QLS Classic: Dante Ross

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

Speaker 2 (00:09):
Ladies and Gentlemen.

Speaker 3 (00:09):
This is QLs Classic and we are going way back
back into time. We're going to episode number three with
the Great Dante Ross aka Dante the Scrub aka Dante
who introduced you to so many acts you can name them.
He either an art them or signed them himself. De

(00:32):
La Soul, Queen Latifa, Digital Underground, Pete Roxiel, Smooth Brand
Nubian name him Calca Paine, name them yes. Dante Ross
Damn Nearrow wrote the soundtrack of your Life and he
lived it. One of the most incredible humans ever, one
of the best lovers of music ever. Dante the Scrub

(00:54):
Ross QLs Classic.

Speaker 2 (00:56):
Let's go too.

Speaker 4 (01:02):
Suprema Son So, Suprema roll, Calm, Suprema son Son, Suprema
role called Suprema some something. Supremo role called Suprema son Son,
Suprema roll called.

Speaker 2 (01:17):
My name is Questlove. Yeah, We'll kimping nubs Yeah, I'm
on it, chilling Yeah.

Speaker 4 (01:26):
Suprema Son, Suprema roll called Suprema something something, Suprema role called.

Speaker 5 (01:33):
My name is Fonte. Yeah, fontage low Yeah. Shout out
to Chassy Yeah and jiggle.

Speaker 4 (01:41):
Roll call Supreme, Suprema, roll call, Suprema something, Suprema roll call.

Speaker 6 (01:49):
My name is Sugar, Yeah, Sugar Steve. Yeah, I keep
my kit cats.

Speaker 7 (01:55):
Yeah, Suprema Suprema, roll call Suprema.

Speaker 2 (02:03):
Something something, Suprema roll call.

Speaker 8 (02:05):
My name is Bill, Yeah, got here late Yeah, now
I'm single.

Speaker 2 (02:11):
Yeah, needed call.

Speaker 4 (02:14):
Suprema son son, Suprema, roll called, Suprema son something, Suprema
roll called handboss Bill.

Speaker 8 (02:23):
Yeah, I'm fresh to death.

Speaker 4 (02:25):
Yeah.

Speaker 2 (02:25):
Shout out to that crab. Yeah from Quest Love Chef.

Speaker 4 (02:28):
Roll call Suprema something something trying to get me, roll
call Suprema so something, Suprema roll call.

Speaker 6 (02:39):
Yeah, I got.

Speaker 9 (02:41):
Yeah, Suprema Suprema roll call Yeah, Supremo son son, Supremo.

Speaker 6 (02:52):
Roll call.

Speaker 2 (02:55):
Some people.

Speaker 1 (02:56):
How are you welcome to another edition of Quest Love Supreme.
I was gonna say Suprema, but yeah, Quest Love Supreme. Uh,
I'm your host, Amir Quest Love Thompson and uh brought
a few friends with me. Uh my man a spoon coon, Uh,
shorty do wop. I don't know what other titles to

(03:18):
call you yet, bro. I got a lot of them, man,
I got a lot of them, all right.

Speaker 2 (03:21):
So what do you tell my al Capua.

Speaker 5 (03:27):
Sh rolling Stone. Yeah, I'm I'm the Yen to the Yang.
I'm the Robbin to the Batman. Yeah, Fontic, Yeah, I'm
Jerome to the Morris.

Speaker 2 (03:36):
You know, I hold the mirror a bro. You know
what I mean? Well, we both might just be Jellybean
and Jesse and not know it. This is true. I
kind of think Boss Bill is Mars. I think he
could be Prince. Yeah, say, Boss Bill is Prince.

Speaker 5 (03:50):
He's Prince. He's definitely Prince. He's the he cracks the rip.

Speaker 10 (03:55):
Let's Grover Washington, the Actor's true.

Speaker 2 (04:01):
That ship was hilarious. All right, So, uh, front, how's
how's the project been going. Everything's going good man, tipular Old.

Speaker 5 (04:09):
That's the project. Me and my man Eric Robinson is
out right now. We've been doing some dates in support
of it and everything, and uh yeah, man, it's going
real well. I'm just thankful that people like it. Uh
And I can pay my bills and feed my chair.

Speaker 2 (04:23):
You're cheering. That's about it. That's that's the life at
the end of the day. That's what life is about.
That's what it is. I'm thankful man, thankful happy. You're cheering.

Speaker 1 (04:31):
How's your cheering doing, Steve, I have no cheering. Yeah,
but I know I thought you had some cheerings.

Speaker 2 (04:39):
No, I have no cheerings. Hows how was life going? Bro? Good?

Speaker 1 (04:45):
All right, well I believe you as you took the
pregnant pause. Now with no children to say good, I'm still.

Speaker 7 (04:52):
Trying to make the cheddar and so forth though.

Speaker 2 (04:54):
Okay, well, you can't say e R when you say cheddar,
just be a at the end. I actually meant cheddar.
Steve is actually, uh, maybe maybe we use this platform
to help you.

Speaker 1 (05:07):
Steve has a lifelong obsession with collecting every ct I
record that's ever been in existence.

Speaker 2 (05:16):
Oh wow. Most importantly, you're looking for the CTI CTI
it's a not to be confused. Which one of you
doesn't know what ct I is? Oh?

Speaker 8 (05:26):
Okay, and everyone listening.

Speaker 1 (05:29):
No, but I felt that you were asking facetiously and
not literally.

Speaker 2 (05:35):
It's Creed Taylor.

Speaker 7 (05:36):
Okay, Well that's the famous it's one of his labels.

Speaker 2 (05:41):
It's a label that you're obsessed with. I am. I
think E C M is another one of yours, too, right, CM,
I'm still working on.

Speaker 7 (05:47):
But I think I have pretty much every ct I
record at this point except forty five's, which is what
Ameers talked anyway. Yeah, I love ct I, Yes, anything Retailer,
Kudu A and m us that A first and then
and before that verve.

Speaker 1 (06:03):
Is there is there a particular album that you're looking
for that you haven't fought found yet.

Speaker 2 (06:06):
Or yes, it's called Soul Flutes. Soul Flutes, Yeah, I
actually have that.

Speaker 11 (06:13):
Yeah, yeah, you said you might have.

Speaker 2 (06:15):
I'm actually going to my storage in a couple of days.

Speaker 7 (06:17):
Well, that's one of the forty fives that Quest gave me.
Was the Soul Flutes was uh it was Scarborough Fare
on the A side and Deo on the B side.

Speaker 2 (06:24):
I think the album is called trust in Me. Yeah,
was the name of the band. Yeah, yeah, wow, okay, And.

Speaker 11 (06:30):
It's like Herbie Hancock on keys and I think Ron
Carter is playing on it and he's yeah, every it's.

Speaker 2 (06:36):
Good to be in a room with people that actually
read the liner notes. That's awesome.

Speaker 1 (06:42):
That's That's the one thing I miss about record culture today,
mainly because no one in our in my life particularly
knows that I'm connected to a project with uh, William,
I forgot. Oh oh, I was about to say William
the Driver. No, I I forgot what title we have for?

Speaker 4 (07:02):
Uh?

Speaker 2 (07:03):
Paid Bill? I'm paid Bill? How you doing bro?

Speaker 8 (07:06):
Goodbye?

Speaker 2 (07:06):
Yeah.

Speaker 1 (07:07):
Well, I'm just saying that people don't read the credits,
so they don't know how the Hamilton's soundtrack came to be.

Speaker 8 (07:13):
So it's true, but people who listen to theater records
do read the credits because they like to read the
lyrics because it's.

Speaker 2 (07:20):
Not on it's not on streaming services.

Speaker 5 (07:22):
Yeah, they got to figure that out. I think that's
the next step in the whole streaming thing. They're getting
the lyrics together with the genius. They're kind of working
the lyrics out. Credits are still yeah, still, they haven't
done it yet.

Speaker 1 (07:33):
That's the main reason why I haven't really gone in
on credit check because I feel like no one's reading it.
And with social media and writing books, I don't feel
the need to pepper albums with the album credits as
much as I used to.

Speaker 2 (07:47):
So what's up though, Bill, House House, Life on the street.

Speaker 8 (07:52):
The streets Westchester, they're beautiful. I meant the street that
you work for, Oh, that street, that street's good.

Speaker 2 (08:03):
The muppets are human to me by the way.

Speaker 8 (08:04):
I know. I thought i'd just let the world know
that where do you work though I work at Sesame Street.
I'm the music director Sesame Street. Thank you for asking
and h quest love and I met because he because
he worked on the Hamilton record, but then he then
in turn wrote songs for Sesame Street.

Speaker 2 (08:19):
I asked you one too many questions about the actual muppets, like.

Speaker 8 (08:22):
There were real But I also learned later that you
watched Sesame Street more than my own children and probably
more than most people's children, which I was fully impressed by.
And your your Almanaki knowledge encyclopedic knowledge of music is
also in sort of the Sesame Street world too, which
I envy because often people ask me some deep dark
knowledge shit about Sesame Street and I have no idea

(08:43):
what they're talking.

Speaker 1 (08:44):
You guys had crazy breaks, and you know, I just
want to rummage through the entire collections.

Speaker 8 (08:50):
I would see about that the other day that in
the same way you're going to your storage set to
get the forty five's for Steve, we should go to
the Sesame Street storage set and just go back to Yahaha,
I know it exists. We could go and do it.
I think, Yeah, I truly let you because I.

Speaker 2 (09:01):
Want the end thing. That was my favorite. You know what,
I'm so mad freaking all right.

Speaker 1 (09:08):
So in the original like Roots demo, that was like
one of the songs that we rhymed over and we
put h. We put uh, Bobby Brown's hot pants, I'm coming,
break on top of it.

Speaker 2 (09:19):
Bobby Bird, Bobby drop It on the two. That was
that was project Drop It on the two. Yeah.

Speaker 1 (09:31):
Our first demo was the the end credits to Sesame Street,
the break that I guess M F. Doom rhymed over
uh and uh on the second JBC Force album.

Speaker 2 (09:46):
Uh.

Speaker 1 (09:47):
They that was the first single where they rhymed over
over that that break with the Bobby Bird hot pants
up coming.

Speaker 2 (09:53):
So yeah, man, it's a heartbreak. It was a heartbreak. Man,
Boss Bill, what's up? How's life?

Speaker 11 (10:02):
When you're not bossing me around? When am I not
bossing you around? I was like, man, life's great. Man,
I got somebody to boss around now and and and
and Boss Bill. He's he's very effective. I will say,
that's why he's here. Nah, he's very undisciplined.

Speaker 2 (10:20):
I'm very unfocused, you know, I look I'm Ronald McDonald
and Boss Bill is.

Speaker 8 (10:27):
The hamber ray Crop.

Speaker 2 (10:29):
Wait, how do you know ray Croft? Everybody knows who. Yeah,
I don't know ray Crop, ray Crock, ray Kroc. He
was the alder inventor of McDonald's. He was the guy.
How do you know the history of McDonald's.

Speaker 11 (10:41):
I've known that since I was a kid. I think
I did too.

Speaker 2 (10:43):
I read it in a book and you can just
go and jump on that unpaid bill.

Speaker 8 (10:46):
No, no, no, I'm pretty sure. Like there's a plaque
if you go to McDonald's that has him on it
that says, actually, I think I think there's I actually
knew that. I didn't know what ct I was, but
I knew about that ship.

Speaker 2 (10:57):
Well, I feel horrible that I didn't know that. You know,
all the weight that I put on over the years. Yeah,
he was the one.

Speaker 5 (11:06):
He was famous for the quote, I'm not in the
people think I'm in the said, people think I'm in
the hamburger business.

Speaker 2 (11:11):
I'm in the real estate business. That was his. That
was his.

Speaker 5 (11:14):
He write a book, he did. I read parts of it.
It was I mean, this was it was a long
time ago, but but yeah, he was dropping some real
game in there.

Speaker 2 (11:26):
He was on some pip shit.

Speaker 5 (11:27):
He basically was like, look like they talk about how
the McDonald's formula, I guess in the early days was
just really the book was like really thin, but now
the ship is like thick as hell. And basically his
mantra is his whole thing was like, look, this is
the way we do it, and y'all can either do

(11:47):
it like this and you can step the funk off.
And I respected that. So I forgot the name of
the book. I mean, this was just I was an undergrad.
It's called grinding it out. The making of McDonald's that
is there is this was. I mean, this was years ago,
but I feel.

Speaker 2 (12:01):
Really inadequate right now as foody as a human being.
I have Google.

Speaker 8 (12:06):
So your your knowledge of of some deep dark ship is.

Speaker 2 (12:13):
Real? Yeah, what history of quote?

Speaker 8 (12:20):
I'm looking at you quote them? Wow, they are all
in the standards, they except for themselves.

Speaker 2 (12:25):
I don't know.

Speaker 5 (12:28):
Nah, that was yeah, that was yeah, I remember that book. Yeah, man,
Ray Krot he's the dude. That's that's incredible. That's why
you guys are here to really pick up the slack man.

Speaker 2 (12:38):
Apparently I don't have Uh, did you know about ray
Krot Steve or you thank you for being honest and
saying that. I know that. Are you just saying that
to make me feel better?

Speaker 11 (12:50):
You know the characters, all the characters me too, only
Hamburglar who Grimace?

Speaker 2 (12:55):
Yeah, the mayor you have a little bit for a second,
I mean McDonald about the mayor. That going to be
just out of control mayor. I haven't seen Mayor mc
cheese in the second bro. Yeah he still I think
they didn't take him out of voted out. Yeah, he's
not impeached. Is the Hamburgler? Is he still around? Hamburger?

(13:17):
Hamburger is still around.

Speaker 7 (13:19):
He had a heart attack, but he's all right now,
okay hamburg heart attack.

Speaker 5 (13:24):
That's like the mate, what was the guy the what
was the Marlboro Man? Wasn't he the one to die
of cancer? That's just like when people die of the
thing they endorse. So really yeah, that's it is kind.

Speaker 2 (13:35):
Of what throw cancer.

Speaker 5 (13:36):
It was some kind of cancer, some kind of smoking
ass cancer. They got his ass up out of the
whatever it was.

Speaker 10 (13:41):
But that like.

Speaker 2 (13:44):
When he said that, did you envisit like Sam and
Simms team right right exactly? The horse tied to the horse,
the oh yeah, yeah, the horse did die. The horse
did die, I would hope so after years. But I
thought they knew the history of what the worst No, no,
it was I was thinking because now I'm thinking of

(14:05):
people who died from the products they endorsed, so supposedly
I think the guy that was the guy in the
actions that he'll be wrong.

Speaker 11 (14:14):
I just checked on the Marble Man and apparently four
different Marlborough men died of cancer. So you know, if
you if you get that job, it's a wrap.

Speaker 2 (14:21):
Yeah, your cursed. But is there still a quote unquote
Marboro Man they're dead?

Speaker 11 (14:27):
I don't know, because I know, like there was all
these all these regulations about advertising and smoking. You know,
they got rid of Joe Campbell and all that, so
maybe they got rid of the Marborough Man too, who knows.

Speaker 2 (14:36):
Yeah, they did get rid of Joe Cammel. Damn. That's right. Yeah,
all right, Well this is going to be a very
wod segue from music.

Speaker 1 (14:49):
Kind of want to do, uh a slight backtrack at least,
you know, all all history is either revisionist or subjective.
So you know, keep in mind that even though I
could speak with a great deal of authority and clarity.

Speaker 2 (15:08):
I could be wrong, but.

Speaker 1 (15:11):
The guest we have today, I feel is important because
I believe that he kind of ushered in what I
like to dub the Renaissance era of hip hop, and
a lot of times, especially people born after nineteen eighty five,
that hear a bunch of adults sort of moaning and

(15:34):
growing about classic hip hop and back in the day
and all that stuff, and you know, you don't understand
Eras it's my personal belief of how the era system
runs in hip hop is kind of a five year
increment in which I see things. I usually see the

(15:57):
evolution of hip hop in the second year of the decade,
the seventh year of the decade, and I guess if
you look in the seventies, I feel like the most
important as far as actual revolution and change of music.
Even though nineteen seventy seven isn't my personal favorite year

(16:17):
of the seventies, you can't deny the importance of nineteen
seventy seven.

Speaker 2 (16:24):
What is the importance in nineteen seventy seven?

Speaker 1 (16:27):
To me, probably the most important element of nineteen seventy
seven and music wasn't even music or a person. I
believe the velvet rope that separated you from the entry
to Studio fifty four in itself spawned three different self cultures,

(16:51):
not even by design. First of all, I'm in Studio
fifty four. If you've heard the folklore of you know,
like the sodom and gomor yeah, it's just it's it's
the the pen ultimate debaucherus. I mean everything from Bianca
Jagger coming in uh on nude on a horse or

(17:12):
anything that could happen. Uh, it's it's proprietors who built
Studio fifty four.

Speaker 2 (17:19):
Steve Bell and I. I.

Speaker 1 (17:22):
Yeah, that's where because now when you need to say
Ian Schrager, I think of hotels. But I keep forgetting
about Studio fifty four. But the point is that, uh,
well literally for Studio fifty four. I mean every time
that he had time off from shooting The Whiz, Michael
Jackson was in Studio fifty four, studying its infrastructure, studying

(17:44):
the DJ, studying the people, which I know played a
big role in how he crafted Off the Wall. Even
getting rejected by Studio fifty four gave Atlantic Records their
biggest selling hit, Cheek Chic So the Freak The Freak,
which was formerly fuck off from Freak out, freak out,

(18:06):
fuck off. Now Rogers and Bernard Edwards get rejected after
being invited by Grace Jones to come down to the club,
and of course they just go to the studio after
giving up and resigning to getting in, and they started
jamming about.

Speaker 2 (18:24):
Studio fifty four and called it funk off.

Speaker 1 (18:26):
And then ten minutes and two it they were like, wait,
this is a hit, freak out and then thus they're revenge.

Speaker 2 (18:34):
But not to mention.

Speaker 1 (18:36):
Lower East the village, the punk rock scene and the
downtown art scene spawns on the west side, you know,
the the a lot of underground gay disco clubs start formulating.
I mean they've been in existence, but Lara Lavan will

(19:00):
soon yeah, developed Paradise Garage in the starting in the
early eighties, but he was also diciphle of Studio fifty
four and kind of took their culture to the underground
set that wasn't allowed in that and of course up
in the Bronx. Yeah, hip hop now between seventy seven
and eighty two, which you know, I call the kind

(19:22):
of the post disco period of hip hop because a
lot of what they were rhyming over was just the
music at the time not to mention the five years
before that, seventy two to seventy seven, the music from
that period Africambotas finding these records in the basements and
and sort of recontextualizing them as new music. So now

(19:46):
a cut like give It Up or Turn Loose by
James Brown has.

Speaker 2 (19:48):
A whole new meaning life. Yeah in a B boy nightclub.

Speaker 1 (19:53):
So that's from seventy seven to eighty two. Of course,
you know rappers, the Light and I guess that the
two most important songs of that period.

Speaker 2 (20:03):
I would think at the end of the period.

Speaker 1 (20:06):
Is The Message by Grand Master Flash and the Furious Five,
the beginning of like Reality rap and Planet Rock, which
Arthur Baker and Ben Bata, leading to what I call
the Golden period eighty two to eighty seven enter Run DMC.

Speaker 2 (20:27):
Sort of like a slow well set or not quite yet.

Speaker 1 (20:32):
I would probably say that Marley mal is the figurehead
that really pushed it for production wise.

Speaker 2 (20:40):
Also, I got a shout out full force.

Speaker 1 (20:42):
I mean, they were the first to start using actual
breakbeats inside of their their records, and for me, the
classic period. When people refer to a classic period, it's
the next period. Eighty seven to ninety two. And the
reason why I say the classic period. If you're born

(21:05):
before eighty five, I'll say that there's a compilation, a
twenty five record compilation called Ultimate Beats and Breaks which
breakbeat shout out to Breakbeat Lou Flores. He compiles all
the break beats that Bam Bada used to spin at
his party, jams that you previously you previously couldn't find.

(21:27):
So if you're older, I'd say this is the the
the cliff notes of this is the cliff notes of breakbeats. Okay,
So a breakbeat, of course, is the good part of
the record. If there's a record that has a drum

(21:48):
break in it that you're able to rhyme over.

Speaker 5 (21:50):
An instrumental drum break, no singing over it, no right,
no keys, noot.

Speaker 1 (21:56):
So when you hear older producers refer to stuff like
impeach the Prey, they're not talking about getting rid of
your country's leader.

Speaker 2 (22:03):
They're talking about a certain break beat.

Speaker 1 (22:06):
Yeah, I mean, it's often debated, what's the greatest one
for the folklore of James Brown's Funky Drummer. I will
kind of say that I believe that impeach the President
is the ultimate break beat, which even when you beat
box as an older person, when you beat box, the

(22:26):
beat that you do is always you're doing in piece
to president, even without knowing it. So just saying that
where previously they used to take these records and watch
the labels off and you didn't have shizam to know
where these breaks were coming from, that b boys were
going crazy to lou Floor has now put compilations out and.

Speaker 2 (22:51):
Pretty much the hip hop nation ate it up from.

Speaker 1 (22:53):
Public Enemy to NWA. Anybody that was making stuff between
eighty eight and ninety two was you sing and abusing
ultimate beats and breaks, which leads to the next period,
which I call the Renaissance period. Now on the East coast,

(23:13):
this this this especially true on the West coast.

Speaker 2 (23:17):
Of course, doctor Dre will kind of.

Speaker 1 (23:21):
Take the rain and and and just just writhe till
the wheels fall off, or did they ever fall They
never fell off. But for the East Coast, what makes
our guest Dante Ross so notable was the fact that
he is starting to sign acts who they find ways

(23:45):
to make music that's outside of the ultimate beats and breaks.

Speaker 2 (23:52):
Paradigm or or or just the boundaries. There's a line that.

Speaker 1 (23:57):
Dress from Black Sheep says to take funky drumming, give
it back to James. So there was a period where
James Brown and George Clinton was they played out. It
was a played out idea because it got used and abused,
like people just make songs out of whole entire volumes.
I'll take the drums from track number two, and I'll
add the bassline from track number three, and then put

(24:19):
the keyboards and scratch in from track number five and
all these different combinations.

Speaker 11 (24:24):
Like you could pretty much predict what hip hop would
sound like for the next year by what Ultimate Breaks
and Beat album was out exactly.

Speaker 1 (24:30):
So by the time nineteen ninety two came, there were
a group of producers Large Professor Pete Rock, Yeah, Q Tip,
DJ Premier, Jazzy Jeff, I mean, a whole bunch of
cats that were using Jazz Records stuff that wasn't on

(24:52):
Ultimate Beats and Breaks and using it as their as
their their canvas and their backdrop. And that's what I
deemed the Renaissance period of hip hop. This is Quest
Left Supreme font Ticcolo, Sugar, Steve, Unpaid, Bill Boss, Bill Welcoming,
Doctor Renaissance himself give it up for Dante Ross ladies

(25:16):
and gentlemen.

Speaker 6 (25:18):
Yeah, yeah, what up? What up?

Speaker 2 (25:22):
Dante? I have so many frequent questions right now.

Speaker 6 (25:27):
Man, you know it's scary.

Speaker 1 (25:29):
No, I'm like, dude, you if I mean, everyone always
has this like, oh the soundtrack of my life.

Speaker 2 (25:36):
But I mean you you're like one of the unsung
heroes of the Renaissance period of hip hop, like you
were there to witness a lot of his historical firsts.

Speaker 1 (25:51):
So I'm gonna try to come off like a professional
journalist that I am and not not just a fan. Well, first,
I got to know about your beginnings, Like where did
you come from?

Speaker 2 (26:01):
So?

Speaker 6 (26:02):
I was born in San Francisco, California. I moved here
when I was two, and I grew up on the
Lower East Side of Manhattan. My mother was a school teacher,
and I grew up on Ninth Street and Avenue B
and then Second Street and Avenue B.

Speaker 1 (26:15):
So you were in the period of New York when
that part wasn't even Gingrified.

Speaker 6 (26:19):
Or Spanish was the language of my blood?

Speaker 2 (26:22):
Really, Oh wow, that's when it was alphabet city.

Speaker 6 (26:25):
I grew up in almost entirely Puerto Rican neighborhood, so.

Speaker 2 (26:30):
A lot of us.

Speaker 1 (26:30):
Would you know, there was a period where I just
thought a lot of the important white players of classic
hip hop, I just thought you all were Puerto Rican
because in my mind I couldn't even conceive, like I
thought the Beastie Boys are Puerto Rican.

Speaker 6 (26:46):
I mean I wanted to be Puerto Rican. I couldn't
wait to grow a mustache. My boys called me Serto
Rican growing up, which was better than jew who the
other one they called me?

Speaker 2 (26:58):
Ah? Wait these two?

Speaker 6 (27:02):
Like I definitely was. I passed for a Puerto Rican
whenever possible as a job.

Speaker 2 (27:09):
So when, so, how did music enter your life?

Speaker 6 (27:14):
I mean music was always in my house. My mom
loved music. She loves soul music like she loved Otis
Redding and Bill Withers, Aretha Franklin. And she also liked
singer songwriter stuff like Neil Young and Bob Dylan. And
my pops is a he's an old like jazz dude,
so he was like always into jazz. And I grew
up up the block from a famous jazz drummer named
Ed Blackwell, Okay, and he played with with uh or

(27:37):
Nette Coleman and a ton of people. And I was
in his house a lot, and I was just always
around music. Like I remember going with him and his
family even though, to Hero and Net andam Jam when
I was like eight nine years old, so you know,
and I lived on top of a social club and
my bedroom was right on top of the jew box
and they were playing stott Listics and dramatics everything that
was popping back then.

Speaker 2 (27:57):
At Edward de.

Speaker 6 (27:57):
Vaughan and Superfly. I went to see it when I
was nine or ten. My sister's boyfriend took me. And
I just was always around music. We had block parties
on my block, so I loved disco and all that
kind of music when I was young, and I just
grew up around it. It was always I'm the president
in every environment I was in as a child.

Speaker 1 (28:15):
So was it to the point where you felt like
this is a career or just like it just happened
to be around?

Speaker 6 (28:22):
Definitely not. I had no idea, but I did. I
always like read the back of record covers, and I
always wanted to know like Steve Cropper was, so I
was like, who's that Who's that guy? And Who's who's
Jerry Wexler, And I always wanted to know who people were.
You know who's this guy and that guy. Was just
fascinated by by the names, like I wanted to know
who the guys were who weren't the artist. And I

(28:44):
had a family friend, Joel Brodsky. He's a famous photographer
and he shot the Isaac Caye's movement album covers. He
shot all the stacked stuff. And because being around Joel
and he's coming to graff materia, I saw a lot
of the imagery he shot, like Funkadelic records and all
this stuff. So I was always into it. My sister's

(29:05):
eight years older than me too, and she was a
music head, so I always played her records whenever she
was jamming. So I basically got into See my sister
was madhood, true, she was like super hood when we
were growing up.

Speaker 1 (29:20):
Trickled down, well oftentimes I noticed that people that, especially
in music is today, a lot of it is trickled
down from.

Speaker 2 (29:31):
Older cousins, older siblings. So are you the youngest of
your brood.

Speaker 6 (29:34):
Or well, well, I have a younger sister, but I
wasn't raised with my half sister, So yeah, I am,
and I.

Speaker 2 (29:38):
Am asking what year were you born?

Speaker 6 (29:40):
Nineteen sixty five?

Speaker 2 (29:41):
Okay, okay, And I.

Speaker 6 (29:42):
Inherited my sister's record collection and much later on, like
Joel gave me a lot of his records as well,
so and I got my mom's records. I was a
lot of the records that I had came from my family,
you know that I still even have. And so I
was always like aware of records like just Begun and
Solamcosa and all those records. I listened to him as
a kid. I knew them all.

Speaker 2 (30:02):
So, so did you know about it from just having
it or just from a hip hop perspective?

Speaker 3 (30:09):
Now?

Speaker 6 (30:09):
I knew from having it, And because they had block
parties in my neighborhood and they'd always play those kind
of records just be Gone for sure, and stuff like
Funky Penguin and all those kind of records got played.
So you know, people were in the street dancing, and
it was just the music around me as a child.

Speaker 2 (30:23):
Do you remember the first album you purchased?

Speaker 6 (30:25):
Definitely Jackson five Christmas album.

Speaker 2 (30:27):
Wow Crying Crying? Yeah, I used to. My parents used
to make me perform that, uh, that Jermaine skit. Do
you have it?

Speaker 5 (30:39):
The Christmas album? I do not have the Christmas album.
My Christmas album was the James Bryan Christmas album.

Speaker 6 (30:45):
I mean I was a Jackson five fanatic.

Speaker 5 (30:46):
The Welfare one, Yeah, James, I was coming to the girl.

Speaker 2 (30:49):
That No, but there's one song where like James is
talking about like he's so down on his luck that
he even went to the welfare and couldn't find Santa Claus. Yeah,
that was my ers album. That one spoke to my reality.

Speaker 6 (31:04):
I was a Jackson five fanatic. I bought all the
forty five's ABC Want You Back at Bates Record Store
on Delancey Street. My sister would take megget my line.
I about forty five almost every week.

Speaker 2 (31:14):
How much were forty five back?

Speaker 6 (31:15):
Seventy five cents?

Speaker 2 (31:16):
Jesus Christ? Wow, So just a record, the weekend record
a week. That's amazing.

Speaker 6 (31:24):
I bought all the hits any you know Casey in
the Sunshine Band, sos or not.

Speaker 5 (31:28):
So.

Speaker 6 (31:28):
I spent on sending U so os, the Huges Corporation, right,
all those records, you know, I bought all George mcraig,
you know, whatever was popping right then, you know, whatever
was out, I bought whatever was on the radio. I
went and bought them.

Speaker 1 (31:40):
So that's that's probably the mom and pop record store.
To me, like the local mom and pop record store
is like the one.

Speaker 2 (31:51):
Element that I remember.

Speaker 6 (31:53):
The first rock record I ever bought was Queen Boheman Rhapsody.
I heard it on the radio. I lost my mind.
I couldn't I couldn't comprehend what it was. And I
listened to radio all day till they played it again,
and then I went and bought it a couple of
days later.

Speaker 2 (32:08):
So did you record songs off the radio? Did before?
Lining line out right there up against the speaker. Yeah,
you used to do that with soul Train used to
put the tap on audio records.

Speaker 6 (32:21):
So yeah, I wasn't that technically advanced that I was
in savvy?

Speaker 2 (32:25):
Yeah.

Speaker 6 (32:25):
Well we used to have soul trained parties too. Of
my friend William Dickerson's house down the block. Sultry will
come on a wheel and his mom would have a
soul train line.

Speaker 2 (32:32):
Wow. Really Yeah?

Speaker 6 (32:34):
Yeah. I grew up on a block there was like
seven Puerto Rican kids, two black kids and me.

Speaker 2 (32:38):
So you were just alone, just like same street it
was McDonald no, So you were just a lone white kid. Yeah.

Speaker 6 (32:51):
Man, it was all good though.

Speaker 2 (32:52):
Did they hesitate to remind you of that every time
I thought, I thought my middle name was white boy.

Speaker 6 (32:57):
So I was about fifteen, and.

Speaker 1 (32:59):
There was always there was always like one cool white
boy like on the block though, like even it's pretty
much white John was was a kid on in southwest Field.

Speaker 6 (33:08):
It's usually white Mike. Usually if you had a white mic.

Speaker 1 (33:12):
Now, did you have to overcompensate because Chappelle hilariously says
that whenever you see the one lone white guy hated,
had you know, telling what he did to get their respect?

Speaker 5 (33:23):
You could apply that to like light skinned black people too,
like all the revolutionary lights, like they be the hardest.

Speaker 2 (33:28):
Most revolutionary. Yeah, Huey Newton was.

Speaker 1 (33:31):
Yeah, besides Marcus Garvey and Martin Luther King, every revolutionary
we had was light skinned.

Speaker 6 (33:38):
Like in the seventies in New York, people just taking
your ship. You were just people was getting robbed like
you just got taken all the time if you didn't
step up. So you know, just had to be strengthen numbers,
and you had.

Speaker 2 (33:47):
To be you didn't have an older brother or older cousin.

Speaker 6 (33:49):
I had an older cousin. He was a dopian, so
he wasn't helping all.

Speaker 2 (33:53):
So you didn't have the luxury of him.

Speaker 4 (33:55):
Not.

Speaker 6 (33:56):
My sister went out this big black cat named Sam
Lewis and sam it down Samwich like I have respect
from Sam.

Speaker 2 (34:07):
Yeah, that's the one thing.

Speaker 1 (34:08):
You never wanted to hear it on the playground, which
was I'm gonna get my.

Speaker 2 (34:13):
Up like call it in the cavalry.

Speaker 6 (34:16):
I was a good athlete as a kid too, so
I always like had some death because of that. I
played at the boys club and I played basketball, baseball.
I was like a real jock when I was young,
so you know, I always got a pass because of that.

Speaker 1 (34:28):
All right, So as you got older, I mean, how
did I know that black parties were always you know,
in your life as you said, But I mean, did
they have him Sez there or it was just it.

Speaker 6 (34:41):
Was pre EMCs there was. It was really pre rap.
Rap wasn't on the map yet. And I remember, I
think I was in sixth grade when I first heard
rap and it was it was a sugar Hill gang.
And my friend Columbus van Horn told me that that
was that there was this dual grand Master Flash and
he got me a tape. It was in seventh or
sixth grade, and he lent me a tape, and that

(35:03):
tape was it was one of the flash shapes, I
think it was fifty beats, one of those, and had
birthday party on it. I remember that clearly, and I
used to just listen to it all the time. I
didn't want to give back his tape and finally had
to give it back to him because I didn't have
a tape to tape back then. I don't I don't
know if they were invented yet, but that's when I
really started to be enamored by what was becoming rap

(35:24):
and and kind of saw that there was something beyond
just that.

Speaker 2 (35:26):
Sugar Hill record really yeah.

Speaker 6 (35:29):
And then and then I heard led Zeppelin and and
all that shit, and I kind of like lost interest,
you know, because it was it was uptown. It was like,
you know, when sugar Hill came out, that was like
a novelty hit that wasn't like it. There wasn't a
lifestyle attached to it yet, at least where I lived, Like,
we didn't know about that really.

Speaker 2 (35:45):
So there was a period in which you were going
to just not go straight rock, but you discovered the Yeah.

Speaker 6 (35:52):
And I also like funk. I was really in the
funk too. I was into like Brothers Johnson and stuff
like that, Like I like Parliament, Brother Johnson, all that
stuff that was out at that time, because funk was
kind of like it was the middle ground, you know.
It wasn't like it was it was kind of half rock.
It was just kind of what you listened to back then.

Speaker 1 (36:10):
Funk was popping, and you weren't a DJ or had
aspirations to be one.

Speaker 2 (36:14):
No, you just happen to know a lot of information
about records.

Speaker 6 (36:17):
I know a lot about records. I always collected records.

Speaker 1 (36:22):
So that that must have been amazing too. At least
there was a point where it was a novelty for
a white person to know a lot about black music,
you think, at least around my way, Like I remember
being pressed with this kid, uh, I think Danny Digatanio.
I forget his last name, but he knew he knew no, no, no,

(36:49):
but he knew.

Speaker 6 (36:50):
Don't mess with my man, Columbus. If you call Columbus Columbus,
he'd be like, yo, my name is Jackie.

Speaker 2 (36:56):
But he knew T Connections is like groove to get down,
like something that was so obscure and so breakbeat black
that I was like, Wow, you you really know your records.

Speaker 6 (37:08):
I mean we used to roller disco when we were young,
like so that was also like you know, all those
records were records we were rocking with, so you know,
like Slave, Touch of Love, all the roller disco jams.

Speaker 2 (37:18):
So when you became a professional?

Speaker 6 (37:20):
Am I a professional? Has opened to debate?

Speaker 2 (37:23):
Man, Well how did how did you? Was def Jam
your first label or like did you yeah?

Speaker 6 (37:28):
Yeah, Actually the myth is I worked at Depth Jam.
I actually worked at Rush Productions. Then there was a
difference that not really there was like well like if
you worked at Rush you got Lere's lunch. If you
worked at Depth Jam, you got Russells.

Speaker 2 (37:48):
So what's the difference between Well yeah, I mean both
both logos held holy for anybody that was rushtown. Man,
So what was the difference between the two worlds?

Speaker 6 (37:58):
About what I just said? Lee Or is meaner than Russell?

Speaker 2 (38:04):
Really?

Speaker 6 (38:05):
Oh yeah? Please still even when he was younger, he
was a meaner than he's nice. Now we are so gentle. Now, yeah,
he's a nice I mean, I love Leor even when
he was mean Leor like that, Lear might not have
a life, So I love Leor he's he's my that's
my Rabbi.

Speaker 2 (38:17):
All right, so leor uh can I can I do
I have a liberty to say that Lear effectively replaced
Rick Rubin.

Speaker 6 (38:27):
I wouldn't say that there was there was. There was
a lot of there.

Speaker 2 (38:31):
Was Lear even at def Jam when Rick Rubin was
at the Helm. Not really so Rick and Rick never
went to the office.

Speaker 6 (38:37):
And and once Rick realized how important he was, he
he wasn't around a lot, and he wanted to make
rock records and and really the Beastie Boys and everything
that happened licensed to ill was the divide between Rick
and Lee. Or that's really when it all happened.

Speaker 1 (38:53):
Okay, So to update the those that are listening, Uh.
Of course, deft Jam is probably believe the most important
hip hop one hundred.

Speaker 6 (39:06):
It's also the first label or hip hop empty that
was cognizant that cool white people were an active and
participant and monetizable audience in rap music. And Russell's the
first guy to see that. You know. That's why he's
so smart. He realized he could sell run DMC to
white America, that he could sell rap music to the

(39:28):
middle of the country.

Speaker 2 (39:30):
I always wanted to know why he wouldn't put run
DMC on Deaf Cham and he already signed a profile profile.
They lost the contract that Yeah, they tried.

Speaker 6 (39:40):
They tried and and and those guys, you know.

Speaker 2 (39:42):
They lost years over that.

Speaker 6 (39:44):
They lost three years, kind of ruined their career.

Speaker 5 (39:46):
That was because it gives that gap between and back
from no, no what back mail. It was uh, raising
hell and tougher than leather. It was those years, hundred percent.

Speaker 2 (39:59):
That's when the ain't changed.

Speaker 5 (40:00):
Even in the book, the Run book, they talk about
it because at the time when that came out, they
were dated.

Speaker 2 (40:06):
They were done.

Speaker 5 (40:07):
They were like he said, DMC, he said, he knew
it was over when I think I guess the tumble
Leather came out and they were listening to Nation and
millions and they just liked.

Speaker 2 (40:20):
Percent right, Yeah, I mean yeah.

Speaker 6 (40:23):
They wanted to get him off there, and Corey Robbins
and c plot Nikki they had him, They had them
hemmed up. They couldn't get him off the label. But
but my my working at Deaf to him, like I so,
I grew up kind of with the Beastie boys. I
know him since junior high school and were all in
the punk rock and then hip hop came along and
we all got swept up in that. That was that
kind of took our lives. So it was really run DMC.

(40:44):
That was a band we heard and they sounded so
punk rock, like they were so abrasive and and it
was like they dressed like the audience. They didn't dress
like a Brokereick James. So so we were like, Yo,
this is the craziest shit ever. And that that was
really what like, that's hooked us for life, That's what
it was.

Speaker 2 (41:02):
Yeah, cats have to know that. You know, early hip
hop was just mirroring and p funk was still a thing,
so you know, I mean people in Africa, Membata and
then were trying to emulate the crazy d yeah fire
ship exactly.

Speaker 1 (41:19):
If anything, Run DMC was. They were what Nirvana did
to metal bands in ninety one.

Speaker 6 (41:26):
They change, and it happened to run DMC.

Speaker 11 (41:29):
Yeah.

Speaker 6 (41:30):
Cats, you know, Cat showed them the door, you know.

Speaker 2 (41:32):
Because they stopped because cats stopped, hollering stopped. It was
intricate and you know that was it every five years.
But yeah, but back to Leoris so okay, so Leor
what was his position was, I.

Speaker 6 (41:46):
Mean it was the president of Rush Productions a rush
Town management.

Speaker 2 (41:50):
Okay, so he was did he hire you?

Speaker 6 (41:53):
So I got hired? This is the craziest. So I
got hired because my friends showing caras off rust in
Peace aka the Cat, and he roll managed the Beasties.
He was like my best friend and uh he plugged
me with the job. Ricky Powell went on tour with
the Beasties. I stayed and my lady wouldn't let me
go into I had a girlfriend at the time when
I lived with him. She was like, no way, you're

(42:14):
going on tour with those guys.

Speaker 2 (42:16):
I could imagine because I met Ricky Powell in his
later years. Ricky Powell was like, well by then he
was there there. Uh, I'm about to say yes. Well,
they called him the trim coordinator. Dave Skill can rest
in Peace still was the trim coordinator. You're right, and Dave.

Speaker 6 (42:37):
Dave was the coolest cat ever. Dave and Ricky were
like there, you know, I love Ricky, but Dave was
infinitely cool than Ricky could ever be.

Speaker 2 (42:44):
I met.

Speaker 6 (42:45):
It was they've had game for days.

Speaker 2 (42:47):
So yeah, I guess I met the Beastie boys in there.
Like responsible Buddhists.

Speaker 6 (42:52):
You met him in the Dalai Lama year.

Speaker 2 (42:54):
Yeah, like Vegan stage, and they were all responsible and
respectable and everything, and I was looking for were like
the beer cans and the Phallan symbol and.

Speaker 6 (43:02):
That's what house the pain in them told me too.
They wanted tour the Beastie Boys and they wanted to
like where's exploding Dick. Yeah, they were like, yo, what
do you mean, Like, you guys don't go out and
get drunk and be people like you don't go craze.

Speaker 2 (43:13):
So by that point, yeah, he he was taking photos.
He was taking a lot of photos.

Speaker 6 (43:18):
He was also, uh, he was being nefarious. I'll leave
it at that, But I mean I.

Speaker 1 (43:24):
Could imagine how crazy Ricky Powell was during that license.

Speaker 2 (43:30):
So you went on license ill tour.

Speaker 6 (43:32):
I was on the first leg and then I came home.

Speaker 2 (43:34):
Yeah, what was that?

Speaker 12 (43:35):
Like?

Speaker 2 (43:36):
What was that like?

Speaker 6 (43:37):
It was a little whild man. I remember I went
to La with with Eric Is, a graphic designer, and
we hey, we ran around with them dudes, and we
got them a skateboard deal that never came out. And
that was like the first thing I ever did in
the business when I first got a job. And I
guess I'd hit a home run and they let me
hang out for a while, and then I went home
and stole Ricky Palell's job. Basically, Sean was like, yeah,

(43:57):
Dante should do it, and I was off ae flunky
and uh. But I went out every night. I went
to night clubs every night, and I started to hang
out with Russell a lot and all those guys. They
took me out and and it always asked me what
records were the records, like what's popping up here? What's
I'll go to Latin quarters spots they weren't going to,
and they always want to pick my brain. And I
realized like, hey, I might know something. I might maybe

(44:20):
be an A and R guy. And Bill Stephanie aka
Mister Bill wanted to hire me as an A and
R guy, and they didn't give me the job, but
he always was like, yo, I want to hire you.
He always told me you you really know music. And
he was like one of the first guys who really
let me know, and and and and the guy Chuck
D two. Chuck D and me would rap about music forever.

(44:41):
So so I give a lot of props to Chuck
D two.

Speaker 2 (44:44):
Bill work at def JAMPI did he was.

Speaker 6 (44:46):
I think he was. I think President Biller was a publisher, Yeah,
I think I think he might have been a president
of Bill Stephanie, mister Bill.

Speaker 2 (44:54):
And he grew up a public enemy. Wow. So just
during that period, like what I mean, I mean it
was me.

Speaker 6 (45:02):
Faith Newman, Bill Stephanie, Bill Adler, Hank Chocolb. You all
worked in the office for your Cohen and like you
never knew who was coming in office. Run came in
one day and yelled at l like it was just wild.
Like it was like there was antics going around. And
I became friends with jam Master J. I used to
play ball with J a lot because I was like
I was really into playing basketball back then.

Speaker 2 (45:22):
Were you official? Did you have a first edition Deaf
jam jacket?

Speaker 6 (45:26):
I did. I had a Burgundy jacket for sure.

Speaker 2 (45:28):
So did that mean everything?

Speaker 6 (45:31):
That meant you could get into any club for free
and definitely meant that chicks were checking for you. So
in the coincide, I was in the Stuicy Ad back
then too. So between those two things, between those two things,
it was like I was like nineteen twenty years old,
you know, I could do a lot of things. I
was brand named below Fourteenth Street.

Speaker 1 (45:52):
So you mentioned the Latin Quarter, Latin Quarters, was I
I've never heard a club more name dropped in acid
hip hop.

Speaker 6 (46:00):
I mean, because that's where the changing the guard comes from,
That's where that next wave came to.

Speaker 2 (46:03):
Can you tell me what a typical night was in
the Latin Quarter?

Speaker 6 (46:06):
Typical night of the Latin Quarters was?

Speaker 2 (46:08):
What night was it?

Speaker 6 (46:09):
It was? It was Friday? Was the night you wanted
to go so red alert DJ and and it was
always Brooklyn violator beef that was always possible to jump off.
So he said beef beef, like serious beef, like for real,
real live beef. Because when you went to rap shows
back then, it was dangerous like and and and you
didn't care. I mean, I didn't have nothing to take.

(46:30):
What do you can take my deaf jam backet? No,
I didn't have. No, I had thirty six dollars.

Speaker 2 (46:34):
Man. So someone would come in profiling light with a
bunch of slick ricked gold on they.

Speaker 6 (46:39):
Were taking your ship? Was it for Green Mission Posse?
All the dudes on the back of Eric's album, they
might grab your ship or some other people, but the
A Team Cane's people, you know there was. There was
a lot of people out there who were doing a
lot of things, and I was friends with Red, so
so I had to pass. I didn't have to check
my coat. I could go upstairs hang out with Red.

(47:00):
That's how I met I met, That's I met d Nice.
I knew karras one back then. Search is the only
other white dude I've ever seen that. Oh and Dave
Funk and Klein Rest in Peace. You know it was
it was a wild environment, but uh, you know, you'd
see like a great act might to justice and Kara
rest would come out. I seen Dougie battle Bismarcky on

(47:20):
the beat box at the anniversary and Dougie pulled out
the harmonica and slayed biz what played a harmonic MV
Bucks at the same time and did the cool ast
Dougie dance and he was just I mean, doug to
me is the greatest student. Didn't have the biggest record ever,
because he was the best performer pretty much. I mean,
he was amazing. I said MC lights for a show.

(47:42):
I seen Kane DJ for Schante. He was he was
the DJ back then. He was DJ for everybody before
he was an artist and my friend, my friend Key.
Oh he's another white guy, but he's he was so
extra extra.

Speaker 2 (47:54):
Uh.

Speaker 6 (47:54):
My man Blake Latham, he told me that Kane was
the best rapper in Brooklyn, and I wanted to bring
Kane in the office and and Russell and said, noah,
he's fucking with flat tying them and we can't steal
artists because we're doing their deal at Warner Brothers. I
remember that Chris Rocky used to do comedy up there.
I mean it was you know, Carris, one of.

Speaker 2 (48:11):
Them, and it was just club like how many people.

Speaker 6 (48:14):
Maybe a thousand people, not even maybe No, forty six
Street right right there, right there it was. It was
you know what's stairs? It was Heather Hunter was the
co check girl.

Speaker 2 (48:23):
What's the soul food? What's the soul food spot on
forty fifth Uh.

Speaker 6 (48:28):
Yeah, I mean Popeys Virgils.

Speaker 2 (48:30):
Ye, that is the Latin Quarter. No, well, at least
across the street. The hotel That's.

Speaker 6 (48:35):
Quarter was on Broadway. It was right on the block
between Broadway and Seventh. It's not there anymore. It's a
parking lot now in a big building. It's been torn down.

Speaker 2 (48:43):
So it's not on forty sixth Street or forty fifth,
forty six.

Speaker 6 (48:47):
It's not there anymore. Popey's was right across the street.
McDonald's was.

Speaker 2 (48:50):
I remember where the oh guys in bad that. I
remember where the Popeyes is.

Speaker 6 (48:55):
So I saw Salt and Pepper. I've seen Sandy get
a chain take it right in front of Popeyes. It
was like, yeah, that's a nice thing. Bang Is that
just typical?

Speaker 2 (49:03):
Like that was how it was.

Speaker 6 (49:05):
I mean, you know, you know who I knew back then,
Clark Kent. That was my man from back then. He
was always the coolest cat. He was cool back then.

Speaker 2 (49:13):
Love Clark. He got me my deal with Nike.

Speaker 6 (49:15):
That's my big guy, Clark, that's my brother.

Speaker 2 (49:18):
So you would go there just on the weekend, I know.

Speaker 6 (49:20):
Every Friday. Every Friday for about a year, I go
to Latin Quarters and it was just a wild spot.

Speaker 2 (49:25):
Other spots to this.

Speaker 6 (49:26):
Red Parrot was was popping on fifty seven occasionally that
that became the Copa. Then there was downtown parties like Payday,
Milky Way.

Speaker 2 (49:38):
Man.

Speaker 6 (49:38):
I mean I went to like I went everywhere. Man,
I went to the rooftop, I want to everything, you know.
I went to skate Key.

Speaker 2 (49:44):
So was there a difference between the Harlem parties and
the oh hell yeah, So what's a rooftop party. What's
the difference between I mean cars one go to Harlem and.

Speaker 6 (49:55):
Of course he would he would kill it. I mean
the rooftop was like, for one hundred percent, I'm the
only white guy there. And downtown parties, you know, they
had much hotter girls, less threat of violence.

Speaker 2 (50:07):
You know, the rooftop was more.

Speaker 6 (50:11):
Quarters. No, Quarters was the most violent because dudes from
Brooklyn went go to the rooftop right because they didn't
check your coder to get in or anything to check
your coat everywhere, except if you knew people at the quarters,
you have to check your coat. So if you came,
if you came with red alert, you don't have to
check your coat. Ah, depending who you came in the
door with. So you know it was hierarchy. So this

(50:33):
guy rend the land Quarter's name is Mike, Mike Goldberg.
He was a Jewish guy. He'd be at the door
count he'd be at the door and he would all
and this dude pee we got killed was the bouncer
in this dude house. And I knew them all. They
would all be like, oh you're good. Who you with like,
come on, you're good. So I got to know them all, sure,
so much history and quarters were I saw everybody. That's

(50:54):
where everyone came from. Though karras One came Bismarcky Jewish
crew rock him everybody.

Speaker 2 (51:00):
All right? Can I ask you? Have you seen somebody.

Speaker 1 (51:05):
Not make a good impression on the Latin Quarter club
that otherwise?

Speaker 6 (51:09):
Because hammer, wow, wait a minute, new music seminar formed
at the Latin Quarter in the New Music Seminar when
the Quarters wasn't even a spot no more, and he
didn't rock. I mean you, is this the chronological orders bad?
But I know Grand Pooball was there too because we
were laughing.

Speaker 11 (51:26):
So would this would possibly be the incident that's being
referred to at the of the turn this mother out video.

Speaker 2 (51:32):
You ain't hting a new hitting shout? Okay? So that
was eighty seven, eighty eight, eighty.

Speaker 6 (51:37):
Eighty eight because Cors was on the way down.

Speaker 2 (51:39):
Wow, because this album was eighty eighty seven. So in
my in my head, I'm thinking like you're speaking of
nineteen eighty eight, eighty nine to ninety, so you's saying
that it was on the decline even in eighty eight
eighty eight.

Speaker 6 (51:53):
It was, it was on it. It was starting to
be a little too violent. Little it just wasn't popping
like it was because you could go to downtown on
parties and it wasn't as violent, right, and there was
more girls.

Speaker 2 (52:03):
All right. So a nerd like myself, where would I go?

Speaker 6 (52:07):
What year.

Speaker 2 (52:09):
Eighty nine? Now? Mind you if.

Speaker 6 (52:14):
You might go to Nels or you might go to
to Milky Way, depending what you want to do.

Speaker 2 (52:24):
McDonald all right, So should we get into block of
music before we start talking about his life? As in
r Yo man I I gotta geek out just on
on hipp hop folklore. This is Dante Ross on Quest
Love Supreme only on Pandora. I guess we're gonna go
into uh some st fifty stimulating what is stimulated dummies?

Speaker 6 (52:50):
Give us a name because he was like, yeall some
stimulated dummies. When we were working with l O. N.
S way back, who were the stimulated dumb was me,
my partner John Gamble, and my partner GiB did John
and uh we all had various roles at different times.
John was the engineer, me and GiB You war the diggers.

Speaker 2 (53:07):
Wow, that's incredible.

Speaker 13 (53:13):
Three strikes the fop dous three strikes, the fove thousand three.

Speaker 2 (53:18):
Strikes, the FOP thousand three.

Speaker 13 (53:20):
Strikes, the five douts three strikes, the five thousand three strikes,
the FOP thousand three strikes, the FOP thousand man starting
FOP thoutans ritchy written.

Speaker 2 (53:50):
So that was three strikes, five thousand third base on
Quest Love Supreme, produced by our guest Dante Ross and
the Stimulated Dummies that' Steve fifties. So I guess we

(54:11):
should start.

Speaker 6 (54:11):
You know what those drums are?

Speaker 2 (54:12):
Right? Uh M?

Speaker 6 (54:16):
I just capt a clean copy of the forty five
again too?

Speaker 2 (54:19):
What is it?

Speaker 6 (54:21):
Super Fine from behind Woman by the Cleveland Wrecking Crew.

Speaker 2 (54:24):
Wow, I never guess that.

Speaker 6 (54:26):
I was a large the other day and I was like,
you got this?

Speaker 2 (54:28):
He was like, damn, so you're still digging.

Speaker 6 (54:31):
I still dig for forty five is larger than Diamond
got me back into it recently.

Speaker 2 (54:35):
I'm yeah, I've running around again.

Speaker 6 (54:38):
The large bro is like he just he took me back.

Speaker 2 (54:41):
Yeah.

Speaker 1 (54:42):
I thought I was out the game of digging, and
then I saw Diamond cutting, Diamond cutting, uh these records
on YouTube forty five and then like and then it
pulled me right back into it.

Speaker 6 (54:55):
Like he was cutting the booker t he was killing it.

Speaker 2 (54:59):
I want to get out. I literally wanted to get
out the game of digging. And now it's calling me.

Speaker 6 (55:06):
It's I'm just on the forty fives.

Speaker 2 (55:09):
Yeah, no, same here, like I'm only collecting forty fives now?
And is it because we're bored or we just called
we're bored?

Speaker 6 (55:15):
I bought every sneaker. I don't need any more. Jordan's
got a house.

Speaker 2 (55:21):
What am I going to do?

Speaker 5 (55:22):
So?

Speaker 2 (55:22):
How did you become an R? Was it by designer? Just?

Speaker 4 (55:25):
Nah?

Speaker 6 (55:25):
It was the fault man. I was just I knew
music and I was always around and and uh daddy
O from stettsosnic He loved me. That's that's my og.
And he they offered him a job at Tommy Boy
and he plugged me in and he was like, I
don't want to do it, but my little homie right here.
And I went to meet Monica and she liked me
and I had a second interview. She played me De

(55:48):
La Soul's demo and I lost my mind and she
hired me A couple of days later. This Monica Lynch, yep,
Monica Lynch was also She's like one of my mentors.
She's one of the smartest people and the most intense
people I've ever worked with. She's a wonderful person.

Speaker 2 (56:03):
So well, not what was it like working at Tommy Boy.

Speaker 6 (56:07):
Tommy Boy was wild?

Speaker 2 (56:08):
That was.

Speaker 6 (56:10):
Man, That was a wild job.

Speaker 2 (56:11):
Man.

Speaker 6 (56:11):
I was a wild kid back then too. It was
like a whole different life.

Speaker 2 (56:14):
The one thing that post told me that blew my mind.

Speaker 6 (56:18):
I'm scared right now.

Speaker 2 (56:21):
The one thing that posted news told me that blew
my mind about making.

Speaker 1 (56:27):
Three feet High and Rising was the fact that they
made that entire record for about twenty five thousand dollars,
which if you know what record budgets are, I mean,
even in the height of over indulgent recording budget.

Speaker 2 (56:49):
Figures. Let's let's pick it, let's say nineteen ninety four.
If you're successful.

Speaker 1 (56:57):
R and B act I know that in Vogue was
I think that the second budget for their budget for
Funky Devers was like in the area of two million,
whereas you know, a cat like Michael Jackson, you know,
I'm certain that his budget was closer to ten million
for like even a compilation like History History.

Speaker 2 (57:19):
But somebody had to pay for that statue.

Speaker 6 (57:25):
That's a lot of animals.

Speaker 1 (57:28):
Yeah, but how in God's name were these budgets? Being like,
that's the first thing I would ask. I mean, one
of my favorites about like what were the recording budgets?
Like cnipers Hill told me like, well, we had a
good budget ninety thousand, and I'm like what.

Speaker 6 (57:44):
Yep, how I mean? People were just so happy to
get on, you know what I mean, And studio time
was cheap. And the crazy thing about Daylave is they
made most of the record in the studio. It wasn't
like they came with like anything. We were all recording analogs.
Everything's done in real time, you know. And they came
in with the records and sampled half of them right there.
It wasn't like Paul was showing up with discs. It

(58:06):
was like most of that stuff got made right then
and there.

Speaker 2 (58:09):
And with the samples. How did you guys handle that
at all the time? Well, we cleared, we.

Speaker 6 (58:12):
Cleared all except one. The one we got caught for.

Speaker 2 (58:19):
It doesn't count.

Speaker 6 (58:20):
And I mean, the one thing I'll say about Dayla
and Paul is they had a lot of those ideas already.
And and you know this, you know this question It's
like you have a lot of that stuff mapped out
in your head already. You know, I'm gonna use this
with this, with this, with this, with this. So when
you get in the studio, because you don't have any
home equipment, you do your stuff, man quick. You know

(58:40):
exactly what you're gonna use. It's kind of like you've
already sorted it out in your mind, all right.

Speaker 1 (58:45):
So we have Bob Power, uh, also on Quest Love Supreme,
and I was trying to get him.

Speaker 6 (58:51):
So Powers did some of that record, not that much though, right,
But my.

Speaker 2 (58:54):
Point was that the most important element of what made
three feet High and Rising three and Rising, or the skits,
and I was trying, I mean the way that it felt,
It felt like it was happening in real time. Right,
It felt spontaneous, Right, but I know that you know,
MIC's have to be set up and samplers have to

(59:17):
be pressed and looped and all these things. So something
like take it off, Uh, just a.

Speaker 1 (59:27):
Mindless litany of of of of them dissing fads and
hip hop sounds. Rather, it sounds that spontaneous at the time,
or even can you keep a secret? Where I first
heard Dante is a scrub. I mean, why did they
call you a scrub by the way, because this is great?
So like you were you the boss Bill of three Rising.

Speaker 2 (59:50):
I don't know about that.

Speaker 6 (59:51):
I was really in a playing sports back then and
just athletic, like it's like a skateboard and all that.
And we want to play basketball in LA with some
the rhyme syndicate and those dudes couldn't play ball. I
was like, Jesus christy fucking scrubs. I was like, look
at you guys, like really, And that's really where it
came from. And then another time we went to Houston
it was like one hundred and ten degrees and they

(01:00:13):
wouldn't go swimming, and I like, you know, I was
in the pool like are you kidding me? Scrubs, Like
you ain't going in the water, and they like wouldn't
go in the water. So that was that, and that's
they were like, Okay, we got you.

Speaker 2 (01:00:23):
So when they're turning this into you guys like I mean,
how how do you an r three ft high?

Speaker 6 (01:00:29):
I mean I was there the whole time they made
it pretty much, so it wasn't like they were turning
it into me. I was like I was in the
studio like ninety percent of the time, and and we
were just namored. Because the first two singles had hit.
We knew we had something. And the biggest quandary was
do we put the album out in October November? We
save it to next year, and we pushed it back.

Speaker 2 (01:00:48):
I was gonna say, you released it in January of
eighty nine.

Speaker 6 (01:00:51):
Yeah, because we didn't want to put it out at
the end of the year and the fourth quarter and
have it miss and and you know, me myself and I.
It's funny because that was not one of the first
songs they gave us, But when we heard it, we
knew what was a hit and what was What was
ironic is that the first two records we had, we
had K Day on retainer basically, and so they had
they had a big West Coast audience. We would go

(01:01:13):
to k every time we're out there. I one with them.
We did shows at World on Wheels, which was the
craziest crypt out spot ever, and man, we had an
audience out there, so.

Speaker 2 (01:01:22):
That that was the Latin quarter of the West Coast.

Speaker 6 (01:01:26):
That's when we first seen Gang Bang and me and
Pos almost got arrested Jay walking on the Street. We
seen dude of Jerry Crows all that, I met Dre
back then I met Drey and and ice Cube. It
was it was bugged out. We met seven eight three,
We met Cypress before they were Cypress, like all that.

Speaker 2 (01:01:40):
Oh cool and Cali I forgot about seven three. That
was the Alchemist. That was mugs. Oh sorry. Alchemist was like,
we don't, we don't know, look alike? Who was who
it was? I was hooligan hooligans. Damn, I'm tripping. I'm
gonna getting my West Coast history mixed up? Bludfoot Wow.

Speaker 12 (01:02:00):
So how.

Speaker 2 (01:02:04):
I mean, how do you sell? They are sold? Because well, we.

Speaker 6 (01:02:06):
Already had a captive audience, so it wasn't a hard sell.
That's you know, that's what you're taking out of the equation.
They already had a validated fan base. We knew it.
Those singles were selling. But we were on the radio
daytime radio in New York, in LA We knew they
could sell tickets. People were going to see them. When
Deylas Soul played, everyone would go to see them. They
were the coolest band. So to us it was more like, oh,

(01:02:30):
where's the single? We have a single, Now, how do
we run with this, Let's run and Monica came up
with a lot of the imagery. She she just poured water.
She like she put growth powder on like what they
already had, Like she threw grow lights on the hippie image,
you know, and they kind of that was them naturally.
They were just different. And she instead of you know,

(01:02:51):
pondering it, she was like, oh, let's run with this.
This is great. And until her credit, she somehow knew
that collegiate White America eat it up. And they did.

Speaker 2 (01:03:01):
I mean it went.

Speaker 6 (01:03:01):
It went quick, man, it was it was It was
not slow, like really they they were on. They were
on from from the minute the album came out.

Speaker 2 (01:03:09):
Well yeah, I always say that that album literally cut
a lot of the bullying around my neighborhood off. It
became cool to be weird. Yeah, literally because even before
like before then, uh, my only black hippie reference was
like maybe Princess Sign of the Times period, of which

(01:03:32):
it was still shaky in the hood.

Speaker 1 (01:03:34):
But once eighty nine rolled around and Kat saw me,
especially after the potholes in my lawn video, they were
just like, oh, oh okay, you crazy like the daylight guys,
and like that was my past like suddenly I became cool.

Speaker 2 (01:03:49):
It was validated. Yeah, totally.

Speaker 6 (01:03:52):
I mean they were just dressing like a lot of
kids were dressing downtown. They were just from Long Island.
But it wasn't rap dudes dressing like that. It was
kids who were younger and more progressive.

Speaker 1 (01:04:00):
But the thing was because of the defensive nature of
the Lost Soul is dead, I am too, am I
to believe that they did more fighting.

Speaker 2 (01:04:10):
Yeah, defending themselves.

Speaker 6 (01:04:11):
I mean, if you ever talked to Pass, you know,
I mean, man, me and Mace got.

Speaker 2 (01:04:17):
Yeah, they got kicked off the nichel. How do you
get kicked off the ll to it?

Speaker 6 (01:04:20):
I mean they were got in a fight. They were
always you know, they weren't having it like Mace's you know,
he was all of them. I mean, they're not soft kids,
you know what I mean. I mean, you know, they're
still young black men, even if they have some hippie imagery,
they're like still down to go for that.

Speaker 2 (01:04:31):
Were they getting in fights because people because of.

Speaker 6 (01:04:33):
The people tried to test them for sure? For sure? Wow,
nobody in the BK lounge just as well, you know,
I mean, granted that's funny because because Pass hit me
up today. I just those That's one of the greatest
groups I ever worked with. They're like just even now,
they're just such great rappers. And that's the other thing.

(01:04:53):
They invented an entire new way of rapping, right like
they were unique and original. They weren't. They were sands
cliche and tough guy bullshit.

Speaker 2 (01:05:02):
So the whole time, there wasn't any fear of this
might not make it or.

Speaker 6 (01:05:08):
Not really man because we we knew we had a
captive audience. It wasn't it.

Speaker 2 (01:05:11):
You know.

Speaker 6 (01:05:12):
We did two singles before you got to Remember and
both those singles hit plug tuning in and poddles hit.
We knew we had something.

Speaker 2 (01:05:19):
Uh. Also, I guess Latifa, you did you a r
her album? Yeah?

Speaker 6 (01:05:24):
No, I didn't do the whole album. I signed her.
I signed her because of Latin quarters. Forty five King
came up to me and knew who I was and
played me a beat tape, and I knew who he
was because his promas weren't read alert and him and
Fact five Freddy called me up like I think it
was that Monday on the phone and played me a
bunch of Latifa records over the phone, And I don't
know why Freddy didn't come to the meeting that week,

(01:05:45):
but they came without Freddy, and he brought the whole
flavor unit and we played around. Now it was four
or fives a patchy patchy, No, it's just a patchy Ltzi,
Marky Fresh, Who's who's a slept on maybe member? And
forty five King and and we decided we're going to
sign on the tief. I called Monika and and I said,

(01:06:05):
play that again. We played it again and we ended
up signing her. We signed up for peanuts too.

Speaker 2 (01:06:10):
Wow.

Speaker 6 (01:06:10):
And and I will tell you this, she's wanted. Unlike Dayla.
She exuded superstar energy from the minute I met her.
She had a million dollar smile, and she was funny
and engaging. She had it like I was like this,
she got it. She could sing hi rap too. I
didn't know. She didn't write raps back then, so.

Speaker 2 (01:06:30):
She knew instantly. Blamo like we were like, I'm a star.

Speaker 6 (01:06:34):
Yeah, I don't know she knew it, but we knew it.

Speaker 2 (01:06:36):
Did you sign anyone else? Tommy Boyd?

Speaker 6 (01:06:38):
Is your underground? But then I left. I didn't. I
didn't stay to make the record. I found what you
liked because I didn't make any money.

Speaker 2 (01:06:44):
How they how do they come across your radar?

Speaker 6 (01:06:46):
Even this dude named Adrian Gregory who had TNT Records.
I knew him from from Cats in the Bay. I
have a lot of family in the Bay and I
met him when I was in the Bay. I can't
remember what I was doing. And he was like, yo,
I got this record, do what you Like and bang
bang bang, like yeah, exactly. And he was working with
Digital back then, and they gave me. They had Underwater

(01:07:07):
Rhymes was the record he gave me. And then he
sent me do what you Like. And then I was like, oh,
this one's popping, and we signed him. And I played
do what you Like in the commers room at Tommy
Boy for Daylight and they were like you better sign that.

Speaker 2 (01:07:19):
Wow.

Speaker 6 (01:07:20):
And then we signed them. And then you know, I
wasn't making any money. I started getting offers to get
jobs elsewhere. I almost went to work at Capital for
my man Tim Carr, who stole the Beasties from from
Russell and them like a thief in the night. My
man he tried to get me over there and and
and I didn't take the job. And I remember he
had signed Mantronics and and he played me man Tronics

(01:07:41):
new music, and I was like, I'm not feeling it.

Speaker 2 (01:07:43):
Was that the Brooklyn way to get into.

Speaker 6 (01:07:49):
Yeah yeah it wasn't popping though.

Speaker 2 (01:07:51):
I like that one, like that one.

Speaker 6 (01:07:54):
I like Joyce Simms. Yeah, I liked all that. I
think that's that's hop. But so people were offering me jobs.
Ended up taking a job at Electric because I like
the guy. I mean it was Tommy Silverman upset or well,
Tommy Silverman was mad cheap, like I'm gonna I'm gonna
just say it straight up. My lawyer was Andy tavel
at the time, and we wanted to get me like

(01:08:17):
forty thousand a year, and he offered me like thirty.
I was making like twenty five. Maybe it's thirty something.
And he offered me a company credit card too, and
and my man was like Andy Tavl was like, I
got mad in the meeting and he was like Dante, Relax.
And after the meeting he took me out. He said,
that guy's small potatoes. There's a whole world for you
out here. Relax. You have a big record. We're gonna

(01:08:40):
we're gonna, I'm gonna shake some trees an article mentioned
me in the New York Times, and he started calling people.
People started offering me jobs. Russell tried to get me
to work there again. Capital offered me a job, and
I took a job. Literally, I took a job at
Electric Records cause I really liked the boss, Bob Krasnow.
He told me he had signed Parliament Funkadelic back in

(01:09:01):
day ambertra Pryor and I had had I had a
three finger ring on and he took my ring off.

Speaker 2 (01:09:07):
Oh.

Speaker 6 (01:09:07):
He asked me if he could try to ring on
and he gave me some big diamond pinky ring and
I was like, yeah, we should trade rings. He's like,
I don't think so, kid, And I just thought his
whole his whole style was he was real cool and uh.
He offered me real money, and I decided that's where
I wanted to go. So you're saying that a hip
hop A and R, there was no such was a
hitting off an R yet. Okay, So what would a

(01:09:31):
regular an R If you're working at Atlantic sixty to
a Hundle as a director maybe sixty maybe one hundred.

Speaker 2 (01:09:40):
So the cat that like signs led Zeppelin or she
back then they're making at least six figures. Yes, at
least and this is only because Tommy Boy was a
small label. And why why did they may like when
did the Warner deal go down?

Speaker 6 (01:09:55):
Like why Brothers deal was already in place, so even then, yeah,
and Monica. The crazy thing is Monica don't want me
to leave, and I didn't want to leave. And I
told Andy that. He was like, they're never going to
pay you. He's like, I was like, but I love
my groups. He's like, they won't love you. Don't worry
about it. Go get a check straight up. He told
me he kicked the real to me, and he was right.

Speaker 2 (01:10:12):
And and.

Speaker 6 (01:10:15):
I wanted to sign Grand Pooba because I love Masters
of Ceremony and I had the Brand Nubian demo and
Monica Lynch said, I just want to say to you,
I don't think it's ethical if you signed Grand Poohba.
And I was like, don't worry, I ain't gonna sign
Grand Pooba because I signed Brand Nubian's.

Speaker 2 (01:10:31):
That was that was so was that your first signing
at his man Fante's man.

Speaker 6 (01:10:38):
And that it was fire because she flopped. I was
on the ropes. And then an article came out Nelson George,
my man, who he Monica got so tight? She said,
Dante didn't really sign Dayla Soul and and he's taking credit.
He's executed. Nelson George wrote some little thing about me
in his column, and yeah.

Speaker 2 (01:10:58):
He's trying to do a takedown.

Speaker 6 (01:11:00):
I don't think he did it on purpose. I don't
know what it was. You know, Nelson's my man. Whatever,
blah blah blah, want on the bridge. And then this
lady I worked with, she she put she photocopied and
put it in front of a couple of people and
they called me in the office and I thought they
were going to fire me. Hat a flop and that
came out and my boss was like, I don't care
about all that. He's like, go make a hit. No
one remembers. No one remembers the flops. That's what he

(01:11:22):
told me. And Brand Nubian, So we talked about Dayla.
Brand Nubian was signed for fifty five thousand dollars and
they went over budget, and I thought I was going
to get fired. And I told my boss, I said,
I'm twelve thousand dollars over budget. He said, who cares?
Metallica record cost a million? Dollars to make.

Speaker 2 (01:11:39):
Yeah, I was gonna say, like, at what point.

Speaker 5 (01:11:43):
Is it?

Speaker 6 (01:11:44):
At one point is it a good record? I said,
I think it's great.

Speaker 2 (01:11:48):
Wow.

Speaker 1 (01:11:49):
See you're saying that hip hop, even in its classic phase,
was so cheap Baltic Avenue, Mediterranean Avenue.

Speaker 2 (01:11:58):
That majorly just saw it as a quickie cash.

Speaker 6 (01:12:03):
Who knew? I mean you know what, I'll even blame
myself a little bit on that, right because I thought
that's what you paid for a record. I didn't say
they need two hundred thousand dollars. I didn't know. I
was coming from the Tommy Boy paradigm of making records,
So I thought you made a rap record for fifty
thousand dollars. I thought that was good. You didn't know
the scale was Yeah, I had no concept. Even being

(01:12:25):
super cool at the b SE's and seeing how rich
they got, I still had no concept. I really didn't.
I was young and naive. I did not know.

Speaker 5 (01:12:32):
So shout out to the Beasties for realizing that over
saw the niggas for what they did to the Cold Crush.

Speaker 2 (01:12:45):
So Brand Nubian now.

Speaker 6 (01:12:48):
My favorite record I ever made. I'm just gonna say
it right now.

Speaker 5 (01:12:51):
Dude, I'm gonna ask you are you gonna add because
I think I know where you're going.

Speaker 2 (01:12:57):
But well, you know, I gotta ask by the five
mics or what?

Speaker 6 (01:13:00):
Well they got five mics, right, hell yeah, first five
mics when I see you know they had tried to
do me. It still got five. But you know something
though it don't say it was hot, I'm it was.

Speaker 2 (01:13:13):
It wasn't hot.

Speaker 5 (01:13:14):
It wasn't hot, But I understood why because all every
record had that had that record at the time.

Speaker 2 (01:13:20):
Well, it's weird you said it because Okay, so the
day you remember when every seminal hip hop release required
like a mass listening amongst you and your boys, like
you all sit in the room like this and you
overanalyze it.

Speaker 6 (01:13:33):
They smoke. We when we do that too, at least
I did.

Speaker 2 (01:13:36):
So the day that we listened to Ready to Die,
there was.

Speaker 6 (01:13:40):
One song I ain't like on it?

Speaker 2 (01:13:42):
What what was the one? What was your one? Respect?

Speaker 6 (01:13:45):
Yeah? How you knew that?

Speaker 2 (01:13:48):
But even that, to me, it was like, even though
it was the worst song, it was still pretty good.

Speaker 6 (01:13:53):
Before that record came out, the way I heard it
was I was driving to the Hamptons with Jessica Rosenbom
and she said, you want to hear the Biggie record.
I was like, for hell yeah, and I the only
song I didn't like.

Speaker 1 (01:14:01):
Well, my manager at the time said, oh, I see
what they did. And I was like what and he says,
you know, like and he used the brand Nubian Alumics example.
He says, you know how the try to Do Me
song was supposed to be like that one small attempt
at getting an R and B hit on an otherwise

(01:14:22):
hip hop record. He's like yeah, He's like, you know
that unbelievable is to try to do men of this?
Well no, no, no, I mean but no, no, but
just in terms of where you had a hip hop
record with just the one token arm.

Speaker 2 (01:14:37):
Big attempt, well no, no no. But he's basically saying
that they reversed a formula and made every song was
single potential, but the one on the ground so wound
up being the underground record, which was, you know, unbelievable,

(01:14:58):
which you know it's it's kind of reversed, but at
the time, like I didn't. I guess I think I
knew if Masters's ceremony, I haven't seen it in the
record bins.

Speaker 6 (01:15:09):
But ceremonies. Fire. All I know is that cracked out.

Speaker 2 (01:15:14):
Was fire really fire?

Speaker 6 (01:15:16):
Fire? They were fired. Pooba was fire back then.

Speaker 2 (01:15:20):
But how are you sold on? Like, what was it
about the group? You just wanted Pooba and whatever whatever
you wanted to do.

Speaker 6 (01:15:25):
Also, I was hung out with Poolba. He was just
so cool. I sang out him and paus K back
then and they were just man cool. I just wanted
to fuck with both of them.

Speaker 2 (01:15:33):
See why weren't they a crew? They should have been,
but because of the first priority situation possible.

Speaker 6 (01:15:39):
They should have been.

Speaker 2 (01:15:40):
Yeah, I felt disclaimeron tried to do me.

Speaker 6 (01:15:43):
That was one of percent grand Poolba is doing. That
was him because man, Dave hall is from mount that's
his man, and he's dope. Dave was Mariah Carey joint.

Speaker 2 (01:15:57):
He was trying to eat Dave jam Hallam. He was
trying to eat do me. That was the thing, because
then it was well the genius he had come do
me like that was the That was a couple of
years before that. Did you have a hand and sign
the genius? No, No was on top.

Speaker 6 (01:16:14):
Yeah, Rize was on yo rizzle when I went when
I signed dirty, I you probably heard the story how
I signed Dirty Stretching by Beatle movie I Plug Plug
I heard, I was so, I was loving Wu Tang
protecting neck was and Maddie c my man who worked aloud.
He told me that they weren't all signed, like almost

(01:16:36):
going like grab one of them while you can, like me,
throw me the rock. So I heard him up on
Stretching Bob and I and I jumped in the cab
and I went up there and I walked in and
Rizza was there, and I was like, oh Ship. He
was like, yo, I know you from the God mil Kwan.
I was like, yeah, I remember you used to be
on time. But it's like, yeah, you knew me when.

Speaker 2 (01:16:53):
I was whack, straight up, straight up.

Speaker 6 (01:16:56):
I'll never forget it. And I was talking those dudes
for a while and I was like, yo, I I
love Dirty, I love Meth. Come see me. And I
was Thursday, supposed to see me Friday. They came Monday
and I and I remember they came to my office
and I told Rizza, I want to sign Dirty and Meth.
That's a new run DMC. And he told me, yo,
that's an ill thought. But now I'm gonna put methanem

(01:17:17):
over there with Russell, but I'm gonna give you dirty
because he fits in with the gods. And I was like, okay,
And he had a map, he had a master, he
had a mapped out. He like he wanted to put
him there straight up, all right, so many questions, wait
and and I'll say this too. Rizza was like the coolest, smartest,

(01:17:40):
most insightful. Like that guy is like back, I mean
from then to now, he's just like a gracious individual
like he always. I was just had great vibes with
that guy.

Speaker 2 (01:17:50):
He is. Wait, since since we're on to try to
do me? All right? So this is the significance of
trying to do me was that this is was there
attempt at trying on the radio, right, didn't get on
the radio. I can see that urban outfit of love
shirts right now with the floppy I'll see if Heavy

(01:18:16):
D were on this, it'd be you know, that's what
it is.

Speaker 6 (01:18:19):
It's a heavy D record.

Speaker 4 (01:18:21):
See baby.

Speaker 14 (01:18:31):
Shot the dhote.

Speaker 2 (01:18:38):
Why you want to be so found? You know, swinging
one for something is not my style. I'm the text
tove min to die in the camp. But I because
that's one that could be just.

Speaker 12 (01:18:46):
So your first rip is that I'm never hold and
you're sick and tired.

Speaker 2 (01:18:50):
Of being alone. But baby, I got what to do,
and they ain't.

Speaker 12 (01:18:54):
No, we're gonna stop me for being bron How about
your rings and things.

Speaker 14 (01:18:57):
And all that good stuff, but you still beeping that
dast not.

Speaker 4 (01:19:00):
I know.

Speaker 14 (01:19:00):
Let's sit down at discots, baby buster. When I'm still
a sleep friend. When I get out of close out
window friends, I think the best thing for you and
me is just to play g.

Speaker 6 (01:19:18):
You know what Johnson.

Speaker 2 (01:19:20):
But I'm saying that when I got this record, I
wasn't exactly fast forwarding it. Matter of fact, I did
fast forward. It was too fast forward when because there
was too this too? Okay? Was this one in my
ministry dance ministry? Yeah, I love Dan there is?

Speaker 6 (01:19:39):
That was a military.

Speaker 2 (01:19:45):
That's what didn't I didn't pass forward as my ministry.
I used to run that way.

Speaker 1 (01:19:54):
I knew was that I read the Okay, So this
is when I knew the source was the Bible, because
when I saw the review. First of all, they got
a five mic review and.

Speaker 6 (01:20:07):
They had a song that wasn't on there on that tape.
They had a song that didn't make the album, which
it was a song with the scrolled jettis of where
is poo Bah? And it and the drums for it
became what's the four one one?

Speaker 2 (01:20:20):
Wow?

Speaker 6 (01:20:20):
No, not what's the four and one? It was the
Bismark drums Loafia Alfa rock and and that's why Puff
was fucking with Poohba back then. Oh where is Pool?
I need that song? John Scheckter has it and I
was like his and when the record make the record?
I have no idea why. There's several songs.

Speaker 2 (01:20:39):
There's several songs.

Speaker 6 (01:20:40):
She did that never made the record. Like there was
also the Pete Rock song on this on a solo album.
What Yeah, you don't know about the song?

Speaker 2 (01:20:47):
Pete Rock song didn't make the Bober.

Speaker 6 (01:20:49):
Maxwell Yes, their honey how You Live in It's It's
on YouTube and Penguin. I have no Let me just
say this. There was no explaining the Grand Pooba.

Speaker 2 (01:21:02):
There is no rhyme or reason the wait he had
the final sale. Weren't you a r on the records?

Speaker 6 (01:21:07):
I mean I never got the master They made it
in Peach House on Peach peased to have the eight
track cassette in the house they made it on that.
I I had a cassette, it made it to taste.

Speaker 2 (01:21:17):
So you're saying that, Okay, when we get to Pete Rock,
you're saying that half that stuff was just made on
an A track.

Speaker 6 (01:21:23):
No, I mean just that was. He made all his
demos like that. That's why they were so bright. So
when he went to Chunk Camp, I mean to Green Street,
that's why his records were so bright because he wanted
to match what he's doing in the house on the cassette.

Speaker 1 (01:21:34):
Chase, the demo Chase, the demo with Bob Powers is Chase,
the demo demo Whitest Wow. So all right, So the
first line of the Source review was brand Nubian is
New York and that just checked to write the review.
I don't know if he did, but it just because
I haven't even heard of him. But the fact that

(01:21:57):
in the previous Source uh uh there's Summer issue in
which uh, I mean they gave trial. They reviewed a
whole bunch of records, and America's Most Wanted.

Speaker 2 (01:22:08):
Got five did so the record they reviewed like thirty
albums and the only five's awarded was People's Instincts of Travels.
America's most Wanted.

Speaker 6 (01:22:21):
Go Back, Let's Go back because people's instinctual travels of
five mic record.

Speaker 2 (01:22:25):
No. I think at the time it came out, it
was it was different from what it came. It came
it was not to me like it's actually my least
it's not my favorite, least favorite.

Speaker 6 (01:22:42):
What about beach Rhymes in Life and the love movement?
Let's get real beast rhymes?

Speaker 2 (01:22:45):
That was the album.

Speaker 5 (01:22:46):
I didn't know people hate it until I got on
it right right, that was bumping Beast.

Speaker 2 (01:22:49):
Rhymes of Life saying somebody had to here you. I
bought Chassy so Hey, I mean.

Speaker 6 (01:22:57):
And killed me and I made Chassy so and I
know respect. Those records are good records. They're just not
like they're just not as good as as min Marauders
and low End Theory, you know, because their bar was
so high they're competing against themselves.

Speaker 2 (01:23:10):
Well here's the thing though, because even on Okay Player
they had one of these like okay twenty five years later,
how was this hold up? And when it came time
for Off for One, people were like, no, this is
definitely not a five mic record, and I had to
My defense was that it was it was be all
for One, was beyond the music. It was more the lifestyle.

Speaker 6 (01:23:33):
I would give it, honestly, I wouldn't give it a
five mic. That's a four to four and a half.
There's two duds on it. Five mic record has no duds.

Speaker 2 (01:23:43):
See, he's coming from a technical standpoint, and I guess
the industry standard has has sort of Stockholm syndrome me
to now make the product of the artists more than
just the album itself.

Speaker 6 (01:23:58):
Yeah, America, Americas Just Wanted is better than One for All.

Speaker 2 (01:24:03):
I can rap with you on that.

Speaker 6 (01:24:05):
So is the first cypress album to me, know what,
I'll give you that one too.

Speaker 2 (01:24:10):
Wait, we about to have.

Speaker 6 (01:24:14):
You have to have because Chris Midnight Marauders better than
One for All two so was theory.

Speaker 2 (01:24:20):
But it's a matter of significant importance. The thing is
is that you're right. You're right, You're right.

Speaker 11 (01:24:26):
That's how it is.

Speaker 2 (01:24:27):
I don't think there's a particular song or whatever, but
it's just the meaning of all for one I mean
and one fell Swoop, I mean, even all right, take
it this way. Even a record like New York, New
York by the Dog Pound, right, and in the first
twenty seconds of them mocking what they think New York

(01:24:47):
is their first reference is what's up God? Indeed, God
your peace? God? Like making fun of five percent rappers.
I think brand Nubians image and and and Ara was
more important than all for one.

Speaker 6 (01:25:07):
I get it now, you're right, it's a capsule. It's
a it's a you're like, it's a capsule picture of
New York at that time, Perreo, the Gods and urths.

Speaker 2 (01:25:15):
And I gotta ask you how that's the white guy?

Speaker 6 (01:25:19):
Yeah, that's my question, half Jewish.

Speaker 2 (01:25:22):
White guy about to say that's the question. That the question.
I'm like, how did you? Because I remember?

Speaker 5 (01:25:27):
Because I mean, I think we're just saying it's true
for me because I grew I came up in the South,
so I'm in North Carolina. So for me, Off of
One was the first album that I remember really hearing
and seeing, you know, the the guys on Earth in
the five percent terminology and like, okay, well what is that?

Speaker 2 (01:25:42):
And I remember the wake Up video where they had
like the white Man as the devil.

Speaker 6 (01:25:46):
And shit like fab five Freddy did that video okay
and it got banned from m Did it got about that?
Think about that.

Speaker 2 (01:25:57):
This video? But but that well yeah, it was it
was just learning the terminology and all that.

Speaker 6 (01:26:01):
I mean that was my first ye crazy is that
I did so the remix version wake Up's original version,
and they did that other version second, and that version
was actually better. Yeah the Warriors joint that one's way better?

Speaker 2 (01:26:16):
Are you were the.

Speaker 6 (01:26:20):
Yeah, so my version is really the original version, but
they wanted to run with that one, and there was
no arguing with the gods. And the one thing I'll
say about their version of that song, it did not
knock in the club, didn't hit it was it was thin.

Speaker 2 (01:26:34):
All right. There mixes, oh wow, man.

Speaker 6 (01:26:38):
They love mixes on the first album too, Man.

Speaker 2 (01:26:41):
How do you? I mean? But again it's like do
you mess with their progress because they were just loop
ship and put eight to weight under its it. And
it wasn't until Pete Rock, which I had actual definition of.

Speaker 4 (01:26:59):
No.

Speaker 2 (01:27:00):
Even then, like Jungle Brothers in Tribe were.

Speaker 6 (01:27:02):
Just I don't know, man, JB's coming through was knocking.
That was but I mean a song like but a
song like it was done in your house.

Speaker 2 (01:27:11):
Yeah, but I'm saying a song like feeling all right.

Speaker 6 (01:27:13):
It was just But then when it got to like
the second I mean, date raping all those records on
the win through. Those things are knocking.

Speaker 2 (01:27:20):
Because Bob was there, but you know, I mean after
he rocks shut him down.

Speaker 6 (01:27:25):
Even listening to Public Enemy, like I listened to him recently,
there's no bottom.

Speaker 1 (01:27:29):
It's all mid range, no definition, zero definition in their mixes.
That's what I'm saying.

Speaker 2 (01:27:35):
Like your your era of of.

Speaker 1 (01:27:40):
Of hip hop was redefined, I guess we now we
got to have a Pete rock section.

Speaker 2 (01:27:45):
All right, let's.

Speaker 6 (01:27:48):
One they know about about Brand Nubian. So Brand Nubian
was a snapshot of New York at that time period,
much like cipercill was a snapshot of l A at
that time period. There's certain records that capture or in
place too Short Born the Mac. They captured that place,
that that vibe of that city at that time period.
And that's why those records were all important. Very different records,

(01:28:10):
but all kind of have the same cultural importance to me.

Speaker 2 (01:28:14):
All Right, So wait, let's let's peep one of my
all time favorites from Awful One Step to the Rear.
I got in there with a sample.

Speaker 6 (01:28:21):
Which one Salame Street record No Yes Hurt and Ernie
singing no Yep.

Speaker 8 (01:28:30):
Full circle.

Speaker 2 (01:28:31):
Ah here we go. Okay, every sring, my s.

Speaker 13 (01:28:38):
Sring, my sring, my al stuck steps of the rear.

Speaker 2 (01:28:43):
Grand Plu was on a rival, raised in.

Speaker 12 (01:28:45):
The ghetto, singing songs, cost a vible, running around town
giving all the girls bool but snacks. I wouldn't try
to scale a style. You just my kats Katia figure.
The way to get paid is the grand the microheightson
move is to mainson, honey, don't take a person. There's
no need to trying to just to swing up baby
on your two snaps up in the fringer. The marbleloon
babe went to the path and all you try to
step the list, it's void.

Speaker 2 (01:29:06):
A new hit from the grand Man, working nights like
the sand Man game four away in case I gotta
stop like that once. It is a trick that's not up.

Speaker 12 (01:29:13):
My sleeves, possessed waiting for that sin that works when
I blave it paint in the shade with the a
as the grade, with the papes that I made from
this trade. So get him too, the grip you know
were it's a lot of TIMPs if you want to
cash in on the winds grand people and I love
to hit skins, and you.

Speaker 10 (01:29:29):
Know what I've done song to sing. I've done song
to sing. I've done song to sing.

Speaker 4 (01:29:37):
Who I've done song to sing?

Speaker 2 (01:29:39):
Fun Now hear everybody don't care?

Speaker 6 (01:29:43):
Every pard.

Speaker 2 (01:29:45):
Don't hear everybody.

Speaker 4 (01:29:47):
Don't care every pardy.

Speaker 2 (01:29:50):
Hear everybody? Yeah, dog, I used to make pause tapes
to Okay, a pause tape was before looping culture with
Serado and other devices. Today, when you wanted to hear
your favorite part, you would just take a cassette tape
and do the edits yourself by hand.

Speaker 1 (01:30:11):
So I would just make of just this section of
the song, trying to figure out. I cannot leave this
earth without owning the source of the record of the sam.

Speaker 6 (01:30:24):
I have the record. I know what the cover looks like,
but I don't know what the name of the song is.
So a long time ago, and it's definitely a sesame
street record that CAMD was fucking with too.

Speaker 8 (01:30:33):
I'm sure we can find it.

Speaker 2 (01:30:34):
Well. Yeah, I was about to say our next episode,
of course Left seventeen will be at unpaid Bill's job.
Let me come, I need to get some little reds.

Speaker 6 (01:30:49):
So Pete Rock love him, just easiest gotta work with
of all time. Really, oh man, So man, it was
like making that record was so easy. I'd just go
to the studio like every couple of days and they'd
be finishing another record, Megan. So even when he did
the EP, which which he didn't, I wasn't really around

(01:31:11):
a whole lot with that one. But the set, you know,
because we had the creator. We had a hit song, right,
so we knew we had to hit. So we're making
an album. And I would just cruise by Green Street
and we'd smoke a little weed and then we ordered
some food. And he also had like twenty five songs,
thirty songs, like a bunch of records didn't go on
the album, and and he would just play me ship

(01:31:34):
and I'd be like, Yo, what is that? And he'd
be like, oh, you know that's Esen Brothers. Take an
inventory or whatever. He'd tell me what the record was,
so I catch knowledge he'd filtered the baseline. Oh yeah,
I used these drums like it was not only was
it a pleasure to hear the records, it was like
I was going to beat school.

Speaker 2 (01:31:52):
He was.

Speaker 6 (01:31:53):
He knew A lot he.

Speaker 2 (01:31:54):
Played in the car was that he would play these
beats in this car.

Speaker 6 (01:31:58):
Yeah, play in the car and then and Amy style
was an engineering and I ended up feeling Jamie to
do ever less later because I thought his mix has
sounded so good and Green Street was just a really
nice environment. So and and Pete never beefed about anything ever.
He never beefed once, never had a complaint. It was
like he was really he was really, he was really

(01:32:20):
young that way, and he was quiet back then.

Speaker 2 (01:32:28):
As a record digger, there is no fear like the
look on a record merchant's face when he might have
to face the wrath of Pete Rock right Pete is
if Pete finds out that someone else has purchased a

(01:32:51):
record that Pete was intending on using.

Speaker 6 (01:32:53):
Another thing about Peter is when you shop with him,
he didn't really show you a lot of shit. We're
like I would shop with the beat nuts and be like,
you know this, even Dyla, I want shopping. One time
he showed me some ship, but like Pete would would
never say anything. I'd be like, hey, you notice, and
he'd do the beat he knew about it, wouldn't tell
you anything. Dog.

Speaker 2 (01:33:06):
It would be to the point where like he put me.

Speaker 6 (01:33:08):
Up on the t Swift, he put me up on
a few joints, Eddie say a couple of joints.

Speaker 1 (01:33:13):
Oh, okay, okay, for a second, when you said t Swift,
I was like, wait a minute, huh wasn't she like three.

Speaker 2 (01:33:18):
Years old back then? No, I'm playing that's a second.

Speaker 6 (01:33:22):
No, No, I'm just saying record are you Jimmy Hendrick?
Are you experience the drums?

Speaker 2 (01:33:27):
But I'm saying that he.

Speaker 6 (01:33:30):
Yeah.

Speaker 1 (01:33:30):
I would go to places and I'd be like, all right,
we're the good record tight and and they just be like,
you know, I said what Pete, It's like yeah, you know,
you know. And then it'd be a time where like
maybe a month or two go by and be like,
did Pete pick up the record yet?

Speaker 2 (01:33:49):
And he'd be like well, And then that's how I
would be like, here, I need these records mirror.

Speaker 6 (01:33:56):
I went to his house one time in Spring Valley
and he let me look at his record collection, and
every record I had he had doubles of, damn near,
and he had everything to the point where I wanted
to give up. I was like, God, damn it. He everything.

Speaker 1 (01:34:13):
He would notoriously actually buy triples and quadruples of the.

Speaker 6 (01:34:17):
Else could get so that no one else didn't get
the record, so he gave me some records too. He
I traded doubles with them a couple of times. He uh, so,
you know, I helped him out a lot, so you know,
but he was a pleasure to deal with. Man. And
I always hear people like, you know, he may get
a difficult tag now and again, but but he was
really cool back then. And he didn't smoke a lot,
and I was a mad potted and I started getting

(01:34:39):
them high a lot. He like he got that. We
started smoking.

Speaker 7 (01:34:42):
Spring Valley, New York County live, yes, where he lived.

Speaker 6 (01:34:46):
That's where he had his first house. And and I
don't know if you guys noticed that Pooba wrote the Creator.
He wrote it for beats, he didn't get paid. And
he also wrote he wrote what's the other one? With
Pete's rocking on it? He's wrapping up.

Speaker 2 (01:35:00):
So by the number one brother number one can play
that real quick. Yeah, that's great, Boss Bill looking at
me like that song. He's a sweet soul brother, so
so so.

Speaker 11 (01:35:14):
So comes you, So comes your soul.

Speaker 15 (01:35:29):
Soul brother number one year where I come on the NTO.
That's the coded white because I'm rich, stick and chocolate.
You lug up and you like up at Chippy Rocker's pocket.
Un Zobiezax, what's the bulls in my pocket? I tell him, player,
I've rocked the top pick bottom never hesitate to say,
I'm rested on the hill side, over on the chill side,
up town, So let's.

Speaker 6 (01:35:49):
Get down funk.

Speaker 2 (01:35:50):
He is the word describbers brother on the souls.

Speaker 8 (01:35:52):
Listens.

Speaker 15 (01:35:52):
Look it was herds more souls than the soul KITCHI see, yes,
the scratch sober won't keep the itchest white people even safe.
He rocking shitch caught it in the hottest, outer than
the hottest. I guess that's just because I'm smarter than
the smartest.

Speaker 2 (01:36:05):
So back up, clear the path. Funny because come soul
brother number one, number one? All right, So I just
realized that the number one soul brother sample. No, it's

(01:36:27):
it's MERV. Griffin introducing James Brown. It is okay, So
there's a copy of there's a song called World that
James Brown did, and it's it's MERV. Griffin introducing and now, gentlemen,
it's the number one soul brother James Brown. And then
it goes so like James has a perfectly edited introduction

(01:36:52):
of MERV Griffin from The MERV Griffin Show Before the
World song starts Crazy.

Speaker 6 (01:36:57):
There's a lot of samples in it. There's bubblegum in
at on red more importantly pain.

Speaker 2 (01:37:02):
Yeah. That that's my favorite song on that record.

Speaker 6 (01:37:06):
Because night Creation in there on the bottom.

Speaker 2 (01:37:08):
Yeah. So by this point, how do you clear these samples?
Like if it's super obvious or.

Speaker 6 (01:37:19):
Do you nice rolling?

Speaker 2 (01:37:22):
Do people come to you? Do people come to you
and you're like, hey, I was holding your money in
es growth?

Speaker 6 (01:37:26):
No, no, no none. I would sit there with Pete
and I'd be like, yo, I know you used this,
this and this. He might divulge another one he might not,
so I mightn't catch And we didn't catch everything. We
definitely clear everything on those records, like without it.

Speaker 2 (01:37:38):
What about the interludes?

Speaker 6 (01:37:39):
Just oh man, we didn't clear any of those. Those
were sure there's been you know, everyone knows everything now,
so I'm sure he's had suit after suit. Well, I'll
tell you it's crazy. Step to the Rear Electric Records
clear Tramp by Little folsom it's not tramp. And they
did that retroactively, and I've already had a publishing deal
and they were like, hey, there's a claim against when

(01:37:59):
you're I was like, that's not what that sample is
because it's it's uh, you know, it's the marquis Ah.

Speaker 1 (01:38:06):
Even on Beats Rhymes in Life, they gave a good
chunk of the portion of Pat and Pin to the
gap band.

Speaker 6 (01:38:17):
Really what for chess a little to a minuscule from Yearning? Yeah,
but you.

Speaker 2 (01:38:27):
And I'm like, yeah, it was like thirty percent And
I'm like, why did you even clear it?

Speaker 6 (01:38:33):
Like that dude owns a published No, he goes after everybody.
He's trying to catch it.

Speaker 5 (01:38:40):
Have you?

Speaker 2 (01:38:41):
I don't even want to bring this into existence.

Speaker 5 (01:38:44):
Have you?

Speaker 2 (01:38:44):
Have you had had an air fugue situation? No?

Speaker 6 (01:38:48):
I got caught for Camille Yarborough on the everlast record
She Caught Me. She caught me. She I had to
pair some dough.

Speaker 2 (01:38:54):
She did the Fat Boy.

Speaker 6 (01:38:57):
And I used to interlude just a little no what
sorry not familiar, bro, my bad Von Gray the Gray
Lady album, I used a little into it's a whole
new thing like I used just a little vocal and
I didn't clear and we settled with it was cool.
It was no big deal. And I did roll the
dice on I'm not gonna down myself out on a
bunch of on several records that are big records that

(01:39:18):
I didn't clear things on I never got caught. Knock
on wood good, Wow, there's someone wo's gonna hear this
and go through my entire cattle.

Speaker 2 (01:39:25):
It's probably already up on who's sampled already.

Speaker 6 (01:39:29):
Really and on rock records, people don't look as much.
So because I did all these remixes, I used man
ship and people didn't.

Speaker 2 (01:39:37):
Catch What did you say, John Spencer Blues Explosion.

Speaker 6 (01:39:40):
I mean I didn't clear any of that, and you
know there's something real prominent that one, So go sue John.
I have no publishing.

Speaker 1 (01:39:50):
I miss touring with those guys like they. We went
on the Beastie Boys tour with John Spencer Blues.

Speaker 6 (01:39:55):
Explosion Orange right when they had banging. They were a
great band.

Speaker 2 (01:40:00):
Old Russell Simmons on drums, he man, that guy, he
it's hard. Yeah, he would go through like a drumhead
a night.

Speaker 6 (01:40:07):
I mean I recorded him and his time was in tremendous.
Chuck Trees had better time. They played on. They both
played on a record for me and Chuck's stuff, I
didn't have to play with. I had to play with
with Russell's stuff a bunch.

Speaker 2 (01:40:18):
Wow. You know about the legend of Chuck Cheries.

Speaker 6 (01:40:20):
That's my man. I used to skateboard with him, Nick rad.

Speaker 2 (01:40:24):
Yeah, Chuck ches forever nineteen year olds.

Speaker 6 (01:40:26):
Yeah, that's my man with the green eyes.

Speaker 2 (01:40:28):
Yeah, that's the man. So how long was your tenure
at Electra?

Speaker 6 (01:40:33):
I think it was almost eight years? Seven years. I
think it was a long time, close to eight years.

Speaker 2 (01:40:38):
Who am I missing besides cam d Old.

Speaker 6 (01:40:41):
Dirty bastard. I gave Bus for a solo record. I
wasn't there by the time he finished it. But but
after Leaders flopped and and even while when.

Speaker 2 (01:40:53):
They turned Leaders first album, second.

Speaker 6 (01:40:55):
Second album, first album was it? To say it, the
second album was very joined it. I sent them back
in to do it again. They didn't want to do it.
When I wanted to go do the second album, I
actually pulled Tip in. I said, Yo, you should be
the executive producer and just oversee it because there's too
many moving parts. It's chaos. And Tip was down and
I pitched the idea to those guys and Buster wanted

(01:41:17):
to do it and the rest of them didn't. And
that's when I knew that Buster was.

Speaker 2 (01:41:21):
Why did they go against their own interest?

Speaker 6 (01:41:23):
Because they said, Yo tribes stole the East Coast stomp
from us. And it wasn't Buster who said that. I'm
just gonna I'm not. You know someone who is?

Speaker 2 (01:41:37):
Who is the Who's the hardest group to babysit.

Speaker 6 (01:41:42):
Leaders of the New School because they they might get
a fist fight in the middle of everything. It was
always always rough with them. Brand Nubians were like, they
might beat me up, but not each other.

Speaker 1 (01:41:50):
I'm about to say each group has a fistfight m
v A and R office story.

Speaker 2 (01:41:56):
Even Tarika and I had a fist fight NB A and.

Speaker 6 (01:41:58):
R office knew me in never had I never had
drama with him like that. Me and Jamar drawed at
each other one time and that was that And and
jam Jamaar was definitely down the hook off on me too,
and and it didn't happen so so, and I love
Lord Jamar like much respective he's about his business. I
love that guy and leaders. Yeah, I got into a

(01:42:19):
Charlie Brown one time in office and and just it
was all fucked up. And I knew Buster was a star.
Everyone knew it. So me and Chris Lighty I had
told him, I say, yo, we can bustle, got to
do solo record. He's like, you're right, And we've worked
on Buster for a minute. And Buster finally saw the
light and he did a solo record.

Speaker 2 (01:42:35):
And so do most acts just break up or do
you have to say, okay, we're now?

Speaker 6 (01:42:40):
They all broke up. Every act broke up. It was
never me. I never had anything to do with breaking
up any act. Specifically. I did offer a solo record
a Buster while they were still a band, that is true.
But it was me and Chris Lighty and and and
you know, big shout out to Chris light and my brother.
I love him and miss him. He was the one
of the greatest people well I ever know from his

(01:43:00):
business and in d nice sitting in a place of
very few other people sitting. But but that said, and
and Buster, you know, finally opened his eyes. He's seen
it wasn't gonna happen, and it was time for him
to do what he had to do, and he did it.
And at that point in my life, me and Buster
were super close. He was going through a lot of
personal ship and that's what my little brother. I love
him He's a great man.

Speaker 2 (01:43:20):
Were you there for the whole, uh Black Bastards scenario
with cam d I was.

Speaker 6 (01:43:25):
That was that was really what disillusioned me about working
at a major label. And I'd probably brought the camel's
back cynical.

Speaker 4 (01:43:33):
No.

Speaker 6 (01:43:33):
I stayed because it's hard to walk away from that
much money, especially you know, my mom's a school teacher,
my dad's a writer. Like I grew up, you know,
very blue collar. So so I can't say that I'm super,
mister principle. And I walked away because this, that and
the other. I didn't but but I but I was,
I thought tooth and nail, and I lost.

Speaker 2 (01:43:51):
To explain it.

Speaker 6 (01:43:52):
Backstory, so black Bastards, so well, you gotta explain MD.
I mean km d Is was was doing his of
the sub Rock and Onyx. It was like he was
like the third guy, but he wasn't really in the process.
And I met them from third base. They were on
gas Face. He helped produce gas Face Doom. He was
my little homie, my man, and we went and made

(01:44:13):
the first record. We made it in my studio. Basically,
who did peach us? Who he did peach? Was him
or sub Rock?

Speaker 2 (01:44:19):
I mean, it's.

Speaker 6 (01:44:22):
Because no one was.

Speaker 2 (01:44:22):
Playing no no way. You remember the video when was
playing the well thought, oh my god, I played percussions.

Speaker 6 (01:44:31):
Popa did.

Speaker 2 (01:44:32):
Uh.

Speaker 6 (01:44:32):
He might help with nitty gritty though. But but those guys,
you know, they those two were symbiotic in their relationship,
resting piece of sub Rock and and they were just
like family to me. And we made the first record
and it it wasn't a big hit, but it had
some some some lasting impact. And their imagery was always
based around the sambo character, about eradicating the stereotype of sambo.

(01:44:57):
They were Muslims, they were part of the ansar A
law community. Brooklyn followed doctor you know, Dr York blah
blah blah, and so that said, you know, between the
first and second record, they had changed a lot of people.
They've grown a lot. They experimented a lot of mind
altering drugs. You know, they're not ashamed to say it.
I think acid became a you know, a part of

(01:45:17):
the program. Blah blah blah. They're hanging out uptown with Curius,
George and them a lot. And and sub Rock died.
He got hit by a car and he passed. We
buried him and and in awake of that Doom when
it finished the record he turned in It's called Black Bastards,
It's the Hangman game, and they had sample and they
were hanging him and uh Havelock Nelson, Terry ROSSI, I'm

(01:45:39):
gonna call him out. I don't care my Facebook for
end and half a mile too, and I talked him
about it and anything I'm gonna say right now, I'll
say I said to him. And he's apologized. They condemned
the artwork and the band and the label putting it
out without ever giving an audience to Doom to defend

(01:46:01):
his rhetoric, his his vision, and they never let him
talk about what what his messaging was. And I think
I think that was uh.

Speaker 2 (01:46:09):
So what did they see when they saw said it
was racist.

Speaker 6 (01:46:11):
That no, a major label can't put out a record
with samble on the cover it's called black.

Speaker 2 (01:46:15):
Bastards, and knowing who was behind.

Speaker 6 (01:46:17):
It and and not right and and not also noting
that symbal is getting hung right, so they're hanging in
effigy the stereotype of and they always use samble with
the line through it. Yet they did not give him
a chance to defend his vision. And his messaging and
and they condemned him and Terry Rossi wrote about it
in her column, and so to Havelock circulated around my

(01:46:40):
building where I worked, and it was post the the
the body count Fiasco.

Speaker 2 (01:46:47):
Billboard. Yes, because I remember that, like I religiously read
Billboard every week and remember that.

Speaker 6 (01:46:52):
George Rhythm and Blues column I think it was called.
So so they circulated. My boss called me off us
and he said, there's a lot of contentious feelings about
this artworking and we're gonna put this before the review
board at uh, you know, at the MG, and we're
going to see, you know, what people said. And he
said that Vincent Davis, who had Keatswett, found this offensive,

(01:47:15):
and Sylvia Rome finds this defensive. And it's been deemed
offensive by several black people that I didn't say that
certain things I can't say the jack so, you know,
so they wouldn't let the record come the They shelved

(01:47:38):
the record. But my man came to the office today.
We're going to meet the Warner Music what's got. Richard
Parsons was supposed to be there and various other people
Parsons and we're going to meet all these people, and
and my boss said, they've canceled the meeting. We're not
gonna have the meeting. I'm not gonna put the record out,

(01:47:58):
Bob kraz now. And he said, but I am going
to give you back your masters, and I know you've
been through a lot of stuff with your brother, and
I'm going to also give you basically a like get
out of jail free check. So he gave him a
I think it was twenty thousand dollars check. And we
went to my office and I had all this wine.
Someone sent me a case of wine, Sweet Premium wine.

Speaker 2 (01:48:20):
Right.

Speaker 6 (01:48:20):
They have that song Sweet Premium Wine, right. So we
always used to drink the wine in my office, and
we drank a couple of bottles and Doom said, you know,
I should get dropped more often. I haven't got a
twenty thousand dollars check in my entire life.

Speaker 2 (01:48:32):
And that's real.

Speaker 6 (01:48:33):
The fallout is that no one would touch the record.
Faith Newman, I know, wanted to sign them, and they wouldn't.
She wasn't allowed to, and the record sat there and
do him went in and he put on you know,
he put on the mask, and he reinvented himself as
MF Doom and power too. Man, that's the power of
black man in America right there. Reinvention, right, this is
crazy because we invented underground hip hop more or less

(01:48:56):
on the heels of catching the biggest ll of his life,
his brother dying and dropped. But you know what, he
empowered himself. And I love that man. That's my brother forever,
and you know he was We had a lot of stuff. Man,
I'll never forget burying his brother. War well. You know,
every time I see him, one of the only people
who talks about Skype and I have to tell him
take the mask off. But I love that cat and

(01:49:18):
he's a He's a wonderful person. And you know that's
that's the rap game right there.

Speaker 2 (01:49:22):
It is.

Speaker 6 (01:49:23):
You know, you got to deal with some bullshit.

Speaker 2 (01:49:25):
The single, what's the single that sampled the Jody Whiteley Loop?
It was hot, that was my s I knew that
it was gonna hit.

Speaker 6 (01:49:33):
And know the Ledge jacked him, right, You're right, they
jacked loop.

Speaker 2 (01:49:37):
You're right, Shot, You're right jacked it.

Speaker 6 (01:49:39):
He was around. I love you.

Speaker 2 (01:49:42):
You know.

Speaker 6 (01:49:45):
Jack what it is you've been knowing the Jack.

Speaker 2 (01:49:48):
Loops and Steve. I cannot wait to get some of
the dice on question.

Speaker 6 (01:50:03):
Probably because you stole someone's loop.

Speaker 2 (01:50:05):
It just gets turned off and ringo number ring.

Speaker 8 (01:50:15):
Wow.

Speaker 2 (01:50:15):
I actually have urshot Smith number seven. I have like
seven phone numbers on him.

Speaker 6 (01:50:20):
I got a bunch myself. He's a talented cat though. Man,
he did doing it. People don't know that. He's a god.
I did more records that people don't know he did
than anyone ever.

Speaker 2 (01:50:29):
Yeah he did one more chance.

Speaker 6 (01:50:31):
Yep, he did know the ledge he did Pep.

Speaker 10 (01:50:39):
Paul C.

Speaker 6 (01:50:39):
Might have done more records than people ain't know.

Speaker 2 (01:50:41):
Hello, man, please shot.

Speaker 10 (01:50:45):
Shot exactly number Sorry, sorry, just.

Speaker 6 (01:50:55):
Think how stupid is how stupid is the idea of
stealing a because we were stealing them from the guys
who made the records.

Speaker 2 (01:51:03):
So it's like, you know whatever, that's crazy, all right.

Speaker 1 (01:51:07):
So you're saying, so the last record that you A
and R at Electra was Black Bastard.

Speaker 2 (01:51:14):
Nope, it was Dirty first.

Speaker 6 (01:51:17):
Ye thirty and the second Pete Rocket. Chronologically, I can't
remember any ingredient. Okay, an ingredient, but no Dirty came
out in ninety five, so maybe it's that one.

Speaker 2 (01:51:26):
Dude, How do you even how do you even Smith?
It might have been how do you even communicate with
old dirty bastard man? Wow? So so who put that

(01:51:47):
record together?

Speaker 6 (01:51:48):
So they came to me with seven, maybe eight, anywhere
from six to eight songs done. The rest of the
music was basically on reels on two inches. A lot
of the vocals were aready done, not all of them,
and Rizza was like peace and Rizza he wasn't gonna
babysit dirty. He had money to go get, and he

(01:52:08):
went and got his money and he left dirty in
my lap. I had to figure out with an engineer
how to mix those records. And if you've ever had
a multi from Rizza, his science is not my science.
His periodic table is very Staten Island, and I'm from Manhattan.

(01:52:28):
I had trouble understanding it. And he would literally take
the base tone from the two inch reel from the
two inch machine and play bass lines out of that,
and I didn't know what the hell he was doing.
And I did struggle, but I got the mixes done eventually,
and he okayed them all. It took a year to
get the record made, but in that year, the Wu

(01:52:51):
Tang Clan because I signed before his album came out,
had grown in leaps and bounds. So I knew I
had to get to the finish line. And I had
a very patient woman I live with at the time,
and I spent an in or an inordinate amount of
time and trying to finish that record. But I also
knew that because the way Dirty lived his life.

Speaker 2 (01:53:11):
How many five am phone calls you get, man from studios? Man, Man,
tell you one man.

Speaker 6 (01:53:20):
There's so much shit he did, Man, But but but Man.
I walked in the studio one time. This is the
best and my partner John Gamble, when I asked, he fifties,
who didn't engineer a lot of sessions. Was the engineer
in the session? And I called earlier? I said, Yo,
it was Dirty there. Yeah, Dirty Saire. I'm a swing
bying while I swing over there. A couple hours later,
trunk King and I walked in and no one's there,

(01:53:42):
and I said, and my man had a weird look
on his face. I said, where's Dirty. He's like he's here.
I was like, where He's like, here's the vocal boo.
I said, why the light's out? He said, go in
there and see.

Speaker 2 (01:53:50):
Oh Lloyd.

Speaker 6 (01:53:51):
I walked in there and they're running and training on
this chick and and I I walked in and dirty
wasn't dirty, I guess had Irrety had already had his ride,
and he's like, Yo, do you want to get down?
I said, no, man, I don't rock caboose. And those

(01:54:11):
guys said that to me for like six months straight, Yo,
you rock caboose. Yet that was like their favorite thing
to say to me. And that was like one of
the thousands of I mean, you know, he fucking took
the loll plaque off the wall and pissed on it.
I mean, I'm saving that for my book. But needless
to say, I was in between him and Chris Leidy
about the It was a Mexican standoff and and it

(01:54:33):
was fuck. It was yo and dirty, just like you know.
I took him to La and he did this show
and he, I mean he tore it down water ride
off stage and started to do another show in front
on like a street lamp and like just stood there
in front of the palladium on Highland and started rocking again.

(01:54:53):
And I had to drag him to the hotel.

Speaker 2 (01:54:56):
It was like.

Speaker 6 (01:54:58):
He was so wild in his it was the he
would eat a box of donuts every day for breakfast,
ceplate donuts and then drink Cisco.

Speaker 2 (01:55:08):
He was.

Speaker 6 (01:55:10):
And he would fart and laugh, and I mean he
just everything he did was larger than life. He got
kicked out of so many hotels. And I will say
this though, I knew I had to get it to
the finish line, because there are times in life when
you only know you have that moment in time, and
you got to get there right. And I had to

(01:55:30):
get there because I strongly suspected it never gonna happen again.
Me get it while I can. And I dedicated a
large part of that year to getting that record made.
And we got a maide and and true master and
Dirty got in a fistfight at the mastering session and
if you look at the record, it says mastered by

(01:55:51):
Tom the Referee Coin because Tom up got up and
he he broke up the fight and he ended the
mastering session and told me to come back the next
without it.

Speaker 8 (01:56:01):
And so we were mastering the Hamilton record. If he
told us this exact story, you know, Tom Coin is
a G. Tom Coin, He's a G.

Speaker 6 (01:56:08):
Yes, I love that man.

Speaker 8 (01:56:11):
Shoes ready to go golfing.

Speaker 2 (01:56:13):
Yeah.

Speaker 6 (01:56:13):
Always, he's the least hip hop dude to master the
most hip hop.

Speaker 2 (01:56:19):
Tom coins story of.

Speaker 1 (01:56:22):
Tom told me the story of how when he mastered
only Built for Cuban linkx uh, they stopped at mint
Master and said, yo, we got to put some some
killer h interludes on here from the movie The Killer,
but none of them had uh you know, the technology
wasn't out back then to go on the internet.

Speaker 2 (01:56:42):
So they're like, wait, I'll bear it back.

Speaker 1 (01:56:44):
I'm gonna run to i'mna run to the Allen and
get my KILLO tape and Tom Coins like well, He's
like they left for four hours, came back, got the
Killer tape, but there's no television.

Speaker 2 (01:56:55):
To watch it, so they just had a BCR with
no TV. They hook it up and they start acting
out the entire movie. They literally act out the entire movie.
Tom Coin recorded. He's like, all right, what part do
we use? He's like, oh, wait, started again from the top,
so then wow.

Speaker 1 (01:57:14):
So then he's like, all right, I'm gonna take notes.
And after a while they drifted off, stopped taking notes,
and it was like it was ill the Seen God.
And then it got to the end and Tom Coin's like, okay,
you guys have your notes. It's like, ah, man, damn
play it one more time. He had to play the
Killer three times in a row.

Speaker 6 (01:57:32):
P Rock showed up, did the interludes on a made
ingredient with his twelve hundred, and did him in the
studio really out of it right to mastering right there later,
right there, that incredible whole joint. He did that right there. Ah,
So y'all gotta add this Tom Coin game. That looked
like you again, Tom Coin. Man, he's a master of patience.
I've seen so many of my records and he was

(01:57:53):
always my dude.

Speaker 2 (01:57:55):
I've seen old dirty pro tools and it's a mystery
on how that just to hear it in its naked form,
especially with his vocals. There's at least eight or nine
tracks the.

Speaker 6 (01:58:13):
Punches, I mean like you can hear them like totally.
I mean in all the bultangs, like.

Speaker 2 (01:58:18):
There's a Brooklyn zoo where the and I'm trying to
figure out how did you cut? How did y'all cut
in pieces? Right?

Speaker 6 (01:58:25):
So shimmy, shimmy. I tried to get him to do
a second verse for months.

Speaker 2 (01:58:30):
He would not do it. He was like backwards.

Speaker 6 (01:58:34):
He did it backwards, and I walked in the studio
said yo, I did shimmy shimmy, and he played it
and I was like you mother, and then he was like,
yoq tube did it. I was like, oh my god.
He's like yeah. I was like, that's not Oh my god.
He's like, whatever, my shirt's gonna knock.

Speaker 2 (01:58:49):
He was right, he was right as let me tell
you something.

Speaker 6 (01:58:52):
Those records like they still hold up and and there's
a real oh also Brooklyn Zoo So drums, I couldn't
get the drums sound and right, and I chopped up
the Brethren and I put the kick in snare in there,
and Rison never knew He's yeah, I just put the
kick in snare in there because I couldn't get the
drums to sound right. So if you listen to a
close you clearly hear the Brethren snare in there by

(01:59:14):
the Brethren, which you know it's been in hundreds of
records I made.

Speaker 2 (01:59:18):
So why did you after that record? Then? Why did
you leave?

Speaker 6 (01:59:22):
Electra silver Rowe was my boss and and and I
don't think she necessarily liked me. I can't say that
she was a fan of Dante Ross. And you know what,
I can't blame her.

Speaker 2 (01:59:35):
I was I was. I was.

Speaker 6 (01:59:39):
It was a wild style. You know, you couldn't tell
me a lot, and you know I was living a
crazy life.

Speaker 2 (01:59:45):
And she didn't care about your reputation or your legacy.

Speaker 6 (01:59:47):
Nah, she didn't care about that. She she probably wanted
like she might have wanted to just get me out
to own my legacy because I because I signed Missy too,
and Buster will tell you that. So I did a
deal with Davante Swing and she hated that deal. So
she dropped Missy when she was in Sister and signed
her again. But but I had signed her the first time,

(02:00:07):
and she was like, this deal is bullshit. You know,
what do you know about R and B? And she
would really like talk. She was very belittling to me
and meetings and.

Speaker 2 (02:00:16):
Wait a minute, how does how does she negate your
deal for the label? But then restructure is the deal
for the label?

Speaker 6 (02:00:25):
Like I mean she did, but wouldn't she bringing Missy
to the she got she she didn't sign, by the way.
It took a year later or two. But that said,
and Missy was like, yo, you I know you're the
person really signed. She always held me that and it
was just like a bustle will tell you that it
was just a bugged out period and and so we're

(02:00:45):
making a second Dell record and she wanted him to
work with Tremaine dupre and on.

Speaker 2 (02:00:51):
The second and it was.

Speaker 6 (02:00:55):
Bad vibe. It was bad vibes and she wasn't feeling me,
and and you know, I tried to hold my tongue,
but I'm not good at that. And Chris Lighty. So
Chris Lighty was like, Yo, she's not feeling you. One
day we went to dinner and I was like, you're right.
He's like, come work over at deaf Jam. So I took.
I got a deal over at deaf Jam for an

(02:01:16):
astronomical amount of money, and deaf Jam went g funk
and they didn't give a fuck about me. I signed
Trigger the Gambler and that was it. Wow, that was
the only thing I ever signed. I helped on the
Nutty Professor. I was miserable, but paid paid, and I
linked up with Everlast and we made White for Things

(02:01:39):
of Blues on Deaf Jam's done. Deft Jam was paying
me and I never went to work, and I went
to California. I moved to LA and made the record
with with Everlast and sold a lot of records, and
that was.

Speaker 2 (02:01:51):
One of the most surprising comebacks.

Speaker 6 (02:01:53):
He talked to me for like a year over there.
She's like, I hate you. He gave Tom Silhiman the
biggest record. I gave you eight h and fifty thousand
dollars give me nothing, wow. And I was like, you
were from Warren g Lamb Man, you fucking the South
Central Cartel. Yeah, And I'll tell you I was so
disgusted with rap music at that point in my life. Like,
I was so disgusted by where it was that I

(02:02:16):
was listening to Radiohead and Massive Attack and DJ Shadow
and you know whatever, Oasis and and all kinds of
rock music. I grew up, you know, like I was
a teenage punk rocker, so I had an affinity for
that stuff. I played drums a little bit, and I
just like, you know, we were our minds were in
different places. I was in the sound Garden, I wasn't

(02:02:36):
really like, I wasn't juiced on where hip hop was.
I didn't like Foxy Brown straight up and the puff stuff.
I liked it when I was in the club, but
I didn't I didn't care for you know, it wasn't
it wasn't going on life. It didn't speak the culture
to me at that time. It spoke another culture and
hats off the puff respect And I like those records

(02:02:57):
a lot more in retrospect now, but when they were out,
I like them in the club when I'm trying to
dance with the chick. But I didn't want to live
those records, so you know, I wanted to something else.

Speaker 2 (02:03:06):
Wow, I followed my heart. Did you have anything to
do with the Everlast solo record that came out in
ninety five before the Whitey four?

Speaker 6 (02:03:13):
No, but I know him. I met him with Dayla
the but it didn't come out in ninety five.

Speaker 2 (02:03:18):
That was the one that was the knack I got that.
I got the neck in sending No no, I'm talking
about there was. It was Guru ever Last and the
Big Crew.

Speaker 13 (02:03:29):
The.

Speaker 6 (02:03:31):
Gangstar Joint.

Speaker 2 (02:03:32):
Oh fed up, fed up?

Speaker 6 (02:03:34):
Yeah, but but the remixes played the remix the remixes,
the joint with the with the Jean Jock Perah fed.

Speaker 2 (02:03:45):
What's that? Don't turn around to your back? I got
the Great Town Board for you, chunked that act on
the ones bag and Jack's Pack and guns hacking. See
Guru dancing in the videos right there.

Speaker 6 (02:03:59):
You know Peter Green is the actor he okay see
full fiction right?

Speaker 2 (02:04:03):
Yes?

Speaker 6 (02:04:04):
Remember zed that kills me in that video?

Speaker 2 (02:04:08):
Wow?

Speaker 6 (02:04:10):
So so needless to say, I was in La with
Saddat before I worked with Everlast. I got I managed Saddat.
I can't manage a fucking shoelace, but but I managed
Saddad and and I got him signed. Allow, we did
the Wild Cowboys. We're in La on tour or something,
and Guru came and he hung out with us, got drunk.

(02:04:32):
He was in the hotel, the Mandre on and and
he was like, yo, you know my man ever Less
us A, yeah, I know him, little bit. He's cool,
and he's like he's gonna come meet me. And then
he's like, yall two motherfuckers are like the same, dude,
you need to hang out. And I was like word
and And what I didn't tell him was that mugs
and then and Eric knew this. They never wanted us
to hang out together because we were both threw a
wild back then and the chances of someone getting arrestled

(02:04:54):
were pretty high. So me and him know, we linked up,
and then Sadat did the record with him him for
that album was.

Speaker 2 (02:05:01):
That The Heart Full of Sorrow?

Speaker 6 (02:05:02):
Yeah?

Speaker 2 (02:05:03):
I love that.

Speaker 6 (02:05:03):
That was a hot record and I went out there
with them when they did it, and we just linked.
We went to the super Bowl the guy yeah, and
it was like I met my twin brother. I was like, Oh,
he's just like me. And then we stayed tight and
we ended up doing that record.

Speaker 11 (02:05:15):
So so I have a question, how did how did
the the I guess the genre switch happened forever last night?

Speaker 6 (02:05:23):
So, like I said, we were really disgusted with the
state of rap music, right, so you know, we we
liked the aggressive rap music, right, and aggressive rap music
wasn't really winning right then, you know, Like so he's
a soul assassin and and that's the kind of music
he liked, and we were listening to a lot of
all kinds of shit like Neil you know, I love
Neil Young. Like I said earlier, my mom was into
singer songwriter stuff, Neil Young and Bob Dylan, Fan Morse

(02:05:45):
and so I grew up with that around me kind of,
and and so did he because he's he's around my age,
a little younger, and uh, I had we were in
the studio, we're working on a rap record, and we
did the song dollar Bill, the one with him in
X and we did the We did another version of Ends,
I was a rap version, and then we did I

(02:06:06):
think we did the song a Letter, and we were
making a rap record. And I had a guitar. I
had a guitar and I played guitar a little, a
little bit. I play a couple of a CDC songs
and I had an acoustic like a hummingbird in my
studio and he picked it up and he was like, Yo,
can I take this back to the pad he was
staying with me. I said yeah, whatever, So he went
to my house and he, uh, yo, this is the best.

(02:06:28):
He always tells his story. I can't tell it as
good as him. So back then I was like, I
was just I was smashing everything in sight. I was
just I was on one. So I was a young man.
So I had this chick in my house in my
room and I literally heard him playing what It's Like

(02:06:48):
and I ran out my boxer shorts and I was like, Yo,
you need to record that ship. I finished my It's
crazy too because I never messed with white girls back then.
I always remember It's like I remember it because when
homegirl came over. He said you said, he said, Yode,
what do you He was like, Yode, what's open that.

(02:07:09):
I was like, sometimes you gott to fuck with the
home team because because you know, if you know me,
I mess with I mess with the Spanish mommy's and
the Asian girls, so.

Speaker 2 (02:07:19):
So so perfect.

Speaker 6 (02:07:24):
So man, I heard them play the record and I
was like, we got to record that. He's like, I
don't know. And the next day I was on him again,
you gotta play that.

Speaker 2 (02:07:30):
And that was him actually playing the guitar.

Speaker 6 (02:07:32):
He was playing that song and singing it and and
and I said, play me the song again next morning
because it'd stuck in my head. And he was like,
he played again. I said, yo, we got to record.
They said, I'm not ready to do that. Once I
do that, I can't ever do what I do now.
I said, now you can do everything. He said, I
don't want to do it. I said, yo, you should
do it. He didn't want to do it. So I
told him for two days straight, you gotta do it,
you gotta do it. He I said, bring the guitar

(02:07:52):
back to the studio. So I was I was being
a producer. So he brought the guitar back. I said, yo,
play that song. Play it from my engineer. He played
for John gay Amble gambles like that shit is fire.
I said yeah. What he didn't know was I had
the La fayete for rock drums hooked up already. I said, yeah,
play that played. I hit the hit the MP bonk
drums I had hit it on. He played it right too.
I said, that's it, that's the song, and he was

(02:08:14):
like really. I said we're going to record that tomorrow
and recorded the next day. First pass of his vocals
is that version that made it to the record because
I recorded on a sixteen track tape machine, a task
scam that I had at MS sixteen right a one
inch sixteen, so we could never find that machine again.
I literally couldn't overdub when I took the tape la.

(02:08:38):
We couldn't find a machine, so I took it in
transfer to a two inch, but we just used the
vocals over there and then we added to strings.

Speaker 2 (02:08:45):
That was that. So when the song hit, and really.

Speaker 6 (02:08:49):
Dude, it hit six months after it came out the
What It's Like, What It's Like? It was we thought
we were gonna We thought we were over. We sold
thirty eight hundred copies the first week that album wow
so and Steve Rifkin had given me a job. Steve
Rifkin loved Steve Rifkin. Always had a check for me,
always had a consulting gig, always, always, always, always.

Speaker 2 (02:09:11):
Check for me.

Speaker 6 (02:09:12):
He wanted me to work a loud. I was gonna
be the first president UH vice president allowed a and
or departmer. I didn't do it, but he always wanted
me to work with him. And I gave him the
album before it came out, and he was like, this
is the best thing you've ever done in your whole life.
And when it sold thirty eight hundred copies the first week,
he called me up. He's like, I want to call
Tom Silverman right now and try and buy the record.
And I was like, he's not gonna sell to He's like, well,

(02:09:32):
I'm going to see and and I don't know if
you ever made that call, but the record stumbled out
the gate. He went on the road and actually the
first show he did in New York was at Conan
Allen Hine Saint Mark's Place, and he killed it. And
I want to say John Perells or John Leland. Sometimes
someone named John who wrote for The Times was there

(02:09:55):
and he gave it a stellar, stunning review and keep
going on and on and on the end in Seattle
started playing the record, which is like the k Rock
of Seattle Indicator station, and because of that, k Rock
started playing it and almost by accident, that record became
his song. And it was six months. I remember the

(02:10:15):
week going into Christmas, I saw Jeff Finster and he
sold He said, you sold seventy thousand albums this week, Nante,
and I was like really. He's like yeah, He's like
that record is a huge record. And I was like,
thanks Jeff.

Speaker 2 (02:10:29):
And that was that. Wow. That record was everywhere. Yeah, yeah,
Wow was on VH one. They used to play it.

Speaker 6 (02:10:37):
Bought me in my house. That's why I bought my house.
Wow from that and I got a big publishing deal
and blah blah blah.

Speaker 2 (02:10:43):
So Vence is sweet, say if the Ross.

Speaker 6 (02:10:47):
I remember, this is great. I saw Leon Russell and
Leo said, I am not fucking with you still and
and Russell said, Leon, stopped being a dick, Yo, I
love you, d congratulations and Leo he was like, stop
being a dick. And he was like you're right. I'm
happy for you.

Speaker 1 (02:11:05):
I love everyone like I know no one in this
industry that doesn't have their version of what they think.

Speaker 6 (02:11:12):
That's your yours.

Speaker 2 (02:11:14):
No, I mean I'm scared.

Speaker 5 (02:11:16):
No.

Speaker 2 (02:11:17):
But my relationship it's different. He says, you have to
DJ for it this again, like my my, my leeor
thing is I always DJ for uh?

Speaker 4 (02:11:28):
His?

Speaker 5 (02:11:29):
Uh?

Speaker 2 (02:11:30):
I guess his then wife.

Speaker 6 (02:11:31):
Tory, Yeah, Tory, his wife is lady married.

Speaker 2 (02:11:36):
They never married. Okay, I still don't know if they're
item or not. That's how much I'm out of it.

Speaker 6 (02:11:40):
He gave me my job that I kind of have
now at her house on a Saturday afternoon, like I
love Lee or like that's my guy. I can't. I
can't front.

Speaker 2 (02:11:48):
Yeah, I have good Lee or stories like I have
a long.

Speaker 6 (02:11:53):
Very complicated relationship with them.

Speaker 2 (02:11:55):
But I love.

Speaker 6 (02:11:57):
Well.

Speaker 2 (02:11:57):
You didn't put like hot pep is on the tune
in fish sandwich or like.

Speaker 6 (02:12:02):
Definitely he threw many sandwiches at the back of my head,
you stupid fuck.

Speaker 2 (02:12:05):
I just want one classic story of like God, just one,
all right?

Speaker 6 (02:12:11):
So I worked there, I went out one night drink
a lot, and I used to fight a lot and
Hank Shockley and me edwards. He slapped me in the
back of my head and I dropped him, and then
his brother Keith ran over and my man, this Albanian
kid snuffed him and then flashed the gun I'm thinking of, like,

(02:12:35):
I found this record in.

Speaker 2 (02:12:36):
And I went back to it.

Speaker 6 (02:12:41):
Russell was there and he was like, you stupid motherfucker.
He said that man makes hits for me.

Speaker 2 (02:12:50):
What the fuck do you do?

Speaker 6 (02:12:52):
I said, I'm sorry. He's like, yeah, right. And on
Monday he called me to his house and I thought
I was getting fired and he was like, yo, you're
lucky I love you because I should fire you. And
I kept my job and Griff called me up at work.
I was like, you know, motherfuckers want to come see you.
Who was the kid?

Speaker 2 (02:13:07):
Who?

Speaker 6 (02:13:07):
Who was the Puerto Rican kid who snuffed Keith? And
I was like, you don't want to know him. And
that kid who did that later on went to jail
for murder. He was a wild Umanian kid on the Armando. Wow,
that's a deaf jam story.

Speaker 2 (02:13:20):
And then there's.

Speaker 6 (02:13:22):
One one time me and Jam assad Jay, you know,
me and DMC. We're at the show at the World
Davy DMX and Public Enemy where the performers opening night
and they had these pained windows and DMCs to wear
a uh ring, an old English ring, and he was
punching panes of the windows, breaking them and I said

(02:13:45):
I could do that, and he said do it. And
I did it once and I broke one and he
did it. He broke another one. I did another one.
I cut my finger up and I had to get stitches.
I still get the scar on my day, right on
my finger wow, from punching windows with them. Who drove
me to the hospital left me there and I don't know, man,
there's a million stories like you know. That was a

(02:14:06):
wild time in my life, but it was super duper fun.
And I met after and I remember when I met
Chuck D there. I had his demo before he came
out for months, and I didn't believe he was Chuck
D because he wasn't big enough to be Chuck D.

Speaker 2 (02:14:18):
Oh you have this giant Yeah, I thought he was
like six ft nine figures here.

Speaker 6 (02:14:22):
It's like, wait, you're Chuck D. He's like yeah. I
was like, no, you're not. And he was Chuck D.

Speaker 2 (02:14:27):
That's crazy, all right. The blind test, all right, what
we do is we play you songs and you give
have to be blind. No, no, no, it's like downbeat.

Speaker 1 (02:14:42):
We'll randomly play you stuff that's significant to your career
or you know, just to get your taste on things, and.

Speaker 2 (02:14:50):
We'll rate that record. Uh not, you don't have to
rate it, just talk about it all right. This one
should be very interesting. We'll see. I'm that you know
about your own history.

Speaker 6 (02:15:04):
Oh that's Homeboys. Shit, I didn't even know that. That
ol't me. Notice is Dirty's Joint?

Speaker 2 (02:15:13):
Did you know at the time it was?

Speaker 6 (02:15:14):
I didn't.

Speaker 2 (02:15:15):
I didn't know it to just now you just figured
out right now.

Speaker 6 (02:15:17):
I just heard it right now, it's like, oh, that's
dirty Joint. I didn't even know. I never knew that.

Speaker 2 (02:15:22):
Yeah, it's probably the greatest sample revealed.

Speaker 6 (02:15:25):
I no idea.

Speaker 2 (02:15:27):
I'll give a shout out to Jay Rock for.

Speaker 6 (02:15:35):
Yeah, like, wow, I had no idea exactly the thousands
of times and I'm a Stevie Wonder fanatic.

Speaker 2 (02:15:44):
Yeah, who knew?

Speaker 6 (02:15:45):
That's wild.

Speaker 2 (02:15:46):
I hope the lawyers don't call that's a beautiful it's.

Speaker 6 (02:15:49):
A beautiful record. They're gonna go catch Risen.

Speaker 2 (02:15:53):
Now, Wow, how how would you did you negotiate with
the artists that you have to remix everything on their
records or you just did just kind of did it.

Speaker 6 (02:16:07):
I was like, I'll just go remixes and they'd be like, oh,
that's cool, we'll put it out and they didn't care. Nah,
because I would do them like I would just grab
bag of polls.

Speaker 2 (02:16:13):
I just do them.

Speaker 6 (02:16:14):
I literally would sit there with the vocals and I
would fuck I would sample them line by line by line.
How crazy is that?

Speaker 5 (02:16:22):
Yeah, because that's my question. How did you keep it
in time? Because I mean it wasn't pro tous, you
couldn't line it up.

Speaker 6 (02:16:27):
Time stretched a little though.

Speaker 2 (02:16:28):
Oh really, even even with tape.

Speaker 6 (02:16:30):
With I'd make sure whatever I made was the same tempo.

Speaker 2 (02:16:33):
Ah, okay, gotcha. Do you remember the first digital record
you did? The first recording, White Ford Things Blues. That
was the first one, okay, and then after that.

Speaker 6 (02:16:43):
Everything Meryl Caldato told me I had to get up
on digital recording, and he actually, yeah, And when I
started the second ever last record, I had a little
bit of knowledge and I wanted to hung out with
Mario and he just taught me everything, and he was like,
here's what we gotta do, here's what you gotta do
good because I had I had a I had an
aid that moment on the first Whitey Foy record that
made me cry. I lost background vocals, like eight tracks

(02:17:06):
of background vocals. I had to do again, and I
literally like was crying.

Speaker 2 (02:17:11):
All right, Uh, we're gonna give you your second.

Speaker 1 (02:17:16):
Blind test song, Sir Dante Ross right here, of course,
mister yes, mister Dante Ross.

Speaker 2 (02:17:26):
I know what that is.

Speaker 6 (02:17:29):
That's mc a andi, that's drum machine. I remember when
they made that. That ship was crazy right there.

Speaker 2 (02:17:35):
Do you know anything about the history of the Latin
rascals or it's just I do.

Speaker 6 (02:17:38):
I knew those guys. I you know, I know a
lot about freestyle.

Speaker 2 (02:17:48):
M Yeah, this why this song never took off on
death Jam, I'll never know.

Speaker 6 (02:17:56):
Yeah right, it's bugged out Budi. He was Brazius guy
Jay Burnett. He was one of one of the engineers
at Chun King and and the Beasties well Mike and
Ad Mike and MCA lived in his building on Christie Street,
sixty nine Christie Street with the Chinese whole house in
the in the first floor.

Speaker 2 (02:18:14):
They called us sixty nine kids. When was the significance
of it.

Speaker 6 (02:18:18):
There was Club sixty nine. It was right there, sixty
nine Christian Street, and his dad, this Chinese gangster who
was the landlord. He was like, your boy's never come
to the club. Plus it's nine, come on, come on,
hang out. And we would always we'd always make fun
of him. He'd always do his voice. And it was
this place that was like basically there's a whole house
on the first floor, the Chinese club, and and it

(02:18:38):
was like what do they call fucking uh sweatshops? So
they can make as much noise as they wanted in
this fucked up loft that had rats that they lived in.
And Brazudi lived in the building too. He got them
I think the apartment and and it was like they
could practice her all the time. Brazudi lived upstairs. And
he was friends with Steve at and Steve Steve and

(02:19:00):
and obviously Rick and everybody. And he made the record
with with m c A and Russ. Rick put it
out and they never won anywhere, but it was an
ill record and uh yeah, he programmed it, he did
everything on it, and mc A just wrote the raps
and did the raps.

Speaker 2 (02:19:15):
That same Stevett ended up doing bigger and Deffer. They
did everything that he did. Back then.

Speaker 6 (02:19:19):
It was Rick's guy, Steve Vett. He died to rust
in peace.

Speaker 2 (02:19:22):
Steve had passed away.

Speaker 6 (02:19:23):
Long time ago. What long long time ago? Stevett? Hat
I mean he is you know his engineering man. Just
think about great the Beasties record sounds, and how great
Raising Hell sounds. He was a beast ll he's a beast.
He's a beast.

Speaker 2 (02:19:39):
Wow. I can't even imagine, Like at your tenure at
def jam Light, what was the one what was the
your your your top moment of.

Speaker 6 (02:19:50):
Like alert rebel without a pause. I gave him the
test pressing and he played it, Like.

Speaker 2 (02:19:55):
What was the reaction when you first heard that record play?

Speaker 6 (02:19:57):
It was in a land quarters he played I hadn't
really heard it, and he played it and he was like, Yo,
this shit is ill. And he played it about forty
five minutes later and the club jumped off crazy and
I was like, oh my god, that's a hit record.
I was like, that's a hit record. Well. Another great
memory of Deaf Jam is I tried to sign Boogie
Down Productions, so I brought them in and it was

(02:20:20):
Eric B. Was there rock him No, just Eric B.
Russell Leor and go, and Scottie Morris was there. I
think d was there, but he never remembers this. And
Carris Won was like, they were like, yo, we don't
want to be on deaf jam. Why Carris was like, yo,
I'm deaf. I don't need the deaf JAM. I already

(02:20:42):
got that. Like he didn't want to fuck because he
didn't trust them. He's he just was paranoid. So he
didn't trust them and we didn't get them. And if
you notice, he took shots.

Speaker 2 (02:20:52):
He was always taking shots.

Speaker 6 (02:20:53):
Run Run DMC. He took some shots and I think
that had something to do with it too. You know,
he didn't want to fuck with them, and he was
you know, he was all the Juice crew. He was
trying to just you know, he was ready to go out.
He was ready to whatever at any time.

Speaker 2 (02:21:05):
But in his head he thought it was better to
be on Bee Boy Records.

Speaker 6 (02:21:08):
Well then no, So here's what happened. They knew that
they could get out of the b Boy Records contract
that had been voided, so they were free agent kind of.
And and then Scott got killed. And then we had
another meeting with Karis One and he said I'm not
really trying to sign it, but you should sign my
man D Nice and we didn't sign D Nice. Wow

(02:21:29):
signed the job, and I remember there was a lot
of confusion because George and the host was saying he
managed them and he didn't manage them. I think there
was a little problem over.

Speaker 1 (02:21:35):
That before I do the last record? Are there any
other near misses that you could have signed?

Speaker 6 (02:21:41):
So many dos effects I didn't sign it.

Speaker 2 (02:21:45):
I had it series.

Speaker 6 (02:21:48):
The biggest miss I ever read was trib Call Quest.
I left my job at Tommy Boy with the intent
of signing trib Call Quest from Brand Nubian's and the
DC at Electric Records, and I lost two out of
three of them.

Speaker 2 (02:21:58):
The DC doc you had a relationship with Dre to
do that or Jerry Heller was in.

Speaker 6 (02:22:02):
My office with doctor Dre and Michell l a Easy
and they wanted to bring him there because they had
a song called Bridget that they wouldn't put out. If
you've ever heard it, it's it's out there on the net.
It's a filthy record, It's amazing. Bridget was a dumb hope.
Bridget was a dumb hold Bridget. I think the I
think she fucked the midget Bridget. It was wow, this
is a wild record. So and it's all about them

(02:22:22):
running the train on her right and her and.

Speaker 2 (02:22:26):
How that Tommy Silverman.

Speaker 6 (02:22:28):
So Tom didn't want to spend the money because we
had it was one hundred and seventy five thousand dollars deal.
He didn't want to spend it. I went over to
work at Electro. I tried to get the deal but
and they thought they could get out of East West deal.
My lawyer, Gary Cassen, said, we can't compete against one
of the labels in Warner Music Group. We can't go
and do this. And my boss told me, Jerry Heller,

(02:22:49):
don't trust that guy. I remember him told me that
he's like, he's not trustworthy. And and when I read
Jerry's book, he told the story and omitted me from
the story and told a bullshit version of it. But
that's okay because Jerry Heller's Jerry Heller, right, And I
have no, no, you know, bad feelings for him. But
he didn't tell the truth and and I didn't sign
that and Tribe I had three hundred thousand dollars, which

(02:23:11):
was a gang a loot on the table back then
it was and I think I went up to three
seventy five and they signed a jive and they came
up after publishing. Oh, they didn't know the game back then.
And Chris lightighty for years, I'd be like, you could
have kept your publishing and that should have been my group,

(02:23:31):
and yikes, I have a long intricate history with those guys.
And yeah, I mean it was like me and Chris,
you know, remained very close friends throughout all of that.
And those were bands that I lost. There's some others
along the way. I lost stuff recently, even that did well,
and you know, there's a bunch of stuff I've lost,
but those are ones that really stick out and do's effects. Honestly,

(02:23:53):
I didn't believe in it. I was like, I don't
believe in it. I was like, either it was novelty,
thought it was novelty. I lost Souls of Mischief signed Dell,
and I should sign Souls, And I didn't sign Souls
because Stretch on Front and Daddy Reef worked the big
beat and those are my sons, and I was like,
they were like, we want to sign Souls. I was like,
get that. Get that kind of Maddie gave me dirty
and and Sophia stepped in and got it. Yeah, but

(02:24:14):
that was supposed to be on big beat and and yeah,
and I should have signed them. I didn't sign him.
And they had they had ninety three two on the
demo and all that, all of that.

Speaker 2 (02:24:24):
So were you behind artifacts? Were you only beat that was?

Speaker 6 (02:24:27):
That was reef di that you know? I didn't do that?
What else did I miss? Those?

Speaker 2 (02:24:31):
Are?

Speaker 6 (02:24:32):
Those are noticeable? Missus? I tried to swing Third Base
to Tommy Boy and and Tommy Boy didn't like them.
They didn't want to sign them. I helped make Third
Basic group Sam sever.

Speaker 2 (02:24:42):
Part of like your stimulated No No, but he was
he was my man and ship.

Speaker 6 (02:24:46):
He was my boy. And he showed me how to
use some equipment, and he brought a few records here
and there, and he put me up on the Ultimate
breaks and beats, and he kicked some knowledge my way.
He was definitely younger than me, but like my mentor.

Speaker 2 (02:24:57):
On some level.

Speaker 1 (02:24:58):
What would you use like at twelve hundred hun and
then we went to the MPs and twelve hundred drummer.

Speaker 6 (02:25:03):
She yeah, that's the one, that's the that's the box.
I mean you know who the master of the of
the of the s P twelve was. I just got
a big up as someone who no one talks about.
Paul C. He was the master the sp I know
him well, my man. That's probably how I know Large.
And the other day Large gave me the biggest compliment.
He said, Yo, when it comes to like beat knowledge,
I always held you up there with Paul C and

(02:25:24):
almost like damn because he's the king of kings. He
showed me. He's the one who told me by every
get out my life woman. He showed me skull snaps.
It took me shopping. He was that guy.

Speaker 2 (02:25:35):
He was.

Speaker 6 (02:25:36):
He was an amazing producer and he would have he
would have got paid. I mean he did a lot
of records. You don't know he did, you know, including
stuff ever being rock him. Give the drummers something for
ultra magnetic steezo. It's my turn. Let the rhythm hit him.
He did. He did Duth James, James, that's him, and

(02:26:03):
they killed the peach the best. To me, he did
all those records and he mixed them in the room.
That was about this big. He was a nasty, nasty,
nasty one.

Speaker 2 (02:26:12):
So was he primarily an engineer.

Speaker 6 (02:26:14):
And producer and a digger. He was a serious digger,
for real, real real digger.

Speaker 2 (02:26:20):
I heard the legends.

Speaker 6 (02:26:20):
I heard the legend of Paul nineteen ninety right, I
think so eighty nine. And he did organize Confusions demo.
They're called simply too Positive STP. And I wanted to
sign him. And he had Brad looped up, he had
bron he had the Eddie Harris joined too, the one
that that brand Nuby used. So he was nasty and
asked Paul about him if you ever get large pro

(02:26:42):
up here? So so whenever I when I when I
think about Large, I always think about Paul cy too.
So you know, Paul c. He was a legend man.
He got taken up before this time.

Speaker 2 (02:26:51):
Well the last record. I'm just of course he signed
l O N S. But it's something about this album
that just.

Speaker 6 (02:27:04):
This nasty Lords Missus, buster Buster those solo because of this.

Speaker 2 (02:27:16):
Yes, this man Backspin did this really?

Speaker 6 (02:27:22):
Back Spin was ill. I don't know what I mean.

Speaker 16 (02:27:24):
He was plugged out, like their feminine patat like the girls.

Speaker 2 (02:27:37):
Not fat Girl the way. Yeah. To me, feminine fat
should have been a single and always for.

Speaker 6 (02:27:47):
A minute, girl fat, that's Phil Cosby no booking tm MG,
oh yeah, yeah yeah sing a simple song joint.

Speaker 2 (02:27:56):
No the uh that that?

Speaker 6 (02:27:58):
I know what you mean.

Speaker 2 (02:27:59):
I wouldn't have that luck if it wasn't for.

Speaker 6 (02:28:03):
The silver album.

Speaker 2 (02:28:04):
Yeah, it's on that. I always that's the question I
played this to ask you.

Speaker 6 (02:28:17):
Why was this not a rest of the band wouldn't
go for it? That's bust. And I always thought, like
when I heard that bus, I was like, damn, he
got that yard Man ship. He's ill. It was like
a real that sound like a real Brooklyn record too.
I can't even explain why this has that yard Man field.
Buster was so he was so incredible, you know, he
was just so charismatic from day one to.

Speaker 2 (02:28:36):
This to this day. I still spend feminine fat by
leaders of the news that.

Speaker 6 (02:28:41):
Record in at least ten years. That's an ill one.

Speaker 2 (02:28:44):
It's incredible.

Speaker 6 (02:28:46):
Chemist backspin at he was ill. He did he had
a couple of joints on that album. I don't think
he ever did so. He produced this and that was
Buster's man from Brooklyn.

Speaker 2 (02:28:55):
What else did he do?

Speaker 6 (02:28:56):
He did a couple of songs on an album. I
have to see the album and my memories a little hazy.

Speaker 2 (02:29:00):
But he didn't have any other productions that time that
I'm aware of.

Speaker 6 (02:29:03):
Maybe something here or there, but nothing significant.

Speaker 1 (02:29:07):
Okay, So there's so much that we have not touched on.
We didn't even get onto Santana. Oh yeah, yeah, is
there only Grammy the Santana record?

Speaker 6 (02:29:13):
I only got one? Sorry, bro?

Speaker 2 (02:29:16):
And can I still hang? Of course he can't.

Speaker 6 (02:29:18):
Guys want to make sure. Yeah, yeah, I got that.
I did a ever Last That was the first song
we did after he because he had a heart attack.
If did Whitey Ford sings a blues that I've got
to mention. He was more in congeneral heart disorder and
his kuminin was misprescribed and he had a heart attack.
He almost died. I mixed the album without him. He
was in hospital couperating and then he got better. One
on tour and I got a call from Pete Gamberg

(02:29:39):
and he was like, do you guys have a song
for Santana? And I said, yeah, sure, we didn't, And
Everlass was in town coincidentally doing Good Morning America, and
he was like, Yo, let's track the song. And I
took a beat that was from an old casual song
that had a Latin feel to it with the bongo
in it. And I was like, yo, I think these

(02:30:01):
drums are rock. He's like, those are perfect, and we
used those drums and he recorded it and then I
basically ripped off the illea drum break and won in
a million and I used that and break and that
was the song. And I gave Pete the demo like
thirty six hours later, and he was like, when can
you go do it? And I was like, when can
you write a check? He said, how much do you need?
And I asked him for the biggest check I'd ever

(02:30:22):
asked anyone for him my whole life, to produce a record.
He was like, no problem, and I went and did
the record.

Speaker 2 (02:30:26):
Wow.

Speaker 6 (02:30:27):
And I worked with Santana two times after that, and
it was cool. I worked with him at Anthony Hamilton
that was that was badass because I wrote the lyrics
on that song too, and I never really write lyrics,
So so, yeah, Carlos Santana, he's ill. He's the coolest,
and Anthony Hamilton is the coolest too, so so you know,
I don't produce records anymore, but but I always think
the Santana records like the last significant record I produced,

(02:30:48):
The Wane with Anthony Hamilton.

Speaker 2 (02:30:49):
And to me that that's you know which album was
this with Santa Anason all that I am okay?

Speaker 6 (02:30:55):
I was like, I think that was the last one
NE did on Jay. And when I did the song,
they made me Josh Stone did the original vocal and
I had to change the whole register of the song
for her and it didn't rock right and she didn't
sing it right. And I took it to Clive and
he handed me the demo back and I was like, oh,
put the guy on it. That doesn't work, and I
want to recut the entire record again in the original

(02:31:15):
register with the band. And then Anthony came and sang it,
and and what's crazy is I played keyboards on it,
and I don't really play keyboards all that well, but
I just, you know, chopped my shit up. I played
the Warlitter on it, and they had Serban mix it
and he bricked the mix. He didn't because he didn't

(02:31:36):
know how the records supposed to sound. It's supposed to
sound like.

Speaker 2 (02:31:38):
A Donny Hathaway.

Speaker 6 (02:31:42):
So I went out to Cali and I sat with
him and he said what do I do? I said,
how much I pay you? And he told him. I said,
maybe you should do it yourself. And then I was like, now,
I sat down and I fixed it around and I said,
that's the record.

Speaker 2 (02:31:52):
And so initially he sent it to Surban Blinds and
he did.

Speaker 6 (02:31:55):
They wouldn't do that. They did that.

Speaker 2 (02:31:56):
That's okay. I'm about to say, I want to Bob.

Speaker 6 (02:31:58):
Howers a mixer keeping hundred or Jamie Stoub They just
wasn't trying.

Speaker 2 (02:32:01):
To hear that.

Speaker 1 (02:32:02):
Serving is the first and probably the the exception of
Jimmy Douglas, the only cat that I've ever just Douglas
sent a mix to and it's like, yeah.

Speaker 8 (02:32:12):
We know what we do. I know what you want, man.

Speaker 6 (02:32:15):
I mean, he just you know, I wanted to sound
like a Donnie Hathaway record. I wanted to sound I
didn't want it to sound. He thought it was all
about the drums and it wasn't.

Speaker 1 (02:32:22):
Yeah, well, Jimmy Douglas is awesome for that's like he
just you give him a reference.

Speaker 2 (02:32:27):
He's like, yeah, I did that back in seventy.

Speaker 6 (02:32:29):
Fourth, right, he probably did.

Speaker 2 (02:32:30):
He did.

Speaker 6 (02:32:30):
He did slave black, slave, foreigner white, like a stuff
and he's He's and he did Timland He's the g Yeah. Yeah,
I mean so so after I mean I got this
stuff after it, Yeah, I did. I did the second
ever last record. I did a you know, I did
all these remix for every rock rap band in the
world that I made a lot of money doing that,

(02:32:52):
Like I did like six corn remixes and Incubis and
fucking all that bullshit, and I was just polishing more
and more turns. I got to be honest, I was
just like, you know, it was like it was, it
wasn't getting better, it was getting worse. And I got
this big publishing deal and I was like, I'm going
to be a songwriter. There's one problem with me being
a songwriter. I can't really play an instrument that well

(02:33:15):
and I don't know how to write lyrics, so so
being a songwriter is probably pretty hard for me. But
but I got a couple of songs off and and uh,
you know, I did this. I did this last two
recordsigning and name what they are, but they were not
artistically fulfilling. And then I started working with Travis Barker
and I helped him out make his solo record, and
I was living in l A. And Uh, my dad

(02:33:37):
passed and le York called me up, so he knew
how close to me and my dad were. An e
from me a job at Warner Brothers, and I went
and I took a job working at Warner Brothers in
New York. I moved back. I was living in l A.
And I did a third ever last record to that
tank and Leo one, what was the throne call? I
had White Tress Beautiful, So I did it and Lee

(02:33:59):
York lew York gave him the deal and then lee
Or quit like a month eight weeks before the record
came out, and I got stuck with La Reed trying
to explain what the record was about and that you
know you can tell that you know it is what
it is. So lear he owed me one and he
he asked me if I wanted a in our job,
and I was like, yeah, you know, there's a couple
of things in my life I've been good at. That's

(02:34:20):
one of them. So uh, I took the job in
New York and I worked there for a couple of years,
and I got to tell you, it was very frustrating.
For the first few years. I found this guy named
Maclamore and and Tom Moskowitz told me sucked and uh
and I told Leora I was gonna quit. Yeah, right,
So I told Lear I was gonna quit. Todd wouldn't
let me sign anything, said take it to a DA

(02:34:40):
see if Kenny wants to do and Kenny Wiggley I
connected him and Zach Quol and he ended up doing
the deal. The record came out, and I went to
work at Adam became vice prosident Ada and I still
worked there now, you know. So so it all worked
out in the end amazing and uh, you know, I
mean I can't necessarily say I was like, I'm recognized
as Macmore's A and R because the the way we
do records at ADAS, we kind of take finished records.

(02:35:02):
It's a distribution coming to label services. But since then
I signed and I signed a little Dicky you know,
saved that money as my record. Oh really yeah, and
that's like a platinum single. And I signed Maide in
Tokyo who have the Uber Everywhere, which is just one
platinum too. So I had a little, you know, a
nice little run in downtown. The other record didn't sell.
The singles sold, and so it's been a good little

(02:35:23):
you know, twelve months over there for me, I'm about
to be senior vice president and blah blah blah ah
that bullshit, all the bells and whistles. But it's ironic
that twenty five years later, I'm kind of back where
it started, you know, doing A and R in the
Warner Music Group again and and having a very good
run right now. But the disparity in the music I

(02:35:43):
work on is is really mind boggling. Like, my, how
do you My good friend Pete said, he used to
do all dirty bastard. It's okay, you have enough credibility,
you can do whatever you want to do. I mean
I had this record, this Jordan Belafert record. Man, I
mean that's a gold record. But like you guys would
punch me if you heard the record, so, you know
you you'd be like, yo, I gave you crab tonight, Like.

Speaker 2 (02:36:04):
Here's the here's the thing though. The thing is is
that now that you're older and wiser one and you
know that the tastes of your youth are not exactly
in line with what is out today, Like how do
you trust yourself when you know? How do you know

(02:36:25):
this is going to work? I mean versus I really love.

Speaker 6 (02:36:29):
This analytics right that that plays into it. I do
heavy analytics. I helped run the research department for for
Atlantic because I also work at Atlantic, so I am
one of the heads of that so research driven. And then,
like in the case of Maclamore, I just really believed
in what he was, Like I saw it live and

(02:36:52):
I was like, Oh, this this I connect to. So
however you feel about him, he's exceptional on what he does, right,
and I recognize his exceptionalness. I thought he was he
was great at what he does. And we talk about
little Dickey, so same thing. I thought he was great
at what he did, Like he's really good at what
he does, like.

Speaker 2 (02:37:08):
Him or not.

Speaker 6 (02:37:09):
So I guess I do my job with less sentiment, right,
with less of my heart and more of my brains.
And I also am keyed into knowing it's a singles market,
it's a streaming world. Your album may never sell. And
the end result of that twofold one, I've become much
smarter at my job, much less emotionally connected and attached,

(02:37:29):
which allows me to leave my job at my desk
and enjoy my life a little life, right, and I
reaped the benefits financially. But two, I feel like me
and and lots of other people who do what I
do for a living, we have killed the art form
of the classic great rap record album. That rap album

(02:37:50):
is no longer important due to streaming, and we have
to we have to if we want to survive in
the business, accept that fact. And I've accepted that fact begrudgingly,
but I accept that fact. And that is what it
is right now. And you know, when I when I,
you know, I do a lean and mean man. I
don't much like my early days. I don't spend a
lot of money picking these records up. I allow people

(02:38:12):
to own themselves. You own your masters and a large
or large royalty. It's a whole different way of doing business.
But but I think for me exciting because I feel
like I'm continuing to the independent side of the culture.
And for me, that's exciting. And I balance it out
by going to play records with just Blaze and large
Pro and digging and and you know, doing all the

(02:38:32):
other things I like. So, you know, kind of my
life has a lot of balance to it.

Speaker 1 (02:38:36):
Do you ever pray that it will come full circle
again and there will be a generation in that I
believe that once to dig again and that that I
don't know if that.

Speaker 6 (02:38:44):
Will ever happen me because of finances, right, Clearing records
cost too much money. But I do believe there are
great rappers in the world. Jay elect, for one, is
a great rapper. Chance the rappers phenomenal. There's lots of
us election. Where is that guy? But you know, and
and I even like Future it's a different thing. But

(02:39:05):
once again, for what he does, he's phenomenal. And there's
polarizing artists like a little YACHTI who I have to
respect because he's polarizing, right, But but there are people
who still really can rap. You know, I believe yg
makes really good music. A chance the rapper vic mensa.
You know, there's lots of guys out there who still
spit and and still rap really great. And then there's

(02:39:27):
lots of guys who make good music. Maybe they're not
the greatest rappers because my bar is set with rock him, right,
So so my bar is here. But that's okay because
I look at music and chambers. Everything has their own chamber.
So I can't expect the trap rap dude of the day.
If I expected that I'll always be miserable. I'll be
the cranky old man in my size thirty eight jeans

(02:39:49):
beefing with the fitted hat. And that's not me.

Speaker 2 (02:39:52):
You know, you know I have to be. I have
to be.

Speaker 6 (02:39:58):
I have to be abreast of what's popping right now.

Speaker 2 (02:40:01):
And you know I mean this.

Speaker 6 (02:40:02):
That's how I am culturally too. I never wanted see
because when I was young, the old bitter dude. I
didn't like that dude. So I don't want to be
that old bitter dude that no one want. No one
wants to be ro you know that dude's corny.

Speaker 2 (02:40:14):
But we're that bit.

Speaker 6 (02:40:16):
I mean, I'm not. I'm not bitter man. And I
find things I love and you know, I'm trying to
do a couple of things right now I believe in
and whether it gets done or not, who knows. But
that said, you know, the problems with doing A and
R now is no secrets. Everybody knows everything, so everything
goes zero to sixty right away, right right away. Even
from when I when we found Maclamore to now, things
have changed dramatically. So the kind of artist that I

(02:40:39):
work with wants to remain independent. He doesn't necessarily want
to be part of a big machine because we have
seen so many guys get signed to that big label
and the breaks come on and that's that, and that's
been since forever, but we really see it now, right
And I can aim ten guys who had a big
buzz and they got signed in that major that came

(02:40:59):
to break.

Speaker 2 (02:41:00):
You know.

Speaker 6 (02:41:00):
The other thing, the other side of is for me
to bring something in the building that's at zero and
think I'm gonna go zero to sixty with it. It's
probably not gonna happen. He asked that that artist has
to be to build it. You gotta be able to
do it himself. And we all can do it because
right there, Quest got his laptop. That's that's your whole
world right there. That's that's your record company, that's your
recording studio. That's your marketing tool, that's your vice president

(02:41:23):
of marketing, that's your promo team. That's everything everything right
and and you know, man, just get it on iTunes
and can end up in the streaming world and you
can win. And I mean, look at chance, man, he
said fuck you to everybody, most punk rock shit ever.
I tried to sign him when he put out ten
days I flew to Chicago. He was like, nah, right, so,
and he told me I wasn't the first one there.

Speaker 13 (02:41:42):
Wow.

Speaker 2 (02:41:42):
And he's that shrewd enough to say no.

Speaker 6 (02:41:44):
He said no to Sylvia Rome before he said no
to me.

Speaker 10 (02:41:46):
Somebody.

Speaker 6 (02:41:48):
His manager has a lot of money, but he makes
a lot of money. He's a touring act. Look, man,
it's a hard ticket world right now. If you're out
there touring amazing. I can name five guys, and I'm
not giving away no secrets. Who are touring acts who
don't need a record deal. The Suicide Boys don't need
a record deal. Pooh, yeah, I don't need a record deal.
I mean, little young Doff don't need a record deal.
These dudes don't need record deals. They are on the

(02:42:09):
road making money, selling merch doing whatever they doing. And
they're not selling thousands, hundreds of thousands of records. But
let's be real. The New Gold records one hundred thousand,
the New Gold albums one hundred thousand. A single might
sell a million. I caught a couple this year, but
my albums are not selling like that. Nobody's are. It's
a different game. But you know what, I'm shrewd enough.
And I've always been involved in technology enough because I

(02:42:33):
was a producer, like and I shifted with time that
that I see where it goes and where it's going.
And hopefully I can continue to do that. If I don't,
I don't got a job, right, and I don't know
how to do that many other things. I pray for
the practice of acceptance. I have like a serious meditation
practice and all this other tree hugger bullshit I do.

Speaker 2 (02:42:52):
And that's important, That's very important. That is important.

Speaker 6 (02:42:55):
Every day I gotta I gotta wake up in the morning.
I have to make conscious contact with maharre power.

Speaker 2 (02:43:00):
That's at all he got on me about that about meditating.

Speaker 6 (02:43:05):
I mean, I'm meditating, pray. I've After my father died,
I just developed a much deeper connection to my higher power.
So I had to deal with a lot. So you know,
you get closer to God when things happened, right, So
so as you know, I live one hundred percent sober
life for a long time now, and and you know
I don't smoke or drink anymore. And you know, I'm
still bad with ladies. That's that's progress, not perfection. But

(02:43:30):
it's like I'm I'm happy where I am. You know,
it's like I'm blessed to still have a job and
still have, uh you know, a source of income doing
what I love it. And I have all these great
relationships with with people I worked with for my whole life.
And you know, it's damn I talked to Positive News today.
You know, it's like I spoke the mugs over the weekend.
Like I have these friends who I'm going to. It's

(02:43:51):
like I always say, we didn't go to college, We
went to hip hop.

Speaker 2 (02:43:54):
You know, that's a quote for your ass right there.

Speaker 6 (02:43:57):
You know, that's what we did. And this was our
hip hop. Whether you know was hanging out with with
all these Shahid recently or whoever. It's like we we
are part of this thing that's so much bigger than us.
And I'm just I always wanted to be Steve Cropper
or Jerry Wexhan. I'm not going to say I'm those guys,
but but I have a little a little piece of
the history of of what this is about and continue

(02:44:17):
to write my history. And for me, that's enough.

Speaker 2 (02:44:19):
You signed o dB and got a completed record, TV
record brou Well. You know I can go on forever
thank you for fulfilling, thank you for having me my
nerd fantasy on just the whole renaissance era of hip
hop dance, Ross, ladies and gentlemen, Thank you, thank you guys.

(02:44:44):
That that was amazing.

Speaker 1 (02:44:47):
Gentlemen, we've learned a lot about renaissance hip hop. Tikeolo,
any final.

Speaker 5 (02:44:55):
Thoughts, Man, I'm just, man, I'm just it's just so amazing,
how like I want to there's a correlation between you know,
hearing him talk about how the records were cheap, How
cheap the records were, you know, for a record, you know,
like a daylight to get made for like ninety thousand
or whatever, for something so groundbreaking be made for so cheap,
and you look at what rap budgets became later on.

(02:45:17):
You know, it's I think there's something to be said,
you know, doing sometimes you can do more with less.
I think that forces you to be in some ways,
that forces you to be a lot more creative, because
you really you got to make every everything count, every dollar,
every minute in the studio, you every every real like everything,
you know what I'm saying, So you can't really fuck around.

Speaker 11 (02:45:36):
And they always say that like necessity is a mother invention.
So you know, if you don't have the money to
pay for you know, whatever whatever studio equipment you need,
and you can come up with something, you gotta make it. Yeah,
you got to figure it out. It's amazing.

Speaker 1 (02:45:48):
Yeah, I gotta say that. My rule number one is
I hate those comfort studios. I mean a lot of
them are shutting down now. But like one of the
biggest things about like roots albums was the fact that
when we track the music, when I did like the
music and the stuff, I wanted it in the most uncomfortable,

(02:46:08):
unsavory none. I mean we always joke like fruit basket
situation and non fruit basket situation, Like Tarik needs to
be comfortable in a you know, sunshine and fruit baskets
and all that stuff and free pastries that that sort
of man. I mean, he got to be in his
zone and you know he needs fresh praise series and

(02:46:31):
fruit baskets. But like, you know, I wanted the opposite.
Like even now, when I make roots records, I record
them in our dressing room at thirty Rock, which is
essentially our you know, it's like a closet.

Speaker 2 (02:46:46):
I just have this this this.

Speaker 1 (02:46:49):
Fear of going soft if I'm in a comfortable environment.
So maybe it's a good thing that, you know, what
would the l O and S records sound like with
a seven hundred thousand dollars budget a budget? Yeah, I
mean who would know if if they were giving them
righteous budget. But then it kind of also makes me

(02:47:10):
mad that that even labels didn't see the art that
they had on their hands to you know, give it justice.

Speaker 5 (02:47:17):
I mean, yeah, I think that was the selling point
kind of a lot of hip hop. And you talked
to you know, a lot of the OG's in the game,
they all say that like the selling point of hip hop.

Speaker 2 (02:47:26):
It wasn't.

Speaker 5 (02:47:27):
I don't think the label really understood the music. It
was just it could be produced for so cheap. The
profit margin on it was so high, so it was like, okay,
you mean, we ain't got to bring a drummer, a bassis,
a guitarist, and we just need just you and your records.

Speaker 2 (02:47:39):
Okay, cool, we'll sign it. So hip hop is truly
even the New Blues, oh my god, the New Blues
and labels are just Alan lomax is walking around with.

Speaker 5 (02:47:49):
Field recordings and shit, young thug natural environment life here
at the Trap House with certain Gucci talking about so
I'm still a flare himself.

Speaker 1 (02:48:07):
Unpaid Billed Steve. Uh, you know, you guys are are intricate,
vital parts of this show. Did you learn anything special?

Speaker 8 (02:48:22):
Dante Ross is some Jedi Yoda hip hop god. Yes,
I learned that. I was also impressed by the someone
who has a career in music and is somewhere in
the middle of it at this point. To have that
kind of longevity and continue to do groundbreaking ship at
each turn is really unbelievable. And I don't you know
something to aspire to, I said, I suppose.

Speaker 2 (02:48:42):
Yeah, I think we all want to be Dante Ross.

Speaker 8 (02:48:46):
We went that far.

Speaker 1 (02:48:49):
I want to be Dante Ross when I grow up.
If you're like, yeah, this is our new single, it's
called Troy, Yes, right, acronym Troy, so you know, uh,
boss Bill. Any any final thoughts?

Speaker 11 (02:49:04):
Really, the whole Black Bastard situation kind of stuck in
my head, like just kind of you know, hearing names
of people who are kind of voted it down kind
of made me angry. Sense it made perfect sense, but
it's still insensed me because of the fact that, you know,
just learning that they didn't even bother listening to the
album or to get to get the rationale behind the artwork.

Speaker 2 (02:49:24):
You know, it's I cannot wait to get on Facebook
half block about in their defense in the labels defense,
and I'm being granted this is probably the only time
I will ever come to defense.

Speaker 5 (02:49:36):
Get clear in their defense. You know they that's this
was post cop killer, right right. I understand it, But
like they wasn't. I mean, you get a letter from
it was you really get a letter from the government.
It was a borner too, so yeah, it's the same ship.
It's like, okay, I can't find me. I got a
letter from the government for real gun shot.

Speaker 2 (02:49:53):
I get it, I get it. I get it. Wow.

Speaker 11 (02:49:56):
But I mean if it hadn't happened, then you know,
we probably would have never had Mad Villain and yep
and them food and food and yeah, so I guess
it all worked out for the best. Yeah, I guess
I guess it did work out for the best.

Speaker 2 (02:50:11):
We me having fond Tikela Coleman, Sugar, Steve On, paid
Bill and Bossville. Uh. This is Quest Love Supreme. Thank you,
and I'll talk to you all later. Quest Love Supreme.

Speaker 1 (02:50:27):
It's a production of iHeartRadio This classic episode was produced
by the team at Pandora. For more podcasts from iHeart Radio,
visit the iHeart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you
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