Speaker 1: Quest Love Supreme is a production of iHeartRadio. All Right, y'alls.
Speaker 1: In twenty twenty two, we went to Atlanta for a
Speaker 1: block of tapings and we got to kick it with
Speaker 1: the one and only DJ Drama. We brought some in
Speaker 1: Philly history to the atl as. We spoke about his
Speaker 1: early as days, his love of hip hop, and some
Speaker 1: of his most recent work. And this was a really
Speaker 1: really cool conversation, a two parter, and we chatted until
Speaker 1: the studio and film cruise damn near kicked us out.
Speaker 1: So shout out to Ti for letting us use the
Speaker 1: studio formerly Dallas Austin's Lab to shout out to DJ
Speaker 1: Drama and the whole team.
Speaker 2: Here is part one of DJ Drama.
Speaker 3: Primo sub Primo, Roll suprima, subprimo, Roll subprima, Son Supremo,
Speaker 3: Roll call Suprema, so supremo.
Speaker 4: Roll Warm up my Pannini, Yeah, on my forming grill,
Speaker 4: warm her for Nanni.
Speaker 5: Yeah, or my.
Speaker 3: Supremo roll Supremo, Supremo role.
Speaker 4: My name is Fante DJ dramas my peoples, Yeah, the
Speaker 4: best gangs, the.
Speaker 1: Grills, Yes, separate but equal.
Speaker 3: Supremo Supremo, Roll suprima Son Supremo.
Speaker 2: Roll.
Speaker 1: My name is sugar.
Speaker 2: Yeah.
Speaker 1: I don't need no drama.
Speaker 5: Yeah, but I do need a DJ.
Speaker 1: Yeah, fucking you're hired. I'm offended.
Speaker 3: Supremo, Roll Suprema, Son Supremo Roll.
Speaker 6: It's lay yeah, and it's a must.
Speaker 2: Yeah.
Speaker 6: You know the DJ drama. Yeah was my college crush.
Speaker 3: Roll Supremo, Supremo, Roll Suprima, Supremo Roll.
Speaker 1: Is DJ drama. Yeah.
Speaker 7: You know my mama, she's a white lady.
Speaker 5: She didn't go to Grady.
Speaker 8: Supremo, Roll, Come Supremo, Sun Supremo, Roll Supremo, Sun, Sun Supremo,
Speaker 8: Roll Supremo Supremo Roll.
Speaker 1: Oh boy, all right, that was fun. Yeah, so that's
Speaker 1: the episode. Yeah, see your next go around.
Speaker 5: All right, look I will shout man. All right, So
Speaker 5: I will say this much.
Speaker 1: Back when my band started to tour in nineteen ninety four,
Speaker 1: I kept receipts of which DJs were open to us
Speaker 1: in film and supporting us. And of course, you know
Speaker 1: some cats up in New York, Tony Toka, you know,
Speaker 1: Tony Touch showed us love. His cat named Blue, the
Speaker 1: barber who used to do these blends showed us love.
Speaker 1: Of course, Philly's own cosmic keV DJ cash Money. But
Speaker 1: there was one mixtape in particular that always got run
Speaker 1: on our tour bus.
Speaker 5: And it just said ildelf on it.
Speaker 1: You know, it meant something to me because this is
Speaker 1: the first time that I'm hearing Malik B and Tariq
Speaker 1: and Dice Fraul actually on a mixtape, and we just
Speaker 1: ran that tape over and like that was damn near
Speaker 1: the soundtrack in nineteen ninety four and ninety five on
Speaker 1: our tour bus. So cut two seven years later. You know,
Speaker 1: once the roots sort of evolve and whatnot. And now
Speaker 1: we have two tour buses. As I've joked before that
Speaker 1: there was this Slytherin tour bus in the Gryffindor tour bus.
Speaker 1: So I'd be on Slytherin, which was Tarik's bus, and
Speaker 1: you know which was it was always popping on his bus.
Speaker 1: We were the nerd bus, but you know, his jaw
Speaker 1: was always popping. And it wasn't until like the end
Speaker 1: of maybe the Phrenology tour where Tarik's trying to explain
Speaker 1: to me that every time I hear this little he's
Speaker 1: trying to explain to me that that's to read from Backenviilly.
Speaker 1: It's dramatic and I'm like, wait, it doesn't make sense.
Speaker 1: Though it doesn't only because the thing was is that
Speaker 1: that mixtape of ninety four. I've never heard someone just
Speaker 1: devote an entire mixtape to what we called underground or
Speaker 1: backpack rap or whatever. You know what I mean, which
Speaker 1: is why the Roots couldn't find a real estate on
Speaker 1: your sens or your Tony not Tony touched like you know,
Speaker 1: like yeah, all those like we barely got on them jings.
Speaker 1: I was like, wait a minute, he what And they're like, yeah, man,
Speaker 1: he moved to Atlanta and now he's you know, I've
Speaker 1: always wanted to have this conversation with if you know,
Speaker 1: it's like, we never chopped it up for real. I
Speaker 1: knew one of these days we were going to have
Speaker 1: a conversation, so I wanted to save it for here.
Speaker 5: I'm glad.
Speaker 7: I know we've had a couple of interactions on I
Speaker 7: g about it, but never like in depth.
Speaker 1: This is Yes, this is our first in depth conversation.
Speaker 1: So ladies and gentlemen, please welcome to Quest Love Supreme,
Speaker 1: the Master God himself, mister Thanksgiving, Yes, DJ Drama Man than.
Speaker 7: You, thank you thank you for having me.
Speaker 1: Do you get tired of those people like always pointing
Speaker 1: out the Mason Dixon line of your before and after life?
Speaker 7: No, I don't get tired of nothing because they could
Speaker 7: never care. So yeah, nothing, nothing tires me when it
Speaker 7: comes to that. Okay, it's a very important part of
Speaker 7: the story for myself and for hip hop and for
Speaker 7: Southern culture.
Speaker 5: Like in a lot of ways, you know, like what.
Speaker 7: If I would have went to Temple or what if
Speaker 7: I would have went to NYU, you know what I'm saying.
Speaker 7: So the fact that this kid from Philly who literally
Speaker 7: grew up watching The Roots as his inspiration of Wow,
Speaker 7: you can really do this and DJing for Bahamadia and
Speaker 7: you know, my roommate when I got to college was
Speaker 7: Rubiks whose best friend was was Taib Kwali and I'm
Speaker 7: DJing lyricist lounges. And then that kid goes on to
Speaker 7: be a part of and transform like trap music and movement.
Speaker 7: Gangster Girls becomes like the most important mixtape series literally
Speaker 7: of all time, but also how important it was to
Speaker 7: Southern hip hop culture. So yeah, it's one of those
Speaker 7: It's one of those like destiny stories to me when
Speaker 7: you know, and when it's told and like I've literally
Speaker 7: been in Atlanta longer than I was in Philly, but
Speaker 7: those eighteen years of born and raised in Philly. Once
Speaker 7: from Philly, always from Philly.
Speaker 5: You know what I'm saying.
Speaker 1: So you know when last time you said John, I
Speaker 1: say John all the time. There you go, all right
Speaker 1: the second even even.
Speaker 7: In mean streets, like you know some of my employees
Speaker 7: who started interns, like we have signs up like do
Speaker 7: not come in this John like or in our new
Speaker 7: building generation now, like there's a big sign of Kobe,
Speaker 7: or we have like a Philly map on the side,
Speaker 7: so we still wrap it up.
Speaker 1: That's what's up. Of course, like you mentioned on your
Speaker 1: roll call that YouTube went to clerk. So now from Atlanta,
Speaker 1: I remember the.
Speaker 6: Day no, don't don't lie. Me and Nadine used to
Speaker 6: fight over you all the time, and you know that
Speaker 6: let's not do that.
Speaker 1: Yeah, I thought it was the other the way around.
Speaker 7: I used to have the I used to still wear
Speaker 7: the green fatigues from I Goldberg, like when I got discussed,
Speaker 7: I still had them.
Speaker 1: And the locks definitely had the long locks.
Speaker 6: So that's why this is the whole interesting thing. And
Speaker 6: it's funny because the mere he said he would do,
Speaker 6: he said, if it was in demand, he would do
Speaker 6: an Automatic Relaxation mixtape. Again, I just want to say
Speaker 6: that to everybody who's listening. Did you hear this context?
Speaker 5: Well?
Speaker 1: Old right, it's covered interestingly enough.
Speaker 7: Just even during my most recent tour that I went on,
Speaker 7: I actually physically got my hands on one the first
Speaker 7: Automatic Relaxation, which was the first CD which happened to
Speaker 7: be called it was hip hop lovables, like people don't realize,
Speaker 7: like when I first made Automatic Relaxation, like it was
Speaker 7: before neo soul was a thing, or like hip hop
Speaker 7: love songs were like you know, before everybody was like singing,
Speaker 7: or it was so much melody, so like, you know,
Speaker 7: it was a hip hop lovables like I named it
Speaker 7: that because it didn't really exist at the time. And
Speaker 7: then I just recently got my hands on my actual
Speaker 7: ill ADELFH tape with you know thoughts I do, I do?
Speaker 5: I should have brought it, N I definitely should have
Speaker 5: brought it.
Speaker 7: I got the Green carp My home boy from from
Speaker 7: Philly who lives across street from my mom d shot
Speaker 7: the DS. He found it in his crib and I
Speaker 7: was like, if you go on my Instagram, I actually
Speaker 7: show it the tape and then I go and I
Speaker 7: go and then show my Grammy, like to see where
Speaker 7: I came from and where I'm at now.
Speaker 1: How it started, how it was going, yeah, how I
Speaker 1: was going. Yeah. So for you, what was your first
Speaker 1: musical memory.
Speaker 7: My first musical memory for me is being in Germantown
Speaker 7: when my dad lived on Ruby Camp Street and the
Speaker 7: older kids having the younger kids say.
Speaker 5: The roof, the roof, the roof is on fire.
Speaker 7: We don't need no water, Let it burn, let it burn,
Speaker 7: and they left out motherfucker. Like I vially remember years
Speaker 7: later being like, damn, I didn't know they said let
Speaker 7: the motherfucker burn because they used to say let.
Speaker 5: It burn, let it burn.
Speaker 7: And then I mean, my dad was a big duop guy,
Speaker 7: so I definitely grew up around like him, playing a
Speaker 7: lot of the Commodorees and the Temptations, and obviously Thriller.
Speaker 7: Thriller came out eighty three, you know, so I was
Speaker 7: probably like I was, I was five when Thriller came out,
Speaker 7: So that was a big moment. And then another one
Speaker 7: for me was definitely wanting Adidas because of my Adidas,
Speaker 7: like I didn't get my parents bought me the wrong ones.
Speaker 7: They bought me Like they didn't buy meant stripe. Yeah,
Speaker 7: I didn't get the three stripes. So they were still
Speaker 7: a Didas though they were Adidas. They were Das, but
Speaker 7: they weren't the street three striped ones. There was like
Speaker 7: in Ecker's drugs. My parents were doing like air.
Speaker 1: They were doing. My parents were doing a they were
Speaker 1: doing a residency in San Juan, Puerto Rico. Anybody from
Speaker 1: Puerto Rico that remembers, uh, I think back in eighty
Speaker 1: six or eighty seven when the DuPont Plaza, there was
Speaker 1: like a battle between the union staff which I don't
Speaker 1: know if they were mom connected or whatever, in the
Speaker 1: hotel management. They threatened like if you don't renegotiate our contract,
Speaker 1: we're gonna blow this hotel up.
Speaker 5: Because we checked out.
Speaker 1: We had a New Year's gig in Lancaster, PA that night,
Speaker 1: so we checked out at you know, twelve pm on
Speaker 1: December thirtieth, flew back to the States and came back.
Speaker 5: Home with all the messages like are you guys alive?
Speaker 1: For you and then we found out that there was
Speaker 1: an explosion in the DuPont Plaza. I think like eighteen
Speaker 1: people died or whatever. But the whole point was there
Speaker 1: was an eckage drugs across the street. And you know,
Speaker 1: this is when Adidas made Top ten Adidas, the red,
Speaker 1: blue and green like high top thing, and so they
Speaker 1: were like, we got you Top ten Adidas, but it
Speaker 1: had four stripes. There's like the twelve ninety nine and
Speaker 1: not case with either.
Speaker 4: Yeah, and that's and that's where right, and that's when
Speaker 4: like you had to run your shoes down before you
Speaker 4: got another pair of shoes.
Speaker 1: So yeah, just all in seventh grade, I just.
Speaker 4: Got laughed at because you know, I got a pleathar
Speaker 4: thriller suit and I got four stripes in my Adidas.
Speaker 7: Similar, Yeah, I got the wrong I felt like I
Speaker 7: didn't get the right Adidas.
Speaker 5: I'll never forget that, I see, I see.
Speaker 1: But for you, when did at least turntablism, Like when
Speaker 1: did that attract you?
Speaker 7: So for me, I grew when I grew up, you know,
Speaker 7: I mean the first like piece of vinyl that I
Speaker 7: got was this actual this compilation vinyl was it was
Speaker 7: called like street.
Speaker 5: Rap and like KTL Records joined or something. It had
Speaker 5: to be something like that.
Speaker 7: I don't remember where where I got it, but and
Speaker 7: it had like rock box on it and had Roxanne
Speaker 7: Roxanne Utfo KTL and I remember, like, you know, literally
Speaker 7: like memorizing Roxanne Roxanne by Utfo and it had a
Speaker 7: couple of other songs on there. So that was my
Speaker 7: first actual physical like piece of hip hop vinyl. But
Speaker 7: around like maybe like ten eleven, I got really into skateboarding,
Speaker 7: you know, and I was super into skateboarding and it
Speaker 7: was all about Thrasher magazine. It was all about going
Speaker 7: down to Love Park. So this is like in middle
Speaker 7: school for me. And you know, I came up at
Speaker 7: a time when down in Love Park there started to
Speaker 7: be this this movement or group of black skateboarders. So
Speaker 7: it was it was maybe like seven to eight of
Speaker 7: us at the time, and you know, shout to my
Speaker 7: brother Stevie Williams. He was like the youngest of all
Speaker 7: of us, and he was also the best.
Speaker 5: Fortunately I was the worst. So what about Chuck Trees
Speaker 5: was here around, I think, so he's older though, Yeah,
Speaker 5: he was older and he's.
Speaker 1: Still skateboarding and he's still.
Speaker 7: Yeah, we're a little younger, but you know, they used
Speaker 7: to basically like make fun of me because I could
Speaker 7: barely land a kickflip and like or even like when
Speaker 7: we used to like go to Wah Wah and like
Speaker 7: steal the fucking the jugs of ice teas and everything,
Speaker 7: and then like when we were skate off, I would
Speaker 7: always be like behind, get caught, never got caught, but
Speaker 7: I was I was like I was like last when
Speaker 7: we would try to skate back to love. So yeah,
Speaker 7: I was super into skateboarding. I think Nickelodeon had like
Speaker 7: skate TV out or something around the time. And then
Speaker 7: between eighth grade and ninth grade, I went to the
Speaker 7: movies to go see Juice, and I was just blown away.
Speaker 7: I think for a certain age group of us as DJs,
Speaker 7: like Juice was really was really monumental in our careers
Speaker 7: because you know, and again like in Philly culture, like
Speaker 7: we always like Philly had the DJs, New York had
Speaker 7: the rappers, you know what I'm saying. So you know,
Speaker 7: I knew early on about cash Money and Miz and
Speaker 7: Jeff and what what have you. So, but it was
Speaker 7: really Juice that started my fascination with like that's I
Speaker 7: might want to try that you know what I'm saying.
Speaker 7: Like I dabbled about, you know, rapping a little bit
Speaker 7: and never was really that good at it. And then
Speaker 7: so ninth grade, after seeing Juice, I convinced my mom
Speaker 7: to buy me a turntable and a mixer, and she did.
Speaker 7: It was a belt drive. Originally, I got to Yeah,
Speaker 7: it was tough.
Speaker 5: It was tough.
Speaker 7: So I originally got like a belt drive turntable and
Speaker 7: one mixer. I remember was it a Gemini or a
Speaker 7: technical a Gemini? It was a Gemini belt draft. It
Speaker 7: was a Gemini be draft.
Speaker 4: Those that are wondering drivers a direct drive, they'll drive
Speaker 4: is like you know, yeah, exactly.
Speaker 7: It takes a long time to rev back up. So
Speaker 7: like good time without a technique twelve hundred dot, you
Speaker 7: wasn't really doing nothing. So but I remember I did.
Speaker 7: Like it was a kid. His name was Ari Foreman.
Speaker 7: I did his Ari birthday. You know, all right, ye
Speaker 7: are still around. He's like he does very much doing
Speaker 7: production and film and things like that.
Speaker 4: He did some art for us, like him and Tramp
Speaker 4: and like they designed so crazy how the world is
Speaker 4: still connected with his birthday party was my first party.
Speaker 7: So I remember the first records. Really, Yeah, we went.
Speaker 7: He went to Central with me.
Speaker 5: You and Ari are the same age we are, Yeah,
Speaker 5: we came in.
Speaker 1: I'm older than Ari. I'm way older than you. So
Speaker 1: by the transit vehicles by a couple of years. Are
Speaker 1: so classy. Like I always thought he was like slightly
Speaker 1: older than me.
Speaker 5: Yeah, we'll just same class two five.
Speaker 1: Because he's the one that introduced me to Cosmo.
Speaker 5: Okay, so good.
Speaker 7: So I used to save my lunch money. My mom
Speaker 7: would give me like five hours every day for lunch.
Speaker 7: What did your parents do?
Speaker 1: Man?
Speaker 7: What was My mom is a teacher. She's in education.
Speaker 7: She's been in education forever she was. She now has
Speaker 7: her PhD in education. But when I was in growing up,
Speaker 7: she would teach in Philadelphia High School. She taught at Alnie,
Speaker 7: she taught it Overbrook, Yeah, I think those were She
Speaker 7: went from Alnie to Overbrooks. So she was at Overbrook
Speaker 7: when I was essentral And my dad used to work
Speaker 7: for this Quaker organization in Philly called AFSC American Friends
Speaker 7: Service Committee and then HIT. Part of his job was
Speaker 7: spending a lot of time in Eastern Europe. So like
Speaker 7: he used to travel to the USSR at the time,
Speaker 7: and you know, and then later on he would go
Speaker 7: to other part of parts of Eastern Europe and like,
Speaker 7: you know, help out like what are known as Gypsies,
Speaker 7: which pretty much are like, you know, people of European descent,
Speaker 7: but they almost get treated as black people over there.
Speaker 7: And then my dad, you know, both my parents are
Speaker 7: very politically active growing up, so like my dad used
Speaker 7: to be in snick student student and coordinating committee.
Speaker 5: Yeah, so you know, I grew up going to like.
Speaker 1: Did you go to Charters school of the Charters? I didn't.
Speaker 7: I always wanted to go to a charter school category.
Speaker 7: I wanted to go to Friends Select or GFS or
Speaker 7: Penn Charters so bad, like because I knew so many
Speaker 7: kids that went there. It's funny because I put my
Speaker 7: daughters into friends schools and they're.
Speaker 5: Like, oh, Dad, why did you do this to us?
Speaker 7: And I was like, man, growing up, I wanted to
Speaker 7: go to a friend school, but I think it might
Speaker 7: just be a Philly thing. It's Quaker and that's like
Speaker 7: a pa thing. But I went to public school. Like
Speaker 7: my parents couldn't afford me to go to those schools,
Speaker 7: so I went to Mastermin and I went to Central.
Speaker 7: So I always went to like good academic schools, Like
Speaker 7: I had good grades in school and.
Speaker 1: What have you.
Speaker 7: So, yeah, so I used to go downtown between Arman's,
Speaker 7: Funkel Mart and Sounds of Market and I would buy
Speaker 7: my records and I would you know, the first records
Speaker 7: I bought was like the Who's the Man soundtrack Heavy
Speaker 7: D was Who's the Man partying bullshit, So.
Speaker 1: You spend out and cuts in the grooves here this
Speaker 1: small and its loud, Superba, super ghetto, Redtat, Supercat, Ghetto
Speaker 1: red Hot, Fad Joe Flow Joe. Yeah.
Speaker 7: You know this was around the time when like in Philly,
Speaker 7: like it was there was the Goats and then there
Speaker 7: was the Square Roots, and you know that was like
Speaker 7: that was you know, my introduction to like hip hop
Speaker 7: and DJing, and it was this was all around that era.
Speaker 1: Well, first of all, you know, even for me, like
Speaker 1: to be a drummer as young as I was, and
Speaker 1: I would get these catalogs, you sam Ash catalogs whatever,
Speaker 1: drums were like seven thousand bucks, right, And so I
Speaker 1: mean lucky for me, my dad had like access to
Speaker 1: stuff usually like band members that upcumbed to an addiction
Speaker 1: or whatever, and whatever leave the equipment and that's how
Speaker 1: like the inherited drum sets when I was younger, but
Speaker 1: like DJ equipment though, man it's like expensive.
Speaker 5: Were you just on one turntable and one cheap radio shack?
Speaker 1: Drawing like a mixer.
Speaker 7: For a while, I had the what was the I
Speaker 7: guess it was a Gemini mixture that had the eight
Speaker 7: second sampler scratch master.
Speaker 5: Yeah, I had that.
Speaker 4: Oh my god, how do you know that I had? Well,
Speaker 4: I had access to one, that one that was like
Speaker 4: you were DJ too, No, no, no, I used to
Speaker 4: make beats on it. YEA had the sampler, yes, yeah,
Speaker 4: loop and you had to like turn the thing to
Speaker 4: catch it perfect perfectly and yeah, my finger was like all.
Speaker 5: I remember.
Speaker 7: I used to write my grandparents, my mother's parents, like letters,
Speaker 7: and like when I would get good grades, I would
Speaker 7: like write them letters like hey, I got good grades.
Speaker 5: Like can you get me this?
Speaker 7: And you know, and then you know, my my grandparents
Speaker 7: actually I think we're the ones who bought me my
Speaker 7: technique twelve hund so they bought me my technique twelve hundreds.
Speaker 7: And then I would do little gigs here and there,
Speaker 7: and I think, you know Armands at the time, like
Speaker 7: or not even armands that I think a funkal Mark.
Speaker 7: You know, you could buy speakers weren't like that expensive,
Speaker 7: so you could. I could I bought like maybe like
Speaker 7: you know these big ass wolfers and everything, and it
Speaker 7: might have been like two three hundred bucks four hundred
Speaker 7: dollars for a set, right, and then you would have
Speaker 7: to buy a receiver.
Speaker 5: What else would you need?
Speaker 6: All gift money?
Speaker 5: No job, I didn't have a job, now, this was all.
Speaker 5: This was before a job.
Speaker 7: Yeah, I didn't get a job till like eleven, twelfth grade,
Speaker 7: so yeah, it was all. It was all pretty much
Speaker 7: like get birthday and Christmas type gifts and stuff. But
Speaker 7: you know, lunch money is how I did my record collection.
Speaker 7: And they just starved in school.
Speaker 5: Starve.
Speaker 7: Yeah, yeah, maybe go across the street from Central and
Speaker 7: go to the pizza spot and maybe get a dollar
Speaker 7: slice or something. But you know, definitely all would save
Speaker 7: up to get my records.
Speaker 1: So were your parents encouraging or did they see this
Speaker 1: as just like a hobby.
Speaker 5: Definitely just saw it as a hobby. Did you see
Speaker 5: this as a career or a hobby?
Speaker 1: You know?
Speaker 7: Interestingly enough, my sister was like as a filmmaker and
Speaker 7: she used to do like make independent films and hence
Speaker 7: how we first met because she brought me to I
Speaker 7: guess it was.
Speaker 5: Was it a temple? It was for the.
Speaker 7: Premiere of Past the Popcorn video, Damn Wow. And there
Speaker 7: was a there was a young lady who used to
Speaker 7: direct videos because she did a three times Dope video.
Speaker 7: I can't remember her name, but my sister was friends
Speaker 7: with her and then, but she's the one that That's
Speaker 7: how I wound up coming to the premiere of Past
Speaker 7: the Popcorn and that was where we originally first met.
Speaker 7: And I like came up to you as a young
Speaker 7: lad and just introduced myself.
Speaker 1: Shout out to Abdul Jackson and Kevin Drer. I forget,
Speaker 1: damn man, you just back on some joints, man. I
Speaker 1: totally forgot.
Speaker 6: Yeah, y'all had a premiere party for that video, right.
Speaker 1: So yeah, like my last my last day at rough House,
Speaker 1: just you know, I just through spaghetti and the Wall
Speaker 1: seven stuck and I just happen to ask Chris Wartz
Speaker 1: right after lunch because I would notice after lunch he'd
Speaker 1: be in a different mind state, and I was just like, hey,
Speaker 1: you know, or he knew about the roots and you know,
Speaker 1: saw some shows or whatever and always wanted like how
Speaker 1: can we get it, you know, an offer, But he
Speaker 1: just he was just that day, he just like, okay,
Speaker 1: how much I was like five thousand, Wow, you'll need
Speaker 1: seven thousands, was like seventy five hundred things. And to
Speaker 1: do organics, no, to do the.
Speaker 4: Past popcorns and we shot past the popcorn on Thanksgiving morning.
Speaker 1: Wow, like yeah, Like shout out to Chris Wartz of
Speaker 1: rough House Record.
Speaker 7: And I remember too, my other friends used to be
Speaker 7: cool with Kenyata.
Speaker 5: I used to look up to. Yeah, I used to
Speaker 5: look up to yacht like.
Speaker 7: But but no, it was it was for them, it
Speaker 7: was a hobby. For me, it was still you know,
Speaker 7: I thought I was gonna wind up going to NYU
Speaker 7: and being film school and be a director, like at
Speaker 7: the time, that's that's but I love DJing like it was.
Speaker 5: It was my thing.
Speaker 7: So I definitely had, you know, without even realizing, was
Speaker 7: putting way more time and effort into my DJ career.
Speaker 7: And then you know, I had my stuff in my
Speaker 7: in my room at my mother's house. And then it
Speaker 7: got to a point when the traffic of the friends
Speaker 7: coming over and us trying to make little freestyle tapes
Speaker 7: and everything. She she got fed up because it was
Speaker 7: like ten ten thirty and she was like, yo, it's
Speaker 7: too loud, and so she allowed she let me move
Speaker 7: to the basement and I moved. You know, that was
Speaker 7: my first studio in the basement of my mom's house,
Speaker 7: and we used to be down there, boom bapping all
Speaker 7: day after school every day. And that's where I made
Speaker 7: La Delf and you know, I started. My sister took
Speaker 7: me to New York between ninth and tenth grade and
Speaker 7: we went to Harlem and on one hundred and twenty fifth,
Speaker 7: they still had the vendors and I bought That's when
Speaker 7: I bought my first mixtape, DJs Ands Old School Part Two.
Speaker 7: And the reason why I bought that tape was because
Speaker 7: all the songs that were on there when I would
Speaker 7: go to to the record stores, I couldn't get those
Speaker 7: songs on violin anymore because they were unless they were
Speaker 7: the you know, the bootleg copies and everything. So I
Speaker 7: bought S and S Old School Part two and I
Speaker 7: was just literally blown away, like by that tape by
Speaker 7: S's talk game, like how he was putting records together
Speaker 7: and hence that just really started my fascination with like
Speaker 7: mixtape culture. And then you know, Clue kind of was
Speaker 7: coming up on the scene. And when I would get
Speaker 7: Clue tapes from the Layup and things like I would
Speaker 7: I would feel like when I would go to school,
Speaker 7: I'd be like, oh, y'all don't know about this yet,
Speaker 7: Like y'all don't have this premiere Jay RW remix or
Speaker 7: you know this this new big Ye Grand Pooba Tupac song.
Speaker 7: Like so I would feel ahead of occur then, you know,
Speaker 7: I was just that, you know, and when it came
Speaker 7: to like DJing and like, you know, there were battle DJs,
Speaker 7: there was radio DJs, there was you know, party DJs,
Speaker 7: and there were mixtape DJs, but the mixtape DJ for
Speaker 7: me was always just like larger than life.
Speaker 1: So for Philadelphians, the Layup, my current production manager Keith McFee,
Speaker 1: kind of opened kind of like Phillies. I don't know
Speaker 1: if it's the first culture store, but it was like
Speaker 1: the spot where, yeah, it was like the spot where
Speaker 1: you get like what was the first skateboard and get
Speaker 1: like fresh jive or excuse you could get to see. Yeah,
Speaker 1: those Triple Triple five, those hoodies early Echo. It's not
Speaker 1: the hood yeah, those I can't remember. It's the even
Speaker 1: though skateboard pants that are like the big at the bottom.
Speaker 5: Yeah, and the forty waist Johns that were super big.
Speaker 1: Yeah. So that's and that's pretty much like that was
Speaker 1: just like the cultural epicenter. That's where like mixtapes were. Yeah,
Speaker 1: you get cry line, spray paint, you get to catch
Speaker 1: all those things and everything.
Speaker 4: They have the white man Daiki yes with the yeah
Speaker 4: those things.
Speaker 6: You're talking about money.
Speaker 4: Looks like you see like five white boys at lunch
Speaker 4: playing Hackey sacking.
Speaker 5: Yeah.
Speaker 4: I would rock that ship all the time. It never showers,
Speaker 4: so all the fun in the world side of that, Yeah,
Speaker 4: come on. I mean, only the only reason why dudes
Speaker 4: would shower in the twenties is if a woman is
Speaker 4: involved or whatever, like their future partner.
Speaker 6: But you know, come back, come back, come back, come back.
Speaker 5: Yeah, I'm coming back anyway. Who is the DJ?
Speaker 1: Okay, I'm trying about rock the bells thing, just like
Speaker 1: Jeff does my cash money thing whatever. But for me,
Speaker 1: I will say that like Cosmic keV is probably the
Speaker 1: sensey DJ that I always have in my head when
Speaker 1: I'm doing a set or whatever, like you're always going
Speaker 1: to emulate someone because like if you're making beats, when
Speaker 1: you get your drum machine, you start to you know,
Speaker 1: all right, let me see if I could do blah
Speaker 1: blah blah blah that sort of thing for you as
Speaker 1: a DJ?
Speaker 5: Who were those DJs? Who was the sense?
Speaker 4: He like, what was the mix that was sort of
Speaker 4: like damn, I gotta well, I.
Speaker 1: Mean, or were you even into turntablism? Oh?
Speaker 7: Absolutely, I was going to tell you, I mean, because
Speaker 7: there was so For me, it was a few.
Speaker 5: I mean definitely.
Speaker 7: Probably first it was DJ Rand because I forgot Yeah,
Speaker 7: because before.
Speaker 9: You still spinning, right, he was like with the w
Speaker 9: W Yeah, I'm not sure, shot shot the cosmic Keev. Two,
Speaker 9: he just took me on a superhistory lesson, Like was he.
Speaker 1: Nice about it? keV? Oh yeah, yeah yeah. We talked
Speaker 1: for like two hours or.
Speaker 5: So, gently exchanging nice words.
Speaker 7: We discussed like his relationship with Ran and how things
Speaker 7: came about and how you know it went from Ran
Speaker 7: to keV and you know, but when of course as
Speaker 7: it as a as a youngster, like it was Kobe
Speaker 7: Cob and DJ ran on Radioactive every Friday night. So
Speaker 7: you know, people don't really like this is obviously before
Speaker 7: we had you know, you can go and you can
Speaker 7: go on YouTube, Hulu, anything and watch anything hip hop
Speaker 7: you want. Back in the day, we only had certain outlets,
Speaker 7: so you would run home to catch Rahap City or
Speaker 7: Friday night, I would be tuned in to Radioactive to
Speaker 7: hear and so.
Speaker 5: Oh you know who else too? Yeah, yeah, it's fucking
Speaker 5: j Ski. Yeah, oh yeah, talk about Godam because what
Speaker 5: was the station was one O three something, you stupid.
Speaker 6: He came to his birthday party.
Speaker 5: Damn on.
Speaker 7: So on the radio side, it was definitely ran keV
Speaker 7: and Jay Ski and then in Philly for me, it
Speaker 7: was DJ Ghetto and Ghetto was like yes, you know, yeah,
Speaker 7: Ghetto used to be our d m C champion. He
Speaker 7: would he would go up against Rock graded Rest in
Speaker 7: Peace and you know, do his DMC thing and like,
Speaker 7: you know, Ghetto has another cousin named Evil Tracy too,
Speaker 7: but but Ghetto, like Ghetto kind of like you know,
Speaker 7: took me in as a youngster and was trying to
Speaker 7: kind of show me how to really cut and scratch
Speaker 7: and you know, do things on his level. I could
Speaker 7: never get it down to to to that degree. But
Speaker 7: Ghetto definitely like befriended me as a as a young
Speaker 7: DJ too and Philly, so I salute to him. So
Speaker 7: those were the guys that I was around or were
Speaker 7: listening to early on. So when you're in the dramatic era,
Speaker 7: are you do you have a regular residency?
Speaker 5: Are you now? High school?
Speaker 1: So Dances is the first club I ever.
Speaker 5: Dj' at dance?
Speaker 7: It was for Juwan Lee's birthday party. Juan Lee, he's
Speaker 7: the director. He works with Benny Boom. He does a
Speaker 7: lot of stuff now too, my brother to this day.
Speaker 7: I just saw him the other day. But yeah, that
Speaker 7: was my first actual club gig. Was was Juwan's birthday
Speaker 7: party of Dances. This might have been like eleventh grade.
Speaker 7: And then I was just doing like I would get
Speaker 7: hired to do like block parties or like birthday parties
Speaker 7: of you know, kids that I went to school with,
Speaker 7: or you know that I knew around town or what
Speaker 7: have you. And and then you know, we had this
Speaker 7: I remember we had this crew that it was this
Speaker 7: crib off Gerard Avenue that we lived at, and I
Speaker 7: used to do a lot of their functions.
Speaker 5: So you know, I was.
Speaker 7: I was getting you know, gigs here and there, just
Speaker 7: like around Philly as a as a kid.
Speaker 1: Now, as far as your creative output is concern and
Speaker 1: I specifically want to kind of go step by step
Speaker 1: that I'm leading and we got this a lot. So
Speaker 1: for you, are you in the mind state of serve
Speaker 1: my audience or like I met, I'm very selfish with
Speaker 1: my DJ and I do it like I'm like Prince
Speaker 1: doing Darling Nikki. No one cares about the music but
Speaker 1: your self. Yeah. And but I also know that I
Speaker 1: have a shield of protection that will allow me to
Speaker 1: play a mister Rogers song, or I can play the
Speaker 1: number song by the porn of Sisters on Sesame Street
Speaker 1: kind of.
Speaker 5: Get you know, they're like, what the hell is he playing?
Speaker 5: Like yeah, that quest loves so crazy?
Speaker 1: Like I know I can do rogue shit right, and
Speaker 1: you know, and oftentimes the openers are like, yo, man,
Speaker 1: like that was crazy you did that? Because even one time,
Speaker 1: I think Fonte mentioned that someone spun return to Forever
Speaker 1: something it or weather report.
Speaker 4: Yeah it was out of who it was, the Detroit
Speaker 4: It wasn't things Steel perish.
Speaker 1: Okay, okay, okay. Well, he's known for Dared Devil shit.
Speaker 1: But my whole point is that as a DJ, you
Speaker 1: kind of have two choices, which is serve the people
Speaker 1: or established yourself right. So at the time and oftentimes
Speaker 1: like opening DJs have it the hardest because they gotta
Speaker 1: you gotta keep them on the floor.
Speaker 5: You can't.
Speaker 1: I remember once an opening DJ got in trouble. He
Speaker 1: had like an early copy of Brooklyn Zoo, and I
Speaker 1: think that might have been to you know, of course,
Speaker 1: you know it was like the new Woutange, okay, but
Speaker 1: it wasn't. The club owner was like, no, no, you
Speaker 1: know that sort of thing. So for you, were you
Speaker 1: facing any sort of venue structure that would tell you like,
Speaker 1: this is what we want and just play R and
Speaker 1: B or so not in Philly.
Speaker 7: When I was in Philly, I was very stubborn and
Speaker 7: very East Coast with my taste in music and what
Speaker 7: I would play Like I remember I would do parties
Speaker 7: and want to play Doctor Octagon.
Speaker 5: Wow, oh Jesus Christ. Yeah, like that's where I was at,
Speaker 5: Like I want to.
Speaker 1: Try to make blue Flowers work.
Speaker 5: Yeah, exactly, I was.
Speaker 7: That's where I That's where I was at in my
Speaker 7: Philly days. And you know, I wanted to play fucking
Speaker 7: Smith and Wesson album cuts and just you know, I
Speaker 7: didn't get to to the stage or era of pleasing
Speaker 7: the crowd or my audience until I moved to Atlanta.
Speaker 7: Atlanta Atlanta did it, and I.
Speaker 1: Don't want to do I don't even want to frame
Speaker 1: it like it's a compromise because I do think that
Speaker 1: you're either going to be an effective DJ yeah, or
Speaker 1: we're going to be a teachable lesson DJ yeah.
Speaker 7: Well I was blessed in my career to be able
Speaker 7: to be that later on because of who I became
Speaker 7: and who I was, so once I became DJ Drama,
Speaker 7: it's like, Okay, when they come to see me, they
Speaker 7: also want to be able to I can, you know,
Speaker 7: introduce them to something or be a little more stubborn.
Speaker 7: But it's really going to Clark Atlanta University and being
Speaker 7: in the AUC for me coming from Philly, where I
Speaker 7: would have people from d C who wanted to hear
Speaker 7: Go Go, I would have, you know, people from the
Speaker 7: West Coast who wanted to hear ship from l A
Speaker 7: or the Bay, or I would have people from Texas
Speaker 7: who wanted to hear screw or what have you saw
Speaker 7: it taught me how to be well rounded.
Speaker 1: Okay, So and that's that's where I was gonna go next.
Speaker 1: You know, the whole I mean, especially now you you
Speaker 1: kind of morphed into your dramas before the age of
Speaker 1: cell phones. So the whole idea of someone put their
Speaker 1: phone on your facing. Yeah, like I hate I'm a
Speaker 1: no request person, gotcha, And that's where my ego gets
Speaker 1: me in trouble.
Speaker 5: Yeah, I'm not like that. So you're you're people, You're
Speaker 5: a person of the people.
Speaker 1: I am.
Speaker 4: I'm definitely a person of the peopleol.
Speaker 5: No, no, no, no.
Speaker 7: I like when people like if I go to Vegas
Speaker 7: and it's eight women who keep putting Bad Bunny on
Speaker 7: their phone, I gotta play fucking Bad Bunny.
Speaker 4: Even to this day, you're not offended, Like, motherfucker, I'm
Speaker 4: DJ drama, Like I created stars.
Speaker 5: You don't tell Picasso what the paint see that.
Speaker 4: I got to But that's not that's not the capacity
Speaker 4: he's there to serve that night.
Speaker 1: You know what I'm saying.
Speaker 7: It's like, yeah, I mean, there's it depends like it
Speaker 7: depends on the gig too, Like if I get it
Speaker 7: like a hipster New York gig for like I did
Speaker 7: something for United Masters and you know that night they
Speaker 7: booked me, Like I know they want to hear drama ship,
Speaker 7: Like I'm gonna play Canon Remix and I'm gonna you know,
Speaker 7: go in and play some Gucci or go here with it.
Speaker 7: But you know, if I'm at my Vegas residency, like
Speaker 7: I'm there to.
Speaker 5: Yeah, like I'm not at.
Speaker 7: The same time, like I'm still trauma, so I'm not
Speaker 7: about to fist pump that thing out.
Speaker 1: Have you ever had a i mean moment or at
Speaker 1: least that was sort of the ship back in twenty fourteen.
Speaker 7: Yeah, I mean I've played them records at times like what,
Speaker 7: but that's not the majority of my set. Like I
Speaker 7: know when they booked me, like they want to they
Speaker 7: come there for a certain run. Yeah, people I give
Speaker 7: them like when they when I go even to Vegas,
Speaker 7: like and you know, Vegas has had a transition at
Speaker 7: time where it's become much more hip hop driven than
Speaker 7: it was. But I'm just saying, like when I go
Speaker 7: to gigs, like people want to hear DJ drama, be
Speaker 7: DJ drama, you know what I'm saying.
Speaker 1: So it's like, but is it confusing now at this
Speaker 1: stage in your life where okay, so say and now
Speaker 1: I'm that that I would associate you with like any
Speaker 1: Cannon records. So let's say like Go Crazy, right, which
Speaker 1: came out in two thousand, Yeah, which too old guys.
Speaker 5: To me, I'm still like, oh, that's new rap, even
Speaker 5: though that's.
Speaker 1: Old school right.
Speaker 7: No, no, no, so no, I mean it was confusing now, No,
Speaker 7: not for me, because I go with the times and
Speaker 7: I go like I just got off a tour with whiz.
Speaker 5: And Logic, for instance.
Speaker 7: So but and and the blessing for me as though,
Speaker 7: is that that's not like as much as there is
Speaker 7: an audience that knows me for that. When I get
Speaker 7: on stage at the Wizkallyfan Logic show, I start with
Speaker 7: a tiler to create a record, and then I go
Speaker 7: into a dream. I play stick off the Dreamville tape
Speaker 7: because that's still my shit, like it's still off Gangster Grills.
Speaker 6: That's when DJ dramatic to me kind of enters the
Speaker 6: thing I hate.
Speaker 2: I know you.
Speaker 6: I don't know if you hate when I go DJ
Speaker 6: dramatic or drama, but it's just how I can.
Speaker 1: Knew you when you was a minor.
Speaker 7: But I was drama first though. I mean, it wasn't
Speaker 7: like I was dramatic. I was drama and then I
Speaker 7: tried to change it to dramatic and then I went back.
Speaker 1: So it wasn't like I.
Speaker 5: Was originally DJ dramatic. I was. I was DJ drama first.
Speaker 6: But you okay, I'll accept that. But you know, when
Speaker 6: I say dramatic, it's also like to an era, a
Speaker 6: time when you did have a certain lane that you
Speaker 6: were in that you have yeah left sin.
Speaker 5: Well what happened was it? I didn't know.
Speaker 7: I mean, like as much as much as I was
Speaker 7: putting into gangster grills, I was putting into automatic relaxation,
Speaker 7: one just took off from the other.
Speaker 5: Third.
Speaker 1: Okay, so let me ask you when you decided to
Speaker 1: go to Lark University yep, Park Atlanta. And I assume
Speaker 1: that you're transporting your your equipment with you yep.
Speaker 5: So, and that's.
Speaker 4: Important, Like you already know that in your dorm that
Speaker 4: your big ass speakers and your records and your turntables
Speaker 4: had to come with me, are coming with you?
Speaker 1: Okay, absolutely no question without it. Were your parents like
Speaker 1: what the hell are you doing? Like you're in a dorm?
Speaker 7: They you know, I mean by that point, I was
Speaker 7: already like kind of you know, they had they it
Speaker 7: was clear that I was on a certain path, and
Speaker 7: I was, you know, this DJ thing was to happen
Speaker 7: in college, not just some high school thing. And yeah,
Speaker 7: I don't yeah, I don't know if they knew. I
Speaker 7: mean clearly they didn't see this happening. Like you know,
Speaker 7: I mean my mom even after school, was concerned about
Speaker 7: me getting a real quote unquote real job. But yeah,
Speaker 7: I mean when I got to school, like it was,
Speaker 7: you know, I brought my Philly hustle with me. Like
Speaker 7: like I will tell you, like freshman year, when everybody
Speaker 7: was freaking doubt, I bought a bunch of T shirts
Speaker 7: from this guy named Moot, and I was hustling T
Speaker 7: shirts during Freaknink.
Speaker 5: Like I didn't partake in none of the.
Speaker 7: Activities like or I would set up on campus on
Speaker 7: we had these green trash cans and I had this
Speaker 7: little yellow radio, and I would like hustle my mixtapes
Speaker 7: in between classes.
Speaker 1: So how did you find an outlet to establish yourself
Speaker 1: in Atlanta?
Speaker 7: Well, I mean the outlet was the AUC. It was
Speaker 7: our world. I mean, there was enough.
Speaker 1: And market at Marcos.
Speaker 5: You feel like working at Marcos too?
Speaker 1: Was I mean Marco's people. I didn't go to college.
Speaker 1: You see the.
Speaker 7: Atlanta University Atlanta University Center, so that's Clark Atlanta, that's
Speaker 7: Morris Brown at the time, that's Morehouse and Spellman. So
Speaker 7: you literally have four historically black colleges and universities right
Speaker 7: in one epicenter. So there's multitudes of parties and gigs available.
Speaker 7: So I was did you try to find your flock
Speaker 7: or no, I can't, or were you like, okay, where
Speaker 7: did they endo down here? It just happened naturally, because
Speaker 7: you know, as you start doing gigs, I mean you realize.
Speaker 5: Oh, I got to people from everywhere.
Speaker 7: So you know, I learned very early on and I
Speaker 7: shot to my man DJ Sense and since is also
Speaker 7: from Philly, we met freshman year and he kind of
Speaker 7: was a little more commercially driven than I was at
Speaker 7: the time, Like I was real backpack rap and he
Speaker 7: was like bad boy, you know what I'm saying. So
Speaker 7: us doing gigs together, he kind of helped influence and
Speaker 7: inspire me to get you know, he yelled at me
Speaker 7: one time I cut the Benjamin's off too early.
Speaker 5: Oh WoT a gig.
Speaker 7: He was like, bro, like, you can't cut it off
Speaker 7: at this part, and he was right, you know what
Speaker 7: I'm saying. So us doing gigs together, I kind of
Speaker 7: got more into my commercial bag. And you know, because
Speaker 7: I still even when I was in school, when I
Speaker 7: was doing these college gigs, I was still DJing lyricist lounges.
Speaker 7: I was still at yin Yang Cafe doing poet you
Speaker 7: know what I mean, Like I was, I was still
Speaker 7: into that world.
Speaker 1: So I was I was bouncing between worlds in a way.
Speaker 1: Who was the DJ down here that was your oh
Speaker 1: shit or your kaiser? So it's a coffee mug, slow
Speaker 1: drop realization thing that this is some next shit.
Speaker 7: Down here that I have to First it was DJ Nabs.
Speaker 7: Nabs was the ultimate. I mean, he was on the radio,
Speaker 7: he was on television, he was he had Kai He
Speaker 7: had Nabs in a lab at club kaya Sunday night,
Speaker 7: which was just the ultimate experience. And then I think
Speaker 7: for me it probably was DJ Mars. Mars also at
Speaker 7: the time was you know, he used to be on
Speaker 7: he had a bet gig, so he was doing what
Speaker 7: was that show called It was one of them shows
Speaker 7: Mars was on the radio. You know, he was on
Speaker 7: every day and he was in the club. So he
Speaker 7: was like one of you know, one of those like
Speaker 7: the guys that we looked towards, just like damn, that's
Speaker 7: the next level. So and he It's funny because I
Speaker 7: did the same thing with you too. I know you
Speaker 7: don't remember this, but I used to like write for
Speaker 7: this like little magazine or like little zine, and I
Speaker 7: went and did an interview with Mars. That's how I
Speaker 7: like got I introduced myself to him. I went to
Speaker 7: go interview him at the station and then I handed
Speaker 7: him one of my mixtapes and he was like, Yo,
Speaker 7: this shit's hot. And oddly enough, when you guys came
Speaker 7: to Atlanta one time, I did the same thing with you.
Speaker 7: I was, I did an interview with you for the magazine.
Speaker 7: And that was how I first found out about Dyla
Speaker 7: because this was the era where you were dial it
Speaker 7: out and you were just you told me, like, yo,
Speaker 7: all we do is listen to slum Village and this
Speaker 7: is mid late nineties and everything, and yeah, so I
Speaker 7: would kind of, you know, wiggle my way in however
Speaker 7: whatever to you know, get my name out there or
Speaker 7: get my tapes in people's hands.
Speaker 1: Like I feel like Atlanta really found itself with what
Speaker 1: I organized noise and now casting all this established absolutely so.
Speaker 1: But the thing is is that I didn't call it
Speaker 1: anything like I know, like New Orleans's bounce and there's
Speaker 1: bass music in Miami. But what was Atlanta's culture before trap?
Speaker 1: Like does first of all, does Atlanta own what we
Speaker 1: know as trap?
Speaker 5: Absolutely so? What was before the BC era of that?
Speaker 7: It was Dungeon family. I mean, so you think I
Speaker 7: moved here in ninety six? Ninety six El Adelph Half
Speaker 7: Life came out, ninety six at Aliens came out, Luddy Waters,
Speaker 7: right Man, Muddy Waters came out, Reasonable Mob Deep second
Speaker 7: album came out on Hell on Earth came out.
Speaker 1: Score And I have and I have an elevator's question
Speaker 1: to ask you because I came right when elevators kind
Speaker 1: of hit.
Speaker 5: Okay, so let me ask you something, all right?
Speaker 4: And why is elevators like my new Latin quarters so many?
Speaker 5: We can go so much.
Speaker 1: I gotta talk, I want to say, like, so just
Speaker 1: while we're here, all right. So when we asked, you know,
Speaker 1: LA read and organized noise, my thing was I would
Speaker 1: ask them, why would they take such a risk with
Speaker 1: the sonic choice of elevators.
Speaker 5: Yes, it's a masterpiece of a song, but who knew
Speaker 5: at the time.
Speaker 1: I was just like, yo, who would ever put like
Speaker 1: a song that's like eighty six bpms which was very
Speaker 1: slow at the time compared to what was hitting. And
Speaker 1: it was just everything about that song was just like
Speaker 1: it was a risk. It was a hell mary throw
Speaker 1: that got caught and you know, Organized Noise explained that.
Speaker 1: You know, they leaked the first and of course La
Speaker 1: Re really wanted atl Is to come out first. They
Speaker 1: put it, they took it to the radio station and
Speaker 1: just and forced it right right and then but as
Speaker 1: a DJ, like, could you explain to me the effect
Speaker 1: that that song had or just at the time, like.
Speaker 5: Yeah, I mean it was Atlanta.
Speaker 7: So again, there was when when when at Aliens dropped,
Speaker 7: just you know, the the pride and the the sonics
Speaker 7: and the creativity of that album. You know, Southern playlistic
Speaker 7: was already a thing, right, and then eighty Aliens came
Speaker 7: and it was like, oh, these these boys is different,
Speaker 7: you know. I mean that was the era when three
Speaker 7: thousand was walking around with the turbine and you know,
Speaker 7: Goodie Mob had you know, dropped and everything. So it
Speaker 7: was like, I just think the pride and you know,
Speaker 7: I hear stories about before Outcasts about how you would
Speaker 7: go to certain clubs in Atlanta like Warehouse and things,
Speaker 7: and people would almost want to kind of act like
Speaker 7: they were from New York, you know, and then he
Speaker 7: just said, yeah, they just said that, And then it
Speaker 7: was Outcast that was almost brought that pride out where
Speaker 7: it made people in Atlanta feel proud to be from
Speaker 7: Atlanta or in the South.
Speaker 1: Yeah.
Speaker 5: So yeah, So before the trap era, you.
Speaker 7: Know, Atlanta was was defined by Dungeon family, by so
Speaker 7: so deaf and you know, by the Face records, and
Speaker 7: that was that was the you know, the the trifecta
Speaker 7: of what Atlanta was.
Speaker 1: So when you are down here, at what point the
Speaker 1: cast of characters that were known as the Affiliates, how
Speaker 1: are they amalgamating themselves in your life?
Speaker 2: Like?
Speaker 1: Are you meeting them now this point?
Speaker 7: So I met DJ Sence literally the first day I
Speaker 7: get to school in Clark, Atlanta, agat in. We go
Speaker 7: to the dorm to Brawley Hall and my room number
Speaker 7: was two one five, crazy, right, And and then somebody
Speaker 7: told sense, Hey, you know there's a DJ on the
Speaker 7: second floor from Philly, and he had told he told
Speaker 7: me it kind of already heard about me in Philly. Like,
Speaker 7: you know, it's crazy to think I had a little buzz,
Speaker 7: but he had, you know, he knew about me.
Speaker 5: So we like battled it.
Speaker 7: We battled in my room, like the first first day
Speaker 7: we met, just kind of going back and forth on
Speaker 7: the turntables, cutting the scratch and and then you know,
Speaker 7: we were doing parties together and we were, you know,
Speaker 7: like a dynamic duo and just you know, people would
Speaker 7: book me or book him and we would go together
Speaker 7: and we would do all the parties. And then my
Speaker 7: next year, this tall, lanky kid gets on campus and
Speaker 7: like he had heard about me, and he kind of
Speaker 7: was like, Yo, my name is Donny Brasco, I'm from
Speaker 7: Philly and I'm a DJ. I make beats. And I
Speaker 7: was kind of you know Kyle. You know, him and
Speaker 7: Kyle went to school together. So Kyle kind of like
Speaker 7: put a sour taste in my mouth early on, like
Speaker 7: that that canon was a nut.
Speaker 1: Kyle is.
Speaker 5: Kyle was part of Tyree.
Speaker 6: It was a whole crew of Philly dudess. It was Dame,
Speaker 6: Dame Carolina.
Speaker 7: Yeah, it was Chris, Chris and Italy, it was Dame.
Speaker 7: It was me since and I had like my school crew,
Speaker 7: and then I had like my Rubik's Jack's and you know,
Speaker 7: my my hip hop my Binker's Crew.
Speaker 5: But rest in peace to my brother Jack's.
Speaker 7: But so so finally Cannon wound up giving me a
Speaker 7: beat CD and I went home and I listened to
Speaker 7: it and I was like, Yo, this shit is fucking fire.
Speaker 7: So next day I see him on campus, I'm like, yo, yo,
Speaker 7: I've listened to your beat tape. That's just hard, like
Speaker 7: you know, come through the crib. So it went from
Speaker 7: Me and Sense to me Sensing Cannon, and then we
Speaker 7: were just the three of us were like, you know,
Speaker 7: damn near inseparable, like while we were in school and
Speaker 7: we would do a bunch of gigs together or just
Speaker 7: support each other, or you know, when I was selling tapes,
Speaker 7: like Cannon and Sence would make their tapes and I would,
Speaker 7: you know, I would sell them all and we would
Speaker 7: just do events together. But the way the Affiliates came
Speaker 7: about is because there was a crew called the super Friends,
Speaker 7: which was DJ Mars, DJ Trauma.
Speaker 2: Uh.
Speaker 5: It was a cowboy, was in there.
Speaker 7: Fahrenheit shot him was super Friends and they made us
Speaker 7: part they We were like the youngest of the crew
Speaker 7: and they you know, invited us in.
Speaker 1: And DJ Trauma that is currently okay, and you know, it.
Speaker 7: Was you know, that was one of the reasons why
Speaker 7: I tried to change my name to Dramatic. It's because
Speaker 7: of Trauma because Trauma and his name is Tire at
Speaker 7: the time, and he was on the radio and he
Speaker 7: was on fire, and it was like everywhere I would
Speaker 7: go and try to say I'm DJ Drama, They'd be
Speaker 7: like Trauma and I'd be like, no, Trauma, and it
Speaker 7: just used to frustrate.
Speaker 5: Me, like like, man, I'm about to just change my name.
Speaker 7: And Mars, you know, interestingly enough was like, yo, don't
Speaker 7: change your name for nobody. And Trauma was his best friend,
Speaker 7: but he, you know, he said, you don't change your
Speaker 7: name for nobody, Like if that's your name, that's your name.
Speaker 7: So we were part of the super Friends and we
Speaker 7: were really trying to be focused, like on mixtape and
Speaker 7: super Friends were very party driven and we kind of
Speaker 7: we went through a little disagreement at the time. As
Speaker 7: my memory serves me, Jacob York offered the super Friends
Speaker 7: opportunity to do an album, and we were kind of already,
Speaker 7: you know, feeling a certain type of way because you know,
Speaker 7: we weren't like they were getting all the gigs, and
Speaker 7: you know, we were trying to make our name.
Speaker 5: We couldn't get no sponsorship for the.
Speaker 7: Mixtapes because they were getting on a sponsorship for the
Speaker 7: parties and everything. And they were like, Yo, if we
Speaker 7: do an album, let's call it Gangster Grills because that's
Speaker 7: the strongest brand out of all of us. And I
Speaker 7: was like, I don't know, I don't want to call
Speaker 7: the super Friends album Gangster Grills, Like that's my shit.
Speaker 1: So they basically, wait, when did you morphine you gangster Grills?
Speaker 5: I was.
Speaker 7: I started Gangster Grills in two thousand, so by like
Speaker 7: three oh four had become a thing like where it was.
Speaker 7: You know, I little John was the first person.
Speaker 5: To host it.
Speaker 7: So I used his voice on Gangster Grills four and
Speaker 7: it was still just like a compilation at the time,
Speaker 7: and you know, I did like Gangster Girls five, and
Speaker 7: I just kept using John's voice.
Speaker 1: Right, how did you? So, how do you approach an artist?
Speaker 1: Because for a lot of the artists that weren't Gangster
Speaker 1: Grills mixtape. Like, as an outsider, I didn't know none
Speaker 1: of those people. So you know, I'm hearing TI for
Speaker 1: the first time right here, Like everyone that you put
Speaker 1: on Jesus GZ and all those six even like really
Speaker 1: the first time I really paid attention to Wayne and
Speaker 1: all that stuff is really on Gangster Grill, So like,
Speaker 1: how are you.
Speaker 4: Propositioning them and approaching them to do these things? Each
Speaker 4: situation is differents in a way.
Speaker 7: But like Little John was since was working at the
Speaker 7: station and Circe and Little John were partners in b
Speaker 7: and me and John used to be up there all
Speaker 7: the time, and you know, John was He's one of
Speaker 7: the most down to earth, humble guys in the world.
Speaker 5: And I literally just asked them.
Speaker 7: You know, this was a time when I was paying
Speaker 7: attention to what was going on on the East Coach
Speaker 7: and I asked him, like, yo, would you host a
Speaker 7: mixtape for me? And he was like sure, and he
Speaker 7: came to my crib in the fourth Ward and hence
Speaker 7: the Gangster Grizzils Drop was born, and you know, he.
Speaker 5: Hosted the tape.
Speaker 7: Jason Jeter is the first person to ever call me.
Speaker 7: He got my number off the back of a mixtape
Speaker 7: from the barber shop. Now think about this. I get
Speaker 7: a thousand DMS a day about artists trying to get on.
Speaker 7: The first phone call I ever got was from Jason Jeter,
Speaker 7: and he was like, Hey, my name is Jason Jeter.
Speaker 7: I have this new artist signed to LaFace. We have
Speaker 7: a song with Beanie Seagull called two Blocks nine. I
Speaker 7: got one of your mixtapes. I want to bring him
Speaker 7: through to freestyle on one.
Speaker 5: Of your tapes.
Speaker 1: And I was like, all right, sure, cool whatever, soight
Speaker 1: I've seen you don't know, never.
Speaker 7: Met Tip, never, wasn't even familiar with the two Glocks
Speaker 7: nine record yet. So he literally comes to the crib
Speaker 7: Jeter and Tip super shy and quiet at the time.
Speaker 7: You know, I had my equipment in like where the
Speaker 7: laundry room would be. He comes in there, I pick
Speaker 7: a beat. I picked it for the fan beat the
Speaker 7: Rockefeller with the one with a mill and everybody on it,
Speaker 7: and he freestyled on that and at the end of
Speaker 7: the freestyle he said, you know, King of the South.
Speaker 7: And I remember once him and Jeter left, I went
Speaker 7: the sense like, yo, this nigga said he's the King
Speaker 7: of the South, like he's tripping like. So that was
Speaker 7: literally our introduction. And then you know, Jeter was also
Speaker 7: from Jersey, so he was paying attention to my mixtape
Speaker 7: Grind and what I was doing, and they were kind
Speaker 7: of you know, once things didn't work out between them
Speaker 7: and La Reid, they got on their mixtape Grind. So
Speaker 7: we were kind of both coming up at the same time.
Speaker 7: Where I lived on Glenn Iris, Coach K lived around
Speaker 7: the corner from me.
Speaker 1: Ah, okay, we got cool with Coach K.
Speaker 7: He had this group called Jadis, who Bobby creek Water
Speaker 7: was a part of who.
Speaker 5: Later outside to Shady.
Speaker 7: That was Coach K's first group, and then he also
Speaker 7: used to work for Alan Henderson and Hindu when Alan
Speaker 7: Henderson had.
Speaker 1: A record label.
Speaker 7: But we got cool with Coach K and then he
Speaker 7: told me, like, yo, I got this this artist from making.
Speaker 5: His name is Gez and he had an album out.
Speaker 7: The first album they put out was called Come Shop
Speaker 7: with Me and then Jeez I would Coach would bring
Speaker 7: g Z over and I would make show CDs for Jez.
Speaker 7: I would charge them like one hundred dollars and he
Speaker 7: would come and I would he would just he he
Speaker 7: was doing shows and making and I would like make CD.
Speaker 7: He would take instrumentals whatever instrumentals were hot at the time,
Speaker 7: and I would just make.
Speaker 5: Him a little like show CDs to put together.
Speaker 7: As Gangster Grills was becoming a thing, so then I
Speaker 7: did like John Tape then like I think Scrappy hosted one.
Speaker 7: Then Jeter called me and was like, yo, I've been
Speaker 7: listening to the tapes. I got this idea, let's do
Speaker 7: an all TI and PSC Gangster Grills. And I was like,
Speaker 7: bet you know. And at the time, I'm I'm just
Speaker 7: fast NATed by Green Lantern and who Kid and what
Speaker 7: Fifth is doing and what they're doing, and so Jeter
Speaker 7: and Tip gave me the opportunity to do the type
Speaker 7: of mixtape that I wanted to do.
Speaker 1: So you felt because I'm just amazed that your amount
Speaker 1: of faith it's so weird, like I need to have
Speaker 1: this conversation because I'm such a no now no or
Speaker 1: who going to be there? Who are going to be there?
Speaker 5: Like that sort of thing and get me out of
Speaker 5: this or whatever.
Speaker 1: But it seems to me that your the key to
Speaker 1: your success is the word yes, absolutely, yes, and absolutely
Speaker 1: I give when I go outside, I give my number
Speaker 1: to everybody. Wow.
Speaker 7: The worst thing that I can do is not answer
Speaker 7: it's right, because I think about that all the time.
Speaker 5: What if I would have told Jeter no? Wow? So
Speaker 5: now I think about all the news I've told the Jeters.
Speaker 1: In my life.
Speaker 7: Now, don't they don't get me wrong, I've you know,
Speaker 7: I mean, I've missed out on some things.
Speaker 4: Have you Have you passed up on a moment that, like,
Speaker 4: damn I could have had blah blah blah.
Speaker 5: Of course name three three notable.
Speaker 1: You probably worked with them since, but at least like
Speaker 1: you could at least introduce them to the world or whatever.
Speaker 5: I mean.
Speaker 7: I've said this before, but Drake definitely wanted a Gangster
Speaker 7: Grills very early on, all right, for sure.
Speaker 1: And you didn't know about him or it was just
Speaker 1: like you were too busy or it was I just
Speaker 1: it didn't happen, you know.
Speaker 7: I mean he went he because I mean he did
Speaker 7: a Southern Smalls tape like DJ Smalls, So at the
Speaker 7: time there was there was Southern smoking, it was Gangster Grills.
Speaker 7: So so, and then Bumby was a very early believer.
Speaker 7: So then I did the tip. I did the Tip
Speaker 7: Gangster Grills and that just like took off in the
Speaker 7: streets and it was like, you know, Tip was on fire,
Speaker 7: Gangster Grills was becoming a thing, and you know that's
Speaker 7: that was the soundtrack of the streets in Atlanta and
Speaker 7: the t I PSC meets Gangster Grills, And then I
Speaker 7: did a tape for Bun and then I did a
Speaker 7: Gangster Grills party and I had like I had it.
Speaker 5: It was in.
Speaker 7: Buckhead and I think Tip hosted, bone Crusher hosted.
Speaker 5: I think David Banny.
Speaker 7: Yeah, I did a tape with David Banner, bone Crusher
Speaker 7: host and I was against girls like seven and was
Speaker 7: like that that was insane. That was a big one.
Speaker 7: But it was still a compilation at the time. So
Speaker 7: then coaching Jez took me out. They wanted to take
Speaker 7: me to lunch one day, so they took me to
Speaker 7: the spot called Harry and Sons and Jez tells me, Yo,
Speaker 7: I was at your party.
Speaker 5: Yo.
Speaker 7: I don't know how much you know, but the streets
Speaker 7: like fuck with you, you know. And I'm like, We're like,
Speaker 7: you know, I'm I'm in the streets something.
Speaker 1: We're not aware of this.
Speaker 5: Yeah, I'm very unaware.
Speaker 7: Like when he his his version, his what his streets
Speaker 7: are wasn't what my streets were.
Speaker 1: Like my streets were in Atlanta.
Speaker 7: Yeah, well I was familiar, you know what I'm saying,
Speaker 7: because I was doing parties for like BMF and things
Speaker 7: of that nature. But the streets for me were like
Speaker 7: going to the flea market and selling boxes of CDs.
Speaker 7: You know, you're not going to Bankhead or I'm going anywhere,
Speaker 7: or I'm going anywhere that they sell CDs. I'm going,
Speaker 7: but I'm not, you know, in the street. Yeah, I'm
Speaker 7: selling the mixed tapes. I'm not selling nothing but mixtapes, right,
Speaker 7: you know. Yeah, So then you know, Jez tells me like, yo,
Speaker 7: when Meat goes to campus, that's where he goes and
Speaker 7: gets his gangster Girls from. Like he's listening to your
Speaker 7: ship and he's like, listen, I got this vision, like
Speaker 7: I want to do a Gangster Girls with you, Like
Speaker 7: he had it all mapped out, and I was.
Speaker 5: I was listening, like no doubt.
Speaker 7: But at the time I had never done a tape
Speaker 7: with somebody who wasn't known yet, And that was the
Speaker 7: first time I got paid for a tape. They gave
Speaker 7: me a thousand dollars and we did the tape. It
Speaker 7: was called Streets Is Watching. It was damn it was.
Speaker 1: Really changed my life with just ten bills, right, what
Speaker 1: the fuck?
Speaker 5: Why did we go to you back then?
Speaker 1: Had a thousand bucks.
Speaker 5: He paid me a thousand dollars to do the tape.
Speaker 6: It was already working good.
Speaker 5: Yeah, you was like, what are we talking about? Like
Speaker 5: fifth record?
Speaker 1: Yeah? How many Grammy you have?
Speaker 2: Yeah?
Speaker 1: Yeah, come on.
Speaker 5: We still to this day.
Speaker 4: We it's almost like we like someone took us to
Speaker 4: the front of the bank line on a Friday. Yeah, yeah,
Speaker 4: and I got we gotta go back.
Speaker 1: To Baltic Avenue and Mediterranean Avenue and Oriental Avenue, like
Speaker 1: we got park Place and all that stuff. But we
Speaker 1: realized that there's an early gap that we skipped and
Speaker 1: it doesn't matter like I could have forty two oscars.
Speaker 5: We have to scratch that itch with black people.
Speaker 6: It ain't never did. Like the conferences and stuff like
Speaker 6: the HOWD how to be down Jack to Rappa Impact.
Speaker 1: We wanted to, but you know, Geffen wouldn't have it,
Speaker 1: so anyway, so go go so then yeah, so originally
Speaker 1: the tape was called G's Up, but that was the
Speaker 1: name of Scrappy's group at the time, so we changed
Speaker 1: the streets Is Watching.
Speaker 7: So when I did streets Is Watching again, Gangster Grills
Speaker 7: was a bigger brand than Young Jeezy at the time.
Speaker 7: So we put the tape out, and we put it
Speaker 7: out around Birthday bash Era, and you know, within a
Speaker 7: couple of months, I mean I remember the first person
Speaker 7: ever telling me my man Jay who does Raw Report,
Speaker 7: who wound up doing the DVD with GZ for Trapp
Speaker 7: or Die. But I was on Glenn Iris with my
Speaker 7: dad and he drove. He was driving by and he
Speaker 7: was like, Yo, that JEZ tape. That's the best Gangster
Speaker 7: Grills you've ever done. And I'm like, we're I just
Speaker 7: told JZ this other day and I was like, We're
Speaker 7: the new nigga. Like because I'm tied out, you know
Speaker 7: what I'm saying, Like Tip the King, Like I'm on
Speaker 7: fire with Tip and he's like, Yo, the JEZ tape,
Speaker 7: Like that shit hits different. So, you know, a couple
Speaker 7: of months in Coach k Is like drawm, you gotta
Speaker 7: come on the roll with us, like you got to
Speaker 7: see what's going on. Like they're doing this word for word.
Speaker 7: There's one thing you're skipping that.
Speaker 1: Gotta know this as far as the marketing and the distribution, Yeah,
Speaker 1: is there only one place to get this? Because how
Speaker 1: is Tariq Well, I mean, I guess, y'all, I don't
Speaker 1: know how.
Speaker 7: So really, thankfully the bootleggers were like taking my ship
Speaker 7: 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 7: No, I went I when Gangster Girls seven came out.
Speaker 7: I wound up finding out where the bootleg spot was,
Speaker 7: and this was around the time.
Speaker 5: No I'm sorry, it was Gangs Girl six.
Speaker 7: It was against Girl six, but it was fifty cent
Speaker 7: get Richard dot Try and had just came out. We
Speaker 7: wound up finding out where the bootlegs spot were in
Speaker 7: the West End, and we went there and I literally
Speaker 7: saw as many Gangster Girl sixes as I did get
Speaker 7: Richard Doe trying bootlegs, and I was like, I was
Speaker 7: like fascined. I was like, oh my god, this is amazing.
Speaker 7: Not thinking damn, like I'm not really making a lot
Speaker 7: of money, but these niggas is making a lot of
Speaker 7: money off my shit. But it's a mixtape, so it
Speaker 7: was for me, it was a you know, it was
Speaker 7: a calling, like, I mean, it was my calling car like,
Speaker 7: so I was just excited and I was moving around
Speaker 7: like I would. I would come to Canal Street in
Speaker 7: New York and I would, you know, even at a
Speaker 7: time when they were telling me like, nah, we don't
Speaker 7: really check for South mixtapes, I would just be like, listen,
Speaker 7: take this, it's all yours, like you know, and let
Speaker 7: me know how it does. And I would call back
Speaker 7: a couple of weeks months later and they'd be like, yo,
Speaker 7: send us more So, when.
Speaker 6: Did death start? Is that like after six from the Jump?
Speaker 6: Or is that like that was that was.
Speaker 1: All around the time.
Speaker 7: It was all around that time, around six, around the
Speaker 7: by the time Trapper Died came out, Gangster Grills was
Speaker 7: a thing, so it was like I didn't go anywhere
Speaker 7: in the country. I was on tour with TI at
Speaker 7: the time, and I was hearing my shit come out
Speaker 7: of every car. And then I was like, damn, what
Speaker 7: I'm gonna do next? And the next tape I did
Speaker 7: was Dedication.
Speaker 6: Okay, y'all, So that's gonna conclude part one of our
Speaker 6: conversation with DJ Drama. But wait a minute, you need
Speaker 6: to stay tuned for part two, Well, we speak to
Speaker 6: Drama about making mixtape classics with Lil Wayne, his evolution
Speaker 6: from making those tapes to platinum hits, and why he
Speaker 6: is so proud about working with Fonte and Little Brother
Speaker 6: on Separate but Equal. Oh y'all don't want to miss
Speaker 6: that conversation.
Speaker 5: It gets deep and so good.
Speaker 6: But listen, stay tuned because we got more with my family.
Speaker 6: Repens c Au All Day, DJ Drama.
Speaker 1: Quest Love Supreme is a production of iHeartRadio. For more
Speaker 1: podcasts from iHeartRadio, visit the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or
Speaker 1: wherever you listen to your favorite shows.