Styles P

Questlove Supreme's celebration of 50 years of Hip-Hop continues with Styles P. The LOX co-founder describes transforming his life through physical and mental health. The Yonkers, New Yorker tells how DMX was a trailblazer, his brotherhood with Jadakiss and Sheek Louch, and his dedication to showing authentic Black Love on television.

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Episode Transcript

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

Speaker 2 (00:09):
Ladies and gentlemen, welcome to another episode of Quest Loft Supreme.
I'm sorry your ward wait West Love Supreme. Indeed, your
hosts Questo with us. We've got fon Tigolo not the
Blue Room. I kind of like this daytime version of
Quest Loft Supreme. Yeah, yeah, it's a little ocle hair

(00:32):
out of the way. What time is it out there?
Layah nine?

Speaker 3 (00:38):
Yeah, tied doing Quest Left Supreme and nine in the morning.

Speaker 2 (00:45):
Sorry about that, you're okay? Yeah, it's nude. You're waking
and bacon.

Speaker 4 (00:51):
I'm so far just waking. But keep watching.

Speaker 2 (00:54):
I get it, I get it. And of course Bill
Sermon's probably gonna seest me Street right now. So well,
I don't know, I.

Speaker 5 (01:01):
Mean, oh wait, no, right, yeah, everything yeah, actor.

Speaker 2 (01:06):
Or the Muppet sag actors like are they are they?

Speaker 6 (01:11):
It's like whatever, then holden pick of signs.

Speaker 2 (01:15):
I see, I see yeah, yo, Ladies and gentlemen. Of course,
it would be remiss if, in this year of our
lower twenty twenty three, if we didn't start celebrating hip
hop's fiftieth anniversary, at least with some some key interviews
with legendary figures that have pushed the culture forward. So basically,

(01:38):
I'll say that for the last twenty five years, we've
watched this young man grow and evolve and expand definitely
one of the most respected and consistent MC's in the
game right about now. Of course, he co found it
a love group in the culture of hip hop, of course,
that's the Locks. He is an amazing solo career and

(02:02):
has been pretty much part of a handful of songs
that we all know by heart, including one I forgot
about the Rising Down record that You're You're You're on
Rising Down with Us. And I'll say that more importantly, uh,
he has pivoted to not only cultivating his music career,
but also entering the health space, which you know, was

(02:26):
also influential to me. Like it's good that both Fonte
and and our guests today are on here, and I
kind of credit both men and their and their small
subtle ways with planting seeds about me personally thinking about
my time on on this plane, on this earthly plane,
and how how I could make it and actually be

(02:47):
exemplary my damn self taking my life series with my health,
you know, our guest today is opened up juice bars
across New York City, including his hometown of Yonkers, which
actually just found out is not far from where my
farm is. Right now. He's bringing chance to the community. Uh,
he and his family is basically I'm showing people the

(03:08):
pathway to you know, better health, food, body of mind.
And you know he's he's an author, he's pitting novels,
twenty albums to his name, Grammy nominations, and one of
the best voices in hip hop. Ladies and gentlemen, please
welcome Styles Pete across Love Supreme. It's good man, how
you doing.

Speaker 4 (03:28):
What's up? Family?

Speaker 5 (03:28):
Are feeling feeling good?

Speaker 4 (03:30):
Brother?

Speaker 5 (03:30):
Good to see you, good to see awesome, awesome?

Speaker 2 (03:33):
Right about now? Where are you? What part of the
world are you in? I'm assuming that you're in New
York City?

Speaker 4 (03:38):
Yeah, I'm in. I'm in New York outside of the gym.

Speaker 2 (03:42):
Okay, I love it.

Speaker 7 (03:46):
I love it outside the gym, sitting in the Oh
my god.

Speaker 6 (03:50):
How long were you in the gym? Styles?

Speaker 4 (03:52):
I was in the gym about an hour?

Speaker 2 (03:55):
Yeah, I left the gym.

Speaker 6 (03:56):
My damn self was today Legs Cardio?

Speaker 4 (03:59):
What we oh today? I just did cardio.

Speaker 8 (04:02):
To be honest, this is a it looks like a windbreaker,
but this is actually like a sauna.

Speaker 6 (04:06):
Suit, so that's what it looks.

Speaker 4 (04:09):
Work. Yeah, definitely, the.

Speaker 8 (04:13):
Yeah, they could not not just for a lot of
people do it. They think you put on a sauna suit.
One is great to sweat and lose weight, but it's
also great to get rid of toxins. It's a great
way to get rid of toxins that kind of speed
up your sweating.

Speaker 4 (04:28):
Sweat a lot.

Speaker 8 (04:29):
I'm big on sweating, stretching, sleeping, all the s's are
very important in your life.

Speaker 4 (04:37):
Sleep and sweat as much as possible.

Speaker 5 (04:39):
What's your what's your cardio choice? You you walk, run,
stair master like what you what you do?

Speaker 4 (04:44):
I like? I like the air bike a lot, like
the roll machine.

Speaker 2 (04:49):
I hate the root machine.

Speaker 4 (04:50):
Man, I love the roll machine.

Speaker 2 (04:52):
I hate my training uses that as punishment.

Speaker 4 (04:55):
Yo. It's a good machine because you get to work
everything today. I got on.

Speaker 8 (05:03):
I hurt my knee a little bit last week. I
don't even know what happened. My knee just turned to
my enemy out of nowhere. But it feeling a lot better.
It called forties now, Yeah, my whole master went into
my knee and it ain't been the same since. So
today I got on the song. I see the elder
people get on all the time, and I thought it
was I thought it was a joke because all you
do is ship there and go like this, you're lift.

Speaker 4 (05:24):
It almost killed me. Not the elliptical. You just shut
down and do your hands like this.

Speaker 3 (05:29):
Yeah, oh the bike the bike joined when your hands, Yeah,
with your hands.

Speaker 4 (05:35):
I thought it was sweet that that. That machine is
no joke.

Speaker 2 (05:39):
You're right, I had tested that. Now my enemy is
a machine called do you know about Jacob's ladder?

Speaker 8 (05:47):
Oh, yeah, that's the that's the the versa climate is
the worst machine in the That's why it's always empty.

Speaker 6 (05:55):
Is that the steps?

Speaker 4 (05:55):
The steps?

Speaker 6 (05:56):
Did you just walk up the steps?

Speaker 2 (05:57):
Mus walk up endless ladder.

Speaker 8 (06:00):
It's like the actual easiest way to say your mountain
climbing without mountain climbing without a mountain to make whatever
part of your body is not in shape, that machine
will let you know what part of the body that is.

Speaker 3 (06:15):
Before you worked out, what did you do, like, what
did you put in your body before you worked out?

Speaker 4 (06:20):
Today?

Speaker 8 (06:20):
I didn't do anything but a juice. I had kill
Cilancho cucumber lime juice.

Speaker 2 (06:28):
We did this previously with Dave Matthews or I kind
of just threw the script out and just kept the
conversation going only because I'm so curious about this. I'm
gonna I'm gonna story sort of a student and kind
of cast aside the quest of supreme one on one
questions because really I'm being selfish and just doing it

(06:50):
for my own benefit. But I've really, you know, I've
been following your storyline in terms of you pivoting your
life and taking your your your health seriously. And of
course you know you already know Fonte already knows, like

(07:10):
I mean, everyone everyone on on this on this current
conversation knows that we're kind of in an arena where
it's very likely that in a in a flash, you
could you could instantly leave this earthly plane in a
matter of seconds. This morning was one of those mornings.

(07:30):
You know, one of my best friends in the world
made his made his exodus to the next life. And
it's almost the point where it shouldn't be numbing when
you hear about this, especially when you hear about you
know it's more health related, but just the fact that
you know, we're barely getting the pleasure of celebrating our

(07:51):
fiftieth birthday, let alone an older age. And so for me,
I would like to know what was this draw that
broke the camel's back for you in terms of like,
you gotta make you gotta make a change, and you
gotta not only focus on your own personal health, but
amplify that message for us that are out here listening

(08:13):
to you.

Speaker 4 (08:15):
I believe in being in hip hop and.

Speaker 8 (08:19):
Moving to a more affluent neighborhood was really my wake
up call to be honest to you years ago, you know,
through hip hop. Fortunate enough, I was able to move
from where I originally lived.

Speaker 4 (08:31):
I think I want to say I moved. I'm forty
eight now.

Speaker 8 (08:36):
Around the time when I was twenty one twenty two
is when I first moved to a better neighborhood and
just really noticing the differences in the stores and the
differences and what's being sold when you live in a
more affluent neighborhood. And hip hop is a very braggadocious
verbal sport, but it's unrealistic when you think of poor

(08:58):
people like everybody you know, naturally were supposed to brag shit,
we better mcs and talk about your lifestyle.

Speaker 4 (09:06):
But when I started.

Speaker 8 (09:08):
Thinking about it, how much how many people were aspiring
and to get things that most likely they wouldn't be
able to get or wouldn't be able to afford, and
that their life is focused on that due to hip hop.
It kind of made me change my outlook on the
message I wanted to deliver.

Speaker 4 (09:23):
So it was like, Bro, you want to Bentley, but
you can't afford the civic. And to be.

Speaker 8 (09:28):
Able to afford the civic, you have to have a
certain work lifestyle, work ethic, and the best way to do.

Speaker 4 (09:35):
That is to take care of yourself.

Speaker 8 (09:37):
And between that and then looking at the difference that
a healthy lifestyle made for me personally, the things that
it was able to change about me early styles, I
would say my temple was extremely bad to the point
where I was smart, but I would do stupid things.

Speaker 4 (09:56):
I let my ego and my pride kind of run
my life and.

Speaker 8 (10:00):
What I was doing, so you know, I was not
going to have security type of guy. If I have
a problem, I'm handling on my own. And then that
later on led me to being more cowboyish, and then
I had to sit back and think like, what's wrong
with me? Like I'm too smart to be this way?
But why am I am I this way? So I

(10:21):
came up with my own hypotheses that I had some
sort of chemical imbalance and that was coming from what
I was putting in my body. I was at the time,
I was around two forty. I had posting nazl drips, cyanaidis,
ezema and a horrible temper, And just from juicing up
and eating better, I noticed the change of myself. I

(10:45):
noticed the change of my spirit. So it was like,
you know, I started looking at things out of the
box and from how I normally would look at things.
And then I kind of knew that was all due
to me just changing my lifestyle and caring about myself more.

Speaker 4 (10:59):
I think a lot of us.

Speaker 8 (11:00):
We say we care about ourselves, we say we love ourselves,
but we're programmed and condition to do things that people
before us did, whether it's our parents, our grandparents, our
great grandparents, our neighbors. You know, we kind of put
ourselves in a box of not treating ourselves right because

(11:20):
people we love and that came up before us and
around us don't treat themselves right. So we get condition
to thinking we don't owe ourselves the best.

Speaker 4 (11:31):
Like I.

Speaker 8 (11:33):
Like material things, like you know what I mean, But
I don't love them more than I love my people.

Speaker 4 (11:37):
I don't love them more than I love myself.

Speaker 8 (11:40):
And some of us we don't even love ourselves enough
because we don't really know to. Like we run around,
we chase the dollar, we chase the dream. We're trying
to be here for our family. We're trying to have
our families live a better life. But that really all
starts with your personal health.

Speaker 4 (11:56):
And like you say one you think about it and hip.

Speaker 8 (12:00):
We're the most influential genre that's across the world, but
we also the genre that suffers, you know, being that
where mostly black, brown, people of color, whatever you want
to call it. We don't pay attention to diabetes. We
don't pay attention to high blood pressure. We don't pay
attention to cancer. We don't pay attention to the things

(12:20):
we're eating. We don't look up the ingredients of the
things we're eating.

Speaker 4 (12:24):
But you could go buy.

Speaker 8 (12:26):
The best outfit, you could buy the best watch by
the best car.

Speaker 6 (12:29):
You don't remember with styles.

Speaker 3 (12:31):
It wasn't until what the nineties was when brothers were
still saying I ain't gonna live till twenty five anyway, Right.

Speaker 4 (12:36):
That was that was a lot like I'm forty eight.

Speaker 8 (12:40):
I know there was a time in my life I
didn't even think about making it to fifty. The future
that wasn't even in my You know that that was
like a bonus and a plus. And then we lose
so many people, but we don't look at why, like
and technology is so fast and speeding nowadays that we're
not all taking care of ourselves properly.

Speaker 4 (12:59):
So I think it's important to do that.

Speaker 8 (13:01):
The scope of how we look at things and how
we head for ourselves and our family.

Speaker 2 (13:07):
Real talk man, like what year did you open your
juice bar?

Speaker 4 (13:12):
Thirteen years ago?

Speaker 8 (13:13):
Almost fourteen years ago would be the be the first one.

Speaker 2 (13:17):
Yeah, I'll probably say, you know a lot of times
like you know, like people who are pioneers and they
never get the credit, Like you'll never hear anyone say like,
oh llll cool J's in my top five, although we'll
acknowledge him as God, will acknowledge him as the goat
or whatever. But you know, we'll always do like our like, oh,

(13:38):
well there's Big Daddy Caine cools you Brad Da Da da,
But no one ever says like LL's so good and
so pioneering. It's almost like Thriller will never be in
anyone's top five list, as like albums that change, you
know what I mean, Like it just goes without saying
that if I really think about it. So there is
a point in my life around to two thousand and nine,

(14:00):
twenty ten in which I think we were doing like
the first we did, like the second Roots Picnic in Philly,
And that's probably the one concentrated week in which I
will return back to Philadelphia like my home. Like I'm
here in New York because of the Tonight Show and
all that stuff. So I live in New York now,
But when it's Roots Picnic time, between all the rehearsals

(14:24):
and all that stuff, I'm going back to Philadelphia And
I don't know, like I do this weird thing. And
when I was younger, I used to always like kind
of ridicule, Like you'll hear about like old ball players
going back to their projects or whatever, and You'll be like, Yo,
what the hell are they doing? Like why would you
put yourself in that dangerous Like I'd be super judgment

(14:46):
on that but I'd also know that I do that
too a lot, Like I will three in the morning
drive by my Grandmam's house, like between like eleven PM
to four in the morning, what I called chasing ghosts,
like and I want to know, like why do I
have an addiction to like visiting the worst parts of

(15:07):
my childhood just to like, is this how I deal
with the balance of connecting of like maybe feelings of
guilt that I have of like where I am now
like the same thing, living in an affluent neighborhood, or
like is this me balancing out? But the whole point
was that the Second Roots picnic another way that I
go back to whatever nostalgia is also a very toxic way,

(15:31):
which is food. Now, Philadelphia is a food town, so
of course that's right. I will make plants like, Okay,
on Tuesday, I'm gonna go to this whole spot Da Da,
And then Wednesday and Thursday I'm gonna go to my
favorite cheese steak spots and Da da da. So I
remember the night before the night before the second picnic,

(15:51):
I kind of overdid it on the cheese steaks, and
I felt horrible and I realized, like yo, man, I
went to neighborhood and realized that everything that I've consumed
all my life, which explains you know, at some points
I was like four hundred and thirty pounds. Currently right

(16:12):
now I'm like two ninety. But back in my four
hundred pounds days, I've realized, like yo, like every every
fattening food that there ever was, it's almost like by
design every like why are the cheapest.

Speaker 6 (16:27):
Foods, the most harmful foods the rightest accessible?

Speaker 2 (16:30):
Right? So then skip to me seeing a clip of
you talking about this. It was like the ribbon cutting
of your your juice spot. And when you said what
you said, I was like, I was like, that's it.
Not only am I going to turn my personal life
around and not to mention like Fonte had already like

(16:53):
released a song about how you know, we're getting older
now we need to you know, he called it expensive jeans,
punt on jeans, and that that also planted seed to me.
But when I saw what you did, I was like,
that's exactly like I'm gonna have to be the paradigm shift.

(17:16):
So cut to now, like my entire investment portfolio is
investing in plant based healthier figuring out how to turn
into conversation around without people like rolling their eyes like
all right, here he comes again, like preaching or whatever
for you though you influenced me and I'm not in

(17:38):
your inner circle. Is your inner circle taking note of this?
And are you being influential on them or they're now
looking at you like here he goes again, like telling
me to put the liquor down, and I come to
the gym with him, I get, I get a bit
of both.

Speaker 8 (17:55):
For the most part, I could say most of my
inner circle has changed.

Speaker 4 (18:00):
I am.

Speaker 8 (18:01):
I guess I'm annoying with it, but I look at
it like this, it's a war, like you.

Speaker 4 (18:08):
Know what I mean.

Speaker 8 (18:09):
It's it's it's literally a war on people our color
that we don't know we're in. So I and I
also want to look at it like I'm the leader.

Speaker 4 (18:22):
Of the pack.

Speaker 8 (18:23):
There's been Dick Gregory before me. There's been plenty of
people who done it. I'm just probably the most loudest,
voisterous person in hip hop. Even in hip hop, there's
plenty of plant based people. There's plenty of vegans. As
you said, like I'm haunted by going back to where
I'm from because no pun intended you do that because

(18:44):
you connected to your roots, and when you're connected to
your roots, it's hard to forget where you're from. And
when you when you escalate, you always want to somewhat
stay in tune. I think that's the musical part of us,
is staying in tune with the foundation. But when you
start understanding that it's a war, I don't really care
how you look at me. I don't care how annoyed

(19:06):
you get. I do my job as a messenger. I
am a messenger, and I don't look at it any
further than that. And if whether you take the messenger,
you don't take the message, that's not on me. It's
on me to make sure I just keep throwing out
the message, so to be able to go from one
juice bar and see the you know, when I first
started doing this, some styles peed from the locks hardest

(19:29):
them see of you know, the guy who's done plenty
of more than enough stupid shit in my lifetime, of
a guy with a history of violence. So when you
understand that, and you understand where that comes from, you
don't really have time to worry about how people are
taking it. When we're losing so many great people in

(19:49):
our culture when we're losing so many great people in
our families in the streets.

Speaker 4 (19:54):
I don't really worry about if how I rub you.

Speaker 8 (19:59):
As long as I got the message out, as long
as I did my job, I was able to not
only see my inner circle change, but my neighborhood change.
Through that, we have been able to connect with the mayor,
build up parks.

Speaker 4 (20:14):
I'm doing something with the y m c A.

Speaker 8 (20:17):
Now, Well, we're gonna have soup kitchens and we're gonna
give our plant based food.

Speaker 4 (20:21):
We're just gonna keep pushing it full.

Speaker 8 (20:22):
We're not gonna worry about uh the now Vegandale has
a bunch of other rappers coming to it. I don't
think you really got the time when when we're doing
what we're doing, when you're pushing forward, you don't have
the time to worry about if you're rubbing people the
wrong way or if they're tired of hearing you. The
messager hit them one day, maybe sometimes when it's too late,

(20:44):
maybe sometimes early enough, maybe sometimes just on time.

Speaker 4 (20:49):
But as a messenger that that's our job.

Speaker 8 (20:53):
And fortunately I have been able to see enough enough
people change before for me, Like you guys know, this fine,
fine and YouTube, but when somebody comes up to you
and go, yo, your music has changed my life. Yo,
this song means so much to me, Yo, that performance
means so much to me. That's a that's out of
this world feeling. It really humbles you in a.

Speaker 4 (21:15):
Way that it's hard to put it in words.

Speaker 8 (21:18):
So for me, although God is Family has always been
God family and hip hop, the shift has been able
to change to God is Family, health then hip hop
because with our health we have nothing. Until you really
realize that, like, there's so much of us who suffer
from so many things and it's just not.

Speaker 4 (21:39):
Cool to talk about. So I don't get rid, I
don't I don't care about if it's not cool. Now
we're in the making it cool.

Speaker 8 (21:46):
Now, we're able to change now to say we went
from one juice bar to five juice bars to almost
six juice bars to now pharmacy for life online to
a pharmacy for life brick and mortars. So what I
do is understand is people are what they don't say
is cool in front of everybody, they'll still come up

(22:06):
to you on the side and.

Speaker 4 (22:07):
Go, yo, bro, how'd you lose that weight? Yo? Yo?

Speaker 6 (22:10):
Yo?

Speaker 4 (22:12):
Your skin looking like that.

Speaker 8 (22:14):
Oh yo, bro, oh man, I see you can do
pull up to stretch this amount of much and how
do you do it? So it's about the impact and
change and people, whether you do it intentionally or not,
when people see you change. Leading by example is the
best thing you could do. Because even like we tell
people in the juice bar, we give out the menu,

(22:34):
like literally I have five juice bars, but how many
people could physically make it to that juice bar? And
they're all in New York. So what I do is
tell people, get a juice and get a blender. If
you come back. If you come in our juice bar
and you never come back, that's fine with me.

Speaker 4 (22:48):
But take a picture of it and bring it home
to your loved one.

Speaker 8 (22:51):
At least do that and practice by example because you
bringing your kid into the juice bar. It's beneficial for me,
but your kids seeing you wake up in the morning,
whatever it is, your partner, whatever you have, when they
see you put the things in the blend of yourself.

Speaker 4 (23:07):
And that you said that leads by example.

Speaker 8 (23:09):
Like our kids listen to us, but they watch what
we do more than they listen to us.

Speaker 3 (23:13):
But also isn't being an evolved man right now, like
that is actually trending. I was just talking too Freeway
about this, and I was like the fact that we
have more MC's showing their.

Speaker 6 (23:23):
Full cells instead of just all of the best parts.

Speaker 3 (23:25):
I mean free Way be an example, And I was asking,
I said, it seems like it's a nice group of
y'all who actually communicate with each other and lift each
other up that way.

Speaker 6 (23:35):
Isn't that It seems like that's the case in that.

Speaker 4 (23:37):
Way, right Yeah, I don't think it's the trend. I
think it's the shifting lifestyle.

Speaker 6 (23:41):
Thank god the kids would call it the trend.

Speaker 4 (23:43):
Yes, a trend will come and go.

Speaker 8 (23:46):
I think a shift and your lifestyle is being connected
to somebody who genuinely.

Speaker 4 (23:51):
Cares about you. I don't.

Speaker 8 (23:53):
I'm not interested in having I think old hip hop is.
I have to have more watches in a better watch
than you. My car is more expensive than you. I
could buy more bottles than you. I have more fine
women around me than you do. Like my thing is,
I'm a married man, I'm a family man, and I
care about you for who you are.

Speaker 4 (24:14):
I want to be the best me that I could be.

Speaker 8 (24:17):
So fortunately it can help myself first and foremost, then
loved ones around me, then my friends, my immediate.

Speaker 4 (24:25):
Inner circle, than my community.

Speaker 8 (24:28):
And if you move with life with doing that, I
think that's the change that's needed. That's the change that's needed, because,
like Ques said, I don't know if I'm gonna be here,
Like you know, I think people kind of look at
life and I've lost enough people in my life, family members,
close friends, people in the community where I know I'm

(24:50):
not promised five minutes later. So I want to do
what I could do to make the difference, to say,
when I go, you're not going to think about the
things you did.

Speaker 4 (25:00):
You have to think about the things you didn't do, and.

Speaker 8 (25:03):
Right, I don't want that to be on my conscious
the way I didn't push, I didn't push the envelope
as for it as much as possible.

Speaker 2 (25:10):
No, I really want to, you know, thank you for that.
Normally we save this part for the end about where
your life has changed. But for me, man, it was
it was really important to hear that, and I want
people to hear that that sort of shift is important.
Can I ask, though, especially in light of how we're
dealing with mental health in the pandemic was therapy at

(25:34):
all a part of your shift as well.

Speaker 4 (25:37):
Definitely my wife, my wife, Thank God for my wife.
Thank god she made shaw I.

Speaker 8 (25:43):
Implemented that within my routine. Uh even when I didn't.

Speaker 4 (25:50):
I forget. I've been on so a few of them shows.
Now I forget it.

Speaker 8 (25:53):
Uh, black love is good for the for the mind
and so but even doctor is doctor ish was a
great adding for my life because he helped me figure
out a lot of things.

Speaker 4 (26:09):
And now.

Speaker 8 (26:10):
What's crazy is I need to go to therapy more.
But I pretty much use my wife as a therapist,
which probably.

Speaker 6 (26:17):
I'm like, well, then who does she use as a therapist?
Because that that means.

Speaker 4 (26:21):
But I think learning how to talk out. I think
a lot of us have a.

Speaker 8 (26:25):
Problem with understanding that it's okay to not to understand
that your mind needs a break. Like even if you
think about today's just life in general today, like I
was telling somebody this the other day, besides having trauma,
for me, just logging on the Instagram some days makes

(26:46):
me need mental makes me know some kind of therapy
because if you think about it, like I was sitting,
there's no way that you would have a conversation with
this many people.

Speaker 4 (26:59):
Real life.

Speaker 8 (27:00):
I'm not hearing even over one hundred and fifty people's
thoughts today and how they feel a negative energy, their attitude.
But when you log on, you're taking in so much
in the world so fast, and it's just so hard.

Speaker 4 (27:15):
To even get a grasp of what's going on.

Speaker 3 (27:19):
So in the back end of da of how you
don't even know how you if you've met people in
real life or just seeing them on the Instagram, I
don't know.

Speaker 4 (27:26):
What's going on.

Speaker 8 (27:26):
So to take in them people's thoughts, feelings, energy, what's
on their mind. We all need some sort of therapy.
We all need some sort of a laxation. Your mind
needs a lot, like we all it's black people, we
have PTSD period just being black. So on top of that,
I think about how fast things are moving, how fast

(27:47):
technology is advancing, and human beings aren't advancing as fast
as technology is, and all of these things, like even me,
for the like the normal things that probably won't make.

Speaker 4 (27:59):
The average person need therapy, makes me need therapy.

Speaker 8 (28:04):
Like I'm thinking about how AI is coming, I'm thinking
about like a log I went to see. I went
to see this movie the other day, Sound of Freedom,
right after I left Sound of Freedom, and I'm thinking, damn,
all of this is happening to the kids, and you know,
people are losing their jobs the AI. Then you get
on Instagram and you got to hear everybody's personal thought,

(28:27):
not on anything that's almost relevant, and it made me go,
I need I need a break from the world some days,
like I don't care about how she's dressed, he's dressed,
who said what?

Speaker 4 (28:39):
Rapper did this? Who doing what?

Speaker 8 (28:41):
I just want to live in a healthier world and
contribute to that. But it doesn't kind of always pan
out that way, So that alone could kind of break
you down mentally, Like if you're not surrounding yourself around
people who think like you, who move how you move,
you're gonna need some kind of kind of therapy. And
like I've lost the daughter to suicide, me and myself.

(29:06):
I suffered from rage before without without knowing what was happening.
Like you hear people suffering from depression feeling this way,
but nobody speaks of the kid who suffers from rage.
So knowing all of the things that we deal with
in our community, like, uh, we need the mind, body,
and soul. I believe all three needs to be worked

(29:28):
on constantly because you need to have them lined up
to have the best you in place. So it's not
just the body, it's not just being healthy. It's like
I live a healthy lifestyle more so from the health
aspect of you know, the physical health to spiritually and
mentally be be healthier to not not full victim to

(29:50):
the things that I usually were full victim to because
I don't feel good. Like like think about it, Like
how many people you can get on Instagram and go
I love red. Somebody's gonna come on go fuck red,
I hate red blues, my color, this and that. Like
that's a lot to deal with. And there's people who
will just come on your page saying negative shit. That's

(30:10):
because they don't feel good about themselves. Like so a
person who doesn't feel good about themselves, they're bound to
push their negativity on you. And if you're not in
a mentally healthy enough space to understand that, that could
ruin your dam and bring.

Speaker 6 (30:26):
You down, which most aren't.

Speaker 4 (30:29):
Like you know what I mean. Now you're caring about what.

Speaker 8 (30:32):
Strangers are saying about cyber strangers, Yeah, yeah, are saying
about you, Like that's a that's a that's a were
in a we're in a very different time like in
this day and age, like.

Speaker 4 (30:43):
Were in a time you can't even disagree with somebody
like you know what I mean.

Speaker 8 (30:48):
It's like, okay, you're you know, if you're not a Democrat,
the Republicans are mad at you. You're not a Republican.
The Democrats are mad at you. If you're not either one,
then everybody's mad at you.

Speaker 4 (30:59):
You can say I'm.

Speaker 8 (31:00):
Thinking people instead of having a conversation or understand why
you're coming from that point of view, they'd rather just
drag you and call you names instead of even understanding.
Let me have a conversation to see your point of
view and why you feel that way.

Speaker 4 (31:15):
And I believe that's why healthy lifestyle is very.

Speaker 8 (31:18):
Important, because it's not just about physically being healthy, it's
about mentally being healthy. And then spiritual health means a
lot too, which really about on the day to day basis,
but your spiritual health means a lot because you don't
want just people coming in and putting their energy.

Speaker 3 (31:37):
On you or I think we found another meditator. Have
we found another meditator?

Speaker 2 (31:41):
For sure?

Speaker 5 (31:42):
How do you take care of your your spiritual health.
Is it prayer? Is it meditation? Like what are your tools?

Speaker 4 (31:48):
Prayer?

Speaker 8 (31:48):
Meditation is surrounding myself around people I feel or spiritually
grown or that can help me spiritually grow.

Speaker 4 (31:56):
I also like the ground.

Speaker 8 (31:57):
I like to take my sneakers off my side, so
off step on the dirt for a minute, in contact
with the earth.

Speaker 4 (32:04):
I like the stargaze. I like hikes in the nature.

Speaker 8 (32:08):
I yelled, I screamed, I cry, I laugh, I throw
bowlers guy style.

Speaker 4 (32:14):
I do what I gotta do to make go feel better.

Speaker 2 (32:19):
You said something, Now, this is weird. You talked about rage, right, yeah,
and man I felt I got so I got so
envious because here's the thing. It took me all right,
so you know, I'm certain that this episode will be

(32:40):
on UH in the month of all around April and May,
I realized something. Usually the most stressful time in my
life is between February and June, simply because of again
the weight, the weight of throwing that festival in Philadelphia.
You know, you're going through everything, You're going through every artist,

(33:03):
You're trying to cater everyone's needs, and you know, so
there's a lot of stress there. And I realized around May,
how I've been doing this wrong the entire time, and
I'm certain that almost ninety five percent of humanity does
the same thing that I do, which is I've only

(33:25):
been chasing one emotion only, and that's happiness. I've been
chasing happiness, which in the scheme of things, you think, well,
what's wrong with chasing happiness? But then I realize that
someone ever revealed to me, maybe a year ago, and
I didn't listen to him good that it's like, yo, amir,

(33:46):
there are over forty eight other emotions besides happiness. And
they named the whole spectrum. They showed me a graphic chart.
There's some dark shit like jealousy and sadness, there's some
light shit like laughter, like happiness, and so there's a
whole spectrum of emotions.

Speaker 6 (34:09):
And I only knew happy.

Speaker 2 (34:11):
You know what I'm saying. And so what I realized
was that, you know, I thought, whatever my my eat,
whatever my personality is to certain people like oh myer
never gets angry, and da da da da da da.
I realized that I'm absolutely not in touch with any

(34:33):
other emotion besides happy. And that's why, like most of
us self soothed. That's why like I always went to
bad foods. That's why another cat will go to cocaine.
That's why another cat will drink to death or whatever.
And so a friend of mine had gave me a
link about a retreat that I should go to for
people who've never ever expressed rage ever, because I told

(34:58):
them that, oh, I never get it. And when they
said that, they said this to me, They said, you
not getting angry a mirror. Yeah, so when's the last
time you expressed your anger out loud? And I was like,
I said, probably maybe twenty years ago when I was
angry that someone put the wrong mix on my album

(35:18):
and now it's stuck on my record. I got angry.
And they're like, you're telling me the last time he
expressed the anger was twenty years ago because of a
mastering session glitch. And I was like, yeah, I don't
get angry much and they were like that you just
said the equipment. Yeah, I'm right, Well, one you take
it out on yourself. He's like, at least you know

(35:41):
you you expressed anger, but you was like, you know what,
I'm gonna eat these feelings away instead of expressing, right
and at that not expressing anger is almost like you saying,
you know what I haven't. I haven't urinated in two decades.
And so I went to this retreat. It's a three
day retreat that I went to in June, and man,

(36:09):
I realized, with the exception of an occasional roller coaster
and even then, when I think of my roller coaster experiences,
my level of screaming is more like a muppet like
that sort of thing. That's not like real rage, that's
just like, you know, that sort of thing. This thing
that I did. You know, they literally teach you how

(36:31):
to scream, like we had to spend twenty four hours
learning our baritone voice, our alto like our chakra like
from our voice, from our throat to our stomachs. So
cut to us actually doing the rage exercise. And I
didn't realize how much anger and rage I've had, I

(36:54):
mean for five like just bottled up again. It's literally
like not defecating for fifty years or taken. And I
didn't realize that, like, oh, the key to life is
not chasing happiness. It's in the most healthiest way to
express all emotions, definitely, And I didn't really so when

(37:20):
you were like, yo, like I was a rage aholic.
I was thinking here, like, damn, man, I would I mean, no,
I don't want to be toxic to other people, but
I wish I would have known what that feeling felt
like like to express anger, which i've you know, never
done outwardly. So I don't know. I just felt, but

(37:41):
I felt you on that man. That's that's that's amazing, man,
I thank you. I guess i'd be remiss if we
didn't talk about like your craft in your art right, like.

Speaker 6 (37:56):
Music memories and stuff.

Speaker 4 (37:58):
Not really because the craft I think. I think in
the music.

Speaker 8 (38:01):
Business, that's what we do a lot, and we don't.
These kind of conversations aren't helld enough because people don't
feel comfortable with talking about where they're at in life,
like well, vulnerability.

Speaker 2 (38:15):
People don't want to feel varlnerable.

Speaker 4 (38:16):
You don't want to feel vulnerable, so like.

Speaker 3 (38:18):
We weren't always allowed to feel vulnerable, y'all too. We
have to acknowledge that.

Speaker 8 (38:22):
It took me for years to realize, like I I
was the hardest MC out of reach out of just
really wanting to hurt something like I had.

Speaker 4 (38:33):
To realize later on, I was like.

Speaker 8 (38:34):
Wow, I knew myself the whole time subconsciously because I
always told people I was a gangster and a gentleman,
like I'm the rapper who you can hear make some
real gangster shit. Then I know I'm the rapper who
also got a song with FONTI.

Speaker 4 (38:48):
Right now, you know what I mean. I live this
and that. So I've always walked a fine line of balancing.

Speaker 8 (38:56):
So throughout my music career, I've been fortunate enough to
say that I've been able to work with with the
greats and be able to be myself genuinely on both sides.
As I got old, it really took me to as
I got older, like somebody I didn't think, I really
realized that one day I had an interview and somebody
was like, you may be one of the only few

(39:16):
artists who are walking that fine line who gets accepted.
And that made me have appreciation of of my craft
and saying that is a pretty dope thing you know
to be. But I also consciously realized I introduced myself
as that in the beginning.

Speaker 4 (39:34):
I told people I'm literally half and half.

Speaker 8 (39:37):
So I guess to say what I'm saying is our
careers sort of reflect our life and who we are,
Like like you've held in that ridge quest but you've
always been the guy that people go, I'm gonna go
fuck with him.

Speaker 4 (39:51):
We love these guys, we love what they do. Like
my early career, I almost ruined my fucking career out
of I almost ruled my own career with with not
being in two, with with being two in tune with
some of my feelings, and then nothing.

Speaker 8 (40:10):
I think our careers are a reflection of who we are,
and we just have to learn other ways to be.

Speaker 4 (40:16):
Like it took me to learn.

Speaker 8 (40:19):
I like they got it to a point where I said,
I don't really want to feel like walking around with
two guns all the time and embracing a certain energy.
So I left the guns home and left the security.
But I brought a good energy with me, saying God's
gonna be my security and if it's my day to go,
it's my day to go. That was written. But I
also work somewhere in a light and even with my

(40:40):
history of the music I made and the music I'm
doing and just being in a place of going, the
people got to accept me for who I am, and.

Speaker 4 (40:49):
I let the chips fall where they may.

Speaker 8 (40:51):
So I've been blessed to have a you know, a
great a great music career. I would like to say
I've been able to be around the reads and work
with a lot of the greats and be on a
lot of songs. I feel like, when it's all said
and done, I've been a very hard working MC and
I appreciate it. But my journey now, more so than

(41:14):
my music career, is to also make sure that people
in music are also understanding to connect your connect your
career with your personal life and your health, because without
your health, you're not going to really enjoy your career.

Speaker 3 (41:28):
Since we are talking about career a little bit and
were talking about the fiftieth, it seems like, of course
you've been involved in a bunch of stuff this year,
but has there been anything that kind of really blew
you away as a as a fan of the craft,
not just a participant in the.

Speaker 4 (41:41):
Culture, as a fan and a participant, I would.

Speaker 8 (41:45):
Have to say, and not not to be funny just
because we're here, but rocking at Grammys and being part
of that for you know.

Speaker 2 (41:52):
Ah, every time someone brings it up.

Speaker 5 (41:54):
I forget.

Speaker 8 (41:56):
That was one of the most beautiful things that I
was to participate in. I would say in my career.
Before I got there, I like, this is what I'm saying.

Speaker 4 (42:05):
About about life and your health.

Speaker 8 (42:08):
Like even before I got there, I don't think I
got to the first rehearsal that I understood the magnitude
of it.

Speaker 4 (42:16):
Then when I got to that first rehearsal, I was like,
and you saw and salt and pepper iced tea L L.

Speaker 8 (42:25):
Black thought of ourselves, just the whole room, and just
understand that I was part of something that great. And
to be fortunate enough to be there and to see
all my childhood superheroes, so to rend those coming up
after me, to be part of something that great was
very very I want to say humbling, because that's not

(42:48):
the appropriate word.

Speaker 2 (42:50):
I think it's humbling.

Speaker 8 (42:51):
It was humbling, but it was more so of a
realization of how great this thing of ours, this and
how fortunate enough that my career has been to.

Speaker 4 (43:01):
Be called to be part of it. Like you know
what I'm saying, No, I know.

Speaker 3 (43:05):
Because I was wondering if you understood that the moment
when the fans and the people watching that show saw
the LOTSI y'all come on the stage, what that means
to that performance too?

Speaker 6 (43:13):
Like you understand that, like when they see you, it's like, oh,
sh yes, this is for real.

Speaker 4 (43:19):
Hell yeah it was. It was just it was beyond words.

Speaker 8 (43:23):
And I got to and you know, it's crazy when
you and your group members and like we all were
saying the same shit, like this is absolutely fucking crazy.

Speaker 4 (43:32):
I was like a kid in the candy store.

Speaker 8 (43:35):
I was like, this right here is a moment I
will never forget because I think, especially in hip hop,
I think people get used to the other accolades, like
all right, I got a home, now, I got this
amount of cars, I sold this much for me. I'm
you know, I grew up in a in a time of.

Speaker 4 (43:54):
Hip hop where for l l.

Speaker 8 (43:58):
Iced tea to know your name, know your songs, for
Rockham to want to hug you, is what something that
I could express, Like, that's better than any award that
I could ever get, to be acknowledged by the greats,
to be loved by them, to be respected by them

(44:19):
as a big O award than any award that I
could possibly get. It's an unreal feelings.

Speaker 7 (44:25):
Were you to that point he speaking to your point
about you like kind of getting the accolades from the
greats last time we saw each other in the flesh.
It was Kennedy Center, it was Pharaoh Manches Show. We
were in DC. This is pre pandemic, it's pre COVID,
but we saw each other and it was in the
hallway and I told Pooh, I'll never get it. I

(44:45):
was like, it was our album middle or watch it
came out. It just came out and I saw you
and he was like, yo, like you know, we got
each other. Gave me a big hug and he was like, yo, man,
I love this record. It sounds like y'all missed each other,
you know what I mean? And I knew from you.

Speaker 5 (45:00):
Like I was like, he know, you know what I mean.

Speaker 7 (45:02):
So he was like, yo, man, sound like y'all missed
each other. Man, Like I love this record, like you
could hear it. And so I just really like hearing
that from you like that, you know. I mean, that
was it. Like we didn't tell another record after that.
I was good, and I wanted to ask, man, how
do you keep a rap group together?

Speaker 3 (45:19):
Like?

Speaker 5 (45:19):
I mean, you you know, she like, how do y'all?

Speaker 2 (45:22):
Because it's just a very rare thing for groups like exist.

Speaker 8 (45:28):
Brotherhood has to be more than anything like where where
I feel like the game has split up a lot
of groups with them prioritizing the game over brotherhood, Like
we made an OH when we came in with brothers.
Like if I don't get on a record for you
to say kiss or Sheik is better than me, I

(45:48):
want you to say I'm better than them, you like
my first better, But when you don't, if you don't,
I'm still cool because it's a win for the team
and we accept it. But nobody gets you on the
basketball court looking for somebody else to be the MVP.
But if you understand that team and brotherhood over everything,
it keeps it together. Like I bond goes beyond music.

(46:11):
Our bond will always go beyond music. Our family members
rock with each other because with family, we understand that
it's family first and everything else kind of just falls after.
Like you can't you can't let feign materialistic things, money, women,
what people say, what other men say get in between

(46:34):
what you have, Like what you have has to be
sacred to you.

Speaker 4 (46:38):
You have to appreciate making music is something we love.

Speaker 8 (46:47):
It's fortunate enough that we've been able to do it
for you know, this thing of our starts as a hobby.
Then you make it a job, and if you're fortunate enough,
you get to make it a career. And then it's
really fortunate enough, people say, you know, you're doing legend
and every ship, and you work on being a legend.
So understood, Yeah, understanding that we've just always put ourselves

(47:08):
and our brotherhood before anything else, and we we've always
kept it that way.

Speaker 2 (47:13):
But when do you pinpoint the time period of which
the three of you said, let's start a group, because
I don't know the genesis of how you guys actually met.

Speaker 8 (47:23):
High school kissing chik knew each other. Actually, since I
want to say single digits, I met them. I met
them in junior high and then we end up going
to high school together.

Speaker 4 (47:34):
Like they lived on the north side.

Speaker 8 (47:36):
Of the Ankers, I lived on the south side of
the ankersh as an MC, you get to hear who's
the other mcs ringing around town and they name will
always ring. And in high school we formed the group.
It was Bomb Squad. It was UH. It was more
so like they were EPMD and I was k solo
at first UH. And there was other people who rap

(48:00):
with the Bomb Squad. Also their professionalism and the studio
taught me a lot very young, like when everybody else
was banging on hoods and just kind of saying versus
outside they were making hooks. They had so on format,
they know how to they knew how to lay in
the studios down the scene that they sounded outside in

(48:20):
the studio. So, uh, I guess my work ethic got
drive and just being being close with each other, like
we would call each other over over the phone, seeing
each other's rhymes. Here, here's what's going on. And just
as we kept going. Actually I had a job at
odd job. How we got on is I had an

(48:41):
odd job at odd job.

Speaker 4 (48:43):
Uh, I was.

Speaker 8 (48:44):
Still part of me, but I was still truckloads of
ship and one day we just I stole the truckload
of tapes. Then we made a demo and that demo
just kept circulating around. And their professionalism, and I think
the trials and tribulations of us, what we went through
in high school, what we was going through outside of school,

(49:07):
having stock jobs, part time criminals, having dreams of being
an MC's and just sticking without sticking to the guns
and believing in it.

Speaker 4 (49:17):
It forms something.

Speaker 8 (49:20):
And then when you split it, when you split a
pizza three ways or six ways or whatever amount of
homeboys is there. When you get a couple, you know
you're getting a couple of chicken wings and fried rice
and you're breaking it down. That kind of sticks with you.
You don't you don't forget those times. And I think
we never forgot those times, and us we always kept

(49:42):
our brotherhood together.

Speaker 4 (49:43):
Like even if you think about it, I don't a
bad boy.

Speaker 8 (49:46):
When we was there, that was like we were on
the Chicago Bulls of rap and to risk it together,
we're saying, I like, fuck it, we feeling good.

Speaker 4 (50:00):
Here, we don't like it here, this and that all right?
We made it. We could make it again.

Speaker 8 (50:05):
So I think even going through everything we went through
is kind of put us in a place in a
position of saying, you know, where what we have is
always bigger than what the what, what the game is.
We had a brotherhood. We built it together. We we
came about the Mother together, and knowing that it just
it kept us tight and it under we understood what

(50:26):
we were.

Speaker 4 (50:26):
We were understood that brotherhood more than a group.

Speaker 2 (50:30):
You know, when people speak of Yonkers, of course they
think of you first, they think of they think of
Mary were there any other hip hop legends from Yonkers before.

Speaker 8 (50:42):
Mary with the first legend, actually Mary with legends before
we got on, right, Yeah, well made.

Speaker 4 (50:50):
There's also Bill Blast. He was definitely legendary.

Speaker 8 (50:55):
There was an MC I loved. His name was Universal.
We had colleague Kool, We had my man Og, Dusty Mike.
We had a few people, but I would say extra
Mary were the first legends of the town.

Speaker 4 (51:09):
Like, what makes Ex a legend is here was a legend.

Speaker 8 (51:13):
He was making solid music and tapes that everybody from
our time pretty much knew X.

Speaker 4 (51:18):
Would be a star.

Speaker 8 (51:21):
I think what made him legendary is we happened to
get on first from rap.

Speaker 4 (51:25):
But X is the one who brought us to rough Riders,
brought rough Riders to us.

Speaker 8 (51:29):
And I think for us to get on first and him,
I've never seen any bitter feelings towards towards that from X,
like I never seen, you know, because I think if
the situation was vice versa, I would have been pissed.
I think he had the confidence of knowing how much
of a huge star he was. He knew what was coming,

(51:50):
so it was important for us to throw, you know,
make sure he was on money, power, respect, and I
just think he understood the magnitude of how big and
now huge he was and where.

Speaker 4 (52:01):
He was gonna go in life.

Speaker 8 (52:02):
So I would say X and Mary are with legendary
before they were even knowing, Like Mary would sing in
the parks and the whole town would come out. Like
I knew Mary sing single digits. I actually knew X
and Mary before I knew kissing she can kiss. I
knew I knew Marry because she lived up Hire and

(52:23):
my cousin are close friends, which they still are to
this day. Like Mary calls me a little dave to
this day. Speed to Mary, I'm a little Dave, Like
you know what I mean. I knew Mary since I
was I was seven. I knew X because he's from
the south Side too, so he lived a few blocks
from me. So I knew of X from it is

(52:45):
extra curriculum activities in the neighborhood.

Speaker 4 (52:49):
He was legendary on both on both sides of the defense.

Speaker 2 (52:53):
But so when I used to work at Roughhouse Records
as an intern and I joined rough House right when
DMX was signed the rough House first he had a
single out called born Loser. I believe that halftime by
Nas which was on the Zebrahead soundtrack and Born Loser

(53:16):
that came in the box the same day, So I
deserved that. The DJs were you guys like aware of
that level of DMX think.

Speaker 8 (53:24):
We knew him like even in zebra You remember, just
speaking of Zebrahead, Deshaun I went to school.

Speaker 2 (53:32):
With him, weren't yeh?

Speaker 8 (53:35):
I went, oh wow, I think his name is DeShawn Castle? Correct, yes,
Shawn Castle. He used to wrap his ass off too.
That's another person who used to rhyme from Jon because
I think actually I met she through from DeShawn and
junior high.

Speaker 4 (53:52):
Me and Deshaun I knew him.

Speaker 8 (53:55):
I got kicked out of that school, but we went
to It was a school called Hawthorne for the givet
and Talented.

Speaker 4 (54:02):
They kicked my black ass right out of there. I
was too bad for that one.

Speaker 2 (54:05):
Is that DeShawn?

Speaker 5 (54:06):
Is that the same DeShawn that was on the show
Biz An AG album?

Speaker 8 (54:09):
Uh?

Speaker 5 (54:09):
Was did he ever sean you're talking about him to
make any records?

Speaker 8 (54:13):
I don't remember if he was on show Business AG album.
I do know he was the star Zebrahead though, Okay,
all right, got.

Speaker 6 (54:20):
Yeah, yeah, I never knew his name, but he was dope.

Speaker 8 (54:26):
Yeah, so I actually met she through him and in
about seventh seventh grade, so uh yeah, I didn't know
actually knew of the song Ship.

Speaker 4 (54:37):
We used to play it, we used to love it.
And that's another reason, like God bless.

Speaker 8 (54:43):
My brother asks why I have the utmost respect for him,
because most people, when they get an opportunity, they lose out.
It doesn't work the way they work, They tough, they
tail and make it back. He never That's why he
used a dog in real life. He had dog drive,
he had dog will, and you know, I believe he
had a lot of dog in them and a whole
lot of God in a mix because his driving, his

(55:05):
willingness to keep pushing flow was crazy. And if you've
ever seen DMX in the Battle, his level different were
fucking insane. It was the level of ferocity to nastity
ferociousness was literally insane.

Speaker 2 (55:24):
At least, the perception was, Oh, you're going to be
the first generation of privilege in hip hop, where you
know your level of success is not going to be
that of like Grand Master Flash and the Furious Five
or Ultra Magneticum Seeds like you guys are actually going
to be like national known and all that stuff.

Speaker 4 (55:45):
So just in the.

Speaker 2 (55:46):
Beginning and the very beginning, when the bad boy thing
seems to be real, Like, at what point did it
get real for you to know that, like Jesus Christ, like,
we're literally about to We're about to make it.

Speaker 8 (56:03):
I would say when we heard that Buff he heard
the demo from Mary and he heard it on the
tour bus and he liked it and he called us up,
we pretty much knew that we were going to make it.

Speaker 4 (56:16):
That's one thing we had.

Speaker 8 (56:17):
We had a chip on our shoulder because we were
from Yonkers, like because nobody from Yonkers was on God
Bless the Dead, Heavy D was on prior to us.
Brand New Leans is from New Rochelle. Mount Vernon is
after Yonkers, so the Bronx is before Yonkers. So we
were literally like the Yonkers is attached to the Bronx,

(56:39):
Like as soon as you get out the Bronx, you
ain't Yonkers. So we felt skipped over for so long
that we we had the I believe part of us
getting on was we had the utmost confidence and we
always knew our shit. We always rehearsed a lot, We
always memorized everything we were saying.

Speaker 4 (56:58):
We always had good time.

Speaker 8 (57:00):
So by the time we got to Puff and they
said we have to meet him at his office in Rhyme,
we were already on. We're getting on. There was no
doubt about it in any of our heads. Like we
were looking at it as like we're so overlooked, but
we're we're fucking nice.

Speaker 4 (57:20):
That's that's how we used to go about it.

Speaker 8 (57:22):
And we traveled enough around and you know, from different burroughs,
different places, and just wrapping our ass off to the
point where we.

Speaker 4 (57:31):
Knew how good we were.

Speaker 8 (57:32):
So by the time we got there, and I would say,
that moment you're asking for is when we did.

Speaker 4 (57:42):
You'll see. And then we found out Big was getting
on your seat. We knew history, we knew where were in.

Speaker 8 (57:49):
The books because when Big met us, I would even say,
before getting on, it's when Big met us and he said, y'all.

Speaker 4 (57:57):
Are fucking them sees damn. We got on MC's and
I'm glad to have y'at here for us.

Speaker 8 (58:04):
That meant a lot because at the particular time he
was the King of New York, he did he'd done
something someone no one had ever did, and It wasn't
just rhyming good because he rhymed well, but it was
the fact that he was such a well rounded MC
that he kind of did everything well and.

Speaker 4 (58:20):
He changed the trajectory of how the game was going.
He was big, He was owning it. He was making
fat people proud. He was saying things that nobody was
even saying. Black and ugliest. Ever, how like he was
just going from an angle of saying shit that was
like wow, like uh, it's crazy, Like you know what

(58:41):
I mean.

Speaker 8 (58:41):
I believe Nas opened the door for our generation of
rappers like he Nas is the He's the I call
him the baby of the grand Masters, which the lyrical
grand masters, which would be Cougi King, k arrests and
rock him, nabody, all of that, but from the child
who's seen crack outside and drug dealers and robbers and

(59:04):
knew how to bring it to the table. Then I
felt a whole Big Wu Tang Nas and all of
that really I mean escalated it. But I felt Big
also was able to put the vision of what drug
dealers wanted outside what we were looking for, the firing
things in life.

Speaker 4 (59:23):
I felt he was able to mess it all and
then just bring something new to the table.

Speaker 8 (59:28):
So for him to feel that way about it's really
made our confidence kind of boost out the door.

Speaker 4 (59:34):
Like we already was very confident.

Speaker 8 (59:36):
And then to get that love from somebody who was
on who was on top, who you know, was being
crowned the king of New York meant a lot to us.
And then just being in Obsessions and working with him,
speaking with him. Because besides that, like when we got
into Bad Boy, our rooms used to merge, like we
would go chill with you and Mafi and Big, they

(59:57):
would chill with us. We would smoke together, we would
drink it together. We were you know, I got to
see I got to see him making most of life
after death. So that kind of feeling just puts you
in a whole new way of belonging, Like you make
it somewhere. To make it somewhere is one thing, but
the question if you belong there is another. But to

(01:00:20):
know you belong there is a whole nother feeling. Like
so we had that feeling of knowing we belong, So
it just made everything kind of great for us.

Speaker 2 (01:00:29):
Quick question, how did you guys come up with the
name of.

Speaker 4 (01:00:32):
The group, Well, we were the warlocks.

Speaker 2 (01:00:35):
Ah, okay, were warlocks and.

Speaker 4 (01:00:38):
Took us the wars over. Drop it so for real,
the war's over, So y'all can't be the Warlocks. But
we wanted to be still who we were.

Speaker 8 (01:00:48):
So then we went home and I was like, you
know what, actually what we were doing was and music wise,
was we were living with our experiences and that's what
we put in our music.

Speaker 4 (01:01:00):
I was like, yo, living off experience y'all, and it
was like.

Speaker 2 (01:01:04):
That's it, that's us just a lot okay. I thought
you guys were just enthusiasts for really good bagel sandwiches.
I didn't know where the locks came from, so wow, sorry.

Speaker 4 (01:01:19):
See steal my joke.

Speaker 2 (01:01:21):
Next time I.

Speaker 5 (01:01:22):
Wanted to ask man.

Speaker 7 (01:01:23):
I read it was an interview or a quote somewhere
where talking about the Let the Locks Go campaign when
y'a were getting off Bad Boy.

Speaker 5 (01:01:31):
That that was Puff's idea. He wanted to kind of
make it, you know, kind of on some uh you
know pt Barnum, like make it a thing. You know
what I'm saying, make camp. That's that's a lot, okay,
talk about it.

Speaker 4 (01:01:44):
That's a damn line.

Speaker 8 (01:01:45):
No, we went with let the Locks Go because we
understood that we didn't have the financial power or the
lawyer power to deal with to to win the fight
we were trying to fight.

Speaker 4 (01:01:58):
But what we understood was that.

Speaker 8 (01:01:59):
People who actually loved us on the street at that time,
we did a lot of rumbling, a lot of making
our name known, so people felt kind of connected to us,
and we were blue collar rap so we figured we
would do be smarter. But it and that we had
we was like, all right, we can't win with money,
we can't win with lawyers, but how do you pull

(01:02:20):
out a strategy that works for you and.

Speaker 2 (01:02:22):
It's most and.

Speaker 8 (01:02:25):
Came up with We're gonna have the public joint in
and just tell people what we're going through because at
the time, the public opinion embarrassed to say, I'm not
And what's crazy about it is we had a standard
industry contract, which we welter. We pretty much had a
standard contract. But we also, like I said, we were

(01:02:46):
kind of I think with an epitome of blue collar
and white collar mix and being streaked, but being also
a little a little nerdy. Like everything is, if you
sign a deal, no matter how bad it is, you
should be able to renegotiate. If you get get somewhere,
like if you sell drugs. You know, I sold ten

(01:03:08):
pieces for ten dollars. That's one hundred dollars. Now when
you tell me I'm putting out an album, you know
what I mean. I'm coming straight off the streets. So
it's no way I was gonna read all this paperwork
and everything. That's happy. I wanted to be there, so
I'm assigning. But if you're telling me I'm only getting
a h not even a dollar off this album every
album sold or not even two dollars, now I got

(01:03:30):
a problem and we gotta we gotta fix this.

Speaker 4 (01:03:33):
This ain't even cool. So we didn't really care about
the image that everybody else was worried about.

Speaker 8 (01:03:38):
So we came with let the locks go, and we
figured we'll use the power of the people, throw the
T shirts on on summer jam, let everybody and involve
the people with it and have the people on your side.

Speaker 3 (01:03:50):
That's where raping you records came from, right. I can
just keep hearing it in my head because they be
raping you, raping you, raping.

Speaker 4 (01:03:57):
Yup.

Speaker 8 (01:03:58):
So we just strategized and use what we felt would
work for us, which was a campaign letting people know
how we felt and that we didn't want to be there.

Speaker 5 (01:04:09):
Thanks for clearing that up. Man, I read that before
and it yeah, thanks for clearing.

Speaker 4 (01:04:13):
That up for Damn Line.

Speaker 6 (01:04:16):
Yeah, he's good at it.

Speaker 2 (01:04:18):
So just in your career, like, what would you say
is can you name at least three like the magic
moments that you were there for or that that really
impacted you.

Speaker 8 (01:04:32):
One getting on when you first get on, I would say,
it is uh, veryful. Two I want to say it's
a particular particular time and movement. But as I said,
I sat down and reflected on all the artists that
I worked with I was able to work with, and
it made me have a high level of appreciation for myself.

(01:04:55):
I think when you take a conscious look at your
catalog and are able to say, oh, man, I worked
with him, I worked with I did this, I've done that,
it made me very proud. And then the Grammys definitely
was a highlight moment because I felt that was that was.

Speaker 4 (01:05:11):
Worldly, like you know what I mean? And how do
you put this?

Speaker 8 (01:05:16):
When you could do a stadium and you could do
a small room, It puts you in and in the
realization of.

Speaker 4 (01:05:24):
What you meet. The hip hop thinking about being on
Bigg's album, Whole's album, a roots album.

Speaker 8 (01:05:33):
Doing a song with Mariah doing you know, being on
a Ma Maya album, being on a j LO album,
being on a Talb album. I would say after Versus
too the au, Yes, yes, I suspect the verses where
kids came up to us going, we're gonna learn our rhymes,

(01:05:53):
We're gonna stop rapping over the track. Uh, we we're
gonna have our show tight. We see what your brotherhood
brings to the people. That was very important because I
didn't understand. I never thought the magnitude of the after
effect would be that big. And yes, yeah, So that

(01:06:14):
was also a great moment in our career where we
were able to say, staying on the hamster wheel pays off,
like you know what I mean, being able to stay
on that wheel and that workout and do what you
do continuously. Sometimes you don't get credit for what you do.
You don't get acknowledgment, you don't get your accolades, you
don't make certain lists, you don't get certain ackledgement. If

(01:06:39):
you stick to what you do it it'll come around
sooner or later. And Versus Versus showed us that because
It wasn't about.

Speaker 4 (01:06:48):
We love this set. Those is our brothers.

Speaker 8 (01:06:50):
But to see that many kids come up to us
after going we're gonna learn our rhymes and we're gonna
stop performing over that track with the words on meant
a lot to us because we felt we now did
what we were supposed to do for the hip hop
we grew up on.

Speaker 6 (01:07:05):
That's the one thing I was hoping.

Speaker 3 (01:07:06):
I was like, out of everything that came out of
that versus, I was hoping that young artists are watching
this and seeing what.

Speaker 6 (01:07:10):
To do and what not to do.

Speaker 4 (01:07:12):
Yes, yeah, so that meant a lot to it.

Speaker 3 (01:07:15):
One more question before you got because you mentioned you
mentioned you and your wife Azua would do a couple
of these shows. And I'm so curious because when we
see as as a consumer and as a watcher of
these shows, where we see you and your wife on them,
we know what that brings. It brings a certain level
of legitimacy to these couple shows, right because we know
that y'all shit is real, y'all work on y'all shit
every day.

Speaker 6 (01:07:35):
Whatever.

Speaker 3 (01:07:35):
But I'm so curious for you and Azua, why what's
your motivation for doing these shows?

Speaker 4 (01:07:41):
One you want to build your marriage up.

Speaker 8 (01:07:44):
You want to learn what you can, but you also
want to show people like, uh, we pride ourselves. There's
never been a show where we were in ourselves or
somebody could pay us to be out of pocket, act
uncivil or so we're big on black love and black
family and do what we can do for the black
family and represent black love.

Speaker 6 (01:08:03):
Thank you, thank you. It's great. It means a lot
to us to see y'all.

Speaker 2 (01:08:07):
Thank y'all, Thank you, Thank you, brother Steve. I know
you didn't get your cream cheese. That's all right.

Speaker 1 (01:08:14):
I'm sure there'll be somebody else from a band.

Speaker 2 (01:08:18):
Yeah, thanks, no.

Speaker 4 (01:08:22):
Plant based cream cheese.

Speaker 2 (01:08:24):
There you go, there you go.

Speaker 6 (01:08:25):
Oh that's yeah, I do like the plant based.

Speaker 2 (01:08:28):
Yeah, yo styles. Thank you so much for doing this,
And really, I really appreciate you for having the courage
to really live in your integrity. And I know you're like,
I'm not a leader, but you're an absolute leader, and
you're a seed planner, and you know, like we're out
here listening to you, and I'm especially out here listening

(01:08:49):
to you. I thank you for that. So because that
that'll make me, that'll keep me on the straight and
narrow as well, and then that will inspire someone else
and so on and so on.

Speaker 7 (01:08:58):
So no, man, Uh, from the time we met, like
first time it was when you were at first kind
of opening your juice bar when we did the Pharaoh
Mantch Black Can side video. I love that record, man,
but we shot you know that in you know, in
your in your bar, and uh, you just always been
every time. I didn't even think you even knew who
we were, you know what I'm saying. When Pharaoh hit

(01:09:19):
me for that record, he was like, yeah, man, I
want you to do a hook and I got styles.
I was like word like style. I was like, for
real and I heard it. I was like, oh this
shiit dovers hell. And so when I met you, man,
you just always every time we saw each other was
always love. You just always been just one of the
most solid dudes in this.

Speaker 5 (01:09:34):
Game, man, And I just wanted to just you you
love him space.

Speaker 4 (01:09:36):
You're having me on the project, bro.

Speaker 8 (01:09:38):
I told you, I'm a fan, man, a big, big fan,
and question I owe you a personal think.

Speaker 4 (01:09:45):
I was scared to do something. I asked quests for
a request at a party.

Speaker 6 (01:09:50):
Dude a record to playing record.

Speaker 2 (01:09:54):
Not only did he request the record? I actually complied,
and because I'm world famous for not but on top
of that, on top of that, to this day, my
first five records is dreams. I played that. He has
me played Fleetwood Mac Dreams.

Speaker 6 (01:10:13):
Wow, but in Love Movie.

Speaker 4 (01:10:17):
I got scared. That was one. See I could have
mentioned my feelings. I was like, oh fuck, I think
I offended questions. I knew better than to ask, but
I was like, I had to ask this one.

Speaker 8 (01:10:27):
I felt like it was a good time to ask. Look,
he waved me off, like no, this is like it
was like what record? I was like, creat Fleetwood Mac
and that ship. I appreciate that.

Speaker 2 (01:10:39):
Thank you surprised. Doesn't surprise you surprised them, know, because
the thing was I was in my jawing like come on, man,
I got this. I know what I'm doing. And then
I thought about it and I was like, wait, he
don't even know that. That's the perfect record to mix
him right now. And I did it, and to this
day is now in my first ten records. You brought

(01:11:03):
that to my repertoire. So thank you again. You changing mind,
You're changing my health and my creativity.

Speaker 4 (01:11:10):
I got the request a quest Love nobody does that.

Speaker 6 (01:11:14):
You're right, I'm trying to trying to get into for years.

Speaker 4 (01:11:18):
I think that's gonna work right now. I gotta give
it a try.

Speaker 2 (01:11:23):
Yes, it like wave. I was like, oh my god,
you wait, because I was. It was like juggling plates
like trust me and people, Yeah, don't don't, don't get couraged.
Don't don't get couraged at all.

Speaker 8 (01:11:41):
That was and it was a vegan It was a
vegan plant based right. Shout out to chef Dan you
home too, Yes, that was. Let me tell you something
to a question.

Speaker 4 (01:11:52):
You are you know what it is. You are absolutely astonishing.

Speaker 8 (01:11:57):
Amazing DJ too, because that whole night was a lesson
for me because I went, you know, sometimes you think
people are great just in their field, and I've seen
question other fields.

Speaker 4 (01:12:10):
But to rock that fucking party, what he was playing,
what he was doing. If I was a DJ, I
would have been taking notes. I would have I probably
would have written everything down in my note notepad.

Speaker 8 (01:12:19):
But you're an amazing person. Thank you very much, thank you,
And that's a big more spot for me.

Speaker 4 (01:12:25):
I made it. I gotta that's.

Speaker 8 (01:12:26):
Gonna go on my hip hop, on my hip hop.
Great things I did, I gotta, I gotta. I was
able to get a make a suggestion and it happened.

Speaker 2 (01:12:37):
You made it happen. Yes, you did. A rare moment
in Quest Left history. Thank you very much. Want to
be having Steve and Fante and Laia and unpaid Bill
uh And in the great style. See this is another
classic episode of Quest Left Supreme. See y'all next trail.

Speaker 1 (01:13:00):
What's Love Supreme is a production of iHeartRadio. For more
podcasts from iHeartRadio, visit the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or
wherever you listen to your favorite shows.