QLS Classic: Common

Hip hop artist, actor and poet Common talks about how being an NBA ballboy brought him courtside for Michael Jordan's rookie season, his musical influences and personal memories of his time with J Dilla. Recorded in front of a live audience.

Learn more about your ad-choices at https://www.iheartpodcastnetwork.com

See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:00):
Of Course Love Supreme is a production of iHeartRadio. This
classic episode was produced by the team at Pandora This
Sugar Steave.

Speaker 2 (00:10):
On this week's QLs classic hip hop artist, actor and
poet Common talks about how being an NBA ball boy
brought him court signed for Michael George's rookie season, his
musical influences, and personal memories of his time with Jay Dillon.
Recorded in front of a live audience, February twenty first,
two thousand and eighty.

Speaker 1 (00:33):
Here we go, su Primo.

Speaker 3 (00:37):
It's up, Supremo, roll call Suprimo, Sun Supremo, roll.

Speaker 1 (00:43):
Call SUPREMEA wait, time out of timeout. Let y'all know,
we never tell the guests what they're getting into. So
those that are familiar that always wonder why the guests
always mess up during the theme and why.

Speaker 4 (00:54):
His as so big right now, Like what the fuck?

Speaker 1 (00:56):
We literally don't tell them. We just pointed them and watched.
We have fun at their expense all right. Time for
the SI one two three.

Speaker 3 (01:04):
Supremo, Supremo, roll call Suprema s Supremo, roll call Suprema
something something Supreme, roll call Subpremo something something Supremo.

Speaker 1 (01:19):
Roll com reck come from the shot. Yeah, they can
looten large amounts. Yeah, Crochet and vegan free. You still
can't count.

Speaker 3 (01:29):
Supremo, Suro Supremo something something Supremo roll call.

Speaker 1 (01:36):
My name ain't Sugar, My name ain't Bill. It's not
like yah, my name is young.

Speaker 5 (01:47):
Sure, roll Suprema something Supremo.

Speaker 1 (01:52):
Roll was not nervous stage right. I want to make
sure this roll call comes out just right.

Speaker 3 (02:02):
Supremo some some Supremo roll call Supremo some some Supremo roll.

Speaker 4 (02:11):
Yeah, here it testify, Yeah, and all his lies Supremo,
Supremo roll call.

Speaker 6 (02:23):
Some Supremo roll call names common. Yeah, I'm for the people. Yeah,
my boys from Philly. Yeah, grow Father Eagles, spre.

Speaker 5 (02:37):
Supremo, roll Suprema, some Supremo role call Supremo.

Speaker 3 (02:44):
Some some Supremo role called Supremo something something.

Speaker 1 (02:49):
Supremo roll call. Thank you, Thank you. Hey, ladies and gentlemen,
boys and girls. Uh, welcome to our very first live
recording of Quest Love Supreme. Uh. I am Questlove. To
the left of me is show producer. Uh and god

(03:10):
boss Bill. That's right. I will try. My goal for
this is not to make him angry with my rambling. Uh.
And to his right, Uh, it's it's like yah as Yeah,
it's like you're not broadcasting on Instagram.

Speaker 4 (03:29):
No, child, I would never do that.

Speaker 1 (03:31):
Uh. To the left of Uh. To the left of
Liaiah is uh Sugar Steve, our longtime engineer UH for
uh the hardest kind of the connecting force between uh

(03:53):
common rash I'm talking about for he was h part
of the engineering crew of Like Water for Chocolate and
Electric Circus and Voodoo and all the Roots albums. Young Yea,
we call him Young Gil. Yeah. And I'll say that

(04:14):
we're recording right now in front of the live audience
at the Grammacy Theater in Manhattan, kind of a part
of a series of events hosted by the legendary Roots.
I'm saying the Roots crew, like I don't know those
guys crew celebrating the return of the Grammys in New
York City. And yes, so I'll say that our guest

(04:36):
today can be described I guess he's all things to
all people. Uh. As an actor, he's appeared in over
account at thirty Man, you've been your residuals must be nice, man,
and over thirty TV Film and States productions from TV

(04:58):
comedies as Scrubs, The Simpsons, The Mindy Project, UH to
the AMC drama hell On Wills uh to acting alongside
heavyweights like Denzel Washington and American Gangster Ryan Reynolds and
Smoking Aces, Morgan Freeman, Angelina Joli and Want for Us,
Whitaker and Street Kings, Tina Fey and Date Night. UH.

(05:19):
Not to mention he's been in Selma, Suicide Squad, John
Wick two, Let Me Give Yes, even his Oscar winning
performance in the BT classic Brooklyn Babbelon. He's also an

(05:40):
actorate actress. He's a damn man. He's an activist, community leader,
a film and TV producer. But it's probably uh. I
guess he's He's best loved as a street poet at MC.
He's a two time Grammy winner, a Golden Globe and

(06:01):
an Oscar winner, currently nominated for UH two time Oscar nominee.
I should say uh. He has eleven studio albums, all
ranging in different styles. I mean he's worked with some
of the best in the business, from UH four forty
four producer no I d who's currently for a Producer
of the Year UH to Alicia Keys to Laurence Hill
that they sold the cut Tip the Most Stuff to

(06:23):
Ice Cue to Kanye West, to fro Yes Yes Yes,
to the Roots, to the Great Jay Dillar to Kanye West,
to Stevie Wonder. We don't have that much time. Come on,
like he anyways shows over thanks every day.

Speaker 7 (06:42):
He's really trying to make a big someday.

Speaker 1 (06:46):
Welcome newcomer, common to quest Love, Superior, Lazy, thank you,
Thanks y'all, Thank y'all for having me. I'm excited. I'm
gonna put my headphones on so I can hear you.
So you said you're excited.

Speaker 6 (07:02):
Yeah, man, I mean this feels good like I mean
it's for me. It's like we're having a mirror and
you is.

Speaker 7 (07:08):
The exciting thing probably ever feel well.

Speaker 6 (07:11):
In my top, in my top three hundred and sixty three,
seriously and sixty two.

Speaker 1 (07:17):
It feels great to be coming on here. Thank you.

Speaker 6 (07:19):
Yeah, like it's people. I know, it's great to see us.

Speaker 1 (07:23):
Yeah, I forgot to warn you that this is going
to be live in front of an audience as well.
Yeah he did called him like, hey, you want to
be on the show, just stop by.

Speaker 4 (07:31):
Already already got the warning, Like you don't do no, gotcha,
Yeah I do god, he got he do? Gotcha good me?
I know I'll get you good. No, I mean we're
gonna warm up first.

Speaker 1 (07:41):
But actually, you know what, it's as long as I've
known you, I mean, I've known you for like twenty years,
but I don't know much about uh, your childhood or
just your the beginning, your your your pre emc years.
I assume that you were born in Chicago, correct, Yeah,
born in Chicago? What part?

Speaker 6 (08:01):
I was born and raised on the South side of Chicago,
the Hospital County Hospital to be specific. And the funny thing,
my father always, my father, my father and my mother
always argued over if it was raining or snowing when
I was born. And that's I put that in one
of my new raps now because it's it was always
a significant thing. My father used to stick with that,

(08:23):
even though when they weren't together. He was like, it
was snowing when you was born, and my mother always
say it was raining.

Speaker 1 (08:29):
But who knows? All right, So can you explain to me?
I mean, because now, especially in the political climate that
we're in, this whole like hashtag what about Chicago? What
about Chicago? I mean, explain, explain to me what the
South side of Chicago was like growing up in the

(08:51):
seventies and the eighties, and then because my thoughts of
it are just like, Okay, well there's good times. Yeah,
I know that they've had the largest amount of housing projects.
And then yeah in the United States with Kabete Green
and but just I mean explain to you, like do
you have fond memories or warm, fuzzy memories. They always
make it seem like it's like Beroot Circuit nineteen eighty,

(09:14):
like don't you ever go to like that sort of thing?

Speaker 6 (09:16):
Yeah, I mean, well, Chicago is a very segregated city.
Let me start there, and it was actually founded by
a black man, a Haitian brother by the name of
John Baptist Tusavo. Black culture has been there strong, like
all the depth of black culture meaning church, liquor stores,

(09:39):
gang banging, black excellence music, all that was so for
me growing up, it was like I was around affluent
black I was in a lower black middle class neighborhood,
but I was around affluent black people and also around
you know dudes that was gang banging.

Speaker 1 (09:57):
That was part of the culture. But it also was
like a.

Speaker 6 (10:00):
Black love movement too, Like we had the Black peat
Stones and the Black Panthers also existed, and they worked
together at certain points, and then you know, we we
at one point in the mid eighties had our first
black mayor. He was our Barack Obama. His name was
Harold Washington Mayor Harold Washington. So it gave our city

(10:21):
a lot of a lot of pride to see a leader.
In fact, at some point, I believe Barack Obama worked
on some in some shape form of fashion on one
of Harold Washington's campaigns. But it just really gave me
a foundation, and a lot of black people growing up
in Chicago a foundation and an identity like we knew

(10:41):
who we we knew who we were. And it was
not all violence. It definitely was some violence there, and
crazy enough, in the mid nineties, the violent the rates
of murder murders were higher at that time than they
are now. But it's just like a big highlight going

(11:02):
on right now. And it is really tough right now
because of the fact that you have a lot of
innocent and young and you know, people just walking bystanders
being killed and it didn't seem like that was the situation.
But no matter what, we don't want any of the
violence but it's also such a beautiful city.

Speaker 1 (11:21):
You've been there, well, growing up close to a city
that was also similarly affected across the river in Philadelphia.
It's Camden, New Jersey. And because they had the Coca
Cola bottling industry and also Campbell soup factories, everyone was

(11:41):
employed and you know, it was kind of like a
working class society over there. And then once those those
two companies went elsewhere, and it was desolate and then
there was a rising crime. Like was there an exodus or.

Speaker 4 (12:00):
What was the moment when they started to change?

Speaker 6 (12:02):
Well, I think the moment was was Obviously the war
on drugs was part of it because that started taking
men out of the homes, Black men out of homes.
And then on another level, even to be honest, like
the when the higher up ranking gang members started getting

(12:24):
removed from that culture, then it was like the younger
gang guys was like didn't have an order. It's almost
like when you watch those mob movies. If somebody that
that that's in the top gets taken away, then it's yeah, yeah,
it's just it was part of that. That was part
of it, but on a bigger scale, it was the

(12:45):
it was the War on drugs and and also drugs
just being in our neighborhood. And then like when a
lot of opportunities got stripped away, and I don't know
what industry it was, but just jobs started getting stripped away,
so that that contributed with drugs was a big part
of it.

Speaker 1 (13:03):
Did you how did you avoid uh? Gang bang and culture?
Like how did you avoid or did you or could you?
I mean like going walking to school? Is it like well,
I mean.

Speaker 6 (13:16):
It's it almost is no way to avoid it if
you are I don't, din't. It didn't matter what Like
I'm my mother's a teacher, my stepfather is a plumber.
I grew up like for me, that was I had
a decent home, like I had parents that cared. I
had an opportunity to go to After the public schools

(13:36):
went on strike, my mother was like, we're getting you
into private school.

Speaker 1 (13:39):
She worked hard.

Speaker 6 (13:39):
I got into private school, so I had opportunities, but
I also didn't. I still had to rub up against
gang culture because on my.

Speaker 1 (13:46):
Block it's dudes. This this part of either.

Speaker 6 (13:49):
The Blackstones or four corner hustlers. That's when neighborhood. I
grew up around vice lords, so it was no way
I was avoiding it. My way was to be involved
but not go too crazy. And that's just honestly what
I did. I was like a part of it, but
I was like, I'm not going over here to be
to start shooting. I'm gonna go over here to just

(14:11):
like make it through. And y'all know I'm down, but
I ain't. You ain't gonna see me.

Speaker 4 (14:16):
Chill a little, smoke a little, drink a little.

Speaker 1 (14:17):
And be on your way right and no fight a little.

Speaker 4 (14:20):
Okay. I was about to say, what kind of in school,
I'm wondering what that but.

Speaker 6 (14:24):
But but my point is it wasn't I had a
What kept me out of it, to be honest, was
that I had some type of vision for myself or
a dream for myself. And honestly, that did start with
like first it was basketball. Then it came into hip hop,
and I know that sounds so traditional black like, but
but then it was just more or less just being like, Okay,

(14:45):
I see Muhammad Ali, I see Michael Jackson, I see
these people that are thriving that I look as hero
look up to as heroes. I want to be something.
So I never decided to go like I knew dudes.
That was like, there was the those guys, there was shooters.

Speaker 4 (15:02):
But did they look at you like that too? Did
they look at you like, dude, look like he got
a little potential wing?

Speaker 1 (15:06):
Gone?

Speaker 6 (15:07):
I wasn't that now. It wasn't like I was a
superstar basketball player. Nobody like where they like, we're gonna
leave him alone. It just is like they they saw
it went and go go all the way over there.
And then some of them dudes are just doing that stuff.
That man, they ain't have no no parents in the house.
And it's like and I had, yeah, two and my
mother is a strong figure in my life.

Speaker 1 (15:29):
You know. So you were a ball boy doing the
classic Jordan era of the Bulls. Correct, Yeah, I was
like what year, like idyt was?

Speaker 6 (15:39):
Okay, So I was a ball boy from like eighty
four to eighty six. So I remember Michael Jordan's first
exhibition game. I remember specifically he had a red radio
playing Houdini and Rod throwing.

Speaker 1 (15:54):
The general manager was like, no, you can't play this music.

Speaker 6 (15:58):
And after that first exhibition game, he could play whatever
he wanted.

Speaker 1 (16:02):
Basically, did you did you know then that? All right?
You know, like we knew Diyla and we knew Dila
was God even when he was lifting. Was Shee and
Michael Jordan that level? Did you already know that this
guy is like on another level? That? Yeah? It was.

Speaker 6 (16:18):
It was that that rookie year that I really because
it was something electrifying about him. And we had never
seen anybody hanging in the air enough respect to doctor
j but we we hadn't seen we hadn't seen anybody
hanging away in the air away Mike did the flare
he brought. He brought an energy and a flare and
the area that we hadn't seen in the NBA. And

(16:39):
then they knew how to market it too, Like I could.
I could remember watching his local commercials for Chevrolet and
different things that he did, and I was like, he
just became immediately one of our greatest heroes and people
we looked up to.

Speaker 1 (16:53):
And in Chicago.

Speaker 6 (16:54):
But then it started translating across the NBA, so we
knew after that first season, we knew and it was
like when he came out and started wearing his own
Air Jordan gear, we were like, damn, this is incredible.
In Chicago, we just embraced it like this is our guy.
You got to think we had Oprah.

Speaker 1 (17:11):
Around that starting to come at that time too.

Speaker 7 (17:13):
So Steve Kerr, that's my dude.

Speaker 4 (17:21):
You did you have one of them corny moments with
him as a ball boy?

Speaker 1 (17:25):
He said, he ever give you like a pair of
sneakers from the first year? Oh man, I had, I gotta.

Speaker 6 (17:30):
I got a pair of his shoes, and I actually
ended up giving them to my father.

Speaker 1 (17:34):
No, oh, okay, no, it's just father. Yeah, I heard it,
and I was trying to walk it back. The words
you know already came out to my dad. My dad,
the one who got me the job or whatever.

Speaker 6 (17:49):
But my dad used to wear them to my shows
and I'd be like, what are you doing when Michael
Jordan's actual actual sneakers off the seat?

Speaker 1 (17:59):
What year? What year?

Speaker 6 (18:00):
This was eighty five? It was the first one, the
first one. Yeah, and we used yo, the first Jordan's.
I mean, I had him off his feet, he signed
them and everything. But in all truth, I used to
get all types of nothing as great as MIC's. But
I used to get Magic's Isaiahs because I worked the
visiting team's locker room, so I would get Magic Isaiah's.
I would you know you remember those weapons. Yes, I

(18:23):
used to get those. But you know what I would do.
I would my teachers would. I would when I would
get in trouble, I would either trade the seekers fuck
but or I used to sell them. Honestly, A crazy
story that happened with me. And when Michael was like
these kids was I mean, they were my age and
maybe a little older. They was like, man, can you
get us Mike Michael Jordan's autograph? Can you get us

(18:43):
the autographs pregame and I was like, yeah, I'll do it.

Speaker 1 (18:46):
I'll do it.

Speaker 6 (18:47):
I need five dollars and then so I went to
get Yeah. I when I got the you know paper,
went down to Mic and was like, man, you know,
can you sign this for me?

Speaker 4 (18:59):
Man?

Speaker 1 (18:59):
I want take it up to these kids. He's like, oh, Man,
you sign it. You know.

Speaker 6 (19:02):
He was just kind of in a joking mood. You
signed it, you could. So I signed it, took it
up to the kids and it was like, hey man,
I got my five out of and they was like
just the worst part. They was like, wait, Michael was
spelled wrong. Man, Michael, get.

Speaker 4 (19:22):
The money back.

Speaker 6 (19:23):
Yeah, they had to get that money back. I wasn't
the best house Sler, but I was in de.

Speaker 1 (19:30):
Mi e A l Ex. I always used to mess
that up.

Speaker 4 (19:36):
It's a lot of prices.

Speaker 1 (19:38):
I made that mistake when when uh I had a
T shirt made before uh, one of those Iron one
T shirts that you get on the boardwalk before I
went to the Victory Tour and the guy let me
spell Michael Mike Hill instead of A E L.

Speaker 6 (19:55):
Yeah, I wasn't. The only one was the victory was
the victory? The victory to it? That wasn't your first
concert because that was my first concert I ever went to.

Speaker 1 (20:04):
Yeah, mine was trying and then Victory Tour.

Speaker 4 (20:06):
Yeah, they got that question.

Speaker 7 (20:07):
Okay, mine was Steve Kerr. I went to Steve Kerr concert.

Speaker 1 (20:12):
So bad. I never saw Michael concerts. But what was
I will not admit that. You gotta say it, you
gotta say it. Remember that song, Gangstalyn, this song dedicated
That was my first concert, Steve?

Speaker 7 (20:27):
What was your That was Billy Joel at the Garden?

Speaker 1 (20:31):
I mean he's trying to be cool. I think yours
was weird. Yank Victor. I mean you just want to
be cool on the record and be like, oh yeah,
Billy Joe. When did oh God, this is such a
cliche movement. So when did hip hop? When did you

(20:51):
fall in love with him? Like way back? No, so
what what was my life? What was what was by
things fall apart? I know? What was hip hop's culture
in Chicago growing up? I mean, well, who were the
local heroes? Who? Who did you see? It was like

(21:14):
I want to do that.

Speaker 6 (21:15):
Well, I mean it was honestly just us loving just
anything that came out of New York, West Coast Philly.
You know, we we were up on any We were
just seeking out hip hop because once by the time
you know, obviously Africa, Bambarda and and you know grand
Master Flash and the Furious Five, that was early. But

(21:38):
by the time run DMC that it had us Run
demn c l L. Then Eric being Rock Kim came.
But so we were we were like just soaking up everything.

Speaker 1 (21:47):
We weren't.

Speaker 6 (21:47):
That's why even when I listened to some of my
first early some of the earlier music I made, first albums,
it was like I could hit a mixture of the
influence of k Arrest to Ice n W A two
to rock Him, you know, like I could hear those
influences because we were soaking it all in.

Speaker 1 (22:07):
And you know, so, yeah, that's what. That's what.

Speaker 6 (22:10):
Because Chicago had a real strong house music scene. So
the people that were the Chicago heroes as far as
hip hop goes, was more like DJ's on the radio.
It wasn't really a lot of rap artists that was like,
y'all put Chicago on the map. In fact, our first
artist was Twister. They came out for Chicago.

Speaker 4 (22:27):
Really that's the first.

Speaker 6 (22:29):
Yeah, I mean it came out on record, like that
was the first.

Speaker 4 (22:33):
So when did you know you could put it? When
did you know you could put pen the paper?

Speaker 1 (22:38):
Well, I was with my cousin.

Speaker 6 (22:41):
I used to visit my cousin in Cincinnati like every summer,
and I don't have a big family, so we that
was like one of my best friends and uh we
we had these dudes that was a little bit older
than us. They was like Cincinnati's run DMC. Their name
was the bond Hill Crew, so we used to that
was the neighborhood my cousin and stayed at bond Hill,
So we were like they were. He wrote, So I

(23:05):
was like, man that said, this is seventh grade. I
remember sitting there. We was we were up late night
and I was like, man, let's write some raps. But
my cousin might have said let's write some raps. So
I wrote my I wrote my rap, he wrote his,
and then that next day when we started saying it,
everybody was like responding to my rap, and I was like, Yo,
this is a great feeling. Like I was like, this
is incredible, and and then uh.

Speaker 1 (23:28):
Like they knew my rap.

Speaker 6 (23:29):
And then I started writing for some of my friends
and it was just like, oh man, I.

Speaker 1 (23:33):
Could really really do this.

Speaker 6 (23:35):
And it came from me loving I loved like James
Bowing and Langston Hughes and and then I loved hip hop.
Hip Hop was the thing that I'm not like as
gifted as this guy over here with with the music
and all like her.

Speaker 1 (23:49):
Now a man knows all this music.

Speaker 6 (23:51):
So so anyway, I'm gonna kick some of my first rap.

Speaker 4 (23:55):
Oh ship, all right, let's go.

Speaker 1 (23:57):
The first wrap wrote BeBox Force Wait I gotta be
no wait wait wait wait wait wait, hang on, hang on,
hang on, hang on Today today Uh.

Speaker 6 (24:17):
Well, let me tell you about a trip A time
was go. I was going there to run a cold
bloody show. When I was there, I saw some people
jamming too. They called themselves the Bond. He'll Cool, Doctor Ice,
Romeo and Master eat all of the Bond hell Cool
rapp into her tea. I still could day rock with me,
that's all.

Speaker 1 (24:37):
I remember your first your first, Come on, man, I
remember my first verse. I don't. I was always the
beat maker. I was. I was the oneach table guy.

Speaker 4 (24:54):
He killed the last night you were rock and y'all
know you be boxing?

Speaker 1 (24:59):
Was she?

Speaker 4 (25:00):
She? She style?

Speaker 1 (25:03):
It was probably the highlight, and I wasn't expecting it
to be the highlight at all, but it was. We
did the Death Fresh Crew tonight to get out to.
Yeah it was. It was dope anyway. Yeah, for those
that are listening, Uh, the roots have nightly jam sessions
all throughout Grammy weekend. Last night we had wide Cleft Jean,

(25:26):
We had Roxane Chante. Uh, we had Tatha g from
him to me. She came and did juicy fruit. What
it sounded, Yeah, it was I'm coming tonight. Yeah, rock
on all right, so we might see some August green
action happen tonight. So were you I can't hear you anyway,

(25:47):
So did you? Were you always common sense? No? What
was your first? Yeah? Give me the evolution of your names,
because no one that's their names now was ever their names. Like,
what was your first few names?

Speaker 6 (25:59):
One of my first names was the Black Poet Cayden,
I don't know, I don't know where that came. And
then I was just in a group called c DR,
which was just still for Corey Dion and Rashid Dian
has no idea who we talked about earlier. So yeah,

(26:20):
he actually rhymed, but he was more producing, but he
was kind of doing the producer rhyme thing. Pete Rackish, yeah,
but so them those are the only names. Only Rashied
and then the Black Poet K and then I had
some other name but I can't remember. Man, they were whack.
I came up with common sense. I was going to
school down at Florida and them, and they used to

(26:42):
call weed senci over.

Speaker 1 (26:43):
They may still have it done.

Speaker 6 (26:45):
And one boy was sitting there smoking some weed one
time and I was like, my mother used to always say, boy,
you better use common sense, and I for some reason
the two just connected and I was like, man, I'm
gonna use the name common sense, and I just shouted
it out. My friends were like, yeah, that's that's decent.
Always thought it was like a name that was unique
but still kind of every day.

Speaker 1 (27:05):
And when when.

Speaker 6 (27:07):
The band actually sued me for my name, that's when
I lost my hand.

Speaker 1 (27:11):
Man, you know I was I was stressed out.

Speaker 6 (27:13):
Really yeah, you know I was gonna lose my hand anyway.
But but but the gist of it was, you can't
be your name no more.

Speaker 1 (27:22):
Yeah, you can't.

Speaker 6 (27:22):
You know you think you're like, man, I've built up.
This was after the resurrection. My second I'm like, I'm
just getting to be known as something. Somebody knows who
I am. And now y'all taking away the name common
sense I was, you know, all the.

Speaker 1 (27:36):
Greats go through it, like Biggie Smalls couldn't have been
Biggie Smalls. We couldn't have been Square Roots. Yeah that's right.

Speaker 4 (27:42):
You couldn't have been Square Roots.

Speaker 1 (27:44):
Because there was a band in Philly.

Speaker 6 (27:46):
Uh that threaten Are you glad?

Speaker 1 (27:48):
I know you glad you took off the squad now
and I'm glad. Are you? Do you still miss Commons?
Well we still call you common sense? Yeah, but I
mean I don't miss common sense.

Speaker 6 (27:56):
I actually felt like it was all divine order, you
know how you want some bad and then you look
look back and be like, oh, this's worked out right,
because you know, common kind of represents the every day
person that I believe I am, and I think people
just really.

Speaker 1 (28:11):
Really that to day. Come on, just because he has
this perception that because you have a specific gig that
you're just disconnected from people like you don't have cousins
like you don't have the same friends like you don't.
Just because you have that journey to another level doesn't
mean that the nine other people in your life are

(28:36):
in that position.

Speaker 4 (28:37):
Both regular people, I got it.

Speaker 1 (28:41):
Yeah, we're common folks. Look, I'm learning sneakers by a kid.

Speaker 4 (28:45):
I want to say nothing, but I was wondering if
that was a fascist thing.

Speaker 1 (28:48):
Man, I did Pete that. I was like, I have
you have a deal with that. I'm trolling Kanye So
we're you know, even though Adidas is our sponsor. You know, suddenly, uh,
when it's time for okay, I just said I was
a man of the people, but then I'm about to

(29:09):
do someone i'm talking about's office to get my new yeezies.

Speaker 4 (29:15):
You're right, what common people do?

Speaker 1 (29:17):
Suddenly I feel like I feel like, well, no, it's
just my way of hustling. Uh. For some reason, there's
been a shutdown of me getting There's a rumor out
that I've been disrespecting his brand and by dogging them,
And my my argument was like, who told you to
make such a comfortable ass sneaker?

Speaker 4 (29:35):
Of course I'm gonna work well because you do wear
them to the Oh you're supposed to rock them fresh.

Speaker 1 (29:38):
Well, yeah, I've rocked a few pair of Yeezis that
I've rocked so much that they look like broken down
convert sneakers, like sneakers be leaning to the side and
all that stuff and so much. Disagreeted, he was sort
of like, stop disrespecting my brand, Like, get you some
new Yeezy's, Like I can now that's a one percent shit,
spend another three thousand dollars on my sneakers like that

(29:59):
sort of thing.

Speaker 4 (30:00):
Enough, do you automatically get the new Yeasis when they
come out or does he let you know what is it?

Speaker 1 (30:04):
Well? Sometimes I get them, sometimes I don't. Actually, you
know crochets are You're right?

Speaker 6 (30:11):
Oh man, he does need to make me some special
some like water for chocolate additions.

Speaker 1 (30:17):
So anyway, my electric circus, my my protests my protests
to UH to his UH blocking me from getting his
easies was I took all of my white easies and
had them custom pain Holy Ikia Walmart level comm have

(30:45):
some money? Yeah she does anyway. So in Florida, A
and M like, I became aware of you because of
source onund sign hight Uh Okay for those that were
born after do we really have to explain that ninety
Yes we do because it's twenty eighteen and some people
might not know what the source was, like why he

(31:07):
was born in nineteen ninety sources? Oh you do, you're
born in eighty six. Okay, y'all know.

Speaker 4 (31:13):
What the source is magazine these grown folks, that's right.

Speaker 1 (31:16):
But we're broadcasting over on Pandora for four point five
million people. So anyway, there's there's a section in the
former Bible of hip hop whatever that is called unsigned hype,
and we just went through that. Right, Well, I'll do it.
See this is what I'm talking about. I don't have
anger anyway, so common that's how I knew of you

(31:38):
because you were in the unsigned hype back in nineteen
ninety one ninety two. So did you work on your
demo at.

Speaker 6 (31:45):
Florida A and m or I worked on the demo
before we got to a FAM, before I got to
Florida and them, and then we sent that demo out
and we heard that we had got selected for I'm
saying we because they always felt like it was collective.
It was me and no I d Twilight Tone, even
our manager Derek.

Speaker 1 (32:05):
You know how everything feels. Wait, r no, not rhyman. No, no, no,
let's let's keep things.

Speaker 6 (32:12):
I know Derek, I was like, what, yeah, But I mean,
you know, like most managers, he wanted to rhyme or
do something creative, but nah, he's he stuck to the business.
But when we got selected for for that Unsigned Hype,
that was like a big moment for me, Like it
was being from Chicago and and also like being at

(32:33):
a black college. It's just everybody was like, whoa, you
actually might be able to do something with this MC
and thing. Because my mother was like, she barely even
knew I rapped, really when I first got offered, Like
that's honestly how we got signed that because they were
Relativity Records was doing an album with the Unsigned Hype.
They had Biggie, they had Mob Deep, they had all

(32:55):
of us all these because Biggie was unsign Hype, so
it was mob deep. They had all of was doing
an album and it never the project never went through.
So they ended up pulling me and saying, man, we're
gonna sign you to you know, we're thinking about signing you.
So we had a meeting and man, that's how I
got signed from from that source unsigned hype.

Speaker 1 (33:15):
And as you said, the source was the I mean.

Speaker 6 (33:18):
Every time I made an album project at that time,
like please, can I get five mics in the source?

Speaker 1 (33:24):
You know we all wanted that, did you all? You
all got five mics for we got to four and
a half, but you got a I think four and
a half is better than the five, you know what
I'm saying. So be got four and a half? Right, yeah? Probably?

Speaker 6 (33:37):
So yeah, Yeah.

Speaker 4 (33:39):
You were an unsigned Hype longer than you were at them.
Is that dumb? I've heard one semester, I've heard a month.

Speaker 6 (33:48):
I was there for a year and a half. But
I will say, no, you're not gonna tell the story,
are you.

Speaker 1 (33:56):
No? I got straight a's.

Speaker 6 (33:58):
I got straight a's my second's at FAM so and
I was majoring in business administration, like going to professional
development classes and all that.

Speaker 1 (34:07):
What story was you talking about? Man? No, Well, the
you remember the Canada border story with so you know,
you know you have to tell the story now. No, okay, okay, okay, okay,
it's okay. Basically, he was on tour with us. Let him,
let him tell the Well, let me set up the preface.

(34:29):
I'm just saying that this was ninety This was ninety nine,
two thousand and Probably it's easier now because I think
now that we're of age, that a lot of officers
and people in authority are kind of our age, so
they recognize us now. But back then, you know, to

(34:49):
get into Canada, Like it's easier for me to get
into the Middle Eastern Dubai than it is to fly
into Canada.

Speaker 4 (34:56):
Yeah, y'all had a few situations the roots. I remember that.

Speaker 1 (34:59):
Yeah, we had a lot. So the silliest one of
all was they made to, you know, the beginning of
The Simpsons when Bart has to write on the board
like I will not talk in class, I will not
like just to mess with Rashid and Tarique for small stuff,
like they had to write a two page book report

(35:23):
on the merits of human responsibility and how they're you know,
And then I asked roch, like, what happened? What's on
your record? And you told me the okay, So I mean,
just to be real open and stuff.

Speaker 6 (35:38):
It's all good. So I was, you know, at college,
and you know, I'm a Chicago kid. We had a
little bit of just slickness to us, hustle and stuff,
and like I said, I was doing different things.

Speaker 1 (35:50):
But so so.

Speaker 6 (35:54):
One of my one of the guys we knew from Chicago,
had a roommate who they kind of looked alike. So
me and my guys talked to him and say, yo,
you need to get his I D and and checks
and we're going to shopping.

Speaker 1 (36:09):
So we ended up made so sweet ended real week
that this is.

Speaker 6 (36:15):
The story we ended up. He got the checks in
the in the in the I D. We ended up
going all around Tallahassee buying TVs, buying sweatsuit.

Speaker 1 (36:25):
Whoa, this is another story. I was you might want
to walk this back, Brora.

Speaker 6 (36:38):
Obviously I got caught up on this one. I wouldn't
be talking about giving a convention to a murder making
a murder of course.

Speaker 1 (36:47):
Love.

Speaker 6 (36:50):
So so we we go shopping everywhere sweatsuits, everything.

Speaker 1 (36:54):
We down to the last store.

Speaker 6 (36:56):
It's been an all day excursion and and uh, man,
we see he taking a long time in that at
the mars called Government Square mall.

Speaker 1 (37:06):
He taking a long time in Themorrow. He come.

Speaker 6 (37:09):
We see him coming out. He coming out handcuffs. Now
mind you, I'm just the dude driving and you know,
taking them around at every store. So we're like, damn,
he got caught. He got locked up. So we were
waiting at the house and I remember specifically, we was
watching American Music Awards Michael Jackson. We watching it on
the new TV, Michael Jackson sitting there and we're telling it,
eating it like, man, we got to wait to get

(37:31):
that car.

Speaker 1 (37:32):
And we had Yeah, We're like, what's up? Who is that?
And then it's the police. We got your house around it.

Speaker 6 (37:46):
They come in on us, and mind you, it was
other it was other cats there with us. Actually it
was one of my friends that kind of led the
way that actually was a good persuader and led the
way out. Like I said, I was the driver, but
for some reason a guy who got caught only pointed
me out. So I ended up getting knocked up and

(38:09):
I ended up having to do the thing where you
pick up trash on the on the highway. Yeah, community
service community, you said FAM because the other situation was
another thing.

Speaker 1 (38:22):
But it was this other thing.

Speaker 4 (38:28):
If people do.

Speaker 1 (38:34):
Look, look, you know that that years it happened. It happened.
So sorry for bringing that up. I'm sorry.

Speaker 4 (38:45):
I love that you lived all these lives.

Speaker 6 (38:47):
I mean, I feel like I feel like at the
end of the day, you grow and learn. You know,
I ain't you know, ain't nobody trying to move like
that now. But you know that was that was the
thing where you kind of like get influenced to I
take responsibility, but for what what I do?

Speaker 1 (39:01):
You know? But it was what I did too.

Speaker 6 (39:03):
But it was like, man, you really can't like at
a group like because I wasn't initially my idea, but
I'm like, okay, I'm driving and what's so crazy on
some on some serious stuff like you know, I've been
going to visit, you know, going to visit prisons and
talking with people inside it that's incarcerated, and I've met
people that are doing life sentences for being in the

(39:25):
car for something.

Speaker 1 (39:26):
So it put things in perspective.

Speaker 6 (39:28):
For me, like, yeah, how many times I don't mean
it gets so serious, but it's real.

Speaker 7 (39:35):
How many times that night did you say the following sentence,
I'm just the driver, I'm.

Speaker 1 (39:40):
Just the driver.

Speaker 6 (39:41):
Yeah, they weren't going for that man, they you know
I was. I was sitting there thinking like, why did
you only point me out? Not that I wanted to
point anybody else, but just like be quiet at that point.

Speaker 4 (39:51):
But and this is postman post raight A's just to
be clear, I mean.

Speaker 1 (39:56):
This is doing fam. This was faum straight A's day.

Speaker 4 (40:00):
So that's ill because now you got a daughter. It's
funny because I look on Instagram and I see your
daughters in college. So it's a totally different experience looking
at what she's going through versus what you went through
and you sharing those stories with her.

Speaker 6 (40:11):
Yeah, I mean that's why I'm grateful that I went
through those things. Obviously, I'm grateful that I came out
of it on a on a positive side, because one
thing I did I always say no matter how much
like things that I did, I wasn't like, like I said,
I want no killer, but my.

Speaker 1 (40:25):
Heart was always good.

Speaker 6 (40:26):
I never really wanted to damage people, but I just
get caught up in stuff and do certain things. But
you know, I know, obviously stealing from somebody was damaging
some way or another.

Speaker 4 (40:37):
But you made it sound real, innocent and good though.
But it was a college Obviously. You a lover, not
a fighter. I hear it in your spirit.

Speaker 1 (40:43):
I only fight for the right. How can we get
to the first record?

Speaker 6 (40:46):
So that.

Speaker 1 (40:49):
God? Well you you were first signing Relativity Records? Correct,
So just that whole? What was your whole? I don't know,
like your aspirations. Once you had a record deal, did
you feel like well, first of all, how did you

(41:10):
explain to your mom that you're not going to go
back to school? And you know, my story was that
my dad didn't know about the Roots until the second album? No, seriously,
he didn't know until do you want more? So Olive
organics like I just hit you and he thought I
was still going to college and I wasn't. But how
did you get out of telling your mom, well, you're

(41:33):
not going back to college?

Speaker 6 (41:34):
And I think, I mean similar to a certain degree.
My mother didn't even know I was rapping, you know,
she just and I said, look, man, I got a contract,
and I want to leave school and go pursue my
rap career. She like rap you know, she kind of
wasn't even she knew about it, like as a maybe
saw something out there, but she didn't think of it
as a profession. She was like, man, you need to

(41:56):
stay in school. And I was like, look, min, this
is a dream. Blah blah. She was like, Okay, I'm
gonna give you a year and a half and then
if it doesn't work. If it doesn't work, then you
need to be back in school. And she saw how
hard I was pursuing my goals. Initially was just to
be like to make a record, you know. I mean,

(42:16):
you know, as when you look when we used to
look at like Rap City and all these artists out there,
you would think once you see Big Daddy Kane or
you see KRS or you see the NWA, you think
they just rich and they got it made. When you
see that, you got a video. So I was like, man,
if I get a video and get a record out,
then life is done.

Speaker 1 (42:36):
Life is good.

Speaker 6 (42:37):
I made it, but man, it was such an awakening
when I released my first single and went around doing promo,
going to every city, doing all the work, and it
still didn't really get to radio or get to that
level of what I saw big records on the box.

Speaker 1 (42:52):
Y'all remember the box, right, So your video exactly had
everybody calling up and that I was like, yeah, that's
what I did. Yeah, you best believe a call from Motown,
Philly like every five minutes, don't blinks it right exactly.

Speaker 4 (43:14):
So wait, your first deal? What kind of I mean,
not to be in your business, but what kind of
money is that? Because I'm like, is that your mother
was like, Okay, that's that's a couple of dollars. I
can chill.

Speaker 6 (43:23):
I advanced and to this day, I think, you know,
it was a little like Twilight and No Idea. It
was like, what the hell? We split five thousand dollars?

Speaker 1 (43:34):
What?

Speaker 6 (43:35):
Yeah, yeah, man, we spit. We split five thousand dollars.
As far as what went into I think, and I
think our recording budget may have been forty thousand dollars
or something of that nature. I literally remember signing a
contract for Relativity at Relativity in Queens, New York and
getting in the car and I sat in the hatchback
of Peter King, who was our A and R's car,

(43:56):
because he ain't have enough room.

Speaker 1 (43:57):
So it was like it was.

Speaker 6 (44:00):
I said, in the hatch, back in the back in
the Yeah. So it was like one of those things
where it really became the journey. And I'm super grateful
for the journey because when we talk about every day
people and stuff like that, like being common, me nor
the roots were able to be like come out and
just have a big single and things just your life

(44:22):
just changes. It's always been like a yeah, a gradual thing,
working class works, working classroom. See, as simple as that,
And so it makes you value things more. You like
you you also know how to stay humble because you
know it's ups and downs in this in this whole thing,
and and you don't get too shook by the by
the lows either, like because it's gonna be lows, and

(44:43):
then you don't get too shook by that because you know,
as a working class artist, you're like, this is what
I love to do. Times go get times go heat up,
times go get colder, but you just keep striving.

Speaker 1 (44:54):
So yeah, and in the early nineties, I mean that
was typical for I mean rap record deals. It is
sort of like what junk bonds are to Wall Street.
No real talk. Deyla Soul's entire first album was twenty
five thousand, three Rising cost twenty five thousand. Everything. That's
the entire budget. Cypress Hill's debut album seventy five thousand,

(45:19):
just to put in perspective, invokes Funky Divas their debut,
their sophomore album, that budget was two point five million. Wow.
The Metallica Black album that was five million. Michael Jackson's
Dangerous was ten million. So you know, a lot of
the early hip hop staples like a trib call Quest
celebrated because they at least had a six figure deal.

(45:41):
But even then, there's like two hundred thousand dollars, which
is pennies, you know, compared to That's how much of
the Redhead step child hip hop was compared to the
to the rest of the industry. So I'll say that
probably your most notable single, well, your most iconic single

(46:04):
is I Used to Love Her weird uh weird uh
uh acronym. I won't talk about the yeah, but what
what was the what was the genesis of I used
to Love Her? Well?

Speaker 6 (46:25):
I was I can think about specifically where I was
at and when the.

Speaker 1 (46:29):
Time hip hop in its everyday hip hop.

Speaker 6 (46:33):
Hip you got revealed. No, that was it? No, that's
not it.

Speaker 1 (46:37):
Does that makes sense?

Speaker 6 (46:38):
No, it's hip hop and its essence and real ah okay, yeah,
but in the acronym, you know, you don't put in it.
You don't put an acronym. You don't have to put
the little small words get semester.

Speaker 4 (46:55):
That's right.

Speaker 1 (46:55):
That your official official. Okay, Burbon I've been I've been
teasing you forever for that anyway. So yeah, for those
that don't know, it's it's a story in which he
personifies hip hop as a girlfriend, his first girlfriend, and

(47:17):
describes her. I guess her movements her, you know, how
they first met and how she grew up, and how
they fell apart and got back together. And it really
touched a lot of people. I guess it struck a nerve,
I'll say, But what was the what was the genesis
of that creation?

Speaker 6 (47:36):
Well, it was, as I said, I've been a fan
of just all aspects of hip hop, and what struck
me was I started to see people on the East
Coast imitating West Coast artists and that was really like
for me, one of the things that hip hop was

(47:57):
always you would hear people from Queen's be like, Yo,
this is like this is what we represent. We East
Coast New York, and I saw artists that was like
doing West Coast stuff, like rolling around in cars like
that they don't do out here, and I just felt
like some of the culture was being lost, some of

(48:17):
the periody of it was being lost, and that just
was the thought actually came to my mind because I
was just sitting around and once again I don't really
smoke weeds, so my friends were smoking and I probably
was just chilling like it was ninety ninety three and
a lot of hip hop I was listening to, from
Midnight Marauders to Balloon Mind State to Sol's a Mischief.

(48:38):
But I also was kind of in a hip hop work,
not a workshop, but like a camp almost because it
was no Id had these other dudes there that was rhyming,
this dude herb G and Cap and Milo from they
were from Indiana, so it was always rhyming and we
were just freestyling and doing stuff. So I was kind
of sharpening myself and getting more introduced to all these

(49:00):
new things, whether it was jazz music, which I wasn't
up on like to be honest, and then it was
like I just was sitting there one night and said, man,
what if I made hip hop a woman and just
and don't tell that I'm talking about hip hop until
the end.

Speaker 1 (49:16):
And couldn't you find a real woman? Hey?

Speaker 6 (49:21):
You know this is like a real love story that like,
I mean, I could have found a real woman. But no,
you know what was so what was so crazy was
like and I thought about this this the other day,
like when you're young in nineteen and you do a
love song, your friends look like, why are you giving
this girl heart his love? Because I was rapping I

(49:43):
used to love it in the booth and one of
my best friends, ra Son, was looking frowning while I
was rapping it until I said, who I'm talking about
y'all's hip hop?

Speaker 4 (49:51):
And he was like, oh shit, but that's kind of
fucked up up.

Speaker 1 (49:56):
I know it is. I was saying, it's a messed
up child.

Speaker 6 (49:59):
Yes, I mean the reason why I thought about it
because I was, you know, you know, with so much
going on and we're talking about the change and the
culture and stuff women and women, I was thinking like, damn,
I couldn't even rap a love song at nineteen, and
my somebody supported But eventually, obviously we know, as we know,
I went out because when you said when you was

(50:19):
like one of or you were talking about one of
when I thought you was gonna say the light was
my most I forgot.

Speaker 1 (50:27):
About the light? How you?

Speaker 4 (50:30):
I just thought we was going to.

Speaker 1 (50:32):
I'm gonna tell you my light story. But we when
we get to when we get to the chocolate ears.
But did you were you? First of all? I mean,
as an MC, I'll say that you you're probably the
most evolved human. I know that's an artist, because I mean,

(50:54):
as an MC, you've stuck to hip hop's rules of
just I feel like you right in the moment and
just be like all right, I'm gonna suff the consequence later.
I'm gonna just say, like you said, some of the
wildest shit ever on Wax offensive, non offense, whatever, just whatever,
and like and I'll be like, Russ, what's gonna happen?

(51:17):
Like when you, at least for I used to love her? Like,
were you not thinking at all? Like maybe Dosa Effects
might take offense to this? Maybe the West Coast might
take offense to this, and I'll just let me go
for it. Like did you have any idea that people
would I was or did you just not think like
this single? Just be like my little single no it's

(51:38):
not no no no no.

Speaker 6 (51:39):
I said, Man, you brought up a good point because
when that was also part of it. Why I Used
to Love Her came about too is because it was
like once Dots Effects would do something, everybody would start
rhyming like that, and I was I was like, the
rigid hip hop was always about like what are you
doing this fresh? That's why we use the word fresh,
what's the original? What's your waist? And I felt like

(52:02):
when I wrote I used to Love Her, I had
enough courage and like my heart and I felt like
I'm speaking my truth, so if my truth gets i
catch some repercussions because of it.

Speaker 1 (52:14):
Cool.

Speaker 6 (52:15):
I didn't think it was gonna come from the West
Coast because I kind of said she broke to the
West Coast and that was cool around the same time
I went away to school, and I'm a man of expanding.

Speaker 1 (52:23):
Well, I know that, but I'm just saying that I
know that you meant, and now I see motherfucker slamming
and taking her to the sewer. I didn't think that
you meant like Dots Effects onyx ice Cube. You meant
the clones of those guys clones, But did you ever
see Dosa effects or onyx and then not think like, oh,
you were talking about us, not our clones or well

(52:44):
what that.

Speaker 6 (52:45):
Was The one thing that that that I have to say,
going back to the South Side that I was still had.

Speaker 1 (52:52):
In me was a crew A crew crew.

Speaker 6 (52:56):
So so that's effects I actually thought they dis on
the song and my boys just brought this up. I
went down to their dressing room and with my guys Chicago.

Speaker 1 (53:08):
And was doing the forty years. Yeah, I was like,
what's up? What's up now? You know, like how you
came in the door. They just steal their TV right away.

Speaker 6 (53:21):
But by the way, man, I had some yo, my friends,
some of my crew. I mean I remember doing the
show with Koogi Rap opening up for Coogie Rapping Red
Man and this is the we my friends just was
didn't know, but they straight went into that dressing room
and ate that food from the rider.

Speaker 1 (53:39):
No.

Speaker 6 (53:40):
Yeah, it like took there for and I had to
pay for it. Like anyway, My point is you minuted
they minuted it. No, but they just knew like cause
we were the first ones there.

Speaker 1 (53:49):
I had. It was in my neighborhood. The show was
at the Regal Theater.

Speaker 6 (53:52):
So it's like, yeah, so anyway, I don't remember what
the initial thing.

Speaker 1 (54:00):
What were we saying.

Speaker 4 (54:01):
Do we just taught lessons?

Speaker 1 (54:03):
Yeah? No, I had to learn that.

Speaker 6 (54:05):
I learned that and and I was like, look, man,
we getting the list and this is what we can do,
and we you know, we start you grow from that.
You start learning. I can't just roll and just roll
have like forty people with me. It just is not productive.
And especially once you start putting in perspective this is this.

Speaker 1 (54:21):
Is my profession. Oh that's what I was talking about.

Speaker 6 (54:23):
Even when when I did the West Coast, I mean
even when mac ten and Ice Ice Q to them
came out with the disc record. We were in Atlanta
doing the show with Grand Pooba Outcast and mac Ten
and these and those guys, and uh we saw them
at the show and they you know, they kind of
just walked past and.

Speaker 1 (54:41):
Then when they got to the.

Speaker 6 (54:43):
End of the hallway, they was like they hollowed out
west Side and we was like, we south side. What
that means to us? You know, Like so it was
it was put it this way. I was able to
speak my truth because I spoke that same truth around people.

Speaker 1 (54:58):
I was around.

Speaker 6 (54:59):
So if I couldn't do it into into the culture,
then what am I really doing? Plus we used to
say stuff in hip hop like you could. I was
listening to Pooh Bah and he was like talking about
Oprah or something. You know, you would say stuff like
this raw stuff ignorant.

Speaker 4 (55:14):
It don't go viral like it does now. But wait,
can we talk about beefs? Can I just ask about
fair Con? Because I always thought that was ill and
I think maybe it was like one more beef after
you guys were he intoed. But what was that like
for fara con into your situation like that and being
from Chicago? How did that happen?

Speaker 6 (55:32):
It was really it was pretty I would say power.
It was really powerful in many ways because it was
right after First of all, I kind of, you know,
got introduced more to fairy con through hip hop through
Public Enemy, and people would bring up fairy con and rap.
So then you know, some of the cats I worked with,

(55:54):
like No Idea eventually with being the Nation at one point,
but read yeah, this is around the time they were
Derek my manager. They all had been through the Nation
of Islam and were fruits of Islam. But so by
the time Farah Khan was squashing the beef, it was
right after Biggie's death, which you know, what preceded Biggie's
death was Tupac's death.

Speaker 1 (56:16):
So it was like, you know, it's weird I'm around
at this point. You didn't even know that he squashed
the beef. I never add to I think maybe the
third time we met, you played me uh verse one
of the bitching you your response to ice Cube.

Speaker 4 (56:35):
And they had beef, y'all.

Speaker 1 (56:36):
If you didn't know, well you already skipped to the making.

Speaker 4 (56:39):
Up part, right, But I loved.

Speaker 1 (56:44):
You like anyway. But no, they won't get it anyway.
So I didn't. I didn't know that it got that
bad that he had to come and intervene.

Speaker 6 (57:01):
Yeah, well it definitely. I mean, like I said, Mike
ten and all those guys are real guys on the
West Coast, and I gotta respect that, and I know
that they will take it there. And like I said,
it was people on my side that also would defend
me and defend I would defend myself. So it was

(57:23):
the tension. We weren't mature enough to be like, yo, man,
let's squash this ourselves. It was like that you know
that young ego, like, man, you said this and that,
and so it was Yo, fay Con had to squash it.
People people were dying, and that's the point. We were like, man,
we got into hip hop to live, like this is

(57:43):
something we love to do and I'm not out here
trying to destroy another human being.

Speaker 1 (57:48):
So it was like, man, we got to squash this.
He had a meeting.

Speaker 6 (57:51):
It was us, Fat Joe, I think some of the
Goodie Mob. It was a lot of just just people
from hip hop. And he was like, man, do y'all
know this is like this is like that Willie Lynch
letter where where you know, you pit the pit people
against each other East coast and West coast.

Speaker 1 (58:11):
Do y'all own the land? He started breaking it down.
Do you own the land?

Speaker 6 (58:14):
Like you know that whole theory of like man, light
skin versus dark skin. He started breaking it down. Or
you on this side and this side. It's just like, man,
don't let the master.

Speaker 1 (58:25):
Don't let it.

Speaker 6 (58:25):
Not that they were our masters, but don't let them
pit us against each other. Is what the gist of it.
All of us recognized that is.

Speaker 4 (58:32):
Like the money to be made in beef sometimes too,
So yeah.

Speaker 6 (58:35):
I mean it was like, shoot, think about it, Like
all the money that was made in.

Speaker 4 (58:40):
They didn't go in your pocket.

Speaker 1 (58:42):
Right, So for first of all, your next album, one
day it all makes sense. Crazy, For one day it
all makes sense, which I kind of like now when
I look at the at your can, I almost see
one day it all makes sense, sort of as the

(59:03):
flyer that someone hands out at the nightclub that will
announce the things to come, like it's its own album,
But really it was the preview of because I mean
you're you brought Tarik and Q Tip and Erica and
me and uh not Dilla yet, but who else was
on it? Daya Selo too, right, yes, yeah, So it's

(59:27):
like the idea of bringing the community together. And Lauren,
I have a question about uh retrospectful life.

Speaker 4 (59:38):
Oh god do we have to Well here's the thing.

Speaker 1 (59:43):
I mean, I know, you know, according to Fox News,
you're super liberal rapper or whatever. So I mean, I
know I know that your pro choice. I know that
your your pro choice in your everyday life. But the
narrative of that song seems very conservative, like it's and
I know that for you. I mean you're really talking

(01:00:03):
to your daughter who's now a full grown woman in
college and whatnot. But just at the time, what was
what was your mind state? Because just when I went
on Genius and just read the lyrics, I was like, wow,
like this could almost seem like a conservative, pro life rap.

Speaker 4 (01:00:22):
That's the teenage girl who was making some mistakes. It
was like, I can't get through this song right now.

Speaker 1 (01:00:26):
Yeah, but it was it was it was sort of
a heartstring your first a comment like sort of a
hearing but.

Speaker 4 (01:00:35):
I am about to be in somebody in mamadel comment,
so you can just.

Speaker 1 (01:00:38):
I'm just mad. I'm just mad that you made the
second song. That's the first thing, Like what do you
think of my record? I'm like, why did you make
that the second song? Like I was mad at your
sequences and work on my next record. I was like, okay,
bet I will you need some help? But yeah, I'm
just talking about like did you and Lauren go through that? Uh?

(01:00:59):
Talk about that together there? Like how did that collaboration come?

Speaker 6 (01:01:02):
Well, first of all, like it was a I am
pro choice. I believe every woman human woman should have
that choice to be able to do what they want
with their body and their bodies and.

Speaker 1 (01:01:16):
So so I.

Speaker 6 (01:01:19):
Really when I wrote Retrospect for Life, which is about abortion,
I just really was writing it from a perspective of
what I felt like as a human being, like some
of the the fact of just being more responsible for
me and not just you know, being out here raw,
you know, you know not. So it was more like,

(01:01:40):
I'm I'm playing a part in this and let me.
I shouldn't have to put people that I care about,
meaning a woman through this, and at the end of
the day, I shouldn't put an unborn child through this.

Speaker 1 (01:01:53):
So I kind of was just not wanting to be
a deadbeat dad and that cliche.

Speaker 6 (01:01:58):
Yeah, And I just was, you know, it was talking
about all the emotions. I remember writing it because I
used to go see a lot of poets and this
is writer named Gwendolen Brooks and I and I went
to an event that she had and I kind of.

Speaker 1 (01:02:11):
All that sparked me to just write it.

Speaker 6 (01:02:13):
I wrote that more as a poetry, so you know,
as you know, I mean, you always be like you
need to rhyme more on beat, you can't count, yeah,
so so so uh, you know, I kind of took
that poem and made it into a song. And what
I had been talking about talking to Lauren while you
all were on tour with her, wasn't you all? It
was you all, the goodie mom and the foods. Yeah, yeah,

(01:02:33):
I was talking to Lauren about doing the song, and
it's you know, she was on the move a lot.
And then I finally came across that song and she
with her about to have a child and I was
about to have a child. It was like our babies
were doing the same day. It was kind of like
this this thing that was going on. And we went
through the song because you had introduced us to James Poison,

(01:02:56):
I had James come through and and we just.

Speaker 1 (01:03:00):
Started messing with it.

Speaker 6 (01:03:01):
No id did the drums we had because we were
going through the process of the song evolving, and Lauren
just started trying different ideas and she I think she
wanted to do it because you know, she was just supporting.
But at the same token, I think she felt that
the story was important, and I was super grateful that
she wanted to direct the video, and I do agree
that one day it all makes sense. Was also a

(01:03:23):
foreshadowing of what the evolution would be at that time,
because that was the first time I really started like
just using some live instrumentation and trying out different things.
And it's fun when you start exploring and learning about
new music, like you've been a great musician from a baby.
But I was like learning new music like that. I

(01:03:44):
didn't know. So that's when the album came out.

Speaker 1 (01:03:47):
Like that, Why did it take three years? Though? Man?

Speaker 6 (01:03:50):
I was stressing out, like over I was going. I
was going out touring to get to just support myself.
I wasn't happy with the lab, like trying to figure
out and they were trying to talk me into They
was using peers like Naves or different people to be
like yo, you see they making hit records, And I

(01:04:11):
was like, man, it just wasn't I didn't. I didn't
have it in me to try to just cook up
a hit like like yo, I'm about to make a
hit record. I just didn't know how to do that,
to be honest, and that just wasn't my everything I did.
I had to feel it like for me to create it.

(01:04:31):
So anyway, I was going through that process with the label,
and I also was like, man, just trying to grow.
I was trying to think you ever been through that
point where you figured out like what am I going
to create next, like I got to be inspired to create.
And from a writer's level too, it's like where do
I want to write about? What am I experiencing in life?

(01:04:53):
So I think that's what took some time.

Speaker 1 (01:04:55):
Well that that would also be your last record with
New Idea, who at that point YouTube were closely associated
with each other for your first three records. How did
you was the partying amicable or how did you two
stop working? Yeah?

Speaker 6 (01:05:12):
No, I think it was more it wasn't like, man,
we got beef. It was more like, man, I gotta
go grow, and this growth is going to be I
don't know. I got to move from Chicago because at
the end of the day, it wasn't just like me
musically just needing to.

Speaker 1 (01:05:29):
Grow, but I just needed to grow as a human being.

Speaker 6 (01:05:31):
And it was like being in Chicago, even around some
of my friends I grew up with, their mentality was
still boxed, and I was like, man, I can't I'm
out of this box. I was going up to which
seemed like nothing to y'all now because everybody experienced it.
But I was going to eat at tay Foo restaurants.
I was watching like like I was watching movies like

(01:05:54):
four rooms, you know, you know.

Speaker 1 (01:05:58):
What I'm saying exactly.

Speaker 6 (01:06:00):
So I was I would be like, hey, y'all watch
the four rooms, and they'd be looking like, man.

Speaker 1 (01:06:04):
What is this superset?

Speaker 6 (01:06:06):
Like so and and and me not being like at
that point strong enough to be like, look, this is it,
and I just like, I'm going to I'm going to
book exactly.

Speaker 1 (01:06:17):
And I came out to.

Speaker 6 (01:06:19):
I came out to New York, were like two weeks
worth of clothing maybe less than that, thinking I was
just gonna stay for two weeks.

Speaker 1 (01:06:27):
I never went back.

Speaker 6 (01:06:28):
I mean, you know, I went back for home to go,
but I moved here to New York and it was
just it was one of the best things that happened
in my life because I got to you know, I
would get to go to the studio with y'all bumping
the I would bump in the Primo. I was introduced
to a shack of givings. Who was you know, did
the crochet said it like? It just was like I

(01:06:49):
would go see a Gordon Parks display and at at
a museum in New York. I could go me and belive.
I would go to jazz clubs and just listen. So
it was like, you know what, you know where New
York is, it's just a culmination of so many artists.
So I got to spread my wings.

Speaker 1 (01:07:11):
Well I'll say that, you know, of course i'd be
supervised to say that. Well, yeah, your Chocolate Electric phase
is my favorite period, not because I was involved with it,
But no, it wasn't. I mean what you sure, No,
But what you did was you provided me with the

(01:07:35):
greatest front seat ever, which is getting to watch Dila
work in real time. And I mean that was my excitement.
That's the thing, like all the dial of fan worship
we do now that he's gone, I mean it took everything.

(01:07:58):
He's one of those people that he's really uncomfortable and
he would always say like yo, geek down, geek down,
like you weren't allowed to praise him. You weren't allowed to,
you know, call him up for five and be like, okay,
is this snare drum from Uh? He would have never
done the show, right, Yeah, he would have done it.
He would have done it because he's my boy.

Speaker 4 (01:08:17):
But but talk about that though, because how did he
come into the picture then, because we don't know.

Speaker 1 (01:08:23):
Yeah, I'm gonna get to that. So so in in
making like Water for Chocolate, I mean was your because
with that album you also went platinum, which is weird
because you wanted to make such a radical left turn
with your career. I know that you wanted to make

(01:08:47):
an artistic statement and then you just messed around and
also went platinum at the same time, which you know,
none of us even at the time when well maybe
Voodoo because DeAngelo was a singer and all it's stuff,
but during the time of things fall apart and all
these records that get made at the same time, none
of us ever thought that we were all getting one

(01:09:09):
million people to shell out this money to buy the music.
So we were just like, let's just make the best
music possible. But for you, like what described First of all,
just describe working with Dila because of all of us,
I mean, you sleep on his couch more than anything.
You got to watch him real time.

Speaker 6 (01:09:29):
Yeah, okay, So first I met Dyla when I was
out with day La Soul and they had some beats
and maces like you gotta check out Deyla.

Speaker 1 (01:09:39):
No, actually I met him with Q Tip.

Speaker 6 (01:09:41):
We had went and did this Vibe conference that Quincy
Jones had and and we left the conference and went
to Q Tip's house. And at his house, Dyla was
down like fingering through these records and he was sitting
there and I didn't He was real quiet, So I
did I know Dealer's like Detroit Hood's side to a

(01:10:03):
certain degree because he was just a quiet, good, you
know dude. And then Q Tip started playing me all
these these beasts that Dila did and I was like,
this dude is incredible. So then I got a beat
tape from him, and that's when I.

Speaker 1 (01:10:16):
Was thinking about.

Speaker 6 (01:10:17):
I was on the road with Daylight and I said,
JD can you come, can we like lay some stuff?
And he flew himself to Chicago and laid some beats
for me. I worked on him, and this is in
the process of me being I think it was right
after that was before one day. It all makes sense.
So I never used the beats, but I think it

(01:10:38):
was ninety eight. I went to Deler's house with you
all with the roots while you always going to do
ill a fifth Dynamite. Yeah, yeah, yeah, that's right. You
were with us in Detroit. Yeah, we went to Detroit.
I just got you know, we were all on the
same label. So when I hooked up with Dila at
that point with y'all, it was like, yeah, we got
to do some music. So I would just make those

(01:11:00):
trips to to Detroit, and it was it was a
combination of just me watching the greatest in his his spirit,
to him going to the strip club and then coming
back making beats, to him us going to Korean barbecue,
you know, and just chilling us going to play video
games or I'm not video you know, go to the

(01:11:22):
game place where you shoot basket. I remember Delly used
to love shooting those you know, you know the basketball
We go to those joints, or go watch the matrix.
All this was part of our bonding in relationship. It
wasn't nothing like playing. It's just what we did. But
they would definitely go to strip club. And I'm not
a strip club dude, so not that I'm like judging.

(01:11:44):
It just wasn't my thing. But that's part of the
culture of Detroit. Yeah so so they yeah, exactly so.
But just to watch him pull out records and just
work and just something changed my life man Like it was.
It was incredible and I would always if I wasn't there,
he even you know, when he was just making beats

(01:12:05):
he would send me a batch. He'd like, I got
a batch coming, and I would call his mother, you
know my dukes would be like, okay, I'm sending it
to your place, and I would get a CD of
she would mel it.

Speaker 1 (01:12:16):
Yeah, so so.

Speaker 6 (01:12:19):
You know, and then to watch him like start making
songs with me. Jad would do what he wanted because
I wanted him to rhyme on the song Funky for You.
I wanted all the slum village to rhyme on that
song on like Water for Chocolate, Funky for You. And
he sat in the studio in and he was he
was like trying to come up with something. I guess,
but I don't think he really His heart was in

(01:12:41):
the rhyming on that one. But so that night he
went home and I thought he was done. He came
back the next morning pick me up and had to
be for Thelonius and had the hook Yeah yeah, play
at your own wrist like like you know, bitch, I'm
on some grown ship. I was like, he's I said
what yo? He said, Yo, this this, I think we
should do this one. I was like, man, if you

(01:13:02):
give us this, this is incredible. So my point is
he would do what he wanted to do somebody operated
strictly from a passion level. That was one of the
dudes that I really felt like if he ain't feeling
you or feeling it, he ain't rocking with it, but
he would put his heart and soul into that music.
And you know, I mean it's just man. I mean,

(01:13:22):
I got to before delap passed. We were roommates, so
it was like in my front room, I just got
to see him sitting there just making beats like and
at the Saint token physically like in a way deteriorating,
but just still just making.

Speaker 1 (01:13:41):
To me because even the last time I visited him,
I didn't know that he could barely communicate or talk
or hold his hands up. And I'm trying to figure out, like,
especially the last period of his life, that the whole
deal with his phase where he was, I mean, the
deal with his face is close to the Donuts album,

(01:14:03):
where it's just the beats were so advanced that MCS
didn't even belong on those beats, Like he was basically communicating.
If you listen to Donuts and you listen to all
the samples that he used and the words that he uses,
that's him sort of communicating his last will and testament,
his goodbye. You know, him breaking down. I don't want

(01:14:24):
to see you cry, like to his mother and even
the TENCC Johnny, don't do it to his little brother John,
like just the way that he weaves samples in. I
didn't realize that it was that bad. But his mind
was still sharp. Physically, it took. He was slower at
making the stuff, but the ideas in his mind were

(01:14:46):
sharper than ever.

Speaker 6 (01:14:47):
Which man his mind was that, But it was really
it was difficult for I mean, obviously it was difficult
to see somebody you know, like is one of the
greatest and then just one of your friends, like not
be able to do the things that they were just
like two years ago he was coming to pick me

(01:15:09):
up in the range, Robbo. It might be the escalade
and bumping beats and just having fun. And to see
him like laying on the couch sick, just not being
able to move and whenever you could get that energy
going to make beats was just it.

Speaker 1 (01:15:24):
Was hard for me.

Speaker 6 (01:15:25):
I actually like wouldn't stay at the house as much
because it just was like, man, this is tough. But
then I was like, I gotta be there at a
certain point. But it brought you know, my own humanity
or what's the word, you know, like when you what's
the word on trying to search for totality my own
mortality in the play. But more than anything, I just

(01:15:49):
felt for my brother like that, and I remember him
being like telling his mother he one of the main
things he didn't want to do was be in the
hospital on his birthday, and he died three days later
after his birthday, February seventh. He died on February tenth
in the physical form, and it was like he was like, man,

(01:16:11):
I just don't want to be in the hospital on
my birthday. But it was deep, man, it was you know,
that's one of the greatest bonds I've ever had as
a person, as a creator, and like we all been
in all of him. When you when you talk about
people like you said, you ain't want to just jump
out and be like, yo, you're great. I can remember

(01:16:32):
instant like specific instances like me and me and JD
walked into a for ral session for real, got down
on his knees and started just bound down. So Kanye
came to our house. JD gave him a record of
forty five with some drums. It was Kanye used to
sample JD's drums off his beat tapes and he was like,
come on, man, right, just take my tru off my

(01:16:55):
feet tape. But you know, so JD gave him this
this record. I mean, we went to me and Ye
went to the studio. YA was like telling everybody, Yo, Jay,
Dila gave me these Dila gave me these Jonks. It
just was to see people's reaction when they saw Dyla.
It made me be like, oh man, this dude is
the god. We knew he was the god, but he

(01:17:16):
was god.

Speaker 1 (01:17:17):
You know. He and I, He and I had one.
It was weird because my the fan worship was so
was so big on my level that as executive producer
of that record, I also did want to make a
misstep and I was wrestling with in my mind on

(01:17:41):
how to tell him I didn't like a particular beat.
Which one was it? The light man, that's why you record. Listen, listen.
I listened to a mirror a lot to it. Yeah,

(01:18:02):
you know what, you know what it was though. There
was a week. I don't know what I had to do.
I think it was touring. There was a week I
took off and I came back and you already rhyme
to it, and I was like, okay, But it was
just that it was just at that point because it
was so because the amount of work that we were
doing was so radical and again it was voodoo like

(01:18:27):
water for chocolate, even the other stuff we were working on.
It was just like, to me, the light was so
I mean, in my mind, I felt like we had
to push everything to the left and so hardcore, and
it sounded so normal to me that I was just like, oh, okay,
that's that's it, that's normal. I was like, well, no,

(01:18:48):
I mean just at the time, I was just like
I wasn't thinking like you got to make something palatable
for you know, people to grasp. Yeah. I didn't know
about that back in two thousand, keeping a simple and
I never liked it. And it kept on winding up
on the you know, like the monthly. All right, let's
get all the beat together and figure out and that

(01:19:09):
was always on my like my probe, my con I
was like, I don't like that. Lights on whatever, It's
all right, but it's nothing exciting, you know, And because
I always thought like doing it was that was going
to be the single, like you know, it's hardcore hip.

Speaker 4 (01:19:23):
Hop, and but also at the time you don't want it,
but this was you.

Speaker 1 (01:19:28):
You also have to understand that the rules the rules
of of like the hip hop elite. I mean, we
were knee deep still in that hole. Like we had
yet to work with jay Z. So back then jay
Z was still the devil.

Speaker 4 (01:19:40):
But you still had your you Got Me formula by
the end.

Speaker 1 (01:19:43):
Yeah, but we were the roots. We were never accepted
as quote real hip hop. We were always alternative hip hop.
So we get away with murder.

Speaker 4 (01:19:49):
But the light was like that you Got Me. I
always thought it looked at it.

Speaker 1 (01:19:51):
But the thing is is that even common moving to
Brooklyn was seeing as a radical how could you move?
You know? And I was more afraid of the perception
that I brought him down or that sort of thing.
So I just didn't like it, you know what I mean.
I mean that's you know, I'd like it now, but

(01:20:15):
I love it now. Man. Look, I honestly that I
don't help people for my Mama house, I'm fine for it.

Speaker 6 (01:20:24):
I mean I have to say, like I never looked
at that song like it was commercial. I know, I
just went on when I heard that beat, and he
honestly had that beat on a beat CD, right, yeah,
and it was it was for fife or something, God
bless his soul something. It was just on a beat
CD that I think ffe it either got to and

(01:20:45):
it wasn't complete.

Speaker 1 (01:20:46):
He had just made it.

Speaker 6 (01:20:46):
It was drums, right, So when I heard it, I
was like, yo, Dad, what's up with this?

Speaker 1 (01:20:52):
You know?

Speaker 6 (01:20:53):
And then he was like, man, I'm about to I'll
redo it for you, and he put those drums and
he started scratching the hook a little bit and I
was like, man, it was that song just hit my soul.
And at the time, you know, as you know, I
was like in love with earthy girls and all that,
so I could just write, that's.

Speaker 4 (01:21:09):
What were you feeling like that first?

Speaker 1 (01:21:11):
Lie your mind? Your mind. Erica wasn't the first choice
for the video. Who was Who was it? We had
Lisa Bone for like a week. We had Lisa you
don't remember, I forgot man. We had Lisa for a
week and then she couldn't do it.

Speaker 4 (01:21:31):
She's never been in a video.

Speaker 1 (01:21:34):
She's been in liney stuff. Oh yeah, I mean, don't
count man.

Speaker 4 (01:21:38):
That's what his wife or whatever.

Speaker 1 (01:21:42):
Yeah, but yeah, we we had. We had and I
wanted and the thing was, I'm not that dude. That
was like, yo, we can exploit the relationship because again
I felt that there was danger in the Erica thing
because I didn't want the friction of Dungeon family versus
so queery things going on, because back then y'all were

(01:22:03):
still friends. It was friends at the end of the day,
they were absolutely friends, and so I just felt that
was more danger making abundantly clear. No we were I
ain't even front we were friends. I mean obviously, I
mean no, but it was there was I mean, there
was potential. Could feel a certain way about a certain situation,
and I was just like, yo, man, just go with

(01:22:24):
just go with Lisabo name man, it's safer route and that.
And when she dropped out and Eric's like I'm doing it,
I was like, oh, man, this is just going to
add fuel to the fire.

Speaker 4 (01:22:32):
And then came to essence covering, it was like, well.

Speaker 1 (01:22:35):
That was like two years later.

Speaker 4 (01:22:37):
They were felt like so lightish.

Speaker 1 (01:22:39):
The light that was that was a little later.

Speaker 6 (01:22:41):
That's when that was obviously together were that's when he's
wearing footies.

Speaker 4 (01:22:46):
In the light.

Speaker 1 (01:22:47):
We weren't dating, and they weren't lay stop trying to
got you.

Speaker 4 (01:22:51):
I'm not I'm trying to get today.

Speaker 6 (01:22:53):
We were not dating like then we say that Bill and.

Speaker 4 (01:22:56):
I just dating.

Speaker 6 (01:22:58):
So it was more more like one of those things
that like I really liked her and we had a
real connection, but it wasn't we hadn't crossed the line.
And maybe maybe it was like it wasn't because of
the Dungeon family, but maybe you know, I don't know
why we hadn't crossed the line, but it was just like, man,
I definitely looked at her. It was like this woman
is incredible and I was digging her, but there wasn't

(01:23:20):
that time yet.

Speaker 1 (01:23:20):
He looked her in the eye. To this day, I
don't look Erica in the six seconds because.

Speaker 4 (01:23:26):
By the time Come Close came around, it was like, oh.

Speaker 6 (01:23:28):
Yeah, no, that was then. It was we were together
at that point. So but but the light was the
light was the first time that uh and by the way,
Come Close, Amya came with the idea for that video,
but I guess I forgot that. Yeah, it was he
was like we need to do something like say anything.
Wasn't that the movie with John? Yeah? Yeah, sometimes people

(01:23:51):
love the idea of somebody holding up something to a building,
and I was like, we need to black say anything. Yeah,
and then and then we and then somewhere down the
line was centered me or somebody's idea was like, man,
let's just make the woman death.

Speaker 1 (01:24:04):
You know that way makes sense that you're holding the scientist.

Speaker 6 (01:24:06):
Yeah, they just gave it another dementia. But I wanted
to tell you something about the light. It was like
the first time.

Speaker 1 (01:24:15):
First.

Speaker 6 (01:24:15):
First of all, I laid the rap down and didn't
I didn't even finish it. That's why I was like,
took a time, I'll tell you the rest of it.
I see peace, you know that. And I kept trying
to go back in the studio and relay it, and
it never felt the same. So I knew that record
was just about a feeling. But it was the first
time that I ever saw little black girls like singing

(01:24:37):
my song. They didn't know who common was, they didn't
know common sense, none of that. So it was like incredible.

Speaker 1 (01:24:42):
Because you were living when they came home maybe nine.

Speaker 6 (01:24:45):
Yeah, So it was like I remember being on the radio,
you know those radio shows that they have.

Speaker 1 (01:24:51):
I was on One Earth Real radio underground.

Speaker 6 (01:24:55):
I was on the radio on the show and I
was like, damn, like girls are singing my songs and
like it just it was another feeling.

Speaker 1 (01:25:02):
It felt.

Speaker 6 (01:25:02):
It felt like rewarding that little black girls was singing
my song like they didn't because they not singing I
used to love her. They not singing retrospect for life.
They probably didn't know who I was. So it just
moved me to see that, and yeah, I was grateful.
Man the Light To this day, DJ Dummy said to me, Man,
do you know the Light is like eighteen years old? Now,

(01:25:25):
I said, eighteen years.

Speaker 4 (01:25:27):
And what a full circle moment about that. I used
to love a moment too because now you are rhyming
about love exactly and now it's cool.

Speaker 6 (01:25:34):
And to this day, I think, you know, probably the
Light is the biggest song that I've had.

Speaker 1 (01:25:40):
I mean I might have, I think, I don't know,
but more than Glory.

Speaker 4 (01:25:45):
Well no, you have got my radio play, yeah yeah.

Speaker 6 (01:25:49):
But but yeah, so I mean it's a love song.
So it is like full circle to be like yo,
to me, the whole journey has been like man, you
gotta like grow grow into who you are and know
who you are at a certain point and then keep
learning more and more of what you.

Speaker 4 (01:26:05):
Said a standard for yourself at that moment too, because
then it was like, as we started singing light, we
were like, oh, I want him to do something else for.

Speaker 1 (01:26:11):
Me, you know what I mean?

Speaker 4 (01:26:12):
Like so then it would come close, and then with
the B albums a couple of records, but.

Speaker 6 (01:26:16):
By the time we got to Electric Circus, it was
like I was telling Amya, we gotta go out there,
like let's go.

Speaker 1 (01:26:24):
Let's go out there, and like we went out there. Well, wait,
I gotta ask questions. Uh wait, one question I have.
Do you regret giving D'Angelo Chicken Grease? No? No, you're
fine with Ghetto Heaven, Ghetto Heaven. I love for those

(01:26:47):
about that trade for those that don't know, I mean
not the competition, but just the amount of work that
was put on all those records. It wasn't even like, Okay,
we're working on this record, work on this record. It
was just like we make a jam and then sell
to the highest bidder, like who wants you? Who wants
he wants it? And we were making Chicken well, we
were making the song that was Chicken Grease for D'Angelo,

(01:27:09):
for Commons record and Colin is ready. He just started
writing whatever. And then DiAngelo kind of snuck in and
had the scowl on his face and like called me,
called me like out in the hallway, and he's like, yo, man, yo,
as I live. He was like, as I live and breathe, man,

(01:27:30):
y'o for real on yall wy man, Yo, you can't
give you can't give that nigga that funk man, Yo,
bruh yo bro you know, and I know that funk
belonged to me, And I was like, yo, man, you

(01:27:51):
can't just jack his song, man, Yo, man, he don't
know what to do with that funk. That's my funk.
And so then I see, I went, I went to you.
And then I was like, wait a minute, because that
morning D'Angelo was we were still waiting for Lauren Hill
like to come and do her verse on whatever song

(01:28:12):
they were going to do, Like they had a trade off.
He did nothing, nothing even matters well her record, and
she was supposed to do something for his. So we
had made Ghetto Heaven that morning, uh for his record.
And so then I was like, yo, the trade off,
like y'all trade songs.

Speaker 6 (01:28:27):
And then it worked. I remember you you called me.
I was the first time I was in Brazil. He
was like, man, man, come on, man, get this beat
to D'Angelo.

Speaker 1 (01:28:36):
And I was like yes.

Speaker 6 (01:28:39):
I was like yes because it was a funky joint
that I didn't think I'd already had a funk like
cold Blood. It was already and I'm not like the
funk master, to be honest, So.

Speaker 1 (01:28:51):
So it was like, it's like I got Heaven was
more emotion. You know.

Speaker 6 (01:28:56):
I liked the soul, jazzy blah blah blah. So it
was like it was the perfect trade off for me.
I was just I was excited and and it had d'
angelo already singing on it, because you know, it was
gonna be tough for me to try to get D'Angelo
right right, So I was like, we're good.

Speaker 1 (01:29:15):
Wait on. It just hit me that even during that period,
you were going to Cuba regularly, even before you were
doing shows in there, you were you technically or you
were the second hip hop act to performing Cuba or y.

Speaker 6 (01:29:30):
I know, I don't know what, you know, where I
fall in as far as acts to perform out there,
but we you know, we would go out there with
Black August, which was an organization that you know, was
raising money for political prisoners, and I went out there
a couple of times with them.

Speaker 1 (01:29:44):
Most and I went out there and.

Speaker 6 (01:29:46):
To lib and you know, it wasn't probably legal to
go out there at that time or whatever, but we
fly through whatever country we had to go to and
get to Cuba. Cuba was one of the best places
I ever went to. And along with that, you know,
I just met I just felt like, I was like, man,
this is a country where the people are poor economically,

(01:30:08):
but some of the richest spirits I ever you know,
come across music, everything, the joy, the you know, the architecture, everything,
and it became a real important part of my life.
And you know, one of the reasons I even wanted
to go more was because of Asida Shakur, who I
read her book, and her books helped, you know. I

(01:30:29):
named my daughter. My daughter's middle name is Asada because
ASADA's book just changed me. And when I would go
to Cuba, I got to connect with Asada and you
know what was she like. She was like really up
on a lot of things that you wouldn't think she
was up on. That was the stage for me where

(01:30:49):
I really understood you could be revolutionary and conscious and
still be fun because you know, when you first started
getting into consciousness, you think like you got.

Speaker 1 (01:30:57):
To stay super serious like brother exactly. So, but she was,
you know, we would have drinks, have fun.

Speaker 6 (01:31:08):
She started freestyling with me one time, and she was like, yeah,
I first got up on you since I used to
love Ah, I love the roots.

Speaker 1 (01:31:13):
I loved it. I was like, yo, you up on
all this?

Speaker 6 (01:31:16):
Just the woman that's like it was in a shootout
with the state troopers and got shot and fought foot
and you've been fighting and you were in exile in
Cuba and they after you, and you still like enjoying life,
having fun up on what it was. It was life
enhancing for me to get to experience that with her.
And it was crazy, man, Because fast forward. I'm just

(01:31:39):
getting off the subject a little bit. But I just
recently was doing a film where I was these FBI
agents were I played the detective and FBI agents was
involved in it. It's not out here, it's called three seconds,
it'll be coming out. But I was sitting with this
lady that was the FBI, like one of the top
FBI people. I was just like so, man, who was

(01:32:02):
on your most wanted list? And then she was like,
maybe you never heard this woman, joe Ane Chesamart. I said, still, still,
I said, what, that's where y'all going. That's one of
the top people that you gonna name me that America
is after to me. But I mean, even not even
knowing my history, but the fact that that she is

(01:32:25):
at one of the people that they put on the
top of the list of most wanted with all this
going on in the world, like she's a threat to
American freedom. How old is She's got to be in
a sixties, like sixty something. Anyway, Man, it was Cuba.
All that experience was incredible. It was the first time
I ever had to write. I had to write down

(01:32:45):
my lyrics because they was like they wanted to make
sure I wasn't saying no anti common and stuff like
they was like, and I had to like straight write
down the songs.

Speaker 1 (01:32:54):
You still love her, write it down and be like really, yeah,
oh before you performed there, before you performed damn, damn,
I didn't even know that. So electric circus. Now he's
sixteen years down the line, we can celebrate and say,
you know, man, it was so ahead of his time.
But that was such a dangerous record and I felt,

(01:33:20):
I mean, I stand by it even when we turned
it in and you know, we got to work with
prints on that record and stuff. First of all, just
talk about Prince, like you hung out with him a lot.
You got him to play on your record, which yeah,
so it's what was it like like just hanging with him?
And how'd you avoid all those religious talks? And wait

(01:33:44):
a minute, I forgot you didn't.

Speaker 6 (01:33:46):
I didn't avoid Like okay, the first my first encounter
with Prince was like when the light was out and
he was We were at the Riviera in in Chicago
and he came up to me like it was like, man,
I love the light and it's He was like, it's

(01:34:06):
crazy that you know that song still sounds so for
and it's in D major and I was like, oh, yeah,
I know, you know, don't please don't test so so
we we you know. He saw me kind of just
brush over that and was like this, thanks anyway.

Speaker 1 (01:34:28):
Damn he is right analy head.

Speaker 6 (01:34:32):
Yeah yeah yeah, so and every time I play with musicians,
if I'd be like, yo, it's in D major, you know,
but anyway, Yeah, so he was like we you know,
we actually got to do a show for his birthday

(01:34:54):
at at Paisley Park, and of course we got to
we were sitting down talking they had to curse. But
in the in the in the room, he was talking
about spirituality. The doves were in. The doves were right
in one of the rooms. As you know, when we
eventually went to Paisley Park as a basketball court, everything
Dave Chappelle described as Charlie, Charlie Murphy, God bless her

(01:35:16):
soul was in that house, in that place.

Speaker 1 (01:35:18):
So we did the show.

Speaker 6 (01:35:20):
We opened it was me Erica and the time during
his birthday party, and from that point we kind of
built a good rapport and you know, we was, like
I said, he said that you can come back and
record at Paisley Park, So we took everybody, Steve, Steve
came out there. We all we went to Paisley Park

(01:35:40):
and worked on some of electric circuits, which was for
all of us. Just like I don't know if y'all remember,
but his father was playing piano.

Speaker 1 (01:35:47):
So his father, princess father, John Nelson, he came to
visit and it's just playing piano. I just remember that.
Even I had shrimp and I was told Prince wouldn't
allow any meat or animal products inside the the you

(01:36:09):
know the building, and I was like, you know, it's
like tim below zero outside, like I'm supposed to go
outside neath this, And I remember them saying that he
made Magic Johnson outside need a filet of fish and
it was like twenty below So I defiantly snuck those
shrimps under my tom time. And I remember, like all

(01:36:31):
my demos were named after meat, like that's where I
ate shrimp and studio behind like all my titles for
your demos were like hcakes, Yeah, named after foods that
I snuck in the Paisley Park because he didn't improve it.

Speaker 4 (01:36:47):
But I want the Jimmy rock star question. I know
about the session. Okay, I'm sorry, I'm really excited as
you were talking about Paisley Park.

Speaker 1 (01:36:56):
I'm not going to use my own platform to disassociate
the perception that I was behind the wheel of this
entire album, least for the the radical movement of it. Okay, No,
I think we definitely got some phone calls from some
of your friends. Well I know that I know that

(01:37:17):
No Idea was concerned.

Speaker 4 (01:37:19):
Oh, they must have been flipping out the Chicago homies.

Speaker 1 (01:37:24):
Like what doing. But it was just like, what's weird
is that Jimmy was a rock star? Dyla was. Dyla
brought all these silver Apple records, all of these like
these prog these crazy prog rock albums, gentle giant silver
apples like giant. Yeah, like just stuff that we never

(01:37:46):
heard before, and like we would just sit and listen
to them. It was like a seance almost. He just sit,
We sit in the room, look at the turntable and
then whatever. We just listened to. We let a process
for ten minutes and then we just run in the
studio and I remember maybe four minutes into making Jimmy

(01:38:09):
was a rock Star and even though I was playing
it and I don't know if you guys are familiar,
but it's a very just a radical rock, electric rock
song about the life of Jimmy Hendrick and said, I
was like, Yo, man, I'm gonna go down for this record. Man.
I feel like I enjoyed it, but I was just like, yo, man,
everybody's gonna blame me for this record. Man, it's gonna

(01:38:30):
be my fault. Well, we don't do that. Oh we're yes,
we're live. But you know, I will say that. I
will say that in retrospect that album needed a good
ten to fifteen years to grow on the people, because

(01:38:51):
now it feel as though that was definitely the beginning
of the kind of alternative area. That group's like the
Internet and and I mean j Davey even like their
their early stuff and and just a lot of the
electronica hip hop movement. That's that's Kate Tranona, like that's

(01:39:13):
happening now.

Speaker 6 (01:39:15):
Yeah, well, I think you know I can remember not
only like, first of all the sessions with Jimmy was
a rock star. I am music that all those are
made in one session. I had you Pinot Deyla and
and James Poys are.

Speaker 1 (01:39:29):
All stereo lab. I forgot we had stereo.

Speaker 6 (01:39:32):
Lab on that like two so we were I mean,
Electric Circus was a result of me being like, man,
I gotta keep growing, I gotta keep it. I felt
like I hit a ceiling of and I wanted to
go high it, like I wanted to knock off the
ceiling and be like, man, hip hop has no ceiling.
And because I was listening to Jimmy Hendricks and listening

(01:39:56):
to stereo.

Speaker 1 (01:39:57):
Labs, don't listen to a lot of Pink Floyd. Pink Floyd.
What was up that, like you and Erica just went
through this pink Floyd face.

Speaker 6 (01:40:03):
I just loved Pink Floyd. I wasn't like. I can
remember being young and my and my cousin wanted up.
He would play me Jimmy Hendricks and the Pink Floyd's stuff,
and I wasn't really into it. I was like, man,
this is cool, and it didn't hit me. But for
some reason at that point I got to appreciate it.
It's funny how things. And I was listening to you know,
obviously The Wall, but I was listening to Dark Side

(01:40:25):
of the Moon. That's what I was really and and
then you know, also listening to Radiohead. Not just only
older rock, but just for me, Like I said, discovering
new music was always opening me up as a as
a hip hop artist. So when Jimmy was a rock
star was made, I couldn't really wrap on that beat
and I'm not a singer, but I just went and

(01:40:46):
approached it. I remember not I say, I don't smoke weed,
but I remember going smoking with smoking you admit it,
going in there and just being like because I had
to be courageous enough to just just be out there
and be singing with Erica, and Erico would be like,
you know, she would be like she was be supportive,
like you could do it, you could do it, and

(01:41:07):
then just yeah, that's it right there, and it was
just it was it was like a stress, but then
it became like fun in a way, just to even
explore that. And it's funny you talk about Electric Circus
because when I first played it for one of my
good friends, it was two thousand and two when we
released it, he was like, man, this album need to
come out in twenty twelve. Man, what are you doing?

(01:41:27):
It's too I was like, He's like, this is too
ahead of his time. You're doing too much. And you know,
some people felt that way. But now, like as you said,
even with the re release of it, I felt like
I felt proud. Even then I didn't feel like because
somebody was just talking to me like, man, they had
wrote you off at that time.

Speaker 4 (01:41:45):
They was like we divided the common fans. That's what
it did. Yeah, yeah, because Niggas was like we lost
them Earth.

Speaker 1 (01:41:53):
It was like we got killed. Yeah.

Speaker 6 (01:41:57):
But I mean, but how you feel it? Did you
feel at the time, dude.

Speaker 1 (01:42:02):
It's still The thing is just in general, if I
love something a lot that I know that not saying
it's not good, but it probably won't hit with the
rest of Like my personal tastes are the opposite of
what I feel regular mainstream society is into or not into.

Speaker 6 (01:42:21):
I want to ask Steve, because Steve, you was there
for what did you what did you think when we
was doing it?

Speaker 1 (01:42:26):
Was you like, this ship is too crazy?

Speaker 7 (01:42:32):
You need this well for the for the technical side
of things, It's it's funny how it went down actually,
because we were in the middle of converting, like we
were turning over from from reels from from tape to
start to use pro tools more and so on electric
circus that that's literally when the turnover was so we
were using tapes and pro tools and we were sending

(01:42:54):
out tapes to people, and then other people wanted files
and they were sending back files and sending back so
we're using both formats at the time, and so we
were sort of busy with that and we were high,
so we're.

Speaker 1 (01:43:07):
Not really paying attention to the creative side, right, But
Steve like, wait, y'all did we did Wait, here's the thing.
This show format was supposed to be ninety minutes and
we went to two hours. It would I would get
murdered if I don't mention working with Kanye West on
the B record, So I'm sorry we didn't get to

(01:43:30):
his acting career and in part two, but Obama, at
least with at least with B. How did you feel
having a new lease on life?

Speaker 6 (01:43:47):
It felt, It felt invigorating. I felt like I really
loved and this sounds crazy, I love the the challenges
I was getting from Electric Circus.

Speaker 1 (01:43:58):
Really yeah, meaning like oh man, you done and being underestimated.
I loved. That's a good feeling because that motivated you. Yeah,
it motivated me for real.

Speaker 6 (01:44:08):
And and at the same choke, and I'd been like
opening myself up to acting, which was like studying it,
and that was opening me up to a certain degree
just as far as creativity. And then it was like
almost was starting. I look at it career and think
of it like a cycle, and I kind of was
starting at it on a new cycle at that point,

(01:44:29):
and like a new cipher was starting even and not
that I was going down and like it it's not
like just on one level, it's actually vertical like the cycles.
So it was like, Okay, this is a new cycle
that's starting, and I just felt the hunger of a
new MC, like like man, I remember Kanye gave me
get Him High because he had been telling me I
want you on this song or maybe this song. I

(01:44:50):
was like, all right, just let me know, and then
he gave me get Him High, and I was like, man,
I'm about to tear this ship up, like I'm about
to let them know what it is. This this is
one of them opportunities. And from that point, Yay Yay
was making a beat. He was in the studio session
for Eve and we both were in LA and he

(01:45:12):
said come by the studio and I came by and
he was playing to beat the food and it was like, man,
I'm just making beats and he was like, yo, you
want this and he just gave me that beat and
I went and rolled in my car and wrote that
and that was the start of us being like, man,
we about to just start working on this album project.

Speaker 1 (01:45:29):
I told him.

Speaker 6 (01:45:30):
I remember calling him saying, man, I'll be on your
label and then he was like man, you sure that.
He's like that's incredible. So I was just on his label,
and what that process started was us going. I would
go buy records, CDs and I would listen to as
many CDs, all the stuff like from all I learned

(01:45:51):
from Dyla, from no I d from the beat Nuts,
from you all whatever records, like names, records I knew
in I would buy blindly, just records. I would listen
to him, put the best records in front of YA.
He would listen to him, mark the ones he liked.
If it's something that sparked, he would put all these
samples into his simpler and then whatever he got motivated,

(01:46:12):
he just started cooking up. And it was like for me,
the jolt and the renewing was like, Okay, I'm working
with ya who was around when No Idea and I
was doing one day, that makes all makes sense. And
he comes from you know, is from Chicago, and we
already knew each other, but now we never worked.

Speaker 1 (01:46:31):
At this level.

Speaker 6 (01:46:32):
And he's like even like more like confident and just
he not even just more confident, he's just more culture
because he was confident then he was confident beyond his
level at that point, but that confidence caught up with
his ability and he was and he just was really
a producer. He started being like, nah, rash rewrite this verse,

(01:46:55):
or man, this is what this hook is gonna go like,
And so it was really good like combination because we
both was hungry and we felt He wrote about it
in one of this this some table book he had.
It's kind of was the meeting of like what I've
done and have built, what we've done and built in
hip hop, combining with where he was in his career.

(01:47:15):
It was like the perfect like combination of and we
both just love like with Yay, I can still reference
a trial call quest or he would reference a trial
call quest or or some brand new beings, but he
still also listened to some of the stuff that I
didn't listen to, which was, you know, like some of
the more commercial hip hop. Or he would be like, man,

(01:47:36):
Mace is one of my favorite rappers. And I'd be like, really,
but ill due respect to Mace now because I know him,
and you know, when I listened back, I'm like, Okay,
that's what you you know. But ultimately we had different
tastes in certain areas, but it just was a man,
it was an incredible energy. Yeah that and just great

(01:47:57):
songmaking and vision and like that passion. I remember specifically
being like, Yay used to do listening sessions. You know
how we used to do listening sessions for journalists, and
Yay would like jump up on the table and be
rapping his songs and fit people. Yeah, you'd be like
not spitting on purpose, but just you know, just passionately
doing this thing. And I was like, damn, you know

(01:48:19):
that ain't necessarily what I need to do jump up
on the table, but it kind of made me, I mean,
I needed to do it my way, like being confident
in what I was, what I was presenting, if I
really believed in it that way instead of just being
like kind of like just check it out, humble you
like it.

Speaker 1 (01:48:35):
Yeah, it was.

Speaker 6 (01:48:36):
So it was a lot of things I learned doing
that process for him. But creatively, you know, he definitely
is one of the best man to me, It's like
he knows how to push the envelope. But and he
has a knack for making He's rooted in hip hop
and soul music, but he still has something that he's
The stuff he chooses ends up being like really catchy

(01:48:58):
stuff that can reach new audiences.

Speaker 1 (01:49:01):
So but it's rooted and soul. So thank you Rob,
thank you for doing the show. Thank you, thank you'
all for having me.

Speaker 6 (01:49:09):
This has been an incredible Thanks Steve Layah Deal, thank
you comparable a miya.

Speaker 1 (01:49:17):
All right, well, we'd like to thank our audience for
for joining us and hopefully we'll do a feature live
broadcast of course, Love Supreme enjoy it. Thank you very much,
We appreciate it. See you on the next course. Love
Supreme is a production of iHeartRadio. This classic episode was

(01:49:40):
produced by the team at Pandora. For more podcasts from
iHeart Radio, visit the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever
you listen to your favorite shows.