --> 01:23:52,320
Speaker 8: Prince and again, you know, so these are the guys

1625
01:23:52,320 --> 01:23:54,479
Speaker 8: and then things. There was a point in the music

1626
01:23:54,520 --> 01:23:58,120
Speaker 8: industry where that changed and they went to outside producers

1627
01:23:58,960 --> 01:24:01,200
Speaker 8: and that was sort of a to me, a sea

1628
01:24:01,280 --> 01:24:04,920
Speaker 8: change in the music business. But timmy boys strength came

1629
01:24:04,960 --> 01:24:08,479
Speaker 8: from self contained groups that had a sound of their own.

1630
01:24:08,600 --> 01:24:13,639
Speaker 8: That came where the vision came from the DJ slash producer.

1631
01:24:14,280 --> 01:24:16,320
Speaker 8: You know, whether they were a great producer or not

1632
01:24:16,560 --> 01:24:18,880
Speaker 8: was something else. But they usually had a musical vision

1633
01:24:19,120 --> 01:24:21,600
Speaker 8: that we had to interpret. You know, Baan Bada had

1634
01:24:21,640 --> 01:24:23,519
Speaker 8: a musical vision. Arthur Baker interpreted it.

1635
01:24:24,680 --> 01:24:30,519
Speaker 1: Where they easily sold on the Frankie Lineman approach of.

1636
01:24:30,960 --> 01:24:33,160
Speaker 8: Yeah, they were open to whatever. At the point they

1637
01:24:33,160 --> 01:24:35,160
Speaker 8: wanted a record deal and they weren't going to get

1638
01:24:35,160 --> 01:24:36,800
Speaker 8: a record dealer. It wasn't like there was a lot

1639
01:24:36,800 --> 01:24:39,360
Speaker 8: of competition. Maybe they would have thought it, but I,

1640
01:24:39,400 --> 01:24:41,120
Speaker 8: you know, I said, look, you know, it's the same

1641
01:24:41,160 --> 01:24:44,639
Speaker 8: street corners. There's a great story here. Let's do this thing.

1642
01:24:44,960 --> 01:24:49,160
Speaker 8: And also maybe we can you know, get girls really

1643
01:24:49,200 --> 01:24:52,800
Speaker 8: into this group, because you know girls, you know, and

1644
01:24:52,840 --> 01:24:56,400
Speaker 8: so that would be, you know, a way to expose

1645
01:24:56,439 --> 01:24:58,320
Speaker 8: it and break it. And also I was dealing with

1646
01:24:58,439 --> 01:25:00,559
Speaker 8: radio because I was the guy actually called Radio two,

1647
01:25:00,960 --> 01:25:03,439
Speaker 8: So I was working radio and talking to radio DJs

1648
01:25:03,439 --> 01:25:05,000
Speaker 8: trying to get them to play hip hop, which they

1649
01:25:05,000 --> 01:25:07,599
Speaker 8: didn't want to play. They hated it. They you know,

1650
01:25:07,680 --> 01:25:11,080
Speaker 8: if they played hip hop, they had one slot on

1651
01:25:11,120 --> 01:25:13,600
Speaker 8: their playlist or two slots on their playlist. So it

1652
01:25:13,640 --> 01:25:15,600
Speaker 8: was very hard to get them to play it. And

1653
01:25:15,680 --> 01:25:18,040
Speaker 8: even though I didn't have any major label competition for

1654
01:25:18,080 --> 01:25:20,479
Speaker 8: ten years, during this period of time, there's plenty of

1655
01:25:20,600 --> 01:25:23,960
Speaker 8: indie label competition. We were all chasing the same guys

1656
01:25:24,040 --> 01:25:28,439
Speaker 8: with hip hop records, and you know, the record had

1657
01:25:28,479 --> 01:25:31,360
Speaker 8: to be really good. So you know, I thought that

1658
01:25:31,680 --> 01:25:35,080
Speaker 8: a record that was allot, you know, a vocal record,

1659
01:25:35,160 --> 01:25:38,000
Speaker 8: would would not be considered a hip hop record. But

1660
01:25:38,160 --> 01:25:40,120
Speaker 8: because it was on Tommy Boy and we had hip

1661
01:25:40,120 --> 01:25:43,240
Speaker 8: hop hits, they didn't even listen to the I can't

1662
01:25:43,240 --> 01:25:44,920
Speaker 8: play this hip hop record. It's not a hip hop

1663
01:25:44,960 --> 01:25:47,040
Speaker 8: listen to the record you could play.

1664
01:25:47,479 --> 01:25:50,120
Speaker 7: At what point did crush groove come into the picture

1665
01:25:50,240 --> 01:25:52,120
Speaker 7: for them and did it have like an effect on

1666
01:25:53,240 --> 01:25:54,160
Speaker 7: the records?

1667
01:25:54,479 --> 01:25:56,680
Speaker 1: Actually they were right.

1668
01:25:58,560 --> 01:26:03,960
Speaker 8: I remember O n and I saw the eighty five.

1669
01:26:04,120 --> 01:26:04,920
Speaker 1: I saw it in the theater.

1670
01:26:05,840 --> 01:26:09,479
Speaker 8: Call it eighty six indo eighty five eighty beginning eighty six.

1671
01:26:10,320 --> 01:26:13,120
Speaker 1: Yeah, I think I think for some d's performance and

1672
01:26:13,200 --> 01:26:16,760
Speaker 1: rapping was the that was that was the highlight of

1673
01:26:16,880 --> 01:26:17,240
Speaker 1: the movie.

1674
01:26:17,240 --> 01:26:20,280
Speaker 5: Of the film, or Griffin Dunn's rap at the end,

1675
01:26:20,520 --> 01:26:21,320
Speaker 5: the horrible rap.

1676
01:26:22,000 --> 01:26:23,719
Speaker 1: What was the But they weren't, I mean, they weren't

1677
01:26:23,720 --> 01:26:26,479
Speaker 1: cush with tender love was. They did It's and force

1678
01:26:26,520 --> 01:26:27,439
Speaker 1: scratching and.

1679
01:26:27,360 --> 01:26:29,640
Speaker 8: That was earlier. Rapping was first, So that must have

1680
01:26:29,640 --> 01:26:31,000
Speaker 8: been eighty four eighty five.

1681
01:26:31,040 --> 01:26:33,040
Speaker 1: Yeah, I mean It's and for scratches, I mean, let

1682
01:26:33,040 --> 01:26:35,760
Speaker 1: Me Love You was it was a good introduction. But

1683
01:26:35,920 --> 01:26:38,040
Speaker 1: really I know that b boys got to open on

1684
01:26:38,760 --> 01:26:40,960
Speaker 1: It's and for scratch and even when they opened for

1685
01:26:41,000 --> 01:26:45,200
Speaker 1: a new edition. I've seen three full force new edition

1686
01:26:45,280 --> 01:26:47,879
Speaker 1: shows and I always felt like full force or forced

1687
01:26:48,280 --> 01:26:54,120
Speaker 1: my god, I said, full force cracker for some ds

1688
01:26:55,080 --> 01:26:57,960
Speaker 1: opening for a new edition, I could tell that they

1689
01:26:57,960 --> 01:27:02,800
Speaker 1: were out for blood, like they performed harder, and you

1690
01:27:02,800 --> 01:27:04,200
Speaker 1: know they were doing all the invitations.

1691
01:27:04,280 --> 01:27:05,520
Speaker 8: Yeah, they have dance routines.

1692
01:27:06,280 --> 01:27:08,599
Speaker 1: Yeah, way way past. I mean they were rhyming, they

1693
01:27:08,600 --> 01:27:14,080
Speaker 1: were singing, they were imitating Michael JACKSONI wack costumes.

1694
01:27:14,120 --> 01:27:16,880
Speaker 8: We have to talk about I think that was me

1695
01:27:16,960 --> 01:27:17,519
Speaker 8: on the record.

1696
01:27:17,760 --> 01:27:23,840
Speaker 1: That was you exclusive. I don't know my sound effects

1697
01:27:23,880 --> 01:27:28,880
Speaker 1: this stuff, just that part, Okay, I see so well. Yeah,

1698
01:27:28,880 --> 01:27:34,559
Speaker 1: because I always wanted to know why did they By

1699
01:27:34,600 --> 01:27:37,920
Speaker 1: the time Chilling came out and Tender Love had had

1700
01:27:37,960 --> 01:27:38,400
Speaker 1: made noise.

1701
01:27:38,479 --> 01:27:40,760
Speaker 8: Tender Love was like the first top ten record for

1702
01:27:40,840 --> 01:27:42,080
Speaker 8: Jimmy jam and Terry Lewis.

1703
01:27:42,160 --> 01:27:47,080
Speaker 1: Yeah, it was, so were they because the cover of

1704
01:27:47,160 --> 01:27:51,920
Speaker 1: Chilling was like them in Offers and they was chilling.

1705
01:27:54,120 --> 01:27:57,840
Speaker 1: I know literally that. But were they telling you, as

1706
01:27:57,960 --> 01:28:00,920
Speaker 1: an executive, like, we don't want to go the bubblegum?

1707
01:28:01,680 --> 01:28:03,960
Speaker 8: We were over that right away because it didn't work.

1708
01:28:04,040 --> 01:28:06,280
Speaker 8: We tried it, We tried to connect to that audience

1709
01:28:06,320 --> 01:28:08,080
Speaker 8: and it didn't connect, so we went a new way.

1710
01:28:08,360 --> 01:28:11,520
Speaker 1: My dad actually liked that. He liked the Chilling record

1711
01:28:12,000 --> 01:28:14,519
Speaker 1: because I had to Let Me Love You twelve inch

1712
01:28:14,680 --> 01:28:17,280
Speaker 1: and it looked the way that the photo was positioned,

1713
01:28:17,840 --> 01:28:20,559
Speaker 1: it looked just like the Frankie Liman thing. So my

1714
01:28:20,680 --> 01:28:24,400
Speaker 1: dad instantly got, oh, that's what they're they're coming from,

1715
01:28:24,439 --> 01:28:27,559
Speaker 1: and so damn that did he like the music when

1716
01:28:27,600 --> 01:28:32,080
Speaker 1: you listen to it? Forgive me, it was my It

1717
01:28:32,120 --> 01:28:34,800
Speaker 1: was my music, not a music. But I definitely know

1718
01:28:34,880 --> 01:28:37,160
Speaker 1: that harmonies at least, you know, I know that he

1719
01:28:37,240 --> 01:28:39,240
Speaker 1: saw the cover and was like, oh, that's Frankie Lion.

1720
01:28:39,360 --> 01:28:41,000
Speaker 8: By the way. He broke with the cover too. His

1721
01:28:41,040 --> 01:28:43,040
Speaker 8: first record was the record somebody had done before.

1722
01:28:43,840 --> 01:28:46,599
Speaker 1: Really No, no, no, I mean literally the photo.

1723
01:28:46,960 --> 01:28:49,000
Speaker 8: Yeah, I know what you're talking the cover, Yeah.

1724
01:28:48,960 --> 01:28:53,759
Speaker 1: With climmcfetter, that's what you mean. Who orchestrated them getting

1725
01:28:53,760 --> 01:28:55,960
Speaker 1: with jam and Lewis? Like was that a thing for

1726
01:28:56,040 --> 01:28:57,200
Speaker 1: the Cruss Grooves soundtrack?

1727
01:28:57,520 --> 01:28:57,720
Speaker 8: Yeah?

1728
01:28:57,920 --> 01:29:00,680
Speaker 1: Also, this time you're about to go to One Brothers right, Like,

1729
01:29:00,760 --> 01:29:01,799
Speaker 1: at what point are.

1730
01:29:01,720 --> 01:29:04,320
Speaker 8: You in the middle of the in the middle of

1731
01:29:04,439 --> 01:29:06,760
Speaker 8: making that. We had already made that record. Then I

1732
01:29:06,800 --> 01:29:09,639
Speaker 8: was talking to my Austin about about doing a joint

1733
01:29:09,680 --> 01:29:12,880
Speaker 8: venture with Warner Brothers where we maintained our independence, but

1734
01:29:13,000 --> 01:29:14,520
Speaker 8: we were half owned by Warner.

1735
01:29:14,520 --> 01:29:20,120
Speaker 1: M So did you were you executive of the Crush

1736
01:29:20,160 --> 01:29:22,920
Speaker 1: Groove soundtrack because it was on Warner Brothers.

1737
01:29:23,160 --> 01:29:25,280
Speaker 8: Had we had one record on there and it was

1738
01:29:25,280 --> 01:29:26,960
Speaker 8: gonna the album is going to be on Warner Brothers,

1739
01:29:27,000 --> 01:29:29,000
Speaker 8: but this was going to be the single that drove

1740
01:29:29,080 --> 01:29:31,120
Speaker 8: the album. So this was the single that was going

1741
01:29:31,200 --> 01:29:33,400
Speaker 8: to sell their album for them, so that there was

1742
01:29:33,439 --> 01:29:37,040
Speaker 8: a natural conversation anyway to talk to him about doing

1743
01:29:37,040 --> 01:29:38,240
Speaker 8: something bigger together.

1744
01:29:39,000 --> 01:29:41,280
Speaker 10: So was that song ever officially on A four C

1745
01:29:41,320 --> 01:29:42,440
Speaker 10: and d's album.

1746
01:29:42,840 --> 01:29:43,519
Speaker 8: It was on Chilling.

1747
01:29:44,160 --> 01:29:47,519
Speaker 1: It eventually became on Chilling, but after the Fat Got You.

1748
01:29:47,800 --> 01:29:50,519
Speaker 1: But I thought because you were had one foot in

1749
01:29:50,560 --> 01:29:52,840
Speaker 1: Warner and one foot at Tommy Boy, that.

1750
01:29:53,560 --> 01:29:55,880
Speaker 5: Didn't the single come out on both labels though like

1751
01:29:55,920 --> 01:29:59,920
Speaker 5: the Warner, it wasn't the twelve inch on time.

1752
01:30:00,280 --> 01:30:02,360
Speaker 8: Yeah. The deal that we made with Warner was all

1753
01:30:02,400 --> 01:30:04,320
Speaker 8: the twelve inches came through Tommy Boy and they had

1754
01:30:04,320 --> 01:30:08,800
Speaker 8: the albums. So actually Warner released the fourth MD's album Chill,

1755
01:30:08,840 --> 01:30:12,600
Speaker 8: and I think came through Warner and we had the

1756
01:30:12,640 --> 01:30:14,760
Speaker 8: twelve inches. That was the deal. We kept the twelve

1757
01:30:14,800 --> 01:30:17,439
Speaker 8: inches and they kept the forty five's in the albums,

1758
01:30:17,640 --> 01:30:19,280
Speaker 8: and that was important. That was important for you to

1759
01:30:19,320 --> 01:30:21,120
Speaker 8: keep the twelve inches for the branding. And also we

1760
01:30:21,120 --> 01:30:23,760
Speaker 8: were independent. We want we also had international We could

1761
01:30:23,840 --> 01:30:27,360
Speaker 8: make international deals. We had our own licensing ability to

1762
01:30:27,439 --> 01:30:32,360
Speaker 8: make licenses, We did our own promotion. They did promotion too.

1763
01:30:32,479 --> 01:30:34,720
Speaker 8: But you know, one of the reasons I did a

1764
01:30:34,760 --> 01:30:36,960
Speaker 8: deal with Warner was I wanted access to top forty

1765
01:30:37,040 --> 01:30:40,479
Speaker 8: radio and they had access to the Indie network and

1766
01:30:40,520 --> 01:30:43,880
Speaker 8: the Indian network. We couldn't. It was so expensive and

1767
01:30:44,280 --> 01:30:46,240
Speaker 8: we were so small we didn't have the leverage or

1768
01:30:46,280 --> 01:30:50,120
Speaker 8: the scale to access it. So once we made the deal,

1769
01:30:50,160 --> 01:30:54,400
Speaker 8: the pale investigations happened and Warner stopped choosing indies, so

1770
01:30:54,520 --> 01:30:56,439
Speaker 8: I never got that advantage, which was one of the

1771
01:30:56,479 --> 01:30:59,680
Speaker 8: reasons I made. Well year did that stop eight right

1772
01:31:00,200 --> 01:31:00,679
Speaker 8: eighty six?

1773
01:31:00,760 --> 01:31:02,120
Speaker 1: Right when we moved over there?

1774
01:31:03,040 --> 01:31:05,280
Speaker 8: Who knew?

1775
01:31:08,640 --> 01:31:14,120
Speaker 1: So how do you how do you curb the enthusiasm

1776
01:31:14,320 --> 01:31:19,280
Speaker 1: of an artist signed to the label that you know,

1777
01:31:19,320 --> 01:31:24,759
Speaker 1: because because by this point, you know, Thriller has gone

1778
01:31:24,800 --> 01:31:28,559
Speaker 1: full bloom and you see the potential of Michael Jackson

1779
01:31:28,600 --> 01:31:33,360
Speaker 1: selling forty million units and Prince is out there like now,

1780
01:31:33,439 --> 01:31:37,240
Speaker 1: black artists are finally getting there just due to live

1781
01:31:37,240 --> 01:31:39,759
Speaker 1: in the or at least the perception of it, because

1782
01:31:39,920 --> 01:31:41,720
Speaker 1: I know a lot of that is smoking mirrors. So

1783
01:31:43,640 --> 01:31:47,000
Speaker 1: you're on an independent label and knowing what I know,

1784
01:31:47,200 --> 01:31:51,240
Speaker 1: I know that the expectation factor of some certain artists

1785
01:31:52,760 --> 01:31:56,160
Speaker 1: are way high and above what the reality is like.

1786
01:31:56,240 --> 01:32:01,080
Speaker 1: They don't take into account. You have to do a

1787
01:32:01,120 --> 01:32:04,679
Speaker 1: show in Cleveland and it's five of you, So that's

1788
01:32:04,680 --> 01:32:07,600
Speaker 1: hotel rooms and there's a tour manager. What do you

1789
01:32:07,680 --> 01:32:15,799
Speaker 1: mean rooms? Okay, well, I mean, well just the idea.

1790
01:32:16,000 --> 01:32:17,840
Speaker 8: Look, we could drive back from Cleveland. We don't need

1791
01:32:17,880 --> 01:32:18,360
Speaker 8: to stay over.

1792
01:32:19,720 --> 01:32:23,360
Speaker 1: Yeah, I see, I'm taking my nineteen ninety five life

1793
01:32:23,600 --> 01:32:26,320
Speaker 1: this before. But you know it's.

1794
01:32:26,280 --> 01:32:27,679
Speaker 8: Business was ruined by then.

1795
01:32:29,560 --> 01:32:33,479
Speaker 1: Show. You never knew Hunger. I know. I'm so glad

1796
01:32:33,479 --> 01:32:37,240
Speaker 1: I got on the complete of that train boy, But

1797
01:32:38,240 --> 01:32:42,520
Speaker 1: how do you what's what's an what's an artist expectation?

1798
01:32:44,680 --> 01:32:49,400
Speaker 1: Especially an artist that's not aware of Hey, I gotta

1799
01:32:49,439 --> 01:32:53,840
Speaker 1: pay for this Billboard magazine ad to make sure that

1800
01:32:53,880 --> 01:32:57,040
Speaker 1: you're promoting, and that costs forty thousand dollars. I gotta

1801
01:32:58,080 --> 01:33:00,639
Speaker 1: you know. I'm sure that you've been on the many

1802
01:33:00,720 --> 01:33:04,040
Speaker 1: ends of an argument of an artist versus record exec

1803
01:33:04,960 --> 01:33:05,880
Speaker 1: Weren't we rich.

1804
01:33:06,680 --> 01:33:09,080
Speaker 8: Only after the majors got into the business and fucked

1805
01:33:09,080 --> 01:33:12,320
Speaker 8: it up for everybody else. It wasn't in the in

1806
01:33:12,360 --> 01:33:15,280
Speaker 8: the eighties, that was never an issue. We had to

1807
01:33:15,320 --> 01:33:18,040
Speaker 8: figure out, how do The issue isn't to get on

1808
01:33:18,040 --> 01:33:21,120
Speaker 8: the charts. The issue is to get exposure. Exposure leads

1809
01:33:21,120 --> 01:33:23,719
Speaker 8: to sales, that's it. Word of mouth leads to sales.

1810
01:33:23,760 --> 01:33:25,800
Speaker 8: Those are the things that we cared about. So how

1811
01:33:25,840 --> 01:33:29,439
Speaker 8: do we focus on maximizing exposure? So Tommy Boy invented

1812
01:33:29,479 --> 01:33:33,759
Speaker 8: the sticker. Tommy Boy invent started doing front page strips

1813
01:33:33,800 --> 01:33:38,080
Speaker 8: and billboard on every record we released. We treated twelve

1814
01:33:38,120 --> 01:33:40,080
Speaker 8: inches like albums. We worked them as if they were

1815
01:33:40,080 --> 01:33:43,840
Speaker 8: album projects. You know. We also worked our artists internationally

1816
01:33:44,720 --> 01:33:47,640
Speaker 8: like they weren't. We did the back page of the

1817
01:33:47,680 --> 01:33:50,080
Speaker 8: Source every week. We controlled the back page of the

1818
01:33:50,120 --> 01:33:53,240
Speaker 8: Source for ten years. We advertised in the Source when

1819
01:33:53,240 --> 01:33:55,720
Speaker 8: it was still staple together, tip sheet and out of

1820
01:33:55,720 --> 01:33:56,680
Speaker 8: Harvard University.

1821
01:33:56,720 --> 01:33:58,720
Speaker 7: How do you control the bat means that nobody can

1822
01:33:58,760 --> 01:33:59,880
Speaker 7: outbid you on the back.

1823
01:34:00,160 --> 01:34:02,960
Speaker 8: We had a subscription. We paid for it all we

1824
01:34:03,040 --> 01:34:05,160
Speaker 8: had it, you know, we paid in a FIR three

1825
01:34:05,200 --> 01:34:07,240
Speaker 8: and if in advance when they needed cash flow, and

1826
01:34:07,280 --> 01:34:10,400
Speaker 8: then we just we we had a contract with him

1827
01:34:10,439 --> 01:34:13,760
Speaker 8: for the back page. So you know, there were things

1828
01:34:13,800 --> 01:34:15,840
Speaker 8: that we you know, there are things that Tommy Boy did.

1829
01:34:15,920 --> 01:34:21,320
Speaker 8: You know when Greg Mack left the radio station, well

1830
01:34:21,400 --> 01:34:24,600
Speaker 8: when he when he left Houston where he was a

1831
01:34:24,680 --> 01:34:27,160
Speaker 8: hip hop radio DJ in Houston and we knew him

1832
01:34:27,160 --> 01:34:29,559
Speaker 8: and supported him. He came to K Day and he

1833
01:34:29,680 --> 01:34:32,000
Speaker 8: remembered that we supported a show a K Day. We

1834
01:34:32,040 --> 01:34:36,639
Speaker 8: supported you know, everybody's you know who had a hip

1835
01:34:36,680 --> 01:34:40,000
Speaker 8: hop publication when they started, and as their businesses grew,

1836
01:34:40,040 --> 01:34:42,559
Speaker 8: they remembered that we were always there at the beginning.

1837
01:34:42,960 --> 01:34:46,080
Speaker 8: So there's massive love for Tommy Boy all, you know,

1838
01:34:46,120 --> 01:34:49,640
Speaker 8: from the beginning because we nurtured everyone. And you know,

1839
01:34:49,800 --> 01:34:51,920
Speaker 8: there's very few people you could talk to in the

1840
01:34:51,960 --> 01:34:54,479
Speaker 8: business that don't have love for Tommy Boy, which is

1841
01:34:54,640 --> 01:34:57,080
Speaker 8: not a usual thing in hip hop, which is the

1842
01:34:57,120 --> 01:34:58,360
Speaker 8: world of haters mostly.

1843
01:35:00,920 --> 01:35:05,479
Speaker 10: That sound bite for Yeah World Wood that was on

1844
01:35:05,520 --> 01:35:08,559
Speaker 10: the Forces D's Unsung, they told a story I don't

1845
01:35:08,560 --> 01:35:11,640
Speaker 10: want to get your side of it about the they

1846
01:35:11,640 --> 01:35:14,640
Speaker 10: wanted to work with Teddy Riley and Teddy Rally was

1847
01:35:14,680 --> 01:35:16,680
Speaker 10: going to do tracks on I can't remember it was

1848
01:35:16,720 --> 01:35:19,680
Speaker 10: the I think it was maybe the third album and

1849
01:35:19,720 --> 01:35:21,880
Speaker 10: the label just didn't want to pay for it because

1850
01:35:22,000 --> 01:35:23,360
Speaker 10: Teddy was charging at that time.

1851
01:35:23,439 --> 01:35:26,720
Speaker 1: What was Teddy something that Yeah, exactly.

1852
01:35:26,320 --> 01:35:30,320
Speaker 10: It was exorbitant, But what was your what's your side

1853
01:35:30,360 --> 01:35:33,439
Speaker 10: of that? And was it something that just didn't make

1854
01:35:33,479 --> 01:35:36,600
Speaker 10: sense or how did you determine what to pay for it?

1855
01:35:36,680 --> 01:35:38,840
Speaker 8: I don't know, you know, I can't remember specifically. I

1856
01:35:38,880 --> 01:35:42,880
Speaker 8: do remember trying to get him, but availability and the

1857
01:35:43,320 --> 01:35:45,759
Speaker 8: kind of you know, like, would I pay fifty thousand

1858
01:35:45,800 --> 01:35:48,280
Speaker 8: dollars to clear a sample on one track? No, I'm

1859
01:35:48,280 --> 01:35:51,000
Speaker 8: not doing that, but you know Kanye will do that everybody.

1860
01:35:51,280 --> 01:35:53,880
Speaker 8: You know, there's economics in the music business, and the

1861
01:35:53,960 --> 01:35:58,200
Speaker 8: difference between indies and majors is the indies are have

1862
01:35:58,280 --> 01:35:59,800
Speaker 8: to make a profit or they go out of business.

1863
01:36:00,000 --> 01:36:01,880
Speaker 8: They just don't have to make a profit. They've been

1864
01:36:01,880 --> 01:36:04,600
Speaker 8: losing money for ten years. They're still here. They're not

1865
01:36:04,680 --> 01:36:06,720
Speaker 8: you know, they don't have to and their business is

1866
01:36:06,720 --> 01:36:09,679
Speaker 8: based on market share. So they will spend ten dollars

1867
01:36:09,760 --> 01:36:11,799
Speaker 8: to make five dollars as long as they can control

1868
01:36:11,920 --> 01:36:12,800
Speaker 8: x amount of the chart.

1869
01:36:13,479 --> 01:36:13,880
Speaker 1: We aren't.

1870
01:36:13,920 --> 01:36:15,720
Speaker 8: We aren't even in the same business that they're in.

1871
01:36:16,040 --> 01:36:19,200
Speaker 8: So when they got into hip hop, it changed the

1872
01:36:19,320 --> 01:36:22,040
Speaker 8: nature of hip hop, and it made it very corporated,

1873
01:36:22,280 --> 01:36:25,800
Speaker 8: you know, and kept some of the sort of the

1874
01:36:25,840 --> 01:36:29,920
Speaker 8: street creativity that came from discovering something on the street

1875
01:36:30,120 --> 01:36:32,759
Speaker 8: and starting with nothing and bringing to something to something

1876
01:36:32,800 --> 01:36:37,400
Speaker 8: where the second you signed, you know, the mayboch pulls up,

1877
01:36:37,680 --> 01:36:38,719
Speaker 8: get a bag of money.

1878
01:36:39,120 --> 01:36:43,519
Speaker 1: You know. So okay, being as though you're you're it

1879
01:36:43,560 --> 01:36:47,040
Speaker 1: was front loaded instead of so being as though you're

1880
01:36:47,360 --> 01:36:53,760
Speaker 1: one of the last execus that built this reputation off

1881
01:36:53,800 --> 01:36:57,559
Speaker 1: of the idea of groups. Now, in hindsight, I hear

1882
01:36:58,040 --> 01:37:01,400
Speaker 1: people say, especially in documentaries, that it's way more easier

1883
01:37:01,439 --> 01:37:05,960
Speaker 1: to control solo artists than it is a group, which

1884
01:37:06,120 --> 01:37:11,040
Speaker 1: leads to uh, I guess my my question about statso

1885
01:37:11,120 --> 01:37:17,040
Speaker 1: Sonic as an independent label owner, are you at any

1886
01:37:17,080 --> 01:37:22,719
Speaker 1: point thinking about the financial hindrance and the burden of

1887
01:37:23,920 --> 01:37:27,519
Speaker 1: dealing with six to seven people. I mean, you're dealing

1888
01:37:27,600 --> 01:37:29,280
Speaker 1: with a group, and I'm thinking.

1889
01:37:29,120 --> 01:37:33,600
Speaker 8: Live I think stet was right six oh with the drummer.

1890
01:37:33,640 --> 01:37:36,599
Speaker 1: Yeah, Robby, Well yeah to me, that's their anger. Sorry,

1891
01:37:36,760 --> 01:37:42,040
Speaker 1: so well, of course whoever he is. No, But it's

1892
01:37:42,120 --> 01:37:47,479
Speaker 1: just like if I'm if I'm pretending i'm you, I'm

1893
01:37:47,520 --> 01:37:51,519
Speaker 1: thinking about oh, God, a band that's back line, that's

1894
01:37:51,520 --> 01:37:56,879
Speaker 1: a twelve passenger van. If that uh I was saying hotels,

1895
01:37:56,920 --> 01:38:04,479
Speaker 1: You're like, so oh, I mean what I know, there

1896
01:38:04,479 --> 01:38:08,000
Speaker 1: weren't limitations back then, but clearly that was the last

1897
01:38:08,000 --> 01:38:10,960
Speaker 1: of an era because in the next ten years, the

1898
01:38:11,600 --> 01:38:14,840
Speaker 1: really of the next six years, the idea of a

1899
01:38:14,840 --> 01:38:18,880
Speaker 1: band or group, uh will become an endangered species thing.

1900
01:38:19,439 --> 01:38:22,120
Speaker 1: So why.

1901
01:38:23,439 --> 01:38:26,360
Speaker 8: We weren't thinking about touring because we're the label. We're

1902
01:38:26,400 --> 01:38:29,600
Speaker 8: you know, we're only contracted to make money when the

1903
01:38:29,640 --> 01:38:33,639
Speaker 8: group sells music, so we don't profit from their touring.

1904
01:38:34,360 --> 01:38:35,040
Speaker 8: I never really thought.

1905
01:38:35,240 --> 01:38:38,240
Speaker 1: But you never thought like, okay, well, touring will build

1906
01:38:38,320 --> 01:38:42,200
Speaker 1: up their popularity and thus we can make more records.

1907
01:38:42,240 --> 01:38:46,160
Speaker 8: And you know that hasn't always been the case for us.

1908
01:38:47,040 --> 01:38:52,160
Speaker 8: In fact, every group we signed, we we had never

1909
01:38:52,200 --> 01:38:54,960
Speaker 8: seen live till after we signed them, and they never

1910
01:38:55,000 --> 01:38:58,240
Speaker 8: really got gigs, significant gigs. I mean, I saw for

1911
01:38:58,400 --> 01:39:00,840
Speaker 8: some d's that made mean is exception for that. But

1912
01:39:00,880 --> 01:39:03,000
Speaker 8: Stets of Sonic, we heard the record, we signed them

1913
01:39:03,000 --> 01:39:05,160
Speaker 8: off the record, you've never seen them live, Dyala Soul.

1914
01:39:05,200 --> 01:39:08,000
Speaker 8: We saw there was not at that time, you know,

1915
01:39:08,040 --> 01:39:11,720
Speaker 8: they were developing their concept and Prince Paul you know,

1916
01:39:12,040 --> 01:39:14,439
Speaker 8: was involved obviously was the DJ in that group too.

1917
01:39:14,439 --> 01:39:16,880
Speaker 8: But mister Magic brought us that group. So mister Magic

1918
01:39:16,920 --> 01:39:19,360
Speaker 8: brought me the demo. I liked the demo, you know,

1919
01:39:19,640 --> 01:39:21,800
Speaker 8: and we brought them and we recorded them and actually

1920
01:39:21,800 --> 01:39:23,960
Speaker 8: in my apartment, we had a twenty four track in

1921
01:39:24,000 --> 01:39:27,320
Speaker 8: the second bedroom. When we moved Dancing Musical Report out,

1922
01:39:27,360 --> 01:39:29,240
Speaker 8: we moved the studio into the second bedroom. We had

1923
01:39:29,360 --> 01:39:33,200
Speaker 8: twenty four track and we recorded them in the bedroom.

1924
01:39:33,600 --> 01:39:35,519
Speaker 8: We put Mike's in the living room and.

1925
01:39:35,640 --> 01:39:36,400
Speaker 1: In an apartment.

1926
01:39:36,640 --> 01:39:44,840
Speaker 8: Yeah, they weren't home. We recorded during the day.

1927
01:39:44,920 --> 01:39:46,320
Speaker 1: What song was that? Did you recorded?

1928
01:39:46,800 --> 01:39:49,519
Speaker 8: Apartment? Just say stet. We tried to re record, but

1929
01:39:49,560 --> 01:39:51,559
Speaker 8: we tried to re record it because they had done

1930
01:39:51,600 --> 01:39:54,960
Speaker 8: it tape in the studio in Brooklyn and all they

1931
01:39:55,000 --> 01:39:57,639
Speaker 8: had was a cassette and something happened, they didn't pay

1932
01:39:57,640 --> 01:39:59,920
Speaker 8: their bill or whatever, and there was no master tape,

1933
01:40:00,360 --> 01:40:03,599
Speaker 8: and we tried to replicate it, and we ended up

1934
01:40:03,800 --> 01:40:06,680
Speaker 8: just using the cassette master from the cassette because we

1935
01:40:06,680 --> 01:40:09,559
Speaker 8: couldn't make it better. That's so dope, like you know,

1936
01:40:09,680 --> 01:40:11,639
Speaker 8: like sugar Hill was flashed the.

1937
01:40:11,560 --> 01:40:13,120
Speaker 1: Beat, No you chasing the demo?

1938
01:40:13,320 --> 01:40:16,680
Speaker 8: It's like literally, But we did record other tracks up

1939
01:40:16,720 --> 01:40:19,759
Speaker 8: there as well, and I remember Freu kwand Falling Sleep

1940
01:40:20,240 --> 01:40:23,439
Speaker 8: and uh and also mixed machine Wise, who was like

1941
01:40:23,800 --> 01:40:25,960
Speaker 8: amazing human beat bucks at the time.

1942
01:40:26,080 --> 01:40:31,799
Speaker 1: Now, okay, the I feel like the idea of Statso

1943
01:40:31,880 --> 01:40:37,160
Speaker 1: Sonic and the legend of stats of Sonic was bigger

1944
01:40:38,000 --> 01:40:42,040
Speaker 1: than what they actually were because and you know, for

1945
01:40:42,120 --> 01:40:44,760
Speaker 1: history sake whatever, I've been respectful on this stuff like okay, yeah,

1946
01:40:44,800 --> 01:40:47,759
Speaker 1: we're the second hip hop band whatever. I never, truly,

1947
01:40:48,160 --> 01:40:51,120
Speaker 1: I never really considered Stetso Sonic a hip hop band

1948
01:40:51,680 --> 01:40:56,480
Speaker 1: because when I listened to their records in instrument, it sounded.

1949
01:40:56,200 --> 01:40:57,639
Speaker 8: Like Bobby wasn't in the studio.

1950
01:40:58,280 --> 01:41:00,479
Speaker 1: Well it sounds well no, Well, I mean he was

1951
01:41:00,520 --> 01:41:03,400
Speaker 1: for the three or four important songs he was drumming on.

1952
01:41:04,040 --> 01:41:07,559
Speaker 1: But I always thought that was a marketing angle more

1953
01:41:07,600 --> 01:41:08,839
Speaker 1: than even when that.

1954
01:41:09,040 --> 01:41:11,840
Speaker 8: I think that was Daddyo's idea. By the way, oh

1955
01:41:11,920 --> 01:41:13,040
Speaker 8: yeah yeah, and.

1956
01:41:13,120 --> 01:41:15,800
Speaker 1: The Beastie Boy issue of Spin magazine.

1957
01:41:15,400 --> 01:41:20,599
Speaker 8: They were very interesting. Daddyo was very involved in the uh,

1958
01:41:20,880 --> 01:41:23,120
Speaker 8: you know, the marketing ideas and the concepts. We used

1959
01:41:23,160 --> 01:41:26,040
Speaker 8: to actually fight about it sometimes because we didn't always agree,

1960
01:41:26,400 --> 01:41:28,920
Speaker 8: but a lot of the ideas that are in stets

1961
01:41:28,920 --> 01:41:33,080
Speaker 8: sonic h are those. But you know, records like talking

1962
01:41:33,120 --> 01:41:35,439
Speaker 8: All that Jazz to me is still a classic. The

1963
01:41:35,439 --> 01:41:38,439
Speaker 8: first record about sampling really you know.

1964
01:41:40,000 --> 01:41:43,360
Speaker 1: It was it was so I'm saying, like, when you're

1965
01:41:44,479 --> 01:41:47,200
Speaker 1: doing this and by the time did they make their

1966
01:41:47,240 --> 01:41:49,080
Speaker 1: debut at the New Music Seminar?

1967
01:41:50,400 --> 01:41:52,280
Speaker 8: Maybe I can't remember which we're.

1968
01:41:52,200 --> 01:41:55,439
Speaker 1: Kind of skipping that you started the New Music Seminar.

1969
01:41:56,000 --> 01:41:58,200
Speaker 8: I co started it with a bunch of other people.

1970
01:41:58,800 --> 01:42:04,000
Speaker 8: There was another there was an so the DJ culture

1971
01:42:04,040 --> 01:42:07,040
Speaker 8: was exploding. There was a there was a rock oriented

1972
01:42:07,400 --> 01:42:12,320
Speaker 8: thing called rock Pool that serviced rock DJs, rock music,

1973
01:42:12,560 --> 01:42:17,240
Speaker 8: you know, post punk, you know, new wave and stuff

1974
01:42:17,280 --> 01:42:20,559
Speaker 8: like that. DJs that played specifically rock music at the time.

1975
01:42:20,880 --> 01:42:24,240
Speaker 8: And because rock was so big with the labels, they

1976
01:42:24,280 --> 01:42:28,280
Speaker 8: got big support from the record companies. Uh and disco

1977
01:42:28,400 --> 01:42:30,519
Speaker 8: was always like the bastard child of the music industry.

1978
01:42:30,520 --> 01:42:33,639
Speaker 8: That's why she just got rejected for the eleventh time,

1979
01:42:35,520 --> 01:42:38,559
Speaker 8: broke the record for the eleventh you know, of being

1980
01:42:40,000 --> 01:42:42,760
Speaker 8: I'm trying, I'm trying rejected. But Nile will get in

1981
01:42:42,840 --> 01:42:45,800
Speaker 8: this year on a special award, but.

1982
01:42:45,880 --> 01:42:46,880
Speaker 1: We're going to get Sheik in.

1983
01:42:47,240 --> 01:42:49,840
Speaker 8: Well, you gotta get Nol Rogers specifically because he he'll

1984
01:42:49,880 --> 01:42:51,920
Speaker 8: tell you the story about rappers, the light and the sample, and.

1985
01:42:52,720 --> 01:42:57,559
Speaker 1: He's a friend of the show. So for the New

1986
01:42:57,640 --> 01:42:59,480
Speaker 1: Music Cement, when was the very first.

1987
01:42:59,200 --> 01:43:03,519
Speaker 8: One in SII Rehearsal studios. It was a one day

1988
01:43:03,520 --> 01:43:04,560
Speaker 8: event in nineteen.

1989
01:43:04,320 --> 01:43:06,560
Speaker 1: Eighty Do you who performed?

1990
01:43:06,920 --> 01:43:10,200
Speaker 8: No, No, There were no performances at night. The first

1991
01:43:10,200 --> 01:43:12,120
Speaker 8: one was just a one day thing, the same day

1992
01:43:12,160 --> 01:43:16,200
Speaker 8: as the Billboard Disco Forum and the disco form fell off,

1993
01:43:16,240 --> 01:43:18,280
Speaker 8: and we packed like one hundred and fifty two hundred

1994
01:43:18,280 --> 01:43:21,360
Speaker 8: people in the room, and we're talking about issues with

1995
01:43:21,560 --> 01:43:25,040
Speaker 8: radio and issues DJ issues. We talked about remixing and

1996
01:43:25,400 --> 01:43:28,920
Speaker 8: things that nobody really was talking about elsewhere. And we

1997
01:43:28,960 --> 01:43:31,519
Speaker 8: didn't see disco as one hundred and thirty beats per minute.

1998
01:43:31,560 --> 01:43:35,679
Speaker 8: We saw dance music or DJ culture is something different.

1999
01:43:35,720 --> 01:43:38,880
Speaker 8: So we took the perspective, the DJ perspective, because both

2000
01:43:38,920 --> 01:43:41,880
Speaker 8: of our publications pooled our resources and reached out to

2001
01:43:41,920 --> 01:43:45,800
Speaker 8: the DJ community. So it was the DJ community and

2002
01:43:45,840 --> 01:43:49,000
Speaker 8: finally getting access to the music industry through the New

2003
01:43:49,040 --> 01:43:51,799
Speaker 8: Music Seminar, and then that built and built in nineteen

2004
01:43:51,840 --> 01:43:54,000
Speaker 8: eighty one, it grew. We went to a club, and

2005
01:43:54,040 --> 01:43:56,879
Speaker 8: then in nineteen eighty two it went to the Sheridan,

2006
01:43:56,960 --> 01:43:58,960
Speaker 8: and then it went to the Hilton for two years,

2007
01:43:58,960 --> 01:44:01,120
Speaker 8: and then to the Marriotte. You know, and I know

2008
01:44:01,200 --> 01:44:04,640
Speaker 8: that there's going to be an episode of of the

2009
01:44:04,640 --> 01:44:08,120
Speaker 8: Breaks where this giant fight at the New Music Seminar,

2010
01:44:09,280 --> 01:44:12,200
Speaker 8: the music episode. Yeah, yeah, are you sure the New

2011
01:44:12,280 --> 01:44:14,360
Speaker 8: Music Seminar that was like in the in the pilot.

2012
01:44:14,439 --> 01:44:15,800
Speaker 1: Yeah, that was in Oh yeah, yeah, that was in

2013
01:44:15,800 --> 01:44:16,240
Speaker 1: the pilot.

2014
01:44:16,280 --> 01:44:18,720
Speaker 10: But now we have an episode where it actually takes

2015
01:44:18,760 --> 01:44:19,519
Speaker 10: place at night.

2016
01:44:19,600 --> 01:44:22,360
Speaker 8: No, I saw the Coming Attraction store and it looks

2017
01:44:22,600 --> 01:44:25,000
Speaker 8: just like it. They did a fantastic job, Thank you man.

2018
01:44:25,040 --> 01:44:27,559
Speaker 10: We take We shot that actually at the what's the

2019
01:44:27,560 --> 01:44:32,120
Speaker 10: hotel across the street from penn Station the Yeah.

2020
01:44:32,000 --> 01:44:37,040
Speaker 1: Shot and shot at the Hotel Pennsylvania. The rats over there, boy, yeah,

2021
01:44:37,080 --> 01:44:41,320
Speaker 1: they got tales to tell. That's why we shot it.

2022
01:44:41,400 --> 01:44:46,720
Speaker 1: That's crazy. So what was your I guess when I

2023
01:44:46,880 --> 01:44:51,559
Speaker 1: first started hearing about the New Music Seminar? Well Search

2024
01:44:51,600 --> 01:44:57,000
Speaker 1: has his tales of that's when Russell first saw him.

2025
01:44:57,200 --> 01:45:01,559
Speaker 1: The night I remember with the infamous Craig g Versus

2026
01:45:01,560 --> 01:45:06,160
Speaker 1: Supernatural battle, like, what are your what are your fond memories.

2027
01:45:05,720 --> 01:45:09,800
Speaker 8: Of well, because I was running it. You have to

2028
01:45:09,880 --> 01:45:15,320
Speaker 8: understand that I I was dealing with registration, I was

2029
01:45:15,360 --> 01:45:17,440
Speaker 8: dealing with planning.

2030
01:45:17,160 --> 01:45:19,880
Speaker 1: And everything myself like, and I was.

2031
01:45:19,800 --> 01:45:22,800
Speaker 8: Doing Tommy Boy at the same time and Dance Music

2032
01:45:22,840 --> 01:45:25,640
Speaker 8: Report at the same time, so imagine all of that.

2033
01:45:25,720 --> 01:45:28,000
Speaker 8: And when this thing was happening, I would move downtown

2034
01:45:28,080 --> 01:45:31,880
Speaker 8: to our office and uh on Lower Broadway and we

2035
01:45:31,920 --> 01:45:35,400
Speaker 8: would uh you know, and I would work there for

2036
01:45:35,560 --> 01:45:37,479
Speaker 8: like three months of the year, and I'd come to

2037
01:45:37,760 --> 01:45:40,200
Speaker 8: the Tommy Boy offices two days a week and being

2038
01:45:40,360 --> 01:45:43,599
Speaker 8: the Seminar offices like three days a week. And then

2039
01:45:43,640 --> 01:45:45,600
Speaker 8: when the two weeks before, I wouldn't even come to

2040
01:45:45,640 --> 01:45:48,000
Speaker 8: the Tommy Boy offices. So you know, it was that

2041
01:45:48,160 --> 01:45:50,720
Speaker 8: kind of thing, you know. So it was it was

2042
01:45:51,120 --> 01:45:54,200
Speaker 8: so my memories of it are you know, the few

2043
01:45:54,240 --> 01:45:55,960
Speaker 8: panels that I got to see because I had to

2044
01:45:55,960 --> 01:45:57,840
Speaker 8: go to all of them and run around and do

2045
01:45:57,920 --> 01:46:00,840
Speaker 8: everything and sort of manage the stuff that I was

2046
01:46:00,840 --> 01:46:03,360
Speaker 8: trying to manage, Like you know, who was the keynote speaker,

2047
01:46:03,680 --> 01:46:06,559
Speaker 8: was Frank Zappa or whoever was going to speak. I mean,

2048
01:46:07,680 --> 01:46:10,120
Speaker 8: you know, the press and what was happening, people trying

2049
01:46:10,120 --> 01:46:12,400
Speaker 8: to sneak in which was happening. There was so much

2050
01:46:12,439 --> 01:46:14,880
Speaker 8: stuff going on. If there was a fight, which that

2051
01:46:15,000 --> 01:46:18,000
Speaker 8: happened at one time, that became legendary.

2052
01:46:18,400 --> 01:46:21,559
Speaker 1: Versus Lynch mob one. Yeah, that's I think.

2053
01:46:22,680 --> 01:46:25,920
Speaker 8: And I think also Miami was involved because I think

2054
01:46:27,360 --> 01:46:29,840
Speaker 8: what's his name was, Luke was involved with that as well.

2055
01:46:30,000 --> 01:46:32,839
Speaker 8: They were throwing tables. I was told in the panels clubs,

2056
01:46:33,400 --> 01:46:35,000
Speaker 8: and then I had to stay in the green room

2057
01:46:35,040 --> 01:46:37,920
Speaker 8: the panelists ready room to talk to to set up

2058
01:46:37,920 --> 01:46:40,639
Speaker 8: all the people, because I helped put all the panels together.

2059
01:46:40,720 --> 01:46:43,360
Speaker 8: So I had to tell explain to the moderator what

2060
01:46:43,360 --> 01:46:46,840
Speaker 8: we're trying to achieve from each each panel discussion, so

2061
01:46:46,880 --> 01:46:49,360
Speaker 8: that the level of discourse would be high enough and

2062
01:46:49,400 --> 01:46:52,400
Speaker 8: we would achieve what we're trying to achieve from each one.

2063
01:46:52,800 --> 01:46:54,320
Speaker 8: It wasn't just go up there and do whatever you

2064
01:46:54,360 --> 01:46:56,920
Speaker 8: want to do. It was like I was producing all

2065
01:46:56,960 --> 01:46:58,920
Speaker 8: of the events that were happening, and then at night

2066
01:46:59,040 --> 01:47:01,760
Speaker 8: then other people people were doing the showcases and the

2067
01:47:02,800 --> 01:47:04,599
Speaker 8: you know, all of the shows that would happen.

2068
01:47:04,920 --> 01:47:08,280
Speaker 1: Who were some of the most notable debuts that happened

2069
01:47:08,280 --> 01:47:13,080
Speaker 1: at the New Music Seminar that now our household names or.

2070
01:47:13,040 --> 01:47:16,040
Speaker 8: At least Nirvana. I wouldn't call it a debut, but

2071
01:47:16,080 --> 01:47:19,720
Speaker 8: they played a tiny little club and they played this

2072
01:47:19,960 --> 01:47:22,240
Speaker 8: and it was one of his last gigs before he died.

2073
01:47:22,280 --> 01:47:26,920
Speaker 8: Also was at the New Music Seminar, and there was

2074
01:47:26,960 --> 01:47:29,120
Speaker 8: a bunch of rock groups that came and did their debuts.

2075
01:47:29,560 --> 01:47:31,800
Speaker 8: You know, so much stuff happened at the seminar, and

2076
01:47:31,800 --> 01:47:33,920
Speaker 8: there were so many people that would come. I'm still

2077
01:47:33,960 --> 01:47:36,320
Speaker 8: hearing stories I didn't know about about people who got

2078
01:47:36,320 --> 01:47:40,320
Speaker 8: their start. Yeah, people met, you know, I know, a

2079
01:47:40,360 --> 01:47:43,400
Speaker 8: big producer at one point was the president of Atlantic,

2080
01:47:43,520 --> 01:47:45,840
Speaker 8: Danny Goldberg met his wife on the panel he was

2081
01:47:45,840 --> 01:47:49,000
Speaker 8: on at the New Music Seminar. Other people like Craig

2082
01:47:49,080 --> 01:47:53,160
Speaker 8: Kalman is the you know now the CEO of Atlantic

2083
01:47:53,520 --> 01:47:57,000
Speaker 8: used to come to the seminar before he really got started.

2084
01:47:57,040 --> 01:48:00,240
Speaker 8: And when you know, people used to head enter at

2085
01:48:00,240 --> 01:48:02,000
Speaker 8: the seminar. I didn't know if somebody told me RuPaul

2086
01:48:02,120 --> 01:48:03,639
Speaker 8: was an Internet I didn't know Rupol was an intern

2087
01:48:03,680 --> 01:48:05,479
Speaker 8: at the seminar, but I know I saw him at

2088
01:48:05,520 --> 01:48:08,120
Speaker 8: the seminar. Maybe it was that year or some other year.

2089
01:48:08,120 --> 01:48:10,760
Speaker 8: I mean, it's all a blurb because you know, there

2090
01:48:10,760 --> 01:48:14,439
Speaker 8: were there were like, you know, twenty five panels over

2091
01:48:14,520 --> 01:48:17,400
Speaker 8: three days and three hundred or four hundred speakers and

2092
01:48:17,680 --> 01:48:21,240
Speaker 8: five hundred bands performing. It was just so much happening.

2093
01:48:21,439 --> 01:48:23,519
Speaker 8: We had a team of like twenty people just to

2094
01:48:23,560 --> 01:48:27,240
Speaker 8: produce that event. Year round, we had like eight people

2095
01:48:27,360 --> 01:48:28,719
Speaker 8: year round working in an event.

2096
01:48:29,280 --> 01:48:32,960
Speaker 1: So what point are you now expanding, Tommy boy? When

2097
01:48:33,000 --> 01:48:35,040
Speaker 1: does Monica lunch coming too? The situation? When do you

2098
01:48:35,040 --> 01:48:36,040
Speaker 1: get a full staff?

2099
01:48:36,160 --> 01:48:39,240
Speaker 8: Monica was there almost from the beginning, So I started

2100
01:48:39,280 --> 01:48:45,800
Speaker 8: with Jazzy Sensation, and I think sometime I met Monica,

2101
01:48:45,880 --> 01:48:52,160
Speaker 8: probably around eighty one or eighty two, I can't remember

2102
01:48:52,200 --> 01:48:55,880
Speaker 8: which year. Okay, she started right around then, but almost

2103
01:48:55,880 --> 01:48:58,000
Speaker 8: from the beginning, it was just me and her first

2104
01:48:58,240 --> 01:48:59,920
Speaker 8: that were the only two people that worked there. And

2105
01:49:00,080 --> 01:49:02,960
Speaker 8: then we had we got another person as an assistant,

2106
01:49:03,240 --> 01:49:05,840
Speaker 8: and we started to grow it a little bit after that.

2107
01:49:07,200 --> 01:49:10,160
Speaker 1: What were your I mean, did you guys share the

2108
01:49:10,160 --> 01:49:12,600
Speaker 1: same aesthetic, like what the label should be or is

2109
01:49:12,600 --> 01:49:15,320
Speaker 1: it just like you know, is it her job just

2110
01:49:15,360 --> 01:49:16,320
Speaker 1: to hear with the.

2111
01:49:16,439 --> 01:49:19,120
Speaker 8: And by the way, we were also running Dance Music

2112
01:49:19,160 --> 01:49:21,040
Speaker 8: Report at the same time, so we were still putting

2113
01:49:21,040 --> 01:49:23,120
Speaker 8: the stickers on and writing the articles. And that while

2114
01:49:23,120 --> 01:49:25,240
Speaker 8: we were doing Tommy Boy too. So when she started,

2115
01:49:25,439 --> 01:49:26,720
Speaker 8: she was doing both things with me.

2116
01:49:27,280 --> 01:49:27,960
Speaker 1: Okay, she was.

2117
01:49:27,880 --> 01:49:29,880
Speaker 8: Doing everything I needed to be done, and that's I

2118
01:49:29,920 --> 01:49:32,960
Speaker 8: needed to do everything, So she did it all.

2119
01:49:32,800 --> 01:49:36,920
Speaker 1: What were your feelings towards the competition at least def Jam?

2120
01:49:36,960 --> 01:49:38,240
Speaker 1: Were you guys looking at them like.

2121
01:49:38,520 --> 01:49:42,559
Speaker 8: Well, Jeff, we were before deaf Jam started, right.

2122
01:49:42,439 --> 01:49:45,080
Speaker 1: But I'm saying once def Jam comes and it's like, okay,

2123
01:49:45,120 --> 01:49:46,760
Speaker 1: now the car is getting crowded.

2124
01:49:46,439 --> 01:49:50,120
Speaker 8: Well, I think run DMC was. It was it was

2125
01:49:50,120 --> 01:49:52,400
Speaker 8: more rush than it was deaf Jam. So run DMC

2126
01:49:52,600 --> 01:49:55,400
Speaker 8: was the first one and that was profile really that

2127
01:49:56,000 --> 01:50:00,120
Speaker 8: stepped into our territory in a significant way. And and

2128
01:50:00,520 --> 01:50:02,680
Speaker 8: you know, I had mad respect for what they're doing.

2129
01:50:02,720 --> 01:50:06,200
Speaker 8: And I'm very close friends with Corey Robin Steele who

2130
01:50:06,320 --> 01:50:11,000
Speaker 8: had that label. And so I don't know, it's you know,

2131
01:50:11,920 --> 01:50:15,960
Speaker 8: I don't know that. I never really was competitive. Really,

2132
01:50:16,000 --> 01:50:17,960
Speaker 8: I'm not a I'm not a good competitor. I'm much

2133
01:50:17,960 --> 01:50:20,080
Speaker 8: more a better innovator, you know. So I'm just I

2134
01:50:20,080 --> 01:50:21,960
Speaker 8: would look at what they would do, just so I

2135
01:50:21,960 --> 01:50:25,479
Speaker 8: wouldn't do that. You know, whatever they're doing, I want

2136
01:50:25,479 --> 01:50:26,880
Speaker 8: to do the opposite. Of that. That's sort of the

2137
01:50:26,880 --> 01:50:29,799
Speaker 8: contrarian thing I was talking about before. It's like, okay,

2138
01:50:29,840 --> 01:50:32,040
Speaker 8: so Russell's doing this and this, what can I do?

2139
01:50:32,120 --> 01:50:33,559
Speaker 1: He's not doing it? Brings us to day.

2140
01:50:35,360 --> 01:50:37,479
Speaker 8: Well, he used to call my music frantic because his

2141
01:50:37,600 --> 01:50:40,800
Speaker 8: music was more R and B influence. You know, he

2142
01:50:40,920 --> 01:50:43,400
Speaker 8: was the guy who would be hanging out at the

2143
01:50:43,720 --> 01:50:45,559
Speaker 8: you know what I would go to. If I would

2144
01:50:45,600 --> 01:50:47,560
Speaker 8: go to the T Connection and Bronx River Center, he

2145
01:50:47,560 --> 01:50:50,559
Speaker 8: would not be there. He would he would be drinking

2146
01:50:50,560 --> 01:50:53,840
Speaker 8: splits of Moe at at you know, at the Fever.

2147
01:50:54,200 --> 01:50:55,280
Speaker 8: You know, he was a fever guy.

2148
01:50:55,479 --> 01:50:59,280
Speaker 1: You know, wait, it just hit me. You had interactions

2149
01:50:59,320 --> 01:51:04,759
Speaker 1: with Jake King. Would you consider Club Nouveau a Tommy

2150
01:51:04,760 --> 01:51:06,800
Speaker 1: Boy artist or was that just adition?

2151
01:51:07,360 --> 01:51:09,640
Speaker 8: We put out all the twelve inches, so yeah, we

2152
01:51:09,720 --> 01:51:11,400
Speaker 8: broke all those records with our team.

2153
01:51:11,880 --> 01:51:14,280
Speaker 1: What about was tom like Social Club also in that?

2154
01:51:14,400 --> 01:51:15,280
Speaker 1: Are they okay?

2155
01:51:16,680 --> 01:51:23,800
Speaker 8: That was on my Cola Records? Social Club Don McMillan, Yeah.

2156
01:51:23,240 --> 01:51:28,720
Speaker 1: Liquor that guy the guy who like the last that's

2157
01:51:28,720 --> 01:51:38,160
Speaker 1: the unmalcol record, not Malacola. Yeah, that was digital, that's

2158
01:51:38,160 --> 01:51:38,799
Speaker 1: the West Coast.

2159
01:51:38,960 --> 01:51:42,000
Speaker 8: Underwater Rhymes was on my Cola. You know, all all

2160
01:51:42,040 --> 01:51:45,439
Speaker 8: of those records. He had also had what's his name

2161
01:51:45,960 --> 01:51:49,080
Speaker 8: from Miami, he had Luke Skywalker was there. You know,

2162
01:51:49,520 --> 01:51:52,400
Speaker 8: all of the Bay Area groups were on the because

2163
01:51:52,439 --> 01:51:55,000
Speaker 8: he owned the pressing plant on Santa Monica Boulevard, so

2164
01:51:55,040 --> 01:51:57,320
Speaker 8: everybody went to him to get records pressed. So he

2165
01:51:57,400 --> 01:52:01,760
Speaker 8: became the default label. He was a tugboat captain from Alaska.

2166
01:52:01,880 --> 01:52:04,960
Speaker 8: Don McMillan. He didn't know to say no, He just said,

2167
01:52:05,000 --> 01:52:07,760
Speaker 8: all right, I'll press it. So you know, he ran

2168
01:52:07,800 --> 01:52:09,800
Speaker 8: the front door and the back door in the pressing plane.

2169
01:52:09,880 --> 01:52:10,520
Speaker 1: Ah.

2170
01:52:11,080 --> 01:52:13,960
Speaker 8: So you know he he could have been the biggest

2171
01:52:14,000 --> 01:52:16,639
Speaker 8: record company in the world if he had paid people

2172
01:52:16,640 --> 01:52:20,080
Speaker 8: and done things right. But you know, everybody complained that

2173
01:52:20,160 --> 01:52:22,599
Speaker 8: he wasn't. He wasn't straight with people.

2174
01:52:22,640 --> 01:52:24,519
Speaker 1: So he just got people to the next level, which

2175
01:52:24,640 --> 01:52:25,519
Speaker 1: was well.

2176
01:52:25,360 --> 01:52:27,480
Speaker 8: He got the record out and got them established.

2177
01:52:27,520 --> 01:52:30,960
Speaker 1: You know, I see so because I guess, well, you know,

2178
01:52:31,080 --> 01:52:35,000
Speaker 1: me wanted a Grammy. I believe were at least who

2179
01:52:35,080 --> 01:52:39,200
Speaker 1: did deal with it. I'm still lean on Manuva. So, uh,

2180
01:52:41,160 --> 01:52:45,080
Speaker 1: what was it about them at you know, did you

2181
01:52:45,080 --> 01:52:48,080
Speaker 1: feel like we should expand to the West coast and no,

2182
01:52:49,040 --> 01:52:50,559
Speaker 1: I think or did they come to you.

2183
01:52:51,479 --> 01:52:53,600
Speaker 8: Well, we had a relationship with Warner So that was

2184
01:52:53,640 --> 01:52:56,880
Speaker 8: a record label that was signed to Warner that I

2185
01:52:57,000 --> 01:52:59,320
Speaker 8: liked because I was a big fan of Time at

2186
01:52:59,400 --> 01:53:01,320
Speaker 8: Social Club, which I think was one of another one

2187
01:53:01,360 --> 01:53:03,680
Speaker 8: of the biggest twelve inches of all time. It was

2188
01:53:03,680 --> 01:53:05,920
Speaker 8: one of those record of the year records that never

2189
01:53:05,960 --> 01:53:09,160
Speaker 8: got the credit that it due. And I went and

2190
01:53:09,360 --> 01:53:12,600
Speaker 8: found them, and you know, I said, let me do

2191
01:53:12,640 --> 01:53:14,280
Speaker 8: this because I know what to do. You guys aren't

2192
01:53:14,320 --> 01:53:15,920
Speaker 8: going to know what to do on Warner Brothers really

2193
01:53:16,000 --> 01:53:19,120
Speaker 8: wasn't like a black music label. They didn't really break

2194
01:53:19,200 --> 01:53:22,000
Speaker 8: very many black artists at all, and they definitely didn't

2195
01:53:22,000 --> 01:53:22,240
Speaker 8: know what it.

2196
01:53:22,320 --> 01:53:25,280
Speaker 1: Is that odd to say that for at that point

2197
01:53:25,360 --> 01:53:28,160
Speaker 1: nineteen eighty five, eighty six, that they still don't know

2198
01:53:28,200 --> 01:53:31,479
Speaker 1: how to like. So that Harvard report stuff was just

2199
01:53:31,880 --> 01:53:36,320
Speaker 1: for not at least the Harvard report from the seventies, like.

2200
01:53:36,920 --> 01:53:37,439
Speaker 8: I don't know that.

2201
01:53:38,080 --> 01:53:40,679
Speaker 1: Well, okay, well there was there was a Harvard report

2202
01:53:40,880 --> 01:53:46,080
Speaker 1: in nineteen seventy two that specifically told the majors that

2203
01:53:46,320 --> 01:53:50,040
Speaker 1: you should start investing in black label. So as a result,

2204
01:53:51,000 --> 01:53:58,680
Speaker 1: Philly International gets inquired acquired from CBS Labels start you know,

2205
01:53:58,800 --> 01:54:00,000
Speaker 1: Echo to Atlanta.

2206
01:54:00,560 --> 01:54:01,639
Speaker 8: I never saw that report.

2207
01:54:01,840 --> 01:54:05,320
Speaker 1: It's yeah, it's too bads Harbor report.

2208
01:54:05,439 --> 01:54:07,040
Speaker 10: So but the thing is, I don't think Warner Brothers

2209
01:54:07,080 --> 01:54:09,519
Speaker 10: ever recovered from that though, Like they never really, I

2210
01:54:09,560 --> 01:54:12,120
Speaker 10: mean even when you talked to DJs and they would

2211
01:54:12,160 --> 01:54:14,360
Speaker 10: just tall you straight up. If we saw Warner Brothers logo,

2212
01:54:14,439 --> 01:54:16,439
Speaker 10: we knew it was whack. Like when it came to

2213
01:54:16,479 --> 01:54:17,800
Speaker 10: like hip hop or whatever, like.

2214
01:54:17,760 --> 01:54:24,120
Speaker 8: That Graham Central Station that was imprint and they had

2215
01:54:24,240 --> 01:54:26,479
Speaker 8: some didn't that at some period that had some George

2216
01:54:26,520 --> 01:54:27,840
Speaker 8: Clinton stuff for a minute, didn't they?

2217
01:54:28,760 --> 01:54:34,320
Speaker 1: Uh for the Funkadelic, the Funkadelic stuff, Parlotte Parliament, some

2218
01:54:34,400 --> 01:54:37,520
Speaker 1: of that stuff. One Nation Undergroove and and Uncle Jim.

2219
01:54:37,720 --> 01:54:42,040
Speaker 1: But yeah, I would have thought that that. So you

2220
01:54:42,280 --> 01:54:44,480
Speaker 1: actually went to mo Austin just said, yo.

2221
01:54:44,560 --> 01:54:46,360
Speaker 8: Let me do this. You know I can do it.

2222
01:54:46,440 --> 01:54:48,440
Speaker 8: I can handle the guy, and I can make it,

2223
01:54:48,640 --> 01:54:50,320
Speaker 8: you know, make it work and break it for you.

2224
01:54:50,840 --> 01:54:52,560
Speaker 8: So I got the twelve inches on that.

2225
01:54:52,640 --> 01:54:57,040
Speaker 1: Which leads me too while you treat me so bad.

2226
01:54:57,280 --> 01:54:59,760
Speaker 1: All right, So my favorite hip hop group of all

2227
01:54:59,800 --> 01:55:01,400
Speaker 1: time day Los Soul.

2228
01:55:02,320 --> 01:55:04,200
Speaker 8: Uh.

2229
01:55:04,720 --> 01:55:09,440
Speaker 1: First of all, just the marketings unprecedented. I mean shit.

2230
01:55:09,560 --> 01:55:12,480
Speaker 1: The first time I almost got suspended from school was

2231
01:55:13,560 --> 01:55:18,360
Speaker 1: hanging those damn day Loss stickers all over all over

2232
01:55:18,920 --> 01:55:21,560
Speaker 1: where I shouldn't have h in school.

2233
01:55:21,880 --> 01:55:23,600
Speaker 8: That was our second sticker, by the way, the first

2234
01:55:23,600 --> 01:55:24,720
Speaker 8: one was st e.

2235
01:55:24,640 --> 01:55:27,600
Speaker 1: T Stet stickers were first.

2236
01:55:27,640 --> 01:55:29,680
Speaker 8: That was the first sticker, and it was you know,

2237
01:55:29,880 --> 01:55:31,920
Speaker 8: it was orange and they cost three cents each. And

2238
01:55:31,960 --> 01:55:33,960
Speaker 8: that was sweet market the beginning. It was a crazy

2239
01:55:34,040 --> 01:55:34,680
Speaker 8: street market.

2240
01:55:34,880 --> 01:55:38,800
Speaker 1: Yeah, yeah, you were the first. I guess, yeah, your label,

2241
01:55:38,800 --> 01:55:41,879
Speaker 1: because that's no other label I recall really.

2242
01:55:41,800 --> 01:55:44,760
Speaker 8: But everyone so I innovated, and everybody took the stuff

2243
01:55:44,760 --> 01:55:48,320
Speaker 8: and out competed me, you know. You know, they went

2244
01:55:48,320 --> 01:55:52,040
Speaker 8: from stickers to giant stickers, to wrap cars, to wrap vans,

2245
01:55:52,080 --> 01:55:53,160
Speaker 8: to wrap whatever.

2246
01:55:53,400 --> 01:55:57,240
Speaker 7: They're basically giving you credit for come creating the promo, right.

2247
01:55:57,160 --> 01:55:59,560
Speaker 8: Like, you know, we just little things, you know that

2248
01:56:00,280 --> 01:56:02,680
Speaker 8: to get to get exposure to me. A three and

2249
01:56:02,760 --> 01:56:05,400
Speaker 8: six sticker that's fluorescent, that just has a few letters

2250
01:56:05,400 --> 01:56:07,840
Speaker 8: on it, if you put it on a payphone or

2251
01:56:07,880 --> 01:56:10,920
Speaker 8: on a latrine at the right club, you know it's

2252
01:56:10,920 --> 01:56:12,840
Speaker 8: going to be seen by a lot of people. We

2253
01:56:12,880 --> 01:56:15,000
Speaker 8: did one for opp Those were the three big ones

2254
01:56:15,000 --> 01:56:18,600
Speaker 8: that I still want that opp sticker. I remember where

2255
01:56:18,600 --> 01:56:21,440
Speaker 8: they went at Magic City during the Jack the Rapper conference.

2256
01:56:22,680 --> 01:56:25,480
Speaker 8: That made everybody, every program director was in the audience,

2257
01:56:25,480 --> 01:56:27,640
Speaker 8: and when they saw that on that the booty slap

2258
01:56:27,720 --> 01:56:30,400
Speaker 8: with the OPP on it, they went back and every

2259
01:56:30,400 --> 01:56:34,000
Speaker 8: time they heard opp there was that connection that was

2260
01:56:34,000 --> 01:56:34,720
Speaker 8: the originative.

2261
01:56:44,320 --> 01:56:49,040
Speaker 1: So when you when you get Daylight, is it you

2262
01:56:49,160 --> 01:56:54,280
Speaker 1: that's trying to sell up the angle of hippie daisy? Yeah,

2263
01:56:54,000 --> 01:56:56,200
Speaker 1: the hippie image. It was.

2264
01:56:56,520 --> 01:56:59,760
Speaker 8: It was an obvious thing that they you know, I

2265
01:56:59,760 --> 01:57:02,160
Speaker 8: did to find what the front arc cover was with

2266
01:57:02,280 --> 01:57:05,720
Speaker 8: Monica and somebody in the press said that, I mean,

2267
01:57:05,760 --> 01:57:09,160
Speaker 8: there was a review that said that, of course the

2268
01:57:09,160 --> 01:57:12,560
Speaker 8: alliteration saying the hippies of hip hop makes so much sense,

2269
01:57:12,640 --> 01:57:16,240
Speaker 8: you know. But then they got reactionary about all that stuff,

2270
01:57:16,280 --> 01:57:18,840
Speaker 8: which is really what really pissed me off a little

2271
01:57:18,880 --> 01:57:21,960
Speaker 8: bit more than the react than people saying that who

2272
01:57:22,000 --> 01:57:24,520
Speaker 8: cares what people say? Do you think the whole idea

2273
01:57:24,560 --> 01:57:26,959
Speaker 8: with me, myself and I is that you're not influenced

2274
01:57:26,960 --> 01:57:29,680
Speaker 8: by what other people say, and now you're influenced with

2275
01:57:29,720 --> 01:57:31,760
Speaker 8: other what other people say, and you come back with

2276
01:57:32,760 --> 01:57:33,720
Speaker 8: Dala soula is dead.

2277
01:57:33,880 --> 01:57:38,200
Speaker 1: Well, it's my favorite don't jump the gun just yet.

2278
01:57:38,280 --> 01:57:43,560
Speaker 1: I mean, let's talk about the happy period. So uh,

2279
01:57:44,040 --> 01:57:45,880
Speaker 1: I mean, what do you what do you? What are

2280
01:57:45,880 --> 01:57:46,280
Speaker 1: your thoughts?

2281
01:57:46,320 --> 01:57:48,480
Speaker 8: And it came up with the daisy age? Do you

2282
01:57:48,480 --> 01:57:49,960
Speaker 8: think I came up with that? You think that was

2283
01:57:49,960 --> 01:57:54,560
Speaker 8: a marketing idea? Of course, the sire of the phones,

2284
01:57:54,640 --> 01:57:57,280
Speaker 8: all of that stuff, everything was them all we do.

2285
01:57:57,440 --> 01:58:00,960
Speaker 1: But it's set a precedent because what because this is

2286
01:58:01,000 --> 01:58:04,480
Speaker 1: now the first time. I mean when Nation of Millions

2287
01:58:04,520 --> 01:58:06,839
Speaker 1: came up, that's the first time I heard white critics

2288
01:58:07,520 --> 01:58:10,640
Speaker 1: salivating over hip hop. But when three f On Rising

2289
01:58:10,720 --> 01:58:16,640
Speaker 1: came out, suddenly kids in my geometry class are having

2290
01:58:17,840 --> 01:58:23,680
Speaker 1: hip hop discussions minus me, Like suddenly, it's I see

2291
01:58:23,720 --> 01:58:27,600
Speaker 1: the I've seen the first hand effects of how that

2292
01:58:27,760 --> 01:58:34,840
Speaker 1: album worked brilliantly. So I'm just saying that, like, at

2293
01:58:34,840 --> 01:58:38,160
Speaker 1: what point did you feel as though, like instantly? Was

2294
01:58:38,200 --> 01:58:41,560
Speaker 1: it when you first signed them for Pluck Tuning or was.

2295
01:58:41,520 --> 01:58:45,480
Speaker 8: It I mean when we signed them at the beginning,

2296
01:58:45,520 --> 01:58:48,360
Speaker 8: we didn't know. I remember hearing the record through the wall.

2297
01:58:48,720 --> 01:58:50,880
Speaker 8: They were playing it for Monica and I heard it

2298
01:58:50,880 --> 01:58:52,320
Speaker 8: through the wall and I came in to see what

2299
01:58:52,360 --> 01:58:55,160
Speaker 8: it was. Because usually when a record sounds great through

2300
01:58:55,200 --> 01:58:57,080
Speaker 8: the wall, it has a good shot of being a hit.

2301
01:58:57,880 --> 01:59:00,240
Speaker 8: If it doesn't sound like anything through the WALLBB he

2302
01:59:00,280 --> 01:59:02,160
Speaker 8: doesn't have. I mean, you know, you need to be

2303
01:59:02,160 --> 01:59:05,080
Speaker 8: able to hear a hit two cars away, you know,

2304
01:59:05,200 --> 01:59:07,520
Speaker 8: if you're in a driving kind of a situation, And

2305
01:59:07,800 --> 01:59:11,040
Speaker 8: that was one of you know, it's something that is

2306
01:59:11,120 --> 01:59:14,480
Speaker 8: so different from everything that's the status quo. You know,

2307
01:59:15,520 --> 01:59:19,720
Speaker 8: something that penetrates the noise floor is important for indie

2308
01:59:19,760 --> 01:59:22,440
Speaker 8: labels to have something that nobody else is saying that

2309
01:59:22,560 --> 01:59:26,080
Speaker 8: can go beyond and that I heard it, A nice

2310
01:59:26,320 --> 01:59:28,480
Speaker 8: heard it, And when Monica and I talked about it,

2311
01:59:28,480 --> 01:59:30,560
Speaker 8: and I said, this is either going to be really

2312
01:59:30,600 --> 01:59:32,560
Speaker 8: big or it's going to be nothing at all. There

2313
01:59:32,600 --> 01:59:34,360
Speaker 8: is no in between with the record like this. This

2314
01:59:34,440 --> 01:59:37,760
Speaker 8: could not connect at all because it's so bizarre and different.

2315
01:59:38,200 --> 01:59:41,240
Speaker 8: Most stuff that's bizarre and different doesn't connect or it

2316
01:59:41,280 --> 01:59:43,800
Speaker 8: could connect. So it was our job to try to say,

2317
01:59:43,840 --> 01:59:46,720
Speaker 8: all right, how do we tie it together and connect

2318
01:59:46,760 --> 01:59:48,840
Speaker 8: the dots to make people get it.

2319
01:59:49,640 --> 01:59:53,320
Speaker 1: You know, do you remember the Bill Coleman right up

2320
01:59:53,320 --> 02:00:00,600
Speaker 1: in Billboard about that record? Yeah, it's again because the

2321
02:00:00,680 --> 02:00:04,440
Speaker 1: late eighties and just the overall disdain of hip hop

2322
02:00:04,480 --> 02:00:08,360
Speaker 1: with music critics really not treating it as for art.

2323
02:00:08,400 --> 02:00:12,120
Speaker 1: For him, I'll say that Nelson George and Bill Coleman

2324
02:00:12,200 --> 02:00:19,040
Speaker 1: at at Billboard wrote to like major like these three

2325
02:00:19,080 --> 02:00:26,280
Speaker 1: paragraph love letters about the record, which I felt was

2326
02:00:26,520 --> 02:00:28,760
Speaker 1: a game changer, at least for the At the time,

2327
02:00:28,800 --> 02:00:30,560
Speaker 1: I was working at a record store. So even like

2328
02:00:30,720 --> 02:00:33,960
Speaker 1: rock critics were like which one, I was working at

2329
02:00:34,040 --> 02:00:38,480
Speaker 1: Sam Goodies and in Philly, Uh, shout out to Sam

2330
02:00:38,480 --> 02:00:45,880
Speaker 1: Goodies on nut. They fired me afterward, but you know,

2331
02:00:46,080 --> 02:00:50,160
Speaker 1: and then they're putting up the display. Suddenly it's like, okay,

2332
02:00:50,840 --> 02:00:53,320
Speaker 1: we're hearing buzzz about this. They read Bill Coleman's article

2333
02:00:53,320 --> 02:00:56,840
Speaker 1: and suddenly like the main walls having a dayl out

2334
02:00:56,880 --> 02:00:58,720
Speaker 1: display all of a sudden, like I see the effects

2335
02:00:58,720 --> 02:01:05,480
Speaker 1: of it to you. I mean, so this wasn't a

2336
02:01:05,520 --> 02:01:07,640
Speaker 1: thing like a Mastermind meeting. I don't know, maybe in

2337
02:01:07,640 --> 02:01:10,040
Speaker 1: my head I'm just having a Uh.

2338
02:01:10,720 --> 02:01:13,240
Speaker 8: There were a lot of meetings at Tommy Boy where

2339
02:01:13,240 --> 02:01:18,480
Speaker 8: we talked about how can we penetrate you know, culture

2340
02:01:18,520 --> 02:01:21,600
Speaker 8: with this, in the media with this, and Monica had

2341
02:01:21,640 --> 02:01:25,080
Speaker 8: a great relationship with Bill Coleman and you know, and

2342
02:01:25,160 --> 02:01:28,520
Speaker 8: most of the media it wasn't just that. Also it

2343
02:01:28,560 --> 02:01:33,520
Speaker 8: was the Village Voice, because the Village Voice reviewer was

2344
02:01:33,680 --> 02:01:39,160
Speaker 8: the you know, grand dame, the main guy who everybody

2345
02:01:39,200 --> 02:01:42,280
Speaker 8: else followed, and when he wrote it up, everybody he

2346
02:01:42,360 --> 02:01:45,240
Speaker 8: was the guy that wrote up Also Africa Bambada, and

2347
02:01:45,280 --> 02:01:48,360
Speaker 8: everybody wrote out to what's the guy's name.

2348
02:01:49,640 --> 02:01:52,760
Speaker 1: Oh, Robert Chris Gal.

2349
02:01:52,880 --> 02:01:56,520
Speaker 8: Yeah, Chris Chris was you know, he still is, you know,

2350
02:01:57,160 --> 02:02:00,520
Speaker 8: but in the era of rock journalism, he was one

2351
02:02:00,560 --> 02:02:03,520
Speaker 8: of three guys, maybe the number one guy. He was

2352
02:02:03,560 --> 02:02:06,919
Speaker 8: so important. Whatever he said everyone had to take seriously.

2353
02:02:07,000 --> 02:02:09,560
Speaker 8: So he wrote wrote it up positively, and he had

2354
02:02:09,560 --> 02:02:12,200
Speaker 8: written up and bought it positively, so he was open

2355
02:02:12,240 --> 02:02:15,360
Speaker 8: to what we're doing because he knew we had interesting

2356
02:02:15,400 --> 02:02:17,400
Speaker 8: stuff and he was interested in that, in that kind

2357
02:02:17,440 --> 02:02:19,680
Speaker 8: of thing. So it was the combination of all of that.

2358
02:02:19,760 --> 02:02:22,560
Speaker 8: I don't really think that many people read Billboard, you know,

2359
02:02:22,680 --> 02:02:25,880
Speaker 8: outside of culture, but it was mainstream. New York Times

2360
02:02:26,120 --> 02:02:29,120
Speaker 8: gave it an amazing review. It got crazy reviews from

2361
02:02:29,120 --> 02:02:33,040
Speaker 8: everybody is you know, So press was one of the things.

2362
02:02:33,080 --> 02:02:35,800
Speaker 8: But before that, we had already put out Potholes in

2363
02:02:35,800 --> 02:02:39,360
Speaker 8: My Lawn as a video, which, by the way, the

2364
02:02:39,400 --> 02:02:40,600
Speaker 8: record wasn't successful.

2365
02:02:41,120 --> 02:02:43,680
Speaker 1: The Potholes was, but that video was crazy.

2366
02:02:43,760 --> 02:02:48,160
Speaker 5: It was crazy, and that was my first exposure to Dayla.

2367
02:02:47,360 --> 02:02:50,120
Speaker 8: With the motorized skateboards and all that stuff. It was

2368
02:02:50,160 --> 02:02:53,040
Speaker 8: a new concept at the time. Yeah, and we shot

2369
02:02:53,080 --> 02:02:55,560
Speaker 8: that with the Super eight or something like that eight

2370
02:02:55,560 --> 02:02:58,720
Speaker 8: millimeter video camera because you know, we didn't have We

2371
02:02:58,720 --> 02:03:00,800
Speaker 8: weren't making videos yet. It was till early days and

2372
02:03:01,720 --> 02:03:04,640
Speaker 8: no one was really getting play yet on videos. Also,

2373
02:03:04,680 --> 02:03:10,480
Speaker 8: I think MTV might have embraced Dyala Soul early and

2374
02:03:10,480 --> 02:03:13,000
Speaker 8: they weren't embracing that much black music at the time.

2375
02:03:12,800 --> 02:03:15,440
Speaker 1: But d TV Wraps was out, so by the time

2376
02:03:15,680 --> 02:03:16,440
Speaker 1: it was kicking in.

2377
02:03:16,640 --> 02:03:20,480
Speaker 2: The one discussions to do that. To appeal Dayla to

2378
02:03:20,600 --> 02:03:23,840
Speaker 2: white audience never never can And I say that only

2379
02:03:23,840 --> 02:03:25,280
Speaker 2: coming from a place for me.

2380
02:03:25,840 --> 02:03:26,720
Speaker 1: The early.

2381
02:03:28,000 --> 02:03:30,400
Speaker 2: Hip hop groups that appeal to white audiences were Dayla, Tribe,

2382
02:03:30,440 --> 02:03:32,760
Speaker 2: clal Quests, and a few years later was the Roots,

2383
02:03:32,920 --> 02:03:35,320
Speaker 2: Like those were the We never actually talked about that.

2384
02:03:35,520 --> 02:03:38,040
Speaker 2: I mean, I just I just wonder about because because

2385
02:03:38,040 --> 02:03:40,720
Speaker 2: that was a lot of a lot when I first

2386
02:03:40,760 --> 02:03:42,280
Speaker 2: started getting into tip hop, the white kids were talking

2387
02:03:42,280 --> 02:03:44,080
Speaker 2: about Dayla, soho on try calal Quest. I feel like

2388
02:03:44,080 --> 02:03:47,480
Speaker 2: those somebody somebody somewhere said something or I don't know

2389
02:03:47,480 --> 02:03:48,480
Speaker 2: how that, How did that happen?

2390
02:03:48,800 --> 02:03:52,880
Speaker 8: That's why I so penetrating into white media is what

2391
02:03:52,920 --> 02:03:55,000
Speaker 8: did that? So we were trying to get on MTV

2392
02:03:55,040 --> 02:03:57,560
Speaker 8: because we wanted as much exposure as possible, but we

2393
02:03:57,600 --> 02:04:00,400
Speaker 8: didn't label it white exposure. That's what you're saying, we

2394
02:04:00,440 --> 02:04:02,520
Speaker 8: don't want we don't. Like I said when I went

2395
02:04:02,520 --> 02:04:04,800
Speaker 8: into the Tea connection, that's just not the way we

2396
02:04:05,160 --> 02:04:08,160
Speaker 8: think about it. How much exposure can we get wherever

2397
02:04:08,200 --> 02:04:10,360
Speaker 8: it is, if it's white or black. I don't really

2398
02:04:10,360 --> 02:04:12,280
Speaker 8: give a shit if it's Latin or whatever.

2399
02:04:12,280 --> 02:04:13,760
Speaker 2: And I'm not trying to label it. What I'm saying

2400
02:04:13,840 --> 02:04:15,959
Speaker 2: is how did it happen? Because that was the college

2401
02:04:16,120 --> 02:04:17,800
Speaker 2: and that's that's what I'm interested in. I don't care

2402
02:04:17,840 --> 02:04:20,000
Speaker 2: what you call it. I just I just think that

2403
02:04:20,400 --> 02:04:21,680
Speaker 2: to me that that that was a.

2404
02:04:22,440 --> 02:04:24,520
Speaker 8: So we did a lot of things that we did.

2405
02:04:24,600 --> 02:04:26,839
Speaker 8: We had a we had a show at the Ukrainian

2406
02:04:26,920 --> 02:04:29,880
Speaker 8: National Home that was the first promo show to introduce them,

2407
02:04:30,120 --> 02:04:32,520
Speaker 8: and we invited the press to that show and they

2408
02:04:32,560 --> 02:04:34,880
Speaker 8: did a thing live there where they did the Bob

2409
02:04:34,920 --> 02:04:37,240
Speaker 8: Dylan thing where they held up the cards, the cards

2410
02:04:37,280 --> 02:04:39,760
Speaker 8: and dropping the cards. So that made a connection to

2411
02:04:39,840 --> 02:04:42,680
Speaker 8: people that this wasn't the an ordinary rap group that

2412
02:04:43,120 --> 02:04:47,360
Speaker 8: they're thinking about things that maybe are you know, at

2413
02:04:47,360 --> 02:04:50,400
Speaker 8: a different level than other rappers are thinking about things.

2414
02:04:50,440 --> 02:04:54,680
Speaker 8: And you know, but we didn't penetrate radio. We had

2415
02:04:54,680 --> 02:04:56,680
Speaker 8: no luck at radio and till Me myself and I

2416
02:04:57,080 --> 02:05:00,000
Speaker 8: so and it was it was that song that really

2417
02:05:00,320 --> 02:05:02,800
Speaker 8: made them, that took them over the hump. We were

2418
02:05:02,840 --> 02:05:05,760
Speaker 8: getting pressed, and we were getting some interest and people

2419
02:05:05,760 --> 02:05:07,680
Speaker 8: were finding out about it, but we didn't have a

2420
02:05:07,720 --> 02:05:10,280
Speaker 8: record that was really connecting until Me, myself and I

2421
02:05:10,360 --> 02:05:10,800
Speaker 8: came out.

2422
02:05:10,960 --> 02:05:12,680
Speaker 1: Did you know, was it when you heard it or

2423
02:05:12,800 --> 02:05:15,720
Speaker 1: was it like, Okay, of these twenty four songs you

2424
02:05:15,760 --> 02:05:19,240
Speaker 1: gave me, this song number eighteen is the one I

2425
02:05:19,240 --> 02:05:20,200
Speaker 1: could probably work well.

2426
02:05:20,280 --> 02:05:22,120
Speaker 8: So we have to talk about Prince Paul. And this

2427
02:05:22,200 --> 02:05:25,160
Speaker 8: is because Prince Paul produced the record, and Prince Paul

2428
02:05:25,720 --> 02:05:28,800
Speaker 8: was responsible for many of the samples on the album,

2429
02:05:28,840 --> 02:05:32,080
Speaker 8: and Prince Paul's style is obscure samples and it was

2430
02:05:32,320 --> 02:05:35,200
Speaker 8: I used to have fights about that as much with

2431
02:05:35,280 --> 02:05:37,240
Speaker 8: Prince Paul as it is with the rest of the group,

2432
02:05:37,320 --> 02:05:41,560
Speaker 8: because the cost of a sample is almost the same

2433
02:05:41,680 --> 02:05:47,840
Speaker 8: whether you sample something that's unknown or something that people

2434
02:05:48,000 --> 02:05:51,040
Speaker 8: would know. And what we're always looking for, especially because

2435
02:05:51,080 --> 02:05:53,240
Speaker 8: I know I have to bring the records to radio myself.

2436
02:05:53,600 --> 02:05:55,480
Speaker 8: When I bring the records to radio, if there's this

2437
02:05:55,640 --> 02:05:58,680
Speaker 8: familiar bridge, something that can take people from the unfamiliar

2438
02:05:58,720 --> 02:06:01,360
Speaker 8: to the familiar, we can speed up the number of

2439
02:06:01,400 --> 02:06:04,600
Speaker 8: listens it takes to make an unfamiliar record familiar. This

2440
02:06:04,760 --> 02:06:09,240
Speaker 8: is like behavioral science, I suppose you know. But so

2441
02:06:09,480 --> 02:06:13,360
Speaker 8: if you sample knee Deep and people have already played

2442
02:06:13,400 --> 02:06:16,520
Speaker 8: Knee Deep, you know, one spin and people will go,

2443
02:06:17,120 --> 02:06:19,360
Speaker 8: I know that sounds familiar. I get it. That's the

2444
02:06:19,440 --> 02:06:22,839
Speaker 8: spoonful of sugar to help the medicine of intellectual lyrics

2445
02:06:22,840 --> 02:06:27,000
Speaker 8: go down. So if we're trying to do something that's set,

2446
02:06:27,080 --> 02:06:31,120
Speaker 8: that's really forward sampling and really forward lyrically, at the

2447
02:06:31,120 --> 02:06:34,960
Speaker 8: same time, we could be just it's the tree falling

2448
02:06:35,000 --> 02:06:36,320
Speaker 8: in the woods and no one hears it. You know,

2449
02:06:36,360 --> 02:06:38,600
Speaker 8: we need people, we need to get exposure. So we

2450
02:06:38,680 --> 02:06:42,080
Speaker 8: needed something to get people over with that. And there

2451
02:06:42,200 --> 02:06:44,400
Speaker 8: was a little bit of debate because the group doesn't

2452
02:06:44,400 --> 02:06:47,080
Speaker 8: really like me. It's myself and it's not their favorite song.

2453
02:06:47,480 --> 02:06:49,280
Speaker 8: I've seen them say we hate the song, we hate

2454
02:06:49,280 --> 02:06:51,400
Speaker 8: the song, we hate the song, while they're singing to.

2455
02:06:51,680 --> 02:06:53,720
Speaker 1: Song, here's our hit.

2456
02:06:53,920 --> 02:06:57,800
Speaker 8: We hate the song, but it you know, and you

2457
02:06:57,800 --> 02:06:59,880
Speaker 8: know you could talk to Mason, you know about it.

2458
02:07:00,240 --> 02:07:02,800
Speaker 8: He was a proponent because he's a DJ's a proponent

2459
02:07:02,800 --> 02:07:04,560
Speaker 8: because he knows what that means for the dance. For

2460
02:07:05,160 --> 02:07:09,160
Speaker 8: he claims that he pushed the group to make that happen,

2461
02:07:09,240 --> 02:07:10,960
Speaker 8: or allow that happen, or to even use that and

2462
02:07:11,000 --> 02:07:13,720
Speaker 8: let it beyond the record. But to me, that was

2463
02:07:13,760 --> 02:07:17,440
Speaker 8: the semil record. And you know, you talked about led

2464
02:07:17,520 --> 02:07:20,120
Speaker 8: Zeppelin before. If it wasn't for a Whole Lot of Love,

2465
02:07:20,600 --> 02:07:22,560
Speaker 8: we wouldn't know about Zeppelin. A whole Lot of Love

2466
02:07:22,600 --> 02:07:25,560
Speaker 8: crossed over and it was a giant hit across many formats.

2467
02:07:26,080 --> 02:07:29,680
Speaker 8: You know, you need a record that takes takes an

2468
02:07:29,800 --> 02:07:33,360
Speaker 8: artist beyond and then they have the poetic license to

2469
02:07:33,400 --> 02:07:35,320
Speaker 8: do whatever the hell they want to do. And so

2470
02:07:35,440 --> 02:07:37,320
Speaker 8: that got day Less sold the right to do anything

2471
02:07:37,360 --> 02:07:39,120
Speaker 8: that they wanted to do. And to this day they're

2472
02:07:39,160 --> 02:07:41,000
Speaker 8: doing everything that they want to do the way they

2473
02:07:41,000 --> 02:07:43,000
Speaker 8: want to do it. They don't always sell a lot

2474
02:07:43,040 --> 02:07:46,880
Speaker 8: of records, but or generate you know, an enormous amount

2475
02:07:46,920 --> 02:07:50,360
Speaker 8: of excitement, but at least they're doing what they want

2476
02:07:50,400 --> 02:07:52,000
Speaker 8: to do, which most artists don't get to do.

2477
02:07:52,280 --> 02:07:55,600
Speaker 10: What is it that's keeping daylight off the streamer services?

2478
02:07:56,560 --> 02:08:02,200
Speaker 8: I mean the Tommy Boy because Warner Brothers controls those masters,

2479
02:08:02,200 --> 02:08:06,160
Speaker 8: and those masters are no they have samples on them

2480
02:08:06,200 --> 02:08:09,080
Speaker 8: that they they don't have the contracts or something like that,

2481
02:08:09,200 --> 02:08:12,640
Speaker 8: and they haven't recleared them or they're not comfortable that

2482
02:08:12,680 --> 02:08:15,640
Speaker 8: they're covered. But it's you know, the same people that

2483
02:08:15,720 --> 02:08:18,920
Speaker 8: clear those samples, cleared Naughty by Nature, House of Pain,

2484
02:08:19,040 --> 02:08:22,400
Speaker 8: and Digital Underground samples, so and all those are available.

2485
02:08:22,440 --> 02:08:25,840
Speaker 8: So I don't understand why what the reason is, but

2486
02:08:25,920 --> 02:08:26,720
Speaker 8: I'm in there.

2487
02:08:27,560 --> 02:08:31,040
Speaker 1: You're not personally, you're not responsible, you're not holding it hostage.

2488
02:08:31,280 --> 02:08:33,600
Speaker 8: I haven't owned the old Timmy Boy catalog since two

2489
02:08:33,600 --> 02:08:36,200
Speaker 8: thousand and two when Warner bought it. I'm trying to

2490
02:08:36,200 --> 02:08:38,520
Speaker 8: buy it back right now. Hopefully by the second half

2491
02:08:38,560 --> 02:08:40,480
Speaker 8: of this year, I'll have it back. And that's my

2492
02:08:40,520 --> 02:08:42,200
Speaker 8: first order of business, Thank you very much.

2493
02:08:42,320 --> 02:08:52,480
Speaker 1: When all is said and done, this is what three

2494
02:08:52,520 --> 02:08:56,720
Speaker 1: Feet High and Rising has at least achieved, which is

2495
02:08:57,880 --> 02:09:04,240
Speaker 1: every sample on that record has made music experts out

2496
02:09:04,280 --> 02:09:09,240
Speaker 1: of anyone who was between the ages of twelve and

2497
02:09:09,480 --> 02:09:12,960
Speaker 1: twenty two at the time of that album came out.

2498
02:09:13,360 --> 02:09:16,200
Speaker 1: Now I'm searching for it. I mean, did I really

2499
02:09:16,240 --> 02:09:19,200
Speaker 1: care about Houses of the Holy by led Zeppelin and

2500
02:09:19,280 --> 02:09:22,000
Speaker 1: my sister's recollection? Second I heard that break, I was like,

2501
02:09:22,000 --> 02:09:25,400
Speaker 1: oh shit, that's a day long soul. Now I'm a

2502
02:09:25,520 --> 02:09:28,600
Speaker 1: led Zeppelin expert. I'm going through their whole catalog. Tore

2503
02:09:28,600 --> 02:09:32,440
Speaker 1: recontextualized all the rock stuff right before Can You Keep

2504
02:09:32,480 --> 02:09:36,960
Speaker 1: a Secret? Like all those things, it's packed. It's an

2505
02:09:37,120 --> 02:09:43,080
Speaker 1: education pig. So at no point was it ever told

2506
02:09:43,480 --> 02:09:46,400
Speaker 1: during the negotiations or whatever, like lawyers are talking to

2507
02:09:46,440 --> 02:09:49,600
Speaker 1: each other. At no point was it ever explained to

2508
02:09:49,600 --> 02:09:52,360
Speaker 1: the Turtles but to flowin Eddie that hey, guys, this

2509
02:09:52,480 --> 02:09:54,760
Speaker 1: is actually a great thing for you because now your

2510
02:09:54,840 --> 02:10:00,720
Speaker 1: music is getting reintroduced to a whole new audience. Was

2511
02:10:00,760 --> 02:10:02,760
Speaker 1: it just like fuck you pay me? Or are you

2512
02:10:02,880 --> 02:10:06,600
Speaker 1: really even dealing with Floe and Eddie? Is it their lawyers?

2513
02:10:06,600 --> 02:10:09,480
Speaker 8: Their lawyers? But evidently I found out what happened is

2514
02:10:09,520 --> 02:10:13,160
Speaker 8: that one of the daughters heard the record until dad,

2515
02:10:13,200 --> 02:10:16,080
Speaker 8: have you heard this? Now you have to understand the

2516
02:10:16,080 --> 02:10:18,520
Speaker 8: song is called You Showed Me by the Turtles, and

2517
02:10:18,720 --> 02:10:20,840
Speaker 8: I was a Turtles fan. I bought Happy Together when

2518
02:10:20,840 --> 02:10:23,800
Speaker 8: that came out, and I you know, I mean, I

2519
02:10:23,960 --> 02:10:27,200
Speaker 8: liked it. I liked the Frank Zappa version better. But

2520
02:10:27,800 --> 02:10:30,520
Speaker 8: the thing I really thought was interesting about it is

2521
02:10:30,560 --> 02:10:35,920
Speaker 8: that Prince Paul slowed down the record from forty five

2522
02:10:35,960 --> 02:10:38,440
Speaker 8: to thirty three and used it at thirty three. So

2523
02:10:38,480 --> 02:10:41,560
Speaker 8: he used a very tiny amount and an interstitial piece,

2524
02:10:41,720 --> 02:10:44,240
Speaker 8: So he figured, why should I even clear this? Nobody's

2525
02:10:44,280 --> 02:10:46,560
Speaker 8: even gonna notice, but they noticed, you know. That's the problem,

2526
02:10:47,120 --> 02:10:49,040
Speaker 8: even if you use a little bit and they notice.

2527
02:10:49,080 --> 02:10:53,520
Speaker 8: You know. But there are people who have won cases

2528
02:10:53,560 --> 02:10:57,280
Speaker 8: in the last two years about deminimus uses, and probably

2529
02:10:57,360 --> 02:11:01,720
Speaker 8: today that case they wouldn't If somebody had wanted to

2530
02:11:01,760 --> 02:11:04,520
Speaker 8: take that case and appeal it, they probably wouldn't win it,

2531
02:11:04,600 --> 02:11:06,440
Speaker 8: depending on who the judge would be, because there have

2532
02:11:06,440 --> 02:11:08,800
Speaker 8: been a few that for something that small and that

2533
02:11:08,920 --> 02:11:13,400
Speaker 8: the minimus what would not be would you know, would

2534
02:11:13,440 --> 02:11:14,600
Speaker 8: not be recognized.

2535
02:11:14,200 --> 02:11:17,640
Speaker 1: Because it's it's not even that loop, isn't even the

2536
02:11:17,680 --> 02:11:24,200
Speaker 1: sample that loop is. Actually you did a thing.

2537
02:11:24,480 --> 02:11:27,160
Speaker 8: I'm looking at an instagram that you you posted last

2538
02:11:27,160 --> 02:11:30,760
Speaker 8: September saying, this is what's beautiful about hip hop, and

2539
02:11:30,800 --> 02:11:33,280
Speaker 8: this is what I wish publishers and record labels realize.

2540
02:11:34,080 --> 02:11:37,440
Speaker 8: This is this is you quest love by making unattainable

2541
02:11:37,560 --> 02:11:38,960
Speaker 8: and only an option for the rich.

2542
02:11:40,560 --> 02:11:40,760
Speaker 1: Yeah.

2543
02:11:40,880 --> 02:11:44,760
Speaker 8: But but what these what these greedy lawyers uh and

2544
02:11:44,880 --> 02:11:48,240
Speaker 8: corporate leeches don't comprehend, is that sampling is an education

2545
02:11:48,440 --> 02:11:52,760
Speaker 8: and it gives back. And you said, driving home from

2546
02:11:52,760 --> 02:11:57,040
Speaker 8: Brooklyn Bowl and I hear on the radio a song

2547
02:11:57,120 --> 02:11:59,720
Speaker 8: that sounds like a familiar sample, I just am it

2548
02:12:00,160 --> 02:12:03,360
Speaker 8: and I copped the original. Actually the entire album evidently

2549
02:12:03,360 --> 02:12:06,160
Speaker 8: was a Jazz Crusaders record, right. Yeah, I get enlightened

2550
02:12:06,160 --> 02:12:09,200
Speaker 8: with more great music, and the labels get another investment

2551
02:12:09,200 --> 02:12:11,520
Speaker 8: in its product for me forty years after its release.

2552
02:12:11,960 --> 02:12:14,680
Speaker 8: This is when the music is beautiful. It isn't beautiful

2553
02:12:14,680 --> 02:12:17,760
Speaker 8: when you don't reinvest in your crops for real label

2554
02:12:17,760 --> 02:12:20,879
Speaker 8: and publishing house presidents of you meet hip hop halfway,

2555
02:12:20,920 --> 02:12:23,840
Speaker 8: and I'll do and it'll do some good. I love

2556
02:12:23,880 --> 02:12:26,040
Speaker 8: to have that conversation because I'm deep in the middle

2557
02:12:26,040 --> 02:12:28,080
Speaker 8: of that and I've been trying to reach you about that.

2558
02:12:28,160 --> 02:12:29,040
Speaker 8: So I'll do it on the air.

2559
02:12:30,360 --> 02:12:33,320
Speaker 1: Let's do it. Yeah, I mean, I know for a

2560
02:12:33,400 --> 02:12:36,520
Speaker 1: fact that I've purchased at least I mean, I'm now

2561
02:12:36,560 --> 02:12:40,200
Speaker 1: a guy that collects covers of songs. I know I

2562
02:12:40,240 --> 02:12:43,680
Speaker 1: have at least ten to fifteen copies of you showed

2563
02:12:43,720 --> 02:12:48,959
Speaker 1: me done by other people. You know, so they've actually

2564
02:12:49,080 --> 02:12:53,080
Speaker 1: gotten the return off of that use in other ways,

2565
02:12:53,360 --> 02:12:57,880
Speaker 1: but not really realizing the ripple effects of it. But

2566
02:12:58,080 --> 02:13:02,680
Speaker 1: I just feel as though because it's such an it's

2567
02:13:02,720 --> 02:13:08,320
Speaker 1: such a litigious atmosphere now and only the rich will

2568
02:13:08,360 --> 02:13:13,640
Speaker 1: be able to truly benefit from sampling that it's it's

2569
02:13:13,680 --> 02:13:17,400
Speaker 1: it's literally killing the music game right now. So thank

2570
02:13:17,440 --> 02:13:18,560
Speaker 1: you thanks for the setup.

2571
02:13:18,920 --> 02:13:22,160
Speaker 8: So besides still running Tommy Boy and still signing hip

2572
02:13:22,160 --> 02:13:26,280
Speaker 8: hop groups today and artists, I am also involved with

2573
02:13:26,320 --> 02:13:31,280
Speaker 8: a new startup business from Sweden called Buzz that's called

2574
02:13:31,640 --> 02:13:35,600
Speaker 8: track lib, and track lib is a company that's designed

2575
02:13:35,680 --> 02:13:38,760
Speaker 8: to make sampling fast, easy and affordable. We're going to

2576
02:13:38,840 --> 02:13:42,000
Speaker 8: all of the labels and publishers and getting all of

2577
02:13:42,000 --> 02:13:45,600
Speaker 8: the rights for masters, especially the older stuff, on a

2578
02:13:45,600 --> 02:13:49,960
Speaker 8: pre cleared basis, so people can download and sample a

2579
02:13:50,040 --> 02:13:53,760
Speaker 8: record for one hundred dollars, five hundred or twenty five

2580
02:13:53,840 --> 02:13:57,200
Speaker 8: hundred dollars in five minutes online without you.

2581
02:13:57,360 --> 02:14:00,320
Speaker 1: Okay, can I believe this song real quick? This is

2582
02:14:00,320 --> 02:14:04,440
Speaker 1: one of my favorite all set. That's all. I just

2583
02:14:04,440 --> 02:14:10,400
Speaker 1: wanted to play the air horn for that might get

2584
02:14:10,400 --> 02:14:10,680
Speaker 1: them a.

2585
02:14:10,640 --> 02:14:13,800
Speaker 8: Towel, so you know. And we're deep into it. We're

2586
02:14:13,880 --> 02:14:16,360
Speaker 8: very close with all three majors. We got twenty two

2587
02:14:16,400 --> 02:14:20,240
Speaker 8: label signed, we signed VP Records, Regae labels, we're putting,

2588
02:14:20,480 --> 02:14:23,440
Speaker 8: we're loading masters up now. It's in beta, private beta

2589
02:14:23,520 --> 02:14:28,120
Speaker 8: until October. It's going to be a revolution because for

2590
02:14:28,240 --> 02:14:30,800
Speaker 8: two dollars, you can download a wave file, drop it

2591
02:14:30,840 --> 02:14:33,560
Speaker 8: into a new mix. When you're ready to do it,

2592
02:14:33,600 --> 02:14:36,160
Speaker 8: you can you go back online. You can get a

2593
02:14:36,200 --> 02:14:39,960
Speaker 8: license in five minutes or three minutes online for as

2594
02:14:40,000 --> 02:14:43,120
Speaker 8: little as fifty dollars or one hundred dollars. And you

2595
02:14:43,240 --> 02:14:45,160
Speaker 8: have to agree to give up x percent of the

2596
02:14:45,160 --> 02:14:47,920
Speaker 8: derivative work on the publishing and the master's side, either

2597
02:14:47,960 --> 02:14:50,520
Speaker 8: ten percent, twenty five or fifty percent, depending how much

2598
02:14:50,520 --> 02:14:52,840
Speaker 8: of the original, how much you master you use. If

2599
02:14:52,840 --> 02:14:56,120
Speaker 8: it's over fifteen seconds, it's fifty percent. If it's under

2600
02:14:56,160 --> 02:14:58,320
Speaker 8: it's if it's under two sets, if it's two or less,

2601
02:14:58,360 --> 02:15:02,080
Speaker 8: it's ten percent. It's up to fifteen seconds, it's twenty

2602
02:15:02,160 --> 02:15:06,120
Speaker 8: five percent. That's it, so people can start sampling again

2603
02:15:06,440 --> 02:15:07,640
Speaker 8: and they'll be able to open up.

2604
02:15:07,720 --> 02:15:11,240
Speaker 1: We're I've been dreaming of this moment.

2605
02:15:11,800 --> 02:15:14,600
Speaker 8: That's why I've been trying to reach to reach go

2606
02:15:14,720 --> 02:15:15,839
Speaker 8: on your radio show.

2607
02:15:15,640 --> 02:15:20,280
Speaker 1: To talk to you. Someone sees it, So listen.

2608
02:15:20,320 --> 02:15:22,760
Speaker 8: Let me tell you who's The creative Advisory board already

2609
02:15:22,760 --> 02:15:28,680
Speaker 8: includes Prince Paul Large, Professor, Pete Rock, Peanut butter Wolf.

2610
02:15:29,400 --> 02:15:31,680
Speaker 8: You know, I wanted to talk to you about joining

2611
02:15:31,720 --> 02:15:34,400
Speaker 8: it too, because you're the perfect eye. You're already outspoken.

2612
02:15:35,040 --> 02:15:38,400
Speaker 1: I'm there. Wow, this is the greatest news. What's what's

2613
02:15:38,440 --> 02:15:38,840
Speaker 1: the name of.

2614
02:15:38,840 --> 02:15:41,360
Speaker 8: The track lib like track Liberation? Thank you?

2615
02:15:41,440 --> 02:15:43,640
Speaker 1: Where was this in two thousand and three? Wow?

2616
02:15:43,720 --> 02:15:47,880
Speaker 8: Well, and I talked to these labels, you know, when

2617
02:15:47,920 --> 02:15:50,360
Speaker 8: I talked to Aaron Fuchs or I talked to armand Balading,

2618
02:15:50,360 --> 02:15:55,400
Speaker 8: who controls the Old Judge's Parliament, And you know they're

2619
02:15:55,440 --> 02:15:58,960
Speaker 8: telling me. You know, arm ensued four hundred and seventy

2620
02:15:58,960 --> 02:16:01,400
Speaker 8: seven people for foot sample infringements and at the end

2621
02:16:01,440 --> 02:16:04,040
Speaker 8: of all of it break even. He didn't make any

2622
02:16:04,120 --> 02:16:06,960
Speaker 8: money from it, So if it had gone through track Live,

2623
02:16:07,040 --> 02:16:08,480
Speaker 8: he'd have made a ton of money. Because it wouldn't

2624
02:16:08,480 --> 02:16:10,440
Speaker 8: cost anything, and nobody would need a lawyer to clear

2625
02:16:10,440 --> 02:16:13,600
Speaker 8: a sample again or sample, and a replay even costs

2626
02:16:13,600 --> 02:16:16,240
Speaker 8: thousands of dollars, So to use the original it's cheaper

2627
02:16:16,280 --> 02:16:19,360
Speaker 8: now than to even do a replay, except that you

2628
02:16:19,440 --> 02:16:21,960
Speaker 8: have to give up part of the deriver of work.

2629
02:16:22,000 --> 02:16:25,200
Speaker 8: But I think that's a fair thing, and I'm telling

2630
02:16:25,240 --> 02:16:27,880
Speaker 8: all the rights holders you'll make more money because the

2631
02:16:27,880 --> 02:16:29,920
Speaker 8: only person who can afford to clear samples now is

2632
02:16:30,000 --> 02:16:33,880
Speaker 8: Kanye and maybe eight other people. There's like literally ten

2633
02:16:33,959 --> 02:16:38,000
Speaker 8: people who can afford fifty thousand dollars per track to

2634
02:16:38,120 --> 02:16:38,879
Speaker 8: clear a sample.

2635
02:16:38,959 --> 02:16:41,360
Speaker 1: Now, I'm glad you see it the way that I

2636
02:16:41,560 --> 02:16:45,160
Speaker 1: meant it, like it came from a heartfelt place. One

2637
02:16:45,200 --> 02:16:53,080
Speaker 1: of the aforementioned executives that you talked about actually tried

2638
02:16:53,120 --> 02:16:59,760
Speaker 1: to call my boss's boss's boss at my current job

2639
02:17:01,000 --> 02:17:05,199
Speaker 1: to get me dealt with because he felt as though

2640
02:17:05,520 --> 02:17:10,199
Speaker 1: I was trying to, first of all, be anti Semitic

2641
02:17:10,600 --> 02:17:17,280
Speaker 1: and disrespectful to his way of practice, which was never

2642
02:17:17,320 --> 02:17:21,400
Speaker 1: the case whatsoever. But this is a guy that, as

2643
02:17:21,400 --> 02:17:28,120
Speaker 1: far as I know, has made a living suing rappers,

2644
02:17:28,520 --> 02:17:35,680
Speaker 1: exactly rappers just for b boxing, just for using even

2645
02:17:36,520 --> 02:17:39,240
Speaker 1: half of his even a cake or a snare of

2646
02:17:39,280 --> 02:17:42,800
Speaker 1: his work. I mean, I understand it's a business, but

2647
02:17:43,520 --> 02:17:46,840
Speaker 1: you know, George Clinton once explained, he's like, yo, the

2648
02:17:46,879 --> 02:17:49,920
Speaker 1: reason why it wasn't by design that you know, I'm

2649
02:17:49,920 --> 02:17:54,080
Speaker 1: part of the West Coast g funk fabric. He's like,

2650
02:17:54,200 --> 02:17:57,959
Speaker 1: I came in cheap. He's like, right, I came in

2651
02:17:58,040 --> 02:17:59,680
Speaker 1: so cheap that I made you want to come back

2652
02:17:59,720 --> 02:18:03,800
Speaker 1: from more. And my prices were fair, and thus people

2653
02:18:03,840 --> 02:18:07,320
Speaker 1: always came back to me. And I just never understood, how,

2654
02:18:08,440 --> 02:18:11,840
Speaker 1: you know, in any type of music. I doubt that

2655
02:18:12,240 --> 02:18:15,240
Speaker 1: any no type of music, I mean even something as uh,

2656
02:18:16,160 --> 02:18:21,160
Speaker 1: let's let's pick fleet You told me, Steve that either

2657
02:18:21,240 --> 02:18:28,920
Speaker 1: you or Captain Kirk told me that Fleetwood Mac's uh dreams.

2658
02:18:29,760 --> 02:18:33,760
Speaker 1: If you look at the original reel on uh of

2659
02:18:33,760 --> 02:18:38,960
Speaker 1: of of of of the real the track listing, it's

2660
02:18:38,959 --> 02:18:42,760
Speaker 1: still called spinners. I'll be around sound alike, you know

2661
02:18:42,840 --> 02:18:46,360
Speaker 1: what I mean? Wow? So it's like no, but that's wow.

2662
02:18:46,400 --> 02:18:50,640
Speaker 1: It is a sound like yeah, exactly. So there's no

2663
02:18:50,760 --> 02:18:54,879
Speaker 1: song that's created that doesn't start at least with playing

2664
02:18:54,879 --> 02:18:58,440
Speaker 1: another song and figuring out, okay, now, what's my version

2665
02:18:58,480 --> 02:19:00,160
Speaker 1: of this? If I just take the Rubik's Q but

2666
02:19:00,200 --> 02:19:03,480
Speaker 1: the fabric and mix it up. But I feel as

2667
02:19:03,480 --> 02:19:07,560
Speaker 1: though the music business, which is catalogs, are suffering right

2668
02:19:07,560 --> 02:19:11,160
Speaker 1: now because no one's going back to those catalogs and

2669
02:19:11,240 --> 02:19:13,600
Speaker 1: using them unless it's being marketing.

2670
02:19:13,640 --> 02:19:15,520
Speaker 8: That's my argument. When I'm talking to all of them,

2671
02:19:15,520 --> 02:19:19,240
Speaker 8: I said, you've got hundreds of thousands of tracks, and

2672
02:19:19,280 --> 02:19:21,440
Speaker 8: in the case of the majors and even indies, tens

2673
02:19:21,440 --> 02:19:24,680
Speaker 8: of thousands of tracks that you don't get sync deals for,

2674
02:19:24,879 --> 02:19:28,000
Speaker 8: you don't get licenses for, nobody knows about, and they

2675
02:19:28,040 --> 02:19:31,480
Speaker 8: sit there collecting dust. That's the stuff we want. We

2676
02:19:31,560 --> 02:19:34,880
Speaker 8: want create diggers to be digital and find stuff fast

2677
02:19:35,160 --> 02:19:38,040
Speaker 8: and use it often so that you can have a hit.

2678
02:19:38,280 --> 02:19:40,000
Speaker 8: And I got the list of the one hundred most

2679
02:19:40,000 --> 02:19:41,199
Speaker 8: sampled records of all time.

2680
02:19:41,240 --> 02:19:41,920
Speaker 1: Here hit me.

2681
02:19:42,520 --> 02:19:44,800
Speaker 8: The first is the B side of a record by

2682
02:19:44,840 --> 02:19:47,720
Speaker 8: the Winstons. It's called Ammon Brother, you know, and that's

2683
02:19:47,760 --> 02:19:50,440
Speaker 8: the most sampled record of all time. The second one

2684
02:19:50,480 --> 02:19:53,280
Speaker 8: is Cheanze labat by B side. The third one is

2685
02:19:53,360 --> 02:19:56,600
Speaker 8: Lynn Collins. Think which is it takes two? Right?

2686
02:19:56,920 --> 02:19:57,120
Speaker 1: Wait?

2687
02:19:57,120 --> 02:19:59,720
Speaker 8: What'll second B side change? Labat?

2688
02:20:00,200 --> 02:20:01,840
Speaker 1: Oh Fresh of course?

2689
02:20:02,000 --> 02:20:06,040
Speaker 8: Right? James Brown, Funky drummer. And by the way, the

2690
02:20:06,160 --> 02:20:08,680
Speaker 8: James Brown catalog is already in for track lib. The

2691
02:20:08,879 --> 02:20:11,959
Speaker 8: guy who controls the estate wants it to be in Yeah,

2692
02:20:12,000 --> 02:20:16,520
Speaker 8: he does, and universal and I warn a chapel who

2693
02:20:16,520 --> 02:20:19,840
Speaker 8: controls the publishing are you know, are happy to make

2694
02:20:19,840 --> 02:20:22,440
Speaker 8: it available because the artist wants it. Some of the times,

2695
02:20:22,480 --> 02:20:24,879
Speaker 8: the problem is that the artist wants to approve each

2696
02:20:25,000 --> 02:20:27,480
Speaker 8: and every sample, and that won't work in track lib

2697
02:20:27,480 --> 02:20:28,880
Speaker 8: because everything has to be preapproved.

2698
02:20:28,879 --> 02:20:29,760
Speaker 1: Sorry, Bob James.

2699
02:20:30,000 --> 02:20:34,480
Speaker 8: Yeah, when you're shopping, you want to be able to

2700
02:20:34,520 --> 02:20:36,720
Speaker 8: know what something's going to cost before you buy it.

2701
02:20:37,640 --> 02:20:39,680
Speaker 8: People who sample have no idea what it's going to

2702
02:20:39,720 --> 02:20:41,640
Speaker 8: be cost or even if they have permission to you.

2703
02:20:42,560 --> 02:20:44,760
Speaker 8: So I'm telling people that ninety eight percent of the

2704
02:20:44,800 --> 02:20:48,280
Speaker 8: sampling that happens now is unauthorized or replaced. So you're

2705
02:20:48,320 --> 02:20:51,120
Speaker 8: losing all the money. And everyone's telling me, hey, our

2706
02:20:51,160 --> 02:20:54,760
Speaker 8: sampling business has gotten way down. Duh. You know at

2707
02:20:54,800 --> 02:20:57,080
Speaker 8: some point, you know there's five people left that can

2708
02:20:57,120 --> 02:20:59,959
Speaker 8: afford the sample. You got it exactly right. Dougie Fry

2709
02:21:00,240 --> 02:21:04,000
Speaker 8: is number five, Lotty Dottie, James Brown, James Brown with

2710
02:21:04,000 --> 02:21:09,760
Speaker 8: funky presidents yep. Then public Enemy bring the noise, which

2711
02:21:09,840 --> 02:21:12,240
Speaker 8: got to have samples on it already too. So the

2712
02:21:12,280 --> 02:21:15,880
Speaker 8: other thing with track lip is we can't put samples.

2713
02:21:16,360 --> 02:21:19,120
Speaker 8: We can't sample a sample. So what we need to

2714
02:21:19,120 --> 02:21:22,200
Speaker 8: do is get stems of the acappellas for the hip

2715
02:21:22,240 --> 02:21:24,720
Speaker 8: hop stuff, so people could sample the wrap stuff without

2716
02:21:24,760 --> 02:21:27,000
Speaker 8: resampling the samples. You got to go back to the

2717
02:21:27,040 --> 02:21:30,160
Speaker 8: original sample to get the samp. But we can direct

2718
02:21:30,200 --> 02:21:32,320
Speaker 8: people then honey drippers and Pizza the President.

2719
02:21:32,360 --> 02:21:34,920
Speaker 1: I was going to say, Pizza President. I thought that

2720
02:21:35,040 --> 02:21:38,240
Speaker 1: been number one. Well that's the one.

2721
02:21:38,200 --> 02:21:40,440
Speaker 8: Pizza the President is probably going to go to number one,

2722
02:21:40,800 --> 02:21:45,199
Speaker 8: considering the President today.

2723
02:21:48,240 --> 02:21:49,760
Speaker 1: So here here's a question for you.

2724
02:21:49,840 --> 02:21:52,560
Speaker 5: Let's say I buy a track off of the service,

2725
02:21:53,200 --> 02:21:55,520
Speaker 5: but it sounds too clean, you know. Let's say I

2726
02:21:55,600 --> 02:21:57,680
Speaker 5: have a vinyl copy that sounds dirty and I want

2727
02:21:57,680 --> 02:22:00,520
Speaker 5: the dusty and all that, you know, I want all

2728
02:22:00,560 --> 02:22:03,760
Speaker 5: that that that sonic character in the sample. Am I

2729
02:22:03,760 --> 02:22:07,160
Speaker 5: still allowed to buy the track online and still use because.

2730
02:22:07,440 --> 02:22:12,680
Speaker 8: The one that you're gonna get especially fingerprinted and watermarked,

2731
02:22:13,040 --> 02:22:16,160
Speaker 8: and you can always add vinyl crushy sounds as an effect,

2732
02:22:16,800 --> 02:22:19,520
Speaker 8: if that's what I mean. I remember buying Dala Soul

2733
02:22:19,560 --> 02:22:21,680
Speaker 8: a record cleaner so that they could clean the records

2734
02:22:21,720 --> 02:22:25,280
Speaker 8: for the samples, but they never wanted to do anyway.

2735
02:22:25,120 --> 02:22:28,280
Speaker 8: They were also according to a dot which was another thing.

2736
02:22:28,800 --> 02:22:30,800
Speaker 1: Where do we go to get it? What's the site?

2737
02:22:31,160 --> 02:22:32,040
Speaker 8: Tracklib dot com?

2738
02:22:32,040 --> 02:22:32,840
Speaker 1: Tracklib dot com?

2739
02:22:32,840 --> 02:22:39,080
Speaker 10: Okay, right, I think we're going I forget the show. Wait,

2740
02:22:39,080 --> 02:22:43,760
Speaker 10: we still got lots even we got a lot to cover.

2741
02:22:43,840 --> 02:22:47,840
Speaker 8: And number nine was Melvin Bliss synthetic substitution. And the

2742
02:22:47,959 --> 02:22:50,640
Speaker 8: number ten was run DMC. Here we go Live at

2743
02:22:50,680 --> 02:22:51,280
Speaker 8: the Funhouse.

2744
02:22:51,680 --> 02:22:54,600
Speaker 1: Ah yeah, oh damn, I can't tell you.

2745
02:22:54,600 --> 02:22:56,920
Speaker 8: Another one I thought was really interesting. Number eleven was

2746
02:22:57,000 --> 02:22:58,039
Speaker 8: Mountain Long Red.

2747
02:22:58,120 --> 02:23:00,480
Speaker 1: Oh yeah, of course I love that. That was a

2748
02:23:00,520 --> 02:23:02,240
Speaker 1: coup I used to go see play when I was

2749
02:23:02,280 --> 02:23:05,039
Speaker 1: a kid. Yes, absolutely, that makes sense. I never would

2750
02:23:05,040 --> 02:23:07,240
Speaker 1: have thought, Wait, you have your top one hundred?

2751
02:23:07,320 --> 02:23:07,400
Speaker 8: Ye?

2752
02:23:08,120 --> 02:23:10,000
Speaker 1: Can I hear the bottom ten? Can I hear ninety

2753
02:23:10,040 --> 02:23:10,360
Speaker 1: to one.

2754
02:23:13,240 --> 02:23:18,199
Speaker 8: Ninety? Led Zeppelin? When the levy breaks? Von Mason bounced

2755
02:23:18,200 --> 02:23:20,400
Speaker 8: for Rock Skate Roll, Herman Kelly and Life dance to

2756
02:23:20,400 --> 02:23:22,840
Speaker 8: the Drummers beat, which I can't believe is that low

2757
02:23:24,160 --> 02:23:28,480
Speaker 8: knee deep Funkadelic. We just talked about Detroit Emeralds you're

2758
02:23:28,480 --> 02:23:32,760
Speaker 8: getting a little too smart, Rob Bass. It takes two

2759
02:23:33,560 --> 02:23:37,520
Speaker 8: already a Linn Collin sample, so it must be a

2760
02:23:37,600 --> 02:23:42,480
Speaker 8: part that's hit. It is often used Blowfly Sysame Street,

2761
02:23:43,680 --> 02:23:47,040
Speaker 8: that's funny. The Brothers j ain't we funking now?

2762
02:23:48,280 --> 02:23:48,760
Speaker 1: It was.

2763
02:23:50,440 --> 02:23:57,120
Speaker 10: Okay, okay with that, Yeah, Curtis blow Tough, uh Dja

2764
02:23:57,280 --> 02:24:00,280
Speaker 10: Trace and Pete Parson, Sniper and Dyke.

2765
02:24:00,320 --> 02:24:02,520
Speaker 8: But and the Blazer's lot of woman be a woman

2766
02:24:02,959 --> 02:24:05,160
Speaker 8: that I let a man be a man, which is

2767
02:24:05,959 --> 02:24:07,240
Speaker 8: we used it with sets to sign it.

2768
02:24:07,360 --> 02:24:09,160
Speaker 1: Yeah. I was about to say that the Sally thing

2769
02:24:09,200 --> 02:24:12,720
Speaker 1: that's number one hundred, that's I think, well, okay, at

2770
02:24:12,840 --> 02:24:15,480
Speaker 1: least in the especially in the case of when the

2771
02:24:15,560 --> 02:24:20,000
Speaker 1: levee breaks. Yeah, a lot of people just gunsy about

2772
02:24:20,120 --> 02:24:23,480
Speaker 1: using certain publishers because they know that they're going to

2773
02:24:23,560 --> 02:24:27,640
Speaker 1: come for the loot. Yeah, like a lot of that stuff.

2774
02:24:27,720 --> 02:24:30,240
Speaker 1: I mean, there's no reason why in Peace to President

2775
02:24:30,360 --> 02:24:35,000
Speaker 1: is the number one sampled number eight, But there's no

2776
02:24:35,040 --> 02:24:37,920
Speaker 1: reason why it should not be the number one because

2777
02:24:38,320 --> 02:24:40,080
Speaker 1: that's the well.

2778
02:24:40,160 --> 02:24:42,640
Speaker 8: Yeah, and when it gets to be part of Track Live,

2779
02:24:42,640 --> 02:24:43,480
Speaker 8: it'll go to number one.

2780
02:24:43,520 --> 02:24:45,080
Speaker 1: Then oh my god, what happens?

2781
02:24:45,200 --> 02:24:45,360
Speaker 7: You know?

2782
02:24:45,400 --> 02:24:48,520
Speaker 8: The thing is everybody uses it. So what we really

2783
02:24:48,520 --> 02:24:50,280
Speaker 8: want to encourage is great, we want to have as

2784
02:24:50,320 --> 02:24:52,959
Speaker 8: much of this stuff as we can get, but we

2785
02:24:53,000 --> 02:24:54,880
Speaker 8: want to drive you know, if we can't get Dyke

2786
02:24:54,920 --> 02:24:57,280
Speaker 8: in the Blazers, what sounds like that, So we want

2787
02:24:57,320 --> 02:24:59,480
Speaker 8: to direct people to. If we can't get it, we'll

2788
02:24:59,480 --> 02:25:01,560
Speaker 8: still have an there and direct people to something that's

2789
02:25:01,920 --> 02:25:05,440
Speaker 8: close enough that people could still use affordably, because we

2790
02:25:05,480 --> 02:25:07,680
Speaker 8: don't want people to go away or cheat because they

2791
02:25:07,720 --> 02:25:10,720
Speaker 8: can't use exactly that, especially if they're using this as

2792
02:25:11,080 --> 02:25:14,440
Speaker 8: a musical creation tool, which track Club will become. Eventually,

2793
02:25:14,440 --> 02:25:17,720
Speaker 8: they'll be built into all the digital audio workstations. It's

2794
02:25:17,720 --> 02:25:19,959
Speaker 8: gonna be in logic, it's gonna be in the fruity loops.

2795
02:25:19,959 --> 02:25:23,080
Speaker 5: And wouldn't it be cool if questlov had you know,

2796
02:25:23,160 --> 02:25:26,240
Speaker 5: some custom drum breaks available on track lad for sale.

2797
02:25:27,200 --> 02:25:31,320
Speaker 1: You know what what you don't know is happening right

2798
02:25:31,360 --> 02:25:36,200
Speaker 1: now is like I'm doing my own I'm doing my

2799
02:25:36,240 --> 02:25:40,199
Speaker 1: own homemade version of that now because as we speak,

2800
02:25:40,800 --> 02:25:45,400
Speaker 1: my phone is probably buzzing to death. Ever since late January,

2801
02:25:45,480 --> 02:25:49,480
Speaker 1: I've gathered the entire gods of hip hop beat making,

2802
02:25:49,600 --> 02:25:52,800
Speaker 1: from Primo to Pete Rock to Lars Professor to not

2803
02:25:53,520 --> 02:25:57,080
Speaker 1: to just Blaze the Swiss Beats, to Kareem Riggins to

2804
02:25:57,240 --> 02:26:00,640
Speaker 1: DJ Harrison. Those guys are like He's blowing their minds

2805
02:26:00,720 --> 02:26:02,720
Speaker 1: right now as we speak on this phone, Like I

2806
02:26:02,840 --> 02:26:06,680
Speaker 1: literally in ninth wonder like I've I have on my

2807
02:26:07,040 --> 02:26:13,039
Speaker 1: text chain thirty one beat makers and I've been giving

2808
02:26:13,080 --> 02:26:17,040
Speaker 1: them a break beat a day. But as of now,

2809
02:26:17,040 --> 02:26:20,400
Speaker 1: of March first, they've done turned it into like I'm

2810
02:26:20,400 --> 02:26:22,440
Speaker 1: still giving them a break beat a day, but now

2811
02:26:22,480 --> 02:26:25,960
Speaker 1: they're just on some next shit. They are now making

2812
02:26:26,000 --> 02:26:34,080
Speaker 1: records together, they're collect they're producing Conway's record like they're

2813
02:26:35,440 --> 02:26:38,039
Speaker 1: so something's happening. Even right now as we speak, like

2814
02:26:38,080 --> 02:26:42,160
Speaker 1: my battery is probably going low because now not Pete

2815
02:26:42,200 --> 02:26:47,920
Speaker 1: Rocket Notts are having a isolated baseline contest. It's like

2816
02:26:48,080 --> 02:26:52,320
Speaker 1: name literally like that's going on right now. I know

2817
02:26:52,400 --> 02:26:54,280
Speaker 1: there has to be at least three to four acts

2818
02:26:54,280 --> 02:26:57,360
Speaker 1: that you almost had that you didn't get, Like, are

2819
02:26:57,360 --> 02:26:59,800
Speaker 1: there any that comes to mind, like I almost signed them,

2820
02:26:59,879 --> 02:27:00,920
Speaker 1: or we almost had.

2821
02:27:00,760 --> 02:27:03,480
Speaker 8: Them, or I dropped them before they got big? About that?

2822
02:27:03,560 --> 02:27:06,680
Speaker 1: Forgive Prince Rocky.

2823
02:27:07,360 --> 02:27:12,039
Speaker 10: You're talking about Yeah, I know you guys are geniuses here.

2824
02:27:12,040 --> 02:27:14,080
Speaker 10: You gotta realize that there's a lot of people listening.

2825
02:27:14,440 --> 02:27:18,480
Speaker 10: If you listen to that beat, that is classic rizz joint.

2826
02:27:18,520 --> 02:27:20,560
Speaker 1: I mean it's weird though. It's like based off a

2827
02:27:20,600 --> 02:27:28,879
Speaker 1: George Michael hook. I got to Ladies, Wait that wasn't that?

2828
02:27:29,280 --> 02:27:33,640
Speaker 1: Was that? On Faith? It's the song is based on

2829
02:27:33,680 --> 02:27:37,920
Speaker 1: a George Michael and Jody Wattley songs on the Jody

2830
02:27:37,920 --> 02:27:40,800
Speaker 1: Watley album. Oh okay, the first or the second one?

2831
02:27:40,879 --> 02:27:44,320
Speaker 1: Was the first one? Okay? Well, I knew it was.

2832
02:27:44,400 --> 02:27:46,119
Speaker 8: You guys are scary man, you know everything.

2833
02:27:47,440 --> 02:27:50,400
Speaker 1: It's literally a collective of of music nerds right here.

2834
02:27:51,520 --> 02:28:01,680
Speaker 1: So so, so who did you Who was a close

2835
02:28:01,760 --> 02:28:08,119
Speaker 1: call for the label besides the Roots New Addition? Yeah,

2836
02:28:08,160 --> 02:28:10,320
Speaker 1: I was going to say, you had Arthur Baker, Like

2837
02:28:10,360 --> 02:28:10,800
Speaker 1: why not?

2838
02:28:11,040 --> 02:28:14,400
Speaker 8: So no, we had the Johnson Crew. So Michael Johnson's

2839
02:28:14,440 --> 02:28:17,560
Speaker 8: brother is Maurice Starr. Maurice Star produced New Addition. They

2840
02:28:17,560 --> 02:28:21,920
Speaker 8: brought it to me a Candy Girl right. And this

2841
02:28:22,080 --> 02:28:24,720
Speaker 8: was right after I got the letter from kraft Work

2842
02:28:26,520 --> 02:28:28,720
Speaker 8: and I was shell shocked and I listened to it.

2843
02:28:28,800 --> 02:28:31,560
Speaker 8: I go, well, if Kraftwork has a problem with Planet

2844
02:28:31,640 --> 02:28:34,879
Speaker 8: Rocky Jack, we got a big problem with the Jackson

2845
02:28:34,920 --> 02:28:37,879
Speaker 8: five on this and they're ten times more powerful. What

2846
02:28:38,000 --> 02:28:40,800
Speaker 8: will I do? So I passed, And that was one

2847
02:28:40,800 --> 02:28:44,160
Speaker 8: of the dumb dist threads. Definitely, never act out of fear.

2848
02:28:44,200 --> 02:28:46,440
Speaker 8: Always just do it and figure the shit out later,

2849
02:28:46,520 --> 02:28:48,800
Speaker 8: you know, go for it, you know. And then the

2850
02:28:48,879 --> 02:28:51,720
Speaker 8: other one is there was there were a couple of

2851
02:28:51,760 --> 02:28:55,840
Speaker 8: them that I came close to getting, but I can

2852
02:28:55,920 --> 02:28:58,039
Speaker 8: get I wanted. I really wanted Dougie Fresh. I never

2853
02:28:58,080 --> 02:28:58,440
Speaker 8: got that.

2854
02:28:59,240 --> 02:29:03,680
Speaker 1: Lottie Dotty. Yeah. Wow, that was when it was One Records.

2855
02:29:04,400 --> 02:29:07,600
Speaker 1: Well it was Dana's last Fantasy.

2856
02:29:08,320 --> 02:29:11,920
Speaker 8: Yeah. No, actually it got sold to Fantasy. Later it

2857
02:29:11,959 --> 02:29:14,040
Speaker 8: was Donya. I don't think it was Fantasy. Originally it

2858
02:29:14,080 --> 02:29:17,080
Speaker 8: was Donya as an independent label out of the Bay Area,

2859
02:29:17,200 --> 02:29:19,439
Speaker 8: and then I think it went into Fantasy.

2860
02:29:20,040 --> 02:29:21,039
Speaker 1: So's an odd choice.

2861
02:29:21,200 --> 02:29:22,720
Speaker 8: I know, it's really weird.

2862
02:29:23,080 --> 02:29:25,120
Speaker 1: You pursued him and he was like, nope, I'm going on.

2863
02:29:25,280 --> 02:29:28,000
Speaker 8: He performed at Tommy Boy offices. He came to our

2864
02:29:28,040 --> 02:29:30,320
Speaker 8: offices up on ninety second Street, and we used to

2865
02:29:30,320 --> 02:29:33,040
Speaker 8: do this Wednesday night thing where groups could come up

2866
02:29:33,040 --> 02:29:35,880
Speaker 8: and audition and do stuff. You know. We did it,

2867
02:29:35,920 --> 02:29:37,680
Speaker 8: didn't do it for very long, but one of the

2868
02:29:37,720 --> 02:29:40,560
Speaker 8: people who came by, and I remember him beatboxing in

2869
02:29:40,600 --> 02:29:44,400
Speaker 8: the office. Was was him, and there were a few others,

2870
02:29:44,400 --> 02:29:46,680
Speaker 8: you know. I sometimes I don't always know about him

2871
02:29:46,720 --> 02:29:50,240
Speaker 8: because especially after nineteen ninety when the company started to

2872
02:29:50,280 --> 02:29:53,160
Speaker 8: have a lot of employees and got really big, sometimes

2873
02:29:53,240 --> 02:29:55,520
Speaker 8: people come in or different A and our guys had

2874
02:29:55,520 --> 02:29:58,240
Speaker 8: stuff Like I just was talking to Lord Jamar the

2875
02:29:58,240 --> 02:30:01,480
Speaker 8: other day, was by the office and he said brand

2876
02:30:01,560 --> 02:30:03,879
Speaker 8: Nubian was supposed to be on Tommy Boy, but Dante

2877
02:30:04,080 --> 02:30:08,599
Speaker 8: was the A and R guy, Dante the scrub, and he.

2878
02:30:08,120 --> 02:30:10,120
Speaker 1: He was our second He went to a lecture. He

2879
02:30:10,240 --> 02:30:13,280
Speaker 1: was our second guest on the show. Oh yeah, so yeah,

2880
02:30:13,360 --> 02:30:15,840
Speaker 1: I mean, where was your relationship with Dante?

2881
02:30:17,520 --> 02:30:18,880
Speaker 8: He was then one of the A and R guys.

2882
02:30:18,879 --> 02:30:20,280
Speaker 8: He's the one who brought in Queen Land TeaF so

2883
02:30:20,280 --> 02:30:22,680
Speaker 8: we're talking about Queen the t for that, that's the expression.

2884
02:30:23,080 --> 02:30:25,760
Speaker 8: So he's the A and OUR guy, the one an

2885
02:30:25,879 --> 02:30:27,520
Speaker 8: R guy and Tommy Boy who brought in the most

2886
02:30:27,520 --> 02:30:29,840
Speaker 8: stuff we got. We had a lot of a lot

2887
02:30:29,879 --> 02:30:32,119
Speaker 8: of A and R guys, dozens. He's the only one

2888
02:30:32,160 --> 02:30:35,000
Speaker 8: I can remember as actually having impact in bringing in

2889
02:30:35,160 --> 02:30:36,440
Speaker 8: artists that actually made money.

2890
02:30:36,680 --> 02:30:41,039
Speaker 1: So did you trust this year? Yeah, and I mean

2891
02:30:41,560 --> 02:30:43,080
Speaker 1: I know that with A and RS they have to

2892
02:30:43,080 --> 02:30:46,680
Speaker 1: watch the budget make sure that that doesn't go over

2893
02:30:46,879 --> 02:30:51,080
Speaker 1: any of those things. Like was he like your trustworthy,

2894
02:30:51,320 --> 02:30:53,920
Speaker 1: your best student, or however you want to he was.

2895
02:30:55,080 --> 02:30:56,720
Speaker 8: He was his own best student. You know, he knew

2896
02:30:56,720 --> 02:30:59,600
Speaker 8: what he wanted. He wasn't really interested. You know, he

2897
02:30:59,720 --> 02:31:02,040
Speaker 8: has his own way of seeing things, at least at

2898
02:31:02,080 --> 02:31:03,920
Speaker 8: that time. He's let's call it impetuous.

2899
02:31:04,680 --> 02:31:06,120
Speaker 1: But at the time, did you know that he was

2900
02:31:06,120 --> 02:31:07,080
Speaker 1: bringing you history?

2901
02:31:08,280 --> 02:31:11,720
Speaker 8: Yeah? He did with I mean he was he was

2902
02:31:11,720 --> 02:31:13,640
Speaker 8: our trusted A and our guy. So yeah, he brought

2903
02:31:13,720 --> 02:31:15,680
Speaker 8: some stuff in, so that was great. He brought in

2904
02:31:15,720 --> 02:31:18,680
Speaker 8: a couple of cool, really great things. And I can

2905
02:31:18,720 --> 02:31:22,760
Speaker 8: tell you I appreciate him more ten years later, after

2906
02:31:22,840 --> 02:31:24,760
Speaker 8: I went through twelve other A R people who didn't

2907
02:31:24,760 --> 02:31:27,360
Speaker 8: ever bring anything I could really think. You know, what

2908
02:31:27,400 --> 02:31:30,360
Speaker 8: he did was pretty great, you know, but you know,

2909
02:31:30,440 --> 02:31:34,840
Speaker 8: he was short tempered and impatient about stuff. He also

2910
02:31:35,360 --> 02:31:37,600
Speaker 8: didn't always want to hear the other side of you know,

2911
02:31:37,640 --> 02:31:39,600
Speaker 8: the corporate shit we have to deal with, you know,

2912
02:31:39,680 --> 02:31:42,520
Speaker 8: his corporations to get things through and to the cost

2913
02:31:42,600 --> 02:31:45,280
Speaker 8: and making things happen. So we could always do everything,

2914
02:31:45,440 --> 02:31:48,960
Speaker 8: but you know, and they're all also there are other elements.

2915
02:31:49,000 --> 02:31:50,840
Speaker 8: And he also wasn't a guy who liked to bring

2916
02:31:50,879 --> 02:31:54,120
Speaker 8: the record to radio and get exposure for artists. And

2917
02:31:54,240 --> 02:31:56,680
Speaker 8: so when whenever we looked at artists, we looked at

2918
02:31:56,920 --> 02:32:00,280
Speaker 8: their unique appeal and then we look at what what

2919
02:32:00,360 --> 02:32:02,680
Speaker 8: is their route to exposure for them? How can we

2920
02:32:02,800 --> 02:32:06,200
Speaker 8: get exposure? I mean we signed artists that had like

2921
02:32:06,320 --> 02:32:09,400
Speaker 8: Dala Soul. There was no route to exposure when we

2922
02:32:09,440 --> 02:32:12,160
Speaker 8: signed Daala. So but sometimes you just do things because

2923
02:32:12,200 --> 02:32:16,080
Speaker 8: you love it. If Dala Soul was half a million

2924
02:32:16,240 --> 02:32:18,400
Speaker 8: dollars to sign, we wouldn't have signed Daya so we

2925
02:32:18,440 --> 02:32:18,879
Speaker 8: couldn't have.

2926
02:32:19,560 --> 02:32:22,160
Speaker 1: I was gonna say, uh, Poss told me that the

2927
02:32:22,640 --> 02:32:25,440
Speaker 1: recording budget for three feet High it was like twenty

2928
02:32:25,520 --> 02:32:31,320
Speaker 1: eight thousand dollars exactly. Wow, how's that? How's that even

2929
02:32:31,400 --> 02:32:31,920
Speaker 1: able to have?

2930
02:32:32,920 --> 02:32:34,600
Speaker 8: I think we might have cleared the samples on that

2931
02:32:34,640 --> 02:32:36,560
Speaker 8: budget too in those days.

2932
02:32:36,600 --> 02:32:39,440
Speaker 1: That tells you how bad it is today. No, no,

2933
02:32:39,840 --> 02:32:43,760
Speaker 1: but I'm just saying just in comparison. You know, I'm

2934
02:32:43,840 --> 02:32:46,200
Speaker 1: feeling like my early years was like nightmares.

2935
02:32:46,240 --> 02:32:49,240
Speaker 8: But if I if you know, when you're an independent

2936
02:32:49,320 --> 02:32:51,840
Speaker 8: label I always think about, you know, the days of

2937
02:32:51,879 --> 02:32:54,440
Speaker 8: Morris Leeve. We were talking about before seven inches is

2938
02:32:54,440 --> 02:32:57,280
Speaker 8: all that's sold in seven inches label sold seven inches

2939
02:32:57,320 --> 02:32:59,880
Speaker 8: to stores for twenty nine cents, and they cost twelve

2940
02:33:00,000 --> 02:33:02,200
Speaker 8: sense to make, so the margins were really tiny. So

2941
02:33:02,680 --> 02:33:05,520
Speaker 8: a gold record might have meant, you know, one hundred

2942
02:33:05,560 --> 02:33:08,320
Speaker 8: thousand dollars in those days. You know, in this era

2943
02:33:08,480 --> 02:33:10,560
Speaker 8: we were selling twelve inches, and twelve inches at four

2944
02:33:10,640 --> 02:33:12,440
Speaker 8: ninety eight was how we made most of our money.

2945
02:33:12,520 --> 02:33:15,320
Speaker 8: The album sales were ancillary. Most of our artists, we

2946
02:33:15,320 --> 02:33:20,039
Speaker 8: did deals for twelve inches and an option for an

2947
02:33:20,040 --> 02:33:22,480
Speaker 8: album that we would pick up later when we had

2948
02:33:22,520 --> 02:33:24,280
Speaker 8: to make we I think with Dala we made a

2949
02:33:24,360 --> 02:33:27,039
Speaker 8: firm option for an album. If we didn't, we picked

2950
02:33:27,040 --> 02:33:29,560
Speaker 8: it up right away, even before we released Me Myself

2951
02:33:29,560 --> 02:33:31,600
Speaker 8: and I, because we knew what it was. But the

2952
02:33:31,640 --> 02:33:36,840
Speaker 8: deal was economical enough that we could justify it taking

2953
02:33:36,879 --> 02:33:39,200
Speaker 8: a risk. And so what you said about sampling is

2954
02:33:39,240 --> 02:33:43,040
Speaker 8: also true to artists. An artist that's saying something very

2955
02:33:43,080 --> 02:33:45,760
Speaker 8: different than what everyone else is saying right now, or

2956
02:33:45,840 --> 02:33:49,120
Speaker 8: has a sound that's unique and doesn't sound like what's

2957
02:33:49,160 --> 02:33:51,840
Speaker 8: out there, shouldn't expect to get the kind of deal

2958
02:33:51,879 --> 02:33:53,880
Speaker 8: that somebody that sounds like Rihanna is going to get

2959
02:33:53,920 --> 02:33:57,440
Speaker 8: because people who think it's the next rounda will pay rion,

2960
02:33:57,640 --> 02:33:59,960
Speaker 8: you know, next round of money. People who are saying, look,

2961
02:34:00,080 --> 02:34:01,959
Speaker 8: this is a fifty to one shot, but I love it.

2962
02:34:02,440 --> 02:34:05,800
Speaker 8: That music should still come out. We need more crazy

2963
02:34:05,840 --> 02:34:09,760
Speaker 8: records coming out that break expectations and that we don't

2964
02:34:09,760 --> 02:34:13,560
Speaker 8: have to have sales expectations. When an artist signs for

2965
02:34:13,800 --> 02:34:15,720
Speaker 8: half a million dollars or even for two hundred and

2966
02:34:15,720 --> 02:34:19,240
Speaker 8: fifty thousand dollars are way high. And if you don't

2967
02:34:19,760 --> 02:34:22,280
Speaker 8: if the first single isn't a hit, you're dropped. I mean,

2968
02:34:22,280 --> 02:34:25,200
Speaker 8: you heard all the Interscope stories about these artists. They

2969
02:34:25,200 --> 02:34:27,240
Speaker 8: were signing for a million dollars and dropped before the

2970
02:34:27,240 --> 02:34:30,560
Speaker 8: album came out the first single didn't hit. It's too expensive.

2971
02:34:31,440 --> 02:34:36,560
Speaker 8: There's taking gigantic advantages. Advances is not really the best

2972
02:34:36,600 --> 02:34:39,440
Speaker 8: advantage of the artist. The artists really should say, how

2973
02:34:39,520 --> 02:34:41,280
Speaker 8: do I get a bigger piece in the back end

2974
02:34:41,560 --> 02:34:44,240
Speaker 8: than a giant piece in the front end. But managers

2975
02:34:44,560 --> 02:34:48,119
Speaker 8: commission that piece, lawyers commission that piece, so everyone gets

2976
02:34:48,160 --> 02:34:51,600
Speaker 8: bad advice. Artists that are super creative hold on to

2977
02:34:51,720 --> 02:34:54,600
Speaker 8: as much of the equity as you can hold on

2978
02:34:54,640 --> 02:34:58,400
Speaker 8: to it and get paid a bigger piece and take

2979
02:34:58,440 --> 02:35:00,959
Speaker 8: a smaller advance and always get more times at bat

2980
02:35:01,080 --> 02:35:01,760
Speaker 8: like more times it.

2981
02:35:01,879 --> 02:35:03,680
Speaker 10: Yeah, it's like, yo, if my first one don't pop,

2982
02:35:03,800 --> 02:35:06,560
Speaker 10: at least let me get exactly.

2983
02:35:06,680 --> 02:35:08,840
Speaker 8: My thing is, what if it's the third swing or

2984
02:35:08,840 --> 02:35:11,400
Speaker 8: the fourth swing. All those artists that signed to the majors,

2985
02:35:11,440 --> 02:35:14,520
Speaker 8: they don't get a third swing. It's strike two, you're out,

2986
02:35:15,879 --> 02:35:18,720
Speaker 8: Strike one, you're out. You know what if their best

2987
02:35:18,760 --> 02:35:20,800
Speaker 8: record is on the second album, You're not getting to

2988
02:35:20,840 --> 02:35:22,600
Speaker 8: the second album. It's just not going to happen in

2989
02:35:22,640 --> 02:35:27,000
Speaker 8: this economics. So you either let your lawyers and managers

2990
02:35:27,040 --> 02:35:29,360
Speaker 8: from the old days still convince you got to get

2991
02:35:29,680 --> 02:35:32,800
Speaker 8: the biggest upfront deal because it's good for them, for

2992
02:35:32,879 --> 02:35:35,360
Speaker 8: the biggest you know, from the biggest labels, or you

2993
02:35:35,440 --> 02:35:38,080
Speaker 8: signed to an indie or put your record out yourself

2994
02:35:38,120 --> 02:35:40,520
Speaker 8: on tune core. But if you know, you still need

2995
02:35:40,560 --> 02:35:43,760
Speaker 8: a team that's got to help compliment and build a

2996
02:35:43,800 --> 02:35:46,519
Speaker 8: marketing plan and execute and try to get you exposure

2997
02:35:46,560 --> 02:35:50,160
Speaker 8: and help you with a reality check and you know,

2998
02:35:50,280 --> 02:35:54,160
Speaker 8: guide you through the process. You know, I don't know,

2999
02:35:54,200 --> 02:35:56,360
Speaker 8: you know, it just seems to me like that. There's

3000
02:35:57,080 --> 02:35:59,119
Speaker 8: I think that in this day and age, artists should

3001
02:35:59,160 --> 02:36:02,920
Speaker 8: be smarter. They shouldn't be taking traditional record deals anymore.

3002
02:36:03,040 --> 02:36:05,240
Speaker 10: You said, you have a meet coming up out there,

3003
02:36:05,360 --> 02:36:08,640
Speaker 10: you have a meeting with Naughty by Nature and there's

3004
02:36:08,680 --> 02:36:13,000
Speaker 10: a story about trech and some wildlife in the offices.

3005
02:36:19,360 --> 02:36:19,879
Speaker 1: Was that real?

3006
02:36:20,320 --> 02:36:20,720
Speaker 8: Yeah?

3007
02:36:20,920 --> 02:36:21,840
Speaker 1: Okay, that was real?

3008
02:36:22,360 --> 02:36:23,520
Speaker 8: Yeah?

3009
02:36:23,680 --> 02:36:24,280
Speaker 1: What happened?

3010
02:36:25,560 --> 02:36:25,760
Speaker 8: Yeah?

3011
02:36:25,800 --> 02:36:28,000
Speaker 1: How did what? What was that situation? And how did

3012
02:36:28,000 --> 02:36:28,840
Speaker 1: that situation go?

3013
02:36:28,959 --> 02:36:31,400
Speaker 8: First, I want to say, now, Tommy Boy only ever

3014
02:36:31,560 --> 02:36:35,320
Speaker 8: had to have guards or any kind of armed anything

3015
02:36:35,360 --> 02:36:37,360
Speaker 8: in our office two days. In the history of the company,

3016
02:36:37,640 --> 02:36:40,160
Speaker 8: we never had bulletproof glass. We never had beef with

3017
02:36:40,280 --> 02:36:42,560
Speaker 8: artists or anything like that. But there was a time

3018
02:36:42,920 --> 02:36:46,480
Speaker 8: when Trench wasn't in touch with KG and Vinnie or whatever,

3019
02:36:46,560 --> 02:36:49,440
Speaker 8: and we were working trying to work something out where

3020
02:36:49,480 --> 02:36:52,760
Speaker 8: they can do something on somebody else's record, and by

3021
02:36:52,800 --> 02:36:56,360
Speaker 8: the way, it had already been worked out and with

3022
02:36:56,400 --> 02:36:59,160
Speaker 8: everybody else, Buttretched didn't know, and he was pissed off.

3023
02:36:59,200 --> 02:37:01,760
Speaker 8: So he came and he but he let some garter

3024
02:37:01,920 --> 02:37:04,920
Speaker 8: snakes and mice from the pet store loose in the office.

3025
02:37:05,600 --> 02:37:08,520
Speaker 8: And I found out later that were you in the

3026
02:37:08,560 --> 02:37:12,280
Speaker 8: office with Now. A lawyer told him to do it.

3027
02:37:13,120 --> 02:37:15,840
Speaker 8: Paul Marshall, who passed a few years ago, who was

3028
02:37:15,840 --> 02:37:18,039
Speaker 8: actually the lawyer that represented the Beatles when they went

3029
02:37:18,040 --> 02:37:21,560
Speaker 8: to VJ. I actually told him that they should do

3030
02:37:21,640 --> 02:37:24,320
Speaker 8: it full Marshall told me this, which I found.

3031
02:37:24,480 --> 02:37:26,440
Speaker 1: I just want to read one an hour before when

3032
02:37:26,480 --> 02:37:33,240
Speaker 1: he's at like pet Co. Yeah, are you looking at this?

3033
02:37:33,320 --> 02:37:39,400
Speaker 1: A whole house pit something like that by the Snakeable.

3034
02:37:41,560 --> 02:37:45,560
Speaker 10: But now y'all are cool, now, y'all? Yeah, okay, cool, Now, okay,

3035
02:37:45,720 --> 02:37:46,920
Speaker 10: you're trying to work with them.

3036
02:37:47,000 --> 02:37:50,080
Speaker 1: You know. The thing about Naughty is all right, so

3037
02:37:50,120 --> 02:37:53,200
Speaker 1: we're There have been some times where we've done shows

3038
02:37:53,200 --> 02:37:59,040
Speaker 1: with Naughty and between the audience reaction and just the

3039
02:37:59,240 --> 02:38:02,720
Speaker 1: orange slaught of hit after hit after hit after hit

3040
02:38:03,000 --> 02:38:07,280
Speaker 1: anthems like I mean, Naughty by Nature is catalog bar none.

3041
02:38:07,440 --> 02:38:09,400
Speaker 1: I mean, I'm so At the time when I was

3042
02:38:09,440 --> 02:38:13,440
Speaker 1: playing it, I was like, Wow, when they came out,

3043
02:38:14,240 --> 02:38:17,640
Speaker 1: I didn't show my full appreciations as I should have.

3044
02:38:17,720 --> 02:38:20,400
Speaker 1: But now in like, there should be no reason in

3045
02:38:20,440 --> 02:38:29,120
Speaker 1: the world why they don't work until they're ninety. I mean,

3046
02:38:29,400 --> 02:38:33,400
Speaker 1: not until they're they're they're long gone, Like these songs

3047
02:38:33,480 --> 02:38:36,800
Speaker 1: still work and as long as Naughty is willing to

3048
02:38:36,840 --> 02:38:39,400
Speaker 1: do it. I mean I almost feel as though, like

3049
02:38:40,600 --> 02:38:47,920
Speaker 1: Naughty is probably the most credible pop hip hop act.

3050
02:38:48,560 --> 02:38:51,520
Speaker 10: I would say maybe either them what I'm with you

3051
02:38:51,680 --> 02:38:54,560
Speaker 10: them and like Wu Tang because like the first Wu

3052
02:38:54,600 --> 02:38:57,840
Speaker 10: Tang album, but I don't think.

3053
02:38:57,760 --> 02:39:01,760
Speaker 1: Wu Tang knew That's the thing. It's like, like Wu

3054
02:39:01,800 --> 02:39:06,240
Speaker 1: Tang's first record is full of all these modern yeah,

3055
02:39:06,320 --> 02:39:10,080
Speaker 1: like they're referencing Donnie Marie and Underdog and the Flintstones

3056
02:39:10,120 --> 02:39:13,680
Speaker 1: and you know, a schoolhouse rock like real. I mean,

3057
02:39:13,720 --> 02:39:16,520
Speaker 1: they're like day La Soul, but it's so grimy that

3058
02:39:16,560 --> 02:39:20,640
Speaker 1: you forget that they're coming from that. But just in

3059
02:39:20,720 --> 02:39:26,200
Speaker 1: terms of Naughty by Nature, it's like they're giving you

3060
02:39:26,320 --> 02:39:31,879
Speaker 1: anthem after anthem after anthem. How come? And I'm asking

3061
02:39:31,959 --> 02:39:37,920
Speaker 1: this kind of is two short questions. How why weren't

3062
02:39:37,959 --> 02:39:45,199
Speaker 1: they marketed as like pop hitmakers? Well, no, no, no, I mean.

3063
02:39:47,920 --> 02:39:55,920
Speaker 8: Because that is death if we had done that, if

3064
02:39:55,920 --> 02:40:00,840
Speaker 8: we had worked there, I mean, that is Flames the Machete.

3065
02:40:00,959 --> 02:40:02,800
Speaker 8: I mean, they were pop back, but they had to

3066
02:40:02,840 --> 02:40:06,280
Speaker 8: be disguised a little bit harder, you know, otherwise it

3067
02:40:06,320 --> 02:40:07,360
Speaker 8: would have come off as whack.

3068
02:40:07,840 --> 02:40:10,480
Speaker 1: So you're saying that that's were they aware of it,

3069
02:40:10,520 --> 02:40:15,080
Speaker 1: because yeah, I mean, hip Hop Array isn't a pop

3070
02:40:15,160 --> 02:40:19,320
Speaker 1: song per se. I mean as a Curtis Mayfield breakbeat.

3071
02:40:20,040 --> 02:40:22,119
Speaker 1: He's arguing with you kind.

3072
02:40:22,040 --> 02:40:23,760
Speaker 5: Of look at Cage's production though, because you always have

3073
02:40:23,840 --> 02:40:26,760
Speaker 5: those nice little pretty keyboard lines, piano lines and stuff.

3074
02:40:26,800 --> 02:40:29,480
Speaker 1: So I mean, yeah, but so did Tribe and Slum Village.

3075
02:40:29,520 --> 02:40:31,720
Speaker 1: But it's just mightn't have hooks. They didn't have hooks.

3076
02:40:31,840 --> 02:40:33,840
Speaker 8: That was an arena anthem. And you have to understand,

3077
02:40:33,879 --> 02:40:37,080
Speaker 8: at the same time, Tommy Boy was putting out.

3078
02:40:36,840 --> 02:40:39,480
Speaker 1: Jack jams about Saya.

3079
02:40:38,800 --> 02:40:40,959
Speaker 8: And so we had a relationship with all of the

3080
02:40:41,000 --> 02:40:44,120
Speaker 8: arenas in the country and all of their music directors,

3081
02:40:44,160 --> 02:40:46,760
Speaker 8: so we could get when we whatever we put on

3082
02:40:46,800 --> 02:40:49,800
Speaker 8: that record would be played in all the arenas. And

3083
02:40:49,879 --> 02:40:52,600
Speaker 8: so when Hip Hop Array went on that record, it

3084
02:40:52,640 --> 02:40:55,400
Speaker 8: got played in all of the arenas. So one of

3085
02:40:55,400 --> 02:40:57,840
Speaker 8: the reasons that got big and it's still big now,

3086
02:40:57,920 --> 02:41:00,920
Speaker 8: is because a lot of Tommy Boy acts became arena

3087
02:41:00,959 --> 02:41:04,279
Speaker 8: anthems because we controlled jock jams. And you know, I think.

3088
02:41:08,920 --> 02:41:11,520
Speaker 1: Just discovering that right now, but I mean, I guess

3089
02:41:11,560 --> 02:41:12,160
Speaker 1: House of Pain.

3090
02:41:12,080 --> 02:41:14,600
Speaker 8: Will fall into that too, because we didn't talk about

3091
02:41:14,640 --> 02:41:15,879
Speaker 8: that which that album was the.

3092
02:41:16,120 --> 02:41:17,480
Speaker 5: You know, you didn't talk about my favorite, one of

3093
02:41:17,480 --> 02:41:18,720
Speaker 5: my favorite hip hop groups of all time.

3094
02:41:19,480 --> 02:41:23,640
Speaker 1: Underground. Yeah, one question I had the Tommy Boy was

3095
02:41:23,680 --> 02:41:26,880
Speaker 1: it a Tommy Boy Black Black label and Hilver label? Yeah?

3096
02:41:26,959 --> 02:41:27,360
Speaker 8: What was?

3097
02:41:27,440 --> 02:41:28,160
Speaker 1: What was that era?

3098
02:41:28,280 --> 02:41:30,920
Speaker 8: That was for the underground beats we had, We had

3099
02:41:30,920 --> 02:41:33,120
Speaker 8: Silver and we had Black and Black was supposed to be,

3100
02:41:33,320 --> 02:41:35,840
Speaker 8: you know, for a bunch of twelve inch singles where

3101
02:41:35,840 --> 02:41:38,440
Speaker 8: we were prospecting for things but that we're going for

3102
02:41:39,360 --> 02:41:42,240
Speaker 8: sort of an underground hip hop audience and trying to

3103
02:41:42,280 --> 02:41:46,240
Speaker 8: find something that would be able to launch through DJ

3104
02:41:46,360 --> 02:41:50,200
Speaker 8: specialty shows, you know, and college radio. That's what you know.

3105
02:41:50,240 --> 02:41:53,320
Speaker 8: That was. That was that attempt. Nothing that actually really

3106
02:41:53,320 --> 02:41:56,040
Speaker 8: can't ended up coming through, but we could sign. We

3107
02:41:56,080 --> 02:41:58,360
Speaker 8: wanted to increase our bandwids so we could sign more music,

3108
02:41:59,000 --> 02:42:01,039
Speaker 8: and so we did it that that way, and Silver

3109
02:42:01,200 --> 02:42:05,280
Speaker 8: was disco, dance, orient and more stuff because you know,

3110
02:42:05,320 --> 02:42:08,800
Speaker 8: Tommy Boy was always a DJ label, so we you know,

3111
02:42:08,840 --> 02:42:10,680
Speaker 8: we while we were putting out all this hip hop,

3112
02:42:10,720 --> 02:42:14,400
Speaker 8: we were also putting out EDM electronic music that's not

3113
02:42:14,760 --> 02:42:17,000
Speaker 8: necessarily hip hop. We put out eight o eight State,

3114
02:42:17,360 --> 02:42:20,760
Speaker 8: you know, Information Society, which you did mention before. But

3115
02:42:20,800 --> 02:42:23,119
Speaker 8: then there's a whole bunch of things like we put

3116
02:42:23,160 --> 02:42:28,280
Speaker 8: out Cold Cut and and LFO you know so, and

3117
02:42:28,320 --> 02:42:31,000
Speaker 8: those were like the first electronica records in America we

3118
02:42:31,080 --> 02:42:33,160
Speaker 8: put out. So it's not just in hip hop where

3119
02:42:33,200 --> 02:42:36,040
Speaker 8: we pioneered. We pioneered in other genres as well.

3120
02:42:36,240 --> 02:42:39,959
Speaker 10: So what made the artists leave Tommy Boy? Because I'm

3121
02:42:40,000 --> 02:42:43,320
Speaker 10: looking at all the people you name and like once

3122
02:42:43,400 --> 02:42:46,240
Speaker 10: they left Tommy Boy, like that was kind of it

3123
02:42:46,280 --> 02:42:46,680
Speaker 10: for them.

3124
02:42:47,480 --> 02:42:50,120
Speaker 8: Maybe that was their time. I guess, you know, everybody

3125
02:42:50,160 --> 02:42:53,800
Speaker 8: thinks that if they're only on a label that spends

3126
02:42:53,840 --> 02:42:56,880
Speaker 8: more money or that's more powerful, they should do better.

3127
02:42:57,480 --> 02:43:02,400
Speaker 1: But you did you ever have aspirations to turn Tommy

3128
02:43:02,440 --> 02:43:04,240
Speaker 1: Boy into a major? Uh?

3129
02:43:04,760 --> 02:43:05,280
Speaker 8: Like I said?

3130
02:43:05,560 --> 02:43:07,240
Speaker 1: Or you always had an independent spirit.

3131
02:43:07,600 --> 02:43:10,480
Speaker 8: I like to be the innovator more than the you know,

3132
02:43:11,200 --> 02:43:13,640
Speaker 8: the competitor. I like to you know, be the first

3133
02:43:13,680 --> 02:43:16,800
Speaker 8: one in and try to do something nobody else didn't have.

3134
02:43:16,840 --> 02:43:19,600
Speaker 8: People say wow, you know that, that's you know, a

3135
02:43:19,640 --> 02:43:21,520
Speaker 8: turning point for me in my life. And people can

3136
02:43:21,560 --> 02:43:23,400
Speaker 8: say Planet Rock was that for a lot of people

3137
02:43:23,800 --> 02:43:25,360
Speaker 8: day all I was that for a lot of people.

3138
02:43:25,640 --> 02:43:27,080
Speaker 8: You know, I'm sure there are a lot of women

3139
02:43:27,080 --> 02:43:30,520
Speaker 8: who could say Latifa was that for even though her records,

3140
02:43:30,680 --> 02:43:33,400
Speaker 8: you know, never went gold for us. You know, her

3141
02:43:33,520 --> 02:43:38,440
Speaker 8: music video gold. The only gold record she had was

3142
02:43:38,480 --> 02:43:48,800
Speaker 8: after she left, Like wow, ladies first all they were

3143
02:43:48,879 --> 02:43:51,680
Speaker 8: claimed and you know, but you know, part of it

3144
02:43:51,760 --> 02:43:54,320
Speaker 8: was females and hip hop. You know, females and hip

3145
02:43:54,320 --> 02:43:56,400
Speaker 8: hop never sell as much as males and hip hop.

3146
02:43:57,120 --> 02:43:59,840
Speaker 1: That's the whole show.

3147
02:44:01,200 --> 02:44:05,320
Speaker 8: And I don't want to keep track. I know what

3148
02:44:05,320 --> 02:44:06,879
Speaker 8: could happen, man, I got to get there.

3149
02:44:08,879 --> 02:44:13,000
Speaker 1: Well, thank you, Tom, I appreciate your wisdom. Just one

3150
02:44:13,080 --> 02:44:18,320
Speaker 1: last question, where do you feel music, dance music, hip

3151
02:44:18,360 --> 02:44:21,600
Speaker 1: hop culture, Like do you still feel that it's thriving,

3152
02:44:21,720 --> 02:44:23,440
Speaker 1: has some life left as this.

3153
02:44:23,640 --> 02:44:25,000
Speaker 8: Which one dance music.

3154
02:44:26,400 --> 02:44:27,119
Speaker 1: Just in general?

3155
02:44:27,200 --> 02:44:30,000
Speaker 8: Like, well, when track Live is successful, it'll be a

3156
02:44:30,000 --> 02:44:33,879
Speaker 8: whole renaissance because if you can unleash all of the

3157
02:44:33,920 --> 02:44:36,680
Speaker 8: catalog in the world and let people access it, we're

3158
02:44:36,680 --> 02:44:39,520
Speaker 8: going to see a musical renaissance like we never did before.

3159
02:44:39,879 --> 02:44:43,000
Speaker 8: And I think if it can happen, well Trump is president,

3160
02:44:43,120 --> 02:44:45,160
Speaker 8: so much the better because I think we're going to

3161
02:44:45,240 --> 02:44:47,560
Speaker 8: have a lot of great music over the next four

3162
02:44:47,600 --> 02:44:49,520
Speaker 8: years in.

3163
02:44:49,640 --> 02:44:52,039
Speaker 1: Your mouth to God's yours. Well, thank you very much,

3164
02:44:52,400 --> 02:44:59,160
Speaker 1: Tom Silverman, I appreciate it. Man, I'm sorry after he

3165
02:45:00,120 --> 02:45:04,800
Speaker 1: up the the the bomb about the sample clearance. Yeah,

3166
02:45:04,800 --> 02:45:07,200
Speaker 1: that was I just absolutely lost the script to the

3167
02:45:07,320 --> 02:45:10,720
Speaker 1: entire show. I have regrets. I don't have reflections. I

3168
02:45:10,720 --> 02:45:14,080
Speaker 1: have regrets because I you know, there there were some

3169
02:45:15,640 --> 02:45:22,080
Speaker 1: Digital Underground stories and man, damn, I didn't get to

3170
02:45:22,120 --> 02:45:25,600
Speaker 1: ask about AI part one, two and three, and ye

3171
02:45:26,760 --> 02:45:29,720
Speaker 1: did we get put three? We never well I wanted

3172
02:45:29,720 --> 02:45:32,879
Speaker 1: to know what happened. But we can, you know, have

3173
02:45:32,920 --> 02:45:37,480
Speaker 1: Prince Paul, we can have no but Prince Paul was

3174
02:45:37,520 --> 02:45:40,120
Speaker 1: also working on part three. He was he was supposed

3175
02:45:40,160 --> 02:45:46,680
Speaker 1: to yes the return. So uh, you know, I've learned

3176
02:45:46,959 --> 02:45:51,000
Speaker 1: that I have to ask more concise questions on question.

3177
02:45:51,320 --> 02:45:54,599
Speaker 1: You know it only took you twenty five episodes.

3178
02:45:59,040 --> 02:46:02,720
Speaker 10: Here, you know, yo what it is because this is

3179
02:46:02,720 --> 02:46:06,520
Speaker 10: what I learned in this episode. Yeah, yeah, it's okay,

3180
02:46:06,520 --> 02:46:08,280
Speaker 10: this is what it is. This is our dynamic, this

3181
02:46:08,320 --> 02:46:11,640
Speaker 10: is what this is what we gotta be. Okay, I'm

3182
02:46:11,640 --> 02:46:17,080
Speaker 10: the video, you're the pop up bubbles, Like this is

3183
02:46:17,080 --> 02:46:19,080
Speaker 10: how we So it's like if we do it for

3184
02:46:19,240 --> 02:46:21,360
Speaker 10: moving on, or you can meet a video and I.

3185
02:46:21,360 --> 02:46:22,039
Speaker 1: Can be whatever.

3186
02:46:22,240 --> 02:46:24,520
Speaker 10: But we have to have just like a continuous track

3187
02:46:24,560 --> 02:46:27,039
Speaker 10: where it's just beats, just boom boom boom, boom boom,

3188
02:46:27,120 --> 02:46:30,280
Speaker 10: and in those beats it's like hey, pop up, bubble

3189
02:46:30,640 --> 02:46:33,040
Speaker 10: for like two minutes and then okay, back to the beat,

3190
02:46:33,320 --> 02:46:33,800
Speaker 10: because like.

3191
02:46:33,760 --> 02:46:36,640
Speaker 1: We never even get to like I forgot, where do

3192
02:46:36,760 --> 02:46:38,040
Speaker 1: we get lost? Where did I lose?

3193
02:46:38,280 --> 02:46:39,400
Speaker 7: I think we did good this time.

3194
02:46:39,440 --> 02:46:42,320
Speaker 10: I mean, whoa cool, But we didn't get to get

3195
02:46:42,320 --> 02:46:45,160
Speaker 10: to like the meat like an audience.

3196
02:46:45,200 --> 02:46:48,000
Speaker 1: But the thing is, I don't think I also don't

3197
02:46:48,040 --> 02:46:53,440
Speaker 1: think that Tom is full of the stories we really

3198
02:46:53,480 --> 02:46:55,680
Speaker 1: wanted to, you know what I mean, like Latin quarter stories.

3199
02:46:56,560 --> 02:46:59,039
Speaker 1: There was that time when you know they had a

3200
02:46:59,080 --> 02:46:59,920
Speaker 1: machee at my neck.

3201
02:47:00,040 --> 02:47:02,240
Speaker 10: Well, I don't think you would have those stories. I think,

3202
02:47:02,320 --> 02:47:05,039
Speaker 10: like with people like him, like what we have. I mean,

3203
02:47:05,680 --> 02:47:07,959
Speaker 10: three hours sounds like a lot of time, but when

3204
02:47:07,959 --> 02:47:10,640
Speaker 10: you're dealing with a motherfucker like that, it's really not.

3205
02:47:11,680 --> 02:47:14,520
Speaker 1: Get on Q tips. So give ourselves some credit. Yeah,

3206
02:47:14,560 --> 02:47:16,720
Speaker 1: so it's like you kind of gotta I think, just

3207
02:47:16,800 --> 02:47:17,240
Speaker 1: have him.

3208
02:47:17,280 --> 02:47:19,680
Speaker 10: If we just went just beat the beat to beat hell,

3209
02:47:19,840 --> 02:47:23,200
Speaker 10: that's two hours easy, just right there if we just

3210
02:47:23,800 --> 02:47:24,879
Speaker 10: want to see with me.

3211
02:47:25,040 --> 02:47:29,879
Speaker 1: The first the first hour goes by so slow, and

3212
02:47:30,000 --> 02:47:32,599
Speaker 1: usually when it gets to like one hour fifty minutes.

3213
02:47:32,560 --> 02:47:39,240
Speaker 5: Yeah, yeah, this is your tweeting right now.

3214
02:47:39,240 --> 02:47:42,080
Speaker 1: I can see the tweets coming in. Yeah, listening to

3215
02:47:42,160 --> 02:47:45,199
Speaker 1: like a fucking well, First of all, anyone is still

3216
02:47:45,240 --> 02:47:48,680
Speaker 1: sticking with the show. They are die hard. Thank you,

3217
02:47:49,000 --> 02:47:53,240
Speaker 1: Thank you. The best twelve of y'all. We can only

3218
02:47:53,320 --> 02:47:56,680
Speaker 1: build up from there. Thanks mom. I still feel as though,

3219
02:47:56,879 --> 02:48:00,760
Speaker 1: you know, there's there's major knowledge that we game from

3220
02:48:00,840 --> 02:48:05,440
Speaker 1: the show. But I will admit that once he started

3221
02:48:05,480 --> 02:48:11,360
Speaker 1: talking about the idea of sample clearances being a thing again,

3222
02:48:11,520 --> 02:48:14,400
Speaker 1: that's amazing. I absolutely just threw the script out the show.

3223
02:48:14,760 --> 02:48:16,120
Speaker 5: I knew that was gonna happen to because we were

3224
02:48:16,120 --> 02:48:18,720
Speaker 5: actually talking about that before before we started, and.

3225
02:48:20,200 --> 02:48:25,760
Speaker 1: I was like, when he's this, the show is over. Well,

3226
02:48:27,080 --> 02:48:30,200
Speaker 1: ladies and gentlemen on behalf of I'm sorry, did you

3227
02:48:30,240 --> 02:48:30,640
Speaker 1: learn anything.

3228
02:48:33,640 --> 02:48:34,880
Speaker 7: I'll just keep it short and simple. I was just

3229
02:48:34,920 --> 02:48:37,400
Speaker 7: gonna say I appreciated what he said. He was an innovator,

3230
02:48:37,480 --> 02:48:39,440
Speaker 7: not a competitor, you know what I mean? And I

3231
02:48:39,680 --> 02:48:42,240
Speaker 7: just not for nothing. That's dope, and it's good to

3232
02:48:42,280 --> 02:48:44,160
Speaker 7: know that you can. You know, fear is a powerful thing.

3233
02:48:44,240 --> 02:48:46,000
Speaker 10: And the fact that he was like, you know, the

3234
02:48:46,320 --> 02:48:48,160
Speaker 10: common threat I kind of run through his career is

3235
02:48:48,200 --> 02:48:50,800
Speaker 10: that he's like, I mean, he's essentially a filter. Like

3236
02:48:50,840 --> 02:48:53,400
Speaker 10: he's a person that's saying, hey, like with the dance

3237
02:48:53,720 --> 02:48:56,240
Speaker 10: the discold mag like this is what you need to

3238
02:48:56,240 --> 02:48:57,800
Speaker 10: get on, you know what I'm saying, like kind of

3239
02:48:57,840 --> 02:49:00,320
Speaker 10: being just the you know, just kind to be in

3240
02:49:00,320 --> 02:49:02,560
Speaker 10: that conduit of like helping people sift through all the

3241
02:49:02,600 --> 02:49:05,160
Speaker 10: garbage and saying, Yo, this is what the fuck y'all

3242
02:49:05,200 --> 02:49:07,879
Speaker 10: need to be on. And uh, he's a filtering like

3243
02:49:07,879 --> 02:49:10,720
Speaker 10: a facilitator. That's what I picked up from his career path.

3244
02:49:10,800 --> 02:49:13,160
Speaker 10: Like even with them doing the track lip stuff, that

3245
02:49:13,280 --> 02:49:16,600
Speaker 10: is something that I mean, it can make a lot

3246
02:49:16,600 --> 02:49:19,640
Speaker 10: of money, but it is also something that again.

3247
02:49:20,000 --> 02:49:22,280
Speaker 1: It filters through all the bullshit.

3248
02:49:22,400 --> 02:49:24,800
Speaker 10: So if you already know there's no in hell I

3249
02:49:24,800 --> 02:49:27,120
Speaker 10: can clear this sample, let me give you a list

3250
02:49:27,160 --> 02:49:29,880
Speaker 10: of samples or library samples that you know you can clear.

3251
02:49:30,120 --> 02:49:31,840
Speaker 5: I'm just waiting to find out how the major labels

3252
02:49:31,840 --> 02:49:33,640
Speaker 5: are going to screw it all up, because they always.

3253
02:49:33,400 --> 02:49:33,959
Speaker 1: Forge, always do.

3254
02:49:36,040 --> 02:49:37,800
Speaker 10: I'm saying, imagine, it's gotta be some kind of scale,

3255
02:49:37,800 --> 02:49:40,000
Speaker 10: because I mean, you can't tell me that like they're

3256
02:49:40,000 --> 02:49:42,760
Speaker 10: gonna charge Kanye the same thing is Rihanna Wright, right

3257
02:49:42,840 --> 02:49:44,280
Speaker 10: right right, It's gotta be something.

3258
02:49:44,800 --> 02:49:47,160
Speaker 1: It'll be a jig. And I think, but I feel

3259
02:49:47,200 --> 02:49:49,440
Speaker 1: as though if we just come up with and the

3260
02:49:49,480 --> 02:49:53,800
Speaker 1: thing was he was doing percentages, if it's minimum usage,

3261
02:49:53,959 --> 02:49:57,800
Speaker 1: because what what I was trying to explain was the

3262
02:49:57,840 --> 02:50:02,480
Speaker 1: main loop of transmitting line from Mars is really the

3263
02:50:03,000 --> 02:50:11,240
Speaker 1: hay Jude Wilson picket loop. That is just that's the

3264
02:50:11,800 --> 02:50:15,440
Speaker 1: one second turtle thing. And so it's like, you know,

3265
02:50:16,760 --> 02:50:19,960
Speaker 1: if there is a fair percentage thing going on, then

3266
02:50:20,520 --> 02:50:22,560
Speaker 1: you know it's free for all. But you know, now

3267
02:50:22,640 --> 02:50:26,440
Speaker 1: you deal with publishers that just say, you know, I

3268
02:50:26,480 --> 02:50:28,360
Speaker 1: want seventy five percent in bet and if they use

3269
02:50:28,400 --> 02:50:30,080
Speaker 1: the second one, I want seventy five and there's no

3270
02:50:30,200 --> 02:50:34,720
Speaker 1: one hundred and fifty percent pie. You know, so it's

3271
02:50:34,760 --> 02:50:41,280
Speaker 1: for me that is the best. I mean, even if

3272
02:50:41,320 --> 02:50:45,080
Speaker 1: it doesn't come to fruition in my lifetime in a

3273
02:50:45,080 --> 02:50:47,520
Speaker 1: way that's like fair and like quote back of the day,

3274
02:50:48,040 --> 02:50:50,600
Speaker 1: I mean, just the fact that someone else is thinking

3275
02:50:50,680 --> 02:50:56,240
Speaker 1: of it because I spend every waking moment wishing that

3276
02:50:56,280 --> 02:51:00,240
Speaker 1: one of these publishing house people would just get on

3277
02:51:00,280 --> 02:51:02,360
Speaker 1: they crack dealer ship. Yeah, because I know they're not

3278
02:51:02,440 --> 02:51:06,520
Speaker 1: making money. They're just sitting on on publishing and not

3279
02:51:06,600 --> 02:51:10,320
Speaker 1: making it work. So you know, let's let's keep keep

3280
02:51:10,480 --> 02:51:12,360
Speaker 1: shout out the track. Hopefully they make it work.

3281
02:51:12,840 --> 02:51:15,080
Speaker 10: They need to get mad live and Mad live for

3282
02:51:15,120 --> 02:51:18,360
Speaker 10: track live, like just that could be.

3283
02:51:18,320 --> 02:51:22,320
Speaker 1: A market for the mad Lib DJ Harrison Yes, my

3284
02:51:22,480 --> 02:51:26,480
Speaker 1: man shout out to him, Richmond v A. So, but

3285
02:51:26,520 --> 02:51:28,240
Speaker 1: I think what he's thinking about that kind of ship,

3286
02:51:28,280 --> 02:51:29,560
Speaker 1: that's hot. I thought I needed.

3287
02:51:30,879 --> 02:51:32,600
Speaker 2: I thought it was interesting how he looked at the

3288
02:51:32,720 --> 02:51:35,000
Speaker 2: artist as a whole. It was about marketing and promos

3289
02:51:35,000 --> 02:51:37,080
Speaker 2: and whatever. It wasn't just about whether the music was good.

3290
02:51:37,120 --> 02:51:39,280
Speaker 2: The music understand had to be good. And then his

3291
02:51:39,360 --> 02:51:44,640
Speaker 2: ability to exploit everything about it was sort.

3292
02:51:44,440 --> 02:51:45,080
Speaker 1: Of amazing to me.

3293
02:51:45,160 --> 02:51:47,280
Speaker 2: I thought, I just I don't think like that at all,

3294
02:51:47,440 --> 02:51:47,680
Speaker 2: you know.

3295
02:51:47,800 --> 02:51:50,760
Speaker 10: So, yeah, the way he thought about it as a

3296
02:51:50,879 --> 02:51:53,680
Speaker 10: label guy, because that was something that I had argued,

3297
02:51:53,879 --> 02:51:56,920
Speaker 10: you know, whereas like back in the day, it's like, okay, well,

3298
02:51:56,920 --> 02:51:58,920
Speaker 10: what if we take a smaller percentage up front? To

3299
02:51:58,959 --> 02:52:01,959
Speaker 10: a smaller advance to ensure that we can get more

3300
02:52:01,959 --> 02:52:05,640
Speaker 10: on along. And like every manager, every attorney they're all

3301
02:52:05,720 --> 02:52:06,080
Speaker 10: like they.

3302
02:52:06,000 --> 02:52:07,560
Speaker 1: Want to get as much you can up front because

3303
02:52:07,560 --> 02:52:10,480
Speaker 1: that may be the only money you see. And it's like, well, well, ship,

3304
02:52:10,720 --> 02:52:13,440
Speaker 1: if you take five hundred dollars, that it is gonna

3305
02:52:13,440 --> 02:52:14,680
Speaker 1: be the only money you see. You know what I mean?

3306
02:52:14,720 --> 02:52:17,280
Speaker 1: But I don't know. It was it was good to

3307
02:52:17,280 --> 02:52:18,440
Speaker 1: hear him, hear the.

3308
02:52:18,400 --> 02:52:20,360
Speaker 2: Stickers and things like that, Like you see all those

3309
02:52:20,360 --> 02:52:23,160
Speaker 2: stickers fucking everywhere, and they were all about it was

3310
02:52:23,200 --> 02:52:25,120
Speaker 2: a visual thing as much as an audio thing, which I.

3311
02:52:25,080 --> 02:52:29,400
Speaker 1: Thought was very interesting. It's called branding, thank you.

3312
02:52:30,000 --> 02:52:32,080
Speaker 7: It's like a fifteen year old word branding.

3313
02:52:32,200 --> 02:52:33,600
Speaker 1: Yeah, it's branding. Yeah.

3314
02:52:33,640 --> 02:52:36,360
Speaker 10: They were more famous like they were was probably next

3315
02:52:36,400 --> 02:52:39,000
Speaker 10: to Death Jam. They were like the only label I

3316
02:52:39,000 --> 02:52:42,280
Speaker 10: can remember that I could I would buy based on

3317
02:52:42,680 --> 02:52:46,439
Speaker 10: market on Tommy Boy if it was a Tommy Boy record, Like, okay.

3318
02:52:46,320 --> 02:52:48,560
Speaker 1: They could be official. That was the Cold Sign exactly.

3319
02:52:48,600 --> 02:52:53,160
Speaker 1: This could be official. Uh Any thoughts, Bill, I.

3320
02:52:53,080 --> 02:52:54,840
Speaker 5: Mean, I kind of really want to piggyback off of

3321
02:52:55,000 --> 02:52:57,680
Speaker 5: what everybody else has said about about tom being a

3322
02:52:57,760 --> 02:53:00,360
Speaker 5: label guy. Excuse me, and thinking of the track, think

3323
02:53:00,360 --> 02:53:02,039
Speaker 5: in the way that he thought of it. I mean,

3324
02:53:02,080 --> 02:53:04,039
Speaker 5: I hate to say it, but it reminds me of

3325
02:53:04,040 --> 02:53:05,840
Speaker 5: thoughts that I've had, you know, coming up. I mean

3326
02:53:05,879 --> 02:53:08,200
Speaker 5: actually his whole interview, you know, just from the fact

3327
02:53:08,240 --> 02:53:09,840
Speaker 5: that he was doing tip sheets and stuff like that

3328
02:53:09,879 --> 02:53:12,520
Speaker 5: when he was younger. I mean, I was coming up

3329
02:53:12,560 --> 02:53:14,240
Speaker 5: with making up charts of my own when I was

3330
02:53:14,240 --> 02:53:15,520
Speaker 5: like ten, twelve, thirteen.

3331
02:53:15,720 --> 02:53:16,640
Speaker 1: I meant your own chart.

3332
02:53:16,760 --> 02:53:19,920
Speaker 5: Yeah, I was making up charts because no, I was like,

3333
02:53:20,240 --> 02:53:23,240
Speaker 5: when Jet Magazine needs to come home, I read, I read,

3334
02:53:23,760 --> 02:53:25,720
Speaker 5: I read back to the front. I read Jet magazine

3335
02:53:25,760 --> 02:53:28,360
Speaker 5: back to front. I ever read Jet from front to back?

3336
02:53:28,560 --> 02:53:30,760
Speaker 1: I don't know, I always read it back to front.

3337
02:53:31,400 --> 02:53:35,840
Speaker 1: Did from no, no, no, Did I take the Beauty

3338
02:53:35,879 --> 02:53:37,520
Speaker 1: of the week, Beauty in the week in the back?

3339
02:53:38,400 --> 02:53:40,160
Speaker 1: She was in the middle. She was in the middle.

3340
02:53:40,160 --> 02:53:42,199
Speaker 1: She was like a Beauty of the week. I didn't

3341
02:53:42,240 --> 02:53:44,760
Speaker 1: read it past that. He's like it was a society,

3342
02:53:44,800 --> 02:53:46,320
Speaker 1: it was the same week. And than the quotes, the

3343
02:53:46,320 --> 02:53:47,280
Speaker 1: celebrity quotes that.

3344
02:53:48,080 --> 02:53:51,640
Speaker 5: Yeah, but from like doing the tip sheets and and

3345
02:53:51,920 --> 02:53:54,360
Speaker 5: just the way that he was, you know, pretty much

3346
02:53:54,360 --> 02:53:56,480
Speaker 5: said that he's contrarian and it's always thinking about what's

3347
02:53:56,520 --> 02:53:59,200
Speaker 5: missing and what's not there. It reminds me a lot

3348
02:53:59,240 --> 02:54:02,000
Speaker 5: of myself paint with and makes me realize that I

3349
02:54:02,160 --> 02:54:06,720
Speaker 5: just wasted thirty seven years of my life.

3350
02:54:07,040 --> 02:54:13,320
Speaker 1: Gentlemen, I'm paying Bill wasted, Boss Bill Franzigelow. Why are

3351
02:54:13,360 --> 02:54:17,160
Speaker 1: you and Sugar Steve any words? Sugar Steve all the people?

3352
02:54:17,560 --> 02:54:27,400
Speaker 12: Any words he's supposed to ask me for you, Engineer.

3353
02:54:28,520 --> 02:54:31,600
Speaker 12: That's it, Ladies and gentlemen, come back for next week's question,

3354
02:54:31,720 --> 02:54:33,359
Speaker 12: Love So Free When I'll.

3355
02:54:33,160 --> 02:54:45,280
Speaker 1: Tell you what I learned last week Quest Love Supreme

3356
02:54:45,400 --> 02:54:49,199
Speaker 1: is a production of iHeartRadio. This classic episode was produced

3357
02:54:49,200 --> 02:54:56,960
Speaker 1: by the team at Door. For more podcasts from iHeart Radio,

3358
02:54:57,080 --> 02:55:00,560
Speaker 1: visit the iHeart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you

3359
02:55:00,600 --> 02:55:01,760
Speaker 1: listen to your favorite shows.