QLS Classic: MC Serch

Episode Transcript
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Speaker 1 (00:00):
Questlove Supreme is a production of iHeartRadio. This classic episode
was produced by the team at Pandora. Ladies and Gentlemen,
this is Questlove and You're listening to QLs. Classic Of
all of our archived episodes, this is probably one of
the most requested ones, and so wonder why FC Search

(00:22):
of Therapase is one of the best storytellers in hip hop.

Speaker 2 (00:27):
I mean, he's the king of I was there and
this happened to me.

Speaker 1 (00:31):
So many stories, man, so many stories, yes, including the
infamous hammer.

Speaker 2 (00:40):
I'm not even going to spoil alert yo.

Speaker 1 (00:42):
From February fifteenth, twenty seventeen.

Speaker 2 (00:45):
This is the.

Speaker 1 (00:45):
World famous, long awaited return of the MC search episode
of Questlove Supreme Classic.

Speaker 3 (00:53):
Hope you enjoyed.

Speaker 2 (01:00):
Wait wait stop stop stop stop stop stop? Does everyone
get traumatized? Whatever? The organ at the top, like, where's
the one? Where's the corn? It's never one? All right,
We've never done that, wone?

Speaker 3 (01:13):
Relax?

Speaker 4 (01:15):
Hello, all right, yoga, let's do it.

Speaker 5 (01:20):
Supreamo soup bream roll cream, Supremo, rolla, Supremo, roll call Premo,
so Supremo.

Speaker 2 (01:35):
Roll.

Speaker 4 (01:37):
Yeah.

Speaker 2 (01:37):
It's Quest Love. Yeah.

Speaker 6 (01:41):
Yeah, my name is Fante. Yeah, I don't rock no perm. Yeah,
don't drink the milk.

Speaker 2 (01:57):
Yeah, because it's sperm. Roll call. My name is Sugar.

Speaker 3 (02:09):
Yeah, I got the blues, Yeah, but not tonight.

Speaker 2 (02:13):
Yeah, so many dude. Supremo, Supremo, Supremo roll call. Yeah,
Valentine's Day. Yeah, I hope that you. Yeah, got fucking
leader sore Son roll Suprema son Son Suprema roll.

Speaker 7 (02:41):
Yeah, I'm in this space. Yeah here, Yeah, we're gonna
get the gas pace roll.

Speaker 2 (02:49):
Delivery Suprema son Son Supremo roll. My name is search
that big m C Yeah, third base two fucking their life.

Speaker 1 (03:14):
Upbra, ladies and gentlemen, If you have ever said to yourself,
I wish a mirror would get to the point I'm
not even talking to people there, people that know me.

Speaker 2 (03:33):
For people that know look at the room, disres and
smiling like a motherfucker. I'm gonna tell you.

Speaker 1 (03:40):
I'm gonna tell you for every long winded epic story
I've ever typed instagrams, be twenty five is parographs. You
not have the heart to be like all right, be
wrapping up. I get you have to paint the picture.
I got that from one person that's.

Speaker 2 (04:02):
Some ball face line like I'm saying Search you are.
You are like my slick Rick.

Speaker 1 (04:08):
Your your stories and your war stories and your experiences
in hip hop culture are one of my favorite recollected
stories ever.

Speaker 2 (04:20):
Thank you, ladies and gentlemen, please welcome MC search. Thank you,
thank you. Shout out to all the Jews in the building.
Font that's right, marchal math. We're out numbers, so happy
now I did the math. It's a tire, right, you

(04:45):
did the math. Yeah, he did the math. That's good.
That's good. Which makes it sound like prior it wasn't
like it sounds like you got jumped like you did
back in Brooklyn jumped. We just got ignored.

Speaker 1 (05:00):
Go to us for the white comedy, White guy already,
we're going in already.

Speaker 2 (05:06):
How you doing, man, I'm I'm great. First of all,
it's great to be here. It's great to be and
it was great to see you in Orlando. Uh, tear
down the building once again. Thank you for you guys
who don't know. I've had the pleasure of knowing this
brother for a very long time. And there's a funny
family storyline that goes with it, because the first time

(05:27):
third Base reunited and went back out on soa Quest
was playing drums for di'angelo and Third Base was opening
for D'Angelo. Oh wow. I took my daughter to this
Europeans She was six years old and she would fall
asleep behind a stage and you know, like just a
mirror would be like next to her all the time. Like,
so I was like, yo, let's get a picture. So

(05:48):
I got a picture Quest and my daughter Mayana and
then like every ten years like my daughter and Quest.
Evolution chart. Yeah, it's like the evolution chart. It's exactly right.
So we have these like pictures and we just took
one in Orlando a couple of weeks when the roots
were in there. My daughter is now twenty two years old.
I'll be ninety six when she's like forty.

Speaker 1 (06:08):
All right, So Search not wanting to waste a millisecond
of your life on the show you started in Far Rockaway, Queens.

Speaker 2 (06:18):
Yes, shout out to Far Rockaway, shout out to Hammel Projects,
Redfern aka Wave Cress aka be seventeen, Cigarette Boulevard, a
lot of aka Mott Avenue Wait which aka he sounded
like Kevin hamon Road aka reads Lane.

Speaker 1 (06:40):
All right, So two pillows, which by myself what what
part of Queens is that that you're from that they
wrap about so.

Speaker 2 (06:49):
Far Rockaway is right on the border of Long Island,
so far Rockaway. My block Queens was on this side
and literally one block over was Long Island on the
other side. And it was so funny because literally the
prices and houses, like my parents' house in nineteen sixty
seven was like forty thousand dollars and the house of
the block literally around the corner was like two hundred

(07:09):
thousand dollars. Wow, like just because of Long Island, because
just the so Long Island was considered the nice part
of town. Oh so nice, so nice. What part of
Long Island the Five Towns publicantemy, No, that's that's a
little south that now you're going east and south. I'm
more like inwood Ulett, see the Heurst five Towns like

(07:31):
around that area. So that's real jew area, real Italian area. Columbo,
crime family Iiha, Cohen, all the good shit, all the
dudes that got laid up like Gotti, all those dudes,
they were all in my neighborhood. Really. Yeah. They would
move people from Howard Beach into like Inwood and run

(07:52):
like gambling spots and like poker parties and all sorts
of crazy.

Speaker 1 (07:57):
Oh wait, oh wait they okay, I see ye fucking
what you're doing?

Speaker 2 (08:03):
Seeing fucking doing.

Speaker 1 (08:07):
So, being as like one as a new resident of
New York City, I'm slowly discovering that all the five
boroughs are major cities within themselves. Like coming from an
outside of perspective, you know, when I come here to
record records, you know, I'll just go straight to the hotel,
go to studio, really not do that much exploring around

(08:29):
New York. But now that I'm like I've been here
for a couple of years now, I'm slowly realizing that, oh,
what makes New York New York is the fact that
all the boroughs are like major cities within themselves. So,
being as though you're all the way up there, every
story I've ever heard of about you was Manhattan stories,

(08:51):
and and and so it's like, how do you come
from all the way out there? How do you even
infiltrate your way into New York culture, at least the
one that embraced you and took you in.

Speaker 2 (09:03):
When I was in middle school, there were schools in
New York called public privates. Where did you go to
high school? I went to I is fifty three Brian
Piccolo Middle numbers though yeah, p S two was named
after Brian Piccolo, a Chicago Bear player, which is still
Brian so right, Brian song. We had to watch that
every year and we were forced to cry at the

(09:24):
end when Gail Sayers his allegiance and long term friendship
to a dying Brian Piccolo. So anyway, so yeah, was
that the movie? It was Billy was William James con
James Cone. So there were these public privates and I
did not want to go to far Rock High School,

(09:44):
like I just there was no where I was going.
Was that the local high school? That was the local
high neighborhoodhigh school famous for Jonah Sulk who invented penicillin.
As you know, Oh wow, so Jonah Salk went there. Wow,
phil oaks information too. Yeah you think you just a
wealth of worthless information right now? I love that. So

(10:09):
I did not want to go. And my mother may
she rest in peace, went to Music and Art High
School in Harlem, so she said you should just try out.
So in eighth grade I went, I tried out, and
I got in and it turned out like even my
guidance counselor was like, really, Michael, you're going to try out,
Like only two students in the history of our whole
school got into music and our like. I was like, well,

(10:30):
you know, I'm going to be the third. And I
went in. I sang a traditional Hebrew song in Hebrew. Yes,
bring it right now, shells the hot right now, chefs
Shallo Salme, shells the hub exclusive. I'm in the movie

(11:02):
I had. I had a mad I had a mad
alto voice like alto yeah before drop so earlier Michael
Jackson right like, enjoy yourself, Michael Jackson, right right up there.
So I get into the school. It's amazing. And the
commute from Far Rock Away to Harlem was two hours
and twelve minutes. So the A train the first the

(11:24):
last stop on the A train is mot Avenue, far Rockaway,
So you'd have to take the A train through Queens,
through Brooklyn, through Manhattan to go to one hundred and
twenty fifth Street, changed for the one to go to
one hundred and thirty Fiftrey Confinent Avenue and then walk
up to hill, Saint Nicholas Hill, And they called it
a castle on the hill because music and art looked
like a castle. So how that kind of transcended New

(11:46):
York was. I just knew the subways. I learned the
subways from an early age. But when I went to
Music and Art, the very first day I was there,
they had freshman orientation and we got hooked up with
a senior and he was like, yo, you want to
coming to the lunch room, like you know, that's where
everything is popping off. So it's like nine o'clock in
the morning and I hear these guys beating on tables

(12:07):
and I hear these dudes doing they're ramen, and I'm like,
I got some good Hebrew that could go along with that.
I'm like, yeah, like I could, I could drop Yeah,
I can drop some like and I'm hearing the skit
and I'm like that sounds like he'll Billy girl from
like they can't go Crew. I'm like, nah, they're just biting.
And there's this whole site for going on. A guy's

(12:29):
bouncing on table and I get like on a table
and I'm looking down and it's Lance Omega, Dana Day
and Ricky d Wow and they are the King went
to high school with Yeah and j Cool in the
Frestrian Seas and Lord Treue from the Eternal Force so much.
Oh my god. So I'm watching them do He'll Billy Girl,

(12:50):
and I'm like, and we had like third fourth generation,
you know, cassette tapes of what they used to do
in the parks, Me and my man Greg and my
man Tommy, like we like listen to that. Like so
I'm like, are you kidding me? Like these guys go
to my high school. It's crazy.

Speaker 1 (13:05):
So they never had a record deal, No, no, never
with out the two members besides Dan and Dane.

Speaker 2 (13:11):
And Lance and Omega Lance DJ Lance right, No, not
Lance Romance, not DJ Lance. No. So there was just
just two of their homeboys from they all rhyme alike. Yes,
did they all have like yes, yes, yes, yeah, like yes,
definitely like and it was definitely and Rick because he

(13:32):
had only come from London like five years prior. Like
he had a thick, thick British accent, and the girls
just it was moisture in that building. There was moisture
in the building. Then all of a sudden, like this
dude starts beatboxing. Who doesn't go to my school? And
they're like, oh yo, Douggie, you got to get out
of here, like, just drop this beat real quick and

(13:52):
then you can leave. So he's just like, so it's
Dougie Fresh. He starts beatboxing. And then in nineteen eighty
he's in the high school when he doesn't even there, No,
he's just chilling in the lunch room, and I just
hear Ricky go lotty dotty, lotty dotty.

Speaker 8 (14:10):
Wow.

Speaker 2 (14:11):
I'm like, So he does the whole verse and for
the whole year, I mean the whole year from September
to June. When we had our ciphers in a lunch room,
he would do that that little skit called he called
lotty dotty right, and they would beat on tables. Let
me tell you something, I bit that ship so fast.

(14:32):
I went back to my hood and I was like, here,
you check out this rhyme I wrote. I was getting
chicks moist moisture. So so they come out. Record blows up.
I'm at Hot Skates and Lynnbrook chilling with my boys.
Records on Kiss famined like midnight, you know somebody's playing it.

(14:54):
I walk into McDonald's. I'm already EMC search, but I'm
not like putting out records yet. I go in McDonald's.
This girl I was kicking it with from Hempstead goes, oh,
look it's Ricky D.

Speaker 4 (15:06):
And I turned around and I go oh yeah, and
she's like you I just hurt your record on kiss
You're Ricky D.

Speaker 2 (15:12):
And this big ass dude, he's like, fucking white boy,
ain't slick. I was so mesmerized by what they did
in school, and again Jay Cool was my locker mate.
And then like just before he graduates high school, he
puts out f R E s A Yo is rhyming

(15:36):
reverse and Pumpkin and the All Stars comes out and
he's on that, and I'm like, wait, he was part
of that cruise. Yeah, yeah he was on that record.
Yeah yeah, Jay Cools on that, Yeah, all of that.
So I'm like, so I'm like, okay, do you have
so much flavor? Yeah? So I'm like, all of a sudden,
I'm like, Okay, I know what I'm gonna do with
my life. I'm gonna be a rapper. Like that's it's

(15:57):
really that same search come from. How did you get that?

Speaker 1 (15:59):
So?

Speaker 2 (16:00):
When I was in middle school, like literally one day,
like my friend Bill comes into school as Bill and
the next day he's Lord doing the qua mathematics understanding
the law. You know what I'm saying, yo, And I'm
like what And he's like, yo, I became a five
percent of God, Like I can't even speak to you
a devil now, and like yeah, da da da dad.

(16:21):
And I'm like, why am I devil? Like you're a
white man, you know, y da da da da da
and like the white man is a devil when you
don't know this comforts of the planet Earth and you
don't know da da da da da and you don't
have the ones attends. And so I was asking all
these questions and they were like, yo, why do you
keep searching for the answers? Man? Why you keep searching
for the answers? Devil? Why you keep searching for the
answers the door? Right? And they just so that's where
they called me search. So now, so now I'm tagging

(16:44):
search s E A, R C H. Like that was
my name right? That also?

Speaker 7 (16:48):
That is that a myth? That's party? Because I heard
you with like a five percent.

Speaker 2 (16:51):
Of I practiced. I practiced the one that tends like
I knew my one attends like I knew nothing a
black and black man, yeah, like three sixty Like I
had a standard three sixty like yo, like yo, yo,
dollarge boring born like.

Speaker 7 (17:09):
Every white man in his room just put his head down.
I don't even know what the is going on.

Speaker 2 (17:12):
This is like a whole another Yes, the original woke.
This is the original state woke.

Speaker 7 (17:18):
Right, Oh boy, I ain't search. I love it and
you're wearing right now.

Speaker 2 (17:23):
Yes, so yeah, we it was really woke. So anyway,
so on my sixteenth birthday, my home, my best friend,
Kevin on Moore, he got me a name plate belt
buckle and the thing was the name no, no, no,
the five the five letter name play belt buckle was
like thirty five dollars yo, but the sixth letter one

(17:43):
was like fifty dollars plus the letters were five dollars each,
So he got the five one, but he tried to
squeeze in the A because he tried to save himself
twenty dollars for my sixteenth birthday. What was your friend's name?
Kevin on Moore? Okay, keV Love, Yeah, love keV Love
and if popped out, so I just said, you know what,
fuck it, I'm just gonna keep it, sus h. And
that's how I spelled the name, did I disappoint you,

(18:08):
lazy no man, search man. I'm just mind blown. I
am a most blessed white Jewish man in the history
of hip hop. Let's be very let's be very clear,
like I tell that people all the time, like when
people even meet me, Like my partner Matthew's behind me
and we're doing an app called to Do Together, Like
I tell Matthew all the time, I'm like, you don't understand.

(18:30):
Like I would not be standing next to you, Matthew.
We wouldn't be doing a dude, if hip hop didn't
save my life, like I would be selling shoes at
fucking Macy's. Like I would I'd be shoveling dirt. Like
everything I learned business, acumen, marketing, promotion, music, love of culture,
like everything came from hip hop. You know. I mean

(18:51):
I loved being a Jew and I loved my culture.
But there was no way being a Jew was gonna
get me to make rap records, you know, with and
go onto a public enemy. It just wasn't gonna happen.
So like it gave me my life, so like everything
that I surround myself with even now is based on
hip hop principles.

Speaker 3 (19:09):
How old were you when you were just telling that
story in nineteen seventy nine or eighty.

Speaker 2 (19:14):
No, no, that Lottie Dotty, that was like eighty five.
Well yeah, but I heard Lottie Dottie in the Intro
Intelluctum in nineteen eighty, so that was I was fourteen.
That was just a routine they did, right, there was
one of their crew routines. So I was like four
years old before I even got them out. Yeah.

Speaker 1 (19:31):
So search like being a white dude in a culture
in which I mean, with the exception of Arthur Baker,
I mean, when I first heard the Beastis in eighty
five with this party's getting rough.

Speaker 2 (19:45):
There was no question that we all thought they were No,
oh you thought you thought the Puerto Rican dog.

Speaker 1 (19:50):
Now forget the inside sleeve of licensed to Ill back
when they did parties getting rough in the Beastie group,
like you just fess the man, like I thought they
were Puerto Rican. Oh wow, Because it just never occurred
to me that white dudes could have flavor. So you
know what I mean, flavored the swag of my generation.

(20:11):
So that said, I mean, were you a walking novelty
to every black person he met? Because even Q Tip
when He described how he first met you with Greg Nice.
He was like, Yo, I never seen no bookshit like
this in my life.

Speaker 2 (20:23):
Like he described he.

Speaker 7 (20:24):
Just had watermelon at the Latin Quarter Search Watermelon.

Speaker 1 (20:28):
He described the moment where you first heard Big Daddy
Kane's raw, where like it was you Greg Nice uh
d Night Nice uh in him and Kane pulls up
in a limo and plays raw and like, but he
was just like when he met you for the first time,
He's like the most incredible thing, Like he just never
saw a white dude with flavor, right, and so like,

(20:51):
how did you navigate not being a caricature so to speak?
Like Chappelle always says, like always be scared of the
white guy in the black Yeah, because ain't no telling
what he did to get there?

Speaker 2 (21:05):
So what was it like just between eighty one and
eighty six? So really between eighty one and eighty five,
I was really very quiet and very shy because with
the exception of a white rapper, the first white rapper
named Vanilla b aka Lord scotch aka Keo Blake Latham,

(21:26):
there were no white rappers and Blake had the most
flavor I'd ever seen in my life, Like he was
wearing creased Lee's with like dark black wallabies and had
a looseight cane with a latigra and like ghazals and
like he was from Brooklyn, and I was like, whatever
you're doing, I want to match what you're doing, like
because I don't have that flavor. In Far Rockaway. I
was real humble, like I was just writing to myself,

(21:49):
you know what I'm saying, and like I would like
go into lunch room and I would like I would
see a cipher go on and I'd be like, you know,
oh you never rhind in us? Nah, I never never
never rhymed at school ever.

Speaker 7 (22:05):
Yeah, because I was wondering how long you to actually
make get into the circle up.

Speaker 2 (22:10):
I never got into the circle. I never never had
the balls to step into that circle. Like never was
going to happen, Like I was way overclassed.

Speaker 3 (22:18):
Shout out to teenagers with no balls man.

Speaker 2 (22:22):
Aka the Jewish Brother aka lunch Room a k A.
Small testicles, So that was never gonna happen. So I figured, like, Okay,
so I've absorbed all of these mcs that are in
my school, so like when I leave school, like I
can really like step up and do some damage because

(22:43):
I've learned from all these mcs that are around me.
So I had gone to music and art on a voice.
On voice, I was singing Italian opera, and like my
thought was, I would go to school because I couldn't
afford to go to Yeshiva, and I would be either
a rabbi or and I would learn how to sing
in music and art, and then I would go to

(23:04):
Yeshiva and get a scholarship. And I didn't. I wound
up getting a scholarship to the Saint Louis School of
Music at George Washington University, four year scholarship free ride.
And I had to make a decision signing day right
and the weekend before, I tell my mom, like, yeah,
I'm not going to Saint Louis any shiit for me
in Saint Louis. I want to be a rapper. And
she said, what do you mean You're gonna rap gifts

(23:26):
its sears? Like what's a rapper? Really appreciate this? She said,
Vashonista rapper like Vashnish. I'm like, mom, there's this culture
called hip hop, and you know there's a music called
rap and the guys who do it are MCS and
I want to be a rapper. She says, so, what's
your plan? And I said, I just told you my plan.
I'm going to be a rapper. She said, no, no, no, no,
If you're going to give away four years of college,

(23:46):
I need you to have a plan, like I need
you to figure it out, Like you can't just say
you're going to be a rapper. And the thing that
I had going for me is my mother was a
child star in the Borsch Belt back in the thirties
and thirty five, and she had to leave that to
win the depre happened to like become a dental technician
to help put food on the table. So she always
felt like she couldn't fulfill her career. What's the Borsch

(24:08):
Belt for? I'm sorry for Jews, right, that's exactly right.
There's so it's it's all in the Catskills, so Kutcher's brown,
like it was all these different hotels in the Catskills.
That was called the Borsch Belt.

Speaker 1 (24:23):
This is the craziest thing because my dad did up
in the Caskills doing all those hotels, like.

Speaker 2 (24:29):
Yeah, yeah, so that was called the Borsch Belt. So
young like Jewish artists would go perform and they would
do like vaudeville and they would sing. And my mom
was one of those singer. Yeah, she had an amazing voice.
And she's like, you know, put a plan together, and
let me see the plan, but you have to tell
Saint Louis School of Music on Monday that you're going

(24:51):
to college, and if you're not, I want to know
the plant. So I spent all Friday, Saturday, and Sunday
like writing this plan, like, well, I got got to
gotta find a producer, and I gotta find a manager,
and I gotta make a demo, and I gotta get
in the studio and I gotta and so I'm going
through this whole list all weekend like I didn't leave
my basement, Like all weekend, I'm just going through this list.

(25:12):
Hold this list. I gotta hit the clubs. And and
she wanted to know how much time it was going
to take me to do this, and I said three
and a half years. And three and a half years,
I'm gonna have a record contract. And she said, I'll
tell you what. I'll support you keep a part time job,
pay for the insurance and the guests in your car,
but keep it least a part time job or a job.
I'll pay for your demo. I'll pay for your stage clothes.

(25:33):
I'll pay for it. I'll support you. But you have
two choices at the end of three and a half years.
You go back to school and get out my house,
or you get a job and get out my house.
But either way you get Yeah it was different. Wait,
can we just it was different? Welcome to.

Speaker 1 (25:56):
Man.

Speaker 2 (25:58):
This search is wait in your mom and your mind.
Time for your mom one time, No, dude, because my
dad was the opposite. I put it. I didn't tell
my dad. Dad didn't find out about the Roots until
the second album.

Speaker 1 (26:17):
Ya had a deal and like it took a record
review of do you want More to be? Like someone
showed me this today. You want to explain what's going on? Yeah, Dad,
I got her.

Speaker 2 (26:27):
Record deal and signed the Deaf Records and Wendy Goldsen
is my n He didn't believe me or approved till
the things fall apart. That was when he finally got it. Wait,
she let you knock and you had not an option
give a full round full to a forty thousand dollars
a year school George Washington University and their Saint Louis

(26:50):
School of Music their specialty program for voice instrumental was
it because you and your mom was your father around?
My father was around. So my father was the kind
of guy like I would go to him, go, Dad, man,
I'm you know, I don't know if I should do this,
and you go, so don't do it. But like my
dad like, I really want to do it, So do it.
I'm like, I don't know, Well, don't ask me. Then
either do it or don't do it. Yes, no, I

(27:12):
don't know. There's your three answers. What do you want
from me? So my dad really was involved in, like,
you know, this career thing. He was just like, so
do it. I'm still mind blowing, Like, well, my mom
I think would help. Well your dad was a musician
as well, when you gave her this plan. But here's
this three page plant. And after three and a half years,
you either go back to school and get out my

(27:33):
house or you get a job and get out my house.
But either way, you get out my house. On my birthday,
twenty one May sixth I signed my deal to death.
Jim Wow. Three years at three years, three years. And
the funny thing was the car that lasted me that
whole time. And I'll tell you about that car between
me and Pete because we wrote most of the Cactus
album in that car because it was called the think tank.

(27:54):
Because it had no radio, all you could do is
think in it, so we could just literally write rhymes
like not even accept player that play instrument. No, she
was dead, just dead. We would just think. That's We
called it the think tank, like we drove it all
over the place. It was in nineteen seventy four of
Volare and was just like a think tank. So I signed,
So I signed deaf Jam. I get a fifteen thousand

(28:15):
dollars advance right to sign a deaf Jam. I go
to my mom. I show the contest it was like,
and we had a beg for that money. We had
a beg for it. So my mom gives me two letters. Yes,
one letter says how proud she is of me, and
that I won't really realize what I just accomplished until

(28:38):
I have children of my own, and that the real
work and the real testament is to how long I
ran no streets because I random streets. For three years,
I treated my house and then we'll go to that.
But for three years. I treated my house like a hotel,
like I literally was at a shit shower shave, and
I was in the streets six days a week, every club, Brooklyn, Queens,

(28:59):
Long Island, Stan Island, anywhere there was a cipher, I
was there. I was there, like it was not even
a question. I was everywhere. I was every Like my
friends like to call me the forest Gump of hip
hop because from nineteen eighty five to nineteen eighty nine,
anything that happened in the Five Boroughs that was historic,
I was there. It's period period. I was just there.

(29:19):
Let's go through it and we will. But I just
want to just tell you this once quick story because
the Jews in the room will appreciate it. Yeah. So
my mother gives me this letter telling me how proud
she is of me, but that the real work starts
when I signed the contract, like all the work was nothing.
Now that I really have to do the work. Now,
you got to keep it right, maintain it. And the
second letter was a bill electric rent clothing season charge

(29:44):
right seventeen nine hundred and thirty six dollars and forty
three cents, And she wanted to know how I was
going to pay it. And that was three years period. Wow,
So I said, Mom, I said, I only got fifteen thousand.
I'll give you five thousand now and the rest of it,
I'll give you my ass cap royalties, which for all
those that don't know, is when your record plays on

(30:05):
the radio, you make money. So for about ten years after,
I would get phone calls at home and go, Michael,
did you know your record Step into the Am played
in Israel four times this month? You made that dollar
thirty one? And in Germany your record? And did you
know that if your record plays on w any W
you make more money than if it plays on Kiss FM.

(30:26):
And so anyway, ten years later, in nineteen ninety seven
or nineteen eighty ninety eight, she sent me a letter
that said paid in full, that like my ass covered
the debt. Damn. So people always say one or two things,
either laugh at that or go, damn, your mom is
fucked up. No, no, she rues, would you reap the
one thousand?

Speaker 1 (30:46):
I don't feel bad now because my dad did the
same shit to me. He kind of yeah, he was
like I didn't tell him about our vance. So one
day that just came on with all these new clothes
like we went overboard, like we we polled ourselves to death,
like we came all these new clothes. He's like, where

(31:08):
you get all these new clothes from? And I was like, oh, well, yeah,
we got it the record deal and huh what was that?
And then he was just like all right, I won
ten wow, ten thousand wow. I gave him ten rex like.

Speaker 2 (31:25):
That just advance.

Speaker 7 (31:27):
It is what it is, thousand dollars advances.

Speaker 2 (31:31):
It was a little different at guessing. So anyway, so
between so basically after I left high school, I basically
became a beast. Like I basically became a beast. So
what happened was I just focused, focus, focused on getting
a record deal.

Speaker 1 (31:45):
See that's weird now that I know the backstory. I
guess in your mind there's a backwards clock.

Speaker 2 (31:50):
Yes, with I can't be the clock. That's exactly right now.

Speaker 1 (31:55):
I'm just thinking like wow, because every the thing is
you are the common denominator to every hip hop folk
lore story I've ever heard of classic New York clubs.
Oh yeah, I remember searching no No No, or or
a concert what Oh yeah, I remember a cool white
boy no No No. But in my head I was
just like, oh, well search was just like you know

(32:15):
socialite search, like he's just everywhere.

Speaker 2 (32:18):
But now I know you it gets your deal. No,
it's definitely. It was definitely. The clock was ticking. And
so that weekend, what do you like the day she
hands you right, what happened? Tell my my guidance counselor.
I go back to school Monday and say, yo, I'm
not going to school and he's like whatever. Be And

(32:38):
then you know, I graduate and I just become a
beast and I have a meeting, like a meeting gets
set up for me at Profile Records with their head
of marketing named Steve plot Nikki and Steve plott Nicky.
His fame real name, yes I was. His claim to
fame was he created the Adidas deal with Leor for

(33:00):
run DMC like he was a big marketing guy and
he did retail and marketing for Profile. And I got
a meeting with him and I thought, this is it.
Like one meeting, I'm signed done and he tells me
I need to make a demo and I said great,
and he said bring it back when you make a demo. Great,
and I left that place. I left Profile, which was
on Broadway across from NYU and I literally called my

(33:24):
mom collect and said, oh, I just got a deal
I want signed to Profile Records. And I get on
the Long Island Railroad and there's these bad chicks from
Valley Stream that I've been kicking it too for a minute,
and they're all like in the train and they're coming
from the city and they're all giggly, and I'm like,
I'm feeling myself because I'm like, yo, I just got
a deal of Profile Records. I met Steve plot Nikki.
I'm in and they're like, we didn't even know you rhyme.

(33:48):
So I start rhyming off the top of my head
about all these bad chicks and what they look like
and what they got on. And I'm talking about the
conductor gets my ticket. I'm beefing about why the d
LR is always late, and all these people start coming
around me because I'm rhyming real loud because I'm feeling myself.
I'm like, yo, you know, and this bad Dominican chick
comes up to me. She goes, I talk to you

(34:08):
a second. I was like, you could talk to me
as long as you want, as long as you want.
She's like, you know, my name is Loridus and my
boyfriend is Grandma was Tony d from the Bad Boys,
and they had the biggest D expect the gadget like, right,
that was the record and forget about that over Roonica
was even bigger D. Right, Oh, Tony d Yes, Tony Dick. Right.

(34:32):
So I'm like, yo, set up a meeting. She's like, yeah,
but I got to be your manager. I'm like whatever,
be like, it's all good. So she gives me his
card and she goes, you know, give me your phone number.
I'll call you in a couple of weeks and I'll
set up a meeting. She scratches out his number, but
his name is there on the card, Anthony Dick and
an address. So I'm like, I ain't waiting two weeks

(34:53):
for this, bitch, Like, what are you talking about? I
go home. I called four one one. I said, hey,
can I get the number for Anthony Dick on Ccrest Boulevard, Brooklyn,
New York. And they're like yes, seven one and AP
blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah. Calling hello,
grand is it Tony dd is mc search. I just
met Lordes. She told me you could sign me. He's like, man, look, man,
I can't really talk right now. We're going to like

(35:14):
Toronto for two weeks on tour. Call me in two weeks.
I'm like, okay, click next day, next day, next, I'm like,
two weeks to the day, ring, Oh, how is Toronto?
Tony is search again? You know when can I come? Oh? Man,
we're going on tour. Like yo, I'm gonna be going
for like a month. Tic tic tic tic tic tic
tic tick. Thirty days later, Tony, what up? Man? Search?
I did this for six months. For six months, he

(35:36):
would tell me not to call. Wait a month. I
would wait a month. I call. Finally, it's April. It's
April in nineteen eighty six. It's pouring rain, it's it's
the middle of the night. I'm like, you know what,
it's not thirty at nighte you know whatever. I'm just
gonna try him. Call on Hello, Tony Man, it's Search.
He's like, you know what, man, just come over. I'm
like what even. He's like, I got some people over,

(35:58):
but just come over. The car was acting funny and
I didn't think I would get it all the way
out there, so I called my best friend. I was
driving so I called my man. I'm like, Billy, you
gotta take me out to Seagate. He's like, yeah, it's
porn rain. I'm like, bro, this is my shot. Like,
you gotta take me out to Seagate. Like I gotta go.
So he drives me out and where he was in

(36:18):
Corney Island. If people know Seagate, if you don't, this
basically it's like the end of Corny Island is a
dead end. And then there's these fences that are like
ten feet high, these fences where like all the Italian
mafioso stay over there. And Tony was in his brownstone
right across from the projects, and there's these bad cars,
like in his parking lot is an eighty five Jaguar

(36:40):
x J sitting on Dayton's and there's like a ninety
eight Osmobile like Crispy, and there's a Cadillac. And I'm like, so,
I'm telling my man, Billy, like, yo, let's go inside.
And he's like, I ain't going in there, man, you
can go in there by yourself. I'm like, word, you
ain't gonna come in with me. He's like, nah, you
go in, go in. Knock on the door. Tony opens
the door. Yeah, I'm search whatever. I'm like, no, no, no,
it's me. I'm search. He's like, all right, come on in.

(37:03):
So it's this really thin hallway and it was dark
and it opened up to this living room and sitting
on the couch was Lord Treue from the Eternal Force,
who I knew from high school. Uh, Grandmaster D from Houdini,
jam Master Jay right, and they're just sitting there looking
at me. And Tony goes, let's go in the basement.

(37:24):
And it's this dark, like musty basement and I'm going
down these steps and I'm like, oh my god, like
three of the biggest DJs in the world are about
to jump me. This is awesome jump. So we go
down into this this musty, damp basement and he clicks
this light and it's this little lamp and it's a

(37:45):
little makeshift studio within a kai and a little studio
right there, and he sits me down and Tony sits
over me, and literally it was like jam Master j
D Taru and he says rat and I went, so
you think you rock well, got a snowball chance in
hell to catch the empty search because I will ring
your bell and soon you will tell them my record's

(38:05):
gonna sell because when I finished wrapping, home boys are
gonna yell you will be so excited at my five's
benic Night. And then all the party people have now
been sighted, say if you have my sight, keep rocking
all night and let the power of the party go
far and bright. My name is empty, said, and I
rhyme my ass off for like two minutes straight, spitting
by and I said, oh, and there's dead silence, dead son,

(38:31):
and I'm like this dead silence, and jam asked. Jay
leans back and he crosses his arms and he plits
his hands over his mouth, and he goes, fuck, if
white boys start rhyming like this, we're over yo. I
need you to come on tour with me with Davy DMX,
and I need you to open with Davy DMX and

(38:51):
me and all Benny and Grandma aster D. He's like, no, no, no, no, no,
I need you to write for Houdini. We got this
new album coming out and we need you to write.
And Tony D's like, nah, this is my artist. It's
my artist. You gotta talk to me. And I had
no paperwork none, so I'm like so like, I'm like
I made it and Tony hands me a contract and
I signed it. Wait, power of attorney, power of signature,

(39:14):
all of my royalties, all of my publishing everything. I
signed everything over because I was just open. How old
it is, open eighteen, I signed everything. I'm I tell
my mom, I got a fair deal. Like She's like,
we should have a lawyer look at it. I'm like, no,
he would never jerk me. Like took everything and I'm
just open. Like I'm in the house with the bad Boys.

(39:35):
They're talking about doing a new record. I'm helping in
writing for the Glamour Girls who had the answer records
of Over Veronica. And I'm meeting Sweet Tea, and I'm
meeting this one and that one. And I'm going into
the studio with Houdini and I'm writing be Yourself, and
I'm writing all these other records and be yourself. Yep,
you might find yourself by yourself. Mill Jackson, Millie Jackson.

(39:57):
Yeah wow. So I'm doing all this and I'm like,
and I'm not making a penny. I'm just excited. Like
I'm just excited. I'm going on tour and I'm doing shows.

Speaker 1 (40:05):
He had a contract just there, yeah, just there, yeah,
just the straight Baller place.

Speaker 2 (40:14):
That's exactly right. It's exactly right. So I signed over
everything and and I'm doing eighty six. So we signed
a Warlock. I put out Melissa, which was a terrible record,
which is the first single I cannot find. I've scoured
the earth. I'll give you one. I'll give you one.
Thank you, you will. I don't want hurt or ever

(40:38):
play it, but I'll give you one. It's terrible, slick
wor it's bold cousin like, I am fucking horrendous, like
because that's what I was around for four years. So
I'm thinking. And it was terrible. It's a terrible record,
and was in an em search EMC search great nicer, No,

(41:03):
it's just me. It was Warlock Records. I was signed
to Adam Levey and Morris Leevy. All right, wow yeah yeah.
So I'm not making a lot of money, you know
with my record deal and I'm doing like little shows.

(41:24):
But I'm making your deal with what was like, did
you get advanced or anything? No? Nothing, It all went
to Tony D. So how are you living? So I'm
basically I'm working. I'm working two jobs. I'm driving Yeshiva
kids from Queen's to Farakaway to go to Yeshiva. Bill
just lit up. I bet they were paying that was

(41:46):
sugar Steve.

Speaker 3 (41:50):
I'm just saying it sounds like Chess Records and reverse
what happened?

Speaker 2 (41:56):
What happened almost almost famed. I laughed, Yo, Yeah, so yeah,
I was getting paid decent money and I was delivering
pizza and chicken, so like that's what I was doing. Wait, yeah,

(42:21):
kids could ever have ever baked chicken? And so I'm like,
I'm making but but what I was really making money
is my man understanding from Redfern projects. He was seeing that.
I was like, rhymen, but like he hated my record, Like,
I gotta tell you this story. This is and I
know a certain DJ is gonna hate me for this,

(42:42):
but I love him and he's a OG, but it
is what it is. So nobody would play the record
except for Bill Blast and Van d C. They would
play the record and the Awesome Too would play the record.
But I was like, yo, we got to get this
record on Kiss FM. They got to get it on
Kiss FM, and Red Alert had a theory. It was
very simple. If he liked the record, he would play it.

(43:02):
If it's not. He'd say that's not hot, and he
wouldn't play it. So my record was not hot. He
was not playing it. But I heard we could get
to Chuck chill Out if we paid him. So we
go to see Chuck before he goes on the air,
and I'm in awe because it's Chuck chill Out and
it's kiss And I see Tony hand him the Melissa
record with two hundred dollars attached to the record. Instead

(43:26):
of seeing the logo, I see the bills, and Chuck
looks down at me and says, the only reason I'm
playing this piece of shit is because you paid me.
And I said thank you. I stuck my hand down.
I said thank you, thank you very much. I appreciate it.
He played that record for thirty six seconds and took
the ship off. Wow, not even the first It's horrific. No,

(43:48):
it wasn't. No record was horrific. Yeah, you don't believe
the show right now, don't. Oh my god, you search please.
I never knew that play the record. I love this

(44:09):
is only because I love you and you've done so
much for my family. Even well, look, I mean so
it's this song is thirty one years old. This is education.
It's just my age. We promise not to laugh. No,
you know, if you don't laugh, I'll be I'll be pissed.
This is laugh because you think its been terrible. It's

(44:30):
that terrible. But I'm one of them silver line motherfuckers.
Be like, well, I like the breakbeats. So all right,
ladies and gentlemen. Is Melissa on Warlock Records, I'm c
search Grand Wizards, Tony d Yeah right here on quest
Lo Supre I cannot wait? Fuck mid that's the B side.

(44:55):
Oh she's not considered the pleasant, you know. That's the
B side.

Speaker 1 (45:06):
Is playing like the depth se and that's you kind
of that's far for the chorus for eighty six. Yeah,
no that was that was not the wasn't winning again?

Speaker 2 (45:18):
No not no, it didn't. But here's the thing, yes
it did. But because I had made such a stench
in the city, right, only a few people looked at
the B side, And one of the people that did
was a guy named Daddio from Sets of Sign. So
what Daddyo would do is say, Yo, Search, I want
you to come on tour with us with Stet and
then step would do a little bit of their show

(45:38):
and a little bit of their performance and Daddyo would
come out and goes, yo, I brought my son with me.
He's gonna come out and perform, and they would throw
on the record and I would come out due to
running Man, the crowd would go crazy, like, oh my god,
he's like crazy. Right, So that helped like build my
rep to get to my second single. But between eighty
five and like eighty seven, what really kind of got

(45:59):
my repout is that my man, understanding from Redfern knew
that I was dope off the top of my head,
like and I would battle anybody. So what he would
do is he would set up these battles in the
Five boroughs, like Vandermere Projects in Brooklyn, and he would
set up something in east Gate and like all of this,
and he'd be like, Yo, my man search want a battle,
and they'd be like, yo, put up a hundred, and

(46:21):
you know, these drug dealers be like that, you know,
fucking my man is dope. Like yeah, my man whatever,
it's dope, Like he's dope in the projects, right, He's like, yeah,
my man will crush him. And then they would see
me come off the subway like yeah, that's search and
I'm having the glasses and the mullet and they're like,
oh shit, two hundred, and I would I would get

(46:41):
an these ciphers and somebody would beat box and I
would always let the dude go first, and then I
would pick apart his verse in front of him and
spit his rms back at them and tell him how
wacky was because he said something and he really should
have said this when he meant this, and da da
da da da da da bake them, bake them like
and then everyone ooh right. So one time in the Bronx,

(47:02):
I'm at this battle and my man's dj inn and
it was like some serious money. I think it was
like two seventy five or something. This dude was putting up.
So we're battling, and I'm like, it's just it's this
Latin kid, like he's half Latin, half black, and I'm like,
I just went in. I don't know why. I think
I was like smoking weed or like, I just went
in and like I started talking about how it's sucking
his sister and like and I just remember this, and

(47:24):
this is the one thing I know. And then this
is the one thing I said. I remember this, and
I said, just realize a block Keto just smoked you up.
Don't say a word. This motherfucker is looking at me like, Man,
I'll fucking kill you.

Speaker 7 (47:43):
I don't even know what that means.

Speaker 2 (47:45):
Shut him out. So at the end of the party,
my man is asking me to break down his set.
I got this giant amp in my hand, you know,
like from eighty five, like the size of car trunk
right here. Pop and I see the amp and the
amp cracks in half, and I look up and it's
the Puerto Rican Kidney's aim in a thirty eight at me.
Oh so I'm like Brooklyn dip drop the ship. He

(48:06):
takes two more shots and dip out, run through the subway.
It's just it's just the word spread like the social
network news that like you can't battle this kid because
you're gonna want to kill them. No more project battles,
some more project battles after rest of all. Okay, that's
how it's making my money. Like I would make like
two three hundred a weekend because my man would split and.

Speaker 1 (48:25):
There was nothing to you to just show up at
Marshy project, nothing, nothing, nothing, and it.

Speaker 7 (48:32):
Never turned into you never had to put your hands
on anybody.

Speaker 1 (48:34):
Even as gentrified as Brooklyn is now down today. I
don't even go into a bodega without clearing it first.

Speaker 2 (48:44):
I just you know what, Look, I have some friends
who are real deep. And it's funny because even like
in the Latin Quarter, like fifty the original fifty cent
and a Rock and the Decepticons, and they always looked
out for me. Like I could go to Gates and
Green and like have no problem because they'd be like,
you know, no, I don't fuck with Search. That's fit
these men, like, don't fuck with them. Don't fuck with them.

(49:05):
And in Queen's like Tommy Mickens and like all those
kids fat Cat, like all those dudes that got locked
up for like one hundred years for like those were
my boys. Like those were like just my dudes, and
they'd be like, yo, Search, come over here, kick a
little kick, a little rum about this this this kid
over here. So freestyling was your redemption after Melissa. Not
only my redemption, but it's how I got my deal

(49:27):
at Death champ Wow, because Deve Funk and klimmeh he
Rest in Peace used to run the battle for World
supremacy for New Music Seminar and I had a second
single that came out on a label that my mother
started with Tony D called Idler's Records. She put your
mom owns Isler's. Well, she didn't own it. She put
up the money to for the first single, which was
hey boy.

Speaker 7 (49:48):
Your mother went from not knowing what rap was to
investing in it.

Speaker 2 (49:51):
Yeah.

Speaker 1 (49:51):
She said, wait a minute, based on yeah, hey boy,
that was you? Yeah that was me, Yo, Lady B
played that so much.

Speaker 2 (50:02):
That was you, that was me? And you know why
she played it. You know why she played it? Why
we did a party for her at a high school
in Philly. Me and Tony D went up there and
the crowd started boring me the second they saw me.
Uh huh. I mean I'm not talking about little Booze

(50:24):
right right. And I go to Tony, I'll go why
they booing me? And we already had this plan because
it happened before. So you always went in this situation
being underestimated always so. And you know who has the
tape of this is DJ cash Money or either TAT
or cash Money. One of them have the tape. They
have the tape of it. So I said, yo, why
they boring me? And he said, it's because you're white,

(50:47):
and I went, get the fuck out of here. If
anything else see a white boy on say somebody say why,
well the fuck up? Why say why? Motherfucker? I'll show you.

(51:11):
Can I play Hey Boy? Yes? Absolutely? Yo? I love
that record, Yo, Yo, I've never heard this.

Speaker 1 (51:17):
This is the first time, dog, this is this is
my high school experiences, like listening to Lady B Street
Beat at like eleven thirty at nine on Power ninety nine,
and they used to always run this joint. Yo, this
EMC search hey Boy, I list record. I cannot believe that.

Speaker 2 (51:34):
And the second record we put out was Jimbrowski the
Jungle Brothers.

Speaker 1 (51:37):
That's why I know Idlers. Yes, that was like that's okay,
that's I'm mind blowing right now. All right, all right,
this is of course little Supreme. This is hey Boy
MC search.

Speaker 2 (51:47):
B and he at a party stone Cold Inlands. Oh
go in my hand man.

Speaker 9 (51:51):
You know that I was killing the bouncing on the wall.
He's having a ball. Went out and know where I
hear this call and that goes.

Speaker 4 (51:57):
Up like.

Speaker 10 (52:03):
People, the people people.

Speaker 9 (52:06):
Well, it all started out and this one's showing. Now
these words follow me whatever I go from front and behind.

Speaker 2 (52:13):
It blows my mind. Whoever this girl is.

Speaker 9 (52:16):
Mash's being unconn in the US say or even overseas,
the damn girls from the OSH just to follow me.
She wants you taunts like a witch or a gona
sent all that I can do about it? When the
boss any and turn around and face his voice cold, invisible,
unstoppable and who sitch?

Speaker 2 (52:32):
I noticeol, why don't you try to recruit I can't, Tony.
She got me.

Speaker 1 (52:36):
Not for people, dude, like this, there's no feeling like
you know, the feeling, the feeling that I'll have when
we finally discover that ECM sample of Crooklyn Crookly, like
the relief of like I finally found out what this
sample was. There's like six what I thought were Philly

(52:57):
records that I've been searching for. I ever knew that
was MC search. I loved that record. Boy, it was
like the Wop classic.

Speaker 2 (53:05):
Wait, it was absolutely That's exactly what I was thinking
about when I made that record, was like, I want
to do a record that I could wop to. You
could do the Wop? How old were you when you
made that? I was twenty nineteen twenty Okay, that was
eighty seven, eighty seven, eighty eighty seven, and mind you
like we had sold like seventy five thousand copies of

(53:26):
that single. I never saw a penny, you know, because
Tonyd owned everything. So I go to funking Clin he'd
seen me in the Latin Quarter and he says, Yo,
you know you should be a part of this battle.
I know you were on off top of your head.
I'm like, yeah, cool, Like I'll show up, Yeah, no problem.
You know there was a battle. There was like sixty
four ms was crazy, and I battle this dude Ronan

(53:47):
Row from BMO this source. Yes, he's an MC first. Yeah,
he was signed to Select Records. On the record he
was a group called Big Men on Campus BMOC that
was signed by Faith Newman, who started her career a
single out. Yes, what year was it? Eighty seven? I

(54:07):
think I had one of those records. So anyway, I
slayed them like it was embarrassing, Like I slayed them
like I just just talked now battles, Okay, now, so
battles that the Battles and New Music Seminar were really
cool because they threw on beats that producers made, so
all these producers would just throw on beats or we
would rhyme to like records that were hot, and we

(54:28):
were just and it was a countdown clock to ninety
seconds and then you did what you did and you
were done. So were real time battles or was it
real time stuff in your head? No? Real time? Like
I was off the top of the head, off the head,
so everything was for me. It was I mean, the
dudes I was battling wrote and that was my That
was my claim to fame was that whatever they wrote,

(54:50):
I'd be like, yo, why do you say that when
you should have said it like this and da da
da da dada. Now you get me pissed because blah
blah blah blah blah and you should have da oh.
I would rip people apart. So the finals were the
next day at Webster Hall. It's top sixteen and the
first battle I have is with this guy Raving Tea
from the Mighty Dismasters. Ah love that record, and he's

(55:14):
baking people with mama jokes, like he's doing like hip
hop mama jokes. So this is the only time I
wrote in that whole battle, I'm like, I gotta come
up with some mama jokes like to like slam, And
I set a couple of them in rhyme for them
and they were terrible, and I lost my flow and
I froze, and the crowd starts booing me, and I'm
getting nervous, and then out of his pocket he pulls

(55:37):
out a piece of paper to get ready, and I
went oh, and I started pointing at the paper. I'm like, yo,
that's how you say your rhyme's off a piece of paper.
You know. Somebody out the crowd, come get me a
way to so I could serve him a whole new
plate of rhymes before he's done three to one. My
job's done. Oh, slay them, Slay them A man you

(55:59):
can't pull. Where are you are? You're naming? We wait?
Wasn't Crazy down with the crew that did Veronica?

Speaker 1 (56:06):
No?

Speaker 2 (56:07):
You sure you're talking about Craigg from Dropping Signs, Craig G. Yes, No,
from the bad Boys like Inspect the Gadget Bat. I thought, okay,
I thought he was on that. Okay, okay it was
mister Mac. I can't remember, but no, it wasn't Craig g.

Speaker 1 (56:22):
Okay, you're you're just naming like a slew of like
New York MC's and crews that were on local labels that.

Speaker 2 (56:30):
Were just killing it had impact for like one single
would never go to the never got to promise.

Speaker 1 (56:36):
Like Dismaster's small time Hustle, like if we if the
Roots ever do their eventual cover album one day of
like obscure Ship like that will be my solo joint.
I think small time hustlers like the last rhyme I'm
a Bike because I know no one don't know this ship.

Speaker 2 (56:56):
Like it was. It was just such a humorous, hell
larryous song and what happened I don't know. It was
about rhythm, like like after I beat him, I never
saw him again. So I come off stage and miss
the Magic is behind me, and he skied up and
he's like, yo, white boy, give me the mic. I'm like, no,
I'm about to go on. He's like, motherfucker, don't you

(57:18):
know who I am? I'm missed the Magic. I'm like,
I don't give a fuck who you are. Right now,
I'm about to go on stage and they call me
and the dude douses me with a thing of water.
So it was red Alert was a judge. It was
the dude from Utfo who I'm also deed who went
to rehab, not a gangle, no, not educated rapper. And

(57:42):
somebody George Hinehosa from raps. Oh wow, they were they
were the judges. And I was battling this dude Bango
who was signed to Rap Syndicate, and I'm like, you
know what, I'm not even gonna worry about this dude,
I said, Yo, put the beat on. I gotta tell
you all the story. And then I went on a
diatribe about how mister Maddie was really missed the tragic
and w b LS was really w b L Fest

(58:04):
because you couldn't get records played unless you put money
under the table, and dude snorts coke and I'm going
on and I'm like, yo, I would never go to BLFS.
I'd rather listen to Red Alert all day, just going yee.

Speaker 1 (58:17):
And you didn't feel no sort of because back then,
wouldn't you get bum rush for some ship? No?

Speaker 2 (58:22):
Not, because I had all my people with me. So
again and I'm like, educated rap, I'm glad you're feeling better,
and like, you know, like I just pointing everybody. Real
time real time RAPS crowd goes crazy Bengo does this
whole other verse about saving South Africa as something.

Speaker 11 (58:45):
Zama mosam peon, so let us speak so to the
hundred who does that thing?

Speaker 2 (58:56):
So then I just take my name off the There
was this big thing a fell car and I said,
my name is Search. I'm about unity, not black or white.
Don't want to have a hip hop community. And I'm
just like going off the top of my head. And
like in a crowd goes crazy crazy and I go
backstage and they're about to do the voting and I
feel somebody rubbing my shoulders and I turn around. It's

(59:16):
Russell and he says, if anybody asks you, tell me
you signed the Deaf Jam.

Speaker 10 (59:21):
Wow.

Speaker 2 (59:23):
And my mother and my father win the audience. Wait
what club? It was the web Webster Hall, New Music Seminary,
No No, No, the New Music Seminar Battle. So they
came with me and I said, Mom, I think I
just got a record deal, like ya da da da dah.
But there were two problems to that. Problem Number one

(59:45):
was Tony d Problem Number two was coordinating everything with
Pete and getting that together because he thought I was
a soloist, right, So now I have a real attorney
go through the Tony d contract and there's a bubble
already in the street, like, oh, search a sign and
to death jam, search a sign of death Jam. So
in the contract my lawyer finds it a clause that says,

(01:00:08):
if you want release at the fourth year of the contract,
you can at thirty days send a letter of release
to a PO Box office in Brooklyn that I knew
Tony never checked because that's where he sent all his bills.
It was a really weird clause. It was an escape clause.
Why would he provide that. I have no idea, Like
I said, I think it was a boiler play contract.

(01:00:30):
And he didn't even really read it. So before I
started negotiating with Russell, we sent them the exit clause.
I had to wait six months and I sent him
the exit clause and I sent it to that PO
Box office and I sent it and I was out
of the contract. But when I did that, I also
when I did that, and when I did that, I
also relinquished all the rights to Jambrowski, all the rights

(01:00:52):
to Hey Boy. And that next month Red Alert did
that nine hundred thousand dollars deal with the Jungle Brothers
to Warner Brothers. So I lost all that money to
that deal because I was a partner in Idler, so
I had to give I had to walk away from that.
So they it was eight hundred and seventy five thousands.
So I'm sorry that for done by the forces, done

(01:01:15):
by the forces of nature. So did you always think
you were going to get the money? And the first no,
I knew. My lawyer told me if he if they
ever went and sold the Masters, that I would never
get the money because this basically relinquished me from all rights.
So I knew it was just like it was a
rast wash. It was a wash. So it was like
freedom for a wash. You know. I looked at my
career the first half of my career as these are

(01:01:37):
the dues I will pay to get to blank. You know.
I always thought that in the twenties you learn. At
the thirties you churn, so you sift out, and then
the forties you earn ye, and then sixties and then
the fifties on you return, so you pay back. So

(01:02:00):
that's how like I kind of always looked at my
life and I always kind of because of that plan.
I always said, Okay, I'm gonna be here when I'm thirty,
I'm gonna be here when I'm forty. I'm gonna be
here when I'm fifty. Like I always kind of try
to map out my life and try to follow it.
And of course it didn't always I thought it would,
but it was close. Like I said, Okay, I'm gonna
be an executive producer of a record in ninety four,

(01:02:21):
and then you know, NOAs came out and I'm gonna
sign a production deal with Warner Brothers in ninety six,
and then I did nonfiction.

Speaker 1 (01:02:27):
So repeat this mantra one more time, and it's twenty
as you learn in the thirties turn so you.

Speaker 2 (01:02:34):
Forties you earned in the fifties, you were returned, get back.
I was just making sure no one burned or anything, right, No,
no learning learning is there's there's burning and learning. Like
you have to sometimes give up things to learn. Things
you also have to lose to learn. Those are the
valuable lessons. Like look, when the Roots got signed, you
were like it was a demo of you guys playing overseas,

(01:02:57):
Like it was like you know what I'm saying, Like
when you did your deal with when the Goldstein, there
was no even knowledge of the roots in the US.
You know what I'm saying. So like whatever deal you made,
that was, that was your learning period, that was your
learning curve. It was and if it wasn't for those records,
if it wasn't for those first two albums, you would
not have established yourself the way you did. And then

(01:03:17):
the rest of it was churning, so sifting through people,
and thank goodness you found Richard in your life. May
you rest in peace. And then you had all of that,
and now is your earning period and you deserve that,
and then you will return that and you you know,
so I'm saying, like, that's just I'm not returning money.

Speaker 7 (01:03:35):
It's not about me. He just means return to the
world where my money, to make sure you heard searched
what he said. But then you will return it. We
talk about this a lot on this show.

Speaker 2 (01:03:46):
So I just we have a lot of people being
here is returning so anyway, but to get back. So
the deaf Jam deal kind of comes through and Leore,
who's now managing Rush thinks still thinks I'm a soloist.
So I'm doing records on the side with Sam sever
I'm doing a demo as a soloist because that's you know,

(01:04:08):
Dante Ross is now involved because he's you know, my
boy signed a rush, and like, you know, it's a
whole different paradigm shift of who I'm dealing with. Like
Lyyor knew me because he'd seen me perform with jam
Master J, and jam Master JA introduced me to you know,
it was just like this whole connection of this insulated
people that I grew up around over the last three
years in hip.

Speaker 4 (01:04:28):
Hop, I want to I wanted to ask you about man,
talk about him because he was just a guy I
always thought, never got the credit.

Speaker 2 (01:04:33):
You're absolutely right, You're absolutely right. Sam started his career
doing beats with Mantronics, all the early sleeping bag stuff,
even like Hungry for Your Love, and then Hanson and
David Hung was Sam seven did the percussion, He did
the beats, So wait, what was he doing for Mantronics?

(01:04:56):
He was doing the beats? Is the crew? So yeah,
him and him and wait a minute, so Sam his
career four beats with Sam, Sam and Mantronics together. Yeah,

(01:05:18):
so all of that stuff, Hungry for You Love, Joyce,
Sim's Colonel and Curl and Abrams all of that, and
then he did the beats for Tougher than Leather and
that's how he got connected into Rush and Deaf Cham
and all of that. Really. Yeah, so Dante and Sam
were best friends. They used to do graffiti together. Sam
used to write sever and Dante Ross used to write system,

(01:05:38):
so they used to do graffiti all the time. And
Dante was like, Yo, you got to hook up man, Sam.
Sam will work on your demo for Deaf Jam. Right,
So I'm going I'm doing these records and I'm gonna
keep it one hundred with you. Like I was happy
with them because I would love being in Chunk King
and I love being the studio with Sam. And we
would go to Sam's he I mean he lived right

(01:05:58):
around the corner and Canal, Like we would be in
his apartment, He'd have his sp'd have his Acai. We
would demo, demo, demo, and then we go into studio
and then spend twelve, fourteen to fifteen hours in the
studio like sandwiches, smoke weed and stay up all night
and like be in a studio and Kevin Reynolds, who
was our engineer at the time. It was just fun,
but there was something that was like missing for me, like,

(01:06:20):
and I know you feel this and fun, I know
you can relate to this. The Jews can't, but I
know you can't. You know when you make a record
and there's that thing in the back of your neck
that's like not right, suspect, like yeah, loved it when
I said it, played it back, skeptical suspect, but maybe right,
and nobody will notice, but they always do. They always notice,

(01:06:44):
Like that's how I felt about my demo. I'm like, eh, skeptical,
little suspect topic, but as maybe I'm just being over critical.
And sure enough, Leon and Russell decide that the guy
who created their deal at Deaf Jamm at Columbia, guy
named Steve Rabowski who went to A and M and

(01:07:04):
was the president at A and M. He was looking
for two soloists. There was a kid in Euston named Raheem,
and there was a kid in New York named mc search,
and he was gonna sign one of us. So Steve
Rabowski is being lined up like Lear's like, Yo, you
gotta sign this kid Search. He's incredible. So he's flying
out to see me, And that same night Dante calls

(01:07:25):
Sam and says, Yo, there's this dude, a friend of
mine who I played ball with. He's stuck in the studio.
Clark Kent was supposed to meet him. He fronted on him,
He's got all this money lined into doing this demo, Like,
can you, Sam, can you go over there and help them?
And Sam goes to Chunk King and it turned out
to be this kid named Pete Nice and Pete Nice
was working on this record that he had this sample

(01:07:48):
from some alternative band Okay. And the next day in
the morning, Sam calls me. He's like, yo, dude, you
need to come meet this dude. I'm like who. He's like,
Pete Nice. I'm like, I know Pete. Like he's managed
by Lamumba Carson, Like I know Pete. Yeah. So I
go to Sam's house and there's Pete and they play.

(01:08:09):
They're like, yo, I got this sample. It's from this
band Depeche Mode. Sam's like, yo, I freaked the sample.
I added the drums and I hear brown brown bam
brown bam brom brown brown brown brown. Damn dun damn
dawn durn damn. Don't darn hard at hard as Chinese
arithmetic avant garda not a heredic stick out a ride

(01:08:31):
around picking in my cranium. Pete nice elementary like uranium,
and I'm just like, oh shit, I'm like, yo, I
got a verse. We go back to the lab, so
where's it was? No original? We go back to the lab.
We go chunk king. I drop my verse literally in
three takes. Then Pete does another verse and I do

(01:08:52):
another verse, and in the same breath we do triple
stage darkness, and we do one other record like in
a matter of hours. It's like Anna arranged marriage, Like no, no, no,
you know each other's last names. No, we did, We
didn't know we know each other. Look, I'm gonna keep
it like one hundred. Like I used to like laugh
at Pete when he used to try to get in
a Latin quarter, like he'd be like, yo, sir, took

(01:09:13):
me up. And I'm like okay, pal, and I just
keep it moving. And now here he is and he's
like kind of a competitor of mine on rush and
I'm like huh, you know, and I'm like, all right,
let's just form a group. And Sam's like I'm gonna
be the DJ and we'll be three to hard way.
So prior to the recording, you and Pete, y'all knew
of each other, but didn't know each other. Didn't know

(01:09:35):
each other.

Speaker 1 (01:09:36):
Wow, So wait, can I ask something? Sure, you remember
the first time you ever heard terminator X peak?

Speaker 2 (01:09:42):
Yeah? Yeah, And it's like.

Speaker 1 (01:09:47):
Right, because of Pete's tough exterior, Like was he really
a do we even a geek?

Speaker 2 (01:09:53):
No? It wasn't that. He just had a lot of
like because he played balls. He's very shorm pinish. He's
very short pinish. That's a very very good way to say.
He had a lot of Yeah, he had a lot
of swag with m okay or a lot of flavor. Okay,
a lot of flavor with him, Spunky, I felt you
had the flavor and he was this really tough man.
What transpired was I was like the street kid and

(01:10:15):
he was like cleaned up and he had like the
esoteric versus. But I always connected to the street dudes,
you know what I'm saying, Like, and that's kind of
how we were always perceived, Like he was in a
suit and tie and in a cane, and I was
always like minister. Yeah. So Steve Rabowski comes to Chunk
King and me, Sam and Peter sitting there and this

(01:10:36):
other dude that used to do A and R who
wound up doing stuff for like Slayer. A guy named
Scott Koonig is with Steve and he's like, yo, so Search,
tell me about yourself and I'm like, yeah, but it's
not Search anymore. It's this group called three the Hard Way.
Check it out and we play him words a wisdom dumping,
play him, triple stage darkness dumping, play him, prop of
the environment, dump him. He's like, ah, I don't get

(01:11:01):
the group thing. It's too much like the Beasties. And
I'm like, wait, Beasties. Like I said, we got credibility
in the street. He's like, Eh, let me think about it.
So I'm like, okay, you know, go think about it.
An hour later we're in the studio. An hour later,
John King, who owns Chunk King, goes Leor just cut
all your funding. You're all fucking kicked out of the session.

(01:11:23):
You're all You're all done, get out, Get out now.
I go to rush. Leor is fuming like, Yo, you
had a fucking deal, you fucking cocksucker. You had a
fucking deal. I gave you a fucking deal. You fucked
up the deal with these two fuck cards. I don't
even know who the fuck they are. And I'm like, wait,
he's not signed to Rush. Fuck no, I don't know him,

(01:11:46):
you fucking asshole. Get that right, Because Johntay and Sam
had made it seem like Pete was also signed to Rush.
He wasn't. He wasn't signed to Rush.

Speaker 3 (01:11:56):
He wasn't.

Speaker 2 (01:12:01):
Up. Sorry, so I'll never forget. My mom was like, well,
I heard about this thing called hype man. Can like, peep,
be your hype man and you'll be empty Search and
it'll be featuring Pete Nice and you'll their knowledge. Right,
I'm like, you know where a group that's It's just
the way it is. And basically they kicked us to
the curb. And it wasn't until that battle that Russell

(01:12:22):
came back and was like, Yo, if anybody asked, you
signed the Deaf Jam And that's how the circle kind
of developed itself. So yeah, so when when Rust came back,
that was after correct they kicked on.

Speaker 1 (01:12:40):
If you're just joining us, uh, we're chatting with mc
search and his many many, many, many many tales the
Great Adventures of.

Speaker 2 (01:12:47):
Em listened to get on the road.

Speaker 1 (01:12:52):
Yeah, we didn't even get to the first single all right,
you kind of you kind of passed a period that
every guest that's been on this show has gone through.

Speaker 2 (01:13:01):
You gotta give us a Latin Quarter story. I have thousands.
Give us your best three story. The best three number
one for me of all time was Scylar Rock May
Rest in Peace, krs and Melle Mel. Yes, so have
you heard the story?

Speaker 1 (01:13:20):
So the pushups Q tip has told this story that
he was there. Okay, all right, so that's a legendary
when we've heard what was Mel's role.

Speaker 2 (01:13:28):
In the Latin Quarter. Mel's role was he was the Heckler. No,
not a heckler. He was like Waller. Yeah, yeah, he's
the elder Statesman. You know, there was this this strange
paradigm around eighty six eighty seven that was more like
there was the Old Guard. So you had Pheelis Forward

(01:13:51):
Problems of the World Today, and you had Mel and
Graham Haster Flash, and then you had you know, you
had Tela Rock, and you had all these great and
you know, Treacherous three and you had all of that
and then so they were still coming to the Latin Quarter. Yeah,
they were all like busy Bee. For sure, Busy b
would do his routines.

Speaker 1 (01:14:09):
A bomb to the Bombed one of the first hip
hop club to come to Manhattan.

Speaker 2 (01:14:14):
Yes, and was that a big deal? Yes, it was
a huge deal. It started with Celebrity Tuesdays. The Awesome
Two would have a showcase called Celebrity Tuesdays. They had
the Real like their show was like a big show
in New York, their radio show. So they would have
like celebrities come out. And then Paradise and Lamumba got
together and started promoting Thursday, Friday and Saturday at the

(01:14:35):
Latin Quarter. And basically what would happen is all the
yardis would come out like they would do after hours party,
I mean after work party, and then we would go in,
you know what I mean. So the yardis like Thursday, Friday, Saturday,
and then Fat Raoul would be DJ. Rowl would be
the house DJ, and then we would come in and
then it would be the hip hop night, you know
what I mean.

Speaker 1 (01:14:55):
And now, now how were the owners with this or
was it just like so the owners were it was
like Timberland, like, ah, okay, blacks here, so we might
as well just.

Speaker 2 (01:15:03):
Just fucking accept it. And so yeah, yeah, no, Mike Oldberg,
it was weird because Mike Oldberg, who is still alive
and still lives in the city and own the Latin
Quarter from the thirties and it's funny, you want to
hear them crazy my mother performed at the Latin Quarter
Crazy nineteen thirty eight. So he always knew that there
was this vibe in this energy around this music, and

(01:15:26):
his only concern was to keep people safe and to
make money, like that's all he cared about, Like he
didn't want anybody getting hurt and he just wanted to
get paid, like that was no. But every night, like
somebody got hurt, Like every night, it was like ridiculous.

Speaker 1 (01:15:40):
So you would go there knowing because the thing I
can't understand is the fact that everyone that gives a
Latin Quarter story really is sort of bypassing the risk
factor involved.

Speaker 2 (01:15:52):
It was incredible risk, so but you didn't really so
you still felt like, oh, the energy was incredible, the
injury was incredible, and Yo, there were so many great records,
so many artists like Fresh Force, like they had a
great record, She's a skeezer, and then all of a
sudden they become kid in Play and I'm like, wow,
that's that's like I remember Fresh Force, and then I

(01:16:13):
would see this group that did a crazy ass record
Corny called I Like Cherries because cherries taste better, and
Grapes of Sour and then a year letter they're the
Audio two and they do you know, top Billin and
you know supernatural mcs. All of a sudden they become
salt and pepper like it was all of this amalgam.
Like I saw Public Enemy performed through their first show

(01:16:34):
and get booed the fuck off stage. Yeah, can you
describe that because no one has the definitive? Okay, so
they def jam booked like an album release party for
a public animals yo bummers. So yes, it was a
Thursday night right, kind of half empty, a lot of
industry types whatever, a lot of magazine people checking them out,

(01:16:55):
and then the typical crowd that was in there, like
you know fifty and Decepticons and Violators and like all
the you know, five Borough kids and they come on
with my nine gear o'smobile and all you hear is
like boom and flavors dancing around and oh boom. I
mean it was horrific. Really, it sounded terrible and they

(01:17:15):
did one song and what people they did you're going
to get you us? Yeah? They didn't go over wow No,
And literally Russell was like pulling them off stage. And
what people don't realize is the Latin Quarter stage, even
though it's ten feet high, was maybe only six feet wide,
so you really didn't have a lot of movements. So
the s ones are trying to move around and it
was just it was just it was not good. And

(01:17:35):
then a year later so there really and it became
literally like that became the song, Like what was the
song that you had the rhythm of the rebel without
a pause? I'm that was the club though. That was

(01:17:55):
Tuck your Chain. B For about three months that record
came on. Then you just danced your ass off touching chaining. No,
you just danced your ass off, and that record became
the biggest record in New York and the hypeist record
in New York. And month four it was tuck your
chain and get off the fucking dance floor. And the
kids who were Nujacks to Latin Quarter, they got robbed
because all the other kids I owe you dances and

(01:18:17):
all that. We were already on the side. We were
just watching the girls violated like they would just be
like pip off. Yeah, that became that became the record
that like you just that you knew there was also
ultra magnetic mcs. Here we go off the off the floor,

(01:18:40):
off the floor. So when you hear these gunshots not
gunshots of.

Speaker 7 (01:18:58):
Oh my god, sirs, you got so many Disney moments.

Speaker 1 (01:19:00):
Lord, having see in my mind Rebel without a pause
was like like you were too young? How old were
you in nineteen eighty seven?

Speaker 2 (01:19:06):
Eight?

Speaker 1 (01:19:08):
So I mean you might did you order did you
took it down economics? Like, yeah, I had got I
had bone Rusher show. My aunt at the time. I
guess she was like, no, no, no, no, it wasn't her.
My aunt was straight like black yuppie Phillis Timond like.

Speaker 4 (01:19:25):
She was record oh man straight, go Huggins baby, So
yeah she was that. But my aunt she had I
guess it was a guy she was dating at the time.

Speaker 1 (01:19:35):
He had the Public Enemy tape and she had it
in her She had a little box she would take
the t school. She was a school teacher, and so
she had a little radio that she would take to
school with her. And I'm shattered in the trunk and
there was a copy of Nation of millions in the
in the radio and I just played it and I
was like, what the fuck is this?

Speaker 2 (01:19:52):
And I just played it over and over and over.
Nation of Millions was really a year after like Yo
Russia show correcked, But people did a rewind because as
soon as Rebel came out and Nations came out, all
of a sudden, Yo comes out and I mean they
come back to it and it's like, oh, oh is
Jenius right right? This is crap, right, this is how
did we sleep on this? So it was really one

(01:20:14):
of these things where the Latin Quarter was really about
the true energy of New York. So it was about
music getting broke. It was literally the information super Highway
because the five boroughs went in that building, even Connecticut,
even some kids from like Rhode Island every once in
a while, kids from Philly and DC, like you know
what I mean. Like it was so if you ripped

(01:20:36):
on that stage, within two days, everybody knew you would
get a call from me, like your untie and like
Allentown and like my aunt Caroll would call me and go,
I heard you had a good show at the Latin
Quarter the other night. My student bleaz A Spleet I
mean it was like the Information super Highway. So it
was really like the center. The nucleus of New York

(01:20:56):
music for four years was the Latin Quarter. And then
were offshoots, like you know, you had the rooftop on
one hundred and fifty fifth like that was cool, and
you had Union Square and that was cool, you know,
and you had little things like that, like you Square
was a club. Union Square, was it? No one ever
talked about Union Square? Yeah, right right?

Speaker 7 (01:21:16):
No.

Speaker 2 (01:21:16):
Union Square had had a really cool vibe. Clark Kent
was the DJ, the first Fresh Prince Jazz Jeff, Yeah,
and that was that was the first time I ever
saw Jazz Jeff do the Bluebird scratch? Right was that
at Union Square? Wow? In fact, I have a signed
Fresh Prince Jazzy Jeff record from Pop Art Parents man

(01:21:40):
really yeah, Jesus before they signed to Jive and all
of that. So there were definitely pockets, but then there
were underground pockets. So you had the world downtown and
like Iced Tea and Ron Syndicate, like that's where Ice
Tea got to start in New York with six in
the morning like that that popped off in the world
like that was and Russell would be a the world

(01:22:00):
and then you'd go at four o'clock in the morning
to save the robot across the street and then save
the robot was like underground reggae and like really dark,
deep dark like rap records like JVC Force Strong Island,
like you would hear it there, like you know what
I mean. Or you would go uptown to the SNS
one hundred and forty fifth in Lenox and Star Child
would be in there and he'd be playing like unreleased shit,

(01:22:21):
you know what I mean. And you'd be eating breakfast
at like eleven o'clock in the morning after partying all
night and dude shooting dice and like you'd leave it
like twelve noon, you know what I'm saying, like, and
you would be you. And that was the rotation. That
was a rotation four years Like that was the rotation.
Eleven eleven two or ten two one at the Latin Quarter,

(01:22:41):
one to two at Union Square, two to three thirty
at the Rooftop, three thirty to eight thirty in the
morning at SNS, you go get breakfast and then you'd
head home.

Speaker 1 (01:22:51):
Okay, so I'm gonna take this time. I see how
cocaine got popular.

Speaker 7 (01:22:56):
Yeah right, I'm tireless.

Speaker 1 (01:22:58):
I'm gonna take this time to segue into what I
feel is your greatest story of all time. Because I
was shocked that he gave a performance at the Latin Quarter.
But now that I think about it, at least according
to at least according to Dante, Now am I to

(01:23:24):
believed that Hammer performed at the Latin Quarter and it
wasn't too novel or I get the film that Hammer
did the new Music seminar and it didn't go over.

Speaker 2 (01:23:35):
Well, that's correct, but it wasn't the Latin Quarter. It was.
It wasn't Latin Quarter. It was I don't I don't remember,
but it wasn't Latin Quarter. But here's the thing with Hammer.
So and I'll get to that too. So I used
to go on the road. I was basically Houdini's valet.
I used to like iron their clothes, and like I
used to have like a list of girls that like

(01:23:56):
in San Francisco, this girl can't meet this girl, and
Grandmaster he has this girl over here, and ecstasy and
like you know, like I used to you know all
of that. So they take me out to a celebrity
basketball game and there's this new rapper in Oakland named
Hammer who's doing this thing right, and all my boys
are telling me, yo, you should battle him. He thinks
he can dance, like you should battle him. You should
battle him, right. So he pulls up in this white

(01:24:19):
Cadillac and I'm like, yo, man, let's battle. He's like,
who the fuck is that's how you say hello? Yeah,
that's exactly how Like I'm just balls in New Yorker
like fuck you. I don't care where you're from. I'm
from New York and what. So I'm like, yo, I
heard you could dance. Let's battle and he's like fuck you.
I'm like, fuck me, b come on, come out the call,

(01:24:39):
let's battle, right. He takes off. I'm like, ah, that
kid's a pussy like whatever, right right, So we segue
into like the new Music seminar. He gets booed like
it's not gonna happen for him. Ya da da da da,
and then he does that hole, yo, you hit New York, right,
And then that's a disc to run DMC. What just

(01:25:00):
don't do it's sacriligious, it's just you don't And the Beginning.

Speaker 4 (01:25:05):
Music Center, No, they didn't. Some new just saw new
York was New York, wasn't trying to hear him, okay,
and that was a particular disc to run.

Speaker 2 (01:25:14):
Well, that's that's that's what we all felt. We all
felt that way, whether that's in the video was like
the extras that he's this right, are dressed like exactly right.
But they didn't dis in per se. No, they didn't
say he never said f run DMC and Master Jay.
It just happened to be that they were in a
dida suits with hats on, looking real.

Speaker 1 (01:25:36):
So on on a quiminized chunky fire when they played
that Source clip at the end with you, we just
want to say the South got something to say.

Speaker 2 (01:25:45):
I kind of had.

Speaker 1 (01:25:46):
I kind of got Big Boy to admit a little
bit that they felt some sort of way about all
East Coast rappers because we really weren't yelling with outcasts all.

Speaker 2 (01:25:55):
That much in the beginning.

Speaker 1 (01:25:57):
No, I mean, we're cool shit now, but like in
the beginning, they had a chip on his shoulders because
they just assumed that anyone who was at the Source
Awards booing them as they got best new artists was
like a part of it.

Speaker 2 (01:26:09):
So obviously you're with there, so you know, like right,
so you know this is like a general blanket thing.
So now just and for me, for jam Master j
to be the one in that room in that basement
in Cgate in nineteen eighty five to co sign me
and tell me like, yo, meet us at the bus
outside of Hollis Ave and like get on the bus

(01:26:29):
with Rounnie Ray and all of us and open with
Davy DMX and do what you do and him giving
me like great advice on how to rhyme and ron
flowing and hanging out with Joey and DMC and just
and being a part of that. Like my biggest mistake
is I loved hip hop so much I felt I
had to protect it at all costs. Like I really
thought it was my job savior. No, not the same captain.

(01:26:54):
I felt like I was the night at the roundtable
who was the defender of the culture because it had
given me so much, like it had given me, the
streets had given me so much, The Quarter gave me
so much. Like there were so many times that fifty
was like your search back out, We're about to stick
this whole place up, like get out, Like these dudes
were looking out for me. So it's like this motherfucker
from Oakland, the fuck you doing? You're whack. Your ship

(01:27:17):
is whack. Period. It wasn't like, you know, f you
as a human being, but it was like, you're a
whack MC, You're whack.

Speaker 1 (01:27:25):
I think you're the first person I ever heard call
out someone's credibility.

Speaker 2 (01:27:30):
I mean not in terms of like L and coolmo
D going into each other or saying you whack like
you yeah to me.

Speaker 1 (01:27:39):
Yeah, And like when I saw the gas Face video,
I was like, wow, they're they're really defending hard, Like.

Speaker 2 (01:27:45):
Yeah, it was Austin jam Master Jay with the hammer
and we had the two big MC lookalike grab the
hammer and we kicked him in his ass and like,
you know, so the real the beef really came about
a line on Cactus, Yes, where we based. But here's
the thing and again, like people who knew us, we
would never dis somebody's mom. It was wordlay yeah, because

(01:28:07):
we're album. Our album was much better than Turn His
Mother Out. Cactus Turned ham his Mother Out is like
a that's a known fact, Like your shit is whack
compared to the Cactus. Nobody's checking for your shit. Twenty
five years later, my shit is still bumping and that's unfortunately,
but that's how I feel today as almost a fifty
year old man, Like I'm still like, Yo, your shit

(01:28:27):
is whack, you know what I mean. So I took
it on my shoulder like I was like, I have
to protect this, like I have to. So we're getting
ready to come out to LA and we're doing a
whole week of promotion like that Cactus is doing real well.
We're doing a Product of the Environment Jeep giveaway a Kday.
You're like, there's all this cool shit. I've never been
to LA before. So I got chantel with me. Peek

(01:28:50):
out his girl Rock saying Daddy Rich got his girl Mone.
We're like, we're all all excited. We're getting to JFK.
We're getting ready to go on a plane and there's
a call that comes into Carmen Ashhurst Watson, who is
at then the president of Deaf Chain, and we believe
it was Louis Barrell Hama's brother, and he says, YO
is third base still coming to LA And she goes, yeah, why,

(01:29:11):
He goes good, They're dead and hangs up the phone.
So she's like, hmm, that's kind of weird. Like so
she calls Russell and like, Russell, I think there might
be a problem with third base, Like I think they
might be in danger. So Russell does what he does.
He reaches out to the person who's closest to the street,
which is Eric B and he calls Eric Barrier and

(01:29:32):
he's like, Yo, Eric, can you find out if there's
something going on about third base in LA. Within twenty
minutes he gets calls Russell back and he's like, yeah,
there's a hit. There's a hit out on third base.
So Russell says to Eric, like, no, Eric, Eric, Well, Eric,
he is always like Eric, He's always been connected. So

(01:29:52):
me and Eric were tight like and then something happened.
I don't know, Oh no, I know it happened. Let
me tell the story real quick. I'm signed to Rush.
Third Base album is about to come out. We got
about three or four songs to do. Lew York calls
me out of the blue and says, hey, we got
a problem with Rock Kim. He's got writer's block. I
need you to write a song for rock him. And

(01:30:13):
I'm like, and just so you know, rock Kim's my
favorite MC of all time, and I ain't no joke
to me barnunn is the perfect rap record ever made,
just period. So I was like honored. I was like flattered,
Like you're gonna ask me like a white devil to
I'm gonna write to God MC a verse. Yeah, I'm

(01:30:35):
gonna write him a verse. I'm gonna write a beast.
So me and Pete come to my parents' house and
we're like, what would what would he say? What would?
So I get into rock kim mode. I'm thinking about,
like you know, payt in full, and I'm thinking about
all of this, and all of a sudden, I write
Ready in the intro cute the searchlight, Eric's to the
Senate stage. I grab the first mic, projecting the voice

(01:30:56):
with dis mike. Then I'm cuffing you ain't my knuckle
something snuffing the word of rock him stands true to
no pannikin man verse. Man you freeze a black mannequin
could be a rock whoa to dwell upon the step
in on the trigger has a tomb smash. I could
where be gave me the cue, So I'm gonna put up,
shut up too, my gems through. So now I want

(01:31:16):
to freak. And That's how I'm hearing rock Kim's voice
in my head and I'm hearing him saying, now I
want to freak them. So I'll embarked sparky mission posse
the way pass dark, I'm park there's no standard. I'll
plead the five. Oh you don't stop moving until rock
Kemp says, so to keep trop hoping shooting out to
play him. Me and Eric be a keep a stepping
to the am. Write the whole ship in fifteen minutes.

(01:31:40):
So I write the whole record in thirty minutes. I
go next day to Leor. He's like, yo, I'm gonna
call Eric, and I'm amped. I'm excited. And when Eric
picks up the phone and Leor goes Eric, I had
such right a verse the rock him, I hear silent,
and I get shook, and then I go, so, Eric,

(01:32:06):
this is the record I wrote. Call step into the
am click, and then Denise at the front desk goes Leor.
Eric b's online too. He wants to talk to you
by yourself. So I'm shook. Now I'm really shook, like

(01:32:27):
I don't know what I just did. Like I don't
know what I just did. All I was trying to
do is help, Like oh, it's all I was trying
to do. They called you. Yeah, so I'm told by Simone,
who at the time was the assistant for Russell and Leor.
Leor doesn't want you to move until he tells you
stay here and wait. That's all I get a message

(01:32:48):
for and I signed that office for five hours. At
six point thirty, Leor called me upstairs and he goes,
why didn't you tell me you had beef with Eric B?
I said, I said, Leora, I don't have beef with
Eric B. He's like, educates you. He doesn't know why
he would you would think about writing a record for

(01:33:09):
Rock Kim. He's fucking furious I almost lost him as
a client and bla, He's going off on me. And
I'm like, yo, I said, Leora, I had no idea,
Like I didn't know. Like I started telling him the
wine Dance story. He's like, search, fix yourself, get the
fuck out in my office. So fast forward. Eric Bee

(01:33:30):
finds out there's this hit on third base. Russell says, no,
I don't know what. To this day, I still know
what the beef I don't know to be, but all
I know is Eric's reaction and telling Rock Kim that
rock Kim took two weeks to finish follow the leader,
So I don't know if there's a connection there, but whatever,

(01:33:52):
like whatever happened between Eric and Ra, like Ra either
got over his right. And I'm not saying I had
anything to do with it. I'm just saying, like what
happened with Eric and his conversation with rock Kim, rock
Kim was motivated to finish follow the leadership. So Eric
never stepped to me like we never had a problem.
But I will tell you that I had a problem
with rock Kim the same week with Hammer, and I'll

(01:34:13):
tell that story too. So Eric finds out there's a hit,
and Russell says to them, well, yo, can you do
something about it? And Eric says not, let it happen
and hangs up the phone right now, let it happen.
So Russell calls him back this and again I'm hearing
this secondhand from Russell and Carmen, right, you know. But

(01:34:34):
they call him back and they say, well, can you
tell us who we need to talk to, and Eric says, yeah,
this guy my Conception. So they call my Conception and
they say, Mike, we hear there's a problem, you know
with third base. He goes, yeah, you know, we got
to take care of those kids. I'm sorry, it's just
it's the way it is. And Russell's like, I can't.
That can't happen. He's like, well, I'll tell you what,

(01:34:56):
because you're Russell Simmons, We'll just hurt them from the
waist down so they still do television.

Speaker 7 (01:35:04):
What does that even mean?

Speaker 2 (01:35:05):
It means that he was gonna put us in power,
put us in chairs. So Russell's like, that can't happen either.
How do we stop this whole thing? And my conception says, okay,
there's two ways that we can stop it. He goes,
because you know, there's like fifty thousand members of the
Crips that already know about the hit. And ya da
da da dad. He's like, so there's two ways that
this can happen. He said, I'm having a hard time

(01:35:25):
getting a distribution deal for a record that I'm trying
to do about Peace Gang Piece, Cold War in the
same gang. He's like, if you can help me get distribution,
irony right right, If you're can help me get distribution,
that would be A and B. Tomorrow night's the American
Music Awards. I want to sit next to Michael Jackson
tomorrow night. So this is yaterday. I have twenty four
hours to make designs, right. So they called Donnie Einer

(01:35:48):
and Tommy Mottola and they basically say, Yo, Donnie, I
need your tickets for the American Music Wards. Don't ask
me why. This is some street shit. I need your tickets.
And Donnie's like, I'm sitting next to Michael Jackson, like
he's gonna be about to be the most celebrated artist
of the decade. He's like, you don't understand. We got
a guy in a wheelchair who's gonna need to sit
next to Michael Jackson. And sure enough, nineteen ninety American Music.

(01:36:10):
I watched it last night. He's sitting right next, right
right next to Michael Jackson.

Speaker 12 (01:36:14):
So we're in the air like la, yeah, not knowing,
not knowing shit, not knowing shit, your women and we touched.

Speaker 2 (01:36:26):
Down and I got my girl and I'm hugging up
on shit, say, oh my god, we're in LA. It's
gonna be great. Ya da da da da. We come
out the gate and this is not back. This is
pre nine eleven, right, and you're smoking cigarettes in the
front end of the gate like you know nothing. We
come out the gate. It's all of us stock together
all of a sudden. Ten dudes put a black tarp

(01:36:47):
over our head. No no, and they go move, Move, Move,
everybody out of the way. Move, Move, Move. Put your
head down, third base, put your head down. Everybody put
your head down. Move, move, move, And I'm bent over
and I can see Pete next to me bent over,
and I look over to him and I go, oh
my god, We're bigger than the Beatles.

Speaker 6 (01:37:10):
Thing.

Speaker 2 (01:37:12):
And they move us into this armor plated dan and
keep your heads down, keep your heads down. And I'm like,
oh my god, I'm killing it. We're killing it. We're
not killing yo. We are huge, Like I didn't know
where this huge, fucking huge. And they pull up into
the Hollywood arm fresh and everything. Yeah, we were all

(01:37:33):
kind of were. No nobody explained ship, did you go
to a baggage claim or anything? They picked up all
us ship everything, they had a guy picking up. Oh.
We go to the Hollywood Hiat. They take us to
the top floor, I mean top floor where little Richard
had his condo right right that we take it and
the whole floor is blocked off like no one, no

(01:37:55):
one can go into them except for Little Richard. Every
other condo is locked off. Everybody's off. We have security
at the front, at the elevators. Everybody's being checked. There's
a list of people that are only allowed on the floor.
That's it like. And I'm like, fuck the Beatles. I'm
bigger than the and this is the album? Is that?

(01:38:15):
How long have the cas I've been out at this time?
Two weeks? Two weeks, two weeks. This is the impact
I had on music cultures. Two weeks. I'm bigger than
the Beatles. This is the only way I would be
treated like this, either on Beatles or the ORNU right right.
So I'm able to sneak by security. I don't know

(01:38:38):
how I did it, but I get downstairs and outside
the hotel is Rock Kim and Supreme m hmm. And
I'm like, oh my god, rock Cam Supreme like yes, Supreme, mathematics,
yeah Supreme. So I go up to Rock Kim and
I said, Row, are you here to see me? And

(01:38:59):
he said yeah. I said I said what, Well, He's like, yo,
I'm gonna take you around this hotel. Beat you ass
real quick? What I said, wait? I said what And
I said what? He said, Yeah, man, you know that's
seeking a settlement, stunt, seeking a settlement. I know that
was about me, man. Eric told me that shit was

(01:39:19):
about me on that Steven to the am joint. So
I'm gonna come beat you ass real quick, I said,
rock Kim, and my voice got real high. I was like,
my favorite rubber time. I would never do you. That's crazy.

Speaker 7 (01:39:31):
I love you.

Speaker 2 (01:39:32):
You're my fucking man, like, I would never do you.
Are you crazy? Like that's crazy?

Speaker 7 (01:39:36):
I was talking about some.

Speaker 2 (01:39:37):
Bitches's looking at me like stone face like, and Supreme
looked out for me like a million times, and like
all of a sudden, he's like on the other side, man,
uncle nel my security guy. He grabs me. He's like
get inside, get inside right now, and I'm like whatever.
He takes me upstairs. He takes me to my room.
He explains the whole situation that there's this hit and

(01:40:00):
all of this, and there's a lieutenant coming to stay
with us named Pooky, and I was like, this is
some bullshit. Again.

Speaker 7 (01:40:07):
I'm not an officer, lieutenant.

Speaker 2 (01:40:09):
No, this guy a lieutenant, and I'm like this is bullshit.
I'm like, yo, man, I want to go to the
I heard about the Beverly Center, Like, I want to
take my girl of Beverly Center. Can I get the
fuck out of here? Like this is bullshit? And they're like,
are you fucking kidding me? Like do you think this
is bullshit? All of this is I'm like, yeah, it's
some bullshit. This is not real. I'll fix all of this.

(01:40:31):
This is not real. So Pooky comes in and Pooky
is like the six three skinny dude and he got
little weltz like all on his arms and I'm like, yo,
it's up with the mumps. He's like, hey, mumps, motherfucker.
He's a bullet. And I'm like okay. I was like, well, then, yo,
take me to the Beverly Center. Then you're supposed to

(01:40:52):
hold me down, hold me down, take me to Beverly Center.
And Uncle Mel's like yo, and Pook he's like, no, no, no, no, no,
Lil homie wants to go to center. I'll tell you
the center, no problem, let's get in a van.

Speaker 1 (01:41:04):
So just to ask you, you didn't think after hearing
that story, you still didn't think it can't.

Speaker 2 (01:41:13):
Be that no New York attitude from.

Speaker 9 (01:41:17):
Like you.

Speaker 2 (01:41:22):
It ain't real. I'm on some I'm on my New
York ship for real, Like, fuck you, I'm from New
York and everything else is bullshit. I'm from New York.
But you understand my mentality. I do understand it. And
it wasn't real. It had to be hyped, it had
to be exaggerated. This was bullsh It couldn't be real.
There's no way this is real. You used to go

(01:41:43):
down chantell Is with me. Now you're embarrassing me in
front of wisdom. I want to go to the Beverly Center.
My wisdom, my earth is with me. You you are
embarrassing in front of my earth, like I want to
go to the Beverly.

Speaker 7 (01:41:57):
Center, embarras earth.

Speaker 2 (01:42:00):
So Pooky's like, no, no, no, no, little homie want
to go technical Beverly Center. No problem. So Uncle Mel
and Pooky and me and Chantell we go. I asked,
you know, Pete, you want to go. He's like, huh,
I'm good here. Yeah, I'm like a pussy pussy. This
ain't rip. So we go to Beverly Center. And for
those who are listening to, Beverly Center had this big

(01:42:21):
circular area like and elevate escalators that go down and
and had this like balcony that goes all the way around.
So we came up to the balcony area and there's
this escalator that goes down and at the time there
was like a foot locker and a little hangout area.
And Pooky's like, oh, you know, some people just noticed you.
Why don't you go down there. I'm like, mother fucking right,

(01:42:43):
I'm gonna go down and see my fans. I'm fucking
I'm Elvis. So you look like MC search. Yeah, the
whole shit, third base cutting in back, Sir Rock did
it Crispy too? For the for the album release party.
Crispy Crispy, go down, Little Mexican chicks. Oh my god,
em C Search, I love you. Blah blah blah blah
blah blah. I'm signing some autograph. I'm feeling good about myself.

(01:43:05):
I'm waving to wifeyet yeah, da da da, I see
some guys coming this way. I'm like, uh hu huh,
guys over here coming this way, Da da da, I'm
signing autographs. All of a sudden, the dude that's coming
this way, he pulls the bandana up across his mouth,
goes to get the ratchet and then I hear I
hit his whistle loudest loudest loud whistle, and they all

(01:43:25):
look up and Pooky does some gang signs. I don't
know what he was doing. He says this, and the
dude comes right into my face. He pulls down the mask.
He goes, man, I love y'all, motherfucking third base. I
was finna smoke you, but you know I love y'all
motherfuckers yo, yo, and I and I'll tell you right
there it was the only time as a growing man

(01:43:45):
almost pete on myself and the other two dudes behind
him are like, yo, were good. I'm like yeah. He's like, yeah,
this shit is over, this shit is good. It's good.
And I was like, get me to the fucking hotel
right now, the fucking hotel right now. I was so scared.
I don't even remember the ride out of the Beverly

(01:44:06):
Center back to the Higher What what was the do
you know what the value was? Fifty thousand dollars yo,
fifty g's back in nineteen eighty nine. Fifty g's Yo.
Both of y'all are just one no for both of us.

(01:44:26):
Anybody who got to us it had to be both
of us dead, not injured, dead dead. So we go
back to the hotel. I now tell Pete shit is real,
and Pete's like, yeah, motherfucker. I yeah, you didn't notice
all of this shit, you know, But I was slow.
I'm Polish Jew slow. And so now we have to

(01:44:48):
figure out all this strategic movement because def Jam had
put so much into this this next three days, like
we're giving away a jeep on Kday, we have this
album release party, Fox five is doing a special on us.
You know, we have all these moving parts that we
can't just cancel, like God forbid Russell and Leo should
cancel something right, like, you know, we have to do
all of this. And Pooky assured everybody that nothing would

(01:45:11):
happen to us as long as Pooky's with us on
our side. If anybody saw them and he did this,
the gang signed, we were good. So we did not
move out of the hotel. We didn't move right The
next morning, we had to do the macatec Greg macat
the morning show on KDE. Lisa Canning was his news person.

(01:45:31):
It was like the only twenty four hour wrap show
in the country is the AM station. It was on
this little dirt mountain with an antenna like it was
in middle of nowhere, and the little said k day.
And we went in and it was the night after
the American Music Awards. And I didn't know anything about
the American Music Awards. I just I didn't know anything
about the deal. I didn't know anything. We just went

(01:45:54):
to Greg Mattin, you know, to do the morning show
and give away this jeep. And so we sit down
and Greg Max, hey, what up third Base? How you
guys doing. I'm like, ah, it's cool, I'm cool. Yeah,
you know, yeah, no, no, no, no, okay, good dude.
You know, it's great to have you on. You know,
this is Lisa Canning. Oh Lisa, what cracks some mic? Oh?

Speaker 1 (01:46:15):
You know?

Speaker 2 (01:46:15):
We got third Base in the how it's probably the
environment jeep. We're gonna give it away, but first we
got a special guest on the line no Live from
the American Music Awards, winning five awards last night, including
Album of the Year. MC Hammer, Hammer, what's up? Saying
a lot of Third Base? I didn't know this partet
And I look at Pete and I said, this motherfucker
just set us in and Hammer goes, hey, Greg, you know, hey, Hamma,

(01:46:38):
How are you brother? Nice to you know, hey, congratulations?
What do you gotta say? Third Base? Yeah? Man, you know,
I just you know, I don't understand why you know
you have to diss my mom on that record. I'm
and I'm like, really, I'm heated. I'm heated. And I
was like, yo, ain't nobody dissed your matriarchal idiot? Like
nobody dissed that. You know. It's like, and you know

(01:47:00):
what you did. Why don't you come get this ass
whooping you punk? You a bitch? Hey, watch your language?
Knowing you a bitch too, Greg Mac, you're a punk bitch.
Why don't you say that? Great Mac? Yeah, I said,
why don't you go to the phone. See who LA
likes better third Base of Hamm of that punk bitch.
He's like, hey, watch your mouth is love Radio. I
was like, yo, I'll say a whole lot worse, you bitch.
All right, we're gonna go to the line, right, gonna

(01:47:25):
go to the lines. First caller, oh I love third base,
I love the Hammers. Whack Hamma gets a gas face.
Next caller, oh I love hammer third base is whack
those Wanda bees out of da Da da they're whack.
Next caller, Oh, I love Hammer. Hammer is dope. You know,
third base is whack. Blah blah blah. Next caller, I
love third base. Yo, search is dope, Peter's dope, Hamm's whack.
I don't know this whole thing about this and that

(01:47:46):
Ya Da da da da. We're gonna take more calls
after this, and you know, right, So then he starts
taking more calls and I'm telling Mel, I'm like, Yo, Mel,
if you want to fucking smoke this motherfucker, go ahead, man,
I'll give you ten thousand dollars. You put a bullet
in this motherfucker's head. And very great. Yeah, And he's like, Yo,
you need to fucking calm down. And I'm like, calm down,
Like you just set us up our first time in radio,

(01:48:08):
Like this is some good radio to you. Ps, it
was good radio, right, But I'm like, you know, but
I'm insulted, and I'm young, and I'm dumb, and I'm
full of com and I'm like, yo, I'm gonna fucking
smack somebody. So he goes to the callers. He tapes
two or three calls. It's between Hammer and Ya Da
Da da dah, and then he takes a live call caller,

(01:48:28):
who's this rolling sixty crib were coming for you, Pip.
Time out there we go. Mac didn't know what was
going on. He had no idea. We get in the van,
we start going down the dirt road. There's these two
sixty four's that come this way. Oh lord, six dudes

(01:48:48):
come out with ars and ratchets and like, and Pooky
jumps out whistles this some wild sign still third base
if he bunts. Alright, he just gave he gave some

(01:49:09):
signs and those dudes get back in the car and
they just back out.

Speaker 5 (01:49:12):
Wow.

Speaker 2 (01:49:13):
So now the real problem is God that that night
we have to go to the Palace and perform, and
it's like everybody know, the entire audience, no, no, no,
there's no way to stop it. There's no way to
stop it. There's like three thousand people in the palace
and they've been there since like six o'clock in the afternoon.

(01:49:36):
So this is a logistical nightmare. As they say in
the tour business. Right, there were blue cars circling all
on Hollywood and Vine, just blue cars, tons of blue cars,
tons of blue cars, and we can't figure this out.
Chantella's crying. Our girls are crying like, oh my god,
you're gonna die. Like one person says, hey, let's cancel la.

(01:49:59):
Definitely not. There was no way to. Like Russell and
Ley all put our lives in jeopardy. They were not
canceling nothing because POOKI short and he got him the
seats and ya da da da dad. So what Leor
and Russell did was send their guy, Big D, who
used to be the he sent how do you know
that from the It was one of these documentaries you met,

(01:50:24):
all right, go ahead, So Big D comes in and
his job is to stay next to my conception the
whole time, Like his job is to act like my
conception security because he wants to make sure that Mike's
gonna keep his word of his word is bond. The
next day he's doing the final recording. The same day
we're doing the Palace, Hammer is recording his verse for

(01:50:47):
role in the Same Gang, and my Conception is there
and Big D is there. Hammer. Before he goes into
the and I got this from D. Before he goes in,
he says to Mike, hey, can I talk to a
second and you know for private He's like yeah, but
my security god come with me. He's like, yeah, that's fine.
They go into a room. Indeed, literally said Hamma. Turned that,
turned turned to Mike and said why ain't they dead yet?

(01:51:11):
And Mike said, yeah, that's not gonna happen. But I'll
tell you what, if anything does happen to third Base,
I'll kill your brother, your mother, your father, your sister,
your cousins. I'll come to Unkland and wipe your whole
fucking family out. Now, get in a fucking booth and
do your verse.

Speaker 3 (01:51:28):
What?

Speaker 2 (01:51:30):
And to this day, me and my conception are like this,
to this day. So Hammer goes does his verse, and
we're like, how are we gonna get into our own party?
And Uncle Mel says, I got it. We're gonna dress
them as security guards. Wait, there's no way this is true,

(01:51:50):
absolutely true, right, So he says, we're gonna dress you
up as security guard. So we put on the csc
security jackets, keV Lar, I cover in my high top,
fade with a Scully Pete Sku, and we got dark
glasses and my and my girl's crying and like it's
all upsetting and everybody's upset, and we sneak into the venue,

(01:52:11):
and like they make they make a comment like everybody
who's wearing blue blue jeans you gotta get out, And
Pooky has lound now like ten dudes with them, and
they're like checking the audience and we're backstage for like
two hours and Pooky's like, yeah, venue's clean, nobody's here.
Ya da da da da? Can how come Pooky just
didn't come out on stage first? And then I don't know,

(01:52:36):
I don't know, I don't know. Oh my god, the
original Twitter r Pooky is Twitter. So we find out
it's all clear, it's all good. Girls come in. N
w A is there. I take a picture. I gave
n w A. I gave easy my third base gives
him the gas face hat. I wear the Oakland rate
I hat. We're taking pictures with Dre and d C

(01:52:57):
and De La Soula is there. Ll jumps on day.
It's just a free style, like have a great night,
great night, everything's peace, all done. And that's the empty
Hammer story and Mike conception. He's still alive, still alive,
lives in Malibu, lives in Malibu. He's still power liized,
but you know he lives in Malibu and still involved

(01:53:18):
in the music business and if.

Speaker 7 (01:53:19):
You and are in the same room today.

Speaker 2 (01:53:22):
So let me tell y'all a story that you don't
know that I saved just for Amir. I didn't even
know the part two the entire so.

Speaker 1 (01:53:31):
Like the first time I heard the story, it's stopped
at Mike exception, I'm sitting in the art I didn't
know about great.

Speaker 2 (01:53:38):
Okay, So I saved this just for you. So about
two years ago, I get a call from a producer
friend of mine who did a movie called Black Dynamite.
Man Scott said, yeah, yeah, yeah, Scott. Okay. Scott says, yo,
I just heard you in Mosha Kasher on the Champs.
We want to do a movie on the Hammer story.

(01:54:00):
The only problem is we got to get Hammer to
say okay to it. And I'm like, okay, I said cool.
You know, He's like, are you gonna be okay with that?
And I said, let's take it one step at the time,
because I don't think Hammer will ever say it's okay
to make this this story. And you know, because basically,
and I didn't know this, but I found out later

(01:54:22):
that even the idea and I forget what it's called,
but even to commit murder. The oh yeah, conspiracy. There's
no statute of limitations. You go to jail for any
conspiracy to murder is a twenty five, regardless if it
happened in eighty nine and ninety six or yesterday. So

(01:54:42):
it takes about a year and they finally sit down
with Hammer and his two agents from CIA, right, and
I get a call from Scott and you know, this
is a process has been taking a year. So I
get a call from Scott. He goes, Yo, you're sitting down,
said yeah, what's up. I met with Hammer and I

(01:55:04):
said really, I said, He said yeah, Hammer wants to
do the movie. He said, Hammer has one request that
at the end of the movie, he's the hero that

(01:55:25):
his mom said he shouldn't do the hit, and he
didn't do the hit, and he's the hero of the movie.

Speaker 1 (01:55:30):
No.

Speaker 2 (01:55:30):
No, And I said, you know what, fuck it is Hollywood.
It's all good. He's like, he's like, but would you
do press with him? I was like, hell no, I'm
not doing pressed with him. I don't want to be
five feet near him. He's like, wait a minute, you
know the red carpet. I said, fuck all that. I said, Yo,
if I give him this not seeing him, never seen
him face to face, and I'll tell you about the
OMTV raps the last one. I'll tell you that story too,

(01:55:52):
So never never right. So we start going through the negotiations.
We start talking to and and the first person we
go to seth Rogen and he's like, Yo, I want
to fucking do this movie, like I want to fucking
do it, like no doubt, I want to do it.
But Hammer didn't know. I was still telling the story right.
And it gets back to him I did the Champs right,

(01:56:14):
and he hears the story and he's like, oh fuck Search.
He can't let that shit go fuck him, and the
movie was dead. So the closest I ever got to
Hammer was the Final Yo MTV Raps. I'm now senior Big,
I'm senior VP. A whild pitch. I get a call
from Ted demimeye rest in peace, like, Yo, we're doing
the final YO come through. I come through and I
was just in some workshit like I wasn't even like

(01:56:35):
stage dressed or nothing like that. And I got like
ten goons with me, like I'm already with like nonfiction.
So they are just a bunch of goons and we
come in and for whatever reason, there was no metal detector,
and like three of my boys got they ratchets with
them and like we're just you know, but we're not
thinking anything bad. We're just like, you know, just coming
from the street. My boys were from Brooklyn. Whatever we

(01:56:55):
do the cipher, I do my little verse. Everybody does
their little verse. Ed Lover comes over and goes, come on, man,
it's the last show and they're taping this. He goes, Yo,
it's the last show. Hamma's back there, Like, come on,
let's make peace, man, let's just the last young TV raps.
And I said, Hammas here. I was like, oh, My
boys pulled out. The ratchets started going through the crowd

(01:57:17):
like looking for him. Hammer ditched. He went down into
his car and took off. What the very last episode said,
They never aired it. That didn't make the cut. God,
that's the closest I've ever been to face to face
with him.

Speaker 10 (01:57:34):
Well, I guess if somebody threatens your life and your family,
you really it's kind of hard.

Speaker 2 (01:57:38):
Yeah, you know, it's funny. So I've been in recovery
for five years, like eleven eleven is my anniversary. I've
been in recovery and I'm I'm at the step. I'm
drinking or drugs or drugs okay, marijuana. Oh, specifically I was.
It was bad, and a lot of it was to
numb a lot of pain that I was dealing with
that I just didn't want to face. And I'm coming

(01:57:59):
up to the eighth step, which is amens. And my
sponsor doesn't really understand my career, like, you know, he
doesn't care about it. But I told him, I have
this amends I have to make with someone who really
wanted to do bodily harm to me. And he said,
the eight step talks about making amends with people unless
it will cause injury to them or others. He's like, so, technically,

(01:58:22):
if you don't want to make amends, you don't have to.
You don't really have to. It's really up to you
if you think it'll do damage to that person. And
I was like, I don't think it'll damage that person,
but if he says something smart, I'm going to definitely
knock him the fuck out, you know what I'm saying.
Like so it's like it's one of these things that
I battle with as a grown ass man, even to

(01:58:43):
this day, Like I'm forty nine, years old, like let
it go, you know what I mean. But then I
think about that day. I think about the black tarp,
I think about the guys with the masks. I think
about going into my own party as security. I think
about Greg Mack and it's all like yesterday that you
all like yesterday, And it's a part of me that's like, fuck,

(01:59:03):
I gotta let it go sometimes, like when am I
going to let it go? Like when am I just
gonna let it go? So everything happens for a reason, right,
So this year, we were doing a TV show called
They Call Me Search. We're in the process of shooting
the pilot and getting the sizzled and getting ready to
shop it. And that's where I'm gonna make peace with it.

(01:59:24):
That's what's up. That's where we're going to do an
episode where I make peace with it. Just about your
life and the show is about my life. And this
is you and hammer y'all want to do it? No, no, no,
I ain't got none to do with him. This is
my This is all my stories in a series, not
even a documentary, thirty minute dramedy.

Speaker 1 (01:59:44):
What if you're just joining us? You are breathing a
sigh of relief. All right, it's Quest Love Supreme. We're
here with MC search about the search? Oh what were
you saying? I was was asking about the cats Albus.
We didn't even really I know, we didn't the album.

(02:00:05):
We went straight to the dam, to the shootout room
to him. Yeah, so how on has y'all s been
on working that record?

Speaker 2 (02:00:13):
Man? So couding it? So the record took us a
year to record and it sat on the shelf for
two and a half years. Are you wait eighty seven? Yep?
We worked on it in eighty seven and it didn't
come out till November of nineteen eighty nine.

Speaker 4 (02:00:27):
So from the time from when you were y'all were
at uh you did the battle, Russ comes It's like, hey,
tell them you're on def Jam.

Speaker 2 (02:00:35):
We signed. We signed six months later than we worked
on the album, So a year and eight y'all signed
as a duo. When was it ninety? When was it finished?
End of nineteen eighty seven? Early nineteen eighty eight? And
Russell what the problem was? Russell and Lyork didn't think
we had a hit on the on the album that
was Russell's real big deal. It's like we didn't have
a hit. So when I wrote step into the Am

(02:00:57):
for Eric being rock Cam, I was like, fuck it,
this shit is dope. If he if he's not going
to use it, me and Peter are going to use it.
So I called I called Dante. I was like, Yo, Dante,
can you hook us up with like Eric, Vietnam Sadler
and Keith Shockley and those guys like I want to
go out to Hempstead. I want to demo this song.
And we did it in about a day day or two.

(02:01:20):
We did it with them out there, Vietnam, Keith Hank did.

Speaker 1 (02:01:23):
You watch the Yeah, of course, can you please describe
to me like watching the bomb Squad?

Speaker 2 (02:01:29):
So Keith was really like I like to call Keith
the instigator. Keith would find the samples, like Keith was
the guy who would like dig through the samples, and
he was really the instigator. He'd be like, yo, say
that ram again, Like say that right, and then they
would and Vietnam would start putting the beats down right,

(02:01:50):
and then he'd be like, oh, I got this sample.
And they had that back wall with like fifty thousand records,
like the whole back wall. He was like yo, yeah, yea.
And then Keith would be like, oh wait wait, I
got this, I got this, I got this for that,
I got this for that. And then they would lay
it down and be like, all right, going to the
going to the booth, Pete, you start do your verse

(02:02:11):
first search you come in da da da, And then
we go back and forth. And then we were like no, no, no, no, no,
let us do all verse like that. Oh okay, okay, okay,
we're gonna lay the beat down over here. You guys
go figure out your verses and and and it was
really like Vietnam was the instigator and then Keith was
the agitator. He'd be like, yo, that shit not and
they would go back and forth, and Hank would literally

(02:02:33):
was the one who came in and did the final mixes.
So Hank would come in, he would tune everything, he
would hear everything, he'd listen to both speakers, he nod yes,
and then he was out, you know what I'm saying.
Like he was like the orchestrator. Hank was like Puffy,
No no, I wouldn't say, well I don't I've never
seen Puffy in the studio and no, no, no.

Speaker 1 (02:02:52):
He's like, I know they get said, oh you don't
do no real like. He doesn't do the work per
se like. I felt that air Eric was the technology guy,
and he was. And then Keith had the information that
other records he used right, and Chuck did all the
voice and stuff right.

Speaker 2 (02:03:11):
And then and then Hank would kind of tune everything.
And Hank was the guy who would say with the
mix engineer and make sure the mix was tight and
everything was dope well, and it's funny. And the funny thing.
I just got to tell you the side, Joe, because
you know my family. So one night, we're in the
studio and we're going to take a break, So we
go to Irving Plaza, meet Keith Vietnam, Pete Doddy Rich.

(02:03:33):
We go to Irving Plaza and at the time, Keith
was kicking his sumb shorty right and he's going up
the stairs in front of us, and I go and
I go to give somebody a pound behind me, and
all of a sudden, I hear, oh, oh, stop, bitch stop,
and I go upstairs and Keith is getting pounded like

(02:03:54):
to the midsection by this little five to two shorty.
She's just pounding him. And he's doing the right thing.
He ain't hitting her, but he finally gets her off
of him and yah da da da da, and I
look in at Chantelle. That's how you met Chantelle. No,
it's not how I met Chantel. So we became friends,
like just through the club scene. And I always kind

(02:04:15):
of I called her Lefty. I was like, yo, what
up Lefty? Because she had that wicked left And she
would always see me like coming to clubs with all
different chicks and like ya da da da da. And
her favorite record was Super Hope by bdp uh huh,
so she would always call me the super ho She
was like, oh, there was miss the super Hope. So

(02:04:37):
me and P used to host a party at Irving
Plaza on Wednesday nights, and she used to come and
check us out and yah da da da da, And
she always thought it was kind of whack as an MC.
She didn't really like me. So we had recorded we
had recorded Step into the Am and we were just
finishing up the album and I get an invitation through
Russell to Spike Lee's Do the Right Thing after party,

(02:05:00):
right right, So I get a pass and it's for
two people and and it's the date was March. Uh.
It was like March eighteenth, and I called Bobido. I
called my man, I call cool Bob Love. I'm like, Bob,
come with me. He's like that. He's like, I'll meet
you down there. I was like, all right, you know,

(02:05:21):
doors open at six. What time are you gonna meet me.
He's like, I'll meet you there like seven. So I
get down there like five thirty, like a little early, right,
and the crowd is like, so on hip hop of you? No,
it's so, but it was an early party. Was it
was a rap party. It wasn't like a hip hop party.
Was Spike throwing a party? DJing like Red Alert was
djaying And at the time, Red Alert was dating a

(02:05:42):
girl named Darlene. And then there was another girl that
was Sabrina, who was literally the first superhead of hip hop.
Like she was like she was like that was that
was and that was it was a claim to fame.
And I went to high school with us, so like
I kind of knew, like that was her ship. And
then there was another girl, and there was another girl,
and there was Chantelle and what was happening is my

(02:06:03):
man Big Daryl was doing the door and he was
just taking the girls in one of the time because
they didn't have passes, but he was like hooking them
up and letting them in, and I was like, cool,
you know, I'll just hang out and kick it with y'all.
And I had my walkman and my cassette of my
demo and the whole thing, and then I didn't see Barbido,
so I went to the pay phone. He's like, yeah, man,
I come in. I'm I'm not gonna be there, so

(02:06:26):
I come back out and I was like, you know what,
you guys go in, and when whoever's last, I can
take them in with me because I got a plus one.
So they all go in and Chantell is the last one,
and I'm like, oh, you want to hear my demo?
She's like cool and like she was always cool with
like Q Tip and Fife, and she was always cool
with everybody in the native tongue. So she had a
really good ear. So I was like, damn, Chantell likes this,

(02:06:47):
like so she listens to it and she goes it's cool,
and I'm like whatever, be like whatever, this is absolutely
going nowhere. So we walk in and Big Daryl says
to me, yo, who's shorty? And I'm like, oh, that's
my wife. And she goes, yeah, right and keeps it

(02:07:08):
moving and keeps it moving. So I go one way,
she goes the other. We're chilling. It's getting like late.
The think tanker died on me. I don't have the
think take anymore. I'm living in my parents' house and
the Long Island Railroad that took me to my house
because you didn't take that. I was done with the
A train, the Long islandrail which was close to my parents' house.

(02:07:28):
If you didn't get on like the one fifty seven
or the midnight train, the next train was like six
o'clock in the morning with some dumb shit. So I'm
like looking at my watch and I'm like, okay, I
got a time this right, I got a time this right?
You know, Da da da da da. I'm hanging out.
I'm hanging out with Red yah da da. I'm bumping
into Chantelle with making fun of people, and I'm like, oh,
that's kind of funny. Ya da da da da. Red
goes into his reggae session, you know, Barrington Levy like

(02:07:51):
who'sia bon time and all. I'm like, oh, this is
my shit.

Speaker 7 (02:07:54):
You can do that.

Speaker 2 (02:07:55):
Oh I can bogle like a muffucker. I don't get
it twisted, don't get it fucked up. So I see
Chantella and I'm like, oh, you want to dance. She's
like yeah, So we're dancing. I'm like, damn, she kind
of she's short, but she looked good, like you know,
like she looked really good. So I'm like, all right,
let's go kick it over here. And I'm like looking

(02:08:15):
at the time, I'm like, you know, I only got
a little bit of time to kick it with us
because I gotta go. And I'm like, you know, we're
talking and she's telling me she's kind of kicking in
with k rock, EMPC, lights DJ and they're like kind
of friends. And ya da da da da da dah.
And I said to it, like, look, I'm gonna go.
You mind if I give you a kiss ad night?
She was like, yeah, mind if you give me because
I don't even know you. I'm like, okay, like all good.

(02:08:37):
So we're talking a little more, talking a little more.
I'm looking at my watch. I'm like, yeah, I really
gotta go. I'm like all right. I said, look, I
really had a good time. It was great talking to you,
you know, is it okay? If I give you a
kiss good night, and she was like yeah, okay, and
I kissed her and it was just fireworks, like I'd
never felt like that from a kiss before. So there

(02:09:00):
were these big fucking weather balloons attached to cinderblocks and
real cool like rap party shit right like right corny,
and I d dragged one over, just like what the
fuck are you doing? And I said, this is what
you're going to tell our grandchildren. I gave you as
my first gift. I said, I gotta go, and she's like, no,

(02:09:21):
you don't have to go. Why don't you just, you know,
stay at our apartment And she was like, I was
like what, She's like, relaxed, We got a sofa. So
I stayed. And the next day, March nineteenth, was my
dad's birthday, so I had to run back home and
I celebrated with my dad real quick, and then I
went back and we have been together ever since twenty
eight years and that was what year was that? That

(02:09:42):
was eighty nine? Yeah, and this is before then, before
the record, oh yeah, even before.

Speaker 10 (02:09:48):
It feels like our first coust love Supreme love story.
We don't really tell those.

Speaker 7 (02:09:51):
Twos around here.

Speaker 10 (02:09:55):
The day after Valentine's Day where we just talked about
breakups for a good.

Speaker 1 (02:09:58):
Half and an hour.

Speaker 2 (02:09:59):
Yeah, I will say as as a liner note junkie.

Speaker 1 (02:10:06):
No, I mean I remember, like I'm one of them
dudes that remembers great liner notes from albums. But I
don't know why this is. I got the Cactus CD.
I got it the day before. By this point, I
was working at a insurance agent, Like I was.

Speaker 7 (02:10:27):
Oh, we skipping love, Okay, I see what We're going
back to Cactus Okay, no, no.

Speaker 2 (02:10:30):
No, hang on, hang on hand.

Speaker 1 (02:10:32):
But you know, it took me like an hour to
get from my insurance job back to West Philadelphia.

Speaker 2 (02:10:38):
So you know, I get done work at eleven PM.

Speaker 1 (02:10:42):
So I remember, like you know, I'd listened to these
CDs in my discman, and I remember reading the liner
notes to the Cactus CD.

Speaker 2 (02:10:53):
Which was like fifteen pages long, like weis Everybody and
their Mother exactly. It was literally our last album. Like
I literally looked at it like this will never sell,
Like we'll do a thousand units. I'll be cool in
Brooklyn and we'll be dumped. I mean, I never thought
we would ever have Why did it? Why did it
sit for two years? Because he didn't think we had
a hit. And when I did Step into the Am.
Right after we did Step into the Am, we played

(02:11:14):
it for Russell. He was like, Okay, we're gonna put
the record out. And then two days later we got
with Prince Paul and then we did Brooklyn Queens and
gas Face. I see, okay, all right to.

Speaker 7 (02:11:23):
Wait, wait wait, we're going to Love Love Research.

Speaker 1 (02:11:30):
Yeah, but ahead, I just want to get my point
out that was that I was really seeing Chantale. I'll
make an honest woman out of you. Yet on on
the liner notes, like, I was like, Yo, that's that's
some real ship. Like I don't know why that's always.

Speaker 2 (02:11:46):
Stuck with me. I'm even don't do that. That's a
that's some real vulnerable ship to put out there. Yeah,
I mean yeah, I mean my wife and I left.
All the time we've been together twenty eight years, three
of them good and I mean just I mean we've
all you know, listen, being married to an artist is Tom.

Speaker 1 (02:12:01):
Was going to say how it's tough. It's apropos that
he's on our Valentine special.

Speaker 2 (02:12:06):
It really is. Yeah, you have probably one because a
break up? What do you mean to break up? You
just got with your girl. Hey, Hey, it's a long story.

Speaker 1 (02:12:20):
I mean, because the thing is is that to have
true love, like the love you talking about, or to
really grab the brass ring, I feel like you can
only worship.

Speaker 4 (02:12:34):
Yeah he wanted God. Yeah he only thinks that. He
doesn't think it's possible to like have a functional love life.

Speaker 2 (02:12:40):
And I guess.

Speaker 1 (02:12:42):
And the thing is, maybe I'm not being honest about
what my goals are and what is a good woman
to you?

Speaker 2 (02:12:49):
Just what you want to know that for anyway, I'm
just saying, here's the here's the short of it, the
long and short of There's nothing to teach because the
truth of the matter is I was a fuck up
or most of my marriage. I was a young I
was young, dumb. I was running around, I was flirting
with chicks in front of my girl, like I was
being mad disrespectful. But I thought that, hey, if I

(02:13:10):
just come home, I make money, that should be enough.
And when I thought it wasn't enough, I was like, Okay,
we'll have kids and that'll be enough. But that wasn't enough.
The one thing I have to say, in all honesty
is that the only reason I know unconditional love is

(02:13:30):
because of she can't tell because I know I didn't
give her unconditional love for most of our marriage. I
sat my girl down when we first moved into our
apartment and I said to her, to her face, you
are second to my music, and if you can't live
with that, there's the door.

Speaker 7 (02:13:48):
I've heard that. I've said that, Yes, I've been on
the other end.

Speaker 2 (02:13:51):
You said second, yes, And she looked at me and
she said, I'll give you two and a half years
of my life and if you don't wife me, I'm
out the door. And I said, fair enough.

Speaker 7 (02:14:03):
At what point in the relationship, I'm sorry, was this
what year?

Speaker 2 (02:14:05):
I'm just here. We moved in in June of nineteen
eighty nine. I married her in November nineteen ninety one.
Made it right? So similar to that? Yeah, no, no,
it's very true. It's absolutely true. And you know, and
I knew, like there was a lot of turmoil in
my life in ninety one, the band was breaking up,
like I was really like there was a lot of
ugliness in my life, and she was the one light

(02:14:27):
that I was like, Yo, I gotta do right by her,
Like that's the one thing I gotta do, Like I
gotta do right. But I didn't, even even though I
was raised in a family, an insulated family. Mother and father.
They were neurotic Jews from New York. Like they they
talked by yelling at each other, like you know what
I'm saying, Like say that like it's a bad thing.

(02:14:48):
You know what I'm saying. So like when we would
have loving conversations, I'm like, no, this shit is wrong,
Like I gotta go fuck up so that we can
start yelling at each other and have a relationship, you
know what I'm saying, Like you know. And we got
to a point where she was like, I want to
know everything. This was about six months ago. She said,
I want to know everything. She because I need to

(02:15:10):
know everything everything, everything, mean everything everything? Does she really
want to know? She really wanted to So I wrote
it down. I wrote it down in a letter everything.

Speaker 7 (02:15:23):
How long was that letter?

Speaker 2 (02:15:25):
I ain't lying whatever? You know? Some letter right?

Speaker 1 (02:15:27):
More?

Speaker 2 (02:15:29):
Nine pages? About to say, boy, that's yeah, nine pages?
And it was It was tough. And to watch the
pain in her face, to see the ship was tough.
And yet and still she said, okay, okay, I love
you unconditionally, rich or poor, sickness and in health to

(02:15:50):
death to his part, I will work on this with you.
We will work on this together. We will build. We
will rebuild what you destroyed. And if we can't read
build it, I'm out. You know this six months ago,
this was wow. Yeah, that's amazing because it's what led
to that point.

Speaker 4 (02:16:08):
Was that a part of your recovery, that something you No,
it wasn't really just about my recovery.

Speaker 2 (02:16:12):
It was just I just needed that. Quan Slay's funny
because Matthew's here and I'm like, damn, Matthew should have
left a long time ago, right, Matthew. I told Matthew,
And it was like, damn, I just got to grow
the fuck up, Like I'm forty nine years old. I
got to grow the fuck up like this is this
is like the woman I've been with like forever, and

(02:16:34):
she put up with me forever, and she gave me
three amazing kids, and she like sacrificed and like, and
I gotta make the next fifty years as good as
you know, I gotta make I gotta.

Speaker 7 (02:16:47):
Make it right because music ain't gonna wipe your ass.

Speaker 2 (02:16:49):
No, music ain't gonna feed you. No, You're damn sure, right, Music.

Speaker 7 (02:16:52):
Ain't gonna help you when you're in the hospital all
that stuff.

Speaker 2 (02:16:54):
So, you know, but music got me the life that
we had. Music got you know, music took us around
the world. Music got my kids into private university. Music
got my kids to go on vacations. Music got me
to build Echo on limited clothing. Music got me to
be the head of promotions at Deaf Jam. Music got
me the morning show at JLB. Music got me the

(02:17:16):
White Rapper Show. Music got me Missrap, Supreme music got
me Goo. Music got me you know, all of the things,
all the blessings that I have is because of hip hop.
And she is the biggest blessing and I took advantage
of that for most of our marriage. And now it's
about time to give back.

Speaker 1 (02:17:33):
Is about return if I were a cat that you know,
because again I'm in the being in it. We're all
in the industry, right and you know the challenges in
the in the in the obstacles and all that stuff.
I don't I couldn't do that with not a not

(02:17:55):
a straight face, like just the confess no no, no, no,
I meant just doing dirt and you know, cover my
tracks and.

Speaker 2 (02:18:06):
It's like it's.

Speaker 1 (02:18:08):
But then on the other side, it's like, does that
make me a self saboteury when I know, like, all right, well,
you know, I know that one I'm more committed to
my career than I am a real sustainable relationship.

Speaker 2 (02:18:23):
And I'm more.

Speaker 1 (02:18:25):
You know, I know that I might get bored or
might fuck up or like I'd rather debt it and
not fuck up or be the bad guy than.

Speaker 7 (02:18:36):
To waste somebody's time.

Speaker 4 (02:18:39):
Well, I don't well, I don't think that, you know
what I'm saying. I don't think that it's necessarily wrong
to be to say, Okay, you know, my career comes first,
and you know, say, I don't think it's anything wrong
with that. Honestly, I think it's kind of necessary.

Speaker 2 (02:18:51):
Like with music, and I can say this, and I
know font's gonna appreciate this. When you make a great song.
The only joy I've ever had greater than making great
eight songs watching my children come into this work that
I mean, and I hate to say that, Like I
love my wife. I've had amazing moments with my wife.
We've been to amazing places. But when I laid the

(02:19:14):
verse for gas Face, it took one take, like I've
had moments where that song has like transformed people's lives.
I had a kid, I was in DC. I was
at the Children's hospital for kids, were terminally ill children,
and we Cactus album just came out and we went

(02:19:34):
to make a visit. We were with a station there
called PGC, and we made a visit and this kid
came up to me and he said, black cat is
bad luck. Bad guys were black. Must have been a
white guy that started all that. And I looked up
and there's about ten nurses behind him and his mother
and they're bawling, and I just and he hugged me,
and I hugged them and I'm like, yo, you spit

(02:19:54):
some good rhyme, shorty. And he went and he went
back and they came over to me and they said
that's the first words said in his life. Oh whoa wow.
And then I started palling, you know what I mean. Like,
I've had moments where like we went to London and
did gas face at a time where there was a
British literally almost an overthrow called the poll tax. That

(02:20:17):
was Parliament was trying to make a tax where they
said that every member in a household had to pay
a tax. So it really affected poor people because they
had large like especially in Brixton and Brighton. In a
hood you'd have ten or twelve people living under a
roof and it would literally be like a year's salary
just in tax. And there was graffiti everywhere, and I mean,

(02:20:40):
I'm talking about like burning streets and people walking. And
we're on tour with Pe and we do a show
in Brixton and we're opening and we're about to do
gas face and shut it down and I turned off.
I told Rich cut the music and I went black
cat as bad luck. Bad guys wear black must have
been the same queen as set up the poll tax

(02:21:01):
play started going crazy, people ran into the streets. The
show was over the next day. The daily like third
Base sets riots in Brixton and Yata and we're like
in BBC and like tell us how you and I mean,
but the only moments that I can equate to that
is watching my like my children come into this world,

(02:21:23):
like watching my wife give birth to our kids. Like music,
there's something so powerful about music that defines and goes,
especially for a musician. I'm not talking about music lovers.
There are certain levels of music lovers, but creative people
that have this gift from the most high that they

(02:21:44):
can take something transcribed and then record it and then
spend the hours in the studio to mix it and
get it right and master it and then have it
touch somebody six months later, and then a year later,
and then five years later, and then ten years later
and twenty years later. I mean, that's like, that's like giving,
That's like raising a child, you know what I'm saying.

(02:22:06):
And it's and and again. It's like one of the
things that like, really I'm passionate about more than anything.
Is this what I like to call a social music commune,
about people that speak the language of music, not different
languages or not different creeds or races or just who
all speak the language of music, that have a mutual

(02:22:28):
love of music. And about two years ago, my daughter
came to me and she said, Dad, you know when
I when I meet people, whether it's on Tender or
Facebook or you know whatever, everybody always asks me like
what kind of music I listened to? What's the first
album I bought? Where did I you know, what show
did I go to? And it's a connector And she said,
is there is there an app out there that connects

(02:22:50):
people on their mutual love of music.

Speaker 7 (02:22:52):
Haha.

Speaker 2 (02:22:53):
And I was like, huh huh. So I called my
partner Ben, who is in Silicon Valley, and we spent
six months and there was a couple of iterations. People
tried it and they failed, and I met Matthew, my partner,
and we built an app called a DO, and a
DO is literally a social music commune that we're getting

(02:23:14):
ready to put into beta that literally connects people on
a mutual love of music. So whatever music you have
in your your mobile device, the app will suck it
in and break it down into genres. BPM's the music
that you listen to the most. The algorithm will literally
feed that. And then we put out what's called a

(02:23:34):
tuner in a thousand mile radius and somebody else you
can connect with and you can get we say you
can get in tune with them. You can tune in
or tune out. So when you tune in, it'll say,
oh shit, funk got these songs. This is what we
have in common, but this is what we don't have
in common, Like I got like a j Cole like
lights please unreleased joint that you might not even know

(02:23:56):
about and you'll see it on your device, because this
is the music that we don't share, and you'll send
me a share button. I'll show you the app. When
we leave, you'll send me a share and I can
send you that song and we can build and then
we have a whole chat about it. We can build
and break bread just on music. And we're doing the beta.
We're doing the beta now like we're setting the beta,

(02:24:17):
and if you want to get on the beta, go
to beta at get a do a due dot com.
But it's that language that we all speak. It's the
language you've spoken since you're eight years old. Bro, It's
that language of music. And now I feel like if John.

Speaker 1 (02:24:32):
Who loves Son of Berserks changed the style. Yeah, wife,
right there there is our marrier.

Speaker 7 (02:24:45):
Yeah, it sounded good though.

Speaker 2 (02:24:46):
That was nice set up. No, No, that's real. Because music,
I think the music into I mean, I think that's
it's such a big part of that reflects. It's such
a big part. It's such a big part of who
you are. And especially for us who are old enough
to say, okay, we we knew Ohio players, but we
also knew talking heads, and we also knew rapture, but

(02:25:08):
we also knew Parliament Funkadelic, and we watched it develop
into the Last Poets or the Last Poets developed into
Lord Tim, and Lord Tim developed into sugar Hill, and
sugar Hill developed, and we were we were privileged enough
to be a part of that, to be a part
of that, that language that we all got to speak,

(02:25:28):
even though people you know what I'm saying.

Speaker 10 (02:25:30):
But it's interesting though, because let me ask the search
because you're a big businessman of course, publishing a music industry,
So how do you do this?

Speaker 7 (02:25:37):
How do you do this app and with the whole
royalty thing and sharing? Does that come to a place.

Speaker 2 (02:25:43):
No, So just so we're clear, we're not a streaming service. Okay,
that's a four letter word for me, Like I'm not
gonna stream music, Like I'm not getting into that shit.
The basis is very simple. You already owned the music
that's on your playlist. You already owned the music that's
in your library, not a playlist, your catalog. You already
own that. So when you share it with me, I

(02:26:03):
can listen to it, or I can buy it myself.
I don't just have to keep it when you play
it for me, I'll get a chance to listen to it,
and I say, damn, I like that, and then I
can press another button in my tuner and I can
buy the record. But we won't be a streaming service.
That's not what we're about. We're about people connecting on music.
So an another thing we have is called the en

(02:26:25):
sync option, where Sam might be walking by me and
he'd be listening to Masters of Ceremony right, and then
I'm happen to listen the same thing, and we'll get
a ping and be like, oh shit, Sam's listening to
the same song you're listening to. You care to tune
in and we can tune in and then boom, I
get his entire library. He gets my entire library, and
I say, hey, what's up man, I'm Michael, Oh what's up?

(02:26:46):
I'm Sam? Like, Yo, you got that Beacy Boy cookie? Push? Shit? Yo?
Can you share that with me? And then he can
share it with me in a matter of seconds, and
then I can either buy it or I can go
to you and say, damn, yo, amir, you remember this cookie? Pushit?
Share it with you. You know what I mean? And
it's that language of music, and that's a positive thing.
In twenty seventeen. That you know, that's one good positive thing. Yeah,

(02:27:09):
twenty seventeen, that's but ters.

Speaker 10 (02:27:12):
You just named like about five thousand businesses as you did,
like it was from the TV shows.

Speaker 7 (02:27:16):
Because this is what I know of you.

Speaker 10 (02:27:18):
Your finger is always on the precipice of greatness before
we know it, because you know even what you introduced
me personally to Nouveau before it was the big thing.

Speaker 2 (02:27:26):
Why what is it? How you know? How do you know?
I've just been I you know, it's funny. I've really
been blessed in my life to be around trailblazers, and
I've really watched them really really closely. I watched Russell
and le Or build Deaf Jam Brick brought Brick. I
watched Mark Echo build Echo Unlimited brick by Brick. I
watched Russell take deaf Jam from its depths and bring

(02:27:49):
it back brick by Brick. I watched you know. So
I've been able to like learn, churn and earn based
on all the knowledge I got. I've been so blessed
to be around these people. I ask a lot of questions.
That's why my boys call me search because I'm always
looking for the answer. I'm always asking questions. I'm always

(02:28:10):
trying to figure out what the next thing is, what
the next thing is. And for me when my daughter,
you know, and again my mother said it to me.
She goes, you really won't understand what you created until
you have your own children. And she said in a letter,
And my daughter Mayana created a do what that was?

(02:28:32):
It was her idea. She was a senior. She was
going to be a senior at the university and shout
out to the canes. So it's it's all of that
playing itself. It's that born to born, you know what
I'm saying. It's that that recycle. And I'm going to
say something that might offend you a mirror, but I
think the greatest tragedy in your life right now is

(02:28:55):
that you don't have children. And I think that that
to me. But the child that you're going to create
is going to be so impassioned by so many things
that develop who you are as a human being. And
it's why I've had a friendship with you for so long,
because you are true passionate artists.

Speaker 1 (02:29:16):
I assure you kids are coming, ladies and gentlemen, I
hope so search we haven't even got to Darrel's. We
got a half hour. I know, Okay, that's gonna be
like a normal ass interview.

Speaker 2 (02:29:33):
Man. So you were talking about that dark period and
I wanted to ask you about that. I know, I know,
all right, rapid fire question. Yeah, okay, So.

Speaker 4 (02:29:41):
Dere looks that that was an album that I admittedly
I was disappointed in and it was just to me,
it's just and let me tell you why. I mean,
look and listen to it now, it's like, oh, this
shit was dope, But at the time it just felt
really dark, like it just felt and I don't know, no,
I think I think I think it just felt like

(02:30:01):
some of the humor was there. It just felt like, man, like,
this is a dark fucking record.

Speaker 2 (02:30:05):
Well, I think Derelic's a dialect was I think if
you think about Problem Child, if you think about Derrels,
like yo, it was a dark period for us. I mean,
and the album cover of us as homeless old men, like, yeah,
it was really dark. I remember. The funny thing is
I remember the head of retail at Sony at the
time we just turned into Sony Guy said to me,
he goes, Yo, we can't this can't be the album cover.

(02:30:27):
It's gonna turn off impulse buyers. I'm like that album.
I'm like what he's like, Yeah, this is too dark.
He's like, you got a record called Pop Goes the
Weasel and you Pop in the Weasels and all of that,
and this is dark shit. That record went golden fifteen days.
On the sixteenth day, I was like, Yo, what's going
on with those impulse buyers? Cocksucker, It's called fans, bitch,

(02:30:48):
look at it. But it wasn't dark. And I was
in a dark place. And Pete, we were in a
dark place in our partnership. And I'm just gonna keep
it one hundred. Pete and I just like you said,
we were just like we were putting together. Yeah, we
were arranged marriage. And by the second album, what we
wanted was different, different. What did he want? So for me,

(02:31:11):
I wanted I wanted a New York Street record, Like
I was already like fucking with NAS and fucking with
O C. And like I wanted, like I wanted to
do that like my techniques and like that was the
album I wanted to make ladies gentlemen, right, you know
in als ABC's and like that was like I love

(02:31:33):
that ship. Yeah, that was my show. And even Daddy
Rich in Atlanta twelve ten. Ye, like you know what
I'm saying, Like that was, but Pete really was like
making these dark, archaic, like alternative samples and like because
I was already with my wife. So he was a problem.
He was the problem child, see because I don'g Godzilla

(02:31:55):
is my ship? Yeah, like that was my that was
Why was that not a single? I'll tell you. I
felt like y'all could have because we fell out white,
because we fell apart, because we fell apart when we
went out with Popco's The Weasel, when we went out
with that tour. No, we got thirty minutes. And please

(02:32:17):
tell me how y'all got what's his name in the
video to play Vanilla Ice? Oh Rollins? Henry Robinds. You
get Henry Robins. Jesse Jesse Himmelman aka Jesse Dylon was
best friends. Jesse Dillon directed that video. Oh that's it, Okay, Okay,
that's crazy. So Bob Dylan's son, right, But he wasn't
going by Dylan. He was going by Jesse Himmelman, right, right,

(02:32:40):
So but he directed the video. So I was in
a very different place in nineteen ninety one. I I
didn't want to be the kid who is freestyling with
shak G and Tupac in the lobby till four o'clock
in the morning. Like I didn't want to be the
one who was running around being a clown in his underwear,
you know, laughing, you know, and all of that shit.
Like I wanted to have my wife on the road,

(02:33:00):
like I promised her, like I would take her to
see the world. So I was like, we all made decisions,
like who you want to have on the road. So
Peple was like, yo, I want my man shot Meek
and Rich said I want this person. I said, yoa,
I want Chantelle And they were like huh fun crusher. Yeah,
but shan't tell. Like, but chant tell like you got it.

(02:33:21):
She's a fucking g Like she told all of them
to the fake that their faced, like I don't give
a fuck about your girls. Fuck who you want to fuck.
As long as my man is straight, I'm good. She
would like set up towels and water for us on
the side of the stage. She didn't have to do
that shit. She would do it. She made friendship bracelets
with the girls and like she she just did her shit,
like she wasn't getting in anybody's way, and Pete was

(02:33:43):
doing his dirt and like we weren't getting in the way.
And then one night in Saint Louis, like he decides
that he wants to just come fuck some chicks in
the back of the bus. And we're like, okay, whatever,
But the bus drivers can only drive for a certain
amount of time of night before they have to pull over.
And he had a place, We had some place to go,
and where we did the show in Saint Louis was

(02:34:04):
an hour away from the venue, so it had taken
us and he wanted to take them back because their
car was back at the venue. I was like, Yo,
get them tricks off the fucking bus man of the cafe, right,
like the get these holes off the bus man. It's
time to go.

Speaker 4 (02:34:17):
And I went into my bunk and what happened was
Pete got off the bus and he flew back to
New York is in the middle of the tour. In
the middle of the tour. Wow, So we pull into
South Carolina. We put in tour manager, a guy named
Mark Pearson.

Speaker 2 (02:34:33):
So he goes back to New York. I don't notice
We're going over Friday's receipts and I see that he
took three days of per diem when he wasn't on
the road. And typically what we would do is we
would give that to the dances, you know, or give
it to our crew, like you know what I'm saying,
Like whatever, So I said to I said to Mark,
I said, Mark, you know, why'd you give them the padem?
He goes, Yo, just go talk to Pete. He's on

(02:34:54):
some shit. So I go to the room and I
see my two dancers who were my boys I grew up,
Me and GYP with like sub Rock and KMD like
my man. I'm met in Otis like my people. They're
sitting around Pete and I'm like, Pete, why'd you take
per diem for three days on the road?

Speaker 9 (02:35:10):
You know?

Speaker 2 (02:35:10):
You know, we give that to the dances. And he's
on the phone and he goes, well, if your bitch
wasn't on the road, I wouldn't have to go home. Ah,
And I said, what did you just say? He said,
you heard me. If your bitch wasn't on I said, yeah,
you need to come out here and catch this ass
whipping real quick. Hey. He's like what are you going
to do? Slap me? I said, no, you you look
like a grown ass man. I'm gonna beat your fucking
ass right damn. So he's not coming out. He's and

(02:35:35):
what happens is he's on the phone with Leor and
Leor and they're hearing this. So I called Leor and
at the time, our booking agent, Lee Stoleman, was working
at Rush and I said, look, how many weeks we
got in deposits on the tour? He said another two
weeks and we already we had taken Cypress on the road.
Cypress was our opening act. So like we're like I

(02:35:56):
said to Lee, I said, look, we got to come
off the road and regroup. Don't take any more deposits
on this tour. And right now, like Popco Zuis is
number two in the country, it's like number two pop
Wreck in the country. Like we're selling out like ten
thy twelve thousand seed arenas, like we're doing our thing.
I'm like, look, we need to regroup. We need to
come off this tour. We need to come off this
road and regroup. So the tour was going towards New York.

(02:36:20):
We land in Philly. It's the last night of what
I think is the last show. I've been traveling behind
the tour bus in a car, in a rental car
with my girl, like not even going near them. At
the Philly show, Pete's girlfriend, Daddy Rich's girlfriend, they those
guys told their girlfriends that my girl was fucking up

(02:36:40):
the relationship in the group, they try to jump my
wife up behind on the side of the stage. Wait
what yeah, Pete's girl and this girl Monet, who's richest girl,
they try to jump my girl Like I'm like watching
this from the side of Like I'm like so, I'm
not even like I'll do my verse and get off
stage and like protect my girl. Like that was it.
I'm all my way home. I'm on my way home.

(02:37:03):
I'm on my way home. And I said, Yo, I said,
this shit is crazy. I'm on I'm literally on the
phone and I'm saying to Leor like Leo, this shit
is crazy, Like they just try to jump my girl
and ya da da da dah, and he goes. We
booked another three weeks and I said, ah, damn, I said,
you just killed the group. I said, you just killed
the group. Because at the end of these three weeks,
I'm done. So those three weeks, I would literally get

(02:37:26):
on stage and Dispete in front of our crowds, like,
instead of Pete, tell him manifest this like in words
of wisdom, I say, yo, bitch, tell him wow. And
I would come off stage when he would rhyme, and
when he was finished, I'd come on stage and do
my verse and then leave the stage. And the audience
was no, no, no, they were Oh they would, they would.
MTV was Kurt Loder, Yo problems with third Base got

(02:37:49):
the number one record in the country, and the great
group is falling apart. And I basically told I told Leo,
I told Leora and Russell like I'm done. And my
wife is like, you know, is this really what you want?
And I said yeah, And I said, in fact, I said,
let's go get married. Let's go get married. Fuck them,
let's get married. Like I'm ready. And she's like, well,

(02:38:12):
I've been ready. So we got our blood work, we
got our blood work. The one day we went to
Queens County, We went to Queen's County Court, got married,
and I headed out to La to live with my man.
Epic from Wolf Epic right it comes, Yeah, that's exactly right.

(02:38:32):
I have so many questions about returning of the product,
so I go to live with them. I started recording
Return of the Product. I'm with wolf Fin Epic. We're
doing hard but true. Here it comes like all of
that ship. I'm in LA just like chilling, like I'm chilling,
like me and my wife, we're just chilling. I don't
even want to go back to New York. I got
a house there. I'm not even in there, like I'm
paying bills like cross Country. Yah da da da da.

(02:38:53):
Russell says, Yo, you gotta come home. This is this
is enough. It's it's enough. You gotta come home. I
come home. I go to see him here that apartment
shares old apartment on West fourth Street. I go upstairs.
He's trying to yell at me. I'm like, I grabbed
the Dead Player. I put in his that machine. I
play here it comes. He starts hearing here it comes,
and he starts bouncing on his bed like this, Oh

(02:39:16):
my god. We okay, you could do the solo record.
And that's how the solo record happened. Wow. And but
that was a dark but that was the dark place,
and it started with the darkness of the recording of
the album. It started with you know, Pete being like
disillusioned and me being disillusioned with the partnership. It started

(02:39:39):
with a lot of that, and and really the relationship
started with he challenged me. I didn't really feel like
I was making great records as a solo artist when
I was with Sam. Sever Like as soon as I
heard Words of Wisdom, I was like, oh, I gotta
set my fucking game up hardest, hardest Chinese arithmetic. Like
I wasn't thinking no shit like that, Like I I
gotta I gotta step my game up, you know what
I mean? Like in and that's what I did. Like

(02:40:00):
he challenged me, I wasn't challenged. Yeah, it just didn't
sound like it sounded like whatever fun or passion. It
was gone. Yeah, you're absolutely right. I was like, man,
and it's you know, and it's it sucked the life.
That album sucked the life out of me and more
ways than one. And also there was a transition in
our audience that sucked the life out of me.

Speaker 4 (02:40:21):
That was my next question because I'm like, if y'all
are number two of pop goes the Weasel, is that
audience audience looking like Yeah, like whatever, like.

Speaker 2 (02:40:30):
Club MTV and YO, and you know what's funny about
Club MTV. I wouldn't say anything to Julie Brown because
I didn't respect us, So she would put the mic
in front of me, and I just kept my mouth closed,
and then she would go to Pete and Pete would talk,
and then she'd asked me a question. I kept my
mouth closed. I didn't want to be there, like I
look go ahead, because.

Speaker 1 (02:40:48):
The thing is, there's something happening with the transition of
hip hop between eighty nine and ninety four, and what
it is is like by the time we arrived in
ninety four, it's cool to embrace your alternative arty, absolutely
and I.

Speaker 2 (02:41:07):
Knew the new face of what hip hop for the
next gazillion years.

Speaker 1 (02:41:11):
But there was there was so much slack that you know,
the source was given cypress hil for like who these
white boys in the audience are attracted and like even
the source didn't understand what was going on. So you
guys were a part of You're seeing the audience literally
changed and it doesn't look like the Latin quarter.

Speaker 2 (02:41:30):
No more, no not even doesn't look like the Latin quarter.
We I mean, we went from having like literally on
pop Go Zuisa. We would have like shows at the
Palladium in La where it's like all black crowds to
doing Roanoke Virginia and college kids jumping on our stage
and hugging our dancers and flying into the audience and
like surfing, Like I'll never forget the first time that happened.

(02:41:52):
Our dancer, our med thought somebody was rushing him and
like body slammed it due to the ground and he
was like and didn't understand. He just jumped in, just
got stage dived, And we're like, what the fuck is
going on? Like we're going to like pop stations and
we're telling pop stations like you realize we're dissing you
on this record, Like you do realize we're disincaparating. You're

(02:42:13):
not playing day La Soul, You're not playing a tribe
called Quest. You're playing Hammer and Vanilla Wafer Like you're
playing bullshit, Like you should be playing Big Daddy Kane.
You should be playing Queen Latifa, you should be playing Tribe,
you should be playing pe like that's real hip hop.
And they're like now SEC Music Factory like and I'm
like I'm like fuck, Like what who am I talking to? Like,

(02:42:37):
I don't even know these people, And again going back
to the whole thing, I have to protect hip hop,
but I'm at a point where i don't even know
what hip hop is when I'm looking at these dudes,
I don't even know what you produced pop goes U
S fifties, So like at the time, is this like
almost like a fight for your right thing where it's like, okay,
so no, I always thought that she was dope, like

(02:42:58):
I thought that sample was. No.

Speaker 1 (02:43:00):
It is, though, but you didn't realize that it might
come to bite you in the ass, turn you into
the very thing.

Speaker 2 (02:43:09):
Right, No, no, not at all what we say hip
hop got turned into hip hop. The second record was
number one on the pop charts, But don't get on
the heart that got to start in the ghetto that
no one forget about the hard part. Now, in ninety one,
we got a new band, a new brand looking like
the same old clan, same old thieves as schemes, So
we got to make sure that real rappers got to endure.
And I'm looking at these white boys that are like

(02:43:30):
and I'm like, you don't even know who the fuck
I'm talking about, the same thing. Yeah, you know what
I'm saying. But at least public enemy, they were smart
enough to educate the people. Like Chuck would look at
these people and say, you are not my enemy, but
here's why you were my enemy. You know. He would
have that conversation like we weren't having a conversation. We
were like, you guys look like dicks, Like we don't

(02:43:51):
look nothing like you, Like we are nothing. I hated
those kids. And you know what a lot of those
guys now that come up to me and they're like
CEOs of companies and like, dude, we used to rock
you and you know the frat and I'm like, yes,
let's do business. So it's really funny, like now I'm
glad you respect me. Like I need I need money
for a dude, We're doing this DC fund and like

(02:44:13):
we need to raise money. Here's my mayn and Matthew like, yo,
let's let's raise this capital. Because you were a frat
boy who liked you know, Pop goes the weasel, so
like you know what I'm saying, goes to weasel crowd.

Speaker 4 (02:44:21):
When y'all did, what would the response be like when
y'all did, like a Brooklyn Queens or.

Speaker 2 (02:44:26):
Like they loved it. They liked it, but I'm yeah,
they would fuck with it. But for me, like as
soon as shit was done, like the greatest thing that
happened to me was my solo album because Nas came
into my life, you know what I mean, and oh
C was already in my life, and like that brought
me back home. Like even in LA, I was twisted.
Like in LA, I'm making these happy hard but true.

(02:44:46):
I'm talking about you know, Zora and Neil, and I'm
talking about like how hard it is to be truthful
to who you are. And I'm like and I'm letting
my man reefing, I'm letting my May and Mattie see here,
and they're like, yo, Bi, you got to get back
to the street, like here's some peace, like go go listen.
And like that's when I made, you know, back to
the grill. T Ray double xp so so yeah, so

(02:45:11):
and then you know, and then that brought me back,
like and meeting Nas and doing all of that that
how did you know that t Ray oh I had
the double Xboxy album. I thought I was knocketting on
the edge of the door.

Speaker 7 (02:45:29):
Id no, no.

Speaker 2 (02:45:35):
No, So I mean, so that was What really brought
me back is like when Nas came into the studio
refin stretch and was like, yo, I need help. Like
I was like, this is has sham. This is the
most high, like bringing me back to where I need
to be helping a queen's m C and like doing
what I should be doing, which is protecting artists, you
know what I mean. So the baseball car stuff, what

(02:45:57):
was that with Peter? So the other thing, well, so
Pete has been in some interesting situations post third Base.

Speaker 4 (02:46:04):
One of the things first was his Frill solo album
was a Kick kickbo was right, I remember Dust the Dust.
I remember that was the first time I remember reading
an exec actually say that they were worried about how
a record was going to sell and that I was like, damn,
they just Russell. He was like, yeah, we don't know
how this is going to do. I'm like, well, damn,

(02:46:26):
so much for fourteen shots of the don't right?

Speaker 2 (02:46:30):
Right right? But at least fourteen shots went platinum. I
mean it's still you know, you know, but yeah, Pete
told fourteen thousand records on that Damn I sold four
hundred and fifty thousand, Like I think right now, return
the products at like seven hundred and fifty thousand, and
Pete set like fourteen thousand. Damn, so I was two
of them. Good for you. I'm glad. I'm glad for

(02:46:52):
you because I don't have to. I'm loyal anyway, No, no, no,
but anyway. But but so, Pete was always in love
with baseball. He would always like go hunting for like
rare artifacts of baseball, baseball artifacts, cards, gloves like that's
been his passion for a long time. I guess what
I had heard, And if you really want to see
the whole thing, you have to google Peter Nash. There's

(02:47:15):
there's a five thousand word essay that Sports Illustrated did
on it. So supposedly, from what I understand, is that
Pete got involved in some counterfeit signatures and counterfeit baseball
card collecting, and he basically sold them to a very
high and well known like the j Z of collecting,
this guy, Barry Liftson, and he gave and Barry Listen

(02:47:38):
gave him loans of up to eight hundred and seventy
five thousand dollars against this phony cards, and then he
told Pete that he had like a certain amount of
time to pay. Pete wouldn't pay, and then he had
the stuff like insured or try to, you know, and
then they found out it was worthless. So Pete, damn.
I think I think Pete has a warrant. I don't

(02:48:01):
know what's going on. I think there's some warrants for
Jersey in New York that is not really on the run.
I know he doesn't have a cell phone, like I know.
I know that to get in touch with him, there's
one number that you can call on like a Wednesday,
and it's somebody I don't want to know.

Speaker 7 (02:48:21):
I don't know, I don't know.

Speaker 2 (02:48:22):
Yeah, it's it's something. But I mean, Pete is definitely
trying to fix it, like he's trying to like point
out other scams. Like I think he's trying his Twitter
thing as wholes of shame, Like he's trying to like
point out other counterfeiters now so that people don't fall
into the same trap. He's claiming that he didn't know, Okay,

(02:48:43):
but I've heard that that's not accurate. Yeah, that's not accurate.
Dann And and Daddy Rich. Look, the bottom line is this.
I will never go on stage with Third Base ever again.
It's it's just done. I tried in twenty thirteen as
a favorite to a friend. We did a show at
SRB and Brooklyn as a favor, and we got on

(02:49:04):
stage and I had a good time, but I was
so I already have a tremor as it is from
like medication that I take. But I was on stage
literally like this. I couldn't control it. And it was
nervous energy and it was excitement. It was a lot
of different things that my father's watching and I'm like,
I'm just like shaking and but whatever. For whatever reason,

(02:49:25):
we got a whole bunch of dates after that. Oh wow.
So then we do another date and a festival in
Indiana and my wife is looking at me like, oh God,
like I don't really want this life again, like and
I don't want this. So she says to me, she
you know, she finally said, because I said to her,
I was like, look, they're putting together a European tour,

(02:49:49):
like thirty dates like and She's like, look, if you
do that, like you might as well just divorce me.
I don't want that life. So I said to our
road manager at the time, my Manikey Palms. I was
like yeah, oh you know, I'm sorry. I'm not doing
any more dates. And he said, what do you mean?
I said, what do you mean? What I mean? I
just told you he goes. I just advanced Pete ten
shows because he told me you were doing the shows.

(02:50:11):
And I said, yo, I mean, I said, first of all,
I never said I was doing those shows as A
and B. I feel bad for those promoters, but I
ain't got nothing to do with that. My name is
pauled Us between y'all, like, I ain't got nothing to
do with it. And moreover, don't ever call me about
that again. Don't ever call me about a show again.
So this past New Year's we got an offer for
one hundred thousand dollars to do one night in Pittsburgh

(02:50:33):
for New Year's Eve, and I said, no, not gonna happen.
Just not gonna happen. And Daddy Rich with his sixty followers,
went on a diet tribe talking about how I try
to fuck his girl, how I used to fuck prostitutes
on the road, that I gave my wife an STD
A lot of that like this is on Twitter on Twitter.

(02:50:54):
If you would never beat it, right, yeah, petty, pet
So I just literally just said I wish you the
best of luck in your future endeavors. Never talked to
me again, never see me, you know. So it's that
dude is literally to damn, it's that to me. Well, Search,

(02:51:14):
I'm giving you. I'm very blessed. We're doing our wrap
up with you. Normally we do it once once our
guest is out. But what did you learn, man? Man?

Speaker 12 (02:51:29):
Uh?

Speaker 2 (02:51:29):
Man? I learned that Uh yeah, God, this has been
like fucking hip hop nerd trivia.

Speaker 7 (02:51:35):
No.

Speaker 4 (02:51:35):
Man, I learned that Search is very much still you know,
in tune, you know, to the music, to the culture.
He is very much I didn't know that you had
records prior to the Cactus that was. That was my
first time hearing those records.

Speaker 2 (02:51:51):
You know.

Speaker 4 (02:51:52):
Uh, it's funny we have a connection. Dan Charnis of course.
He uh, I do all the rhymes for the break
and there's a line, uh, there's I play a.

Speaker 2 (02:52:02):
Character that third baseline.

Speaker 4 (02:52:05):
And so he said, Man, I got a call Search
about this, and I was like work because I mean,
this is the first I meet it.

Speaker 2 (02:52:10):
I was like, man, and so he hit me back,
He's like, your Search was super cool about it. He was,
so I was like, because I'm such a big fan
of yours that first, everything you've done, I mean, I'm
just a huge fan. So thank you, thank you what
you've done to the contribute to hip hop and the culture.
And it's just amazing listening to you. Like I said,
I was.

Speaker 4 (02:52:28):
I was ten when Cactus drop. I was eleven when
Derrelks drop, So I grew up on it. It's just
this is great just to sit here and just break
bread with your brother.

Speaker 2 (02:52:35):
Thank you. On paid Bill, did you learn anything man?
Juice and hip hop man? Both?

Speaker 8 (02:52:45):
This show is like Black History Month, It's like black MPR.
And then it's like Bill, what's the white perspective? Which
which I enjoy giving and.

Speaker 2 (02:52:52):
I'm happy to do so.

Speaker 8 (02:52:53):
However, I feel like today baby, the tables were turning
a little bit, and I thank you for this balance.

Speaker 2 (02:52:57):
Yes, Bill, you are more than welcome you. It is balanced, sugar, Steve,
did you.

Speaker 1 (02:53:04):
Yea?

Speaker 2 (02:53:05):
The chanting?

Speaker 4 (02:53:06):
Was he?

Speaker 3 (02:53:09):
That's the whole part too with you is going to
be all champing.

Speaker 2 (02:53:15):
Right now? I know she that was my hotttal portion too, dude,
that's crazy.

Speaker 7 (02:53:29):
Part two in random I think you're jewishing Bill and Steve.

Speaker 2 (02:53:33):
It's weird, pretty good start freestyling.

Speaker 10 (02:53:40):
I learned that Search to write two books, one of
course on business and how to diversify, and the other
on I don't know. I just feel like I never
knew such a story about how you became englfed in
the culture, and it was such an education and a
long education. I know every white person can't do this,
but maybe he just put it in a book and consolidate.

Speaker 7 (02:54:00):
Then we could just it would be a different world.

Speaker 2 (02:54:02):
I'll tell you we're gonna have a great TV show
hopefully coming out soon, and that will tell a lot
of great stories. They call me Search coming soon and
the app the app, yeah yeah, And if you want
to be part of the beta, go to get go
to Beta at get A do g E t A
d U E dot com. Right, Matthew, thanks? Okay, oh yeah, yo,

(02:54:25):
did you learn anything?

Speaker 10 (02:54:29):
I just want to say one more thing beside, every
strong Jewish man is a strong black woman.

Speaker 13 (02:54:34):
Absolutely right. I used to end my show, every radio show, Okay,
we're gonna go Bill. That's the sound of getting punched
and that's shot.

Speaker 2 (02:54:59):
Yeah. Well, Search, I thank you very much. And this
Quest loves.

Speaker 1 (02:55:05):
Supreme, Quest Love Supreme. It is a production of iHeartRadio.

(02:55:29):
This classic episode was produced by the team at Pandora.
For more podcasts from iHeart Radio, visit the iHeart Radio app,
Apple Podcasts, or wherever you listen to your favorite shows.

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