Questlove Supreme: Dallas Austin Part 1

In the first of a two-part interview taped live in Atlanta, producer and songwriter Dallas Austin speaks about his incredible life journey. He recalls growing up around music greats, earning his first credits in the 1980s, and eventually producing hit songs and albums for TLC and Boyz II Men. Dallas also recalls the challenges of producing films, including Drumline and ATL.

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Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:00):
Quest Love Supreme is a production of iHeartRadio. All Right,
my verse might be weak.

Speaker 2 (00:08):
Supremo Supremo, Roll Call, Supremo, Supremo, Role Called Supremo, Something Supremo,
Roll Call, Suprema So Supremo roll Call.

Speaker 1 (00:23):
I'm out of ideas. Yeah, I'm so afraid. Yeah, somebody help. Yeah,
I ain't too proud Supreme So Supreme, Roll Supremo. Roll
My name is Fante. Yeah, I ain't trying to be funny.

Speaker 3 (00:42):
Yeah.

Speaker 1 (00:43):
If I'm just gonna keep it real, yeah, I like
must be the.

Speaker 2 (00:45):
Money Supremo Roll Suprema Supremo roll Call.

Speaker 1 (00:55):
My name is Sugar.

Speaker 4 (00:56):
Yeah, and I got my booster. Yeah, so I could
be here.

Speaker 1 (01:00):
Yeah with this great producer.

Speaker 2 (01:03):
Suprema Supreme, Roll Suprema Supremo roll Call.

Speaker 4 (01:11):
It's like yeah and Jesus Christ.

Speaker 1 (01:14):
Yeah that was Austin's music.

Speaker 4 (01:16):
Yeah, change my life.

Speaker 2 (01:18):
Roll Call Supremo, Supremo, Roll Call Suprema Names Dallas.

Speaker 4 (01:28):
Yeah, I'm here for show. Yeah, I love Yeah, gonna
give you some more.

Speaker 2 (01:34):
Roll card Supreme sun Supremo, roll Call, Suprema Some Supremo,
roll Call, Supremo Supremo, Roll Call Supreme.

Speaker 1 (01:49):
Supremo Roll Call all right, ladies and gentlemen, this quest love.
That's Fane, that's like you, and that's a sugar Steve.
And I'm being built somewhere else to me street. Look,
I could take twelve minutes. Look, ain't you proud to
bait sweak?

Speaker 4 (02:06):
Just one of them days.

Speaker 1 (02:08):
After the back hit him up style Aisha. I like them, Yo,
Sammy got like a yeah yeah dog. I was not
ready for that because he still has his baby face troops.
I will always love you. The fucking motown Philly must

(02:28):
be the money, must be, must playground beyond playground. Where
did you get that little squeaky thing? I'm gonna ask
you all your production. I just know that this show
is more about the creative process. Please don't go wait
for my Baby's got a secret. Yo. I need some justice.

(02:51):
I need some justice for silly ho. I think that
that guy raftic. I'm sorry the boys mine. They don't
care about us. It's all that ship. I have so
many questions about Too Bad Man, But Yo, I was
two seconds year old. I could have sworn. I remember

(03:13):
when I brought Tasty and I was like, oh damn,
okay for real, yell y'all y'all, y'all hooking up. I'll
get more mature to Jawin. I didn't know he did
trick me, dude, I'm pretty What about I can go on?
What about your friends, Ladies and gentlemen. This doesn't happen often.
Is going to be a super producer episode, one of
the greatest producers. Just how do you get here? We

(03:37):
don't know? Did you that? This is literally no? I'm sorry.
I normally do all these long accolades take twelve minutes,
but you know that's for the seven hour Jimmy Jam episode.
You lucky. He's definitely about to do five hours. He
just don't know it yet. Anyway, Ladies and gentle right out.

(04:00):
That's why I'm rushing. Ladies and gentlemen. Dallas Austin is
left supreme.

Speaker 4 (04:05):
Yes, yes, yes, yes.

Speaker 1 (04:07):
We are here. This is our Atlanta series and uh
we we've been here for a while and just wearing
the same clothes every five weeks. How how are you,
mister Austin.

Speaker 4 (04:20):
I'm good man, I'm really good.

Speaker 1 (04:22):
I gotta say. The day that we're speaking is the
twenty sixth anniversary of the ill adelph Half Life release,
of which the very song we worked on was at
Dark Studios. Yeah, we did Panic and started episodes at
Dark Yep. We were just and we cold knocked. I

(04:44):
think we just knocked and it was like, you know,
can we get a studio room real quick? And all
I remember was you were there recording the Fishbone record,
and Joy was there too, And this is the first
time that I saw Angelo. He was very much in
love with that Therman. Oh my god, dog, if you

(05:04):
if you can hear, like if I had the stems
to Panic on Tarik's vocal track, you can still hear
like the bleeding through the wall, that's my memories of Dark.

Speaker 4 (05:17):
But now, thank you very much for doing this with
this man. And we couldn't I didn't know what to
do with that thing. It was like you couldn't control
the there man.

Speaker 1 (05:23):
So and he was just.

Speaker 4 (05:26):
He was determined to use it on the record. It's
almost impossible to put it into him, dude. And that's
bleeding over into this session, dude.

Speaker 1 (05:32):
Like he would just be in the hallway and like
it was like he was doing like that's just like
four hours straight your legacy. N Steep said, we're just
gonna dive right into it. Where's your first musical memory.

Speaker 4 (05:47):
My stepdad played for James Brown, who was Jimmy Nolan.

Speaker 1 (05:50):
And Nolan is mother. That's the show.

Speaker 4 (05:57):
So this is crazy, So I'll wake up with him.

Speaker 1 (05:59):
Jimmy Chank no one, Yeah, does Wynney Melboy nor this does.
I don't know have you ever mentioned this.

Speaker 4 (06:06):
I don't know if I mentioned do Windy before. But
every morning I would wake up in third grade and
play guitar with him, and he would teach me to
play with my fingers like this, think think it, you know,
and I would probably smoke a little bit of a
joint and then go to school because it was it was,
you know, seventies and stuff. So my mom, my mom

(06:26):
owned the nightclub and in Columbus, Georgia, and during the
sixties it was segregated so that when Tina Turner, James Brown,
anybody came to town, they had to come perform, you know,
in my dad's party club, stay in that area, eating
the soul food restaurant that's right there, and you know,
so I came up kind of in the nightclub restaurant
business first. And there's a lot of seventies you know,

(06:47):
wanna be bands and blue shag carpet and clavinet horners,
and you know, so my mom doing books. I'm running
around playing on their equipment every day. And Jimmy would
be on the road and whenever he would come back,
then I would sit and play guitar with him, and
then I would go on the road with the Jay
Bees like when I was, when I was like sevens.

Speaker 1 (07:04):
Everything literally this literally took every question out of my head.
I'm still fed up that I'm sitting next to someone
that knew Jimmy Chank Nolan. Yeah, man like hurl and
cheese and Jimmy Chank Nolan. Are I mean, the the
wonder twins of syncopated rhythm.

Speaker 4 (07:24):
They're just and and I don't know why. Oh no,
I'm a mom.

Speaker 1 (07:29):
You know.

Speaker 4 (07:30):
I was just so so into music, you know, so
crazy about music. But uh yeah, I went on the
road with the JB's one summer and I rode the
bus with them the whole time. And we see Charles
Sinclair Maceio. I would be under the organ while Charles
is rehearsing, right while they're practicing, I would be under
the organ playing with cars or like you know, playing
a little pianos and stuff and this is how crazy

(07:52):
this is that it goes full circle. So Captain Bruton
had a thing of B and my. When she first
got to being My, she says, was going to honor
James Brown and we want you Pharrell, Chad Rodney Jerkins all,
y'all going to be the JB's.

Speaker 1 (08:06):
Wowharrell got on drums and started for What it Is
YO called the night before. The said, y'all, I'm about
to do mind power with James Brown. This is that nice?

Speaker 4 (08:19):
Is that night? So we all in rehearsal, and for
one everybody's like, that's going to be impossible to getting together.
So we all in rehearsal doing it. What it is
is what it is. I'm playing the same chinky notes
I was playing in third grade, right you know, I'm like,
this is getting surreal. It's giving me a trip. And
so by the time we hit the stage with James
and I didn't you know, I was little, so I
didn't know how much you remember me or not to

(08:40):
follow my history of music or not. But soon he
saw me on the stage, he goes to me, that's
Jim and Nolan's boy right there. And then they started
talking about how he knew me since I was little
used to see me under the organ and all this
kind of stuff. And but it was a trip going
on the road with them because I remember this one
time where you know, they were all lined up, the
band was the JB's and then when James in the
dress room get ready to come out, and they out

(09:01):
there just talking doing that thing you spoke a cigarettes
s talking trash whatever, and this dude comes out and
he walks out and he slapped the hell out of
all of them, and I was so terrified. I didn't
know what to do. I was just like, what just happened?
You know what I'm saying. All of a sudden, it
was just like he walked right through and went straight
to the stage, and then they went to the stage

(09:21):
and started playing. And so afterwards, you know, as a kid,
you're still just like in your own version of shock,
like what just happened? Right, And Jimmy said to me said, man,
you know he does that to get attention, so almost
like the face.

Speaker 3 (09:36):
I'm sorry, we say, slapped on the face.

Speaker 1 (09:38):
Yeah it was.

Speaker 4 (09:39):
You know, I feel like, you know, get your attention
off the bat if you feel like he's playing too
much or you're not serious about what's about to happen.
You don't know what he'll do. He'll leave you if
somebody mess up. He lead a whole band. He wasn't
playing Soma back then. You could nobody, nobody Internet back then,
but it was it was part of what really started me.

(10:00):
He started shaping me into playing. You know, I started
on guitar, and then the guitar started hurting my fingers,
so I started playing keyboards. And then from that point
I was.

Speaker 1 (10:07):
Just and you all self taught, like no formal lessons
or none of that.

Speaker 4 (10:10):
Self taught about Cassio started with the Casio calculator and
man asked my mom to get me a big one
every Christmas, and then worked my way up to it
rolling j X three.

Speaker 1 (10:19):
P went to Big Boy.

Speaker 4 (10:22):
Well, it took me a while.

Speaker 1 (10:23):
Sk one.

Speaker 4 (10:24):
I was at the skate one, but I couldn't play
in the local bands. And if I didn't have a
keyboard for it, a real keyboard, right. Yeah, So my
brother financed it. Was twelve hundred dollars. He financed it
for five years.

Speaker 1 (10:34):
Wow, he played ten thousand dollars for that.

Speaker 5 (10:37):
Yeah.

Speaker 4 (10:37):
He would sneaking in concerts, like because my mom's restaurant
in Columbus was down the street from the auditorium. Then
I went to every concert, so I seen the Mothership Land.
That was one of my first concerts.

Speaker 1 (10:46):
Yeah, tell me about the conscerts you saw when you're
a kid.

Speaker 4 (10:48):
That's one of the first ones. Because I said, Mom,
you know George Clinton, They're coming to town and probably
mean funka delic and the roof is going to open
up and the Spaceship's going to come in. And she said, well, honey,
I don't think that's going to happen. I said, you
didn't see the commercials. Look at the marcial on TV.
The space Ship's coming in. I gotta see this. So
she's like, all right, well, I just don't want you
to be disappointed. So I go to the concert. My

(11:08):
brother would always take me to the concerts. He would
sneak me in with a snare drum that was mid
from school, like saying it was a Zapp's drummer, and
you know, yeah, my brother was always everybody was in
with all their music. So so like when we got
to the concert and I'm watching the show and all
of a sudden start doing the swinging down with chariot
stop and I'm like, here comes, here comes gonna open up.
And I didn't realize as a kid how it was happening,
but I know the spaceship came down on the stage,

(11:31):
you know, and I was just like blown away from
it and all the costumes and watching Bootsye and watching
like the whole you know, I was able.

Speaker 1 (11:38):
To see you got to see Glenn Goins call down
you heard.

Speaker 4 (11:41):
Seeing the whole thing bro like the same one you
can watch on the old seventies fields to see it.
And when George comes out with the whole cane and
that happened, you know, And think about my Mom's restaurant,
was that I was able to meet all these people
before I ever ever worked with them and knew them.

Speaker 1 (11:56):
So they would come to the restaurant afterwards, they.

Speaker 4 (11:58):
Would go before and because the soul Food restaur run
and then that was the closest restaurant to the venue,
to the auditorium. It was only one place. So every
time he's Roger zapped line of Richie Commodore's wing and
fire all these people. I've seen him when I was little.
My Mom's restaurant, did.

Speaker 3 (12:13):
You ever is it ever a circle back to some
of these fos.

Speaker 4 (12:17):
Was a little boy, especially George. You know George has
been since the times you were there. George was around then.
That's when he was really starting to hang around us.
He worked, right, Yeah, I did Hollywood but him, Lionel, Richie,
all of them. I got Natalie Cole. They must be
so proud of you, like damn, yeah, it was. It's
a full circle trip.

Speaker 1 (12:37):
You know, what was your favorite Parliament album?

Speaker 4 (12:42):
I was in the Cosmic Slops album first with Maggie
Brain and you know, just because my brothers and that
was just playing over and over and over.

Speaker 1 (12:48):
How much older were your brothers in you like five
years you know, so like you the middle or your baby?

Speaker 4 (12:53):
I'm the baby.

Speaker 1 (12:55):
Yeah, I thought that who's the hype man for another
bad creation?

Speaker 4 (13:03):
Yeah?

Speaker 1 (13:03):
That's that was your brother. Okay, I'm sorry, I thought
that was your brother.

Speaker 4 (13:08):
That's your that's my cousin aunt son.

Speaker 5 (13:10):
That was like an urban legend when we was younger,
like you know this, okay.

Speaker 4 (13:13):
Right, all of us was down in Columbus, Man and
then my brother who brought the keyboard end up breaking
my off plane. Get it up one day from the time,
over and over and over and over again, because that's
how we learned how to play right. And my brother
came in one day some months they cleaned up the
room and I wasn't listening, so he picked the keyboard
up through it broke it. I tripped out, flipped. My
mom's restaurant was connected to the house we stayed in

(13:35):
that at that time, so it was like soul food
restaurant and downtown Columbus. So everything was going down, like
everything was going down, and it was just bad. It
was just just dark.

Speaker 1 (13:44):
And so he broke your keyboard, the one he paid for.

Speaker 4 (13:48):
Yeah, I tried to kill him, but I was so little,
you know, when you're little, you don't know better. So
you know, I ran down stairs my one restaurant and
get a knife, run upstairs and crying what was going on?
Because that keyboard was the only thing that got me
into bands with people that was like bigger, you know,
like Kevin Bradshaw and now who ended up being like
Basic Black. They had bands, you know, So I wanted

(14:10):
to play in the band and be like doctor Fink
forar real, like Jimmy Jay and for real and now
you just ruin my dream.

Speaker 3 (14:16):
So and how old are you now are you talking about.

Speaker 1 (14:18):
Twelve, Speaking of which, we found this out recently that
Prince initially wrote Get It Up Brick for Brick. They
didn't like it. Episode.

Speaker 4 (14:32):
Oh my god, I was. I was a straight up fanatic.
I was a Prince time fanatic. I was such a
fanatic that that's how I learned to play everything, because
I would go home every day and learn get it
Up Solo. I'll go home every day and learn cool,
go home every day like girl and all this stuff.
And I was so little that, you know, you just

(14:53):
sat there and did it over and over and over
and over and over again. And by the time I
got to be twelve, you know, I was really good.
By the time broke my keyboard, That's what made me
move to Atlanta, because I told my mom. I was like, yo,
it's a Greyhound bus station around the street. So he
broke my keyboard. I went to the bus station. I'm like,
I'm going to Atlanta twelve.

Speaker 3 (15:12):
I don't understand how that well, she.

Speaker 4 (15:13):
Didn't need At first.

Speaker 1 (15:16):
You ran away with you announced that you're running away
from home, and then stop you.

Speaker 4 (15:22):
I went to the bus station. I'm waiting on the
bus like and it's late at night. So my mom
was like, yo, what are you doing? Like he broke
my keyboard. I can't be a big producer. I got
to get to Atlanta, and.

Speaker 3 (15:32):
She was like what and what you're getting too in
Atlanta for because at the time because my auntie, but
my auntie lived up here and it was still not there,
and I knew something else could happen here, you know,
like you still had Brick and still had Cameo, and
you still had sos BN and like, you know, Atlanta
Rhythm sections and all this stuff was going on back there.

Speaker 1 (15:49):
In your mind. Like at least if I'm twelve, you
know what I knew of Atlanta pre Like when Bobby
Brown came down then I was like, Okay, something's about
to happen. But before then, the only person I knew
that like bragged about Atlanta back then was people bricing.

Speaker 4 (16:07):
People bricon a cameo.

Speaker 1 (16:09):
Right, But I didn't know even like not even reading
the labels, Like you know, I'm just saying that. Why again,
you're twelve, So I'm glad you kind of went next
door instead of like, yeah, two thousand miles away. Why
was in New York or Hollywood not on your.

Speaker 4 (16:27):
Radar, because I've been to Atlanta. We would come up
on the weekends and they had the biggest music store,
like Rhythm City or something was called, and like so
you look at the Yellow Pages and it was like
that was the closest dream I could see for real.
You know, It's like, if I get up there, I
can go to the music shop, so I can do this.
I can do that. But I just knew that Columbus
wasn't the place for it. And so my mom came
the next day. She came said, look, okay, it's late

(16:48):
at night. I know you're stubborn, I know you're mad.
Just come on back to the house and we talk
about it. And no busses are leaving the night anyway,
so you know, come on back home. It's fine, we
can we can do it tomorrow. So I went back home,
woke up the next day. Was he there, Oh yeah, no,
he was going drinking, but wises by then he was like.

Speaker 1 (17:06):
He know that.

Speaker 4 (17:06):
He realized at that point, how you know what that happened?

Speaker 3 (17:09):
Right?

Speaker 4 (17:09):
And so the next day I got up during the daytime,
I went down to my mom's cash register in the restaurant,
got me like twenty forty bucks, went back to Grayund
bus station and then now it was full long. Now
it was daytime. The buses are leaving. So she comes
back around again and she was like, yo, what are
you doing. I'm like, I'm going to Atlanta. I can't
I can't say down here, who broke my keyboard? All
my brothers are like, you know, in jail a lot

(17:31):
like we had a lot of just jail and darkness.
So as me and my mom were really.

Speaker 1 (17:33):
Close and it's absolutely not repairable.

Speaker 4 (17:37):
It was reparable, it just didn't look like it. The
two first the two keys came off the beginning. You know,
oh you mean the keyboard.

Speaker 1 (17:43):
I thought you meant the relationship.

Speaker 4 (17:45):
Yeah, the keyboard. Well well then you know, my mom
was like, well, look, if you're not determined, you that stubborn,
then give me some time to sell the restaurant. I'm
going with you. You're not leaving me.

Speaker 1 (17:55):
Wait time out. She's willing to do that for you.

Speaker 4 (17:58):
She did that. That's your best face. That's how I
got to Atlanta. So she came up sold the restaurants.
My dad was really he was really prominent in Columbus.
He did a lot of stuff with the city, did
a lot of stuff with the streets, and you know,
gangsters and all this stuff. He was just that guy.
So you know, I was just like, nothing's down here
for us except for legacy. He left and some problems
with police and all this kind of stuff. Let's just go.

(18:19):
And so we left, came to Atlanta. She got a
job at po Folks on Old National. I moved to
College Park, and she she didn't even know how much
money to ask for because she was always self employing
a little restaurant. So she started making twelve thousand a
year and I started going to school sometimes.

Speaker 1 (18:35):
How long was that.

Speaker 5 (18:36):
Period between the bus station and y'all actually moving.

Speaker 4 (18:38):
About about almost eighty eight months to a year.

Speaker 1 (18:41):
Oh wow.

Speaker 4 (18:43):
By time when she was like, all right, let me situated,
let me figure it out. Where am I going to work?
How do I sell this? How do I you know?
Because my father he got killed in front of us
when he was when I was two, right, because he yeah,
he had his nightclub and his restaurant and just who
had a dream or something and he was a friend
of his that my uncle beat him with a pipe

(19:04):
or something crazy. But just some craziness, and he came
down to shoot my uncle at the restaurant. My dad
was standing in the door, so he shot him first
and then came in where I was playing with my uncle.
Came in and shot my uncle and then jetted, So
I mean they called him. He went to jail, but
then my dad didn't end up making it. My mom
had to take over the club and take over the
responsibility of the nightclub and the restaurant. Now the nightclub

(19:26):
is full of all the politicians I know now in Atlanta,
heemps Street, Twustler, Jean Griffin, like all you know that
Jean Griffin, That Gene Griffin's bottomne growing up too with
my dad.

Speaker 1 (19:39):
What was Jene Griffin exactly? Besides the name that always
was in Teddy Riley's place place. I don't know what
he looks like. I just know that I've seen his
name a lot.

Speaker 4 (19:50):
Geen Griffin was one of the most notorious the gangsters
back then. He was the sugv oh Beyond. They wasn't
playing him and Bill Underwood. Who's to the Johnny guil
out of New York they had? They had New York
on lock that was back in the in the you know,
post Frank Lucas, Frank Lucas Day. That was all during
that time.

Speaker 1 (20:08):
So was Atlanta his base, and he would work out
in New York or was New York his base, and
then I got some shit down south.

Speaker 4 (20:13):
To Columbus in New York was his base. So they
would take it from New York to Columbus and then
distribute out through Georgian, Atlanta and every everywhere else, heroin Coke,
whatever they were they were doing. And so we knew
Gene Griffin when when I was a little I knew
Gene from being married to my Auntie and being gangster
and them showing up with Meet coats on and Meet
Hats and Maserati's and you know, guns and just the
whole seventies. You know what you what you're doing at

(20:35):
the time. It wasn't until so Jane went to jail
right for for a long time. And during that time,
Andrea got Teddy and Guy, but Teddy was already signed
the Gene before that were kids at work. Okay, So
when he got out, he came out saying, Hey, I
want my guy, I want my I want my producer back.
So his a little episode with him and Andre because

(20:56):
he because they were in guy and he didn't want
to give him guys. So Joe Buzzy was like, yo, okay,
let's stop the turmo. You take Teddy God stays over
here with us and then we'll So that's how Teddy
ended up being producing with Gene. Ah.

Speaker 1 (21:09):
So mom, let him go.

Speaker 4 (21:10):
Now check this out. My mom's at work at pos
Folks one day right now, I'm up here. I did
Hey mister DJ with Joice everybody, and so now I'm
not like my sixteen you know.

Speaker 1 (21:21):
Time you did that at sixteen?

Speaker 4 (21:23):
Yeah?

Speaker 1 (21:23):
Wow? Wait? Was that you were in the Batman shirt
on Soul Train?

Speaker 4 (21:26):
Yes, exactly. I was also in some got into some
contracts with her that will work for higher contracts. But
she was the first one to really get me to
Jerald Buzzby into doing troop and doing stuff like that
at that age. Found out it was I was in
some work for higher contracts that wasn't good contracts, right.
And so one day my mom's at work at Pole

(21:48):
Folks and she gets a call from Jean Griffin. Okay, oh,
and she's like, she don't understand right because the Gen
Griffin that she knows was in jail was gangster, was
running with my dad and him back then. So she
knows that Gene, but she had no idea. So he's like, ball,
I gotta get in touch with Dallas. He needs to
understand I'm doing music. And she's like what, And then

(22:10):
she calls me and said, oh no, Dallas, she ain't.
Griffin called. I said, who, said, Gene Griffin? What do
he want with you? I said, I don't know. What
do you want with me? She said, I don't know.
He said something about Teddy Rally and I said, oh wait,
because I was always seeing Gene Griffin's name, but I
didn't know it was him. I thought it was somebody

(22:30):
else together. And then when I did, I'm like, oh man.
So I called him. He's like, Yo, if your dad
knew I was letting you out be out here like that,
you turn over in his grave. Boy, I got to
come back and protect you, you know. So it turned
into that, and so then they moved to Atlanta. He
was the first one, really like, you know, getting Teddy

(22:50):
one hundred thousand dollars a track was unheard of. Getting
producers that much money was just insane. He was first.
Teddy was the first one getting that kind of money
because because of Gene, you know, and what he did
that was really smart was he was trying to when
Teddy got really big. What he did was he did
production deals everywhere, but he never did a label deal, right,
so he could keep putting them at different places. Well,

(23:13):
Gene owned Sony Music. It's called Sounds of New York. Right.

Speaker 1 (23:18):
I was wondering how that. I remember when Teddy we
had today Yes.

Speaker 4 (23:24):
Really want hand, right, that was on Sounds of New York.

Speaker 1 (23:27):
Right, I was wondering how Sony allowed that to happen.
They didn't.

Speaker 4 (23:32):
That's why they came in and disrupted him and Teddy
and everything else because you know, he had to write
to Sony Music because it sounds of New York and
so they were Columbia back then, and so he was
so disruptive with everything he was doing at the time.
He was like sugar so but he was he was
real real with it. So you know, they kind of
wanted to separate them and Teddy and get Teddy away

(23:53):
from under him, and so people Teddy to Virginia.

Speaker 1 (23:57):
But does that stop a cat like Gene is Atlanta,
New York, and that like I can easily get to
Virginia Beach.

Speaker 4 (24:04):
Well he he he, you know, he was still it
was dispute where it's still be getting money. But then
Jean said, Okay, fuck it, I'm gona go to Atlanta
and he started Basic Black to be his a new guy. Remember, yeah, yeah,
so that started up. But by the time, you know,
he's he's Gene, He's rolling in all the Teddy roll
of money.

Speaker 1 (24:20):
Anyway, Now, can we assume that, hey, mister DJ, was
your first debut as a producer.

Speaker 4 (24:27):
Yeah, I mean I did a couple of little things
before that, but that was the first one to get
on the level. Yeah. And then Dougie Fresh said my
name in the record. I thought I was just gonna
die like Joe Dallas, It's time to rock, right, And
I was in. I was on Mahland and some Renner
card like sixteen seventeen would work with Joyce and I
heard her on the radio and I heard my name

(24:48):
and I was like, God, this is it this. I've
been waiting to do this all my life. And then
so and then every time from that point I had
a record, I would go to mahul into the same
spot and listen there.

Speaker 1 (24:58):
Really yeah, what gear were you recording on at that time,
you make that Joyce Findarella, every.

Speaker 4 (25:07):
Dude, it was an r ex. It was the Yamaha
drum machine that just came out with back then, and
did it sounded really thin.

Speaker 1 (25:14):
I was gonna say, when you get to the bridge,
like what I remember the song like the verse was
high powered and the course is. But then when you
all get to the bridge was a sonic difference without
the samples and stuff on top of it.

Speaker 4 (25:27):
So I had and you know, back then sampling, you
can only sample this long, so it's on like clafter this,
uh one too, James Brown, That's only that's all the
sample link that you had, so it's going clapter this clap, clap,
claffter this over and over. But it was like, you know,
it was the closest thing to swing at the time,
the new Jack swing. And then when Joe Buzzby heard that,
he said, uh yo, man, I got this group don't

(25:50):
want you to work with but I don't. I don't
think Joyce should work on with you. I think you
should do it by yourself. I said, okay, you had
to call boys them men, says Mike Bevans group. But
I think you're influence is better without her, you know,
because she would come mix the records and stuff too.
So listened to like I Will Always Love You from Trube.
It's a lot dinner to meet and than other songs
I was doing after your trademark was my drums and

(26:10):
got the.

Speaker 1 (26:11):
Leg From my point of view, like as a fan listening,
it was impossible at least back then ninety ninety one
to escape the bomb squad. Oh my god, how influential.
Because the thing is is that even though they did
an awesome job on the Poison record, which is basically
like seventy maybe eighty percent samples and whatever, but you know,

(26:35):
I mean a lot of this stuff was atonal, but
I mean you just took that shit to the hilt.
And I always wondered your level of just chaotic production
without without sort of a linear melodic thing like I
mean I had to the Back is a great example,
like there really is a melody there. So it's like

(26:57):
when you're writing this stuff, and again, I know, the
cha to form of production at the time, especially with
like Teddy doing more nuanced steady New Jackson, you know,
by the numbers thing, but you were just like the wow, wow,
West with it. How hard was it for you to
convince not the acts, because I feel like you and
the acts were like of age and all that stuff,

(27:18):
but like the buzz bees of the world, like the
older I'm assuming these guys are at least forty years old, Like,
how do you convince them that cram and forty two
gazillion samples in something is like that's what they want?

Speaker 4 (27:31):
Yeah, it was a lot of samples, bro, Like I
wanted to be I wanted to be in the Bomb
Squad so bad. Hay shockoling them. I was like I
was going down the Green Street like studios and I'll
see Mike Bibbins and then working with them, and I
was like, man, the Bomb Squad. It was just so
incredible how they would take all these samples that was
just like out of nowhere and make sure that they
were out of tune and make sure that they had
nothing to do with each other, make sure they was

(27:52):
So I would take that same formula right now, I
would do that, but then I would write a regular
song on top of it. Like so if think about
just took all that other way and then write a
song I had to the back right or what about
your Friends as a song because I always knew that,
Like production is a vehicle, but you got to have
a song, and you gotta cram that song in three minutes,
and you got it usually have two hours to tell
it in the movie. You got like two minutes now,
but three minutes back then to tell a story in

(28:13):
the song. So then if you took all the way,
you can hear the song, all the keyboards, all the strings,
everything's on there. And just like I had to ignore
all the samples and don't think anything about them.

Speaker 1 (28:23):
So how hard is that if you have a singer
that doesn't have something to and the thing is like
I'm here in the final like we're here in the
final mix. Yeah, but I'm certain with like ain't too
Proud to Bath like it was just like not completely mixed,
and there's.

Speaker 4 (28:40):
So much noise in that song, Like right, radio wouldn't
play it because they had so much noise in it.
At first, it was just like there was like no
it was like when they when they first took it
the radio, they were just like no, it's like what
is this. No, it's too much noise. It's like it's
just too much noise. And then she said she was
saying two inches of yeah, I rock. It was like no,
just know. And so then Lamon Bolls came back. He

(29:02):
used to work at a face and he was just like,
you know what, they got to see the girls first,
trying to take them in through this. It's too there's
too much noise. It's too they don't get it. It's
too oh yeah, they went to radio first like usual,
but then radio is like, nah, too much noise. And
then when they shot the video and he said, yo, Mike,
check one too one too. If we saw the video,
everybody's like, oh, we get it now, and that's what

(29:24):
really set the girls off. And then but like sample
clearances hadn't came in yet. It's kind of like the blockchain.
It was like sample clearances was like something that we
all did. We all got a hold to it for fun.
Now we could do whatever we want. Nobody ever done
that before. Nobody's ever taken somebody's song and and then
recorded it and sung something different on top of it,
like they was doing remakes, but not that. That's when

(29:45):
y'all was pissing off all the old everybody, and nobody
knew how to clear it.

Speaker 1 (29:48):
Nobody that it would take like one of us our
generation and they like, oh that snare came from there,
and then.

Speaker 4 (29:55):
Dude, okay, but look at it like this though, So
if you got fly Robin Fly, right, then you got
the average white man, and then you got cool in
the gang, that's right, and then you got parliament, right,
and then you got not a thick Okay, there's thirty
people in these group, right right. So when they started
to break down the sample clearances and said, okay, we
figured this out, we got to go back and get
these people paid.

Speaker 1 (30:16):
Oh no, yeah, I saw the credit.

Speaker 4 (30:20):
Oh my god, like zero point one percent to the
horn players. You won't go into this like because you
didn't realize that each one of those samples has so
many people connected to it. And I would have I
would have like twenty five, twenty five to thirty samples
going across the board and it would just like mute
out different ones at different times and whatever. But like
it was so it became crazy. And if you notice,

(30:40):
by the time we got to the second record with Creeper,
just like just one straight right right, Rick, But even.

Speaker 1 (30:46):
At that time was still it didn't sound like nothing else. Okay,
I'm so glad you mentioned this because they're the craziest
story of my life. Where and I'm talking about this
the shine Head situation. So I guess the story of
Creep is Hey Young World. So I guess slick Rick

(31:08):
never cleared the guess who's back shine Head sample on
Hey Young World? I guess who's back? Right, So then
you guys use that and so Shinas people try to
go after you guys for it. You're like, no, we
cleared Hey Young World through slick Rick. Yeah, like we

(31:31):
cleared here's the clearance. And they're like yeah, but so
can you explain that situation? Like how like did you
wind up clearing shine Head sample for depth Jam?

Speaker 4 (31:42):
They had to go back and be cause again, at
that time, nobody was it was all new and you know,
so they had to go back and pay him to
you know they slick I mean they had to go
and situate him not being paid for him not only
that but from Hey Young World too.

Speaker 1 (31:56):
Yeah. But I'm saying like, did you guys have to
like is is Seine had a first generational sample on
Creep or did you tell them at def Jam, like, YO,
clear this shit the right way? So that way marshes straight.

Speaker 4 (32:13):
Yeah, because when we cleared it through them and they
cleared they cleared it, then that's when he popped up
and hold on. But that's my you know, right, I
thought it was slick Rick, didn't even I thought it
was I thought it was Dougie Fresh or slick Rick,
and somebody said, I guess's back, but I thought it
belonged to the song. And when they did come back
and clear it, then they had to go back and
take care of him for not only that, but for

(32:34):
for young World or what hey, young World was going
to generate coming up, you know, because he's never gotten
take care of for it because people didn't know to
clear samples back then.

Speaker 1 (32:42):
I thought they forced you to pay for both as
here's shining hit, this is for creep, and then since
they didn't do it, here's hey you.

Speaker 4 (32:50):
On the world like nodve Jum, had to go take
care of him.

Speaker 1 (32:52):
Okay, I guess if anyone makes any reference to any
parts of the song that Aaron Fuchs owns on anything.
So in the case of otis because Kanye and Jay
said Jay is chilling, Yay is chilling. Oh yeah, yeah,
So Aaron Fuchs was like Hello, Natt Robinson, they're sampling

(33:14):
our song. And you know, Nat and milk d were like, no,
that's that's like like rappers don't shoot suit no, no,
but yeah, rappers just don't suit. Like you know, if
Premiere scratches your ship, you think it's an honor. Like oh,
he said, but lititious people. And I'm talking very official
because even when I talk about AF he tries to
get lititious with me. But you know, that was that

(33:37):
was a a messy situation. So yeah, I always wanted
to know that shine his situation with creep Man.

Speaker 4 (33:44):
It's crazy, as you know, when Sampling came around like that,
George Clinton obviously had you know, the whole West Coast
sound period, but nobody know how to clear and he
had signed over so many different contracts to different people
back then. You know, he was just selling stuff and
that on the road, partying and not keeping up with anything,
and nobody ever knew this was gonna happen. Nobody ever
knew that Sampling would come around the corner and and

(34:06):
you know, change people's lives like that, And so he
had to get cockered in them to try to help
undo a lot of his stuff because George Clint samples
him and James Brown, they have to be the most right.
I would think he just just.

Speaker 1 (34:23):
Got his contractual financial things straight.

Speaker 4 (34:26):
You know, I got I have. I have a lot
of the I have the Funkadelic Masters, to Cosmic Slock
to Needy, your friends with. Well, George gave him to me.

Speaker 1 (34:36):
Okay, yeah, wow, that's amazing.

Speaker 4 (34:39):
George gave him to me, and I had him baked.
You know, the Master's baked. But you can hear, like
when you go and you listen to each one of them,
it's just like you get chills because the moment is
captured on that tape.

Speaker 1 (34:52):
You can hear.

Speaker 4 (34:53):
You can hear him like something about really yeah, and
all of them had to be in the room together
at the same time when they were doing it. I'm
sorry about it.

Speaker 1 (35:03):
That's you. That's your.

Speaker 4 (35:09):
Yo. Let me tell you something. I love that record
so much, right that those are the best pop songs
ever written.

Speaker 1 (35:16):
Right, So.

Speaker 3 (35:20):
That's somebody else's bring That's is the full everybody, Yeah,
that's it, that's it totally.

Speaker 4 (35:25):
I tweeted it when I heard that. I used to
love the song so much. I just tweeted it one day.
I just I love this song right, And the manager
tweeted me back like are you serious, yes, you want
to work with her? I'm like, yes, I did three
or four songs on the Album's Greatest made her whole life.

Speaker 1 (35:40):
So Nixon Channel, who engineered the Public Enemy records, he
told me, he said, you'll never believe this, but we
never automated it once. And I was like, what is
the mixing process like? And He's like, you know, Keith,
Keith and Eric were such sticklers, well, mainly to save

(36:00):
money kind of the way that when I forgot Ray
Parker Jr. Tolst that Barry White never overdubbed because he
didn't want to pay for overtime. So like everyone played
it once. But Nixon Santo showed me the nine eleven
base head tracking sheets and literally like they're like Eric
Sadler's like, you know, eighty one bars cut off that.

(36:23):
So they would do everything ahead of time before tracking.
Is that how you track your things? Or like is
it just you drop it and then you mix it
at the end like everyone else does.

Speaker 4 (36:33):
I would drop it and mix it at the end,
but I would have like you know, back at that time,
the engineers like dave Way or like you know, your
find Timmy Register was crazy mixing back then.

Speaker 1 (36:45):
But that was your main guy for TLC or I
used dave Way a lot back.

Speaker 4 (36:48):
Because Teddy was using dave Way, okay, and then Alvin
Spikes of course, but it was they would have a
fit at first. Okay, give me a second to forget
this out because I would have so many tracks and
then so many samp and how do you put the
samples and embedded back in the track so that the
courts stand out and so that so the ruff will
sound a lot different than when they were mixed. Because
unless I said, well him, you know, we kind of

(37:09):
make the roughs and then you know, give him a
sketch for the mixer. But if you just sent it
to a mix engineer, you're just like, no, this is crazy,
but it's working.

Speaker 1 (37:17):
Was Leslie was he mixing?

Speaker 4 (37:19):
Not yet? He hadn't came in yet, Leslie Leslie Brathway. Okay,
But Leslie went to you know, he's at full sale.
So he came in as an intern first, and then
from that point he just started going at it like
you know, I just knew that he was going to
get there, you know, So him coming in and then
being my engineer, my courten engineer, and then I was
working on Madonna's Secret when he did the rough mix

(37:40):
to it, she was like, I like that mix better. Wow,
And that's what kind of kicked off his his like mixing.

Speaker 1 (37:45):
Uh. I was going to ask, are you a demo
itist person?

Speaker 4 (37:49):
Do you know what it's horrible?

Speaker 1 (37:51):
Or your artist demo?

Speaker 4 (37:52):
I learned to At first, I was horrible because I
was a total demo itist person. But then the whole
First Boys, the Man album, the two album, that's all
the rough mixes word yeah, thank you. Before that this
some time Motown Philly, SoSE don't go the song so right.
So that's all these records. When Jero Buzzby told me

(38:16):
he was I had Dave Wade mixed the whole album.
But then Jero Buzzy said, you know what, I like
the roughs better. Man. No, don't do that to me. Man,
you know, I gotta sound better. I can't let people
like Teddy here that don't sound good.

Speaker 5 (38:27):
You know.

Speaker 4 (38:28):
He's like, no, these roughs are this is it. I
think we're going with the roughs, and I didn't want
to listen to the record when it came out.

Speaker 1 (38:34):
Okay, so and now I'm like Crazy Sexy Cool, which
obviously is you know, there's multiple producers, multiple producers, but
who's the alpha producer? Are you there doing the mastering
and the sequencing as well?

Speaker 4 (38:47):
When it got too Crazy Sexy Cool by that time,
like when I was doing the on a TLC tip
record and you just capture records? Are you capturing the
moment that just happened to you? Do you recorded an
event that just happened to you? That's why you call
it record. So we were just whatever we were doing,
you know, we acted it out. We would just had
the studio twenty four seven and recording it right. So

(39:07):
that album came out to be more cohesive as like, okay,
you can tell that that's kind of what happened. Somebody
had the same person kind of did it all. By
the time we got to Crazy Sexy Cool and the
girl sold all those records and all the madness had
happened in LA and then you know when they come
in and say, okay, now, let us let us go situate,
let us bring in, let us do this, let us right.
And it wasn't until and I was I was like

(39:31):
weird on that because I would go they would go say, yo,
you start the project because you know what to do,
and then we will come in and fill in the
blanks and bring in stuff, right. So or I would
go and say, okay, here's here's four or five songs.
Let me find the other ones that will fit in
from Babyface or from this person or that person. Right
by the time we got the crazy sexy cool, it
was like LA was trying to make I think sure

(39:52):
that they didn't fail in that sense. So it was
like song song song, song, song song, right. But by
the time and then he wasn't going to put creep out.
He shot the video we've heard, we heard, he shot
three videos, shot three videos. Yeah, and then he wasn't
gonna put it out. And so then he went to
Clive and said that. Clive was like he Clive called me,
It's like, nope, La is wrong. He's like, and this

(40:14):
is the first time I ever heard this thing. He
goes and that Miles Davids horn sound you having there
is going to get you a Grammy. And I was like,
what Miles David's horn sound. Yeah, I was se So
I was the same way. But that's that's funny because
that's how he interpreted. But what I was doing is
I had creep up on my MPC sixty for a week, right.
I would come in and sing the song, not save

(40:35):
it and just be like, oh man, I think it's
not too country, keep it on the download. But I'm like, well,
but I kept singing it every day, So I was like,
you know what, let me just get Debrak Killers to
come to the demo so I can get out of
my head. Right, So I wrote the whole song, had
to come sing it, and I couldn't find a simile crash,
but I like, so I just like, oh man, I
put this in because like you know, Pete Rock and

(40:56):
everybody would put the.

Speaker 1 (40:59):
Right right right.

Speaker 4 (41:00):
So I found that put it in there and didn't
think of it as anything there will be a signature.
It was just like, hey, this is the horn hit
on the one. But Cloud was like that, Miles David's
horn sound is going to get your Grammy. You know
what Miles David sound.

Speaker 5 (41:12):
Davis horn sound, and it's not even its sounds, not his.

Speaker 4 (41:17):
That was the closest thing that Cloud could write related.

Speaker 1 (41:21):
Yeah, I was going to say, even to this day
when Creep is still like maybe the first twenty records
that I spend when I do DJ gigs and when
it comes in it's it's almost the effect. And it's
weird because like that record used to be Troy, Like
whenever you spend the top of Yeah, they reminisce over
you place goes panthemonium and then you know, after fifteen

(41:44):
twenty years then silence can save you. Yeah, the generation
will change, but Creep has never lost its luster.

Speaker 5 (41:52):
It gives you a chance to get on the floor.
The first fifteen thirty second to give you a chance
to get on the floor, and then you can really
drink that.

Speaker 1 (41:58):
But just when people hear it, it's almost like I
hear the screams of when I was fourteen years old
in ninth grade, Like that's that's what that's these I hear. Wait.
So at the time when I was we were living
in London, when Crazy Sexy Cool came out, there was
this white singer that.

Speaker 4 (42:19):
Did Texas, Charlene SPITERI right yo.

Speaker 1 (42:23):
I was like is it me or all right? Give
me give me another? Non Jermaine kind of like a
person ra feels, you know, like when the song comes
out if you like white Diamonds, You're like, yeah, was
it me or when you When I heard this song,
we we being mentor of bus like we'll come on

(42:43):
MTV or whatever, and I was like, Yo, this is
the this is creep.

Speaker 4 (42:47):
That is creep. And they came. My publisher called me
and say, yo, I always want to group Texas, and
they've done this song called once in a Lifetime Lifetime yep.
And so they've played the song for me. They say,
you got two choices. They said, well, they actually did
it because they really really like you and they wanted

(43:07):
a song to sound like yours. So either you could
sue them for that, or you could work with them.
I said, well, why don't I work with them? And
I worked with him. I did so millions of records
with him on the song I did with him in demand,
like years after it.

Speaker 1 (43:21):
Yo, man, I've been for twenty years trying to figure
out they ran it. They ran that join in Europe
forever and then I just stopped hearing it. But I
always wanted to know if it's that. I mean that
always happens in songwriting, like even to this day, like
I always see the example on the original reels of
Fleetwood Max Dreams. It still says the Spinner's Idea number

(43:43):
three because they were making I'll.

Speaker 4 (43:44):
Be around yep, and Stevie Nix was doing what she's
doing a step actually doing little Red.

Speaker 1 (43:49):
Corvette, yeah exactly, you know, and got them to come
in and.

Speaker 4 (43:52):
Yeah, because then you would that's kind of how they
would look at stuff. You know, you only got this
many notes. It's twelve notes in there, so that's got
to make everything you've ever heard in your life, all
the jazz, all the classicals, or the hip hop or
R and B, all the pop is made between here
and here. That's all. That's what so genius about music
because and you're gonna run across it again. It's just

(44:13):
impossible not to. And that's why every reggae song gonna
sound pretty much alike. And that's why you know, you
had the thing with with for Real and them talking
about bloodlines. But it's like you're starting to run out
of even you're starting to run out of combinations, right.

Speaker 1 (44:31):
The question I had about sequencing an album is when
you're sequencing Coolie on Harmony the album, I always wanted
to ask producers, whoever the executive producer is like how
much balls do you have to start an album off
for the ballot that you know when, especially when you

(44:52):
have Motown Philly in your pocket. And yes, I see Motown.
I do see Motown Philly as a side to Adrenaline
banger thing. But y'all didn't once say like, maybe we
should start this record with man Motown Philly.

Speaker 4 (45:06):
Please don't go yeah under pressure and like it was
we're kind of trying to. I would se quince records
like this most of the time, where I would say, okay,
well have the mood right, So y'a don't want to
have a fast on slow song, fast on slow song.
You want to have like here's your flask, here's your mids,
and then slow it down towards the kind of towards
the end of it. When he did Crazy Sexy Cool,
obviously that was la right, and I was. I felt

(45:29):
little more disconnected from Crazy Sexy Cool than the first one,
just because it felt to be patched up, not patched up,
but it felt like a bunch of different even that
was supposed to be the thing tied it together. But
who did different people like you going to do something
not oh damn, But it was just because at a
certain point I did all all. You know, you can

(45:50):
go in and start off and you do all these
songs and then you start to say okay, then he starts, okay, well,
now I'll put this person in. Now we'll put that
person in that won't let somebody listen to all your stuff.
And then we're gonna put somebody else in to try
to do better than yours. And we had this thing
before me organizing and Jermaine we've known each other since
the skating rinks, so since we were like sixteen, since
I first got to Atlanta, you know, me and JD

(46:10):
actually go over his house with his mom and make
beats on Jermaine's m PC and the mom would you know,
feed us Teddy Grams with kool Aid or whatever, and
so we would just be like, yeah, you know, that's
just what we were doing. We were young and not
just in the high school and all this and didn't
really you know, dressing the kids at the mall and
kind of just doing you know, just having fun. So

(46:31):
we really didn't know and think about how it was
going to blow up. And myself, Rico, Jermaine, we had,
you know, after we started to come up we ended
up doing all of the face records. That was all
the records right there, Me and Jermaine and Rico.

Speaker 1 (46:46):
Yeah, at one point Highland places that that was the Yeah,
that was yeah.

Speaker 4 (46:51):
So at one point I hit, I hit. We had
all got way off track, like we wasn't messing with
each other. We were just like way off.

Speaker 1 (46:58):
Track when didn't get competitive.

Speaker 4 (47:01):
It got competitive like after crazy.

Speaker 1 (47:03):
How did you feel about waterfalls? Because even La said
himself like he saved organized noise for last.

Speaker 4 (47:09):
Well, I love I love the waterfalls. See, I knew
all of them. These are like all my guys in
the first place, because we all hung out the skating
rink and stuff together before La even knew any of us.
So we felt like when La kind of came to town,
he was the opportunity. But we was more crazy about babyface,
you know, but we couldn't really access Yeah, we could
really act face like that. It was like La came
to the forefront and it was like, hey, by the
time we got the crazy, sexy cool, we realized. I

(47:31):
called him one day and I said, yo, man, And
we had all this ABC criss Cross beef and all
that stuff. When it was kids and it just turned
into a bunch of mess in the first place. But
I called Jamain and one day and said, yo, man,
you know we didn't have a meeting you and we
go come meet me at this restaurant and don't bring
any security. What you mean, don't bring those.

Speaker 1 (47:48):
Security set up? I was like, I can't.

Speaker 4 (47:51):
We don't need security. We've been knowing each other since
high school, but we've been way off. Yeah, everybody don't
make money and went on their own thing. So we
had a meeting with him, and I said, uh, help you. Sorry,
you don't like that, So I said there, I said, yo, man,
what's going on with us? Like you ever noticed that
we all work on with face records, but we don't
work on any of our own records together. Like you
never worked this before? Jamaine did first night? I said,

(48:12):
you never worked on Monica, I never worked on Escape.
You never worked on working something? What's going on? Jamaine
goes well, Lay said, man, you don't really like my stuff?
And I said what damn well? They told me you
don't like my stuff, and then away goes with it,
told me that neither one of y'all like my stuff.

Speaker 1 (48:31):
That he meant it that he wanted friction between the
three of you, so that way you be competitive.

Speaker 4 (48:36):
Competitive, and so he gave us the book for Christmas,
The Art of War. None of us have paid attention
to it. God gave us pulled on this in the
first place, and so we from that point we was like, okay,
we gotta stop because Atlanta small for us to be
separated and we would glue to the whole thing is
like that didn't make any sense because we don't function

(48:56):
like that down here.

Speaker 5 (48:57):
That's when the Monica relationships stopped.

Speaker 4 (48:59):
When the Monica relationship started the first night.

Speaker 1 (49:01):
Okay, okay, for those of us that aren't Atlanta adjacent,
and I know that your connection to the atl film,
could you explain to us outsiders about skate culture in
Atlanta and how important it is or the epicenter.

Speaker 4 (49:16):
Man, it was the only other outlet, you know. So
when I did, I did drum Line first, right, and
everybody kind of said, okay. It brought the margin bands
to the forefront. And then I had atl It was
called jelly Beans. I had that movie at the same time.
It was based out because the skate rink was called
jelly Beans. That me and t Bos and organized Noise
and Devine Stevens and all of us went to the
skate rink every Sunday. So what the trip is is.

(49:38):
Then after I did drum Line, Fox was like, Okay,
he's got the skate Ring movie, so we're gonna put
out Roadbounds because I took so I take. I had
taken another movie to Warner Brothers. And so then when
they put out Roadbounds, want to call me? It was like, Yo,
we can't make a skate rink movie. It just put
that one out. That's not gonna make sense.

Speaker 3 (49:54):
Oh Acl is old, So it was a yo.

Speaker 4 (49:57):
Yeah. So then so I looked at it. I said,
well look man, that's a period piece. I was like,
that's like watching the Wood, Like I said, but we're
doing this now in Atlanta right now to day on
Sundays they are skating skating Yeah right now.

Speaker 1 (50:10):
Okay crazy anyway, so good.

Speaker 4 (50:16):
He got it from me and me and Jamaine.

Speaker 3 (50:17):
He didn't change land that.

Speaker 1 (50:18):
Way like tied Babyloney and Randy Gardner on his I
g like, I was like, I didn't bring it back.
That's all I know.

Speaker 4 (50:27):
That's the last skaters I know, right, If you go
to Cascade on Sundays and you get us. Jermaina called
me and be like, Yo, Sunday, what you're doing, Let's skate.

Speaker 3 (50:35):
I can see Jermaine hand on somebody's back.

Speaker 4 (50:38):
Like we went to New York for the for the Flippers,
right because Jimmy Ivan and them opening, Yes, who went
to New York for that? But yeah, the skate culture
here has always been super strong still And when I
did at l the crazy part about it is I
went and got the same guys that was skating with
because they're still skating. So all those dudes in the movie,

(50:58):
they still they cascade, They're still skating.

Speaker 1 (51:00):
That's Atlanta.

Speaker 4 (51:02):
That's it.

Speaker 1 (51:03):
Do you skate board as well?

Speaker 3 (51:05):
Or is it?

Speaker 4 (51:05):
Like is that escape cool?

Speaker 1 (51:06):
Skating?

Speaker 4 (51:07):
Skateboarding when we were younger, but then once we started
getting to the because our skate culture hits so competitive,
like when we have out like ten people in the
line and you know, get out of the way, get
out the way.

Speaker 1 (51:19):
It does the express line have to be the outer line?
A good question? What about geriatric skating? Excuse me?

Speaker 4 (51:28):
And then be going so fast, like once you get going,
you don't realize how fast you're really going, and if
you fall like all the people in your line, they're
gonna get it, so like it becomes really intense driving.

Speaker 5 (51:37):
When you open the door. Though that you opened the
drum Line door. So you told one story about one movie.
Can you got to tell us a little something that
we don't know about this movie and the fact that
why did you choose that era of your life? Because
what we know right now is you got a couple
of movies about three or five of your life, So please.

Speaker 4 (51:53):
Well it was it was when I first pitched drum Line.
I was in a meeting with Fox and they were
asking me about musicals, like, hey man, we need to
try to find a way to do cool musicals again.
And then I said, we can't break out doing singing
in the rain. It ain't happened. We need an excuse,
like a marching band. And it was like a marching band,
what's interesting about that? And in the meeting, I was like, Oh,
it's about this kid that can't read music and he's
in his marching band. And I kind of pitched the

(52:14):
whole my story to them in the meeting, and then
a couple of days later they called back and said,
we want to make this film and I'm all right, cool.
So we started making it. We started like developing it
and by the time the script got to a point
where it was by a girl Sean, shehips at first,
but she just did bring it on to or something.
And so when they wrote it, I was like, I
was like, oh no, this ain't it, lunch, this ain't it.

(52:37):
And then and so Fox was like, oh, that's not it. Okay,
Well we're going to put it in you know, We're
gonna sit it over here there and let it just sit.
And I'm like, no, we'll give it back to me.
I said, no, no, no, we don't. We can't give
it back to you, you know, because we bought it
and we want to put it put it in a turnaround,
which is like they got it. They on it. They
don't want to make it, but they don't want nobody
else to make it either, because if it happens, then

(52:58):
it doesn't look right.

Speaker 1 (52:58):
Right. So now the movies sitting you mean, if to
get successful, then not through them, not through them, like
they're sitting on an artist, right.

Speaker 4 (53:05):
So they have so many movies they put in turn
around where they just sit and then later on they'll
go back and go, oh, you know what. We got
one of those somewhere, you know. So it was sitting,
and it was sitting, and I was like, I got
to get my movie back. So I called Quincy Jones
and I said, yo, man. One of the things Quincy
showed me before was I was at his house one
time and he goes, uh, Dallas, look at them, look
at his video. So I look at the video and
this operah Danny Glover, and they look busted like they

(53:29):
just got off the bus at the West Day the mall.
They got on greens. I mean, they looked like rough,
and they're in this like high school theater and they
rehearsing lines for the color purple and so, and you
can see the VHS tape at the bottom and stuff.
So he's going on, he said, So let me ask
a question. Who's holding the camera? I said, you are,
said nope, Steven Spielberg. Wow, I said, he's holding the

(53:52):
camquarter So yeah, he said, because I needed a scene,
a train scene. It was gonna cost me more than
thirteen million to make the movie. And they were saying
that black movies don't go over seven million, so they
wasn't gonna give it to me. So when I got
my friend Steven and I said, okay, Steven, you direct
this for me? He said yeah, he said okay, So
that turned everything around. I said, oh, that's why, Stephen.
I never understood Steven Spielberg direct the color. So he

(54:15):
goes this. He said, this one. I'm gonna tell you.
Want to get that movie made? Find a friend of
yours that's jewishne that was a show. Check out what
I did. I called Jody Gerson, that my publisher. She's
my publisher at the time. So I said, Jody, when
she said I need to find somebody Jewish, you might,
you might closest Jewish friend. How do I get this
movie made? She sayes, okay, can I come on as

(54:37):
a producer? I said yeah. She said cool, because IM
gonna bring my other friend Wendy fine him. I said,
who is that? She said, well, she just finished for
at Going Castaway. So I walked back in Fox. Years later,
I was trying to talk them out of the movie.
I want to get this movie back because I was
gonna take it someone else. But you know, but when
they find him, is gonna work on the with me?

(54:58):
They said what they said on you got Wendy fined
him to work on this marching band movie. It's black.
I'm like yeah. She said, okay, well, I'm gonna tell
you like this, Can it take place in college? I said,
it's bigger in college than in high school. She said, okay,
we got to make this movie. I said, I'm trying
to talk y'all out of it. Said no, no, we
got to make this movie. I was like, oh, it's
just a hip hop kid can't read music. They got

(55:18):
to make it. So Wendy was like, all right, I
have no idea what this is about. I'm just gonna
ford you off. I'm probably gonna make a lot of
money and you're not if it's successful. But I'm gonna
make it so you can make the movie exactly how
you want to make it. And so when I came
back to Atlanta and I was in Miami during that time,
I had move and started doing Blue Cant Trail and
Pink and Black and all this stuff out of Miami.

(55:39):
I came back and Charlotte was like, Yo, you got
to come back. They're scouting for drum Mind and they
need you here for locations and all this and that.
So then it started to turn real and I'm like,
all right, this is this is about you know, I'm
looking at Orlando Jones and Jamie Fox and different people
for the Doctor Lee. And as we were starting to
get going and it started to really turn into the
movie and the script and stuff started to get developed way.

(56:00):
But in Tina Chisholm, who she's incredible and she kind
of like you know, from that point she knew how
to tell my stories because she would be around me
all the time. So we went back start shooting the movie.
Here everybody, I called to all the rappers like nope,
they said, no, a movie about a band I called Lula.
I called everybody, Oh yo, I need this party the
rapper for the field, And I think they thought I
was doing I got the hook up.

Speaker 1 (56:19):
That's how you got Petil, That's how I got so Ludasa.
Who was your initial asks?

Speaker 4 (56:27):
Luda was Lula was first? Who else was it out here?
Then it's like two more Atlanta. You know, I think
it was outcast, but nobody knew the magnitude because you know,
in all fairness, nobody had seen anything like it to
hit Atlanta. And so then as I'm making the movie,
he got to a point where it started to go
over budget because obviously I'm recording three hundred piece marching

(56:49):
bands that I have to use for playback. So I
got to record them first, write the songs like they're out,
now record them on the marching band, so use it
for playback at the field. Right started going over budget,
So then Fox call they said, Yo, this movie's turning
into an eighteen million dollar movie instead of a fifteen thirteen.
Put white people in it. We need white bands, like
a white band bands. So he's like, I don't care,

(57:14):
it's a pop movie. Now white bands, So now I
gotta go. Yeah, so I got Georgia State, Georgia Tech.
And he's just like and I'm like, dude, I can't
put this. This looks horrible. I can't put this in
the movie. Already, the bands don't want to be in
the movie because they don't want to lose.

Speaker 5 (57:32):
Like shout out to fam you and our film, our
film cruise.

Speaker 4 (57:36):
Yeah, well y'all family was not going to drum line
because it's like we're not losing to nobody. Yeah. It
was like, OK, well that's why we're making a fake band,
because we don't want anybody's band to lose to anybody
you know what I'm saying. They said, nope, we don't
care if it's a fake bab.

Speaker 1 (57:51):
With another title.

Speaker 4 (57:53):
They just didn't want to have family losing Tou North Atlanta,
at which ain't even.

Speaker 1 (57:58):
A school school colors, but it wasn't you know.

Speaker 4 (58:02):
Yeah, But but so I put the white bands in
and then at the end I looked, I said, this
is horrible. This is making these schools look really bad,
and that's not what it's supposed to do either. So
I said, you got to find some kind of narrative line,
and so, w how am I going to do this?
So I went to I went to the school Morris Brown,
and I saw this white kid Brown. So, this white
kid in the band with red hair, and I was like, so,

(58:24):
how did you get here? Tell me your story. He's like, man,
I lived down the street. I always wanted to be
in this band since I was little. I was like, okay,
there we got we got to catch now. And then
by the time I edited the movie and took all
the white bands out, then you know, you look on
the DVD, it still got the white bands in there.
For like they caught white bands. It is all white
and you look at Georgia Tech Georgia, you know. But

(58:45):
then the great part about it was, you know, seeing
when drum line, when I finally got it right, because
I always said it didn't belong to me, it belongs
to everybody in the band. I'm telling my story, but
if I don't tell it like I gotta get I
gotta get it right. I gotta hit it on the
head and it's right. If I get it wrong, it's
just no right. And so on the release date, I
would go around to the theaters and see him sold
out in Atlanta and everybody would be in marchin band outfits.

Speaker 5 (59:07):
Wow.

Speaker 4 (59:08):
Me and my mom would just ride around being like dang.

Speaker 3 (59:11):
Now.

Speaker 4 (59:11):
It took me ten years, ten years of every day
making that film. And then because I wanted to do
atl next, they tried to get me to go to
New Orleans, and so I ended up bringing the New
Orleans bill to Atlanta and passing the film bill here.

Speaker 1 (59:25):
So that's why, that's that's why people come to shooting Atlanta.

Speaker 3 (59:29):
Yeah, it's Tyler Perry, thank.

Speaker 4 (59:31):
You all of sh I have cost me like two
and a grand passing that bill. Back then, I had
to lobbying.

Speaker 1 (59:36):
So you're the reason why that Georgia logo comes on
down there every everything. Wow.

Speaker 4 (59:42):
Wow, you know, I was just trying to get atl
done back then, and so Governor Purdue he basically said, okay,
well I don't know what to do. You tell us
what to do, and we kind of came up with
the plan. That's the Georgia film bill now and the
ribbon Cuttin spoke at the G eight summit and all
that stuff on. We haf for Georgia so we can
have what we have now going on.

Speaker 5 (01:00:02):
Hey y'all, it's like here from Team Supreme. Okay, so
right here is where we're going to end part one
of The Quest Left Supreme with Dallas Austin. You're gonna
want to stay tuned for part two because this is
when Dallas talks about working with Michael Jackson and Madonna
and he tells some really dope stories about the group
illegal and producing must be the money for Dion Sanders.

Speaker 3 (01:00:22):
Remember that this was like one of.

Speaker 5 (01:00:24):
Our favorite episodes, and don't forget we were actually live
in Atlanta for this, So make sure you check out
part two when it becomes available, see y'all.

Speaker 1 (01:00:35):
Quest Left Supreme is a production of iHeartRadio. For more
podcasts from iHeart Radio, visit the iHeart Radio app, Apple Podcasts,
or wherever you listen to your favorite shows.