QLS Classic: Kwamé (Part 1)

In part one of two, legendary rapper and literal “Boy Genius” Kwamé Holland gets nostalgic with Team Supreme as they discuss the “golden era” of hip-hop.

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Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:00):
Of Course. Love Supreme is a production of I Heart Radio.
This classic episode was produced by the team at Pandora
Lads and Gentlemen. This is part one of the two
part QULS classic which Man We All Know and Love
Kuami one of those bucked out illness stories in classic

(00:21):
hip hop. Every story Kuamy tells him and he goes
to Rome. Man has to be heard to be believed
without further ado. This is part one. Quamis interview on
q l S from October three, two thousand eighteen, and
enjoy sub Prima rogue called Subma Sama rogue called sub

(00:55):
drama Sa rog called Subma prima roll call. Yeah, yeah, yeah, life,
It's cool like quarmin Roger down, some premo roll call,

(01:16):
some prima roll call. My name is Fante, Yeah, like
Joe text, I got you? Yeah, my only question? Yeah,
where's touching Roma? Rolla prima rogue call. My name is Sugar. Yeah,
I'm a sweet thing. Yeah like Hawaiian Punch, Yeah, kool

(01:40):
aid or Tango, rolla prima roll call. I'm unpaid bill, Yeah,
and we've gone too far. Yeah. When quest love eats dinner,
Yeah at an oatmeal barre su su primo roll call

(02:02):
that a roll calls my name and the mic is mine.
Been a fan of Kwame, Yeah since eighty nine. Supremo
road car Subma su primo roll call. I'm like em. Yeah, Quama,

(02:26):
thank God for him. Yeah, poke it outs all day.
Supremo roll sub prima sub primo rollo. My name's Qualm. Yeah,
y'all see me while yeah, Quest put me on this
spot with this free style roll call. Sma su primo

(02:49):
roll call, Suprema sub primo roll call sub prima su
su sub premo role called subprima. So okay, so Bill
just out at me. Yeah, I was eating oatmeal for

(03:09):
that choices. Man, that's great. Yeah, that's fantastic. I eat
oatmeal and I ordered a chicken, a grilled chicken. Sellad,
Wait a minute, we're healthy. Yeah yeah yeah I can.
I can eat now, like you know what I mean eat.
He just puts told me your tooth still hurting? No, no, no, no,

(03:33):
no not now. Yeah. Weeks ago when I was absent,
it was up. But my Obamacare, I'm good. We were
having the all important cream if weed versus steel cut
oatmeal question, wondering what exactly the steel cut referred to.
It's just don't like the marketing steel cut like there's

(03:53):
nothing tasty or advertising about It's not steel. Try to
market steel cut like free range. Know what I'm saying.
It's true for some not for nothing. There's a frozen
version of still cut oatmeal. You can get a trader
Joel's it's really good. You just microwave for two minutes.
It was that trader Joe. You go. You can't get it,
an MP can get it exists something. Yeah, man, they

(04:21):
called Aldeas in the East Coast. The amp is the place,
the town you got associated, you know, yeah, the only
place where we could talk about supermarket and supermarkets before
we even introduced Yes, ladies to tell me this is
another episode of course Love Supreme Quest Love, Say what's up?

(04:45):
Team Supreme? Uh? Today we have a favorite, a personal
favorite of mine. Don't forget Bill. But it's bigger than everybody. Yeah,
you know, and on the low for all of the no,

(05:08):
but for for all the props that I give to
Daylight transforming my life. If you really inspect a lot
of photos of me between eighty nine and I will
say that our guess had a big hand and life

(05:31):
and fashion choices. Yeah, I probably rock that. Actually, yeah,
Trek and I at one point the the uh when
we were Black to the future. Um, we went to
hats in the bell for you to buy those hats
with the with the propeller on it because Kualamite rocked it.
Ladies and gentlemen, welcome the legendary yea yeah, qualm all

(05:54):
know love, yes, man, we all know love. What's up? Bro?
I'm man? How are you? Thank you for having me? Man,
thank you for doing this. You know this, this, this
is this is honor for all of us. Thank you. Um. Yeah,
So where'd you grow up? Up? Grew up in? Is that? My?

(06:15):
How you doing? Where'd you grow up? Let's go back
to the beginning. Let's go back to the beginning. Where
are you from? I don't know where you're from. I
am from East Elmhurst slash Corona, Queens, New York. So
you started out as in New York. Yes, okay, okay,
you were born born in Queens. My whole family is
in Queens. I when I got my deal, I was

(06:38):
in Queens in because it was and they liked me,
so I would be here a lot. No, seriously, at
one point I was just like, maybe he's from yadon
no you know what it is. Um my manager Dave
who is here, he's from Yaden and tap Money who's

(07:00):
also from Yad and he wanted to say he's from
West Philly, but he's lived in Yate and more more
than West Philly. But anyway, Um, Tad tap Money forgot right.
He saw the video and I was like, yeah, so
Tad was I met Tat. I met Tad, Steady b
and Cool C before I came out. I was tagging

(07:20):
along with Kid and Play and Herbielove Bugg and we
they had a show in Richmond, Virginia with Steady and Um.
The show got snowed out, so we were stuck and
this we couldn't even get to the hotel. We were
stuck in the venue overnight and we all just got
cool and Tad was real cool, and I was like, hey, man,
you know I got this. And I pulled out the
post board of the mock up of my first album cover.

(07:43):
Yeah you know about to be coming that. Hopefully I
can get to do shows with you guys and everything,
and Steady and Cool see, they were all right, but
Tad was more personalble and then we just hung out.
We wrapped all just pretty much all night. And then
when my original DJ B flat wasn't able to rock
with a anymore, my first person I called was Tat,
so that became my Philly connection. And then I got

(08:07):
when started hanging out and Philly with Tat, got very
cool with E S t Um, Chuck KNIGHTE Wood, he
would and we all just was a little click. They
were yep leading to doing. They would all coming to
my house. They would stay weeks in my house. I
would stay weeks to their house. My mother be like, Okay,
when are your friends going back to Philly because we
were like sixteen, seventeen, eighteen years old, So that was

(08:27):
that you You guys were like our native tongues. Yeah. Yeah,
So when you came in Coach signed Philly. Mean, that's
the first time I felt like, Okay, Philly can be cool.
Because again, I mean, you're you're not saying what you
really want to say about cool and study, but you know,
they were just they were post drug dealer cool. Like no, no,

(08:48):
you know what it is. It's not it's nothing to
say good or bad about them, but they just weren't
the kind of guys that I was you know what
I'm saying. You know, we're not from we didn't have
the same way a length, so it wasn't I would
never be hanging I would never hang out with them
where Tat it's cut from that same cloth, so you
know I would definitely hang it with Tat and and

(09:11):
you know, so that's how that's pretty at. Yeah, Okay,
I just thought you had property and I should have
had smart. So in in Queens, what was your what
was your experiences of music? See my neighborhood. You know,

(09:31):
you know, everybody likes to really pig up their neighborhoods.
But for me, I think my neighborhood is a very
special place in Queens and anybody can look it up.
So if you go the history of East Town Herst
Corona UM, it's right next to La Guardia Airport. So
literally you can, like my grandmother's house, my house, I
can walk to the airport UM and within that neighborhood

(09:52):
post I mean pre rapped you had uh Ella Fitzgerald,
Harry Belafonte, um, Louis arm Strong, uh Um, James Brown
was in St Albans, but but he wasn't. He wasn't
in that um I'm sorry. Um, I want to say
Dinah Washington. Um, and a lot of a lot of

(10:14):
influential blacks moved to this area of Queens. But then
when you get into the hip hop era, you had
Kid in Play, Herbie Lovebug, Eric b Cool, g rap Um, myself, Uh,
Salt and Pepper. We were all within a three to
five block radius. No. No, it's closer to the city.

(10:39):
So we're like fifteen minutes the most into New York City.
So we're Northern Queens. Jamaica's Southern Queens. So, um, it's
it's I would say the equivalent of Winfield maybe Winfields Lash,

(11:00):
you know West Philly area. Um, yeah, but it's not
it's not Overbrook Farms. You know what I'm saying. It's
not that, But it's it's it's it's pretty cool. And
then you have some ce East Elmhurst is more of
the homes with front yards and backyards. Um. I lived
in a row home, so most like the Philly Holmes. Uh,
my grandmother would have a house with a front and backyard.

(11:22):
But then you have Corona and that side is Northern Boulevard.
You crossed Northern Boulevard. Corona is a little bit more
grittier than East Elmhurst. So I lived in between both neighborhoods,
you know, my whole childhood pretty much. And so from there, Um,
my parents got a divorce was fourteen. Um. A couple

(11:43):
of years later, my father got remarried and moved to Inglewood,
New Jersey. So now I'm in Inglewood, New Jersey. And
in Inglewood, New Jersey, my best friend was Redhead Kingpin um,
and so I had all of those queen's guys next
to me, and then my best friend that I first
the first kid meet when I moved to Inglewood is Redhead,
and then you have Big bubb from today Um and Redhead.

(12:07):
He said, Yo, this lady gonna give me a deal
and you should come to right who We go to
Sylvia Robinson's house. So, so Sylvia Robinson offered me a
deal at fifteen so and it was so funny because
at the same time I'm saving up money, I'm you know,

(12:29):
I'm making demos, I'm trying to impress Herbie and he
runs around with my demo. Sylvia, here's the demo and
the deal's coming at the same time. But the difference
between Atlantic records, uh Sony Columbia Um then Sylvia. Sylvia's
was like a one page note and so, you know,

(12:54):
just to you know, just to give a quick recap,
those are like the different people I feel like, Mr Rogers,
those are the people in my neighborhood. Those So before
the rabbit Hole nerd Um right now we're hanging on everywhere.
So were you signed before Redhead or did he signed
his deal? Red Redhead and a group called New Style
later known as Naughty by Nature they decided to sign

(13:15):
and they she wanted to change sugar Hill Records to
Bone of Me and I was like, I don't even
know that even sounds hip hop. You know, she owned
Bone Records. Yes, I remember that label. Yes, So she
was boning me and and New Style came out on
Bone of Me. Read got out of it because he
was under age and he lied about his age and

(13:38):
he was sixteen as well, and he got out of it.
I never signed. Then. We were we weren't good kids,
you know, I'll be honest with I'm not even alled
of you. We weren't. We were good kids, but we
didn't always do good things. So we got in trouble,
all of us, like at the same time, were running
around in the street. Yes, we got, we got. It

(14:01):
was like stupid, like stupidity. It's something I would never
even talk about in detail. But it was me, Read
and a couple of other guys and we did something stupid.
And at that point my father was like, um, some
of the guys actually got into real trouble. Some of
us didn't get thank god, didn't get into any major anything.

(14:22):
But the thing was, you're moving out of Jersey. This
is the wrong environment for you. Mind you, this was
a very nice neighborhood. It wasn't anything grimy in the stretch.
It was just board kids doing stupid stuff. Yeah, so
he moved. We I moved back to Queens. So now

(14:43):
I'm in South Side Jamaica, Queens with my mother. And
then in that neighborhood you have a different type of element.
The block was cool, but then you had like you
had you know, real killer drug dealers and you know
these type of people that were that every volt. It
was safer for you to be in that in Queens

(15:05):
than it was to be in England. Well here's the
other side. He decided to move two. I have a
farm in Virginia. He moved on to the farm. Um
So when he moved on to the farm in Virginia,
I was there was no way I was going to
move on the farm. I just got a record deal.
There's no way I'm living on the farm. Said well

(15:26):
you can. You can wrap from the farm and you
just come to New York and hands like, there's no
way I'm doing that. So I ended up back in
Queens with my mother, and like I said, that close
area where my mother was was cool, but the surrounding,
like everybody that like fifty cent wraps about and all
this kind of stuff. Those were people that came to
my house that I knew like they were actually that

(15:49):
part of Queens. So so it was a whole another
environment living there. And so, okay, Queen, there's such a
folk glory about Queens, when so you're saying that there's
multiple sections of Queens, like the tripodic West Queens versus
the Rundy MC Queens versus. So I lived. So so

(16:13):
my part of Queens was q tip um Sweet Tea.
We all lived in the same little section. Um Tip
was a little bit further out. Tea was in between
me and where where m q Tip was. So that
section is south Jamaica right where Rundy M C L

(16:33):
COO J J. Rule. They're in Hollis there on the
south side of Jamaica. But they're not the furthest south
part of Jamaica. And if anybody needs to understand queens,
look at the map, look at Long Island. At the
end of Long Island is Brooklyn and Queens. They're literally together.
It's one thing. And but then you have Northern Queens.
So for example, you have parts of Queens and Northern Queens,

(16:56):
say Flushing Queens. If I take any of you guys,
the Flushing Queen, knock you out and drop you in
the street, you would think you were in Hong Kong,
Hong Kong. Have you ever been to Hong Kong, you
would literally it's the same thing, the exact same. Yeah,
but go in and when I was a kid, it

(17:18):
was white, it was Italian and black. So flash forward,
say thirty years, it's all one section Korean, one section Chinese,
and then a small section Japanese. All the street signs
are in Asian, all the stores it's one thousand percent,
So that's that's Flushing Queens. But then you go further

(17:42):
towards Brooklyn, and you say you're in Richmond Hill. Richmond
Hill is it was when I was a kid, predominantly
all Irish. Now it's all South American, so it's Peruvian
and stuff like so. And when I was my neighborhood, Corona,
it was all black. Now it's probably black, mostly South

(18:05):
and Central American, you know. So it's Queen Yea beating
nuts are from Corona as well. So Queens is such
a diverse area. And then there's a part of Queens
that most Queens people don't even know about called Malba.
Malba is if you know, the White Stone Bridge is
right under the White Stone Bridge. If I take you

(18:27):
to Malba, you would think you were in bel Air
or or Um Beverly Hill, somewhere off the water Um
for neighbor seas you're driving, the cops will be there
in one point four seconds. If you have a darker shade,

(18:47):
there's there's no dark shaded people in that area. And
and that's by whites. That's that's next to the White
Stone Bridge. And then you have other real diverse areas
like Bayside. And you know Left Wrack is Left Wrack
is one neighborhood from mine that goes into um mass
Beeth and mass Beeth is another very diverse area. This

(19:09):
it's it's crazy if I take you on a Queen's
Toys because everybody that's a Queen's Bridge, Queensdge. You know
Queen's Bridge, right, yeah, Queen's Bridges. You can walk to
Manhattan from from Queen's Bridge. You can walk over to Bridge.
It'll take you five minutes and you're on fifty six

(19:31):
Street and First Avenue. So what we So, how did
hip hop reach you at a young age, because I'm
almost certain that other boroughs were like another world to
you or another city. Hipop. Hip hop reached me in
nineteen seventy nine. I can remember exactly what I was
doing where I was at. I was playing with Star

(19:54):
Wars men on the floor with my best friend's name
is dak Car and me and Dad Car laying Star
Wars and Rappers. Delight came on the radio, and from
that point, literally from that point, I begged my mother
to buy the record. My you know, I'm six years old.
I see the recognition of you know, sugar Hill the label.
So anytime I go to a record store, anything that

(20:16):
said sugar Hill was bought and that's from six years old.
Anything affiliated with Sugar Hill, which was Enjoy Records was
bought period. It was I didn't have to hear it.
I didn't know it. My favorite record to this day
is Freedom um Perious, five Um and eighth Wonder the
sec the second and the third record I've ever bought,

(20:37):
still have the exact records. So so hip hop, but
I never understood that hip hop was an actual It's weird,
it's you know, it became a culture. It became what
I was doing, what all the kids were doing. We
were all breaking, and we were all doing graffiti. We
were all you know, everybody wanted to turn tables, every

(20:58):
you know, everybody wanted the whole elemental aspect of hip hop. Um.
And then there was a guy on my grandmother's block,
rest in Pieces name was Messiah and Messiah was partners
with Red Alert. So I used to beat box as
a little kid. So I would go to Massiah's house
and Massia would put me on the phone with like

(21:19):
uh Africa, Islam or people like that. At this little
kid beat box, I had no I have no clue
what it was, but it was just all immersing, you
know what I'm saying and and and you know, running
around the neighborhoods looking for uh refrigerator boxes to to

(21:40):
break on, um, you know, tying our tying our jeans
up with shoelaces, and and putting on union jack hatson
and getting our you know, the what do you call
those things? To press on letters on our sweatshirts and
spiked spikes fashionable even way before years the record budget

(22:00):
to even oh no, and I was I was all
into the gear everything, you know, getting your name belt,
that was like that was life for us in the fifth, six, seventh,
eighth grade. You know, that's that's what we did. So
can I ask what your parents did because you mentioned
your dad went to a farm and I just really
threw me for a second. Well, my father, my father, Um,

(22:21):
you know, my father recently passed not even a month ago.
So so my father was a very incredible person. My father, Um,
he worked for the light company Contentison. But my father
was like the weirdest hustler type dude ever and we

(22:42):
didn't understand it as kids. Just to give you a
quick view of my pops. Pops used to push a
seventy eight VW red and white van had no heat
and no air conditioner, so in the middle of the winter,
he would line the van with quilts and and plastic

(23:06):
and put a kerosene heater in the middle. In the
middle of the van, was like and would tell us,
y'all hold onto that so it don't tip over and
be driving around. So and these are things that my
father would do. But there's a reason that I didn't
know at the time. So you know, it's gonna be

(23:26):
a funny story that turns into a tragic story. So
so it's one of those stories. So um, So we
would come home and it would be no phone service.
So my father would climb up the phone pole, do
some jiggery and be like, okay, look, if you pick
up the phone, don't say nothing. If you hear people talking,

(23:48):
just hanging up. Now. If you hear two rings, that's
your grandmother, and then you pick up the phone. If
you hear three rings, that should hunt. I'm like, what so,
but my all all this while my pops had a job.
You know, it wasn't like he was on drugs or
anything crazy. He had a job. My mother. I'll get
into my mother in a second. So the reason why
all these crazy things would happen, or like I remember

(24:09):
one time we came home and the whole basement was ransacked,
just wrecked, and we're like, so my mother thought, mind you,
I used to sneak my friends and to breakdance. We
all have breakdance battles in my basement, so she thought
that that's what I did. And apparently my father designed

(24:30):
some pipe to plug into the wall so we would
get free gas like getting so we were getting free
gas for a whole year made and the gas company
found out broke into the house and ripped the whole
thing out. So I got in trouble because my mother
thought one of my friends that like she thought that

(24:52):
I was responsible for somebody breaking into the home. So
long story short, he was putting his mother his money
aside because his sister was dying of lupus and he
was paying for all of the medical bills. But we
didn't know that, you know, and his sister was like,
you know, pretty much a surrogate mother. Her kids were

(25:13):
like my brother and sister. So you know, that was
a weird thing. And it kind of like that was
like the string that kind of broke my parents marriage
up because it was just like, look, man, I can't
keep living like this. In my pops like, well, look
I'm trying to, you know. And so then on my
mother's side, my mother, my grandparents on my mother's side

(25:36):
came from a different type of situation where my grandparents
and my father's side were more blue collar. My my grandfather,
he was a newspaper publisher, so he had a one
of the first black newspapers in New York called the
New York Voice. It was a New York Voice in
the Amsterdam News. And he was from He was from Iowa.

(25:57):
He lived on He grew up on Indian Reservation, actually
Native American Reservation. He worked his way. He was a porter.
Then he became um, a roadie for Benny Goodman. So
we started rolling with Benny Goodman and he started Then
he started rocking with um um, I'm losing my plays

(26:18):
the vibes line lamp and I'm sorry. So he started
rocking with Lionel Hampton, which gave me my first drum set.
So my first my first um instrument was from Lionel Hamptons.
But that's a whole So everyone's grandfather always rolls with
and he met my grandmother because my grandmother was a

(26:40):
show singer. So so they met on the road, and
you know, he was the type of dude that you
know when he met her. She was real pretty she
and also my grandmother was the first black Pepsi model.
So so he was the kind of guy that he
bagged a bad chick, but then he wanted to do
bad chick things anymore, so he did. He brought her

(27:03):
the queens and gave a bunch of babies, and one
of the babies with my mom. Wait, what's Corean Drew
or Conan Davis? And right now probably to see everybody
else is listening, is I'm like okay, So so you know,

(27:23):
you know at that time, did you have um, no,
you I can ramble, so you can ask so so
so that so and on my grand my father's side,
my grandfather was a detective and my grandmother was a
social worker. So it was just two different types of

(27:43):
family and they all supported in a different way. You know.
So like my grandmother has you know, both grandmothers have
grand pianos in their in their in their house. So
you know, I'm I'm teaching myself how to play stuff. Um,
you know, my grandfather very encouraging with music, Like I said,
takes me to Line Hampton's house. First time I've ever

(28:04):
been to a house with a a person and a butler.
I was like, yo, the only person I thought would
have a butler was like Bruce Wayne. And I get
to this man's apartment, which looks just like the building
looks just like George Jefferson's apartment. We get up there
and the butler comes with a tray, and I'm like,
where are we at? Mr Hampton comes out and you know,
and he just talks to me about music, and I'm

(28:25):
talking to him and I'm talking about run DMC, and
he's looking at me like at this point, nine had
to been like eight and nine talking to me about
you know, hey, man, who do you like Furious five?
Manute the message? He's like, what, yeah, you know? So

(28:46):
it gives me the drums and the only thing I
play on the drums is Planet Rock, the message Freedom, eighth,
Wonder And then because a lot of them had horns,
I would go to school and learn how to play
the trumpet, so all I would play was just I
would just play the rap records. After I learned how

(29:08):
to play Freedom, that I don't want to play the
hunt anymore. I'll just stopped playing the trumpet, you know so,
And even with the piano is like I heard the rap,
different rap records or just different records in general, and
I love just playing that. And then but I hated lessons.
I just hated the lessons part. But you know, so
you didn't want to practice that much. I wanted to

(29:30):
practice what I made up. I didn't want to do scales.
I didn't want to do for the least. I don't
want to do none of that fingering all that. I
hated that. And my my teacher, mis Phunter, she was
the type you know, you play and you use the
wrong finger fingers, that's all she was saying that I
would have to do like you know, like piano recitals.

(29:50):
It was probably the most nervous I've ever been in
my life. My legs was shaking. Hated it. Hated it.
You mentioned for the least, uh uh that the Alicia
Keys not tune. Yeah right, y'all got no satisfied. That

(30:11):
was just one time. When I seen the show, it
was gonna start off real deep, like you know, all
these all these courts lose down now trying to help.
It was like, you know, ten seconds and Sutton, Yeah,

(30:34):
we love you, come on down. I love this ship
OUTA this is what's wrong. So you're you're saying that
a hip hop as an m C. When did you
figure out this is this is my path? My um Well,

(30:59):
first of all, like you know, just as a kid,
I would write and compose things, but I knew I
couldn't sing anything, So you know, rapping was like the
best case scenario at that point. And you know, I
loved Mellie mel I love Tela Rock, you know I
loved And then and then somebody came to my house

(31:22):
with a tape said you got to hear this guy
and you put the tape in and it was Lotty Dotty,
not the record, It was just Lotty Dotty somewhere in
the park. And then it went to treat it like
a prostitute. And I was like, what did I just
witness just now? And then I started getting I started

(31:44):
getting stuff that me and Rick a very cool, me
and Doug a cool. I got stuff from Rick that
he doesn't even remember. I was like, yo, this this
one thing where you I say the whole rhyme to
him and somebody's on a drum machine and he and
it turns into like, um, Indians, what's the what's the song?
David Crockett. So some of those rhymes Davy Crockett, I

(32:07):
definitely do. I just gotta find them, but I definitely, Um,
but I just got so immersed into Rick and then
on one end Rick and then on the other end
cool g Rap and because I knew Ge, it was
just another thing. So so then you know, the sound

(32:28):
emersions is like, Okay, you know, I'm starting to write stories.
And the funny thing is I'm writing these stories and
they're just dirty, just nasty, dirty stories. And I would
do these rap battles and I would win with the
stories and stuff, and it was, you know, they would
call me baby Rick and this that in the third
and or you know I would I would definitely like
I would interweave slick Rick and cool gi Rap if

(32:50):
that makes any kind of sense. So so um, and
then you know, being around her being and Dana Dane
came around, and Dana Dane to me, was just as
greatest Slick Rick. So I started shadowing Dana all the time.
And but I think the click was two things that happened.
It was a place I wish still existed called us

(33:13):
A United States of America. In Queens. Every Sunday somebody
would perform. I'm talking about Eric bing rock him this Sunday,
New Edition, Next Sunday, l O who j Next Sunday,
Every Sunday light clockwork. It was the greatest breakdance place.
If you ever watched B Street when they go to
the Roxy in Battle, just picture that we're just in Queens.

(33:33):
It was that and that's why B Street resonates with
me so much, because it was something that was actually
real for me. And so we went to see cool
gi Rap perform. He had only two records. It's a
demo and I'm Flying, I'm Flowers the flip side. There's
only two records he had and he got up there

(33:56):
and to see the girls in the that I do
in the neighborhood, can you curse? Absolutely so. Girls in
the neighborhood that wouldn't do nothing would be like, I
want to fuck him now hearing like a good girls
that that I just go to school with, saying wait,
we see him every day. We used to call him

(34:17):
I'm dual. We see I'm dual every day, and all
of a sudden he came. He came out. I remembered
this in a dapper Dan Louis. Now, you know, everybody
had a Muslim. I never knew what his name is,
but we back in the days. He was upd um

(34:39):
sorry gee, And and he came out in this He
came out in this uh Louis Vatton suit. He had
a Gucci link on with some medallion, a head full
of Jerry curls with a fade what gold teeth. But
I was the thing, you know, you know the girl

(35:01):
and you know, and and and he's vomiting. I'm flying
And then he throws out these dollars and then he
threw out then he threw out roses and all these girls.
This is pre cane, So we're like to do that,
what the fuck? And the girls? But it's still didn't click.

(35:24):
So then I asked my father. Then a couple of
like in the summer, this was the winter, that summertime. Um,
I'm sorry, this was later. Second. The first thing that
happened was I asked my father to take me to
a slick Rick Dougie Fresh concert at City College in
Hallarm So my pops would take me anywhere anything music related.

(35:45):
He was with it. He'd take me. We get in
that bus and he was with it. He bought me turntables.
He was one percent. I'll get into him, but you
know um, and I'm gonna tell the story. I know
you can relate to this one. So we get into
the story. We get to the City College and Doug
comes on. He's doing his Dougie Fresh records. He had

(36:05):
a couple of records before the show. Then he then
a magician comes out. Wait what a hip hop magician?
So the magician comes out and he to the beat.
He's like throwing fire out his hands and all this
crazy ship. So I'm like, all right, that's cool. And

(36:26):
then the music stops and all you hear from the
back of one to one to y'all the chicks win.
Rick saunters out in this Fela suit and balies his
his cano and shades and he was just like, yo,
what's up y'all? And all the chicks was losing their brains.

(36:47):
I was like, that is it. I have been sanctifized,
Like Jesus touched me at that one was anything I want.
I was going to school to be an illustrator, I
was God was in art school and I'm like, I'm
not doing no art. I was a science major, also
a fux science the devil. No way, I'm not doing

(37:13):
this for a living for the rest of my life.
There's no way. Rick she did, Lotty Dotty did the show,
He bounced chicks, was losing the absolute minds. I was like,
oh no, this this gotta be my life. Man, I can't.
I cannot not do that. But like to touch on
my pop real quick, he this is how my father was.

(37:33):
I'm a heavy Prince fan and so you know, I'm
like Prince like I relate to the musicality of Prince,
but I relate to the style of Morris Day. So
I'm oh, I remember seven seven seven three eleven. That's
like one of my first records also that I've ever bought.
I bought. You know, I don't think my father let

(37:54):
me buy um dirty Mind album because of him and
his draw No, no of her father, but you know,
like and I remember bringing home like your why is
there a thick on the cover? Like what is going on?
You know? So, so I was doing a talent show
and I was gonna be it was a toss up

(38:14):
between getting my boys together and be coming the time
or just doing it alone and being print. So my
mother had a purple raincoat. Put the purple coat on.
She had this blouse. Put the blouse on. Put on
my jeans. She had these purple suede boots. Put them
boots on, put this little thing around my hair had
had a bush, and I'm downstairs practicing let's go crazy,

(38:37):
and my father walks in the baby the fun. I
feel like stories like that. So he was like, what
the funk are you doing. It's Prince Man, He said, Prince,

(38:59):
what the fun? And I'm like, yo, it's print. So
I showed him purple rain He said, this bullshit, come
with me. He took me to the He took me
to the video store. You know there was no Blockbuster.
They took me to the video stores like give me
whatever you have on Jimi Hendrix, James Brown and Little Richard.
And he made me sit down and watch every documentary

(39:22):
on those street. Said, now there goes prints. That's what
you want to do, that's what you wanna be. You
gotta know who these guys are. And so you know
that was his thing. Can we stop um? For all
of you that are listening to this episode. This is
why we do this episode. Parents, I want you to
teach your children do exactly what he said. Musical punishments

(39:45):
are great. I was. I wish I had musical punishments.
My parents. You couldn't punish me with music, they said,
little listen to that. Okay, okay, yeah, give me more
of that. No, dude, you know, listen to him. Two
men got me John Coltrane for a month. So you know,

(40:06):
it's like even with Mar's Day, he saw mors Days
like you like what he has on. I can take
you to where exactly you can buy every one of
those things. We went to Stacy Adams I got. You know,
so my eighth great prime I pretty much had with
MOR's Day had because he took me to the actual place.
So so you know, that's the type of you know,
Popsy wasn't. I'm not saying my mother wasn't as encouraging,

(40:27):
but my mom's was the type of person was like,
stop doing that beat stuff with your mouth. It's gonna
mess your mouth up. Your lips are gonna be distorted,
it's not gonna look right. Tie your shoes. You're gonna
get flat feet. You're not gonna be able to walk right.
Stop moving your body like that. You're gonna get stuck
that way. Your head is gonna break. Don't spin on

(40:49):
your head. It will break it. We can't afford the hospital.
Stop can ask? Are you only child? I had a
little brother, Okay, yeah, okay, okay, So so you know so,
and that was cool because you know, I had a
little brother and my little cousins. If I couldn't get
like a record or whatever, I would like, look my

(41:11):
brothers three, tell them you want funk you right on up.
Tell them you want super rhymes. Super But you know,
so my brother would go ask for super rhymes while
I went and got These are the breaks, you know
what I'm saying. So so and then you know, then
then we would do like we were the type. We

(41:32):
were like the Double Trouble or something. We'll come out,
we gotta show for you, and then we put on
the brakes and we would perform the brakes fo you know,
for dinner and stuff like that. So we were those kids.
Um and yeah, you know so, so that back to
your question, because I went around it, that slick rick moment,
that cool g rat moment. I was like all right, yeah,
this is okay. So how far was it in the

(41:54):
future until you we're on stage for the first time
doing your pre deal pre deal immediately No no, no, no, immediately.
It wasn't don't got your deal at sixteen? Right, yeah,
So so say sometimes marketing, you were really sixteen when
you did. I got my deal at sixteen. By the
time Boy Genius came out, I was about to be seventeen.
But um, I always did shows like you know, um,

(42:19):
I hate saying this in front of you, but you
know I used to kill the drums man, Like seriously,
I was like all my things, so my thing I
used to be good enough to win. My school would
pimp me out and druma at the same time. Sometimes
I would That would have been such a dope marketing
angle for you, saying Anderson Park is the only person
has ever done that. You know, what I'm saying is

(42:42):
that when I was a kid, when I was when
I was a kid, fifth six, seventh grade, and they
got win that I that I played like that, it
would be just like showtime at Kama's Apollo. They would
just say, okay, today you're going to the fourth grade
class and you're gonna play the drums for them and
the way planning rocking period. Yeah, you know, so so

(43:05):
you know, me performing that was like that's what I
love to do. So you know, when the time when
it was time to rhyme, like literally, the teacher would
be like, look, we're going to roller skating today and
there's gonna be a DJ and a microphone qualm A
don't rap that that would be the prerequisite. And this
is you know, six seventh grade. So you know the

(43:27):
first time I was really like serious, serious? Is that
same place? USA? There was a rap contest every month
or something, and so the winner would get to go
on tour to all the other usas. It was probably
four more like one in Rhode Island, one in Dustin,

(43:47):
there was a Philly one, and you know, so it
was like an East coast thing. And I was like,
so just to give you the people in this contest
was myself. I won one, Master Ace won the one
before that, Father MC won the one before that. I
can't remember, super Lovacy casting Overrud won the one before that.

(44:10):
So it was all it was four of us that
would be out doing these USA shows. You know. So
I say, if if it was the month that I
was in my competition, the special guests would be super Lovac, Um,
Father MC or Master as you know. But we all,
you know, we all got cool pretty much from the

(44:31):
from that experience. UM, and then you know Super got
they got their deal first, and then you know Ace
got his thing with Juice Crew, you know for them
he came after me. But no one got deals per
se from it. But that was the performing experience. Like
the biggest, the most coveted thing that I have is
the trophy from that USA. It's in my case I

(44:54):
still have. It's broken. It looks like a piece of garbage,
but you know, no one won't know what it was.
But you know, they're like, why is this thing sitting there?
You got all these plaques, why is it sitting right?
And no, man, that's that's the my first award. What
were you perform at that time? Story Romes, It was like, yeah,
I had a beat box. Yeah I was gonna say,

(45:15):
did you have a foil to do music for you?
Or yeah I had I had the beat box, and
then um, you should have drumming ron at this game.
I used to I used to use this doctor rhythm drummer.
I would make a beating and you know, if if
the beat box wouldn't come, or I would have the
doctor rhythm whatever the beat was, and he would beat

(45:36):
on top of it and then you know, and then
I would run. But it was mainly like story, nasty,
dirty story rhymes that get people to go year old. Yeah.
And then to the point where I remember my father
and mother found one of the romes and this is
after they find so they find around it fell out

(46:00):
and it was just like pussy, bitch, fuck, oh, you know,
all this stuff and you know, being like trying to
be like slick, you know, always has like a song
that is attached to it. You know, I funked it
so good. She was like damn, damn so so so,

(46:22):
but my mind was the actual dao. So so my
father was like, um, my mother and father sat me
down and this is I can remember so vividly because
they were split up for a while and this was
the one time they were together and they sat me
down and said would you say this? Mama was like,
would you say this filth to me? Like? No, what

(46:45):
you say it to your grandmother? No? And we're in
my grandmother's house get your grandmother right now and read
this line to your so. My grandma's like, what's going on,
She's like, sit down, read it. The bitch was sitting
on my lap and I began to wrap whatever whatever

(47:07):
the mind was, and my grandmother was like, she just
got up and walked away. Let's hear it for hip
hop humiliation. That's weird. I got it for phoning it right.

(47:28):
You know, did you so to get a record deal?
Did you finally feel like vindicated, like, okay, now this
this is paid off well before before I get to that.
My rap name that was the big issue. Oh woman,
My rap name was Sweet Daddy jazz k g Q.

(47:50):
That was your whole, whole thing, whole name, Sweet Daddy
jazz K. Everyone's first name. Where's your first rap name? Fonte?
Before a little brother Fonte. It was psychological, that's not
even that bad, but it was. But the real company came.
You already know. It was p S Y K A

(48:13):
L O G I K A L with a question mark.
It was yeah, it was yeah, it was horrible. Yeah,
I remember, man. It was like being in the studio
one time and Dana Dana Dane was like, look, man,
I don't know how to tell you this, but that's
the stupidest name. And I looked up to Dana so much.

(48:35):
I was like heartbroken. I was like, for real, man,
He's like, yo, I don't know anybody with the name Kwami.
I don't want anybody with that name. Just use your name.
And Salt, which was with was in the next one,
going yeah, that's a stupid ass name, you know. Yeah,
so Salt and Dana killing me, and Salt is like,

(48:57):
you know you, we know what you're doing. We know
when we go away, you're coming here and you steal
the drum machines and you make this music and everything.
You like a little little boy genius. Why don't you
just call yourself Kuamine the damn boy genius or something
not sweet daddy jazzy k. I'm like, and that's how
that's how the whole thing started, so honestly, man, like

(49:17):
really like you were one of the first, yeah, the
first nerds. Like when I bought The Boy Genius, I
mean that Albam King, I was like ten, I think
and seeing you know kuam E, but then reading the
credits and seeing your name was Kwamie Holland that was
one of the early times I saw, I was like, man,
I could just be fine Toe, I could just wrap
under my name. The first cats that inspired me to
do that. You were the first hip hop nerd, so

(49:39):
that that's probably what it was. Okay. So there's an
associate of yours that I've been dying to interview, and
I really don't know that much about him. Can you
speak of one of my hip hop idols as a producer,
Herbie Love? But yeah, please, Herbie is the most elusive

(50:03):
man on the planet. You do not know a country here.
It could be anywhere. Literally, he's the He's the male
Carmen san Diego. Like I can take to Herbie. Where
are you? I'm in Haiti. Where are you? I'm in France.
He was ware Miami. That's That's one of my dreams.
My personal top five interview goals is definitely Herbie. Wanted

(50:27):
wanted Herbie. I'm telling you, Herbie is like to run
into her It's just you. You'll run into Herbie in
the weirdest places, like, for example, you know, I keep
in touch with you know, my old crew with Salt
and Pepper, Kid and Play Dana Dane, Sweet tie Um
and so most of us still keep in touch in

(50:50):
some way, shape or form, so it'll be like one
that was like sometime last year, I'm talking to Play.
He's in l A. I'm I'm in New York, and
we're talking on the phone and we're like, man, we
should find Herbie and throw him at dinner, an appreciation dinner.
I was like, yeah, if you can find him, like
everybody has his number, but you just gotta find him.
And I swear to you, like forty five minutes later,

(51:15):
Play calls me up, Yo, I'm walking down the fucking
block and here goes Herbie and he puts Herbie on
the phone and then I talked to her before a minute.
Play talked to him for a minute, and then nobody
sees him again after that, just some it's like random.
So I have not physically seen Herbie. The last time
I physically saw him was when Vachon was doing these
hip hop honors and they were honoring Salt and Pepper

(51:40):
and we were going down the the step and Repeat
and Herbie wasn't invited, but Herbie was on the in
the press line with a camera crew and a microphone
that said HTV. He's like, yo, you want to do
an interview. I'm like, what the hell are you doing? Yeah,

(52:03):
you were there. He was there, and he said, I
own a TV station, So that sounds I'm doing I'm
gonna do. I'm doing interviews. I was like, are you
coming inside? I think no, I ain't going in there.
It's crazy. This is Let me Herbie is Let me honest.
Let me get you how to understand Herbie. Herbie is

(52:25):
the type of guy. He is the template for any
ball out producer. He is the template. Like when I
say the template puff Jermaine used to shadow Herbie all
the time, you know, and Herbie is the only person
I've literally like Herbie would pick me up one time,

(52:48):
like we were just hanging out. This is like in
the mid nineties. We we reconnected and we would just
hang out every day for stupid stuff. Let's go get
white Castle, let's do this, let's do it. And every
single day, a different brand new car would pick me up.
It would be a Hummer, would be whatever was hot
at the time. But I've never met a person with
forty cars. Like literally, no, I'm not I'm being literal.

(53:12):
I've been in a garage that a friend of ours
own and I was like, nine elevens Benz isn't like
like who he said, all this is, this is what
Herbie stores all his cars. But then go to l
A and see the same amount of cars, same amount
of cars in l A. You know it was didn't
go to Miami and see the same like what are

(53:35):
you doing? But he was not. But when I say
when I say that, it wasn't like he was the
type of person that would super blow his money. He
would just come up on I don't know how he
did it, and he made you gotta understand. Salt and
Pepper has sold a lot of records, more than any

(53:56):
female rapper. And they never want to say this, but
like those albums sold five six seven million copies, and
Herbie wrote all the rhymes and did the did all
the music. So you're getting and you're getting those that royalty.
That's a lot of money. And then you have Push

(54:18):
It Pushes now a commercial song. So it's like and
and he's the only producer that I know that was
able to have say because there was some acts that
people just never heard of anymore or heard of period.
But he would have ten separate acts with ten separate
deals commanding ten budgets at the same time, you know,

(54:43):
and and and I think that the one thing that I,
you know, have always respected and he puts the battery
in my back as a producer, you know, always respected
him as a producer. Um, a lot of people think
he produced my stuff and that's that's f she never did.
But um, as a producer, I had to give him

(55:06):
so much respect for doing that. But I never understood
why it never left his camp, Like why didn't you
produce a record for Madonna? You know, why didn't you
produce a record for I remember he did a remix
for R. E. M. One time, and you know, we
thought that was a big deal. But um, it never

(55:27):
went past that. But didn't really have to because he
had he had his own And and I never understood
why if you were a captain of a ship, why
not make everybody be on a record together. Everybody was
so about themselves, including me, that we never figured that

(55:51):
that switch out, you know what I'm saying with each
other debut? You yeah, my god, Tarik lost his mind
when he first saw it's the man we all knowing love, like,
because he was trying to describe I didn't have uh,
MTV in my part of town. So basically Twee would

(56:14):
record it for me and then give me the tape
on Monday. So he would describe it to me and
he's just like, Yo, this is video Malcolm Jamara warreners
in it kid and plays in it, and he's he's
re enacting the entire video. Like so Tarik had already
from and he starts with the Sesame Street thing. One

(56:34):
of these kids, don't think he's like, He's like he
basically said, it was like a cross between because like
I was like, you know the premise of Class Act,
the movie that was I was there that new great beats,
I have a great Class Act. It was sleeping right, No,

(56:59):
I got it was the worst best experience in my life.
So I was supposed to be Doug e Doug's character.
I got the role. I actually got the role. I
flew to l A to start shooting and play goes,
what are you doing here? I'm henna work? He even
not he we wanted him, so, so they they chose

(57:20):
Douggy Doug, which was a good choice. He's a comedian.
I'm so not so that was cool. Yes, So they
lobbied for him. That and so they said it had
no idea that I even tried out. So they said, well,
we will write apart for you. So they wrote apart
called squirrel e Kid. Yeah. Um, I had to wear

(57:43):
my own clothes. I had won my propeller hat and
the the premise was the bully guy he I'm tired
of him bullying me, so I pull out a thirty
and he's supposed to knock the thirty eight out of
my hand, pick me up, throw me out the window.
So he does that. So in rehearsal, instead of him

(58:07):
knocking the gun he was supposed to knock the guns
this way out, he does it to where the gun
comes this way and it whole side of my face,
like the blood everywhere. Everything was crazy. So they had
to shoot me from one side and then this random
stunt guy was to do they throw out the window.

(58:28):
But I was like, it's like, you know, it's a
it's a it's a mistake. They thought I was gonna
shue the movie company. I was just so hyped to
be in a movie. I was like whatever, And then
you know, I had a busting lip for like two
weeks and then kept it pushing and so you know,
but you know, that was an example of how you
could be in the same crew, but yet you're still

(58:52):
doing your your your thing, you know, because I cann't
place you the lobby for me to be in the
movie a little bit more, I could say that I'm
not I'm not bitter about it, and we've talked about it,
so it's nothing against them. They were on a path
that they wanted to be on. But I can't understand, like,
why why wouldn't Salt and Pepper be Tsina Arnold and
I mean Titia Campbell and j sounded like why why

(59:17):
why wouldn't that be s wait? Because Harvey did. But
but I do know that story, that story was, that
movie was made for no. It was originally written for
um Groove Be Chill, but Groove by Chill wasn't big enough.
They didn't, you know, they didn't think that was gonna

(59:37):
be big enough to carry a movie. So then it
was submitted to Jeff and Prince and I don't know
what that politic was, Okay, So real quick house party. Yeah,
you remember when Will and Jeff had their own Freddie
song night Maryline Street, Well, New Line Cinema had already
designated who's the most popular rap group out there. Yeah,

(01:00:00):
the Fat Boys. So basically Will and Jeff. Will and
Jeff had basically messed up the Fat Boys nightmare theme
because their ship was way bigger than they. So New
Line Cinema trying to sue Will and Jeff. And then
this movie comes up because the Hutler Brothers really went

(01:00:23):
jazzy jumping the Fresh Prince based on parents just don't
understand and so a bunch of red tap whatever, and
you know, they're like, no, they're trying to see us
anyway from Nightmareland. We don't want a New Line Cinema.
So then they went to Kit and Play. But but
so what I'm talking about with Groovy Chill is pre
all of that. It's the inception writing a script, and

(01:00:44):
with them in mind, I think it was like Groovy
Groove by Chill and Finesse and sent Quiz. That was
like the inception of the script from from what I
was told. You know, I could be wrong, so um,
you know, so so, but just imagine it was a
salt and pepper kid and play movie or you know.
And then another thing with the House Party that was

(01:01:06):
my other movie failure. I guess I was. I went
to l A. I went to live in l A
to be in the house party. Um, you know, Herbie
gassed me up. You know, you can make a second album,
you can make music for the movie and yeah, and
then I get to the set, there's no nothing for
me to do. But yet if you look at the movie,

(01:01:27):
just like ten quam, look like in the house partying
and all this stuff, and I'm like bumping the table.
So I couldn't have done that, Like really, I couldn't have.
Yall couldn't have said, okay, holmy, you can go. I
can I can dance. You know, I could have danced
well enough for the movie. So so it was things

(01:01:49):
like that, even if you were family, are you saying
that there was just in house competition with this is
my do Daine like go get your don't use my platform.
So they couldn't see the bigger pictures. I think the
biggest picture with Salt and Pepper, and Salt and Pepper's
platform allowed everybody else to be on a platform. For example,

(01:02:11):
that n W a movie that you everybody saw straight
out of Compton, that tour that they were on. That
was me n W A easy kidn't play Salt and
Pepper Um there that night I was on that tour, Yeah,
so so, but but that took place because the power

(01:02:35):
of Salt and Pepper was like, well, if you want
salt and Pepper on this tour, you gotta take Kwama
and kidn't play. But it was cool, you know, And
the cool thing was that's how my my breakord sales
grew because in the beginning of the tour they had
no idea who the hell I was. By the end
of the tour, you know, things were popping um and
that honestly, the tour was only two weeks week and

(01:02:57):
a half. It wasn't even it was supposed to be
two weeks. I was but two weeks. To a kid,
they're doing something they've never done before on tour, and
it was so dope because it was like, you know
the ordinances there, you know, no curse and no you
know all these ordinances. So we would do things like
all right, easy would come into our dress when we

(01:03:19):
will all do things together. If anybody knows about tours,
sometimes the closing acts always had the louder music, always
have the better everything. But they did not want to
do everybody had an equal sound, everybody at equal stage,
um freedom room. But the plan was, Okay, look this
is how we're gonna do kuam A. You're gonna go

(01:03:40):
on and then you're gonna run off, and then Easy
is gonna come on. Easy is gonna say all types
of craziness and w A is gonna come in. We're
gonna say all types of craziness. And on the last song,
kidn't play, run on stage, Easy and them are going

(01:04:01):
to jump in the crowd and run out straight out
the arena. And this is thirty twenty thousand Seed arenas
every night, so that's to avoid that was we were.
We were playing trickery on the local police. We couldn't
and it got to the point because of the police,

(01:04:21):
it got to the point that we all no hotel
within that city would accept us, so we would have
to go to outlying cities and change our names. And
it got even worse. Imagine a thirty thousand cedar no
security because all the local cops, no, all cops boycotted,

(01:04:45):
so they're like, look y'all want to say funk us
funck y'all hope y'all die in there. So we would
have to get on stage and be like, look, it
was like local security guards with like yellow shirts and
ship and we would have to be like, look, they
want us to kill ourselves tonight, So what are y'all
gonna do? We know this gang's in here, we know,

(01:05:05):
we know what the type, we know this all types
of people in here, but they want us to die.
You know, Pete was on some of the show, so
you know, Chuck would get in and say what he
had to say that everybody speak their peace, like yeah,
but but what we we It was so cool because
the cleaner acts did pick up for the for the

(01:05:28):
quote unquote dirty or acts. You know, too short was
on the show, so whoever dirty comes on, has a
clean guy gotta come on right after that. So it
was just to make you forget. But it was never
it was never um, it was never a thing where
it was like I sold this many records so I'm

(01:05:50):
going on last or anything. It was nothing like that
because we understood it was us against them at this point.
So we're on this, We're on this crazy tour and
you know, probably the best two weeks of my life.
You know, I imagine an n w A and kitdn't
played tour like I mean, I mean it makes sense,
but because hip hop got so divided. Yeah, like what

(01:06:15):
about the fans who just came to see the good
and fans who just came to see that there was
no such thing the roots and future performing, you know
what I mean. But see, you gotta you gotta nervous
over territory. So like if you were I mean, you
could be hitting in New York, you know, but you played.
It happened for n W like that. By the time

(01:06:36):
we reached we did the spectrum in Philly, it was cool,
but once we went past Philly, kind of all bets
was awful little bit for for well, at least Too
Short n W A. It was a different story, but
Too Short like Dumb Records never really reached the East Coast,
but anywhere pre Philly, from l A to d C, Virginia.

(01:07:03):
Too Short was the first rapper I've ever seen get
on stage and never say a word. Thirty thou people
knew every line to every song and at the end
of the show, what's my favorite word? And that was
the end of the show. Okay, Now, oh god, Now

(01:07:27):
I got someone that has been in front of thirty
thousand people during the classic hip hop era. My version
of touring is very blue collars. You know. I mean
you've seen a you know, Granola Cereal and Dave Matthews
playing on Matthey's playing on the p A system in
between acts. What give me? Just give me life on

(01:07:56):
tour in nineteen nine, what's going on? So let me
know everything? From from women on down? It was It's like,
I'll give you like my stories, man, I'm telling you
these things are crazy, like it'll be things like you
pull up to a city. The reason why we were

(01:08:17):
doing arenas because rap was so rap was like if
I don't know if anybody's ever experienced a Mexican act
that comes to like say Madison Square Garden or something
like that, they don't because it's so compartmentalized. Everybody just
goes to one place to see it. There were no clubs,

(01:08:39):
you know, there was no club dates or anything. It
was just like, all right, there's these rappers. How do
we get everybody who likes rapping one place at one time?
Do the basketball arena? You know? So it was like that. Um.
So we would get to town and it would be
things like um, just personal experience that got pull in

(01:09:01):
and there will be a girl standing in front of
the hotel, where's Carmel, Like, who's calling back? Carlo got
the streets, where's Carmel? And that country puts out it's
literally literally it'll be something where my point like he's

(01:09:24):
in the back of that bus and by the time
she got to the back of the bus, she was
butt naked, like butt naked, big three hundred pounds. I
want quant Carmel where he had rotten nap and and
it'll be like it would be weird things like that,
or I'll give you a um Milwaukee story. So the

(01:09:47):
smaller obscure towns are the more craziest. Yeah, Calama Zoo, Madison,
Wisconsin the craziest place, Calama Zoo. The references good. So
like in Milwaukee, imagine like you know, we weren't in

(01:10:09):
the fly hotels. We didn't get boutique hotels or anything.
We were in holiday ends and Best Westerns or whatever.
So the only people that could even match up with
rappers at the time were drug dealers. Where you have
like say you know, you come to say a route show,
You'll be have actors there, You'll have um um athletes there.

(01:10:31):
At this time, we weren't necessarily cool to Like Michael
Jordan would never show up at a rap show. Malcolm
Jamar Warner would yeah, yeah, but he was our age
so it doesn't count. But Michael Jorge somebody like a
baseball player, basketball player, an actor. For the most part,
the biggest person that would ever show up to anything
would be Bobby Brown and Mike Tyson, so you know

(01:10:52):
that those guys would be the ones that would run
with us. But anybody else we were like those nasty
ass rappers. They hudlums and so so, so we weren't
ever any anything posh. So we would get to like say,
the holiday in and the only people that would be
around us were the local drug dealers. So you know,

(01:11:15):
like we knew them all, we were friends with them all.
So those are all of them, all of them, J Prince.
Everybody you just run down the line. Whoever was hot
at the time was popping. Everybody who was popping, and
they were young enough to like rap very well. But see,

(01:11:39):
but but that's when we we go to Houston. That's
who who took care of everybody? You know, that's not
see I don't want to stay. This is before getting
to the story. I don't understand the the flashing lights
over the name J Prince, I don't get. I don't
personally understand because he was just homie when we got

(01:11:59):
to um. He had the rolexue hook up, he had
the club hook up, he had the girl hook up.
He would show you know, you know, uh Scarface, Yes,
scar Face would come. He would be at every show
before he was Scarface, scar facing Bushwick Bill. We would
know them because they had a laminate. They used to

(01:12:20):
rock laminates from every single show that ever happened in Houston. Ever.
They would always be in you know, Dana used to
live with J. Prince, so you know, I don't. Yeah,
So so you know in Dana wccole, Yo, man, this
dude got elevated in his house. So so you know,
and all we knew was J Prince had rap a

(01:12:40):
lot records and you know, like, okay, so I don't
I personally don't understand Prince. Yeah. I don't good that
you don't because it might be a little and it's
maybe I don't don't very well. But yeah, no, no,
what I'm saying, it's maybe my lack of my my
ignorance and research. I can only go. I can always

(01:13:03):
you know, go back and see, Okay, what do I
Maybe you was a dude everybody loves, but it's just
it was just never a situation. You never had to
check in with anybody when you got to a certain time.
You never it was just everybody. So I'm saying the
people that, so to add on to that or ask
going to that, when did you lose that feeling? Like

(01:13:23):
when did hip hop suddenly become a foreign city to you? Like, wait,
what's going on here? Like I wanted to tell my
Milwaukee story. No, no, no, but that's like, that's so Milwaukee.
So so we're all in this holiday inn and it's
nothing but the local hustlers in the hotel with us.

(01:13:44):
So imagine you have one side of the hall and
all the rooms are connected. So it's my room here, Tasha,
who sings only you here? Tap money here? You know,
everybody and all of and how we usually do it.
Told us leaves the six in the morning. If you
missed the bus, you left, and so flavor flavor, somebody
would always be on all bus because they would always

(01:14:04):
miss But we have these connecting rooms and so at
some point all of us could be in one room
and the other four rooms could be empty. So I'm
in my room packing. Tasha's in one of the room.
She comes back to my room. She goes back to
her room and she starts crying, what's happening? Bot This

(01:14:24):
brand new louis for time bag and my ship is
going like, how who could have gotten into your room?
But basically, somebody went into one room, gotten and started
robbing room. So the hotel manager brings her license up.
They found the bag and the license on the ground
in the lobby, so they bring it back up. She

(01:14:46):
puts the bag of way, goes like a dumbass, goes
into another room. They come back into her room, steal
the bag again. So we're like, all right, that find
his back. She's hysterical her mother gave it us bag,
blah blah blah. So we start knocking on every door.

(01:15:07):
Mind you, there was a guy that would come knocking
on the way. Man, we're the party yet, Man, we're
the party yet. So he was the scout. You know,
nobody's paying attention. So we're knocking on the doors and
we opened one door and I see the scout dude,
and I'm like, yo, man, he was in my room
and so little me, I'm popping ship. He don't know

(01:15:28):
that I got like twenty dudes in the hallway behind me.
So I bust open the door and her bag is
hanging on the um on the door on the side door.
So I said, you got my ship. You came in
my room, valuated him doing all those New York Shire
She's like, man, you better back up. I said, if
anybody comes to me, punch him in the face. So
one guy comes up, knock him and then all I

(01:15:50):
hear they had a sweet All I hear, is there
you go? I kid you not like seven dudes came
out of this back bedroom with guns. But this is
the the click speedos on what speedos, Cowboy boost and

(01:16:18):
the cowboy hat and sub automatic machine gun. Yeah. I
was like, what, yo, you ever see you ever see
that that gift where with Homer Simpson just backway the
Irish exit, Yo, I was like, But it was things

(01:16:40):
like that that would always besides the girl. It was
like so many weird girl stories, like girls with it
will be like pulling up and doing a instore when
there were record stores to do in stores at and
you do the instore, these like little kids being in
little girls and being there and um, and then like

(01:17:02):
two hours later, you get a knock on the door
and is grown woman to show up to the to
the room and this nice dress, like yeah, I found
out you were here and I'm gonna and then you know,
you're like seventeen, you're ready to get in and and
she goes, you know, you don't remember me. I was
the girl you met at the in store, the twelve
year old. She's like it was like a whole and

(01:17:24):
it was like and and and it was like, yeah,
I stole my mom's she worked nice and she don't
know I took her dress, blah blah blah, like what
we gotta get you home, you know, and you know
what it was like. It was so crazy. It was
and it started to be known that these young girls
were doing it or it was and I don't know,
it might happen still like this today, but it'll be

(01:17:45):
things where girls are being the room and you're here,
husband's just knocking on every door crying with exactly, or
it'll be things like, um, this was the crazy thing.
Whole Moms would bring their daughters and like because the

(01:18:08):
mom wanted to meet, say LLL. The daughter wanted to
meet me, so the MoMA Black, I'm gonna just leave
her here in the room with you. I'm gonna go
meet you know. It was stuff like that, The mom
wanted to meet Albie Shore, Bobby Brown or Keith sweat Train,

(01:18:29):
and then then then and then the worst then the
craziest thing, you know, because back then music literally, at
at this point before I say, pre ninety two, music
was just hot. Music was hot music, and anybody went
on tour with anybody, you would have the whole sheriff's department.
They know somebody was in town. The whole sheriff's department
would show up at the hotel, knock on every door

(01:18:52):
and check I D. And there's been many, especially roadies,
many Rohadi's arrested for suspicion of statutory rate because they
would have a girl in the room. The girl would
be fourteen, the roadie would be twenty something. They would
check I D. The girl wouldn't have any I D.
So the girl would have to call the parents. The
parents was superheated at the fact that this random guy

(01:19:17):
from Bushwick whatever it is, with their daughter. You know,
it was crazy stuff like that. You know, you know,
nobody was smart in any sense of the world. It
was just like Pete Bobby Brown, prebody, No, this is
current Bobby. This is Bobby Brown and his Bobby Brown
was this was during the same time. This is all

(01:19:38):
at the same time. I feel like during that that's
when it shut down, like mid nineties, between Bobby Brown
and Luke Luke. Yeah, yeah, so so. But but to
your question about um, what, yeah, I know, I women,

(01:20:00):
I know, women, you know it was. But but see
the thing is, it wasn't. We look at it as
a certain way now, but I think back then it
was just I want to liken it to Woodstock, you
know how everybody wild out in Woodstock and no one
put you know, like there was sex on the lawn

(01:20:22):
and in the mud and all that. But nobody said,
well that was a whole doing it. You know, nobody
did that. It was just like people doing sex and drugs.
So in the eighties, I would say, I would think
from Mellie Mail's time all the way up to say,
there was no definition of it. It was just kids
gone wild. It was literally that. Because then after that

(01:20:45):
then the label started and freak nick started to coming
in and then all this all this crazy stuff. Then
things started. It started to have an ugly face to
a lot of things that were going on. But I
think to answer your question, when I think the end
of I would say an era, golden era, I would
say um with death, row with with n w A,

(01:21:12):
honestly with UM, the beginning of bad Boy. With with that.
It started to put things in boxes and rappers. We
definitely all wore our costumes at the time, but now
there were designated costumes that you had to wear. If

(01:21:33):
you were from the East Coast, you had to look
like this, and you had to wrap like this. If
you were from the West Coast, you had to look
and wrap like this. And MTV came into full stream,
like every neighborhood started to have that cable now and
your MTV wraps is now really at its height. And

(01:21:55):
that was the imagery that was pushed across the world.
So that's why a lot of people will think rap
starts with Tupac and Biggie, because that at that point
is where it turned into a corporate hydra and and
and I don't think people understood what they were falling

(01:22:16):
into because it was now now there was money, you
think a commercial. Yeah, you understand what a top artist
gets on tour, right, quest So the top the top
pay for somebody in nineteen ninety was maybe I remember
Salt and Pepper was getting twenty two thousand UM a show,

(01:22:36):
you know, and that was like, oh ship, yeah, that
sounds great. Mc hammer was probably the top um and
he was at five. That's crazy. A good a good rapper,
like if you're really popping and you have like maybe
a goal out because like selling goal is now the

(01:22:59):
equivalent of like twos platinum. So if you had a
goal to platinum album, you can probably get twelve to
fifteen thousands. Your agent, well, no, no, I see him,
Mark Mark Um Mark, I see him was was my
agent at the time. But you know there were several
agencies that we would just bounce from. You know, there

(01:23:20):
was all these weird little agencies and but you know,
so the money wasn't you know the hottest you know,
I was pushing the Volkswagen. You know, that was like
the hottest whip, you know. And you know the only
person that had like a super ill car besides Herbie
every b for some some reason pulled out a Rolls
Royce one day and everybody was like, how the hell,

(01:23:43):
how the hell? It was an old one, but it
was like, how did you get that? You know, no, no, not,
you would be surprised. Not um and um I think that. Um.
I think that at the glow of of of hip

(01:24:03):
hop and being a rapper and being in hip hop
at the time was a full body experience. So people
just acted that way. Then once came along and you
you started following the mega trends, it just it just turned,

(01:24:23):
it turned everything into a big money game. People made
a lot of money, ladies and gentlemen. I hate to
do this to you, but you're gonna have to wait
for part two with our interview requam me on Quest
Love Supreme and which he gets into it about the
big situation and produce him for a lot of hip

(01:24:44):
hop notable. Uh so, we'll see you on the next
round Quest Love Supreme only on Pandora. Sorry see you,
Quest Love Supreme. It's a production of I Heart Radio.
This classic episode was produced by the team at Pandora.
For more podcasts from my Heart Radio, visit the I

(01:25:05):
heart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you listen to
your favorite shows.