QLS Classic: Faith Newman

Faith Newman is the A&R who signed Nas and helped create the runway for Illmatic. She joins Questlove Supreme to discuss her time at Def Jam, Columbia, and working with UGK and Too Short at Jive.

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Episode Transcript

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

Speaker 2 (00:11):
Yo Yo Yo, What up?

Speaker 3 (00:11):
This is this?

Speaker 4 (00:12):
Fonte Fontigelo here with another QLs classic. This episode we're
taking it back to January eighteen, twenty eighteen, with Faith Newman.
Faith Newman is the an r signed NODS and helped
create the runway for Amatic. She joins thet QULS to
discuss her time at Death Jam Columbia and we're going
ugk too short at job. It's it y'all, episode number

(00:33):
eighteen of PULS. Fifth Newman on the US classic.

Speaker 5 (00:41):
Who Suprema Suck Suck Supremo Roll Call, Suprema Suck Suck Subpremo,
Roll Call, Supremo, sup Up Supremo Roll Call, Suprema Suck
Suck Suprema roll Call.

Speaker 6 (00:58):
My name is Question. Yeah, that's who I am. Yeah,
I'm gonna ask Faith new Man. Yeah, hollobout Primo, Suprema Road.

Speaker 5 (01:10):
Called, Suprema Suprema role call.

Speaker 4 (01:14):
My name is Fante. Yeah, I'm in the place. Yeah
I'm not George Michael. Yeah, but I just gotta have Faith.

Speaker 2 (01:26):
Roll call Suprema Suprema Roll Call. Yeah, Faith new Man. Yeah,
they call me sugar. Yeah, the sexy you Man, I'm.

Speaker 5 (01:41):
Punch spread No so Supreme roll called.

Speaker 2 (01:46):
I'm on Hey Bill, Yeah, I can't get no better.

Speaker 6 (01:50):
Yeah.

Speaker 2 (01:50):
Ready for eggnog?

Speaker 6 (01:52):
Yeah?

Speaker 2 (01:53):
Christmas sweaters?

Speaker 5 (01:54):
Who call Suprema So SUPREMEA roll call, Supreme Son Son Supremo.

Speaker 3 (02:01):
Road calls Boss Bill the meanest, Yes, Boss build the prettiest, Yes,
Boss build the baddest more fu No down around this town.

Speaker 5 (02:13):
Supremo role called Suprema Son Sun Supremo role call.

Speaker 6 (02:20):
Yeah.

Speaker 7 (02:20):
Working on a rhyme scheme. Yeah, I don't know what
I mean. Yeah, but I'm trying to see.

Speaker 2 (02:26):
Oh God, Supreme, why why she with me?

Speaker 6 (02:29):
Up?

Speaker 2 (02:30):
Roll Suprema Son Son Supremo roll call.

Speaker 8 (02:34):
My name is Faith.

Speaker 7 (02:36):
Yeah.

Speaker 8 (02:36):
I haven't rhymed since nineteen eighty.

Speaker 5 (02:38):
Yeah yeah, oh Supremo roll call, Suprema Son Son Supremo
role call. Suprema Son So Supremo. Role called Suprema Son
Son Supremo roll call.

Speaker 1 (03:00):
It's actually ironic that we are in or Barrack Street,
in the location of the I guess the original.

Speaker 8 (03:12):
I thought you were going to go to death, Jam,
I was trying to.

Speaker 2 (03:14):
Go to death Jam, So Death Jam wasn't on this block.

Speaker 8 (03:17):
No, the original original was on Elizabeth Street.

Speaker 1 (03:20):
I see, well, that voice you hear, ladies and gentlemen,
is a legendary, legendary voice. What can I say about
Faith Newman? I mean she has She's been there for
some of your favorite moments in music. If you are
a hip hop hit, you know, if if the Maroon
to Black Death Jam logo the original meant anything to

(03:43):
you in the eighties, in the nineties, Faith Newman was there.

Speaker 2 (03:49):
Not to mention, uh, she spirit headed.

Speaker 1 (03:52):
Probably one of the most debated and contested pieces of
of work that has ever been in hip hop. I'm
speaking of Illmatic by nas. You've done so much more.
Ladies and gentlemen, give it up for Faith Newman.

Speaker 8 (04:09):
Thank you, thank you, thank you.

Speaker 2 (04:12):
Welcome to our dungeon. How are you doing to day, Faith, I'm.

Speaker 8 (04:15):
Doing okay Man you yeah, yeah, Dungeon, Dungeon.

Speaker 2 (04:19):
Come to my underground LA.

Speaker 1 (04:23):
When you hear that, normally I don't, I don't kick
off an episode with the song, But when you hear
that particular piece or just stuff from that era, like,
what's the first thing.

Speaker 8 (04:32):
You thought of when you heard well, you know, I
started working at Deaf Jam at eighty seven, right, so, uh,
you know when I was still in college, and it
was just an amazing, amazing time. Just some of the
best years of my life were spent there. I was
one of the first five people at the company, first woman, Right.

Speaker 2 (04:53):
I was going to say, if you.

Speaker 1 (04:56):
Were a woman in that vironment, I know that you
have to have the toughest skin of all time. Yeah,
because you're like what you're around. You were around twenty.

Speaker 2 (05:10):
Twenty one in that environment.

Speaker 4 (05:13):
Yeah, wow, Well, you know, there was no such thing
as HR department. There's no HR department. There was no
trigger warnings, there was none.

Speaker 2 (05:20):
Of that, you know.

Speaker 8 (05:21):
You know what's interesting though, was that before def CHAM
I interned at Columbia Records eighty six and yeah, and
you can imagine what that was like then. You still,
I don't know if you saw the show No, the
one that got canceled on HBO about the record thank You,

(05:42):
Thank You, thank you, It was like that.

Speaker 2 (05:44):
Like, wait, canceled, Yeah, yeah, yeah one and done done Damn.
Next to that was damn. I was actually I was
into it too. Yeah, I liked it as well.

Speaker 8 (05:57):
But wow, but those guys, you know in eighty six
that were in the record had been in the record
business since, you know, whenever the seventies were still there,
and that's where I got I experienced more harassment, you
know what I mean? I see and I feel like
with hip hop though, it's like I never could have
gotten a job at Columbia unless I wanted to be

(06:18):
somebody's assistant, you know.

Speaker 1 (06:20):
But so you're saying that working at Columbia in eighty
six prepared you for the tough skin of the battles that.

Speaker 2 (06:29):
You would have to deal with.

Speaker 8 (06:30):
Yeah, you know, it's funny, like I don't know if
it was my youth or whatever, how much I loved
hip hop, It just I didn't think of myself as
a woman first in hip hop. I just felt like,
you know, that's kind of how it was with everybody
who worked at Deaf Jams, Like we were all young
and we were just totally immersed in the culture.

Speaker 7 (06:51):
Were there any other women at the time that maybe
because you know, you were the first at Deaf Jam,
but were there anything?

Speaker 8 (06:57):
There were women at Rush? So what you had was
in the on an in Elizabeth Street. You had Rush
management was on the first floor, and you had Lisa
Cortez and Heidi Smith. Yeah Cortez, Yeah, who went on
to work with Lee Daniels and yeah, she's doing great
things in film.

Speaker 1 (07:16):
She she once infamously told The Roots when we I
believe that she went to Mercury uh in ninety four.

Speaker 2 (07:27):
All right, so something happened.

Speaker 1 (07:28):
We were going to sign with Mercury, Like we went
out to dinner and all this stuff, and then like
there's a minor glitch in the contract that technically left
us free for like a weekend.

Speaker 2 (07:39):
And that's when Wendy.

Speaker 1 (07:40):
Goldstein came with all his cash and Lisa Cortez was like,
I hope they take race relation classes over there.

Speaker 2 (07:53):
Like that was like her last like, oh, you're gonna
learn today forget uh So like was that You're.

Speaker 1 (08:07):
I'm trying to pedal backwards before I go forward. But
how did you wind up in music? You're former phil Philadelphia.

Speaker 8 (08:15):
I'm a Philadelphia, proud Philadelphian.

Speaker 7 (08:18):
All right, I'm clapping alone, right, I mean I haven't
been with the last sixteen years.

Speaker 8 (08:26):
Okay, take it.

Speaker 1 (08:27):
You're always all right, just no officially, like besides us
being born on the same day, you're always Philadelphia native
to me like DC doesn't count.

Speaker 7 (08:39):
No, my bougie spirit is down thanks to Philly, Like
you know, it takes you down, brings you back up,
phlling goop.

Speaker 2 (08:47):
So you're you're growing? What part of Philadelphia did you?

Speaker 8 (08:52):
Northeast?

Speaker 2 (08:53):
Wow? Is this Fishtown?

Speaker 6 (08:56):
No?

Speaker 8 (08:57):
Northeast? Northeast real Northeast, Bustleton Avenue? Okay, Tomlinson Road, I
need this sounded familiar? Film on Avenue?

Speaker 1 (09:05):
Okay, I would expelt Roosevelt if you okay, what I'm
saying is back in let's say nineteen eighty three. If
current day no, no status, Amir Thompson, or to be.

Speaker 2 (09:22):
In that neighborhood, might I be greeted with some Louisville sluggers,
perhaps as to relieve yourself.

Speaker 8 (09:29):
Them The Northeast? No, the Northeast is special.

Speaker 2 (09:35):
How okay?

Speaker 1 (09:38):
So I know me and knowing you personally, I know
that you're a soul music officionado. How did that reach
you up in the Northeast. Because when I'm thinking seventies
and eighties Northeast, I'm thinking of like FM ninety eight,
I'm thinking of the.

Speaker 8 (09:55):
Word yo, like yo, let's go get a head.

Speaker 2 (09:58):
Yeah, yeah, Like when you're from Philly.

Speaker 8 (10:01):
It's the worst ever. It's so glad. I don't you
said that, but you.

Speaker 2 (10:05):
Said that out Yeah, So like, how were you no
pun intended? Were you a black sheep of your Yeah?

Speaker 8 (10:17):
I have a funny story about that. I want you
hear it. Well, actually the reason was Soul Train.

Speaker 2 (10:24):
Ah, okay, what was the reason.

Speaker 8 (10:28):
That you ask me?

Speaker 2 (10:31):
Why?

Speaker 7 (10:31):
No?

Speaker 2 (10:32):
I meant your love for.

Speaker 8 (10:33):
The show or just no, my love for the music.
It's just I always had music playing in the house.
My dad had this great, you know, fancy reel to
real player, and he would play a lot of Ray
Charles and the Birds, Creeden's Clearwater Revival, like a lot
of bluesy stuff that I was always attracted to.

Speaker 1 (10:51):
And then we should let our let our listeners know
that in the seventies, the uh real to reel player
was like, I mean, that was the original m P
three older even before it, like cassettes.

Speaker 8 (11:08):
Weren't even Yeah, well they bought you know, you'd buy
real to real albums like you was, Oh okay.

Speaker 2 (11:14):
They were.

Speaker 1 (11:16):
Get and then oh really all the music he liked
on that reel to reel so he just had three
hours of yeah, continuous music without having them put the
record stack on, so so your your father would would
listen to all these songs on.

Speaker 8 (11:33):
Yeah, there was always music playing in the house, always
on the house, always on the radio in the car.
Funny story, I mean you asked kind of how I
was different. I my grandparents lived in North Philadelphia and
North Yeah you r F O r F North?

Speaker 2 (11:56):
Wow? What year?

Speaker 8 (11:57):
Oh god, I mean they moved out in the seventies, so,
you know, forties, fifties, sixties. Well, and my mom went
to Overbrook there.

Speaker 7 (12:08):
Oh, oh my goodness, y'all are your family yeah, yeah,
very integrated, like yeah, but this this story, the funny
story is that I was four, I guess four or five,
and I was sitting on the stoop in my grandmother's
house and across the street these.

Speaker 8 (12:32):
Activists, I guess we're said, I don't know if they
were black panthers, I don't know what they were, but
they were setting up a table to hand out literature,
and I thought that they just looked amazing. They had
these you know, big afros, and just they seemed so cool.
So I went across the street just to hang out
with them, and they said, are you lost? Yeah, which

(12:56):
is you know, symbolic and yeah, so that was that
was a funny story. But Soul Train was where I
got my music from. That was it every Saturday?

Speaker 2 (13:09):
Okay?

Speaker 1 (13:10):
And then pretty much, I mean, what did you and
I Philadelphia to make your check to New York.

Speaker 8 (13:18):
I started going to New York when I was sixteen,
so that I kind of would sneak away. I would
tell my mom is sleeping at a friend's house and
I'd take the Greyhound to New York and I'd go
to the Roxy places like that.

Speaker 1 (13:30):
Finally, yeah, someone that's been to the Roxy, Yeah at
its peak favorite now when here's this eighty one, eighty two,
eighty two eight, So what was what's what's the what's.

Speaker 2 (13:43):
The average environment of the Roxy?

Speaker 1 (13:45):
Because I think after Studio fifty four, the Roxy's definitely
falling into the mythic hole.

Speaker 8 (13:52):
Yeah, it was everything that I thought it would be.
The first time I went, it was like, how did
you hear about it? That's a good question, And I
don't know. I don't remember. I mean, I started listening
to hip hop when I was thirteen, and I heard
it first time at United States of America on Roosevelt Boulevard.

Speaker 2 (14:09):
Damn, USA, USA, I remember that spotyre.

Speaker 8 (14:13):
Yeah, but it is the first time I heard a
rap record, which of course you know, given you know
it was in Philly and it was rappers Delight. So
that was a game changing moment for me. And I
found a friend from Jersey who would get cassettes of
you know, Funky four plus one and ANGIEB and Spoony

(14:35):
G and you know, all of this stuff, and that's
how I got my hip hop early on. It was
through these cassettes through from New York to Jersey to Philadelphia.

Speaker 2 (14:44):
Really, so I've never heard of tapes making.

Speaker 8 (14:47):
They made their way, well, they made their way to
my friend in Jersey and he got me the tape.

Speaker 1 (14:51):
So okay, So when you're going to the Roxy, like,
what's I mean, what's the average night, it's like Jellybean
Benita spending Like who.

Speaker 8 (15:00):
Was spinning Bombarda was spinning that night?

Speaker 2 (15:03):
Really? Yes? So what it? What is his method of
I mean, can you describe like some of the songs
you heard or whatever I heard? He would just go
all over the place.

Speaker 1 (15:16):
I heard one mixtape in which he, for some weird reason,
just stayed on the the Hey Mickey of drum intro
for like ten minutes though.

Speaker 2 (15:27):
But it wasn't like but it wasn't like it was
in line. It'd be like goop goop, you could you could,
you could give us wow sound like sneakers in the
dry wait that that was the best analogy I ever heard.

(15:51):
I ever heard so any of the folklore characters of.

Speaker 8 (16:00):
Yeah, well, I just remembered I I met Mellie Mellon's
Scorpio and I thought that was a really cool thing.
And it was the first time I saw rock Steady live.
It was like everything was happening at once. It was
like all of hip hop in this you know, in
this little space, and it was just you know, they're
writing graffiti on plexiglass. You know, they're break dancing. It's

(16:25):
actually probably eighty three because Planet Patrol performed. That's what
I remember.

Speaker 2 (16:28):
Oh wow, that's that.

Speaker 8 (16:33):
Ye yep, that's it.

Speaker 2 (16:36):
With those costumes, with the crazy and the hat all
of it.

Speaker 1 (16:41):
Planet Patrol would they'd start their shows looking like I
can't even discover.

Speaker 8 (16:47):
But it was all I mean, it was like that.
It was like very like p funk the way they
did it, and Sulsonic Force did it. And it wasn't
until run DMC that people stop kind of you know,
even the Furious five had, you know, know what they
used to dress like?

Speaker 2 (17:01):
So did you dress like that as well?

Speaker 6 (17:03):
No?

Speaker 2 (17:05):
Were you B girl? Were you the prototype cool white
girl in the circle of black?

Speaker 4 (17:10):
I was?

Speaker 5 (17:10):
I was.

Speaker 2 (17:11):
I was a B girl, okay for sure?

Speaker 8 (17:13):
And then later on I was really like when I
said that I haven't wrapped since eighty six, like that's
for real, Like I was in a rap group and everything.
So wow, yeah, well I have to preface this, you know,
so it makes sense. Remember Calvin Coolers. Yeah, they came
in a four pack, not a six pack.

Speaker 2 (17:31):
Yes, your name was a little four pack.

Speaker 8 (17:33):
Her name was four pack. Wow, there were four of us,
get it?

Speaker 2 (17:39):
Yeah? Yeah, yeah, yeah, I got to google that.

Speaker 8 (17:42):
That's you know, I'm talking Calvin Coolers.

Speaker 7 (17:45):
Yeah.

Speaker 8 (17:46):
I never heard, never heard it.

Speaker 2 (17:50):
About it. That's why is cooler? Yeah, I'm late. I'm sorry.
It's funny though.

Speaker 4 (17:58):
I just didn't now got the reference because I've heard
I knew it from the King Ryan, but I didn't
know it.

Speaker 2 (18:02):
Was an Actually, wait, who the who the two old
white guys.

Speaker 7 (18:05):
That used to sell the James I remember them white
even so yeah, but they're like heart lemonades now.

Speaker 4 (18:12):
Mike's hard lemonade. So for a non Draco like me,
would wine cooler been like the perfect?

Speaker 2 (18:19):
Yeah? Yeah, it's just some sweet diabetic black Is it black?

Speaker 8 (18:25):
No?

Speaker 2 (18:25):
I mean you know, like we like, you know, black
folks ordering ordering, we ordering Moscotto, it's the sweet tea
of one.

Speaker 4 (18:35):
Yes, yes, yeah, any kind of wine cool. It's like
why they stopped making it because I would have been
the perfect.

Speaker 2 (18:40):
I know they still make it. It's just marketing towards
like you know, freshman in college.

Speaker 7 (18:47):
Wow, like Boom's farm.

Speaker 2 (18:48):
So wait, when Bruce Willis was singing Sea Cool, who
were they they returned to black folk. I don't think
I think it was.

Speaker 4 (18:58):
I think it was the thing where it was unintended consequences,
like how most upscale white products like they you know,
right crystal, how we grabbed it.

Speaker 2 (19:07):
Yeah, we grabbed It's like, oh damn, we mean them
for the niggas to get that, but.

Speaker 7 (19:13):
The whole.

Speaker 2 (19:15):
He's like, no, we made polo. We made chaps for
y'all niggas. I wasn't sposed get polo, but you know,
it happens like sneakers in the dry anyway. So damn.
I forgot how we got on this tangent but a tangent.

Speaker 8 (19:35):
On four pack? Now, the name of the group four
packs the name of our group?

Speaker 2 (19:43):
All right? So what was your actual name in the
group four pack?

Speaker 8 (19:48):
My actual name?

Speaker 2 (19:49):
Yeah?

Speaker 8 (19:49):
Oh man, you're not going to get that.

Speaker 3 (19:51):
Come on, we got this play on the Supreme please,
oh Lord exclusives.

Speaker 7 (19:57):
Give us the other girl.

Speaker 2 (20:00):
We won't send you to HR.

Speaker 8 (20:01):
We promised, promise. Does not know what it is, you know,
you never told them. I must have told them it
was M Fortune.

Speaker 2 (20:12):
Wait.

Speaker 8 (20:12):
Who are the other three though, Rammy, SD and C Money.

Speaker 2 (20:17):
That sounds like medical conditions. Are they in the business now?

Speaker 6 (20:24):
No?

Speaker 2 (20:24):
Okay, were you guys like seriously trying to get a deal.

Speaker 8 (20:28):
Or we were you know, we were just so like
I said, immersed in the culture that it just seemed
like this natural extension, like let's just have a group.
And we went in the studio with the L A Posse.

Speaker 2 (20:38):
Oh wow wait era, Yeah.

Speaker 8 (20:41):
I was on the Bigger and Deafer album What what
what's on?

Speaker 2 (20:44):
What's on?

Speaker 8 (20:45):
I don't know? The go l L Go and Let's
get No No and let's get Let's get Wait.

Speaker 2 (20:53):
When you were still working at Deaf Jam.

Speaker 8 (20:55):
I hadn't started working with Death Jam. I didn't start
working till seven.

Speaker 1 (21:01):
No, okay, but you started working at def Jam in
the eighties eighty seven when that album came out, so
back then you were still pursuing.

Speaker 8 (21:10):
It's just it was like a half. It isn't really
what I wanted to do.

Speaker 7 (21:14):
Was it?

Speaker 2 (21:15):
Four Whirls?

Speaker 8 (21:16):
Yeah, we're four white girls?

Speaker 2 (21:18):
And Russell didn't see this at one point? Was a
marketing the female Beast? Like, did he know about the.

Speaker 8 (21:29):
I don't think. I don't think he even knew. It
was a short lived part of my life.

Speaker 2 (21:33):
Were you guys good? We're trying to bring are the
demo tapes? Is there an union tour?

Speaker 8 (21:41):
Yeah, we're putting the band back together.

Speaker 2 (21:47):
Putting man on to him before my ad libs from
all Let's get in.

Speaker 8 (21:54):
But that was the first time I saw Todd without
his hat on. That was interesting.

Speaker 2 (21:59):
Wow, really, I don't think I saw that till like
ninety five.

Speaker 8 (22:03):
Yeah, no, I got a sneak peek.

Speaker 1 (22:05):
Quincy Jones told of a story where he brought LLLL
to Bill Cosby's house for dinner and ll had his
hat on, and you know, Bill Cosby said, you know
one of them. Cosby things like, well in this house,
young man, we take our hats off.

Speaker 2 (22:24):
And da da da da.

Speaker 1 (22:26):
So llll like all embarrassed, took his hat off and
then Bill looked at his head, was like, put that hat.

Speaker 2 (22:40):
Okay, so where do.

Speaker 8 (22:42):
Put the rap group? Just put that in a little
you know bubble that Well, no.

Speaker 2 (22:45):
You you were?

Speaker 8 (22:47):
I was?

Speaker 2 (22:47):
I was, Yeah, was this when you were going to college?
Or yeah?

Speaker 8 (22:51):
I was in college?

Speaker 2 (22:52):
Correct? Where's your major?

Speaker 8 (22:54):
Marketing?

Speaker 2 (22:55):
Did you know, Gina? Or was that to soon ginicker Sean.

Speaker 7 (23:00):
Gina got strong with the n YU acting she.

Speaker 1 (23:03):
Wanted to in the n YU and told me, Gina
Kershon is the second person I know that has neglected
her finals, like her college finals, to pursue her actual dream.
The other person is Ursula Smith set to run. Gina

(23:24):
told me that she was running late to her very
final test that she had to take to get her degree,
and Andy Warhol's stopped her and said, you know, you
must be in my video. I think he was directing
a video for the Cars and he wanted her immediately.

(23:45):
So it's like, do I go to do I take
this final and get my degree or do I do
this Car's video? What she did the cars video? And
the same story with with Ursula Smith. Ursula was was
she the official Rush publishes.

Speaker 2 (24:02):
By then or not yet?

Speaker 8 (24:06):
Layla la?

Speaker 2 (24:08):
So Laila was there when it so I know that.

Speaker 7 (24:15):
She.

Speaker 1 (24:15):
There was a group on Tommy Boy called Information Society
and running, Yeah, running, and it's like one of Stevie
b Uh.

Speaker 2 (24:26):
I needed you.

Speaker 1 (24:29):
Like everything over a planet rock that's sort of Stevie
bs freestyle.

Speaker 2 (24:35):
Exactly.

Speaker 1 (24:36):
So she uh, she had brought Information Society to a
college uh in Houston, uh, like part of a spring
fling thing and all she had to do was take
her finals. And they asked her like after the show,
you know, we don't have a tour manager or something
like would you travel with us? And but they're like

(24:58):
now like in an hour, and she took the opportunity.
She didn't take her finals. She just packed everything and
left college and went on tour.

Speaker 8 (25:08):
I was gonna leave and Rick said that I should
finish because I had one semester to go.

Speaker 1 (25:15):
Was Rick Rubin at NYU at the time or no,
Like was he actually or was that just folklore that
he just lived there?

Speaker 2 (25:22):
And yeah, so he was a student there.

Speaker 8 (25:25):
Yeah, okay, but by the time I, you know, came aboard,
he had you know, he was living in the Elizabeth
Street building.

Speaker 1 (25:35):
Okay, because I'm just under the impression that Rick Rubin
lived in the NYU dorms like during this whole period,
I'm like, well, when was he actually in college?

Speaker 8 (25:45):
No, because he graduated, he would have had to graduate
in eighty four.

Speaker 2 (25:50):
Okay, Yeah, okay, that makes.

Speaker 8 (25:53):
Sense, And I graduated in eighty eight.

Speaker 2 (25:54):
So I see, So like when did you well, you
did a Columbia first correct.

Speaker 8 (26:03):
So, actually, my first first internship was with a company
called Select Records. Yeah, do you remember Select? Yeah, Whistle,
Real Rocks and years is eighty six, summer of eighty six.

Speaker 2 (26:18):
Right when that lethal record was coming.

Speaker 6 (26:20):
Yeah.

Speaker 2 (26:22):
So what did you do at Select?

Speaker 8 (26:25):
Made phone calls for you know, Rady, like for I
don't know, the retailers. How big?

Speaker 2 (26:33):
How big was the company back then?

Speaker 8 (26:36):
It's about the size of this space we're in right now.

Speaker 2 (26:39):
How many employees full time employees? Four including you?

Speaker 8 (26:45):
No, not including me?

Speaker 2 (26:47):
So four and a half yeah, four and a half
full pack, four pack. So okay, so you left Select
to go to Colombia. Yeah, was this well, I think
Terrence was there. What was there? Big eighty six moment.

Speaker 8 (27:04):
For you, Gregory Abbott.

Speaker 2 (27:08):
Wow, he just woke Steve up from the original Mark Morrison.
I want that by my mother, Steve, you know, shaky down.
Let me tell you about.

Speaker 8 (27:28):
Tubs from Miami Vice. No, he did, he did.

Speaker 2 (27:32):
Wasn't Philip Michael Thomas on Columbia? That was Atlantic.

Speaker 8 (27:35):
Eddie Murphy was on Columbia.

Speaker 2 (27:37):
Yeah, you know. Did you read that Frint story with
Eddie Murphy? He was on Columbia's right. Well, okay, the
thing about Sugar Steve is he is he's the black
yacht rock expert rock like then you didn't you do
a book a reporter on like on the Wings of

(27:58):
Love or something? Wow? Wow, yes, I'm serious.

Speaker 5 (28:04):
Yeah, play it.

Speaker 2 (28:05):
That's my joint. Can you just sing it? I can wait?
Why did you do a report on on the wings below? Okay?
So the story was there?

Speaker 9 (28:15):
Was it was actually called it wasn't a report. It's
called a rollout. It was for a music class in
middle school junior high as we call it. And basically
you had to you had to draw the lyrics and
then and and then as and then and then you
get in front of the class, you play the song
on radio or whatever, and then you slowly roll it out.

Speaker 2 (28:35):
That's why it's called roll Yeah. What the school did
you go to? See why? You smoke a lot of weed?

Speaker 8 (28:40):
Yeah?

Speaker 7 (28:40):
Yeah?

Speaker 2 (28:42):
Did you have grades?

Speaker 9 (28:43):
So so anyway, you you get in front of the
class and you slowly roll it out while the music
is playing so that you see the lyrics and drawing
and so you know, the guy, the music teacher says,
choose a choose a song that you love and and

(29:05):
use that as your as your rollout topic.

Speaker 2 (29:07):
And yours on the wings at yo, matter of fact,
you can you describe you're oh, please, any reason to
play this song?

Speaker 9 (29:21):
So so the day of the rollout comes and and
I'm sitting in the class and the first the first
u the first student goes and he chose like led
Zeppelin or something. The next guy comes and it's deep purple.
And the next guy comes in it's you know, black
Sabbath and uh. And then Steve walks up there and

(29:43):
and I knew right there I had made sort of
a misjudgment, but I had to follow through it. But
it turns out that I got an a in it
because my music teacher.

Speaker 2 (29:56):
It was black.

Speaker 4 (29:57):
No, he was gay, Sugar Steed, a man from downtown, right,
so Gregory Abby at Columbia.

Speaker 8 (30:13):
You know that Jeffrey Osborne would do that as was
so disappointing to me. Oh, you know, how do you
go from love ballad?

Speaker 2 (30:21):
And the thing is is that you.

Speaker 1 (30:28):
Whether you want to admit it or not, I mean
your hip. But you're a suit. I mean you're not
the artist. I mean at a label, you're either going
to be the artist or you're going to be the suit. Now,
I mean, what were the conditions at a record label

(30:49):
that told that particular artist that I need to cross
over and.

Speaker 2 (30:58):
And win for survival? Sick? I don't. I don't think
people cross over just for you know, just for the
joy of it.

Speaker 4 (31:06):
I think it's it's no, it's a calculated decision. It's
like some survival.

Speaker 3 (31:13):
No.

Speaker 2 (31:13):
Absolutely.

Speaker 4 (31:13):
And I mean particularly in the eighties, I mean that
was at the time where you had like a lot
of black artists. I mean they was making like that
fucking ABC Friday Night music, you know what I mean,
like fucking Stir it Up by Patty and then Horn.

Speaker 2 (31:27):
His sisters Friday Night Network. It was exactly so exact pink.

Speaker 1 (31:45):
Well, then again we did we did learn from Sheep
Gordon that uh that black artists really weren't making money
on tour. Right, so records was there there there soul
means of of you know, generating income.

Speaker 4 (32:01):
Yeah, if you didn't have a hit, I mean, and
I guess if you're watching Thriller, right, you know I
you too would say like, oh I want my piece
of the pie as well.

Speaker 2 (32:12):
Yeah, but Harold fall to myya, come on, let's go
in the studio. Right, So yeah, well he had one
hit though, Yeah, play me the Rabbit song? So maybe
maybe I did hear? Yes, you definitely heard, You've heard
you heard, Shake You Down. It was the number one ahead. Yeah,
it was there. It was the original Turn of the

(32:32):
Mac for real.

Speaker 8 (32:34):
It was Turn of the Mac was funkier than.

Speaker 4 (32:36):
That, I mean just in terms of the Yeah, wait,
who was hidden on soft eighty six?

Speaker 2 (32:52):
It would have been It would have probably been Springsteen, right.

Speaker 8 (32:54):
Yes, that Bonnie Tyler record, remember that one was there?

Speaker 2 (32:58):
That was besides that? Yeah, yea, and.

Speaker 8 (33:03):
The album would head to toe and big audio dynamite
remember that?

Speaker 2 (33:08):
Yeah? Who?

Speaker 9 (33:10):
Of course Elvis Costello put out two albums that year.
Okay on Columbia.

Speaker 2 (33:14):
So at the time you were working at so you
didn't get to choose what department or.

Speaker 8 (33:18):
No, I got stuck in a dance music promotion. That's
where they put me.

Speaker 2 (33:22):
Who was like your supervisor?

Speaker 8 (33:24):
Who's this woman, Gail Brucewitz. She was the only female
in the promotion department. And you know, last day of
my I would sit in her office. You know, I'd
look at all the plaques on the wall and I'd
be like, this me is going to be me very soon,
and I'm going to have this, and I'm going to
have that.

Speaker 1 (33:42):
Who did you have to look up to back then?
Was Sylvia Roon the only one that was remotely about
to win? Well even in eighty six she was still yeah,
not an executive, No.

Speaker 8 (33:51):
There was really no probably no okay anyway, So the
last day of my intern and ship. Also in that time,
I turned twenty one and I had a big birthday
party and run dyem Sea came and Houdini and the
Beastie Boys and yeah, because I was I was out

(34:17):
in the clubs and you know, and I had met
Russell totally randomly walking down Bleaker Street with the guy
from London Records, who knew Russell because London used to
distribute Deaf Jam before they went to Columbia. And so Mike,
my friend Mike introduced me to Russell, and you know,

(34:37):
my mind's going like, you know, a million miles a minute,
like this is your moment, this is your chance, you
better fucking talk your ass off, and like, so I sat.
He asked us to sit down, and I just like
went in on every liner note. I had ever read
every artist, producer, musician, everything, and you know, and he
looks at me and he's like, what do you do? Said?

(35:00):
You know, I'm in school and he's like, how do
you know so much about black music? I was like,
well this, you know, I grew up listening to this
and that, this and that. He said, you know, I would,
I'd hire you from my company, you know if I
could so stay in touch.

Speaker 2 (35:15):
And you know, and you did you bug him until
I didn't.

Speaker 8 (35:19):
I didn't, you know, I didn't bug. That was like
the summer of eighty six and I did the internship
and you know, I guess the story I was going
to tell was the woman who I interned for asked
me to come into her office and she closed the
door and she started crying. Yep, and she said, stay
away from this business. It's no place for a woman.

(35:43):
I'm trying to save you now before you you experience
any real heartbreak like I experienced, like oh shit, you're crazy.

Speaker 2 (35:52):
Now let it out.

Speaker 7 (35:54):
What what.

Speaker 1 (35:58):
Do you I mean without naming names or whatever, like
what treatment? What is the environment at a major label?
The major label of the moment?

Speaker 8 (36:08):
Yeah? Yeah, yet in the coff Yeah, he had just
left and al Teller was the president at the time.
Between yet and the coff and.

Speaker 1 (36:21):
Montola came in eighty seven, right, I'm not sure I
think so. So that was a very short that was
like eighty five eighty six practically.

Speaker 8 (36:30):
Yeah.

Speaker 2 (36:30):
Wait, why did yet Nikov get dismissed?

Speaker 8 (36:34):
I don't know. I thought he was part of the
whole you know, pay for play thing that got that
everybody got caught up the scandal.

Speaker 2 (36:42):
Yeah, well has that ever stopped?

Speaker 8 (36:46):
No?

Speaker 2 (36:46):
No, I thought I'd tell you that we won't stop.

Speaker 8 (36:52):
But can you talk about that?

Speaker 7 (36:53):
That's interesting being a woman in the time, starting as
an intern and then the trans transition to being the
first woman at depth jam. Did it make the difference?

Speaker 8 (37:02):
Yeah? Made a huge difference, because you know, I so
in April comes of eighty seven, I come home from
school note on the refrigerator. Rick Rubin called, I think
it's a joke. I asked my roommate, is this for real?
He said, yeah, I think it is. Call Rick. He
said yeah. You know, everybody at Columbia thought you were great.

(37:23):
Russell really likes you. You know, you're really smart. You
want to come work for Deaf Jam just like that?
So I said sure. He said, do you want to
know how much you're going to make? I said sure,
you know, okay, so school me.

Speaker 2 (37:37):
At least before you get to deaf Jam. What's what's
the average pay salary?

Speaker 8 (37:43):
Like, Oh, I don't know. They started me at eighteen thousand.

Speaker 2 (37:47):
A year deaf Jam nineteen eighty six.

Speaker 8 (37:49):
Nineteen eighty seven, and you were living in I was
living in the village on Sullivan Street between Bleaker and
West third and a fifth floor walk up with other roommates.
Didn't matter, didn't matter. I would have paid them to
go work for them. I didn't care.

Speaker 2 (38:08):
Really, Yeah, what what was it about deaf Jam at
the time?

Speaker 8 (38:11):
That's jam Jam was everything. I mean, look at the
artists that they had and you know it was you know,
it's a cliche, but it's true. I mean people would
go into the store, you know, and it's music factory
or wherever it was, and there's a deaf Jam logo
on that vinyl. You buy it.

Speaker 2 (38:27):
You know, I have questions about that though, about the
deaf Jam label. Yes, it didn't, it didn't.

Speaker 8 (38:34):
That didn't sustain I'm saying at that at this particular
moment in time.

Speaker 2 (38:37):
Right, you know, Okay, well, no, I'm but what I
want to know is just what was it that made
her warn you?

Speaker 8 (38:48):
Oh? Oh, those guys were scumbags. They were awful, They
were you know, I would get hit on constantly by
you know, the other promotion guys. Again, it's like the
characters and Vinyl only real life left over from the seventies. Still,
you know, in that that mindset, at the total misogyny,

(39:08):
that's you know, So.

Speaker 1 (39:09):
At any point did they did you did they use
you as a focus group, like hey, what do you
think about this guy?

Speaker 2 (39:17):
And it's like Terrence and Derby.

Speaker 8 (39:18):
Or you know, like they didn't ask me anything. I
was stuff in envelopes going to like Latin Quarter. You know,
it's like my own thing. Okay, I see, it was
just it was enough for me to realize that this
is what I wanted to do with my life, but
I was going to do it differently from what I
was experiencing at a major label.

Speaker 2 (39:37):
What were your duties at deaf Jam.

Speaker 8 (39:38):
Then it started off with them wanting to start a
publishing company and neither of them knew how to do it.
So they wanted me to go sit with people who
worked for publishing companies and figure out how it worked
and then come back and start one for deaf Jam,
which is what I did.

Speaker 2 (39:59):
And then so you had to learn it on the spot.

Speaker 8 (40:01):
I learned on the spot. I sat with lawyers and
publishing executives and you know my big earrings, high top
spot builts. Wow, that should give you a good visual.

Speaker 2 (40:20):
That definitely gave me.

Speaker 7 (40:22):
But by the time you got the Depth Jam, the
treatment was different, right because you said that, you said
the guys were a little bit they were worth.

Speaker 8 (40:28):
So we were all like around the same age, you know,
So there wasn't that weird thing of like these older
dudes and younger females. You know, we were all and
it was just it was just a different environment. I
think we all felt like we were and again not
to sound like a cliche, you know, but that we
were really part of something special.

Speaker 2 (40:50):
Your jacket.

Speaker 8 (40:51):
I got my jacket right away. I got the black
bull wow black yeah.

Speaker 2 (40:57):
Yeah, for those that don't know in nineteen eighty seven,
eighty eight, eighty.

Speaker 1 (41:05):
Nine, the deaf jam logo on your back, that that
held wow, that help power like no other. Well you
know again, I'm saying it like I've lived it, which
clearly I wasn't there.

Speaker 7 (41:22):
But was it like a limited number of giving out
like and only certain like you got to be a
point of management or something like that.

Speaker 8 (41:28):
You just see how to actually work for the company
and just be maybe one step removed from working for
the company. No, I don't think interns got jackets. I
don't think we had interns. We weren't enough of us.
There was only five of us. We didn't need who
needed interns?

Speaker 2 (41:42):
Okay? But the what was the power of the deaf
jam jacket?

Speaker 8 (41:47):
Oh that could get you like chased down the street demos?

Speaker 2 (41:51):
Oh okay, it's the first.

Speaker 1 (41:56):
Everyone else I talked to is like, yeah, man, I
can get any night glove whatever.

Speaker 8 (42:00):
I didn't think about that. I was already like able
to do that.

Speaker 2 (42:03):
So it's so you wouldn't pip like you wouldn't wear
that jacket as.

Speaker 8 (42:07):
Your your No, I didn't need to. I already in
terms of all the clubs and stuff, I was already
looped in so and established.

Speaker 1 (42:16):
Okay, yeah, so you so you started their publishing company
for them. Yes, that was the first I know, that
was something that had to be established.

Speaker 8 (42:26):
Ory even it doesn't it just they thought of it
as you know, another money making opportunity for the company
that they weren't taking advantage of and other people were,
and that's what they wanted to do.

Speaker 2 (42:37):
So they wanted to start their own motown version.

Speaker 8 (42:40):
Of the Joe bet or yes, exactly.

Speaker 1 (42:42):
So did that mean all the def Jam artists had
to sign their publishing over to deaf Jam?

Speaker 8 (42:47):
That was that was the the intent.

Speaker 2 (42:50):
Yes, did that happen? No, okay, because the artists were
like the hell out of here.

Speaker 8 (42:58):
Right artists that time had a turned and things like that.

Speaker 1 (43:02):
You know, the concept of original concept was it were
they a DJ crew with all the advertisements I saw
was like stressing that, you know, they're a DJ outfit
with some mcs.

Speaker 8 (43:22):
Like yeah, that sounds right.

Speaker 2 (43:25):
What it was with doctor dre from from TV raps
and T Money.

Speaker 8 (43:30):
I forget the the other I forget there are other
names too. Damn, Faith, I know, I'm sorry. It's thirty
years ago.

Speaker 2 (43:39):
Damn you made me feel bad. What were you doing
in nineteen eighty five?

Speaker 6 (43:44):
No?

Speaker 1 (43:44):
No, no, okay, So, but there's there's no story or
recollection of I mean, at one point at that def
Jam building, the heat got turned on as far as like,
you know, that.

Speaker 8 (44:01):
Was funny you should say that because we didn't have
any heat in that building really literally, so it was great.
We had to wear our troop jackets you know, really yeah,
and to a win until we moved out of that
building at all.

Speaker 2 (44:16):
Like, at what point are you promoted.

Speaker 8 (44:18):
To doing A and R?

Speaker 2 (44:19):
Yeah?

Speaker 8 (44:22):
Well also well, aside from the publishing thing, also kind
of I set up the whole like an R admin
part of the company that didn't exist prior.

Speaker 2 (44:31):
To it was like it's five of you though, right, Yeah, so.

Speaker 8 (44:34):
It was me doing creating the admin s. I learned
to talk to lawyers and people at labels and figured
it out.

Speaker 2 (44:46):
So it's just a learning curve. But by this point,
like isn't CBS.

Speaker 8 (44:50):
Part of the Yeah, yeah, we were distributed and I
spent a lot of time up in Columbia.

Speaker 2 (44:54):
Did they give you guys your own cubicle section or
do you building?

Speaker 8 (44:59):
No, always come up to their building.

Speaker 2 (45:03):
To use their resources and yeah, just to yeah exactly, Okay,
So how do you how do you like, how do
you establish it? Admin? This is stuff I don't even
know that you should be doing now, Like I didn't
know that.

Speaker 8 (45:17):
Well, there was no like a PO system for the studio,
so the studio costs were like out of control. Nobody
was really monitoring it. So there was a lot of
the company just kind of bleeding money in a lot
of places because nobody was like minding the store.

Speaker 2 (45:34):
So it's up to you to handle up to.

Speaker 8 (45:35):
Me to handle the business of deaf jam.

Speaker 2 (45:37):
Yeah, and you took that initiative on your own.

Speaker 1 (45:39):
Yes, you just got tired of studios like you guys,
hold me seventeen thousand dollars.

Speaker 8 (45:45):
Well, the guy who was supposed to be handling a
lot of this stuff. One day, Rick called me upstairs
and said this was I guess I had been there
for four months and he said, I'm giving you a
promotion I'm giving your raise and I'm firing George, and
I want you to take his job.

Speaker 2 (46:03):
Yeah, did you have to fire George?

Speaker 8 (46:05):
I didn't have to fire George, Rick, Rick fired George,
and that's how I started doing all that the Edmond
stuff that he hadn't been doing. He was, you know,
too busy doing other things.

Speaker 2 (46:20):
So is this where bigger and depfor enters the picture?

Speaker 8 (46:23):
Uh?

Speaker 1 (46:23):
Yep, all right, now, I know that a big part
of Rick's disdain for that follow up record One he
didn't work on it, but two.

Speaker 2 (46:35):
He hated I need Love.

Speaker 1 (46:38):
Now when you guys are getting your daily report, assuming
that you guys are operating like a real record label
where you listen to daily reports and listening to new music,
and this is where we are with the LL record.

Speaker 2 (46:53):
Are you guys in a room at the same time
where they're like, yo, this is the one? Like what
are y'all thinking?

Speaker 8 (47:02):
I wasn't thinking that it was the one. I think
Columbia was really a big part of pushing that.

Speaker 7 (47:08):
Really, h That's interesting because I read somewhere that you
said you're a very melodic type person, so a lot
of these songs, in my mind, I thought, were you
the one that became the voice of women in a
way that okay, So you know how they say there
are women female records, you know, the ones with the
hooks that you can sing. So before you entered the room,
was there nobody? Was there anybody who thought like that,

(47:29):
because I would think that I need would have been
one of yours.

Speaker 8 (47:32):
But yeah, I mean to me, you know, I was
like a real hip hop head, so it sounded you
know to me, it sounded corny to me.

Speaker 2 (47:41):
Really, but you didn see the dollars signs like, Yo,
this is gonna win first real ballot.

Speaker 8 (47:50):
Yeah for the ladies. Yeah, yeah, up to that point,
you didn't really have well it's not true.

Speaker 1 (47:58):
No, I mean he had that one and I can
give you more, but it was too beat. It was
too beat heavy, like I can give you more, and
still got play on like the street hip Hop hour
of you know, of Philadelphia. So you know it's wow,
that's amazing to me. So you just you had Luke

(48:18):
Waron not even I'm not saying did you personally like it?
Did you think it was going to be effective to
help the products sell or did you think, oh he's
losing his he might lose his credibility with us.

Speaker 8 (48:32):
That's what I thought. Word, yeah, But I was a purist, so.

Speaker 2 (48:40):
I didn't even know that.

Speaker 4 (48:43):
There was a such thing as purest well not even
I mean, hip hop wasn't selling out back then.

Speaker 2 (48:51):
This was the first.

Speaker 1 (48:52):
This was the first risky like this, this song with Mark,
the first risk of the compromise of rap hip hop.

Speaker 4 (49:02):
But I don't think I think it worked on me
was selling out back then because you know, I don't.
I don't think that the pot of money wasn't as
big as it was back then, you know, as it
is now, you know what I mean. So I think,
like particularly with ll In particularly, I remember reading I
think it was in his book or something. He was
saying something to the effect of when he was younger,
like he would like this movies and people who did

(49:23):
movies or whatever. And when, of course, you know, knowing
where he went to his movie and TV career, when
they checked that asked them on it, he said, well,
the reason why I dissed it was because I didn't
think it was possible for me at the time. So
like in eighty six, I think it was a much
more risk of quote unquote selling out back then because
the stakes weren't.

Speaker 2 (49:41):
Really as high.

Speaker 4 (49:41):
It was kind of like, I don't think no one
knew that there was that much money. Yeah, those are
novelty records though.

Speaker 8 (49:52):
You know what it is though, is that it wouldn't
have mattered because radio wasn't gonna play hip hop anyway, exactly.

Speaker 1 (49:59):
Yeah, I don't no when I okay, So I think
Brian cut creator's cousin uh went to my high school,
so he had an early copy of Bigger and deathfort
And when I first heard I Need Love, like and again,
I wasn't thinking in terms of the future, like I

(50:21):
straight played your rides that joint and wrote.

Speaker 2 (50:25):
Down every lyric gave it. Oh no, I was the
man for like a month and a half when a
record came out. Why does it sound so fa?

Speaker 4 (50:40):
Yeah, I don't think it was a because I mean
I remember when that record came out, and I was
just so happy to hear hip hop on the radio
that it didn't you know, you know, I remember, I
remember I'm Bad the first time I heard I'm.

Speaker 2 (50:52):
Bad, and I was like, oh Ship.

Speaker 4 (50:54):
But then I Need Love and I was like, oh Ship,
they're playing this on the radio because it was number
one for two weeks and.

Speaker 2 (51:00):
Billboards, Uh the.

Speaker 8 (51:03):
I called it the black charts then.

Speaker 2 (51:07):
Records? Yeah, wow, all right.

Speaker 1 (51:13):
So once once it catches fire and you realize that
we're all gullible, then what were you thinking?

Speaker 2 (51:21):
Mmm?

Speaker 8 (51:22):
I was thinking. I was thinking I was glad I
was on the album.

Speaker 2 (51:30):
So you thought that there could be a chance that
this album might not do as good as Radio.

Speaker 8 (51:40):
I think it became clear that that wasn't going to
be the case. It was going to be much bigger,
all right.

Speaker 1 (51:46):
So because all these doors were open to him, were
those doors open to him? Was just the or was
it just a perception in my mind that the world
was his oyster? Like I remember you telling me that,
you know, what was the what was the rat budget

(52:06):
for l equal J's follow up out?

Speaker 8 (52:10):
Like, what's what for Walking with the Panther?

Speaker 6 (52:12):
No?

Speaker 2 (52:12):
No, no, I mean for bigger, bigger depth, Like I
remember you telling me that, like you know all the
La Potts. First of all, why was the La Posse?
He chose? I chose him?

Speaker 8 (52:22):
I don't know how that happened.

Speaker 2 (52:24):
Was just always out in Cali a.

Speaker 8 (52:26):
Lot, Yeah, and hooked up with them?

Speaker 2 (52:29):
And why didn't Rick Rubin get chosen to produce the
next record.

Speaker 8 (52:38):
I don't know. I think he thought he wanted maybe
he wanted more artistic control, he wanted to be hit
somebody he brought into the mix.

Speaker 2 (52:47):
Not sure really mm hmm, but like there wasn't anyone
at the label to.

Speaker 8 (52:54):
Tell him, like yo, Like, I don't think Rick wanted
to do it.

Speaker 2 (52:57):
And not broken, don't.

Speaker 8 (52:59):
I don't think Rick wanted to do it.

Speaker 2 (53:01):
Really. Yeah, it's not strange to you.

Speaker 8 (53:09):
Yeah, it's really strange to me now looking back on it.

Speaker 1 (53:12):
Yeah, Okay, when we get ric grouping, that's exactly where
I'm asking.

Speaker 2 (53:16):
Okay, why didn't you follow up?

Speaker 8 (53:18):
Yeah, I mean this all happened, you know, this whole
thing went down in eighty six before I got there.

Speaker 2 (53:22):
So Rick was also busy doing like Slayer records and stuff.

Speaker 8 (53:26):
He was really into his death metal shit, you know,
Danzig Slayer. In fact, you know, when I had my
interview with him, I first when he called me and
he said, will you come, you know, come and we'll
talk about the job. And so I went to him,
and uh, I was you know, I just had so

(53:47):
much I wanted to ask him, and so much I
wanted to say, and I was talking about different records,
and he said, you know, I'm not really into like
the hip hop thing right now.

Speaker 2 (53:56):
Really, m damn fooled me to the hip hop Yeah
damn what he said.

Speaker 8 (54:02):
And he's and he told me about these these these
you know, these metal acts that he was working with.

Speaker 7 (54:07):
He came back, why your heartbroken?

Speaker 2 (54:09):
It took like twenty years.

Speaker 8 (54:10):
Yeah, so that's so that's why I say, I think
that he was just in a different mind state.

Speaker 3 (54:16):
And like I think from what I've read, like there
was just a lot ofttension between him and Russell and
he was just starting to lose a lot of lose
interest in the hip hop thing at all.

Speaker 8 (54:23):
Yeah, that's absolutely correct, and he told me as much.

Speaker 2 (54:27):
So, oh god, you just yoursels there. Yeah, I see.

Speaker 1 (54:37):
So of course you come aboard after the License to Ill.
I thought that perhaps maybe the after effects of License.

Speaker 2 (54:46):
To Ill and this is well, I mean, at the time,
it sold.

Speaker 1 (54:50):
At least seven eight million, so I would figure that
would single handedlye give you guys the juice monetarily at
least to stand on your own two.

Speaker 2 (55:01):
And oh yeah, allow you to sign everything.

Speaker 8 (55:05):
Yep.

Speaker 2 (55:08):
So again I have these romantic visions of the perception
of Nation of.

Speaker 8 (55:17):
Millions as the first album I got thanked on.

Speaker 1 (55:22):
Well, that's the first rap album with real liner notes
that I've ever seen. The album that I feel is though,
really at least got the rock critics attention as far
as really, I mean the message. The message as a
single did some you know, did some work in helping

(55:45):
to make hip hop credible in the eyes of rock critics.
But I mean, if you were around and aware of
music journalists in nineteen eighty eight, you saw nothing like
the effect of what Nation and Millions had on rock critics.

Speaker 2 (56:03):
I think.

Speaker 1 (56:06):
That particular year it topped the Passing Job Critics poll.
The Passing Job is kind of the the music critic
version of what I would deem rotten Tomatoes, where you
just sum up in total every music critic across the country.

(56:26):
They give their top ten lists and reasons for why
they felt these albums were important. And Nation Millions was
the first hip hop record I believe in the album
to top the polls. So at the time when you
guys are getting this, I've heard a lot of stories
including well DMC told me that it was him and

(56:51):
jam Master Jay that even allowed Rebel without a pause
to beat because Russell hated Rebel without a pause. So
I'm assuming again and that you're saying that Russell's tastes
and rick tastes work very different.

Speaker 8 (57:05):
Well, I mean that's the story. You know, it's a
true story that that Russell never liked Public Enemy from
the beginning. And I thought that they should be, you know,
wearing Adidas sweatsuits. And you know, he just had his
own vision of what it should be, and Rick had
a had another vision.

Speaker 2 (57:22):
It's just crazy to me, like, how okay, how you
see like three white kids from Brooklyn and you see
dollar sign but you can't see that you know, these
scary this this crew from Long Island.

Speaker 1 (57:37):
Well, I mean yeah, I guess if on paper a
group from Long Island could be the most political important
group of of our time and you just don't see
how that works.

Speaker 3 (57:49):
Public Enemy was probably I can see them being a
very tough Sell. It was scary sounding, it was noisy,
Yeah for eighty eight.

Speaker 2 (57:56):
It was it was it was some radical ship.

Speaker 7 (57:58):
And they're black, Like maybe they were white, it'd be
easier sell for Russell since he is black. Sometimes we
get in our own way, right, I don't.

Speaker 1 (58:05):
Know, Well, yeah, but I'm just saying that for me,
I just I thought there was an instant easy sell
because the way that Chuck d kind of centered the group,
which I mean, when I saw them, I didn't necessary
I mean, I'm not saying I didn't pay attention, but.

Speaker 2 (58:27):
Only when when too much posse came on. And then
I realized, wait, one of these guys talks way more
shit than the other members.

Speaker 1 (58:37):
I couldn't tell, Like you see the album cover, you
just see like six black guys, You're like, oh, which
one is talk?

Speaker 2 (58:42):
Who was the one? Right?

Speaker 1 (58:43):
But I noticed, like, wait, one of these guys talks
way more shit than the other guys doing this group,
And then that that became my attraction, Like anytime the
shit talking one spoke, it was funny and so and
but that was by design, like they.

Speaker 2 (58:58):
Purposely, Yeah, it was the full flavor. Was they used
flavor flavor.

Speaker 7 (59:04):
About Public Enemy? Because somebody recently said that to me
that everything was so purposeful and the way that the
group was put together, Is that truely? And how much
was it purposeful and how much was just organic?

Speaker 8 (59:15):
I think a lot of it was very purposeful. I think,
well there was you know, they had the they had
the radio show, you know, and that's how Chuck w
B A I. Yeah, and that's how Chuck connected with Flavor.
So that was organic. That was before they kind of
actually started the group Spectrum City Spectrum City. Yeah. But

(59:36):
the whole idea of adding the S one w's and
the whole thing that was that was you know, that
was show business.

Speaker 2 (59:43):
It was smart.

Speaker 8 (59:44):
It was very smart.

Speaker 1 (59:45):
Well this leads to all right, before we get to
your Columbia illmatic period, one of my favorite stories of
all time, if I mean, the reason why I even
wanted to do the show. It's just though that one
day MC search could come on a guy who has
so many stories.

Speaker 8 (01:00:06):
Of yeah, yes when sorry, I love Search too.

Speaker 2 (01:00:13):
So Cordon's Search Hammer, here's his mom's being called out
like that. Uh.

Speaker 1 (01:00:23):
Pete Nice was trying to explain to Hammer that it
was a pun of turn this mother out. The cactus
turned Hammer's mother out. But Hammer was the way what.

Speaker 8 (01:00:34):
Was thee what was the good way of looking at it?

Speaker 2 (01:00:37):
Well, anyway, they put a hit out on their lives,
and I guess the legend never put a hit out
on third basis Lie Oakland. Yeah.

Speaker 7 (01:00:49):
Uh.

Speaker 1 (01:00:50):
And so as Search gets on the plane, Search and uh,
Pete Nice get on the plane. I think they're flying
out to LA to do the party machine, which is
our Senio Hall's post show people's Yes, yeah, missus, Howard
Hewett Yeah.

Speaker 8 (01:01:11):
Wait what.

Speaker 2 (01:01:13):
Wait were you around?

Speaker 5 (01:01:15):
Oh?

Speaker 8 (01:01:15):
They got married, right, they didn't have a kid.

Speaker 2 (01:01:19):
It was like yes, yea.

Speaker 1 (01:01:22):
Anyway, so the five hour duration of this flight, I'm
not going to give the entire story a weight because
Search will tell it way better than me. But there
was a lot of kumbaya and having it, you know,
to go on, uh, to keep them from getting killed,
which ended with Michael Concepcion h sitting sitting next to

(01:01:49):
Yeah in his wheelchair, sitting next to Michael Jackson, who
wasn't even supposed to be If you remember the American
Music Awards with when Eddie Murphy Michael Jackson are giving
each other like Artists of the Decade Awards whatever. None
of that stuff was ever supposed to happen. So I
guess Russell since that the threat to their lives was

(01:02:11):
so big that Russell called Donnie and Tommy please make
something happen, And of course, in talking to Michael Concepcion,
the only person that could put the halt to the
hite of One of his stipulations was one, find me
a label to do We're all.

Speaker 4 (01:02:30):
In the Same Gang, which is weird because Russell could
have just easily said, I'll put it on my label,
but instead Russell's like.

Speaker 2 (01:02:40):
Like, I want none to do.

Speaker 3 (01:02:42):
It was all West Coast right. Well, no, it was
not even Third Base. Def Jam didn't even have any
acts on that record.

Speaker 1 (01:02:50):
I would have just thought in I mean, in a
five hour flight to LA and you're trying to save
someone's life. He was still like, I don't you can
go to Warner Brothers. I'll hook you up, like there's
somebody over there that will take your record.

Speaker 4 (01:03:05):
He would have had nothing to benefit from that. Oh,
especially if you heard the rest of that all on
the Same Gang album?

Speaker 2 (01:03:12):
Did you buy that as well? I did not buy it.
I dodged that bullet. A buddy of mine bought it.
It's about Bill. It's about Bill. Bill. Did you purchase
We're All on the Same Gang album?

Speaker 9 (01:03:23):
No?

Speaker 2 (01:03:24):
Just the twelve in Okay? It was that the album
is that bad?

Speaker 7 (01:03:28):
It was more songs with the same album.

Speaker 2 (01:03:30):
It was.

Speaker 3 (01:03:31):
It wasn't It was just like solo tracks from other
people that no one knew was not at all okay,
like Deaf Jeff's Weed Rollers.

Speaker 2 (01:03:45):
Well anyway, so Michael.

Speaker 1 (01:03:48):
So then the legend is that Donnie and Tommy Mantola
had to then call it Dick Clark. Uh two oh
because Michael because actually un insisted on sitting next to
Michael Jackson American Music Awards and they're like, well, he's
not coming, he's not up for anything, so that's not
going to happen. He's like, well, I'm sorry, I can't

(01:04:09):
help you. Okay, we'll make it happen. And then they
had to beg Dick Clark to give Michael a special award.
But then once Bob Jones and Michael Jackson reluctantly agreed
to do this, then their stipulation was, well, someone important
has to give it to us. We want Eddie Murphy
to give us this award. And Eddie Murphy is so

(01:04:32):
busy doing no Harlem Knights he couldn't leave the set.
So then they had to call the paramount like this
just oh my God of Domino fuckery, just for this moment.
So was this worth this faith?

Speaker 6 (01:04:51):
No?

Speaker 2 (01:04:56):
Yeah?

Speaker 4 (01:04:57):
All this ship over there have third Base album jail. Yeah,
even a side like a filler cut. So the whole
Third Base project? Did you sign Third Base?

Speaker 6 (01:05:10):
No?

Speaker 8 (01:05:10):
But I worked with him.

Speaker 2 (01:05:11):
How did they come into your How did they even
come to the Deaf Jam?

Speaker 8 (01:05:16):
They came to the Deaf Jam as far as I
can recall through Sam Severn.

Speaker 2 (01:05:20):
Okay, but was this was this some Chico Bar's D'Angelo
revenge mission thing? Yeah, like the Beastie Boys left us,
so now we need a new white group with credibility.

Speaker 8 (01:05:35):
Yeah. I had something to do with it, and search
was really I mean I met him in eighty I
want to say eighty five at Union Square.

Speaker 2 (01:05:46):
Okay.

Speaker 1 (01:05:47):
When people guests come on the show, everyone has a
Latin Quarter story. Were you a Latin Quarter ahead? Or Oh,
how come I'm not meeting anyone that's like, hell, no.

Speaker 8 (01:05:58):
I never went to the Latin Quarter lived in the
Latin Quarter?

Speaker 2 (01:06:01):
What I've been that person? Yes, Dante Dante Ross told
you that you wouldn't you wouldn't have gone there.

Speaker 1 (01:06:07):
Yeah, so you still would go to Latin Quarter even
though there was a risk factor involved.

Speaker 2 (01:06:15):
And it was worth it.

Speaker 8 (01:06:16):
It was worth it every time, except for the night
that they shut it down. Where I was at that night.

Speaker 1 (01:06:21):
Everybody was there at the night they shut down down corner.
What happened the night they shut down.

Speaker 8 (01:06:27):
As I remember it, Yeah, l was there and somebody
snatched his chain, which happened a lot of the Latin Quarter,
you know, and it set off the sequence of events
with like this, I don't know, people like this mass
of people running to get away. I think somebody had
a knife or something and like and then they are

(01:06:50):
already just spilling out into Times Square afterwards. But I
remember there was like you went upstairs to the you
came in, then you went upstairs that's where the main
area was, and there was it's like this marble like
mirrored thing on the side of the stairs. It was
just covered with blood, like all the way.

Speaker 7 (01:07:06):
Down and no bullets, no bullet hard work bullom. Yeah,
that sounds like hard work, you know, staffman and punching.

Speaker 2 (01:07:15):
Yeah, that might be the quartered episode, right.

Speaker 8 (01:07:24):
As I remember, that was the last night. It was
last night I ever went there last night last night.

Speaker 2 (01:07:31):
Yeah, you only got one time, and still it wasn't.

Speaker 8 (01:07:34):
As bad as a rooftop, and you still went to
the rooftop. I stopped going to the rooftop.

Speaker 2 (01:07:40):
What was the rooftop?

Speaker 8 (01:07:41):
Like it was crazy, but there was a lot of
a lot of shit went down the rooftop.

Speaker 2 (01:07:46):
All right, So what's the pros of going to the
rooftop in the Latin corner? What's the pros?

Speaker 8 (01:07:52):
The pros especially Latin Quarter. I mean Pe did their
first show there.

Speaker 2 (01:07:55):
I heard that didn't go over too well.

Speaker 8 (01:07:57):
Though I thought it was great. I didn't it didn't
go over great. It wasn't you know.

Speaker 1 (01:08:04):
Okay, So I've been to the tunnel during the tunnel
period tunnel era. Yeah, so was was it the equivalent
of going to the tunnel? Yes, nightclub with big speakers
that were yes.

Speaker 8 (01:08:17):
Just crazy. You imagine they're playing like nobody beats the
biz like loud loud as ship like a right, it
was the ship, So.

Speaker 2 (01:08:26):
There was worth it. So as a woman, as a
white person, as someone that works at deaf Jam with
this this jacket, well, even though you were past deaf Jam,
I'm certain that you had some sort of swaggish or
about you that let people know that, oh there's faith
newman from data or whatever. Yeah, yeah, for sure, Like

(01:08:50):
that didn't bother you.

Speaker 1 (01:08:51):
Like, first of all, how does how does anyone get
that close to ll for him to even get his chain? Like,
is there not a VP section or you're not even
save him VIP.

Speaker 8 (01:09:01):
I don't think there's was there a VIP section. I
don't remember him being in a special section. Wow, I
don't remember that.

Speaker 2 (01:09:09):
So you just why wait, I would figure that LLLL
was passed.

Speaker 8 (01:09:15):
Maybe it's the stuff of the legend. I don't know,
it's like what eighty six, So yeah, he wouldn't have
been passed eighty seven, sorry eighty seven, my mistaken eighty seven.

Speaker 2 (01:09:29):
He wouldn't have been pasted. Yeah, I don't know. I
just imagine like LLLL just being too big or too
good for that.

Speaker 7 (01:09:37):
Yeah.

Speaker 8 (01:09:37):
But do you go there and you like show up
and you're like the fucking man, Oh I'm still down? Yeah?

Speaker 2 (01:09:41):
Or yeah, I see. So even though with Union Square and.

Speaker 8 (01:09:48):
Any of those, Union Square was the bomb too, but
you had you know, you had the Bronx and Queens
like separated by levels.

Speaker 2 (01:09:57):
Yeah, because that's what Kidden play around about. That's my
experience of Union Square. I just know that the Fresh
Prince and jazz.

Speaker 7 (01:10:04):
Yeah, but there's something to which you just asked faith though,
because I'm curious, like how you how you were back then,
because like your ship didn't stink and you were very young.
You were having parties where Grandma's to flash with DJing
at your house and stuff like that, So like, how
was the the ego and the humbleness back then because
you knew.

Speaker 8 (01:10:24):
Still, no, it was different, Like I knew that I was,
but I was stumble at the same time, Like I think,
uh yeah, I mean I you know, I was one
of the only you know, I was the only woman
at deaf Jam at the time.

Speaker 2 (01:10:40):
That was that was something, you know, so that still
held weight and honor.

Speaker 1 (01:10:47):
Yes, okay, But you also mentioned people chasing with their demos,
and that's the thing like when Marlon Marl did this
episode and I'm like, yo, dude, you're still living in
the projects when all these hits are out. How are
these people not stalking you to make the stars because
normally the people that will stalk you that which is

(01:11:07):
weird hearing that the way that you approached Russell Simmons one,
what or who's protecting you from stalkers? Especially with deaf Jam,
the label that everyone dreamed of being on, which I'm
certain that you guys got way more nos than yes.

Speaker 2 (01:11:26):
Speaking of which, who did y'all say no to?

Speaker 5 (01:11:30):
That?

Speaker 6 (01:11:32):
Is?

Speaker 2 (01:11:32):
There is the list of they're not deaf jam material like,
I mean, this is going to.

Speaker 8 (01:11:38):
Sound you know they could give me but Vanilla.

Speaker 2 (01:11:41):
Ice, Wow, was he close to coming to deaf jam
or was.

Speaker 8 (01:11:47):
It like no, it was a demo. It was like
a just you know, a demo like any other.

Speaker 2 (01:11:52):
You would listen to actively listen to demos.

Speaker 7 (01:11:54):
How long did you listen to his?

Speaker 8 (01:11:56):
Not very long? They think I was with this guy
Jorge who came to be known as Curious. It was
my intern actually jam at the time.

Speaker 2 (01:12:10):
The album was Dope, So I like the Conservated one album?

Speaker 5 (01:12:13):
Did you.

Speaker 3 (01:12:15):
So?

Speaker 2 (01:12:16):
What did? What did you and George say when he.

Speaker 8 (01:12:19):
Said it was bananas and he threw it in the trash.

Speaker 1 (01:12:28):
One of the themes that always comes up during quest
Love Supreme is the idea of your heart, uh having
good tastes good or bad, versus your brain, which is
is this effective or non effective?

Speaker 7 (01:12:47):
Now?

Speaker 1 (01:12:47):
As an employee, are you not thinking I have to
pick some winners for us to sell versus you wanting
just to have this pedigree of great work to be
on this label.

Speaker 8 (01:13:03):
So was there pressure to I was a pedigree person.
I couldn't help it. And as and as the label
kind of became, you know, distorted by the next you know, decade,
decade or the next or that that difficult transition period
you know, in ninety one, it definitely affected me. I

(01:13:28):
felt like you know that, I felt that the brand
had been really compromised. Yes, forever, I mean it came back,
but at that time it was. It was the reason
I left.

Speaker 2 (01:13:41):
Was there a moment when you're like, oh, this is it,
I'm done?

Speaker 8 (01:13:45):
The Don? In there?

Speaker 2 (01:13:49):
Does anyone remember the Don? I did not remember the
Dies none, not god father Don. It was he had
a song called in there? All right? How did the dying?

Speaker 8 (01:13:59):
Was thee with Ted NuGen on jam? What wasn't deaf Jam?
It became r A L labels?

Speaker 2 (01:14:09):
Am I am?

Speaker 1 (01:14:10):
I to assume that the reason for the Dons being
was to get some tone, look money or yeah, because
in there sounded like at least Funky's cousin.

Speaker 4 (01:14:22):
Yeah, I saw it a lot on like video hot track. Yeah,
especially the box. Yes, that's it's not like col Cisco,
no bro.

Speaker 2 (01:14:35):
So who signed the dome or.

Speaker 1 (01:14:39):
Oh my god, totally totally totally forgot to ask you.
I forgot Leo worked.

Speaker 7 (01:14:47):
At de Jab, he worked at Rush. We hadn't gotten
to him yet, right like we're just getting.

Speaker 8 (01:14:54):
Rush, Yeah, And he just didn't have anything to do
with the label side until he did so until he did.

Speaker 2 (01:15:02):
What are you.

Speaker 1 (01:15:06):
I met older le or nicer to me leor I
don't have a leor imitation to give you le or.

Speaker 2 (01:15:14):
We've heard imitation.

Speaker 8 (01:15:15):
So he was a different person then.

Speaker 2 (01:15:17):
So I could say it wasn't a pleasant experience. Correct
in hindsight?

Speaker 1 (01:15:24):
Do you feel as though he was an effective person
to work for? Being as though the heights that def
Jam was later going to?

Speaker 2 (01:15:33):
Do you think def Jam would have naturally gone to
the Heights jay z d m X without someone No.

Speaker 8 (01:15:42):
I credit him. I'm just saying there was at the Helm,
there was a period in time where it just it
was really rocky and I had been there almost five
years at that point, and it was time for me
to go.

Speaker 2 (01:15:54):
Okay, where did you guys say away?

Speaker 1 (01:15:56):
What did you guys disagree as far because obviously your
exit had to be at a disagreement.

Speaker 8 (01:16:02):
It was it was, it was. It was one of
those things where I had been. I was the liaison
between Deaf Jam and Columbia. So it was always up
there anyway, went to their A and R meetings, went
to their you know, retreats that they.

Speaker 2 (01:16:16):
Had, and so when those guys didn't feel like so
I was, I was the persons.

Speaker 8 (01:16:22):
I was a Deaf Jam person at Columbia.

Speaker 1 (01:16:24):
Kind of like okay, so you know, like comedians always
joke Black comedians will joke like have one white friend
on standby because somebody's going to have to talk to
the police.

Speaker 8 (01:16:34):
Right, So you were the I guess whisper yes, put
a nice face on.

Speaker 2 (01:16:44):
All right, So you're the liaisons there and then where
is it?

Speaker 8 (01:16:47):
And they always said to me, Donnie would say, if
you ever want to make a change, you know, come
work for us.

Speaker 2 (01:16:55):
Come to death Row.

Speaker 4 (01:16:56):
Yeah, and then uh, you with your executives throwing sandwiches
all in the tools dancing, come to Columbia.

Speaker 2 (01:17:13):
Well that's exactly what you did.

Speaker 8 (01:17:15):
Yeah.

Speaker 2 (01:17:15):
So there that that broke the ca.

Speaker 8 (01:17:18):
What Leon and I had had an argument about something.
He blamed my assistant for losing some ll cool J
Master tapes or something that she didn't do. It wasn't
her fault, he insisted I fire her. We had a
back and forth and I just said I'm done with
this and I was done. So Sony, Yeah, CBS and

(01:17:41):
CBS building. When I first started, they had just done
the deal with Sony.

Speaker 1 (01:17:46):
Okay, I keep on forgetting and call them CBS first. Yeah,
the CBS still a thing now.

Speaker 8 (01:17:51):
Is it just records now? They got they divested of
all their okay music.

Speaker 2 (01:17:57):
So you took Dony's device and went to death Row, came.

Speaker 8 (01:18:02):
On over, went to the dark side.

Speaker 2 (01:18:05):
Did you regret it?

Speaker 8 (01:18:06):
No, not at all. And I thought it was kind
of interesting because you know, I had interned there, you know,
years ago, as this intern trying to come up in the.

Speaker 2 (01:18:16):
World, and there I scourged from coming back, and.

Speaker 8 (01:18:18):
I was scourged from coming back, and I came back
as an executive the last twenty five twenty five.

Speaker 1 (01:18:26):
You go faith to do it, You go here, that's it,
That's that's it's rather tryumphant. Did you have the working
girl theme from Carly Simon playing your looking at the
skyline of New York?

Speaker 8 (01:18:42):
Exactly?

Speaker 2 (01:18:43):
My coffee month one of the you you signed a
lot of acts, and one of the acts that I
was shocked to find out that you signed A favorite
of mine was Jamarqui. Uh what what? First of all,
what was the first act that you did sign too?

Speaker 8 (01:19:02):
Nas?

Speaker 2 (01:19:03):
Even before Ja Maryland?

Speaker 8 (01:19:06):
It was around kind of around the same time. Actually,
NAS was like the first act that I was two
weeks into the job when I signed NABS and that
was like in a October And in December I signed
Jamiqui ninety one.

Speaker 1 (01:19:22):
Wow, it took three years for that to even What
was it about Jamerqui that made you.

Speaker 8 (01:19:28):
Fly to London the week before Christmas?

Speaker 5 (01:19:31):
Damn?

Speaker 8 (01:19:31):
Yeah, it's a demo.

Speaker 3 (01:19:35):
You know.

Speaker 8 (01:19:35):
They were signed to Acid Jazz in the UK and uh,
Kieran Hurley from Assid Jazz came to see me. He said,
I just want you to listen to this. It was
a demo, you know, cassette demo. One song when you're
going to learn. Yes, I thought it was a woman singing.
I couldn't you know exactly, you know who is she?

Speaker 6 (01:19:57):
She?

Speaker 8 (01:19:57):
It's a heat and he's white.

Speaker 5 (01:20:01):
And so so.

Speaker 7 (01:20:05):
That was it.

Speaker 8 (01:20:05):
It was the one song and I said, I gotta
go and I gotta sign this guy. And that's really
how it happened.

Speaker 2 (01:20:13):
And to you, like did you expect them to have
visions of them blowing up in the States or was
it just.

Speaker 8 (01:20:22):
I think I did. I mean, I was so into
the music I thought for sure that it would it
would translate.

Speaker 2 (01:20:33):
He got them, Jesus Christ.

Speaker 8 (01:20:35):
Not just not from here.

Speaker 2 (01:20:37):
He when we when the Roots toured and.

Speaker 1 (01:20:43):
You're in Italy and ninety five, I believe uh with Jameroqui,
there's a drive from one city in Italy to the
other side of it.

Speaker 2 (01:20:54):
It was like a fourteen hour trek. Jay actually.

Speaker 1 (01:21:03):
Purchased uh A Ferrari at the one city we were
at and drove behind his tour bus the entire fourteen
hour duration.

Speaker 7 (01:21:14):
That much off of that the album that one Virgil
one that.

Speaker 8 (01:21:18):
He was huge.

Speaker 2 (01:21:20):
They were huge overseas.

Speaker 4 (01:21:21):
Wow, So right now that was like that was yeah,
wowergency Planet Earth was the first one.

Speaker 7 (01:21:28):
So he's like a Craig David in that way, like
we might not know, but he is really killing its.

Speaker 8 (01:21:33):
America was late and they never really got it.

Speaker 2 (01:21:37):
It's where like j America has like a one hit
wonder in America. Yeah, Virginal that guy that slid, I'm
like the guy with the hat.

Speaker 8 (01:21:46):
The hat I thought the space Cowboy was incredible.

Speaker 2 (01:21:51):
Absolutely shout out to BT for put me onto that video.

Speaker 1 (01:21:55):
Vibration well being as though they blew up in your
Europe like we was, there was there a separate Uh.

Speaker 2 (01:22:05):
Would Columbia treat like different divisions different?

Speaker 8 (01:22:10):
I mean yeah that it was more in the in
the hands of the International Department than I think they
knew after the first album that it was a tough
sell over here, so they didn't have it. They didn't
have a radio record. That's what I kept hearing. There's
no radio record, there's no radio record, there's no radio record.

Speaker 1 (01:22:26):
Well, shout out to my boy Fred at MTV, Fred Jordan,
who that was the person that showed us the virtual
Insanity video.

Speaker 2 (01:22:38):
But like, how did was that just a stroke of luck?

Speaker 5 (01:22:42):
That?

Speaker 7 (01:22:43):
Yeah?

Speaker 2 (01:22:44):
Well I was.

Speaker 8 (01:22:44):
I was gone from Colombia.

Speaker 2 (01:22:47):
Time, I see. So with NAS, what was it that
told you to was it search or like what was
the relationship?

Speaker 8 (01:23:01):
Well? I heard him on the main Source album like
most people, and uh, and I like lost my mind.
I said, I gotta find this kid. And I was
already working. I was still working at Deaf Jam at
the time, and so I asked Polly, you know a
large professor, what's up with this kid Nasty Nas? You know,

(01:23:22):
can I meet him?

Speaker 5 (01:23:23):
You know?

Speaker 8 (01:23:24):
And he was kind of pushing me on signing Acinelly
and not Nas, you know. So so that was kind
of like a tail end of my time at Deaf Jam.
I took a month off before I started at Columbia,
and apparently in that time, from what Nas tells me,
he went up to Deaf Jam with large professor to

(01:23:49):
find me specifically, I was already gone, and so this happened.
And then I, you know, I was at Columbia, was
two weeks in and Search came to my office and
because he knew that I was trying to find now
I was wanted this kid, and he said, I have
his demo and played it for me two songs, and

(01:24:17):
I went down the hall to the head of the
ANR department, said, you know, you have to let me
sign this kid. You don't have to let me sign
anything else the entire time I'm here. You have to
let me sign this kid.

Speaker 2 (01:24:28):
Was it that hard of a sell though, Yeah, to the.

Speaker 8 (01:24:34):
Corporate people that Columbia.

Speaker 2 (01:24:36):
I mean it was Columbia didn't really have much of
a hip hop department.

Speaker 8 (01:24:41):
That was why they hired me.

Speaker 2 (01:24:43):
See Music Vietnam Freedom William solo album.

Speaker 6 (01:24:47):
Yeah.

Speaker 2 (01:24:48):
Yeah, So you're saying that it was a hard cell
to even get NAS.

Speaker 8 (01:24:55):
Yeah, Well but it wasn't. It wasn't because part of
the reason they hired me was they wanted their own
rap division because they had def Jam, they had So
So Deaf, but they didn't want that. They wanted all
they wanted to have their own. They didn't want to
they didn't want to share with anybody.

Speaker 2 (01:25:13):
But as as as wait, so is Michael was he
there at that point?

Speaker 8 (01:25:20):
Not yet?

Speaker 4 (01:25:21):
So okay, I would think that as a label, having uh,
these sub labels would satisfy that itch.

Speaker 2 (01:25:32):
So if you're Donnie and your your your Tommy, uh,
I would just think, like, oh, matter of fact, was
it NAS initially on rough House or is that.

Speaker 8 (01:25:44):
Just having this moment of oh no, nobody's going to
know what to do with this record. Let's just put
it out on rough House. At least we'll get, you know,
the right marketing people and the right promotion people, because
they wanted me to have this divis, but I didn't
have There wasn't really anybody in the house right yet,
no staff, no right so I said, let's put it

(01:26:06):
out through rough House.

Speaker 2 (01:26:07):
What did you imagine or hope for with this record?

Speaker 1 (01:26:10):
Because for Yeah, I think the idea of Illmatic and
even the process of it became bigger than.

Speaker 8 (01:26:20):
Yeah the more as time went on. It's like it,
you know, came just like these mythic proportions.

Speaker 2 (01:26:27):
Well what I didn't know.

Speaker 1 (01:26:29):
The thing that makes Illmatic so special, or at least
what made it such a game changer that people rarely
discuss is the fact that this will mark the first
time that multiple producers will handle a hip hop album.
Whereas the status quo was like one producer sees the

(01:26:53):
whole project through. Did his idea seem as radical to
you at the time to not let one person produce
the entire record?

Speaker 8 (01:27:03):
No, it felt really natural actually, but it's never happened before, right.
It just because all of these people wanted to work
with him, So it only made sense that everybody who
wanted to work with him, all these great producers got
an opportunity to be a part of the project.

Speaker 1 (01:27:22):
Who was lining up Because first of all, it's ten
songs on the record, really nine.

Speaker 8 (01:27:27):
Poten it was supposed to be twelve.

Speaker 2 (01:27:30):
Yeah, I was going to say, like who got rejected.

Speaker 8 (01:27:33):
It's not a question of rejected. The album was so
heavily bootlegged and so ubiquitous everywhere, I mean overseas. I
mean everybody had a copy of that album that we
had to rush it out before it was ready, and
that's why there's only nine songs.

Speaker 4 (01:27:53):
Really, So you just I see, yeah, I read you
said they were cutting more records as the joint came out,
working on most stuff.

Speaker 8 (01:28:01):
Yep, it just wasn't enough time. There would have been
another premier cut for sure.

Speaker 1 (01:28:07):
So in a perfect world, you would have made it
a traditional hip hop record of the time, which in
ninety four, I mean hip hop records were still like
sixteen to eighteen songs.

Speaker 2 (01:28:19):
Were getting with skits and all that shit.

Speaker 7 (01:28:21):
Yeah.

Speaker 1 (01:28:22):
Well, yeah, who's the first, We'll say, Public Enemy was.
I think Nation Millions was the first single record.

Speaker 2 (01:28:30):
That had like double album status.

Speaker 1 (01:28:36):
Well definitely one of the first album with interludes on it,
so yeah, with sixteen songs on it. So that's the
thing that struck me about this record, that it was
that made it different to me, because like most classic records,
in the mind of the music consumer, like Stevie Wonders
in a Visions or thriller or whatever, like all those

(01:28:58):
albums clock in at thirty to thirty three minutes and
then you're out.

Speaker 2 (01:29:03):
So you know you were fine with that, just.

Speaker 8 (01:29:05):
We were perfect? Yeah?

Speaker 2 (01:29:08):
Was he fine with that?

Speaker 8 (01:29:09):
Yeah? I think he wanted it done and out too, Okay, So.

Speaker 2 (01:29:15):
I mean was it smooth?

Speaker 6 (01:29:16):
Like?

Speaker 2 (01:29:16):
Why did it take two years to make?

Speaker 8 (01:29:18):
And he just well he had his friend?

Speaker 2 (01:29:25):
Was it an easy record to make? That's what it was.

Speaker 7 (01:29:27):
No, it was a.

Speaker 8 (01:29:28):
Difficult record to make. How well he had his friend
pass away, so that you know, that was tough. And
then he just wasn't Sometimes he showed up to the studio,
and sometimes you didn't show up to the studio. You
kind of never knew what you were going to get.
Sometimes he was feeling it and he'd write, and sometimes

(01:29:51):
he wasn't feeling it and he'd go home or wherever.
It's just it was just long, long, long process.

Speaker 1 (01:29:59):
Who who Who was the person that had the choke
hold of I mean, I know, like with having worked
with mcs, like you can't if you force them, you
will traumatize them into permanent writer's block. So this could
have easily been a j Electronica situation.

Speaker 8 (01:30:19):
It could have been easily.

Speaker 1 (01:30:21):
So how are you like, who's the designated person that
was there to kind of take them out of that?

Speaker 8 (01:30:31):
You know, I don't know. I think we kind of
eat with Search and me and you know, obviously the
people at the label who didn't know what was going
on and until they told me to drop him, which
happened twice. Yeah, two years. Yeah, Yeah, I was wondering
how she could hold on. It was, uh, well, one
was because of a gun thing that.

Speaker 2 (01:30:55):
Did they know that that was just going to be
you know as a rappers and gun, Yeah that's standard.

Speaker 8 (01:31:02):
Yeah, at the time, it wasn't so standard. And they
wanted me to do They wanted to drop him, and
I had to make the case fight for him.

Speaker 7 (01:31:12):
And yeah, because him in Jungle or so opposite too,
because I always wondered, like was he always on the
edge of situation because of his brother.

Speaker 8 (01:31:23):
Jungle was the one with the gun. So there you go.
Which is a funny story actually because they had a show.
His first show in New York was at a club
called Mewse and we sent a car service to pick
them up in Queensbridge. It doesn't end well and uh,

(01:31:48):
Jungle had a gun on him. You know, this is
after the thing with with Will had happened. And you know,
and Uh, I always thought up until Rock the Bells
three years ago, that the gun fell out of his pocket.
But Jungle told me what had happened was he asked
the driver to hold it for him while they were
in the club. Okay, so the driver took it to

(01:32:12):
the police.

Speaker 2 (01:32:13):
Oh man, yeah, snitching ass. I just want you to
hold his cocaine while I did my set. That's all
I did. So when the show's over.

Speaker 8 (01:32:37):
So the show's over, no car, no gun, Jungle starts
calling the car company and threatening their lives. And Jungle,
oh Jungle, Jabari.

Speaker 1 (01:32:57):
Did you as as someone from North Carolina or you
Bill and someone from Indiana?

Speaker 2 (01:33:02):
Did you have nas expectations? None? Because I'll be honest
with you, Nas.

Speaker 1 (01:33:07):
Yes, I remember I went to Hell for at the
age of twelve, went to Hell for Jesus Fort and
Jesus I remember the line.

Speaker 2 (01:33:14):
But I never had a yo. I cannot wait for
that move.

Speaker 8 (01:33:21):
Like even after halftime, halftime, I.

Speaker 2 (01:33:24):
Never liked that. I didn't like halftime.

Speaker 4 (01:33:26):
I worked at rough House, Oh okay, I worked at
rough House, and I was just like, it's cool.

Speaker 2 (01:33:33):
Yeah.

Speaker 4 (01:33:33):
I didn't really get NAS until it ain't hard to tell.
When I heard that, I was like, Okay, this is dope, but.

Speaker 2 (01:33:41):
It was humang. Even then I was like, Okay, this
is clever.

Speaker 1 (01:33:44):
But then but when I saw that, when I saw
that Gang Star issue of the Source and saw that
it got five mics, then I was like, holy shit,
and like We're in the middle of making do you
want more? And I'm reading this five mic review, man,
and I'm just like like, oh God, like.

Speaker 2 (01:34:04):
There's I don't know.

Speaker 1 (01:34:05):
I just I read the review first, even before I
heard the records, and by that point, anything that the
source could have told me be incredible or not credible,
that was you held it as in, you know, And
I just felt like the way they worded it was
like this is the new standard of the gold standard

(01:34:26):
or whatever. And I just felt like, yo, I got
to the train platform too late, and this is now,
this is the new standard.

Speaker 2 (01:34:34):
Whatever this album is.

Speaker 1 (01:34:35):
And so I think Tariq was like, yeah, you know,
I got to copy that tape and then he went
in his bag and had like.

Speaker 2 (01:34:44):
And and played it, and I was just confused, like
I was told Illmatic is classic.

Speaker 4 (01:34:55):
You never got to make it a classic on your own,
like it never you never got to do it on
your on your own merits.

Speaker 2 (01:35:02):
It was just told to you. Like the Chronic again,
I was told it was classic. Now I see the
Chronic was different for me.

Speaker 4 (01:35:11):
Was different because I got in on the Chronic early,
Like I saw the g Thing video and was just like, whatever,
it's cool. And but then I saw the covers like
Doctor Dre the Chronic. I was like, Drake got an album,
I'll buy it. And the Chronic was a slow burn
like it was. I hated it when I bought it
and I listened to it and I was like, all right,
this is cool. And then I remember a couple of
months later that ship was fucking everywhere, ready to die.

Speaker 2 (01:35:34):
Was like that for me, too.

Speaker 4 (01:35:35):
Ready to do I loved. I was like, all right,
this is dope. And then it wasn't till the next
time and then they were told you were told it
was classic, but it became. But I got a chance
to view it for myself, I think, but it was matic.
I didn't really because like you, like, I remember this
when the review came out, and.

Speaker 2 (01:35:53):
Like I said, I wasn't big on halftime. It ain't
hard to tell.

Speaker 4 (01:35:55):
I liked and then I saw the review and I
was like, damn, like he got like that was and
the source and that sound like that was vible.

Speaker 2 (01:36:04):
And I didn't even think like, oh, that's political or favor. Yeah,
it wasn't that. It wasn't that start man.

Speaker 4 (01:36:10):
And so then the record came out and I remember
getting it and one of the things that really struck
me about it was, you know, I maybe it was
just you know, chance or divine to mention whatever. It
was only ten songs, which was unheard of for a
hip hop record, and so for me, I went to
the mindset, I'm like, yo, if this motherfucker got balls
enough to just do ten songs, like, to me, that

(01:36:32):
in itself was a statement, like for you to just
say fuck all these skits and shout out to this
dude that ten songs, fuck it, this is what it
is like that to me was like, Okay, he got
some shit. And so then I listened to it, and yeah,
I was like all right.

Speaker 2 (01:36:47):
Yeah, I've never and I want to go on the record.
I never like dispute it if it was a classic
or not. But it's just the way that it was.

Speaker 1 (01:36:57):
I wasn't expecting it that and that was my whole point,
Like I didn't have any absolutely right.

Speaker 2 (01:37:03):
I just woke up one.

Speaker 1 (01:37:03):
Day saw the Gang Star issue and thought, okay, let
me see what they reviewed.

Speaker 2 (01:37:09):
Did the Columbia people, did they know the like the
gravity of what five mics menu at the time? Did
they get that?

Speaker 8 (01:37:14):
Yeah? They got that?

Speaker 4 (01:37:15):
Oh wow, Okay, did that change anything in terms of
how he was treated at the label or like more
marketing dollars to him anything?

Speaker 6 (01:37:23):
Yeah?

Speaker 8 (01:37:23):
It did, it did. It's still only you know we
the album was so bootlegged. We came out sold what
seventy thousand first week back then? That's no, yeah, first
week it was something.

Speaker 2 (01:37:38):
No, I mean we didn't sell shit.

Speaker 7 (01:37:40):
And we did like we we said, you had already
had the bootleg copy of the NAS record and that
was probably half the problem everybody had had.

Speaker 2 (01:37:49):
But we brought it again.

Speaker 3 (01:37:50):
I mean, okay, you did you like Money from the Sky.
I'm just saying like you did, but not a lot
of people, Like I got a full of taste that
I dubbed off of people that I still haven't bought
through it. But I feel like eighty thousand in the
first week is like twenty.

Speaker 4 (01:38:08):
Sixteen numbers you got to in twenty sixteen US and
NAS did eighty thousand in his first week.

Speaker 1 (01:38:15):
He would instantly got dropped from Columbia. I felt like
you at least had to do one hundred thousand something.

Speaker 2 (01:38:21):
You're saying seventy wow, what was it? Oh? It matter?

Speaker 4 (01:38:28):
At least April nineteen ninety four has seen an eight
hundred and forty four percent increasing sales. In nineteen ninety four,
the album sold fourteen thousand, nine hundred and eighty seven
copies during this first week.

Speaker 8 (01:38:39):
Oh I'm all right.

Speaker 4 (01:38:44):
As of today, OMDIC has sold one point six million,
fourteen thousand.

Speaker 2 (01:38:48):
Thank you Jesus Christ. Well, I thought it was more
than that. That was under your projections.

Speaker 8 (01:38:54):
Shit, that was that was my that's me right there.

Speaker 2 (01:38:58):
Okay, so first week, what are you saying.

Speaker 4 (01:39:00):
Let's put it in a ninety four context, at least
to my knowledge and correct me if I'm wrong.

Speaker 2 (01:39:05):
In his faith first week numbers? Was that really a thing?
Like it was like it became later on, like it
wasn't just like your first week.

Speaker 8 (01:39:12):
No, it was a thing. Those were the days when
you know, like Garth Brooks or whoever was doing like
a million first week?

Speaker 4 (01:39:19):
Yeah, okay, gotcha, gotcha? Yeah, post sound Skin, Yeah, post
nine after Life. You read that fourteen thousand, that's what
it says, fourteen seven according to the internet.

Speaker 2 (01:39:31):
It must be true. That's from the story.

Speaker 8 (01:39:34):
I remember. That's not what I remember, but.

Speaker 2 (01:39:36):
That's from the story. Yeah, I mean, I mean it
could be wrong.

Speaker 4 (01:39:39):
I mean, it's the great Winston Churchill said, never believe
everything you read on the internet.

Speaker 7 (01:39:43):
Here.

Speaker 2 (01:39:52):
So were you at hip Hop's you know?

Speaker 5 (01:39:55):
Ju?

Speaker 8 (01:39:58):
Yes, I was there.

Speaker 2 (01:40:00):
What section were you sitting in?

Speaker 8 (01:40:01):
Were you on down the middle?

Speaker 2 (01:40:04):
Oh, you're in the middle on the on.

Speaker 1 (01:40:06):
The west coast side. The middle road was all west
coast and down south.

Speaker 8 (01:40:12):
Then I was if you're facing the stage the far left,
I'm facing the stage then I'm on the left, all right, So.

Speaker 1 (01:40:19):
The the the the halves, the uh winning New York side.
Nas is sitting three rows ahead of me on the far.

Speaker 2 (01:40:32):
Right side. And I watched his whole body language, that
his whole body language that night, the transition from nasty
Nascar dog. I watched he came in.

Speaker 1 (01:40:46):
And it's weird because only maybe two years ago either
him or Stout told of the story of that Tommy
Hill figure shirt that Nas had on.

Speaker 2 (01:40:58):
That was the first oddest thing.

Speaker 1 (01:40:59):
First of all, it was like, well, there's like the
fashionista of the roots, so he knew that was the
out of season He'll figure shirt for some reason, like
not like he said like, oh that that's not off
the wreck, but when you go to the outlet store,
like yeah, it's outlet last season. But the shirt was

(01:41:19):
way too big for Nas. It was like he was
wearing an imagine like your son wearing.

Speaker 2 (01:41:25):
Wearing one of my double right.

Speaker 1 (01:41:27):
It was just a very unusual looking Tommy Hill figure shirt.
And he came in kind of really you know, proud everything.
It was the top of the show and you know,
all the drama, the heat was on Diddy, which shook
Knight and the whole you know, come to death row
and all in the video all that stuff, and you know,

(01:41:49):
bit by bit, Big kept winning all of the awards
and like by the time the third by the time
the third nomination was, which I guess was like Lyricists
of the Year or whatever. Yo, his body language just
like he curled up in the most depressed sitting.

Speaker 2 (01:42:12):
Light bass bell right now. Yeah, it was purpose. It
was a slouch. I'll never forget watch. And I looked
and me and Ree looked at each other like, yo,
he's never going to be the same again. Like and
he wasn't.

Speaker 1 (01:42:30):
And he admitted that that night affected him. Like did
that affect you or did at that time? Did you
just think, ah, whatever, it's the source?

Speaker 7 (01:42:39):
No.

Speaker 8 (01:42:39):
I thought everything changed for hip hop that night. Everything
scare the shit out of me. Yeah, I like it,
felt it got it took a turn like towards each
looked towards the dark, Yeah, the dark side, and and
you just knew it was going to end badly for
a lot of people. I felt that very much.

Speaker 2 (01:43:01):
So were you around for it was written or did
you leave?

Speaker 8 (01:43:04):
I left for Jive. I had disagreements with Nas and
with Stout over the direction of the album.

Speaker 1 (01:43:14):
So were you there at least for the beginning of
it was written? So in your mind it was like,
let's keep our eyes on the fries.

Speaker 8 (01:43:20):
And I told Nas, I remember saying this to him,
you know, if you keep doing exactly what you're doing
ten years, you're going to be, you know, legendary. I
remember ten years feeling like a lot of time back then,
and you know, just be true to yourself, Just be
true to yourself.

Speaker 2 (01:43:37):
And but he was, He's like, I want it now,
he's going on. What was your conversation with him after
the source of wards.

Speaker 8 (01:43:46):
That conversation? So what was he feeling that he had
been cheated somehow, that he had been overlooked, that he
made this incredible piece of art and people are giving
him the credit that he deserved.

Speaker 2 (01:44:05):
Meanwhile, Biggie is Biggie.

Speaker 8 (01:44:07):
He mentioned Biggie, Biggie Biggie.

Speaker 2 (01:44:09):
Yeah, so its right. So how how early into the
first or second quarter did you leave? It was written
very early.

Speaker 8 (01:44:26):
So I left Columbia in say, October ninety six.

Speaker 2 (01:44:36):
Okay, what wait a minute, but it was out by then.

Speaker 8 (01:44:43):
I had removed myself from the process.

Speaker 7 (01:44:45):
I was.

Speaker 8 (01:44:47):
The label. It hurt my soul.

Speaker 2 (01:44:49):
Yeah, so.

Speaker 1 (01:44:53):
Okay again, but here's another, here's another he love situation. Now,
whatever your feelings is about, if I ruled the.

Speaker 8 (01:45:01):
World, I wrote the chorus for for fucking Lauren Hill
by the way, wow, or rather I told her what
to say.

Speaker 2 (01:45:11):
You approved of that?

Speaker 8 (01:45:13):
At least I was up to that point, yes, And
then it became again an untenable situation because of Stout
and myself. So mmmm, okay, I couldn't, you know, do
what Stout did for nos That just wasn't you know,
it's not what I doot.

Speaker 2 (01:45:31):
He Stout ones trying to argue me.

Speaker 1 (01:45:33):
Stout came to like a voodoo session once we were
thinking of getting nads on.

Speaker 2 (01:45:42):
No chicken grease, No, what were we calling it on?

Speaker 7 (01:45:50):
No?

Speaker 2 (01:45:51):
In my mind? In my mind, yo, son, will we all? Yeah? Nah,
it makes no sense queens QB. No, it wasn't ghetto children.

Speaker 7 (01:46:07):
It was.

Speaker 1 (01:46:13):
Wait, stop naming songs. I can figure out the day,
all right. So we did a joining based on uh
lots of loving the Ohio players Westbound. Yeah, like it
was something based off of that. And Stout came by
and we happened to be talking about it was written,
and I guess he just automatically assumed that we were

(01:46:36):
all aboard for it because it was winning and it
was doing exactly what Na's.

Speaker 2 (01:46:41):
Hope it would do as far as cells and winning,
and me and D were kind of lukewarm to it, and.

Speaker 1 (01:46:51):
Stout had mentioned that, yeah, man, remember we was trying
to get you for Little Black Girl loss and uh
and I mean the mistake of ooh, I said, oh
really like it was kind of like, oh, you guys
a bullet on that one.

Speaker 2 (01:47:05):
Really really not knowing who or what Steve Stout represented.

Speaker 1 (01:47:10):
I just thought he was just a guy that was
opinionated about hip hop and was just hanging around in
the studio.

Speaker 2 (01:47:15):
I didn't know that was like NAS's guy. And I
was like, oh, that's a Little Black Girl Lost on
that one. You said, what you don't like that?

Speaker 1 (01:47:24):
I was like, oh god, no, like I hated Little
Black Girl Lost or the narrative was cool, but again.

Speaker 2 (01:47:32):
It was just like it was an old Yeah, the
Stephanie Mills loop was it was the track master's formula
that I didn't like at the time.

Speaker 4 (01:47:40):
And just for me with the NAS stuff, particularly with
that album too, it was wit and dropping on the
same day as Stakes as High. It's just like, man,
come like there was that was the first time you
could really see like an A and B kind of choice,
you know what I mean, Boss.

Speaker 3 (01:48:00):
It's just pitting it Daylight ninety six versus NAS in
ninety six.

Speaker 2 (01:48:07):
Well, I wasn't pitting them against each other.

Speaker 4 (01:48:08):
I was just saying like, at that point that was
when there came a clear like a path in terms
of sounds. So it's like if you got into if
you were it was written fan, then that was when
you went more to like you know, Biggie Track Masses
and Biggie and the Bad Boys stuff going on.

Speaker 2 (01:48:26):
It was straight up a parts.

Speaker 4 (01:48:28):
If you went into Stakes is High, that was how
you got into Dyla, and that was how you got
into like all the kind of left field underground, these
kind of shit. You know what I'm saying you the
hip hop psyche era of music, you know what I mean,
Sandbox automatic, Yeah, this, Oh my god, I don't know.

Speaker 2 (01:48:48):
I don't know. I don't.

Speaker 1 (01:48:49):
I hate to say this, but I wouldn't wish Illmatic
or Nas again if you were able.

Speaker 2 (01:48:56):
To do a redo. Does that sound crazy?

Speaker 6 (01:49:00):
You know?

Speaker 2 (01:49:02):
I just feel like, is it a burden? Like, do
you know if it's a burden on him?

Speaker 5 (01:49:08):
It is?

Speaker 8 (01:49:09):
I think it is.

Speaker 2 (01:49:09):
Does he realize the pressure? Like, well, I wouldn't wish
that on him because it's I don't know, it's not.

Speaker 4 (01:49:19):
It was like I mean to me, ill Maadic as
great as it was, like it was, it is, by
the way, always smart enough is still a thing to me.

Speaker 2 (01:49:27):
I always looked at it.

Speaker 4 (01:49:28):
It's like like NAS was like the m Night Shyamalana Phipop.
I mean, listen, it's like no, seriously, I mean like
real and I'm a NAS fan, like not do NAS's
is God legally, but it was like ill Maadic was
the sixth sense it was written, was unbreakable.

Speaker 2 (01:49:46):
It's like everything else was everything else?

Speaker 1 (01:49:50):
Or are you sick of hearing people debate about Illmatic?
Like you created this monster.

Speaker 2 (01:49:55):
That I would never personally, I wouldn't be I'm not.

Speaker 8 (01:49:59):
I mean, it's still relevant. That's the thing. It's you
know here it is twenty two years later and we're
still talking about it.

Speaker 1 (01:50:05):
I just think the idea of Illmatic is our idea
and our I think we're just crying for a period.

Speaker 2 (01:50:14):
In hip hop that it's just it's gone.

Speaker 8 (01:50:18):
It's gone.

Speaker 3 (01:50:18):
Man, you're basically like I am with the Childish Gambino
record I never heard. I'm basically you basically say I'm
I'm pining for something that doesn't exist anymore.

Speaker 2 (01:50:29):
And that's why I don't like it. Never heard it?
If you're just tuning in. Our guest is Faith Newman.

Speaker 1 (01:50:35):
She famously worked as an an r rep at Columbia
and def Jam back in the early days of hip
hop and now works at Reservoir Faith.

Speaker 7 (01:50:43):
Where does your hip hop days land these days?

Speaker 2 (01:50:47):
Well?

Speaker 4 (01:50:47):
Shit, you signed Joey Joey Badass, Joey Badass and yeah,
like yeah, so you still try to.

Speaker 2 (01:51:00):
So when you went to jive? What period was this? Oh?

Speaker 8 (01:51:04):
This was the Blingy era. This was ninety seven to
two thousand UGK stories? You GK stories? I got them?

Speaker 2 (01:51:14):
Man listening, Yeah, we're listening.

Speaker 8 (01:51:18):
Okay, Well they couldn't get them to turn into the album.
So Barry Whyse says you need to go to Houston
and come back with the album. You have one mission
and that is to go to Houston, get the album
and come back.

Speaker 2 (01:51:31):
And what album was this? Was this ninety seven? That
was It wasn't Ryan Dirty, it was.

Speaker 7 (01:51:36):
No, it was.

Speaker 8 (01:51:39):
Oh god, what was their third album? Well, I mean
I didn't come back with the ps is that I
didn't come back with the album. So that would explain
why the important part.

Speaker 2 (01:51:48):
Of the story.

Speaker 1 (01:51:49):
Yeah, and I'm shocked that Weiss would even care, not care,
but I mean they.

Speaker 8 (01:51:58):
Were signing his label, weren't they, And the and the
the other reason he cared was that Jay Prince was
trying to steal them away from Jive. Yeah, to wrap
a lot and in fact, I was the hotel that
I was staying at. He sent somebody to sit in
the parking lot of the hotel the entire time I

(01:52:19):
was there.

Speaker 2 (01:52:21):
Yeah, yeah, why.

Speaker 8 (01:52:25):
Some intimidation thing, I don't know, just to let me
know that they know that I'm there. So Chad PMSY says,
want to take me to dinner with his mom.

Speaker 2 (01:52:37):
Mama wes you know who she recently did?

Speaker 8 (01:52:40):
She Yeah, to a very nice place which was this
kind of you know, basic steakhouse or whatever, and that
was fun. And then they had a show to do
that night. I don't know if it was in the
Fifth Ward, but it was somewhere not not good. So

(01:53:01):
so he's driving to the show and I'm in the
car with him and he's he's smoking the entire time
that he's driving, and I got this crazy contact high
and he says, hold on, I got to pull over
to this place. And we pull over and it's like
one of those adult emporiums.

Speaker 2 (01:53:17):
Oh wow, I'm listening.

Speaker 8 (01:53:20):
I still to this day, I have no idea what
he went in there for it just kind of went
in and.

Speaker 2 (01:53:27):
Yeah, I gotta make a stop.

Speaker 8 (01:53:30):
And then uh, and then we went to the show
and I got my own bodyguard with a rifle.

Speaker 5 (01:53:35):
Wow.

Speaker 8 (01:53:36):
And and Jay Prince was in the audience surrounded by
all these like his whole crew.

Speaker 2 (01:53:44):
Wow.

Speaker 8 (01:53:45):
It's just a little, little, adding little story.

Speaker 7 (01:53:48):
But it didn't shake you.

Speaker 8 (01:53:49):
No, no, nothing really ever shake me.

Speaker 1 (01:53:51):
See, you thought you were going there to Anara beats
rhymes in life and right.

Speaker 2 (01:53:59):
You gk trailing? What was the what was the the
too short? Like we had to bail to shut out.

Speaker 8 (01:54:05):
It was just a weird thing. He was stopped in
Times Square smoking weed in the truck.

Speaker 2 (01:54:11):
Who hasn't been What was your tenure? What what period
were you there.

Speaker 8 (01:54:16):
At ninety seven to two thousand?

Speaker 2 (01:54:20):
Ah, you were there for love movements? What we say moment? Wow,
something real curious. I think the uh.

Speaker 1 (01:54:37):
I think bum Bee told a story about Pimpsy's uh
reluctant to jay Z big pimping, Big Pimper, and I
just remembered not liking the story because I felt like
just the bottom line was clearly Pimpsy was struggling or

(01:55:01):
having conflict of success, which most people have conflict of
success because it's it's easy to obtain success, it's harder
to keep keep it going consistently. And it's like clearly
in the narrative of Bumbee, like Pimpse was absolutely trying

(01:55:25):
his hardest to sabotage this big pimpin Ca cameo.

Speaker 4 (01:55:32):
He's like, well, I'm only going to do eight bars
and he didn't show up at this time and didn't
show up and he's not in the video and.

Speaker 2 (01:55:39):
They had to they had to fly crew down to
shoot him in Houston.

Speaker 1 (01:55:42):
That was the only way he would do it right,
And it's just like why now, I No, he was like,
you know, hanging on to the credibility and all that stuff.
But it's like, like, word, I mean, could could Utk's
appeal have really gone to a national level without the

(01:56:05):
aid of jay Z an Outcast had? I mean, I know,
in hindsight, it's like, Okay, well, of course that they
put the work in and you know, apply.

Speaker 2 (01:56:15):
That Nah, you need that thing, I think, But did.

Speaker 1 (01:56:17):
You feel But did you feel as though even before
Big pimpod in, before Outcast comes aboard like that, they
could have been.

Speaker 2 (01:56:28):
Bigger and you know, a household name.

Speaker 8 (01:56:32):
A household name. I don't think so.

Speaker 4 (01:56:35):
Really, really, I can't see pimp seed in a household
name that just came, you know.

Speaker 3 (01:56:40):
Like I think they might have found some level of
success after the success of like No Limit in cash
money making southern hip hop, you know, more of a
less of a regional thing. I think it would eventually
got into UGK like it eventually did. Had they hung
on and just I don't know if it would have
gotten to the level that it got to.

Speaker 2 (01:56:58):
But now they needed I think they needed like definitely
big pimping that I mean that open, No, they needed it.

Speaker 8 (01:57:04):
They would have had to have a couple more of those,
I think, But I.

Speaker 1 (01:57:10):
Mean it could have at least with the momentum that
big Pimping brought them, Like could they have you know,
it was very least feeling like, Okay, we're in a
role here, we can now cashing and.

Speaker 8 (01:57:25):
And if they could get them to turn in the record,
I mean that was.

Speaker 2 (01:57:31):
What else did you work on it? Jeff?

Speaker 8 (01:57:35):
I worked on the Tupac album Oh Are You Still Down?
Still Down? Like a hundred songs on there.

Speaker 2 (01:57:46):
When I Get Free? How did you guys get access
to those songs?

Speaker 8 (01:57:50):
It was a it was a it was a return
favor for something that Interscope did with just put out
a jive release or a jive artist that I, for
whatever reason I cannot remember right now. So in return,
we will give you, We'll give you, We'll give you

(01:58:11):
one album of Tupac music.

Speaker 2 (01:58:13):
Wow, it's like sports straight trading Man.

Speaker 4 (01:58:17):
That wasn't a bad album though, I remember, I mean
because a lot of the cameo joined. H.

Speaker 2 (01:58:26):
Yeah. It was also shocking Carlin soul shot and calling.
I wasn't mad at that, really, that was so shocking. Colin.
Didn't I do Tracy Spencer? Tracy Spencer? Where the hell
is Tracy Spencer? Didn't she marry one of them?

Speaker 7 (01:58:37):
She's a doctor or something. I thought, Tracy Spencer.

Speaker 2 (01:58:40):
You know if someone can. I'm just did you not
get paid for the remix? Yeah? I got paid for it,
but I never met Tracy Spencer.

Speaker 7 (01:58:51):
She was my idol when I was a little girl.
Hide and Seek a mad did John Lennon, I'm sorry
she did. Imagine she killed it like she did?

Speaker 2 (01:58:58):
Agree with you?

Speaker 3 (01:58:58):
Okay, So Faith, I have a question that actually should
have asked way, way, way a long time ago. What
exactly does an A and R person do?

Speaker 8 (01:59:09):
Oh well, there's different things. I Mean, the first thing
the A and OUR person does is bring in the talent,
is scout the talent and bring it into the label,
and then shepherd it through the recording process. And it
doesn't really end there, you know, you don't just kind
of finish a record with somebody and you hand it

(01:59:31):
over to marketing or you hand it over to promotion.
You kind of you see it through the whole way
because you know the vision and you know the sound,
and you know you know where it should be going.
So that used to be what A and R people did.

Speaker 2 (01:59:45):
Yeah, I was I was going to ask you, how
has it changed in the from when you started doing
it to now?

Speaker 8 (01:59:50):
Well, yeah, you know, I don't know what it's like
because I've been in publishing for seven years now doing
A and R, which is kind of like the old
school way of doing it, which is cool. You know,
I don't know how it goes on, what goes on
with the labels. Right now, it doesn't seem like you

(02:00:11):
have that much autonomy or you know, I mean, things
are signed based on logistics and not so much you know,
just pure raw talent.

Speaker 1 (02:00:26):
Yeah, well, which ones have gotten away from you? I mean,
if you're talking in terms of like.

Speaker 2 (02:00:33):
Just over the course of my career, yes, which.

Speaker 8 (02:00:39):
Man?

Speaker 2 (02:00:40):
What you were trying to get them?

Speaker 8 (02:00:41):
Where at Columbia? Ah man as a unit, Donnie Einer said,
and I quote their shit, Oh wow wow what? Yes?

Speaker 2 (02:00:53):
Yes, have you had like revenge talks? Like have you
called them like yeah? Now what do you think?

Speaker 8 (02:01:00):
Yeah?

Speaker 2 (02:01:00):
Right, we could have had that.

Speaker 8 (02:01:01):
Trust me. I felt like a bunch of times.

Speaker 2 (02:01:04):
Wow. The entire unit, the entire unit at least had
a conversation with Risen considered it had a conversation.

Speaker 8 (02:01:13):
The whole thing.

Speaker 3 (02:01:15):
Did he ever come with you with with any of
the solo or the solo projects when he was shopping
any to say?

Speaker 2 (02:01:22):
Colombia was the only label.

Speaker 8 (02:01:23):
That didn't even have remember yeah, well, you.

Speaker 4 (02:01:27):
Know, not even cap Donna Epic or who Army was
Killer Army they were on they were like they were
indie like what Indy but priority or something like that.

Speaker 1 (02:01:40):
So during that whole period of ninety four to ninety
like when they were red hot, he just said no.

Speaker 8 (02:01:47):
Nothing, He just said nothing. This was you know, protect
your neck days.

Speaker 1 (02:01:51):
This was ironic being as though one of Mariah's biggest
singles was right, were you a part of that Brainschild
that brought the Fantasy remix with ODB at Columbia?

Speaker 8 (02:02:03):
The town.

Speaker 2 (02:02:06):
Well faith in hindsight? Like where you with music today?

Speaker 7 (02:02:13):
Like?

Speaker 2 (02:02:13):
Does I mean are you are you searching for blood
in the stone right now? Or is it you know?
Do you still get this? You fork?

Speaker 8 (02:02:23):
I do? There's some there's some artists that two artists
that I'm looking at right now that that moved me.

Speaker 1 (02:02:29):
This is including who you spoke of the singing include
what well one of the artists you raved about, Uh
the singer from down south. I don't know the name
of the person, but singer from South.

Speaker 2 (02:02:45):
Yeah.

Speaker 1 (02:02:46):
Someone there's an act you told me about of oh shit,
Uh not Sam Cook voice or whatever.

Speaker 2 (02:02:56):
But they were part of a group.

Speaker 8 (02:03:00):
Oh watch the Duck.

Speaker 2 (02:03:02):
Yes, yes, okay, Jesse right, are they closer to doing stuff?

Speaker 6 (02:03:08):
Ye?

Speaker 8 (02:03:08):
Yes?

Speaker 2 (02:03:10):
Okay? Are you still involved in the project? Okay?

Speaker 8 (02:03:13):
But they were one or two you were speaking of
when you said, no, there's new ones that I'm looking
at you guys, Yeah.

Speaker 2 (02:03:22):
I don Are you just on YouTube now looking for X?

Speaker 8 (02:03:25):
Or is it?

Speaker 2 (02:03:25):
No?

Speaker 8 (02:03:25):
It comes through different places. I mean, I may find
some something on SoundCloud, you know, occasionally, but mostly it
comes from just people, I know, managers, you know, mostly managers.

Speaker 2 (02:03:40):
And you're looking at the oats. Are you looking at
them in terms of signing them, like publishing deals?

Speaker 8 (02:03:44):
Yeah, publishing deals.

Speaker 2 (02:03:45):
Okay.

Speaker 8 (02:03:45):
Yeah, there's this kid named Joyner Lucas. Okay, you heard
of him. No, he's dope. He's on some like vivid
eminem type storytelling clever you know, wordplay kind of thing.
He's dope.

Speaker 1 (02:04:02):
But for you, you never want to enter into the
sphere of traditional record label.

Speaker 8 (02:04:11):
No, I don't want to go back to that. I
don't think if you lived through it in the nineties,
like I did, you you you you can't. I couldn't.
I couldn't do it right now because I don't know.
I don't know how they do what they do with
the resources that they have. Small budgets, yeah, the tiny budgets.

Speaker 1 (02:04:31):
And so what would satisfy you, like, what gives you,
you know, what the patter on the back that pat
you on the back of twenty seventeen, what would that be?

Speaker 4 (02:04:43):
You know?

Speaker 8 (02:04:44):
Aside from the artist thing, A lot of what I
do is catalog deals, and that's the thing, the old
school stuff. It's like everything for me is come full circle.

Speaker 2 (02:04:54):
You know what I've knowing who you are? Yeah, you
love Yeah, you know what I wish you'd do? What
go to men? Anneapolish.

Speaker 8 (02:05:01):
I wish I could too.

Speaker 2 (02:05:03):
I think you should. I can think about that.

Speaker 8 (02:05:07):
You know.

Speaker 2 (02:05:07):
I think they're looking for an archiver, somebody to go through.

Speaker 8 (02:05:11):
Like m Yeah. I love doing stuff like that, make
it happen, you know, just.

Speaker 2 (02:05:19):
To get a new job.

Speaker 8 (02:05:21):
I'm gonna put it out there, put it out in
the universe. I am.

Speaker 2 (02:05:24):
I'm putting it.

Speaker 5 (02:05:25):
No.

Speaker 2 (02:05:25):
I think you'd be perfect.

Speaker 1 (02:05:27):
I mean you, I know that your your majestic passion
for purple is runs deep, and you have enough experience
in the business to know how to minister and and
and organize these things.

Speaker 2 (02:05:42):
And I happen to know they need a lot of help.
I'm just saying that. Oh wait, I'm supposed to make Yeah,
you brought it.

Speaker 7 (02:05:51):
It's your suggestion.

Speaker 2 (02:05:52):
Oh you know, Faith is magic too.

Speaker 7 (02:05:55):
She is but a little extra magic.

Speaker 2 (02:05:58):
One of my favorite country singers.

Speaker 8 (02:06:02):
She was your favorite R and B singer.

Speaker 2 (02:06:07):
Faith. Uh yeah, thank you, Thank you so much, everybody,
Your presidence here. Thank you for not selling out. That's
what you didn't do. You never cast in, You never
sold out. Quest Love Supreme is a production of iHeart Radio.
This classic episode was produced by the team at Mandora.

(02:06:30):
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