September 14, 2020 • 95 mins
Philly's own DJ Jazzy Jeff sits down with Team Supreme to talk hip hop, DJ culture and why magnificence comes in threes.
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Speaker 1 (00:00):
Of Course.
Speaker 2 (00:00):
Love Supreme is a production of iHeartRadio. This classic episode
was produced by the team at Pandora. Ladies and gentlemen,
Welcome to QLs Classic Episode ninety seven with DJ Jazzy
Jeff August twenty eighteen. What can I say, Jazzy Jeff
is simply the best, most creative DJ of all time.
(00:22):
There is no DJ today worth their grain of salt
that doesn't worship from the altar of Jeff Towns.
Speaker 1 (00:30):
And you know you know, so, without.
Speaker 2 (00:32):
Further ado, I present you the goat of all DJs,
straight out of Philadelphia, DJ Jazzy Jeff.
Speaker 1 (00:46):
Here we go.
Speaker 3 (00:48):
Supremo Sun Suprema Roll Call Suprema Sun Supreme, A roll
call Suprema Sun Sun Supreme A roll call Suprema So Supreme.
Speaker 2 (01:03):
Roll another episode without Fonte Unpaid in Bostonville and I'm
stuck with Stephen my ear.
Speaker 4 (01:09):
Yeah, Suppreva Supreme, roll Call Suprema So Supreme, Rode.
Speaker 5 (01:19):
This dude can spin, yeah, this dude mixed tracks, yeah,
this dude can cook, Yeah, this dude can act.
Speaker 4 (01:30):
Supreme Supremo Supremo roll.
Speaker 6 (01:37):
Yeah.
Speaker 7 (01:37):
And it's okay easy, oh Ship Jeff, Yeah, Jazz Love
Hillary Supreme.
Speaker 4 (01:46):
SUPREMEA Rod Car Suppreva Son SUPREMEA Role call.
Speaker 6 (01:52):
My name is Fast, Yeah, my crew is new still Yeah,
it's called the Trinity.
Speaker 4 (01:57):
Yeah.
Speaker 1 (01:57):
We don't fight like Drew Hill.
Speaker 4 (02:00):
Supreme Supreme Supreme Supprime Role.
Speaker 8 (02:07):
My name is Jeff, his name is Fest. Yeah, it's
Stephen Laia. Yeah, and that's my brother Quest.
Speaker 4 (02:14):
Well Suprema Subprema Role, came Surema some SUPREMEA Role Calm
Suprema Suprema Role Supreme Supreme Roll.
Speaker 2 (02:32):
Oh man, yo, I have to say that of I mean,
we're not one hundred episodes yet, but we're at least
at eighty something eighty something. Yeah, that is probably the
quickest sneaking of the feat. I mean, I've had well
renowned mcs just like.
Speaker 1 (02:51):
Dum you you might, I think your body should.
Speaker 9 (03:01):
I wrote that for him.
Speaker 1 (03:02):
I wrote that. That's my ghost racking right there.
Speaker 2 (03:07):
Ladies and gentlemen, welcome to another anemic episode of Quest
Left Supreme, only on Pandora.
Speaker 1 (03:16):
Uh, I'm still here with what's left of Team Supreme.
Speaker 9 (03:20):
Damn.
Speaker 7 (03:21):
You know when you gets hot outside, niggas start disappearing.
Speaker 1 (03:25):
Well, su Steve's still here, even though you know your
your your network star.
Speaker 5 (03:28):
Now, Wes, I have every excuse to call him sick,
you know, mentally ill, among other things.
Speaker 1 (03:34):
Yeah, I see, well, thank you for still sticking.
Speaker 10 (03:36):
I never missed a shot.
Speaker 2 (03:37):
I assume that Fante is still working on his uh
uh his basement counter Yeah, his countertops is week number
five working on his miswork to work on your house,
hey man, bathroom.
Speaker 1 (03:49):
Tiles are important, you know, it's extremely important.
Speaker 7 (03:52):
Mean, while both Bills have medical conditions, So.
Speaker 9 (03:54):
There you go.
Speaker 1 (03:55):
I thought Bill's not at Assessame Street right now.
Speaker 7 (03:58):
No, Bill's getting his wisdom teeth out.
Speaker 2 (04:00):
Okay, I guess I can excuse that. All right, shout
out to Boss Bill, who has a headache right now.
So wait, I don't know because if something happens in
the future, I don't want this to sound bite to
be play.
Speaker 7 (04:15):
He has a severe headache right now.
Speaker 2 (04:17):
Yes, shout out to Boss Bill, and is a many headaches,
so I just want to make sure that I'm not
the source of the headache. So all right, less stressed
in your life, Bill, I promise to be better, but
you got admit I am improving since the beginning of
of course.
Speaker 1 (04:33):
Love you have.
Speaker 7 (04:34):
But then you stop sugar and you back, so you.
Speaker 2 (04:36):
Know, oh okay, Yeah, Layah is claiming that I'm evil
because I'm day fifty one without sugar.
Speaker 10 (04:43):
So I'm still here for it.
Speaker 1 (04:45):
Thank you, Steve. Is that possible if you want to
live it? Is? I'm just saying that.
Speaker 2 (04:51):
You know, twenty twenty three, twenty four to twenty five,
your concern was like getting shot at the club.
Speaker 1 (04:57):
Yeah, the new getting shot at the club is that
is getting the stroke. Yeah, like I don't want.
Speaker 7 (05:03):
To be I mean, you still got your boyhood figure,
jeff So how you do it?
Speaker 10 (05:06):
Listen?
Speaker 8 (05:07):
I do one hundred and sixty dates a year and
walk like nineteen miles through the airport.
Speaker 1 (05:11):
Wait.
Speaker 2 (05:12):
I was gonna say, wait a minute, time out. Uh,
we're doing this ass backwards, ladies and gentlemen. I forgot
to introduce our actual guest of the show.
Speaker 1 (05:21):
Ladies and gentlemen. It could be Jeffrey Osborne if we
already he was.
Speaker 2 (05:26):
He was our last guests not bad yo. Did you
know he played drums with Smokey Robinson. No, you know,
we forgot to ask Jeffrey Osborne.
Speaker 1 (05:32):
And we do this often.
Speaker 2 (05:33):
We often rabbit hole ourselves and introduce like a half
hour down the line. I forgot to even talk about
Whitney Houston's didn't we almost have it all?
Speaker 1 (05:42):
He wrote that?
Speaker 9 (05:42):
Oh shit?
Speaker 2 (05:43):
Oh wow, yes he wrote that for it anyway, Uh
lazy Okay. Introducing Joff. Uh yeah, if if God were DJ,
he'd be named Jeffrey Towns. Uh and wow, that's all
I have to say. It's gonna be the shortest intro ever.
Speaker 8 (06:02):
Uh.
Speaker 2 (06:03):
We have God himself of turntables Philly, his own DJ
Jazz Jeff the legendary DJ Jazzy Jeff on Quest left Supreme.
Speaker 1 (06:11):
I would also hate that.
Speaker 2 (06:14):
It would also uh uh be remiss if I didn't
also mention that, uh, you're here with a very special guest. Yes,
another guy in his right Grammy and Oscar Oscar Winner
that was sermon now was paid Bill was here?
Speaker 7 (06:36):
We have somebody that yeah his O but his get.
Speaker 1 (06:39):
Well yeah, because you know, well, I think what paid
Bill is a.
Speaker 7 (06:46):
Right one of our co hosts. He has a Grammy,
Emmy and a Tony, but he missing.
Speaker 1 (06:51):
He's missing.
Speaker 2 (06:51):
Oh so if he was chilling with uh paid Bill
right now, we'd have a ghetto not an ron festers here,
Lady John.
Speaker 1 (07:02):
The world uh. And also I should mention your.
Speaker 2 (07:06):
New project M three yes, uh in well right now
digitally available, but when will it be in store?
Speaker 8 (07:12):
Will it be the stores? It's hard, hard U No
hard copies are coming. Listen, I'm doing this all independence.
I have to come a little bit later. They're they're
on the way.
Speaker 1 (07:23):
Okay. Good, that's good dimension, that's good dimension. Yeah.
Speaker 2 (07:27):
So you you were saying that you keep in shape
because you just run across airports NonStop. See, but that's
the thing, my Achilles hill is being on the road
because you know, for every coffee shop in every airport, hotel, food.
Speaker 7 (07:48):
It is it is.
Speaker 1 (07:50):
So how do you resist that?
Speaker 2 (07:52):
And I know you live at home in Lynette's kitchen, yes,
which you know, as far as I'm concerned, you guys
catch your fish and all your seafood in the backyard
of where you live.
Speaker 8 (08:06):
So, like, how just just remain inactive. It's not even
an exercise thing, you know. It's really when you got
sixty pounds on your back because you try to take
every gadget in the world and you're pulling a little
portable studio on a pull bag and you're in London
Heathrow and your gait is thirty five minutes away.
Speaker 4 (08:29):
I know that.
Speaker 1 (08:30):
Yeah, you know that feeling.
Speaker 8 (08:31):
So it's a lot of walking. You know, you get
mad when you first go out because you wind it
and you're tired and you're mad. Your knee hurts. But
by the time you come home, I would say, you're
Oj Simpson. But you know what I mean, You know,
I know what you mean.
Speaker 9 (08:45):
Yo.
Speaker 1 (08:46):
Wait have you ever.
Speaker 2 (08:48):
Have you ever successfully to me, like to successfully navigate
through Heathrow without them thoroughly checking my back Like Heathrow
is one of the yeah, most anal retentive airports in
the world. Yes, Like you can have a piece of
like gum in your bag and if you don't take
it out to let them know that, then they're they're
(09:10):
taking your whole entire fiber part of that bag.
Speaker 8 (09:13):
Or you just wait for your bag to go on
that separate lane.
Speaker 1 (09:17):
It's the worst.
Speaker 8 (09:18):
Then that separate lane you realize that there's nineteen people
in front of it, right, you're missing your flight.
Speaker 7 (09:22):
So y'all travel too much?
Speaker 1 (09:26):
That whole thing was like, no, it's.
Speaker 2 (09:28):
For real, Like he Throw is one of the most
anal retentive, I mean most of them quality rhymed about
that even even on their first record, like the first
time I ever had to have.
Speaker 1 (09:38):
The check he throw.
Speaker 7 (09:42):
Has there been between the two of y'all? Y'all been
around the world like fifty thousand times. Has there been
anywhere you haven't been yet?
Speaker 8 (09:48):
I just went to Kenya? That was That was your
worst time in Kenya? What was that?
Speaker 7 (09:54):
Like?
Speaker 8 (09:55):
That was probably top three experience of my life? Why listen?
First of all, I was, you know, I don't change.
I don't change the way I play anywhere in this
world at all. Because let me, let me give you
my reasoning. You don't go to Africa and play Afro beat.
That's the ship that they hear all the time. And
(10:16):
that's the biggest mistake that I think a lot of DJs,
because think about it when you get DJs that come
to Philly and be like, oh, I'm about to play
Crown Rulers and you kind of like, come on, dude,
I came to see you play. I didn't come to
hear you play how you think I want you to play.
So I never changed the way that I play because people,
you're a seasoning in the restaurant, you don't change the
(10:38):
dish you.
Speaker 1 (10:38):
Called me out.
Speaker 7 (10:40):
I mean, listen, you know it's never too late though.
Speaker 1 (10:42):
Right, Yeah, but because you know what it is.
Speaker 8 (10:44):
It's kind of like imagine going to your favorite restaurant
and they changed the menu every week. You upset, you like,
I came for the fish. I want to fish in
the corn bread. What what's the meat loaf?
Speaker 2 (10:55):
Okay, but I'm going to ask you about the Kansas incident.
That's always my worst nightmare.
Speaker 1 (11:02):
Well, you know what it is.
Speaker 8 (11:03):
Kansas was me walking into that didn't have anything to
do with me playing. That had more to do with
the wrong event in the wrong place, you know, Like
you can't you know, because I had situations like that
when you know DJ Am passed away. I did one
of his memorials in Las Vegas, and I did it
(11:26):
in a place that they didn't want you to play
hip hop And I'm kind of like, how do you
have me do a tribute to a hip hop DJ
and not play hip hop? Like I'm kind of like, yo,
so you're trying to do this ship.
Speaker 2 (11:39):
My name only wait that's still going on, Like, well
not now, but it was what was the name of
can you name? What was the name of the club?
Speaker 7 (11:48):
What's the situations.
Speaker 2 (11:52):
Well, I don't want to start with the bad DJ
gig verse. I wanted to start with the early god
I did.
Speaker 8 (11:59):
I was on tour with Sion and Sion was doing
these parties all over and we went to Kansas City
and played in the Power and Light District and it
was funny because I got there. Z Trip went on
before me and I came out and we started playing,
like five thousand people outside we started playing and people
(12:21):
are rocking, and you know, my sets are very eclectic,
like I'm gona playing some hip hop, I'm gonna go here,
I'm gonna do this. You know, at the end of
the night, you're gonna get a little bit of everything.
And my road manager at the time came out and
put a towel on my table and walked off. So
I looked, and I'm looking at the tower that I
already have, and I was just like, why did you
(12:42):
bring a towel over? So he came out and brought
a bottle of water, and I had water on the table,
so I knew something wasn't right. So he ended up
coming over the third time and he leaned down and
he said, listen, they're about to cut you off because
they're saying that you're playing too much hip hop. And
before they cut you you off, I wanted to let
you know so that you can make the decision. I said,
(13:04):
oh shit, tell Skills, we're out of here. So he
went and leaned and told Skills, and Skills turned and
looked at me and was like word, and it was
like yeah. So right in the middle of everybody rocking,
I just said, so we were rocking. Oh listen, it's
non stop, non stop, like I think I was playing
Rihanna at that. So I hit the stop button and
(13:26):
Skills said, hey, I'm sorry, Kansas City, but we just
got word that they don't really want us playing hip
hop in here, and they were about to cut Jeff off.
Speaker 1 (13:33):
So before we let.
Speaker 8 (13:35):
Them do that to us, we wanted to make the
announcement to you that we apologized and we hope that
we can come back and play for you soon. And
took everything off and I walked our stage. Everybody thought
it was a part of the show, so they still
for about two minutes, and when the road managers started
coming out and breaking my equipment down, people went off wow,
(13:57):
And I went downstairs in the dressing room skills standing outside,
and they kicked skills out the venue because they were mad,
like they were this is the behind the scenes thing
that you weren't supposed to pull a curtain back. So
the hotel was across the street. I ended up walking
across the street and had no idea how big this was.
And I remember this is early Twitter. I posted Wow,
(14:19):
right party, wrong place. I was like, this is the
first time that I ever someone ever threatened to kick
me off in twenty five years, and went and checked
into the hotel. I called, you know, my manager at
the time, and he was like, change your flight. You know,
we had like a nine o'clock flight. He's like, get
on the six o'clock flight, he said, because I guarantee
(14:39):
you they're going to be pressing everybody at the airport.
So I changed my flight and we got on the
plane and flew at six o'clock and I landed. By
the time I landed, Associated Press had called me like
it hit everywhere, and I was just like, like, it
got so bad that the owner of Power and Light
was the owner of the land of forty forty cloud
(15:00):
and it got so bad that he called Jay Z
for Jay Z to call Will for Will to call
me because he wanted to talk to me, and he
was like, listen, I need to meet with you so
I can officially apologize.
Speaker 7 (15:14):
Didn't you win the first Grammy for hip hop?
Speaker 10 (15:16):
Hey?
Speaker 7 (15:16):
Listen?
Speaker 8 (15:18):
They was trying to get me to come back, Like
what did they?
Speaker 1 (15:22):
It was just the area of.
Speaker 8 (15:26):
No, No, it had nothing to do with that. It
was kind of like, you know what par and Light
is like, paring Light is kind of like I don't
want to say Infinity Live. It's like one of those.
But it was kind of like, we're not really trying
to have that hip hop element because from what I
heard after I left was they were like, you know,
(15:47):
we don't normally come down here. They don't like you
in sports jerseys and baseball hats. And it was one
of the yeah, yeah, basically, let's setting that tone this
code talk. But you know how it is you kind
of times you skate under the radar because it's like
that's Jazz from Fresh Prince of bel Air not knowing
that I'm playing mob deep.
Speaker 1 (16:06):
But what was z Trip playing like?
Speaker 8 (16:09):
Because Trip was playing mash up, so he was sneaking.
He was sneaking, but understand. No one said that, like
all of these days that we did, no one said
when you come here that you have to play like this,
Like you know, a lot of times people tell you
how you want to play. I'm like, I'm cool. Like
if I can't do.
Speaker 1 (16:26):
Me, then how do you How do you handle it?
Because I don't. I don't.
Speaker 8 (16:30):
I don't that. I don't accept that at all. Even
at the most prestigious get I won't take them. If
you don't want me, then don't book me.
Speaker 7 (16:40):
Always, your whole career.
Speaker 8 (16:41):
Always, if you don't want me, don't book me, man
I because you know, you know how this is Vegas.
Vegas got like that, you know, Vegas got to the
point that it was kind of like where we kind
of want this, Like I remember, do you Vegas?
Speaker 1 (16:56):
Listen?
Speaker 8 (16:56):
I don't do Vegas anymore?
Speaker 1 (16:58):
They listen.
Speaker 8 (16:58):
I get a million offers to do Vegas and I
turn them down. But you remember, like we we you know, questioning.
I had a resident residency at the same spot and
I never forget the first time that I did it.
When I was done, they came down or someone said, well,
we'll have a report for you, and I was like
a report I ain't never had a report. What's the report, Like,
(17:22):
we're gonna give you a report, you know, And it
got to a point that you know, oh yeah, you
were great and this was cool, but it was kind
of like, so you got people down here like checking
on me, like I've been DJing in Vegas before. Everybody
who works here, yeah, you know, but it's you know,
I might at the end of the day, if everybody's
having a good time and they buying drinks and everybody's cool,
leave me alone.
Speaker 2 (17:44):
This is weird now because it's like the variety that
you have that allows you to DJ in spaces that
your average your your your your average guy. Okay, well
I'll be honest, because I mean it's the white elephant
in the room. Obviously, you and Cash are Philadelphia gods.
Speaker 5 (18:08):
And.
Speaker 2 (18:10):
Your level of celebrity has allowed you more oxygen and
more leverage and where you are now. And it's also
on how you you freak it and how you handle
your business that part, you know, so I can't ignore that,
but it's like, are you I'm the type of person
(18:31):
that dreads when November comes around because in my head.
Speaker 1 (18:36):
Usually when December.
Speaker 2 (18:37):
Gigs come, I'm always like damn, January is coming, and
it's going to be another year where someone born in
two thousand and two or you know, someone born in
nineteen ninety nine who will be twenty one or whatever,
(18:59):
you know, won't know what don't stop till you get
enough is more.
Speaker 1 (19:04):
It's like those records that used to be instant, they changed,
like you you remember how like you would play the.
Speaker 2 (19:13):
Opening horn riff of like Troy Yep and it was
like chaos, and then the moment you mean when it stopped.
Speaker 8 (19:22):
You mean when that stopped, yo, when I had one
of the worst incidents, well my first incident of that,
I did it Howard's Homecoming. Oh no, And I remember
when you do the whole you know, I remember when
you would play all of the current stuff and then
you would kind of into your ERICB for President and
everybody would lose their mind. And I dropped Eric B
(19:42):
for President and everybody just stood there and I was like, wow,
like because now Eric B for President is the entrance
to where I'm going. So I'm like, oh shit, you
don't know the door that I just opened up. I
don't know if I can go in the house now.
So I was kind of you know, and I remember that,
but that was the first time that I learned the
(20:03):
lesson that you have to pay attention because every few
years the timeline slides, you know what I mean. Like
it was I remember, you know, a couple of years
ago going overseas playing and somebody dropped Eve who's that girl?
And the club went crazy and I was like, oh shit,
this is their classic? Now that was So you just
(20:24):
have to keep you just have to keep your music
set up in a way that you just have to
slide it, slide it like you got to pay attention
to who's out there?
Speaker 2 (20:32):
But are you ready to mint that front and by Pharrell?
Is now the new message? By Graham Asters?
Speaker 8 (20:42):
Yeah, like that's old school now, well you know what
it is. This also comes down to who are you
playing for? You know what I mean?
Speaker 1 (20:50):
And so are you playing for yourself? Are you playing?
Speaker 8 (20:52):
Oh no, no, no, no, no listen. I do a
very very good mixture of playing. I take enough met
gigs to make to make me happy. But my job
is to play for the people.
Speaker 7 (21:07):
So wait when you went to Kenya, because we started
with Kenya, So now I want to know and reference
to Kenya, like what made the what made the crowd
go crazy?
Speaker 1 (21:14):
And what was there?
Speaker 7 (21:15):
Like they throw back down?
Speaker 8 (21:16):
So we where we played it was a restaurant, so
we went and ate. Like when the club opened up.
When I was telling you, they was playing Mary J.
Blige album cuts like it was one hundred percent pure
black music and deep black music. They appreciate it to
the point that I was kind of like, oh, if
(21:37):
that's where y'all go, oh, I'm good, I'm good.
Speaker 10 (21:40):
So you know it was.
Speaker 1 (21:41):
It was everything from.
Speaker 8 (21:44):
Some classic house stuff to mob deep to like they
they I couldn't stump them.
Speaker 1 (21:53):
What were you saying about it?
Speaker 6 (21:55):
Like, you know, like so I danced a little bit,
you know what I'm saying, But when you go to Africa,
like you're just insecure, you know what I'm saying, Like,
you're like, man, it ain't no dance that I can
do that's gonna impress nobody out here. And yeah, but
when Jeff played that music, they're all it's like you're
at You're in the home of where rhythm started. You're
in the home like when you when you get I
(22:17):
heard the black people in America was from West Africa,
But when you go to Kenya, they'd be like welcome home,
and you look around like really like you know, like
this is amine too like and and you know, just
the welcoming atmosphere. But you know they got like bodily
and musical superpowers if they want, because that's where it starts.
Speaker 1 (22:35):
How many how many days or weeks were you guys there?
Speaker 8 (22:38):
We were there for three days? Really three days. We
we played like the first day we got.
Speaker 2 (22:44):
There coming straight from America or no, no, no, no.
We were for a mom Okay, I was about to say,
like for three days.
Speaker 1 (22:51):
It's like that lag do the gig.
Speaker 8 (22:53):
Have some food and well listen that. Yeah, it gets
like that. We were in Dubai and we flew from
Dubai to Kenya. Food was amazing, the seasoning to see. Yeah,
you know, because everybody has this whole thing of when
I'm going to Africa, I'm going to eat necessarily African food,
(23:15):
like they have their food and then they have food
that everybody eats.
Speaker 1 (23:20):
You know, it's weird.
Speaker 2 (23:22):
When I went to South Africa, there was a place
that it's almost like they know what foreigners are looking.
Speaker 1 (23:33):
For, like that Africa.
Speaker 2 (23:37):
Africa, you know, like they're looking for that, and they
actually made they have a restaurant that plays up to
that whole thing.
Speaker 1 (23:46):
But I could tell it's just like for tourists.
Speaker 2 (23:48):
Like I asked the guy, I'm like, Africans wouldn't eat
the spot, right, And he laughed like, no, this is
just for tourists.
Speaker 1 (23:54):
Like they went. How they took They took us to
the real deal.
Speaker 8 (23:58):
We ate at a restaurant that was overlooking an African
preserve that if you sat at your table and squint
it you could see a giraffe.
Speaker 1 (24:08):
What it was deep? It was deep, Like I asked.
Speaker 8 (24:10):
There was a big security guard that was with us,
and I was like, let me ask you a question,
like how close are we to the lions? Like and
he was like not so far, Like he said yeah, yeah,
like they they'll come in the hood.
Speaker 10 (24:29):
Yeah.
Speaker 6 (24:30):
They told stories about gorillas that crossed the road and
if one of them get hurt, the cars got to stop.
And if you try to ride past the gorillas to
jump on the car bang your window that you have to.
Speaker 8 (24:45):
Yeah, you gotta stop and let them. It was, oh, listen,
we went to a we went to an African animal. Yeah,
that was first of all. Let me explain it, Michael Jack.
He The guy was telling us that when a lion
(25:05):
roars in full voice, you can hear him ten miles away.
Said the lion will roar into the ground and vibrate
the gout. That's how he lets everybody know. Get out
my way. But that's a dear Listen, they were feeding
the lion, and the female lion came over to try
to grab a piece of meat from the male lion,
and the roar.
Speaker 1 (25:25):
That he let out.
Speaker 8 (25:28):
I let a little bit go, That's all I'm gonna say. Like,
I ain't never heard no ship like that piece of chicken.
Listen like that roar. I was kind of like, I'm cool,
I'll take my lions in the zoo.
Speaker 1 (25:40):
That was a little deep.
Speaker 10 (25:42):
I gotta I gotta got experience.
Speaker 1 (25:44):
I gotta figure out way to get over that.
Speaker 8 (25:46):
Anyway, I'm glad that I'm here because they are greatly
wanting you to come down. I greatly want you to
come down and play.
Speaker 2 (25:54):
I'm saying that no one has ever carried on a
string teased me more than the entire continent of Africa.
Speaker 7 (26:06):
But you've been a couple of places in the South.
Speaker 1 (26:08):
I've been to South South. It's different.
Speaker 8 (26:10):
I've been to South South. He's in South Africa. You
almost don't get cool points from going.
Speaker 1 (26:15):
To South Africa, North America.
Speaker 8 (26:17):
Where you're going, I'm going to South Africa. Yeah, okay whatever,
Like I got props when it was like I'm going
to Kenya right over they just called really called, was
like listen, and it was crazy because once I accepted Kenya,
then Tanzania, card and all these other people, and it was.
Speaker 1 (26:34):
Just like it was it was a little too late
for that.
Speaker 2 (26:36):
Now that I know what I know, I gotta you know,
you need to go like going to beIN or my
what Nigeria?
Speaker 7 (26:43):
What?
Speaker 8 (26:43):
I will tell you you will absolutely body that. Like
they asked, They were like who who who?
Speaker 10 (26:50):
Who?
Speaker 8 (26:50):
Do you want to come down and play we Love Premiere.
It was like we would love quest Love. We don't
know if we can get him. I was like, I'll
talk to him because I'm like, oh, he's.
Speaker 1 (26:58):
Not that I don't want to go. You will matter
that time.
Speaker 2 (27:02):
Well, wait a minute, I know you're meticulous about your
back line, So do you just take do you now
just travel with all of your equipment?
Speaker 7 (27:11):
No?
Speaker 1 (27:11):
I just so they have Pioneer turntables there or Pioneer
just ships them.
Speaker 8 (27:15):
Yeah, they have Pioneer turntables, had an s no mixer
what yeah that.
Speaker 7 (27:21):
Man? Okay, well yeah listen hown I.
Speaker 1 (27:25):
Said when I was there, they had the Flintstone Bird.
Speaker 2 (27:35):
I'm just saying, back in two thousand a date, you know,
if I had just send a carrier pits and send
a few break beats over to me, Yeah, now they
were they were okay, they were cool.
Speaker 8 (27:46):
They gave me a bunch of music too, Okay, So
you know, I go down there, I was.
Speaker 2 (27:50):
Getting tired of people giving you, like all their twelve
inches and the forty five's and everything.
Speaker 8 (27:56):
You can't say that outright because you know, just you
almost need to carry a bag for the stuff that
people give you on a tour exactly because you just
kind of come home and it's kind of like, you know,
and I will really really appreciate this T shirt, just
like I appreciate the twenty two thousand T shirts. I
get that you want me to take the T shirt
(28:18):
with your album cover artwork home.
Speaker 2 (28:21):
What It's almost like you can travel like a Navy
seal now like you probably could just you know, live
off the swag.
Speaker 1 (28:27):
That's given to you on the road.
Speaker 8 (28:29):
Pretty much and pretty much.
Speaker 10 (28:30):
That's that.
Speaker 1 (28:35):
I will kill myself.
Speaker 2 (28:36):
But I don't start the way I always out like, yeah,
we always started the beginning. But it's also been a
long time since we had an episode of.
Speaker 1 (28:49):
So Jeff. As as as as the.
Speaker 2 (28:57):
Music extraordinary that you are and being one of the
many one of one of the first pioneers to actually
introduce jazz samples to hip hop. Uh. We do a
game called but You Guessed It, in which I will
play a quarter of a second of a particular song
(29:17):
and you have to even guess.
Speaker 1 (29:18):
The artist or the song he said.
Speaker 7 (29:20):
A quarter of a second, yes, quarter of a.
Speaker 1 (29:21):
Second, quarter of a second, yes, some are easy, some
or not. There is no you. This is this is
I'm just saying this. This is round one of Okay,
can you name this break.
Speaker 8 (29:39):
Bracket in the pocket?
Speaker 1 (29:40):
You are correct?
Speaker 10 (29:42):
This, I know it.
Speaker 8 (29:47):
That's the who who makes it. It's the original. I
don't want to be a player.
Speaker 1 (29:55):
Thank you.
Speaker 7 (29:55):
The first Monday.
Speaker 8 (29:56):
I might need help because I may not know the names,
but you don't know that I know what I'm talking about,
all right?
Speaker 1 (30:01):
Number three?
Speaker 8 (30:03):
Yeah, brand new or a bouncy lady.
Speaker 1 (30:06):
Yes, I love how you just that pleasure break.
Speaker 6 (30:14):
Mm hmm.
Speaker 8 (30:16):
Do that one more time?
Speaker 10 (30:18):
Mm hmm.
Speaker 8 (30:21):
Yeah that's do do.
Speaker 1 (30:24):
Together? Do the message by yes, me and the beers.
You ready? Number five? Yeah?
Speaker 8 (30:35):
Oh one more time? Yeah, you might stamp me with
that one. Wait a minute, one more time?
Speaker 1 (30:47):
No, one last time?
Speaker 8 (30:50):
Yeah, nope, mhm.
Speaker 1 (31:05):
Uh that was Ohio players singing in the morning.
Speaker 8 (31:09):
See yeah, yeah, he got biggies.
Speaker 1 (31:13):
Uh ready to up? All right, you're allowed to strike?
Number six?
Speaker 9 (31:22):
Mm hmm.
Speaker 1 (31:25):
Is that Parlem with Funkadelic, Yes, the number seven? Oh,
that is it.
Speaker 8 (31:33):
The bird is playing Johnny Guitar.
Speaker 1 (31:34):
Watson Superman Lover. Yes, number eight.
Speaker 7 (31:40):
Mm hm.
Speaker 8 (31:40):
That is the original be a Father to your child
EDLG and the Bulldogs.
Speaker 1 (31:47):
You're close wrong single? Yeah? Yeah, not be a father
to your child? Yeah, you know what I'm saying.
Speaker 8 (31:53):
I gotta have it.
Speaker 1 (31:54):
Yeah bo Hannon burn that song singing.
Speaker 7 (31:56):
A song from my mother being five to your child?
Speaker 9 (31:59):
Was that ship?
Speaker 7 (32:00):
All right?
Speaker 1 (32:00):
Two more left? Two more left? Last one? All right?
Second and last one.
Speaker 8 (32:09):
The original dre ship? Yeah, chick moaning I want to
do something freak.
Speaker 1 (32:18):
Uh. Side note, I actually thought that was my mom.
Speaker 2 (32:21):
Oh no, only because Dre uses my parents sample and
that ship too, So I thought that you.
Speaker 7 (32:31):
Knew your mama were weird.
Speaker 1 (32:33):
I'm sorry, mom, the like, sorry, my mom has a
similar s side.
Speaker 2 (32:44):
I'm not that oxygen oxygen technique tale on her record, Yeah,
excel on her record. So yeah, I was very relieved
to find out that, no, that wasn't my mom, but yeah,
she does something something anyway.
Speaker 11 (33:03):
Your last song all right, this this is the comic
kaze one more Time, M one more Time.
Speaker 1 (33:21):
That's not h one two, three, four, five, six, seven,
eleven twelve.
Speaker 2 (33:31):
Only did that because of your connection with Jill Scott
and getting in the way and her dropping.
Speaker 1 (33:37):
That anyway, Uh, even though I know it.
Speaker 2 (33:41):
Uh, Sir Jeff Towns, could you please tell our audience,
almost three hours into the show, where you were born
in what city?
Speaker 8 (33:49):
Osborn in West Philadelphia?
Speaker 2 (33:52):
We're in West Philadelphia, Like, are you allowed to talk
about your old neighborhood.
Speaker 1 (33:55):
Now that you don't live there?
Speaker 8 (33:56):
I am. I'm from fifty seventh and Rodman, which which
is right next to fifty seventh and Cedar, which is
between Baltimore Avenue and Market Street. Which is funny because
you know the north side is basically the north side
of Market Street south side is south of Market Street,
but before Baltimore Avenue, so not southwest past Baltimore Avenue southwest.
Speaker 1 (34:20):
So in eighty five, how close were you to that
move fire? Oh man, behind those sage.
Speaker 8 (34:28):
Yeah, it was. I was about five blocks away, like
literally heard the gunshots. Like the night before. You know,
everybody in the neighborhood was just like, yo, something's going
on because you knew move were there, you know, just
going on a block. I went there, be outside with
the ballhome.
Speaker 1 (34:42):
Jack Junes was like yeah, crawling on the floor and it.
Speaker 8 (34:46):
Was crazy because that night they were like, Yo, something
is gonna happen. And we went up to Kyles Creek
Parkway and it was I've never seen as many cops.
I've never seen a swat team, you know, in real life,
and they all were out there the big flood lights,
and you know, we stayed up there for about two hours.
I mean you couldn't get but three blocks close to it.
(35:09):
And then we went home and I never forget it
had to be about five o'clock in the morning. I
have never in my life heard twenty minutes of sub
automatic weapons being fired in your neighborhood. Like it was
nine stop and you you know, you didn't know, like
(35:30):
you're hearing this through your window, not knowing what's going on,
and you turn on the news and you know, so.
Speaker 2 (35:36):
You had no clue that in twenty four hours entire
blocks will be burnt.
Speaker 1 (35:41):
No exact.
Speaker 8 (35:43):
Like we saw the helicopter fly over, and we saw
when it dropped it, and we didn't know what it was.
We saw when it dropped it and you heard this
incredibly loud boom that shook everything in the neighborhood and
we were just kind of like, what was that? And
they were just like they must have dropped some kind
of explosive and then fire started, and like to realize
this might have been three o'clock in the afternoon, and
(36:07):
no one came, like, there wasn't a fire truck around
for a good five to six hours. So to watch
it burn a complete blockdown, and you know how the
blocks are that they're connected, So it burned a blockdown,
it went through the alley to another block and burned
one side of another blockdown.
Speaker 7 (36:25):
As a whole cider. I'm still surprised how y'all let
this go down, But I'm just gonna say that I
don't understand Philly, y'all you are a Philadelphia I am,
but I was in DC at the time, and I
just know I felt like if it would have happened
in DC, a bunch of black people would have took hands,
went grew and got around the neighborhood and been like,
I'll be damned if you go out to bomb these
black people and these babies.
Speaker 1 (36:42):
No, you didn't know.
Speaker 8 (36:43):
You didn't like understand this is all news media, and
this is after all of this gunfire, and what happened
was people didn't know, which I personally believe that I
don't think anybody from move shot. I think this was
the least shooting at each other because all it takes
is one shot, and and it was just gunfire that
(37:07):
no one was kind of like known to have shot
somebody you didn't know, So it was just kind of
like nobody moved. You didn't know what was going on.
Speaker 2 (37:16):
And to be honest with you, in nineteen eighty five,
black Christian Conservative outlook was was hot and black Christian Conservative.
I think it's almost a step ahead of racist, redneck
(37:37):
Southern Bible Christian Conservative. It's almost like, you know, I remember,
like practically everyone in the neighborhood saw the move people
as heathens. Yep, they eat raw meat, they homeschooled their kids.
Speaker 1 (37:56):
But I remember the move.
Speaker 8 (37:58):
My brother used to live on forty fourth from Paltain,
so I remember the first move with seventy seven Yeah naked,
so you you you know, you knew about the organization
and what it was, and they had a standoff there.
I was just a little bit too young to really
understand what it was. So when they kind of moved
up in the neighborhood, you kind of it was still
(38:18):
the same chatter, and you know, you're getting the information
off of television.
Speaker 2 (38:22):
So yeah, I was also that was I was heartbroken
that day. I just got dumped by like my first
high school girl.
Speaker 7 (38:33):
The only time a bomb been dropped in the country
you talk about.
Speaker 1 (38:35):
I'm just saying, man, none of that. She's like I
had a bomb dropped on my heart. Yeah, man, Like
I came home.
Speaker 2 (38:44):
Seriously, like the second they dropped that bomb in like
three thirty, I was right on my porch and I
was just.
Speaker 1 (38:53):
Like, yeah, let me go watch the last Cosby episode.
Speaker 5 (38:59):
For those of us who weren't there, can somebody just
give us a brief about move not only about move,
but about this bomb that was dropped.
Speaker 10 (39:08):
I've never heard.
Speaker 1 (39:08):
Loost Bill will be played by Steve Mandel. All Right,
so basically move, I wouldn't know how to how to
exactly I kind of get to move.
Speaker 7 (39:20):
Or he's asking about the correlation between the bomb.
Speaker 1 (39:22):
And the bomb there. Okay, so according.
Speaker 7 (39:29):
How Philadelphia people really explain this, this is not a mirror.
Speaker 1 (39:31):
He's don't I don't want I don't want to leave that.
I don't want to be the all sides guy.
Speaker 2 (39:36):
But so basically, I guess there was tension between the
neighbors of the fifty eight one hundred block of Osage
Avenue and the Africa family, which all their last names
were Africa, similar to like having an X. They all
took the last name of the Africa and it was
(39:59):
like fifteen people in the house. Everyone had a similar
look dreadlocks. They were more like a primitive I mean,
the thing is that it would be totally normal now
in the times that we live in, but back then
you saw someone dreadlocks, you were just like snakes in
your head and you must move drugs like Bob Marley
and you know. And they didn't believe in They just
didn't really believe in the westernized colonization of where America
(40:25):
was their education system and all, so they want to
homeschool their kids.
Speaker 7 (40:29):
They armed themselves.
Speaker 1 (40:30):
Well right, yeah, they armed themselves. So it was like
part part uh uh, part black.
Speaker 2 (40:35):
Panther ideology, educate your kids live like vegetarians. It's I
think the complaint was mainly a noise complaint. And then
they would they would they were us on the roof
with a bullhorn and just preached their message.
Speaker 1 (40:55):
And they occupied homes. They didn't boy the home.
Speaker 8 (40:57):
Oh yeah, like and see, I think one of the
things that was different was this was in a residential
neighborhood like so they were in the middle of the
block like this. It wasn't like they were in the
suburbs or had a farm. They were your next door neighbor.
Speaker 2 (41:14):
And not to mention, they were already targeted because in
nineteen seventy seven, our mayor Frank Rizzo, who was like,
I mean, if you think like Giuliani era New York
mixed with Donald Trump mixed with I mean, just think
of the.
Speaker 1 (41:35):
Worst racist police state mayor you could have.
Speaker 2 (41:41):
They had an incident on forty fourth and Palatain where
it was like because of a disturbance there, and then
there was a shootout and he made them all come outside.
I just remember the picture of them all naked, like
twenty of them, hands in their naked and.
Speaker 1 (42:01):
Some of them died.
Speaker 2 (42:02):
And so there was already tension between the Philadelphia police
and the Africa family. So once once complaints and protest
uh were happening with the residents, the cops were sort
of like, you know, and get out the house and
they're like, no, this is our property, YadA YadA, yadda,
And there was a standoff. It was like a four
(42:23):
or five days standoff where they just seal off the
block and you saw news cameras and news people like
bending on their knees like you know this Jack Jones live.
Oh no, k y w N Now we're outside of
the Africa home. And and then on May thirteenth, man, Yeah,
the commissioner decided to just fly in helicopter right over
(42:45):
their rooftop. I'm trying to figure out, like what was
so distinctive about their rooftop.
Speaker 7 (42:49):
They had something on top, they had a bunker.
Speaker 2 (42:51):
Yeah, but you've realized how precise your aim has to
be to drop like, so they basically I don't know
if it's a grenade or whatever, but they dropped some
sort of device that just they dropped a bomb. It
was a it was a legit bomb.
Speaker 7 (43:07):
First and last time ever on the United States story.
Speaker 8 (43:09):
So they dropped a bomb.
Speaker 2 (43:11):
And you see how like row homes are in Philadelphia,
so it's not like there's a separation.
Speaker 1 (43:17):
And so they let this house. They tried. They were like,
we're going to burn you out the house. So they
burned them.
Speaker 2 (43:23):
Well, they literally killed them all but two, but then
the fire spread and then the next two houses, and
then two hours later the entire block was dummies. But
then five hours later that one big ass block hit
the next block, and then that entire block hit the
block across the street, and then that spread. So at
(43:46):
some point around nine o'clock we gotta knock saying there
was like the block. Captain was sort of like, okay,
just be prepared to I lived on the fifty second
block and this is the eight hundred blocks. So around
like nine pm, even though we thought they would contain
the fire, there was like concern that the ship just
(44:08):
might spread and spread and spread.
Speaker 1 (44:12):
Yeah, it was just it was.
Speaker 8 (44:17):
It's crazy that I'm asked that anywhere I go in
the world, because everybody's kind of like, yo, didn't weren't
you guys that the people that dropped the bomb on
a residential area. Yeah, it ain't like some ship you
want to be known for.
Speaker 1 (44:32):
Yeah. So records, yeah, yeah, no, So how did you
how did you.
Speaker 2 (44:42):
How did you start your your I guess that even
before DJ you have to love records. So what was
the first record you ever purchased? Or were you like
the youngest I was?
Speaker 8 (44:54):
Yeah, you know, well, you know what it is, like
my brother played bass for the Intruders, So they would
actually rehearse in our basement, which was a little deep
because you know, you're so young that you're not allowed
in the basement. That I would sit on the top
step and they would rehearse, and then I would slide
down to the next step and slide down to the
(45:15):
next step till they finally see me and let's say
get back up, you know, get back upstairs. But then
my dad was an MC for count Basie, So yeah,
like my dad, like I grew up with seventy eights
in the house, West Montgomery. Jimmy Smith and Arthur Price sock,
so you had those. So it was almost like being
(45:35):
the youngest, I had the best of everything. I had
the seventy eights. You know, my brothers were you know,
my brother was the weather report, Maha Vish New orchestra person,
and then of course your sisters how many years older.
I'm oh man, I was the mistake, okay, Like I
was the one that was a little bit of farther
(45:58):
gap that it was kind of like, yeah, this was
a hot and every night with my mont and dad,
because everybody was like, you know, one person was this
you know, you know, forty nine and fifty one, fifty three,
and you know, it got to the point that it
was kind of like, yo, there was like an eight
year gap with me, Like I wasn't supposed to be
his right, right, but you know, but I was. I
(46:20):
was the sponge, so you know, and and what I
give more credit to was my you know, at about
seven years old, my brother showed me how to take
records in and out of the sleeve. Don't put your
hands on the records. You hold your thumb at the end,
you put your finger in the middle, bring it out,
don't don't touch touch the vinyl like that, and he
(46:41):
had you know, he had a set, he had a
receiver records now now like we've used I think I
think that ship out the window.
Speaker 7 (46:50):
My parents were like that.
Speaker 8 (46:52):
But he, you know, he was kind of like, listen,
if if you, if you take care of it, I
will let you use my stere system when he was
at work, what like seven years old. But what I'm
gonna tell you was crazy. I'm seven years old and
I'm making chick corea tapes cassettes, like he gave me
a blank cassette and I'm listening to music, not really
(47:14):
understanding what is attracting me to this music. But I'm like,
oh my god, I want this chick career song and
oh look, you know, return it forever and I want that.
And because the his music was my music, and I
would make these, make these tapes, and I got sucked in,
like I didn't understand it was the chorus structure. I
didn't understand what it was. It was just the it
(47:36):
was a pure attraction of music. And then the Stevie
Wondering and Marvin Gay.
Speaker 2 (47:40):
So that's what makes you different. You didn't have the
don't touch my stereo. Oh no, I had the exact opposite.
I had the exact opposite.
Speaker 1 (47:51):
See, I had.
Speaker 2 (47:52):
Don't touch my stereo. But I also lived in the
house with three collectors that hove the stereo. So I
was forced by will too, you know, by force. I
had to listen to their music and don't touch my
stereo on the car and none of that stuff. So
(48:13):
I was that music was forced upon me. And then
I guess Stockholm syndrome.
Speaker 8 (48:17):
I just like I used to do this weird thing
that this is probably the first time that I'm ever
admitting admitting this. But I would have a radio and
I would go and take a bath, and I would
take the radio in the bathroom and I plug it
up and I would sit the radio on top of
the toilet and I would grab the plunger because you
got to understand a plunger microphone, it's a microphone, it's
(48:40):
a horn, it's a bass, it's a guitar. Oh, I
would mimic every but you know what I did. It
made me memorize every guitar solo, lick for lick, every horn.
So listen, I was switched. I would have that ship
out playing.
Speaker 1 (49:00):
Look the whole entire room just turned against.
Speaker 7 (49:06):
The first thing. He says, I use a plunger for
a mic, like but no, no, no, listen, what was that?
Speaker 2 (49:12):
Literally everything everyone in this room, the people across the street,
that froker.
Speaker 8 (49:20):
Listen, man, you know your imagination and music is basically
while I'm sitting here, because you.
Speaker 1 (49:27):
Look ill meant the same thing.
Speaker 2 (49:29):
When James Brown was on Dinah Shore doing body Heat
and that's the first time I saw him do the
microphone tricks.
Speaker 1 (49:35):
I got the toilet punch and start doing the microphone tricks.
And then my mom was like, so.
Speaker 8 (49:41):
See I didn't do it in front of my mouth.
I had a lock on the door.
Speaker 1 (49:45):
Oh you knew better? Oh yeah, yeah.
Speaker 7 (49:48):
Yeah.
Speaker 8 (49:49):
And I didn't put the plunger near my mouth.
Speaker 7 (49:52):
You know you plunge, slash, you know what I'm saying.
Speaker 8 (49:55):
You listen, But but the top like, I wasn't doing
it the rubber part, which was the horn, and you know,
you would grab a roll of toilet paper and that
would be your muzzle on your on your trumpet. So listen,
I went to what was Steve was just like, wow.
Speaker 1 (50:13):
Where were you busy in the bathroom? When were you
allowed to curate.
Speaker 2 (50:22):
The first backyard barbecue or like what you consider your
first DJ gig.
Speaker 8 (50:28):
I started making mixtapes for all of the dancers, not
necessarily mixtapes. If you had a cassette that had a
spring loaded pause button that it did it instantly. You
could like you know how sometimes you would have the
pause buttons that you would hit it and then it
would engage. If you had a spring loaded pause button,
it would stop automatic. So I would just make the
(50:51):
love the Life you Live break that all of the
dancers would dance off of. I was the one that
had it that went for ten minutes. Yeah, so I
would go to the end, and you got known for that.
And then it just turned into you know what, I'm
gonna steal some of my brother's records and not eat
lunch the whole time. I'm in school and I'm going
(51:11):
downtown because you remember funkal Mart had three five for
you know, two dollars, and I would just I started
a record collection like that's I realized that the record
collection is the most important thing as a DJ.
Speaker 2 (51:24):
What was the first because I did when Rappers a
Light came out, I begged I think twenty people for
a dime mm because there's like seventeen.
Speaker 8 (51:35):
So yeah, listen, I had, like, what was the first
record that you like, bar Kay's Holy Ghosts Moving by
Brass Construction because I was a little pre hip hop.
So that's what they play at the block parties. I
just want to make your dream come try by mass production,
and you know, it was it was all of that.
It was the funk and soul bands.
Speaker 1 (51:57):
When did you play your first block party?
Speaker 8 (52:01):
Probably about eighty seventy nine eighty. I know, I was
still in school.
Speaker 2 (52:10):
Too, so I know Philly is known for these DJ
crews like astrou Oh yeah, this was this was way
before that.
Speaker 8 (52:17):
This was super before that, like enough to go off
the block, so let alone have a crew. But it
was it was older DJ's on the block, and you know,
and that's the first time that you got in front
of two turntables and a mixer with headphones mix.
Speaker 1 (52:36):
Oh yes, I had nothing, and they trusted you. Yeah.
Speaker 8 (52:39):
I mean, listen, I was the guy that when they
had to go pee, I played.
Speaker 1 (52:45):
Yeah, you were like, I was gonna say, have you
ever been someone's record? Dude?
Speaker 8 (52:48):
Always? That's all I was to all of the older guys,
and it was just you know, I don't remember what happened,
but I gotten to a point that I would do
stuff by myself. And you I know from growing up
in West Philly that we have an iconic public enemy
type flavor flave figure named Crazy D that if Crazy
(53:10):
D was at your block party, your block party was
guaranteed to be a success. So people would go and
recruit him. And they had a block party on fifty
seven Cedar, which is a big block to two Way Street.
And I remember looking at all of the DJs in
the neighborhood. You had Disco Doc, you had Disco Rat,
you had Email Disco, and all of them had no
(53:30):
block parties. They were all there. So it was kind
of like when you don't have any other competition and
they're all they're watching you and you're fourteen fifteen years
old in the street with four or five hundred people
and you're controlling them. That was the That was the signal.
That was the signal in the neighborhood that that he
got it.
Speaker 9 (53:51):
Like that was it.
Speaker 8 (53:52):
It was that one block party.
Speaker 1 (53:54):
So how long was it before you were able to.
Speaker 2 (53:58):
Because I know turned, I mean I had to get
a record budget to buy my turntables and my mixer
and that sort of thing.
Speaker 8 (54:05):
So like I was in a lot of crews that
had equipment, so one guy, you know, it was kind
of like you practice, though I would mentally practice, no, Jeff, listen,
I'm I'm dead that serious. I would practice in my head.
That was the only way that I can get ten
spent in my head project. Well that was before that.
(54:29):
That was before that, but you know what it was.
What helped was if you cut Grand Master Flash super
Wrapping at a party and you killed it. The next week,
the DJ in your crew is going to cut that record.
He's not gonna leave it for you. There wasn't there
wasn't favoritism or any of that. So what happened then
(54:49):
you learned how to cut at the party by Treacher's Three,
and then the next week he would cut Grand Master
Flash and the Treacher's Three. So you systematically kept going
through records finding root teens to do off of these
records because it was it was that competitive, you know,
you you know the back in the day parties, you know,
Grand Master Flash super Wrapping was paid twenty times because
(55:11):
everybody had a routine off.
Speaker 1 (55:12):
Of it, right, who who was the first? Like did
you pioneer the whole let's dance of the drummers beat?
Speaker 9 (55:21):
Like what that was?
Speaker 1 (55:23):
That was a classic?
Speaker 8 (55:24):
Like I don't think anybody necessary like that's what was
the record that the drummers beat?
Speaker 1 (55:30):
Like that to me is is that's Philly?
Speaker 8 (55:33):
Like that was one of the things that I would say,
like that didn't belong to any DJ specifically, that was Philly.
That was DJ Spinbad, Lightning Rich, that was every DJ
and Philly cut pumped me Up, they cut dances, drummers beat,
they cut, it's time, they cut, you know, clear they
cut Like there was just a staple of Philly records
(55:54):
that all of the DJs cut.
Speaker 2 (55:56):
But I mean, who was the first cat that was
just like, yo, just pump me up normal, I'm gonna
bump the bump up, bump, bump me out like.
Speaker 8 (56:05):
Ways to every You know what was funny? I think
when I saved up enough money and got twelve hundred,
because I understand all of this early stuff was done
on belt drive turntables, which I think helped me a.
Speaker 1 (56:17):
Lot because the record goes fat okay, but you know
what it.
Speaker 8 (56:21):
Was, it helped your hands. You know that's my hands
got light because they had no choice but to be
like because I was on the wackiest equipment in the world.
Speaker 2 (56:30):
So so without butter rugs, how were you able to
wax records under wax paper?
Speaker 8 (56:35):
You would go in your moms and pull out some
wax paper, put a record down, you cut it out
and poked a hole in. You start scratching too much.
The wax paper would get too big and start sliding off,
and you gotta get some new wax paper. There wasn't
We didn't have any of those tools. We didn't have
butter rugs. Felt mattch You. You know, you bought a turntable,
you had the big rubber mat on it that you
just tossed away, and you know, forty five made the
(56:58):
record wobble, which you had to have really light hands because.
Speaker 1 (57:01):
You would cut forty five's too.
Speaker 8 (57:02):
Well, No, you would put a forty five underneath the twelve,
and oh but that didn't work. So the wax paper
was it. Or you would cut an album cover and
try to use that. You try to get a glossy
one because it was a lot more. He would spray
WD forty in your mixer, which I know Steve is
just like, oh, my god, you would spray it in
(57:24):
the mixure. You knew it was going to destroy your mixer,
but it would make your crossfader cool. So you know,
it was kind of like listen, I'm gonna I'm gonna
kill it for about three weeks and then the here
comes the static and it's time to retire, and you
would just sit it on the cell shelf and let
it dry out. By time to dry it out, you
could do it all over again.
Speaker 7 (57:42):
Can I ask you all a question, just in a
DJ culture question, like what is Philly DJ culture and
history mean to hip hop versus other cities? Well, of
course people would say New York, But what do y'all
think that it really means to the culture.
Speaker 2 (57:56):
Well that leads to my next question, because I think
that yes or no, did you invent the Transformer scratch?
Speaker 8 (58:06):
I don't. I don't give that. If I had to
give that credit to anybody, I would give that credit
to DJ Spinbad, the original spin Bad who used to
DJ Forbell.
Speaker 1 (58:16):
Yeah, he's from Philly, Yes he was.
Speaker 8 (58:18):
He was the first person to do something that sounded
like that. There was no name.
Speaker 1 (58:25):
He was doing it with the up and down. It
was no rhythm to it.
Speaker 8 (58:28):
But he was the first person that did it forward
and did it backwards and then basically.
Speaker 1 (58:33):
It did the light bulb go off in your headlight?
Speaker 8 (58:35):
Oh completely, But you know what it was when you
think about it, what Graham was the Theodore invented. You
took and you said, okay, Flash added some rhythm to it,
you know what I mean? Okay, who decided to use
the crossfrader and cut the scratch on and off? Like
it was all of these add ons that people did.
So when he did it, it was kind of like, Okay,
(58:57):
he did it.
Speaker 1 (58:58):
That was dope.
Speaker 8 (58:59):
But he didn't put any kind of rhythm to it
like everybody. You know, everybody's rhythm is syncopated. Nobody was
like everybody's that that.
Speaker 7 (59:12):
Okay, So see that right there. So if I was
to say what alt Philly DJ's hip hop would be,
what it would be something like that, Like it would.
Speaker 1 (59:19):
Be technique is something that Philly is definitely invented.
Speaker 2 (59:23):
Technique Like most people credit spendbad Uh you cash money?
Speaker 1 (59:29):
There's a fourth one. Uh, we don't play what is miss?
Speaker 2 (59:36):
I would say that, well, okay, I'll ask you who
without hurting people's feelings who's in your Mount Rushmore?
Speaker 1 (59:47):
Oh you're already there.
Speaker 8 (59:49):
Who Now is this Mount Rushmore in Philly or just
in general Philly?
Speaker 1 (59:55):
Cash?
Speaker 8 (59:55):
Absolutely crazy thing. It would be cash grand Master Neell
and Cosmic keV.
Speaker 7 (01:00:04):
Well, I knew you was gonna say keV, but I was,
that's wow, that's awesome.
Speaker 8 (01:00:07):
Like and it's ken my idol. Listen, keV keV.
Speaker 1 (01:00:13):
keV.
Speaker 8 (01:00:15):
keV was incredible. Cosmic keV is the fastest DJ ever
heard him? Like he was he was, he was incredible.
Like I like, we get mad at keV because keV
don't beat keV no more. And I'm like, come on, dude,
I know you got that ship that don't.
Speaker 10 (01:00:30):
Ever go nowhere.
Speaker 1 (01:00:31):
Wait he doesn't do it anymore.
Speaker 8 (01:00:32):
No, No, I ain't saying like that. I'm saying like, listen,
like I said, I get mad that this generation of
people who know Cosmic keV don't know the cosmic keV
that I know. Oh you know what I mean, Like
you know, keV grand Astonell, like everybody kind of had
something and it was you know, and it was really
dope because you know, when cash wasn't necessarily from Philly,
(01:00:53):
cash from Yaton and you know, we brought Cash into
Philly and introduced him to all of the promoters and
all the rest of that.
Speaker 1 (01:01:00):
Wait, you don't consider Yayden, Well, well I do, I do.
Speaker 8 (01:01:06):
I mean, you know, it's kind of like you you
kind of count Sharon Hill as Philly.
Speaker 1 (01:01:10):
Yeah, okay, back in the day, used to think that
was a suburb. Yeah, yeah, I get it. I get it.
Speaker 8 (01:01:14):
But you know, but you know, like you know, Nell
used to bring us to South Philly because you wouldn't
go to South Philly without knowing somebody. You wouldn't, damn it,
trying to go down there and DJ.
Speaker 10 (01:01:23):
So you.
Speaker 8 (01:01:26):
Listen, it wasn't like that, Like I listen, I remember
keV bringing me to Mount Airy to DJ at a
block party, and someone snatched this guy's glasses right next
to me. He had a pair of Neil Styles on
just like I did. And they snatched his glasses and
didn't snatch mine because I was up there with keV.
Speaker 1 (01:01:47):
I forgot you grew up in the era of snatching.
Speaker 8 (01:01:51):
Listen Gazelle's Space Invader hats I remember, Yeah, I forgot
about that era. It was rough, you know, and and
I understand I needed glasses. So my ship wasn't for show.
Speaker 7 (01:02:07):
You got transitions before we even had transitions.
Speaker 1 (01:02:09):
Listen.
Speaker 8 (01:02:10):
So somebody snatched my glasses. I don't know if I'm
a beer fire. I got robbed too, and somebody took
my gazelle. They took my glasses, took my sneaks.
Speaker 1 (01:02:18):
What at?
Speaker 6 (01:02:20):
Noah?
Speaker 8 (01:02:21):
Listen, I was coming home, coming home, and you saw it.
You saw the whole thing being set up. We were walking.
Funny is I was with a friend of mine and
we stopped and was talking to this girl and these
two guys walked past, and they walked back past. So
it's kind of like the second pass was kind of
(01:02:42):
like that's when you kind of cut your eye, and
the third past they came back and we kind of
looked at each other like okay, you know what this is.
So as they walked left, we walked right. And what
he did is he looped around and came through the
alley and jumped out the alley with a gun and
was just like give me your glasses. And I'll just
repeat did everything that he said because it was in
broad daylight. So he's like, give me your glasses. I
(01:03:04):
was like, glasses, Like give me a chain, give me
my chain because I'm like, I'm stalling because my man broke.
Speaker 10 (01:03:11):
He broke.
Speaker 8 (01:03:13):
I mean, listen, I wasn't mad shit he had a gun.
I would have broke too, damn it will I'm playing,
but he broke, and you know I was. I was
two seconds away from like, Okay, he doesn't look too
confident with his gun, so I'm about to suckle punch
the ship out of him and run. And what happened.
Then his man came up, So now it's two people.
So it was kind of like, okay, all right, let
me just give my glasses and give you my watch,
(01:03:35):
and and it got caught.
Speaker 1 (01:03:37):
Oh they did.
Speaker 8 (01:03:38):
Long story short. He came to court with my sneakers on.
You You remember how you used to lace the sneakers up,
that how all one side would be red and one
side would be blue.
Speaker 2 (01:03:50):
I knew how to lace my sneakers to New York
strings in the same suit.
Speaker 8 (01:03:54):
I knew how to lace my sneaks up, that this
whole side will be red, this whole side to be blue.
He came in to sneakkers that he wribbed me in.
I let the judge know. He said they were his sneakers.
I told him take the laces out and let him
lace them up, and.
Speaker 10 (01:04:08):
Did he do it?
Speaker 2 (01:04:09):
And he couldn't do it. Wait, the judge made the
judge made him do it. He couldn't do it, and
it gave me the sneakers back, and I took the
sneaks and throw.
Speaker 9 (01:04:16):
Him in the fass.
Speaker 8 (01:04:17):
It's just like, I just don't want you.
Speaker 10 (01:04:18):
To have Yeah, it'd be such a great episode.
Speaker 9 (01:04:22):
Of C S I or l A Law Like you're
so old, you said, l A.
Speaker 7 (01:04:40):
I love that.
Speaker 1 (01:04:41):
No, I get it.
Speaker 10 (01:04:42):
That is you should sell that episode.
Speaker 1 (01:04:51):
How did you first hear about the d mcs?
Speaker 8 (01:04:54):
Oh man?
Speaker 1 (01:04:56):
How many? How many belts? Is that a real thing?
Or just where is that? Folk Awards?
Speaker 8 (01:05:01):
It wasn't belt. I got a cup. I didn't get
a belt.
Speaker 1 (01:05:04):
Was it the very first one?
Speaker 8 (01:05:06):
No, it wasn't the first one, but I got I
got a cup.
Speaker 1 (01:05:11):
What year did you win yours?
Speaker 8 (01:05:13):
Eighty six?
Speaker 1 (01:05:15):
Okay? And how many years were they in existence?
Speaker 8 (01:05:17):
Oh man?
Speaker 10 (01:05:17):
It was?
Speaker 8 (01:05:18):
It was there for a couple of years before that.
But it was funny because when I got in, fifty
percent of the DJs were mixers. So they got really
really mad at me because I kind of changed the
whole landscape of the DMC. So before you can listen,
before listen, the dude was playing and he I need
Love and he's mixing the next record, and I came
(01:05:42):
in like no technique lass Lassan, and it was just like,
we can't keep up with that.
Speaker 10 (01:05:48):
What's the d MCS DIC mixed Club?
Speaker 1 (01:05:51):
Yeah, I never knew that's what.
Speaker 2 (01:05:52):
DMCs do think about it just mix, Yes, But so
you're saying that before you came in, Before you came in,
it was just about who had the hottest mix in
five minutes pretty much?
Speaker 1 (01:06:07):
Who were the previous winners before? I don't know, so
who was going up against you now?
Speaker 8 (01:06:15):
I want to say, well, because it was two it
was the New Music Seminar and it was the Disco
Mixed Club, Disco Mixed Club. I remember Van dy C
was in it, and it was a couple other dejits.
I think wiz Kid was in it. I don't know
the mixer. The mixer guys it was from Philly as well.
He's not from Philly, he's from Jersey.
Speaker 1 (01:06:35):
He was he was, he was.
Speaker 8 (01:06:36):
I was in the New Music Seminar with him. He
was the he was the d m C World champ
at the time, and.
Speaker 1 (01:06:46):
How did you defeat him?
Speaker 8 (01:06:50):
What do you mean how I was better?
Speaker 1 (01:06:53):
Okay, but you know what, like listen and and and
he's he's he's cool.
Speaker 10 (01:06:59):
You know.
Speaker 8 (01:06:59):
I love that brother. It was just funny at that
point in time. I was never really I never really
considered myself a competition guy like listen, I like, I
like to do it. I was just kind of like, damn,
I'm really mad that everybody's trying to put this person
up against you. It's just like I enjoyed doing this.
I ain't playing basketball to win the dunk contest. I
just like playing ball. But that was a way to
(01:07:20):
get your name out. So when I got into the
new music seminar, being from Philly, what did you cut with?
Speaker 1 (01:07:29):
I did?
Speaker 8 (01:07:29):
That was when I did the bought a mansion for
your mother thing and broke it down. But it was
kind of like he right before we went on, I
went to shake his hand and he didn't shake mine.
I was just like, hey, man, what's up. Good luck?
You know, because I was like, man, I like you
got the King cut record out, and he didn't. He
wouldn't shake my hand, you know. But it was just
(01:07:52):
it was literally one of those things that I'm kind
of like, listen, the equipment was messing up. I realized
that nobody was using their own needles. Nobody was using
I won that with technology because the equipment that everybody
was using, everybody lost on the side, like it was
two setups to set up on the left. Everybody lost
(01:08:14):
because it was jumping. And when he didn't shake my hand,
I deliberately walked to the left side. You know, I
was like, no, I'm going to show you that. I'm
going to show you completely. And I reached.
Speaker 1 (01:08:31):
I purposely took the bad side.
Speaker 8 (01:08:32):
Like Will was pissed off because everybody was like, when
you go out there, go to the right side.
Speaker 1 (01:08:37):
And I walked up and.
Speaker 8 (01:08:38):
Went to the left side, and I reached in my
bag and I put my own needles on. I had
some ADC needles with quarters on top. And I reached
and I put my wax paper on and I put
my record on. And the funny thing with Steve was
gonna kill me. I reached in my bag and while
everybody was looking, I took the long straw and said crossfader,
(01:09:00):
and as soon as it got loose, I went my
headphones and I tested the left turntable and I tested
the right one, and I looked out at the crowded
Will and I was like.
Speaker 10 (01:09:08):
Yeah, that's it.
Speaker 2 (01:09:11):
I was like, like, none of those DJs even thought
knew none to wait their ship, not or balance none.
Only you were doing that just me. And once I knew,
I was kind of like, I'm good.
Speaker 8 (01:09:25):
And I started breaking breaking stuff down, doing rhythm scratches
with job rhythm scratch and you know, just stuff that
people hadn't seen or heard before.
Speaker 1 (01:09:37):
And that's how you won. That was it? I see,
all right, Uh, I gotta get to your your production phase.
I know.
Speaker 5 (01:09:45):
Jeff was like, this is got We're gonna have to
have him back for an whole mon like production phase.
Speaker 7 (01:09:51):
I told you before he got here, I was like,
I don't know how we're gonna do this.
Speaker 5 (01:09:56):
This is a two parter that's waiting to happen. I'm
not stopping the story is no, I'm just I'm I'm
just saying.
Speaker 1 (01:10:05):
I see he's let's go.
Speaker 7 (01:10:06):
You know, we're gon we can get and then we're
gonna make him come back again.
Speaker 1 (01:10:10):
Yes, okay, So how did you partner with Will?
Speaker 8 (01:10:16):
You know every day everybody had a rap group, everybody
had an MC, everybody had a DJ.
Speaker 2 (01:10:21):
Wait before I asked that, how did I heard a
mixtape once of you battling Victor do play.
Speaker 9 (01:10:31):
Dick.
Speaker 1 (01:10:32):
It wasn't who put that mistake one.
Speaker 8 (01:10:35):
It wasn't a battle. It was people just recorded. But
it was kind of like people used to do calling
responses with records.
Speaker 1 (01:10:42):
But I thought he was your record dude.
Speaker 8 (01:10:44):
No, you know, Vic, Vic was the young guy that
used to come over the house and I would show
him stuff.
Speaker 1 (01:10:50):
Yeah, but then what happened with this thing like your
battle with Jeff and Vic.
Speaker 7 (01:10:54):
The dick.
Speaker 1 (01:10:57):
Telling that title.
Speaker 8 (01:10:58):
What happened was Vic when on at a Central High
party and as a joke, he took a he took
a jab at me with records because we're all cool, right,
he took a jab at me with records. So it
was kind of like, Okay, you're gonna take a jab
at me. You don't understand that I got this laundry
list of things that I can do to you. And
and Ice, my MC at the time was the one
(01:11:20):
that was like Victor Dick. So now to show you,
because it came out on a mix tape, you don't
get a chance to see what actually happened. You only
hear it, so everybody's like, oh my god, you killed
Vic and it was like it wasn't like that stage.
Speaker 1 (01:11:35):
Yeah.
Speaker 7 (01:11:35):
Can I give a millennial footnote real quick to all
the millennials Victor Dick aka Victor Cook aka Victor to
do play. You may know him from a party called
Kissing Grind.
Speaker 1 (01:11:42):
Yeah, there we go, the god Kissing Grind. Yes, that's
that's come up with the.
Speaker 7 (01:11:48):
Century and one of the producers, one of my favorite,
Eric Eric green Eyes. I always like to put that
in there.
Speaker 1 (01:11:54):
Victor Cook, Victor Victor, I'm a call him Cook. I'm
no he.
Speaker 2 (01:12:02):
Wait, Actually you mentioned something very crucial, uh for Philadelphia
hip hop heads. The the high school jams. How were
they booked? Because those were like on level of college jams.
Speaker 8 (01:12:16):
But you know what, all of the DJs were from
Central High Like Vic went to Central Where did you
go to high school? I was, but you know I was, yeah,
I was out of school by then. Oh, but it
was just kind of like I got booked because of
my affiliation with Vic and everybody else.
Speaker 1 (01:12:33):
So you was there an agent that just had y'all
going on to high school was an agent. An agent six,
I thought an agent was a guy that you know
did these things.
Speaker 8 (01:12:49):
Now you just you know, you knew that you knew
the guy who was throwing a party, and you wanted
to kind of be his favorite because he would, you know,
and then if he knew that people followed you, you
know they were they were booking.
Speaker 2 (01:13:00):
But you never desired to be on like Lady b
Street beat on Power ninety nine or like like what
was your goal?
Speaker 8 (01:13:05):
I got the radio one, you know what, I didn't know.
I didn't know, Like this was weird because this was
at a point in time when I'm out of school
and I don't tell anybody that I'm a DJ, Like
what kind of DJ?
Speaker 7 (01:13:17):
You know?
Speaker 9 (01:13:18):
You were?
Speaker 8 (01:13:18):
You were a radio DJ then, so you know, my
mom's friends come to.
Speaker 1 (01:13:22):
Oh, Jeff, you at of school.
Speaker 9 (01:13:23):
What are you doing now?
Speaker 1 (01:13:24):
You kind of like a college or you didn't okay, okay, it's.
Speaker 8 (01:13:28):
Kind of like what are you doing now? It's like
I'm a DJ and you don't tell somebody I do
block parties and you know, house parties that I'm setting
up on people's washing machines and all of that.
Speaker 2 (01:13:36):
Like that that wasn't a viable. So back then, if
I wanted to book Jazzy Jeff, Oh, listen, I had.
Speaker 1 (01:13:43):
My cool in eighty three or eighty.
Speaker 8 (01:13:46):
Listen, you find your man who worked at the printing store,
and you would get the car and then somebody would
design it and you would put your home number on it.
Speaker 1 (01:13:53):
So in eighty three, how much could I book you for?
Speaker 4 (01:13:57):
Oh?
Speaker 8 (01:13:58):
Man, I was a cool thirty five hours?
Speaker 1 (01:14:01):
Wait what come on?
Speaker 7 (01:14:02):
Man?
Speaker 1 (01:14:03):
We was just trying to five bucks.
Speaker 8 (01:14:04):
We was trying to get money to go to McDonald's
on Fortier Street.
Speaker 7 (01:14:07):
Like a COAE episode.
Speaker 2 (01:14:10):
University like you wasn't getting I got to pay you
two hundred and fifty bucks.
Speaker 8 (01:14:15):
Man, I wish somebody paid me two hundred fifty bucks.
Speaker 7 (01:14:17):
But you wear and your kicks was right.
Speaker 1 (01:14:20):
I mean listen, because I had a job. I worked
at Roy Rogers.
Speaker 7 (01:14:23):
Okay, there we go.
Speaker 1 (01:14:24):
You worked where? Which street?
Speaker 9 (01:14:26):
How do you think I know?
Speaker 1 (01:14:28):
I lived at Roy Rogers? Come on, I was, I was.
Speaker 8 (01:14:31):
I was the chicken cook. Makes a lot of sense, now,
don't it you?
Speaker 1 (01:14:34):
Yes, it totally there you goes, Oh my god, this.
Speaker 2 (01:14:38):
Totally makes sense. This absolutely makes sense. Now wait, you
worked at that that? Yes, dude, I guarantee you, I've sixty.
Speaker 1 (01:14:49):
Five percent of all my nutrition.
Speaker 9 (01:14:53):
Was a ship.
Speaker 8 (01:14:53):
I worked at the Roy Rogers, and then I moved
up the street and started working for Steve's ice Cream.
Speaker 1 (01:14:59):
Ice Cream. Yeah, with the mixed man.
Speaker 8 (01:15:02):
I was the king of the mixing.
Speaker 7 (01:15:03):
So y'all knew each other, but y'all don't know each
other obviously.
Speaker 1 (01:15:06):
I guarantee you.
Speaker 7 (01:15:06):
Ever asking for some free ice cream, He's like, no.
Speaker 2 (01:15:10):
You know you all right, wait, let me let me
bring the move down real quick. Uh side note Philadelphia tribute.
Speaker 1 (01:15:16):
Uh.
Speaker 2 (01:15:17):
Gary Heidnick used to oh damn you guys started frowning already.
Gary Heidnick uh would often lord his the women inside.
Speaker 1 (01:15:27):
Of that Roy Rogers on forties? Really to do?
Speaker 7 (01:15:30):
What? Who is he?
Speaker 9 (01:15:32):
What to do?
Speaker 1 (01:15:33):
Disorder? Are Who's Milwaukee? Yeah?
Speaker 10 (01:15:38):
I hate to do that.
Speaker 8 (01:15:39):
Noise, yeah, silence and lamb dude.
Speaker 1 (01:15:43):
Who's Milwaukee? Yeah? Yeah, I'm.
Speaker 4 (01:15:47):
Not.
Speaker 1 (01:15:47):
David Banner, David David.
Speaker 7 (01:15:51):
He got killed in jail. David the blonde everybody. Yeah,
he liked it. He liked it.
Speaker 1 (01:16:01):
Brown his name. We had a we had we had
a version of that in Philly. I didn't know he
lived at eighth and Butler at that and he in
the he used the bar to Jeff.
Speaker 2 (01:16:18):
So Gary was our Jeffrey Domer side note at his trial,
you know his key hip hop history, you know it
was a key witness at his trial.
Speaker 1 (01:16:28):
At Gary Hidnik's.
Speaker 8 (01:16:29):
Trial said G from Ultra Magnetic for.
Speaker 2 (01:16:33):
Some reird, weird reason either said, G used to talk
to this girl in Philly, but he lived.
Speaker 1 (01:16:42):
Crashed in North Philly.
Speaker 2 (01:16:44):
Uh eighty six eighty seven, like between his ultramatenetic gears
or whatever.
Speaker 1 (01:16:51):
But he had to for some reason. He was testifying
in the in that Gary hiding truck.
Speaker 10 (01:16:59):
Yeah, that's a little weird.
Speaker 1 (01:17:00):
Yeah, why I just bring the mood down.
Speaker 7 (01:17:03):
No, it's fine.
Speaker 8 (01:17:05):
Just completely destroyed my Rory Roger days. I gave oh man, Gary, Wow,
I'm fixing chicken.
Speaker 1 (01:17:17):
This is not funny. Just killing chicken.
Speaker 7 (01:17:21):
I heard you good?
Speaker 2 (01:17:23):
So uh yeah, from doing those those central This is
weird because this actually takes us back to the beginning
of this conversation with pleasing yourself musically and serving.
Speaker 1 (01:17:43):
The crowd musically. I noticed that, uh, there's there's sort
of a running theme with most of the.
Speaker 2 (01:17:53):
Guests that are on QLs in which high pressured dj
uh uh scenarios make better producers. Jimmy Jam would often
talk about having to DJ for two thousand kids in Minnesota,
but that made him more in tune to become Jimmy
(01:18:16):
Jam And of course Doctor Dre his story.
Speaker 1 (01:18:18):
Is that you know, if you played the wrong record,
you could get shot.
Speaker 8 (01:18:22):
Yeah, I know that part, So.
Speaker 1 (01:18:26):
I don't know.
Speaker 2 (01:18:26):
I feel like I'm in such a privileged era because like,
my celebrity allows me to do silly shit, like I
could play a Sesame Street record if I want to,
and it's like, oh, of course, loves you know, I'll
play the Curly Shuffle, three Stooges, shit whatever. But it's like,
how are you able to experiment or is it just
(01:18:47):
like yo, I got to play the hottest record right
now and that's it. You got, Like I assume these
gigs are like three to four hours, correct, No, you do.
Speaker 8 (01:18:55):
Three to four hours. I do two. I'll do you
can make a point in two hours, yes, Like I
can make a point however long. But it's one of
the most important things is for me to know how long,
because for me to tell the story, I have to end.
I get absolutely pissed off. I am not able to
end because everything, you know, it has a beginning of
(01:19:17):
middle and an end and you just you once I
know how long it is, I kind of know where
to go.
Speaker 1 (01:19:23):
But how can you tell that story in two hours?
Speaker 8 (01:19:25):
Though, because it's so it's possible to tell that story
in thirty minutes, like it all depends.
Speaker 9 (01:19:31):
You know, it might not like it.
Speaker 1 (01:19:35):
It's not easy.
Speaker 8 (01:19:36):
It's like it's actually harder to do it in a
shorter amount of time. Yes, it's hard to tell, you know,
because you you don't get a chance to build up,
you don't get a chance to kind of get into it.
Speaker 1 (01:19:47):
You only so when you do these gigs around the world,
it's only for two hours. Yep, got even three?
Speaker 8 (01:19:54):
Well, see, you know what it is. You got to
keep in mind. I play really really high impact. When
you play high impact, you can't high impact people for
over two hours. Like, there was so many lessons that
I've learned. I remember doing an MSU homecoming and it
was one of those things that I just was hitting
(01:20:15):
them and hitting them and hitting them, and I remember
paying attention to this guy. He was a little bit
heavy and he was dancing and it was almost like
you were trying to get off the floor and I
keep playing something that and when I tell you, he
was dripping and soaking wet. And it got to a
point that I was like, you're not enjoying yourself anymore,
(01:20:37):
Like you're at a fucking health reason, You're You're at
a point that you're not enjoying. And it was kind
of like, wow, Jeff, you know what you have to do.
You gotta take people on a roller coaster ride. You
got like it's cool to send people to the bar.
You know what I realized a long time, like I
didn't come up playing reggae because like, and I'm gonna
(01:20:58):
tell you why, there was so many me reggae records
you get. You know, I'm coming from funk, soul rock,
all the rest of this. I couldn't add reggae into
my set because it was way too much and it
was so many rhythms that changed that it was just
kind of like, you know what, I'm gonna leave that
to someone else. But what I realized is if I
(01:21:20):
didn't play reggae, people didn't leave who wanted to hear reggae?
Once you get them in, nobody's leaving. That's the first
lesson as a DJ that you have to understand, Yeah,
I'm not paying twenty dollars and a DJ suck to
the point that I'm gonna leave. I'm gonna be mad
at you, but I'm gonna stay so because I know
that you're there. My job is, you know what, if
(01:21:43):
you satisfy everybody in the room for forty five minutes,
they walk out saying I had a great time. So
it gives me the ability to satisfy three different groups
of people for forty five minutes. Everybody walks out like, yo,
he killed it, because you can't think. Case in point,
(01:22:04):
how long do people dance at a wedding reception? Twenty minutes? Yeah, tops,
a boy, get on the floor with the bride and
the groom. You boom boom, boom, boom boom, and it's
kind of like, okay, cut the cake and we out,
and I'm good, like we not at the You know,
this ain't dance materia because people who went to those
(01:22:25):
marathon dance things they went there to dance all night.
Speaker 2 (01:22:29):
That's not the average club. The average club is I'm
a drink, I'm gonna find a girl, and I'm ana dance.
It's not it's not the whole thing.
Speaker 7 (01:22:37):
And as I'm just gonna say, as the person dancing
on the floor, we appreciate the break to go get
the drink, to not mess up your hair and sweat
your hair out and shit and be like, oh good,
he's gonna let take it.
Speaker 2 (01:22:46):
Oh good.
Speaker 7 (01:22:46):
I can breathe for a second, like we just appreciate it.
Speaker 2 (01:22:49):
You know what, It's funny you said about reggae because
I feel as though reggae is the one genre that
will never die and that.
Speaker 1 (01:22:56):
Is universally loved by everyone. Yep.
Speaker 2 (01:22:59):
My first ten records are always the reggae records because
I have to test the room. That's the one like murder,
she will will never die in my lifetime, So that's
usually like my first record. And with the stuff that
Drake is doing now, that's sort of like close that
it fits in. So usually my first ten records of that,
and it buys me time to see. Now it's weird
(01:23:21):
because I used to be the DJ that like came
out the box hit hit, hit, hit, but then I learned,
like after.
Speaker 1 (01:23:28):
Seventeen, there's fatigue yep.
Speaker 2 (01:23:30):
And then I started feeling myself to the point where
I got off with playing the worst shit.
Speaker 1 (01:23:41):
Ever, No, only because I knew what I had around
the corner.
Speaker 8 (01:23:46):
But how great is that feeling? I tell people, it's amazing.
If I got two thousand people in front of me
and I know I got you, I know what the
next five records are going to do to you? Like
you don't know, Like I'm sitting there like, oh my god,
my ass like fast when we were in when we
(01:24:06):
were in Africa. And because I have this thing that
I play the original of Annie Up the Soul System,
so you know it's fast.
Speaker 1 (01:24:18):
And Soul System.
Speaker 8 (01:24:19):
So everybody's kind of have this look because it's kind
of like you just changed the tempo, like it's almost
like damn, did he fuck up?
Speaker 1 (01:24:27):
And I'm playing it and you.
Speaker 8 (01:24:29):
Gotta sell it like we're selling it. That's over there
dancing Dane dancing, and when it when it morphs into it,
the look on everybody's face, oh oh shit, oh and
it's pandemonium. But so when I drop that, I'm excited
because I'm kind of like I'm looking at the dude
just kind of like, what's he doing? Man, this dude?
Speaker 1 (01:24:50):
And I'm like, and I'm just staring straight in his face.
Speaker 8 (01:24:53):
Just wait because you know, Annie up is kind of
like with all the ladies, and right, yeah, that's that's
the be say.
Speaker 2 (01:25:00):
For dudes, I'm sitting there like, okay, go ahead, stand
there with that stone face.
Speaker 7 (01:25:09):
And then he loses his mind.
Speaker 2 (01:25:10):
Oh absolutely, okay, so listen. Dis inclosing because I also
want to get listen. You said for the record, we
are doing part two.
Speaker 7 (01:25:22):
Okay, but part two gonna be real long too. We're
talking touch of jazz, We're.
Speaker 2 (01:25:27):
Talking we gotta get to the production stuff and then
but I do want to talk about the M three project.
Speaker 1 (01:25:34):
Explained to me how it came to be.
Speaker 8 (01:25:38):
I wanted this to be the last installment of the
Magnificent Series, not the last record that I'm gonna do.
The Magnificent Series was always a trilogy to me. I
wanted to be the Magnificent return of Magnificent M three.
I needed to let the music industry kind of get
completely out of my way. There's certain ship that just
didn't make sense to me that I wanted to kind
(01:25:59):
of You know, the first thing that I fixed was
having your own studio. Because now I can control the
creative process. I can make whatever I want. Nobody can
tell me that I just didn't have it down to
how to release your music and get it to everybody.
So social media and just the changing world that we
live in allowed all of that to happen, and that's
(01:26:21):
why I was eleven year gap between the Return of
the Magnificent to this one. But I also wanted to
do a record because I made the mistake by making
the prototypical let me have all of these guests on
my record, only to realize that there's no way humanly
possible that we're ever going to do a show.
Speaker 1 (01:26:41):
Isn't that frustrating?
Speaker 8 (01:26:43):
Wow? So it just got to a point that it
was kind of like, listen, I'm you know, as many
dates as we're doing, how can I make this record
to the point that we can go out and support you?
Speaker 7 (01:26:53):
But did you do that with the other Magnificence?
Speaker 8 (01:26:55):
Oh listen, I had method man cls move and everybody.
Speaker 7 (01:26:58):
You know.
Speaker 1 (01:26:58):
It was just kind of like, yeah, so this will
never be live, That's what I meant, Like the tour ever.
Speaker 8 (01:27:08):
And yeah, so you know, it was kind of like,
you know, me and Dane have been on the road
for six seven years. I've made fest was on the
Return of the Magnificent. The funny thing was when I
made the Return of the Magnificent, my son Amyra was five,
so you know, it was all and then just sitting
(01:27:28):
down kind of piecing it together. You know, I was
kind of like, listen, you know what I want to do.
First of all, I want to bring back the era
of Cold Crush. I want to bring back the era
of tried, bring back the era of Day Last Soul
of MC's going back and forth with each other because
one of the things that I realized, especially being in DJ,
(01:27:49):
is when you've been around doing a cycle. When AM
and I would DJ together and we would do two
by four sets, which basically both of us are playing
at the same time, people would lose their mind. And
I'm like, I did this twenty five years ago with
cash money, Like it's not new.
Speaker 1 (01:28:05):
Wait, you DJ with cash money before? Yeah, we would
do two by four style. I never knew that. Yeah,
That's why I never asked the question, Yeah, we would
do that, but it's just what it did.
Speaker 8 (01:28:15):
Is it kind of let me know, when you have
when the cycle has repeated itself, everything starts over.
Speaker 1 (01:28:22):
You know.
Speaker 8 (01:28:22):
It's kind of like the person who's like, oh my god,
transformers and you're kind of like, oh, wow, you completely
missed the cartoon. Huh, like you think it started now.
So it's from knowing that. From the DJ side, I'm
kind of like, you know, migos don't actually tag team
when they rap, like they're not doing day La Sola
cold Crush stuff, so no one understands about that. So
(01:28:44):
I was like, yo, I'm just reinventing the wheel that
what I think is really dope is I had three
generations of MC's that I have Fest who's forty, Dame
who's twenty, and am Here who's eighteen, but they all
are MC's.
Speaker 7 (01:29:01):
They all spit and you can hear their different perspectives
and the songs I was listening to it, I was like,
this is.
Speaker 8 (01:29:04):
Kind of like everybody's kind of like, oh man, you
know is it that this is? This is kind of
like I hate categorizing music. I got two categories. There's
good music and bad music. I don't care the genres
all the rest of that ship, because you know, you
would go into a tower records and you couldn't find
a ship that you wanted because you classified it as
(01:29:25):
one thing and they classified it as something else. And
I just kind of wish that the entire store was
in alphabetical order, because I could probably find everything that
I wanted. So it's just it wasn't genre specific, you know.
I took two weeks and we came in and we
made all of the music. All of the music on
the album is live instrumentation, and I did it in
a way because it was kind of like, Okay, you know,
(01:29:47):
I don't necessarily want you to know. I want you
to feel the music. I'm not I don't want you
to dissect it. And then invited Dane ron Fest and
I'm Mayr to come in and Aaron Camper and we,
you know, recorded all the vocals and it was like
that was it.
Speaker 1 (01:30:03):
Shout out to Aaron Camp.
Speaker 8 (01:30:04):
Shout out to Aaron Camp. So I'm about to say
and then we cheat because traveling around the world, if
you watch any of the videos that we put out,
we cheat and shoot videos and all of the places
that we go. So the first video, Skaters Paradise, which
is actually about traveling around the world and how some
(01:30:27):
people would rather spend a thousand dollars on the strip
of the dance instead of spending one thousand dollars on
a trip to Japan. You know, we we cheated and
shot the video all over the world.
Speaker 1 (01:30:39):
That's good business.
Speaker 10 (01:30:40):
That's good business.
Speaker 1 (01:30:41):
Good business. Well, Jeff, I'm holding.
Speaker 10 (01:30:45):
You to.
Speaker 7 (01:30:46):
Yes, we have two actually we have two extra episodes
to do. We have to do Jeff, and then Ryan
Fast he got to come back to his own episode
talk about how he be trying to say the world
and shit exactly.
Speaker 8 (01:30:58):
Yeah, Fest, I take Fest around the world with me
because he saves the world as we go.
Speaker 1 (01:31:05):
I don't. I don't.
Speaker 8 (01:31:06):
I've never been that person that just kind of ventures
off and we would come down and I'll say, dang,
where's Fest And he was like, I don't know, and
Fests just be like, yo, I just got with some
people and they took me out and Kenya, and I'm
kind of like, yeah, I wouldn't have did that. But
Fest comes back and listen. We we were in Bali
and Fest came back after being gone all day that
(01:31:29):
we're almost about to send a search party out, and
Fest was like, yeah, I went to a brothel and
I was sitting outside talking to three prostitutes and a cop. Yes,
And he had like a five hour conversation, but came
back with the entire information on the country of Bali, Indonesia, Indonesia,
(01:31:50):
potato potato patata. So yeah, you know, fest is our culture.
Speaker 7 (01:31:58):
Yeah, how's Obama doing? I just figure you know him.
Speaker 6 (01:32:02):
You know, actually we were having some issues in Chicago
because you know, they got the the the Obama Library.
Speaker 1 (01:32:11):
It's coming to the South Side.
Speaker 6 (01:32:12):
It's a five hundred million dollar project, is gonna projected
three billion.
Speaker 1 (01:32:17):
Dollars for the for the South Side of Chicago.
Speaker 6 (01:32:19):
But Obama, who was a community organizer, wouldn't sign a
community benefits agreement and that that community benefits agreement that
makes sure people don't get harlemed out and brooke them out,
you know what I mean. Like when you see what's
happening in New York, it's coming to your neighborhood soon.
Speaker 7 (01:32:38):
I'm from Dcy.
Speaker 6 (01:32:39):
It didn't already happen in Chicago because where did the
council voted on it today and pushed it through and
so like, you know, basically, you know, the preachers and Obama,
they got to get like it's Obama, just trust them.
And the community is like, hold on, wait this three
billion dollars, we need this in writing, and they're like, nah,
you're not getting it in writing a lot of times too.
You know what's interesting when you this is what black
(01:33:02):
people got to be careful of when we make big
money and do big projects.
Speaker 1 (01:33:07):
Who's in the middle of us in the community. It's
always the middle man.
Speaker 7 (01:33:11):
He usually don't look like the man.
Speaker 6 (01:33:13):
He don't look like the one at the bottom of
the at the top.
Speaker 10 (01:33:15):
Sometimes.
Speaker 1 (01:33:16):
Yeah, you know what I'm saying. I mean Steve Cools, No,
he is right now.
Speaker 10 (01:33:25):
Hey, I'm going to get him an endorsement deal with
w T forty.
Speaker 8 (01:33:29):
Okay, don't but you know my mix is no more
because now they got a nob to make it tight
or loose.
Speaker 7 (01:33:38):
I heard you Ryan over there. Watch out for the
middle man. You know he talks to rich people. I'm
not there yet, but for you and Jeff, y'all should
watch out for the middle man.
Speaker 1 (01:33:46):
If you see a rich person. You know what I'm saying.
Speaker 7 (01:33:48):
I couldn't say wealthy, at least rich. Come on, Negroes,
don't try to play a player.
Speaker 1 (01:33:53):
Got wind this episode so I can go to my job.
You can be rich with culture.
Speaker 7 (01:33:58):
Goodbye. I can't look.
Speaker 1 (01:33:59):
I'm just spending on my mama house.
Speaker 7 (01:34:01):
That's okay.
Speaker 2 (01:34:03):
On behalf of j DJ Jazzy Jeff, Ron fest Sugar,
Steve Fantigolo and his countertops.
Speaker 7 (01:34:13):
Oh man, I love we speak like he real salty
day he didn't, Yeah he real salty is he?
Speaker 2 (01:34:19):
Yeah?
Speaker 7 (01:34:20):
His countertops exactly should have been here, but Ron that's
coming back. So there you go.
Speaker 2 (01:34:26):
There you go, all right, And also Unpaid Bill on
Testamont Street and uh uh Boss Billy Steve. Yeah, everyone,
this Questbow Supreme and this Quest Love only on Pandora.
Speaker 10 (01:34:41):
We will see him the next go round.
Speaker 1 (01:34:42):
Thank you, ladies and gentlemen.
Speaker 2 (01:34:46):
You hate to hear it happen, but you know that's
part one of the Great Jazzy Jeff. Stay tuned for
Part two, where we get more stories of his life
with Will Smith making records, DJing, making music, Follownists, Passion,
the Greatest Ever Jazzy Jeff QLs Classic Part two coming
up next time. Quest Love Supreme is a production of iHeartRadio.
(01:35:13):
This classic episode was produced by the team at Pandora.
For more podcasts from iHeartRadio, visit the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts,
or wherever you listen to your favorite shows.
Of Course.
Speaker 2 (00:00):
Love Supreme is a production of iHeartRadio. This classic episode
was produced by the team at Pandora. Ladies and gentlemen,
Welcome to QLs Classic Episode ninety seven with DJ Jazzy
Jeff August twenty eighteen. What can I say, Jazzy Jeff
is simply the best, most creative DJ of all time.
(00:22):
There is no DJ today worth their grain of salt
that doesn't worship from the altar of Jeff Towns.
Speaker 1 (00:30):
And you know you know, so, without.
Speaker 2 (00:32):
Further ado, I present you the goat of all DJs,
straight out of Philadelphia, DJ Jazzy Jeff.
Speaker 1 (00:46):
Here we go.
Speaker 3 (00:48):
Supremo Sun Suprema Roll Call Suprema Sun Supreme, A roll
call Suprema Sun Sun Supreme A roll call Suprema So Supreme.
Speaker 2 (01:03):
Roll another episode without Fonte Unpaid in Bostonville and I'm
stuck with Stephen my ear.
Speaker 4 (01:09):
Yeah, Suppreva Supreme, roll Call Suprema So Supreme, Rode.
Speaker 5 (01:19):
This dude can spin, yeah, this dude mixed tracks, yeah,
this dude can cook, Yeah, this dude can act.
Speaker 4 (01:30):
Supreme Supremo Supremo roll.
Speaker 6 (01:37):
Yeah.
Speaker 7 (01:37):
And it's okay easy, oh Ship Jeff, Yeah, Jazz Love
Hillary Supreme.
Speaker 4 (01:46):
SUPREMEA Rod Car Suppreva Son SUPREMEA Role call.
Speaker 6 (01:52):
My name is Fast, Yeah, my crew is new still Yeah,
it's called the Trinity.
Speaker 4 (01:57):
Yeah.
Speaker 1 (01:57):
We don't fight like Drew Hill.
Speaker 4 (02:00):
Supreme Supreme Supreme Supprime Role.
Speaker 8 (02:07):
My name is Jeff, his name is Fest. Yeah, it's
Stephen Laia. Yeah, and that's my brother Quest.
Speaker 4 (02:14):
Well Suprema Subprema Role, came Surema some SUPREMEA Role Calm
Suprema Suprema Role Supreme Supreme Roll.
Speaker 2 (02:32):
Oh man, yo, I have to say that of I mean,
we're not one hundred episodes yet, but we're at least
at eighty something eighty something. Yeah, that is probably the
quickest sneaking of the feat. I mean, I've had well
renowned mcs just like.
Speaker 1 (02:51):
Dum you you might, I think your body should.
Speaker 9 (03:01):
I wrote that for him.
Speaker 1 (03:02):
I wrote that. That's my ghost racking right there.
Speaker 2 (03:07):
Ladies and gentlemen, welcome to another anemic episode of Quest
Left Supreme, only on Pandora.
Speaker 1 (03:16):
Uh, I'm still here with what's left of Team Supreme.
Speaker 9 (03:20):
Damn.
Speaker 7 (03:21):
You know when you gets hot outside, niggas start disappearing.
Speaker 1 (03:25):
Well, su Steve's still here, even though you know your
your your network star.
Speaker 5 (03:28):
Now, Wes, I have every excuse to call him sick,
you know, mentally ill, among other things.
Speaker 1 (03:34):
Yeah, I see, well, thank you for still sticking.
Speaker 10 (03:36):
I never missed a shot.
Speaker 2 (03:37):
I assume that Fante is still working on his uh
uh his basement counter Yeah, his countertops is week number
five working on his miswork to work on your house,
hey man, bathroom.
Speaker 1 (03:49):
Tiles are important, you know, it's extremely important.
Speaker 7 (03:52):
Mean, while both Bills have medical conditions, So.
Speaker 9 (03:54):
There you go.
Speaker 1 (03:55):
I thought Bill's not at Assessame Street right now.
Speaker 7 (03:58):
No, Bill's getting his wisdom teeth out.
Speaker 2 (04:00):
Okay, I guess I can excuse that. All right, shout
out to Boss Bill, who has a headache right now.
So wait, I don't know because if something happens in
the future, I don't want this to sound bite to
be play.
Speaker 7 (04:15):
He has a severe headache right now.
Speaker 2 (04:17):
Yes, shout out to Boss Bill, and is a many headaches,
so I just want to make sure that I'm not
the source of the headache. So all right, less stressed
in your life, Bill, I promise to be better, but
you got admit I am improving since the beginning of
of course.
Speaker 1 (04:33):
Love you have.
Speaker 7 (04:34):
But then you stop sugar and you back, so you.
Speaker 2 (04:36):
Know, oh okay, Yeah, Layah is claiming that I'm evil
because I'm day fifty one without sugar.
Speaker 10 (04:43):
So I'm still here for it.
Speaker 1 (04:45):
Thank you, Steve. Is that possible if you want to
live it? Is? I'm just saying that.
Speaker 2 (04:51):
You know, twenty twenty three, twenty four to twenty five,
your concern was like getting shot at the club.
Speaker 1 (04:57):
Yeah, the new getting shot at the club is that
is getting the stroke. Yeah, like I don't want.
Speaker 7 (05:03):
To be I mean, you still got your boyhood figure,
jeff So how you do it?
Speaker 10 (05:06):
Listen?
Speaker 8 (05:07):
I do one hundred and sixty dates a year and
walk like nineteen miles through the airport.
Speaker 1 (05:11):
Wait.
Speaker 2 (05:12):
I was gonna say, wait a minute, time out. Uh,
we're doing this ass backwards, ladies and gentlemen. I forgot
to introduce our actual guest of the show.
Speaker 1 (05:21):
Ladies and gentlemen. It could be Jeffrey Osborne if we
already he was.
Speaker 2 (05:26):
He was our last guests not bad yo. Did you
know he played drums with Smokey Robinson. No, you know,
we forgot to ask Jeffrey Osborne.
Speaker 1 (05:32):
And we do this often.
Speaker 2 (05:33):
We often rabbit hole ourselves and introduce like a half
hour down the line. I forgot to even talk about
Whitney Houston's didn't we almost have it all?
Speaker 1 (05:42):
He wrote that?
Speaker 9 (05:42):
Oh shit?
Speaker 2 (05:43):
Oh wow, yes he wrote that for it anyway, Uh
lazy Okay. Introducing Joff. Uh yeah, if if God were DJ,
he'd be named Jeffrey Towns. Uh and wow, that's all
I have to say. It's gonna be the shortest intro ever.
Speaker 8 (06:02):
Uh.
Speaker 2 (06:03):
We have God himself of turntables Philly, his own DJ
Jazz Jeff the legendary DJ Jazzy Jeff on Quest left Supreme.
Speaker 1 (06:11):
I would also hate that.
Speaker 2 (06:14):
It would also uh uh be remiss if I didn't
also mention that, uh, you're here with a very special guest. Yes,
another guy in his right Grammy and Oscar Oscar Winner
that was sermon now was paid Bill was here?
Speaker 7 (06:36):
We have somebody that yeah his O but his get.
Speaker 1 (06:39):
Well yeah, because you know, well, I think what paid
Bill is a.
Speaker 7 (06:46):
Right one of our co hosts. He has a Grammy,
Emmy and a Tony, but he missing.
Speaker 1 (06:51):
He's missing.
Speaker 2 (06:51):
Oh so if he was chilling with uh paid Bill
right now, we'd have a ghetto not an ron festers here,
Lady John.
Speaker 1 (07:02):
The world uh. And also I should mention your.
Speaker 2 (07:06):
New project M three yes, uh in well right now
digitally available, but when will it be in store?
Speaker 8 (07:12):
Will it be the stores? It's hard, hard U No
hard copies are coming. Listen, I'm doing this all independence.
I have to come a little bit later. They're they're
on the way.
Speaker 1 (07:23):
Okay. Good, that's good dimension, that's good dimension. Yeah.
Speaker 2 (07:27):
So you you were saying that you keep in shape
because you just run across airports NonStop. See, but that's
the thing, my Achilles hill is being on the road
because you know, for every coffee shop in every airport, hotel, food.
Speaker 7 (07:48):
It is it is.
Speaker 1 (07:50):
So how do you resist that?
Speaker 2 (07:52):
And I know you live at home in Lynette's kitchen, yes,
which you know, as far as I'm concerned, you guys
catch your fish and all your seafood in the backyard
of where you live.
Speaker 8 (08:06):
So, like, how just just remain inactive. It's not even
an exercise thing, you know. It's really when you got
sixty pounds on your back because you try to take
every gadget in the world and you're pulling a little
portable studio on a pull bag and you're in London
Heathrow and your gait is thirty five minutes away.
Speaker 4 (08:29):
I know that.
Speaker 1 (08:30):
Yeah, you know that feeling.
Speaker 8 (08:31):
So it's a lot of walking. You know, you get
mad when you first go out because you wind it
and you're tired and you're mad. Your knee hurts. But
by the time you come home, I would say, you're
Oj Simpson. But you know what I mean, You know,
I know what you mean.
Speaker 9 (08:45):
Yo.
Speaker 1 (08:46):
Wait have you ever.
Speaker 2 (08:48):
Have you ever successfully to me, like to successfully navigate
through Heathrow without them thoroughly checking my back Like Heathrow
is one of the yeah, most anal retentive airports in
the world. Yes, Like you can have a piece of
like gum in your bag and if you don't take
it out to let them know that, then they're they're
(09:10):
taking your whole entire fiber part of that bag.
Speaker 8 (09:13):
Or you just wait for your bag to go on
that separate lane.
Speaker 1 (09:17):
It's the worst.
Speaker 8 (09:18):
Then that separate lane you realize that there's nineteen people
in front of it, right, you're missing your flight.
Speaker 7 (09:22):
So y'all travel too much?
Speaker 1 (09:26):
That whole thing was like, no, it's.
Speaker 2 (09:28):
For real, Like he Throw is one of the most
anal retentive, I mean most of them quality rhymed about
that even even on their first record, like the first
time I ever had to have.
Speaker 1 (09:38):
The check he throw.
Speaker 7 (09:42):
Has there been between the two of y'all? Y'all been
around the world like fifty thousand times. Has there been
anywhere you haven't been yet?
Speaker 8 (09:48):
I just went to Kenya? That was That was your
worst time in Kenya? What was that?
Speaker 7 (09:54):
Like?
Speaker 8 (09:55):
That was probably top three experience of my life? Why listen?
First of all, I was, you know, I don't change.
I don't change the way I play anywhere in this
world at all. Because let me, let me give you
my reasoning. You don't go to Africa and play Afro beat.
That's the ship that they hear all the time. And
(10:16):
that's the biggest mistake that I think a lot of DJs,
because think about it when you get DJs that come
to Philly and be like, oh, I'm about to play
Crown Rulers and you kind of like, come on, dude,
I came to see you play. I didn't come to
hear you play how you think I want you to play.
So I never changed the way that I play because people,
you're a seasoning in the restaurant, you don't change the
(10:38):
dish you.
Speaker 1 (10:38):
Called me out.
Speaker 7 (10:40):
I mean, listen, you know it's never too late though.
Speaker 1 (10:42):
Right, Yeah, but because you know what it is.
Speaker 8 (10:44):
It's kind of like imagine going to your favorite restaurant
and they changed the menu every week. You upset, you like,
I came for the fish. I want to fish in
the corn bread. What what's the meat loaf?
Speaker 2 (10:55):
Okay, but I'm going to ask you about the Kansas incident.
That's always my worst nightmare.
Speaker 1 (11:02):
Well, you know what it is.
Speaker 8 (11:03):
Kansas was me walking into that didn't have anything to
do with me playing. That had more to do with
the wrong event in the wrong place, you know, Like
you can't you know, because I had situations like that
when you know DJ Am passed away. I did one
of his memorials in Las Vegas, and I did it
(11:26):
in a place that they didn't want you to play
hip hop And I'm kind of like, how do you
have me do a tribute to a hip hop DJ
and not play hip hop? Like I'm kind of like, yo,
so you're trying to do this ship.
Speaker 2 (11:39):
My name only wait that's still going on, Like, well
not now, but it was what was the name of
can you name? What was the name of the club?
Speaker 7 (11:48):
What's the situations.
Speaker 2 (11:52):
Well, I don't want to start with the bad DJ
gig verse. I wanted to start with the early god
I did.
Speaker 8 (11:59):
I was on tour with Sion and Sion was doing
these parties all over and we went to Kansas City
and played in the Power and Light District and it
was funny because I got there. Z Trip went on
before me and I came out and we started playing,
like five thousand people outside we started playing and people
(12:21):
are rocking, and you know, my sets are very eclectic,
like I'm gona playing some hip hop, I'm gonna go here,
I'm gonna do this. You know, at the end of
the night, you're gonna get a little bit of everything.
And my road manager at the time came out and
put a towel on my table and walked off. So
I looked, and I'm looking at the tower that I
already have, and I was just like, why did you
(12:42):
bring a towel over? So he came out and brought
a bottle of water, and I had water on the table,
so I knew something wasn't right. So he ended up
coming over the third time and he leaned down and
he said, listen, they're about to cut you off because
they're saying that you're playing too much hip hop. And
before they cut you you off, I wanted to let
you know so that you can make the decision. I said,
(13:04):
oh shit, tell Skills, we're out of here. So he
went and leaned and told Skills, and Skills turned and
looked at me and was like word, and it was
like yeah. So right in the middle of everybody rocking,
I just said, so we were rocking. Oh listen, it's
non stop, non stop, like I think I was playing
Rihanna at that. So I hit the stop button and
(13:26):
Skills said, hey, I'm sorry, Kansas City, but we just
got word that they don't really want us playing hip
hop in here, and they were about to cut Jeff off.
Speaker 1 (13:33):
So before we let.
Speaker 8 (13:35):
Them do that to us, we wanted to make the
announcement to you that we apologized and we hope that
we can come back and play for you soon. And
took everything off and I walked our stage. Everybody thought
it was a part of the show, so they still
for about two minutes, and when the road managers started
coming out and breaking my equipment down, people went off wow,
(13:57):
And I went downstairs in the dressing room skills standing outside,
and they kicked skills out the venue because they were mad,
like they were this is the behind the scenes thing
that you weren't supposed to pull a curtain back. So
the hotel was across the street. I ended up walking
across the street and had no idea how big this was.
And I remember this is early Twitter. I posted Wow,
(14:19):
right party, wrong place. I was like, this is the
first time that I ever someone ever threatened to kick
me off in twenty five years, and went and checked
into the hotel. I called, you know, my manager at
the time, and he was like, change your flight. You know,
we had like a nine o'clock flight. He's like, get
on the six o'clock flight, he said, because I guarantee
(14:39):
you they're going to be pressing everybody at the airport.
So I changed my flight and we got on the
plane and flew at six o'clock and I landed. By
the time I landed, Associated Press had called me like
it hit everywhere, and I was just like, like, it
got so bad that the owner of Power and Light
was the owner of the land of forty forty cloud
(15:00):
and it got so bad that he called Jay Z
for Jay Z to call Will for Will to call
me because he wanted to talk to me, and he
was like, listen, I need to meet with you so
I can officially apologize.
Speaker 7 (15:14):
Didn't you win the first Grammy for hip hop?
Speaker 10 (15:16):
Hey?
Speaker 7 (15:16):
Listen?
Speaker 8 (15:18):
They was trying to get me to come back, Like
what did they?
Speaker 1 (15:22):
It was just the area of.
Speaker 8 (15:26):
No, No, it had nothing to do with that. It
was kind of like, you know what par and Light
is like, paring Light is kind of like I don't
want to say Infinity Live. It's like one of those.
But it was kind of like, we're not really trying
to have that hip hop element because from what I
heard after I left was they were like, you know,
(15:47):
we don't normally come down here. They don't like you
in sports jerseys and baseball hats. And it was one
of the yeah, yeah, basically, let's setting that tone this
code talk. But you know how it is you kind
of times you skate under the radar because it's like
that's Jazz from Fresh Prince of bel Air not knowing
that I'm playing mob deep.
Speaker 1 (16:06):
But what was z Trip playing like?
Speaker 8 (16:09):
Because Trip was playing mash up, so he was sneaking.
He was sneaking, but understand. No one said that, like
all of these days that we did, no one said
when you come here that you have to play like this,
Like you know, a lot of times people tell you
how you want to play. I'm like, I'm cool. Like
if I can't do.
Speaker 1 (16:26):
Me, then how do you How do you handle it?
Because I don't. I don't.
Speaker 8 (16:30):
I don't that. I don't accept that at all. Even
at the most prestigious get I won't take them. If
you don't want me, then don't book me.
Speaker 7 (16:40):
Always, your whole career.
Speaker 8 (16:41):
Always, if you don't want me, don't book me, man
I because you know, you know how this is Vegas.
Vegas got like that, you know, Vegas got to the
point that it was kind of like where we kind
of want this, Like I remember, do you Vegas?
Speaker 1 (16:56):
Listen?
Speaker 8 (16:56):
I don't do Vegas anymore?
Speaker 1 (16:58):
They listen.
Speaker 8 (16:58):
I get a million offers to do Vegas and I
turn them down. But you remember, like we we you know, questioning.
I had a resident residency at the same spot and
I never forget the first time that I did it.
When I was done, they came down or someone said, well,
we'll have a report for you, and I was like
a report I ain't never had a report. What's the report, Like,
(17:22):
we're gonna give you a report, you know, And it
got to a point that you know, oh yeah, you
were great and this was cool, but it was kind
of like, so you got people down here like checking
on me, like I've been DJing in Vegas before. Everybody
who works here, yeah, you know, but it's you know,
I might at the end of the day, if everybody's
having a good time and they buying drinks and everybody's cool,
leave me alone.
Speaker 2 (17:44):
This is weird now because it's like the variety that
you have that allows you to DJ in spaces that
your average your your your your average guy. Okay, well
I'll be honest, because I mean it's the white elephant
in the room. Obviously, you and Cash are Philadelphia gods.
Speaker 5 (18:08):
And.
Speaker 2 (18:10):
Your level of celebrity has allowed you more oxygen and
more leverage and where you are now. And it's also
on how you you freak it and how you handle
your business that part, you know, so I can't ignore that,
but it's like, are you I'm the type of person
(18:31):
that dreads when November comes around because in my head.
Speaker 1 (18:36):
Usually when December.
Speaker 2 (18:37):
Gigs come, I'm always like damn, January is coming, and
it's going to be another year where someone born in
two thousand and two or you know, someone born in
nineteen ninety nine who will be twenty one or whatever,
(18:59):
you know, won't know what don't stop till you get
enough is more.
Speaker 1 (19:04):
It's like those records that used to be instant, they changed,
like you you remember how like you would play the.
Speaker 2 (19:13):
Opening horn riff of like Troy Yep and it was
like chaos, and then the moment you mean when it stopped.
Speaker 8 (19:22):
You mean when that stopped, yo, when I had one
of the worst incidents, well my first incident of that,
I did it Howard's Homecoming. Oh no, And I remember
when you do the whole you know, I remember when
you would play all of the current stuff and then
you would kind of into your ERICB for President and
everybody would lose their mind. And I dropped Eric B
(19:42):
for President and everybody just stood there and I was like, wow,
like because now Eric B for President is the entrance
to where I'm going. So I'm like, oh shit, you
don't know the door that I just opened up. I
don't know if I can go in the house now.
So I was kind of you know, and I remember that,
but that was the first time that I learned the
(20:03):
lesson that you have to pay attention because every few
years the timeline slides, you know what I mean. Like
it was I remember, you know, a couple of years
ago going overseas playing and somebody dropped Eve who's that girl?
And the club went crazy and I was like, oh shit,
this is their classic? Now that was So you just
(20:24):
have to keep you just have to keep your music
set up in a way that you just have to
slide it, slide it like you got to pay attention
to who's out there?
Speaker 2 (20:32):
But are you ready to mint that front and by Pharrell?
Is now the new message? By Graham Asters?
Speaker 8 (20:42):
Yeah, like that's old school now, well you know what
it is. This also comes down to who are you
playing for? You know what I mean?
Speaker 1 (20:50):
And so are you playing for yourself? Are you playing?
Speaker 8 (20:52):
Oh no, no, no, no, no listen. I do a
very very good mixture of playing. I take enough met
gigs to make to make me happy. But my job
is to play for the people.
Speaker 7 (21:07):
So wait when you went to Kenya, because we started
with Kenya, So now I want to know and reference
to Kenya, like what made the what made the crowd
go crazy?
Speaker 1 (21:14):
And what was there?
Speaker 7 (21:15):
Like they throw back down?
Speaker 8 (21:16):
So we where we played it was a restaurant, so
we went and ate. Like when the club opened up.
When I was telling you, they was playing Mary J.
Blige album cuts like it was one hundred percent pure
black music and deep black music. They appreciate it to
the point that I was kind of like, oh, if
(21:37):
that's where y'all go, oh, I'm good, I'm good.
Speaker 10 (21:40):
So you know it was.
Speaker 1 (21:41):
It was everything from.
Speaker 8 (21:44):
Some classic house stuff to mob deep to like they
they I couldn't stump them.
Speaker 1 (21:53):
What were you saying about it?
Speaker 6 (21:55):
Like, you know, like so I danced a little bit,
you know what I'm saying, But when you go to Africa,
like you're just insecure, you know what I'm saying, Like,
you're like, man, it ain't no dance that I can
do that's gonna impress nobody out here. And yeah, but
when Jeff played that music, they're all it's like you're
at You're in the home of where rhythm started. You're
in the home like when you when you get I
(22:17):
heard the black people in America was from West Africa,
But when you go to Kenya, they'd be like welcome home,
and you look around like really like you know, like
this is amine too like and and you know, just
the welcoming atmosphere. But you know they got like bodily
and musical superpowers if they want, because that's where it starts.
Speaker 1 (22:35):
How many how many days or weeks were you guys there?
Speaker 8 (22:38):
We were there for three days? Really three days. We
we played like the first day we got.
Speaker 2 (22:44):
There coming straight from America or no, no, no, no.
We were for a mom Okay, I was about to say,
like for three days.
Speaker 1 (22:51):
It's like that lag do the gig.
Speaker 8 (22:53):
Have some food and well listen that. Yeah, it gets
like that. We were in Dubai and we flew from
Dubai to Kenya. Food was amazing, the seasoning to see. Yeah,
you know, because everybody has this whole thing of when
I'm going to Africa, I'm going to eat necessarily African food,
(23:15):
like they have their food and then they have food
that everybody eats.
Speaker 1 (23:20):
You know, it's weird.
Speaker 2 (23:22):
When I went to South Africa, there was a place
that it's almost like they know what foreigners are looking.
Speaker 1 (23:33):
For, like that Africa.
Speaker 2 (23:37):
Africa, you know, like they're looking for that, and they
actually made they have a restaurant that plays up to
that whole thing.
Speaker 1 (23:46):
But I could tell it's just like for tourists.
Speaker 2 (23:48):
Like I asked the guy, I'm like, Africans wouldn't eat
the spot, right, And he laughed like, no, this is
just for tourists.
Speaker 1 (23:54):
Like they went. How they took They took us to
the real deal.
Speaker 8 (23:58):
We ate at a restaurant that was overlooking an African
preserve that if you sat at your table and squint
it you could see a giraffe.
Speaker 1 (24:08):
What it was deep? It was deep, Like I asked.
Speaker 8 (24:10):
There was a big security guard that was with us,
and I was like, let me ask you a question,
like how close are we to the lions? Like and
he was like not so far, Like he said yeah, yeah,
like they they'll come in the hood.
Speaker 10 (24:29):
Yeah.
Speaker 6 (24:30):
They told stories about gorillas that crossed the road and
if one of them get hurt, the cars got to stop.
And if you try to ride past the gorillas to
jump on the car bang your window that you have to.
Speaker 8 (24:45):
Yeah, you gotta stop and let them. It was, oh, listen,
we went to a we went to an African animal. Yeah,
that was first of all. Let me explain it, Michael Jack.
He The guy was telling us that when a lion
(25:05):
roars in full voice, you can hear him ten miles away.
Said the lion will roar into the ground and vibrate
the gout. That's how he lets everybody know. Get out
my way. But that's a dear Listen, they were feeding
the lion, and the female lion came over to try
to grab a piece of meat from the male lion,
and the roar.
Speaker 1 (25:25):
That he let out.
Speaker 8 (25:28):
I let a little bit go, That's all I'm gonna say. Like,
I ain't never heard no ship like that piece of chicken.
Listen like that roar. I was kind of like, I'm cool,
I'll take my lions in the zoo.
Speaker 1 (25:40):
That was a little deep.
Speaker 10 (25:42):
I gotta I gotta got experience.
Speaker 1 (25:44):
I gotta figure out way to get over that.
Speaker 8 (25:46):
Anyway, I'm glad that I'm here because they are greatly
wanting you to come down. I greatly want you to
come down and play.
Speaker 2 (25:54):
I'm saying that no one has ever carried on a
string teased me more than the entire continent of Africa.
Speaker 7 (26:06):
But you've been a couple of places in the South.
Speaker 1 (26:08):
I've been to South South. It's different.
Speaker 8 (26:10):
I've been to South South. He's in South Africa. You
almost don't get cool points from going.
Speaker 1 (26:15):
To South Africa, North America.
Speaker 8 (26:17):
Where you're going, I'm going to South Africa. Yeah, okay whatever,
Like I got props when it was like I'm going
to Kenya right over they just called really called, was
like listen, and it was crazy because once I accepted Kenya,
then Tanzania, card and all these other people, and it was.
Speaker 1 (26:34):
Just like it was it was a little too late
for that.
Speaker 2 (26:36):
Now that I know what I know, I gotta you know,
you need to go like going to beIN or my
what Nigeria?
Speaker 7 (26:43):
What?
Speaker 8 (26:43):
I will tell you you will absolutely body that. Like
they asked, They were like who who who?
Speaker 10 (26:50):
Who?
Speaker 8 (26:50):
Do you want to come down and play we Love Premiere.
It was like we would love quest Love. We don't
know if we can get him. I was like, I'll
talk to him because I'm like, oh, he's.
Speaker 1 (26:58):
Not that I don't want to go. You will matter
that time.
Speaker 2 (27:02):
Well, wait a minute, I know you're meticulous about your
back line, So do you just take do you now
just travel with all of your equipment?
Speaker 7 (27:11):
No?
Speaker 1 (27:11):
I just so they have Pioneer turntables there or Pioneer
just ships them.
Speaker 8 (27:15):
Yeah, they have Pioneer turntables, had an s no mixer
what yeah that.
Speaker 7 (27:21):
Man? Okay, well yeah listen hown I.
Speaker 1 (27:25):
Said when I was there, they had the Flintstone Bird.
Speaker 2 (27:35):
I'm just saying, back in two thousand a date, you know,
if I had just send a carrier pits and send
a few break beats over to me, Yeah, now they
were they were okay, they were cool.
Speaker 8 (27:46):
They gave me a bunch of music too, Okay, So
you know, I go down there, I was.
Speaker 2 (27:50):
Getting tired of people giving you, like all their twelve
inches and the forty five's and everything.
Speaker 8 (27:56):
You can't say that outright because you know, just you
almost need to carry a bag for the stuff that
people give you on a tour exactly because you just
kind of come home and it's kind of like, you know,
and I will really really appreciate this T shirt, just
like I appreciate the twenty two thousand T shirts. I
get that you want me to take the T shirt
(28:18):
with your album cover artwork home.
Speaker 2 (28:21):
What It's almost like you can travel like a Navy
seal now like you probably could just you know, live
off the swag.
Speaker 1 (28:27):
That's given to you on the road.
Speaker 8 (28:29):
Pretty much and pretty much.
Speaker 10 (28:30):
That's that.
Speaker 1 (28:35):
I will kill myself.
Speaker 2 (28:36):
But I don't start the way I always out like, yeah,
we always started the beginning. But it's also been a
long time since we had an episode of.
Speaker 1 (28:49):
So Jeff. As as as as the.
Speaker 2 (28:57):
Music extraordinary that you are and being one of the
many one of one of the first pioneers to actually
introduce jazz samples to hip hop. Uh. We do a
game called but You Guessed It, in which I will
play a quarter of a second of a particular song
(29:17):
and you have to even guess.
Speaker 1 (29:18):
The artist or the song he said.
Speaker 7 (29:20):
A quarter of a second, yes, quarter of a.
Speaker 1 (29:21):
Second, quarter of a second, yes, some are easy, some
or not. There is no you. This is this is
I'm just saying this. This is round one of Okay,
can you name this break.
Speaker 8 (29:39):
Bracket in the pocket?
Speaker 1 (29:40):
You are correct?
Speaker 10 (29:42):
This, I know it.
Speaker 8 (29:47):
That's the who who makes it. It's the original. I
don't want to be a player.
Speaker 1 (29:55):
Thank you.
Speaker 7 (29:55):
The first Monday.
Speaker 8 (29:56):
I might need help because I may not know the names,
but you don't know that I know what I'm talking about,
all right?
Speaker 1 (30:01):
Number three?
Speaker 8 (30:03):
Yeah, brand new or a bouncy lady.
Speaker 1 (30:06):
Yes, I love how you just that pleasure break.
Speaker 6 (30:14):
Mm hmm.
Speaker 8 (30:16):
Do that one more time?
Speaker 10 (30:18):
Mm hmm.
Speaker 8 (30:21):
Yeah that's do do.
Speaker 1 (30:24):
Together? Do the message by yes, me and the beers.
You ready? Number five? Yeah?
Speaker 8 (30:35):
Oh one more time? Yeah, you might stamp me with
that one. Wait a minute, one more time?
Speaker 1 (30:47):
No, one last time?
Speaker 8 (30:50):
Yeah, nope, mhm.
Speaker 1 (31:05):
Uh that was Ohio players singing in the morning.
Speaker 8 (31:09):
See yeah, yeah, he got biggies.
Speaker 1 (31:13):
Uh ready to up? All right, you're allowed to strike?
Number six?
Speaker 9 (31:22):
Mm hmm.
Speaker 1 (31:25):
Is that Parlem with Funkadelic, Yes, the number seven? Oh,
that is it.
Speaker 8 (31:33):
The bird is playing Johnny Guitar.
Speaker 1 (31:34):
Watson Superman Lover. Yes, number eight.
Speaker 7 (31:40):
Mm hm.
Speaker 8 (31:40):
That is the original be a Father to your child
EDLG and the Bulldogs.
Speaker 1 (31:47):
You're close wrong single? Yeah? Yeah, not be a father
to your child? Yeah, you know what I'm saying.
Speaker 8 (31:53):
I gotta have it.
Speaker 1 (31:54):
Yeah bo Hannon burn that song singing.
Speaker 7 (31:56):
A song from my mother being five to your child?
Speaker 9 (31:59):
Was that ship?
Speaker 7 (32:00):
All right?
Speaker 1 (32:00):
Two more left? Two more left? Last one? All right?
Second and last one.
Speaker 8 (32:09):
The original dre ship? Yeah, chick moaning I want to
do something freak.
Speaker 1 (32:18):
Uh. Side note, I actually thought that was my mom.
Speaker 2 (32:21):
Oh no, only because Dre uses my parents sample and
that ship too, So I thought that you.
Speaker 7 (32:31):
Knew your mama were weird.
Speaker 1 (32:33):
I'm sorry, mom, the like, sorry, my mom has a
similar s side.
Speaker 2 (32:44):
I'm not that oxygen oxygen technique tale on her record, Yeah,
excel on her record. So yeah, I was very relieved
to find out that, no, that wasn't my mom, but yeah,
she does something something anyway.
Speaker 11 (33:03):
Your last song all right, this this is the comic
kaze one more Time, M one more Time.
Speaker 1 (33:21):
That's not h one two, three, four, five, six, seven,
eleven twelve.
Speaker 2 (33:31):
Only did that because of your connection with Jill Scott
and getting in the way and her dropping.
Speaker 1 (33:37):
That anyway, Uh, even though I know it.
Speaker 2 (33:41):
Uh, Sir Jeff Towns, could you please tell our audience,
almost three hours into the show, where you were born
in what city?
Speaker 8 (33:49):
Osborn in West Philadelphia?
Speaker 2 (33:52):
We're in West Philadelphia, Like, are you allowed to talk
about your old neighborhood.
Speaker 1 (33:55):
Now that you don't live there?
Speaker 8 (33:56):
I am. I'm from fifty seventh and Rodman, which which
is right next to fifty seventh and Cedar, which is
between Baltimore Avenue and Market Street. Which is funny because
you know the north side is basically the north side
of Market Street south side is south of Market Street,
but before Baltimore Avenue, so not southwest past Baltimore Avenue southwest.
Speaker 1 (34:20):
So in eighty five, how close were you to that
move fire? Oh man, behind those sage.
Speaker 8 (34:28):
Yeah, it was. I was about five blocks away, like
literally heard the gunshots. Like the night before. You know,
everybody in the neighborhood was just like, yo, something's going
on because you knew move were there, you know, just
going on a block. I went there, be outside with
the ballhome.
Speaker 1 (34:42):
Jack Junes was like yeah, crawling on the floor and it.
Speaker 8 (34:46):
Was crazy because that night they were like, Yo, something
is gonna happen. And we went up to Kyles Creek
Parkway and it was I've never seen as many cops.
I've never seen a swat team, you know, in real life,
and they all were out there the big flood lights,
and you know, we stayed up there for about two hours.
I mean you couldn't get but three blocks close to it.
(35:09):
And then we went home and I never forget it
had to be about five o'clock in the morning. I
have never in my life heard twenty minutes of sub
automatic weapons being fired in your neighborhood. Like it was
nine stop and you you know, you didn't know, like
(35:30):
you're hearing this through your window, not knowing what's going on,
and you turn on the news and you know, so.
Speaker 2 (35:36):
You had no clue that in twenty four hours entire
blocks will be burnt.
Speaker 1 (35:41):
No exact.
Speaker 8 (35:43):
Like we saw the helicopter fly over, and we saw
when it dropped it, and we didn't know what it was.
We saw when it dropped it and you heard this
incredibly loud boom that shook everything in the neighborhood and
we were just kind of like, what was that? And
they were just like they must have dropped some kind
of explosive and then fire started, and like to realize
this might have been three o'clock in the afternoon, and
(36:07):
no one came, like, there wasn't a fire truck around
for a good five to six hours. So to watch
it burn a complete blockdown, and you know how the
blocks are that they're connected, So it burned a blockdown,
it went through the alley to another block and burned
one side of another blockdown.
Speaker 7 (36:25):
As a whole cider. I'm still surprised how y'all let
this go down, But I'm just gonna say that I
don't understand Philly, y'all you are a Philadelphia I am,
but I was in DC at the time, and I
just know I felt like if it would have happened
in DC, a bunch of black people would have took hands,
went grew and got around the neighborhood and been like,
I'll be damned if you go out to bomb these
black people and these babies.
Speaker 1 (36:42):
No, you didn't know.
Speaker 8 (36:43):
You didn't like understand this is all news media, and
this is after all of this gunfire, and what happened
was people didn't know, which I personally believe that I
don't think anybody from move shot. I think this was
the least shooting at each other because all it takes
is one shot, and and it was just gunfire that
(37:07):
no one was kind of like known to have shot
somebody you didn't know, So it was just kind of
like nobody moved. You didn't know what was going on.
Speaker 2 (37:16):
And to be honest with you, in nineteen eighty five,
black Christian Conservative outlook was was hot and black Christian Conservative.
I think it's almost a step ahead of racist, redneck
(37:37):
Southern Bible Christian Conservative. It's almost like, you know, I remember,
like practically everyone in the neighborhood saw the move people
as heathens. Yep, they eat raw meat, they homeschooled their kids.
Speaker 1 (37:56):
But I remember the move.
Speaker 8 (37:58):
My brother used to live on forty fourth from Paltain,
so I remember the first move with seventy seven Yeah naked,
so you you you know, you knew about the organization
and what it was, and they had a standoff there.
I was just a little bit too young to really
understand what it was. So when they kind of moved
up in the neighborhood, you kind of it was still
(38:18):
the same chatter, and you know, you're getting the information
off of television.
Speaker 2 (38:22):
So yeah, I was also that was I was heartbroken
that day. I just got dumped by like my first
high school girl.
Speaker 7 (38:33):
The only time a bomb been dropped in the country
you talk about.
Speaker 1 (38:35):
I'm just saying, man, none of that. She's like I
had a bomb dropped on my heart. Yeah, man, Like
I came home.
Speaker 2 (38:44):
Seriously, like the second they dropped that bomb in like
three thirty, I was right on my porch and I
was just.
Speaker 1 (38:53):
Like, yeah, let me go watch the last Cosby episode.
Speaker 5 (38:59):
For those of us who weren't there, can somebody just
give us a brief about move not only about move,
but about this bomb that was dropped.
Speaker 10 (39:08):
I've never heard.
Speaker 1 (39:08):
Loost Bill will be played by Steve Mandel. All Right,
so basically move, I wouldn't know how to how to
exactly I kind of get to move.
Speaker 7 (39:20):
Or he's asking about the correlation between the bomb.
Speaker 1 (39:22):
And the bomb there. Okay, so according.
Speaker 7 (39:29):
How Philadelphia people really explain this, this is not a mirror.
Speaker 1 (39:31):
He's don't I don't want I don't want to leave that.
I don't want to be the all sides guy.
Speaker 2 (39:36):
But so basically, I guess there was tension between the
neighbors of the fifty eight one hundred block of Osage
Avenue and the Africa family, which all their last names
were Africa, similar to like having an X. They all
took the last name of the Africa and it was
(39:59):
like fifteen people in the house. Everyone had a similar
look dreadlocks. They were more like a primitive I mean,
the thing is that it would be totally normal now
in the times that we live in, but back then
you saw someone dreadlocks, you were just like snakes in
your head and you must move drugs like Bob Marley
and you know. And they didn't believe in They just
didn't really believe in the westernized colonization of where America
(40:25):
was their education system and all, so they want to
homeschool their kids.
Speaker 7 (40:29):
They armed themselves.
Speaker 1 (40:30):
Well right, yeah, they armed themselves. So it was like
part part uh uh, part black.
Speaker 2 (40:35):
Panther ideology, educate your kids live like vegetarians. It's I
think the complaint was mainly a noise complaint. And then
they would they would they were us on the roof
with a bullhorn and just preached their message.
Speaker 1 (40:55):
And they occupied homes. They didn't boy the home.
Speaker 8 (40:57):
Oh yeah, like and see, I think one of the
things that was different was this was in a residential
neighborhood like so they were in the middle of the
block like this. It wasn't like they were in the
suburbs or had a farm. They were your next door neighbor.
Speaker 2 (41:14):
And not to mention, they were already targeted because in
nineteen seventy seven, our mayor Frank Rizzo, who was like,
I mean, if you think like Giuliani era New York
mixed with Donald Trump mixed with I mean, just think
of the.
Speaker 1 (41:35):
Worst racist police state mayor you could have.
Speaker 2 (41:41):
They had an incident on forty fourth and Palatain where
it was like because of a disturbance there, and then
there was a shootout and he made them all come outside.
I just remember the picture of them all naked, like
twenty of them, hands in their naked and.
Speaker 1 (42:01):
Some of them died.
Speaker 2 (42:02):
And so there was already tension between the Philadelphia police
and the Africa family. So once once complaints and protest
uh were happening with the residents, the cops were sort
of like, you know, and get out the house and
they're like, no, this is our property, YadA YadA, yadda,
And there was a standoff. It was like a four
(42:23):
or five days standoff where they just seal off the
block and you saw news cameras and news people like
bending on their knees like you know this Jack Jones live.
Oh no, k y w N Now we're outside of
the Africa home. And and then on May thirteenth, man, Yeah,
the commissioner decided to just fly in helicopter right over
(42:45):
their rooftop. I'm trying to figure out, like what was
so distinctive about their rooftop.
Speaker 7 (42:49):
They had something on top, they had a bunker.
Speaker 2 (42:51):
Yeah, but you've realized how precise your aim has to
be to drop like, so they basically I don't know
if it's a grenade or whatever, but they dropped some
sort of device that just they dropped a bomb. It
was a it was a legit bomb.
Speaker 7 (43:07):
First and last time ever on the United States story.
Speaker 8 (43:09):
So they dropped a bomb.
Speaker 2 (43:11):
And you see how like row homes are in Philadelphia,
so it's not like there's a separation.
Speaker 1 (43:17):
And so they let this house. They tried. They were like,
we're going to burn you out the house. So they
burned them.
Speaker 2 (43:23):
Well, they literally killed them all but two, but then
the fire spread and then the next two houses, and
then two hours later the entire block was dummies. But
then five hours later that one big ass block hit
the next block, and then that entire block hit the
block across the street, and then that spread. So at
(43:46):
some point around nine o'clock we gotta knock saying there
was like the block. Captain was sort of like, okay,
just be prepared to I lived on the fifty second
block and this is the eight hundred blocks. So around
like nine pm, even though we thought they would contain
the fire, there was like concern that the ship just
(44:08):
might spread and spread and spread.
Speaker 1 (44:12):
Yeah, it was just it was.
Speaker 8 (44:17):
It's crazy that I'm asked that anywhere I go in
the world, because everybody's kind of like, yo, didn't weren't
you guys that the people that dropped the bomb on
a residential area. Yeah, it ain't like some ship you
want to be known for.
Speaker 1 (44:32):
Yeah. So records, yeah, yeah, no, So how did you
how did you.
Speaker 2 (44:42):
How did you start your your I guess that even
before DJ you have to love records. So what was
the first record you ever purchased? Or were you like
the youngest I was?
Speaker 8 (44:54):
Yeah, you know, well, you know what it is, like
my brother played bass for the Intruders, So they would
actually rehearse in our basement, which was a little deep
because you know, you're so young that you're not allowed
in the basement. That I would sit on the top
step and they would rehearse, and then I would slide
down to the next step and slide down to the
(45:15):
next step till they finally see me and let's say
get back up, you know, get back upstairs. But then
my dad was an MC for count Basie, So yeah,
like my dad, like I grew up with seventy eights
in the house, West Montgomery. Jimmy Smith and Arthur Price sock,
so you had those. So it was almost like being
(45:35):
the youngest, I had the best of everything. I had
the seventy eights. You know, my brothers were you know,
my brother was the weather report, Maha Vish New orchestra person,
and then of course your sisters how many years older.
I'm oh man, I was the mistake, okay, Like I
was the one that was a little bit of farther
(45:58):
gap that it was kind of like, yeah, this was
a hot and every night with my mont and dad,
because everybody was like, you know, one person was this
you know, you know, forty nine and fifty one, fifty three,
and you know, it got to the point that it
was kind of like, yo, there was like an eight
year gap with me, Like I wasn't supposed to be
his right, right, but you know, but I was. I
(46:20):
was the sponge, so you know, and and what I
give more credit to was my you know, at about
seven years old, my brother showed me how to take
records in and out of the sleeve. Don't put your
hands on the records. You hold your thumb at the end,
you put your finger in the middle, bring it out,
don't don't touch touch the vinyl like that, and he
(46:41):
had you know, he had a set, he had a
receiver records now now like we've used I think I
think that ship out the window.
Speaker 7 (46:50):
My parents were like that.
Speaker 8 (46:52):
But he, you know, he was kind of like, listen,
if if you, if you take care of it, I
will let you use my stere system when he was
at work, what like seven years old. But what I'm
gonna tell you was crazy. I'm seven years old and
I'm making chick corea tapes cassettes, like he gave me
a blank cassette and I'm listening to music, not really
(47:14):
understanding what is attracting me to this music. But I'm like,
oh my god, I want this chick career song and
oh look, you know, return it forever and I want that.
And because the his music was my music, and I
would make these, make these tapes, and I got sucked in,
like I didn't understand it was the chorus structure. I
didn't understand what it was. It was just the it
(47:36):
was a pure attraction of music. And then the Stevie
Wondering and Marvin Gay.
Speaker 2 (47:40):
So that's what makes you different. You didn't have the
don't touch my stereo. Oh no, I had the exact opposite.
I had the exact opposite.
Speaker 1 (47:51):
See, I had.
Speaker 2 (47:52):
Don't touch my stereo. But I also lived in the
house with three collectors that hove the stereo. So I
was forced by will too, you know, by force. I
had to listen to their music and don't touch my
stereo on the car and none of that stuff. So
(48:13):
I was that music was forced upon me. And then
I guess Stockholm syndrome.
Speaker 8 (48:17):
I just like I used to do this weird thing
that this is probably the first time that I'm ever
admitting admitting this. But I would have a radio and
I would go and take a bath, and I would
take the radio in the bathroom and I plug it
up and I would sit the radio on top of
the toilet and I would grab the plunger because you
got to understand a plunger microphone, it's a microphone, it's
(48:40):
a horn, it's a bass, it's a guitar. Oh, I
would mimic every but you know what I did. It
made me memorize every guitar solo, lick for lick, every horn.
So listen, I was switched. I would have that ship
out playing.
Speaker 1 (49:00):
Look the whole entire room just turned against.
Speaker 7 (49:06):
The first thing. He says, I use a plunger for
a mic, like but no, no, no, listen, what was that?
Speaker 2 (49:12):
Literally everything everyone in this room, the people across the street,
that froker.
Speaker 8 (49:20):
Listen, man, you know your imagination and music is basically
while I'm sitting here, because you.
Speaker 1 (49:27):
Look ill meant the same thing.
Speaker 2 (49:29):
When James Brown was on Dinah Shore doing body Heat
and that's the first time I saw him do the
microphone tricks.
Speaker 1 (49:35):
I got the toilet punch and start doing the microphone tricks.
And then my mom was like, so.
Speaker 8 (49:41):
See I didn't do it in front of my mouth.
I had a lock on the door.
Speaker 1 (49:45):
Oh you knew better? Oh yeah, yeah.
Speaker 7 (49:48):
Yeah.
Speaker 8 (49:49):
And I didn't put the plunger near my mouth.
Speaker 7 (49:52):
You know you plunge, slash, you know what I'm saying.
Speaker 8 (49:55):
You listen, But but the top like, I wasn't doing
it the rubber part, which was the horn, and you know,
you would grab a roll of toilet paper and that
would be your muzzle on your on your trumpet. So listen,
I went to what was Steve was just like, wow.
Speaker 1 (50:13):
Where were you busy in the bathroom? When were you
allowed to curate.
Speaker 2 (50:22):
The first backyard barbecue or like what you consider your
first DJ gig.
Speaker 8 (50:28):
I started making mixtapes for all of the dancers, not
necessarily mixtapes. If you had a cassette that had a
spring loaded pause button that it did it instantly. You
could like you know how sometimes you would have the
pause buttons that you would hit it and then it
would engage. If you had a spring loaded pause button,
it would stop automatic. So I would just make the
(50:51):
love the Life you Live break that all of the
dancers would dance off of. I was the one that
had it that went for ten minutes. Yeah, so I
would go to the end, and you got known for that.
And then it just turned into you know what, I'm
gonna steal some of my brother's records and not eat
lunch the whole time. I'm in school and I'm going
(51:11):
downtown because you remember funkal Mart had three five for
you know, two dollars, and I would just I started
a record collection like that's I realized that the record
collection is the most important thing as a DJ.
Speaker 2 (51:24):
What was the first because I did when Rappers a
Light came out, I begged I think twenty people for
a dime mm because there's like seventeen.
Speaker 8 (51:35):
So yeah, listen, I had, like, what was the first
record that you like, bar Kay's Holy Ghosts Moving by
Brass Construction because I was a little pre hip hop.
So that's what they play at the block parties. I
just want to make your dream come try by mass production,
and you know, it was it was all of that.
It was the funk and soul bands.
Speaker 1 (51:57):
When did you play your first block party?
Speaker 8 (52:01):
Probably about eighty seventy nine eighty. I know, I was
still in school.
Speaker 2 (52:10):
Too, so I know Philly is known for these DJ
crews like astrou Oh yeah, this was this was way
before that.
Speaker 8 (52:17):
This was super before that, like enough to go off
the block, so let alone have a crew. But it
was it was older DJ's on the block, and you know,
and that's the first time that you got in front
of two turntables and a mixer with headphones mix.
Speaker 1 (52:36):
Oh yes, I had nothing, and they trusted you. Yeah.
Speaker 8 (52:39):
I mean, listen, I was the guy that when they
had to go pee, I played.
Speaker 1 (52:45):
Yeah, you were like, I was gonna say, have you
ever been someone's record? Dude?
Speaker 8 (52:48):
Always? That's all I was to all of the older guys,
and it was just you know, I don't remember what happened,
but I gotten to a point that I would do
stuff by myself. And you I know from growing up
in West Philly that we have an iconic public enemy
type flavor flave figure named Crazy D that if Crazy
(53:10):
D was at your block party, your block party was
guaranteed to be a success. So people would go and
recruit him. And they had a block party on fifty
seven Cedar, which is a big block to two Way Street.
And I remember looking at all of the DJs in
the neighborhood. You had Disco Doc, you had Disco Rat,
you had Email Disco, and all of them had no
(53:30):
block parties. They were all there. So it was kind
of like when you don't have any other competition and
they're all they're watching you and you're fourteen fifteen years
old in the street with four or five hundred people
and you're controlling them. That was the That was the signal.
That was the signal in the neighborhood that that he
got it.
Speaker 9 (53:51):
Like that was it.
Speaker 8 (53:52):
It was that one block party.
Speaker 1 (53:54):
So how long was it before you were able to.
Speaker 2 (53:58):
Because I know turned, I mean I had to get
a record budget to buy my turntables and my mixer
and that sort of thing.
Speaker 8 (54:05):
So like I was in a lot of crews that
had equipment, so one guy, you know, it was kind
of like you practice, though I would mentally practice, no, Jeff, listen,
I'm I'm dead that serious. I would practice in my head.
That was the only way that I can get ten
spent in my head project. Well that was before that.
(54:29):
That was before that, but you know what it was.
What helped was if you cut Grand Master Flash super
Wrapping at a party and you killed it. The next week,
the DJ in your crew is going to cut that record.
He's not gonna leave it for you. There wasn't there
wasn't favoritism or any of that. So what happened then
(54:49):
you learned how to cut at the party by Treacher's Three,
and then the next week he would cut Grand Master
Flash and the Treacher's Three. So you systematically kept going
through records finding root teens to do off of these
records because it was it was that competitive, you know,
you you know the back in the day parties, you know,
Grand Master Flash super Wrapping was paid twenty times because
(55:11):
everybody had a routine off.
Speaker 1 (55:12):
Of it, right, who who was the first? Like did
you pioneer the whole let's dance of the drummers beat?
Speaker 9 (55:21):
Like what that was?
Speaker 1 (55:23):
That was a classic?
Speaker 8 (55:24):
Like I don't think anybody necessary like that's what was
the record that the drummers beat?
Speaker 1 (55:30):
Like that to me is is that's Philly?
Speaker 8 (55:33):
Like that was one of the things that I would say,
like that didn't belong to any DJ specifically, that was Philly.
That was DJ Spinbad, Lightning Rich, that was every DJ
and Philly cut pumped me Up, they cut dances, drummers beat,
they cut, it's time, they cut, you know, clear they
cut Like there was just a staple of Philly records
(55:54):
that all of the DJs cut.
Speaker 2 (55:56):
But I mean, who was the first cat that was
just like, yo, just pump me up normal, I'm gonna
bump the bump up, bump, bump me out like.
Speaker 8 (56:05):
Ways to every You know what was funny? I think
when I saved up enough money and got twelve hundred,
because I understand all of this early stuff was done
on belt drive turntables, which I think helped me a.
Speaker 1 (56:17):
Lot because the record goes fat okay, but you know
what it.
Speaker 8 (56:21):
Was, it helped your hands. You know that's my hands
got light because they had no choice but to be
like because I was on the wackiest equipment in the world.
Speaker 2 (56:30):
So so without butter rugs, how were you able to
wax records under wax paper?
Speaker 8 (56:35):
You would go in your moms and pull out some
wax paper, put a record down, you cut it out
and poked a hole in. You start scratching too much.
The wax paper would get too big and start sliding off,
and you gotta get some new wax paper. There wasn't
We didn't have any of those tools. We didn't have
butter rugs. Felt mattch You. You know, you bought a turntable,
you had the big rubber mat on it that you
just tossed away, and you know, forty five made the
(56:58):
record wobble, which you had to have really light hands because.
Speaker 1 (57:01):
You would cut forty five's too.
Speaker 8 (57:02):
Well, No, you would put a forty five underneath the twelve,
and oh but that didn't work. So the wax paper
was it. Or you would cut an album cover and
try to use that. You try to get a glossy
one because it was a lot more. He would spray
WD forty in your mixer, which I know Steve is
just like, oh, my god, you would spray it in
(57:24):
the mixure. You knew it was going to destroy your mixer,
but it would make your crossfader cool. So you know,
it was kind of like listen, I'm gonna I'm gonna
kill it for about three weeks and then the here
comes the static and it's time to retire, and you
would just sit it on the cell shelf and let
it dry out. By time to dry it out, you
could do it all over again.
Speaker 7 (57:42):
Can I ask you all a question, just in a
DJ culture question, like what is Philly DJ culture and
history mean to hip hop versus other cities? Well, of
course people would say New York, But what do y'all
think that it really means to the culture.
Speaker 2 (57:56):
Well that leads to my next question, because I think
that yes or no, did you invent the Transformer scratch?
Speaker 8 (58:06):
I don't. I don't give that. If I had to
give that credit to anybody, I would give that credit
to DJ Spinbad, the original spin Bad who used to
DJ Forbell.
Speaker 1 (58:16):
Yeah, he's from Philly, Yes he was.
Speaker 8 (58:18):
He was the first person to do something that sounded
like that. There was no name.
Speaker 1 (58:25):
He was doing it with the up and down. It
was no rhythm to it.
Speaker 8 (58:28):
But he was the first person that did it forward
and did it backwards and then basically.
Speaker 1 (58:33):
It did the light bulb go off in your headlight?
Speaker 8 (58:35):
Oh completely, But you know what it was when you
think about it, what Graham was the Theodore invented. You
took and you said, okay, Flash added some rhythm to it,
you know what I mean? Okay, who decided to use
the crossfrader and cut the scratch on and off? Like
it was all of these add ons that people did.
So when he did it, it was kind of like, Okay,
(58:57):
he did it.
Speaker 1 (58:58):
That was dope.
Speaker 8 (58:59):
But he didn't put any kind of rhythm to it
like everybody. You know, everybody's rhythm is syncopated. Nobody was
like everybody's that that.
Speaker 7 (59:12):
Okay, So see that right there. So if I was
to say what alt Philly DJ's hip hop would be,
what it would be something like that, Like it would.
Speaker 1 (59:19):
Be technique is something that Philly is definitely invented.
Speaker 2 (59:23):
Technique Like most people credit spendbad Uh you cash money?
Speaker 1 (59:29):
There's a fourth one. Uh, we don't play what is miss?
Speaker 2 (59:36):
I would say that, well, okay, I'll ask you who
without hurting people's feelings who's in your Mount Rushmore?
Speaker 1 (59:47):
Oh you're already there.
Speaker 8 (59:49):
Who Now is this Mount Rushmore in Philly or just
in general Philly?
Speaker 1 (59:55):
Cash?
Speaker 8 (59:55):
Absolutely crazy thing. It would be cash grand Master Neell
and Cosmic keV.
Speaker 7 (01:00:04):
Well, I knew you was gonna say keV, but I was,
that's wow, that's awesome.
Speaker 8 (01:00:07):
Like and it's ken my idol. Listen, keV keV.
Speaker 1 (01:00:13):
keV.
Speaker 8 (01:00:15):
keV was incredible. Cosmic keV is the fastest DJ ever
heard him? Like he was he was, he was incredible.
Like I like, we get mad at keV because keV
don't beat keV no more. And I'm like, come on, dude,
I know you got that ship that don't.
Speaker 10 (01:00:30):
Ever go nowhere.
Speaker 1 (01:00:31):
Wait he doesn't do it anymore.
Speaker 8 (01:00:32):
No, No, I ain't saying like that. I'm saying like, listen,
like I said, I get mad that this generation of
people who know Cosmic keV don't know the cosmic keV
that I know. Oh you know what I mean, Like
you know, keV grand Astonell, like everybody kind of had
something and it was you know, and it was really
dope because you know, when cash wasn't necessarily from Philly,
(01:00:53):
cash from Yaton and you know, we brought Cash into
Philly and introduced him to all of the promoters and
all the rest of that.
Speaker 1 (01:01:00):
Wait, you don't consider Yayden, Well, well I do, I do.
Speaker 8 (01:01:06):
I mean, you know, it's kind of like you you
kind of count Sharon Hill as Philly.
Speaker 1 (01:01:10):
Yeah, okay, back in the day, used to think that
was a suburb. Yeah, yeah, I get it. I get it.
Speaker 8 (01:01:14):
But you know, but you know, like you know, Nell
used to bring us to South Philly because you wouldn't
go to South Philly without knowing somebody. You wouldn't, damn it,
trying to go down there and DJ.
Speaker 10 (01:01:23):
So you.
Speaker 8 (01:01:26):
Listen, it wasn't like that, Like I listen, I remember
keV bringing me to Mount Airy to DJ at a
block party, and someone snatched this guy's glasses right next
to me. He had a pair of Neil Styles on
just like I did. And they snatched his glasses and
didn't snatch mine because I was up there with keV.
Speaker 1 (01:01:47):
I forgot you grew up in the era of snatching.
Speaker 8 (01:01:51):
Listen Gazelle's Space Invader hats I remember, Yeah, I forgot
about that era. It was rough, you know, and and
I understand I needed glasses. So my ship wasn't for show.
Speaker 7 (01:02:07):
You got transitions before we even had transitions.
Speaker 1 (01:02:09):
Listen.
Speaker 8 (01:02:10):
So somebody snatched my glasses. I don't know if I'm
a beer fire. I got robbed too, and somebody took
my gazelle. They took my glasses, took my sneaks.
Speaker 1 (01:02:18):
What at?
Speaker 6 (01:02:20):
Noah?
Speaker 8 (01:02:21):
Listen, I was coming home, coming home, and you saw it.
You saw the whole thing being set up. We were walking.
Funny is I was with a friend of mine and
we stopped and was talking to this girl and these
two guys walked past, and they walked back past. So
it's kind of like the second pass was kind of
(01:02:42):
like that's when you kind of cut your eye, and
the third past they came back and we kind of
looked at each other like okay, you know what this is.
So as they walked left, we walked right. And what
he did is he looped around and came through the
alley and jumped out the alley with a gun and
was just like give me your glasses. And I'll just
repeat did everything that he said because it was in
broad daylight. So he's like, give me your glasses. I
(01:03:04):
was like, glasses, Like give me a chain, give me
my chain because I'm like, I'm stalling because my man broke.
Speaker 10 (01:03:11):
He broke.
Speaker 8 (01:03:13):
I mean, listen, I wasn't mad shit he had a gun.
I would have broke too, damn it will I'm playing,
but he broke, and you know I was. I was
two seconds away from like, Okay, he doesn't look too
confident with his gun, so I'm about to suckle punch
the ship out of him and run. And what happened.
Then his man came up, So now it's two people.
So it was kind of like, okay, all right, let
me just give my glasses and give you my watch,
(01:03:35):
and and it got caught.
Speaker 1 (01:03:37):
Oh they did.
Speaker 8 (01:03:38):
Long story short. He came to court with my sneakers on.
You You remember how you used to lace the sneakers up,
that how all one side would be red and one
side would be blue.
Speaker 2 (01:03:50):
I knew how to lace my sneakers to New York
strings in the same suit.
Speaker 8 (01:03:54):
I knew how to lace my sneaks up, that this
whole side will be red, this whole side to be blue.
He came in to sneakkers that he wribbed me in.
I let the judge know. He said they were his sneakers.
I told him take the laces out and let him
lace them up, and.
Speaker 10 (01:04:08):
Did he do it?
Speaker 2 (01:04:09):
And he couldn't do it. Wait, the judge made the
judge made him do it. He couldn't do it, and
it gave me the sneakers back, and I took the
sneaks and throw.
Speaker 9 (01:04:16):
Him in the fass.
Speaker 8 (01:04:17):
It's just like, I just don't want you.
Speaker 10 (01:04:18):
To have Yeah, it'd be such a great episode.
Speaker 9 (01:04:22):
Of C S I or l A Law Like you're
so old, you said, l A.
Speaker 7 (01:04:40):
I love that.
Speaker 1 (01:04:41):
No, I get it.
Speaker 10 (01:04:42):
That is you should sell that episode.
Speaker 1 (01:04:51):
How did you first hear about the d mcs?
Speaker 8 (01:04:54):
Oh man?
Speaker 1 (01:04:56):
How many? How many belts? Is that a real thing?
Or just where is that? Folk Awards?
Speaker 8 (01:05:01):
It wasn't belt. I got a cup. I didn't get
a belt.
Speaker 1 (01:05:04):
Was it the very first one?
Speaker 8 (01:05:06):
No, it wasn't the first one, but I got I
got a cup.
Speaker 1 (01:05:11):
What year did you win yours?
Speaker 8 (01:05:13):
Eighty six?
Speaker 1 (01:05:15):
Okay? And how many years were they in existence?
Speaker 8 (01:05:17):
Oh man?
Speaker 10 (01:05:17):
It was?
Speaker 8 (01:05:18):
It was there for a couple of years before that.
But it was funny because when I got in, fifty
percent of the DJs were mixers. So they got really
really mad at me because I kind of changed the
whole landscape of the DMC. So before you can listen,
before listen, the dude was playing and he I need
Love and he's mixing the next record, and I came
(01:05:42):
in like no technique lass Lassan, and it was just like,
we can't keep up with that.
Speaker 10 (01:05:48):
What's the d MCS DIC mixed Club?
Speaker 1 (01:05:51):
Yeah, I never knew that's what.
Speaker 2 (01:05:52):
DMCs do think about it just mix, Yes, But so
you're saying that before you came in, Before you came in,
it was just about who had the hottest mix in
five minutes pretty much?
Speaker 1 (01:06:07):
Who were the previous winners before? I don't know, so
who was going up against you now?
Speaker 8 (01:06:15):
I want to say, well, because it was two it
was the New Music Seminar and it was the Disco
Mixed Club, Disco Mixed Club. I remember Van dy C
was in it, and it was a couple other dejits.
I think wiz Kid was in it. I don't know
the mixer. The mixer guys it was from Philly as well.
He's not from Philly, he's from Jersey.
Speaker 1 (01:06:35):
He was he was, he was.
Speaker 8 (01:06:36):
I was in the New Music Seminar with him. He
was the he was the d m C World champ
at the time, and.
Speaker 1 (01:06:46):
How did you defeat him?
Speaker 8 (01:06:50):
What do you mean how I was better?
Speaker 1 (01:06:53):
Okay, but you know what, like listen and and and
he's he's he's cool.
Speaker 10 (01:06:59):
You know.
Speaker 8 (01:06:59):
I love that brother. It was just funny at that
point in time. I was never really I never really
considered myself a competition guy like listen, I like, I
like to do it. I was just kind of like, damn,
I'm really mad that everybody's trying to put this person
up against you. It's just like I enjoyed doing this.
I ain't playing basketball to win the dunk contest. I
just like playing ball. But that was a way to
(01:07:20):
get your name out. So when I got into the
new music seminar, being from Philly, what did you cut with?
Speaker 1 (01:07:29):
I did?
Speaker 8 (01:07:29):
That was when I did the bought a mansion for
your mother thing and broke it down. But it was
kind of like he right before we went on, I
went to shake his hand and he didn't shake mine.
I was just like, hey, man, what's up. Good luck?
You know, because I was like, man, I like you
got the King cut record out, and he didn't. He
wouldn't shake my hand, you know. But it was just
(01:07:52):
it was literally one of those things that I'm kind
of like, listen, the equipment was messing up. I realized
that nobody was using their own needles. Nobody was using
I won that with technology because the equipment that everybody
was using, everybody lost on the side, like it was
two setups to set up on the left. Everybody lost
(01:08:14):
because it was jumping. And when he didn't shake my hand,
I deliberately walked to the left side. You know, I
was like, no, I'm going to show you that. I'm
going to show you completely. And I reached.
Speaker 1 (01:08:31):
I purposely took the bad side.
Speaker 8 (01:08:32):
Like Will was pissed off because everybody was like, when
you go out there, go to the right side.
Speaker 1 (01:08:37):
And I walked up and.
Speaker 8 (01:08:38):
Went to the left side, and I reached in my
bag and I put my own needles on. I had
some ADC needles with quarters on top. And I reached
and I put my wax paper on and I put
my record on. And the funny thing with Steve was
gonna kill me. I reached in my bag and while
everybody was looking, I took the long straw and said crossfader,
(01:09:00):
and as soon as it got loose, I went my
headphones and I tested the left turntable and I tested
the right one, and I looked out at the crowded
Will and I was like.
Speaker 10 (01:09:08):
Yeah, that's it.
Speaker 2 (01:09:11):
I was like, like, none of those DJs even thought
knew none to wait their ship, not or balance none.
Only you were doing that just me. And once I knew,
I was kind of like, I'm good.
Speaker 8 (01:09:25):
And I started breaking breaking stuff down, doing rhythm scratches
with job rhythm scratch and you know, just stuff that
people hadn't seen or heard before.
Speaker 1 (01:09:37):
And that's how you won. That was it? I see,
all right, Uh, I gotta get to your your production phase.
I know.
Speaker 5 (01:09:45):
Jeff was like, this is got We're gonna have to
have him back for an whole mon like production phase.
Speaker 7 (01:09:51):
I told you before he got here, I was like,
I don't know how we're gonna do this.
Speaker 5 (01:09:56):
This is a two parter that's waiting to happen. I'm
not stopping the story is no, I'm just I'm I'm
just saying.
Speaker 1 (01:10:05):
I see he's let's go.
Speaker 7 (01:10:06):
You know, we're gon we can get and then we're
gonna make him come back again.
Speaker 1 (01:10:10):
Yes, okay, So how did you partner with Will?
Speaker 8 (01:10:16):
You know every day everybody had a rap group, everybody
had an MC, everybody had a DJ.
Speaker 2 (01:10:21):
Wait before I asked that, how did I heard a
mixtape once of you battling Victor do play.
Speaker 9 (01:10:31):
Dick.
Speaker 1 (01:10:32):
It wasn't who put that mistake one.
Speaker 8 (01:10:35):
It wasn't a battle. It was people just recorded. But
it was kind of like people used to do calling
responses with records.
Speaker 1 (01:10:42):
But I thought he was your record dude.
Speaker 8 (01:10:44):
No, you know, Vic, Vic was the young guy that
used to come over the house and I would show
him stuff.
Speaker 1 (01:10:50):
Yeah, but then what happened with this thing like your
battle with Jeff and Vic.
Speaker 7 (01:10:54):
The dick.
Speaker 1 (01:10:57):
Telling that title.
Speaker 8 (01:10:58):
What happened was Vic when on at a Central High
party and as a joke, he took a he took
a jab at me with records because we're all cool, right,
he took a jab at me with records. So it
was kind of like, Okay, you're gonna take a jab
at me. You don't understand that I got this laundry
list of things that I can do to you. And
and Ice, my MC at the time was the one
(01:11:20):
that was like Victor Dick. So now to show you,
because it came out on a mix tape, you don't
get a chance to see what actually happened. You only
hear it, so everybody's like, oh my god, you killed
Vic and it was like it wasn't like that stage.
Speaker 1 (01:11:35):
Yeah.
Speaker 7 (01:11:35):
Can I give a millennial footnote real quick to all
the millennials Victor Dick aka Victor Cook aka Victor to
do play. You may know him from a party called
Kissing Grind.
Speaker 1 (01:11:42):
Yeah, there we go, the god Kissing Grind. Yes, that's
that's come up with the.
Speaker 7 (01:11:48):
Century and one of the producers, one of my favorite,
Eric Eric green Eyes. I always like to put that
in there.
Speaker 1 (01:11:54):
Victor Cook, Victor Victor, I'm a call him Cook. I'm
no he.
Speaker 2 (01:12:02):
Wait, Actually you mentioned something very crucial, uh for Philadelphia
hip hop heads. The the high school jams. How were
they booked? Because those were like on level of college jams.
Speaker 8 (01:12:16):
But you know what, all of the DJs were from
Central High Like Vic went to Central Where did you
go to high school? I was, but you know I was, yeah,
I was out of school by then. Oh, but it
was just kind of like I got booked because of
my affiliation with Vic and everybody else.
Speaker 1 (01:12:33):
So you was there an agent that just had y'all
going on to high school was an agent. An agent six,
I thought an agent was a guy that you know
did these things.
Speaker 8 (01:12:49):
Now you just you know, you knew that you knew
the guy who was throwing a party, and you wanted
to kind of be his favorite because he would, you know,
and then if he knew that people followed you, you
know they were they were booking.
Speaker 2 (01:13:00):
But you never desired to be on like Lady b
Street beat on Power ninety nine or like like what
was your goal?
Speaker 8 (01:13:05):
I got the radio one, you know what, I didn't know.
I didn't know, Like this was weird because this was
at a point in time when I'm out of school
and I don't tell anybody that I'm a DJ, Like
what kind of DJ?
Speaker 7 (01:13:17):
You know?
Speaker 9 (01:13:18):
You were?
Speaker 8 (01:13:18):
You were a radio DJ then, so you know, my
mom's friends come to.
Speaker 1 (01:13:22):
Oh, Jeff, you at of school.
Speaker 9 (01:13:23):
What are you doing now?
Speaker 1 (01:13:24):
You kind of like a college or you didn't okay, okay, it's.
Speaker 8 (01:13:28):
Kind of like what are you doing now? It's like
I'm a DJ and you don't tell somebody I do
block parties and you know, house parties that I'm setting
up on people's washing machines and all of that.
Speaker 2 (01:13:36):
Like that that wasn't a viable. So back then, if
I wanted to book Jazzy Jeff, Oh, listen, I had.
Speaker 1 (01:13:43):
My cool in eighty three or eighty.
Speaker 8 (01:13:46):
Listen, you find your man who worked at the printing store,
and you would get the car and then somebody would
design it and you would put your home number on it.
Speaker 1 (01:13:53):
So in eighty three, how much could I book you for?
Speaker 4 (01:13:57):
Oh?
Speaker 8 (01:13:58):
Man, I was a cool thirty five hours?
Speaker 1 (01:14:01):
Wait what come on?
Speaker 7 (01:14:02):
Man?
Speaker 1 (01:14:03):
We was just trying to five bucks.
Speaker 8 (01:14:04):
We was trying to get money to go to McDonald's
on Fortier Street.
Speaker 7 (01:14:07):
Like a COAE episode.
Speaker 2 (01:14:10):
University like you wasn't getting I got to pay you
two hundred and fifty bucks.
Speaker 8 (01:14:15):
Man, I wish somebody paid me two hundred fifty bucks.
Speaker 7 (01:14:17):
But you wear and your kicks was right.
Speaker 1 (01:14:20):
I mean listen, because I had a job. I worked
at Roy Rogers.
Speaker 7 (01:14:23):
Okay, there we go.
Speaker 1 (01:14:24):
You worked where? Which street?
Speaker 9 (01:14:26):
How do you think I know?
Speaker 1 (01:14:28):
I lived at Roy Rogers? Come on, I was, I was.
Speaker 8 (01:14:31):
I was the chicken cook. Makes a lot of sense, now,
don't it you?
Speaker 1 (01:14:34):
Yes, it totally there you goes, Oh my god, this.
Speaker 2 (01:14:38):
Totally makes sense. This absolutely makes sense. Now wait, you
worked at that that? Yes, dude, I guarantee you, I've sixty.
Speaker 1 (01:14:49):
Five percent of all my nutrition.
Speaker 9 (01:14:53):
Was a ship.
Speaker 8 (01:14:53):
I worked at the Roy Rogers, and then I moved
up the street and started working for Steve's ice Cream.
Speaker 1 (01:14:59):
Ice Cream. Yeah, with the mixed man.
Speaker 8 (01:15:02):
I was the king of the mixing.
Speaker 7 (01:15:03):
So y'all knew each other, but y'all don't know each
other obviously.
Speaker 1 (01:15:06):
I guarantee you.
Speaker 7 (01:15:06):
Ever asking for some free ice cream, He's like, no.
Speaker 2 (01:15:10):
You know you all right, wait, let me let me
bring the move down real quick. Uh side note Philadelphia tribute.
Speaker 1 (01:15:16):
Uh.
Speaker 2 (01:15:17):
Gary Heidnick used to oh damn you guys started frowning already.
Gary Heidnick uh would often lord his the women inside.
Speaker 1 (01:15:27):
Of that Roy Rogers on forties? Really to do?
Speaker 7 (01:15:30):
What? Who is he?
Speaker 9 (01:15:32):
What to do?
Speaker 1 (01:15:33):
Disorder? Are Who's Milwaukee? Yeah?
Speaker 10 (01:15:38):
I hate to do that.
Speaker 8 (01:15:39):
Noise, yeah, silence and lamb dude.
Speaker 1 (01:15:43):
Who's Milwaukee? Yeah? Yeah, I'm.
Speaker 4 (01:15:47):
Not.
Speaker 1 (01:15:47):
David Banner, David David.
Speaker 7 (01:15:51):
He got killed in jail. David the blonde everybody. Yeah,
he liked it. He liked it.
Speaker 1 (01:16:01):
Brown his name. We had a we had we had
a version of that in Philly. I didn't know he
lived at eighth and Butler at that and he in
the he used the bar to Jeff.
Speaker 2 (01:16:18):
So Gary was our Jeffrey Domer side note at his trial,
you know his key hip hop history, you know it
was a key witness at his trial.
Speaker 1 (01:16:28):
At Gary Hidnik's.
Speaker 8 (01:16:29):
Trial said G from Ultra Magnetic for.
Speaker 2 (01:16:33):
Some reird, weird reason either said, G used to talk
to this girl in Philly, but he lived.
Speaker 1 (01:16:42):
Crashed in North Philly.
Speaker 2 (01:16:44):
Uh eighty six eighty seven, like between his ultramatenetic gears
or whatever.
Speaker 1 (01:16:51):
But he had to for some reason. He was testifying
in the in that Gary hiding truck.
Speaker 10 (01:16:59):
Yeah, that's a little weird.
Speaker 1 (01:17:00):
Yeah, why I just bring the mood down.
Speaker 7 (01:17:03):
No, it's fine.
Speaker 8 (01:17:05):
Just completely destroyed my Rory Roger days. I gave oh man, Gary, Wow,
I'm fixing chicken.
Speaker 1 (01:17:17):
This is not funny. Just killing chicken.
Speaker 7 (01:17:21):
I heard you good?
Speaker 2 (01:17:23):
So uh yeah, from doing those those central This is
weird because this actually takes us back to the beginning
of this conversation with pleasing yourself musically and serving.
Speaker 1 (01:17:43):
The crowd musically. I noticed that, uh, there's there's sort
of a running theme with most of the.
Speaker 2 (01:17:53):
Guests that are on QLs in which high pressured dj
uh uh scenarios make better producers. Jimmy Jam would often
talk about having to DJ for two thousand kids in Minnesota,
but that made him more in tune to become Jimmy
(01:18:16):
Jam And of course Doctor Dre his story.
Speaker 1 (01:18:18):
Is that you know, if you played the wrong record,
you could get shot.
Speaker 8 (01:18:22):
Yeah, I know that part, So.
Speaker 1 (01:18:26):
I don't know.
Speaker 2 (01:18:26):
I feel like I'm in such a privileged era because like,
my celebrity allows me to do silly shit, like I
could play a Sesame Street record if I want to,
and it's like, oh, of course, loves you know, I'll
play the Curly Shuffle, three Stooges, shit whatever. But it's like,
how are you able to experiment or is it just
(01:18:47):
like yo, I got to play the hottest record right
now and that's it. You got, Like I assume these
gigs are like three to four hours, correct, No, you do.
Speaker 8 (01:18:55):
Three to four hours. I do two. I'll do you
can make a point in two hours, yes, Like I
can make a point however long. But it's one of
the most important things is for me to know how long,
because for me to tell the story, I have to end.
I get absolutely pissed off. I am not able to
end because everything, you know, it has a beginning of
(01:19:17):
middle and an end and you just you once I
know how long it is, I kind of know where
to go.
Speaker 1 (01:19:23):
But how can you tell that story in two hours?
Speaker 8 (01:19:25):
Though, because it's so it's possible to tell that story
in thirty minutes, like it all depends.
Speaker 9 (01:19:31):
You know, it might not like it.
Speaker 1 (01:19:35):
It's not easy.
Speaker 8 (01:19:36):
It's like it's actually harder to do it in a
shorter amount of time. Yes, it's hard to tell, you know,
because you you don't get a chance to build up,
you don't get a chance to kind of get into it.
Speaker 1 (01:19:47):
You only so when you do these gigs around the world,
it's only for two hours. Yep, got even three?
Speaker 8 (01:19:54):
Well, see, you know what it is. You got to
keep in mind. I play really really high impact. When
you play high impact, you can't high impact people for
over two hours. Like, there was so many lessons that
I've learned. I remember doing an MSU homecoming and it
was one of those things that I just was hitting
(01:20:15):
them and hitting them and hitting them, and I remember
paying attention to this guy. He was a little bit
heavy and he was dancing and it was almost like
you were trying to get off the floor and I
keep playing something that and when I tell you, he
was dripping and soaking wet. And it got to a
point that I was like, you're not enjoying yourself anymore,
(01:20:37):
Like you're at a fucking health reason, You're You're at
a point that you're not enjoying. And it was kind
of like, wow, Jeff, you know what you have to do.
You gotta take people on a roller coaster ride. You
got like it's cool to send people to the bar.
You know what I realized a long time, like I
didn't come up playing reggae because like, and I'm gonna
(01:20:58):
tell you why, there was so many me reggae records
you get. You know, I'm coming from funk, soul rock,
all the rest of this. I couldn't add reggae into
my set because it was way too much and it
was so many rhythms that changed that it was just
kind of like, you know what, I'm gonna leave that
to someone else. But what I realized is if I
(01:21:20):
didn't play reggae, people didn't leave who wanted to hear reggae?
Once you get them in, nobody's leaving. That's the first
lesson as a DJ that you have to understand, Yeah,
I'm not paying twenty dollars and a DJ suck to
the point that I'm gonna leave. I'm gonna be mad
at you, but I'm gonna stay so because I know
that you're there. My job is, you know what, if
(01:21:43):
you satisfy everybody in the room for forty five minutes,
they walk out saying I had a great time. So
it gives me the ability to satisfy three different groups
of people for forty five minutes. Everybody walks out like, yo,
he killed it, because you can't think. Case in point,
(01:22:04):
how long do people dance at a wedding reception? Twenty minutes? Yeah, tops,
a boy, get on the floor with the bride and
the groom. You boom boom, boom, boom boom, and it's
kind of like, okay, cut the cake and we out,
and I'm good, like we not at the You know,
this ain't dance materia because people who went to those
(01:22:25):
marathon dance things they went there to dance all night.
Speaker 2 (01:22:29):
That's not the average club. The average club is I'm
a drink, I'm gonna find a girl, and I'm ana dance.
It's not it's not the whole thing.
Speaker 7 (01:22:37):
And as I'm just gonna say, as the person dancing
on the floor, we appreciate the break to go get
the drink, to not mess up your hair and sweat
your hair out and shit and be like, oh good,
he's gonna let take it.
Speaker 2 (01:22:46):
Oh good.
Speaker 7 (01:22:46):
I can breathe for a second, like we just appreciate it.
Speaker 2 (01:22:49):
You know what, It's funny you said about reggae because
I feel as though reggae is the one genre that
will never die and that.
Speaker 1 (01:22:56):
Is universally loved by everyone. Yep.
Speaker 2 (01:22:59):
My first ten records are always the reggae records because
I have to test the room. That's the one like murder,
she will will never die in my lifetime, So that's
usually like my first record. And with the stuff that
Drake is doing now, that's sort of like close that
it fits in. So usually my first ten records of that,
and it buys me time to see. Now it's weird
(01:23:21):
because I used to be the DJ that like came
out the box hit hit, hit, hit, but then I learned,
like after.
Speaker 1 (01:23:28):
Seventeen, there's fatigue yep.
Speaker 2 (01:23:30):
And then I started feeling myself to the point where
I got off with playing the worst shit.
Speaker 1 (01:23:41):
Ever, No, only because I knew what I had around
the corner.
Speaker 8 (01:23:46):
But how great is that feeling? I tell people, it's amazing.
If I got two thousand people in front of me
and I know I got you, I know what the
next five records are going to do to you? Like
you don't know, Like I'm sitting there like, oh my god,
my ass like fast when we were in when we
(01:24:06):
were in Africa. And because I have this thing that
I play the original of Annie Up the Soul System,
so you know it's fast.
Speaker 1 (01:24:18):
And Soul System.
Speaker 8 (01:24:19):
So everybody's kind of have this look because it's kind
of like you just changed the tempo, like it's almost
like damn, did he fuck up?
Speaker 1 (01:24:27):
And I'm playing it and you.
Speaker 8 (01:24:29):
Gotta sell it like we're selling it. That's over there
dancing Dane dancing, and when it when it morphs into it,
the look on everybody's face, oh oh shit, oh and
it's pandemonium. But so when I drop that, I'm excited
because I'm kind of like I'm looking at the dude
just kind of like, what's he doing? Man, this dude?
Speaker 1 (01:24:50):
And I'm like, and I'm just staring straight in his face.
Speaker 8 (01:24:53):
Just wait because you know, Annie up is kind of
like with all the ladies, and right, yeah, that's that's
the be say.
Speaker 2 (01:25:00):
For dudes, I'm sitting there like, okay, go ahead, stand
there with that stone face.
Speaker 7 (01:25:09):
And then he loses his mind.
Speaker 2 (01:25:10):
Oh absolutely, okay, so listen. Dis inclosing because I also
want to get listen. You said for the record, we
are doing part two.
Speaker 7 (01:25:22):
Okay, but part two gonna be real long too. We're
talking touch of jazz, We're.
Speaker 2 (01:25:27):
Talking we gotta get to the production stuff and then
but I do want to talk about the M three project.
Speaker 1 (01:25:34):
Explained to me how it came to be.
Speaker 8 (01:25:38):
I wanted this to be the last installment of the
Magnificent Series, not the last record that I'm gonna do.
The Magnificent Series was always a trilogy to me. I
wanted to be the Magnificent return of Magnificent M three.
I needed to let the music industry kind of get
completely out of my way. There's certain ship that just
didn't make sense to me that I wanted to kind
(01:25:59):
of You know, the first thing that I fixed was
having your own studio. Because now I can control the
creative process. I can make whatever I want. Nobody can
tell me that I just didn't have it down to
how to release your music and get it to everybody.
So social media and just the changing world that we
live in allowed all of that to happen, and that's
(01:26:21):
why I was eleven year gap between the Return of
the Magnificent to this one. But I also wanted to
do a record because I made the mistake by making
the prototypical let me have all of these guests on
my record, only to realize that there's no way humanly
possible that we're ever going to do a show.
Speaker 1 (01:26:41):
Isn't that frustrating?
Speaker 8 (01:26:43):
Wow? So it just got to a point that it
was kind of like, listen, I'm you know, as many
dates as we're doing, how can I make this record
to the point that we can go out and support you?
Speaker 7 (01:26:53):
But did you do that with the other Magnificence?
Speaker 8 (01:26:55):
Oh listen, I had method man cls move and everybody.
Speaker 7 (01:26:58):
You know.
Speaker 1 (01:26:58):
It was just kind of like, yeah, so this will
never be live, That's what I meant, Like the tour ever.
Speaker 8 (01:27:08):
And yeah, so you know, it was kind of like,
you know, me and Dane have been on the road
for six seven years. I've made fest was on the
Return of the Magnificent. The funny thing was when I
made the Return of the Magnificent, my son Amyra was five,
so you know, it was all and then just sitting
(01:27:28):
down kind of piecing it together. You know, I was
kind of like, listen, you know what I want to do.
First of all, I want to bring back the era
of Cold Crush. I want to bring back the era
of tried, bring back the era of Day Last Soul
of MC's going back and forth with each other because
one of the things that I realized, especially being in DJ,
(01:27:49):
is when you've been around doing a cycle. When AM
and I would DJ together and we would do two
by four sets, which basically both of us are playing
at the same time, people would lose their mind. And
I'm like, I did this twenty five years ago with
cash money, Like it's not new.
Speaker 1 (01:28:05):
Wait, you DJ with cash money before? Yeah, we would
do two by four style. I never knew that. Yeah,
That's why I never asked the question, Yeah, we would
do that, but it's just what it did.
Speaker 8 (01:28:15):
Is it kind of let me know, when you have
when the cycle has repeated itself, everything starts over.
Speaker 1 (01:28:22):
You know.
Speaker 8 (01:28:22):
It's kind of like the person who's like, oh my god,
transformers and you're kind of like, oh, wow, you completely
missed the cartoon. Huh, like you think it started now.
So it's from knowing that. From the DJ side, I'm
kind of like, you know, migos don't actually tag team
when they rap, like they're not doing day La Sola
cold Crush stuff, so no one understands about that. So
(01:28:44):
I was like, yo, I'm just reinventing the wheel that
what I think is really dope is I had three
generations of MC's that I have Fest who's forty, Dame
who's twenty, and am Here who's eighteen, but they all
are MC's.
Speaker 7 (01:29:01):
They all spit and you can hear their different perspectives
and the songs I was listening to it, I was like,
this is.
Speaker 8 (01:29:04):
Kind of like everybody's kind of like, oh man, you
know is it that this is? This is kind of
like I hate categorizing music. I got two categories. There's
good music and bad music. I don't care the genres
all the rest of that ship, because you know, you
would go into a tower records and you couldn't find
a ship that you wanted because you classified it as
(01:29:25):
one thing and they classified it as something else. And
I just kind of wish that the entire store was
in alphabetical order, because I could probably find everything that
I wanted. So it's just it wasn't genre specific, you know.
I took two weeks and we came in and we
made all of the music. All of the music on
the album is live instrumentation, and I did it in
a way because it was kind of like, Okay, you know,
(01:29:47):
I don't necessarily want you to know. I want you
to feel the music. I'm not I don't want you
to dissect it. And then invited Dane ron Fest and
I'm Mayr to come in and Aaron Camper and we,
you know, recorded all the vocals and it was like
that was it.
Speaker 1 (01:30:03):
Shout out to Aaron Camp.
Speaker 8 (01:30:04):
Shout out to Aaron Camp. So I'm about to say
and then we cheat because traveling around the world, if
you watch any of the videos that we put out,
we cheat and shoot videos and all of the places
that we go. So the first video, Skaters Paradise, which
is actually about traveling around the world and how some
(01:30:27):
people would rather spend a thousand dollars on the strip
of the dance instead of spending one thousand dollars on
a trip to Japan. You know, we we cheated and
shot the video all over the world.
Speaker 1 (01:30:39):
That's good business.
Speaker 10 (01:30:40):
That's good business.
Speaker 1 (01:30:41):
Good business. Well, Jeff, I'm holding.
Speaker 10 (01:30:45):
You to.
Speaker 7 (01:30:46):
Yes, we have two actually we have two extra episodes
to do. We have to do Jeff, and then Ryan
Fast he got to come back to his own episode
talk about how he be trying to say the world
and shit exactly.
Speaker 8 (01:30:58):
Yeah, Fest, I take Fest around the world with me
because he saves the world as we go.
Speaker 1 (01:31:05):
I don't. I don't.
Speaker 8 (01:31:06):
I've never been that person that just kind of ventures
off and we would come down and I'll say, dang,
where's Fest And he was like, I don't know, and
Fests just be like, yo, I just got with some
people and they took me out and Kenya, and I'm
kind of like, yeah, I wouldn't have did that. But
Fest comes back and listen. We we were in Bali
and Fest came back after being gone all day that
(01:31:29):
we're almost about to send a search party out, and
Fest was like, yeah, I went to a brothel and
I was sitting outside talking to three prostitutes and a cop. Yes,
And he had like a five hour conversation, but came
back with the entire information on the country of Bali, Indonesia, Indonesia,
(01:31:50):
potato potato patata. So yeah, you know, fest is our culture.
Speaker 7 (01:31:58):
Yeah, how's Obama doing? I just figure you know him.
Speaker 6 (01:32:02):
You know, actually we were having some issues in Chicago
because you know, they got the the the Obama Library.
Speaker 1 (01:32:11):
It's coming to the South Side.
Speaker 6 (01:32:12):
It's a five hundred million dollar project, is gonna projected
three billion.
Speaker 1 (01:32:17):
Dollars for the for the South Side of Chicago.
Speaker 6 (01:32:19):
But Obama, who was a community organizer, wouldn't sign a
community benefits agreement and that that community benefits agreement that
makes sure people don't get harlemed out and brooke them out,
you know what I mean. Like when you see what's
happening in New York, it's coming to your neighborhood soon.
Speaker 7 (01:32:38):
I'm from Dcy.
Speaker 6 (01:32:39):
It didn't already happen in Chicago because where did the
council voted on it today and pushed it through and
so like, you know, basically, you know, the preachers and Obama,
they got to get like it's Obama, just trust them.
And the community is like, hold on, wait this three
billion dollars, we need this in writing, and they're like, nah,
you're not getting it in writing a lot of times too.
You know what's interesting when you this is what black
(01:33:02):
people got to be careful of when we make big
money and do big projects.
Speaker 1 (01:33:07):
Who's in the middle of us in the community. It's
always the middle man.
Speaker 7 (01:33:11):
He usually don't look like the man.
Speaker 6 (01:33:13):
He don't look like the one at the bottom of
the at the top.
Speaker 10 (01:33:15):
Sometimes.
Speaker 1 (01:33:16):
Yeah, you know what I'm saying. I mean Steve Cools, No,
he is right now.
Speaker 10 (01:33:25):
Hey, I'm going to get him an endorsement deal with
w T forty.
Speaker 8 (01:33:29):
Okay, don't but you know my mix is no more
because now they got a nob to make it tight
or loose.
Speaker 7 (01:33:38):
I heard you Ryan over there. Watch out for the
middle man. You know he talks to rich people. I'm
not there yet, but for you and Jeff, y'all should
watch out for the middle man.
Speaker 1 (01:33:46):
If you see a rich person. You know what I'm saying.
Speaker 7 (01:33:48):
I couldn't say wealthy, at least rich. Come on, Negroes,
don't try to play a player.
Speaker 1 (01:33:53):
Got wind this episode so I can go to my job.
You can be rich with culture.
Speaker 7 (01:33:58):
Goodbye. I can't look.
Speaker 1 (01:33:59):
I'm just spending on my mama house.
Speaker 7 (01:34:01):
That's okay.
Speaker 2 (01:34:03):
On behalf of j DJ Jazzy Jeff, Ron fest Sugar,
Steve Fantigolo and his countertops.
Speaker 7 (01:34:13):
Oh man, I love we speak like he real salty
day he didn't, Yeah he real salty is he?
Speaker 2 (01:34:19):
Yeah?
Speaker 7 (01:34:20):
His countertops exactly should have been here, but Ron that's
coming back. So there you go.
Speaker 2 (01:34:26):
There you go, all right, And also Unpaid Bill on
Testamont Street and uh uh Boss Billy Steve. Yeah, everyone,
this Questbow Supreme and this Quest Love only on Pandora.
Speaker 10 (01:34:41):
We will see him the next go round.
Speaker 1 (01:34:42):
Thank you, ladies and gentlemen.
Speaker 2 (01:34:46):
You hate to hear it happen, but you know that's
part one of the Great Jazzy Jeff. Stay tuned for
Part two, where we get more stories of his life
with Will Smith making records, DJing, making music, Follownists, Passion,
the Greatest Ever Jazzy Jeff QLs Classic Part two coming
up next time. Quest Love Supreme is a production of iHeartRadio.
(01:35:13):
This classic episode was produced by the team at Pandora.
For more podcasts from iHeartRadio, visit the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts,
or wherever you listen to your favorite shows.
Hosts And Creators
Laiya St. Clair
Questlove
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