Rap Radar: Allen Hughes

Episode Transcript
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Speaker 1 (00:00):
Year Rapper Up podcast Eliot Wilson.

Speaker 2 (00:02):
My name is beat At beat Out. What's up, baby,
I'm feeling fantastically.

Speaker 3 (00:06):
How you doing.

Speaker 1 (00:07):
I'm feeling good. I'm a little tired. I'm little exhausted.

Speaker 3 (00:09):
Man.

Speaker 1 (00:09):
I tried to be a rap superhero go to these events.

Speaker 3 (00:11):
Man.

Speaker 2 (00:13):
I went to Washington, D C. And then I went
to the Barclays on Sunday. I was exhausted.

Speaker 1 (00:17):
Man, I'm too old for this rap shit. Sometimes, man,
mister Wilson goes to Washington.

Speaker 2 (00:21):
Huh yeah, man, shout out, shout out a guy. You know,
I got Riggs Morales. I think you I think Riggs
is gonna run for president one day. You know what
I'm saying. Like he's he's a smooth brother.

Speaker 3 (00:30):
Man.

Speaker 2 (00:30):
It used to be my assistant music at Her Source
magazine in the nineties. He went on to be in
A and R's, you know, with Shady Records and eminem
for Decent and all that. He's been to Atlantic Records
there are and all that great stuff. But he's really
cool with the good folks at the Recording Academy as
they're trying to do progressive things, and they had a
Kamala Harris our Vice President's Hip Hop fifty celebration at

(00:52):
her house, like the backyard of her house, and thanks
to Riggs, I was invited.

Speaker 1 (00:56):
Man, I had a good time. If Riggs isn't rough
for president, at least go for Boroughs Broad But it
was funny though I was mingling about me that now.
It's like I was like, okay, like who's performing at
this thing?

Speaker 2 (01:07):
And I saw the photographer I think his name is
Vivid Dope, and I was like from DC, and I
was like, what's performing?

Speaker 1 (01:12):
Is like, I think, jeez, Fat Joe, if you think
the artist ten is over this, I just started walking.

Speaker 2 (01:16):
It was funny because Secret Service was everywhere, but they
was kind of like on the outskirts of us and
kind of let it all the hip hop people and
all the black folks like mingle without any real security, right,
so they kind of was like an outside perimeter. So
I literally just walked into the artists artist camp little area,
had no credentials, and what I saw Gez and Fat Joe.

Speaker 1 (01:37):
It was just like a party. Everybody was in there.
Where you saw. I saw Karen Silvil. They was hiding
Little Wayne somewhere in there.

Speaker 2 (01:42):
I couldn't get the Little Wayne, but I saw like
Gez Fat Joe, I gut Saba while A came through
like so it was like a rap wall Star.

Speaker 1 (01:50):
Then the OG's Dougie Fresh Slick Rick.

Speaker 3 (01:52):
It was crazy.

Speaker 1 (01:53):
So you let the Secret Service, Well, you bore past
the Secret Service meeting, yeasted. I don't got real. If
I got reality, man didn't know. I came in peace.
Though I came in peace, I ain't gun on the
stage when MC life was there.

Speaker 2 (02:10):
I got on the side of the stage or she
was rocking out doing her classics, and I met Tierra
Wack and she was wrapping the lyrics along. I had
a good time, but you know, I wasn't even there long.
I stayed so I wouldn't So I went and see
Gun at the Barclays that night. So there's only two
trains that are the exceler trains in DC Express, so
I had to get out of there by two o'clock
to catch that. So I was only there for like
an hour or so, and then I dipped and catch
the trade and go to the Brooklyn show Gun at

(02:32):
the Barclays.

Speaker 1 (02:32):
Man, that was a Gunner show. It looked kind of
chunky in there. Yo. He sold it.

Speaker 2 (02:36):
I was worried because when I first got there, like
the crowd got there a little late, so it looked
like it was is this going to be packed out?
Like I don't know what to expect, and like they
had the floor open, it wasn't no seating, so the
fans were lining up almost like an SLB show, like
a giant Soob show. But by the time Gunna hit
that stage, it was fucking sold out. He killed it, man,
sat out, ran to fifteen hundred or nothing. You know,
they bought that whole You know how great they are

(02:57):
are with this stuff They've done with Jay and everybody else.
And I saw Rants the leader of.

Speaker 3 (03:01):
The whole movement.

Speaker 1 (03:02):
So the transition on this set was great. He tore
it up. Man, I know we don't agree.

Speaker 2 (03:06):
Heat out for Gunner still got album of the Year
in my book, Buddy.

Speaker 3 (03:10):
You a good thing. I'm in literate because I don't
know that book.

Speaker 1 (03:13):
Come on, man, that good album gifted the curse.

Speaker 2 (03:16):
Nah, man, we still rock with that killer Mike over here. Man, Oh,
I feel bad too, because Mike put me in. Mike
do some footage in my a new video. He got
us some footage of us. We shot some content thing
and he used some of the video footage of us
kicking it in Georgia under this new video that with
the mainard vignette.

Speaker 1 (03:33):
I think it's this song. So I feel bad man,
because Mike's showing love. But then I feel like that
Gunner album might be a little better.

Speaker 2 (03:39):
Man.

Speaker 1 (03:39):
I'm sorry, Mike. I'm sorry. Pick a side, Elliott, pick
a side my Atlanta brothers. Man, I can't. I can't
choose between them. Man, you all in the videos and
you rock with the Gunner album. I see how you is.
I'm trying, brother, I'm trying. Man, I'm trying that.

Speaker 3 (03:55):
Man.

Speaker 1 (03:55):
You know, I'll say some about the airtract though.

Speaker 2 (03:57):
When you traveler, the food is nasty, beat out, the
food is nasty when these trades, man, you need to
try to eat that food, like I Meg Gigs said
Gigs Man Gigs needs to be on the UK Tourism board.

Speaker 1 (04:10):
Man, Yeah, I want another place to Dave Man. I
was like, I want I want a man, I want
proper food. When I go to Leadon, I'm like, I
never get proper food. Man.

Speaker 2 (04:18):
I've been watching Top Boy. Now I keep speaking with
this British accent. Keep thinking about jigs but shout out
a gigause. That was a really dope conversation with him.

Speaker 3 (04:25):
Man.

Speaker 1 (04:25):
And yeah, man, he's a funny guy, man, a cool guy.

Speaker 3 (04:28):
Man, he's really I'm glad.

Speaker 1 (04:30):
He blessed us with his appearancon. He's a zero tolerance guy,
zero tolerance man.

Speaker 2 (04:35):
Yeah, there's no This other guy had a lot of tolerance. Man,
This guy Alan Hughes Man, this guy I guess today, Man,
a guy from Minister Society to now, Man, it's Tupac documentary.

Speaker 1 (04:46):
Man, My light skinned brother puts in that work. Man,
amazing filmmaker. Right, he's been putting it for over thirty years.

Speaker 2 (04:51):
It's like you forget that he directed the Brenda's Got
a Baby videos of early Tupac stuff from Minister Society,
their President's Book of Eli And now you know you
have to Tupac Dear Mama documentary nominated for the Emmy.

Speaker 1 (05:04):
Guy ain't stopping.

Speaker 2 (05:05):
Yeah, And I didn't know, like I think you have
discovered the Drake in the future of the Dream Cruise
involved with it.

Speaker 1 (05:09):
I didn't know that they had. They played a part
in the whole Poka documentary that's out right now.

Speaker 2 (05:14):
Yeah, Mama, Absolutely dream Creuse. Shout out to Drake and
Matt Babe, all those guys over there. Yeah, they put
it in their work man. And he also has the
Arnold Documentary to the executive produced on Netflix as well.
While that he was right, he does it all, man,
I think he's bugging out. When he was like, I
was eight years old when I saw a Minace, I
mean I was eight yo. Society was one of my
fa It still is one of my favorite movies. Hey,

(05:35):
many get a little dangerous. I sometimes, man, I gotta
be out of spell.

Speaker 1 (05:38):
But now I just don't. I just think Allan has
stories for days.

Speaker 3 (05:41):
Man.

Speaker 2 (05:42):
We shouldn't spoil it, but we feel like we got
at least what two of three exclusive stories that he
never spoke about before. Like absolutely absolutely, I'm still blown
by what he said. Amazing, amazing, enemy man, a good guy,
my lfe skinned brother man.

Speaker 1 (05:53):
We felt like we could do a whole other hour
with him. Man, so much hip hop history.

Speaker 2 (05:57):
Next time, we gotta get Albert in the picture so
we could do it the Hughes Brothers for real. You know,
I heard Albert is like overseas, like he moved to
like Prague or somewhere like you don't even live in America.

Speaker 1 (06:06):
Alix said, f America. Well left the country, man, I
saw that.

Speaker 2 (06:11):
He said they did the Johnny Depp movie with the
he played Jack the Ripper, like they shot that over
in Prague, I think, And then Alan would ever want
to leave, So Allen moved to Prague, so he think
he lives overseas. Brother I mean brother, brother Albert, I
mean Albert, my bad Albert. He's actually working on the
John Whick prequel that's coming out soon, so I look
on him for that.

Speaker 1 (06:29):
Those Hughes brothers.

Speaker 2 (06:30):
And then the final thing about Allen he was just
so dope, is that he's not even stopping with this
Park thing, as he's told us, he's doing a fucking
snoop bio pick.

Speaker 1 (06:38):
Yep, you know he got Marvin Gaye bio pick. It's insane,
but especially.

Speaker 2 (06:41):
With the Snoop thing, like you know he did snoop
this park thing, he did the Fine Ones with Dre,
like he's covering all the West Coast.

Speaker 1 (06:47):
Giants and hip hop. Man, it's crazy.

Speaker 2 (06:49):
It's look like I don't even think he even realized
that until you mentioned it. So hopefully this right to
strike is a rap and you know we could get
these movies out sooner than later.

Speaker 1 (06:58):
Yeah, Man, two.

Speaker 2 (06:58):
Thousand and four, Man, no hope got that movie too,
what I got from the bullet So mister Samuel, we
got to get him on the show when this time. Man,
the brothers gotta tell us about that movie they got
coming out top of the year. But yeah, twenty twenty four,
I think he's gonna hick back up with the cinema style.

Speaker 3 (07:12):
Man.

Speaker 1 (07:12):
We gotta tell these stories for.

Speaker 2 (07:13):
The culture, absolutely, but for right now you're telling this
story with Alan Hughes Man, so check it out absolutely,
Alan hughes on the Rap Raid All Podcast.

Speaker 3 (07:21):
Yeah, yeah, Rap Rate Up Podcast.

Speaker 2 (07:24):
Elliot Wilson just beat out, beat out.

Speaker 3 (07:26):
What's up? Baby's gonna got next to a legend?

Speaker 2 (07:28):
A legend, Man, don't make extraordinary, Alan Hughes Baby. And
you know I have to saw off the top of
my other fellow podcast our like skinned brother Matt Barnes.
He plugged me in with you, so I gotta shout
out man all the Smoke family. Yeah, it was dope,
dope interview with them. But this tupac man, I mean,
I mean nominated.

Speaker 4 (07:45):
Congratulations, congratulations it's been a long, torturous road to Yeah.

Speaker 2 (07:51):
I finally sat and watched the whole thing last night,
and I didn't know I was walking into, as you say,
like an emotional five hours, like yeah, yeah, what made
you go with that format and be so extend?

Speaker 3 (08:01):
The estate and the family wanted to meet with me,
and I was like, on this Marvin Gay journey, getting
this Marvin Gay film ready, and so I had no
plans of doing Tupac, and I was apprehensive, not because
the obvious, because I gotten I thought I had gotten
over that, but just because I didn't want to do
another documentary after defying ones, which damn near sent me

(08:22):
to the hospital. It's just really exhaustive to do those things.
You get to know these people, they become your family.
It's very emotional, and you know you're trying to do
new things, and sometimes you don't get the rights to things.
You guys know that music or whatever. Anyway, so I
didn't really want to do another doctor, but I said,
give me a few days to think about it. And

(08:42):
when I thought about it, I go, Man, if I
could do a dual narrative with him and his mother
and making multiple parts, I'll do it, and they agreed,
and I made the grand mistake of doing it in
a beautiful way.

Speaker 2 (08:55):
You're saying sometimes like give me with Godfather Too, right
to tell some of these dual stories.

Speaker 3 (08:59):
Yeah, I like that. I like the idea of like
trying to push the medium, the narrative medium. And I
always say, we're educated from left to right, we read
from left to right, but we're wired. I meet Elliott,
I meet you at the age I meet you, and
I learned about maybe your college years or when you're
five or what you know. So we're wired. We're wired

(09:19):
to be more nimble with the way we received narrative.
So Godfather Too is my favorite of the Godfather films,
about the sins of the father falling on the son
and what the weight of that is, and back and
forth and the themes, the central themes with the father
and with the present day son. I said, well, this
would be the you know, single mother that is the activist,

(09:42):
incredible woman that a Fannie is, and the former black
panther is. What were her thoughts and actions and how
the day affect her son and to learn about him
through her? I thought, and using that device like that
god Father two device, I thought would be interesting. We
all know you know Tupac. Did you know Phoenne? Unfortunately
I didn't. I never got to meet her. And when

(10:02):
I knew Tupac, I believe if any was in rehab
or in New York, it's back east. This is ninety one,
so she wasn't. He was. He was still living in
Oakland at the time, and so his mother wasn't around
at that point. Yeah, you talk about building these personal relationships.

Speaker 2 (10:21):
One thing I didn't know about when I saw it
was this aunt he has and how important she is
to me to the story and the narrative.

Speaker 3 (10:27):
Can you speak to well? First of all, Glow was
like some people are just natural storytellers, like just gifted storytellers,
and they and they go back to that tradition of
spoken word. She reminds me of Richard Pryor and cross
with some blues man, you know. And she's just her story.

(10:47):
She didn't have to do that before. She didn't have
to hold her family down like that. That was not
her role. Tupac was the star and then it was
a Fanny, and a Fanny was the star first. So
Glow was a mother of six and is a mother
of six that supported them and was the aunt and
was the center, you know, was the the gravity of

(11:10):
the family and where everyone congregated. So but she didn't
play the role that she played for us in Dear Mama.
She had to step into that role. And you hear
her talk about in the last episode, ain't that something
they had to pass so we could be here to
tell their story? And how beautiful she tells her story
is like it's a testament to someone stepping into their greatness.

(11:31):
Because I told Glow, I said, you know, it may
not have occurred to you, Glow, but you're an artist,
but maybe you never got to be because you had to,
you know, take care of these children in this family
and be that rock for people. But the way she
tells how gifted she is a storytelling I go you
and she wasn't nervous either. Here's you turn the camera

(11:51):
on like a you know, a non industry person and
they locked it in a minute up and she looked
at me, she goes, you nervous, baby. Right before we
started rolling, I said, am I nervous? Did she made
me nervous? She wasn't nervous ready.

Speaker 4 (12:05):
She pats the central part in the doc was anyone
that was reluctant to speak in the movie.

Speaker 3 (12:09):
A lot of people, not as many as say, ten
years ago. So we had the good fortune of people
now with time and maybe a certain amount of healing,
because that thing, when when a guy like that goes
out the way he went out, it leaves bodies like
people just shook and traumatized, and you know, emotionally, you
lost your friend, you lost your loved one, your brother,

(12:31):
your uncle, whatever it may be, your fiance. In the
case of Kadata Jones and she, I was met with her.
She blessed the project and signed off on photos, but
she's very private and I really wanted to interview her.
And Jada was another one. Jada was close, but you know,
Jada's Jada, so you know, you know, because I was

(12:55):
hoping that I was hoping to more tell the story
of Tupac through the women and life, and unfortunately that
didn't happen. But I got this magical touch with Glow, you.

Speaker 1 (13:04):
Know, right.

Speaker 4 (13:05):
Yeah, today actually marks twenty seven years that Tupac was
shot in Las Vegas.

Speaker 3 (13:10):
That day September when he got shot himself the seventh.
You guys, we didn't plan this, did we know.

Speaker 2 (13:16):
The fact that he told me last night, and I
was like, wow, like, this is just the fact that
I didn't know that driving over here is crazy.

Speaker 3 (13:22):
Do you remember where you were when you heard the news? No?
I blacked out on that one. You know. It's like,
I remember where I was when I heard the news
of Biggie. I'm driving my five year old son to school,
and I just remember that moment because my five year
old goes, Daddy, why did they kill Bickie? Why? It's
the It was on the radio. But with Tupac for
some reason, with all that personal history, and also I

(13:45):
also felt that was going to happen. If you knew him,
you felt like people talk about it. He talked about it.
He talked about it. I don't remember him talking about
it except for the music. But so I blacked out.
I don't remember where I was. You remember where you were? Yeah,
I was home. I just remember he was.

Speaker 4 (14:03):
I was home, and I remember turning on the radio
and hearing about it. I was like, wow, this is
this is kind of crazy.

Speaker 3 (14:09):
Yeah. Yeah, but we had heard in the radio.

Speaker 2 (14:11):
But I think a lot of us in New York,
at least in my community, we didn't think he was
going to die because he seemed almost invincible. He shot
the cops at Atlanta, like you know, Pot got into it,
Pot got shot at Like, yeah, shot before.

Speaker 3 (14:22):
He's going to survive. We didn't necessarily think he was
going to pass away.

Speaker 2 (14:25):
So when he died six or seven days later, that's
when it was everything that was like shocking again, like
it was trouble that happened, but it was almost like
another thing had to happen for it to be a reality,
Like we just didn't think.

Speaker 3 (14:37):
No, you're right, he was in his own time, he
was mythical exactly. Yep, you know, and because the quad
studio thing. I said this a few weeks ago. Also
at that time, it wasn't a reality to us that
one of our stars could be taken from him because
it had never happened before.

Speaker 2 (14:55):
Only with someone you were friends would I want to
talk about easy? That was kind of the first time
when we kind of lost like this superstar like and
it just seemed mysterious and like, oh my god.

Speaker 3 (15:04):
You think Skylar Rock kind of said that he was
the first shot.

Speaker 2 (15:07):
Skylar Rock, he was the he was the first prominent
person in hip hop to.

Speaker 3 (15:11):
Be that's murdered and it but still a hip hop
at the time. You had to know about b DP
and Boogiey Down productions and if you didn't know, then
you weren't a real true hip hop and you would
know about Scholar, but the world at large didn't really
you know, but it shook the first album, That's right
and Easy. In the case of Easy, my my first

(15:32):
real mentor at the same I think I met Tupac
later that year. I remember where I was. I was
at El Toedo in Beverly Hills, right down the street
from William Morris's Now Miss Shallows with Chris Tucker when
I found out about Easy. Now that one I remember, yeah,
because that age thing was getting shot. We know about that,

(15:55):
you know, like and there's certain people in the community
to know about loved ones passing of age, but ever
like this ultra you know, heterosexual toxic maskuling dying that
hadn't had That was shocking. In the case of Easy,
how did you Easy? For us? Connect? I was me
and my brother were trying to break into the film business.
We did I have the script for a minute yet Nope,

(16:17):
And we were in a set of always into something.
The second single on the Niggas for Life album and
it was late. We had somehow worked our way into
being some extras that get shot because we knew how
to take squib hits and well you're in the video
gets Oh my brother got shotgunned from Easy like blasted
off the speed. I don't am I am I in

(16:40):
that music video. We did, we did, we did some
stuff in there, but I saw it was late. Everyone
was drunk the DLC Dre. Everyone was drunk. And I
don't know what possessed me to walk over to doctor Dre.
I just felt like that was the guy because I
saw these cameras, these news cameras, and I found that
someone told me to Easy Eat owns those cameras that
those guys got. So I walked over to doctor said

(17:00):
can you introduce me to Easye. He introduced us, and
he goes, all right, man, yeah, write your number down,
you know. And by the way, so pause Andre. I
didn't me Andre are brothers? Now? I met him then,
but for two years I didn't. Me and Dre didn't
know each other. It was easy Easy called us the

(17:20):
next morning, Hey man, you know, why don't you guys
come out to Norwalk he had a house off the four.
I can't remember what freeway that is now six, so
five I'm fucked up. And that whole summer we were
with Easy. Uh he pick us up in this dually
or is a fifty BMW. We were nineteen. This was
the summer the Boys in the Hook came out. Two
things are happening while while while mainly I'm with Easy

(17:45):
because my brother would get impatient when we wouldn't get paid.
He was like, I'm out my brother hum for like
three weeks, maybe a month, and then I stuck the
whole summer with Easy and we shot some stuff with
n WA back then. But what was happened simultaneously with
Easy was we were hearing in the office about this
guy named Shug and something's funny with Dre. So Drey

(18:06):
was showing up because that album was the first I
believe hip hop album rap album to be inter number
one on the podcast Sounds being a SoundScan area. Yeah,
So they were doing these photo shoots and we were
there doing filming the photo shoots, and Dre would show
up at the last minute and Dre would leave right away.
So Dre was already there was something funny going on

(18:27):
CBE think about this. Boys in the Hood came out
that summer, and I remember being in Hollywood Boulevard would
Easy and Wren and they were they were having a
hard time with the success of it. Yeah, he had
left exactly, and he was blowing up. He had how
to survive a South central single America's most wanted had
already dropped kill. That EP was the ship, so it

(18:52):
was the hottest thing in hip hope and Drey was
out the door. So I'm what Easy as he's losing time,
And I didn't realize one day we went to his
house and he's getting the facts from some attorneys and
the thing that was wrongly depicted in the straight at
Compton film that he got the beatdown in the studio
that had just happened, but it wasn't a beatdown, and

(19:13):
he's getting he's trying to sue sug and the stuff
was coming through. But he had just went to the studio,
I guess a week prior, two weeks prior, and got
muscled into signing over the contract. So we were around
all that stuff and didn't know that's what was going on.

Speaker 4 (19:28):
Another hot autist that you associated with is Drake he
gave you props recently on Twitter.

Speaker 3 (19:32):
Oh yeah, yeah, yeah. How did he get on board
with the film? Well, here's a him future and a
producing partner of mine, friend of mine who works with
them now, Peter Nelson. Somewhere over a year or so ago,
we needed some help, you know, financially, we need some help,
like you know, we also wanted like a company that understood,

(19:53):
you know, like what we were doing to come and
just support us and help out in some of the
strategic marketing and stuff like that. And they were kind
enough to come on somewhere in the process of making it.
And because I was over budget too, overscheduled over budget,
so uh and there's several projects we've been talking about

(20:14):
doing together, you know, a film project. And I like
what Dream Crew is doing. It's not like typical all
just you know, hip hop centric stuff. It's eclectic. So
they're real smart about what they're doing over there. So
I wanted to get to know them. You know.

Speaker 2 (20:30):
What's it like to because you think about somebody passes,
like the estate of this person, it seems to be
very intimidating, Like how do you deal with the estate
of this of this person?

Speaker 3 (20:37):
Is don't look a living like what's that process like
like dealing with But depending on you know, depending on
the estate, I think it's probably always going to be
somewhat of a nightmare. You know, in this case, I
wouldn't say it was a nightmare at all because of Glow.
And and then you have other people at this state
that you know on the on the on the business
side that Fanny had left it that way, and because

(20:59):
I and I know I know all of them, I
have history with all the principles on the on the
business side. But it wasn't until I met Glow where
I was like, all right, this is she's all hard,
she's sharp woman too, but her heart is always in
the right place, even if she's struggling with something to

(21:19):
figure out whether it's the right or wrong thing. Because
I know Tom Wally, who was who signed Tupac and
he's the executor of the estate. I got to know Molly,
who works everything. It's like the gatekeeper there. And there's
other individuals in the family that really are prominent in
the in the so it's a you know, it's it's
it's family and it's executors. And it can't be difficult

(21:41):
because you're trying to do things in the case of
Dear Mama, where I'm like, all right, let me take
me get the A cappellas so I can put him
out to this and set him to score, so you know,
Grandma can understand this basically, right, because I know hip
hop as much as we love hip hop, sometimes when
you when you're just rocking with the B you're not
going to get your your parents or your grandmother or

(22:03):
someone that's foreigned a hip hop to understand the poetry.
So they were they weren't. They were challenging when it
came to that, like why do you want this? How
do you want you know, if we give you these
all everyone's out signed in das b or you know
that they're not going to let it leak out because
of DJ. You know all wanted them exclusives. Excuse me,

(22:24):
you want to be DJ? Right? Oh my god, for
sure all my life. But that's one of my favorite things.

Speaker 2 (22:28):
I think your usage of music, like that creative way
that you're you know, using the alcapells are filtering out.

Speaker 3 (22:32):
The backgrounds and changing production.

Speaker 2 (22:34):
Like I think that's some of my favorite parts about
the project.

Speaker 3 (22:37):
You know, it's something I take a lot of pride
in because you know, it's like love making or dancing
or kissing within the first two seconds. You know, if
you're in bad hands when you go to wherever you
go and there's a DJ and they're playing old these
say say it's all like sixty seventy stuff, and nowadays
these guys just play five second. I'm like, what kind

(22:58):
of eighty eight spe is this? Man? I don't want
to be nowhere where you're just cutting like right, So
there's like an art to like presenting it. If you've
got to taking Al Green treck and you got to
put a win wag on it, like, there's an art
to doing it where you're if you're a Dieard Al
Green fan, that you loved what this DJ is doing
essence and not destroying the thing. You know, it's a

(23:20):
it's a it's a it's a it's a precious thing.
I think, you know.

Speaker 4 (23:24):
But the doc does feel very definitive too. I don't
think you could come out with another TUPAC documentary after
this one.

Speaker 3 (23:30):
That would be nice. There's so many you.

Speaker 2 (23:32):
Know, to speak to that did you feel like, wow,
this guy's been so much on this guy like besides
the dude narrative idea, what was your thoughts of, like
how important it was to get footage nobody had never seen,
or just the idea of how to tell the story
in a way that people may not have known, all
these different.

Speaker 3 (23:49):
Parts of it. That's critical, all that stuff, you know,
getting unseen footage, unseen tracks, even those moments you heard
at the beginning where he's in the vocal booth and
he's in your cage full of the raide. You more
than my mama, You're my homie. He's mumbling a whole
other verse that you don't hear in Dear Mama. On

(24:09):
the Dear Mama track, we just unmuted the track and
he's over there mumbling a whole other verse that those
are the things that bring people close to the fans closer.
Now you were saying something about the other docks or whatever.
I think that's the interesting thing about Dear Mama is
like we did really well. We set some record records
for the network Ethics Network for the premiere. We did
real well with the critics, like one hundred percent with
Rot Tomatoes, doing well with the Emmys. However, I do

(24:32):
think there's this thing in the culture where a lot
of people are like, ah, yeah, I'll get to it.
I've seen everything there is about Tupac, because there's a
lot of people I meet that you would think there
were hip hop well Tupac fans, hip hop fans, and
they haven't seen it, and you go, why haven't they
seen it? Because they feel they've seen Tupac story, or
they know Tupac story, or there's a dizzying dozens of

(24:55):
documentaries out there on too well on YouTube, they all
really scratch the surface. Or are they dealing with the
murder or they're dealing with this or and there was
a well done one that was nominated for an Academy Award, Resurrection,
and it was done in his own Yeah, that was
always so you can't really and that was very particular.

(25:16):
So it's like, but without a without going into the
childhood or into a fanny story, I don't think you
to your point have a definitive story right or without
going If you watch Dear Mama, you'll see the number
one thing is it's a it's an emotional, psychological, and
spiritual journey. You could feel that it's not like a
logical journey. It's not like a stats this is what

(25:36):
this is you. It's always palpable, and I was always
cognizant of like what is he feeling right now? How
is he feeling? Why is he making this decision? How's
that affecting his mother? How's her decisions affecting him? So
it's always like an emotional spiritual and that part I
don't think it's ever been Why is this kid? How

(25:58):
did this kid because to hit him up? Dude? Yeah,
like that whole arc right there, which never made sense
to me. How the disc pure, almost innocent artist who
had all the talent in the world and was a
poet become the outro of hit him up?

Speaker 2 (26:20):
You know, yeah, unbelievable, Like that was terrified. It's horrified.
My wife, Dane Smith's, he grew up in Oakland. There
were friends coming up and what they always syd about him,
and that it was that he did. He would go
there fast temper like, oh man, you know what's funny
is like and he was like that. He was always

(26:41):
like this was always like that. That wasn't death row. That
was always a part of it. I'm trying to say, right.

Speaker 3 (26:44):
I would always say, oh he saw juice and I
think he saw Juice because we were with him when
he saw Juice for the first time and it clicked.
But he was always like that, like he can go
from like joy and love and happiness and something's happening
in that corner and he's like boom and he's going
to run right into it. You know. That's your favorite
POC album, probably Macavelly Macavelly, Yeah, even though I don't

(27:09):
like every track on the On the Tupac's had an
interesting career where because he was so loyal to so
many people shot g talks about this that the production
was never even you know, so he didn't have that
definitive producer. Yeah, exactly, And I'm a fidelity guy, so yeah,
I think Johnny J kind of was a little bit
no doubt in the beginning. In the beginning, but if

(27:32):
you listen to All Eyes on Me or Me Against
the World or strictly from My niggas, especially Tupacas, now
they're the like Brenda's got a baby sticks out on
the first album, You're like, wow, this this really sounds.
This is well produced. And there's always those songs shed
so many tears being one of them that I didn't
realize shot G produced Too Too Late, my personal favorite Tupac,

(27:55):
but mcavelly there's something in the spirit of that and
what he's saying where certain people, certain hip hop artists,
it never rarely happens like he went to another I
don't know how to described that. That blasphemy and hell, Mary, like,
what the fuck is this? This is? I remember hearing

(28:15):
that at the first time, going this is like beyond
heavy metal, Rod, this is there's this chanting going on,
there's this spiritual wicked thing. It was another level. Yeah,
that's the way to describe it. Powerful, but even the
doctor would mean not to draw too much. Every wore.

Speaker 2 (28:37):
When I heard him up, it was like that was
different than any this song you had ever heard before.
When you hit him up, it just was like, Okay,
this is this is real life.

Speaker 3 (28:45):
We I never heard anyone put that way. This is
real life. They captured that because we up until that point,
no vash Lean was the that was close. L L
and uh D had some whatever am I forgetting about
to There's so many of them, right, but no vash
Lean was the most personal one we had heard. I
believe someone said one of these A journalists in one

(29:08):
of these hip hop documentaries. God, that sounds so dismissed
about him. Don't say that's how we feel about he said.
He said something. He said something that was really I'm
gonna butcher it, but he goes. You know, the thing
that happened hip hop at one point was like, can
you imagine the Four Tops beefing with the Temptations and

(29:29):
not only beefing with the Temptations, talking about their neighborhood
and their mother and going hard like that. And that's
what hip hop had become. By the time we get
to hit a month, Tupac reinvented taking it to another level. Yeah,
like there's no ceiling. You're like, damn, damn. Why does
sickle cell though? Just don't for everyone's for everyone, there's

(29:53):
that one. My my personal one was a sickle cell one,
But for everyone there's other ones. Why that? Why that?
He blew past all the stop signs stuff.

Speaker 4 (30:03):
Like Ali, you've been on your own for a while now,
you know, Dear Mama, you did it by yourself to
find ones.

Speaker 3 (30:08):
He did it by yourself. Your brother Albert, why was
he not evolved this picture? Albert actually helped them on
Dear Mama. He shot some stuff. He cuts some stuff,
and me and my brother are always like this, twins. Twins
are worse than just siblings, right, But it's also like,
you know, it's like being in the Jackson five. That
shit is cute for the first few years and you

(30:29):
become men and you're like, man, this nigga is a Muslim.
I'm a you know, you know, I'm a Buddhist. Like
everybody changes right different, so it's it's only natural one.
And but he did come early on in Dear Mama,
and he set some looks, he shot some things, and
we had a wonderful like a month before he got

(30:50):
back to the brother stuff. And but he did. He
sliced and diced some things. He's really good on the
on the wheels like that, so he definitely put his
And I was shocked too, because we both have sensitivities
around our dynamic with Tupac. That's different, and I didn't
know how Albert was gonna feel. And he took a
tremendous amount of pride in coming on, and for the

(31:12):
handful of months he was involved, he showed a lot
of love and I was really proud to see him
do that, you know, because we hadn't talked about it.
We had never talked about it.

Speaker 2 (31:23):
We felt about you getting into a pocket and things
like that, or.

Speaker 3 (31:26):
We never Yeah, we never talked about me making the
decision to make the film. I remember me and my
brother had a three hour conversation, what's just difficult for us?
Now we don't talk like that? And I remember him saying,
damn had nothing to do with Tupac, but we had.
He says, what do you think easy saw on us?
He's asking them about that that day, easy callers. He goes,

(31:48):
what did you What did you think he saw on it?
I go, he saw, now you know, you get olden.
He saw two kids that wanted it. That ain't hard
for a guy that knows talent. And then he had
some other questions about Oh then he went into his
you know when Tupac comes out of the and I
get around video bust out the door at the first line.

(32:11):
My brother was like, yo when he did that, because
we were we were still beef with But he goes,
I knew it was a rap like that. It was
so dope. The way he came out, you could just
feel him. It was his first hit single too, But
to hear Albert say he's a rock star. You know.

Speaker 4 (32:25):
I felt like that watching The Defying Ones, that scene
when y'all introduced Tupac and from Brenda Got the Baby.

Speaker 3 (32:30):
That cut when it comes around that corner, it's like
the centerpiece of that episode. That's right, right, that's right.

Speaker 2 (32:36):
You shot that video too, right, well, that's right experiences
videos with all his first videos, you shot that was.

Speaker 3 (32:43):
That was by his insistence. We were up there to
meet Digital Underground. We were doing the our first music
video for Raw Fusion usually DJ Fuse and Tupac was there,
but he wasn't famous at the time, and he said,
I just signed a record deal. I saw you shorts.
I want you to shoot my first music videos. By

(33:03):
the time we got the Brenda's Got a Baby, it
was the second single the Trapped. We had done Trapped
first and in the intim after Trapped, and we were
kind of hot, getting hot. We were nineteen and I
remember we were we were very close to getting the
scenario video Tribe call Quest Wow, very close, and we're like,
oh my god, we get that Tribe album that that
summer was the album low End Theory, right, ye and

(33:26):
everyone and we knew the woman and Carlia Jive and
and she was a friend and she had to call
us and say, I'm sorry. I used to always remember
the director that got it too. We got to go
with the other guy, and we were so devasted. Was
Daniels No, nope, I think it was a white dude

(33:49):
that did that music. I may be wrong. I may
be wrong. Check pull my card on this one, but
I remember we were so devastated, and for a month
we didn't work either. We were used to working. We
were so devastated, and we were like, the next thing
we do, we're gonna pull out all the stops, like
we're going all in. And the next thing that came
up was Brendan's got a baby. And at that point

(34:09):
the relationship with Tupac was fracturing. So when his manager
Adrian Gregory called and says, he's got a lot to do,
So you guys got two hours with him in the morning,
you have to shoot him out, we were like perfect.
And because we had so much narrative to shoot in
that music video and it's one law, it's a beautiful
song of one long verse, true story, and Tupac came

(34:30):
in show you the power Tupac. He shot for two hours.
We put him in this setup that set up the
one on the street where the cameras doing all the
put him with the little girl, and he was out
of there and you wouldn't know it. He's so powerful
throughout the piece. You know, you're in a video too.
Is that your brother? That's me? Yeah? Is it true
story based on the incident that happened in New York? Yep. Okay, yep,
young female and that's how chronicled Dear Mama yep and

(34:53):
the opening of part two. Yep. What was the initial
conflict m with Tupac? Yeah, there wasn't. It was just
three nineteen year olds to plus a little older than us,
so he may have been twenty just I think Tupac
took a tremendous amount of pride in discovering people. And
there were always these teenage artists around hip hop artist

(35:15):
or whoever, producers or whatever, and he would take them
in and I think he felt that for I think
he felt he discovered us. And I think that when
we would uh like hold the line of something or
or like fight back or something, he didn't like that
and particularly and he but beyond that, I think he was.

(35:38):
He was having a difficult time. Although he wanted it
and he was a natural tour I think he was
having a difficult time with fame and and also keeping
in mind, like Tupac's really raised as a socialist, right,
and you're in an ultra capitalist gen capitalists you know,
jewels and you know this that and two box raised

(36:00):
to take care of women, and you're in the genre
there's the word toxic masculinity is now the thing to
say right about it, but like you're in the genre
that is disrespecting women. So especially back then especially, that's
a that's a key point, right, And so you can
see that he was struggling with that and the fame,
and he was getting more volatile. And I don't think

(36:23):
that the I don't think the weed helped. I don't
think I don't think it helped.

Speaker 2 (36:30):
But so one of these he had to play like
he tried to play John Singleton against you, like I'm
doing moves with John.

Speaker 3 (36:36):
He said that to everybody. But that's that's one of
the things that most u in I don't know, it's
actually quite an endearing about him, is that once he
would fine the big brother or the father figure role.
He fall fall hard for that person. So he told everyone,
including us, I'm only starring in John Singleton films. Me

(36:58):
and John are gonna be like score sac and de Niro.
And we were like, I remember being hurt by that
because we felt like we came up with him and
we knew he was talented. We wanted to make a
movie with him, but we agreed we didn't want to
do minutes with him in the starr ing row because
we knew he was becoming a handful. But he also

(37:19):
was very helpful in getting getting a greenlit. So he
agreed to this role of Sharif the Muslim right, And
I think he regretted that later because of the image
he was leaning into and he was die hard with John.
He was die hard at that point and then that
went south.

Speaker 4 (37:36):
So, well, what was the process like going from doing
music videos into doing movies? I know you you and
brothers started like when you were like twelve years old,
started directing, So what was that transition like going from
like Brendi's got a baby to like doing major motion pictures.

Speaker 3 (37:50):
Well, I remember like at the time, like let's think
back to eighty eight when we were in high school,
the OMTV raps, like you're seeing hip hop music videos
in your whole life, you're dreaming of making feature films,
and now you see this whole Oh, there's this transition stage.
We can break into this first because in eighty eight
people remember when those when even before you o MTV reps,

(38:13):
when you saw hip hop music videos, most of those
videos had a narrative thing to them. The lyrics had
a narrative, not all of them, but more sold in today.
Let's put that way right. And so you're seeing like
really innovative things happening, and for a little a bount
of money, like it wasn't the budgets of rock videos,
Like the average budget of a rock video was between

(38:34):
eighty two a million dollars. Back then, average budget for
a hip hop video was twenty thousand dollars twenty thirty
thousand doll Our first music video was thirty thousand dollars.
Brenda's Got a Baby was forty thousand dollars. So there's
this incredibly inventive storytelling going on, and these this camera
work and these lenses and things that you're like, wow,

(38:54):
there's this this this thing called hip hop music videos
happened while we were on our way to dreams of features,
and so I remember the biggest thing we said to
ourselves was don't get trapped too long in the music
videos because you'll develop a lot of bad habits, you know,

(39:16):
continuity being one of them. I noticed a lot of
people that do music videos for a long time, they
get up to movie sets and they don't even understand,
like with a script supervisor, and like that, you can't
the water is here, it can't be here. Now, this
is stupid shit, right that you've got details working with actors,
you know. They were like, there's so many glorious things
that come with the hip hop culture, and then there's

(39:37):
always a rub with everything. So even in rock, the
longer you're doing music videos in short form like that,
the more you under adopt a lot of bad habits.
Want that won't will not serve you in feature films.
So we were like, let's just do this for a year,
and thank god we got lucky and it was under
a year we had done like twenty two music videos. Wow.

(39:58):
And it was easy to make that transition because before
we did the music videos, the shorts that Tupac was
referring to that he saw when he went to hire us.
Was the same shorts that got us hired for our
first music video. One was called The drive By About
a drive By. One was called Men's Society. No relations
to film, both black and white. Both felt like rage
and bull both incredibly dramatic and in the use of

(40:21):
music and stuff like that.

Speaker 4 (40:22):
You know mentioned Menister Society. It's one of my favorite
movies full time. This year mark thirty year anniversary of
the film. Yeah, I said that anniversarys. Why do you
think it's still revealed after all these years.

Speaker 3 (40:33):
I think the energy, I think the you know, it's
probably one of the only times where the lunatics were
running the asylum. We're nineteen directing a film about eighteen
and nineteen year olds, so it had a hectic, visceral
randomness to it. I remember in the middle of shooting
we had to come to the set and put a
moratorium down on like saying nigga, because every we're watching

(40:56):
the dailies Nigga, nigga, Ni Nick Nick. And remember sitting
with m C eight, Lorenz, Tyre Turner, my friend Ryan
Williams and going like, you guys, we're gonna do some takes,
we could say nigga, but just not like as Commas
periods question making right and okay, okay, And I remember
it lasted like a day, right. And I also remember

(41:18):
when the movie came out, we officially broke the nigga
record which was held by Roots for all those years.
Wow wow, And it was I don't know how many
it was, three hundred and eighty seven. I don't know
if it was a thout. I can't remember what it
wasn't a record I was proud of holding, but we
probably still have it to this day. But to you,
to the to the point of your question, I think
there was a when youth is wasted on the youth,

(41:42):
as they say, and what you don't know, you don't know.
So you were just firing. And I think there was
a manic energy to the film and there and some
critics said, are lyricism to it? You know, because a
lot of it was ad lib too. God bless Tiger Williams,
who wrote a great script to I don't give enough credit,
and I should because without the fundamentals of like the

(42:04):
beats and the characters being flushed out, none of it matters.
But there was a lot of a lot of it
was ad libbed, or we would do the script and
go all right, throw that out, let's do this now.
And and it was in the time that it was
happening the movies about the time that it's in. So
it's crazy that you and your brother were only twenty
one years old.

Speaker 4 (42:21):
Did you guys speak of records, You guys hold the
Guinness World Record of the youngest directors in a major
motion picture.

Speaker 3 (42:27):
It's the only time I get arrogant. We were twenty
when we made the film twenty one. We got the
Guinness Book of World Record for the release of the film,
and I was always pissed, like, damn, twenty one years
old and it said twenty one years old fifty seven
days or something like that. Yeah, but we made it
when we were twenty. I wasn't an adult.

Speaker 4 (42:45):
Twenty was like thirty one back in ninety three.

Speaker 3 (42:50):
By the way, it's like that generationally. I just always
say I'll be a man when I'm thirty five, and
I got to thirty five of why am I man? Nigga.
Clint Eastwood is from your Granddaddy's that when he was
thirty five doing spaghetti westerns. They were milking cows, plowing fields,
getting asked, whipped by you know, bottles and shit. It's
a different experience.

Speaker 2 (43:09):
So when any battles with like censorship of powers to
be to get such a like authentic film out.

Speaker 3 (43:14):
There, oh hell yeah. There's a gentleman named Jack Falente
who was the head of the mp AA, the ratings board,
and by the time he was an elder gentleman. But
he goes back to the days of like Jaggar Hoover,
you gotta have They kept giving us an NC seventeen. Wow,
giving us in the ninety ninety three. Yeah, yeah, and

(43:36):
I checked this now me. My mom always said you
should have been an attorney because I come up with
like arguments, right, And I'm like, Schindler's List was out
that year. I'm like, you guys are telling us to
take shit out of our film that's in Schindler's List,
like the squibs heads blown up, like there's like thirty
of them in this movie. There's some nigga shit too.
It's always like, you guys can't do it because you know,

(43:59):
there's different standards. So I had to fight, fight, fight,
and eventually we got it there. But when Criterion collection.
Did the Laser disc that's the NC seventeen version. If
you ever get the Criterion disc on now, it's streaming
Criterion Collection. Yeah, yeah, you'll see, you'll see it's mostly
about the blood and the ship coming out, you know. Yeah,

(44:19):
but the reception was so amazing.

Speaker 4 (44:21):
In nineteen ninety four of the MTV Movie Awards, you
guys beat out Jurassic Park. Yeah, the Fugitive Philadelphia shinless
list for the best Picture. Yeah, like answer school either
gave it two thumbs up.

Speaker 3 (44:34):
Yeah, beyond what was like? How did that? How did
you guys response to that? That one? I remember telling
my publicis you read that list, You're like to Spilberg movie.
By the way, two definitive Spilberg movies, Matt the biggest
movie of all time at the time, Jurassic Park, The Fugitive,
which was a massive film Philadelphia, critically acclaimed. Denzellen Hanks,

(44:55):
there's no way we're winning, and we're not showing up
to the MTV Movie Awards. And I remember my publishers
calling a week later, she goes, you guys should show up,
should show up. I said, no, we're not, Stacy unless
they tell us we won we're not. She's like, I'm
telling you you should show up, Like, oh, okay, I
guess she knows something. And it was shocking. But I
also remember when we won, when we got backstage with

(45:17):
the press, it was it was it was it was
salty back there, really, you know, it was salty back there.
I remember remember me and my brother being taken it
back by that. But before we went back there, uh,
back there, Tom Hanks pulled this aside and he goes,
listen to me. He goes, you, guys, don't ever let
anyone tell you to do anything that's not you. Just
be you, just stay. You don't let anyone knock you

(45:40):
off of who you are and what you're doing. You
guys got it. And I remember that was like a
big deal to hear that from him, like, don't be
who you are, don't try to be something else, you know,
don't let this business take you out of here. Whatever.
And then we went back to the press room and
they were salty. They were salty. They wanted to see Spielberg,
that's what.

Speaker 4 (46:00):
But you guys had sat Jackson, had Charles done and
at the height of rock, that's.

Speaker 5 (46:04):
Right on, you know, the prey I hate that scene.
I hate that scene. I hate that scene. Hate It's
in the trailer and everything, and I hate it.

Speaker 3 (46:15):
Yeah, it's just corny as it's still a class today.
I mean, he's saying the right ship, don't get me wrong,
but like you know, now I know I'm a I'm
a better director. I'll be like, all right, Charles, just
throw that away. We call it so you know, if
they throw it away, don't don't put you know, I
don't know. I would have been maybe more subtle, but

(46:35):
maybe it wouldn't have worked. He made listen, he's a
great actor. So those guys were holding uts down at
the time, Bill Duke as well, Bill Duke. Those guys
were holding us down, you know, like they had instincts
they you know, we didn't know what the fuck do.

Speaker 4 (46:48):
I think sometimes that gets lost in the movie is
like the amount of rappers you had in there, right,
so you have to short You have the field who
plays Harrol m c a A Wax. Did you know
this j PO DJ Pool exactly, not.

Speaker 3 (47:00):
DJ pooh Man poor Man, Yeah, corrected that. Yeah, did
you know that they could act? Like? Why did you
cast those guys? We knew m c a can possibly
because he came in an audition we had done like
a couple of Too Short music videos in Shorts a
pretty laid back guy. So it wasn't like and Short
wasn't trying to be an actor, but we we loved Short.

(47:22):
Let's put him in the Who else did we mention?
Sofia I knew personally. I knew he wasn't afraid of
no camera. That was going to stay war and that
was like his first first role. Yeah, and Pooh, pooh, pooh, man,
I think it's in prison.

Speaker 1 (47:37):
Wow.

Speaker 3 (47:38):
So much to check the record on that, I think, yeah,
he was a natural. I mean, look at how many
Bay Area people we brought down for minutes. So Sofia
Pooh and too Short yep. Yeah.

Speaker 2 (47:50):
Also, like did you say we were talking about back then,
especially like what what's the message of this black film?
And you said this is about as a statement film?

Speaker 3 (47:57):
Yeah, Yeah, big difference because that was a differentiated us
from boys in the Hood, and John as he should
probably was like there's a message to to there's a
message I'm trying to get across. I'm like that what
you know? So you naturally got to go what are
we doing? Is different? And we were never and to
this day, I'm not a message guy. I'm a statement guy,

(48:18):
Like this is the statement or this is the question
I'm asking. There's no there's no message, you know, And
maybe I'm being semantical, but I think it's like what
as you learn as a as a grown woman a
grown man, like, there's a big difference between reacting to
something and responding to something. And I've in my wisdom

(48:40):
now I would prefer that I respond and not react
because reacting is gonna get you shot. So I think
that's the difference between messages and statements. I think of
a message is for you know, after school specials.

Speaker 4 (48:57):
The music also is like a character in the movie
as well, like Yates title track Straight Up Menace, Yeah
took on the life of its own and the soundtrack
who you Know had his hell zone like did you
guys have hands?

Speaker 3 (49:08):
In that as well? One thousand percent. It started with
that because I made the back to Jive Records. I
took it to I was me and my brother both
were Epece and the soundtrack. But everything starts with music
for me, So a n R the whole album or
whatever you like. But you know, like a lot of

(49:28):
the tracks like personally and I remember the thing that
hurt me the most, and I'm gonna air him out
right now is Jive Records, Barry Wise. We made a
deal that R Kelly, this is before R Kelly was
really big, he only had one album out. He's not
give an original track for the for the for the soundtrack.
So I flew to Chicago because R Kelly and I

(49:51):
are our attorney. Business manager was the same guy. Gave
him the Menace VHS tape and then next day I
came back and he had a song for me that
he wrote two minutes and I listened to this song.
I goh shit, it's how involved I was in the soundtrack.
I called Barry White's the Drive Records. I said, I said,
I got I just heard R Kelly's first number one single,

(50:14):
and he goes, oh shit, I can't wait there, I
can't wait to hear it. A week later he calls me,
He goes, I got good news and bad news. The
good news is you're right, this is gonna be his
first number one rack. The bad news is it's not
going on the soundtrack. It was bumping grind wow. Wow.
If you hear what he's saying. It's opening his song,
he's talking about Caine. My body's telling me yes, but

(50:35):
my mind's telling me no. But my body's saying yes,
some about Caine because of Jada's character Ronnie and you
know his father fig Pernell. Yah, that's what it's about. Wow.
Mind blown. Wow. I've never said that publicly, but that's
what that goes. Wow. And it was a massive hit
for him because Honey as first hit. Wow. Okay was

(50:57):
it Honey Love The scene that they used, yeah, because
we took it because that was already there was already
you know, like the successful music. So yeah, let Allen Hill. Yeah,
that's exactly because you can use any of his music,
but this one, like because that was what was meant
to be in that scene. That's what he wrote it

(51:17):
to that scene.

Speaker 5 (51:18):
Wow.

Speaker 4 (51:18):
But I love how like the music does like have
a life of its own, Like even the al Green
scene when they're in the car with a wax and
they're just saying, you know, yeah, like a little bitch
right now.

Speaker 3 (51:28):
Yeah, yeah, yeah, I love that.

Speaker 2 (51:31):
Well, well, last thing of minutes, I think another good point.
So you say somewhere it was like the same thing
with we Pop that you don't believe in the like
ending something, don't end it pretty like, don't glorify to death?

Speaker 3 (51:40):
How important is that you think in the storytelling. It's
funny because Spike did it on the nose at the
end of school days. God, that's really what you're That's
what you're really saying. You're really saying, wake up America,
like you know, wake up? You know America each is young,
but it's young will eat America first left unattended to?

(52:03):
So I didn't. We didn't believe that you can get
white America to wake up without ending it like that.
It's a similar thing, and it gives me chills. You know.
It's like with two. I was watching some of Dear
Mama with people in a room with diverse people, you know,
some of the scenes before it came out, and there
was the one where he's doing the Don mcclaim movement

(52:25):
piece in high school, and then you see this whole
life fast forward and then he's now he's a slow
motion and shot G's talking about you want to see
a real nigga, you want to see a real man,
I'll show you, and then he goes in to hit
him up right. There's that whole nine minute sequence in
part four, and I remember watching that with women, white people,
black people, whatever, and people being brought to tears, like

(52:50):
why are they being brought to tears about its beautiful sequence?
But because they can. They love him and they see
they're getting ready to lose them, and they see him
running past the stop scigns, And you don't feel emotional
for something you don't love. And I think in the
case in Menace, when you get to the end, you
love these kids. And it's so random. The whole movie's

(53:11):
been so random. You're like, I don't know who's I
see these motherfuckers coming around the corner. They going to Atlanta.
They're going to Atlanta, you know, And that's how you
get people, That's how you that's how you get people.
But in particularly, I wanted to wake we wanted to
wake white America up because, as they said, you know,
you see on TV back then people crying over little
seals getting killed or like really trying to rescue dogs,

(53:35):
but not trying to rescue black children. And and so
clearly there's a feeling missing here, you know, Compassion missing here,
identity like identifying with black children as human beings. And say,
all right, let's real them in, let's really them in,
let's get them into these kids, and let's start popping
them off randomly, the good one too, and maybe not

(53:57):
the bad one lives, the bad one lives, you know,
start just the way life is. And and it, thank god,
it did wake him up. It did go wow, like
this is this is not only that, but like this
is what's going on. This is why it's going on,
because the real thing is, like why, you.

Speaker 4 (54:13):
Know, I'm glad you rejected the idea of a sequel,
even though I have still don't answer the questions. I'm like, what, like,
like what happened to Anthony? Did he grow up? Did
old dog get released from prison? I still don't know
how to King steal the rims? This is the eight
year old beat Society is so inappropriate. I know, I'm sorry.

Speaker 3 (54:35):
What was the last one you can say? You still
don't know how what King stole the rims at the
drive through? Well, he kicked the motherfucker off the car,
took it to the shop, chopped it and took it
chopped and screwed that.

Speaker 4 (54:46):
But there's just it's just it's just one of those
movies you know what was your reaction to when menace
don't be a menace to society, don't be a menace
of South.

Speaker 3 (54:53):
Since it's always a compliment, you know, when it starts
getting spoofed, that means it's in the culture hall. Yeah,
I like those guys.

Speaker 2 (55:00):
You know, how do you have liked the dialogue like
those movies with the dialogue of highlights of cern films
and stuff like that that you have.

Speaker 3 (55:08):
That's you know, now thirty years you go, fuck, thank
god we were young, because I don't feel old, you know,
because say we did that shit when we were thirty,
I would feel hold. But that's again you just go, damn.
I can't believe. To this day, I can't. I can't
believe people. I remember your cousin, I remember you. When
the movie came out, it was maybe even that year.

(55:29):
We were at the Essex House off the Central Park
and little Leonardo DiCaprio ran up to us, and little Leo,
I said, because he was seventeen. I never met Leo
in my life. I don't even know who. I knew
who he was, Gilbert Grapeist and the other he wasn't
the Leo we know now absolutely he's a teenager. He
ran up and said all those lines as if he
was a black kid and he had the cadence and everything.

(55:51):
I was like, what is this kid? This is in
that time it came out and then the years ago
on you go, I remember this, I remember Ended or Dragon.
We memorized all the lines. I remember Scarface that number one.
You memorize all the lines. It just that means you

(56:12):
have something. Now. My problem is I always me and
my brother both have problems with menace, and like, oh,
that's fact that that's like you know. Like so I said,
finally I had a piece I gave myself a piece
of mind because two of my favorite films of all time,
outside of Scarface, which is probably seen more than any
film really because entered Dragon, Bruce Lee in Purple Rain.

(56:36):
But if you watch both those films, they got a
lot of corny moments in the right flo but not
when the motherfuckers are performing brut when it's time to
kick some masks, it's impeccable. When it's time at Purple
Rain for Press to hit that stage, it's impeccable. The
way it shot, the way he's moving, the way he's singing.
So I go, I guess menace. When it was time
for the jump off, we did our thing. There's some

(56:56):
problems in between, and just move on al and let
it go, you know, watch your stuff done. No, no,
once it's done, it's nah. I can't watch that especially.
That onen't hell though people tell me that. Like someone
came up to me last Weekdear, I just saw minutes
last time. I'm sorry. I feel like I like, Dan,
don't judge me, you know, and I'm serious, Like there's
some really corny shit in that movie. Yeah.

Speaker 2 (57:18):
You also said something about dead presidents that you feel
you were too young to make that film big time.

Speaker 3 (57:23):
Wow, that's like a war Vets coming home, grown men
coming home from grown man experiences black men, and it's like,
real shit. We were twenty two and you know, we
understood what we read and we did our research. But
there's not enough experiential, there's not enough life lived to

(57:43):
have really told that story and giving it justice. And again,
there's some moments in it that are interesting and dynamic,
but as a whole, it's a little uneven and doesn't
work in areas and man, it is what's.

Speaker 4 (57:55):
Too hard on yourself out And man, I think such
a great period piece, Like I watched it with thirty
year old eyes as opposed to when I saw it
as a teen, and I'm like, wow, this is like
it feels like I'm back in New York City in
the nineteen seventies, the time that I don't even know
what feels. It looks like like even when I heard
Isaac Hayes to Walk on By, it sounds identify with

(58:16):
that movie.

Speaker 3 (58:17):
Yeah, And that saves a lot of scenes. Is when
you have something because how authentic is you know who's
on your T shirt and Isaac Hay's two of my
favorites from that era. When you drop that needle as
in Even with Menace, and you hit that needle and
you play love and happiness, It's going to make you
feel a certain way that the scene may not even
really have in it. So that was the beauty of

(58:39):
even on Dead Presidence. I remember we went and shot
a music video out in the desert where they did
the night ride or opening, you know, we did the
Walk on By and we brought Lorenz, Chris Tucker and
the Bushy Right and Isaac Hayes and we found the
june bug glasses he used to wear and we shot
a music video to a song twenty five years after

(59:02):
the song wow, and Isaac Hayes looked exactly the same. Wow.

Speaker 4 (59:06):
You see the impact of that film all the time though,
especially like in Halloween, Yeah, dressed up like yeah, what
do you think about that?

Speaker 3 (59:13):
Again? It's an honor, you know, you just I think
now the thing I think about just exciting to make two.
I would have loved to make their presidence now, you know,
because I know I know what I would be able
to do now. But now I got twenty five thirty
years of doing this, So now I'm like, all right,
let's focus on Let's focus on storytelling now that I

(59:34):
know what it is. When you're young, you don't have
full command of everything, and you're young, you're on the set.
And when we were young, we didn't realize there was
this palpable thing on the set with these men. I
didn't understand what it was. They were looking at us
like these mother. I didn't understand that they were judging
us and they were pushing back against us. So you're
not you know, you're not. I don't know, you're not

(59:59):
moving as effortlessly as you could. Every movie, everything is
takes is challenging. But as you grow wiser in life,
you find again the difference between reacting and responding. You know,
you start to deal with things in wiser ways, and
you know how to tell the fucking story.

Speaker 2 (01:00:16):
You know, I hope, how are you going to tell
the story of Snoop dogg oh Man?

Speaker 3 (01:00:21):
That's a joy. But you know, it's funny because all
through the years and a lot of what we're talking about,
people always go speaking of the sequel to Menace, one
of you guys are making a sequel to Menace, or
one of you guys don't make another Hood film. And
when Snoop brought this to me, and me and Stupid
been trying to work on projects throughout the years. It's
a Snoop Dog biopiict Universal Pictures like fast Track film.

(01:00:45):
He made a big deal with them with his life story, writes,
and I was like, wow, now here we have something
because we get to do a Hood film. But it
it also goes past the Hood, transcends the Hood and
is inspiring ultimately. Right, you got a guy that was

(01:01:05):
the rock star of that era, and in the same
era he's on trial for murder and thank god beats
the beats the case, and then you got all that
little window where Snoop dimmed his light for Tupac. I
never understood that back then. I remember Snoop just dimming
his lighting letting Tupac shine when Snoop was the guy,
you know, and then what happened after and what happened

(01:01:28):
with Death Row. But the movies Snoop Dogg seventeen to
twenty seven, it's from high school when two on three
is formed with Nate Dogg and Warren g and all
the music they were doing getting discovered, making the chronic
doggy style, and then you know Tupac, Death Row era

(01:01:52):
and Snoop out kind of you know. So it's like
it's ten years of Snoop's life. Yea, has he begin
shooting it? No? Right when the strike is over? Strike
where we got to solve this strike got to date
this podcast. When the strike is over, who do you
cast a Snoop? That's the million dollar question. In fact,
I thought about this last week. I said, I got
a call to the executive at our executive at Universal

(01:02:15):
Picture and say, you know what, even when the script
is perfect, which there's no such thing, as, we cannot
go into production until we're sure about the Snoop. Don't
be half assed like, oh he kind is right, like
we got to do like, holy shit, this guy Snoop,
or don't shoot the film because he's so singular and

(01:02:35):
just the sound of his voice and how he moves
and whatever you go, and you don't want it to
be a mimic. So it's he's a hard one to crack.
I think for an actor, that's a difficult one. An
unknown maybe I would prefer I would prefer. Yeah, he
has sons. Yeah, I don't know if any of them
is tall as Snoop though, that's the other thing. It
was tall. Right.

Speaker 4 (01:02:57):
It's interesting he's coming from you from Detroit going and raised,
well not raised, but it came to la right, what
twelve years old?

Speaker 3 (01:03:04):
Well, I left when I was eight when you saw
a menace?

Speaker 4 (01:03:08):
Right, yeah, and coming from l A that I mean,
coming from Detroit. That has to be like a culture
shock though, right, what was that transition like for you.

Speaker 3 (01:03:17):
Like anyone from the East coast or the Midwest When
you see these palm trees and you see these palm
trees and then the second thing you say is where
the snake's at? We thought the snake was everywhere, right,
it was, it was. It was a trip, but it
was an easy transition because in Detroit, like Chicago, in
any place back then, those winners are brutal. Yeah, so

(01:03:38):
we were happy to be here, and we came here
to be in front of the King. We thought we
were going to be little child actors or you know.
We started doing auditioning for Oscar Mayer commercials and between
the big ass noses and the lack of talent that
spluttered out really quickly. Back then, I had had the
first thing. Yeah, we were you know, it was fucked up.

(01:04:02):
So but we were out here. We had some of
my mother's family was out here, are Armenion family, Some
of our Armenian family was out here. So we came
to beat with family and it was great. I don't
remember culture shock. I don't remember, because how could you
be shocked by not being in a cold ass snowy winter.
Detroit was fucking and Detroit at the time, in the

(01:04:24):
late seventies was fucked up. You know. It's now like
you know, rebooted and reinvented itself, but it was really bad.
He saw that film that Michael Jackson did the title
track ben about the big ass rats, dim rats Detroit.
I swear to God, like we got a cat and
we were staying with our dad in the tenements. We

(01:04:46):
got a cat to get rid of the motherfucking rats. Right,
the cat went missing after like three days, the cat
went missing. Me and my brother are pulling the sled
around the back of the apartment building. That cat was
laid open like this and the rats in it. Ah
man in his ass, like that's Detroit, but that ain't
his ass, that's his chest. Cameras guts everything but coming

(01:05:09):
in la.

Speaker 4 (01:05:10):
Right, I'm thinking early eighties, he got colors, right, and
you guys, no, that's ladies, late eighties, right, Okay, But
how did you guys avoid like the trappings of gang life.

Speaker 3 (01:05:18):
That's a good question because that's funny you say early
late because early eighties there's none of that. There's no crack.
So you're doing the first four years of the eighties.
We don't know about crack. We don't know nothing that
hip hop. Ain't got nothing to do with that. But
we don't know about no hip hop. And in gang
it's still like the movies, like you get shot with

(01:05:38):
a Saturday Night special type thing you can still get
get shanked, stabbed like. It wasn't like Kalishnikoff's AK forty seven.
You know, there's none of that. Once crack came, my
mother started worked her way from welfare to being a
millionaire through her just business acumen, putting herself through school

(01:06:00):
so on the Williams side, and was becoming successful. In
eighty four, my mom with her own business, and our
friends had the Adida suits on and the chains. Their
mother wasn't making no money, but her priority was to
give her son what he wanted. My mom was like, nope,
we're going to pay less shoes, get you pay lest,

(01:06:21):
get your three jeans, three shirts, and rotate them shits
throughout the week. And I'm like, damn. We could see
she's making a little money. But she once she knew
we wanted to make those movies, she would go get
the the camera, rent the camera, spending the little equipment
spending on that. And then she saw one time, we're twelve,
we spent we're twenty. We at the camera for a day.

(01:06:42):
We stepped the whole day and shot movies, not skateboard videos,
not being X videos, not that you know shit that
most kids, we should movies. And then the next summer
she bought the camera. She brought the VCR that you
can pop out and do shit with. And she always
invested in the arts, and that's what. And then one
time we sat her down and then we did a

(01:07:03):
documentary about a crack dealer Pat then and five and
then one day cut to now to what you just said.
Eighty eight eighty eight our friends selling crack in a
predominantly wealthy high school in Claremont, California. And he comes
from the Cosby home. The kid I'm talking about, his
house is like the Cosby How Like why is he
selling crack with the money that your grandmother left you? Like?

(01:07:25):
This is crazy? So but it was sexy. This is
one thing no one wants to talk about. In eighty
eight in hip hop, gang and colors and all that stuff,
gang banging had you wanted a beeper even if you
were a well due, you wanted to sell crack. No
one ever wants to talk about this, But you wanted
to be a drug dealer, even if your parents were
doing well. You wanted to sell. Because I have plenty

(01:07:45):
of friends that were selling drugs and they didn't need
to sell drugs, but they wanted to low profile tires.
They wanted to do whatever. So we sat down with
our mother in eighty eight, now that we live in Claremont,
we were living in Pomona at the time, which is
the hood, and we said, Mom about selling crack something
that's hard to her, and she's like, no, no, why

(01:08:07):
you know, like, you know, going to this wealthy high school.
All the kids got BMW's and they which they did Mercedes,
and we got this piece of ship and you know,
I was getting ready to name my friend. I'm going
to throw one of those, you know, my man's over here.
You got the ship. She's like, what do you need?
What do you need? She took us to Circus City.
You guys, remember did you just have Circus City. She

(01:08:28):
bought us like three thousand dollars worth of equipment. Wow,
stop that ship. Stop that ship. Right.

Speaker 4 (01:08:36):
But even during that time, obviously you're in the middle
of hip hop's, you know, rides like but what were
you listening to at that time?

Speaker 3 (01:08:43):
Like what did you gravitate? Easy E? Just easy easy
E n w A. And of course there was a
lot happening at that time. The first Tribe record I
believe Big Daddy came was big. I'm trying to figure
out what we were listening to. We were obsessed with
the West Coast thing at the time. Of course LLL
was always at the top of the list and run DMC,

(01:09:04):
but by eighty eight they weren't no longer, even though
LLL kept kidding them again in eighty eight, it was
it was, it was, it was, it was, it was,
it was. It was easy E and n w A
and it was the DC. And I'm trying to remember
who else I was fascinating just those on repeat. You know,

(01:09:24):
I'm having to act like it was very eclectic back then.
How proud it is?

Speaker 2 (01:09:27):
It not like its covering all the West Coast giants
with POC, Dre Snoop coming up, Like you become that
person who told these people's stories.

Speaker 3 (01:09:36):
You know, like I never even planned on that, which
is but it's cool because you know, not only us
all coming up in hip hop culture, but you know,
if you just move hip hop culture aside and you
go twenty thirty years ago when we were teenagers going
into college, you didn't get the opportunity to tell you

(01:09:57):
your story, tell your stories. You know, in the eighties,
we didn't have the opportunity to tell our stories or
control our stories hard, to control the narrative barely. Ever,
there were some exceptions, Gordon Parks, the Spike Lee was
coming on it in the eighties there, but you were
if you sold the script or you sold something to

(01:10:18):
particularly say it was about. We didn't have any hip
hop history, so what would you be talking about? Right,
And you know to that, But if you were wanted
to tell the Miles Davis story in eighty five, you're
not getting that done. And if you were lucky enough
as a black filmmaker, they're not letting you. They're controlling everything, right,
So it's surreal to be here now. They say hip

(01:10:40):
hops turned fifty, but hip hops really turned thirty five,
you know, talking about like as far as like the
prominent thing in the culture where everyone like, yo, this
is unless you're from New York and you were back then.
We didn't hear that shit in the early eighties. There's
little stuff that got to us. But it's surreal to

(01:11:02):
go from Tupac and to Snoop and when you look
at the find Ones, all that stuff with dre and
Easy and all that stuff like that that's surreal, but
also they have the presence of mind and go, let's
do this right. Also, can't always have rose colored lenses on,
like it's there's some rubs here too, Like there's there's

(01:11:24):
there's a good, the bad, and the ugly, and let's
let's keep it real. But let's celebrate it while we're
keeping it real. And that's a that's a difficult challenging
What was the biggest sounds doing to find ones?

Speaker 2 (01:11:35):
Because you look at Jimmy Ivan, Obviously he's he's a
tough he's a tough cookie out there.

Speaker 3 (01:11:39):
And then Dre's whole reputation.

Speaker 2 (01:11:41):
He is such a perfectionist when it comes to music,
like the being them being obviously you know your partners
in it, Like what's the process of getting that project done?

Speaker 3 (01:11:49):
I think Dre was uh Drake. Drake could be challenging
because because of what you say, he's very particular, but
you know he also understood, like you gotta trust me
with this because it's you, you know what I mean?
Same thing with Jimmy is like how could you, you know,
be objective about you and they and they? And you
know we had we had some back and forth, but

(01:12:10):
it was never over petty ship. And I think the
key to the whole thing is me and Ray more
like brothers and and and and the worst ways too.
We can argue like brothers too, like really really get
people to clear the room and me and him. In fact,
he tells about me and alin't gonna go you guys
go ahead, right, But so we know we know each
other like that, you know and and and and we

(01:12:33):
understand that because he understands brothership. You know. Now, Jimmy
was more like the the uncle you know or whatever
you want to say, like the big, bigger brother. And
to get Jimmy. Once I knew Jimmy understood it, then
we had something and Jimmy, Jimmy also led with like
Jimmy said something I'll never forget. He goes, yeah, that one,

(01:12:55):
that guy, that one guy, Yeah he hates me. Go
interview him. But that was the key. Wow, that's the
key to defining ones. Just like he was like, that's
when I knew we had something special. I knew Dre's
thing was special and it was magical and mysterious. But
when Jimmy said that guy, I can't remember who it was,

(01:13:16):
he goes, he hates me go interview him. I said,
now we got something here, because before the Defining Ones,
when you think about documentaries, everyone sat up and was stiff.
There was no cursing, there was no what I called
shootouts going back and forth like nah, wait a minute,
that's not what I remember. That motherfuckers out of his
define ones had that kind of energy where you were like,
and this just I've never I've never even heard people

(01:13:38):
talk like they really talk. They're really talking like they
really talk. And I give I give jimmy credit for
that because he set the tone. Because if your subject
is if your subject is closed off, especially the white half,
then you're gonna have a problem. Right.

Speaker 4 (01:13:51):
That surprised me too when I watched it. You had
d Barnes there. I was like, how did you convince
her to up here?

Speaker 3 (01:13:55):
And God bless her? You know, d Her, I said, D,
I understand, you don't have to tell me anything. I
get the whole thing, I said, but I would like
to have you in the narrative before the thing happened,
because that thing is not can't define your whole life
or define his whole life. Because you were in the
culture strong right years before this incident happened, and I

(01:14:19):
want you not only in the narratives as a critic
of it or a journalist in it speaking to what
it was in the late eighties, but also you had
your show, and then if the guys broke up, there's
a whole bunch of stuff that happened that had nothing
to do with that. So I think she was moved
by the fact that she was being acknowledged as far

(01:14:42):
as being part of the culture. And it wasn't just
this violent thing that defined her journey. There was a
whole thing before and there's a lot after. And she
was kind enough to do it because there's a lot
of people that wouldn't wouldn't have, you know, and I was.
I've always been very grateful to her for doing that.
And you know what, to be frank like, you know,

(01:15:03):
in the case of Dre's legacy, that was a really
forgiving thing she did, and it was it was selfless
and it brought about a lot of healing and I
can only give her credit for that.

Speaker 2 (01:15:18):
You know, Marvin Gay, before we get out of here,
tell the Marvin Gay story. Jesus Christ, good luck with that, buddy.

Speaker 3 (01:15:27):
That's a dark one.

Speaker 4 (01:15:28):
Ray Kan has a really good song called Marvin on
his last album the Wild. It's like talks about from
the beginning to the end. Really check that out. Marvin's
called no his last album about five years old. It's
called Marvin on the Wise and it's about Marvin Gay.
I encourage you to listen to it. See, I'm gonna
be frank about Marvin Gay. I got a ray Kwan
ray Kwan. I was meant to do Marvin now, you know.

Speaker 3 (01:15:52):
And then before the strike there was stuff that happened
to the studios. People bought the company, things move whatever.
But I said, man, when Snoop came to me with history,
I'm like, I know this story, and I've done music
in docs. There was a lot of music. I keep
looking at my man al, there's a lot of music
in the films. But I have never done a musical

(01:16:12):
biopic like a scripted film and going, let's start with
what we know. We know this one because Marvin is
so complexed, not just the narrative but sonically what he
he is mozart of vocals and vocalization. People don't realize
and they say he was schizophrenic. In schizophrena is not

(01:16:33):
all one thing. So when you hear the background vocals,
and when you hear the counter melodies, that's all him,
that's all him. When you hear a trouble man the
song by the way, that's hip hop. I've been to
places that I don't bother them, like the whole thing
is that's nineteen seventy two bars. So, but when you

(01:16:59):
hear his vocal arrangement and his production and what he
does sonically. The challenge for me, because the story is Shakespearean.
It's probably one of the greatest stories if you executed
the right way that can ever be told about a
man and his father, right and his love life. But
that era now see now we go back to the

(01:17:20):
dead President's thing. Now I'm going to go back. Let's
get it right. So much research you got to do,
but the complexity of like the way he was someone
like have you seen Amadeis? The film I'm Adais? I've
never seen a b of unfamiliar. You gotta check it out.
You've seen it, No, you got to check it out.
Came out in eighty four, produced a rock hick rock

(01:17:41):
me I'm a Dais, but it wasn't in the film,
and it's about Mozart and when you see it, you
understand what's going on in his head. And it's not corny.
It's like it's a whimsical film too, and it gets
a little dark. But you're like that thing right there
is very hard to execute in film, and so I'm
gonna take my time as long when because we finally

(01:18:05):
got the music rights, we finally got everything, and everyone's
been trying for so so long because it is such
a unique story when you see the details of Marvin's story.
But I just think sonically what he was doing. I
think that when you do a biopics right, people should
walk away and go damn. I never knew you should
hear the song in a different way. Now you should

(01:18:25):
hear the record in a different way. And if you're
not going to execute the film word like damn. I
thought I loved the Let's get it on, but now
I really hear it. I thought I loved my fucker
got to give it Up, which I put in. I
thought I love sexual Healing, one of my favorite mixed
songs of all time. But when you when you do
it right, people come out, they hear it in a

(01:18:46):
different way. That takes a lot of work.

Speaker 4 (01:18:48):
You know, got the name for it too, Dear Papa,
that's funny, but go see.

Speaker 3 (01:18:56):
Dem mama, man, stop stop sleeping on it. Oh, we
got the find Ones coming to Hulu too this next week.
To find Ones in on Hulu and dear Mama's on
Hulu so you can watch all fucking uh nine hours
actually twelve because you can watch Arnold on Netflix.

Speaker 2 (01:19:13):
Boom talking about ARNOLDGGA, that's the culture too.

Speaker 3 (01:19:17):
Baby was talking about Arnold real quick for we got
I met. I walked in to meet Arnold. I met
him in the night. See say that name again. I'm
still a guy going Schwartzenegger. I walked in, and that
dude in me a lot of thighs. I started telling
him what I wanted to do. I had an idea
for it, and you know, and man, that dude is uh.

(01:19:41):
At one point, you know, I said to him, I said,
you know, you remind me of like a black pimp
or a black preacher. He's looking at me like what
because if you hit him, like with a random question
or something like that, because he's really good at messaging,
He's really good at staying a message. He knows his life.
But if you hit him when he starts saying the
most profane, profound shit you've ever heard, and it's in

(01:20:04):
rhythm and it's popping and it's going and I'm like,
what is this shit right here? You realize? And when
I made the movie, I was a fan in the
eighties and nineties, but when I made a movie, I go, Oh,
this dude's there's a reason why he had three different careers.
Like he's a special, remarkable human being, and he's putting
his energy and his money his mouth is too when

(01:20:26):
you talk about like preserving democracy, and you see what
he's doing when he when he spoke to those Charlottesville
and Nazis, when he spoke to the January sixth rioters,
when he spoke directly to the Russian soldiers going into Ukraine.
Because he was born in a village in Austria where
his father and those men were on the losing side
of World War Two and they were with the Nazis,

(01:20:47):
the Germans. So he comes from the reason why he
loves America because so much is because he comes from
a place where they took an ashrip so hard. But
I was really happy that anything I'm doing now that
someone can take their star and their legend and talk
about preserving democracy and talk about his climate activism, talk

(01:21:07):
about growing older and losing friends, and he talks about
love at the end, but talks about meaningful things. He's
not just an actor sitting here talking about himself. And
that's one of the reasons why I love doing that project,
because you go, what does that have to do? You know, anybody,
dear Mama, for instance, they go, what this is? We're

(01:21:28):
speaking to something in the culture. We're speaking to something
in the condition and the struggle, right And anytime you
can do a project where you're speaking to the thing
and you're asking the why and the what, and it's
for me, you know.

Speaker 2 (01:21:41):
Enjoy enjoy speaking with you, brother, Thank you, do it
one more time, one more time.

Speaker 3 (01:21:47):
Thank you, gentlemen. Rap radar As The Interval presents original
production from hyper House, produced by Laura whe Hopes and
producers Elliott Wilson and Brian B. Dot Miller.

Speaker 4 (01:22:03):
From Interval presents executive producers Alan Coy and Jake Kleinberg,
Executive producer Paul Rosenberg, editing his sound design by Dylan
Alexander Freeman, recording engineer Jeremy Ogletree. Special thanks to Charatt Jenkins,
Tammy Kim and Jasmine Sanchez, Operations Lead Sarah Yu, business
development Lead Cheffie Allen Swig and Marketing lead Samara Still.

(01:22:26):
Make sure to follow a rapperator or listen on Apple Podcasts, Spotify,
Amazon Music, or wherever you get your podcasts.

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