QLS Classic: Tom Silverman

Tom Silverman, founder of the Hip-Hop/Dance label Tommy Boy Records talks about his early days in radio, how Disco never actually died, and the all important fifth pillar of Hip-Hop: knowledge.

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Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:00):
Of Course, Love Supreme is a production of I Heart Radio.
This classic episode was produced by the team at Pandora
What Happens Up pay Bill. On this classic episode of
Quest Love Supreme, we travel back to March eight, two
thousand seventeen. Tom Silver, founder of Tommy Boy Records, tells
Team Suprema about some of the legendary music his company
put out and creating a pathway to make sampling more

(00:21):
formful for producers. Listeners can also check out our two
two part interview with former Tommy Boy president Monica Lynch.
Do it all here on quls Supremo roll call Sama

(00:45):
Supremo Rogue call, Sa Sapremo rog call, Sabremo rog This
is your cult leader. Yes you are my c pel. Yes,
Tommy's in the place. Yeah, so Frema road called Subrima

(01:08):
Suprema roll call. I taste the name. Yeah, here's an example. Yeah,
let me clear my throat. Yeah, but not no samples
Roma roll Suprima Subpremo road called good morning Tommy from
Tommy Boy. Yeah my name is Sugar. Yeah from Big

(01:32):
Old Boys. Supremo roll call Subprima su Primo roll call.
I'm on pay Bill. Yeah, Steve say, oy, Yeah, about
to throw down. Yeah with Tommy Buller Rollma you guys

(01:53):
win roll call Sma Frema roll on drill is frantic. Yeah,
looking through my jacket. Yeah, must have misplaced Yeah, all
my sex packets. Roll Suprima roll call, Subrima son su
primo roll call. Yeah, you're less girl. Yeah, and I'm

(02:18):
too excited. Yeah, all up in Tommies world. Roll Suprima
roll call, Suprima prima rogue. Yeah, I'm Tommy Boy. Yeah,
I wasn't prepared yeah for this annoyed Supremo road Suprema

(02:43):
son son Suprima roll call, Suprema son son Suprema roll call,
sub Prima su frima roll he said, sheep, come on,
it's hard to run those things, ladies and gentlemen. Uh

(03:04):
and she pu welcome to you. Had another distion of course,
love Supreme. How are you guys doing? Uh say a
lot Team Supreme. Yeah, mama, Uh, I have to say
that our guest um in my opinion, probably on paper.

(03:29):
His his label probably spoke to me more than because
usually when you think of the consummate hip hop label
or the consummate label, of course, the D word is
always the first thing that comes to mind. But uh,
as far as pushing the boundary and innovations and one

(03:50):
of the greatest logos of all times, one of the
most boy logos of all time. Uh, I have to
say that that for me, Tommy Boy Records kind of
pushes the omblope just a little bit further. Uh as
far as innovation and trying out new ideas, and um,

(04:11):
that's what I feel. Our our our steam guest today
is about laises and gentlemen, please give it up for
Mr Tommy Silverman. Yeah, thank you. How are you today?
Very good? Very good? Starting my fast day one? Might
as well have good day to start it Wednesday? You're right,
you're right. How long are you going for? How long

(04:33):
it's humpty day? You know it's Wednesday. How long do
you go for? I don't know. I don't you know,
as long as they still feel good. I'm drinking water
that you know. I'm starting out drinking water. We'll see
if I go to a fancy restaurant, I might have
to eat. We'll have to see. But this is day one. Yeah,
this is day man. The crank is gonna start, but
it gets good. Yeah, you're talking about the detox. Right, Yeah,

(04:56):
that's going to be pretty clean. I feel for you
maca Um, well, okay, I I know there's a lot
that I don't know about you, but I mean I
know of your your general story, but I do know that, um,
your love and your appreciation for music, um runs deep.
So yeah, starting with your dad, that's that's how we

(05:19):
first met. I have to say that, Uh, I didn't
think that anyone and the current music world even really
knew of the doo wop world er or any of
that stuff. And that's the first thing you came up
to me and said, like, I know your dad is.
I was like, really, so am I do leave that

(05:40):
your first passion of music was doop? No, but you
know I discovered doop just like you talk about how
you discover things through sampling and that, you know, I
hear heard new things and I went back and discovered
roots and so do what was a route that I discovered.
I was way way too young to know do up,
but I discovered it. You know when this sort of
the Shannon Ah kind of a thing came around and

(06:02):
I wanted to Yeah, and I you know, I had
the Lee Andrews in the hearts album, which like most
people only know the singles. You know, I got really
deep into it and it's definitely one of the top
five or ten duop artists of all time. And then
you find that you actually played with those guys in
the garden when you're thirteen made me have like a

(06:22):
different kind of respect. I already respected, of course hip
hop and the people in the world, you know, more
than almost everyone else. But then to hear that you
also had that was you know, because when I when
I started hip hop and I was working with Bambada
and the Bronx in night, it was the same corners
that doop started from where hip hop started, like literally

(06:44):
the same streets in the same neighborhoods, you know, the
Belmont Avenue, the Italian section, and there was the Black section,
and there were kids singing on every street corner, and
it was the same corners that kids plugged in, you know,
their their mixes into street polls and started. You know,
it wasn't that are apart. So I thought there was
a relationship, and I you know, I always searched for
that relationship, even to the point of signing the four

(07:07):
C M D S, which I thought was sort of
the synthesis of dooop and hip hop. So were you
born into a musical family or a musical collective family?
Creative but not in musical. My mom is an artist
and my dad as a writer. Are you Are you
born New York, Westchester, White Plains? Okay? Okay? So like,
what are your first musical experiences? At least didn't call

(07:28):
you when I was. When I was like, my dad
was really into jazz and so, you know, he used
to like play air saxophone to Coleman Hawkins when I
was like five while old, and those are my earliest memories.
And he used to play Miles Davis, early Miles Davis records,
and he had like a big high fight. This was
way before stereo and built into the wall in the
house that we lived in, and you know, and he

(07:49):
was you know, they played Billie Holiday and they were
really into that kind of music. So that was the
music that I grew up with at the time. So
you weren't listening to the The Battle, Dave Crocker or
anything that Middle America was into, you guys were except
for show tunes because that you know, you know, that
was me that had to be in there. Too. That
was a combination of like of bebop and show tunes.

(08:13):
It's a weird combination, but yeah, that's what played in
my house before I was had my own musical exploration,
which probably started in sixty five or sixty six when
I started buying my first records. What was the first
record you purchased? Uh, Tommy James and the Shandel's Hanky
Panky on Roulette Roulette talking about forty five? Yeah, okay, okay,

(08:34):
So was it an everyday occurrence like buying bubblegum or
was you like buying for forty five and records? Like
was that? Like? Yeah? But it was expensive. I mean,
you know, for a little kid with you know, on
a tiny allowance compete, it was either baseball cards or
you know how much more forty five is, like sixty

(08:54):
nine cents or something like that, or maybe even forty
nine cents if you went to Corvette's. Where would you go? Uh?
I went to a local store where I bought comic books,
you know, and they had records, some records on forty five.
But was there a place in New York that was
like the Holy Meccha Center of Not at that time,
Not at that time I'm talking about, like you know,
sixty five, sixty six, sixty seven. You know, it's an

(09:17):
interesting era too, because you know then there was New
York Radio then you know, it was all AM. There
was no from radio yet, so it was ABC, m
C A. Those were like the pop stations, and then
there was L I, B and r L, which was
the black stations, you know. And I didn't even find
out about the black stations until I got into junior
high school. So as far as your your foray into music,

(09:39):
by the time you started collecting, I mean, were you
then collecting the music of the time as far as
your I was into blues and do ops. Those were
the things that were now cast Your friends totally knew
that's what I wanted to. But by the way, that
wasn't just about music. That was about the way I
dressed and the things I was into. I mean, I
used to get kicked out of school for wearing a

(10:00):
lenin pin or uh, you know, carrying Mau's read book
to school when I was in ninth grade. And stuff
I wouldn't were bush jackets with American flag upside down
on the back, which was like the signal for distressing
I wrote the underground newspaper with another couple of guys
in my junior high school. You know, I was like,
kind of whatever it was, I was against it. So
you know, I was a contrary against the system even

(10:24):
in high school. You know, I looked look at everything
that is and say what isn't you know? What's missing?
What's not you know? And so I tried I look
at I invert everything and say, okay, what are the
opportunities for change? And kind of that maybe the reason
why Tommy Boy and the D label have a different philosophy.
I was always looking to do something nobody had ever

(10:45):
done before. I wasn't looking to have the biggest hit today.
You know, I was looking to do something, you know,
where there was no competition. I wasn't trying to trash
the competition. I wanted to be the first. What makes
a person want to do that? Because it would have
been so easy for you to just kind of blend
in with the status quo and kind of reap the
benefits of the time and right off into the sunset,

(11:07):
Like what makes you? I guess when I was a
little kid, I wasn't the fastest or the strongest. I
get picked last in the sports team. I wasn't the
best looking, so I didn't get invited to the party.
So I had to say, sorry, I guess we have
to make my own world, you know. And so I
kind of had to reject the status quo because the
status quo rejected me. And by the way, if you
look at the entire world, everything that moves society forward

(11:31):
happens because people are rejected. How many how many siblings
do you? I have two younger brothers. Okay, you're the older.
I was gonna say, were you the middle child or
the Okay? I was trying to get super over analytical,
and my brothers aren't aren't this way. So I don't
know if it's karmic genetic or if it's the results

(11:51):
of behavioral rejection when I was younger. But I think,
you know, like if Gandhi hadn't got kicked off a
train in South Africa, he wouldn't have gone to India
and done what he did. You know, he wouldn't even
have thought about that, you know. But he was seeing
his colored in in South Africa at the time, and
and he was going along. He had gone to Oxford
or somewhere for law school, and he said, what's this about?

(12:13):
And when he became a reformer because of rejection, and
you know, Jesus Christ, you know, you look at everybody
in history has been rejected, it's gone and gone on
to do great things. So for me, so for you,
it was music more you're you're calming, your your your
your sanctuary. If yeah, it was and also an exploration,

(12:35):
you know, like so I was into the Rolling Stones
when I was really young, and then I got into
all the blues artists that influenced them. So I started
buying you know, old blues albums and learning about blues
that way. You know, it's easy now, especially with the
with the wants a lot of the internet to get
information quick fast. But you know, like if you're listening
to uh, say, like if you're listening to zep too,

(12:59):
if you're listening a whole Lot of Love or whatever,
like who's there to let you know about Willie Dixon
or Line Leman, Jefferson or so I'm looking at the
liner notes of course, And you know when you're watching
you're listening to the record in your room, you're listening
to the record on a record player in your room.
You have plenty of time to read liner notes, and
the liner notes are big because records are big, and

(13:21):
you can see that Spoonful by Cream was written by
Willie Dixon, so I had to find out what else
Willie Dixon did or whatever, you know. And then I
got crazy into Muddy Waters because you know, his songs
were covered by everybody else, and so you know, then
I you know, and then I said, oh, he's playing
a telecaster, so maybe I should try to get it telecaster.

(13:42):
So then I learned to play guitar. And that was like,
I try to be like Albert King or whatever. You know.
So you initially wanted to start off as a blues musician. No,
I just wanted to be a musician. And actually Albert
King played the least notes, so it was the easiest
to do. So no high school band experience, and so
you know, I wasn't you know, as I said, I

(14:02):
wasn't picked first for anything. I was picked last for
most things. So you know, I wasn't getting it. I
wasn't the most popular kids. So you know, if I
could be, um, you know, a guitar player, maybe I
could get laid some day. You know, there was that
possibility so by the time you're playing it, like, are
we talking about the seventies period or the no still
six well earlier maybe sixty to sixty nine and seventy. Yeah, okay,

(14:26):
this is the advent of FM radio and you know,
psychedelic rock and stuff. So once FM, what was that? Okay?
So a Zeppelin one the entire side. Okay, So I
need someone who was there in real time to explain
to me because I always wanted to know. You know,
a lot of people when they explained to me the

(14:48):
power of a M radio listened in music on their
transition radios and all this stuff, how magical it was,
Like was it really that foreign? Once FM high fidelity
radio came into play? Like the clarity of it all, Like,
was it a revelation to you know? Definitely not, I
mean because I hear some people actually prefer the lo

(15:08):
fi AM radio station sound as opposed to which I well,
at the beginning, um, you know, uh, AM radios were small,
you know, their transistor radio so you could almost put
them in your pocket. So that was the first portable
music AM radio. And it was in the cars only AM.
So when FM came they it wasn't in cars yet
it wasn't in transistor radio. They didn't have AM FM

(15:31):
transistor radios for the first few years, so um, you know,
it's kind of probably like that HD channel. Then you know,
they exist all over the world, but nobody listens because
nobody even knows how to tune in, you know, so
you know you had to you had to make it easy,
and it was hard. You know, you had to find
the stations and everyone listened to the same station. So

(15:51):
w A b C was playing at one time Joni
Mitchell tie Yellow Ribbon around the old I mean, the
most whack as mainstream kitty rock. But and then they
were playing Mono Zaboo, Soulmakosa at the same time and
a country record like behind Closed ABC. I think that

(16:14):
Radio one in in the UK is a little bit
like that. They play like diverse music, you know, they
would play like hip hop and rock and all kinds
of music and still do. So people get exposed to
more stuff, and as the band got split and stations
started to specialize, people gravitated toward one kind of music
as a way of sort of appreciating that music but

(16:36):
also avoiding every other kind of music. So you're saying
that FM radio actually started the idea of genres or
segregating music. Yeah, rock radio happened that FM only, and
you know, people who listened to that only got rocked
so they didn't have to hear you know, Charlie rich anymore.
So now no more country influence, now, no more black influencing.

(16:56):
Everything was that, you know, you know Richie Havens was
as black as it got, or the Chambers Brothers. You know,
it was the only kind of things that would get
played on those radio stations. So that began the segregation.
And that's why at the you know, um, for years
Rolling Stone magazine never had black people and never on
the cover or even writing about them, except for maybe

(17:19):
Slide because they played at Woodstock. Anyone, if you played
on Woodstock, you were allowed in the club. You know,
that was a bottle. I never even thought about that.
I thought, you know, because the idea of epan radio
and then playing like complete sides and playing the full
version of a particular song and that sort of thing
would have made it better. But you know, I mean
there were great things about it, and the quality was better,

(17:41):
and people talked to more in a different way. They
weren't shouting at you as much. It was more laid
back kind of a thing, you know. And then I
got when I went to college, I got involved in
college radio immediately and became the music director of the
college radio station where'd you go Colby and Maine. Okay,
so what was your vision for your college radio years? Like,

(18:02):
so you know I did so Initially I started started
doing my own radio station, and I did a duop show,
you know, cruising Thom's College of Musical Knowledge every Sunday night.
And then I started doing a party show, you know,
by seventy four and seventy five, and I play Party Records,
which was you know, mostly R and B and funky records.

(18:22):
I may have been the first person in America to
play Lady Marmalade. Really yeah, okay, So because DJ culture
really wasn't a thing in seventy three seventy four, it
was just beginning. How do you? Okay? So take me
to what your rider is? In seventy three, d jaying
for a college like are the idea of big speakers?

(18:45):
I mean, I mean, you do radio DJ, not live
DJ live? DJ didn't exist yet like that, excepted maybe
in cool Hair. It was happening you know, on Sedgwick,
but there wasn't many other places that it was just
starting there really at that point in time, and so
just bands were still playing the music of a day.
And yeah, I was in a fraternity house and I
used to book the bands that would come in, and

(19:07):
they were blues bands mostly that's what I could get,
or disco bands. So in seventy five disco started to
take off, um and then Saturday Night Fever came out,
So disco started, and then Saturday Night Fever came out.
So I was doing my a disco radio show. And
then a club opened, a disco open in Waterville, Maine,
and I started djaying there with a mixture I built

(19:27):
myself from radio shack parts. We didn't didn't have queuing,
but just like two giant knobs, and I had like
two record players. They weren't really turntables, you know, like
you know whatever we're listening to the record before with headphones. Well,
I knew the record and iknew what it was. But
the first DJ, arguably the first American DJ in in disco,

(19:48):
was David Mancuso who just passed last year at the Loft,
and he started playing in seventy two, and he played
every record to the end and then he started playing
in another record, you know, And when disco started around
the world, that's the way happened. The idea of mixing
came much later. Uh, there weren't really mixers that had
queuing until probably seventy four. Is that when you started

(20:09):
the disco news while you were in college? Okay, so
that started. Uh, we'll get there anyway. Yeah, So so
we're so I'm playing black music for a totally white college.
You know, there was one for the accepting of it.
There was like eleven black people in the school and
there are only two black families or four black families
in the whole state of Maine, and maybe two record

(20:31):
stores in the whole state of Maine. What was the
what was the outreach? Was it just the college or
like it reached We had a ten watch signal, which
is what most colleges had, but we're on the top
of a hill, so we reached like forty miles. It
was pretty and there wasn't a lot of other radio
stations interfering up there, so we used to get we
used to do crazy stuff and get away with crazy
stuff on the radio station. It was pretty radical, but

(20:54):
you know, playing black music was pretty radical, and people
would always call up and request me to play Derek
and the Domino's Layla, and I tell them know, in fact,
I was the music director. I took the record out
of the stacks and no one could play because you know,
the idea here is we're supposed to introduce new music,
and you know, both led Zeppelin and you know and
Derek and the Dominoes, those were the most played records anywhere,

(21:14):
so every show would play them every time. So it
was like top forty radio, and that wasn't the concept.
So I pulled him out of the stacks and nobody
could play him. Did you feel like it was arm wrestling?
I mean, I usually when I hear stories of taste makers,
especially like with Tastemaker DJs, it's always a moment where
it's like I'm the almighty, all knowing expert of music

(21:37):
and you're gonna love anything I play and there's no resistance.
But you know, today, if I go to a club
and play like an unknown demo or something that I
think is like really incredible piece of music, it's it's
a struggle. Like you know, half a dance floor might clear,
and I know we live in a different time now,

(21:59):
but I mean, but to really get people to to
to get into something, and yeah, that only year into
I have this discussion, by the way, with founder of
Pandora on a regular basis, I was a friend of mine,
and mainly because you need to be able to play
an unfamiliar record enough times to make it familiar. And

(22:21):
the greatest records of all time have to clear the
dance floor. The records that change the world, nobody will
understand the first time they hear them. It's impossible because
if it sounds like everything else, it's not moving anything forward.
So something that's different, no one's gonna like, you know,
so uh, you know, it was that way in the
early days of hip hop. You know, Black radio didn't
want to play hip hop records, but when they did play,

(22:44):
if the phones would light up, and then they stopped
using the phones as a way of identifying stuff and
they did call out research to you know, middle aged women,
housewives at home who hated hip hop, and so there
was always this negativity about hip hop especi sleep black radio.
What about those eleven students that were at school with you,
Like those eleven black students. Did they ever communicate with

(23:05):
you to appreciate or did they add to it? Like
did you hear this record? There was one guy who
was a good friend of mine who came from the
Bronx who actually turned me onto a lot of stuff.
He was actually a DJ in seventy five in the
Bronx um and he was a year older, I think,
and he ran track with me, So I was I
ran track and so that in high school, you know,

(23:26):
being on the track team was six black in White
Plains High school. You know, we had a silver medalist
at the Mexican fist Olympics, you know from you know,
from our school, and he was the slowest guy on
the on the relay, the quote mile relay. He was
the slowest guy. Um, but he's the only one who

(23:49):
went to college. The other guys, you know, got drunk
or did whatever they did. But you know, I remember
joining the track team in ninth grade, you know, and
going to indoor tract the first time and being like
one of you know whatever twenty white guys on a
team of a hundred people and getting to hear the

(24:11):
music and getting to know, um what they were into.
And by the way, this was Black power time. You know,
this is when you know, you know, the fist pick
was in everybody, at the back of everybody's head, just
the beginning of that era. And uh we had race
riots at White Plains High School and they took the
word planes off. So it's at White High School. And

(24:32):
the Italians would come to school with baseball bats, and
you know, the Blacks picketed, and you know, and I
was part of the resolution committee trying to you know,
get people talking to each other. And it was just
an amazing time to be alive, really because everything was changing,
and you know, it was the beginning of that revolution
that made today possible. When did you graduate college. I

(25:00):
graduated high school in seventy two, college seventy six, and
then I went to graduate school thinking that there was
no way I could get into the music business. So
I you know, continued my path, which was environmental science,
and went to graduate school in environmental geology in Michigan,
and Kalamazoo was there, as you do. I was out

(25:21):
of nowhere, yeah, right. And then after two years there,
just before I finished my masters, my old roommate from
college called me who was working for cash Box, which
was the competitor of Billboard at the time. He was
doing the R and B charts, and he said, hey,
you're you know you were way ahead of it. You
were into disco back in seventy five. It's blowing up.
It's a giant thing. This is after Saturday night fever.

(25:42):
Let's start a tip sheet. Let's move to New York. UM.
And I had sent out two hundred resumes to try
to get a job in water pollution and water quality
and got two interviews and no job offers. That I
was super depressed about it, and I said I'm out,
and I said, I left school and I went to
New York. I set up this newsletter for DJs UH

(26:05):
in nine eight in New York City and UH. And
then the guy came, moved put cash box and came
and started it with me, and we started. We ran
it out of our apartment, and then we got to
know all of the DJs who were doing everything, and
that sort of opened the door for what case It
explains to me is that we say it was a
tipsy exactly what does that mean? So it means that
we talked. We talked to record pools, who gave the

(26:28):
records to the DJ's and found out what was happening
from them. We talked to record stores, we talked to
radio stations when radio stations went disco. We talked to
UM everybody, and we had like UM regional representatives from
around the country in Canada that would tell us what
was breaking, and we would talk to people about imports
that were hot that we're coming in. We did a

(26:49):
top eighty chart that we compiled when we took everybody's
information every week, and it was a checklist and it
had the beats permittive every record. And in those days,
beats per minute was really big because everything was records
and nobody knew what beats per minute were of what
was so they needed a mixing tool. So, because at
this point, you know, mixing was starting to become really big,

(27:11):
and in order to be great at mixing you had
to know what the bp ms were. There was a
guy in Albany who had this disco Bible and he'd
run these computer reports and send them out every once
a month with all of the records bpms on them,
and people would pay this guy like a hundred dollars
a month for a subscription just to know what's still
available because so y'all were kind of like a filter.

(27:32):
I guess, like y'all, I told people what was that
We we did the research because at that point there
was no Internet. There's no way else to find any
information out in. DJs needed to know what they didn't have,
that they needed to get, what was coming up, what
they needed to play, and what was really big beats
per minute and things like that, and you know, records
companies would advertise and record stores would advertise, and we

(27:54):
used to sell in record stores around New York like
Rock and Sol down the street here and a few
of a few of the other record stores here, and
we were you know, we got to like subscriptions and
sales of over three thousand or four thousand copies. We
were reaching about five thousand DJs by you know, about
you know, nineteen eight or eight one. How much for

(28:15):
each addition to a buck or something like that, it
was maybe a dollar fifty or something like. They were
the original two Dope boys, right, say, y'all were the
first blog exactly it was. And it was like a newsletter.
We had to print it and you know, and we
type set it on a typewriter at first, and then
we bought a type setting machine. We had all this
stuff in the apartment and we were running it that way.

(28:35):
It's interesting, so so much work was it. It was
it completely national or just like it was international. Oh
so you even took we took information from you two people.
You're calling all these three of us, and yeah, and
there and they all we were all there were three
of us that all went to school at Colby, and
we were calling. We were selling the ads, we were

(28:57):
doing the editorial, we're setting the type, we're doing you know,
we're having it printed and bringing it to the record
stores and putting the stickers on and you know, the
name stickers for each one, and you know, and keeping
the subscription list and all of that we were doing.
It was unbelievable. So at no time did UH a
bigger shark like Billboard, you know, any any of these

(29:19):
other music industry people think like to lease you guys,
or or to purchase the business to work for them
other people. Billboard had a disco section that was very significant,
and they already ran a disco conference called the Billboard
Disco Forum, which all the DJs would come to. And

(29:39):
when I first moved to New York, I remember the
August of seven eight going to the Billboard Disco Forum,
and disco was very gay at that point. I mean
it was you know, the people who controlled disco music
and the leaders in it. It was a very gay thing.
And you know, I was one of the few people
in the business that wasn't so you know, when I
would go to the Disco Forum, it was hard for

(29:59):
me to get into the label suits like the Kaza
Bank Blanco or the t K Sweets because I wasn't gay,
you know, and that has lunch a publication yet. But
anyway that, you know, the publication, you know, built up
and built up, and by night we started the New
Music Seminar with another publication to compete with the Billboard
Disco for him. Okay, most people and our listeners, uh

(30:23):
know about Studio fifty four and that, but I know
there had to have been for every Jordan. There's like
twelve guys on the playground that are justice talented and
ready to will possess. So, I mean, what were the
other clubs in New York City besides the folklore Studio
fifty four or so? There were probably four accesses in

(30:44):
dance music during the period of time there was that
sort of studio. Fifty four was the she she uh
clubs set the international people and you know, the stars.
But what it wasn't known for music. Richie Cazor was
the DJ. Didn't really play, you know, he played good music,
but you know, nobody considered him the best. Of course,
Paradise Garage at the same time was Larry Levane and

(31:06):
he was playing the most amazing music. In the sound
system was Howard Long, sick crazy sound system in the place,
you know, even to this day was Paradise gars It
was like seventy eight to eighty one, and all the
folklore of of those speakers and the lights and stuff.
I used to do interviews and go to the house
of the guy who built the sound system, who built it, uh,

(31:29):
Howard Long, Richard Long, Richard Richard Long Associates r l A.
It was amazing and you know, the subworpers would you'd
walk by them, you know, your pants would flap from
the wind book and they moved so much air. And
then they had tweeters, those piece of tweeters hanging from
the ceiling, you know, and and he had uh, you
know in the booth he used to play on Thorn's

(31:50):
belt drive turntables, which is crazy because most DJs only
play on direct drive. And they had built some kind
of a rubber band or uh spring suspension for this
so that they wouldn't keep it from and usually and
and also from skipping, you know, and even though they
still would skip sometimes. And he was the first guy

(32:10):
who had like three turn tables. And I used to
hang out in the booth all the time and listen
to the stuff he would play, which was more amazing.
And then there was another part of the business that
was Latin. There was clubs that were more Latin oriented
and they played more Saltza oriented dance music, which there
was a lot of that too. People don't know about
it because if they were one then you know. Then

(32:31):
there were the gay clubs, which was you know, twelve
West and you know Roy Third and DJs like that,
and they played much higher b B per minute euro disco.
They were running, they were tweaking, so they were running
a hundred and thirty beats per minute, you know, the
black and then there was the Um and there was
and then there was so Paradis Grudge was black gay.
So they were playing a little bit more down Temple.

(32:52):
Then there was straight black clubs, you know, and they
were playing even more down Temple. But you know, it depends,
and then I would go up to nineteen. I discovered
the Tea connection in Africa, Bembardo, and I went up
to hear him spin and he was doing a whole
another thing. It was a mine trip that was made
everything else that I had ever seen obsolete. So the
tea connection, first of all, always wanted to is there

(33:15):
any connection to the band te connection? And well they were.
Ta was the guy's name, I guess that owned the space.
And it was one floor walk up, just a big
space with like another like a balcony and there. It
was located on White Plains Road, right near the ELF
the elevated trains there. Um, you can google it and

(33:39):
find it on Google Maps, which I've done recently, because
in New York White Plains is White Plains Road, So
that it Bronx. It's it's kind of in the central Bronx.
It's definitely not in the South Bronx. Everyone talked about
the South Bronx and maybe Cedric could be considered the
South Bronx, but this was you know, Africa. Bembardo was
from Bronx River Center, which was more central Bronx. Off

(34:03):
off of the Cross Bronx Expressway, you can kind of
see it from It's just north of the Cross Bronx
Expressway and Knights Bridge is just south of it, so
you know, you could see and and I've learned more
about this only as I've sort of studied the evolution
of hip hop over the last five years and how
you know, um, the different parts, you know, the different
cruise that came up came up around where the projects were.

(34:25):
So the projects concentrated people and then they made it
possible actually for gang the gangs to start, and then
the gangs turned into DJ cruise also and they all
came out of product. That's why early rap they always
talked about their their project. The one common thread that
a lot of the guests that are on the show
that have experiences with early hip hop, I think that

(34:49):
the most common theme is that no amount of fear
will ever surpass their need you here quality music or
quality DJs. Um So, I mean in seventy eighty, when

(35:10):
you're traveling to the Bronx, white guy traveling to the Bronx,
like to you, there was no where you alone like
any and for you, the music was too exciting and
the scene was too exciting for you to even consider
like maybe I don't belong here. So I just never
thought about it, you know, it never It was a

(35:30):
weird thing for me because I just because I was
rejected always myself. I never really thought about us and
them and I. You know, when I went into these places,
the thing I noticed is I might have been like
twenty five or twenty six at the time, and going
in up the steps to the two connection, because ben
Boda had put me on the list, I was for
sure the first white person had ever been there. Um,

(35:51):
And you know, no one looked at you were like
everybody was lost. No, everybody was super cool. They must
have figured that I was from downtown and maybe I
was a record putty or something like that. So there's
there was decent respect. But you know, I wasn't thinking
about it. I was just going up there. I just
didn't know where to go. I hadn't been there before.
I was much more concerned about getting lost and finding
the place than it was about that. And you know,

(36:14):
it's never been an issue for me. I never really
thought about it. You know, even when I'm in you know,
Harlem World, and I hear shots go off. I really
never really was never thought that I could get hurt
or something like that. I mean, other people are think
about that ship a lot. I just don't think about it.
You know. I have a lot of those tapes from
the ten Tea Connection of you know, like Cold Crush

(36:35):
Brothers and flashing them performing there. How big is the
t connection, Like the size of it a little bigger
than the size of it with a balcony up on
top where when I first walked in, I saw Bambodis
in front of the turntables and on one side Jazzy
j and the other side Red Alert. Wow. And that

(36:57):
was the day I met them at all. Just Athlete
the Avengers over there. So I'm saying the average club
sizes like a hundred fifty maybe two hundred people could
get in. Yeah. See when when I'm listening to Yeah,
like and then it's just hitting me that a lot
of the game changing aspects of the culture, we're slightly

(37:20):
under three hundred. Yeah, the Grills was small, but the
Bronx River Center was a lot bigger, you know. And
the other thing you had to consider is that this
is all ages. You know. The kids in there were
average age probably sixteen or seventeen, so they were making
their dollar at the door three dollars or whatever it costs,
you know. And you know then I met Bambada that
day and he gave me his business card that said

(37:41):
Africa Bambada, Master of Records. Where did you first meet him? Was?
He was there right there that day? That was the
day I had found out about him by going to
Downstairs Records to do an interview about this new room
that they had opened, because they were one of the
reporters to Dance Music Report, uh, and they were talking
about they had just opened a new room that was

(38:03):
like the size of a walking closet that was called
the break Breaks Room or the break Beat Room. Is
this the subway version of Downstairs or with the right
here on forty three and sixth Avenue down on the
mezzanine before you go into the subway. So am I
too assume that I'm not too uh, I'm not too

(38:25):
knowledgeable in the history of the owners of Downstairs Records,
But am I I believe that they're the ones that
first started the idea of comping uh breaks and put
them on one record like the you know, they're not
the guys, they're not. No. This was when they first
sold it though, right, they might have sold records that
they weren't the ones who made it. That was like
record Lanny and Paul Winley, those were the guys who

(38:47):
did that when we had something to do with with
the guys that downstairs records like no that that store
had been there for years. It wasn't it. It wasn't
a black record store, but it was in the subway,
so you know, everyone went by it anyway. That's where
I bought my disco records. That's also where I bought
my duop records at a huge dwop collection. They had,

(39:09):
you know, all of like the indie kinds of things.
There was a couple of record stores that were in
the subways. There used to be one that was around
the Times Square shuttle that was a Latin record store
that used to walk by all the time because there's
a huge amount of traffic that goes by. And that
was in that was in the subway. This one was
before you went in. I think I'm gonna bringing that back.

(39:30):
It's it's still there. That record is that one there
the one by the one in the Times Square. I
don't know what it's called a Latin name, right I
think so? I think that's where you can have your
d stuff now right now, I mean I went in
there a couple of times. It's weird. What's in that?
What did they sell on there? Now? Do they say
wax stel? They sell a little old stuff, but yeah, yeah,

(39:52):
they're still sell vinyl, Yeah, other stuff. Where's this? It's
like in the time. It's right by where you're saying,
by the by the shuttle, Yeah, by the out the
path that shut up the strain in Times Square. Yeah,
I forget what it's called. Make a pilgrimage there. Yeah,
I I think I'm gonna embarking that. Like I have
a dream of opening a spot that sells forty five

(40:16):
in the subway, like a small boutique, kind of like
Jero does in Japan, Like I mean he charges d
dollars of mills socity. I'll make series in the village somewhere.

(40:42):
So exactly, So, uh, are you routinely coming to the
T connection? I mean I went two or three times
to the T connection. But that's very nice. At the
T connection. When I watched what he's doing. I watched
how he played the records. I saw the marks on
the records. I saw the label steamed off the records.
I saw the tape on the records. You know all

(41:04):
of the things he did. You know, at that point
I got to know Ben body. I asked him, I said,
do you want do you want to make a record
that sounds like this? Because he was playing you know,
Billy Squire, sly Stone, the Monkeys, you know, trap craft work,
all of this stuff together and all of these kids
were dancing and it was just to me it was
a revelation. I've never seen anything like it. I said,

(41:26):
this is what heaven is supposed to be. You know, everybody,
everything together, it's all okay. If you could dance to it,
come on, and you know that inclusiveness has been was
Ben Badi's theme with a Zulu Nation throughout. You know,
everybody was always welcome to the party. He invited anybody
who wanted to come, and that would happen at the

(41:48):
Bronx were ever sent there for all of the Zulu
Nation anniversary parties every year. People would come from every
country of the world and that's where all of the
film crews came from Japan and from France and from
Belgium or Holland and brought and brought video back and
exposed the whole thing that was happening with hip hop
and the pillars of hip hop, and you know, planted

(42:09):
the seeds. So you know, if anybody is the Johnny
apple Seed of hip hop, it's Africa Bamboda and I
helped so to start a label, uh in in the
early eighties. What does it take? I mean, now, when
people want to do stuff, you just put it the SoundCloud.

(42:35):
There it is. But if you're seriously now that you
you've studied distribution and DJs and you have connections, how
much does if you're you know, starting a label, how
much does it cost to start a label today? In Well,
so I borrowed five thousand dollars from my parents and

(42:55):
because I already had my rent coverage, you know, I
was doing the publication. I already had a medium I
could advertise in for free because I already had the publication.
So I had a connection to DJs, and I could
using DJs. I could break the music through the DJs too,
so I was dependent on that. But so by this
time it's dance the disco. It's not just going to
this Dance Music Report officially, I think so yes, by

(43:18):
seventy nine it became dancing. When disco died in seventy nine,
we changed the name to Dance Music Report. Yeah, yes, definitely.
And then so yeah, you know this was by this
you know, I'm saying like, let's so, I worked with
Ben Bodo. I cut a demo for what would become
Planet Rocket, a track demo, and uh, and I was

(43:38):
starting the label up and deciding what to do. Quick question, Um,
the the effects of the disco sucks uh period, the
relation racist term, No, but the the after effects of it.
It was actually more homophobic than it was. But did

(43:58):
it did that affect or deter any one from starting? Uh?
Independent labels? Because I assume that the independent labels of
the seventies were primarily to make disco records were in
the prelude t K you know, West End, you know, Yeah,

(44:21):
they were serving that community, the DJ community, because it
was so hard to get records played on radio, just
as it is today. In fact, it's worse today. But
as as you know, there were less radio stations than
and it was hard. But there were no chains, so
each radio station made their own decisions. So you can
go to one radio station and convince that programmer that

(44:42):
it would be a good idea for them to play
that record, if you know what I mean. Wink wink
and hit Man. What's his name of Frederick d. Do
you have any mo Leaving stories? Yeah? He was one
of my mentors. You know, I have plenty of more,
but the shows to share worse signing all right now?

(45:02):
But so was dominated again and you know Chris Blackwell
and more Austin. So you've worked with Mars Leavy. I
didn't work with him, but you know I spent some
time in his office, you know, having meetings. Can you
can you give us some Morris Leavy wisdom? Um that
you're allowed to? I saw? So does everybody know the um?

(45:27):
You know what's the what's the famous movie where um
where the guy owes him five bucks and he wants
to chase him across the Bronx tails. You know in
that Bronx tailing is I want to get my money
back and he says forget it for five dollars. It's
the cheapest way to ever get rid of somebody. You
don't want in your life. So I'm sitting in the
follow that rule. So so I'm sitting in in Morris

(45:50):
Leavi's office and a guy calls and and asked him
to borrow ten thousand dollars or something like that or
five thousand dollars. And he says, okay, A I want
it back in a week. If I don't get it
back in a week, um, don't ever call me again.
I don't know you. And uh and he get he
hangs up the phone. He gets he calls his assistant

(46:14):
or somebody said, have have somebody right up a check
for five thousand dollars for this guy. He's coming to
pick it up this afternoon, just like that, not a question.
And uh, so that was that rule. And but he
tells the guy in advance, which was the honorable thing
to do. And then he pays the guy gives the
guy money that it's not money he owed him, it's
money the guy needed. And Morseley, he's always helped people

(46:37):
who had gambling debts or other things not get killed
by paying the debts off, but taking you know, George
Goldner's catalog and why the Fool's fall in love And
that's why it says Lyman Leavy, but it used to
say Lyman Goldner, by the way, So he just took
George Goldner's share of the label. It's why the Beatles
that were originally signed to A their first record came

(46:58):
out to the Black Own label out of Chicago, but
because they didn't have their business straight, they lost the
record to Swan and then Capitol picked it up after that.
You know, history could be different if the Beatles had
been signed for their entire career to a Black or
VJ would have been could you imagine? So were you

(47:25):
at all worried about what the climate was going to
bring in the eighties by starting your own label, especially
with the idea of killing off disco culture the backlash
that it was facing, Like for the independent label at least,
what do you mean no, because I think what disco

(47:45):
never really died? That was a press thing because in
nine the music business had a recession. It was the
first recession. The business had been growing, I guess off
the back of cassettes and then all of a sudden
or maybe it was I forget what it was, but
for some reason, um catalog peaked and record sales dropped,
and they needed a scapegoat, and they used disco as

(48:06):
the scapegoat. Ironically, the same year disco died out of
the top ten records of that year in nine seventy nine,
like seven of them we were club hits, club dance records,
including Michael Jackson Jackson's and stuff like that. So I'm
always hearing about like this is the worst time for music.
Like even when Quincy Jones and Michael and and Bruceardin

(48:28):
are starting uh Thriller, there their first mantras We're here
to save the music industry. So I'm always hearing of
this time where like sales are down or we need
to save the industry. I mean, in your mind, when
was the quote the glory years of of the industry. Well,
there's two ways to answer that question. There's the aesthetic

(48:50):
way in the financial way. The financial way is easy
because two thousand thousand was the peak revenue um. By
two thousand and ten, the combined revenues of the U
record business were about the exact same after inflation as
they were in nineteen sixty six. So we lost about
sixty percent of all of the employees in the music
business and all of the value of the music business

(49:11):
during that period of time. So but now this year
the business is up between eight and nine percent for
the first time since nineteen seven um and last year
it was up two percent or so we have two
years of growth, the first two years of growth since
two thousand and one. Two thousand really two actually yeah,
two thousand was the last year of growth, any growth

(49:32):
at all. So yeah, and then aesthetically, I can't really say,
because you could say nineteen fifty four when rock and
roll started, you know, you could say nineteen forty nine
when bebop started, or you know, a certain kind of
jazz started, you could say, but in your heart of hearts,
nineteen seventy five when disco started. You could say nineteen

(49:53):
eighty one or eighty when when hip hop started. But
in your heart of hearts, what's your My passion lies
with this year, like what's your well? Because I mean
to du ops that era and I was born in
fifty four, so that was my year, like of of ship,
you know, that really touched me and made me cry
and made me feel like love you know, through music

(50:16):
and connected to me. But the same thing happened to
me when that day at t connection, when I saw
what Bambado was doing in the connection, I said, this
is going to change the whole game, you know. And
people talk about the four pillars of hip hop, you know,
because it wasn't it wasn't just music. It was obviously
it was the introduction of rapping on sort of a

(50:36):
formalized way, and you know, turntable, you know, and then clearly,
you know, there was a dance element, and there was
an art element to it. But there's a fifth element
that nobody talks about him. Bambod always talks about knowledge
is the fifth pillar. But the fifth pillar also is sampling,
the idea of taking something old and re contextualizing it
and making it something new. Bamboda did that live? Cool,

(50:59):
Hirk did that Live? You know? The early DJs, you know,
Theodore and those guys took little bits of things and
made them into elements that you know, became famous later.
And so sampling is clearly the fifth I don't know
if there could be hip hop without sampling. I think
I can't even imagine the first ten years of hip

(51:19):
hop if there wasn't sampling, you know, or you know,
the sampling equivalency that happened. I don't even I mean,
but that's with music. I mean, because really that's what
and Stones was doing. And cover records are that, but
you know even more interpolations which have happened before. So
before I prepared for the show by going online because

(51:40):
I know we're going to talk about sampling here, and um,
I want to quote Isaac Newton from sixteen seventy five,
Sir Isaac Newton who said, we stand on the shoulders
of giants. I'm only here because I'm standing on the
show shoulders of giants. And every sample is a sample
of a giant that came before. And even if you

(52:02):
go to that song, there was an influence. They were
on someone else's shoulder. So you got the ripples fifty
people that go back till the first guy was hitting
something with a stick, you know. So you know, it's
a really it's a real big issue that we can't
find the past and give today's creators access to the

(52:22):
past to create new futures. That's what hip hop is about,
and to me, that's the revolution of it. To add
new context to old content is to reinvent the world.
That's the ultimate recycling. That's you know, it's a divine
science and art, and I think it needs to be liberated.
So when was Tommy Boy born? And why did you

(52:43):
name it? Well? No, no, no, I mean what what
were the other options? Like? Did you have any other
options for label names? So I was studying a lot
about this and and you know the label that was
existing since seven nine that was sort of inspirational for
me was sugar Hill and um you know in nineteen eighty,

(53:06):
uh when when we started the new Music seminar um
we you know, at that point we were sort of
looking at what was happening and what what the changes
were happening. And that's when I was, you know, sort
of discovered Bamboda and and and jumped into what hip

(53:27):
hop culture was becoming. Because, by the way, in nineteen
eight wasn't called hip hop yet. Nobody talked about hip
hop till two you know, it was break music or
breaks or b boy music or something like that. Um
Bambadas told me, I wrote an article in Dance Music
Report and interviewed Cool Hurricane Africa Bambada And it must
have been around in nineteen eighty. I have to find

(53:47):
that article still when and and he was you know,
they were telling me the story of the roots of
this music and how this music evolved, because to me,
I thought we we covered every kind of dance music,
and you know, we covered reggae, dance, oriented rock, every
kind of music, and you know, this was a new
kind of dance music, at least to our readers, and
you know, I wanted to cover the evolution of it.

(54:08):
In one rappers Delight came out. It changed the world.
It's you know, it was a game changer everywhere. That
was like lightning in a bottle. That record, you know,
was a real wake up call. And that's sort of
when I started building my business plan for Tommy Boy.
You know, if they can do this, you know, then
it's possible that others can. You know that I could

(54:29):
possibly do it too. You know, I didn't think there
was special magic between Joe and Sylvia Robbinson. You know,
they might have had more pull with Frankie Crocker or
something like that, but I didn't really think that. You know.
I was also influenced by reading books about the drifters
and how how labels didn't pay artists in the duop ere,
you know, and one of the reasons I wanted to

(54:50):
start a label was I wanted to try to say,
is that you could you start a label and do
the right thing and pay people and do what you're
supposed to do and be fair you know with artists.
And so that was like a driving you know issue
from me. But it was you know, I knew I
wanted to do something, but until I saw what Bambada
was doing, I didn't see a path to do it.
And then Bamboda actually gave me the first record. You know,

(55:11):
he was sort of the A and R guy he
you know, he said, this is a great record. You
should put this record out. And it was Cotton Candy,
which was the first record I released that wasn't a hit.
Why Cotton Kenny was the group. The name of the
song was having fun and it wasn't really. That was
TB eleven catalog number first Tommy Boy released. The second

(55:33):
one was Jazzy Sensation. Was was the first Bambado record.
So Bamboda found like, you know, three or four and
then I'd go to you know, to his things and
I'd discover the four sm d s at the Zoola
Nation anniversary party that's Bronx were Ever Center or you
know Cole Crush Brothers, which I didn't get tough. Uh
you know, um, were you there for the Jazzy Sensation sessions?

(55:58):
Who was that? Do you know who the house and was?
I don't remember who the house man was. There was Stig,
it was Pumpkin and All Stars, I don't think so
it was it was Arthur Baker that produced that. Uh.
And after I had given Arthur already the demo that
I had cut for what would become Planet Rock, which
which had like replays of samples that were built into

(56:20):
it more than the ones that were ended up in
on Planet Rock, and I gave it to him and he, uh,
he said can I produce this? And I said, yeah,
that would be great. But it came up that we
wanted to do sort of a take on Funky Sensation,
So we did that one first, because that's Night and Day. Um,
if anything I can, like I consider enjoying sugar Hill.

(56:43):
It's like, okay, are they the first hip hop labels?
Or they last the last of the disco labels? And
like I consider Tommy Boy really the first hip hop
yea true you know like modernized between you and profile,
like the Real established a modern hip hop label, which
is so in other story is. I brought Corey Robbins

(57:05):
to the Tea Connection to see Ben Bodis spin. He
wasn't a hip hop label before he was. He ran
a label called Panorama before that, and then he started, uh,
Profile Records, and Profile Records was like Tommy Boy was
supposed to be a dance labe because I had a
dance publication and my DJs were you know, everything in
hip hop was disco the beginnings of People don't think

(57:26):
they think hip hop is something else. It's not. It's
like it's just like Jesus was a jew, you know,
hip hop was this The last separate was the say right,
come on makes sense? Yeah? On Ash Wednesday. So so

(57:52):
all one with Planet Rock and what it's done for technology,
and it's really just taking hip hop's leaps and bounds above.
I mean, really starting modern electro music. How what's what's
this the story behind it? Like? How was it just like, hey,

(58:16):
I have this craftwork record and how can we make
it sound robotic and futuristic like this? And Arthur Baker's like,
oh no, because I totally already had the demo that
had been done a year and a half. A year
before that was an a Rock was done in eight No,
there was an eight track demo that included the elements
that ended up being the Planet Rock plut just the
instrumental part, and three other things that we ended up

(58:38):
not using, you know, besides craftwork. Um do you say
the track was done a year? But I literally I
originally had envisioned using UM I like it by BT
express the beat from that exactly and um Rick James
give it to me, um baseline, you know so, and

(58:59):
those things were worked into the original demo as well.
Really yeah, and then we decided we didn't need that much.
It was too confusing. Does that exist? Is that the
original demot still exist anywhere? I don't have it. It
probably does. Arthur Baker might have. It was a cassette.
It must it must. Let the search begin. We gotta

(59:22):
find it. Everything exists somewhere, still alive. Yeah. Great. He
just produced the eight o eight movie, the movie on
the eight eight, which is getting ready to be the story,
thank you. So what we're talking about here is we
we had no money, so we decided to buy one
reel of two inch tape and recorded fiftps because thirty
would have been too much. And the idea here with

(59:44):
with Arthur was that we're going to make a rap
record with what we're doing here, and then we'll also
do a vocal record with the same tracks, you know,
because there was you got to see. And so so
we go, we go into the studio and it's a studio.
It's an eight five street in an old school building,

(01:00:04):
um that has that We have to walk up five
flights of stairs with all the equipment to this recording
studio called um what was the name of the studio, Intergalactic,
which was a perfect name to start electro music and
and uh, I think with the engineer and everything, all
of the cost I think it costs eight hundred dollars
to make the record, you know up there, and the

(01:00:26):
studio had a fairlight synthesizer in it. We rented an
eight oh eight. I remember with Arthur looking to try
to because there was this guy record Lenny that I saw,
you know, that used to record all of the sessions.
He recorded, like a famous section Lincoln High School which
was flash the beat. It became flash to but originally

(01:00:46):
it was a plate that a plate means uh basoko. Yeah,
we have to explain to the I'm sorry, alright, so
Flash to the Beat is uh okay. You would probably
know it as the drum genesis of gang Stars, you know,
my sties the roup, but it's really grand Master Flash

(01:01:09):
flashes on the beat playing on a very primitive drum machine,
grand Master Flash in a furious five doing uh routines.
It started out as a plate we used to call
them plates, but their ascetates, and there was a place
used to go to get an ascetate made of a
tape and so some people but they'd wear out fast,
but people would play acetates. That was really big. And

(01:01:30):
then a label independent Bonzo Miko, which I have no idea,
eventually released it. And that's that bootleg of a bootleg
of a bootleg like that just made the rounds across
the Tri State area. Um which when even when Mentel
invented uh since since sonics orth? Yeah, back in nine one,

(01:01:54):
Like I got that for my tend of birthday so
I could dotend I was doing a flash in the beat. Yeah,
so in your mind you was that your I mean,
besides the whole idea of slashdom, there's a eye going
on and what you're you're was doing with technology in
your mind you wanted to bring that sound to the studio. Well,

(01:02:18):
I used to play craft Work on my radio station
back you know, back in nineteen seventy three, so I
was already into craft work. That's why I blew my
mind so much that Bambodo could play it in front
of a sixteen year old black audience and get away
with it work and make it work, and so you know,
that's what what changed the game. So that was the
one that stood out as the most um radical departure

(01:02:40):
from what you know, black music or funk music would
have been considered at that time. So you know, that's
the one I thought we should go with, you know,
for that, but it wasn't. It wasn't because this sounded
like that, because this doesn't really sound like craft work
at all. Bambodi's style is very different than Flash of style,
and I really I only just recently have gotten to

(01:03:01):
meet Flash, you know, through the get down and being
on panels with him and stuff over the last two years.
You know, I don't really know him very well at all,
but I have mad respect for him. You know, there
were two different universes. There was the Flash universe in
the ban Body universe, and I never really entered Flashes universe,
you know. But but even at the time when you're constructing,
is like you have no idea that you're metaphorically speaking,

(01:03:25):
getting in a DeLorean and going ninety years into the
future because essentially, like all the elements that are in
this song will determine thirty years later with d M music,
with trap music, I mean, all the ingredients are are there.

(01:03:45):
And so at no point was this like a meeting
like you know, we gotta go to the future because
it would have been easier to just get a house
band to recreate the next would have been more expensive
though we didn't have enough money to pay for a base. See,
I would have thought it was more because that's why
I wanted to know how long did it take the

(01:04:06):
craft because first of all, it's a seven minute song,
Like who's essentially like putting the pieces together? Okay, so
is the is the engineer. Engineer was always the person
playing together we have learned anything. But but then there's
the assistant engineer was Bob Rosa, who went on to

(01:04:26):
become super famous himself as as an engineer and a mixer.
Both of those guys, and then um, you know, we
had a synth player that we brought in you know
who who played the lines on it, and um and
Arthur Baker was the you know, the producer, you know,
and all of us were up there just contributing whatever
ideas we had using all the technology. There was a

(01:04:48):
massive amount of technology. And I started playing around with
this fair light synthesizer that was in the room and
it had like a light pen and a green screen
you had to touch to change the things. And I
was I found this orchestra sound and you could play
polyphonic orchestra hits and create this giant sound. That's why
I want to know where did that? Yeah, so I
just said, can we figure out a way to use this?

(01:05:09):
And then Roby John Roeby was the you know guy
who did all the keyboards and stuff on that and
play the melodic parts, came over and did that. And
so you know, we we utilized that. We had rented
an eight o eight because we couldn't find Flashes drum machine,
and we brought that in and did you guys think
for a second, like can we ask him if we
could borrow it or we But they don't, I mean,

(01:05:32):
because they were different. It was the Castanova crew. That's
the Casanova crew. You know, it's like gangs stuff. You
just you don't. I wasn't going there, I mean wasn't.
I wasn't afraid to go. And I probably wouldn't have
been afraid to go to see Grandmaster Flash either, because
you know, I wasn't thinking about that either. But I
didn't want to create a conflict. Bambiodico to asked like, oh,

(01:05:54):
I know Flashy let me yeah, I don't know. I mean, okay,
I don't know that that he had. They both had
relationships with Kurt with her, but I don't know what
kind of relationship they had with each other. I mean,
even watching the get Down, I still learned how because
because Flash was you know, consulting and a producer on
the get Down, so to me, I learned a little
bit about you know, these that was written from the

(01:06:16):
Flash perspective more than the bambody perspective. You know that
there are two different you know, there's a world according
to deaf Cham where you know, Russell has his vision
of what hip hop was and where it came from.
Because he used to hang out at Sal's place, which
was disco Fever, and I never went there. I mean,
that was where the drug dealers went. You know, I
went where the kids went. And to me, the hip hop,

(01:06:37):
the dancers, the creators, they were all young, really young.
The older guy the guys that were wearing suits and
drink drinking splits of moette where all, you know. And
they had like, you know, velvet pictures of James Brown
on the walls and stuff. By the way, were these
afternoon parties or night parties? These were night parties, but
they were they They weren't cardon back then as hard

(01:06:57):
and uh they had day stuff too in the parks.
But I didn't go to those because I was working.
But you know, i'd go after I worked. I'd go
out at night and and and see him there. The
the Bronx river ones were even earlier because they were
in the in a wreck room in in in the project.
All right. I own an adite drum machine and it

(01:07:18):
as hard as hell. Two program it and really get
it to do what you want to do execution wise.
Who was the A to eight meister? Was? It was
that author? Uh? I think Roby figured it out. He
was the more technically savvy guy, but and Arthur Baker

(01:07:38):
both worked on it. Um together and and figured out
what they wanted to do, and they might have actually
had done some programming in advance. I can't remember. Um,
a lot of that happened all spontaneously there, including the
you know, the guys had written their rhymes, and a
lot of the stuff that happened with the rhymes was
spontaneous too, like exactly I forgot the lyrics. How I

(01:08:03):
forgot the lyrics, and you know, Arthur wanted to take
it over again. I said, no, that's good, let's just
leave that. You know, that was better. So when it's
over and said and done and mixed, are you too
involved in it to really realize that you guys might
have rea You never know until you played in from

(01:08:25):
an audience. The first time we had an inkling that
something was going to be crazy, you know, was when
you played in front of an audience. By the way,
this was the second bamby the Timmy Boy record. Jazzy
Cessation had come out already the year before and was
a hit. It did like forty copies, which for me
painted by parents, backed alone right away, and um, you

(01:08:46):
know I remember, very important thing to remember is bringing
that record to w HBI, to Mr Magic show because
Mr Magic was the first person in the world the radio.
Was he polite to you, He was cool, he was
you know, he was he was super cool. And I
went up there and it was in the Fantastic A.
Leams were up there at the same time. Yeah, they're

(01:09:08):
bringing their record up the same day, Hooked on Your
Love or whatever A Near Records, which was their label,
and you know, those guys were from the hood and
I was totally not from the hood. So I was
going into you know, and they already knew Magic and
I was just meeting him, and they played both records.
But Bambada had such an audience in the Bronx that
the phones went absolutely nuts, and I got orders for

(01:09:30):
five thousand records the next Monday. That's when I knew
I had something once been ten thousand wat or fifty
thousand watt station that had uh you know, um Hasidic
Jews afterwards doing talent time and you know, Brooklyn Lasta's
doing you know whatever deep reggae before uh you know,
he had his little three hours spot. So it wasn't

(01:09:52):
like a radio station people tuned into. It was a show,
the only show, but it was the only place you
could hear hip hop. So everybody listen into it and
who was into it. And at this time, like where
there was sample clearances, even the things like the craft
Work sample, it wasn't a sample. It was played. So

(01:10:12):
the guys that did the Mexican where they like, hey,
that's our melody or so we didn't have an issue
with that one because they probably stole it from the Good,
the Band and the Ugly and it was really any
of Morri Coney. Yeah, you know, um so I don't
know what. So that's the only reason I can think
that after all the years, nobody ever came. But you know,
after Planet Rock became pretty big, I got a letter

(01:10:35):
from the publishing company of uh of craft Work. I
didn't know. I didn't I didn't really understand copyright. You know,
I wasn't that, you know, I was pretty young. I
was just starting my company. I got a shock treatment
learned when I got the letter, and we had to
figure out a way to settle. And you know, it
was like one of the early settlements. What is your

(01:10:58):
distribution game? Like it's ares are you in a position
now where you're getting more orders than you have and
you can handle that? You can handle. Are you like
I need a full time staff now too. I had
two employees I had at once. I got the letter
from Krafford to hire the lawyer at full time. I'm

(01:11:19):
talking about to even get the records, and many records.
We just tell the pressing plant we need more, you know,
and you know, and we have to pay up front.
So yeah, we need to get cash. So we had
to go sell records directly to the record store for
two dollars instead of to fifty, and we get cash
so we could pay for the presses, you know, so
you could turn the cash flow around fast. Or we

(01:11:41):
give the distributor or a discount and they would pay
us up front instead of paying half up front. There
were ways in those days where you could get money
if you had a hit and it was a big demand.
The distributor as happy as hell because it was the
big record driving for them and they needed to make
sure that we had cash flow to pay the pressing plan.
So they'd squeeze us for an extra discount and give

(01:12:01):
us money up front so we could pay the pressing plant.
Were you your own distributor or who were you using? No?
I had twelve distributors to cover America in those days,
you had to have twelve distributors. There's we had a
New York distributor, Philly distributor Universal in Philly, we had
a distributor in Washington, Baltimore, Miami, Atlanta, Chicago, Uh, you know, Cleveland, Boston, Hartford.

(01:12:27):
I'm telling you, it's crazy. San Francisco, l a Um,
Texas and New Orleans. And then what about nationally Shreveport,
a separate one in Streepoort, what about internationally? How to do?
And actually we didn't know what we're doing. We we
licensed the record internationally to a PolyGram subsidiary called One
and they gave us whatever, like a twenty dollar advance

(01:12:50):
for the for the world as a president of the label.
How are Africa, Bimbada and the Old Sonic Force doing
this song in concert? Are they are? Is their demand
to bringing them? Like? Is? I mean? How are you
guys dealing with the esthetics of Like we had to

(01:13:10):
make it, we made it. How did you make it
work on while? I saw the video? But how do
you make it work on stage? Like? Are we getting
a band to try and recreate this? Is there? Bambodis
DJD because the other thing the time we boy did
was we were innovating um in in the records themselves.
First of all, a lot of the twelve inches at
the time were forty fives. We only did thirty threes.

(01:13:33):
We put the beats permitted on the record so the
DJs would know what the beats permitute was. By the way,
what's the beats permitted in a Planet rock? Anybody? Very good? Yeah.
We also put bonus beats on that record, the first
record ever that had bonus beats, because we wanted to
give DJs tools because we knew who our audience was.

(01:13:55):
Sugar Hill didn't think that they thought their audience was
record bied. We thought our audience DJs, and the DJs
became record buyers, and record buyers follow started buying with
the DJs. But even though they weren't DJs, So you know,
twelve inches, which were just a DJ market until like
seventy eight or seventy nine started becoming planet I think
um the first record that really probably went multi platinum

(01:14:19):
um off twelve inch was probably Rappers Delight or Heartbeat
by Town of Gardner. Do you know the Heartbeat story
with Larry Levan. I wanted to see this earlier when
he mentioned down tempo. So Larry Levan uh defiantly, Oh yeah, yeah, yeah.
How he played it like times in a row? Well,

(01:14:41):
well they said three hours, but I feel like he
it might have been under twenty times in a row.
That's how you broke it at Yeah. He literally was
going to force them to dance to down tempo as
opposed to discou and their thing was to have a
sit in. So for the first war, five times people

(01:15:01):
were sitting under the dance. His audience was like, no,
we're sitting and Lair Levan was like, no, I'm I'm
the controller here. You don't you know you're not. Don't
try that. Don't try to a few people to get
away with that. I will I will play what you
want to hear after I see the dance to this.
And so after the twentieth time, they're like, all right,
damn it, and then they started and then they have

(01:15:23):
been He literally Stockholm syndrome them into That's good to
know though, But that heart that heartbeat record was the
transition and so that is not it's not disco, but
it is downbeat. And didn't yeh to stack like he
literally forced them by Gunpoint too. You know, it was
radical at the time because it was like PM s

(01:15:43):
where the average record was disco fied and so yeah, yeah,
but and he already played doubt tempo compared to the
White Gate you know discos where they were playing un
So Africa. So the other thing we did was we
had an instrumental B side and a version that had
Tina Be on it, which was Arthur's wife, Tina Baker

(01:16:04):
see E's Tina Be. Yeah, I did not know, and
and uh that allowed us to get play on in
clubs that were gay clubs because it was the right
tempo and they weren't going to play a record with
a rap on it. So that so our record got
played everywhere. Everyone could play our record. Also, um, you know,
punk rock was fast, so a lot of the you know,

(01:16:26):
people who like to play rock music couldn't play early
hip hop because it was too slow for what they
were playing, but they could play Planet Rock. So Planet
Rock was a breakthrough record on so many levels. Also,
Latin kids went nuts, Asian kids went nuts because this
whole you know, this was the Pac pac Man Asteroids
versus pac Man kind of period where people were hearing

(01:16:47):
these electronics sounds in video games and going crazy over
him and you know here in electron music. We also
had real support in Detroit, which was like the funk
capital of the world, from the electrifying Mojo, who was
the big Djo who broke all the early George Clinton
stuff on the air and he was God in Michigan
and so you know, he broke it through the whole

(01:17:09):
funk you know scenario. So we got really great support
from the record because we put elements in it that
we're inclusive, that look, this record isn't just for the Bronx.
This record is for everybody. If you're gay and into
your disco play the B side, you know, if you're
having trouble getting into it, used the bonus speeds to
get into it. We gave everybody everything they needed, and

(01:17:30):
to me, that was a breakthrough part of the record too.
It made it easier for the record to catch on.
When you only have two employees in the company, you'll
talk not to jump the gun, but because you keep
talking about how well versed you were on the diversity
of the gay community. Is that when you like ran
into like a young RuPaul, because I mean that's a
person of a certain age. I was just curious because
it was much later. RuPaul was right. I didn't know

(01:17:53):
because he used to be He used to intern at
the New Music Seminar for us. He used to perform
and perform at a show at the Saint at the
New Music Seminar once. Um, you know, uh, and he
was an amazing performer. But you know Monica really, you
know Monica Lynch who was the president of Tommy Boy
actually not me, and she, you know, she was the

(01:18:15):
one that brought that in and you know, because she understood,
you know, she was came from Chicago and she came
out of that culture, you know, the the the gay disco,
the ball culture and stuff like that coming out of
Planet Rock. A lot of the stuff y'all followed up with.
I guess it fell under like the I guess they
were called it freestyle at the time. Was it like
the Latin hipop? Yeah? Latin hip hop? Who was first

(01:18:38):
they called it Latin hip hop? Then they called it freestyle? Okay, okay,
got you? Um who was some of those artists? T
K A. That was the big one. We had K
seven t K A. So the K K seven is
the K and t K A Tony K and Society,
I mean didn't really start with Information Society was the
Information Society, which was Sala Batiello who had the Fever,

(01:18:58):
had a club called the Devil's Nest Elnio del Diablo
in the Bronx also, and and Louis Vega used to
spin there, and Louis Vega discovered this record and brought
them in from Minnesota. These guys are like Vikings from Minnesota,
and they came they came in there. You know, this
white group came in and played an all Puerto Rican
club in the Bronx and they were white. Never saw

(01:19:22):
the video, not only white, original white, the barbarians from
you know, because silent more than like all that stuff
just sounded and all the Puerto Rican kids in my
high school I just thought they were Puerto Rican because
I guess so. Yeah. So that was probably eighty four,

(01:19:43):
like two years after Planet Rock, or maybe late eighty three,
because Running was the first record which used the eight
oh eight in it. Also, so when you know it
was discovered and Louis Louis played, these guys thought they
were playing to a rock Oudians because they thought they
were a rock band and when they SA didn't know
who their audience was, and we sort of had to
do an adjustment so they can understand you can try

(01:20:06):
and play rock music or you can embrace this gaant,
this audience here. And it was really amazing to see.
Well imagine that a group going against their will, playing,
playing and surviving off audience. They then, who would ever
thought that would ever happen to a group Again, I
feel as though everything that you've brought to the table

(01:20:26):
UH from Tommy Boy Records, especially in the first ten
years of the label UH, was a a foot forward
as far as the culture and innovation, and of course
you know you are established that as the natural contrarian,
you were trying to go to the places other people
weren't going. UM. And I guess probably the second most

(01:20:49):
notable signing of your label Ghost, that's the four M
D S. UM tell me about Well, first of all,
changing the four S mcs from Staten Island to the
four S M d S was dr rock in the
four S m c s. Yeah, So how did you

(01:21:12):
how did you run into them and and sort of
groom them and like did they already come package as
they were letters? Because I feel like that's you. You know,
I already said that, you know, but I saw I
saw him perform at one of Africa Bambodas Zulu Nation events.
They were Zulu, I mean there were people in that

(01:21:35):
were affiliated with the Zula Nation and oldboroughs there from
Staten Island, so you know, all of Staten Island hip
hop that came out of Staten Island grew up on
four S m d s. And you know, they had
Jesse d who was the singer who used to do
Michael Jackson invitations on the on the Staten Island ferry
and raise money that way. And yeah, they were but

(01:21:55):
they were super talented and I heard him sing a
song that blew my mind at this show. It was
hip hop and hip hop beats, but they did this
beautiful four part harmony or five part harmony routine to
the F Troop theme song, which was really amazing. But
for our listeners out there, like a lot of early

(01:22:19):
hip hop routines were just based on TV things but
Ron Stone, Cowboy and and by yeah exactly. So a
lot of these early hip hop routines are based on
uh uh F whatever that is UHF channel uh reruns

(01:22:41):
and stuff like exactly shout out the weird out who
wants to be on Quest Love Supreme by the way,
Hey bring it yell will. So alay back to the
four s d s. So you saw them do this routine,
and you I thought that, you know, they were super commercial,
and I thought that this concept of harmony over hip

(01:23:04):
hop beats might be another departure point because you have
to understand who also at this time, the DJ was
the main person in the rap group, not the rappers,
and the DJ usually had the musical idea and their
name always was first it was Africa, Bombada and Grass,
your grand MSR Flesh and Eric B. And you know

(01:23:25):
it was because the person with the records was the master.
You know, the the DJs were fungible. I mean the
mcs were fungible. There's everybody wanted to be an MC.
It also didn't cost money to be the MC. It
cost money you got to invest to have the equipment,
the records and all that stuff. So they were the
guys and often they came with a musical idea. Jazzy

(01:23:47):
Jeff and the Fresh Prince and again, you know, so
these are the guys and then things There was a
point in the music industry where that changed and they
went to outside producers and that was sort of to
me a sea change in the music business. But Tommy
Boys strength came from self contained groups that had a
sound of their own. That came where the vision came

(01:24:11):
from the DJ slash producer. You know, whether they were
a great producer or not was something else. But they
usually had a musical vision that we had to interpret.
You know, Bambara had a musical vision Arthur Baker interpreted,
where where they easily sold on the Frankie Lyman approach
of yeah, they were open to whatever. At the point

(01:24:33):
they wanted a record deal and they weren't going to
get a record deal. It wasn't like there was a
lot of competition. Maybe they would have thought, but you know,
I said, look, you know, it's the same street corners
as a great story here, let's let's do this thing.
And also maybe we can you know, get get girls
really into this group, because you know girls, you know,
and so that would be you know, a way to

(01:24:55):
expose it and break it. And also I was dealing
with radio because I was the guy actually called radio too,
so I was working radio and talking to radio DJs,
trying to get them to play hip hop, which they
didn't want to play. They hated it. They you know,
if they played hip hop, they had one slot on
their playlist or two slots on their playlists. So it
was very hard to get them to play it. And
even though I didn't have any major label competition for

(01:25:18):
ten years, during this period of time, there's plenty of
indie label competition. We were all chasing the same guys
with hip hop records, and you know, the record had
to be really good. So, you know, I thought that
a record that was a lot, you know, a vocal record,
would would not be considered a hip hop record. But

(01:25:38):
because it was on Tommy Boy and we had hip
hop heids, they didn't even listen to them. I can't
play this hip hop record, it's not a hipp listen
to the record you could play. At what point did
crush groove come into the picture for them and didn't
have like an effect on the records? Actually they were
in I remember mari OVNP and I'm Shame this five.

(01:26:04):
I saw him eight beginning. Yeah, I think I think
for some D's performance and wrapping was the that was
the was the highlight of the movie of the film
or Griffin Dunns rap at the end, the horrible rap
what was But they weren't I mean they weren't us.

(01:26:25):
It was they did it for scratching, and that was earlier.
Rapping was first, so that must have been eighty five. Yeah,
I mean it's for scratches. I mean, let me love
you was it was a good introduction. But really I
know that b boys got to open on it's and
for scratching. Even when they opened for a new edition.
I've seen three full force new edition shows and I

(01:26:45):
always felt like full force or force m d oh
my god, I said full force Crocker four some ds
opening for a new edition. I could tell that they
were out for blood, like they performed harder, and you
know they were doing all the invitations they have dance routines. Yeah,

(01:27:06):
way way past. I mean they were rhyming, they were singing,
they were imitating Michael Jackson costumes. We have to talk about.
I think that was me on the record. That was
I don't my sound effects of this time, just that part, okay,

(01:27:27):
so well, yeah, because I always wanted to know why
did they By the time Chilling came out and Tenderlove
had had made Noise Love was like the first top
ten record for Jimmy jam and Terry Lewis. Yeah, it
was so were they be because the cover of children

(01:27:47):
was like them in Offers and it was chilling. I
know literally that. But were they telling you, as an executive, like,
we don't want to go the bubble? Were over that
right away because it didn't work. We tried it, We
tried to connect to that audience and it didn't connect.
So we went a new way. Oh, my dad actually

(01:28:09):
liked that. He liked because I had to Let Me
Love You twelve inch and it looked the way that
the photo was positioned, he looked just like the Frankie
Lyman thing. So my dad instantly got, oh, that's what
they're they're coming from. And so they did. They like
the music when he listened to it, it was my

(01:28:31):
It was my music, not his music. But I definitely
know that harmonies at least, you know, I know that
he saw the cover and was like, oh, that's frank
By the way he broke with the cover to his
first record was a record somebody had done before. Really, no, no, no,
I mean literally the photo I know what you're talking
the cover, Yeah, with Clamming Fatter, that's what who orchestrated

(01:28:53):
them getting with jam and Lewis? Like, was that for
the Crust Grooves soundtrack? Also at this time, you're about
to go to war of Brothers, right, Like, at what
point are you in the middle of the in the
middle of making that. We had already made that record.
Then I was talking to Mo Austin about about doing
a joint venture with Warner Brothers where we maintained our independence,
but we were half phoned by Warner m So did

(01:29:16):
you were you executive of the Crushed Groove soundtrack because
it was on Warner Brothers and we had we had
one record on there and it was gonna the album
is gonna be on Warner Brothers, but this was gonna
be the single that drove the album. So this was
the single that was gonna sell their album for them,
so that there was a natural conversation anyway to talk

(01:29:36):
to him about doing something bigger together. So was that
song ever officially on a Force in D's album eventually
became on Chilling but after the Fat After but I
thought because you were had one ft in Warner and
one foot at Tommy Boy. That didn't the single come
out on both labels though, like it wasn't twelve in

(01:29:59):
on Warning. The deal that we made with Warner was
all the twelve inches came through Tommy Boy and they
had the albums. So actually Warner released the four C
M D s album Chilling I think came through Warner Um,
and we had the twelve inches. That was the deal.
We we kept the twelve inches and they kept the
forty five in the albums, and that was important. That
was important for you to keep the twelve inches for

(01:30:20):
the branding. And also we were independent. We want we
also had international We could make international deals. We had
our own licensing ability to make licenses. We we did
our own promotion. They did promotion too. But you know,
one of the reasons I did a deal with Warner
was I wanted access to top forty radio and they
had access to the Indian network and the Indian network.

(01:30:41):
We couldn't. It was so expensive and we were so
small we didn't have the leverage or the scale to
access it. So when once we made the deal, the
pale investigations happened and Warner stop choosing indies. So I
never got that advantage, which was one of the reasons
I made right the Big Ready six right when we
moved over there. Who knew? So how do you how

(01:31:09):
do you curb the enthusiasm of an artist signed to
the label that you know, because because by this point,
you know, Thriller has gone full bloom and you see
the potential with Michael Jackson selling forty million units and

(01:31:31):
princes out there like now, black artists are finally getting
their just due to live in the or at least
the perception of it, because I know a lot of
that spoken mirrors. So you're on an independent label and
knowing what I know, I know that the expectation factor
of some certain artists are way high and above what

(01:31:55):
the reality is like they don't take into account. Uh. Ok,
you have to do a show in Cleveland and it's
five of you, so that's hotel rooms and there's a
tour manager. What do you mean rooms? Okay, well, just

(01:32:15):
the idea. We can drive back from Cleveland. We don't
need to stay over. Yeah, I see, I'm taking my before.
But you know, if business was ruined by then, you
never knew hunger. I know. I'm so glad I got
on the completion of that trainboy, Uh, but how do

(01:32:38):
you what's what's an what's an artist expectation, especially an
artist that's not aware of Hey, I gotta pay for
this Billboard magazine ad to make sure that you're promoting,
and that cost forty dollars. I gotta you know. I'm
sure that you've been on the many end of an

(01:33:01):
argument of an artist versus record exact. Weren't we rich
only after the majors got into the business and fucked
it up for everybody else? It wasn't in the in
the eighties, that was never an issue. We had to
figure out, how do the issue isn't to get on
the charts. This is year is to get exposure. Exposure
leads to sales, that's it. Word of mouth leads to sales.

(01:33:23):
Those are the things that we cared about. So how
do we focus on maximizing exposure. So Tommy Boy invented
the sticker. Tommy Boy invented started doing front page strips
and billboard on every record we released. We treated twelve
inches like albums. We worked them as if they were
album projects. You know. We also worked our artists internationally

(01:33:44):
like they weren't. The back page of the Source every week.
We controlled the backpage of the Source for ten years.
We we advertised in the Source when it was still
a staple together tip sheet and at a Harvard university,
how do you control the bat It means that nobody
can outbid you on the back We had a subscription.
We paid for it all we had, you know, we
paid in a for three and if in advance when

(01:34:06):
they needed cash flow, and then we just we we
had a contract with them for the back page. So
you know, there were things that we you know, there
are things that Tommy Boy did you know when Greg
Mack left the radio station, Well when he when he
left Houston where he was a hip hop radio DJ
and Houston and we knew him and supported him. He

(01:34:28):
came to K Day and he remembered that we supported
a show at K Day. We supported you know, everybody's
you know who had a hip hop publication when they
started and as their businesses grew, they remembered that we
were always there at the beginning. So there's massive love
for Tommy Boy all, you know, from the beginning, because
we nurtured everyone and and you know, there's very few

(01:34:50):
people you could talk to in the business that don't
have love for Tommy Boy, which is not a usual
thing in hip hop, which is the world of haters
mostly that sound worldful. That was on the fourth some
DS on song they told a story I want to
get your side of it about the they wanted to

(01:35:11):
work with Teddy Riley and Teddy Riley was gonna do
tracks on I can't remember. It was the I think
it was maybe the third album and the label just
didn't want to pay for it because Teddy was charging
at that time. What was something that Yeah, exactly it
was exorbitant, but um, what was your what's your side
of that? And did was it something that just didn't

(01:35:33):
make sense or how did you determine what to pay for?
I don't know, you know, I can't remember specifically. I
do remember trying to get them, but availability and the
kind of you know, like would I pay fifty dollars
to clear a sample on one track? No, I'm not
doing that, but you know Kanye will do that everybody.
You know, there's an economics in the music business, and

(01:35:53):
the difference between indies and majors is the indies are
have to make a profit or they go out of
business to just don't have to make a profit. They've
been losing money for ten years. They're still here. They're
not you know, they don't have and their business is
based on market share, so they will spend ten dollars
to make five dollars as long as they can control
x amount of the chart. We aren't. We aren't even

(01:36:14):
in the same business that they're in. So when they
got into hip hop, it changed the nature of hip hop,
and it made it very corporated, you know, and UM
kept some of the sort of the street creativity that
came from discovering something on the street and starting with
nothing and bringing to something to something where the second
you signed, you know, the may box pulls out, got

(01:36:37):
a bag of money, you know. So okay, being as
though you're you're it was front loaded instead of backead
so being as though you're one of the last execs
that built this reputation off of the idea of groups. Now,
in hindsight, I hear people say, especially in documentaries, that

(01:37:00):
it's way more easier to control solo artists than it
is a group UM, which leads to, uh, I guess
my my question about that's a sonic as an independent
label owner. Are you at any point thinking about the
financial hindrance and the burden of dealing with six to

(01:37:25):
seven people. I mean, you're dealing with a group and
I'm thinking right six with the drummer if, well, yeah,
to me, that's their angle. Sorry, so of course where
whoever he is? No, But it's just like if I'm
if I'm pretending i'm you, I'm thinking about god a

(01:37:48):
band that's back line, that's a twelve passenger van. If
that uh I was saying hotels you like? So, I
mean what I know, there weren't limitations back then, but
clearly that was the last of an era because in

(01:38:09):
the next ten years, the really in the next six years,
the idea of a band or group will become an
endangered species thing. So why we weren't thinking about touring
because we were the label. We're you know, ore were
only contracted to make money when the group sells music,

(01:38:31):
so we don't profit from their touring. I never really thought,
but you never thought like, okay, well, touring will build
up their uh popularity and thus you we can make
more records, and you know, you know that hasn't always
been the case for for us UM. In fact, every
group we signed, we we had never seen live till

(01:38:53):
after we signed them, and they never really got gigs,
significant gigs. I mean I saw four m ds that
made me is exception for that. But Stets are signed.
We heard the record, We signed them off the record.
You've never seen them live, Dala sold. We saw that
not at that time, you know, they were developing their
concept and Prince Paul, you know, was involved obviously was
the DJ in that group too. But Mr Magic brought

(01:39:15):
us that group. So Mr Magic brought me the demo.
I liked the demo, you know, and we brought them
and we recorded them and actually in my apartment, we
had a track in the second bedroom. When we moved
Dance Music Report out, we moved the studio into the
second bed whom we had four teck and we recorded
them in in the bedroom. We put Mike's in the
living room and in an apartment and they weren't home.

(01:39:40):
We recorded during the day. What song was that did
you record? Just say Stet? We tried to re record,
but we tried to re record it because they had
done it tape in the studio in Brooklyn and all
they had was a cassette and something happened, they didn't
pay their bill or whatever, and there was no master tape,

(01:40:00):
and we tried to replicate it, and we ended up
just using the cassette master from the cassette because we
couldn't make it better, like you know, like sugar Hill
with Flash the beat you Chasing the demo, it's like literally,
But we did record other tracks up there as well,
and I remember fru Quan fall in Sleep and Uh

(01:40:21):
and also mixed machine Wise, who was like amazing human
beat bucks at the time. Now, okay, the I feel
like the idea of stets A Sonic and the legend
of sex stets of Sonic was bigger what they actually
were because and you know, and for history sake whatever,

(01:40:42):
I've been respectful in this stuff, like okay, yeah, we're
the second hipop band whatever. I never truly, I never
really considered stets A Sonic a hip hop band because
when I listened to their records, it sounded like Bobby
wasn't in the studio. Well it sounds well no, Well
mean he was for the three or four important songs
he was drumming on. But I always thought that was

(01:41:05):
a marketing angle more than even when that I think
that was Daddio's idea, by the way, Oh yeah, and
the Beastie Boy issue of Spin magazine. They were very interested.
Daddio was very involved in um the uh you know,
the marketing ideas and the concepts. We used to actually
fight about it sometimes because we didn't always agree. But

(01:41:26):
a lot of the ideas that that are instead sonic
uh are those But you know, records like talking All
that Jazz to me is still a classic, the first
record about sampling really you know, that whole issue it was.
It was so I'm saying, like, when you're doing this
and by the time did they make their debut at

(01:41:47):
the New Music Seminar Maybe I can't remember which we're
kind of skipping that. You started the New Music Seminar?
I CO I CO started it with a bunch of
other people. There was another there was the what was it?
So the DJ culture was exploding. There was a there
was a rock oriented thing called rock Pool that serviced

(01:42:10):
rock DJs, rock music you know, um, post punk, you know,
new wave and stuff like that. DJs that played specifically
rock music at the time, and because rock was so
big with the labels, they got big support from the
record companies, UH and disco was always like the bastard
child of the music industry. That's why she just got

(01:42:32):
rejected for the eleventh time. UM broke the record for
the eleventh you know, um of being rejected. But Nile
will get in this year on a special award. But
we're going to get You're gonna get an Al Rodgers
specifically because he'll tell you the story about rappers, the
light and the sample and great. He's a friend of

(01:42:53):
the show. UM. So for the New Music Summer, when
was the very first one eighty and s ir rehearsal students.
It was a one day in do you who performed? No, No,
There were no performances at night. The first one was
just a one day thing the same day as the
Billboard Disco Forum and the Disco Forum fell off, and

(01:43:16):
we packed like a hundred and fifty or t people
in the room, and we're talking about issues with radio
and issues DJ issues. We talked about remixing and things
that nobody really was talking about elsewhere. And we didn't
see disco is a hundred and thirty beats per minute.
We saw dance music or DJ culture is something different.
So we took the perspective, the DJ perspective, because both

(01:43:38):
of our publications pulled our resources and reached out to
the DJ community. So it was the DJ community and
finally getting access to the music industry through the New
Music Seminar, and then that built and built in one
it grew. We went into a club and then in
eighty two went to the Sheridan, and then it went
to the Hilton for two years and then to the Marriott.

(01:44:00):
You know, and I know that there's gonna be an
episode of The Breaks where this giant fight at the
New Music Seminario. Yeah, yeah, with the New Music Seminar.
That was like in the in the pilot. Yeah that
wasn't Oh yeah yeah that was in the pilot. But
now we have an episode where it actually takes place
at I saw the Coming Attractions and it looks just

(01:44:22):
like it. They did a fantastic job. Thank you man.
We take We shot that actually at the what's the
hotel across the street from penn Station the uh yeah,
shot at the Hotel Pennsylvania. The rats are over there, boy, yeah,
they got tales to tales. That's when we shot it.
That's crazy. So what what was your I guess when

(01:44:46):
I first started hearing about the new music seminar Um.
Well Search has his tales of that's when Russell first
saw him. Um the night I remember with the infamous
Craig g Versus Supernatural battle, Like, what are your what
are your fond memories of Well? Because I was running it,

(01:45:09):
you have to understand that, Um, I I was dealing
with registration, I was dealing with planning and everything yourself like.
And I was doing Tommy Boy at the same time
and Dance Music Report at the same thing, So imagine
all of that. And when this thing was happening, I
would move downtown to our office and on Lower Broadway

(01:45:31):
and we would uh you know, and I would work
there for like three months of the year, and I'd
come to the Tommy Boy offices two days a week
and being the seminar officers like three days a week. Um.
And then when the two weeks before, I wouldn't even
come to the Tommy Boy offices, So you know, it
was that kind of thing, you know, So it was
it was so my memories of it are you know,

(01:45:53):
the few panels that I got to see because I
had to go to all of them and run around
and do everything and sort of manage the stuff that
I was trying to manage, Like you know, who was
the keynote speaker, was Frank Zappa or whoever was going
to speak. I mean, you know, the press and what
was happening, People trying to sneak in which was happening.
There was so much stuff going on. If there was
a fight, which that happened at one time, that became

(01:46:17):
legendary Cube versus Lynch mob one. Yeah, that's I think,
And I think also Miami was involved because I think
what's his name was, Luke was involved with that as well.
They were thrown tables. I was told in the pan
and then I had to stay in the green room
the panelists ready room to talk to to set up

(01:46:37):
all the people, because I helped put all the panels together.
So I had to tell explained to the moderator what
we're trying to achieve from each each panel discussion, so
that the level of discourse would be high enough and
we would achieve what we're trying to achieve from each one.
It wasn't just go up there and do whatever you
want to do. It was like I was producing all
of the events that were happening, and then at night

(01:46:59):
then other people were doing the showcases in the you know,
all of the shows that would happen when some who
were some of the most notable debuts that happened at
the New Music Seminar that now our household names or
at least Nirvana. I wouldn't call it a debut, but
they played a tiny little club um and they played

(01:47:19):
this and was one of his last gigs before he died.
Also was at the New Music Seminar UM. And uh,
there was a bunch of rock groups that came and
did their debuts. You know, so much stuff happened at
the seminar, and there were so many people that would come.
I'm still hearing stories I didn't know about about people
who got their start. Yeah, people met, you know, I
know a big producer at one point was the president

(01:47:42):
of Atlantic, Danny Goldberg met his wife and the panety
was on at the New Music Seminar. Other people like
Craig Calman is the you know now the CEO of
Atlantic used to come to the seminar before he really
got started. And when you know people who used to
head into it at the seminar, I didn't know somebody
told me Rupole was an interne. I didn't know Rupole

(01:48:03):
was an interne at the seminar, but I know I
saw him at the seminar. Maybe it was that year
or some other year. I mean, it's all a blur,
because you know there were they were like you know,
panels over three days and three hundred or for hunt
speakers and five hundred bands performing. It was just so
much happening. We had a team of like twenty people
just to produce that event. Year round. We had like

(01:48:26):
eight people year round working at that event. So at
what point are you now expanding, Tommy boy? When does
Monica Lynch come into the situation? When do you get
a full staff? Monica was there almost from the beginning.
So I started with Jazzy Sensation, and I think sometime
I met Monica, probably around eighty one or eighty two,

(01:48:51):
I can't remember which year. She started right around then,
but almost from the beginning, it was just me and
her first there, we were the only two people that
worked there, and then we had we got another person
as an assistant, and we started to grow it a
little bit after that. What were your I mean, did
you guys share the same aesthetic, like what the label

(01:49:11):
should be or is it just like you know, is
it her job? Just did here with the And by
the way, we were also running Dance Music Report at
the same time, so we were still putting the stickers
on and writing the articles and that while we were
doing Tommy Boy two. So when she started, she was
doing both things with me. She was doing everything I
needed to be done, and that's I needed to do everything,
So she did it all. Were what were your feelings

(01:49:34):
towards the competition at least def Jam? Were you guys
looking at them like, well, Jeff before def Jam started, right,
But I'm saying once def Jam comes and it's like, okay,
now the car is getting crowded. Well, I think Run
dmc um was it was it was more rushed than
it was def Jams. So Run dmc was the first
one and that was profile really that stepped into our

(01:49:56):
territory in a in a significant way. And uh, you know,
I had mad respect for for what they're doing. And
I'm very close friends with Corey Robin still Um who
who had that label, And so I don't know, it's
you know, I don't know that I never really was competitive,
really I'm not a I'm not a good competitor. I'm

(01:50:17):
much more better innovator, you know. So I'm just I
would look at what they would do just so I
wouldn't do that. You know, whatever they're doing, I want
to do the opposite of that. That's sort of the
contrarian thing I was talking about before, is like, Okay,
so Russell's doing this and this, what can I do?
He's not doing it? Brings us to day law. Well,
he used to call my music frantic because his music

(01:50:37):
was more R and B influence. You know, he was
the guy who would be hanging out at the you
know what I would go to. If I would go
to the Tea Connection and Bronx we Ever Center, he
would not be there. He would he would be drinking
splits a moe at at you know, at the Fever.
You know, he was a fever guy. You know. Wait,
it just hit me. Uh you had interactions with Jake King.

(01:51:01):
Would you consider Club New Vote a Tommy Boy artist
or was that just a we put out all the
twelve inches? So yeah, we broke all those records with
our team. What about was Timex Social Club also? And
that are they that was on mccola Records. Don McMillan. Yeah,

(01:51:24):
that guy, the guy who on that rumors like the
last that's the Unmalcola, not Malaco mccola. The Coast Underwater
Rhymes was on mccola. You know, all all of those records.
He had also had um what's his name from Miami.

(01:51:46):
He had Luke Skywalker was there. You know, all of
the Bay Area groups were on because he owned the
pressing plan on Santa Monica Boulevard, so everybody went to
him to get records pressed. So he became the default label.
He was a tugboat captain from Alaska. Don McMillan. He
didn't know to say no, He just said all right,
I'll press it. So you know he ran the front

(01:52:08):
door and the back door when the pressing plane. So
you know he he could have been the biggest record
company in the world if he had paid people and
done things right. But you know everybody complained that he wasn't.
He wasn't straight with people. So he just got people
to the next level, which was well, he got the
record out and got them established. You know, I see

(01:52:28):
so because I guess well lead on me wanted a Grammy.
I believe we're at least who did deal with it.
I'm still so, uh, what was it about them that,
you know, did you feel like we we should expand
to the West coast? And no? Uh, I think where

(01:52:49):
did they come to? You? Well, we had a relationship
with Warner So that was a record label that was
signed to Warner that I liked because I was a
big fan of Time at Social Club, which I think
was one of another one of the biggest twelve inaches
of all time. It was one of those record of
the year records that never got the credit that it do.
And I went and found found him, and you know,

(01:53:11):
I said, let me do this because I know what
to do. You guys aren't gonna know what to do.
Warner Brothers really wasn't like a black music label. They
didn't really break very many black artists at all, and
they definitely didn't know what is that to say that
for at that point eighty six that they still don't
know how to like? So that Harvard reports stuff was
just for not at least a Harvard report from the seventies, like,

(01:53:36):
I don't know that. Well, okay, well, there there was
there was a Harvard report in nineteen seventy two. Uh
that specifically told the majors that you should start investing
in black label. So as a result, uh, Philly International
gets inquired acquired from CBS Labels start uh you know,

(01:53:58):
Echo to Atlanta. I never saw that report. It's yeah,
it's too bad the report. So but the thing is,
I don't think Warner Brothers ever recovered from that though,
Like they never really. I mean even when you talk
to DJ's and they would just tell you straight up,
if we saw Warner Brothers logo, we knew it was wet,
Like when it came to like hipp Hop or whatever,
like that Graham Central station that was you know, and

(01:54:23):
they had some didn't that at some period that had
some George Clinton stuff for a minute, didn't they Uh
for the funk delic Stu Parlette, Parliament some of that stuff.
One Nation Undergroove and and Uncle Jam But um, yeah,
I would have thought that that. So you actually went
to mol Auston just said, yo, let me do this.

(01:54:45):
You know, I can do it. I can handle the guy,
and I can make it, you know, make it work
and break it for you. So I got the twelve
inches on that, which leads me to while you treat
me so bad. Um. All right, so my favorite hip
hop group of all time they lost Soul. Uh. First
of all, just the marketing's unprecedented, I mean should The

(01:55:09):
first time I almost got suspended from school was hanging
those damn day loss stickers all over all over where
I shouldn't have uh in school. That was our second sticker,
by the way, the first one was stet uh. Stet
stickers were first. I was the first sticker and it
was you know, it was orange and they cost three

(01:55:31):
cents each and that was sweet. Market The beginning was crazy. Yeah, yeah,
you were the first. I guess, yeah, you're a label
because death no other label I recalled. Really, but everyone
so I innovated and everybody took the stuff and out
competed me. You know, you know, they went from stickers
to giant stickers, to wrap, to wrap vans, to wrap whatever.

(01:55:53):
They're basically giving you credit for creating the promo, right
like you know, with just little things, you know that
it to get to get exposure to me. A three
and six sticker that's fluorescent, that just has a few
letters on it, if you put it on a pay
phone or on a latrine at the right club, you
know it's going to see be seen by a lot
of people. We did one for O P P. Those

(01:56:14):
were the three big ones that I still want that sticker.
I remember where they went at Magic City during the
Jack the Apple conference. That made everybody, every program director
was in the audience and when they saw that on
that the booty slap with the O P P on it,
they went back and every time they heard O P
P there was that connection. So when you when you

(01:56:46):
get day lie, um, is it you that's trying to
sell up the angle of hippie daisy? Yeah, the hippie image.
It was. It was an obvious thing that they you know,
I did defined what the front our cover was with Monica,
and somebody in the press said that, I mean, there
was a review that said that, of course the literation

(01:57:09):
to saying the hippies of hip hop makes so much sense,
you know. But then they got reactionary about all that stuff,
which is really what really pissed me off a little
bit more than than people saying that, say, who cares
what people say? Do you think the whole idea with me,
myself and I is that you're not influenced by what
other people say, and now you're influenced with other what

(01:57:30):
other people saying. You come back with Dallas Soul is
Dead is my favorite. Sorry, I don't drop the gun
just yet. I mean, let's talk about the happy period. So, uh,
I mean, what do you what do you? What are
your thoughts? And it came up with the daisy age?
Do you think I came up with that? You think
that was a marketing idea? I think, of course everything

(01:57:53):
was the sire of the phones, all of that stuff,
everything was them all we do. But it's at a
precedent because what because this is now the first time
I mean, when Nation of Millions came up, that's the
first time I heard white critics salivating over hip hop.
But when three Fiat and Rising came out, suddenly kids
in my geometry class are having hip hop discussions minus me,

(01:58:21):
Like suddenly it's I see the I had seen the
first hand effects of how that album worked brilliantly. Uh.
So I'm just saying that, like, at what point did
you feel as though, like instantly was it when you
first signed them for Pluck Tuning or was it I

(01:58:42):
mean when we when we signed them at the beginning,
we didn't know. I remember hearing the record through the wall.
They were playing it for Monica and I heard it
through the wall and I came in to see what
it was, because usually when the record sounds great through
the wall, it has a good shot of being a hit.
If it doesn't sound like anything through the wall, it
probably doesn't have I mean, you know, you need to
be able to hear it hit two cars away, you know,

(01:59:05):
if you're a driving kind of a situation, and that
was one of you know, it's something that is so
different from everything that's the status quo, you know, um,
something that penetrates the noise floor is important for indie
labels to have something that's nobody else is saying that
can go beyond and that I heard it, and I

(01:59:26):
heard it, and when Monica and I talked about it,
and I said, this is either going to be really
bigger it's gonna be nothing at all. There is no
in between with the record like this. This could not
connect at all because it's so bizarre and different. Most
stuff that's bizarre and different doesn't connect or it could connect.
So it was our job to try to say, all right,
how do we tie it together and connect the dots

(01:59:47):
to make people get it. You know. Do you do
you remember the Bill Coleman right up in Billboard about
that record? Um? Yeah, it's again because the late eighties
and just the overall disdain of hip hop with music
critics really not treating it as for art. For him,

(02:00:08):
I'll say that Nelson George and Bill Coleman at Billboard
wrote to like major like these three paragraph uh love
letters about the record, which I felt was a game changer,
at least for the At that time, I was working

(02:00:29):
out a record store, so even like rock critics were like, um,
I was working at Sam Goodies and uh in Philly,
Uh shout out to Sam Goodies on They fired me
afterward there, but uh, you know, and then they're putting
up the display. Suddenly it's like, okay, we're hearing buzz

(02:00:51):
about this. They read Bill Coleman's article and suddenly like
the main wall is having a dayloud display all of
a sudden, like I see the effects of it. Um
to you. I mean, so this wasn't a thing like
a Mastermind meeting. I don't know, maybe in my head
I'm just having a uh there was there were a
lot of meetings at timey Boy, where we talked about

(02:01:13):
how can we penetrate you know, culture with this, in
the media with this, and Monica had a great relationship
with Bill Coleman and you know, and most of the media.
It wasn't just that. Also it was the village voice,
because the village voice, the reviewer was the you know, granddame,

(02:01:37):
the main guy who everybody else followed, and when he
wrote it up, everybody he was the guy that wrote
up also Africa Bambada, and everybody wrote down to what's
the guy's name, Oh Hill, uh um, Robert Christical, Yeah,
Chris was, you know, he still is, you know, but

(02:01:57):
in in the era of rock journalism, he was one
of three guys, maybe the number one guy. He was
so important. Whatever he said everyone had to take seriously.
So he wrote wrote it up positively, and he had
written up Bambida positively. So he was open to what
we're doing because he knew we had interesting stuff and
he was interested in that, in that kind of thing.

(02:02:18):
So it was a combination of all of that. I
don't really think that many people read Billboard, you know,
outside of culture, but it was mainstream. New York Times
gave it an amazing review. It got crazy reviews from
everybody is you know, so press was one of the things.
But before that, we had already put out Potholes in
My Law and as a video um which by the way,

(02:02:39):
the record wasn't successful, but that video was crazy crazy.
That was my first exposure to day Law with the
motorized skateboards and all that stuff. It was a new
concept at the time. Yeah, and we shot that with
super eight or something like that eight millimeter video camera
because you know, we didn't have we weren't making videos yet.

(02:02:59):
It was early days and no one was really getting
play yet on videos. Also, I think um MTV might
have embraced Dayla soul early um and they weren't embracing
that much black music at the time, but Laps was
out so by the time it was kicking in. But
discussions to do that to to appeal day a lot

(02:03:20):
to white audience never never can I And I say
that only coming from a place for me. The early
hip hop groups that appealed to white artians were Dayla Trip,
called Quest and a few years later was the Roots.
Like those were the we never actually talked about that.
I mean, I just I I just wondered about because
because that was a lot of a lot. When I

(02:03:40):
first started getting in hip hop, the white kids were
talking about quest and I feel like those somebody, somebody
somewhere said something or I don't know how that? How
did that happen? That? That's where I'm so penetrating into
white media, is what did that? So we were trying
to get on MTV because we wanted as much exposure
as possible, but we didn't label at white exposure. That's
what you're saying, we don't want we don't. Like I

(02:04:01):
said when I went into the Tea connection, that's just
not the way we think about how much exposure can
we get wherever it is, if it's white or black.
I don't really give a ship if it's Latin or whatever.
And I'm not trying to label it. What I'm saying
is how did it happen? Because that was the college
and that's what I'm interested. I don't care what you
call it. I just I just think that to me,
that that that was. So we did a lot of

(02:04:23):
things that we did. We we had we had to
show at the Ukrainian National Home. That was the first
promo show to introduce them, and we invited the press
to that show and they did a thing live there
where they did the Bob Dylan thing where they held
up cards, the cards and dropping the cards. So that
made a connection to people that this wasn't the ordinary
rap group, that they're thinking about things that maybe are

(02:04:46):
you know, at a different level than other rappers are
thinking about things, and um, you know. But we didn't
penetrate radio. We had no luck at radio until Me
myself and I so and it was it was that
song that really made them, that took them over the hump.
We were getting pressed and we're getting some interest and
people were finding out about it, but we didn't have

(02:05:07):
a record that was really connecting until Me Myself and
I came out. Did you know it? Was it when
you heard it? Or was it like, Okay, of these
twenty four songs you gave me this I could probably work.
So we have to talk about Prince Paul and this
because Prince Paul produced the record and Prince Paul was
responsible for many of the samples on the album, and

(02:05:28):
Prince Paul style is obscure samples, and it was I
used to have fights about that as much with Prince
Paul as it is with the rest of the group,
because the cost of a sample it's almost the same
whether your sample something that's unknown or something that people
would know. And what we're always looking for, especially because

(02:05:51):
I know I have to bring the record to radio
myself when I bring the records to radio. If there's
this familiar bridge, something that can take people from the
unfamiliar to the familiar, we can speed up the number
of listens it takes to make an unfamiliar record familiar.
This is like behavioral science, I suppose, you know. But
um so if you sample knee Deep and people have

(02:06:12):
already played Knee Deep, you know, one spin and people
will go, I know that sounds familiar. I get it.
That's the spoonful of sugar to help the medicine of
intellectual lyrics go down. So if we're trying to do
something that's set, that's really forward sampling and really forward lyrically,
at the same time, we could be just it's the

(02:06:34):
tree fallen in the woods and no one hears it.
You know, we need people, We need to get exposure.
So we needed something to get people over with that.
And there was a little bit debate because the group
doesn't really like me myself, and it's not their favorite song.
I've seen him say we hate the song, we hate
the song, we hate this song while they're singing the song.

(02:06:56):
But it you know, and you know you could talk
to Mason, you know about it. He was a proponent
because he's a DJ. Is a proponent because he knows
whats for the dance for. He claims that he pushed
the group to make that happen, or allow that happen,
or to even use that let it beyond the record.
But to me, that was the semil record. And you know,
you talked about um led Zeppelin before. If it wasn't

(02:07:19):
for a Whole Lot of Love, we wouldn't know about Zeppelin.
A whole Lot of Love crossed over and it was
a giant hit across many formats. You know, you need
a record that takes takes an artist beyond and then
they have the poetic license to do whatever the hell
they want to do. And so that got day Less
sold the right to do anything that they wanted to do.
And to this day they're doing everything that they want

(02:07:40):
to do the way they want to do it. They
don't always sell a lot of records but or generate,
you know, an enormous amount of excitement. But at least
they're doing what they want to do, which most artists
don't get to do. What is it that's keeping day
La off the streaming services? I mean those the time
because Warner Brothers controls the those masters, and those masters

(02:08:03):
are they have no they have samples on them that
they don't have the contracts or something like that, and
they haven't we cleared them or they're not comfortable that
they're covered. But it's you know, the same people that
cleared those samples, cleared noted by Nature, House of Pain
and Digital Underground samples, so and all those are available.
So I don't understand why, what the reason is, but

(02:08:25):
I'm not You're not responsible. You're not holding a hostage.
I haven't owned the Old Timey Boy catalogs since two
thousand and two when Warner bought it. I'm trying to
buy it back right now. Hopefully by the second half
of this year, I'll have it back. And that's my
first order of business, thank you very much. When when

(02:08:48):
all is said and done, this is what three ft
High and Rising has at least achieved, which is every
sample on that record has made music experts out of
anyone who was between the ages of twelve and twenty

(02:09:09):
two at the time of that album came out. Now
I'm searching for it. I mean, did I really care
about Houses of the Holy Bye? Led Zeppelin and my
sisters Sister's recollection? Second heard that break, I was like, oh, Ship,
that's Dayls soul. Now I'm a led Zeppelin expert. I'm
going through their whole catalog. The re contextualize all the

(02:09:30):
rock stuff right before. Can you keep a secret? Like
all those things? It's pack it's it's an education. So
at no point was it ever told during the negotiations
or whatever, like lawyers are talking to each other. At
no point was it ever explained to the Turtles but

(02:09:50):
to Flow and Eddie that hey, guys, this is actually
a great thing for you because now your music is
getting reintroduced to a whole new audience. Was it just
like fuck you pay me? Or are you really even
dealing with Flow and Eddie? Is it their lawyers? Lawyers?
But evidently I found out what happened is that that
one of the daughters heard the record until Dad, have

(02:10:13):
you heard this? Now you have to understand the song
is called You Showed Me by the Turtles, and I
was a Turtles fan. I bought Happy Together when that
came out, and I you know, I mean, I liked
I liked it. I liked the Frank's Apple version better.
But the thing I really thought was interesting about it
is that Prince Paul slowed down the record or um

(02:10:35):
from forty five to thirty three and used it at
thirty three. So he used a very tiny amount in
an interstitial piece, So he figured, why should I even
clear this. Nobody's even gonna notice. But they noticed, you know,
that's the problem. And even if you use a little
bit and they notice, you know. But there are people
who have won UM cases in the last two years
about the Minimus uses, and probably today that case they

(02:10:59):
wouldn't If if somebody had wanted to take that case
and appeal it, they probably wouldn't win it, depending on
who the judge would be, because there have been a
few that for something that small and that the Minimus
would not be UM would you know, would not be
recognized because it's it's not even that loop isn't even
the sample that loop is Actually you did a thing.

(02:11:24):
I'm looking at an instagram that you you posted last
September saying, this is what's beautiful about hip hop, and
this is what I wish publishers and record labels realized.
This is this is you quest level unattainable and only
an option for the rich. Um. But but what these
what these greedy lawyers uh and corporate leeches don't comprehend,

(02:11:46):
is that sampling is an education and it gives back.
And you said, I'm driving home from Brooklyn bowling, I
hear on the radio a song that sounds like a
familiar sample. I should am it, and I caught the
original act actually the entire album evidently was the Jazz
Crusaders record. Right. I get enlightened with more great music,

(02:12:07):
and the labels get another investment in its product for
me forty years after its release. This is when the
music music is beautiful. It isn't beautiful when you don't
reinvest in your crops for real label and publishing house
presidents of you meet hip hop halfway, and I'll do
and it'll do some good. I love to have that
conversation because I'm deep in the middle of that and
I've been trying to reach you about that. So I'll

(02:12:28):
do it. On the air, let's do it. Yeah, I mean,
I I know for a fact that I've purchased at
least I mean, I'm now a guy that collects covers
of songs. I know I have at least ten to
fifteen copies of you showed me done by other people,
you know, so they've actually gotten the return off of

(02:12:51):
that use in other ways, but not really realizing the
ripple effects of it. Um. But I just feel as
though because it's such an it's such a litigious atmosphere
now and only the rich will be able to truly
benefit from sampling that It's it's it's literally killing the

(02:13:16):
music game right now. So thank you, thanks for the setup.
So besides still running Timing Boy and still signing hip
hop groups today and artists, I am also involved with
a new startup business from Sweden called buzz That's that's
called track lib and track lib as a company that's
designed to make sampling fast, easy and affordable. We're going

(02:13:38):
to all of the labels and publicairs and getting all
of the rights for masters, especially the older stuff, on
a precleared basis, so people can download and sample a
record for a hundred dollars five in five minutes online
without you Okay, can I believe this song real quick?

(02:14:00):
This is one of my favorite that's all. I just
wanted to play the air horn for that, So so
you know, and we're deep into it. We're very close
with all three majors. We got twenty two labels signed,
we signed VP Records, Reggae labels, we're putting, we're loading

(02:14:21):
masters up now. It's in beta, private beta until October.
It's going to be a revolution because for two dollars,
you can download a wave file, drop it into a
new mix. When you're ready to do it, you can
you go back online. You can get a license in
five minutes or three minutes online for as little as
fifty dollars or a hundred dollars. And and you have

(02:14:43):
to agree to give up x percent of the derivative
work on the publishing and the masters side, either ten
or fifty percent, depending how much of the original master.
If it's over fifteen seconds, it's fifty. If it's under,
it's If it's under two sets, if it's two or less,
it's ten percent. If it's up to fifteen seconds, it's
that's it. So people can start sampling again and they'll

(02:15:06):
be able to open up. We're dreaming of this moment.
That's why I've been trying to reach to reach go
on your radio showed it's funny to you. Someone sees it,
So listen. Let me tell you who's The creative Advisory
Board already includes Prince Paul Large, Professor Pete rock Uh,

(02:15:27):
Peanut butter Wolf. You know, I wanted to talk to
you about joining it too, because you're the perfect guy.
You're already you know, I'm wow, this is the greatest news.
What's what's the name of the track lib like track Liberation?
Thank you? Where was this in two thousand three? Well,
because and I and I talked to these labels, you know,
when I talked to Aaron Fuchs or I talked to

(02:15:49):
Armand Balladian who controls the Old Judges Parliament, and you
know they're telling me. You know, arm ensued four seventy
seven people for free sample infringements and at the end
of all of it break even. He didn't make any
money from it. So if it had gone through track Lib,
he'd have made a ton of money because it wouldn't
cost anything and nobody would need a lawyer to clear

(02:16:10):
a sample again. Or a sample, and a replay even
cost thousands of dollars, So to use the original it
is cheaper now than than to even do a replay,
except that you have to give up part of the
de river work. But I think that's a fair thing,
and I'm telling all the rights holders you'll make more
money because the only person who can afford to clear
samples now is Kanye and maybe eight other people. There's

(02:16:32):
like literally ten people who can afford fifty dollars per
track to clear a sample. Now, I'm I'm glad you
see it the way that I mean it, like it
came from a heartfelt place. Uh. One of the aforementioned
executives that you talked about, UH actually tried to call

(02:16:54):
my boss's boss's boss at my current job UH to
get me dealt with because he felt as though I
was trying to uh first of all, being anti Semitic
and uh disrespectful to his way of practice, um, which

(02:17:16):
was never the case whatsoever. UM. But this is a
guy that, as far as I know, has made a
living suing UH rappers, exactly rappers just for be boxing,
just for using even half of his uh even a

(02:17:38):
kick or a snare of his work. I mean, I
understand it's a business, but you know, George Clinton once explained,
he's like, yo, the reason why it wasn't by design
that you know, I'm part of the West Coast g
funk fabric. He's like, I came in cheap. He's like, right,
I came in so cheap that I made you want

(02:17:59):
to come back from more. And my prices were fair,
and thus people always came back to me. And I
just never understood, how, you know, in any type of music.
I doubt that any no type of music, I mean
even something as uh, let's let's pick fleet You told me,

(02:18:19):
Steve that either you or or Captain Kirk told me
that Fleetwood Max uh dreams. If you look at the
original reel on of of of of of the real
the track listing, it's still called spinners. I'll be around

(02:18:41):
sound alike, you know what I mean. So it's like no,
but that's wow. It is a sound like yeah, exactly.
So there's no song that's created that doesn't start at
least with playing another song and figuring out, okay, now
what's my version of this? If I just take the
rub exc but the fabric and mix it up but

(02:19:02):
I feel as though the music business, which is catalogs,
are suffering right now because no one's going back to
those catalogs and use them unless it's been marketing. That's
my argument. When I'm talking to all of them, I said,
you've got hundreds of thousands of tracks in the case
of the majors, and even in these tens of thousands
of tracks that you don't get sinc Deals for, you

(02:19:24):
don't get licenses for, nobody knows about and they sit
there collecting dust. That's the stuff we want. We want
great diggers to be digital and find stuff fast and
use it often so that you can have a hit.
And I'm I got the list of the hundred most
sample records of all time. Here hit me. The first
is the B side of a record by the Winston's.

(02:19:45):
It's called Amin Brother, you know, and that's the most
sample record of all time. The second one is Shan
Labit by B side. The third one is Lynn Collins.
Think which is it takes two? Wait? What second B side?
Shans Labitte? Oh fresh of course James Brown funky drummer.
And by the way, the James Brown catalog is already

(02:20:07):
in for track lib. The guy who controls the estate
wants it to be in Yeah and universal and uh
and I warn a chapel who controls the publishing are
you know, are happy to make it available because the
artist wants it. Some of the times, the problem is
that the artist wants to prove each and every sample,
and that won't work in track lib because everything has

(02:20:28):
to be pre approved. Sorry, Bob James. When you're shopping,
you want to be able to know what something's gonna
cost before you buy it. People who sample have no
idea what it's gonna because, or even if they have
permission to even so, I'm telling people that of the
sampling that happens now is unauthorized or replaced. So you're

(02:20:48):
losing all the money. And everyone's telling me, hey, our
sampling business has gone way down. Duh. You know at
some point, you know there's five people left they can
afford the sample. You got it exactly right, Douggie says,
number five, Lotty Dotty James Brown, James Brown with Funky
President yep Um. Then public Enemy, bring the noise. It's

(02:21:09):
gotta have samples on it already too. So the other
thing with track liber is we can't put samples. We
can't sample a sample, so what we need to do
is get stems of the acapellas for the hip hop
stuff so people could sample the wrap stuff without resampling
the samples. You gotta go back to the original sample
to get the sample um. But we can direct people

(02:21:30):
then honey drippers and pizza. The President was gonna say
a pizza president. I thought that had been number one.
That's on the President is probably is gonna go to
number one, considering the President today. So here's a question
for you. Let's say I buy a track off of

(02:21:52):
the service, but it sounds too clean, you know. Let's
say I have a vinyl copy that sounds dirty and
I want the dusty and all that, you know, I
want all that that that sonic character in the sample.
Am I still allowed to buy the track online? And
still because are the one that you're gonna get from track,
especially fingerprinted and watermarked. And you can always add vinyl

(02:22:14):
crushy sounds as an effect if if that's what I mean.
I remember buying Dala Soul, a record cleaner, so that
they could clean the records for the samples, but they
never wanted to use it because they love Anyway, they're
also recording to a dot which was another thing. Where
do we go to get it? What's the site? Track?
Dot com? Track liib dot com. Okay, I think we're

(02:22:35):
going we forget the show. We still got lots even Yeah,
we got a lot to cover. And number nine was
Melvin Bliss synthetic Substitutions. And the number ten was run DMC.
Here we go Live at the fun House. Yeah, damn,
I can't tell either. The one I thought it was

(02:22:55):
really interesting. Number eleven was Mountain Long Red. Oh, yeah,
of course I love that. That was good. I used
to go see play when I was a kid. Yes, absolutely,
that makes sense. I never would have thought, Wait, you
have your top one hundred? Can I hear the bottom ten?
Can I hear ninety led Zeppelin when the levee breaks?

(02:23:17):
Von Mason Bounce, Rock Skate Roll, Herman Kelly Life dance
to the drummers beat? Which I can't believe is that
low um knee deep Funkadelic. We just talked about Detroit Amieralds.
You're getting a little too smart, uh, Rob Bass? It
takes two already the limp column sample, so it must
be a part that's already hit. It is often used Blowfly,

(02:23:41):
Sesame Street, that's the brother Johnson. Ain't we funking now?
It was yeah, Curtis blow tough, uh, d J Trace
and Pete Parsons, Sniper and Dike. But and the Blaze
is like a woman a woman that I let a

(02:24:04):
man be a man, which is we used it with
sets of sign it. Yeah. I was about to say
that's the salary thing, that's number one. I think, Well, okay,
at least especially in the case of when the levee breaks. Um. Yeah,
a lot of people just gun shy about using certain
publishers because they know that they're gonna come for the loot. Yeah,

(02:24:26):
like a lot of that stuff. I mean, there's no
reason why impeach the President is the number one sampled
number eight, but there's no reason why it should not
number one because that's the right. Well yeah, and when
it gets to be part of Track Live, it'll go
to number one. There, my god, what happens? You know?
The thing is everybody uses it. So what we really

(02:24:48):
want encourage is great, we want to have as much
of this stuff as we can get, but we want
to drive you know, if we can't get Dyke in
the blazes what sounds like that? So we want to
direct people too. If we can't get it, we'll still
have an there and direct people to something that's close
enough that people could still use affordably, because we don't
want people to go away or cheat because they can't
use exactly that, especially if they're using this as a

(02:25:11):
musical creation tool, which track Lie will become. Eventually, they'll
be built into all the digital audio workstations. It's gonna
be in logic, it's gonna be in the fruity loops.
And wouldn't it be cool if, if, if quest Love
had it. You know, some custom drum brakes available on
track lib for sale. You know what what you don't
know is happening right now is like I'm doing my

(02:25:34):
own I'm doing my own homemade version of that now
because as we speak, my phone is probably buzzing to death. Uh. Ever,
since late January, I've gathered the entire gods of hip
hop beat making, from Primo to Pete Rock. It's a
large professor to not to just blaze the Swiss beats

(02:25:55):
to Korean riggins to d J Harrison, who those guys
are Like He's blowing their minds right now as we
speak on this phone, like I literally a knife wonder,
like I've I have on my text chain thirty one
beat makers um, and I've been giving them a break
bat to day um. But as of now of March first,

(02:26:17):
they've done turned it into like I'm still giving them
a break B to day, but now they're just on
some next ship there now making records together. Uh, they're
collect their producing Conway's record like they're so something's happening
even right now as we speak, Like my battery is

(02:26:38):
probably going low because now not Pete Rocket nots are
having a isolated baseline contest literally, like that's going on
right now. I know there has to be at least
three to four acts that you almost had that you
didn't get, Like, are there any that comes to mind,
like I almost signed them, or we almost had them,

(02:27:01):
or I dropped them before they got big? How about that?
Forgive Prince K you're talking about. Yeah, I know you
guys are geniuses here. You gotta realize that there's a
lot of people listening. If you listen to that beat
that is classic joint. I mean it's weird though it's
like based off George Michael Hook, I got Ladies. I wait,

(02:27:28):
that wasn't that? Was that? On faith? It's The song
is based on a George Michael and Jody Whatley on
the Jody Whatley album. Oh okay, the first or the
second one? Was the first one? Okay? Well I knew
it was. You guys are scary man, you know everything,
literally a collective of music nerds right here. So so

(02:27:57):
so who did you? Who was a close call for
the labels New Addition? Yeah? I was gonna say you
had Author Baker, like why not? So No, we had
the Johnson Crew. So Michael Johnson's brother is Maurice star
Marie started produced New Addition. They brought it to me

(02:28:19):
a candy Girl right And this was right after I
got the letter from Kraft Work and I was shell
shocked and I listened to it. I go, well, if
Craftwork has a problem with Planet Rock ABC, Jackson got
a big problem with the Jackson five on this and
they're ten times more powerful. What will I do? So
I passed, And that was one of the dumb decisions. Definitely,

(02:28:43):
never act out of fear. Always just do it and
figuring the ship out later, you know, go for it,
you know, and then the other one is um, there
was there were a couple of them, um that I
came close to getting, but I can get I wanted.
I really wanted Dougie Fresh. I never got that Lottie Dottie. Yeah. Wow.
That was when it was well it was yeah, no,

(02:29:09):
actually it got sold to Fantasy. Later it was I
don't think it was Fantasy. Originally it was Dania as
an independent label out of the Bay Area, and then
I think it went into Fantasy. I know, it's really weird.
You pursued him and he was like, nope, I'm going
He performed at Tommy Boy offices. He came to our
offices up one Street, and we used to do this

(02:29:30):
Wednesday night thing where groups could come up and and
audition and do stuff. You know. We did it, didn't
do it for very long. But one of the people
who came by and I remember him beatboxing in the
office was was him, and there were a few others,
you know. I sometimes I don't always know about him because,
especially after when the company started to have a lot
of employees and get really big, sometimes people come in

(02:29:54):
or different and our guys had stuff like I just
was talking to Lord Jamar the other day was by
the office, and um, he said, Brand Nubian was supposed
to be on Tommy Boy. But Dante was the and
our guy, Dante the scrub and and he uh, he
was our second. He went to a lecture. He was
our second guest on the show. Oh yeah, so yeah,
I mean what was your relationship with Dante? He was

(02:30:17):
the one of the A and R guys. He's the
one who brought in Queen Latifa. So we're talking about
Queen Latifa that that's the expression. So he's the and
our guy, the one and our guy and Tommy Boy
who brought in the most stuff we got. We had
a lot of a lot of it, and our guys dozens.
He's the only one I can remember as actually having
impact in bringing an artists that actually made money. So
did you trust his ear? Yeah? And I mean I

(02:30:41):
know that with A and R is they have to
watch the budget, make sure that that Dada doesn't go
over any of those things. Like was he like your trustworthy,
your best student, or however you want to he was.
He was his own best student. You know, he knew
what he wanted. He wasn't really interested you know, he
has his own way of seeing things. At least at

(02:31:01):
that time he's let's call it impetuous. But at the time,
did you know that he was bringing you history? Because
he did. He did with I mean, he wasn't He
was our trusted and our guy. So yeah, he brought
some stuff in, So that was great. He brought in
a couple of cool, really great things. And I can
tell you I appreciate him more ten years later, after

(02:31:22):
I went through twelve other A and R people who
didn't ever bring anything, and I could really think, you know,
what he did was pretty great. You know, but you know,
he was short tempered and uh impatient about stuff. He
also didn't always want to hear the other side of
you know, the corporate ship we have to deal with,
you know, his corporations to get things through and to
the cost and making things happen, so we couldn't always

(02:31:44):
do everything. But you know, and they're all also there
are other elements. And he also wasn't a guy ald
to bring the record to radio and get exposure for artists.
And so when whenever we looked at artists, we looked
at their unique appeal and then we look at what
what is the route to exposure for them? How can
we get exposure? I mean we signed artists that had

(02:32:06):
like Dayla Soul. There was no route to exposure when
we signed Dayvia so but sometimes you just do things
because you love it. Uh. If Dayla Soul was half
a million dollars to sign, we wouldn't have signed Dallas,
So we couldn't have I was gonna say, Uh, past
told me that the recording budget for three ft high
it was like twenty eight thousand dollars exactly, How how's that?

(02:32:30):
How's that even able to? And I think we might
have cleared the samples on that budget too in those days.
That tells you how bad it is today. No, no,
but I'm just saying just in in comparison. You know,
I'm thinking, like my early years was like nightmares. But
if I if you know, when you're an independent label,
I always think about, you know, the days of Morris Leave.

(02:32:52):
We were talking about before what seven inches is all
that's sold in? Seven inches? Label sold seven inches to
stores for twenty nine cents and the couse twelve sense
to make, so the margins were really tiny. So a
gold record might have meant you know, a hundred thousand
dollars in those days. You know, in this era we
were selling twelve inches and twelve inches at four and
ninety eight was how we made most of our money.

(02:33:12):
The album sales were ancillary. Most of our artists, we
did deals for UH twelve to twelve inches and an
option for an album that we would pick up later
when we had to make we. I think with Dayla
we made a firm option for an album. If we didn't,
we picked it up right away, even before we released
Me Myself and I because we knew what it was.
But the deal was economical enough that we could justify

(02:33:35):
it um taking a risk. And so what you said
about sampling is also true to artists. An artist that's
saying something very different than what everyone else is saying
right now, or has a sound that's unique and doesn't
sound like what's out there, shouldn't expect to get the
kind of deal that somebody that sounds like Rihanna is
going to get because people who think it's the next

(02:33:56):
round of will pay, you know, next round of money.
People are saying, look, this is at fifty to one shot,
but I love it. That music should still come out.
We need more crazy records coming out that break expectations
and that we don't have to have sales expectations when
an artist signs for half a million dollars or even
for two dollars, and if you don't have if the

(02:34:20):
first single isn't a hit, you're dropped. I mean, you
heard all the Interscope stories about these artists. They were
signing for a million dollars and dropped before the album
came out the first single didn't hit. It's too expensive.
There's taking gigantic advantages. Advances is not really in the
best advantage of the artist. The artists really should say,
how do I get a bigger piece in the back

(02:34:41):
end than a giant piece in the front end. But
managers commission that piece, lawyers commission that piece, so everyone
gets bad advice. Artists that are super creative hold on
to as much of the equity as you can hold
on too and get paid, you know, a bigger piece
and take a smaller advance, and you get more times
that bad and more times it's like, yo, if my

(02:35:02):
first one don't pop, exactly, My My thing is what
if it's the third swing of the fourth swing? All
those artists that signed to the majors. They don't get
a third swing. It's strike two, you're out. Strike one,
you're out. So what if their best record is on
the second album, You're not getting to the second time.
It's just not gonna happen in this economics. So you

(02:35:24):
either let your lawyers and manages from the old days
still convince you you gotta get the biggest upfront deal
because it's good for them, for the biggest you know,
from the biggest labels, or you signed to an indie
or put your record out yourself on tune core. But
if you know, you still need a team that's got
to help compliment and build a marketing plan and execute

(02:35:45):
and try to get you exposure and and help you
with the reality check in, you know, guide you through
the process. You know, I don't know, you know, it
just seems to me like that there's I think that
in this day and age, artist should be smarter. They
shouldn't be taking traditional record deals anymore. You said you
have a meet coming up after you have a meeting

(02:36:05):
with Naughty by Nature, and uh, there's a story about
Tretch and some wildlife in the offices. Was that real? Yeah? Okay,
that was real? Yeah, what happened, how did what? What

(02:36:26):
was that situation and how did that situation go? First,
I want to say, Tommy Boy only ever had to
have guards or any kind of armed anything in our
office two days. In the history of the company, we
never had bulletproof glass. We never had beef with artists
or anything like that. But there was a time when
Tretch wasn't in touch with KG and Vinny or whatever,
and we were working trying to work something out where

(02:36:49):
they can do something on somebody else's record. And by
the way, it had already been worked out and with
everybody else. Buttress didn't know, and he was piste off.
So he came and he he let some garter snakes
and mice from the pet store, loosing the office. And
I found out later that were you in the office?
Was a lawyer told him to do it? Uh, Paul Marshall,

(02:37:13):
who passed a few years ago, who was actually the
lawyer that represented the Beatles when they went to VJ,
actually told them that they should do it. Full Marshall
told me this, which I found. I just want to
be one an hour before when he's at like pet Co. Yeah,
are you looking at this? A whole house pit something

(02:37:35):
like that. Snap. But now y'all are cool, now, y'all yeah, okay, cool, Now, okay,
you're trying to work with them. You know. The thing
about Naughty is all right, so we're we're There's been
some times where we've done shows with Naughty and between

(02:37:57):
the audience reaction and just the onnge slaught of hit
after hit after hit after hit anthems like I mean
Naughty by Nature's catalog bar none. I mean, I'm so
at the time when I was playing it, I was like, Wow,
when they came out, I didn't show my full appreciation
as I showed have. But now in like, there should

(02:38:19):
be no reason in the world why they don't work,
uh until they're nineties, I mean, not until they're they're
they're long going, Like these songs still work and as
long as the Naughty is willing to do it. I
mean I almost feels as though, like Naughty is probably

(02:38:41):
the most credible pop hip hop at I would say
maybe either them what I'm with you them in like
Wu Tang because like the first Lutang album, but I
don't think Woutang knew. That's the thing. It's like Wool
Tank's first record is full of of all these modern

(02:39:05):
yeah yeah, Like they're referencing Donnie Marie and Underdog and
the flint Stones and you know, a schoolhouse rock like real.
I mean, they're like day Lost Soul, but it's so
grimy that you forget that they're coming from that. But
just in terms of naughty by Nature, it's like they're
giving you anthem after anthem after anthem. How come? And

(02:39:30):
I'm asking this kind of two sword questions. How why
weren't they marketed as like, no, no, no. I mean
it's because if we had done that, if we had

(02:39:56):
worked there, I mean, that's blames the Machete. I mean,
they were a pop back, but they had to be
disguised a little bit harder, you know, otherwise it would
have come off as whack. So you're saying that that's
were they aware of it? Because yeah, I mean, hip
hop Ray isn't a pop song per se. I mean,

(02:40:16):
and as a Curtis Mayfield breakbeat, he's arguing with you
gotta kind of look at Cagi's production though, because you
always have those nice little pretty keyboard lines, piano lines
and stuff. So I mean, yeah, but so did Tribe
and Slum Village, but it's just might have hooks. They
didn't have hooks. That was an arena anthem. And you
have to understand at the same time, Tommy Boy was
putting out James and so we had a relationship with

(02:40:40):
all of the arenas in the country and all of
their music directors, so we could get when we whatever
we put on that record would be played in all
the arenas. And so when Hip Hop Ray went on
that record, it got played in all of the arenas.
So one of the reasons it got big and it's
still big now, is because a lot of Tommy Boy
acts became arena anthems because we controlled Jock Jam And

(02:41:03):
you're not thinking Baby was discovering that right now, But
I mean, I guess House of Pain will follow that too,
because we didn't talk about that, which that album was to,
you know, didn't talk about my favorite one of my
favorite hip hop groups of all time, he Underground. Yeah.
One question I had the Tommy Boy was it the

(02:41:23):
Tommy Boy Black black label and label? Yeah? What was
what was that era? That was for the Underground beats?
We had we had silver and we had black and
black was supposed to be you know, for a bunch
of twelve inch singles where we were prospecting for things
but that we're going for sort of an underground hip
hop audience and trying to find something that would be
able to launch through DJ specialty shows, you know, in

(02:41:48):
college radio. That's what you know. That was. That was
that attempt. Nothing that actually really can't ended up coming
through that, but we could sign. We wanted to increase
our bandwidth so we could sign more music, and so
we did it that that way, and Silver was disco
dance oriented more stuff because you know, Tommy Boy was
always a DJ label, so we you know, we while

(02:42:09):
we were putting out all this hip hop, we're also
putting out E D M electronic music that's not not
necessarily hip hop. We put out eight O eight State,
you know, Information Society, which you did mention before. But
then there's a whole bunch of things like we put
out Cold Cut and UM and LFO, you know, so,
and those were like the first electronica records in America

(02:42:30):
we put out. So that it's not just in hip
hop where we pioneered, we painted and in other genres
as well. So what made the artists leave Tommy Boy
Because I'm looking at all the people you name and like,
once they left Tommy Boy, like that was kind of
it for them. Maybe that was their time. I guess,
you know, everybody thinks that if they're only on a label,

(02:42:53):
it spends more money, or that's more powerful, they should
do better. But did you did you ever have aspirations
to you turn Tommy Boy into a major? Uh? Like
I said? Or you always had an independent spirit. I
like to be the innovator more than the you know,
the competitor. I like to you know, be the first

(02:43:13):
one in and try to do something nobody else didn't have.
People say, wow, you know that that's you know, a
turning point for me in my life. And people can
say Planet Rock was that for a lot of people,
Dale I was that for a lot of people. You know,
I'm sure there are a lot of women who could
say Latifa was that even though her records you know,
never went gold for us, you know, her music gold.

(02:43:37):
The only gold record she had was after she left
with Black like Ladies, first they were claimed and you know,
but you know, part of it was females in hip hop.
You know, females in hip hop never sell as much
as males and hip hop. That's a whole show, and

(02:44:01):
I don't want to keep trust I know what could happen. Man,
I gotta get Well, thank you, Tom, I appreciate uh
your wisdom. Just one last question, where do you feel music?
Dance music, hip hop culture, Like, do you still feel
that it's thriving? Has some life left? Is this which

(02:44:23):
one dance music? I'm just in general like, well, if
when Tractive is successful, it'll be a whole renaissance because
if you can unleash all of the catalog in the
world and let people access it, we're gonna see musical
renaissance like we never did before. And I think if
it can happen while Trump is president, so much the
better because I think we're gonna have a lot of

(02:44:45):
great music over the next four years too. From your mouth, Well,
thank you very much, Tom Silverman. I appreciate it. Um Man.
I'm sorry after he the the bomb about the sample clearance,
that was I just absolutely lost the script to the

(02:45:07):
entire show. I have regressed. I don't have reflections. I
have regrets because I you know, there there were some
digital underground and man, damn, I didn't get to ask
about a O I Part one, two and three and
yeah did we get put three? Well I wanted to

(02:45:29):
know where it happened. But we can, you know, have
Prince Paul not we can have no. But Prince Paul
was also working on part three. He was he was
supposed to yes the return um so, uh you know
I've learned that, Uh, I have to ask more concise

(02:45:50):
questions or on question left it only took you twenty
five episode. You yo what it is because this is
what I learned in this episode. Yeah, yeah, it's okay,
this is what it is. This is our dynamic, all right,
this is what this is what we gotta be. Okay,

(02:46:11):
I'm the video, you're the pop up bubbles, Like this
is how we So it's like if we do it
for moving on or or you give meet the video
could be whatever. But we have to have just like
a continuous track which just beat just boom boom boom
boom boom, and in those beats it's like, hey, pop
up bubble for like two minutes and then okay, back

(02:46:32):
to the beat because like we never even get to
like I forgot, where where do we get lost? Where
did I lose? I think we did good this time.
I mean cool, but we didn't get to get to
like the meat. But the thing is, I don't think
I also don't think that Tom is full of the
stories we really wanted to, you know what I mean,

(02:46:54):
like Latin quarter stories that there was that time when
you know they had a machete at my next Well,
I don't think you would have those stories. I think,
like with people like him, like what we have. I mean,
three hours sounds like a lot of time, but when
you're dealing with a motherfucker like that, it's really not
a cute tips and give ourselves some credit. Yeah, so

(02:47:14):
it's like you kind of gotta I think, just have him.
If we just went just beat the beat, the beat. Hell,
that's two hours easy, just right there. If we just
with me the first the first hour goes by so slow,
and usually when it get to like one hour fifty minutes. Yeah,

(02:47:38):
tweeting right now, I can see the tweets coming in. Yeah,
they're listening to like a uh well, first of all,
anyone is still sticking with the show. They are die
hard for Thank you, thank you, te y'all. We can
only build up from there. I still feel as though,
you know, there's there's major knowledge that we game from

(02:48:00):
the show. But I will admit that once he started
talking about the idea of sample clearances being a thing again,
that's amazing. I absolutely just through the script out of
the show. I knew that was gonna happen to because
we were actually talking about that before before we started,
and I was like, when a mirror, here's this. The

(02:48:21):
show is over. Well, ladies and gentlemen on behalf of
I'm sorry, did you learn anything? I'll just keep it
short and stuff. I was just gonna say I appreciated
what he said. He was an innovator, not a competitor,
you know what I mean, And I just not for nothing.
That's dope and it's good to know that you can,

(02:48:43):
you know, fear as a powerful thing. And the fact
that he was like, you know, the common threat I
kind of see run through his career is that he's
like I mean, he's essentially a filter. Like he's a
person that saying, hey, like with the dance the disco
mag like this is what you need to get on,
you know what I'm saying, Like kind of being just
you know, just kind to be in that conduitive like
helping people sift through all the garbage and saying, Yo,

(02:49:04):
this is what the funk y'all need to be on.
And uh, he's a filtering like a facilitator. That's what
I picked up from his career path. Like even with
them doing the track lip stuff, that is something that
I mean, it can make a lot of money, but
it is also something that again it filters through all
the bullshits. So if you already know there's no in

(02:49:24):
here I can clear this sample, let me give you
a list of samples or library samples that you know
you can clear. I'm just waiting to find out how
the major labors are gonna screw it all up because
they always I'm saying, imagine, gotta be some kind of scale,
because I mean, you can't tell me that like they're
gonna charge of the same thing. It's Rihanna, right, It's
got to be something. It'll be a jig. And I think,

(02:49:46):
but I feel as though if we just come up
with and the thing was he was doing percentages, if
it's minimum usage, because what what I was trying to
explain was the main loop of transmitting from Mars is
really the Hey, Jude uh Wilson Pickett loop. That is

(02:50:10):
just that's the one second turtle thing. And so it's like,
you know, if there is a fair percentage thing going on,
then you know it's free for all. But you know,
now you deal with publishers that just say, you know,
I want seventy five in that if they use the
second one, I want seventy five, and there's no one pie,

(02:50:31):
you know. So it's for me that is the best.
I mean, even if it doesn't come to fruition in
my lifetime in a way, that's like fair and like
quote back of a day, I'm just the fact that
someone else is thinking of it because I spend every

(02:50:53):
waking moment wishing that one of these publishing house people
would just yeah, get on their crack dealership, yeah, because
I know they're not making money. They're just sitting one
on publishing and not making it work. So you know,
let's let's keep keeping hopefully they make it work. They
need to get Mad live and Mad live for track

(02:51:15):
live like just that could be d J. Harrison. Yes,
my man shout out to him, Richmond v A. So,
but I think it is what he's thinking about. That
kind of ship that's hot. I thought it was interesting
how he looked at the artist as a whole. It
was about marketing and promos and whatever. It wasn't just

(02:51:35):
about whether the music was good. The music inderstand had
to be good. And then his ability to exploit everything
about it was sort of amazing to me, I thought,
I just I don't think like that at all. Yeah,
the way he thought about it as a label guy,
because that was something that I had argued, you know,
was it was like back in the day, it's like, okay, well,

(02:51:56):
what if we take a smaller percentage up front of
a smaller advance to ensure that we can get more
and along, And like every manager, every attorney, they're all
like they want to get as much you can up
front because that may be the only money you see.
And it's like, well, what ship if you take no,
that is gonna be the only money you see, You
know what I mean? But I don't know. It was
It was good to hear him hearing the stickers like

(02:52:19):
things like that, Like you see all those stickers fucking everywhere,
and they were all about it was a visual thing
as much as an audio thing, which I thought was
very interesting. It's called branding, thank you. It's like a
sixteen year old word. Yeah it's Brandon. Yeah, they were
more famous like them. It was probably next to Death Jam.
They were like the only label I can remember that

(02:52:40):
I could I would buy based on market on Tommy Boy,
Like if it was a Tommy Boy record, Like, okay,
they could be official. That was the co sign exactly,
this could be official. Uh. Any thoughts bill Um, I
mean I kind of really want to piggyback off of
what everybody else has said about about tom being a
label guy, excuse me, and thinking of the track of
thinking the way that he thought of it. I mean,

(02:53:02):
I hate to say it, but it reminds me of
thoughts that I've had, you know, coming up. I mean
actually his whole interview, you know, just from the fact
that he was doing tip sheets and stuff like that
when he was younger. I mean, I was coming up
with making up charts of my own when I was
like ten, twelve, thirteen, I need your own charts. Yeah,
I was making up charts because no, I was like,
when when Jet magazine needs to come home back to front,

(02:53:24):
read magazine back to front? I ever read Jet from
front to back? I don't know. I always let it
back to front. No, no, no, did I did I
take the Beauty of the week when the beauty was
in the middle. She was in the middle, like the
Beauty of the Week. I didn't read pass that He's
like it was society. It was it was the second weekend.

(02:53:45):
In the quotes, the celebrity quotes. Yeah, but from like
doing the tip sheets and and and just the way
that he was, you know, pretty much said that he's
contraying and it's always thinking about what's missing and what's
not there. It reminds me a lot of myself some
paint wood and makes me realize that I just wasted
thirty seven years of my life. Pat Bill wasted, Boss Bill,

(02:54:11):
Fonzigelow and Sugar Steve. Any words, Sugar Steve, all the
people any words. He's supposed to ask me for you
to say goodbye to Engineer. That's the ladies and gentlemen.
Come back for next week's quest Brick when I'll tell

(02:54:33):
you what I learned last week's Love Supreme. It's a
production of My Heart Radio. This classic episode was produced
by the team at hand Or. For more podcasts for

(02:54:56):
my heart Radio, visit the I Heart Radio app, Apple podcast,
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