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):
Question Love Suprema is a production of I Heart Radio.
All right, my first might be weak. Suprema Prima, roll call,
So Prema so Prima, roll call, So Prema s Prima
roll call s Prima So Suprema roll Call. I'm out

(00:23):
of ideas. Yeah, I'm so afraid. Yeah, somebody help. Yeah,
I ain't too proud of Sa Suprema roll camix Suprema
roll Call. My name is Fante. Yeah, I ain't trying
to be funny. Yeah, if I'm just gonna keep it real, Yeah,

(00:45):
I like must be the money rou roll call Prima
Suprema roll Call. My name is Sugar. Yeah, and I
got my booster. Yeah, so I could be here. Yeah
with this great producer Supremo, roll Call, Supremama roll Call,

(01:11):
It's like yeah and Jesus Christ. Yeah that was Austin's music.
Yeah's changed my life. Roll Call su Primo, roll Call,
So Prema roll call names Dallas, Yeah, I'm here for show. Yeah,
i'mus love. Yeah, I'm gonna give me some more. Roll

(01:34):
card su Prima, roll Call, Suprima So su Prima, roll call,
So Frema so Suremo, roll call Suprema so Prema roll call. Alright,
ladies and gentlemen. This quest love, that's finete, that's like you,

(01:56):
and that's a sugar Steve and I'm Bill somewhere on
Ask Me Street. Look, I could take twelve minutes. Look,
ain't you proud to babe? Just one of them days?
Pat to the back, hit him up style. I lied
them and Yo, Sammy got like a yeah, yeah dog.

(02:20):
I was not ready for that because he still has
his baby face truths. I always love you. The fucking
m motown Philly must be the money playground, playground. Where
did you get a little squeaky thing. I'm gonna ask
you all your production. I just know that this show

(02:40):
is more about the creative process. Please wait for me.
My baby's got a secret. Yo. I need some justice.
I need some justice for silly ho. I think that
that guy drafted. I'm sorry the boys mine they don't

(03:01):
care about us. Gets damnd around, but all that ship.
I have so many questions about too bad man. You
know I was two seconds year old. I could have sworn.
I remember when I brought Tasty and I was like,
oh damn, okay, for real, chill y'all, y'all, y'all hooking up.
I get more mature. Did you win? I didn't know
he did trick me. I'm pretty What about I can

(03:26):
go on? What about your friends, ladies and gentlemen? This
doesn't happen often. It's going to be a super producer episode,
one of the greatest producers. Just how do you get here?
We don't know? This is literally no, I'm sorry. I
would normally do all these long accolades take twelve minutes,
but you know that's for the seven hour Jimmy jam episode.

(03:49):
Are you lucky? Let's smoke. He's definitely about to do
five hours. He just don't know it yet. Anyway, ladies
and right, that's where I'm rustling. Ladies and gentlemen. Dallas Austin, Yes, yes, yes, yes,
we are here. This is our Atlanta series and uh

(04:11):
we've we've been here for a while and just we're
in the same clothes every five weeks ago. How how
are you, Mr Austin? I'm good man, I'm really good.
I gotta say. Uh. The day that we're speaking is
the anniversary of the ill adelf Half Life release, of
which the very song we worked on was that Dark Studios.

(04:35):
We did Panic and started episodes at Dark. We were
just and we cold knocked. I think we just knocked,
and it was like, you know, can we get a
studio room real quick? And all I remember was um
you were there recording the Fishbone record. And Enjoy was
there too, And this is the first time that I

(04:57):
saw um Angelo. He was very much in love with
that Thurman, Oh my god, dog, if you if you
can hear like if I had the stems to panic
Onto's vocal track, you can still hear like the bleeding
through the wall, that's my memories of dark But now,

(05:18):
thank you very much for doing this with us. Man,
And we couldn't I didn't know what to do with
that thing. It was like you couldn't control it, theleman
so and he was just he was determined to use
it on the record. It was almost impossible to put
it into him. And that's leading into the session, like
he would just be in the hallway and like it
was like he was doing a like that's just like

(05:41):
four hours straight. Your legacy burns steep, so we're just
going to dive right into it. Where's your first musical memory.
My stepdad played for James Brown, who was Jimmy Nolan
and yeah, motherfu that's the show. So this is crazy.
So I will wake up with him, Jimmy Chank Nolan, Yeah,
does Winne and Malvoie this does. I don't know have

(06:04):
you ever mentioned this. I don't know if I meant
to the Winny before. But every morning I would wake
up in third grade and um play guitar with him,
and he would teach me to play with my fingers
like this, thinking to think of, you know, and I
would probably smoke a little bit of a drink and
then go to school because it was it was, you know,

(06:25):
seventies and stuff. So my mom and my mom on
the um a nightclub and in Columbus, Georgia and doing
the sixties. It was segregated so that when Tina Turner,
James Brown, everybody 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 just 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 want

(06:47):
to be bands and blue shat carpet and clavinet horners,
and you know, so my mom doing books, I'm running
around playing on the 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 was going to road with the Ja Bees
like when I was like when I was like seven.
Well that explains everything. Literally, this literally took every question

(07:08):
out of my head. I'm still fucked up that I'm
sitting next to someone that knew Jimmy Chink Nolan. Yeah,
man like hurling cheese and Jimmy Chink Nolan. Are I
mean the wonder twins of syncopated rhythm. They're just and
I don't know why. Oh no, I'm a mom. You know.

(07:30):
I was just so so in the music. You know,
I was so crazy about music. But uh yeah, I
went on the road with the JB's one summer and
I wrote the bus with them the whole time, and immedicly,
Charles Sinclair Macio would be I would be under the
organ while Charles was rehearsing, right while practicing, I would
be under the oregan playing with cars or like you know,
playing a little pianos and stuff. And this is crazy,

(07:52):
This is that it goes full circle. So Catherine Bruton
had a thing of b m I. When she first
got to bem I, she says, gonna hounor James Brown,
and we want you for real Chad Rodney Jerkins, Oh
you're gonna be the JBS. Wow. Not Forrell got on
drums and started it yo the night before and said, Yo,

(08:16):
I'm about to do my power with James Brown. This
is a nice is that night. So we're all in
rehearsal and um for one, Everybody's like, that's going to
be impossible to getting together. So we all in rehearsal.
They wander what it is as well, what it is
I'm playing the same chinky notes I was playing in
third grade. You know, I'm like, this is getting surreal.
It is give me a trip. And so by the
time we hit the stage with James and I didn't

(08:37):
you know, I was a little, so I didn't know
how much you remember me and not follow my history
of music or not. But soon he taught me. On
the stage, he goes to that's Jim and Ole's boy
right there, and then he started talking about how he
knew me since I was little, 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 remember this one time where you know, they were
all lined up, the band was the JBS, and then

(08:58):
Um and James in addressing room get ready to come out,
and they out there just talking, doing their thing and
I smoking a cigarette, stocking trash whatever, and this dude
comes out and he walks on and he slapped the
hell out of all of them, and I was so terrified.
I don'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

(09:19):
and which straight to the stage, and then they went
to the stage and started playing. And so afterwards, you know,
as a kid, you still just like in your version
of the shock, like what just happened? Right? Um and
Jimmy said to me said, man, you know he he
does that to get our attention, almost like that the face.
I'm sorry. You know, if you feel like, you know,

(09:41):
get your attention off the bat, if you feel like
you're 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 messed up you lead a whole band.
He wasn't playing so back then he could nobody nobody
Internet back then, but it was it was part of
what really started. He started shaping me into playing. You know.

(10:01):
I started on guitar, and then the guitar started hurting
my fingers, so I started playing keyboards. And then from
that point I was just you all self taught, like
no formal lessons and none of that self talked about Cassio.
Started with the Cassio calculator and man asked my mom
to get me a big one every Christmas. And then
I worked my way up to a Roland Jacks three
p Well, it took me. I was at but I

(10:26):
couldn't play in the local bands and if I didn't
have a keyboard for a real keyboard, right, Yeah, So
my brother financed it was two he financed for five years. Wow.
That Yeah. He was 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've seen the
mothership Land. That was one of my first concerts. Tell

(10:46):
me about then, that's one of the first ones because
I said, Mom, you know George Clinton. They're coming to
town and probably in Funkadelic, and the roof is gonna
open up and the Spaceship is gonna come in. And
she said, well, I don't think that's gonna happen. I said,
you didn't see the commercials. Look at it, the marginal TV,
the spaceships coming in. I gotta see this. So she
was like, all right, I just don't want you to
be disappointed. So I go to the concerty. My brother

(11:09):
would always take me to the concerts. He would sneak
me in with a snare drum that was marred from
school like sand It was was Zapp's drummer, and you know, yeah,
my brother was always everybody was in all their music.
So so like when I got to the concert and
I'm watching this show and all of a sudden, you
start doing the swinging down, so we cherry and stopped,
and I'm like, here it comes here, cumes is gonna
open up. And I didn't realize as a kid how
it was happening, but I know the spaceship came down

(11:29):
on the stage, you know, and I was just like
blown away from it and all the costumes and watching
boots and watching like the whole You know, I was
able to see you, to see Glenn goings called down.
You're seeing the whole thing, bro like the same one
you can watch on the old seventies feels. And when
George comes out with the whole cane. That happened, And

(11:50):
think about my mom's restaurant, was that I was able
to meet all these people before I ever ever worked
with him and knew him. So they would come to
the restaurant afterwards, they would go before and because the
soul food rest run and then that was the closest restaurant.
Who didn't you to the auditorium was the only one place.
So every time he's Roger Zapp, Lion Richie, Commodorees early
one in fire. All these people I've seen hi when

(12:11):
I was little my mom's restaurant. Did you ever ever
a circle back to somebodyse especially George? Um, you know
George has been since the times you were there. George
was around there. That's when he was really starting to
hang around Uswood right like the Hollywood Um but him, Lionel, Richie,
all of them I got. Natalie Cole must be so

(12:33):
proud of you, Like damn, yeah it was it's a
full circle trip. You know, what's your favorite Parliament album?
That was in the Cosmic Slops album first with Maggio
Brain and you know, just because my brothers and then
was just playing over and over and over. How much
older were your brothers in you like five years you know,
so like the middle or the baby. Yeah, I thought

(12:57):
that who's the hype man for another back creation? Yeah,
that's okay, I'm sorry. I thought that your brother that's
my cousin, my aunt's son. That was like an urban
legend when we was younger, like you know this, okay, right,
all of us was down in Columbus, Man and then
um my brother who brought the keyboard end up breaking

(13:20):
my 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. And my brother came
in with this moming up the room and I wasn't listening,
so he picked the keyboard up through it broke it.
I tripped out flip when trying to My mom's restaurant
was connected to the house we stayed ended up at
that time, so it was like soul food restaurant and
downtown Columbus or everything was going down, like everything was

(13:41):
going down and it was just bad. It was just
just dark. And so, um, he broke your keyboard, the
one he paid for. Yeah, I tried to kill him,
but I was so a little you know, you're little,
you don't know better. So you know, I ran down
stairs my one restaurant, get a knife, run upstairs and
crying what's going on? Because that keyboard was the only

(14:02):
thing that got me into bands with people that was
like bigger, you know, like Kevin Bradshaw and then who
end up being like basically black. They had dands, you know.
So I wanted to play in the band and be
like Dr Fink for real and Jimmy jam for real
and now you just run my dreams? So and how
old are you now? Are you talking about? Speaking of which,
we found this out recently that Prince initially wrote get

(14:24):
It Up, Yeah, Brick for Brick. They didn't like it.
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 learned get It
Up solo. I'll go home every day and learned cool

(14:45):
go home every day girl, and all this stuff. And
I was a little that you know, you're just sitting
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, because
it's a Greyhound bus station around the street. So I

(15:07):
broke my keyboard. I went to the bus station. I'm like,
I'm going to Atlanta. I don't understand how that well,
she didn't need that. First you away, you announced that
you running away from And then I went to the
bus station. I'm waiting on the bus, like I'm in
this late at nights. My mom was like, what are
you doing? Like he broke my keyboard, I can't be

(15:29):
a big producer. I got to get to Atlanta, and
she was like, what you getting to 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 have brick and still had cameo and you still
have ss Ben and like, you know, Atlanta rhythm sections
and all this stuff was going on back there in
your mind, Like at least if I'm twelve, you know

(15:54):
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 Brighten, Right, but
I didn't know even like not even reading the labels,
like you know, I'm just saying that. Why again, your twelve,

(16:18):
So I'm glad you kind of went next door instead
of like two thousand miles away. Why I was in
New York or Hollywood not on your radar, because I've
been to Atlanta. Um, we would come up on the
weekends and they had the biggest music store like with
them City or something was called, and like so you
look at yellow Pages and it was like that was
the closest dream I could see for real. You know.

(16:39):
It's like if I get up there, I can go
to the music shops, 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 at night. I
know you're starting, I know you're mad. Just come on
back to the house. And we talked about it, and
no busses are leaving a 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

(17:00):
next day. Oh yeah, he was going to drinking, but
wise and he was like, you know that he realized
at that point, how you know what that happened? And
so um. The next day, I got up during the daytime,
I went down to my mom's cash register in the restaurant,
got me bucks, went back to Grund bus station and
then that was full long. Now is daytime, the buses

(17:21):
are leaving. So she comes back around again and she's like, yo,
what are you doing. I'm like, I'm going to Atlanta.
I can't. I can't stay here. Dude, broke my keyboard.
All my brothers are like, you know, in jail, a
lot like you had a lot of just jail and darkness.
It was Me and my mom were really close, and
it's absolutely not preparable. It was reparable. It just didn't
look like it to the two First, the two keys
came off to begin you know, oh, you mean the keyboard.

(17:43):
I thought you meant the relationship. Well, well then, you know,
my mom was like, well, look, if you're that determined,
that stubborn, then give me some time to sell the restaurant.
I'm going with you. You're not leaving me. Wait time out.
She's willing to do that for you. And she did that.
That's your best and that's how I got to Atlanta.
So she came up. So the restaurants. My dad was

(18:04):
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 that he left and some problems with police
and all this kind of stuff. Let's just go. And
so we left, came to Atlanta. She got a job
at po Folks on Old National. I moved to College Park,

(18:24):
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 telve thousand a year and I
started going to school sometimes. How long was that period
between the bus station and y'all actually moving about? But
almost eight months to a year by time when she
was like, all right, let me situated, let me figure

(18:45):
it out. Where am I gonna work? How do I
serve this? How do I you know? Um? Because my
father he got killed in front of us when he
was two, when I was two, right because he yeah,
he had his nightclub in his restaurant, and this dude
had a dream or something and he was a friend
of his that my uncle beat him with a pipe
or something crazy but just some craziness, and he came

(19:06):
down to shoot my uncle at the restaurant. My dad
was standing in the door, so he shot him first
and then came in when 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 that. My mom
had to take over the club and take over the
responsibility to the nightclub and the restaurant. Now, the nightclub

(19:26):
was full of all the politicians I know now in Atlanta,
Pimps Street, Tussler, Jean Griffin, like you know that Griffin
that Jane Griffins boughtom my growing up to with my dad.
What was Jean Griffin exactly besides the name that always
was in Teddy Riley's pace. I don't know what he

(19:47):
looks like. I just know that I've seen his name
a lot. Jean Griffin was one of the most notorious
the gangsters back then. He was the sugar of Oh Beyond.
There wasn't playing him and Bill Underwood, who's kind to
the Johnny Guild out of New York they had they
had New York on lock. That was back in the
in the you know, post Frank Lucas days. That was

(20:07):
all during that time. So it was Atlanta his base
and he would work out in New York or was
New York in his base, and then Columbus and New
York was his base. So they were taken from New
York to Columbus and then distribute out through Georgia, Atlanta
and every everywhere else um heroin coke, whatever they were
they were doing. And so we knew Gene Griffin when
I when I was a little like new Gene from
being married to my Auntie and being gangster and them

(20:28):
showing up with meat coats on and meet Hats and
Maserati's and you know, guns and just the whole seventies.
You know what you're what you're doing at the time. Um,
it wasn't until so Jeane with the jail for for
a long time, and during that time, Andrea got Teddy
and Guy with Teddy was already signed the Gene before
that with kids at worked. Okay, So when he got out,

(20:49):
he came out saying, hey, I want my guy, I
want my I want my producer back. So his little
episode with him and Andre because he because they weren't
Guy and he didn't want to give him Guy. So
Joe Buzzby was like, yeo, okay, let's stop the turmoil.
You take Teddy, God stays over here with us and
then we'll So that's how Teddy end up being producing
with Gene. So check this out. My mom's at work

(21:12):
at PO Folks one day right now. I'm up here.
I did Hey, Mr DJ with with Jorge everybody, and
so now I'm not like my six team. You know
the first time you did that at sixteen? Yeah? Wait,
was that you were in the Batman shirt on Soul Train? Yes, exactly.
I was also in some got into some contracts for

(21:33):
her that would work for higher contracts. But she was
the first one to really get me to gerald buzzby
into doing troop and doing stuff like that. At that age,
I found out it was I was in some work
for higher contracts. It wasn't good contracts, right. And so
one day my mom's at work at PO Folks and
she gets a call from Jean Griffin. Okay, oh lord,
and she's like, she don't understand because the Gene Griffin

(21:56):
that she knows was in jail was gangster, was running
with my dad and him back then. So she knows
that Jane, but she had no idea. So he's like, fall,
I gotta get in touch with Dallas. He needs to
understand I'm doing music. And she's like what. And then
she called me and said, oh no, Dallas, she ain't Griffin. Call.
I said, who Gene Griffin? What do he want with you?

(22:19):
I said, I don't know what? What do you want
with me? She said, I don't know. He said something
about Teddy Riley, and I said, oh wait, because I
was always seeing Jean Griffin's name, but I didn't know
it was him. I thought was somebody else? No, 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, he
turned off in his grave. Boy, I gotta come back

(22:40):
protect you, you know. So it turned into into that,
and so then they moved to Atlanta. He was the
first one, really, like, you know, getting Teddy a hundred
thousand dollars track was unheard of. Getting produces that much
money was just insane. He was first. Teddy was the
first one getting that kind of money. But because because

(23:00):
of Jeane, 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, Jeane on
Sony Music, it's called Sounds of New York. I was
wondering how that. I remember when Teddy when we had today, Yes,

(23:23):
do you really want him? That was on Sounds of
New York, right, I was wondering how Sony allowed that
to happen. They didn't. That's why they came in and
disrupted him and Teddy and everything else, because you know,
he had the rights 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

(23:44):
doing at the time. He was like shore so but
he was he was real real with it. So you know,
they kind of wanted to separate him and Teddy and
get Teddy away from under him, and so people Virginia.
But does that stop a cat like Jeane if is Atlanta,
New York and that like, I can easily get to
Virginia Beach. Well he he you know, he was still

(24:06):
it was it was dispute with its still getting money.
But then Jane said, Okay, I'm going to Atlanta and
he started basically black to be his new guy. Remember, Yeah,
so that started up. But by the time you know
he's he's Gene, he's rolling in all the say about
the money anyway, Um, now, can we assume that, hey,
Mr DJ, was your first debut as a producer. Yeah,

(24:28):
I mean I did a couple of little things before that,
but that was the first one to get Yeah, and
then Douggie Fresh said my name and the record. I
thought I was just gonna die be like Sol Dallas
it's time rock, right, And I was in. I was
in on Maholand and some Renner card like sixteen seventeen
would work with Joyce, and I heard on the radio
and I heard my name and I was like, God,

(24:49):
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 Mahold into the same spot and yeah, what gear
were you recording on at that time? Did you make
that Joyce Finderella everyview? Dude? It was r X was
the Yamaha drum machine that just came out with back then,

(25:12):
and it sounded really thin. I was gonna say, when
you get to the bridge, like when I remember this song,
like the verse was high powered and the courses, but
then when y'all get to the bridge, a sonic difference
without the samples and all that stuff on top of it.
So I had, you know, back then, sample you can
only sample this long, so it's on like, clap to
this one to James Brown. That's only that's all the

(25:36):
sample link that you had. So it's clap to this, clap, clap,
clap to 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 with Joe
Buzzby heard that he said, uh yo, man, I got
this group, but I want you to work with but
I don't. I don't think Joy should work on with you.
I think you should do it by yourself. Said okay,
so you got to call boys the man, says Mike

(25:57):
Bafins group. But I think you're influen. This is better
without her. You know that she mixed the records and
stuff too. So listen to like I would always love
you from true there's a lot of dinner to meaning
than other songs after your trademark drums. From my my
point of view, like as a fan listening, it was impossible,
at least back then to escape the Bomb Squad. How influential,

(26:23):
because the thing is is that even though they did
an awesome job on the Poison record, which is basically
like seventy maybe samples and whatever, but you know, I
mean a lot of the stuff it's atonal, But I mean,
you just took that ship to the hilt. And I
always wondered your level of just chaotic production without without

(26:48):
sort of a linear melodic thing like I had to
the back is a great example, like there really is
a melody there. So it's like when you're writing this
stuff and again I know the k like form of
production at the time, especially with like Teddy doing more
nuanced steady New Jack's you know, by the numbers thing.

(27:08):
But you were just like the Wow Wild 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, but like the buzzbees
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 kazillion samples in
something is like that's what they want. Yeah, it was

(27:32):
a lot of samples, bro, Like I wanted to be
I wanted to be in the Bones Squad so bad.
Hey Chockolate and them. I was like I was going
down the Green Street like studios and I'll see Mike
Bivins and then working with them and I was fe like, man,
the Bones Squad. It was just so incredible how it
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. So I would take that same formula

(27:54):
right now, I would do that, but then I'll write
a regular song on top of it. Like so if
I think about just took all that of the way
and then write a song I had to the back
of right or what about your friends as a song?
Because I always knew that, Like production is a vehicle,
but you gotta have a song, and you gotta cram
that song in the three minutes, and you gotta usually
have two hours to tell it. In the movie, you
got like two minutes now, but three minutes back then
to tell the story in the song. So then if

(28:16):
you took all the way, you could hear the song
like all the keyboards, all the strings, everything's on there,
just like I had to ignore all the samples and
don't think anything about them. So how hard is that
if you have a singer that doesn't have something too
And the thing is like I'm hearing the final like
we're hearing the final mix, but I'm certain with like

(28:36):
ain't you proud to bait? Like it was just like
not completely mixed. There's so much noise in that song.
Like radio wouldn't play it because they had so much
noise in it at first, like there was like no,
it was like when they when they first took it
the radio, they were just like no, there'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 y'all. So there was like no, just know.

(29:00):
And so then Lamont Bolls came back, Um, who used
to work in the face, and he was just like,
you know what, they got to see the girls first,
trying to take them in through this. There's too there's
too much noise. It's too they don't get it. It's
too bad. 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 saw yo,
Mike check one to one too. If we saw the video,

(29:22):
everybody's like, oh, we get it now, and that's what
really set the girls off. Um. 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 to hold to
it for fun. Now we could do whatever we want.
Nobody ever done that before. Nobody's ever taking somebody's song
and then recorded it and sung something different on top

(29:43):
of it, like they was doing remakes, but not that.
That's when y'all was pissing off all the old everybody,
and nobody knew how to clear it. Nobody that it
would take like one of us our generation, and they're like, oh,
that snare came from there, and then dude, okay, but
look at like this though, So if you got fly
Robin Fly, right, then if you got the average white band,
and then you got cool in the game right, and

(30:04):
then you got Parliament right, and then you got not
a thick okay, just in these groups. 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, oh my god, like zero point
one percent to the horn players. You want want to

(30:24):
this like, because you didn't realize that each one of
those samples has so many people connected to it, and
I would have that would have samples going across the
board and we're just like nute out different ones at
different times or whatever. But like it was, so it
became crazy and if you noticed by the time we
got to the second record, Creeper just like one, but

(30:46):
at that time was still it didn't sound like nothing else. Okay,
I'm still 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 get us. The story
of creep is Hey Young the World. So I guess

(31:07):
slick Rick never cleared the guess who's back shine Head
sample on Hey Young World, I guess who's back? Right,
So then you guys used that, and so shine has
people try to go after you guys for it. You're like, no,
we cleared Hey Young World. Yeah, like we cleared it.

(31:31):
Here's the clearance. And they're like, yeah, but it never
cleared it with us, So can you explain that, Like,
how like did you wind up clearing shine Head sample
for They had to go back and because again at
the time, nobody was it was all new, and you know,
so they had to go back and pay him too.
You know, they slick when they had to go and

(31:52):
situate him not being paid from not only that, but
from A Young World too. Yeah, but I'm saying, like,
did you guys have to like is Shine had a
first generational sample on Creep or did you tell them
at death Cham like, yo, clear this ship the right way,
so that way straight? Yeah, because when we cleared it

(32:14):
through them and they cleared they cleared it, then that's
when he popped up and let hold on. But that's
my you know. I thought it was alick Rick. I
even I thought it was I thought it was Doug
Fresh wastick Rick. And somebody said, I guess who was 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 for hang World or what hey

(32:36):
young world was gonna generate coming up, you know, because
he's never gotten take care of for it because people
didn't not clear samples back. Now I thought they forced
you to pay for both as here Shining here this
is for Creep, and then since they didn't do it
here is hey World, no jimp had to go take
care of him. Okay. I guess if anyone makes any
reference to any parts of the song that Aaron Fuchs

(32:58):
owns on anything. So in the case of Botus, because
Kanye and Jay said, Jay is chilling? Is chilling? Yeah? Yeah,
So Aaron Fuchs was like, hello, U, Natt Robinson, there
sample in our song. And you know Nat and milk
d were like, no, that's that's like like rappers don't

(33:19):
sho no no, but yeah, rappers just don't like, you know,
if Premier scratches your ship, you think it's an honor
like oh, he said, but litigious 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 was this a messy situation. So yeah, I

(33:40):
always wanted to know that shine. His situation with Creek
Man as crazy as you know, when sampling came around
like that, George Clinton obviously had you know, the whole
West Coast sound period, but nobody knew to clear and
he had signed over so many different contracts to different
people back then. You know, he was just selling stuff
and on the road, party and the not keeping up

(34:01):
with anything. Nobody ever knew this was gonna happen. Nobody
ever knew that sample the would come around the corner
and you know, change people's lives like that, and so
he had to get conquered 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.
I would think he just just got his contractual financial

(34:25):
things straight. You know, I got I have. I have
a lot of the I have the Funkadelic Masters, to
Cosmic Slot, to Needy, Um your friends. Well, George gave
them to me. Wow, that's amazing. George gave them to me.
Um and I had him baked, you know, after the
Masters baked. But you can hear, like when you go

(34:47):
and you listen to each one of them, it's just
like you get chills because the moment is captured on
that tape. You can hear him. You can hear him
like something about music. 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. That's your,

(35:07):
that's your. Let me tell you something. I love that
record so much, right that those were the best pop
songs ever written, right, call me, that's somebody Else's ring.
That's just the full everybody called That's that's it, that's it.
I tweeted it when I heard that. I used to

(35:27):
love the song so much. I just tweeted it one day,
I love this song right, and the manager tweeting me
back like are you serious? Yeah, said you want to
work with her? I'm like yeah, So I did three
or four songs on the album made her whole. So
Nixon Shanno, who engineered the Public Enemy records, he told me,
he said, you'll never believe this, but we never auto

(35:49):
made it once. And I was like, what the mixing
process like? And He's like, you know, Keith, Keith and
Eric were such sticklers, well, mainly to save money kind
of the way that when when I forgot Ray Parker Jr.
Told us that Barry White never overdubbed because he didn't
want to pay for overtime. So like everyone played at once.

(36:12):
But Nixon Santo showed me the nine living base head
tracking sheets and literally like they're like Eric Sandler's like,
you know, eighty one bars cut off that. 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

(36:32):
end like everyone else does. I would drop it and
mix it at the end, but like I would have um,
like you know black at that time, the engineers like
Dave Way or like you know, you'll find timmy Reginster
was was crazy mixing back them, but that was your
main guy for TLC. Or how used Dave Way a
lot because Teddy was using dave Way. Um, and then
Alvin spite of course, but it was they would have

(36:54):
a fit at first, They'll be okay, give me a second,
because I would have so many tracks and then so
many sample How do you put the samples and embedded
back in the track so that the court stand out
and so that the so the rust will sound a
lot different than when they were mixed. Because unless I
said with him, you know, we kind of make the
roughs and then you know, you give him a sketch
for the mixer. But if you just sent it to
a mixed engineer here, just like no, this is crazy.

(37:16):
What working was Leslie? Was he mixing and stuff? Not
yet he came in yet, um Leslie Leslie Brathwaite um.
But Leslie went to you know, he's at full cell.
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 gonna get there,
you know, So him coming in and then being my
engineer and my courting engineer, and then I was working

(37:38):
on Madonna's secret when he did the rough mix too,
and she was like, I like that mix better. And
that's what kind of kicked off his his like mixing. Uh,
I was gonna ask, are you a demo whist person
you know what it's horrible or your or your artist?
I learned to. At first, I was horrible because I
was totally them o whitiest person. But then the whole
First Boys, the Man album, the two album, that's all

(38:00):
the rough mixes. Words. Yeah, before that this sometime Motown Philly,
He's don't go so right, so that all these records
when when when Gerald Buzzy told me he had Dave
Wade makes the whole album. But then Jerill Buzzy said,
you know what, I like the Roughs better. Man, No,

(38:22):
I don't do that to me. Man. You know, I
gotta sound beadter. I can't let people like Teddy here.
They don't sound good. You know. He's like, no, these
this is it. I think we're going with the Roughs.
And I didn't want to listen to the record when
he came out. Okay, so and I'm like, crazy Sexy Cool,
which obviously is you know, there's multiple produce, multiple producers,

(38:43):
but who's the alpha producer? Are you there during the
mastering and the sequencing as well? When he got too
Crazy Sexy Cool by the time, like when I was
doing the one A TLC tip record and you just
capturing records? Are you capturing the moment that just happened
to you recorded? Do you recorded event that just happened
to you? That's why they called it. So we were
just whatever we were doing, you know, we acted it out.

(39:05):
We were just had the Studio seven recording, right, So
the album came out to be more cohesive as like, okay,
you can tell that that's kind of what happened. Somebody
had to 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 l A and then you know when
he come in and say, okay, now, let us let
us go situate, let us bring in, let us do this,

(39:26):
let us And it wasn't until and I was I
was like weird on that because I would they were
goa say, yo, you start the project because you know
what to do, and then we'll 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 baby Face or from this person and
that person. Right by the time we got the crazy

(39:48):
sexy cool, it was like l A was trying to
make I think sure that they didn't fail in that sense.
So it was like song song song, song, song song, right,
but by the and then he wasn't gonna put creep out.
He shot the video we've heard we heard, shot three videos,
three shot three videos yet and then um, he wasn't
gonna put it out, and so they didn't win. To
Cloud and said that Cloud was like keep Cloud called me.

(40:10):
It's like, nope, l is wrong. He's like, this is
the first time I ever heard this thing. He goes
and then Miles David's horn sound you have in there
is gonna get your Grammy, And I was like what
Miles David, Yeah, I was, 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 to Creep up
on my MPC sixty four a week, right. I would

(40:32):
come in and sing the song, not save it and
just be like, oh man, I think it's out the
country and keep it on the downlo. But I'm like, well,
but I kept singing it every day, so I was like,
you know what, let me just get Derek Killers to
come to the demo so I can get out of
my head. Right, So I wrote the whole song how
to come sing it and I can find a simple crash,
but I like so I just like, oh man, I

(40:55):
put this in because like you know, Pete Rock and
everybody would put that right right right, 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 horn sound is gonna get
your Grammy and what Miles David sound. And it's not

(41:15):
just that was the closest thing. It's yeah, I was
gonna say, even to this day when Creep is still
like maybe the first twenty records that I spent 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

(41:38):
top of they reminisce over you place goes pandemonium and
then you know, after twenty years and silence. Yeah, the
generational change. But Creep has never lost its luster. You
can see a chance to get on the floor the
first second to give you a chance to get on
the floor, and then you can really drink that. But

(41:58):
just when people here, it's almost like I hear the
screams of when I was fourteen years old and nine grade,
like that's that's that's y'all was here. 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 did Texas Sharlene Splitterry right yo. I was like,

(42:24):
is it me? All right? Give me give me another
none Germaine kind of like a person rath Faels, you know,
like when the song comes out, if you like white Diamonds,
you're like, was it me or when you When I
heard that song, we we've been the tour bus, like, well,
come on MTV or whatever, and I was like, yo,

(42:45):
this is the this is Creep. That is creep and
they came. My publisher called me, say, y'all, I always
wanted group Texas, and they've done this song called Once
in a Lifetime time And so they played the song
for me and they said, you've got two choices. They said, well,
they actually bit it because they really really like you

(43:07):
and they wanted a song to sound like yours. So
either you could sue him for that, or you can
work with them. I said, well, why don't I work
with 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. Yo, man, I've
been for twenty years trying to figure out they were
in it. They ran that join in Europe forever and

(43:28):
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
used the example on on the original reels of Fleetwood
Max Dreams, it still says the Spinner's Idea number three.
Because they were making I'll be Around Round and Stevie
Nicks was doing what she's doing, uh step actually doing

(43:49):
a little at Corvette. Yeah, exactly, you know, and got
him to come in and yeah, because then you would
that's kind of how they would look at stuff. You know,
you only got this many notes. There'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, all the
hip hop, R and B, all the pop is made
between here and here. That's all. That's what's so genious

(44:09):
about music because and you're gonna run across it again,
It's just impossible not to. And that's why every Rayka
song gonna sound pretty much alike. And that's why you know,
you had the thing with Relim talking about blood lines.
But it's like you're starting to run out of even
You're starting to run out of combinations, right. The question

(44:31):
I had about sequencing an album is when you're sequencing
Kolion 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 with the ballot?
You know when, especially when you have Motown Philly in

(44:52):
your pocket? And yes, I see Motown. I do see
Motown Philly as a side to Adreeneraline bangor thing. But
y'all didn't want to say, like maybe we should start
this record with man Lowtown Philly. Please don't go yeah
under pressure and like it was were kind of trying to.
I would sequence records like this most of the time,

(45:14):
where I would say, okay, well you have the mood right,
so you don't want to have a fast on slow song,
fast on slow song. You want to have like here's
your flash, 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 l a
and I was. I felt a little more disconnected from
Crazy Sexy Cool than the first one. Um, just because
it felt to be patched up, not patched up, but

(45:36):
it felt like a bunch of different even that was
supposed to be the thing tied it together, but different
people like not you gonta do I'm not, damn. But
it was just because at a certain point I did
all you know you can go and you start off
and you do all these songs, and then you started
to say okay, and then he starts, okay, well now
gonna put this person there now and put that person there.
I w let somebody listen all your stuff and then

(45:56):
we're gonna put somebody else in and trying 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, and me and j dusual to
go over his house with his mom and make beats
on Jermaine's NPC and mom would you know, feed us
Teddy Grahams or cool Aid or whatever, um, and so

(46:20):
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 I didn't
really you know, dressing the kids at the mall and
kind of just doing you know, just having fun. So
we really didn't know and think about how it was
going to blow up. And myself, Rico, Germaine, we had,
you know, after we started to come up, we end

(46:41):
up doing all the face records. That was all the
records right there, Me, Jermaine, Rico at one point that
was 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 track,
when did it get competitive? It got competitive, like after

(47:02):
Crazy asked how did you feel about waterfalls? Because even
l A said himself, like he said to organized noise
for last, well, I love I love the waterfalls. I
knew all of them these like all my guys in
the first place, because we all hung out the skating
and stuff together before I even knew any of us.
So we felt like when l A kind of came
to town, he was the opportunity. But we was more
crazy about baby face, you know, but we couldn't really

(47:24):
access Yeah, we could really as faces like that. It
was like they came to the forefront and was like, hey,
by the time, we've got the crazy sex and cool.
We realized. I called him one day and I said, yo, man,
And we had all this ABC criss Cross beef and
all that stuff when he was kids, and it just
turned into a bunch of mess in the first place.
But um a college man and one day and said,
yo man, you know we didn't have a meeting, um

(47:44):
U Rico, come meet me at this restaurant and don't
bring any security. What you mean, don't bring no security,
Like we don't need security. We've been on each other
since high school, but we've been way off. Yeah, everybody
don't any money and went on their own thing. So
we had a meeting with him and I said, uh, sorry,
you don't like that, So I said, then I said, yo, man,

(48:04):
what's going on with us? Like you ever noticed that
we all work on the 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,
you never worked on Monica, I never worked on Escape,
you never worked on working something? What's going on? Jamaine?
Goes well? They said, man, you don't really like my stuff,
and I said, what damn really told me you don't

(48:25):
like my stuff? And then Rico away it goes well,
told me that neither one of you'll like my stuff.
He admitted that. He admitted that he wanted friction between
the three of you so that way you'd be competitively competitive.
And so we gave us the book for Christmas, The
Art of War, and none of us have paid attention
to it. God gave us to this in the first place,

(48:47):
and so we from that point was like, okay, we
gotta sto because Atlanta small for us to be separated
and we're a glue to the whole thing. Is like,
that didn't make any sense because we don't function like
that down here. That's when the Monica relationship stopped. That's
when the Monica relationship started. The first night. For those
of us that aren't Atlanta adjacent and I know that
your connection to the A t L film, could you

(49:08):
explain to us outsiders about skate culture in Atlanta and
how important it is or the epicenter. Man, it was
the only other outlet, you know. So when I did
I did Drumline first, right, and everybody kind of set okay.
It brought the margin mans to the forefront. And then
I had A t L was called jelly Beans. I
had that movie at the same time. It was based

(49:29):
out because the skate ming was called jelly Beans. That
me and t Bars and Organized Noise and Divine Stevens
and all of us went to the skate mark every Sunday,
So what the trip is. Then after I did Drumline,
Fox was like, Okay, he's got the skate ring movie,
so we're gonna put out Rollbounds because I took so
I'll take I take another movie to Warner Brothers and
so then when they put out roll Bounds, I want
to call me. It was like, Yo, we can't make

(49:51):
a skate ring movie. It just put that one out.
That's not gonna make sense is old. So it was
a yeah. So then so I looked that, 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 today on Sundays they skating. Yeah,
right now, Okay, it was crazy anyway, that's just so good.

(50:16):
He got it from me and me and Jamine. He
didn't change that land that way like thy Babyloni and
Randy Gardner on his I g you know, Like I
was like, I didn't know. You bring it back, that's
all I know. That's the last skaters. If you go
to Cascade on Sundays or you got JAMAINEA called me
and be like, yo, Suny what you're doing that? I
could see Jamaine hand on somebody's back, like, And we

(50:40):
went to New York for the for the Flippers, right
because Jimmy Ivan in them opening. Um, yes, who went
to New York for that? But yeah, the skate culture
here has always been super strong still and when I
did a t L the crazy part about it is
I went and got the same guys that that was
skating with because they're still skating. So all those dudes
in the movie, they're still a cascade. It's still skating Atlanta.

(51:02):
That's it that do you skate board as well? Or
is there skateboard when when we're 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 the way out the
way it does the express line have to be be
outer line? Question? What about geriastric skating? Refused me, And

(51:28):
they'd 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
way you opened the door though, that you open 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

(51:49):
of movies about three or five of your life, so please,
Well it was it was when my first pitched drum wine.
I was in a meeting with Fox and they were
asking me about musicals, like, hey man, we need to
trying to find a way to do cool musicals again
and now so we can't break out doing singing in
the rain, it ain't what happened to 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,

(52:10):
it's about this kid that can't read music and he's
in his marching band. And I kind of pitched the
whole my story to them in the meeting, and then
a couple of days later they called back said we
want to make this film and it's 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 with this girl's shown she ups at first,
but she just did bring it on too or something,

(52:31):
and so when they wrote it, I was like I
was like, oh no, this ain't it. This ain't it.
And then the um and so Fox was like, oh
that's not it. Okay, Well we're gonna 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. They said, no, no, no, we don't.
We can't give it back to you, you know, because
we bought it and you wanna put it. They put

(52:51):
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 it doesn't look right. Right. So
now the movie sitting, you mean, if it gets successful,
then not through them, not through them, right. 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

(53:12):
was sitting, and I was like, I gotta 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 Oprah Danny Glover and they
looked busted, like they just got off the bus at
the west of them all they got on green. I
mean it looked like rough and then this like high

(53:35):
school theater and they were heard some lines for the
color of 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 you a question. Who's
holding the camera? I said, you are, said nope, Steven Spielberg.
I said, he's holding the camp quarter. So yeah, he said,
because I needed a scene, a train scene. It was

(53:57):
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' gonna give it to me.
So when I got my friend Stephen and I said, okay, Stephen,
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. So he goes this one.
He said, this is one gonna tell you. Look at

(54:18):
that movie made. Find a friend of yours that's Jewish.
But that's done. That check out what I did. I
called Jody Gerson that you are my publishing. 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 says, Okay, can I come on as a producer.
I said yeah. She said cool, because I'm gonna bringing

(54:39):
my other friend, Wendy fine Himan. I said, who was that?
She said, well, she just finished before it's dump and
cast away. So I walked back in Fox years later.
I was trying to talk to them out of the movie.
I want to get this movie back because I was
gonna take it someone else. And said, but you know, um,
but Whindney find him is gonna work on the women.
They said, what, it's a whole on you got Wendy

(55:01):
fined him in to work on this, this marching band movie.
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 and then in high school? Is okay?
We gotta make this movie? I said, I was trying
to talk to you all out of it. So no, no,
we gotta make this movie. I was like, it was
just hip hop kid, can't eating music, they gotta make it.
So Wendy was like, all right, I have no idea
what this is about. I'm just gonna force you off.

(55:23):
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
moved and started doing Blue Contrail and Pink and Black
and all this stuff out of Miami. Um, I came
back and Charlotte was like, Yo, you gotta come back.
The scouting for Drummond and they needs you here to

(55:43):
the locations and all this and that. So theydn't start
to turn real. And I'm like, all right, this is
a this is about you know, I'm looking at Orlando
Jones and Jamie Foxx and different people for the dr
lee And and as we're starting to get going and
it started to really turn into the movie in the
script and stuff started to get developed way. But Antina Chisholm, who, um,
she's incredible, and she kind of like you know, from

(56:05):
that point she knew how to tell my stories because
she would be around me all the time. So we
went back. I start shooting the movie here everybody. I
called it to all the rappers, like nope, a movie
about a band I called Luda. I called everybody, Hell, yo,
I need this party to rapper for the field, And
I think they thought I was doing I got the
hook up. That's how you got So who was your

(56:26):
initial asks? Luda was Luda was first? Who else was
it around here? Then? Um, 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, you know, to hit Atlanta. And
so then as I'm making a movie, he got to
a point where it started to go over budget because

(56:47):
obviously I'm recording three piece marching bands that I have
to useful 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 Car they said, yo,
this movie is turned into an eight teen ain't dollar
movie instead of a fifteen thirteen. Put white people in it.

(57:07):
We need white bands, white banda. So he's like, I
don't care. It's a pop movie. Now white bands, So
now I gotta go. Yeah. Yeah, So I got Georgia State,
Georgia Tech. And they're just like and I'm like, dude,
and I can't put this. This looks hard, but I

(57:28):
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. Like film, Yeah, well, your family was not
going to the drumline because it's like, we're not losing
to nobody. 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. Listen, Nope, we don't care a

(57:50):
fake another title. They just didn't want to have family
losing to North Atlanta, ant which ain't even a school
school colors, but it wasn't you know. Yeah, but when
but 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 they're supposed to do either. So I said, you

(58:12):
gotta find some kind of narrative line. And so I went,
how I'm I gonna do this. So I went to
went to the school Morris Brown, and I saw the
white kids. So his white kid in the band with
red hair. And I was like, so, how did you
get here? What was tell me your story? He was like, man,
I lived down the street. I always wanted to be
in this band since I was a little I was like, okay,
there we go, we got we gotta catch now. And

(58:33):
then by the time I edited the movie and took
all the white bands out, then you know, you look
on the DVD and still got the white bands in there.
For like they caught white bands? Is all white tip
when you look at Georgia Tech Georgia, you know. But
then the great part about it was, you know, seeing
when with drumline, 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

(58:54):
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. For I get it, it's just
no right. And so on the release date, I would
go around to the theater. Doesn't see him sold out
in Atlanta and everybody will be in marching band outfits.
Me and my mom would just ride around being like,
dang that to me. Ten years, ten years of every
day making that film. And then, um, because I want

(59:17):
to do a t L next, they tried to get
me to go to New Orleans and so I end
up bringing the New Orleans bill to Atlanta and passing
the film build here. So that's why people come to
shooting Atlanta. Yeah, this, Tyler Perry, thank you all of
cost me like two in the grand pass that bill
back now, I had to lobby, So you're the reason
why that Georgia logo comes on there every everything. You know,

(59:43):
I'm just trying to get a TL done back then,
and so Governor Purdue, um, 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 cutting
spoken the G eight summit and all that stuff. Um,
I'll be for Georgia so we can have what we
have now on on Hey y'all, it's lie here from

(01:00:03):
Team Supreme. Okay, so right here is where we're gonna
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. Remember that this was like one of our

(01:00:25):
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, What's Up. Supreme
is a production of my Heart Radio. For more podcasts
from my Heart Radio, visit the I Heart Radio app,

(01:00:45):
Apple podcast, or wherever you listen to your favorite shows.