QLS Classic: Dante Ross

Music industry exec, A&R rep and producer Dante Ross talks about what it was like working with Brand Nubian, De La Soul, Macklemore and others.

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Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:00):
Of Course Love Supreme is a production of I Heart Radio.
This classic episode was produced by the team at Pandora.
Ladies and Gentlemen. 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 A ka Dante

(00:21):
the Scrub a ka Dante who introduced you to so
many acts you can name them. He either a and
Arentham or signed them himself. De La Soul, Queen Latifa,
Digital Underground, Pete Roxel, Smooth brand Nubian, name him Calsa Pain,
name him yes. Dante Ross damn Near wrote the soundtrack

(00:45):
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 Ross QLs classic. Let's go too,
want to Suprema son, sub Frema roll call, Suprema son,

(01:08):
Suprema roll call, Suprema something something, subprema road called subprema
son some subprema rod call. Our name is quest Love Yeah,
well Kim Fornobs, Yeah, I'm on it, chilling. Yeah, that's
ain't a scribe Suprema Suprema roll call, Suprema something, Suprema

(01:33):
roll call. Our name is fonte Yeah, Fontiga low Yeah.
Shout out to chassis. Yeah, and you go home. Road call,
Suprema road call, Suprema some Suprema road call. Our name
is Sugar, Yeah, Sugar Steve. Yeah, I keep my kit cats. Yeah,

(01:56):
up my sleeve. Suprema so Suprema road called Suprema something something,
Suprema road call. My name is Bill, Yeah, got here late. Yeah,
Now I'm single. Yeah, needed call Suprema sing Suprema roll call, Suprima,

(02:20):
Suprema road called hand boss Bill. Yeah, I'm fresh to death. Yeah.
Shout out to that crab. Yeah from Quest Love Chef.
Roll call Suprema something something kill a roll call, Suprima,
Suprema roll call. My name yeah, I got yeah, you

(02:43):
say roll came Suprima. Suprema road called Subprima son son,
Suprema roll call. What's some people? How are you welcome
to another edition of Quest Love Supreme. I was gonna
say Suprema, but yeah, Quest Love Supreme. I'm your host,

(03:06):
Amir courts Love Thompson and uh, I brought a few
friends with me. Uh my man a spoon coon, Uh
shorty doo wop. I don't know what other titles to
call you yet, bro. I got a lot of them, man,
I got a lot of them, all right, So what
do you a capo? Yeah? Rolling Stone, Yeah, I'm I'm

(03:31):
I'm the end to the Gang. I'm to Rob into
the Batman. Yeah. Yeah, I'm Jerome to the Morris. You know,
I hold the mirror, bro, you know what I mean?
We both might just be jelly Bean and Jesse and
not know it. This is true. I kind of think
Boss Bill is Mars. I think he could be Prince.
Ye Bill is Prince. He's Prince. He's definitely Prince. He's

(03:53):
he cracks the just Grover Washington, Ja the actor. That
ship was hilarious. All right, So, uh, front, how's how's
the project been going. Everything's going good man, tipular Old.
That's the project with me and my man Eric Robinson
is out right now. We've been doing some dates in

(04:15):
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.
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 cheering. How's your
cheering doing, Steve, I have no cheering? Yeah, but I

(04:36):
know I thought you had some cheerings. Now I have
no cheerings. How's how's life going, bro? Good? All right,
well I believe you as you took the pregnant pause
with no children to say good. I'm still trying to
make the cheddar and so forth though. Okay, well, you
can't say e R when you say cheddar has to

(04:58):
be a at the end, I actually meant cheddar. Steve
is actually, uh, maybe maybe we use this platform to
help you. Steve has needed a lifelong obsession with collecting
every c t I record that's ever been in existence.
Most importantly, you're looking for c t I c c I.

(05:21):
Uh it's uh not to be confused. Which one of
you doesn't know what c t I is? Oh okay,
and everyone listening. But I felt that you were asking
facetiously and not literally. It's Creed Taylor. Okay, Well that's
the famous it's one of his labels. It's a label

(05:42):
that you're obsessed with. I am. I think e c
M is another one of yours. Two right, c M
I'm still working on. But I don't think I have
pretty much every ct I record at this point except
forty five, which is what a mirrors talk anyway. Yeah,
I love C t I. Yes, anything Cretailer, kudu Am
he was that and him first and then and before
that verve is there is there a particular album that

(06:04):
you're looking for that you haven't town yet or yes,
it's called Soul Flutes. Soul Flutes, Yeah, I actually have that. Ye.
I'm actually going to my storage in a couple of days. Well,
that's one of the forty five that Quest gave me,
was the Soul Flute to his Uh it was Scarborough
Fair on the A side and day I on the
B side. I think the album is called trust in Me. Yeah,

(06:27):
Soul was the name of the band. Yeah, wow, okay.
And it's like Herbie Hancock on keys and I think
Ron Carter is playing on it, and he's on all this.
It's good to be in a room with people that
actually read the liner notes. That's awesome. 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

(06:51):
I'm connected to a project with uh William I forgot
oh oh, I was about to say, William the Driver, No,
I forgot what the title we have for? Uh? Unpaid Bill?
I'm paid Bill. How are you doing, bro? Yeah? Well,
I'm just saying that people don't read the credits, so
they don't know how Hamilton's soundtrack came to be. So

(07:14):
it's true, but people who listen to theater records do
read the credits because they like to read the lyrics
because it's not on it's not on streaming services. 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. That's the main reason why I haven't really

(07:34):
going in on credit yet 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 album
credits as much as I used to. So what's up though, Bill?
House House? Life on the street, the streets, What do

(07:55):
you mean, Westchester? They're beautiful? Well, I'm in the street
that you work for. Oh that streets? That streets good.
The muppets are human to me by the way, 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 rector Sesme Street. Thank you for asking and
uh uh quest of and I met because he because
he worked on the Hamleton record, but then he then

(08:17):
in turn wrote songs for Sesame Street. I asked you
one too many questions about the actual muppets, like they
was real. But I also learned later that you watch
Sesame Street more than my own children, and probably more
than most people's children, which I was fully president. And
your your Almanaki knowledge and cyclopedic knowledge of music is
also in sort of the Sesame Street World two, which
I envy because often people ask me some deep dark

(08:41):
knowledge ship about Sesame Street and I have no idea
what they're talking. You guys had crazy breaks, and you know,
I just want to rummage through the entire collections. I
would see about that the other day that in the
same way you're going to your storage, said to get
for Steve, we should go to the Sesame Street storage said,
and just go back. I know it exists, we could
go and do it. I did, yeah, because I want

(09:01):
the end thing that was my favorite. You know what,
I'm so mad freaking all right. So in the original
like Roots demo, that was like one of the songs
that we rhymed over. We put uh, we put uh,
Bobby Brown's hot pants on coming, break on top of it,
Bobby Bird, Bobby dropping on the two. That was just

(09:27):
Project dropping on the two. Um. Yeah. Our first demo
was the the end credits to an Sessory Street, the
break that I guess MF. Doom rhymed over uh and uh.
On the second JVC Force album. Uh. They that was

(09:48):
the first single where they rhymed over over that, that
break with the Bobby Bird hot Pants up coming. So yeah, man,
it's a heartbreak. It was a heartbreak, man, Boss Bill,
what's up? How's life? When you're not bossing me around?
When am I not bossing you round? I was like, man,

(10:09):
that's great, man, I got somebody to boss around now
and and and Boss Bill he's he's very effective, I
will say, like, that's why he's here. No, I'm very undisciplined.
I'm very unfocused, you know. I Look, I'm Ronald McDonald
and Boss Bill is the crop. Wait, how do you

(10:30):
know everybody? Yeah? I don't know Croc. He was the
on the inventor of McDonald's. He was the guy, how
do you know the history of McDonald's. I've known that
since I was a kid. I think I did. I
read it in a book and you can just go
and jump on that npaid bill. I'm pretty sure like
there's a plaque if you go with McDonald's that has
him on it that says, actually, I think there is.

(10:53):
I actually knew that. I didn't know what ct I was,
but I knew about well. I feel horrible that I
didn't know that. You know, all the weight that I
put on over the years courtesy. Yeah, he was the one.
He was famous for the quote, I'm not in the
people think I'm in the way people think I'm in
the hamburger business. I'm in the real estate business. That
was his, That was his own. He write a book

(11:15):
he did. You've 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 and there he was
on some He basically was like, look like they talked
about how the McDonald's formula, I guess in the early

(11:36):
days was just really the book was like really thin,
but now the ship is like thick as hell. And
basically his mantra, his his whole thing was like, look,
this is the way we do it, and y'all can
need to do it like this, you can step the
funk off. And I respected that. So I forgot the
name of the book. I mean, this was I was
an undergrad. It's called grinding it out. The making of

(11:56):
McDonald's that is, this was. I mean, this was years ago.
But I feel really inadequate right now as foodie, as
a human being. I have Google, so your your knowledge
of of some deep dark shit is real. Yeah, what quote?

(12:20):
I look at a quote them in the standards they
set for themselves. I don't know now that was? Yeah,
that was? Yeah, I remember that book. Yeah, man, Ray
Croc remember he used the dude. That's that's incredible. That's
why you guys are here to really pick up the
slack that up? Apparently I don't have Uh, did you

(12:42):
know about Ray Croc? Steve now or you? I thank
you for being honest and saying that I know all that.
Are you just saying that to make me feel better?
You know all the character me too? Only Hamburgler who
Grimace grimace. Yeah, they didn't have a little for a second.
I mean McDonald last is going to be just out

(13:05):
of control. I haven't seen man vic cheese in the
second bro. Yeah he still I think they didn't take
him out and I voted out impeached. Is the Hamburgler?
Is he still around? Hamburger? Hamburger still around? He had
a heart attack, but he's all right now, Okay, bad
heart attack. That's like the mate? What was the guy

(13:26):
the uh was the Marlborough man? Wasn't he the one
that died to cancer? That's just like when people die
of the thing they endorsed. So really yeah, that's just
kind of tired of what through cancer or it was
some kind of cancer. I'm kind of smoking as cancer.
They got his ass about it, whatever it was. But
that like when you said that, did you envision like uh,

(13:46):
Sam and Simms team right right exactly the horse tied
to the horse. The horse, Oh yeah, yeah, the horse
did die. The horse did die. I wouldn't hope so
after for years, but I thought he knew the history
of what the words is. No, no, it was I
was thinking because because now I'm thinking of people who
died from the products they endorsed, so I know supposedly, Uh,

(14:09):
I think about guy that was the guy act be wrong.
I just checked on the Marborough Man. Apparently four different
Marborough men died of camp So you know, if you
if you get that job, it's a rope you cursed.
But is there still a quote unquote Marble Man. I
don't know because I know, like there was all these

(14:30):
regulations about advertising and smoking. You know, they got rid
of Joe Campbell and all that, so maybe they got
rid of the Marboro Man too, who knows. Yeah, they
did here rid of Joe Cammel. Damn. That's right. Yeah,
all right, Well this is gonna be a very weird
segue from what music I kind of want to do, uh,

(14:52):
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 of authority and clarity, I could be wrong.
But um, the guests we have today, uh, I feel

(15:15):
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 that. Here a bunch of adults sort of moaning
and growing about classic hip hop and back of the

(15:36):
day and all that stuff. And you know, you don't
understand eras it's it's my personal belief of how the
era UH system runs in hip hop. It's kind of
a five year increment in which UH I see things.
I usually see the evolution of hip hop and the

(15:58):
second year of the decade, the seventh year of the decade. UM.
And I guess if you look in the seventies, I
feel like the most important as far as UH actual
revolution and change in music. Even though nineteen seventy seven
isn't my personal favorite year of the seventies, you can't

(16:19):
deny UH the importance of nineteen seventy seven. Um, what
is the importance of nineteen seventy seven? 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's separated you from the entry to Studio fifty four,

(16:46):
UH in itself spawned three different sub cultures, not even
by a design. First of all, I'm in Studio fifty four.
If you've heard the folklore of you know the sodom
and gomor it's just it's it's the the pen ultimate debaucherous.

(17:06):
I mean everything from Bianca Jagger coming in uh on
nude on a horse or anything that could happen. Uh,
it's it's proprietors who built Studio fifty four. And yeah,
that's where because now I want you to say Ian Schrager,
I think of hotels, but keep forgetting amount Studio fifty four. Um.

(17:29):
But the point is that uh, well literally for Studio
fifty four, I mean every time that he had time
off from suiting the Whiz, Michael Jackson was in Studio
fifty four, studying its infrastructure, studying 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

(17:53):
four gave Atlantic Records their biggest selling hit, cheek uh,
which was formerly uh fuck off from Freak Out, freak
Out funk Off. Uh. Now Rogers and Bernard Edwards get rejected,
uh after being invited by Grace Jones to come down

(18:13):
to the club, and of course, uh they just go
to the studio after giving up and resigning to getting in,
and they started jamming about Studio fifty four and called
it funk Off and then ten minutes and two where
they were like, wait, this is a hit, freak out
and then thus there are revenge. But not to mention

(18:36):
lower East the village, the punk rock scene, avid downtown
art scene spawns on the west side. Uh you know, uh,
the the a lot of underground gay disco clubs start
uh formulating. I mean they've been in existence. But Larry

(18:59):
Levan will soon Pie Yeah developed Paradise Garage in the
start and in the early eighties, but he was also
a disciple of Studio fifty four and kind of took
their culture to the underground, said that wasn't allowed in it.
And of course up in the Bronx Yeah. Hip hop
now between seventy seven and eighty two, which you know,

(19:21):
I call the kind 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 seven the music
from that period. African imbodis finding these records in the
basements and and and sort of re contextualizing them as

(19:44):
new music. So now a cutlight, give it up, return
of Loose by James Brown has a whole new meaning.
Yeah in in a B Boy Nightclub. Uh. So that's
from eighty two. Of course, you know Reference of Light
and I guess the the the two most important songs
of that period. I would think at the end of

(20:05):
the period is uh the Message by a Grandmaster Flash
and the Furious Five the beginning of Like Reality rap
uh and Planet Rock uh, which Arthur Baker and and
Ben Bata, leading to what I call the Golden period
two to eighty seven enter run dmc uh sort of

(20:27):
like a slow well. I would probably say that Marley
Mall is the the figurehead that really pushed it for
production wise. UM. Also, I gotta shout out full force.
I mean they were the first to start using actual
break beats inside of their their records. UM. And for me,

(20:53):
the classic period when people referred to a classic period,
it's the next period seven and ninety two. UM. And
the reason why I say the classic period, uh, if
you're born before I'll say that. Uh. There's a compilation
record compilation called Ultimate Beats and Breaks which Breakbeat shout

(21:15):
out to break Beat Lou Flores. He compiles all the
breakbeats that Bambata used to spin uh at his party
jams that you previously you previously couldn't find. So uh,
if you're older, I'd say this is the uh the
uh the cliff notes of this is the cliff notes

(21:40):
of of breakbeats. Um okay. So a breakbeat, of course,
is the good part of the record. If there's a
record that has a drum break in it that you're
able to rhyme over an instrumental drum break, no singing
over it? No uh no. Hey's when you hear older
producers refer to stuff like impeach the Press, isn't it.

(22:00):
They're not talking about getting rid of your country's leader.
They're talking about a certain Breakbeatum yeah, I mean it's
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 impeaches the President is the ultimate breakbeat. Uh,

(22:21):
which even when you beat box as an older person,
when you beat box, the beat that you do is
always you're doing in peace the president, even without knowing it. Um. So,
just saying that where previously they used to take these
records and wants the labels off and you didn't have

(22:42):
Shazam to know where these breaks were coming from. That
b boys were going crazy too. Uh. Lou Floor is
now put compilations out and pretty much the hip hop
nation ate it up from public Enemy to n W Wade.
Anybody that was making stuff between eight eight and ninety
two was you sing and abusing ultimate beats and breaks,

(23:05):
which leads to the next period, which I call the
Renaissance period um. Now on the East coast this this
is especially true on the West coast. Of course Dr
Dre will kind of take the rein and and and
just just ride till the wheels fall off, or did

(23:27):
they ever fall They never fell off. But for the
East Coast, what makes our guest Dante Ross uh so
notable was the fact that he is starting to sign
acts who they find ways to make music that's outside

(23:48):
of the ultimate beats and breaks, uh paradigm or or
or just the boundaries. There's a line that Uh 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 played out? Was was it
played out? Idea? Because they got used and abused, like

(24:10):
people just make songs out of whole entire volumes. I'll
take the drums from track number two, and I'll add
the baseline from track number three, and then put the
keyboards and scratching from track number five and all these
different combinations, Like you could pretty much predict what would
sound like for the next year by what ultimate breaks
and the album was out exactly. So by the time

(24:32):
came Um there were a group of producers Um Large
Professor Pete Rock Um, Yeah, Q Tip Uh, DJ Premier,
Jazzy Jeff. I mean, a whole bunch of cats that
were using Jazz Records stuff that wasn't on Ultimate beats
and breaks and and using it as their as their

(24:56):
their canvas and their backdrop. And that's what I deemed
the renaissance period of hip hop. This is question left
Supreme Fontigolo, Sugar Steve Unpaid, Bill Boss, Bill welcoming dr
Renaissance himself. Give it up for Dante Ross, Ladies and gentlemen. Yeah, yeah,

(25:19):
what up? What up? Dante? I have so many frequent
questions to right now. Man, you know, no, I'm like, dude,
you if I mean, everyone always has this like oh,
the soundtrack of my life. But I mean you you're

(25:40):
like one of the unsung heroes of the the Renaissance
period of hip hop, like you were there to witness
a lot of his historical first Um, 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

(26:01):
come from? So? I was born in San Francisco, California.
I moved here when I was two, and I grew
up on the lower 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 BE.
So you were in the period of New York when
that part wasn't even Gentrified or Spanish was the language

(26:21):
of my blood? Really? Oh wow, that's when it was,
Alphabet said, I grew up in almost entirely Puerto Rican neighborhood,
so a lot of us, would you know, there was
a period where I just thought a lot of the
uh important white players of of classic hip hop, I
just thought you all were Puerto Rican because in my mind,

(26:42):
I couldn't even conceived like I thought the beastie boys
are Puerto Rican. I mean I wanted to be Puerto Rican.
I couldn't wait to grow mustache my boys. My boys
called me sorto Rican growing up, which which was better
than you who the other one? They called me like,

(27:05):
I definitely was. I passed for Puerto Rican whenever possible
as a job. So when, so, how did music enter
your life? I mean music was always in my house.
My mom loved music. She loves soul music like she
loved Otis Reading and Go with Us Aretha Franklin. And
she also liked singer songwriter stuff like Neil Young and
Bob Dylan. And my pops is a he's an old

(27:26):
like jazz dude, so um, he was like always into jazz.
And I grew up up the block from a famous
jazz drummer named Ed Blackwall, and you know he played
with with Ornette Coleman and a ton of people. And uh,
I was in this house a lot, and I was
just always around music, Like I remember going with him
and his family even to hear or netting Ham jam
when I was like eight nine years old, so you know.

(27:48):
And I lived on top of the Social Club and
my bedroom was right on top of the jukebox and
they were playing Style List six and dramatics everything that
was popping back then at Edward de Von and super Fly.
I went to see it when I was nine or ten.
My sister's boyfriend took me and I this was always
around music. We had block parties on my block. So
I love disco and and all that kind of music

(28:09):
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. So was it to the
point where you felt like this is a career just
like it just happened to be around. Definitely not. I
had no idea, but I didn't. I always like read
the back of record covers, and I always want to
know like Steve Cropper was, and so I was like,

(28:30):
who's that? Who's that guy? And who's who's Jerry Wexler,
And I always want to know who people were, you
know who who's uh this guy and that guy? Was
just fascinated by it, but who the names? Like, I
want to know who the guys were, who weren't the artist?
Um and and I had a family friend, uh Joel Brodsky,
He's a famous photographer and he shot the Isaaka's movement

(28:50):
album covers. He shot all the stacks stuff, and uh,
because being around Joel and he's coming to graph materia,
I saw a lot of the imagery he shot, like
um Funkadelic records and all this stuff. So I was
always into it. My sisters eight years older than me too,
and she was a music head, so I always played
her records and whenever she was jam unto, I basically

(29:11):
got into. My sister was madhood. She was like super hood.
When we're growing up, trickled down or oftentimes I noticed
that people that especially in music is today, a lot
of it is trickled down from older cousins, older siblings.

(29:33):
Are you the youngest of your brood? Or well we'll
have a younger sister. But I wasn't raised my half sister,
so yeah I am, and I'm me asking what year
were you born? And I 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

(29:53):
still even have and so I was always like aware
of records like just Begun and Soul Micosa and and
all those records. I listened to him. I as a kid,
I knew him all. So so did you know about
it from just having it or just from a hip
hop perspective? Now I knew from having it, And because
they have block parties in my neighborhood and they'd always

(30:13):
play those kind of records, just be Gone for sure,
and stuff like Funky Penguin and 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. Do you remember the first album
you purchased? Definitely Jackson five Christmas album, Wow Crime Crime. Yeah.
I used to Uh, my parents used to meet me,

(30:36):
performed that, Uh that Jermines. Do you have it? The
Christmas album? I do not have the Christmas album. My
Christmas album was the James Brown Christmas Album. I mean
I was a Jackson five fanatic. Welfare one, Yeah, James
Santa Claus Is coming to the Gas. But there's one
song where like Jameson talks about like he's so down
on his luck that even went to the welfare and

(30:58):
I couldn't find Santa Claus. Yeah, that was my CRDIS album.
That one spoke to my reality. I was a Jackson
five fanatic. I brought all the ABC Want You back
at Bates Record Store in the Lancey Street. My sister
would take Megan my line some about forty five almost
every week. How much more Jesus Christ? Wow? So just

(31:20):
a record of weekend record of a week, It's amazing.
I bought all the hits any you know Casey in
the Sunshine Band, s O West or Not, spent M
sending U s os, the Hughes Corporation, all those records.
You know. I bought George mccraig, you know, whatever was
popping right then, you know, whatever was out, I bought
whatever was on the radio. I went and bought him.

(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 element that I remember. The first
rock record ever bought was Um Um Queen Um Human Rhapsody.
I heard it in the radio. I lost my mind.

(32:01):
I couldn't I couldn't comprehend what it was. And I
listened to radio all day today played it again and
then I want to bought it a couple of days later.
So did you record songs off the radio before line
in line out right there up against the speaker. Yeah, yeah,
used to do that with audio record. No, I wasn't

(32:22):
that technically advanced that I wasn't savvy. But we used
to have soul train parties. Two of my friend William
Dickerson's house down the block, souldier can come on wheel
and his mom would have a soul train line. Really. Yeah,
I grew up on a block. It was like seven
quarter week in kids, two black kids in me. So
you were just alone. But it was McDonald land. No,

(32:49):
so you were just a lone white kid. Yeah, man,
it was all good though. Did they hesitate to remind
you of that? Every time I thought my I thought
my middle name was white boy talks about and there
was always there was always like one cool white boy
like on the block though, like even pretty much white
John was a kid on in Southwest Villas. Usually white Mike.
Usually if you have had a white Mike. Now, did

(33:12):
you have to overcompensate because Chappelle hilariously says that whenever
you see the one loon white guy, Hey, I had
to tell what he did to get their respect. That
you can apply that to like light skating black people too,
like all the revolutionary like they'd be the hardest, most
revolutionary Hughey Newton was. Yeah, besides Marcus Garvey and Martin

(33:34):
Luther King, every revolution every we had was light skin
Like in the seventies of New York, people just taking
your ship. You were just people are getting robbed like
you just got taken all the time if you didn't
step up. So you know, I just had to be
strengthen numbers and you had to be. You didn't have
an older brother, older cousin. I had an older cousin,
mused Dophin, so he wasn't helping on so you didn't
have the luxury of him getting My sister went out

(33:57):
this big black cat named Sam Lewis, and Sam used
to put it down. Sam was like, that was my
little respect from Sam. Yeah, that's the one thing you
never wanted to hear it on the playground, which was
I'm gonna get my Like. I was a good athlete

(34:17):
as a kid too, so I always like had some
dap 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, always always
gotta pass because of that, all right, So as you
got older, uh, I mean, how did I know that
black parties were always you know, in your life as
you said, But I mean today, have MCS there or

(34:39):
was it was pre MCS 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 his due Grandmaster Flash and
he got me a tape. It was in seventh or

(35:00):
sixth grade and he lent me a tape and that
tape was, um it was one of the Flash shapes.
I think it was fifty beats, one of those, and
had birthday party and I remember that clearly, and I
used to just listen to it all the time. I
didn't want to get 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 wrapped

(35:24):
and and kind of saw that there was something beyond
just that sugar Hill record. Really yeah. And and then
and then I heard led Zeppelin and and all that ship,
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 was there wasn't a lifestyle
attached to it yet, at least where I lived, Like,
we didn't know about that really, so there was a

(35:46):
period in which you were going to just not go
straight rock, but you Yeah, and I also like funk.
I was really in the funk too. I was into
like Brothers Johnson and 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

(36:06):
was it was kind of half rock, and it was
just kind of what you listened to back then. Funk
was popping, and you weren't a DJ or had aspirations
to be one. You just happen to know a lot
of information about records. You know, a lot about records.
I always collected records, 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

(36:28):
lot about black music. You think, um, at least around
my way, Like I remember being impressed with this kid, Uh,
I think Danny Digatanio. I forget his last name, but
he knew. He knew I don't know, but he knew.

(36:50):
Don't mess with my man, Columbus. If you called Columbus,
Columbus will be like, yo, my name's Jackie. But he
knew t connections like groove to get down like something.
At it was so obscure and so breakbeat black that
I was like, wow, you you really knew your records.
I mean we used to roll a disco when we
were young, like so that was also like, you know,

(37:11):
all those records were records we were rocking with, so
you know, like Slave, Touch of Love, well, all the
roller disco jams. So when you became a professional, am
I a professional has opened to debate? Man? How did
how did you? Was def Jam your first label or
like did you so? Actually the myth is I worked
at def Jam? I actually worked at Rush productions. Then

(37:34):
there was a difference, not really there was like, h well,
like if you worked at Rush you got Leors lunch,
if you worked at Depth Jam you got Russells. So
what's the difference between Well, yeah, I mean both both
logos held holy for anybody that was town man. So

(37:56):
what was the difference between the two worlds? About what
I just said? Leo is meaner than Russell? Really? Oh yeah?
Please still even when he was younger he was a
mean or that he's nice now were so gentle? Now
yeah he's a nice I mean, I love Lee or
even when he was mean, le or like that Lear
might not have a life, So I love leor he's
he's my that's my Rabbi all right, so leor uh?

(38:20):
Can I can I do either? Liberties say that Leard
effectively replaced Rick Rubin. I wouldn't say that there was
there was there was a lot there was Lee or
even at def Jam when Ruck Rubin was at the Helm.
Not really so Rick and Rick never went to the office.
And and once Rick realized how important he was, he

(38:41):
he wasn't around a lot, and he wanted to make
rock records and and really the Beastie Boys and everything
that happened license to ill was the divide between Rick
and Leor. That's really when it all happened. Okay, So
to update the those that are listening, Uh, of course,
da JM is probably believe the most important hip hop label.

(39:05):
It's a it's also the first label or a hip
hop anty that was cognizant that cool white people were
an active and participant and monetize herble 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

(39:27):
music to the middle of the country. I always wanted
to know why he wouldn't put run DMC on death
Cham and he always signed a profile. They lost the
contract that they tried, They tried and and and those guys,
you know, they lost years over that. They lost three
years kind of ruined their career. That was because it
gives that gap between U and leather and back from

(39:51):
no no, no, no what back mail. It was raising
hell and tougher than leather. It was those years that's
when the ain't changed. Even in the book that the
rund MC book. They talked about it because at the
time when that came out, they were they were done.
They were like he said, d m C. He said,
he knew it was over when I think, I guess

(40:13):
the top of them Leather came out and they were
listening to National Millions and they just right, I mean yeah,
they wanted to get him off there and Corey Robins
and c lot Nikki they had them, they had them
hemmed up. They couldn't get him off the label. But
but my my working at death Cham like I so
I grew up kind of with the Beast two boys.

(40:34):
I knew him since junior high school and we were
all in the punk rock and then hip hop came
along and we all got swept up in that. I
was that kind of took our lives. So it was
really run DMC. 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 dressed like a broke Rick James. So so

(40:55):
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 Cats have to know that.
You know, early hip hop was just mirroring it was
and p funk was still a thing, so you know,
I mean the African membotto and then we're trying to
emulate the crazy like yeah, if anything, run DMC was

(41:21):
they were what Nirvana did to metal bands. They changed
and it happened to run DMC. Yeah. Cats, you know,
Cats showed them the door, you know, because they stopped
because Cats stopped hollering, MC stopped. You know, that was
it every five years. But yeah, but back to Leor

(41:43):
So okay, So Lee Or what was his position was?
I mean it was the president of Rush Productions a
Rushtown management Okay, so he was did he hire you?
So I got hired? This is the craziest. So I
got hired because my friend Shawn Cara was off rust
In Peace a k the Cat and he roll managed
the Beastis. He was like my best friend, and uh,

(42:03):
he plugged me up with the job. Ricky Poe went
on tour with the Beastis. I stayed and um, I
mean my lady wouldn't let me go into I had
a girlfriend at the time when I lived with and
she was like, no, way you're going on tour with
those guys. Um. I can 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, well,

(42:28):
they called him the trim Coordinator. Dave Skill can rest
in peace, the coordinator. You're right, and Dave. Dave was
the coolest cat ever. Dave and Ricky were like that.
You know, I love Ricky, but Dave was infinitely cool
and Ricky could ever be. I met Dave had game
for days. So yeah, I guess I met the Beastie

(42:49):
boys in there, like responsible Buddhists. He met him in
the Dolly Love a Year yeah, Vegan stage and they
were all responsible and respectable and everything, and I was
looking were like the beer kids and the fallon symbol
and that's what how Zapainton him told me too. They
wanted tour the Beastie Boys and they wanted to like
what's exploding, Dick. Yeah, they were like, you know, what
do you mean? Like, you guys don't go out and

(43:10):
get drunk and be people like you don't go crazy.
So by that point, yeah, he he was taking photos.
He was taking he was also, uh, he was being nefarious.
I'll leave it at that, But I mean I could
imagine how crazy Ricky Powell was during that went I

(43:32):
was on the first leg and then I came home.
What was that like? What was that like a little
whild man. I remember I went to l a with
with Eric hay Is, a graphic designer, and we we
ran around with them dudes, and we got him a
skateboard deal um 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
hit a home run and they let me hang out
for a while, and then I went home and stole

(43:53):
Ricky Palell's job. Basically, um Sean was like, yeah, Dante
should do it, and I was office flunky and uh,
but I went out every night. I went to nightclubs
every night, and I started to hang out with Russell
a lot Um 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 would
go to Latin quarters spots that they weren't going to,

(44:15):
and they always want to pick my brain and I
realized like, hey, I might know something. I might maybe
be an A and R guy. And Bill Stephanie a K.
Mr Bill wanted to hire me as an A and
R guy And they didn't give me the job, but
he always was like, yeah, 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

(44:35):
let me know and and and um and the guy
Chuck D two Chuck D and me will wrap about
music forever. Um. So so I give a lot of
props to Chuck D too. Did he was I think
he I think the president was publish Yeah, I think
I think he might have been a president something, Bill Stephanie,
Mr Bill, and he grew up with public Enemy. So

(44:58):
just during that period, like what I mean, I mean
it was me Faith Newman, Bill Stephanie, Bill Adler, Hanks, SHOCKOLB.
You all worked in the office for your Cohen and
like you never knew who was coming in the office.
Run came in one day and yelled at l L
like it was it was just wild, like it was
like there was antics going around. And and I became
friends with jam Master J. I used to play ball

(45:20):
with Jay a lot because I was like, I was
really into playing basketball back then. Were you official? Did
you have a first edition? Definitely M jacket? I did.
I had a had a burgundy jacket for sure. So
did that mean everything? That meant you could get into
any club for free? Um and and definitely meant that
chicks were checking for you. So in the coin side,
I I was in the Stusie add back then too.

(45:41):
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 fourteen Street. So you mentioned the Latin Quarter,
I've never heard a club more name dropped in. I mean,
because that's where the changing the guard comes from. That's

(46:02):
where that next wave came to. You tell me what
a typical night was in the Latin Quarter. Typical night
of the Latin Quarters was what night was it? It was?
It was Friday? Was the night you wanted to go
so red at Lord dj um 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,

(46:24):
back then it was dangerous like and and and you
didn't care. I mean, I don't have nothing to take.
What do you can take my def ham back? You know,
I didn't have no I had thirty six dollars. Man,
So someone would come in profiling light with a bunch
of slick gold or pole taking your ship? Was it
for green Mission posts all the dudes on the back
of Eric's album, they might grab your ship or some

(46:46):
other people or the A team cans people. You know,
there was there was a lot of people out there
who are doing a lot of things. And I was
friends with Red, so so um I had a pass.
I didn't have to check my coat. I could go
upstairs hang out with Red. That's how I met I
met So, I met d Nice. I knew carrass one
back then. Search is the only other white dude I've

(47:06):
ever seen that. Oh and Dave funking Klein rest in peace. Um,
you know it was it was a wild environment. But
you know you'd see like a great acting might see
just Ice and carre Wrest will come out. I've seen
Dougie battle biz Markie on the beat box at the
anniversary and Dougie pulled out the harmonica and Slade Biz
played the Harmonic n B Bucks at the same time,

(47:29):
then did the cool last Douggie 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. I've seen Kane DJ for Shonta.
He was, he was the DJ back then. He was
DJ for everybody before he was an artist. And my friend,

(47:49):
my friend Koh he's another white guy, but he's he
was so extra extra. Uh. 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 said, no, he's fucking with Flat Time them
and we can't steal artistman because we're doing their deal
at Warner Brothers. I remember that Chris Rock used to
do comedy up there. I mean it was, you know,

(48:10):
Carris one of them and how many people maybe a
thousand people, not even the small right right there, it's
right there. It was it was you know upstairs, it
was Heather Hunter was the coach. That girl, what's the
soul food. What's the soul food spot on uh? I
mean pop Eyes was vir that is the Latin Quarter. No, well,

(48:34):
at least across the street. The hotel that's across 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, so
it's not on It's forty six, it's not there anymore.
Popeyes was right across the street. McDonald's was. Remember where
the guys it bad that. I remember where the Popeyes?

(48:55):
So I saw a salt and pepper. I've seen Sandy
get a chain take it right in front of Popeye.
Was like, yeah, that's a nice change. Bang. Is that
just typical? Like that was how it was. 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. Clark he
got Nike. That's my big guy, that's my brother. So

(49:18):
you would go there just on the weekend, every Friday.
Every Friday. For about a year, I go to Latin
Quarters and it was just a wild spot. Other spots
we go this red parrot was was popping on fifty
seven um occasionally that that became the copa. Then it
was downtown parties like Payday, um Milky Way, um man.
I mean I went to like, I went everywhere. Man,

(49:41):
I went to the rooftop, I want to everything. You know,
I went to skate Key. So was there a difference
between the Harlem parties and the Oh hell yeah? So
what a rooftop party? What's the difference between? I mean,
I could Carris wuldn't go to Harlem and he would
he would kill it. I mean the rooftop was like
for I'm the only white guy there, and um, downtown parties,

(50:03):
you know, they had much harder girls, less thread of violence. Um,
you know cast the rooftop was more. There was Quarters
and Quarters was the most violent because dude from Brooklyn
went go to the rooftop right because they didn't check
your cod to get in or and they had to
check your coat everywhere except if you knew people at
the quarters, you don't have to check your coat. So
if you came if you came with red, you don't

(50:23):
have to check your coat. Depend on who you came
in the door with. So you know it was hierarchy.
So this guy rent the land Quarter's name was 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 his dope, we've got killed was the
bouncer and his dude house And I knew them all.

(50:44):
They would all be like, oh, you're good. Who are
you with? Like, come on, you're good? So I got
to know them all. Sure, so much history and quarters
where I saw everybody. That's where everyone came from. Though
Carriswan came bisin Markee Jewish Crew rock him everybody? All right?
Can I ask you? Have you seen somebody not make

(51:05):
a good impression on the Latin Quarter club that otherwise? Wow,
wait a minute, New Music Seminar performed at the Latin
Quarter in the New Music Seminar when the Quarters wasn't
even a spot no more, he didn't rock. Is this
some chronological orders? Bad? But I know Grand food Ball
was there too, because we're laughing. So would this would

(51:27):
that possibly be the incident that's being referred to at
the end of the Turners Mother video You ain't hitting
New York? Okay? So that was eight seven was on
the way down because so in my in my head,
I'm thinking like you're speaking of nine ninety. So you

(51:49):
said that it was one of decline even in the
eighty eight, was it was on it? Who was starting
to be a little too violent? A 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. All right. So a nerd like myself,
where would I go? What year nine? You might go

(52:14):
to nails or you might go to um two Milky Way,
depending what you want to do. Donald Alright, so seeld
we get in the block of music before we start
talking about his life in our Yeah, man, I got
I got give out just one on hit by Folklore.

(52:37):
This is Dante Ross one quest Love Supreme only I'm
pan door. Um, I guess we're gonna go into uh
some st fifty stimulating what is stimulated dummies? Like why
did you name rhymes? Give us a name? Because he
was like, y'all some stimulated dummies when we're working with
l and that's way back. Who were the stimulated done?
It was me, my partner John Gamble and my partner

(52:59):
GiB to John and uh, we all had various roles
at different times. John was an engineer me and give
you a war the diggers. Wow, that's incredible. Three strike
the fopped out were striking, the popped out were striking.
The popped out. We strike, the popped out, We strike

(53:23):
the popped out, We strike the popped out. Three strikes
the popped out man sight fop dou rip some Brits.

(53:50):
So that was three strikes, five thousand, third base one
Quest Love Supreme produced by our guest Dante Rossed and
the stimulated dummies. That's the fifties. So I guess we

(54:11):
should start. You know what those drums are right? Uh
m hmm. I just capped the clean copy of forty
five again too. What is it? It's uh super fine
from behind Woman by the Cleveland Wrecking Crew. Wow. That.
I was at Large the other day and I was like,
you got this. He was like, damn, So you're still digging.

(54:31):
I still dig for Large, and Diamond got me back
into it recently. I'm yeah, the like he just he
took me back. Yeah. I thought I was out the
game of digging and then I saw diamond cutting, Diamond
d cutting. Uh, these records on YouTube and then like

(54:53):
and then it pulled me right back into it, like
he was cutting the book of Tea. He was killing it.
I want it to get out. I literally wanted to
get out the game of digging. And now it's keep
calling me. It's I'm just yeah, no same here, like
I'm only collecting forty five now? And is it because
we're board or we just mold board? I bought every sneaker.

(55:17):
I don't need any more. Jordan's got a house, you
know what? Am I gonna go? So? How did you
become an R? Was it by designer? Just now? It
was the fault man. I was just I knew music
and I was always around and and uh Daddio from
Stetso Sonic. He loved me. That's that's my o G.
And he they offered him a job at Tommy Boy
and he plugged me in and he was like, I'm

(55:39):
not I don't want to do it, but my my
little homie right here, and I want to meet Monica
and she liked me, and I had a second interview.
She played me Day Los Souls demo and I lost
my mind and she hired me. A couple of days later, Yep.
Monica Lynch who was also She's like one of my mentors.
She's one of the smartest people and the most intire

(56:00):
rule people I've ever worked with. She's a wonderful person.
So well not what was it like working at Tommy Boys? Man,
that was a wild job. Man. I was a wild
kid back then too. It was like a whole different life.
The one thing that Pasta told me that blew my mind,
I'm scared right now. The one thing that Pasta News

(56:23):
uh told me that blew my mind about making three
ft High and rising uh 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 of over indulgent recording budget

(56:48):
uh figures. Let's let's pick it. Let's say, if you're
successful uh r and b act. I know that in
Vogue it was I think that the second budget for
their budget for Funky Divas was like in the area
of two millions, whereas you know, a cat like Michael Jackson,

(57:11):
you know, I'm certain that his budget was closer to
ten million for like even a compilation like History. But
somebody had to pay for that statute. That's a lot
of animals. Yeah, but how in God's name were these budgets?

(57:34):
Being like, that's the first thing I would ask, I mean,
one of my favorites about, like what were the recording budgets?
Like Sniper Hill told me like, well, we had a
good budget nine And I'm like, how am I? People
were just so happy to get on, you know what
I mean, And studio time was cheap. And and the
crazy thing about day Loss, they made most of record
in the studio. It wasn't like they came with like anything.

(57:57):
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 disks. It was like most of
that stuff got made right then and there. And with
the samples. How did you guys handle that at all? Time? Well,
we cleared, we cleared all except one the one we
got called for it doesn't count. And um, I mean

(58:21):
the one thing I'll say about Daylight 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 and you
had 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 exactly what
you're gonna use. It's kind of like you've already sorted

(58:43):
it out in your mind. All right. So we have
Bob Power, uh, also in quest Love Supreme, and I
was trying to get him. So how has did some
of that record? Not that much though, right? But my
point was that the most important element of what made
three ft high and rising, three ft hot and rising
were the skits. And I was trying I mean the

(59:05):
way that it felt, It felt like it was happening
in real time. It felt spontaneous, right, but I know
that you know, Mike's have to be set up and
samplers have to be pressed and looped and all these things.
So something like take it Off, Uh, just a a

(59:27):
mindless litany of of of of them dissing fads and
hip hop sounds. Rather it sounded spontaneous at the time,
or even can you keep a secret? Where I first
heard Dante is a scrub. I mean, why do they
call you a scrub? By the way, because this is great? So, like,

(59:48):
were you the boss Bill of three pr and Rising?
I don't know about that. 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 l a um with some the rhyme syndicate
and those dudes couldn't play ball. I was like, Jesus Christ,
you fucking scrubs. I was like, look at you guys,
like really um, And that's really where it came from.

(01:00:10):
And then another time we went to Houston it was
like a hundred degrees and they 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. So when they're turning this into you
guys like, I mean, how how do you? And R three?
I was there the whole time they made it pretty much,

(01:00:31):
so it wasn't like they were turning it into me.
I was like I was in the studio like nine
percent of the time. Um, and and we were just
enamored because the first two singles had hit. We we
knew we had something. And the biggest quandary was that
we put the album out in October and November. We
saved it to next year and we pushed it back.
I was gonna say, you released it in January of
eighty nine. Yeah, because we didn't want to put it

(01:00:52):
out at the end of the year in the fourth
quarter and have it have it missed. And and you know, me,
myself and I it's funny because that was not one
of the first of songs they gave us. But when
we heard it, we knew it 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. Um,

(01:01:13):
we would go to k davern time we're out there,
I want with them. We did shows that World on Wheels,
which was the craziest crypt out spot ever, and man,
we had an audience out there. So that that was
the Latin quarter of the West Coast. That's when we
first seen gangbanging me and pass almost got arrested jay
walking on the street. We've seen dude to Jerry Crows.
All that I met Dre back then, I met Dre

(01:01:33):
and and ice Cube. It was it was bugged out.
We met seven eight three, We met Cypress before they
were Cyprus Like. All that I forgot about that was
mugs Alchemist was we don't I don't know, look alike?
Who was who it was? Holiga? Damn, I'm tripping. I'm

(01:01:56):
getting my West Coast history mixed up. Wow, So, how
I mean, how do you sell? They are sold? Because well,
we already had a captive audience, so it wasn't a
hard sell that 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

(01:02:17):
on the radio daytime radio in New York, in l A.
We knew they could sell tickets. People are going to
see them. When day Los Sole played, everyone would go
to see him. They were the coolest band. So to us,
it was more like, oh, 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 she put

(01:02:40):
growth 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, um pondering it,
she was like, Oh, let's run with this. This is great.
And and to her credit, she somehow knew that collegiate
White America eat it up. And they did. I mean,

(01:03:01):
it went it one quick man. It was. It was.
It was not slow, like really they were on. They
were on from from the minute the album came out.
Well yeah, I always say that that album literally cut
a lot of the bullying around my neighborhood off. Yeah, literally,

(01:03:21):
because even before, like before then, uh my only black
hippie reference was like maybe Princess Sign of the Times
period of which it was still shaky in the hood.
But once eight nine rolled around and cats saw me,
especially after the potholes in my lawn video, they were
just like, oh, okay, you're crazy, like the daylight guys,

(01:03:45):
and like that was my past. Like suddenly I became cool. Yeah,
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. But the thing
was because of the defensive nature of their loss, soul
is dead. Yeah I am too, am I to believe

(01:04:07):
that they did more fighting and defending themselves. I mean,
if you ever talked to Pass you know, I mean man,
me and May. Yeah, they got kicked off the Nitro.
How do you get kicked off the LLL tour? I
mean they've gotten a fight. They were always you know,
they were 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

(01:04:28):
young black men, even if they have some hippie imagery,
They're like still down to go for this. Were they
getting in fights because people because of the people tried
to test them for sure, Wot'll be easy the b
K Lounge just as you know, I mean, granted, that's
funny because because Poss hit me up today. Um, I
just those that's one of the greatest groups I've ever

(01:04:49):
worked with. Their like just even now, they're just such
great rappers. And that's the other thing. They invented an
entire new way of rapping, right like they were unique
and original. They weren't. They were sans cliche is in
tough guy bullshit. So the whole time, there wasn't any
fear of this might not not really man because we

(01:05:09):
we knew we had a captive audience. It wasn't it.
You know, we did two singles before you Gotta remember,
and both those singles hit plug tune in and poddles hit.
We knew we had something. Also, I guess Latifa you
did her album yea, No, I didn't do the whole album.
I signed her. I signed a because of Latin quarters.
Fort King came up to me and knew who I

(01:05:29):
was and played me a beat tape and I knew
who he was because his promos weren't read alert 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 Freddie didn't come to the meeting that week,
but they came without Freddie and he brought the whole
flavor unit and we played around it was like four

(01:05:51):
or five of the apache apatchy. No, it's just a
patchy lotsy Marquis Fresh, Who's who's slept on? Maybe? Remember?
And King and um And we decided we're gonna sign
on the TIEF. I called Monica in and I said
play that again. We played it again and we ended
up signing. We signed up for Peanuts too. Wow. And
and I will tell you this, she's one of unlike

(01:06:14):
day Law. 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 him Wrap two.
I didn't know she didn't write it wraps back then,
so she knew instantly. Blamo Like we were like, yeah,
I don't know she knew it, but we knew it.

(01:06:36):
Did you sign anyone? Else? Said the ground? But then
I left. I didn't. I didn't stay to make the
record I found because I didn't make any money. How
do they how do they come across your radar? Even? Uh,
this dude named Atrian 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

(01:06:56):
got this record do what you Like and bang bang bang,
like well exactly, and he was working with Digital back then,
and they gave me. They had Underwater 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 competroom at Tommy Boy four

(01:07:17):
day Long and they were like you better sign that. Wow.
Then we signed him. And then you know, I wasn't
making any money. I started getting offers to get jobs
um elsewhere. I almost want to work at Capital from
my man Tim Carr, who who stole the Beast He's
from from Russell and them like a thief in the
night Man. He tried to get me over there and
and and I didn't take the job. And I remember

(01:07:38):
he had signed man Tronics and and he played me
Man Tronics new music and I was like, I'm not
feeling it was that the Brooklyn got a way to
get into it. It wasn't popping though. I like that
one like that that one. It was cool. I like
joy Sims. Yeah, I liked all that. I think that's

(01:07:59):
that was hot. But so people are offering me jobs.
Ended up taking a job at Electure because I liked
the guy. The guy upset or well Tommy Silverman was
mad cheap, like I'm gonna I'm gonna just say it
straight up. Um My lawyer was was Andy Tavil at
the time, and we wanted to get me like forty
thousand a year, and he offered me like thirty. I

(01:08:19):
was making like twenty five maybe his thirty something. And
he offered me a company credit card too, and and
my man was like, Andy Tavil was like, I got
mad in the meeting and he was like Dante relaxed.
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. Um Capital offered me a job,
and I took a job Um. Literally, I took a
job at Electure Records because I really liked the boss,
Bob kras Now. He told me he had signed Parliament

(01:09:01):
Funkadelic back in day Amber trip prior and I had
had a I had a three finger ring on and
he took my ring off. 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, like I don't think so, kid, and
I just thought his whole his whole style was he
was real cool and he offered me real money, and um,

(01:09:21):
I decided that's where I wanted to go. So you're
saying that hip hop A and R there was no
such yet, Okay, So what would a regular n R
if you're working at Atlantic as a director, maybe sixty
maybe a hundred. So the cat that like signs led

(01:09:41):
Zeppelin 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 made like when
did the Warner deal? Good down? Like deal was already
in place. So even then and Monica the crazy things
Monica and want me to leave and I didn't want

(01:10:02):
to leave, and I told Andy that. He was like,
they're never gonna 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 reel to me, and
he was right. And and um, I wanted to sign
Graham pooh Bah because I love Masters of Ceremony and
I had the Brand Nubian demo, and Monica Lynch said,

(01:10:22):
I just want to say to you, I don't think
it's ethical if you signed Graham poo Bah. And I
was like, don't worry, I ain't gonna sign granam Poa
because I signed Brand Nubians. That was that was that
your first signing at night? His man man? And that
almost fired because she flopped. I was on the ropes.

(01:10:43):
And then the article came out Nelson George, my man,
who he Monica got so tight. She said Dante didn't
really signed Day Last Soul and and he's taking credit,
he's executives. And Nelson George wrote some little thing about
me in his column, and yeah, he started to do
a takedown. I don't think he did it on purpose.
I don't know what it was. You know, Nelson's my

(01:11:03):
man whatever, blah blah blah want on the bridge. And
then this lady I worked with, she she put she
photo copied and put it in front of a couple
of people and they called me in the office and
I thought they were gonna fire me. Had a flop
and that came out and um 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 who he told me. And um brand Nubian. So

(01:11:24):
we talked about day La brand Newbian was signed for
fifty five dollars and they went over budget and I
thought I was gonna get fired and I told my boss.
I said, I'm I'm twelve thousand dollars over budget. He said,
who cares? Metallica record acrouds a million dollars to make. Yeah.
I was gonna say, like, at one point, is it
at one point a good record? I said, I think

(01:11:46):
it's great. So you're saying that hip hop, even in
its classic phase, was so cheap Baltic Avenue, Mediterranean Avenue
that major ly was just saw it as a quickie
kid who knew. I mean, you know what, I'll even
blame myself a little bit on that, right because I

(01:12:09):
thought that's what you paid for a record. I didn't
say they need two hundred dollars. I didn't know. I
was coming from the Tommy Boy paradigm of making records,
So I thought you made a rapper for fifty dollars.
I thought that was good. You didn't know the scale was, Yeah,
I didn't. I had no concept. Even even being super
cool with the BCS and seeing how rich they got,
I still had no concept. I really didn't. I was

(01:12:30):
young and naive. I did not know. So shout out
to the BCS were realizing that what it did to
the cold crust so brand Nubian now my favorite record
I've ever made. I'm just gonna say it right now, dude,

(01:12:54):
are you gonna add because I think I know where
you're going, But well, you know, I gotta ask by
the fire mics or what? Well they got five mics, right,
hell yeah, the first five mics when I see you
know they had tried to do me. It still got five.
But you know something, though it's donna say it was hot,
I'm it was it wasn't hot. It wasn't hot, but

(01:13:15):
I understood why because all every record had that had
that record at the time. It's weird you said it
because okay, so the day are 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 overly analyze. They smoked, we
when we do that too. So the day that we

(01:13:37):
listened too Ready to Die. There was one song I
ain't like on it? What what was the one? What
was your one? Um? Respect? Yeah, how you knew that?
But even that, to me, it was like, even though
it was the worst song, it was still pretty good.
Before that record came out, the way I heard it
was I was driving into Hamptons with Jessica Rosen woman.

(01:13:57):
She said, you want to hear the Biggie record. I
was like, hell yeah, and I the only song I
didn't like. Well, my 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 album ex example. He says, you know how
they tried to do me? Song was supposed to be

(01:14:17):
like that one small attempt at getting an R and
B hit on an otherwise hip hop record. He's like yeah,
He's like, you know that unbelievable is to try to
do me 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 arms,

(01:14:39):
well no no. But he's basically saying that they reversed
the formula and made every song was single potential, but
the one on the ground, the one song wound up
being the the underground record, which was, you know, unbelievable,
which you know it's it's kind of reversed, but at

(01:15:03):
the time, like I didn't, I guess I think I
knew his master's ceremony. I haven't seen it in the
record pends, but someone was fired. All I know is
that cracked out. Was fire really fire fire? They mean
they were fired. Po was fired back then. But how
are you sold on? Like what was it about the group?
You just wanted Poopa and whatever whatever you wanted to do. Also,

(01:15:26):
I was I hung out with pooh Ba. He was
just so cool as hang out with him and pass
K back then, and they were just man cool. I
just wanted to funk with both of them. See why
weren't they a crew? They should have been, but because
of the first priority situation they should have been. Yeah,
I felt this claimar and tried to do me. That
was one Grand Puba is doing one. That was him.

(01:15:48):
His man Dave Hall is from mount and he's dope
carry joint. He was trying to eat Dave jam jam all.
He was trying to eat that dude. Me. That was
the thing, because then it was well the genius he
had come to me like that was the That was
a couple of years before that. Did you have a

(01:16:10):
hand and signed the genius? No? No you Yeah? Rizzle
was yo rizzle when I went when I signed Dirty,
I I probably heard the story how I signed Dirty
and still stretching boy beat the movie I um plug
plug um, I uh I heard. I was so I
was loving Wuchang protecting that was and Maddie ce my

(01:16:32):
man who worked aloud. He told me that they weren't
all signed, like almost going like grab one of them
while you can, like do me threw me the rock.
So I heard him up on um stretching Bob and
I jumped in the cab and I went up there
and I walked in and Rizzle was there and and
I was like, oh ship. He was like, yo, I
know you're from the guy Mail Kwan. I was like, yeah,
I remember you used to be on time. But it

(01:16:52):
was like, yeah, you knew me when I was whacked
straight up, never forget it. And I was talking those
dudes for a while and I was like, yo, I
love I love Dirty, I love Meth. Come see me.
And I was Thursday. I supposed to see me Friday.
They came Monday, um, and I remember they came to
my office and I told Rizal, I want to sign
Dirty and Meth. That's a new run DMC. And he

(01:17:14):
told me, you know that's a ill though. But now
I'm gonna put methanem over there with Russell. But I'm
gonna give you Dirty because he fits in with the gods.
And I was like, okay. He had a map, he
had mapped out. He like he wanted to put him
there straight up. Alright, so many questions and and I'll

(01:17:35):
say this to Rizza was like the coolest, smartest, most
insightful like that guys like back, I mean, from then
to now, he's just like a gracious individual like he
always I was just sad. Great vibes with that guy. Wait,
since since we're wanted to try to do me, all right,
so this is the significance of trying to do me

(01:17:58):
was that this is was there attempt at trying to
find on the radio, right, didn't get on the radio.
I can see that urban outfit of love shirts right
now with the floppia. Yeah, I'll see if Heavy D
were on this and be you know, that's what it is.

(01:18:19):
It's a heavy D record shot she baby shot shot shot.
Why do you want to so fat? You know? And

(01:18:41):
one for something is not my style. I'm the text
to one to die in the camera like a just
one that could be just so. Your first rip is
that I'm never hold and you're sick and tired of
being alone. But baby, I got and they ain't know.
I'm gonna stop me for me And how about you?
Rings and things and all that good stuff, but you
still beeping that dots not I know, let's sit down

(01:19:01):
and disgusting baby buster check when I'm still sleep. Friend,
when I get out of out the window, I think
the best thing for you and me, it's just a player.
I done and let it, baby, you know, what the sis.
But I'm saying that when I got this record, I

(01:19:23):
wasn't exactly fast forward in it. Matter of fact, I
did for it was too fast forward because it was
too too okay? Was this one and um manswer my
ministry that, Yeah, I loved dancering on that was militants write.

(01:19:50):
I didn't fast for my ministry used I used to
run that. One 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 micro review and they had a song
that wasn't on they had on that tape. They had
a song that didn't make the album, which one? It

(01:20:12):
was a song with the girl jettis where is Poobah?
And and the drum sort became what's the fourm won one? No,
not what's the form one? It was the Bismarck drums
laid for rock and and that's why puff was fucking
with Pooba back then, Oh where is poo? I need
that song? John Schechter has it, And I was like,

(01:20:34):
and when I have no idea why there's several songs.
There are several songs you did that never made the
record like. There was also the Pete Rock song on
his on a solo album, What yeah, you don't know
about the song Pete Rock song didn't make the Bogle Maxwell, Yes, Yes,
their Honey and how You Live In It's it's on
YouTube and Penguin I have Nope. Let me just say this.

(01:20:59):
There was no explaining the Grand Puba the way he
had the final say, weren't you on the records? I
mean I never got the master. They made it in
Pete's house, one piece to have the eight track cassette
in the house, and they made it on Now I know,
I just had a cassette, made it to tape. Are
you saying that? Okay, when we get to Pete Rock,

(01:21:19):
you're saying that half that stuff was just made on
and the track. 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 Chilling Camp, I
mean to Green Street, that's why his records are so bright,
because he wanted to match what he's doing in the
house on the cassette, says the demo Bob Powiss chase
them so all right, So the first line of the

(01:21:42):
source review was brand Nubian is New York and that
just checked the right to review. I don't know if
he did, but it just because I haven't even heard
of him. But the fact that in the previous source
uh uh their summer issue, in which uh, I mean

(01:22:04):
they gave tried, they reviewed a whole bunch of records
and America's Most Want it got five. So they they
reviewed like thirty albums and the only five's award it
was People's in Stinks of Travels, America's Most Wanted, Let's
go back, Let's go back. It's People's Instinctual Travels of
five mic record, No Midnight ro I think at the

(01:22:29):
time it came out it was it was different from
what it came. It was not to me like it's
actually my least but it's not my favorite favorite. What
about Beach Rhymes in Life in the Love Movement, Let's
get real beat rhymes? That was the album. I didn't
know people hate it until I got on right right.
That was bumping beat Rhymes of Life. Somebody had to you.

(01:22:53):
How about Chassis so Hey? I mean, and I killed
me and I made Chassy so and I respect those
records are good records. They're just not like, they're just
not as good as as mini Marauders and low end theory,
you know, because their bar was so high. They're competing
against himself. But here's the thing though, because even on
Okay Player they had one of these like okay, twenty

(01:23:16):
five years later, how does this hold up? And when
it came time for All 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
All for One was beyond the music, it was more
the lifestyle. I would give it. Honestly, I wouldn't give
it a five mic. That's a four to four and

(01:23:38):
a half because two duds on it. Five record has
no duds. See he's coming from a technical standpoint, and
I guess the industry standard has has sort of Stockholm syndrome.
Me two, now make the product of the artist more
than just the album itself. America's most Wanted is better

(01:24:01):
than One for All I can on that so is
the first Cypress album. To me, you know what, I'll
give you that one. Where are we about to have
to have because because Midnight Marauders better than One for All? Two?
So was low ent theory, but it's a matter of
significant importance. The thing is that you're right. You're right.

(01:24:26):
That's how it is. 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 Pam right,
and in the first twenty seconds of them mocking what

(01:24:46):
they think new York is their first references you know
what's up? God, trundeed, God, your peace, God like making
fun of five percent rappers. I think brand Nubians, image
and and and aura was more important than All for One.

(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 period, the gods and earths,
And I gotta ask you how and the white guy,
Jewish white guy, that's the question was the question. I'm like,
how did you because I remember? Because I mean, I

(01:25:28):
think we're you're saying it's true for me because I
came up in the South, so I'm in North Carolina.
So for me, all for One was the first album
that I remember really hearing and seeing you know, the
Gods on Earth in the five percent terminology and like, okay,
well what is that? And I remember the wake Up
video where they had like the White Man as the
Devil and ship like Freddy did that video and it

(01:25:49):
got banned from them that I think about that, this
video but but that, but yeah, it was it was
just learning the terminology and all that. I mean, that
was my first crazy said I did so the remix
version wake Ups original version, and they did that other

(01:26:10):
version second, and that version was actually better. That was
way better Night the Night. Yeah, so um my version
is really the original version, but they wanted to run
with that one, and there was no argument with the gods.
And the one thing I say about their version of
that song, it did not knock in the club, didn't hit.

(01:26:32):
It was it was thin all right. There mixes wow, man,
day love mixes on the first album too, man, how
do you? I mean? But again it's like do you
mess with their progress because they were just loop shit
and put eight to weight under it. And it wasn't

(01:26:52):
until Pete Rock, which I had actual definition of no
even then, like Jungle Brothers in Tribe with just I
don't know, man, JB is coming through. It was knocking.
That was but I mean a song like but a
song like it was done in your house. Yeah, but
I'm saying a song like feeling all right. But then

(01:27:15):
when it got to like the second I mean date raping,
all those records on the win through, those things are
knocking because there but you know, I mean after he
shut them down. Even listening to Public Enemy, like I
listened to him recently, there's no bottom. It's all mid
range definition, zero definition in their mixes. That's what I'm saying.

(01:27:35):
Like your your era of of of hip hop was redefined.
I guess we now we gotta have a pete rock section.
All right. Let's let one thing know about about Brand Nubian.
So Brand Nubian was a snapshot of New York at
that time period, much like Cyper Still was a snapshot

(01:27:56):
of l A at that time period. There's certain records
that capture are hurt 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 are
all important. Very different records, but all kind of have
the same cultural importance. To me alright, So wait, let's
let's peep one of my all time favorites from Awful

(01:28:18):
One Step to the rear. I got in there with
a sample which one who sound street record, no hurt singing,
no full circle, Ah, here we go singma step up
this sma ale stuck but step to the rear. Grand

(01:28:44):
Blue was on the rival, raised in the ghetto, singing
songs called survival, running around town, giving all the girls
bouba snacks. I wouldn't try to scale the stylue, just
my cats Acadia taking the way to get paid as
the grand the microhad. So it's move as the mains
and honey, don't take it personal, mona trying to just
the swing up baby, all your school snaps up in
the fingers, the bab aloon, bad boy, you threat to
the patter, No, you try to step to listen. It's

(01:29:05):
void a new hit from the grand Man. Work nights
like the sad Man gave me four awaker case. I
gotta stop my head out, But it is a trick
that's not up my sleeve. It's possessed for that sin,
that wh when I praise paid in the shade with
the A has the grade with the papers that I
made from this trade. Don't get him to the brick
you know where. That's lot of tips if you want
to cash in on the winds gram bub and I

(01:29:26):
love to hit skin And you know what, I've done
song to sing. I've done a song to sing. I've
done song to sing. I've gone a song to sing
for me. Now, everybody don't care. Everybody here, everybody don't care.

(01:29:48):
Everybody everybody, Yeah, dog. I used to make pause tapes
two okay, A pause tape was before looping culture with
serrato and and 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. So

(01:30:11):
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 same. 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 assessment street

(01:30:31):
record that cam D was fucking with two. I'm sure
we can find it. Well. Yeah, I was about to say,
our next episode of Name will be at unpaid Bill's job.
Let me come, I need to get some of these.
So Pete Rock love him just easiest gotta work with

(01:30:55):
of all time. Oh man, he's so man. It was
like making that record was so easy. I just go
to studio like every couple of days and they'd be
finishing another. So even when he did the EP, which
which he didn't that, I wasn't really around a whole
lot with that one. Um. But you know, because we
had the creator, we had a hit song, right, so

(01:31:17):
we knew we had a hit. So we're making an album.
And I would just cruise by Green Street and uh
would smoke a little weed and then uh we ordered
some food. And he 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 shit
and I'd be like, yo, what is that? And he'd
be like, oh, you know that's as the brothers taking

(01:31:38):
inventory whatever. He tell me what the record was, so
I catch knowledge. He filtered the baseline. Oh, he 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. He was he knew a lot
he played in that Yeah, playing the car and and

(01:32:00):
Amy style was an engineering and I ended up feeling
Jamie to do ever last later um because I thought
this mixes 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 young that he was quiet back then. As

(01:32:28):
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 Pete. If Pete finds
out that someone else has purchased a record that Pete

(01:32:52):
was intending on using. Another thing about Peter's when you
shot with him, he didn't really show you a lot
of ship. Were like I would shot with the beat
Nuts and be like you know this, even Diller, I
won't shopp with the one time you show me some ship.
But like Pete would would never say anything, I'm like
you know this any do the beat he knew about
it wouldn't tell you anything. Dog. It would be to
the point where like he put me up on the
T Swift, He bring me up on a few joints,
Eddie Seney, a couple of joints. Okay, okay. For a second,

(01:33:15):
when he said t Swift, I was like, wait a minute,
huh wasn't she like three years old back then? I'm
playing I'm play Taylor. No, I'm just saying, record are
you Jimmy Hendricks? Are you experienced the drums? But I'm
saying that. He yeah. I would go to places and
I'd be like, all right, we're We're the good record

(01:33:35):
tighten and they just be like, you know, I said,
what Pete. It's like yeah, you know, you know. And
then it'll be a time where like maybe a month
or two go by and be like to p pick
up the records yet, and they'd be like well, And
then that's how I would be like, here, I need

(01:33:55):
these records your mirror. I went to his house one
time in Spring Valley and 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 would everything. He would notoriously actually buy
triples and quadruples of the record, so he gave me

(01:34:20):
some records too. He traded doubles to them a couple
of times. He uh. Also, as 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 him high lot like

(01:34:40):
he got that. We started smoking Valley, New York where
he lived. That's where he had his first house. And
and I don't know if you guys noticed that Puba
wrote the creator Um. He wrote it for beats. He
didn't get paid. And he also wrote, um, he wrote um, um,
what's the other one? Peach rocking on it? He's wrapping
sold by the number one? Can we play that real

(01:35:02):
quick bill? Looking at me like you play that song
sweet soul brother? So so so it comes to soul,

(01:35:24):
It comes to soul Soul brother number one year rock
come on the new tob And that's the coded right
because I'm rich stick and chocolate plug up any mac
up and Jippy Rocker's pocket. Un Zoe's acts the bulge
in my pocket. I tell him players a rocking topick
Bottom never hesitate to say my God, I pressed on

(01:35:45):
the hillside over on the chill side of town. So
let's get down. Talk is the word Describer's brother on
the Souls Missing Kicks? Does it wos more soul than
the soul kis? You see how doesn't strack? So we
won't keep get into white people live the safe heat
pocket pitch it called it them the hottest, hout them
the hottest. I guess that's just because I'm smarter than
the smartest. So back up the path fund because come

(01:36:09):
soul brother number one? All right, So I just realized
that the number one soul brother. Uh sample, No, it's
MERV Griffin introducing James Brown. Okay, so there's a copy

(01:36:33):
of there's a song called World that James Brown did,
and it's it's MERV Griffin introducing and now, ladies and gentlemen,
it's the number one soul brother James Brown. And then
it goes so like James has a perfectly edited introduction
of MERV Griffin from the MERV Griffin Show. Before the

(01:36:55):
World song starts crazy, there's a lot of samples in
that there bubble coming at on Red more important Pain. Yeah,
that that's my favorite song on that record because the
n creation in there on the bottom. Yeah do dude.
So by this point, um, how do you clear these samples?

(01:37:18):
Like if it's super obvious or do you do? People
come to you? Do people come to you and you're like, hey,
I was holding your money in s growth like no, no,
no no. I would sit there with Pete and I'd
be like, yeah, I know you used this, this and this.
He might divulge another one he might not, so I
might didn't catch when we didn't catch everything, We definitely
clear everything on those records, like without it, what about

(01:37:38):
the interludes? Just man, we didn't clearly any of those
those there's been you know, everyone knows everything now, so
I'm sure he's he's had suit after suit. I'll tell
you it's crazy. Step to the Rear Electric records clear
tramp by low FALSEMN 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 you're

(01:38:00):
I was like, that's not what that sample is because
it's it's uh, you know it's some more keys, uh
even on beats rhymes in life. Uh. They gave a
good chunk of the portion of Pat and Pin to
the gat band. Really what for chess a little to

(01:38:20):
a minuscule from yearning for But you don't And I'm like,
he is like, and I'm like, why did you even
clear it? Like that? Dude? Wouns are published? You know,
he goes after everybody. He's trying to catch dude. Have

(01:38:40):
you I don't even want to bring this into existence.
Have you? Have you had? Have you had an Aaron
Fuchs situation? No, I got caught for Camille Yarborough on
the everlast record. She caught me. She called me, she
had to pay us some dough she did the Fat
Boys and iude, just a little no what sorry not

(01:39:00):
commular yarbro my bad Von Gray the Gray Lady album,
I used a little into um it's a whole new
thing like I used just a little vocal on I
didn't clear and we settled with there was cool. It
was no big deal. And I did roll the dice
on I'm not gonna down myself on a bunch of
on several records that are big records that I didn't
clear things on I never got caught. Knock on wood good,

(01:39:22):
there's someone who's gonna hear this and go through my
entire cat it's probably already up on who's sampled already.
So really, and on rock records, people don't look as much.
So because I did all these remixes, I used man ship,
but people didn't catch. What'd you say, John Spencer Blues Explosion,
I mean I didn't clear any of that, and you

(01:39:42):
know there's something real prominent that one, So go sue John.
I have no publishing. I missed one with those guys
like they We went on the BEASTI Boys tour with
John Spencer Blues Explosion Orange right when they had were banging.
They were a great band. Old Russell Simmons or drums
he man, I got he it's hard. Yeah, he would

(01:40:05):
go through like a drumhead a night. I mean I
recorded him and and his his time wasn't tremendous. Chuck
Trees had better time. They played on. They both played
on a record for me and Chuck Stuff. I didn't
have to play with if I had to play with
with Russell Stuff a bunch wow, you know about the
legend of Chuck Cheries. Well man, I iced to skateboard
with him, Nick rad Yeah, Chuck forever. Yeah, that's my

(01:40:27):
man with with the green eyes. That's the man. So
how long was your tenure at the lecture? I think
it was almost eight years? Seven years. I think it
was a long time, close to eight years. Who am
I missing besides can d Old, dirty bastard? Um. I
gave Buster a solo record. I wasn't there by the
time he finished it. Um. But but after Leaders flopped

(01:40:51):
and and even while when the second album first album
was hitty, the second album was very joining, I sent
him back in to do it again. They didn't want
to do it. When I wanted to go to 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 movment parts. It's chaos. And Tip

(01:41:13):
was down, And I pitched the idea to those guys
and Buster wanted to do it and the rest of
them didn't. And um, that's when I knew that Buster
was Why would they go against their own interest? Because
they said, Yo, Troup Stold 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 was who? Who's the

(01:41:40):
hardest group to babysit? Leaders in New School because 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. Each
group has a fist fight NBA and our office story.
Um even Terek and I had a fist fight NBA
rfice know being never had I never had drama with

(01:42:02):
him like that. Me and Jamaar jowed at each other
one time and that was that. And and Jamar Jamar
was definitely down to hook off on me too, and
and it didn't happen. So so and I love Lord
Jamaar like much, respecting. He's about his business. I love
that guy. Um and and Leaders. Yeah, I got into
with Charlie Brown one time in the office and and
just it was all funked up. And I knew Buster

(01:42:23):
was a star. Everyone knew it. So me and Chris
Lydy Um I had told him we can Buster gotta
do the solo record. He's like, you right, And we've
worked on Buster for a minute and Buster finally saw
the light and he did his solo record. And um,
so do most act just break up or do you
have to say, okay, well, now they all broke up.
Every act broke up. It was never me. I never

(01:42:43):
had anything to do with breaking up any act. Specifically,
I did offer a solo record to Buster while they
were still a band, that is true. But it was
me and Chris Lydy and and and you know, big
shout out to Chris Ldy, my brother. I love him
and miss him. Um, he was the one of the
greatest well I haven't know from this business inan d
nice sitting in a place a very few other people sitting.

(01:43:04):
But but that said, um, and and Buster, you know,
finally opened his eyes. He's seen him 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
and he was going through a lot of personal ship.
And that's my little brother. I love him. He's a
great man. Were you there for the whole uh black
Bastards scenario? I was? That was That was really what

(01:43:27):
disillusioned me about working at a major label. And I'd
probably be saying cynical. No, 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 a very blue collar so so I
can't say that I'm super Mr Principal. And I walked
away because this, that and the other. I didn't. Um,
but but but I was. I fought tooth and nail, um,

(01:43:50):
and you know I lost to explain the back story
so black bastards. Um, so well you gotta explain m D.
I mean km D is was was dooming 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. Um, he helped produce gas Face Doom. Um.

(01:44:10):
He was my little homie, my man, and we want
to made the first record. We made it in my studio. Basically,
Um who he did peace? Was him or sub Rock?
I mean it seems though, because no, no, no way.
You remember the video where was playing uh uh oh
my god pop popa did Uh he might help with

(01:44:33):
nitty gritty though. Um, but but those guys you know,
they those two were symbiotic in their relationship. Rest in
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 that were part of the Answer Law community.
Um Brooklyn followed, you know Dr York blah blah blah,
and um so that said, um, you know, between the
first and second record, they have changed a lot as people.
They've grown a lot. They experiment 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 up town
with Curious George and him a lot and and sub
Rock died. He got hit by a car, um and
and he passed. We buried him. And and in the
wake of that doom, when I finished the record, he
turned in It's called Black Bassard who was the hangman
game and they had sambo and they were hanging in
and uh have luck. Nelson Terry ROSSI, I'm gonna call

(01:45:40):
him out. I don't care. My Facebook friend and half
and I talked him about it, part of this and
anything I'm gonna say right now, I'll say I said
to him, and he's apologized. Um. They condemned the artwork
and the band and the label putting it out without
ever giving an audience to Doom to defend his rhetoric,

(01:46:02):
his his vision, and they never let him talk about
what what his messaging was. And I think I think
that was so what do they see? Said? It was
racist that no, a major label Camp put out a
record with Sambo on the cover. It's called black bastards
and and not right and and not also noting that
sambols getting hung right, so they're hanging in effigy the

(01:46:24):
stereotype of sand and they always used 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 them. And Terry Rossi wrote about it in
her column and so to have luck and circulated around
my building where I worked, and it was post the
the body count fiasco. Yes, because I remember that like

(01:46:50):
religiously read Billboard every week. Remember that a 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 gonna see you know what

(01:47:11):
people said. And he said that Vincent Davis, who had
Keith Sweat, found us offensive, and Sylvia Rome finds us offensive.
And it's been deemed offensive by several black people. Didn't
say that. I didn't say that. Certain things I can't say,
so you know. Um, so they wouldn't let the record come.

(01:47:36):
They they shelled the record. But my man came to
the office today, we're going to meet the Warner Music.
Uh what's got Richard Parsons was supposed to be there
and various other people, Dick Parsons and we're gonna meet
all these people and and my boss said, they they've
canceled the meeting. We're not gonna have the meeting. I'm

(01:47:57):
not gonna put the record out, Bob kras 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 gonna also give
you basically like get out of jail free check. So
he gave him, uh, I think it was twenty tho
dollar check. And we went to my office and I
had all this wine. Someone send a case of wine,

(01:48:18):
sweet premium wine. Right, they have that song sweep Premium Wine.
So we always used to drink the wine in my
office and and we drank a couple of bottles and
and Doom said, you know, as you get dropped more often,
I've got a twenty dollar check in my entire life.
And the fallout is that no one would touch the record.
Faith Newman, I know wanted to sign them and they wouldn't.

(01:48:38):
She wasn't allowed to. And the record sat there and
Doom win in and uh he put on you know,
he put on the mask, and he reinvented himself as M. F.
Doom And power to man, that's the power of black
man in America right there. Reinvention right, this is because
he invented underground hip hop more or less on the
heels of catching the biggest all of his life, his

(01:48:59):
brother dining and dropped. But you know what, he empowered himself.
And I love that man. That's my brother forever, and
you know he he was We had a lot of stuff. Man,
I'll never forget burying his brother war Well. You know,
every time I see I'm one of the only people
who talks him on Skype and I have to tell
him take the mask off. But I love that cat
and he's a He's a wonderful person. And you know

(01:49:20):
that's that's the rap game right there, it is. You know,
you gotta deal with some bullshit. The single what was
the single? That sample that the Jodi Whiteley loop was hot?
My ship? I knew that it was gonna hit. And
know the Ledge jacked him, right, You're right, the jacked loop.
You're right, Shot jacked it. He was around. I love you.

(01:49:42):
You know Jack, you know what it is you've been
knowing that Jack loops Ray Steve it was. I cannot
wait to get someone qu shot, probably cause you stole

(01:50:03):
someone's loop. It gets turned off ringing. Wow. I actually
have shot Smith number seven. I have like seven phone numbers. One.
I got a bunch of myself. He's a talent to
cat though, Man, he did doing it. People don't know

(01:50:25):
that he's a cat who did more records that people
don't know he did than anyone ever. Do you did
one more chance? Yeah? He didn't know the ledge. He
didn't the pet paul Cy might have done more records
and people ain't know. Hello, man, please shot shot exactly.

(01:50:46):
You got the numbers? Sorry? How stupid? How stupid is
the idea of stealing a because we were stealing them
from the guys who made the records. So it's like,
you know whatever, that's crazy, all right? So you're saying

(01:51:09):
to the last record that you A and R at
elector was black Bastard? What was ye dirty? And the
second Pete Rock chronologically I can't remembering ingredient, but no
dirty came out, so maybe it's that one, dude, How
do you even how do you smith? It might have been?

(01:51:37):
How do you even communicate with old dirty bastard? Um man?
So so who put that record together? So they came
to me with seven maybe eight, anywhere from six eight
songs done. The rest of the music was basically on
Rio's on two inches. A lot of the vocals were

(01:51:59):
aready done, not all of them, and Rizzle was like
peace and Rizza. He wasn't going to babysit dirty he
had money to go get and he 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,

(01:52:20):
his science is not my science. His periodic table is
very Staten Island, and I'm from Manhattan. 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 basslines out of that. And I didn't know
what the hell he was doing, and and I did struggle,

(01:52:41):
but but I got the mixes done eventually, and he
okayed them all. It took a year to get the
record made. Um, But in that year the Wou Tang
clan clan because I sawed him before his album came out,
had grown and leaps and bounds. So I knew I
had to get to the finish line. UM. And I
had a very patient woman I lived with at the time,

(01:53:02):
and I spent an inord an inordinate amount of time
and trying to finish that record. But I also knew
that because the way Dirty lived his life. UM, how
many five AM phone calls you get man from studios
manres so much ship he did, man, but but but Man.

(01:53:25):
I walked in the studio one time. This is the
best and my partner John Gamble, when I st fifties,
who didn't engineer a lot of sessions, was the engineering
the session And I called earlier. I said, Yo, it
was Dirty there. Yeah, Dirty said I'm swing binding while
I swing over there. A couple of hours later, trunk
King and I walked in and no one's there, and
I said, And my man had a weird look on
his face. I said, where's Dirty? He's like he's here.

(01:53:46):
I was like, where He's like, he's the vocal boo.
I said, why the lights out? He said, go in there?
And see. I walked in there and they're running and
train on his chick and and and I I walked
in and Dirty wasn't dirty. I guess I'd already had
already had his ride and and he he was like, Yo,

(01:54:07):
do you want to get down? I said, no, Man,
I don't rock caboose. And and those guys said that
to me for like six months straight. You know, you
wrote 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
LL plaque off the wall and pissed on it. I'm
not I mean, I'm saving that from my book. But
needless to say, I was in between him and Chris

(01:54:29):
Lighty about the It was a Mexican standoff and and
it was fun. It was yo and dirty, just like
you know. I took him to l A and he
did this show and he, I mean he swore it
down right off stage and started to do another show
in front on like a street lamp, and like just

(01:54:49):
stood there in front of the Palladium on Highland and
started rocking again. And I had to drag him to
the hotel. It was like he was so wild and
his it was the he in a box of donuts
every day for breakfast donuts and then drink Cisco. He
was he was and he would fart and laugh and

(01:55:12):
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 gotta get there right and I had
to get there because I strongly suspect it never gonna

(01:55:34):
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 mate and and true
Master and Dirty got in a fist fight after mastering session.
And if you look at the record, it says mastered
by Tom the referee Coin because Tom Coin got up,

(01:55:54):
got up, and he he broke up the fight and
he ended the master and session and told me to
come back the next without it. So we were mastering
the Hamilton's record, and he told us this exact story.
Tom Coin is a Tom Coin, yes, golfing always. He's
the least hip hop dude to master the most hip

(01:56:16):
hop right, Tom Coin's he sorry. Tom told me a
story of how when he mastered only Built for Cuban links. Uh,
they stopped at mint Master and said, yo, we gotta
put some some killer interludes on here from the movie
The Killer, but none of them had Uh you know,

(01:56:40):
the technology wasn't out back then to go on the internet.
So there's like, wait, I'll be right back. I'm gonna
run to run to the Alan get my killer tape.
And Tom Coin's like, well, He's like they left for
four hours, came back, got the Killer tape, but there's
no uh television to watch it, so they just had
a BCR with no TV. They hook it up and

(01:57:00):
they start acting out the entire movie. They literally act
out the entire movie. Tom Con recorded, He's like, all right,
what part do we use? He's like, oh, we started
again from the top. So then so then he's like,
all right, I'm gonna taking notes. And after a while
they drifted off, stopped taking notes and was like yours
the ill seen and then they got to the end

(01:57:22):
in Tom Corn's like, okay, you guys have your notes.
It's like a man, damn play it one more time.
He had to play the Killer three times in a row.
Rock showed up, didn't interlude on the maid ingredient with
his twelve, and did him in the studio out of
it right to mastering right there later, right there at
that incredible whole joint that he did that right there.

(01:57:43):
So y'all gotta add this Tom Coin that looked like
you again. Yeah, I've seen so many of my records
and he was always my dude. I've I've seen old
dirty uh pro tools and it's a mystery on how

(01:58:05):
that just to hear it, and it's naked for him,
especially with his vocals. There's at least eight or nine tracks.
I mean like you can hear him like totally. I
mean all the and I'm trying to figure out how
did you cutt how did y'all cutting pieces? Right? So

(01:58:26):
jimmy shimmy. I tried to get him to do a
second verse for months. He would not do it. He's like,
he did it backwards. And I walked into the studio said, yo,
I did shoem me shimmy, and he played it and
I was like you mother, and then he was like,
yo q tib did it. I was like, oh my god.
He's like yeah. I was like, that's not oh my god.

(01:58:46):
He's like whatever, my ship's gonna knock. Let me tell
you something. Those records like they still hold up and
and there's a real oh also Brooklyn Zoo So drums,
I couldn't get the drum 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 because I couldn't get

(01:59:08):
the drums of sound right. So if you listen to
it close, you clearly hear the Brethren snare in there,
Floyd the Brethren, which you know it's been in the
hundreds of records I made. So why did you after
that record? Then why did you leave a lecture? Um
Silver Rowe was my boss and and and I don't
think she necessarily liked me. Um, I can't say that

(01:59:30):
she was a fan of Dante Ross. And you know what,
I can't blame her, Um, I was, I was, I was.
I was wild style. You know, you couldn't tell me
a lot, and you know I was living a crazy life.
You didn't care about your reputation or your legacy. No,
she didn't care about that. She she probably wanted like

(01:59:51):
she might have wanted to just get me out to
own my legacy because because I signed Missy too, and
Buster will tell you that. So I did a deal
with Devonte Swing and she hated that deal. So she
dropped Missy when she was insisted and signed her again.
But but I had signed her the first time, and
she was like, this deal is bullshit. You know, what
do you know about R and B? And she would

(02:00:12):
really like talk. She was very belittling to me and
meetings and wait a minute, how does how does she
negate your deal for the label but then restructure is
the deal for the label? I mean she did, but
wouldn't she dropped bringing Missy to the She she didn't
sign Missy right away. It took a year too. But

(02:00:35):
that said, and Missy was like, yo, you know, I
know you're the person really signed. She always helped me
that and it was just like a buster will tell
you that it was a bugged out period. And and
so we're making a second Dell record, and she wanted
him to work with Tremaine dupri and obviously it was

(02:00:56):
obviously this period. 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 Leidy,
so Chris Ldy 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 Death Jam.
So I took I gotta deal over at Death Jam
for an astronomical amount of money, and def Jam went

(02:01:19):
g funk and they didn't give a funk about me.
I signed Sugar the Gambler and that was it. That
was the only thing I ever signed. I helped on
The Nutty Professor. I was miserable but paid, and I
linked up with ever Last and we made Whitey Ford
scenes of Blues on def Jam's Done. Def Jam was

(02:01:43):
paying me, and I never went to work, and I
went to California. I moved to l a and made
the record with with ever Last and and sold a
lot of records. And that was one of the most
surprising comebacks. Talked to me for like a year over there.
She's like, I hate you. You gave Tom Silliman the
biggest record. I gave you eight or fifty dollars, gave
me nothing. Wow. And I was like, you were from
Warren g land Man, you with the South Central courtel.

(02:02:07):
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. I 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

(02:02:28):
I had an affinity for that stuff. I played drums
a little bit, and I just like, you know, we
were are our minds were in different places. I was
in the sound Garden, I wasn't 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.

(02:02:51):
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 a lot more in retrospect now,
but when they were out like him 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
want to do some else. Wow, I followed my heart.
Did you have anything to do with the ever Last
solo record that came out in before the Whitey four? No,

(02:03:13):
but I knew him. I met him with Dayla the Um,
but they didn't come out that the Knack. I got that.
I got the knack and I'm talking about there was
it was Guru ever Last and the Um the Gang
start joint Oh fed up, fed up? Yeah, but but

(02:03:35):
the Remixes played a remix the Remixes to Joint with
the with the Jeene jock headline that don't turn around
to get back. I got the great time for you
choke that the ones backing jacks packing guns back and
in his videos hilarious video right there, you know Peter

(02:04:00):
Green is the accurate he okay right remember zed Za
kills me in that video. So so needless to say, Um,
I was in l A with Sadat before I worked
with Never Last I got I managed to dot. I

(02:04:20):
can't manage a fucking shoelace, but but I managed to
dot and and I got him signed aloud. We did
the Wild Cowboys. We're in l A on on tour
or something, and Guru came and he hung out with us,
got drunk. He was an hotel to Montreal and and
he was like, um, you know my man. Ever lest
I was again, I know him a little bit. He's cool,
and he's like, he's gonna come meet me. And then
he was like, y'all two motherfucker's are like the same, dude,

(02:04:42):
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 through a
while back then m and the chances of someone getting
the wrestled were pretty high. So me and him, no,
we linked up and then Dot did the record with
him him for that album that was that The Heartful
of Sorrow. That was a hot record, and I went

(02:05:04):
out there with him when they did it, and we
just linked We went to the super Bowl. I go, 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. So
so I have a question, Um, how did how did
the the I guess the genre switch happened forever last So,
like I said, we were really discussed it with the

(02:05:25):
state of rap music right so you know we we
liked aggressive rap music, right and aggressive rap music wasn't
really winning right then, you know, Like, so he's a
solo sass and and and um that's a kind of
music he liked. And we were listening to a lot
of all kinds of ship like Neil you know, I
love Neil Young, Like I said, earlier. My mom was
into a singer songwritter stuff, Neil Young and Bob Doylan
Van Morrison. So I grew up with that around me

(02:05:46):
kind of and um, and so did he because he's
he's around my age a little younger. And uh, I
had were in the studio. We're working on a rap record.
And we did the song dollar Bill, the one with
him and X, and we did the um, we did
another version ends I was a rap version, and then
we did I think we did the song the Letter.

(02:06:09):
And we're making a rap record and I had a guitar.
I had a guitar and I played guitar a little
a little bit and played a couple of a C
D C songs and I had acoustic like a humming
bird 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 she went to my house and he, uh, you know,
this is the best. He always tells this story. I

(02:06:30):
can't tell it as good as M So back then
I was like, I was just I was smashing everything
in sight. I was just I was on one. So
you know, 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, and I ran
out my boxer shorts and I was like, yo, you

(02:06:52):
need to record that ship and 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, you said, he said, Yode, what do you?
He was like, Yode, what's oupen that. I was like,
sometimes you gotta sunk with the home team, because because

(02:07:15):
you know, if you know me, I mess with I
mess with the Spanish mom. He's an Asian girl, so
so um so perfect. So man, I heard them play
the record and I was like, we gotta record that.
He's like, I don't know. And the next day I
was on him again, you gotta play that. And then
he's him actually playing the guitar. He was playing that
song and singing it and and and I said, play
me the song again next morning because said stuck in

(02:07:37):
my head, and he was like, he played again, and
we gotta 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 could 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
what you gotta do it. He said, bring the toar
back to the studio. So I was I was being
a producer. So he brought the guitar back. I said, Yo,

(02:07:57):
play that song. Play it for my engineer. He played
it for John Amble gambles like that ship is fire.
I said, yeah, Well he didn't know was I had
the la faida for rock drums hooked up already, said
play that played. I hit the hit the MP bonk drums.
I had hit it on. He played it right to us,
said that's it. That's the song, and he was like really.
I said we're gonna record that tomorrow and recorded the
next day first pass of his vocals. Is that version

(02:08:21):
that made it to the record because I recorded on
a sixteen track tape machine, a task cam that I
had an MS sixteen right, a one inch sixteen. So
we could never find that machine again. Literally couldn't overdub
when I took the tape l A. We couldn't find
a machine. So I took it in transferred to a
two inch, but we just used the vocals over there

(02:08:43):
and then we we added the strings. That was that.
So when the song hit and really due to hit
six weeks after it came out, the It's 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 so, and Steve Rifkin had given me a job.

(02:09:04):
Steve Rifkin loves Steve Rifkin always had a check for me,
always had a consulting gig, always always always always checked
from me. He wanted me to work alloud. I was
going to be the first president uh vice president allowed
an order for him. I didn't do it, but um,
he he always wanted me to work with them, 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. Um. And when it's sold

(02:09:25):
thirty copies the first week, he called me up. He's like,
I wanna call Tom Silverman right now and try and
buy the record. And I was like, he's on a
consulta He's like, well, I'm gonna 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 Hi in St. Mark's Place, and

(02:09:45):
he killed it. And I want to say John Perellis
or John Leland, someone named John who wrote for The
Times was there and he gave it a stellar, stunning
review and keep going on and on and on the end.
In Seattle started playing the record um which is like
the k Rock of Seattle Indicator station, and because of

(02:10:08):
that k Rocks started playing it and almost by accident,
that record became his song. And it was six months.
I remember the week going into Christmas, I saw Jeff
Finster and he sold He said, you sold seventy thousand
albums this week, Dante, and I was like really. He's
like yeah, He's like that record is a huge record.

(02:10:28):
And I was like, thanks Jeff. And that was that.
That record was everywhere on the VH one that used
to play it in my house. That's how I bought
my house. Yea from that, and I got a big
publishing deal and blah blah blah. So vengeance is sweet
the ross. I remember how this great I saw Leon Russell,

(02:10:50):
and Lear said, I am not fucking with you still
and and and Russell said, you are stopp being a dick. Yo,
I love you, d congratulations And he was like, stop
being a dick. And he was like, you're right. I'm
happy for you. I love everyone like I know no
one in this industry that doesn't have their version of

(02:11:10):
what they think that's yours. No, I mean, I'm scared
my relationship it's different. He says, you have to DJ
for this again, like my my, my lie or thing
is I always DJ for uh? His uh? I guess
his then wife Tory. Yeah to her, his wife is

(02:11:34):
lady Need they never married, Okay, I still don't know
if they're item or not. That's how much I'm out
of it. Or he gave me my job that I
kind of have now at her house on a Saturday afternoon,
like I love lie, or like that's my guy. I
can't I can't front. Yeah, I have good li or
stories like I have a long, very complicated relationship with him,

(02:11:55):
But I love what you didn't put like hot pep
is on the tune in fish sandwich or definitely he
threw many sandwiches at the back of my head. You're
stupid fun I just want one classic God, just one,
al right. So I worked there. I went out one
night drink a lot. I used to fight a lot,

(02:12:18):
and Hank shocked me 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
his Albanian kids snuffed them and then flashed the gun
record in and I went back to it. Russell was

(02:12:43):
there and he was like, you stupid motherfucker. He said
that man makes hits for me. What the fund do
you do? I said, I'm sorry. He's like, yeah, I
And on Monday he called in his house and I
thought he 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

(02:13:03):
at work. I was like, you know, motherfucker's want to
come see you. Who was the cute too? Who was
the Puerto Rican qute? 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 Albanian kid on New Armando. That's a
deaf jam story. And then there's another one time me

(02:13:24):
and Jams Jay 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 paned windows
and DMCs to wear a uh ring, an old English
rank and he was punching panes of the windows, breaking

(02:13:44):
them and I said 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 and still get the scar
on my day right here on my finger from punching
windows with DC, who drove me to the hospital left
me there and I don't know, man, there's a million

(02:14:05):
stories like you know that. That was a wild time
in my life, but it was super duper fun and
I met after all. 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. Oh
you have this giant Yeah, I thought he was like
six ft nine figures here, it's like wait, you're Chuck D.
He's like yeah. I was like, no, you're not, and

(02:14:25):
he was Chuck D. 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 it's like downbeat well, rando, Well, randomly play you
stuff that's significant to your career or you know, just

(02:14:47):
to get your taste on things and U 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 what you know about your own history. That's homeboys. Shit,
I don't even know that that olde me notice is

(02:15:11):
Dirty's joint? Did you know at the time it was?
Didn't I didn't know what to just now you just
figured out right now. I just heard it right now.
I was like, oh, that's Dirty's joint. I didn't even know.
I never knew that. Yeah, it's probably the greatest sample
to day rock for Yeah, like, wow, I had no

(02:15:39):
idea the thousands of times and I'm a Stevie Wonder fanatic. Yeah,
who knew? That's wild. I hope the Louis don't call
that's a beautiful it's a beautiful record, They're gonna go
catch Risen? Now, Um, how how would you did you

(02:16:01):
negotiate with the artists that you have to remix everything
on their records? Are you just just kind of did it?
I was like, I don't just go remix this, and
they're like, oh, that's cool, we'll put it out. Man.
They didn't care. Yeah, because I was do them like
I would just grab a copeles, I just do them.
I literally would sit there with the vocals and I
would funk. I would sample them line by line by line.

(02:16:21):
How crazy is that? Yeah, because that's my question. How
did you keep it in time? Because I mean it
wasn't pro tool. You couldn't line it up time stretch
a little though, even even with take make sure whatever
I made was the same temper. Okay, do you remember
the first digital record? You did? The first record and

(02:16:42):
then after that everything Merrill called out 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 want to
hung out with Mario and he just taught me everything,
and he was like, here's what we gotta here's what
you gotta do. Good because I had I had a
I had an aid that moment on the first whitey
four record that made me cry. I lost background vocals,

(02:17:05):
like eight tracks of background vocals. I had to do again. Yeah,
and I literally like was crying. All right, Uh, we're
gonna give you your second uh blind test song. Sir
Dante Ross right here on Mr Dante Yes, Mr Dante Ross,

(02:17:26):
I know what that is. That's MC and Berzoti, that's
drum machine. I remember when they made that that. It
was crazy right there. Do you know anything about the
history of the Latin rascals or just do I knew
those guys? You know, I'm I know a lot about freestyle.

(02:17:48):
I'm it was ill. Yeah, this why the song never
took off on that jam, I'll never know right, it's
bugged out. BRASOOTI J was Bazoo's guy, Jay Burnett. He
was one of one of the engineers are Chung King
and the Beasties, Well, Mike and Ad Mike and m
c A lived in his building on Christie Street, sixty

(02:18:10):
nine Christie Street with the Chinese whole house in the
in the first floor. They called us. What was the
significance of it? 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, yelbow,
it's never contact Club Classic nine, come on, come on
hang out. And we would always we'd always make fun
of him. He always do his voice. And it was

(02:18:32):
this place. It was like basically there's a whole house
on the first floor, the Chinese club, and and it
was like um what they called 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 Brazoli lived in the building too. He got them
I think the apartment and and it was like they

(02:18:54):
could practice for all the time. Brasili lived upstairs. And
he was friends with Steve at and Steve Steve That
and and obviously Rick and everybody. And he made the
record with with m c A and Russell Rick put
it out and then never won anywhere. But it was
an ill record and uh yeah, he programmed it, he
did everything on it, and m she had just wrote
the raps and did the raps that the same Steve

(02:19:15):
end up doing. Did everything that could. Back then there
was Rick Skuy Steve that he died to rest in peace,
Steve that passed away a long time ago? What long
long time ago Steve that had I mean, he's you
know his engineering man. Just think about great the Beast's
record sounds, and how great Raisin Hell sounds. He was
a beast lll He's a beast. He's a beast. Wow.

(02:19:39):
I can't even imagine, Like at your tenure at def Jam,
like what was the one what was the your your
your top moment of like he rebel without a pause.
I gave him the test pressing and he played it,
Like what was the reaction when you first heard play?
It was in the land quarters he played I hadn't

(02:20:00):
really heard it, and he played it and he was like, Yo,
this ship is ill. And he played it about forty
five minutes later and the club jumped off crazy and
and I was like, oh my god, that's a hit record.
I was like, that's a hit record. Another great memory
of Deaf Jam is I tried to sign Boogie Down Productions,
so I brought them in and it was Eric b

(02:20:20):
was there, rock him No, just Eric by Russell Lee
youre and Got and Scotty Morris was there. I think
d was there, but he never remembers this. And carriss
One was like, they were like, yo, we don't want
to be on def JAM. Why. Carriss 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 because he didn't
trust him. He's he just was paranoid, so he didn't
trust him and we didn't get them. And and if
you notice, he took shots. He was always taking run DMC.
He took some shots, and I think that has something
to do with it too. You know, he didn't want
to fun with them, and and he was you know,
he was talking with the Juice crew. He was trying
to just you know, he was ready to go out.

(02:21:03):
He was ready to whatever at any time. But in
his head he thought it was better to be on
B Boy Records. Well then no, So here's what happened.
They knew that they could get out of the B
Boy Records contract that they had been voided, so they
were free agent kind of. And and then um Scott
got killed. And then we had another meeting with carriss
One and he said, I'm not really trying to sign it,

(02:21:25):
but you should sign my man D Nice, and we
didn't sign d Nice. Time to job, and I remember
there was a lot of confusion because George Henhosa was
saying he managed them and he didn't manage him. And
I think there was a little problem over that before
I do the last record, Are there any other near
misses that you could have signed? So many um dos
effects I didn't sign it, I had it. The biggest

(02:21:48):
MISSIEVER had was Trip Called Quest. I left my job
at Tommy Boy with the intent of signing Trip Called
Quest and Brand Nubians and the d C at Electric Records,
and I lost two out of three of them. The
dc DC, you got a relationship. Jerry Heller was in
my office with Dr Dre and michel A and Easy
and they wanted to bring him here because they had
a song called Bridget that they wouldn't put out. If

(02:22:10):
you've ever heard it, it's it's out there on the net.
It's a filthy record. It's amazing. Bridget. Bridget was a
dumb hold Bridget. I think the I think she sucked
the Midget Bridget. It was wild. This is a wild record.
So it's all about the running the train on her
right and her and how so Tom didn't want to
spend the money because we had it was a hundred

(02:22:32):
seventy five thousand dollars deal. He didn't want to spend it.
I went over to work at Electra. I tried to
get the deal, but and they thought they could get
out of East West deal. My lawyer, Gary Kasson said,
we can't compete against one of the labels and Warning
music group. We can't go and do this. And my
boss told me, Jerry Heller, don't trust that guy. I
remember him told me that he's like, he's not trustworthy.

(02:22:53):
And and when I read Jerry's book, he told the
story and admitted me from the story and told a
bullshit version of it. But that's okay because Jerry Heller's
Jerry Heller. And and I no, no, you know, bad
feelings for him, but but he didn't tell the truth.
And and I didn't sign that in Tribe, I had
three hundred thousand dollars, which is a gang of loot
on the table back then, and I think I went

(02:23:14):
up to three seventy and they signed a drive and
they came up after publishing. They didn't know the game
back then and Chris Lydy for years. I'd be like,
you could have kept your publishing and that should have
been my group. And uh I have a long intricate
history with with those guys and and uh um, yeah,

(02:23:37):
it's 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. Um,
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 dost effects. Honestly, I
didn't believe in it. I was like, I don't believe
in it. I was like, I thought it was a novelty.

(02:23:57):
I lost Souls of Mischief. I signed del and I
should have sign Souls. And I didn't sign Souls because
Stretch on Front and Daddy Reef worked a 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 um and Sophia stepped in and got it. Yeah,
but that was supposed to be on big beat and
and yeah, and I should have signed him. I didn't

(02:24:19):
sign him and they hadn't. They had ninety three two
on the demo and all that, all of that, So
were you behind artifacts? Were you that was Reef? Did that?
You know? I didn't do that? Um? What else did
I miss? Those? Those are noticeable, mrs. I tried to
swing third base to Tommy Boying and Tommy boy didn't
like them. They didn't want to sign him. Um. I
helped make third Basic group the same several part of

(02:24:42):
like your no, but he was he was my man
and ship. He was my boy. And he showed me
how to use some equipment, and he bought a few
records here and there, and when he put me up
on the Ultimate breaks and beats and he kicked some
knowledge my way. He was definitely uh younger than me,
but like my mentor on some levels. What would you
use hundre? And then we went to the MP's drummers. Yeah,

(02:25:04):
that's the one, you know, that's the that's the box.
I mean, you know who the master of the of
SP twelve was. I just got a big up someone
who no one talks about. Paul c. He was the
master the SP two know him well, he's my man
that's probably how I know Large and Um. 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 almost like damn because

(02:25:25):
he's the king of kings. He showed me. He's the
one who told me by every guy out my life. Woman.
He showed me skull snaps. He took me shopping. Um,
he was that guy. He was. He was 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 verb and rock can
give the drummer soth for ultra magnetic stizo. Um, it's

(02:25:50):
my turn, like the rhythm hit him. He did um Um.
I'm oh he did Duke James. He did James. Dude,
that's him and they killed the peach the best. To me,
he did all those records and he mixed him in
the room. That was about this big. He was a nasty,

(02:26:11):
nasty nasty So was he primarily an engineer and producer
and a digger. He was a serious digger for real,
real real diggers. The legend of post I think so
eighty nine and he did organize confusions them when they're
called simply too positive STP and I wanted to sign him,
and he had bra looped up. He had braun he

(02:26:32):
had Eddie Harris joint too, the one that brand new
being used. So he was nasty and asked Paul about
him if you ever get large pro up here? So
so whenever I when I when I think about Large,
I always think about Paul C too. So you know
Paul C. He was a legend man. He he got
taken out before his time. Well the last record I'm

(02:26:54):
just of course he signed. But it's something about this
album and just big this Lord nasty Lord, Lord bust Lord,
Mrs Busters Buster go solo because of this. Yes, this

(02:27:19):
man backspinded this really backspin was ill. I don't know
where I he was plugged out. I like the girl
that feminine fact, peminine fact, feminine fact. You like the
girl's girl the waistils Yeah to me, feminine fat should

(02:27:45):
have been a single and always made those for a
minute girl fat. That's Phil Cosby, No book a team
MT Yeah, yeah, you sing a simple song joint No
that I wouldn't have bad luck if it wasn't back
the Silver album. Yes, it's on there. I always that's

(02:28:15):
the question. I played this to ask you, 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 to him. I can't
even explain why, just as that yard Man Field Bust
was so he was so incredible, you know, he was
just so charismatic from day one to this to this day.

(02:28:37):
I still spend feminine fete by leaders of the New
said that record in at least ten years, that's an
ill one. It's incredible. Chemists backspin at he was ill?
He did he had a couple of joints on that
al I don't think he ever did so he produced this, Yeah,
that was busters Man from Brooklyn. What else did he do?
He did a couple of songs on that album. I

(02:28:58):
have to see the album and my memories little hazy,
but he didn't have any other productions that then. I'm
aware of maybe something here or there, but nothing nothing significant. Okay,
So there's so much that we have not suched on.
We didn't even get onto Santana. Oh yeah, it was
your only Grandmither Santana record. I only got one, Sorry, bro,
and I can I still hang sure? Yeah, yeah I

(02:29:20):
got that. I did, uh. Ever Last that was the
first song we did after because he had a heart attack.
I did Whitey Ford sings of Blues that I forgot
to mention. He was more in congeneral heart disorder and
his coming was miss prescribed and he had a heart attack.
He almost died. I mixed the album without him. He
was in hospital recuperating and then he he got better.
One on tour and I got a call from Pete
Gamborg and he was like, do you guys have a

(02:29:41):
song from Santana? And I said yeah, sure, and we didn't,
and ever Last 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 the old casual
song that had a Latin field to it with the
bongo in it, and I was like, yo, I think
these drums are rock. He's like, those are perfect, and

(02:30:02):
we used those drums and he recorded it and then
I basically ripped off the Elia drum break and one
in a Million and I used that in a 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 asked for him my whole life to

(02:30:24):
produce a record. He's like, no problem, and I wanted
to the record. 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, Carlo Santana, he's ill.
He's the coolest, and Anthony Hamilton's the coolest too. You know.
I don't produce records anymore, but but I always think

(02:30:46):
the Santana records like the last significant record I produced,
the one with Anthony Hamilton's and to me, that that's
you know all that I am. That was like, I
think that was the last one. He don J And
when I did the song, they made me John 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

(02:31:08):
took it the club 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 register with the band. And
then Anthony Uh came 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, you just
chopped my shirt up. I played the Worlds Are on it,

(02:31:30):
and they had Serban mix it and he bricked the mix.
He didn't because he didn't know how the record supposed
to sound and supposed to sound like. 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 me. 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,

(02:31:52):
that's the record. And so initially he sent it to
Serban blind that's OK. Keeping on or Jamie Stalb. They
just wasn't trying to hear that serving is the first
and probably the the exception of Jimmy Douglas, the only
cat that I've ever just sent a mix too, and
it's like, yeah, we know what we do. I know

(02:32:13):
what you want, man, I mean he just did you know,
I wanted to sound like a Donny 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. Yeah, well,
Jimmy Douglas is awesome for that. He's like he just
give him a reference. He's like, yeah, I did that back.
He probably did. He did. He did Slave for White

(02:32:34):
Good Stuff. He's he's and he did Timberland. He's the
g Yeah. Yeah, I mean so so after I mean
stuff after, Yeah, I did. I did the second ever
last record. Um, I did a you know, I did
all these remix for every rock rat band in the world.
I made a lot of money doing that, Like I
did like six corn remixes and in Cubis and sucking

(02:32:56):
all that bullshit. Um and hell, I was just polishing
more and more turds. I gotta be honest, 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 and I don't how
to write lyrics, so so being a song that was

(02:33:17):
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 records sign 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 passed and

(02:33:38):
Lee 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 want and I
took a job working at Warner Brothers in New York.
I moved back. I was living in l A. And um,
I did a third ever last record to that tank
um and was what was the Throne called I had
White Tresh Beautiful. So I did it and Lee or

(02:33:59):
New York gave him the deal, and then Lee York
quit like a month's eight weeks before the record came out,
and I got stuck with l A Read trying to
explain what the record was about that you can you know,
you could tell that you know it is what it is,
um so leard So 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 gotta tell you it was very frustrating for
the first few years. I found this guy named mcklemore
and and Tom Muskwood told me sucked and uh, and
I told you are I was gonna quit? Yeah? Right,
So I told I told you I was gonna quit.
Tob wouldn't let me sign anything to take it to
a d A, see if Kenny wants to do and

(02:34:41):
Kenny Wiggley I connected him and Zack Cool and he
ended up doing the deal. The record came out, and
I went to work at a d and became vice
presiding a d A and I still worked in now
um you know, so so it all worked out in
the end. And uh, you know, I mean, I can't
necessarily say I was like, I'm recognized as mac Moore's
and R because the we do records at a d S.
We kind of take finished records to distribution, coming to

(02:35:04):
label services. But since then, I signed UM and I
signed a little Dicky you know, Save that Money is
my record? Really yeah, And that's like a platinum single.
And and I signed um Maide in Tokyo who have
the Uber everywhere, which just one platinum too. So I
had a little, you know, a nice little run in downtown.
The record didn't sell, the single sold, and so it's
been a good little you know, twelve months over there

(02:35:24):
from me, I'm about to be senior vice president and
blah blah blah, all that bullshit, all the bells and whistles.
But it's ironic that twenty five years later, I'm kind
of back where I started, you know, doing A and
R in the Warner Music Group again and and and
having a very good run right now. Um, but the
disparity in the music I work on is is is

(02:35:45):
really mind boggling. Like my my girlfriend PiZZ said, you
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 Belfort record,
mand I mean that's a gold record. But like you
guys would punch me if you heard the record, so
you know you'd be like, yo, I gave you crab tonight.
Like but here's the here's the thing though. The thing

(02:36:06):
is is that now that you're older and wiser 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 this is going to work? I mean versus analytics? Right,

(02:36:32):
that that plays into it. I I do heavy analytics.
I helped run the research department um for for Atlantic
because I also work at Atlantic, so I am one
of the heads of that um so research driven. And
then like in the case of Macklemore, I just really
believed in what he was, Like I saw it live
and I was like, oh this this I connect to

(02:36:54):
um So however you feel about him, he's exceptional at
what he does, right, and I recognize his exceptionalness. I
thought he was he was great at what he does.
And we talked about a little Dickies, so same thing.
I thought he was great at what he did, like
he's really good at what he does, like him or
not so? So I guess I do my job with
less sentiment, right with, with less of my heart and
more of my brains. And I also I'm keyed into

(02:37:17):
knowing it's a singles market, it's a streaming world. Your
album may never sell. And and the end result of
that twofold one, I've become much smarter at my job,
much less emotionally connected and attached, which allows me to
leave my my job at my desk and enjoy my
life though right and I reap the benefits financially. But two,

(02:37:38):
I feel like me and 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 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.

(02:38:01):
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 to own themselves. Um, you
own your masters and a large or large royalty. It's
a whole different way of doing business. Um. But but
I think for me exciting because I feel like I'm

(02:38:22):
contributing to the independent side of the culture. And for me,
that's exciting. And I balanced it out by going to
play records with just Blaze and large Pro and digging
and and you know, doing all the other things I like.
So you know, kind of my life has a lot
of balance to it. Do you ever pray that it
will come full circle again? There will be a believe
that and that that I don't know if that will

(02:38:44):
ever happen because of finances, right, Clearing records cost too
much money. But I do believe there are great rappers
in the world. Jai Elect, for one, is a great rapper.
Chance the rappers phenomenal. There's lots of and just where's
that guy? Um? But you know, and and I even
like Future it's a different thing. But once again, for

(02:39:06):
what he does, he's phenomenal. Um. And 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 wrap. Um. You know, I believe hy
G makes really good music. Chance the rapper Vic Mensa.
You know, there's lots of guys out there who still
spit and and still wrap really great. And then there's

(02:39:27):
lots of guys who make good music. Maybe they're not
the greatest rappers. Um, 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 all
always be miserable, I'll be the cranky old man in

(02:39:47):
my size thirty eight jeans beef him with the fitted hat.
And that's not me. You know. Right now, you know
I have to be I have to be um. I
have to be abreast to what's popping right now. And
you know I mean this. That's how I am culturally too.
I never wanted to see because when I was young,
the old bitter dude. I didn't like that dude. So

(02:40:08):
I don't want to be that old bitterer dude that
no one wants to be raw. You know that dude's corny. No,
I mean I'm not. I'm not a bitterer man. And
I find things I love and 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 but that said, you know the problems with doing
A and R and now is no secrets. Everybody knows everything,

(02:40:29):
so everything goes zero to sixty right away, right right away.
Even from when I when we found McLamore to now,
things have changed dramatically. So the kind of artist that
I 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 brakes come on and that's that, and

(02:40:50):
that's been since forever. But we really see it now,
right And I can intend guys who had a big
buzz and they got signed in that major that came
to Bridge. You know the other thing, the other side
of this. For me to bring something in the building
that's at zero and think I'm gonna go zero to
sixty with it's probably not gonna happen. He asked, that
that artist has to be you gotta be able to

(02:41:10):
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
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 and
you can't win. And well, I mean, look at Chance Man.

(02:41:32):
He said funk you to everybody most punk rocks should ever.
I tried to sign him when he put out ten Day.
I flew to Chicago. He was like, nah, right so
and he told me I wasn't the first one there.
And he said, noticed Sylvia Rome before he said no
to me. 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

(02:41:54):
there touring. And 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. Um pooh, yeah, I don't need a
record deal. I mean, little Young Dulf don't need a
record deal. These dudes don't need record deals. They're on
the road making money, selling merch doing whatever they're doing.
And they're not selling thousands, hundreds of thousands of records.

(02:42:16):
But let's be real. The New Gold records a hundred thousand.
The New Gold album is a hundred thousand. Single might
sell a million. I caught a couple of 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
was a producer, like and I shifted with time that

(02:42:37):
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,
and um, that's important. That is important. Every day I
gotta I gotta wake up in the morning. I have

(02:42:57):
to make you know, conscious contact with my higher power
that's at all he got on me about that. About me,
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 happen, right. So
so also, you know, I live a hundred percents sober

(02:43:18):
life for a long time now, and and you know
I don't smoke or drink anymore. And you know, um,
I'm still bad with ladies. That's that's progress and not perfection.
But 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

(02:43:38):
what I love, and 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 aren't gonna It's like
I always say, we didn't go to college. We went
to hip hop. You know that's a quote for your
ass right there. You know, that's what we did. And
this was our hip hop, whether you know, was hanging

(02:44:00):
out with with Ali Shaheed 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 Wex and I'm not gonna
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 to write my history. And for me,
that's enough. You signed O d B and got a

(02:44:22):
completed record, completed TV record. Bro, 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. Uh Dante Ross, ladies and gentlemen,
thank you, Thank you guys. That that was amazing. Gentlemen,

(02:44:49):
We've learned a lot about Renaissance hip hop. Take a
little any final thoughts, man, I'm just man, I'm just
so it's just 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 day law
to getting made for like ninety thousand or whatever for

(02:45:10):
something so groundbreaking, be made so cheap, and you look
at what what rap budgets became later on. 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 forced
you to be a lot more creative because you really
you gotta make every everything count, every dollar, every minute

(02:45:31):
in the studio, you every every real like everything, you
know what I'm saying, So you can't really funk around.
And they always said that like necessities and other inventions.
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 that you gotta
make it. Yeah, you gotta figure it out. It's amazing. Yeah,
I gotta say that. Uh My rule number one is

(02:45:52):
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 tracked the music, when I did like the
music and the stuff, um, I wanted it in the
most uncomfortable, unsavory nine. I mean we always joke like
fruit basket situation or non fruit basket situation, like tarit

(02:46:16):
needs to be comfortable and you know, sunshine and fruit
baskets and all that stuff and free pastries. That's that's
sort of man. I mean he he gotta be in
his own and you know, he needs fresh praistories and
fruit baskets. But like, you know, I wanted the opposite.
Like even now, when I make Roots records, I record

(02:46:38):
them in our dressing room at thirty Rock, which is
essentially are you know, it's like a closet. Um. I
just have this this this the fear of of going
soft if I'm in a comfortable environment. So maybe it's
a good thing that you know, key, what would the
LANs records sound like? Uh, with a seven hundred thousand

(02:47:01):
dollar Yeah, I mean who would know if if they
were giving the Righteous budget. But then it kind of
also makes me mad that that even labels didn't see
the art that they had on their hands to you know,
give it justice. 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

(02:47:22):
o gs in the game. They all say that like
the selling point of hip hop. It wasn't. I don't
think the labels really understood the music. It was just
it could be produced with so cheap. The prophet margin
on it was so high, so it was like, Okay,
you mean we ain't got to bring a drummer, a
bassis of guitarists and we just need just you and
your records. Okay, cool, we'll sign it. Hip hop is
truly even the New Blues, Oh my god, the New

(02:47:45):
Blues and labels are just Alan Lo max Is walking
around with feel recordings and ship young thugs. Here at
the traphouse with Sir Gucci talking about so himself unpaid

(02:48:07):
build Steve. Uh, you know you guys are all right
intricate vital parts of this show. Um, did you learn
anything special? Dante Ross is some Jedi Yoda hip hop? God, Yes,
I learned that. I was also impressed by the someone

(02:48:29):
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, Yeah, I
think we all want to be Dante Ross. I want

(02:48:49):
to be Dante Ross. Wanna grow up? If you like? Yeah,
this is our new single. It's called Troy Yes, right,
so you uh, boss Bill? Any any final thoughts? Um,
Really the whole Black Bastard situation kind of stuck in
my head, like just kind of you know, hearing names

(02:49:10):
of people who are kind of voted it down kind
of made me ain't sense. It made perfect sense, but
it still intens me because of the fact that, you know,
just learning that they didn't even bother listening to the
album or to get the get the rationale behind the artwork.
You know, it's I cannot wait to get on Facebook
half flock about in their defense in the labels defense,

(02:49:32):
and I'm being granted this is probably the only time
I would ever come to defense get clear in their defense.
You know, they that this was post cop killer, right,
I understand it, but like they weren't. I mean, you
get a letter from and it was from the government
and it was more or two, so yeah, the same
ships Like, Okay, I can't find me. I got a
letter from the government for real gun shot. I get it,

(02:49:54):
I get it. I get it. Well, But I mean
if it hadn't happened, then, you know, we probably would
have never had Mad Villain and yep, food 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.
Um on me having find Tikola, Coleman, Sugar, Steve, Unpaid

(02:50:16):
Bill and Boss Bill. Uh. This is cos Love Supreme.
Thank you and I'll talk to you all lay. What's
Love Supreme? It's a production of my Heart Radio. This
classic episode was produced by the team at Pandora. For

(02:50:36):
more podcasts for my Heart Radio, visit the I Heart
Radio app, Apple podcast, or wherever you listen to your
favorite shows.