Speaker 1: Quest Love Supreme is a production of iHeartRadio.
Speaker 2: Primo Subprimo, Roll Call, Suprema, Son Supremo, Role Called Suprima,
Speaker 2: Son Sun Supremo, Role Suprema Sumo.
Speaker 3: Warm Up my Panini, Yeah, my forming Grilly warm her
Speaker 3: for Nanni.
Speaker 2: Yeah, Supremo Ro Suprimo, Supremo Ro.
Speaker 4: My name is Fante, DJ dramas, my peoples, the best gangs,
Speaker 4: the grills, separate but equal.
Speaker 2: Man Supremo Ro Supremo, Son Supremo.
Speaker 1: My name is Sugar.
Speaker 4: Yeah.
Speaker 1: I don't need no drama. Yeah, but I do need
Speaker 1: a DJ. Yeah, fucking you're hired.
Speaker 3: Hey, I'm a phendic Supremo, Roll Suprema Son Supremo Roll.
Speaker 5: It's lay Yeah, and it's a must.
Speaker 6: Yeah.
Speaker 1: You know that DJ drama.
Speaker 5: Yeah, it was my college crush.
Speaker 2: Supremo Supremo, Roll Call Supremo Sobremo.
Speaker 1: Roll DJ drama.
Speaker 5: Yeah.
Speaker 1: You know my mama, she's a white lady. She didn't
Speaker 1: go to Grady.
Speaker 7: Supremo, Roll Supremo, Son Son Supremo, Roll Call Supremo Son
Speaker 7: so Supremo, Roll Call Suprema Some.
Speaker 3: Supremo roll call.
Speaker 1: Oh boy, Hi, that was fun. Yeah, So that's the episode. Yeah,
Speaker 1: see your next go round. All right, Look I will
Speaker 1: shut up man, all right, So I will say this much.
Speaker 3: Back when my band started to tour in nineteen ninety four,
Speaker 3: I kept receipts of which DJ's were open to us
Speaker 3: and feeling and supporting us. And of course, you know
Speaker 3: some cats up in New York, Tony Toka, you know,
Speaker 3: Tony Touch showed us love. His cat named Blu, the
Speaker 3: barber who used to do these blends, showed his love.
Speaker 3: Of course, Philly's own Cosmic keV DJ cash Money. But
Speaker 3: there was one mixtape in particular that always got run
Speaker 3: on our tour bus and it just said ildelf on it.
Speaker 3: You know, it meant something to me because this is
Speaker 3: the first time that I'm hearing Malik B and Tariq
Speaker 3: and Dice for All actually on a mixtape. And we
Speaker 3: just ran that tape over and over like that was
Speaker 3: damn near the soundtrack in nineteen ninety four and ninety
Speaker 3: five on our tour bus. So cut two seven years later,
Speaker 3: you know, once the route sort of evolve and whatnot,
Speaker 3: and now we have two tour buses. As I've joked
Speaker 3: before that there was this Slytherin tour bus in the
Speaker 3: Gryffin tour bus. So I'd be on Slytherin, which was
Speaker 3: Tuik's bus, and you know which was it was always
Speaker 3: popping on his bus. We were the nerd bus, but
Speaker 3: you know, his dam was always popping. And it wasn't
Speaker 3: until like the end of maybe the Phrenology tour, where
Speaker 3: Tarik's trying to explain to me that every time I
Speaker 3: hear this little he's trying to explain to me that
Speaker 3: that's read from Backavilly. It's dramatic, and I'm like, wait,
Speaker 3: it doesn't make sense. Though it doesn't only because the
Speaker 3: thing was is that that mixtape of ninety four. I've
Speaker 3: never heard someone just devote an entire mixtape to what
Speaker 3: we called underground or backpack rap or whatever, you know
Speaker 3: what I mean, which is why the roots couldn't find
Speaker 3: a real estate on your sens or your not Tony touch,
Speaker 3: like you know, like yeah, all those like we barely
Speaker 3: got on them Joins.
Speaker 1: I was like, wait a minute, what they're like, yeah, man,
Speaker 1: he moved to Atlanta and now he's you.
Speaker 3: Know, I've always wanted to have this conversation with if
Speaker 3: you know, it's like we never chopped it up for real.
Speaker 3: I knew one of these days we were going to
Speaker 3: have a conversation, so I wanted to save it for here.
Speaker 1: I'm glad.
Speaker 6: I know We've had a couple of interactions on I
Speaker 6: g about it, but never like in depth.
Speaker 1: This is going.
Speaker 3: Yes, this is our first in depth conversation. So ladies
Speaker 3: and gentlemen, please welcome to Quest Love Supreme. The Master
Speaker 3: got himself mister thanksgiving. Yes, DJ Drama, thank you, thank you,
Speaker 3: thank you for having me. Do you those people like
Speaker 3: always pointing out the Mason Dixon line of year before
Speaker 3: and afterlife.
Speaker 6: No, I don't get tired of nothing because they couldn't
Speaker 6: never care. So yeah, nothing, nothing tires me when it
Speaker 6: comes to that. Okay, It's a very important part of
Speaker 6: the story for myself and for hip hop and for
Speaker 6: Southern culture. Like in a lot of ways, you know,
Speaker 6: like what if I would have went to Temple or
Speaker 6: what if I would have went to NYU, you know
Speaker 6: what I'm saying.
Speaker 1: So the fact that this kid from Philly who literally
Speaker 1: grew up.
Speaker 6: Watching The Roots as his inspiration of wow, you can
Speaker 6: really do this and DJing for Bahamadiya and you know,
Speaker 6: my roommate when I got to college was Rubiks whose
Speaker 6: best friend was taib Kwali and I'm DJing lyricist lounges.
Speaker 6: And then that kid goes on to be a part
Speaker 6: of and transform like trap music and movement. Gangster Girls
Speaker 6: becomes like the most important mixtape series literally of all time,
Speaker 6: but also how important it was to Southern hip hop culture.
Speaker 1: So yeah, it's one of those.
Speaker 6: It's one of those like destiny stories to me when
Speaker 6: you know and when it's told, and like, I've literally
Speaker 6: been in Atlanta longer than I was in Philly, but
Speaker 6: those eighteen years of born and raised in Philly. Once
Speaker 6: from Philly, always from Philly. You know what I'm saying.
Speaker 1: So you know, right, when is the last time you
Speaker 1: said John? I say John all the time.
Speaker 6: Here you go, all right the second even even in
Speaker 6: mean streets, like you know, some of my employees who
Speaker 6: started interns, like we have signs up like do not
Speaker 6: come in this John like or in our new building
Speaker 6: generation now, like there's a big sign of Kobe, or
Speaker 6: we have like a Philly map on the side, so
Speaker 6: we still wrap it up.
Speaker 3: That's what's up. Of course, like you mentioned on your
Speaker 3: roll call that YouTube went to clerk. So now from Atlanta.
Speaker 3: I remember the day.
Speaker 1: No, don't don't, I didn't lie.
Speaker 5: Me and Nadine used to fight over you all the time,
Speaker 5: and you.
Speaker 1: Know that, let's not do that. Yeah, I thought it
Speaker 1: was the other way around.
Speaker 6: I used to have the I used to still wear
Speaker 6: the green fatigues from I Goldberg, like when I got discussed,
Speaker 6: I still had them.
Speaker 1: And the locks definitely had the long locks.
Speaker 5: So that's why this is the whole interesting thing. And
Speaker 5: it's funny because the mere he said he would do,
Speaker 5: he said it was in demand. He would do an
Speaker 5: Automatic Relaxation mixtape. Again, I just want to say that
Speaker 5: to everybody who's listening.
Speaker 6: Did you hear this?
Speaker 1: Contact year older?
Speaker 6: That's covered interestingly enough, just even during my most recent
Speaker 6: tour that I went on, I actually physically got my
Speaker 6: hands on one the first Automatic Relaxation, which was the
Speaker 6: first CD which happened to be called it was hip
Speaker 6: hop lovables like people don't realize, like when I first
Speaker 6: made Automatic Relaxation, like it was before neo soul was
Speaker 6: a thing, or like hip hop love songs were like
Speaker 6: you know, before everybody was like singing, or it was
Speaker 6: so much melody, so like, you know it was a
Speaker 6: hip hop lovables like I named it that because it
Speaker 6: didn't really exist at the time. And then I just
Speaker 6: recently got my hands on my actual ill adelph tape.
Speaker 1: You know, I do, I do. I should have brought it. Damn,
Speaker 1: I definitely should have brought it.
Speaker 6: I got the Green Cup my home boy from from Philly,
Speaker 6: Liza across street from my mom D shot to d
Speaker 6: He found it in his crib and I was like,
Speaker 6: if you go on my Instagram, I actually show it
Speaker 6: the tape and then I go and I go and
Speaker 6: then show my Grammy, like to see where I came
Speaker 6: from and where I'm at now, how.
Speaker 1: It started, how it was going, yeah, how it was going. Yeah.
Speaker 1: So for you, what was your first musical memory.
Speaker 6: My first musical memory for me is being in Germantown
Speaker 6: when my dad lived on Ruby Camp Street and the
Speaker 6: older kids having the younger kids say the.
Speaker 1: Roof, the roof, the roof is on fire.
Speaker 6: We don't need no water, Let it burn, let it
Speaker 6: burn it, and they left out motherfucker. Like I vivially
Speaker 6: remember years later being like, damn, I didn't know they
Speaker 6: said let the motherfucker burn because they used to say
Speaker 6: let it burn, Let it Burn. And then I mean,
Speaker 6: my dad was a big duop guy, so I definitely
Speaker 6: grew up around like him, playing a lot of the
Speaker 6: Commodores and the Temptations, and obviously Thriller. Thriller came out
Speaker 6: eighty three, you know, so I was probably like I was.
Speaker 6: I was five when Thriller came out, So that was
Speaker 6: a big moment. And then another one for me was
Speaker 6: definitely wanting Adidas because of my Adidas, like I didn't
Speaker 6: get my parents bought me the wrong ones. They bought
Speaker 6: me like they didn't buy me stripe. Yeah, I didn't
Speaker 6: get the three stripes, so they were still a didas
Speaker 6: though they were Adidas. They were Dias, but they weren't
Speaker 6: the street three striped ones. There there was like in
Speaker 6: Ecker's Drugs, my parents were doing like a they were
Speaker 6: doing My parents were doing a they were doing a
Speaker 6: residency in San Juan, Puerto Rico.
Speaker 1: Anybody from Puerto Rico that remembers, uh.
Speaker 3: I think back in eighty six or eighty seven when
Speaker 3: the DuPont Plaza there was like a battle between the
Speaker 3: union staff, which I don't know if they were mom
Speaker 3: connected or whatever.
Speaker 1: In the hotel management.
Speaker 3: They threatened like, if you don't renegotiate our contract, we're
Speaker 3: gonna blow this hotel up because we checked out. We
Speaker 3: had a New Year's gig in Lancaster, PA that night,
Speaker 3: so we checked out at you know, twelve pm on
Speaker 3: December thirtieth, flew back to the States and came back
Speaker 3: home with all these messages like are you guys alive?
Speaker 6: For you?
Speaker 3: And then we found out that there was an explosion
Speaker 3: in the DuPont Plaza. I think like eighteen people died
Speaker 3: or whatever. But the whole point was there was an
Speaker 3: eckerage drugs across the street. And you know, this is
Speaker 3: when Adidas made Top ten Adidas the red, blue and
Speaker 3: green like high top thing, and so they were like
Speaker 3: we got to top ten a datas but it had
Speaker 3: four stripes.
Speaker 1: There was like the twelve ninety and not case with either.
Speaker 3: Yeah, and that's it and that's where right, and that's
Speaker 3: when like you had to run your shoes down before
Speaker 3: you got another pair of shoes.
Speaker 1: So yeah, just all in seventh grade, I.
Speaker 3: Just got laughed at because you know, I got a
Speaker 3: pleather thriller suit and I got four stripes in my Adidas.
Speaker 6: Well, similar, Yeah, I got the wrong I felt like
Speaker 6: I didn't get the right add this. I'll never forget that,
Speaker 6: I see, I see.
Speaker 1: But for you, when did.
Speaker 6: At least turntablism, Like when did that attract you? So
Speaker 6: for me, I grew when I grew up, you know.
Speaker 6: I mean, the first like piece of vinyl that I
Speaker 6: got was this actual, this compilation vinyl was it was
Speaker 6: called like street Rap and.
Speaker 3: Like KTL Records joined or something. It had to be
Speaker 3: something like that.
Speaker 6: I don't remember where where I got it, but and
Speaker 6: it had like rock box on it and had Roxanne
Speaker 6: Roxanne utfo K and I remember, like, you know, literally
Speaker 6: like memorizing Roxanne Roxanne by Utfo and it had a
Speaker 6: couple of other songs on there. So that was my
Speaker 6: first actual physical like piece of hip hop vinyl. But
Speaker 6: around like maybe like ten eleven, I got really into skateboarding,
Speaker 6: you know, and I was super into skateboarding, and it
Speaker 6: was all about Thrasher magazine.
Speaker 1: It was all about going down to Love Park.
Speaker 6: So this is like in middle school for me, And
Speaker 6: you know, I came up at a time when down
Speaker 6: in Love Park there started to be this this movement
Speaker 6: or this group of black skateboarders. So it was it
Speaker 6: was maybe like seven to eight of us at the time,
Speaker 6: and you know, shout to my brother Stevie Williams. He
Speaker 6: was like the youngest of all of us, and he
Speaker 6: was also the best. Fortunately I was the worst. So
Speaker 6: what about Chuck Trees was here around back then, I think, so.
Speaker 8: He's older though, yeah, he was older and he's still
Speaker 8: skateboarding and he's still Yeah, we're a little younger, but
Speaker 8: you know, they used to basically like make fun of
Speaker 8: me because I could barely land a kickflip and like
Speaker 8: or even like when we used to like go to
Speaker 8: Wah Wah and like steal the fucking the jugs of
Speaker 8: iced teas and everything, and then.
Speaker 6: Like when we were skate off, I would always be
Speaker 6: like behind the cart, never got caught, but I was
Speaker 6: I was like I was like last when we would
Speaker 6: try to skate back to love.
Speaker 1: So, yeah, I was super into skateboarding.
Speaker 6: I think Nickelodeon had like skate TV out or something
Speaker 6: around the time. And then between eighth grade and ninth grade,
Speaker 6: I went to the movies to go see Juice and
Speaker 6: I was just blown away.
Speaker 1: I think for a certain age.
Speaker 6: Group of us, as DJs like Juice was really really
Speaker 6: monumental in our careers because you know, and again like
Speaker 6: in Philly culture, like we always like Philly had the DJ's,
Speaker 6: New York had the rappers, you know what I'm saying.
Speaker 6: So you know, I knew early on about cash Money
Speaker 6: and Miz and Jeff and what have you. So, but
Speaker 6: it was really Juice that started my fascination with like
Speaker 6: that's I might want to try that, you know what
Speaker 6: I'm saying. Like I dabbled about, you know, with rapping
Speaker 6: a little bit and never was really that good at it.
Speaker 6: And then so ninth grade, after seeing Juice, I convinced
Speaker 6: my mom to buy me a turntable and a mixer,
Speaker 6: and she did.
Speaker 1: It was a belt drive. Originally I got it. Yeah,
Speaker 1: it was tough. It was tough.
Speaker 6: So I originally got like a belt drive turntable and
Speaker 6: one mixer. I remember was it a Gemini or a
Speaker 6: technique Gemini? It was a Gemini belt draft. Yeah, it
Speaker 6: was a Gemini draft.
Speaker 3: For those that are wondering drivers, a direct drive.
Speaker 6: Bell drive is like you know, yeah exactly. It takes
Speaker 6: a long time to rev back up, so like a
Speaker 6: good time without a technique twelve hundred that you wasn't
Speaker 6: really doing nothing, so but I remember I did, like
Speaker 6: it was a kid. His name was Ari Forman. I
Speaker 6: did his alright birthday, you know, all right? Yeah, are
Speaker 6: stole around. He's like he doesn't. He must be doing
Speaker 6: production and film and things like that. He did some
Speaker 6: art for us, like him and tramp and like they
Speaker 6: designed so crazy how the world is still connected? His
Speaker 6: birthday party was my first party, so I remember the
Speaker 6: first records.
Speaker 1: Really, yeah, we went. He went to Central with me.
Speaker 3: You and ari a this same age we are.
Speaker 1: Yeah, we came in.
Speaker 3: I'm older than Ari. I'm way older than you, so
Speaker 3: by the transit.
Speaker 1: By a couple of years. Are so classy, Like I
Speaker 1: always thought he was like slightly older than me. Yeah,
Speaker 1: we're in the same class two five. Because he's the
Speaker 1: one that introduced me to Cosmo. Okay, so good.
Speaker 6: So I used to save my lunch money. My mom
Speaker 6: would give me like five hours every day for lunch.
Speaker 6: What did your parents don?
Speaker 1: What was?
Speaker 6: My mom is a teacher. She's in education. She's been
Speaker 6: in education forever she was. She now has her PhD
Speaker 6: in education. But when I was in growing up, she
Speaker 6: would teach in Philadelphia High School. She taught at Alnie,
Speaker 6: she taught it Overbrook, Yeah, I think those were She
Speaker 6: went from Alnie to Overbrooks.
Speaker 1: So she was at Overbrook when I was essentral.
Speaker 6: And my dad used to work for this Quaker organization
Speaker 6: in Philly called AFSC American Friends Service Committee and then
Speaker 6: hit part of his job was spending a lot of
Speaker 6: time in Eastern Europe, so like he used to travel
Speaker 6: to the USSR at the time, and you know, and
Speaker 6: then later on he would go to other party parts
Speaker 6: of Eastern Europe and like, you know, help out like
Speaker 6: what are known as Gypsies, which pretty much are like,
Speaker 6: you know, people of European descent, but they almost get
Speaker 6: treated as black people over there. And then my dad,
Speaker 6: you know, both my parents are very politically active growing up.
Speaker 6: So like my dad used to be in snick student
Speaker 6: student and coordinating committee.
Speaker 1: Yeah. So you know, I grew up going to like
Speaker 1: did you go to charters school one of the charters?
Speaker 1: I didn't.
Speaker 6: I always wanted to go to a charter schoolgory. I
Speaker 6: wanted to go to Friends Select or GFS or Penn
Speaker 6: Charters so bad, like because I knew so many kids
Speaker 6: that went there. It's funny because I put my daughters
Speaker 6: into friends schools and they're like, oh, Dad, why did
Speaker 6: you do this to us? And I was like, man,
Speaker 6: growing up, I wanted to go to a friend school,
Speaker 6: but I think it might just be a Philly thing.
Speaker 6: It's Quaker and that's like a pa thing. But I
Speaker 6: went to public school, Like my parents couldn't afford me
Speaker 6: to go to those schools, so I went to Masterman
Speaker 6: and I went to Central. So I always went to
Speaker 6: like good academic schools, like I had good grades in
Speaker 6: school and what have you. So, Yeah, so I used
Speaker 6: to go downtown between Armand's, Funkel Martin Sounds of Market,
Speaker 6: and I would buy my records and I would you know,
Speaker 6: the first records I bought was like the Who's the
Speaker 6: Man soundtrack Heavy D was Who's the Man? Partying bullshit
Speaker 6: inside so you spend out and cuts in the grooves,
Speaker 6: this moll And Not Loud, Superba, super Ghetto REDT, Supercat,
Speaker 6: Ghetto Red.
Speaker 1: Hot, Fad Joe Flow Joe.
Speaker 6: Yeah, and you know it was this was around the
Speaker 6: time when like when Philly like it was, there was
Speaker 6: the Goats and then there was the Square Roots, and
Speaker 6: you know that was like that was you know, my
Speaker 6: introduction to like hip hop and DJing, and it was
Speaker 6: this was all around that era.
Speaker 3: Well, first of all, you know, even for me, like
Speaker 3: to be a drummer as young as I was, and
Speaker 3: I would get these catalogs you say, ash catalogs whatever.
Speaker 3: Drums were like seven thousand bucks and so I mean
Speaker 3: lucky for me, my dad had like access to stuff
Speaker 3: usually like band members that succumbed to an addiction or
Speaker 3: whatever whatever and leave the equipment. That's how the inherent
Speaker 3: drum sets when I was younger. But like DJ equipment though,
Speaker 3: man it was like expensive. Were you just on one
Speaker 3: turntable and one cheap radio shack drawing like a mixer.
Speaker 6: For a while, I had the what was the I
Speaker 6: guess it was the Gemini Make sure that had the
Speaker 6: eight second sampler scratch master.
Speaker 1: Yeah, I had that. Oh my god, how do you
Speaker 1: know that I had?
Speaker 4: Well, I had access to one, that one that was
Speaker 4: like you were DJ too, No, no, no, I used
Speaker 4: to make beats on it had the sampler, yes, yeah,
Speaker 4: loop and you had to like turn the thing to
Speaker 4: catch it it perfectly.
Speaker 1: And yeah, my finger was like al.
Speaker 6: I remember I used to write my grandparents, my mother's
Speaker 6: parents like letters, and like when I would get good grades,
Speaker 6: I would like write them letters like hey, I got
Speaker 6: good grades, like can you get me this? And you know,
Speaker 6: and then you know, my grandparents actually I think were
Speaker 6: the ones who bought me my technique twelve hundreds.
Speaker 1: So they bought me my technique twelve hundreds.
Speaker 6: And then I would do little gigs here and there,
Speaker 6: and I think, you know, at armands at the time,
Speaker 6: like or not even armads that I think a funkal mart.
Speaker 1: You know, you could buy speakers weren't like that expensive,
Speaker 1: so you could.
Speaker 6: I could I bought like maybe like you know, these
Speaker 6: big ass wolfers and everything, and it might have been
Speaker 6: like two three hundred bucks four hundred dollars for a set, right,
Speaker 6: and then you would have to buy a receiver.
Speaker 1: What else would you do?
Speaker 3: All gift money, no job yet.
Speaker 1: I didn't have a job. Now this was all. This
Speaker 1: was before a job.
Speaker 6: Yeah, I didn't get a job to like eleven twelfth grade,
Speaker 6: so yeah, it was all. It was all pretty much
Speaker 6: like get birthday and Christmas type gifts and stuff. But
Speaker 6: you know, bunch of money is how I did my
Speaker 6: record collection. And they just starved in school.
Speaker 1: Starves.
Speaker 6: Yeah, yeah, maybe go across the street from Central and
Speaker 6: go to the pizza spot and maybe get a dollar
Speaker 6: slice or something.
Speaker 1: But you know, definitely I would save up to get
Speaker 1: my records. So were your parents encouraging or did they
Speaker 1: see this as just like a hobby? Definitely just saw
Speaker 1: it as a hobby. Did you see this as a
Speaker 1: career or a hobby?
Speaker 3: You know?
Speaker 6: Interestingly enough, my sister was like as a filmmaker and
Speaker 6: she used to do like make independent films. And hence
Speaker 6: how we first met because she brought me to I
Speaker 6: guess it was. Was it a temple?
Speaker 1: It was?
Speaker 6: It was for the premiere of Past the Popcorn video,
Speaker 6: Damn Wow. And there was a there was a young
Speaker 6: lady who used to direct videos because she did a
Speaker 6: three times Dope video. I can't remember her name, but
Speaker 6: my sister was friends with her and then, but she's
Speaker 6: the one that That's how I wound up coming to
Speaker 6: the premiere Past the Popcorn and that was where we
Speaker 6: originally first met, and I like came up to you
Speaker 6: as a young lad and just introduced myself.
Speaker 3: Shout out to Abdul Jackson and Kevin Dreer.
Speaker 1: I forget. Damn man, you just took me back on
Speaker 1: some joints. Man, I totally forgot.
Speaker 5: Yeah, y'all had a premiere party for that video, right.
Speaker 3: So yeah, like my last my last day at Roughhouse
Speaker 3: just you know, I just through spaghetti and the walls
Speaker 3: even stuck. And I just having to ask Chris Wartz
Speaker 3: right after lunch because I would notice after lunch he'd be.
Speaker 1: In a different mind state.
Speaker 3: And I was just like, hey, you know, or he
Speaker 3: knew about the Roots and you know, saw some shows
Speaker 3: or whatever and always wanted to like, how can we
Speaker 3: even get it, you know, an offer? But he just
Speaker 3: he was just that day, he just like, okay, how
Speaker 3: much I was like five thousand, Wow, you'll need to
Speaker 3: have in thousands. It was like seventy five hundreds. And
Speaker 3: I to do organics, No, to do the past popcorns
Speaker 3: and we shot past the popcorn on Thanksgiving morning.
Speaker 1: Wow, Like yeah, shout out to Chris Warts of rough
Speaker 1: House Record.
Speaker 6: And I remember too, my other friends used to be
Speaker 6: cool with Kenyata. I used to look up to, Yeah,
Speaker 6: I used to look up to yacht like but but no,
Speaker 6: it was it was for them. It was a hobby
Speaker 6: for me. It was still you know, I thought I
Speaker 6: was gonna wind up going to NYU and being film
Speaker 6: school and be a director, like at the time, that's
Speaker 6: that's but I love DJing like it was, it was
Speaker 6: my thing. So I definitely had, you know, without even realizing,
Speaker 6: was putting way more time and effort into my DJ career.
Speaker 6: And then you know, I had my stuff in my
Speaker 6: in my room at my mother's house. And then it
Speaker 6: got to a point when the traffic of the friends
Speaker 6: coming over and us trying to make little freestyle tapes
Speaker 6: and everything. She she got fed up because it was
Speaker 6: like ten ten thirty and she was like, yo, it's
Speaker 6: too loud, and so she lot, she let me move
Speaker 6: to the basement and I moved. You know, that was
Speaker 6: my first studio in the basement of my mom's house,
Speaker 6: and we used to be down there boom bapping all
Speaker 6: day after school every day. And that's where I made
Speaker 6: ladelf and you know, I started. My sister took me
Speaker 6: to New York between ninth and tenth grade and we
Speaker 6: went to Harlem and on one hundred and twenty fifth,
Speaker 6: they still had the vendors and I bought That's when
Speaker 6: I bought my first mixtape, DJs ands Old School Part
Speaker 6: two And the reason why I bought that tape was
Speaker 6: because all the songs that were on there, when I
Speaker 6: would go to to the record stores, I couldn't get
Speaker 6: those songs on violin anymore because they were unless they
Speaker 6: were the you know, the bootleg copies and everything. So
Speaker 6: I bought SNS Old School Part two and I was
Speaker 6: just literally blown away, like by that tape by S's
Speaker 6: talk game like how he was putting records together and
Speaker 6: hence that just really started my fascination with like mixtape culture.
Speaker 6: And then you know, Clue kind of was coming up
Speaker 6: on the scene. And when I would get Clue tapes
Speaker 6: from the layup and things like I would i would
Speaker 6: feel like when I would go to school, I'd be like, oh,
Speaker 6: y'all don't know about this yet, Like y'all don't have
Speaker 6: this premiere Jarew remix or you know this this new
Speaker 6: Bigie Grand puba Tupac song. Like so I would feel
Speaker 6: ahead of the curve, and you know, I was just that,
Speaker 6: you know, and when it came to like DJing, and like,
Speaker 6: you know, there were battle DJs, there was radio DJs,
Speaker 6: there was you know, party DJs, and there were mixtape DJs,
Speaker 6: but the mixtape DJ for me was always just like
Speaker 6: larger than life.
Speaker 3: So for Philadelphians, the layup my current production manager Keith McFee,
Speaker 3: kind of opened kind of like Phillies. I don't know
Speaker 3: if it's the first culture store, but it was like
Speaker 3: the spot where, yeah, it was like the spot where
Speaker 3: you get like what was like first skateboard and get
Speaker 3: like fresh jive yo or excuse you could get to
Speaker 3: see yeah, those Triple five, those hoodies early Echo. It's
Speaker 3: not that I was like, yeah, those I can't remember.
Speaker 3: It's the even though skateboard pants that are like the
Speaker 3: big at the bottom yeah forty.
Speaker 1: Yeah, and the forty waist Johns that were super big. Yeah.
Speaker 3: So that's and that's pretty much like that was just
Speaker 3: like the cultural epicenter. That's where like mixtapes were you
Speaker 3: get cry line, spray paint.
Speaker 1: You get to catch all those things and everything they have.
Speaker 3: The white man.
Speaker 1: Yes with the yeah, those things you're talking about.
Speaker 4: It looks like you see like five white boys at
Speaker 4: lunch playing Hackey sacking.
Speaker 3: Yeah.
Speaker 1: I would rock that ship all the time. It never showers,
Speaker 1: so all the fun of the world side of the.
Speaker 3: Yeah, come on, I mean, only the only reason why
Speaker 3: dudes would shower in the twenties is if a woman
Speaker 3: is involved or whatever, like their future partner.
Speaker 1: But you know, come back, come back, come back, come back. Yeah,
Speaker 1: I'm coming back anyway. Who is the DJ?
Speaker 3: Okay, I'm trying my rock the bells thing, just like
Speaker 3: Jeff does my cash money thing whatever. But for me,
Speaker 3: I will say that like cosmic keV is probably the
Speaker 3: sensey DJ that I always have in my head when
Speaker 3: I'm doing a set or whatever, like you're always gonna
Speaker 3: emulate someone because like if you're making beats, when you
Speaker 3: get your drum machine, you start to you know, all right,
Speaker 3: let me see if I could do bloh blah blah
Speaker 3: blah that sort of.
Speaker 1: Thing for you as a DJ? Who were those DJs?
Speaker 3: Who was the sensey Like what was the mix that
Speaker 3: was sort of like damn, I gotta well, I mean,
Speaker 3: or were you even into turntablism.
Speaker 6: Or absolutely I was gonna tell you, I mean, because
Speaker 6: there was so For me, it was a few. I
Speaker 6: mean definitely probably first it was DJ Rand because I
Speaker 6: forgot yeah, because before.
Speaker 1: You know, I'm still spinning, right. He was like with
Speaker 1: the w W. Yeah, I'm not sure that shot shot
Speaker 1: the cosmic k to. He just took me on a
Speaker 1: superhistory lesson, Like was he.
Speaker 3: Nice about it? keV?
Speaker 1: Oh yeah yeah yeah. We talked for like two hours,
Speaker 1: gently exchanging nice words.
Speaker 6: We discussed like his relationship with Ran and how things
Speaker 6: came about and how you know it went from Ran
Speaker 6: to keV and you know, but when of course as
Speaker 6: it as a as a youngster, like it was Kobe
Speaker 6: Cob and DJ Ran on Radioactive every Friday night. So
Speaker 6: you know, people don't really like this is obviously before
Speaker 6: we had you know, you can go and you can
Speaker 6: go on YouTube, Hulu, anything and watch anything hip hop
Speaker 6: you want. Back in the day, we only had certain outlets,
Speaker 6: so you would run home to catch Rahap City or
Speaker 6: Friday night I would be tuned in to Radioactive to
Speaker 6: hear it.
Speaker 1: So oh you know who else too?
Speaker 3: Yeah?
Speaker 1: Yeah it's fucking Jay Ski.
Speaker 3: Yeah oh yeah, talk about GOTAM.
Speaker 1: Because what was the station was one O three? Yeah
Speaker 1: something you stupid?
Speaker 5: He came to his birthday party.
Speaker 3: Damn on.
Speaker 6: So on the radio side, it was definitely Ran, keV
Speaker 6: and Jay Ski and then in Philly for me it
Speaker 6: was DJ Ghetto and Ghetto was like, yes, you know, yeah,
Speaker 6: Ghetto used to be our d m C champion. He
Speaker 6: would he would go up against Rock Raider Rest in
Speaker 6: Peace and you know, do his DMC thing, and like,
Speaker 6: you know, Ghetto has another cousin named Evil Tracy too.
Speaker 1: But but Ghetto like Ghetto.
Speaker 6: Kind of like you know, took me in as a
Speaker 6: youngster and was trying to kind of show me how
Speaker 6: to really cut and scratch and you know, do things
Speaker 6: on his level. I could never get it down to
Speaker 6: to to that degree, but Ghetto definitely like befriended me
Speaker 6: as a as a young DJ too, and Philly, so
Speaker 6: I salute to him. So those were the guys that
Speaker 6: I was around or were listening to early on. So
Speaker 6: when you're in the dramatic era, are are you? Do
Speaker 6: you have a regular residency?
Speaker 1: Are you now? High school?
Speaker 3: So Dances is the first club I ever.
Speaker 1: Dj' at dance.
Speaker 6: It was for Juwan Lee's birthday party. Juan Lee, he's
Speaker 6: the director. He works with Benny Boom. He does a
Speaker 6: lot of stuff now too, my brother to this day,
Speaker 6: I just saw him the other day. But yeah, that
Speaker 6: was my first actual club gig was was Juwan's birthday
Speaker 6: party of dances.
Speaker 1: This might have been like eleventh grade. And then I
Speaker 1: was just doing like I would.
Speaker 6: Get hired to do like block parties or like birthday
Speaker 6: parties of you know, kids that I went to school with,
Speaker 6: or you know that I knew around town or what
Speaker 6: have you.
Speaker 1: And and then you know, we had to I remember
Speaker 1: we had this crew.
Speaker 6: That it was this crib off Gerard Avenue that we
Speaker 6: lived at, and I used to do a lot of
Speaker 6: their functions. So you know, I was I was getting
Speaker 6: you know, gigs here and there, just like around Philly
Speaker 6: as a as a kid.
Speaker 3: Now as far as your creative output is concerned, and
Speaker 3: and then I specifically want to kind of go step
Speaker 3: by step.
Speaker 1: That is why I'm like leaning, there's a lot so
Speaker 1: for you, are.
Speaker 3: You in the mind state of serve my audience or
Speaker 3: like I, I'm very selfish with my DJing, and I
Speaker 3: do it like I'm like Prince doing Darling Nikki. No
Speaker 3: one cares about the music but yourself. Yeah, And but
Speaker 3: I also know that I have a shield of protection
Speaker 3: that will allow me to play a mister Rogers song
Speaker 3: or I can play the number song by the porn
Speaker 3: of sisters on Sesame Street kind of get you know,
Speaker 3: they're like, what the hell is he playing? Like yeah,
Speaker 3: that quest loves so crazy, Like I know I can
Speaker 3: do rogue shit, right, and you know, and oftentimes the
Speaker 3: openers are like, yo, man, like that was crazy you
Speaker 3: did that? Because even one time, I think Fonte mentioned
Speaker 3: that someone spun return to Forever something it or weather report.
Speaker 4: Yeah it was out of who it was the dy
Speaker 4: It wasn't things Steel Parish.
Speaker 1: Okay, okay, okay, well he's known for dared Devil shit.
Speaker 3: But my whole point is that as a DJ, you
Speaker 3: kind of have two choices, which is serve the people
Speaker 3: or establish yourself. So at the time and oftentimes, like
Speaker 3: opening DJs have it the hardest because they gotta you
Speaker 3: gotta keep them on the floor.
Speaker 1: You can't.
Speaker 3: I remember once an opening DJ got in trouble. He
Speaker 3: had like an early copy of Brooklyn Zoo, and I
Speaker 3: think that might have been too you know, of course,
Speaker 3: you know it's like, oh the new Woutangelo, Okay, but
Speaker 3: it wasn't. The club owner was like no, no, you
Speaker 3: know that sort of thing. So for you, were you
Speaker 3: facing any sort of venue structure that would tell you
Speaker 3: like this is what we want and just play R
Speaker 3: and B or so not in Philly.
Speaker 1: When I was in Philly, I was.
Speaker 6: Very u burn, very East Coast with my taste in
Speaker 6: music and what I would play, Like I remember, I
Speaker 6: would do parties and want to play Doctor Octagon.
Speaker 3: Wow, oh Jesus Christ. Yeah, like that's where I was at.
Speaker 3: Like I would try to make blue Flowers. Yeah, exactly
Speaker 3: like I was.
Speaker 1: That's where. That's where I was at in my Philly days.
Speaker 6: And you know, I wanted to play fucking Smith and
Speaker 6: Wesson album cuts and just you know, I didn't get
Speaker 6: to to the stage or era of pleasing the crowd
Speaker 6: or my audience until I moved to Atlanta.
Speaker 1: Atlanta Atlanta did it.
Speaker 3: And I don't want to do I don't even want
Speaker 3: to frame it like it's a compromise, because I do
Speaker 3: think that you're either going to be an effective DJ, yeah,
Speaker 3: or we're going to be a teachable lesson DJ.
Speaker 1: Yeah.
Speaker 6: Well, I was blessed in my career to be able
Speaker 6: to be that later on because of who I became
Speaker 6: and who I was. So once I became DJ Drama,
Speaker 6: it's like, Okay, when they come to see me, they
Speaker 6: also want to be able to I can, you know,
Speaker 6: introduce them to something or be a little more stubborn.
Speaker 6: But it's really going to Clarkland University and being in
Speaker 6: the AUC for me coming from Philly, where I would
Speaker 6: have people from d C who wanted to hear Go Go,
Speaker 6: I would have, you know, people from the West Coast
Speaker 6: who wanted to hear ship from La or the Bay,
Speaker 6: or I would have people from Texas who wanted to
Speaker 6: hear screw or what have you.
Speaker 1: So it taught me how to be well rounded.
Speaker 3: Okay, So and that's.
Speaker 1: That's where I was going to go next.
Speaker 3: You know the whole I mean, especially now you you
Speaker 3: kind of morphed into your dramaus before the age of
Speaker 3: cell phones. So the whole idea of someone the phone
Speaker 3: on your face. Yeah, like, I hate I'm a no
Speaker 3: request person, gotcha. And that's where my ego gets me
Speaker 3: in trouble.
Speaker 1: Yeah, I'm not like that. So you're you're people. You're
Speaker 1: a person of the people. I am for your person
Speaker 1: and people.
Speaker 3: No, no, no, no.
Speaker 6: I like when people like if I go to Vegas
Speaker 6: and it's eight women who keep putting bad Bunny on
Speaker 6: their phone, I gotta play fucking bad Bunny.
Speaker 3: Even to this day, you're not offended. Like, motherfucker, I'm
Speaker 3: DJ Drama like I created stars. You don't tell Picasso
Speaker 3: what the paint? See that I got a but that's
Speaker 3: not that's not the capacity he's there to serve that night.
Speaker 3: You know what I'm saying.
Speaker 6: It's like, yeah, I mean there's it depends like it
Speaker 6: depends on the gig too, like if I get it
Speaker 6: like a hipster New York gig for like I did
Speaker 6: something for United Masters and you know, at that night
Speaker 6: they booked me, like I know they want to hear
Speaker 6: drama ship, Like I'm gonna play Canon Remix and I'm
Speaker 6: gonna you know, go in and play some Gucci or
Speaker 6: go here with it. But you know, if I'm at
Speaker 6: my Vegas residency, like I'm there to Vegas, yeah, like
Speaker 6: I'm not at the same Like I'm still trauma, so
Speaker 6: I'm not about to fist pump that thing out.
Speaker 1: Have you ever had a.
Speaker 3: I mean moment or at least that was sort of
Speaker 3: the ship back in twenty fourteen.
Speaker 6: Yeah, I mean I've played those records at times like
Speaker 6: what but that's not the majority of my set, Like
Speaker 6: I know when they booked me like they want to
Speaker 6: they come there for certain right, Yeah, people give them
Speaker 6: like when they when I go even to Vegas, like
Speaker 6: and you know, Vegas has had a transition at time
Speaker 6: where it's become much more hip hop driven than it was.
Speaker 6: But I'm just saying, like when I go to gigs,
Speaker 6: like people want to hear DJ drama, be DJ drama.
Speaker 1: You know what I'm saying.
Speaker 3: So it's like, but is it confusing now at this
Speaker 3: stage in your life where Okay, so say and now
Speaker 3: I'm that that I would associate you with like any
Speaker 3: canon records. So let's say like Go Crazy, right, which
Speaker 3: came out in two Yeah, which to guy. To me,
Speaker 3: I'm still like, oh that's new rap even though that's
Speaker 3: old school right.
Speaker 1: No, no, no, so no, I mean I was confusing now, No,
Speaker 1: not for me.
Speaker 6: Because I go with the times that I go, Like
Speaker 6: I just got off a tour with Wiz and Logic,
Speaker 6: for instance. So but and the blessing for me is though,
Speaker 6: is that that's not like as much as there is
Speaker 6: an audience that knows me for that. When I get
Speaker 6: on stage at the Whiz Khalifan Logic show, I start
Speaker 6: with a tiler to create a record, and then I
Speaker 6: go into a dream I play stick off the Dreamfield
Speaker 6: tape because that's still my ship, like it's still off
Speaker 6: a gangster grills.
Speaker 5: That's when DJ dramatic to me kind of enters the
Speaker 5: thing I hate. I know you, I don't know if
Speaker 5: you hate when I go DJ dramatic or drama, but
Speaker 5: it's just.
Speaker 6: How I can when you was a man, but I
Speaker 6: was drama first though. I mean, it wasn't like I
Speaker 6: was dramatic. I was drama and then I tried to
Speaker 6: change it to dramatic and then I went back. So
Speaker 6: it wasn't like I was originally DJ dramatic.
Speaker 5: I was.
Speaker 1: I was DJ drama first.
Speaker 5: But you okay, I'll accept that. But you know, when
Speaker 5: I say dramatic, it's also like to an era, a
Speaker 5: time when you did have a certain lane you were
Speaker 5: in that.
Speaker 3: You have, Well, what happened was it?
Speaker 1: I didn't know.
Speaker 6: I mean, like, as much as much as I was
Speaker 6: putting into gangster girls, I was putting into automatic relaxation.
Speaker 1: One just took off from the other.
Speaker 3: Okay, So let me ask you when you decided to
Speaker 3: go to Clark University Yep, Clark Atlanta, and I assume
Speaker 3: that you're transporting your your equipment with you, so that's important,
Speaker 3: Like you already know that in your dorm that your
Speaker 3: big ass speakers and your records and your turntables had
Speaker 3: to come with me, are coming with you? Okay, absolutely
Speaker 3: no question without it. Were your parents like what the
Speaker 3: hell are you doing? Like you're in a dorm?
Speaker 6: They you know, I mean by that point, I was
Speaker 6: already like kind of you know, they had they it
Speaker 6: was clear that I was on a certain path, and
Speaker 6: I was, you know, this DJ thing was.
Speaker 1: Going to happen in college, not just some high school thing.
Speaker 6: And yeah, I don't Yeah, I don't know if they knew.
Speaker 6: I mean, clearly they didn't see this happening, like you know,
Speaker 6: I mean my mom even after school, was concerned about
Speaker 6: me getting a real quote unquote real job.
Speaker 1: But yeah, I mean when I got to school, like
Speaker 1: it was, you know, I brought my Philly hustle with me.
Speaker 6: Like like I will tell you, like freshman year, when
Speaker 6: everybody was freak nicked out, I bought a bunch of
Speaker 6: T shirts from this guy named Moot, and I was
Speaker 6: hustling T shirts during freaknik Like I didn't partake in
Speaker 6: none of the activities like or I would set up
Speaker 6: on campus on we had these green trash cans and
Speaker 6: I had this little yellow radio, and I would like
Speaker 6: hustle my mixtapes in between classes.
Speaker 3: So how did you find an outlet to establish yourself
Speaker 3: in Atlanta?
Speaker 1: Well, I mean outlet was the AUC. It was our world.
Speaker 1: I mean there was enough and.
Speaker 5: Market at Marcos. You feel like working at Marco's too, was?
Speaker 1: I mean Marco's people hadn't go to college.
Speaker 6: You see the Atlanta University Atlanta University Center, so that's
Speaker 6: Clark Atlanta, that's Morris Brown at the time, that's more
Speaker 6: House of Spellman. So you literally have four story black
Speaker 6: colleges and universities right and one epicenter. So there's multitudes
Speaker 6: of parties and gigs available.
Speaker 3: So I was did you try to find your flock
Speaker 3: or no, I can't, Or were you like, okay, what
Speaker 3: are they endo down here?
Speaker 6: It just happened naturally, because you know, as you start
Speaker 6: doing gigs, I mean you realize, oh, I got it
Speaker 6: people from everywhere. So you know, I learned very early
Speaker 6: on and I shot to my man DJ Sense and
Speaker 6: since is also from Philly, we met freshman year, and
Speaker 6: he kind of was a little more commercially driven than
Speaker 6: I was at the time, Like I was real backpack
Speaker 6: wrap and he was like bad boy.
Speaker 1: You know what I'm saying.
Speaker 6: So us doing gigs together, he kind of helped influence
Speaker 6: and inspire me to get you know. He yelled at
Speaker 6: me one time I cut the Benjamin's off too early,
Speaker 6: oh lot a gig.
Speaker 1: He was like, bro, like, you can't cut it off
Speaker 1: at this part.
Speaker 6: And he was right, you know what I'm saying, So
Speaker 6: us doing gigs together, I kind of got more into
Speaker 6: my commercial bag. And you know, because I still even
Speaker 6: when I was in school, when I was doing these
Speaker 6: college gigs, I was still DJing lyricist lounges. I was
Speaker 6: still at yin Yang cafe, you know what I mean,
Speaker 6: Like I was, I was still into that world.
Speaker 1: So I was. I was bouncing between worlds in a way.
Speaker 3: Who was the DJ down here that was your oh
Speaker 3: shit or your kaiser. So it's a coffee mug, slow
Speaker 3: drop realization thing that this is some next shit down
Speaker 3: here that I.
Speaker 1: Have to first.
Speaker 6: There was DJ Nabs. Nabs was the ultimate. I mean,
Speaker 6: he was on the radio, he was on television, he
Speaker 6: was he had Kai, He had Nabs in a lab
Speaker 6: at club kaya Sunday night, which was just the ultimate experience.
Speaker 6: And then I think for me it probably was DJ Mars.
Speaker 6: Mars also at the time was you know, he used
Speaker 6: to be on he had to be t gigs, so
Speaker 6: he was doing what was that show called It was
Speaker 6: one of them shows.
Speaker 1: Mars was on the radio, you know, he was on
Speaker 1: every day, and he was in the club.
Speaker 6: So he was like one of you know, one of
Speaker 6: those like the guys that we looked towards as like, damn,
Speaker 6: that's the next level. So and he It's funny because
Speaker 6: I did the same thing with you too. I know
Speaker 6: you don't remember this, but I used to like write
Speaker 6: for this like little magazine or like little zine, and
Speaker 6: I went and did an interview with Mars. That's how
Speaker 6: I like got I introduced myself to him. I went
Speaker 6: to go interview him at the station and then I
Speaker 6: handed him one of my mixtapes and he was like, Yo,
Speaker 6: this shit's hot. And oddly enough, when you guys came
Speaker 6: to Atlanta one time, I did the same thing with you.
Speaker 6: I was I did an interview with you for the
Speaker 6: magazine and That was how I first found out about Dyla,
Speaker 6: because this was the era where you were dial it
Speaker 6: out and you were just you told me, like, yo,
Speaker 6: all we do was listening to slum Village and this
Speaker 6: is mid late nineties and everything, and yeah, so I
Speaker 6: would kind of, you know, wiggle my way in. However,
Speaker 6: whatever to you know, get my name out there or
Speaker 6: get my tapes in people's hands.
Speaker 3: Like I feel like Atlanta really found itself with what
Speaker 3: I organized Noise and now casting all this established absolutely so.
Speaker 3: But the thing is is that I didn't call it
Speaker 3: anything like I know, like New Orleans's bounce and there's
Speaker 3: bass music in Miami.
Speaker 8: But what was.
Speaker 3: Atlanta's culture before trap? Like does first of all, does
Speaker 3: Atlanta own what we know as trap?
Speaker 1: Absolutely so?
Speaker 6: What was before the BC era of that? It was
Speaker 6: Dungeon Family. I mean, so you think I moved here
Speaker 6: in ninety six? Ninety six El Adelph Half Life came out,
Speaker 6: ninety six, at Aliens came out, Luddy Waters, Right Man,
Speaker 6: Luddy Waters came out, Reasonable Mob Deep second album came
Speaker 6: out on Ner Hell on Earth came out Score And
Speaker 6: I have and I have an elevator's question to ask
Speaker 6: you because I came right when elevators kind of hit.
Speaker 3: Okay, so let me ask you something, all right, And
Speaker 3: why is elevators like my new Latin quarters.
Speaker 1: So many treasures, we can go so much. I gotta talk,
Speaker 1: I want to say, like, so just while we're here,
Speaker 1: all right.
Speaker 3: So when we asked you know, La Read and Organized Noise,
Speaker 3: my thing was I would ask them why would they
Speaker 3: take such a risk with the sonic choice of elevators. Yes,
Speaker 3: it's a masterpiece of a song, but but who knew
Speaker 3: at the time. I was just like, yo, who would
Speaker 3: ever put like a song that's like eighty six bpms
Speaker 3: which was very slow at the time compared to what
Speaker 3: was hitting. And it was just everything about that song
Speaker 3: was just like it was a risk. It was a
Speaker 3: hell mary throw that got caught. And you know, Organized
Speaker 3: Noise explained that, you know, they leaked the first and
Speaker 3: of course La, we really wanted Atlans to come out
Speaker 3: there first.
Speaker 1: They put it, they took it to the radio station
Speaker 1: and just like it forced it right right.
Speaker 3: And then but as a DJ, like, could you explain
Speaker 3: to me the effect that that song had on or
Speaker 3: just at the time, like, yeah, I mean it was Atlanta,
Speaker 3: so Again, there was when when when at Aliens dropped,
Speaker 3: just you know, the the pride and the the sonics
Speaker 3: and the creativity of that album.
Speaker 6: You know, Southern playlistic was already a thing, right, and
Speaker 6: then at Aliens came and it was like, oh, these
Speaker 6: these boys is different, you know. I mean that was
Speaker 6: the era when three thousand was walking around with the
Speaker 6: turbine and you know, Goodie Mob had you know, dropped
Speaker 6: and everything.
Speaker 1: So it was like, I just think the.
Speaker 6: Pride and you know, I hear stories about before Outcasts
Speaker 6: about how you would go to certain clubs in Atlanta
Speaker 6: like Warehouse and and people would almost want to kind
Speaker 6: of act like they were from New York, you know,
Speaker 6: and then he.
Speaker 3: Just said, yeah, they just said that.
Speaker 6: And then it was Outcast that was almost brought that
Speaker 6: pride out where it made people in Atlanta feel proud
Speaker 6: to be from Atlanta or from the South, you know
Speaker 6: what I'm saying. So yeah, so before the Trap era,
Speaker 6: you know, Atlanta was was defined by Dungeon family, by
Speaker 6: so so deaf and you know, by the Face records,
Speaker 6: and that was that was the you know, the the
Speaker 6: trifecta of what Atlanta was.
Speaker 3: So when you are down here. At what point the
Speaker 3: cast of characters that were known as the Affiliates, how
Speaker 3: are they amalcalmating themselves in your life?
Speaker 1: Like are you meeting them now this point?
Speaker 6: So I met DJ Sence literally the first day I
Speaker 6: get to school in Clark, Atlanta, AGAT. We go to
Speaker 6: the dorm to Brawley Hall and my room number was
Speaker 6: two one five, crazy right, And and then somebody told sense, hey,
Speaker 6: you know there's a DJ on the second floor from Philly,
Speaker 6: and he had told he told me it kind of
Speaker 6: already heard about me in Philly. Like, you know, it's
Speaker 6: crazy to think I had a little buzz, but he had,
Speaker 6: you know, he knew about me.
Speaker 1: So we like battled. We battled in my room, like the.
Speaker 6: First first day we met, just kind of going back
Speaker 6: and forth on the turntables, cutting the scratching. And then
Speaker 6: you know, we were doing parties together and we were
Speaker 6: you know, like a dynamic duo and just you know,
Speaker 6: people would book me or book him, or we would
Speaker 6: go together and we would do all the parties. And
Speaker 6: then my next year, this tall, lanky kid gets on
Speaker 6: campus and like he had heard about me, and he
Speaker 6: kind of was like, Yo, my name's Donny Brasco.
Speaker 1: I'm from Philly and I'm a DJ. I make beats.
Speaker 6: And I was kind of you know Kyle, you know
Speaker 6: him and Kyle went to school together, so Kyle kind
Speaker 6: of like would have sour taste in my mouth early on,
Speaker 6: like that that Cannon was a.
Speaker 1: Nut Kyle, Kyle was part of.
Speaker 3: It was a whole crew of Philly dudes. As it
Speaker 3: was Dame Dame.
Speaker 5: North Carolina.
Speaker 1: Yeah, it was Chris, Chris and Eily, it was Dame.
Speaker 6: It was me Since and I had like my school crew,
Speaker 6: and then I had like my Rubik's Jack's and you know,
Speaker 6: my hip hop, my Binkers Crew, but.
Speaker 1: Rest in peace to my brother Jack's.
Speaker 6: But so so finally Cannon woud up giving me a
Speaker 6: beat CD and I went home and I listened to
Speaker 6: it and I was like, yo, this ship is fucking fire.
Speaker 6: So next day I see him on campus, I'm like, yo, yo,
Speaker 6: I've listened to your beat tape. That's it's hard, like
Speaker 6: you know, come through the cribs. So it went from
Speaker 6: me and Since to me Since and Cannon, and then
Speaker 6: we were just the three of us were like you know,
Speaker 6: damn there inseparable, like doing while we were in school,
Speaker 6: and we would do a bunch of gigs together just
Speaker 6: support each other, or you know, when I was selling tapes,
Speaker 6: like Cannon and Sense would make their tapes and I would,
Speaker 6: you know, I would sell them all and we would
Speaker 6: just do events together.
Speaker 1: But the way the Affiliates came.
Speaker 6: About is because there was a crew called the super Friends,
Speaker 6: which was DJ Mars, DJ Trauma. Uh, there was a
Speaker 6: cowboy was in there. Fahrenheit shot him was super Friends
Speaker 6: and they made us part. They We were like the
Speaker 6: youngest of the crew and they you know, invited us
Speaker 6: in and DJ Trauma that is currently okay, and you know,
Speaker 6: it was you know, that was one of the reasons
Speaker 6: why I tried to change my name to Dramatic. It's
Speaker 6: because of Trauma, because Trauma and his name is Tiri
Speaker 6: had at the time, and he was on the radio
Speaker 6: and he was on fire, and it was like everywhere
Speaker 6: I would go and try to say I'm DJ Drama,
Speaker 6: They'd be like Trauma and I'd be like, no, Trauma,
Speaker 6: and it just used to frustrate me, like like, man,
Speaker 6: I'm about to just change my name. And Mar you know,
Speaker 6: interestingly enough was like yo, don't change your name for nobody,
Speaker 6: and Trauma was his best friend, but he, you know,
Speaker 6: he said, you know, don't change your name for nobody, Like,
Speaker 6: if that's your name, that's your name. So we were
Speaker 6: part of the super Friends and we were really trying
Speaker 6: to be focused, like on mixtapes, and super Friends were
Speaker 6: very party driven and we kind of we went through
Speaker 6: a little disagreement at the time. As my memory serves me,
Speaker 6: Jacob York offered the super Friends opportunity to do an album,
Speaker 6: and we were kind of already, you know, feeling a
Speaker 6: certain type of way because you know, we weren't like
Speaker 6: they were getting all the gigs, and you know, we
Speaker 6: were trying to make our name. We couldn't get no
Speaker 6: sponsorship for the mixtapes because they were getting on a
Speaker 6: sponsorship for the parties and everything. And they were like, Yo,
Speaker 6: if we do an album, let's call it Gangster Grills
Speaker 6: because that's the strongest brand out of all of us.
Speaker 6: And I was like, I don't know, I don't want
Speaker 6: to call the super Friends album Gangster Grills, Like that's
Speaker 6: my shit. So they basically, wait, when did you morphins
Speaker 6: you gangster grills? I was I started Gangster Grills in
Speaker 6: two thousand, so by like three oh four had become
Speaker 6: a thing like where it was. You know, I Little
Speaker 6: John was the first person to host it. So I
Speaker 6: used his voice on Gangster Grills four and it was
Speaker 6: still just like a compilation at the time. And you
Speaker 6: know I did like Gangster Girls five, and I just
Speaker 6: kept using John's voice, Right, how did you So how
Speaker 6: do you.
Speaker 1: Approach an artist?
Speaker 3: Because for a lot of the artists that were in
Speaker 3: Gangster Grills mixtape, like as an outsider, I didn't know
Speaker 3: none of those people. So you know, I'm hearing TI
Speaker 3: for the first time right here, like everyone that you
Speaker 3: put on Jesus Travi GZ and all those six even
Speaker 3: like really the first time I really paid attention to
Speaker 3: Wayne and all that stuff is really on Gangster Grill. So, like,
Speaker 3: how are you propositioning them and approaching them to do
Speaker 3: these things? Each situation is difference in a way.
Speaker 6: But like Little John was since was working at the
Speaker 6: station and and Circe and Little John were partners in
Speaker 6: BMME and John used to be up there all the time.
Speaker 6: And you know John, he's one of the most down
Speaker 6: to earth, humble guys in the world.
Speaker 1: And I literally just asked him.
Speaker 6: You know, this was the time when I was paying
Speaker 6: attention to what was going on on the East Coast,
Speaker 6: and I asked him, like, yo, would you host a
Speaker 6: mixtape for me? And he was like sure, and he
Speaker 6: came to my crib in the fourth Ward and hence
Speaker 6: the Gangster Grizzils Drop was born, and you know he
Speaker 6: hosted the tape. Jason Jeter is the first person to
Speaker 6: ever call me. He got my number off the back
Speaker 6: of a mixtape from the barbershop. Now think about this.
Speaker 6: I get a thousand DMS a day about artists trying
Speaker 6: to get on. The first phone call I ever got
Speaker 6: was from Jason Jeter and he was like, Hey, my
Speaker 6: name is Jason Jeter. I have this new artist signed
Speaker 6: to LaFace. We have a song with Beanie Siegual called
Speaker 6: two Blocks nine. I got one of your mixtapes. I
Speaker 6: want to bring him through to freestyle all on one
Speaker 6: of your tapes. And I was like all right, sure,
Speaker 6: cool whatever. So I seen you don't know, never met
Speaker 6: Tip never, wasn't even familiar with the two Glocks, not
Speaker 6: a record yet. So he literally comes to the crib.
Speaker 6: Jeter and Tip super shy and quiet at the time.
Speaker 6: You know, I had my equipment in like where the
Speaker 6: laundry room would be. He comes in there, I pick
Speaker 6: a beat. I picked the for the fan beat, the
Speaker 6: Rockefeller Ye with the one with a mill and everybody
Speaker 6: on it, and he freestyled on that and at the
Speaker 6: end of the freestyle he said, you know, King of
Speaker 6: the South. And I remember once him and Jeter left,
Speaker 6: I went the sense like, yo, this nigga said, he's
Speaker 6: the King of the South, like he's tripping like. So
Speaker 6: that was literally our introduction. And then you know, Jeter
Speaker 6: was also from Jersey, so he was paying attention to
Speaker 6: my mixtape Grind and what I was doing, and they
Speaker 6: were kind of you know, once things didn't work out
Speaker 6: between them and La Reid, they got on their mixtape Grind.
Speaker 1: So we were kind of both coming up at the
Speaker 1: same time.
Speaker 6: Where I lived on Glenn Iris, Coach K lived around
Speaker 6: the corner from me.
Speaker 1: Ah okay, we got cool with Coach K.
Speaker 6: He had this group called Jadis, who Bobby Creek Order
Speaker 6: was a part of who later outside to Shady. That
Speaker 6: was Coach K's first group, and then he also used
Speaker 6: to work for Alan Henderson in Hindu when Alan Henderson
Speaker 6: had a record label, but we got cool with Coach
Speaker 6: K and then he told me like, yo, I got
Speaker 6: this this artist from making. His name is g Z
Speaker 6: and he had an album out. The first album they
Speaker 6: put out was called Come Shop with Me and then Jeez.
Speaker 6: I would Coach would bring g Z over and I
Speaker 6: would make show CDs for Jez. I would charge them
Speaker 6: like one hundred dollars and he would come and I
Speaker 6: would He would just he would he was doing shows
Speaker 6: and making and I would like make CD. He would
Speaker 6: take instrumentals, whatever instrumentals were hot at the time, and
Speaker 6: I would just make him a little like show CDs
Speaker 6: to put together. As Gangster Girls was becoming a thing.
Speaker 6: So then I did like John tape then like I
Speaker 6: think Scrappy hosted one. Then Jeter called me and was like, yo,
Speaker 6: I've been listening to the tapes. I got this idea,
Speaker 6: let's do an all t I and PSC Gangster Grills.
Speaker 1: And I was like, bet, you know.
Speaker 6: And at the time, I'm I'm just fascinated by Green
Speaker 6: Lantern and who Kid and what Fifth is doing and
Speaker 6: what they're doing, and so Jeter and Tip gave me
Speaker 6: the opportunity to do the type of mixtape that I
Speaker 6: wanted to do.
Speaker 3: So you felt, because I'm just amazed that your amount
Speaker 3: of faith. It's so weird, like I need to have
Speaker 3: this conversation because I'm such a no now no, or
Speaker 3: who going to be there? Who are going to be there?
Speaker 3: Like that sort of thing and get me out of
Speaker 3: this or whatever. But it seems to me that your
Speaker 3: the key to your success is the word yes, absolutely yes,
Speaker 3: and absolutely give.
Speaker 1: When I go outside, I give my number to everybody. Wow.
Speaker 6: The worst thing that I can do is not answer.
Speaker 6: It's not right because I think about that all the time.
Speaker 6: What if I would have told Jeter no, Wow? So
Speaker 6: now I think about all the news I've told the
Speaker 6: Jeters in my life now, don't they Don't get me wrong,
Speaker 6: I've you know, I mean, I've missed out on some things.
Speaker 5: Have you?
Speaker 8: Yeah?
Speaker 3: Have you passed up on a moment that, like, damn
Speaker 3: I could have had? Blah blah blah. Of course name
Speaker 3: three three notable You probably worked with them since, but
Speaker 3: at least like you could at least introduce them to
Speaker 3: the world or whatever.
Speaker 1: I mean.
Speaker 6: I've said this before, but Drake definitely wanted a gangster
Speaker 6: grills very early on, all right, for sure, and you
Speaker 6: didn't know about him, or it was just like you
Speaker 6: were too busy or it was I just it didn't happen,
Speaker 6: you know. I mean he wentn't he because I mean
Speaker 6: he did a Southern Smalls tape like DJ Smalls, So
Speaker 6: at the time there was there was Southern smoking.
Speaker 1: It was Gangster Grills. So so, and then Bumby was
Speaker 1: a very early believer. So then I did the Tip.
Speaker 6: I did the Tip Gangster Grills and that just like
Speaker 6: took off in the streets and it was like, you know,
Speaker 6: Tip was on fire, Gangster Grills was coming to thing,
Speaker 6: and you know that's that was the soundtrack of the
Speaker 6: streets in Atlanta and the t I P.
Speaker 1: S C Meets Gangster Girls.
Speaker 6: And then I did a tape for Bun and then
Speaker 6: I did a Gangster Grills party and I had like
Speaker 6: I had it. It was in Buckhead and I think
Speaker 6: Tip hosted, Bone Crusher hosted, I think David Banny. Yeah,
Speaker 6: I did a tape with David Banner, bone Crusher host
Speaker 6: and I was Gangst Girls like seven and was like
Speaker 6: that that was insane. That was a big one. But
Speaker 6: it was still a compilation at the time. So then
Speaker 6: coaching Jeezy took me out. They wanted to take me
Speaker 6: to lunch one day, so they took me to the
Speaker 6: spot called Harry and Sons and Jez tells me, Yo,
Speaker 6: I was at your party.
Speaker 1: Yo.
Speaker 6: I don't know how much you know, but the streets
Speaker 6: like fuck with you, you know. And I'm like, We're like,
Speaker 6: you know, I'm I'm in the streets something.
Speaker 3: We're aware of this.
Speaker 1: Yeah, I'm very unaware. Like when he his his.
Speaker 3: Version, his what his streets are wasn't what my streets were,
Speaker 3: Like my streets were.
Speaker 6: Yeah, well I was familiar, you know what I'm saying,
Speaker 6: because I was doing par parties for like BMF and
Speaker 6: things of that nature. But the streets for me were
Speaker 6: like going to the flea market and selling boxes of CDs.
Speaker 6: You know, you're not going to Bankhead or I'm going
Speaker 6: anywhere or I'm going anywhere that they sell CDs. I'm going,
Speaker 6: but I'm not, you know, in the streets. Yeah, I'm
Speaker 6: selling the mixtapes. I'm not selling nothing but mixtapes, right,
Speaker 6: you know. Yeah, So then you know, Jez tells me, like, yo,
Speaker 6: when Meach goes to campus, that's where he goes and
Speaker 6: gets his Gangster Girls from like he's listening to your
Speaker 6: ship and he's like, listen, I got this vision, like
Speaker 6: I want to do a Gangster Girls with you.
Speaker 1: Like he had it all mapped out and I was
Speaker 1: to I was listening like no doubt.
Speaker 6: But at the time I had never done a tape
Speaker 6: with somebody who wasn't known yet, and that was the
Speaker 6: first time I got paid for a tape. They gave
Speaker 6: me a thousand dollars and we did the tape. It
Speaker 6: was called Streets Is Watching.
Speaker 3: It was damn it changed my life with just tenills, Right,
Speaker 3: what the fuck?
Speaker 1: Why don't we go to you back then had a
Speaker 1: thousand bucks. Hey faved me a thousand dollars to do
Speaker 1: to tape. It was already working good.
Speaker 3: Yeah.
Speaker 1: You was like, what are we talking about?
Speaker 3: Fifth record?
Speaker 5: Yeah?
Speaker 1: How many you have?
Speaker 4: Yeah?
Speaker 1: Yeah, we still to this day.
Speaker 3: We it's almost like we cut like someone took us
Speaker 3: to the front of the bank line on a Friday.
Speaker 1: Yeah, and I got we gotta go back to Baltic.
Speaker 3: Avenue and Mediterranean Avenue and Oriental Avenue, like we got
Speaker 3: park Place and all that stuff. But we realized that
Speaker 3: there's an early gap that we skipped and it doesn't matter,
Speaker 3: like I could have forty two oscars.
Speaker 1: We have to scratch that itch with black people.
Speaker 5: They never did like the conferences and stuff like the
Speaker 5: how how to be down Jack to wrap the impact.
Speaker 1: We wanted to, but you know GEFFN wouldn't have that,
Speaker 1: so anyway, so go go.
Speaker 6: So then yeah, So originally the tape was called G's Up,
Speaker 6: but that was the name of Scrappy's group at the time,
Speaker 6: so we changed the Streets Is Watching. So when I
Speaker 6: did Streets His Watch, and again, Gangster Grills was a
Speaker 6: bigger brand than Young Gez at the time. So we
Speaker 6: put the tape out and we put it out around
Speaker 6: Birthday bash Era, and you know, within a couple of months.
Speaker 6: I mean, I remember the first person ever teld me
Speaker 6: my man Jay who does Raw Report, who wound up
Speaker 6: doing the DVD with Giz for Trapp or Die.
Speaker 1: But I was on Glen Iris with my dad and
Speaker 1: he drove. He was driving by and he was like, Yo,
Speaker 1: that JEZ tape.
Speaker 6: That's the best Gangster Grills You've ever done. And I'm like,
Speaker 6: we're I just told JZ this other day and I
Speaker 6: was like, we're the new nigga like because I'm tied out,
Speaker 6: you know what I'm saying, Like Tip the King, like
Speaker 6: I'm on fire with Tip and he's like, yo, the
Speaker 6: Jez tape like that shit hits different. So you know,
Speaker 6: a couple months in Coach k is like, drawm you
Speaker 6: gotta come on the road with us, like you gotta
Speaker 6: see what's going on.
Speaker 1: Like they're doing this word for word. There's one thing
Speaker 1: you're skipping that gotta knew this.
Speaker 3: As far as the marketing and the distribution, Yeah, is
Speaker 3: there only one place to get this?
Speaker 1: Because how is Tariq Well, I mean, I guess, y'all,
Speaker 1: I don't know how.
Speaker 6: So really, thankfully the bootleggers were like taking my ship
Speaker 6: to the next level.
Speaker 1: They were doing a lot of legwork for me. So
Speaker 1: you didn't know that you were national.
Speaker 6: No I went I when Gangster Girl seven came out,
Speaker 6: I wound up finding out where the bootleg spot was.
Speaker 6: And this was around the time. No I'm sorry, it
Speaker 6: was gangst Girl six. It was against Girl six, but
Speaker 6: it was fifty cent get Richard dot Trying had just
Speaker 6: came out. We wound up finding out where the bootlegs
Speaker 6: spot were in the West End. And we went there
Speaker 6: and I literally saw as many Gangster Girl sixes as
Speaker 6: I did get Richard Doe trying bootlegs, and I was like,
Speaker 6: I was like fascined. I was like, oh my god,
Speaker 6: this is amazing. Not thinking damn, like I'm not really
Speaker 6: making a lot of money, but these niggas is making
Speaker 6: a lot of money.
Speaker 1: Off my ship. But it's a mixtape.
Speaker 6: So it was for me, it was a you know,
Speaker 6: it was a calling, like I mean, it was my
Speaker 6: calling car like, so I was just excited and I
Speaker 6: was moving around like I would. I would come to
Speaker 6: Canal Street in New York and I would, you know,
Speaker 6: even at a time when they were telling me like, nah,
Speaker 6: we don't really check for South mixtapes, I would just
Speaker 6: be like, listen, take this, it's all yours, like you know,
Speaker 6: and let me know how it does. And I would
Speaker 6: call back a couple of weeks months later and they'd
Speaker 6: be like, yo, send us some more.
Speaker 3: So when did death start?
Speaker 5: Is that like after six that from the jump or
Speaker 5: is that like that was.
Speaker 1: It was all around the time.
Speaker 6: It was all around that time, around six around by
Speaker 6: the time Trapper Died came out. Gangster Grills was a thing.
Speaker 6: So it was like I didn't go anywhere in the country.
Speaker 6: I was on tour with TI at the time, and
Speaker 6: I was hearing my shit come out of every car.
Speaker 6: And then I was like, damn, what I'm gonna do next?
Speaker 6: And the next tape I did was Dedication.
Speaker 5: Okay, y'all, So that's gonna conclude part one of our
Speaker 5: conversation with DJ Drama, But wait a minute, you need
Speaker 5: to stay tuned for part two. Well, we speak to
Speaker 5: Drama about making mixtape classics with Lil Wayne, his evolution
Speaker 5: from making those tapes to platinum hits, and why he
Speaker 5: is I'm so proud about working with Fonte and Little
Speaker 5: Brother on Separate But people, oh, y'all don't want to
Speaker 5: miss that conversation.
Speaker 1: It gets deep and so good.
Speaker 5: But listen, stay tuned because we got more with my
Speaker 5: family repens c Au all Day. DJ Drama, Much.
Speaker 1: Love Supreme is a production of iHeartRadio.
Speaker 3: For more podcasts from iHeart Radio, visit the iHeart Radio app,
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