Questlove Supreme: Sophia Chang

Sophia Chang tells her story of being an Asian woman working behind-the-scenes in hip-hop, and why she’s the “Baddest Bitch In The Room”.

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Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:00):
Quest Love Supreme is a production of iHeartRadio.

Speaker 2 (00:08):
Supremo Supremo Roll Call, Supremo Suck Sun Supremo Roll Call,
Suprema su su Supremo Roll Calm, Suprema Sun Suck suprem Roll.

Speaker 1 (00:23):
What's Loving crew?

Speaker 3 (00:25):
Yeah, next hour you stuck with Yeah, Sophia Chain, Yeah,
Ain't nothing nothing.

Speaker 2 (00:30):
With Supreme Supremo roll Call, Suprema Sun Sun Suprema roll Call.

Speaker 1 (00:39):
My name is Sugar. Yeah, good afternoon.

Speaker 4 (00:42):
Yeah, from the baddest yeah jew in this room.

Speaker 3 (00:48):
Supreme So Supreme roll Call, Supreme Suck Suck Supreme roll Call.

Speaker 5 (00:55):
It's like e yeah and the baddest bitch.

Speaker 1 (00:59):
Yeah you know what I mean.

Speaker 6 (00:59):
It's fia bad because we both speak French.

Speaker 3 (01:02):
Oh, I want to for that sub Frema roll So
Suprema Supreme roll.

Speaker 1 (01:11):
My name is Boss Billy.

Speaker 7 (01:13):
If you're wondering who, Yeah, on my grind to be
baddest bill in the room.

Speaker 2 (01:19):
Supreme Subprema roll Call, Suprema Subpremo Roll.

Speaker 5 (01:28):
My name is Sophia and I'm the baddest pitch in
the room. And I think it's really important that you
understand it. I'm not allowed to.

Speaker 1 (01:40):
Curse because.

Speaker 3 (01:45):
Supreme Wait is this a first for q l S.
Were you about to give a dissertation?

Speaker 5 (01:56):
I was about to curse.

Speaker 6 (01:59):
I'm allowed to cur Yes.

Speaker 5 (02:00):
Oh okay, good to know because you.

Speaker 1 (02:03):
Sound effects for you.

Speaker 5 (02:04):
That was beautiful.

Speaker 3 (02:05):
Ladies and gentlemen, welcome to another exciting episode of Quest
Love Supreme.

Speaker 1 (02:08):
I'm your Emperor, Questlove Emperor. Yeah.

Speaker 3 (02:13):
With me today is my Supreme team. We have a
blue belt expert showgun Sugar Steve.

Speaker 1 (02:20):
Yeah, and we got our red.

Speaker 3 (02:22):
Belt twin tongue sword since he laya over here. And
of course the man who runs it all keeps us
in line, black belt Boss Bill.

Speaker 1 (02:36):
All right.

Speaker 3 (02:36):
So, for me, a lot of my favorite episodes that
we do a Quest Love Supreme and that we conduct,
my favorite ones always the behind the scenes episodes in
which we kind of poke the pride and dissect the
process from the perspective of the person who's usually behind
the scenes, you know, the person that keeps the wheels
turning behind the scenes, not necessarily in front of the

(02:58):
camera or on the microphone. So I would say that
Sophia Chang is definitely a legend in these circles. For
the past thirty plus years, she's been near and dear
to the soundtracks of our lives, especially that of the
Shalloin variety. Her expertise and knowledge was key in the
prime days of keeping the Wu Tang caravan, going be
it A and R, managing building labels and management Sophia

(03:22):
Chang and her legendary Gucci Fedor, which is actually not
here today.

Speaker 5 (03:27):
There, but I have the head.

Speaker 3 (03:29):
Okay, I was about to say, that's your trademark. She's
basically seen it at all, and now she's ready to
share her story. Her exclusive audible memoir, entitled The Baddest
Bitch in the Room navigates. It takes you on a
journey through one of the most creative periods of music.
Timeline Ladies and gentlemen, please welcome our guests on Quest
Love Supreme.

Speaker 1 (03:48):
Sophia Changy, thank you, Thank you, very glad to see today.

Speaker 5 (03:54):
You're so happy to be here. Thank you.

Speaker 1 (03:56):
Kind of jealous, like you're killing it with the merch.

Speaker 3 (03:59):
Yeah, like five books and I think that I just
made like one tea shirt, Like, yeah, I'm kind of
I've been kind of scheming on this jacket, even though you.

Speaker 5 (04:08):
Know I'm not made this jacket. There may be another
one too that I haven't.

Speaker 1 (04:12):
Even worn yet. I gotta talk to audible.

Speaker 5 (04:14):
There you go, let's talk to.

Speaker 1 (04:16):
Can I get a jacket?

Speaker 6 (04:17):
See what is that on the back? It says my
mother lover hustler warrior.

Speaker 1 (04:23):
Indeed, mother love a hustler warrior. Right, I'll see that.

Speaker 3 (04:28):
Well, I'll start at the top asking why did you
feel at this point in your career now is the
time to share your story?

Speaker 1 (04:38):
And what do you think we can learn from your journey?

Speaker 5 (04:41):
Uh so, amir, I'm sure you were told this for
years too. For years people said you got to write
a book, You got to write a book. You know,
because of our proximity to what we do, you're actually
an artist. I was artist approximate and I just couldn't
wrap myself around how that was not an exercise in narcissism.
And you know what am I going to do?

Speaker 1 (04:58):
Talk about?

Speaker 5 (04:58):
Oh? I hung out here, I did this, and I
was that's not interesting to me. But when I started
working at Universal in twenty fourteen, and I took on
a number of mentees like you built straight out of
college twenty two right, And they were all women, and
I understood that my vast and varied experience, particularly as
a working mother, as a working single mother, could be instructive.
Then I was like, Okay, if I can be of

(05:21):
service to people, then I'll step into the spotlight. But
before that I simply wasn't interested.

Speaker 3 (05:27):
So you just wanted to strictly stay behind the scenes,
and I did.

Speaker 5 (05:31):
I did. I was, you know, don't look at the
one behind the curtain. I skirted the red carpet. I
never wanted to be in the interviews. I never wanted
any of that. And now you know, I'm going to
be everywhere. But in terms of what people can glean
from my memoir, I mean, what I say is that
my memoirs for anybody who ever felt undervalued, underheard, under scene,

(05:56):
anybody who said yes in the face of so many
nos was, you know, anybody who kind of pushed up
against whatever confines were placed on them, in any boxes
that were placed on them, and anybody who dared to
tell their story. And the lessons that I hope people
can glean is that I think that what you will
gather is that I'm pretty fearless. Now, granted, I have

(06:17):
always had a middle class safety net, so it gives
you a privilege to be a little bit more fearless
than others. But I got fired, I got hired, I
quit many many times over my you know, my LinkedIn
profile is like reading one piece, but it's you know,
it's just a matter of I think it's really important

(06:38):
to pursue your passion. And for first gen Asian immigrants,
that is really not something that we're taught to do. Right,
exactly we are so it is so narrowly prescribed lawyer, doctor, scholar, engineer, right,
And if you want to stray from this path, it's very,
very difficult. And I understand it now as a mother,

(07:00):
but also looking at my parents and thinking of the
sacrifices that they made as immigrants, leaving everything they knew
behind and coming to Canada. In my case, they don't
really want to hear me say I want to be
a sculptor, right, because in their mind they're like, well,
that we didn't leave everything we know and we love
so that you could go do this profession that we

(07:23):
see as kind of unsafe in a way.

Speaker 1 (07:25):
Right. Are you the only child or do.

Speaker 5 (07:27):
You have an older brother of an older brother?

Speaker 1 (07:30):
Did he follow the family?

Speaker 6 (07:32):
Did he did?

Speaker 5 (07:33):
But he's also extremely passionate about it. My brothers. He
saw Chang. He's a tenured English professor at Vassar. He's
the tense, smartest people I know, and that's his passion.
So French Lit was my passion until I heard the
message and I went.

Speaker 6 (07:47):
On a second.

Speaker 8 (07:47):
Yeah, I was curious about how French Lit became your passion.
I was reading about that and I was like, is
it Canada?

Speaker 1 (07:54):
Yeah?

Speaker 8 (07:55):
Right, yeah, but that that still doesn't mean it that
becomes your passion to study in college and speak it
fluently because.

Speaker 5 (08:01):
You are well. What I will say is that I'm
fluent in speaking English with a French accent, which is
far more interesting and much more fun. You know. I
grew up in a family of academics. My father, god
Rest the Soul, was a mathematician, you know. Again, my
brother became a professor. My mother was a librarian. So
I grew up in a household where everybody was reading,
you know, and my parents were reading the classics in English,

(08:24):
which I think is extraordinary. And again, because it was
just always assumed that I would follow suit, it didn't
occur to me to think outside of that paradigm.

Speaker 8 (08:34):
So that was the suit, that was that was within
the suit, right, so now do they understand, Well, I
know your father isn't with us anymore, but your mom does.
She noticed you're a pioneer because like you said, you
you said you want the first Asian woman in hip hop.
That's a pioneer because they are a lot now.

Speaker 5 (08:48):
I wonder not a lot, But I don't think my
mother would describe as a pioneer. And to be honest
with you, did you give your mom this jacket?

Speaker 1 (08:55):
Yes? Wear it?

Speaker 5 (08:56):
No for thirty two years up until right now when
she can actually tell her friends that her daughter wrote
a book. My mother couldn't tell you what I did.
There's no way, Like she wouldn't understand what it means,
Like what does it mean to do A and R?
My mother was born in North Korea nineteen thirty two.
You know what I'm saying, Like, she's not because she needs.

Speaker 6 (09:14):
The guys, like, but it was the moment when she
met she.

Speaker 5 (09:17):
Did and they were all really gracious and she Yeah,
she met a bunch of the artists that I managed.

Speaker 1 (09:21):
Yeah, dude, Like I know, people don't understand.

Speaker 3 (09:25):
They kind of collectively eye roll whenever whenever I mentioned that.
It took me two albums to tell my dad that
I was in the roots.

Speaker 8 (09:34):
What.

Speaker 3 (09:35):
Yeah, but it's that that fear of wanting to disappoint
your parents or not wanting to disappoint your parents. And
you know, like my dad was busting his ass since
I was five to.

Speaker 1 (09:47):
Play in private school, yes, like to go his route, yes.

Speaker 3 (09:51):
And so for you to like sneak out of it
to do something you want to do is hard. So like,
when did you well, First of all, Vancouver, what was
the environment like before I know that you come to
Jesus moment was hearing the message by Grand Master Flash
and the Furious Five, But before then, what was your
life generally like in Vancouver?

Speaker 5 (10:14):
So it was very comfortable. You know, Vancouver is beautiful
and it's green and lovely. Again middle class went to
public schools. But I was very much a yellow girl
in a white world who wanted to be white, no question.
I was born in nineteen sixty five, and so when
I'm ten, right, and I'm coming of age, so to speak,

(10:35):
everything I see in the media, whether it's television, film, commercials,
or magazines is whiteness. Every representation of beauty and power
and sex appeal is white. And so I wanted to
be white and to be frank, I kind of wonder,
how does a person of color growing up in that, yeah,

(10:56):
not want to be white? Right? And as I shared
this story, I've had so many people say to me,
I felt the exact same way. And so I was,
you know, I'm watching these shows and these movies, and I, yeah,
it was. You know, I grew up getting called chink
jap gook for sure. I got you know, Chinese, Japanese

(11:17):
dirty knees. Look at these all of that stuff, because
racism then was just simply not as codified, and so
kids would be in your face. And the thing that
I learned very early on too, was you're learning this
from somewhere right right, And you're probably learning some of
it from your parents. Maybe they're not teaching you that
charming little song, but they are somehow instilling in you,

(11:40):
or rather not instilling in you, the the you know,
the virtue that you shouldn't be a shitty person and
judge people by, you know, and make prejudgments about somebody
based on their skin.

Speaker 1 (11:52):
So you were just in an isolated community.

Speaker 3 (11:55):
You weren't and you weren't amongst like your family, and
there was never I'll get my cousin's fuck you up
or yeah.

Speaker 5 (12:01):
No, it wasn't. It wasn't really like that. We weren't
that isolated because my parents were part of a burgeoning
Korean community, but we were all immigrants. Everybody's parents spoke
with accents, right, We all ate food that looked and
smelled and tasted different. All of our parents had quote
unquote funny names. So there were all of these things,

(12:24):
all of these markers that clearly indicated that we were other, right,
And the world never stopped telling us that we were other,
whether it was making fun of my parents' names again,
saying something about our food. Thank you white people for
now acknowledging in the kimchies is superfood, and that you
think you involved, you think you had invented bone broth.

(12:44):
I don't think so. You know, all of the all
of these things that kind of diminished, right, who who
we were. And you know, I've been thinking a lot
lately about visibility and erasure, right, And I think that
any of us who live on the margins understand what
it is like to be systematically and institutionally erased, and

(13:07):
so in kind of denying my parents' history, their heritage,
their culture, and making fun of it. To me, you
are diminishing and you are erasing them. And I certainly
I didn't have this language when I was a child,
but I really felt that I was that I would.
You know, in making somebody feel other, you are necessarily

(13:30):
making them feel lesser.

Speaker 3 (13:33):
I see, was Sophia your birthday or was it at.

Speaker 5 (13:37):
That's a good question.

Speaker 8 (13:38):
No.

Speaker 5 (13:39):
So everybody in my extended family has a Korean name.
I was the first person in my family born outside
of Korea, and my father chose to name me after
a Polish mathematician. And that was a conscious decision on
his part.

Speaker 1 (13:55):
Okay, yeah, I see.

Speaker 3 (13:57):
So not many people know this about Vancouver, besides having
one of the best, most adventurous ice cream polos of
all time. Shout out to La Casa Gelato over five
hundred flavors.

Speaker 1 (14:11):
They didn't pay for that plug.

Speaker 3 (14:13):
Sorry, but you know, not many people know that the
national anthem of hip hop was created in Vancouver in
mushroom studios. The incredible bongo bands Apache was actually created
in mushroom studios in Vancouver.

Speaker 5 (14:40):
Holy shit, I didn't know that. That's amazing in mushroom studios,
that's amazing.

Speaker 1 (14:44):
More you know.

Speaker 3 (14:45):
So yeah, So for me, it's not shocking at all
that your passion for hip hop culture because I'm sure
that you know people Vancouver, how did you find that moment?
But you know, the national anthem of hip hop was
was born. So tell us about that moment where you
heard the message, and I you know, for a lot

(15:07):
of us that were around in real time, like, the
message was definitely one of the besides rappers delight. To me,
the message was one of the first what I call
war the world's moment where you stare at the speaker
and you're undering, what the hell is this?

Speaker 5 (15:21):
Like?

Speaker 3 (15:22):
What was that experience like for you? And how did
that transform you?

Speaker 5 (15:26):
I want to talk about that, and then I want
to ask you about your experience. I'd be very curious
to hear about your experience the first time you heard
it too. So for me, you know, all I'm seeing
around me is whiteness, and then I'm seeing yellowness because
there are Asian immigrants there. There are lots of Chinese
and Vancouver, and then there are some brown folks meaning
South Asians, right, But I have no exposure to black

(15:47):
folks and Latin X folks. And again all of the
representations of people of color are coming through the media,
and that at the time and still largely is the case,
is who the white male lens now? And I also
wasn't because I grew up in Vancouver. I'm listening to
top forty radio. I am listening to white music. I
have no exposure to this remarkably robust and rich tradition

(16:08):
of gospel, R and B jazz, none of that. I'm
not exposed to any of it. So when I hear
the message, I'm in twelfth grade. There's this kid, Ray,
this Greek kid. He loved music, and he brings this
twelve inch record to school. We're in the lunch room.
We're in this music room at lunchtime, and he puts
on the record. Now, the thing that I always loved

(16:30):
was dancing, and so but I listened to disco. Actually,
to be fair, I always love dancing. And so immediately
the beat hits me in the solar plexus, right, So
I have a viscial response, and then I hear the
lyrics and I just think, I don't even know what
I was thinking, but I remember I found it so compelling,

(16:55):
and in retrospect, when I think about it. I think
it's because it's the first time. And again I didn't
I certainly didn't have this language. It's sixteen seventeen that
I heard people of color talk about themselves and represent
their own world as opposed to white Hollywood saying, this
is what brown people, yellow people, black folks.

Speaker 1 (17:17):
Do, right.

Speaker 5 (17:18):
And also there was a sense of urgency and anger
and pride that resonated with me really deeply, because again,
being a yellow girl growing up in a white world
who wants to be white, I didn't feel pride. I
felt shame and embarrassment, right, And so I hear the
message and then I think wow. And also I'm a

(17:42):
French major, so I'm a literature major, and I studied poetry,
and I knew it was poetry. There was no part
of me that was I don't understand what people don't
think it's poetry. I think it's poetry, and I think
it's literature. And then I see the run DMC video
for King of Rock. So I've only heard the message,
and then I see King of Rock and I'm.

Speaker 9 (18:01):
Like, oh, oh my god, right, you know arms rocks,
you know, and just exactly the bee boy stance and
just this claiming of me, and this is who I.

Speaker 5 (18:17):
Am, and I will not let anybody else define me,
nor will I let anybody else tell you who I am.
I'm fucking telling you who I am. That was revelatory.
But I'd love to ask you because the message is
the first song that I heard, right, certainly not the
first hip hop song that you heard. What struck you
as being different about it?

Speaker 1 (18:36):
About the message? All right?

Speaker 3 (18:39):
So up until that point, of course, like I was
eight when rappers Ali came out, so that was just
what the hell is this? And the second time I
had that moment was not Many people will write about
the Adventures of grand Master Flash and the Furious the

(18:59):
Ventures a grand Master Flash on the Wheels of Steel
basically the first record that demonstrates cutting. So I'm trying
to decipher how this noise is made? And can I
do this on my dad's think, oh, you know, whippons
and all that shit.

Speaker 1 (19:13):
So but with the message stop scratching my isa K records, right,
I would say that.

Speaker 3 (19:25):
Sitting in my dad's car and it came on the
radio and even he had to take a pause, like,
but everything in that song hit me because I didn't
know none of what none of those street terms were.

Speaker 1 (19:39):
I didn't know what a pimp was.

Speaker 3 (19:42):
Like my six year old cousin had to tell eleven
year old me, Like I was like, she had to
get a pip like last night and the pips.

Speaker 1 (19:50):
She couldn't make it on her own.

Speaker 3 (19:54):
Yeah, but literally everything like you know, if the front
of the train, I'm like, wait, they're pushing people on
the train.

Speaker 7 (19:59):
Platforms and midnight train and Georgia platform But to me,
to me, the last minute of that song when they
got arrested, Yo, that's scared the shit out me.

Speaker 3 (20:14):
And then that's that was That was a moment where
I feel like the first father and son talk really happened,
where my dad told me like, you know, that could
be you, that that might be your cousins, that could
be the boys on the forty ninth Street.

Speaker 1 (20:32):
And just the whole Like.

Speaker 3 (20:35):
You know, my first lecture about police came because of
that song. I was like, wait, why are they getting arrested?
And what's what's going on here?

Speaker 1 (20:44):
Like you don't remember the ending? Like what is that
a game? Getting the car? Getting a car? I didn't do.

Speaker 3 (20:48):
Nothing, Like I wasn't old enough to understand when Stevie
Wonder did that on Living for the City. But hearing
that that definitely, I'll say the last minute of the
message was such just a paradigm shift in my life.
That's where I was taught, taught fear the police and

(21:09):
whatever you do, like straight up and you know all
that stuff. So yeah, that that affected me in ways
that I can't even imagine.

Speaker 1 (21:17):
Definitely my father.

Speaker 5 (21:19):
They impacted people. I really hope they know how they
impacted different.

Speaker 3 (21:23):
Yeah, them all the time when you know, whenever I
see them, how that is?

Speaker 5 (21:27):
That's that's amazing. Thank you for sharing.

Speaker 4 (21:29):
It really seems like from so many of the interviews
that we've done here that the message is like the
the equivalent of the Beatles uh Ed Sullivan performance. You know,
the people who saw that or people who heard that
that's when their life changed.

Speaker 1 (21:46):
Well, I mean Ed Sullivan in that way, I mean TV.

Speaker 3 (21:51):
I mean the way viral viralness is now with YouTube.
Like everyone watched The Ed Sullivan Show on Sunday nights
at nine pm on CBS. So if you had the
platform of being on The Ed Sullivan Show, your career
was made. And the Beatles made their American debut on
The Ed Sullivan Show, and everything changed.

Speaker 6 (22:15):
After that, Like you think my parents was watching that?

Speaker 1 (22:18):
Did they have a television?

Speaker 6 (22:19):
Yeah?

Speaker 1 (22:19):
Were they born? You just won't be difficult, don't you?

Speaker 6 (22:25):
Like, No, I just don't think. I just I don't
think that that was forever. Well.

Speaker 1 (22:28):
I mean, here's the thing, my relationship with the Beatles.

Speaker 6 (22:31):
Steve, I was just saying no, no, no, Actually, I'm.

Speaker 3 (22:33):
Kind of with you my relationship with the Beatles. Actually,
I knew all the black artists who covered the Beatles
before I even got into the Beatles. So it took
a lot of unpacking at the age of fifteen and realized, like, oh,
Gladys Knight and the Pips didn't do that song first,
and Bill Withers didn't do this song first, and wait,
Stevie Wonder didn't.

Speaker 8 (22:53):
Do we Out and not for nothing, our households were
different in a way. That's like my I asked my mom,
you wasn't.

Speaker 6 (22:58):
At what stock?

Speaker 5 (22:58):
She was like, girl, what the fuck?

Speaker 1 (23:00):
No, No, I get it.

Speaker 3 (23:06):
But I mean the Beatles definitely impacted a lot of
music lovers, not just their their target demographic, but you know,
you were even if you were black, you were watching
at Sullivan's show. So, how when did you make your

(23:33):
move to America?

Speaker 5 (23:34):
Like I was, I was twenty two and I was
literally writing out my graduating essay and I went straight
to the airport. I skipped graduation. We were just talking
Bill and I were just talking about this. I was
so anxious to get back to New York. So I
have to I have to give a little bit of context.
So as a French major, first of all, living in Vancouver,

(23:55):
I knew I wanted to break out of Vancouver, and
as a French major, maybe she'll see right. Of course,
it's three pairs. And then I went to Paris and
I met the French and I was like, oh no,
I'm not doing this. And then in my final year
of college, I came to New York and I met
Joey Ramone. I thought he was Johnny. I called him
Johnny Joey God rest his soul. And I had I

(24:17):
had heard the message. I had visited New York and
I knew, okay, this is where I want to be.
As a French would say, I was like a like
a fish to water. So when I moved here, I
stayed with a legendary rock critical named Legs McNeil and
his girlfriend, and they introduced me that she got me
a job working at Paul Simon and then I kind

(24:39):
of in eighty seven and then I exactly on the
you're so scold, you really are like this. How do
you keep it on your head? Yeah, so it was
he's coming off of the world wide Graceland tour.

Speaker 6 (24:55):
So do you have a regular job during this time?
I'm trying to figure out you said.

Speaker 5 (24:58):
So, my regular job is I'm the distant to his
tour managers, coming off of.

Speaker 6 (25:01):
Grade before Paul time.

Speaker 5 (25:03):
And like, how you I think I might like, I
had a little job working at a studio. But also
at that time, yeah, New York was not as expensive.
Okay when me and my friends talked. So this is
in the late eighties, early nineties, right when me and
my friends talk about it. Where we lived in that time,
none of us could afford to live there now, no

(25:23):
fucking way we're part of So I was living well.
I lived on the Upper West Side with Columbia students
for a while, but then I lived downtown at fourteenth
and seventh, and then I lived at the Archives, which
is this really beautiful white glove building. Elevator Doorman Building
in the West Village. Not a shot. Could I afford
to live there now? Not a shot. I mean when
I was when I was coming up, nobody lived nobody

(25:47):
lived in Brooklyn, Sure as fuck, nobody lived in Queens.
And now all of my friends live in Brooklyn and
Queens because we can't afford Manhattan anymore, like nobody can
afford the city anymore.

Speaker 1 (25:57):
So I can't afford the apartment. I moved to Brooklyn
in two thousand and two.

Speaker 5 (26:01):
Yeah, that apartment, it's really tough. But there were also
three of us living in a three hundred and sixty
square foot studio. But we were like in our early twenties,
and who gives a shit, it was probably like one
hundred dollars.

Speaker 3 (26:11):
What was the environment like back then, because it's I
would imagine that mid late eighties was more that was
post danceitaria. So that's the first era of Downtown New
York scene. So what was the scene into So.

Speaker 5 (26:30):
What was really amazing about the scene at the time
was that it was really small and I'm not going
to say insular, because it wasn't insular. It was small
and it was focused, but it was also very inclusive
and we were all at the same clubs. So you
had DJ's, MC graph, artists, be boys all there. But

(26:52):
you also had managers, A and R, publicist, agents, attorneys.
I mean, you had every single sector of the industry there,
because in nineteen eighty seven hip hop is still a
relatively nascent industry, okay, right, and so and again it's
localized and it's centralized. And you had DJs like Red Alert,
you know, and we would go anywhere where Red was spinning.

(27:14):
You had Clark spinning. We would go anywhere that Clark
was spinning. So there were there were different clubs. There
was a there was a moving club called there was
pay Day, and it was these three promoters. It was
Chuck Beaver and Patrick Marxy and they would they would
move around and they started to name so they named

(27:35):
the clubs after chocolate bars. So there was pay Day.

Speaker 1 (27:38):
There was one.

Speaker 5 (27:38):
Hundred grand I know, and right, so they were named
after a bunch of chocolate bars. And they could roam.
Now this was at a time where you could do this.
No way could you do this now, not a shot, right,
Like I lived down in the Lower East Side, and
I'm pretty sure that one of the clubs that I
went to back in the day was housed in one
of the high schools, like they rented out high school auditoriums,

(28:01):
they rented out abandoned like Chinese restaurants and stuff like that.
And it was so amazing because again this is before
the internet. There's nowhere out yeah, and we would they would,
they would hand out flyers and then we would just
all call each other and leave messages on each other's
answering machines, google it, and we would, you know, we
would just make sure that we were all there and
there was a feeling of community because we were all

(28:25):
there for the music. This is where records were broken.
Clark Kent single handedly broke Color me bads, I want
to sex you up, sex you up. I remember being there.
I think it was actually Ditty's house. When Puffy had
a club over here on fifty four Street, and you know,
none of us had heard the song. Literally, none of

(28:45):
us had heard the song. He had a white label
and the opening strains come on, and you know, you're
on the dance when you're dancing, and then you just
stop because you don't know the record, and the record
came on and then and then the bee came in
and we were like, oh shit. And years later, at
twenty fourteen at Universal, I was in the in an
A and R doing A and R admin at Island. Sam,

(29:09):
who was one of the members of Color Me Bad,
said that they were in the club that night and
that was the first time they heard their record played.

Speaker 3 (29:16):
Sam, was that George Michael Vanilla James or the Kenny
G Kenny G.

Speaker 1 (29:23):
How did you know? Because I used to be a
Color Me Bad fan. I got the two.

Speaker 6 (29:27):
Albums broke, Yeah, two albums, little bit.

Speaker 7 (29:31):
I didn't even know the Time and Chance was the
second one.

Speaker 1 (29:35):
Oh that was my joy.

Speaker 5 (29:38):
So they So it was a really really close It
was a really really close knit community. And you know,
it was such a privileged.

Speaker 1 (29:45):
To make me feel bad for like coloring Wait, time out?
Wait what side new? Do you know?

Speaker 3 (29:52):
Right right before a Fat Cat on Fantastic Body whin,
they're doing Time and Chance.

Speaker 1 (29:56):
They talk about time and Chance, right, all right? Good?
But it was we were a rabbit.

Speaker 5 (30:04):
But it's this beautiful community and I was welcomed into
the community and I was embraced and I'm really grateful
for that. And that was a privilege because hip hop
was obviously was not of my making, you know, it
was not my world. And yet hip hop was like,
come in so and you know the first people were
Crazy Legs and DJ Scratch brilliant at the New Music Seminar. Yeah,

(30:28):
Legs has the store where he's like, I'll never forget
the first time I saw you. I was looking across, going,
who is that little Asian woman that knows all the
words of brand Nubian stepped to the rear.

Speaker 3 (30:39):
Oh shit, right, So you were there, like I'll say,
in the early nineties and not oh see, that's the
era are the era that people mostly tell us about
this show is like Latin Quarter and all that stuff,
but kind of that SOBS period. I don't hear a
lot about, so I don't always wondered.

Speaker 5 (31:02):
L Q and all that predated me. For sure. I
never went to Latin Quarter. I never went to dance Aetyria.
Most of my friends all certainly my friends grew up
in New York did so. But you know the other
thing that's interesting about that era is that so you
have these small roaming clubs, right, but you also have
mega clubs and they're all gone. Palladium.

Speaker 1 (31:22):
It's a dorm, tunnel, tunnel.

Speaker 5 (31:24):
Right the tunnel, limelight, these places were you dare go
to the tunnel?

Speaker 1 (31:29):
Yeah? I did.

Speaker 5 (31:30):
I did at a certain point, though I stopped because
I think Chris Lighty, God Restless Soul. I think Lighty
was like, don't come self. It is like, don't come?

Speaker 6 (31:39):
Can I ask you a question?

Speaker 8 (31:40):
I don't know if this is uncomfortable, but I'm just
as I'm listening, because you are to me a pioneer
in ways, because you were in the club, you knew
all the lyrics and stuff like that. How did you
navigate around the N word? And how did you realize
that that was like a hot button because you're from
Vancouver and there weren't we weren't around to be like,
well this ain't cool and this is cool.

Speaker 5 (31:58):
And because even before hip hop, I grew up knowing
that even though I was called chink, jap and gook,
I knew that the N words it's used against people
the way that those words were used against me. So
even if it's in the lyrics and my favorite artists
are saying it, it never felt right to me.

Speaker 8 (32:22):
Ever, because I do know it's that weird thing where
it has been made it's different than most slurs because
it has been made cool in a way.

Speaker 6 (32:30):
So that's why I was.

Speaker 8 (32:31):
Like, and others have issues dealing with that, like I
don't get it.

Speaker 6 (32:34):
It's so cool to say.

Speaker 5 (32:35):
Yeah, I yeah, I yeah.

Speaker 1 (32:37):
I can't yeah.

Speaker 3 (32:38):
So what was your first inside industry job as far
as hip hop is concerned?

Speaker 1 (32:43):
Where did you first?

Speaker 5 (32:44):
It was the job doing A and R at jive?
So I met the Captain A K. Shawn Karasov God
Rest his soul. He was doing A and R jive.
He signed a troupal quest and he said, I'm moving
to the West Coast because at the time, the West
Coast was had a burgeoning hip hop scene. Right he said, Sealthie,
I'm moving to I'm moving to Wila. I think you
should interview for my job. So I interviewed for his

(33:05):
job with Barry Weiss, very very very smart president of
Drive Records, and Barry gave me the job, although he
did tell me he said the second I walked in
the door, he went, oh, she'll never get the job.

Speaker 3 (33:15):
What what is Barry like? I meet many people that
work with him. What is he like as because really,
I mean Barry was to me he was almost deaf
Jam before death Jam, because he's the one that signed
like Philly artists like Shell, took the entire Powart label

(33:36):
and made it his own and all that stuff. Before
you know, Russell and Rick got established him.

Speaker 1 (33:41):
What was he like? Just Barry?

Speaker 5 (33:42):
I think I believe Barry is a Cornell grad. Barry
is also the son of High Weiss, and High was
also in the music business. And Barry is so smart,
so smart. You know, you're in rooms with people and
as soon as they start talking, you go, oh, holy
sh you're so smart. He is also one of the

(34:03):
funniest people I know. Like literally, if Barry was sitting here,
in thirty seconds, he could add me laughing. He did
incredible impersonations. He was amazing as a boss. He could
be pretty exacting. And you know Barry, So, there were
all these trades back in the day. There's Billboard, but
then there's Gavin, there's R and R, there's FMQB. There
are all these trades, and all of these trades, many

(34:23):
of them have local record sales reports, right, Barry would
go through every single one and if he saw that
an artist sold fifty copies of a cassette in Kansas.
He'd be like, call that person. So you're absolutely right.
I mean Barry signed Short, I mean not Barry, but
you know Jive signed Short. Yeah, they signed Spice one.
You know, they had their tentacles out really far. And

(34:44):
I think that was Barry's vision to understand really early
on that hip hop would expand far beyond New York.
So I loved working for Barry. I learned so much.

Speaker 1 (34:54):
Who did you what artists were you under? Did you
sign anybody a job? Doing your terrain?

Speaker 5 (34:59):
I signed foh Nickens, Casual Souls and Mischief. I signed
an amazing artist named Miss Kilo from the West Coast.
Unfortunately I left and that that didn't ever happen. So
those are the artists that I said, yes, oh what
a memory, Oh my god, you're in the safe place.
And then I worked with Tribe and karras One and

(35:23):
UGK and you know a bunch of other I mean,
they had an amazing roster.

Speaker 1 (35:28):
How did you guys? All right?

Speaker 3 (35:30):
So speaking of UGK, you know kind of the globalization
or no that not the globalization, for I guess hip
hop really going nationalization? How how are you guys able
to because even before Depthtam again, you guys were first
and going to other terries, not New York, signing artists

(35:51):
first with Philly with Jeff and Will and Steady being Schooley,
and then expanding out. So what was it about you?
UGK and Spice one and well too short? And it
wasn't Volume ten also no, no, he was on RCA proper.
But what was it about those artists? Especially with UGK?

Speaker 5 (36:14):
I think, for I didn't sign any of those, I
can't take credit for signing any of them, but I
think a lot of it was, like I said, I
think a lot of it was seeing sales figures. I
think a lot of it was understanding that. But it
couldn't be that alone, right, So then we get in,
We get an indication that there is a buzz around
a certain artist, and I would literally call a record
store and say, so, you have this artist name so

(36:36):
and so, how is he selling? How is she selling?
It was always a hea though, how is he selling?
And then whoever was running the local record store would
give me a sense of what was going on there,
and if it sounded promising, I would then say can
you please put me in touch with his manager? And
then it would kind of go from there. But UGK,
how did YOUGK come to us? I don't remember, but

(36:58):
everybody had it couldn't It couldn't simply be data, which
is different from now because a lot of artists, I
think now can get signed purely off of data. It
was data driven, but then it was also talent, you know,
and you know there was something so unique god Ress's soul, pimpsy,
about pimp and about bun and about what they were presenting.

(37:18):
Now we had the ghetto boys from Texas as well, right,
But UGK, I don't know. I just remember the first
time I heard them they felt really new and fresh,
but dirty and grime in a way that I really appreciated,
you know, So it was probably a combination of the two.

Speaker 3 (37:37):
Well, this is would I always ask an arts when
they come on the show. Can you name three acts
that got away that you really that you had a
chance to sign, or that you had like the sort
of buzz on before they got became a thing and
they went elsewhere.

Speaker 5 (37:55):
Well, everybody's going to tell you Wu tang because we
all had the demo, but there's no way I was
going to be able to sign them. Dos effects were
at my house four days a week and didn't get
to sign them. Yeah, House of Pain. I was friends
with Mugs from back in the Cypress Hill days Wu
Tang Grave Diggers. I wanted to sign and wasn't able

(38:15):
to sign. But the funny thing about the House of
Pain story is that again I was friends with Mugs
and I had the demo. And now the thing that
was really frustrating to Clive Calder, the owner of Jive Records,
was that Dots Effects and House of Pain went pop.
Now before summertime, none of Jive's hip hop artists went pop, right,

(38:36):
I think that, Oh my god, what's that little boy group?
They did a song it was five Little Boys. Oh,
I'm bugging that. I'm not remembering. Anyway, they had a
song about kiss and that was the first, I feel
like that was the first number one Billboard song for
oh five, the Kissing Game. So it really got under

(38:59):
Clive's skin that I wanted to sign Dos Effects and
I wanted to sign House of Pain and they were
they were big pop hits. And so after House of Pain,
after Jump Around came out, he said, you know he's
South African. Sophia come down to my office. Do you
do you still have the House of Pain demo? And
I said yeah, And so in his mind, when I

(39:19):
played the demo, the you know, the noise. I always
say that Mugs was kind of the the the the
next generation of the Bomb Squad bringing the noise that
that he he was convinced that when I played him

(39:40):
the demo original demo, that that sound wasn't in the demo,
but it was. And in fact, when I.

Speaker 1 (39:48):
That's not it, it is it is? It is not
all right?

Speaker 3 (39:52):
We will have again, we will have arguments, all right,
So the big debate is.

Speaker 1 (39:57):
Here's the deal. So that's not Prince's voice. Is Rosie Wan's.
We've been having that. I didn't know that. I didn't
know what. Okay, so Muggs and them keep saying that
it's Junior walking the All Star but I when distorted.

Speaker 5 (40:21):
And so we will.

Speaker 3 (40:24):
They're saying that it's Junior walking the All Stars. I
forget the name of the song, but okay, I'm still
maintaining that it's Prince's get Off intro.

Speaker 5 (40:34):
So essentially, when I went back to So, I played
it for Clive and he was like, oh damn it.
And when I went back to mugs. I said, how
close is this to the version, the demo version to
the one that got on the radio, And he said,
it's the version that got on the radio. There's virtually
no distance between.

Speaker 3 (40:49):
So you're saying that if they lost the yelp scream
all right, horn line, that you guys would have signed it,
Like that.

Speaker 5 (40:55):
Was going to scare you know what he said? What
Clive was saying was and he when House of Pain
went jump Around became a big pop hit, he was
so frustrated that he hadn't let me sign it. And
he said, Sophia, when you play me the demo, that
sound was not in them. You see what I'm saying.
So it was like, do you still.

Speaker 1 (41:14):
Have made a difference? That is funny.

Speaker 8 (41:19):
So wait, at this point, had you started the relationship?

Speaker 6 (41:22):
Will will yet?

Speaker 3 (41:23):
No?

Speaker 5 (41:23):
Okay, that's why you said you summer ninety three?

Speaker 3 (41:25):
Ok So okay, Well that is weird of all, the
label like Jive was just not a label that signed
any member of the WOU like not even inspected deck.

Speaker 5 (41:37):
So my guess is they were too expensive, really, I guess, Yeah,
neither did Tommy Boy.

Speaker 1 (41:47):
Yeah they already messed up with Yeah, but they had they.

Speaker 6 (41:50):
Had a chance, right, right, So that's difference. I'm sorry,
I'm just catching up.

Speaker 1 (41:55):
On budget wise. Budget wise, Jive really.

Speaker 5 (41:58):
Didn't have a they were we were. We were a
scrappy little independent and we were we had to be
really competitive in other ways.

Speaker 3 (42:05):
That is so weird because I, at least with the
look of it and the ads that you guys purchased
and the artist that you represent it, I was always
I never looked at you guys as a Tommy Boy
underling or even a rough house boutique label, like I
considered you guys absolutely super major.

Speaker 5 (42:24):
No, I think that we were. I think we were major,
major players. But that had to do with the fact
that everything else other than big advances compensated for that, right,
So I'm I was competing for hieroglyphics. That was a
competitive deal. Well, I can't offer as much as a
major label can, but what can I offer. We'll look
at our roster, right, And what people need to know

(42:45):
is that talent can be an amazing talent magnet. So
when we can talk about the fact, so those boys
are from the Bay, they're from the East Oakland, and
we have Spice one and we have too short and
we have pooh right, and so they So there is
also thinking about who your label mates are going to be,
and that's how we were. That's how we were able
to be competitive. But it wasn't by spending a ton

(43:05):
of money.

Speaker 1 (43:06):
I see.

Speaker 3 (43:07):
Wait, I got to ask, since you're associated with him,
what what effect do you think that that battle with
Safir had on their momentum? Uh Solz Mischief did a
infamous battle against Sofia in on Bay Area radio, and.

Speaker 1 (43:29):
All I know is that that's all we listen to.

Speaker 3 (43:33):
To me was the equivalent of if you watch kill
Bill when oh my god, I.

Speaker 5 (43:38):
Was just gonna I'm so bizarre with Lucy.

Speaker 3 (43:40):
Lou Yes, well, no, no, no, I mean both battles.
But actually I was thinking of when when Uma Thurman
just took out the crazy eighty eight.

Speaker 5 (43:53):
The yeah, taken out.

Speaker 3 (43:55):
That's what I wouldn't say taken out, but I will
say that Sophir just one like it's for them, and
they had.

Speaker 1 (44:03):
Casual so it was like really eight of.

Speaker 3 (44:05):
Them versus one of him, and he just took them
all one by one and we just never I know
that that had an effect on Tarik Treek was like
I have to be that good where I can take
out ten mcs or that sort of thing.

Speaker 1 (44:19):
But I mean, did that do you think that affected their.

Speaker 3 (44:24):
Momentum and their or yeah, their confidence at all or
was it just like whatever?

Speaker 5 (44:31):
Ah, if it did, I didn't see any sign of that.
And also, you know, being around those guys, you know
kung fu, we say sharpen your blade every day and
at the time when I was around them and they're sixteen, seventeen, eighteen,
nineteen years old, right, they sharpened their blades all day
every day. I mean, to be around them was to

(44:51):
hear them freestyle more than you would hear them talk. So, yes,
is there this epic battle and you know Sophie is
is dominant. Absolutely, But I don't think that made them
kind of shrink and go, oh my god, where we're
not good anymore? To this day, I don't think that
they that they have any doubt as to as to

(45:12):
their skills.

Speaker 3 (45:13):
Real okay, oh they're still going strong. Yeah, And I
kind of wish Opio didn't cut his hair.

Speaker 6 (45:17):
From it again, say it again, that was like when he.

Speaker 1 (45:22):
Cut his hair. I was just like, man, they lost
their angle like.

Speaker 6 (45:25):
And me because I was like where's he at?

Speaker 8 (45:27):
I can't want is he now?

Speaker 1 (45:30):
Which one is he? For real? I was like, Opio,
come on, dude, like.

Speaker 5 (45:36):
He did a beautiful hair.

Speaker 1 (45:38):
He did go on all right.

Speaker 3 (45:46):
So I'll admit when I first saw Protect your Neck,
that was a little too low budget for me.

Speaker 1 (45:58):
I saw it.

Speaker 3 (46:01):
No, No, you know, I've seen it on like a
local like we had our own local uh aj Shine
from w KDU and and Philly had his own like
show of the avenue on Jacksonell University and he would
show it and it was just like, ah, this is
so cheap.

Speaker 1 (46:21):
I mean, I got it though, but.

Speaker 3 (46:26):
I kind of feel like people have recontextualized and and
sort of the way that people will talk about Princess
Dirty Mind. Like I was there at the beginning like
that sort of thing. I was like, where you really
so for you with the with the early Wu tang,
like you were truly aboard and you knew that.

Speaker 1 (46:46):
This was going to be a thing. Yeah.

Speaker 5 (46:48):
And I also think that there's a little bit of
civic pride going on there because simultaneously, if I remember correctly,
the West coast was on the come up, oh no,
and so there was a sense of like New York,
New York. We got this shit, right, yeah, like we
you know it's from That's right. And then you have

(47:12):
nine guns and they're from Staten Island, and you're like,
how could it? Does anybody care about Staten Island? And
they and they did this thing, and I think that
it wasn't Look you could talk about Rizzz Beats all
day long, and I remember what it felt like to
me was I think it impacted me on so many

(47:34):
different levels. So at that point, I'm considering myself a
proud New Yorker, even even though I've been there for
less here for less than a decade, but it was
so New York, right, Like I feel like Rizzes beats
and he describes them as grimy were this really unflinching
look at the dirty underbelly of the city, and I

(47:56):
and then and then you have their rhymes and he
somehow Harness's nine guys on what we used to call
a posse track.

Speaker 8 (48:03):
Right.

Speaker 5 (48:04):
So now, if we made that record, you would fly
somebody the beat and they'd send you their eight or
their sixteen. Right. But back in the day, they were
all in the studio, they're all sleeping on Rizz's floor
in Staten Island, right, and so you have this kind
of you have this osmosis happening, and it just felt huge.

(48:29):
That's how it felt. It felt in terms of volume
of how many MC's there were, but also the fact
that I'd never heard beats like Rizzes before. I was like,
oh shit, what is he doing? And I am far
from the musicologist you are, and I could never deconstruct
it the way that you can.

Speaker 3 (48:44):
But the A and R and you wasn't thinking like
I would think that, Yeah, A and rs are thinking
fight or flight. I gotta find the next big thing
to keep justify my job in my position, So my
first thought would be, oh, this is way too low.

Speaker 1 (48:59):
Fight like this go on radio? Right?

Speaker 3 (49:03):
Oh like that your your inner A and R wasn't
already tainted and taking over your consciousness?

Speaker 5 (49:11):
Well what the What tainted it was the deal that
they asked for. So none of us could sign Wu
Tang Klan right, right, So it was already off the table.
But it in the same way that the message hit
me viscerally. It hit me viscerally, and remember I met
them really soon thereafter, So it is one thing to
hear the record. It is another thing to see that

(49:33):
really grainy, g low fi time going five thousand dollars
video where they're not even I don't even think they're
even all in that video. And then to meet them,
and I think because I had the privilege of being
in proximity to them really really early on before the
first album came out, I it was it was really

(49:54):
really clear to us. Certainly in New York, all of
us knew like, oh, this shit's gonna blow. It's it's
gonna blow. Not necessarily because we thought Protecting Neck was
a commercial song. None of us thought this is like summertime, right,
but it just felt like this swell uh you know.
I say in my memoir there there's this really great

(50:17):
Victor Hugo quote which has been kind of loosely translated
as something like you you can't fight an idea whose
time has come and so, but literally translated is you
can resist an invasion of armies. You cannot resist an
invasion of ideas. But in my mind they were both.

(50:42):
They were this army who had these incredible ideas and
that was all resist vision. Look, he couldn't have done
it with that Wu Tang, but it was you know,
he was the Abbott and that was his creative genius.

Speaker 3 (50:55):
So was he the first member that you met? How
did you start working with an organization?

Speaker 5 (50:59):
And what were so heard the Wu Tang demo. Loved it.
I became a wvangelist. I played it for anybody that
would listen. I was like, listen, listen to my shitty
little yellow walk sports walkman. Google it and then I
uh and but couldn't sign them, but I was a
huge fan. And then the Grave digg Is demo came
across my desk, and the Grave digger Is he wasn't

(51:22):
asking for the same non exclusive, so that was something
that I could definitely try to sign. And I arranged
to meet him, and I remember like it was yesterday.
I remember the weather, what I wore, what I ate,
where we ate like, I remember so much about it.
And in that first interaction, of course we talked about
the Grave Diggas and the parameters of the deal and

(51:43):
the creative vision, but we also talked about Wu Tang.
But you know this as well as I do. When
you get a new conversation with Rizza, it's never just
about music, right, And you know I've been saying for
a while that to me, Rizza is the Bruce Lee
of music. And when I say that, I mean that
Bruce Lee was took a lot of different traditions. Bruce

(52:07):
Lee grew up studying wing shun right, and that is
a very traditional kung fu form, but he studied many
other forms and then he made his own form called jikundo.
And I kind of feel like that's what Rizza did,
as have many producers, like kind of take all of
these and not disrespect any of them, honor them, all
of these different musical and sonic traditions, and then to

(52:29):
blend them and to make his own thing. Now again,
many producers have done that. Why I call him the
Bruce Lee of hip hop is because he is additionally
a philosopher, and I do not I cannot think of
other artists or producers that I think are true philosophers.
And this stems from an intense intellectual, cultural, and spiritual curiosity.

(52:58):
So riz is the guy that has, like any artists,
traveled the world a number of times over. But he
is also the guy that doesn't go to whatever city
in whatever country and whatever corner of the world and say,
you know, just find me the nearest McDonald's, so I
can eat food that I'm comfortable with. He will eat
that food right. He will find out where is the
place of prayer and where is the faith here? What

(53:18):
is the language, what is the culture? And he will
immerse himself in that. And I think it really comes
out in everything that he does now that that's expanded
far beyond music. So he was the first one that
I met, and I describe it as being, you know,
the first time I met Riza was like going through
many different chambers, and then after I met him, I
met all the rest of them. And the last one

(53:39):
that I met was dirty God rest his soul.

Speaker 1 (53:43):
How is it navigating his life?

Speaker 3 (53:46):
There's two people on earth that I've met, both of
their tour managers with the Roots Organization, My boy Silbert
when we were interviewing him, and my first question was, so,
what qualifications do you have that you feel would be

(54:08):
beneficial to us? And he said one thing he said,
he says, I've been Public Enemies tour manager for the
last twenty years.

Speaker 1 (54:17):
Flavor Flav has never been late or missed a show. Wow.

Speaker 3 (54:21):
I was like, wow, you're hired. So what is the
amount of Jedi mind tricks that you have to do
to keep them organized.

Speaker 5 (54:39):
So I could never say that they were never late
working with me at all, or that they didn't miss
the show. But to talk about Dirty first, I call
him Ason. I call him a you know, managing old
dirty bastard could certainly seem oxymoronic, but I think that

(55:00):
I did as good a job as anybody could look.
Ason had an addictive personality, There's no doubt about it, right.
He was addicted to sex, he was addicted to alcohol,
and he became addicted to drugs. But when I managed him,
he didn't even smoke wheat, Like I remember him being like, wet,
get that shit out of here. I hate the smell
of that. So I knew him before he did drugs.

(55:23):
But he did drink a lot, and he did love women,
and so there was a lot of there was a
lot of damage control, as you can imagine. But the
thing that I want people to know about Ason is
that he was so smart. He was he was so smart,

(55:43):
and he had such a creative vision. But he was
also intellectually very smart, and he was really really good
with people. He was so winsome and he could charm
anybody when he wanted to. He was super protective of me,
and he was dead loyal. And I keep quoting my
friend Julius Ono, who's a Nigerian American director who made

(56:05):
this movie earlier this summer called Loose and it's about
a transracial adoptee, and he said in a Q and
A that I think that every person in this world
should be granted access to the full spectrum of humanity.
And I think that any of us who live on
the margins are not granted access to the full spectrum
of humanity. I think rappers in particular are not granted

(56:26):
access to the full spectrum of humanity. And so what
I try to communicate in my memoir is who were
these artists to me? So I am far from a
Wou Tang expert. I could not tell you what sequence
the albums came out, in the names of all the
solo none of that that samples any of that. The

(56:46):
only thing that I am an expert on, and I
am an expert on this, it's who they are as
men people to me. And I think that I have
a unique lens into the wouniverse because of who I am,
but also who they allowed me to be. And how

(57:06):
they let me come into their world, and I think
that speaks volumes about them. I also managed, so I
managed all three three letter members of WU, tang Od,
b r z A and GZA. I managed Riza what
I call his extracurricular activity. So I did not manage
him as an MC and I did not manage him
as a producer, but I managed him as a composer
and then his beginnings his transition into Hollywood. Yes, so

(57:32):
his first his first GID composing was ghost Dog. That
was not me. That was Nemo, who was very close.
I believe he's Jim Jarmis his nephew, and Nemo brought
Riza into UH to Jim, and then I kind of
picked it up from there. So it was kill Bill
and it was Blade and I believe it did soul Plane.
So we did that stuff together, and he had already
started writing and directing. But you know, the thing that

(57:53):
I say about Rizza is he is truly living his
childhood dream. So when I was a kid, I wanted
to be a doctor. I wanted to be a fashion designer.
I never thought that I'd be doing this and I
love my life. But Riza as a child growing up
one of I believe eleven children of a single mother,
growing up in the projects of Staten Island in Brooklyn.

(58:14):
He watched Kung Fu movies and he imagined and dreamt
that he would one day direct. And now he's directing
Kumfu movies and he is writing them and he is
starring in them. And I actually don't know anybody else
who had this vision. And he is truly a visionary
from when he was a child. So managing Rizza was

(58:35):
a delight. Managing Jizsu was also incredible. I would say
that Jisse was my favorite client because and you know
Jizz like I do. He's incredibly low key, and he's
so gracious, and he is so magnanimous, and he doesn't
want to be recognized, and he doesn't want to be famous.
He doesn't want to be any of those things. And
he is so kind. And I really love managing him

(58:58):
because he allowed me to transition him into lecturing, and
not every client lets you do that, right, So somebody
might say I've thought about it, so but I don't
really want to do it because there's this thing I
do and I'm so comfortable and I've been doing it
for decades and I'm getting paid and I know how
to do this, whereas lecturing is very very different. You're
basically standing naked. There are no pyrotechnics, you don't have

(59:19):
a hype man, there's no DJ, there's no lights, there's
no sound, and your and your audience they're not drunk,
they're not high, right, they're just all sitting there and
they're looking at you, and you're standing at a podium
and you are speaking. And literally the first place he
lectured was Harvard. That's the Korean in me. And literally
the first words out of his mouth was were I'm

(59:39):
so nervous, and that's jes what yeah, yeah, and you
know what, the same and you know what, I did
the same thing with Joey Badass and saying he said
the exact same thing.

Speaker 6 (59:53):
What was I'm just curious? What was just his first
lecture on.

Speaker 5 (59:55):
So he spoke about his love of science. You know,
he is deeply intellectually curious. He spoke of his love
of science. He spoke about his his inspiration and his
creative process.

Speaker 6 (01:00:09):
Can you can you talk about real quick?

Speaker 8 (01:00:11):
In the prologue, I had a moment I had to
mama where I was jealous of you in describing the
relationship with Wu Tang because of a situation that happened
with metha man and the god Jamal. And I was
jealous because as a woman who's been in the industry
for years, we all know what it's like. You know,
you're telling beautiful stories, but at some points, being that
woman in the room can be adversarial. It can be dismissive, yes,

(01:00:33):
and question in that moment of no protection, right, yeah,
So I don't know if you want to reiterate that story,
but sure Also in a way, I also wanted you
to tell the the opposite of that story when it
wasn't that protection ere with methad.

Speaker 5 (01:00:47):
Man, Right. I mean, so when I when I started
doing A and R, I was insecure around it. Right,
I'm thinking, I'm a Korean, Canadian French lip major, and
do I really deserve this job of being a gatekeeper
and an arbiter of a culture? Again that is not mine? Right?
And so, but the way that hip hop embraced me
was really fortifying and gave me a lot more confidence,

(01:01:10):
but nothing more than when Wu Tang claimed me. So
it was very very early on I might have met
Meth once before I go to the studio to see them,
and he says, Sophie, you got to see I just
got my video in for method man. And so he
takes me to the back lounge, whisks me past everybody,
takes me to the back lounge and he sits me
down and he plugs in the tape and he stands
on the wall, doesn't sit with me, stands against the

(01:01:32):
wall to watch me because he wants to see my
response to the video, and sitting next to the television
facing me. So this gentleman is not watching the screen.
He's looking at me as Meth is is this guy Jamal.
So the video plays and I'm super excited. I'm like,
oh my god, oh my god, oh my god, because
I'm already in love with Meth. And so the video
plays and as soon as the video ends, he looks

(01:01:53):
at me and he says, where are you from? Now? Anybody,
any person of color, will tell you that's a lot question.
If you ask a white person that they're going to
be like, oh, I'm from Columbus right or or you
know my parents are whatever. But this is this is
a loaded question. So I am a petit Asian woman
in the inner inner sanctum of Wu Tang, of Wu

(01:02:15):
Tang's world. And it is clear to him, and I
could see the calculations. It is clear to him, I'm
not sleeping with any of those boys. He also knows
that I don't manage any of them. At this point,
I don't A and R any of them. So who
is this and how did she get in? And again
to this day, when I'm around Wu Tang, I am
almost always the only woman in the room. And this

(01:02:37):
is a very privileged place where I sit. So he
keeps and so I feign innocence, and I say, well,
what are you asking me? Where are you from?

Speaker 3 (01:02:47):
Well?

Speaker 5 (01:02:47):
I don't really know what that means. Where are you from?
And then I broke and I said, okay, Well, if
you're asking where I was born, I was born in Vancouver.
My parents are Korean. If you asking me where my
parents are from, there from you know, Korea, if you're
asking where I live. But before I could even finish
answering this in this very methodical way, Meth just flew
in between us.

Speaker 1 (01:03:06):
Now.

Speaker 5 (01:03:06):
I don't know if you've ever met him in person.
He is six' four and he is notoriously the nicest
with his hands of The, klan and, yeah, no, no, no oh,
boy no he can they can all throw the fuck. Down,
yeah But meth And ghost forget about. It so he
flies in between us and she just expands like The
hulk and he was, like That's Sophie chang and she's

(01:03:28):
down with wu. Tag she's some shallon. Motherfucker don't you
ever who the fuck are you to ask her where she's?
From don't you ever disrespect her? Again AND i was,
like oh my, god my. God now nobody had ever
defended me like, this AND i was just it was
just this extraordinary. Moment but so the demonstration was. Amazing

(01:03:53):
but to deconstruct in WHAT i THINK i want people
to understand is he knew exactly what the fuck that
guy was. Saying do you know What i'm? Saying he
totally understood that it was there was there was a
racial subtext to, it and there was a gender subtext to. It,
right he didn't give a shit WHERE i was, from
because essentially he wasn't asking a. Question he was, saying
what the fuck are? You and what the fuck are?

(01:04:15):
You what the fuck are you doing? Here because you
don't belong. HERE i belong. Here you don't belong. Here
and you, know again wanting to tell people about the
humanity Of Wu. Tang, Now meth has known this guy
For i'm sure a long ass. Time this might be
the second or third time he's met, me and his

(01:04:35):
feeling was, like, Nah, bie we're not fucking doing that
because she's. Ours and WHAT i say About Wu tang is, that,
LOOK i had several friendships in hip hop and enduring
ones THAT i have to this day Before Wu. TANG
i was embraced AND i was, welcomed But Wu tang claimed.
Me so it's a thing that you're talking about to

(01:04:57):
mere Right, Like so What i'm saying is that everybody
knew that they were going to be, huge and there
were hordes and hordes and hordes of people surrounding, them
and for whatever, reason they just went.

Speaker 1 (01:05:06):
Like, this you're coming with.

Speaker 5 (01:05:11):
Us we're keeping her right. Here AND i feel that
way to this day THAT i will never ever leave
that breast.

Speaker 6 (01:05:17):
Pocket and CAN i get.

Speaker 3 (01:05:18):
People right, now layah, Me Bill, Sugar steve and Other
bill And fonte are claiming.

Speaker 1 (01:05:26):
You, OH i appreciate.

Speaker 5 (01:05:27):
That that's.

Speaker 8 (01:05:28):
Beautiful we'll protect you CAN i also just make a
point to F y because some people might be, thinking,
oh she's she's The asian woman and the. Click so
she's the one that brought the awareness to all the. Colleges,
no can you clear? THAT?

Speaker 5 (01:05:38):
U oh Yeah. No and first of, all WHEN i say,
That I'M i was in love with math is the
platonic love of my? Life, yeah because.

Speaker 6 (01:05:45):
Yeah he's been married.

Speaker 5 (01:05:46):
Forever, yeah and he and his Wife tamika is just this,
gorgeous luminous creature THAT i. Adorre, no he's a platonic
love of my. Love, no, no, no, no, no. No in, fact,
no they grew up Watching Kung fu. Movies it was their.
Escape but they also you, know the themes of brotherhood
and loyalty and defiance and oppression really resonated with. Them
and so again going back to, It i'm a White

(01:06:08):
i'm a yellow girl growing up in a white. WORLD
i want to be. WHITE i come To New, YORK
i get you, KNOW i get into the hip hop,
world AND i understand that there's another way to be
and that is proud of who you. Are and Then
Wu tang embraces me and it is the first time
THAT i truly see the beauty and the profundity and
the power of my culture BECAUSE i see it through their.

(01:06:29):
Eyes that's. Amazing because they introduced me To John wu
And Chaalian. Fat, wow this is the love of my.
Life this is my life and kung fu. Movies so before, that.

Speaker 1 (01:06:42):
Before, then none of the folk you Weren't saturday, afternoons.

Speaker 5 (01:06:45):
None of, it because it was total cultural. Denial for. Me,
wow it was cultural denial and it was cultural. Rebellion
and SO i start watching kung fu movies with my Girlfriend,
mariam who's time when He's. American we're, like let's starty Kung.
Fu so we go around and we're. Looking we're looking
at all these different schools and then we hear there's
a shallon monk teaching kung. Fu and that's that's like
hearing that quest love is teaching giving drum, lessons, right

(01:07:08):
or it's like looking here in The Tiger woods is
going to teach you golf down the. Street we're like,
What so we hunt him down and we find him
and that we go in, there we talk to. Him
he Speaks mander and she Speaks mander and he speaks No.
ENGLISH i don't Speak. Mandarin AND i go home that
night AND i call my parents AND i, SAID i
met the Man i'm going to marry. TODAY i knew,
empirically empirically and. Absolutely and THEN i left the music.

(01:07:29):
BUSINESS i stopped managing dirty hard right out of the.

Speaker 6 (01:07:32):
Music you said he's A shallon, monk and they, said.

Speaker 5 (01:07:35):
They, said they were, like hang on a. Second my dad's,
like hang on a. Second he looks. Up he's, Like
shallon monks can. MARRY i don't know what the fuck.
REFERENCE i don't know what. Reference But Bomshi, Chang god,
rest his soul was right there with his crazy. Daughter
and SO i leave the music. BUSINESS i HAVE i
don't even think about.

Speaker 6 (01:07:50):
IT i.

Speaker 5 (01:07:51):
Run his name is shri Yen. MING i Run Yen ming's.
Temple he's a thirty fourth Generation Shalon. Monk he has
a vision that he wants to replicate The Shallon temple In.
AMERICA i introduce him To Wu. Tang so THIS i.
DID i introduce an Actual shalon mulk To Wu. TANG
i also was the person who orchestrated and planned and
produced the tour that Brought riza To Shallon. Temple and

(01:08:12):
he was the first artist in fifteen hundred years to
ever perform in front Of Shallon. Temple also took him
To Wu Tang mountain where the abbot Of Wu tang
clan met the abbot Of Wu Tang. Mountain and SO
i created those historical. Moments but had it not been
For Wu Tang, CLAN i wouldn't have the two extraordinary
children THAT i do right. NOW i wouldn't have an
almost a twenty five year practice Of shallan kung fu

(01:08:35):
THAT i did BEFORE i came. Here and that's WHY
i was so. Hungry SO i am eternally grateful To
Wu tang because they brought me back to myself in
the most essential and important and critical. Way and so
in going back to myself again and going through these

(01:08:56):
chambers with, them they know they brought me around to
my own. Heritage and you know what's extraordinary is That
meth said this to. Me he, said you, know in
a funny, way we kind of introduced you back To asian.
Culture AND i was, like how he's so ASTUTE i
HAVE I meth is like my. Son he's a he's
a piss so he is super in tune with energy

(01:09:19):
and he's deeply empathetic and he knew that in the
same way that he knew When jamal said where are you?
From he understood that this is a hostile. State this
is this is not a, question it's a hostile.

Speaker 3 (01:09:29):
Statement, wow, man that's.

Speaker 1 (01:09:35):
Stop.

Speaker 3 (01:09:35):
Playing of, course, Yes Method, man we want you on,
this BUT i think stop. Gushing if we Get Method
man booked on the, show she's gonna come dressed like.

Speaker 6 (01:09:49):
Have you met him in?

Speaker 5 (01:09:50):
Person mathe like once that they get.

Speaker 3 (01:09:53):
Interviewed we gotta have method on just as head dressed
up like she did for the.

Speaker 8 (01:09:59):
Lin she has a wife And i'm just trying to
Bring lenny back to the other.

Speaker 1 (01:10:03):
Side, Anyway, mary.

Speaker 6 (01:10:08):
And she a little older if she got.

Speaker 8 (01:10:10):
A girlfriend a little older than you, anyway and she
ain't been this coloring a long.

Speaker 6 (01:10:14):
Time, Hello SORRY.

Speaker 1 (01:10:16):
I was telling.

Speaker 3 (01:10:16):
You sorry, Anyway, sophia we can talk. Forever we can talk,
forever but we we have to wrap it. UP i
really appreciate.

Speaker 1 (01:10:27):
You coming on the show and and and sharing your.

Speaker 8 (01:10:30):
Story opening the door for all My asian girlfriends who
are now manager shout out Since Jennya, zuomi all My
korean girlfriends shout, out And Don white like, yes doing.

Speaker 5 (01:10:39):
It thank.

Speaker 1 (01:10:40):
YOU i forgot my.

Speaker 5 (01:10:41):
Man your Manager's.

Speaker 1 (01:10:44):
ASIAN i got nine. Managers, yes, Woman, yeah what's your?

Speaker 3 (01:10:48):
Name?

Speaker 1 (01:10:48):
John she even taught me how to.

Speaker 5 (01:10:50):
Drive oh my, god we taught yay taught me how
to drive, anyway thank, you thank you for having. ME
i was so excited for this conversation BECAUSE i was,
like your mind and your historical, knowledge like that's kind
of your left, brain you, know like That. Wikipedia but

(01:11:12):
then there's also this, amazing insane creative challenge and, all
and there just aren't that many people like. That so
thank you, WELL i thank you so.

Speaker 1 (01:11:21):
YEAH i took a.

Speaker 3 (01:11:21):
Compliment, Guy i'm in therapy now. BREAKING i wanted to
run out the door right now like Ques. No, well
thank you very much for coming on the. Show ladies and,
gentlemen that's another episode Of Quest Love. Supreme thank you very.

Speaker 10 (01:11:40):
Much her audio book in The room exclusively On audible
all right on to Be Having, Sugar Steve layah And
Boss bill and On.

Speaker 1 (01:11:53):
Paid bill And Fine. Diklob thank you very. Much this
is another episode Of quest Pre. People see you on
the next go. Round thank.

Speaker 3 (01:12:01):
You for more podcasts From, iHeartRadio visit The iHeartRadio, App apple,
podcasts or wherever you listen to your favorite.

Speaker 1 (01:12:16):
Shows