Dupre “DoItAll” Kelly | ROC Solid w/ Memphis Bleek

Drink Champs Network Presents: ROC Solid with Memphis Bleek.

This week on ROC Solid, we tappin’ in with none other than Dupré “DoItAll” Kelly  —  Pullin’ up with the kind of perspective that only comes from decades in the game—both in music and in the community. As one-third of the legendary group Lords of the Underground, DoItAll takes listeners back to the raw energy of ‘90s hip hop, breaking down how Newark, New Jersey helped shape his sound, his hustle, and his purpose. He shares untold stories from the group’s rise, working with iconic producers, and navigating an industry that was changing in real time.

But this episode goes deeper than music. DoItAll opens up about his transition from artist to activist, and eventually to politician, giving real insight into what it means to take hip hop principles and apply them to real-world change. His journey from the stage to city hall is filled with lessons on leadership, resilience, and staying rooted in your community.

With candid conversation, laughs, and plenty of gems, this episode highlights the evolution of a true hip hop soldier who never lost sight of where he came from—and is still pushing the culture forward in a major way.

Tap in - history’s being told by the ones who lived it.

This is ROC Solid. 💎 💯

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Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:00):
What up, y'all? This is your main man, Memphis Bleak
right here. Welcome to Rock Solid, a production of iHeart
Radio and the Black Effect Network in partnership with my
guys over at Drink Champs.

Speaker 2 (00:13):
You should nobody know.

Speaker 1 (00:19):
You should nobody know. Yeah, y'all, you already know what
it is. Yours truly back with another exclusive episode of
Rock Solid, and this one right here. It's special when
you have someone that was a childhood favorite. Really, when
you listen to the music, it takes you right back
the way you was. Let's welcome not only rapper do

(00:43):
it all, city councilman, do it all to the building.
Now you know what, my brother, I'm good man, yo, man.
The evolution of hip hop is amazing, brother, to see
you over here from rap bars, the change in the laws,
yes said, he.

Speaker 3 (01:02):
Still got bars, you know, man, man dope, Yo man, man,
I appreciate you man making easy money, yo.

Speaker 1 (01:12):
Ain't I ain't pimping no more. I'm tired. Love lockdown,
love lockdown, That's what it was growing up.

Speaker 2 (01:20):
Hip hop.

Speaker 1 (01:21):
Hip hop looks like, yes, you know, I love it. Man.
Let's let's go back before we keep taking the present,
because the year is nineteen ninety three. I remember being
in my house video music box, so all we had
was video music box or the box. I didn't have
enough money for the box, so all we had was
video music box. Shout out Ralph McDaniels.

Speaker 2 (01:43):
Shout out Ralph Man, Happy anniversary.

Speaker 1 (01:46):
Here comes the laws Man drops Yes, produced by Mally
mas I signing. Oh wow, I didn't.

Speaker 2 (01:55):
Know that K Death did the hits man Like produced.

Speaker 1 (01:58):
What was that like at A eighty three to have
a major hit by a major producer and you were
signed to Marley mal Like in nineteen eight. I couldn't
even imagine which I was living. So I want to
hear from you, yo.

Speaker 3 (02:12):
It's like a dream come true. Like I am so
hip hop man, Like I am hip hop, that's right.
Like I'm never gonna stop being hip hop with anything
that I do. But with that being said, we I
was the young the young homie that recorded Mally mal
Pau's tape on WBLS.

Speaker 2 (02:32):
Yes, Yes, the sessue on the tape.

Speaker 3 (02:35):
I'm recording Molly mal and mister Magic on BLS. I'm
listening to all of that and we go off. You know,
I want to be a rapper I'm trying to get
a deal that doesn't work out, well, says you know,
if it does not work out, you are going to school.

Speaker 1 (02:51):
That's right, So everybody, so everybody. So I went to school, man, I.

Speaker 3 (02:56):
Went to Show University because it didn't seem like it
was working out.

Speaker 2 (02:59):
And Raleigh, North Carolina.

Speaker 1 (03:01):
Man, yeah, man n C.

Speaker 3 (03:04):
And it felt like it was starting to happen because
Mallie Maul's cousin went to our school.

Speaker 2 (03:10):
Derek L. A. Jackson. Now, Derek is the same guy
who found Scott.

Speaker 3 (03:14):
Storch Oh wow, Yeah, and he managed Coolio and all
of those Mountain Deuke commercials that you used to see
with Nicki.

Speaker 2 (03:22):
Minaj and Lil Wayne and all of that. All that
was Derek L. A. Jackson, And he found the roots damn.

Speaker 1 (03:30):
Clug.

Speaker 2 (03:31):
He was in college with our DJ, DJ Lord Jazz.
Shout yea Lord Jazz living.

Speaker 1 (03:38):
You see what's so dope about the era? Back then,
the DJ got just as much as the artist. Today,
it's just like, hey, that's my DJ. Dog Biggas just
focused on the artist. So that's dope that all three
of y'all grew together.

Speaker 3 (03:55):
Lord Jazz founded Lords of the Underground, We say that
because La was his best friend in college and Lord
Jazz was the DJ at all of the parties, all
of the Greek parties, all.

Speaker 2 (04:05):
Of that type of stuff.

Speaker 3 (04:06):
And La was graduating and he was going to work
for his cousin, who just happened to be Marley mal
And he said, Yo, when I go work for Marli,
you know, I'm a try to get a group in there.
He was like, former group, when I go work for Marli.
So he would let me rhyme at all of the parties.
And he would never let funk rahm at the parties.

Speaker 1 (04:28):
No way.

Speaker 2 (04:29):
Yeah, he wouldn't let funk ram at the parties. I guess,
expressing them so much.

Speaker 3 (04:33):
And then one day Man, he asked us to come
up to the radio station and we set a rhyme
that we wrote together, and they sent the tape, which
was Psycho. They sent that tape that we was rhyming
over dress from Black Sheep and you know, roming over.
I think it might have been flavored a month or
something like that.

Speaker 1 (04:52):
Wow. He sent it to.

Speaker 2 (04:56):
Shout to send it to Malie.

Speaker 3 (04:59):
Man and Molly called Man and said, Yo, when y'all
come into the house.

Speaker 2 (05:02):
It Hits and the rest became history.

Speaker 1 (05:06):
Man.

Speaker 2 (05:06):
So to answer your question, being able.

Speaker 3 (05:09):
To be in front of Molly Mal who I used
to record from the radio, it was just it was
amazing to me. The first time we walked into the
house it Hits, which was upstate New York at the time.
You know, we pull up to this white house upstate
New York. You see a red path. Fonder, you see
a red pile, you see a red BMW.

Speaker 2 (05:31):
All the cards was red.

Speaker 3 (05:33):
This one Mally had the ring back in that day
before anybody had the ring. You pressed his bell and
he could see you and you talked to him.

Speaker 2 (05:40):
We went in.

Speaker 3 (05:41):
Dang, it's a little skinny kid standing in between the
SSL and back then it was only two people that
had ssls in their home, or maybe three, I think,
Prince Molly Mal and Teddy Riley. And it's this little
skinny kid with a bell can go on and a
white beater on and he's all you hear is.

Speaker 2 (06:03):
Mama said, knock you out.

Speaker 3 (06:04):
It was yo, chill, yo, this is this is young
kids like, yes, it's legendary. Ll was like the god,
yes you know, and he said, yo ta yo tad,
I want you to meet my new group. We ain't
even had the name yet, you know. And he turned around,
he looked at us, He licked his lips. He turned

(06:26):
the music down him like what up beat? Then he
turned it back up. Mama said, knock you out. They
was mixing. Mama said, knock you out. I turned to
the crew.

Speaker 1 (06:34):
I was like, yo, we made it word up like
we here we in the president are real right now.
But damn, like you said, you was in Shaw University
pledge Alpha Pi Alpha.

Speaker 2 (06:46):
I didn't even fold alpha.

Speaker 1 (06:48):
You know what I'm saying, Step, How did that shape
your leadership? You know what I mean? Mindset that you
carried today.

Speaker 3 (06:56):
Man, it's difficult, right, Like it was difficult when you
come from and I know you know League coming from Brooklyn,
when you come from those inner cities.

Speaker 2 (07:05):
Man, you just believe and know what you know?

Speaker 1 (07:07):
That's right.

Speaker 3 (07:08):
So when somebody introduced something foreign to you, first thing
we do is we push back to those things that
that's unfamiliar to us.

Speaker 1 (07:16):
Right.

Speaker 3 (07:16):
And when I first went to school, I only went
to school because I got in trouble, right, I got
I got locked up, I got caught Joe Rod.

Speaker 2 (07:26):
And then I got charged with a gun. I got
charged with the drugs. That was I was looking at
seventeen years God damn.

Speaker 3 (07:34):
And the councilman at the time shout out to my
mentor Hot Feast for Red, who went on to manage
laws of the underground. But the council he was the
chief of staff to the councilman. And shout out to
doctor Ralph T. Grant Senior. He's still living man eighty
almost nineties, ninety something years old.

Speaker 2 (07:53):
Yeah, and he lives in Florida.

Speaker 3 (07:55):
You know, you know where the retired right And you
know he said, Joe, I know you not this type
of dude. Let me let me write some letters to
the judges and to the courts and see if I
can get some lesser things to happen. Long story short,
they come back the court saying you gotta go to school.

Speaker 2 (08:14):
You go to school. I had to paint some polls
and all that. They said.

Speaker 1 (08:19):
I've been there.

Speaker 3 (08:20):
I've been there, you know, went to school and that's
where I met the people that changed my life.

Speaker 2 (08:27):
But even back to the councilman, that was the counselman
that everything that he showed me.

Speaker 3 (08:34):
I wound up becoming an alpha like him. I wound
up going to the same school that he graduated.

Speaker 2 (08:39):
And I can't make this up.

Speaker 3 (08:41):
And now, as the counselman of North New Jersey, I
have the same office that he had as the counselor.

Speaker 1 (08:48):
It's like, that's like as full three sixty to be
standing there looking at it as a juveie looking at
them helping you on some criminal activity, to now you
the counselman in that same spot and able to give
the same opportunity to maybe another misfortunate young you know,
young man out here in the wrong place, wrong time.

(09:09):
So damn man, you doing all of that college and
that's dope that you got in the situation. And they
made you go to school.

Speaker 2 (09:18):
Yeah, they made me go to school. That was back then.
Now I don't know if they're gonna do that now.

Speaker 1 (09:22):
What happened in my era, They just put you in truan. See,
it took you to the preset, your moms came and
got you. You still was dumb yesterday as you was
that day. They did not say, hey, we're gonna sign
you up to college and get you right. Was none
of that. So all of that happening, and then Chief Rocker,
Chief Rocker drops buzzing nationally everywhere radio send it like

(09:49):
to me, I think that was maybe you know, back
in the day listening to music, you didn't know what
records went gold, what records were platt, no, what records
was not. As a kid, you didn't care. I think
that record would the first time I noticed, like, wait
a minute, this ship is everywhere. Yeah.

Speaker 2 (10:05):
Man, that was a blessing man.

Speaker 3 (10:06):
But I think before we even get the Chief rock up,
we have to rewind too.

Speaker 2 (10:11):
Like I think it was the build up.

Speaker 3 (10:14):
We had like five videos, as you know, shout out
to Rubin Rodriguez who ran Pendulum Records.

Speaker 1 (10:20):
Angel I remember shout they had one record that last forever, forever, forever.
They ain't even in the video. They was cool as mother, cool, cool.

Speaker 2 (10:35):
Like that, right.

Speaker 3 (10:39):
But I think we have to rewind, like and go
back to Funky Child, right, so funky shot, Like first
Psycho was bubbling and and it became okay, but then
Funky Child dropped and that stuff. You know, I went
into the went into the video with the diaper.

Speaker 1 (10:56):
On, yo, the baby, oh you the baby?

Speaker 2 (11:00):
Oh yeah, heard up.

Speaker 1 (11:01):
He was the first one to set it off.

Speaker 2 (11:03):
And actually we got that from Parliament Funkadelic.

Speaker 1 (11:06):
No way at the time, shout out you and the
baby y'all the only tour my life flying I seen
doing and y'all held it down. Man, you know what
I mean when you.

Speaker 3 (11:14):
Got Funky Child to come out. I remember being at
Rosco Chicken and Waffles uh in La. You know, back then,
everybody had a record representative in each city that was
a good good and our record representative came in and
they slid the billboard tours and they said, congratulations you
number one.

Speaker 2 (11:34):
This is a Funky Child. So we're like, oh, yeah, yeah,
but the.

Speaker 3 (11:37):
Record representative was still like kind of like down, so
we're like, yo, he just said we number one?

Speaker 2 (11:42):
What's up?

Speaker 3 (11:44):
And he said, I want to apologize to y'all. I'm
like apologize for what he said because we didn't think
this record would move so we didn't push it.

Speaker 2 (11:53):
So were like, wait a minute.

Speaker 1 (11:55):
The record went number one and we.

Speaker 2 (11:58):
Like, he like, yeah, man, it could have really been
been that record.

Speaker 1 (12:02):
Funky Child, is it? Like think? Uh? French Matanda revived.

Speaker 2 (12:07):
That out the French.

Speaker 3 (12:08):
We had a we had a long talk with him
about you know, I was I was upset with French
at first, French. I was upset with you, but because
this French is my dude now, but I was upset
with and Max has always been my guy, but French.
We was upset with French because we felt like when
you did the video, when you did the song, you
didn't reach out to the homies to originated, just invite

(12:28):
us in the video so we can be like this
in the video, you know, and it wasn't and then
come to find out it wasn't even him, it was
his crew and all.

Speaker 2 (12:37):
You know, so but were cool.

Speaker 1 (12:38):
French is cool and I mean that that recad bro.
I think that rec gonna live forever. Like I was
talking to my partner cheat you off screen and he
was like yo. He was like if I remember, He
was like, yo, Lords, the Underground might have the last
breakdancing record released.

Speaker 3 (12:55):
And that's what That's what I'm getting to too. So
when he told us that Funky Child, they didn't push.
The next record was Chief Rocker. So now they didn't
believe or push Funky Child.

Speaker 1 (13:07):
When they put.

Speaker 3 (13:08):
Everything in the Chief Rocker, that made Chief Rocker a
top forty hit, and that changed our lives.

Speaker 1 (13:15):
What video was that I'm trying I want to say
the wrong song. But y'all shot a video in Newark,
I believe, and it was at night. The video was
that Chief Rocker or Lord Child that that was? That
was funky that video bro like classic by Gee. I
was mobbing in Newark.

Speaker 3 (13:34):
Like, let me give you a history about Funky Child cover.
I never said this on any interview ever. We were
supposed to have that cover with baby pictures of us,
and Funk could not find a baby picture of himself.

Speaker 2 (13:48):
Yo.

Speaker 1 (13:49):
That's how it was.

Speaker 3 (13:49):
Back like his mom's you know, God bless Auntie. She
had passed on my birthday.

Speaker 1 (13:54):
That's different to him.

Speaker 3 (13:57):
We signed on January twelfth to Mary and funk Mom's
past on January fourteenth, which is my birthday.

Speaker 2 (14:04):
So it's the best day of his life than the
worst day.

Speaker 1 (14:07):
Yeah.

Speaker 3 (14:08):
So he couldn't find any of his baby pictures and
then next thing, you know, Big comes out with the
big baby picture.

Speaker 1 (14:16):
It was mad drama over the baby pictures. Y'all had
drama over the the Funk yeah being the Funky Child,
like Hi being the Funk your man, Yo. It was
mad drum because I remember lording that's you know, they
came out. What was his album The Funk some turn
the Return of the y'all was Lords.

Speaker 2 (14:38):
Of the No we was the Lords of the Underground.

Speaker 1 (14:41):
Yeah, y'all was, but no y'all was.

Speaker 3 (14:43):
The record was funky, yes, but people used to say
it was the return of the Funky Chap.

Speaker 1 (14:48):
That's what called I remember as a shorter. You know,
this was back with right word. All that stuff is out.
You get your like, yo, this is going on. Then
when I spoke the Guru, I told him I interview,
He's like, yo, gotta bring up that because this was
a big time, big movement and then like the funk sound. Yeah,

(15:08):
I feel like there is no originator to it. Nah,
right because Lord foressing them did what they did with
the Diamond D and.

Speaker 2 (15:16):
Them shout out to d I TC.

Speaker 1 (15:18):
Y'all came out and changed the pushed the envelope further,
and then RADMN came out and took it even further.

Speaker 3 (15:25):
Let's even take it further than that, right, So Parliament, Parliament,
Funk Cadelic is from New Jersey, so all of the
sampling of.

Speaker 2 (15:32):
The funk in the West Coast, that's New Jersey, New Jersey.

Speaker 1 (15:37):
Damn. So foressing them was wild no.

Speaker 3 (15:39):
Not even just for that, like the West Coast gets
the credit for that funk sound in hip hop.

Speaker 2 (15:45):
Yes, but they were sampling a Jersey artist. You see
what I'm saying. So, I mean shout out the shout
out the Finesse too. Man.

Speaker 1 (15:52):
For now, I've met him at an award show. He's
super dupe. One of the illest lyricists I met coming up.
I respect all the OG's, that's one thing. All of
y'all paved a way for us to do what we
do today. And if guys don't know lords in the underground,
digging in the crates, Molly, ma, you're doing a disservice

(16:15):
to yourself a hip hop like like, you know, I
don't like keep bringing up the young and the old.
But little Yachty man what he said about you know
what I mean, rappers Delight. It's just like, come on,
come on, that's blasphemy.

Speaker 3 (16:28):
And you know what's crazy about little Yachty Like his
mother went to our college.

Speaker 1 (16:34):
Damn, no way, yo, chill. So Mama Yati sitting again, Mama.

Speaker 2 (16:40):
Yati right Shaw University. Man.

Speaker 3 (16:43):
You know, I mean shout out to Yachty. So when
we found out out, I was like, wow, she should
have schooled the more what happened on Yes for sure, man, definitely.
But back to the Chief Rocker.

Speaker 2 (16:54):
Man.

Speaker 3 (16:54):
So after after Funky Child, you know, we were on
the weird platform, and then we switched to the EU
my platform with Chief Rokker, and they poured all of
those dollars, all this promotion and marketing dollars, marketing dollars
into that, and man, Chief Rocker just changed our lives.

Speaker 1 (17:13):
Man.

Speaker 3 (17:13):
We got to buy our mother home, mother's homes, ourselves homes.

Speaker 2 (17:17):
And you can tell a difference from it hit.

Speaker 1 (17:19):
I know, you know you people hit radio hit is
better than the digital hit. Oh you see, way more money, definitely.
I don't know why, like how the game is bregged
that way, and I don't own the money machine, but
that radio hit and I come on ninety three ninety four, bro,
that was That's all it was was radio. There was

(17:39):
no digital, It was no end in Thatt radio. So
y'all got to see the full fledge of what rappers
today can only dream of.

Speaker 2 (17:46):
Me.

Speaker 1 (17:46):
I came in on the tail end of it, and
we had the jyrules and the murdering radio Nelly. It
was like get your record in Nigga. I had a
lot of competition. Member, it's nine slots. It's only nine
slots on the radio. Jah had three, Luda had two,

(18:08):
Nelly had two, and Jay got the rest. They looking
at you like where you want me to put your
record outside the radio?

Speaker 2 (18:15):
I got your right. It was that Monday of music, Wednesday,
Mondays and Wednesday.

Speaker 1 (18:21):
Yeah, new money. There used to be new money break
it Thursday. Member. They used to be like what was
this ship? Rocket or jacket or used to do rocket
or socket rocking? Sick? Yeah, yo, like back then, like
when did the how you said you was on pendulum?
But then how did the death Jam thing happen?

Speaker 3 (18:43):
Well, we wasn't see Redman was on Death Jam and
people like, you know that's my brother.

Speaker 2 (18:49):
That's I got four Godfathers for my I call them
for my son.

Speaker 3 (18:54):
Man right angels, Yeah, man, they the Mount Rushmore Godfathers, Man,
Red Man and Lord Finness, Michael Bivens from New Edition.

Speaker 1 (19:03):
And Trench God damn. He got it all.

Speaker 2 (19:06):
Oh no, they spoiled the message.

Speaker 1 (19:08):
Yeah, he got it all. He got gangster shows skills
because I wanted to rapa Redman. He don't know that
he know now see this, but when that first album
The What Crazy, I studied that out razing.

Speaker 3 (19:26):
He's a legend man, He's one of my favorite monkst
being my brother, but he used to be my DJ.

Speaker 1 (19:31):
Chill Redman is a DJ two.

Speaker 2 (19:35):
Red Man was my DJ before he was Redman, the
Murderous Yo Chill.

Speaker 1 (19:40):
Not Muddy Waters DJ.

Speaker 2 (19:43):
Yeah, it was.

Speaker 3 (19:43):
It was my DJ man And he's just always been
a fire MC even when he was DJing. We had
this set that we used to do where he would
be cutting.

Speaker 1 (19:52):
While he's rapping.

Speaker 2 (19:54):
Wow, you know what I mean?

Speaker 3 (19:55):
And he just been a He just been an ill
MC man all along. So Saluthor, Regie noble Man always
been fire for real.

Speaker 1 (20:06):
It's a lot of talent came from New Jersey period,
but from Newark, New Jersey. A lot of y'all man
like Tratch you rad mean, Queen Latifa, definite fucking.

Speaker 2 (20:20):
Fuji's, all of them, Lauren wykleft.

Speaker 1 (20:24):
Fuji's even Whitney Houston on Nippy Shack Shock. Like a
lot of great came from Newark, New Jersey. And I
don't think y'all get the respect for that for carving
out a lot of shit that us in this world lived. Like,
come on, bro, if you take Shock, all the music,

(20:45):
take the Fooji's, Whitney Houston, what we got how many
like it's it gonna be a lot of voids out
there that need feeling, you know what I mean?

Speaker 3 (20:55):
Definitely, man And we used to say that a lot too,
Like we love New York City being so close in
proximity to y'all, you know what I mean, Like this
is the mecca, the BX is the mecca.

Speaker 2 (21:07):
But we felt like in the nineties we had everybody's
world up. You know, we had our brothers from Trenton,
you know what i mean, like Cam Cam Trent Like
we had.

Speaker 3 (21:22):
So many people man from I mean, you got h
Channel Live, you got.

Speaker 1 (21:29):
Artist handles, live, Outlaws.

Speaker 3 (21:32):
You just had so many different people, man, that were
rocking in the nineties hip hop. And we just feel
like sometimes we don't get mentioned enough that life comes
the nineties hip hop.

Speaker 1 (21:42):
They don't even know like Eminem went to Newark and
got a lot of his roots too from running around
with the guys out there. A lot of people don't
know that too. They came to the outside, That's what
I'm saying. They think all them flows came from a male.
Now half them just came from Newark, New.

Speaker 2 (21:57):
Jersey too, Shout out Tom Man.

Speaker 1 (21:59):
Definitely. He was definitely love man always. And you know
what I love about rap man that when you really
into it, it ain't where you from like they say,
it's where you at. Because he was a Detroit guy.
And I heard more stories about him in New New
Jersey than I did in Detroit.

Speaker 2 (22:16):
That's right, man, Yeah, I mean he was, he was there.
He was in the outshouse. Yes, so we used to
call it the outshouse.

Speaker 1 (22:23):
Man, Come digger man up, y'all got goats, New Jersey, Joe.

Speaker 2 (22:30):
Biden, come on, shout the button word up man.

Speaker 3 (22:33):
I mean young z like he was with them, you
know what I'm saying. So, I mean it was only
best that he had to get their game up or
they would have took his head off.

Speaker 1 (22:44):
That's a fact, you know.

Speaker 3 (22:45):
I mean, you know you you you've been around greats,
you know what I mean, And when you've been in Baseline, you.

Speaker 1 (22:52):
Had to come with it or take your head off.
That's a fact. That's the time. Remember Rockefeller, we had
what ten artists. Baseline only had two rooms. People think
Baseline was a room for everybody. Hell no, it was
two rooms and you could not be in there bullshitting
with bars. That was the number one thing. Hold come
in there, I mean what you got Oh you bullshit

(23:14):
with bars? Gurule turn this off, yo, bring bring these
news beans in the man. It was. It was just
like that, like either you gonna have it or you don't.
Next man up, who got it in there?

Speaker 3 (23:25):
Oh that's crazy, you say beans? Shout out the beans
mashed my dogs him and Freeway did. They did a
bunch of community stuff for me in the community man
in our hood in Irvington and the noyork excuse me
and shout out to them man that that they don't
see it to be robbery to still come and do
some community stuff. But I remember one time, man, my

(23:46):
first time beans. I wanted to do beans.

Speaker 2 (23:47):
Remember this, but uh, what was their management? Black hand?

Speaker 1 (23:51):
Yeah, black hand?

Speaker 2 (23:53):
Right, so I was real rolling? What up in real roller?
I know they remember a producer by the name of
Black Friday.

Speaker 1 (24:05):
Black Friday, yeah, black hand and queens. It took me
a minute.

Speaker 3 (24:09):
It's no thank you for therection enough because I know
black no we queen, but Black Friday. We was in Philly.
I want my man Craig King, producer Craig King. You
might remember me did some stuff for Yay, did some
stuff with Luda A Leah, a bunch of people. But
he asked me to take a ride with him in Philly.
We go to this inconspicuous house, you know, in Philly,

(24:33):
on some crazy block. I go in and this is
probably like ninety nine, maybe when Beans came out.

Speaker 1 (24:39):
Two thousand to two thousands album dropped.

Speaker 2 (24:43):
Yeah, it's about ninety nine.

Speaker 1 (24:45):
I go in.

Speaker 2 (24:46):
The house is all dimly lit, you know.

Speaker 3 (24:49):
We sitting down at the table with Black Friday, and
Beans is standing in the corner light.

Speaker 2 (24:55):
He's waiting for something like security. And we sit down
and he comes over to me and he like, I
love sleep for dinner. That's my favoring record. And then
he goes back to the corner.

Speaker 3 (25:07):
I'm walking like, yo, who is next time I saw Beans,
he was in a Bentley.

Speaker 1 (25:12):
Yo chill Ye Beans was a Bentley man. Yeah two
he had two up at one time. It used to
come to me bleak the Bentley hot let me hold
a ben switch out with it spaking, No problem. I
don't want this shit anyway, right or man? So nineteen
ninety four, when fucking how can I say this? Man?

(25:39):
After keepers of funk in the industry shifted, you know
what I mean? The label support back then shifted to
what was the mindset of y'all moving forward from then?

Speaker 3 (25:51):
Like, that's a great ass question, leek, that's a great question.
And I'm saying that's a great question because I want
the young and to taints and artist to understand out there,
never stop going, Never believe that.

Speaker 2 (26:08):
Oh I'm on, I got to hit. I'm good. Never
stop because we was rich as hell in ninety four.

Speaker 1 (26:16):
I feel you know what I'm saying A hundred bro, I.

Speaker 2 (26:21):
Feel you you can get kind of lazy.

Speaker 3 (26:23):
You can get like, oh they want what, No tell them,
we want such and such, or they want to not
tell them only if it's twenty first.

Speaker 2 (26:30):
Class, ye tell you know.

Speaker 1 (26:33):
Start feeling yourself.

Speaker 3 (26:34):
Feeling yourself, man, and and if you ain't feeling yourself,
you ain't.

Speaker 1 (26:38):
Touch it, right, That's right, you know what I'm saying.
That's a fact. You ain't really see success if you
ain't start thinking, if you ain't get big, had it
or think you left earth?

Speaker 2 (26:47):
Yeah, you left earth.

Speaker 1 (26:48):
You ain't see success for real.

Speaker 2 (26:49):
I don't mean you ain't.

Speaker 3 (26:50):
You ain't had a chance to come back, but yes,
you know, you start feeling yourself a little bit. And
I think ninety four we riches. I don't know what
we got keepers of the funt recording while we're on tour.
Once we went to Chicago in ninety two, like the
end of ninety two, we hadn't been home for like damn, damn.

Speaker 2 (27:09):
They it felt like three years. I mean periodically we
hadn't we hadn't.

Speaker 1 (27:13):
Been last right, you know what I mean?

Speaker 3 (27:15):
And we was just rich, rocking, and you know, and
when that album came, that hunger that we did and
here come the Lords of This is just something we love.
We don't even care if it comes out. Almost I
think that we started questioning everything, well.

Speaker 2 (27:36):
How many points for this? Or how many is this?
And how many is that?

Speaker 3 (27:40):
Or what this looked like or what these numbers? You
start doing the business while you're trying to do the rat.

Speaker 1 (27:46):
I tell people that all these young artists, I tell them,
once it become one because you do it for free,
for the love. That's how we always started. For the love.
Once they give you that checking, you look like I
got this oh yes for that right now, it becomes
a business and you start trying to shoot for bigger checks.
That's our same check, and it's you're not the love

(28:08):
that you did it for. The music is just not
coming out the same.

Speaker 3 (28:11):
In it man, and and you know, Keepers of the
Funk still did amazing. You know, we went gold initially
with it. I think it's already somewhere around platinum now,
but it wasn't the same vigor that we we approached
it when when here come the Lords and we were
still on the road, so we couldn't just lock in

(28:32):
into the studio and we could have, but we didn't
stop pausing of getting the money to you know what
I mean. So I think the mad and then the
industry was switching. Yes, I remember Ruben Rodriguez shout out
to Supreme.

Speaker 2 (28:47):
Seed Man, Supreme Seed. He actually married wy.

Speaker 1 (28:50):
Cleft's sister mouth Man.

Speaker 3 (28:52):
Music business is czy, but Supreme See, we had a
record with him called Never Faded and shout out to
everybody loved they never Faded It kills on the rule.
But at that time the record company wanted us to
lead with that single. I know we wanted to lead
with that single. But they wanted to lead with the

(29:13):
Nise Williams Keep the Faith, which almost sounded like an
inspirational churchy vibe lords and under Oh your Lord's underground,
this churchy vibing.

Speaker 2 (29:22):
The streets wanted never fade, right, you know what I mean.

Speaker 3 (29:26):
So we went, of course with the record company because
they're gonna put all of the money into this. We
had Denise Williams shout out the Nise Williams. She's a legend,
she's singing on it. But the streets wanted the grimy right,
and then mob and all of them was coming, and
we didn't put that out first.

Speaker 1 (29:41):
We put out the nice record, Nice Record because they
wanted to go crossover. So when the labels tell you
we got to go crossover, let's go for ads, yest's
go for radio. And then they had you in there
like this, like yeah, I might go be l two.

Speaker 2 (29:57):
The underground we wanted never faded.

Speaker 1 (30:00):
Yeah, they had me in there. It was Joe, Rue
Nelly and them, Yo, we need that you in there,
Like now, j'a do got muscles? I hang with the nigga.
I might do that. Go try niggas, Like dang't you
take that back? To the boy homie. So I feel
you with that.

Speaker 3 (30:15):
Like listening, man, and I think that we didn't.

Speaker 2 (30:22):
Kind of line up aligned.

Speaker 3 (30:24):
With the switch was you know, like I said, we
young dudes who just got our mothers and families out
of the hood and rich.

Speaker 1 (30:31):
So that's the that's the main, that's the most important,
the thing to accomplish when you get into this, because
that's what we wanted. Man, you picked up that pen.
I know me, Man, I was tired of looking at
roaches in the crib try hanging from the ceiling. I'm
tired of opening up that pot, Mi whatch you cook
and it's just everything in the cabin throwing in one fig.
It was like, nah, go outside the homies. That's hustling.

(30:54):
He buying pizza, he buying pigs, patties, his nigga buying sneakers,
whatever he wants. Like, I gotta figure something out. And
then you start writing your pain down and then you
get paid for it and here you are. And then
like in ninety four, ninety three, ninety two, men to
have a gold record back then, it's equivalent today to

(31:16):
be in double platinum. Like seriously, because you literally, like
I said, it was no digital nothing. Five hundred thousand
people had to physically get us walk in that store
and purchase that CD, that tape and keep it pushing.
So that's a major accomplishment because it's just like the NBA.

(31:37):
I feel like everybody in the NBA, you have one
hundred thousand, millions of players that played, but not everybody
can say they want a chip. It's the same thing
in this business. Million of people played, not everybody brung
a chip home. So to have a chip in multiple chips,
that's an accomplishing itself. And then back then, bro, like

(32:00):
I could say, like you saying, Yo, we was rich rich,
Hell yeah, nineteen ninety three, a gold record.

Speaker 2 (32:08):
My man had like eight cars at one time.

Speaker 3 (32:12):
Me and Lord Jazz used to laugh at them, like
what is you doing with all these cars?

Speaker 2 (32:15):
And we still joke about it to this day.

Speaker 3 (32:18):
But I mean, it was just so many different I mean,
you know, because you have experience.

Speaker 1 (32:22):
And I've seen it in the two thousands and the
money was still major, but it wasn't what it was
in the nineties. Like I used to be mad at
some of my cousins in them looking at drug dealers
in the two thousands, that'd be like, yeah, I got
money in eighty eight, and I'm like, cause you was
outside eighty eight two. Wasn't you why you ain't got no?
Oh you was in the house. You ain't go outside.

(32:43):
I get it. So but then everything changed, Like what
changed for you to make you say, all right? I
did the music, I did all I've been around the greats,
I tore the I told the world, had all the cars,
did whatever. You know what all us rappers do. You
go to the imagination, we don't have to talk about it.

(33:05):
Then you say, yo, I'm a run for city council.

Speaker 2 (33:08):
Man, man, so many, so many different things. League.

Speaker 3 (33:11):
It's like in nineteen ninety two in Orlando, Florida, we
had a motel. We ain't even in hotels yet.

Speaker 1 (33:19):
Damn.

Speaker 3 (33:19):
It's when you go to that motels that outside. That's right,
we had the room outside. We're on a TUPAC tour.

Speaker 1 (33:27):
Damn legendary.

Speaker 2 (33:29):
No real talk.

Speaker 3 (33:29):
It's real talk. Like we're on a TUPAC tour. Outcast
is opening up Jah Nay with my man Fan from
Roden Rascals. They got to hey, mister DJ record, that's
member that Yeah, Major and Big used to come on
on with Park sometime on the road. Were on a tour,
almost getting into something with Pop because we shared a

(33:51):
Lord shared a van with Pop and Thug Life, so
most of it was Thug Life and POC and I
think maybe Lords had about six people with us, like
sixteen passenger van, and he was just mad because we
was always late. One of our members was always late.
You guess it, well, one of our members was always late.
So I get into it with him because he started

(34:13):
talking to third person like this my fing tool, you
know that, and I just felt like he was thisssing
us and it started to feel embarrassing, you know, the
thug Life they laughing. So I started talking to third
person like rappers be acting like they from from Cali
and they really from Baltimore, you know, like like we're
getting into it and fourth so right when it really

(34:36):
gets tense, my other group member gets on the van.

Speaker 2 (34:41):
Fast forward later.

Speaker 3 (34:42):
Pop comes to my room, knocks on my door. He's
bearing gifts. He got a T shirt under one arm.
I believe I still got that T shirt too, thug
wife on it with the bullet on the eye. He
got a new point in one ear blunting the other
and he got two forty ounces.

Speaker 2 (35:01):
So he knock on the door.

Speaker 3 (35:02):
And that's when you still have phones and you can
still smoke in the hotel and get the smoking room,
smoking room lick and I looked out the curtain. I'm like,
it's pot so I know that we just went through.
So I called Lord Jazz, my DJ, and was like, yo,
pocket in the door.

Speaker 2 (35:16):
He's like, yeah, he tripping. I'm like, nah, he just
at the door. I'm just letting you know what. I'm
about to let him in. If something happened, you already
know what's happening.

Speaker 3 (35:23):
I let him in. I open the door. He just
looked at me and he like, you ain't gonna let
me in. I just I still don't say nothing. I
just move out the way let him in. It's two
beds in the room. He sitting on one, I sit
on one. He crack open the forty hand me, hand
it to me, crack open his forty sip it he takes.
I don't know if he took the blunt the or
the cigarette out, but he lit. Probably was the blunt.

(35:44):
He said he lit the blunt and he looks at
me and he's like, you know you was wrong, right,
and I was like, I felt like I was wrong,
but because it's his tool. But I wasn't wrong for
taking up for myself. That's right, you know what, I
hold it down like, I couldn't let you just diss
our crew. But bro we twenty twenty one. He goes

(36:06):
into I ain't never heard of twenty year old to
this day talk the way that he was talking. And
he was talking about positivity. He was talking about how
we shouldn't move from the cities we're from if we
grew from the soil. From there, he started talking about
how we gotta turn millions of rappers into millions of
rapper listen to records, listen to the people who listen

(36:29):
to rap records into millions of voters. He started talking about.
And then he said, we got to become legislators. I'm like, legislators, man,
what are you talking about?

Speaker 2 (36:41):
Like, man, I'm a rapper she talking about.

Speaker 3 (36:43):
He was like, nah, but if we don't make the vote,
if we don't make the laws, then the laws will
be made for us.

Speaker 2 (36:52):
I'm just listening to him.

Speaker 3 (36:53):
He's like, we gotta start nonprofits and create youth programs
that bridge the gap between our youth and our seniors.

Speaker 1 (36:59):
That's a fact. Yo, this guy's twenty years old. It's
what ninety what two?

Speaker 2 (37:04):
Oh it don't Lando, Florida.

Speaker 3 (37:07):
So I'm like, I'm like, all right, Man, I feel
like I did everything he asked me in that hotel. Man,
I created a nonprofit organization called two eleven Community Impact.

Speaker 2 (37:20):
I did everything Man.

Speaker 3 (37:21):
I ran for office, but he wasn't the only one.
I had a mentor about the name of my hot
feast for Reed, who was our manager of Lords and
the Underground. We had just came off of doing MTV.
You know how MTV should throw all of those big concerts.
I was feeling myself again this I was feeling myself
a couple of times.

Speaker 1 (37:42):
Asshole moment.

Speaker 3 (37:43):
I got a couple of asshold since then, Washington, I'm sorry,
I got a couple of asshole moments.

Speaker 2 (37:48):
I'm just keeping this.

Speaker 3 (37:49):
But so, I come off of MTV and usually I've
been wearing nork on my hats.

Speaker 1 (37:55):
And clothes for years.

Speaker 2 (37:57):
You know what I mean. And this time I had
on had T shirt nor everything, and he my man
just looked at me. He's like, oh, you norked.

Speaker 1 (38:04):
Out to day.

Speaker 2 (38:05):
Huh. So I don't know why.

Speaker 3 (38:07):
I got defensive, but I was like yeah, like and
what like yeah, And he was like, what's the last
thing you did for Newark?

Speaker 2 (38:15):
And I was like, I got defensive.

Speaker 1 (38:17):
I was like, what you mean.

Speaker 3 (38:18):
I just performed in front of millions of people on MTV.
I represented for my city. He was like, I'm not
talking about marketing and promotion. What was the last thing
you did for your city?

Speaker 2 (38:30):
And he stumped me.

Speaker 1 (38:32):
I was like wow.

Speaker 3 (38:34):
And I promised that day that that would be the
last day that anybody would ever be able to ask
me what I did for my city.

Speaker 2 (38:40):
And I can't answer it, do you know?

Speaker 3 (38:43):
And then I started taking my hip hop money and
started my nonprofit like POxy, and I started investing into
Team Pregnancy and you know, just things that was affecting
our youth, going into.

Speaker 2 (38:55):
Schools, doing talks and all of that.

Speaker 3 (38:58):
And then the people later years later, said, yo, we
want you to be our voice.

Speaker 1 (39:03):
Damn you know that's dope, man.

Speaker 3 (39:05):
And then I wind up in twenty twenty two, I
wound up becoming the first platinum selling hip hop artists
to ever win an elected official see in the United
States of America.

Speaker 1 (39:14):
Come on, man, come on too.

Speaker 2 (39:17):
Because he got the world title for women believe.

Speaker 1 (39:20):
Yeah, yeah, Sean definitely came home on his Obama movie. Definitely, definitely.
I respect it too, man, he out there really making
the change and doing I respect all because these are
things we dreamed about, that we we we wished we
could do, and y'all really doing it. So like that
makes the difference that's needed because other young black men,

(39:42):
older men might see you like they don't even know.
I didn't have no clue that Pop put some of
that inspirations. Definitely, and I never met Pop. I never
saw him personally ever, Like I only know his message,
no his story, and know what every other fan knew,
But I never met him to know that he was
out there inspiring movements like that.

Speaker 3 (40:01):
Man, if not the governor, at minimum, he would have
been the mayor of Baltimore or Oakland.

Speaker 1 (40:11):
That's crazy to think about that. So where do you
place lords of the underground in the golden era conversation?

Speaker 3 (40:23):
Man, that's a great question too, man, I mean you're
asking one of the lords, So I'm gonna put myself
up there.

Speaker 2 (40:29):
We usually talk about.

Speaker 1 (40:30):
Groups, right, said yeah, amongst the group conversation man.

Speaker 2 (40:35):
Top ten fact top ten.

Speaker 1 (40:37):
And the reason.

Speaker 3 (40:38):
I mean, you can ask Kanye too, like, yeah, shout
out to yay Man. Yeah, yeah, shut out to yay Man.
I remember him saying that that Lords of the Underground
was either six or seven on his top ten lists. Yeah,
and I believe it to be so because when he
did was the Pablo album.

Speaker 1 (40:57):
I believe it was. He got a Pablo album.

Speaker 3 (41:00):
Man, he gave us eight thousand dollars apiece. Like, I'm
not saying that's a whole bunch of money, but just
for saying he was the Lord Chief Rocket number one.

Speaker 1 (41:07):
He didn't sample it, he didn't here.

Speaker 3 (41:09):
I'm gonna give you a couple bands each one of
you because I'm saying something that I respected, that I
love and it comes from y'all. I'm like, you know
what I mean, Like, shout out to yay Man, because
he didn't have to do that.

Speaker 2 (41:23):
He didn't have to even clear nothing.

Speaker 1 (41:25):
Yeah, he's one of the most genuine, generous and genuine
guys in the music industry that I met. And I
just like, you know, a lot of people try to
fault people for their passion. His passion is just high, bro.
And when you love what you love and believe what
you believe, You're gonna fight for it. You can't knock
a person for the fight just just to say I'm

(41:46):
not getting in the fight with you or I'm not
gonna help you fight. Don't knock him for the fight.
He's fighting, you know what I'm saying. And that's what
I don't like. Don't knock the man for the one
because he's out here fighting.

Speaker 2 (41:58):
He definitely is.

Speaker 1 (41:58):
It's a war. We all out of war within myself,
whether we presented or not, but we out here fighting
to be better men than we were yesterday.

Speaker 3 (42:07):
And when he came, when he came in search of
his deal man, he came to New Jersey.

Speaker 1 (42:11):
That's a fact. Another one went to Newark to get
that root had you even see on his documentary he
locked in the crib and locked in the You know,
I came to Newark too. I did my last album
five three four. I recorded it in guru crib. I
recorded it two one hundred percent.

Speaker 2 (42:31):
I recorded it Guru man.

Speaker 1 (42:33):
Niggas don't know he the ya he the Yoda of
rockaf Man Man, shout.

Speaker 3 (42:38):
Out the Guru man yo, and I'm gonna keep I'm
gonna keep our thing with us, Guru, because I know
you're not camera. Yes, but he asked me never to
say it on camera, so I respect that. But I
respect you one thousand a million percent.

Speaker 1 (42:51):
No, Gurlu, that's my guy, man and I Jay gave
lots my brother. I love him to death. I wouldn't
be here without him.

Speaker 2 (43:00):
No doubt.

Speaker 1 (43:00):
But oh he stole goo from me. My dog. Pay up, Jack,
that's my dog, pay up, that's yo dog. Worry highway
robbery for Google. Google you with me now, bro, ain't
saying no to that. No, I'm in l A right now, blink.

(43:22):
I call you back many.

Speaker 2 (43:23):
Times I've called Google too, Yo.

Speaker 1 (43:25):
Where you at goo? Oh?

Speaker 2 (43:26):
Man, I'm in the south of France with the homie.
Ye all right, cool?

Speaker 1 (43:31):
Hit you back Google in La with the homie Yo.
So from Platinum Records, Toys Gold Albums, being the first
platinum selling artists to win the Councilman seat like you said,
man to now you have a children's book. Man, you
can do it.

Speaker 2 (43:51):
All, bro Yo. With that being said, I want to
take this time, man. I want to give you a gift.

Speaker 1 (43:56):
Bro. Yeah, of course.

Speaker 3 (43:57):
Man.

Speaker 2 (43:57):
Look man, so.

Speaker 3 (44:00):
Here you go, man, I know pay pay the boss of.

Speaker 1 (44:04):
The boss I ain't even open.

Speaker 2 (44:07):
You can crack it open. You crack it open.

Speaker 3 (44:09):
But but I just because it's something in there for
you as well, you know what I mean.

Speaker 2 (44:12):
We got we got the color book.

Speaker 1 (44:14):
We got that book.

Speaker 2 (44:16):
That's the book, the children's book.

Speaker 1 (44:17):
That remember, even your adults need to know you can
still do it all. That's right and that's it. That's
just it.

Speaker 2 (44:23):
The adults reading it to their children as a reminder.

Speaker 3 (44:27):
I want to shout out my co author man Kyrie Williams,
who wrote it with us.

Speaker 2 (44:31):
So yeah, crack this open.

Speaker 1 (44:32):
Man, You package is amazing, Bro. I love the presentation.

Speaker 2 (44:38):
Man.

Speaker 3 (44:38):
I wanted to make sure you deserve it. Though I
know you smoked cigars. You might put other things.

Speaker 1 (44:45):
In the No, no, I do it the real way too, okay,
but we got the nice look at caste for you
and playing a realm. This is this is real real dip.

Speaker 2 (44:56):
But the cigar in it. I want you to understand
that this is are in it right.

Speaker 3 (45:00):
This is this right here is a Rocky Patel right
and cigar smokers know as a Rocky it's a disciple.

Speaker 2 (45:10):
You wanted the Rocks disciples.

Speaker 3 (45:12):
Bro, So I wanted to make sure that I was
intentional about get you Rocky Patel.

Speaker 1 (45:17):
Rocky Patel, This might be my new favorite cigar now word,
because all I know iskohebas.

Speaker 2 (45:23):
You know, that's the that's the that's the old throwback cooheba,
you know.

Speaker 1 (45:29):
And we got you the mom yes, the t I
was about to pull that out next. Yeah, some courage,
Yeah yeah, yeah. The tea. You know, little green tea
in the morning, don't hurt nobody.

Speaker 2 (45:38):
Why not green tea?

Speaker 1 (45:40):
Keep you mind your business too, Help you mind your business.

Speaker 2 (45:43):
Y'll help you mind your business. I'm telling you. So
we got you the mug.

Speaker 3 (45:47):
Got courage on there, because man, to keep on going
to do it after we're not doing records, Man.

Speaker 2 (45:53):
It takes courage.

Speaker 1 (45:54):
Got the puzzle this bro getting.

Speaker 2 (45:58):
For pay pay man. We got the cape in there
for her? Oh man, because I hear she's a super girl.

Speaker 1 (46:04):
That's right. She does it all, bro, that's right, so
we got to do it all. I love this man.
This is amazing, bro, Like, this is amazing man. Congratulations
on this man. The kids believe we need all the
inspiration for the new youth.

Speaker 3 (46:19):
And the last thing, man, we want to make sure
that she gets a coloring book too.

Speaker 1 (46:23):
Oh, man, appreciate it. Bro. I'm coloring too because I
got a teacher. Don't go outside the line.

Speaker 2 (46:30):
Outside.

Speaker 1 (46:30):
There can't be my kid coloring outside the line.

Speaker 2 (46:36):
Yo.

Speaker 1 (46:36):
This is amazing, bro, Thank you so much. My brother,
Kyrie irvings Man holding it down kids book. You just
said to me you want to do some kiddy stuff
to promote and inspire. I got the right crew for
you to link with. We got it, enjoy man. Thank
you man. So like I said, how did this even

(46:58):
come about? What made you want to get into the
You know, I'm gonna do the kid's book and give
the kids some hope. I love it, man, We need
it man.

Speaker 2 (47:06):
Like I can't front man. Kyrie, Kyrie Williams is the
one who he was.

Speaker 3 (47:12):
He was pressuring me to I don't know pressure in
the right world, but you know he was on me
to make my memoirs because because you know, I don't
know who that is in your life that that you
just kind of throw things off and you talk to
and even if you just just screaming that and he's
just listening, you know what I mean?

Speaker 2 (47:32):
Like we all need that sometime.

Speaker 3 (47:34):
And Kyrie was one of mine, you know, like I
could just say whatever, and then at times he'd be like, yo,
remember when you said such a I don't even remember.

Speaker 2 (47:44):
He'd be like, yo, you said such and such that
was a.

Speaker 3 (47:46):
Jewel, Like yo, And he reminds me to live by
my own words.

Speaker 2 (47:50):
That's right, you know what I mean.

Speaker 1 (47:52):
Definitely need those friends to remind.

Speaker 2 (47:53):
The elbow in your you know.

Speaker 3 (47:55):
And he was the one that he said, Yo, I
want you to you should write your memoirs because your
stories is crazy and people don't know that's a fact.

Speaker 1 (48:05):
Just a couple of things you said sitting in here.
I don't want to like yo, but bro, you got
some stories, you got some history for real man.

Speaker 3 (48:14):
And I just said, you know what, man, I'm going
I'm gonna get to it. I'm gonna get to it,
you know, being busy, we always I'm gonna get to it.
I'm gonna get to it, but tomorrow might not come right.
So he said, you know what, do you mind if I.

Speaker 2 (48:27):
Push the book along. I'm gonna call you and.

Speaker 3 (48:30):
Whatever I need from you, can you give it to me.
I'm like yeah, he said, all right, So we're gonna
start with a children's book. I'm gonna start with stories,
and I'm gonna make it palatable for young people. So
talk about your failures as a child.

Speaker 2 (48:43):
In that book.

Speaker 3 (48:44):
It talks about me running for school counsel and not
winning the first year. It talks about me going out
for the baseball team and not making it the first year.
It talks about falling and getting up and brushing yourself off.
And he pushed me to do that, man, And I'm
forever great, you know, grateful to him for that, because

(49:05):
this book is doing amazing and it's not something that
we looked to happen.

Speaker 1 (49:10):
That's the ones that work. Man. It's so crazy. It's
like that in music, bro, think about it. How many
times you recorded a song and in your mind you like,
this's the one, and then they driving me back walk
and then the record You'll be like, I don't know,
it's cool and people be like that's my joy. You'd
be like what.

Speaker 3 (49:26):
And that's happened with Funky Child chief rocker Away K Deaf,
who produced those records, who's from Jersey as well. He
tried to fast forward past those and and myself was like, yo,
well go back to those.

Speaker 2 (49:39):
It's like, y'a don't want those, Yo, they became too big.

Speaker 1 (49:44):
No way that I got a record like that round here.
Just walked in the studio just like, what the hell
is that? He's like, man, it's none, that's something I'm
just playing with. You don't want that, And I'm like, no,
put that beat on right, and it became around here,
so I know exactly. For some producers will be like
they be like us artists not ain't and I don't know,
and then we hear and be like, no, that's the

(50:04):
one right then the one they like, Yo, this is
the one I made for you. You like, I don't
like that one. Yeah, I made this, Yeah, that one like,
I don't really like the one you made for me.
So when mainstream visibility slowed up after the early nineties,
what kept the Lord's active touring internationally? Like all that stuff?

(50:25):
Besides music like af did y'all stay inspired to even
even keep going?

Speaker 2 (50:33):
Lord jazz is the glue between Lords and the underground.

Speaker 1 (50:36):
I DJ I gotta pull up on you in Miami.
Get some of the alumas. He got almas, he don't
got crazy. He got that almos. Back in the day,
we used to play with peeling off your facts that's
fact he got the real glue.

Speaker 3 (50:51):
Gazz is the centerpiece of our group because when me
and Funk as MC started to grow as men and
have different ideologies.

Speaker 2 (50:59):
And you know what I mean, and ideas, Lord.

Speaker 3 (51:02):
Jazz was like, oh, this is a covenant, you know,
this is blood brothers. Like these two are my brothers.
I don't care if I don't like them. Sometimes we
vow to each other that we would never break up.
You know that Laws of the Underground as a group
is bigger than anything that we ever did.

Speaker 2 (51:24):
Separately and outside of each other.

Speaker 3 (51:26):
So collectively we have things that we've done with each
other that we have done with no other person in
the world. Like Lord Jazz has been around us more
than he's been around his real brothers.

Speaker 2 (51:39):
I've been around.

Speaker 3 (51:40):
Lord Jazz and Funky Man more than I've been around
my sister and my brother, you know what I mean.
So they are my family, and I think that that's
what kept Laws of the Underground together is realizing that
we are more than just two MC's and the DJ family.

Speaker 1 (51:59):
That's dope, man, And I gotta definitely now gotta put
y'all on the list because I never thought about that
when I think about rap groups, groups break up. It's
only I only had two groups that never broke up,
but now it's three.

Speaker 2 (52:11):
We never broke.

Speaker 1 (52:12):
Lords of the Underground now the Locks, Smith and Western.

Speaker 2 (52:17):
Yeah, shout out to Smith and Western too.

Speaker 1 (52:19):
All the other groups, even run DMC, broke.

Speaker 2 (52:21):
Up and we modeled ourselves.

Speaker 1 (52:25):
What I'm saying, all groups, even the Vengers broke up. Ye,
all groups. So like when you trans transition, like pivot
into running the campaign and running for counselmen, Like, did
you face any skepticism from any voters or anything like
that from the yo, he's a rapper, he can't do this.

Speaker 3 (52:49):
Most definitely, Like, yeah, people did not believe. I don't
even think and this is not a dis to Mace, right,
but I think that when Mace became a reverend, a
lot of people even he just trying to get some money.
He ain't making records no more. I think people felt

(53:09):
like that about me.

Speaker 2 (53:10):
Like, ah, he ain't doing it no more. So he
trying to get some.

Speaker 3 (53:14):
A job, you know, And that's just not the case.
I thought, because I was popular in my city, that
I was still popular with the youth at the time,
that this would be a no brain up. And when
I first ran eight years ago, I lost, you know,
I lost, you know, and the.

Speaker 2 (53:34):
Seniors like, he just, what's that rapper boy that's running?
What's that rapper boy that was running from South Longe
Avenue in nineteenth Street? They got that rapper boy running?

Speaker 3 (53:46):
And I had to prove to them that I wasn't
just a rapper boy.

Speaker 2 (53:51):
I told him, like, man, I am what you guys
prayed for in the neighborhood. Y'all pray for our young
people to make it out. I am that prayer answer.

Speaker 1 (54:00):
That's right.

Speaker 2 (54:00):
So how you in front of me? And this is
how I used to talk to them.

Speaker 1 (54:04):
How you in front of me?

Speaker 2 (54:05):
Elder?

Speaker 1 (54:06):
That's right?

Speaker 2 (54:07):
Like I am what it looks like, a hip hop
grown up that made it survived, And now I'm asking
to govern where I grew up at, Like, how.

Speaker 1 (54:17):
Can you front on that? There's a lot of these
old people stuck in their ways? And then I get it.

Speaker 2 (54:22):
I definitely get it.

Speaker 3 (54:23):
And you know, I really had a tough time, but
me just showing them just being consistent and having a
track record. Just like you said you didn't know a
lot of things. There are a lot of people who
didn't know a lot of things that that was because
of me in.

Speaker 1 (54:39):
This city community.

Speaker 3 (54:40):
And then when they started to realize, wait a minute,
he did that. Oh he did that because I wasn't
asking for the fame. I had rap to make me famous,
that's right. I wasn't looking for the community to make
me famous.

Speaker 1 (54:51):
Of course, you know, we've been famous in the community
since she was a jit. Right, that's not nothing new.
That's when we first get famed. That's what it does.
Walk world, Why fans, it's the neighborhood thing. You're like,
wait a minute, I did this something live over here?
What if I go over there?

Speaker 2 (55:06):
Right? If I go over here, yeah, zoo that shine.

Speaker 1 (55:09):
That's amazing man Like, But what was the toughest adjustment?
You were saying moving from stage to the city councils.

Speaker 2 (55:17):
The toughest adjustment.

Speaker 3 (55:19):
And I think I kind of got it down, but
it's still hard sometimes.

Speaker 2 (55:25):
Is I had to build my patience, you know, I
get people come to the council meetings like that's do nothing.

Speaker 3 (55:32):
He ain't do nothing, he nothing, he ain't doing all
he yo, no way, I mean I'm being a buck
with you like yo, you know, And that's why. But
one of my mentors said, keep the receipts of all
the work you do, so they can say all of that.

Speaker 1 (55:50):
But we got receipts, you know what I mean.

Speaker 3 (55:53):
And I think it's the patience, you know, the name
calling nothing, because you wouldn't say none of that to
me if I was and.

Speaker 2 (56:00):
Councilmen in the streets.

Speaker 1 (56:01):
That's right, you would not know.

Speaker 3 (56:03):
I know you wouldn't you man?

Speaker 2 (56:07):
And you know so.

Speaker 3 (56:10):
The being patient, with the name calling, the disrespect, the
talking about your family, the all of that type of stuff.
I had to get used to that, and it's it's
very hard to get used to.

Speaker 1 (56:20):
Still.

Speaker 3 (56:21):
I learned how to endure, but it's still hard to
get used to now.

Speaker 2 (56:25):
That it's just a boxer can't complain about being a boxer.

Speaker 3 (56:29):
Right when he and a ring at me, he's hitting me.

Speaker 2 (56:34):
You know he's a boxer.

Speaker 1 (56:35):
You chose this, and I believe, like just hearing you
say it, I think my belief would be I think
they put that there to test us because we are
the minorities. That's the aggressor, they say, so if we're
gonna think, you know what, they remember being a kid,
you always get physical, you always want to get violent.
What about using your words? How you let words hurt you?

(56:57):
He didn't touch you, So that's what that sounds like.
They want to push them buttons to see how far
or how patient you really have. And me, I had
this conversation with one of my homies from the hood
about kids that grow up with fathers and kids that
don't like I know me looking at how I raised
my children, that that's something that I missed out on.

(57:19):
Not have your father president too. And I look at
all my friends that grew up with their father They
all have patience and I don't because I was raised
by a woman. What a woman gonna do everything is fuck?
What the fuck you playing with? What's you saying I'm
gonna slap that bad? So you're getting that Mom's coming
to crist They think I'm playing with this. I'm not
sending them no more. So your attitude grows off that.

(57:43):
And I feel like my friends who grew up with fathers,
like even my son, I taught him something I didn't have.
I didn't have patience, but I made sure he will
that you not gonna overreact and jump off the ledge
for things that you could just sit there and be
like man, ain't that serious.

Speaker 3 (57:58):
That's facts, man, I believe that. You know, Raising my
children with their mom is totally different because I didn't
have that. I think my mom is one of the
strongest people in the world.

Speaker 1 (58:11):
Fact, but she couldn't.

Speaker 2 (58:12):
She couldn't show me how to.

Speaker 1 (58:13):
Be a man. No one woman. We can't show a
woman how to be a woman, exactly. Man, that's a fact.

Speaker 3 (58:23):
And that's why I always looked for mentor the things
that I wanted to become in life. I looked for
those mentors, and now I wind up becoming that person
that I used to look for, you know.

Speaker 1 (58:35):
And that's dope, man.

Speaker 2 (58:36):
And I try to give that to my I give it.
I don't try.

Speaker 3 (58:40):
I give that to my my children. Whether they accept
it or not is another thing they do. They do
trust me.

Speaker 1 (58:47):
I always tell my wife, I say, Yo, we don't
know our kid when they leave our presence, we don't
know them. All we could do is hope they took
all the jewels and process them and interpreting them into
their life. But when to they leave that house. I
don't know what your kid out there doing talking lot.
I remember seeing a TikTok of my son and he

(59:08):
out there like yo, bring the right, bring the what.
When you started talking like that, he didn't even let
me follow him on TikTok because he didn't want me to.

Speaker 2 (59:16):
See who he really was, right right, right, really was.

Speaker 1 (59:21):
Yes, that's right, that's right.

Speaker 3 (59:23):
All we can do, man is give them, give them
the ingredients, give them the tools, and hope they mow
themselves and become that dish that the world appreciates you.

Speaker 1 (59:31):
That's the fact, man, I'm so appreciative that everything you've done,
everything you're doing, man, you keeping it going and you're
giving guys like me hope that you know, it's still
other chapters that you can still do to give back
because like you say, even with Freeway, I love what
Freeway doing out there with the kids, you know what
I mean. He do the schools, he go talk to
the community. He got the thing now where he doing.

(59:53):
If you lost someone and need to fit and get
that off your chance, he got the prayer channel with
you could come and kick away and talk about ups
and downs. You know, I just and I tell them
I love that that you're doing it, man, because to
turn your pain into passion is the beauty of life
to me. Man, to take something that was supposed to

(01:00:14):
destroy you and be triumphanus.

Speaker 2 (01:00:17):
I think too, Bligua. It's like, what's really the end? All?

Speaker 1 (01:00:21):
Be?

Speaker 2 (01:00:22):
All right? What I mean by that is like we
have this destination that we seeking right, all of us.
You know, I want to make it out the hood.
And the time I go to schools, how many of
y'all want to make it out the hood?

Speaker 3 (01:00:32):
Everybody raise their head, right, we want to make it
to this destination, you know, like the highway of life
to me is like you know, your eyes are like
the headlights. We see it two hundred feet in front
of us.

Speaker 2 (01:00:45):
That's when we're not moving.

Speaker 1 (01:00:46):
That's right.

Speaker 2 (01:00:47):
When you move and.

Speaker 3 (01:00:48):
You see another two hundred feet, you move a little more,
you see another. You start seeing on ramps and off
ramps that you couldn't notice off in the right right,
and you start to if you get off of some
of those on ramps and all frames, you start to
be interested in things that you didn't even know that
you would be interested in that even.

Speaker 1 (01:01:04):
While you headed towards your destination, you figure out I
like that, I like this. I would have never told
you I like.

Speaker 2 (01:01:11):
Right right, And then when you let's say fast forward.

Speaker 3 (01:01:15):
You make it to your destination and you get there
and you realize.

Speaker 2 (01:01:20):
Damn, this ain't even I want to be. But it's
more about the journey.

Speaker 3 (01:01:25):
Because the journey that made you and allowed you to
get it to your destination, we don't even really want
to be that when we get we want to be
everything that it made us to get there.

Speaker 1 (01:01:36):
That's a fact. Like to me, I don't think I
have an end destination.

Speaker 2 (01:01:42):
That's smart, And I wouldn't have said that that smart
years ago.

Speaker 1 (01:01:45):
That is very don't. I just want to keep going
till I can't go no more. I want to inspire
till I can inspire no more. And and and that's
it because the end I feel like is the end,
you know what I mean? Like, so I don't want
the end go Hell no, I'm.

Speaker 3 (01:02:00):
Glad you said that too, though, Like that you said
you want to keep inspiring and you can't inspire no
more because I think we're in an influenced stage, right.

Speaker 1 (01:02:09):
Everybody, everybody, and they not influencing nothing, Sandwich. I don't
want to influenced me how to change my life.

Speaker 3 (01:02:20):
Influence is powerful, but it ain't. It ain't really that thing.
What you said is that thing inspiration, because when you
inspired by somebody, you inspirit with it.

Speaker 1 (01:02:30):
That's right, you know what I'm saying. Believe you know
you can, man, That's what. That's what made me gravitate
to Jazz, Zoe and Jay because they from my neighborhood
and I see them with the things that I dream
about and it's like, if they can do it, I
can do it too. And that inspiration has been what
drove me my whole life. Is like to watch your
friends accomplished and it's like, man, you did it, I

(01:02:52):
could do it too. What world? What steps you took?
Then you could share tips, knowledge and game and help
each other climb instead of that's how you get out
the batton, instead of pushing your homie back in the battery.
So that's my thing, and I hope I exude that
to the people when they see me, speak to me,
meet me, listen to me, like, I hope they get

(01:03:13):
some type of inspiration to know, yo, I can do
that too, man, Like you know, that's what made me
do this because everybody was kicking the homie down or
talking about the chicks or the crimes they come in
and it's like, yo, famly all of us have more
to us than just negativity. I have way more positive
things in my life than negative things. And I don't

(01:03:34):
think the people want to heal a negative. You could
turn on the news and watch negativity all day. All
you gotta do is watch the news you want to
hear some negative.

Speaker 3 (01:03:43):
So Moman is a movement, not a movement unless it's
moving forward, man, not moving back with that.

Speaker 1 (01:03:48):
That's a fact, man. So like with this being said, right,
hip hop began as an anti establishment. How did you
or how do you navigate being inside the government while
staying rooted as a coach?

Speaker 3 (01:04:02):
You know, I used to hate politicians like all hip hop,
even when I first got in my term. Shout out
to Mayor Baraka.

Speaker 1 (01:04:10):
Man, that's right, they're holding it down.

Speaker 2 (01:04:15):
He's an artist who believes right.

Speaker 3 (01:04:19):
But I used to say to him and my team,
I ain't no politician, man, I'm just a dude that
got elected. I'm right, And the man was like, you
gotta stop saying you you're not a politician.

Speaker 1 (01:04:31):
You in it.

Speaker 3 (01:04:31):
Everything around us is politics, right, you know, it's just
how you navigated. And he created a team of people
who fought for the people.

Speaker 1 (01:04:43):
Right.

Speaker 3 (01:04:44):
So I believe that who you are is what he
was talking about, is the same thing Pac was talking about.

Speaker 2 (01:04:51):
We need to see at the table.

Speaker 3 (01:04:53):
And if we don't get to see at the table,
we got enough tools to build one.

Speaker 2 (01:04:57):
Right, So when we get at the table, now do
the things that you said you would do when you
weren't at that table.

Speaker 1 (01:05:03):
Yes. Right.

Speaker 3 (01:05:04):
And one of the things that I notice is that
people don't. They talk, but they.

Speaker 2 (01:05:09):
Don't understand until they get behind this table. Man, until
they get into any job that they say.

Speaker 3 (01:05:15):
That, oh I'll do this, I'll do that. It look easy,
but it's not. Then I'll tell you this politics stuff
is not easy.

Speaker 1 (01:05:21):
That's right.

Speaker 2 (01:05:21):
But why do I keep doing it? I keep doing
it for the people.

Speaker 1 (01:05:24):
That's right, And I don't like the people that be
Like if it was me or if I get there,
I could do this. If you wouldn't do nothing, you
would do the same thing you're doing right now, just
talking because if you really was about it, you would
be doing it. So do it. That's right. Ain't no.
If like my mom said, if it was a fifth
we all be drunk. And now I'm sobered in the job.

(01:05:44):
So what we're doing, what it's.

Speaker 2 (01:05:47):
Straight and easy to get elected.

Speaker 3 (01:05:48):
Man, There's so many different processes, there's so many real
things that you gotta deal with.

Speaker 2 (01:05:54):
I'm dressing a soup right now.

Speaker 3 (01:05:56):
I told I told Kyrie, who came with me today,
I was like, I probably won the award suit today.
But I'm literally coming out of a council meeting, a
council meeting where we're talking about eighty million dollars and
eight million dollars on this.

Speaker 2 (01:06:11):
Project and buying your new garbage trucks because.

Speaker 1 (01:06:14):
Of twenty of them broke down.

Speaker 3 (01:06:16):
And you know what I mean, just dealing with the
business of the city and shout out to my council
colleagues who always there for me to help me walk
that that walk.

Speaker 2 (01:06:26):
But it's not an.

Speaker 1 (01:06:27):
Easy thing, no man.

Speaker 3 (01:06:29):
And I know you've been in meetings or been around
meetings where they talking about real money.

Speaker 2 (01:06:34):
You know that they're no playing around, no play can't
man's lives and I got city lives, ain't no playing around.

Speaker 3 (01:06:45):
Like I'm not the I'm not the politician because I'm
hip hop and I got elected and now I'm playing.

Speaker 1 (01:06:51):
I gotta get the work I gotta right. I really
want to make change, man, that's dope. So, like, I
know you're running for re election.

Speaker 2 (01:06:58):
Yeah, man, re election too. I'm twenty six man.

Speaker 3 (01:07:01):
May twelfth is the re election man and the whole
Team Baraka.

Speaker 2 (01:07:05):
Shout out to Team Baraka.

Speaker 3 (01:07:07):
We're rocking with the mayor, Mayor Raj Baraka again man
and team Baraka. You know, uh that is myself, Councilman Duprey,
Kelly do it all as some of y'all, Councilwoman, the
Fragrance of the Council, Louis Scott, Rowntree, the President of
the council, c Lawrence Crump, south Ford Councilman Patrick Council.

(01:07:31):
You got our North Fork Councilman, Abel Rainbows.

Speaker 2 (01:07:35):
You got who else we got? We got Mike Silva
down in the east Ward.

Speaker 3 (01:07:41):
We got Quintana running for at large and that's our
team Brocca.

Speaker 2 (01:07:46):
Man, oh excuse me.

Speaker 3 (01:07:47):
And then we got our Muslim, our Muslima's sister, you know,
miss Bay, Councilwoman Bay Amina Bay. So that's our team man,
that's what we're rocking with in Newark.

Speaker 1 (01:07:56):
That's right, man. Make sure y'all get out there and
vote what you said May twelfth, Every vote count, man,
And if you want to change your community, you got
to go out there and be the voice of the community.
That's right, that's a fact, man. I vote matter. Don't
let them tell you that. Don't tell them again. Bleave matter.
Even if they want you to show y'all, d show
it because it matters. It matters now if you win

(01:08:18):
the reelection? Right when when when Blae, when when you
were not? Like I said, when when when? See to
give me tongue to when you win the reelection? What
impact do you want to be measured by? Ten years
from now?

Speaker 3 (01:08:34):
Father, ten years from now, I want to I want
them to say, this is a young man who grew
up in his city, went on to have a success
in entertainment, came back to his city, the same soiler
that birthed him, and we planted in the saw you
and did things to make it better than when he
left it.

Speaker 1 (01:08:55):
That's dope, man. What's next for you? Coming up next?
So you want the people to know besides me? May twelfth,
get out there, vote, get your butt, your ass, and
behind your feet your mouth. I don't care whatever. Vote
what's next? For money?

Speaker 3 (01:09:08):
Before I say what's next, I want to thank everybody
who goes out there and campaigns with the people that
you don't see.

Speaker 1 (01:09:14):
I see them because I ride through the council places
and all that. I'm more paid attention to it when
I moved to Florida because it's a red steak. So
you know, I started paying attention to things that I
took for granted being in New Yorker, in the blue state.
My whole life got you that you things you you
can do that they like, oh you can't do that here,
You're like since win since he said that? Like, So

(01:09:38):
I pay attention to the they be out there.

Speaker 2 (01:09:41):
Were ironic we in that building word up right, that's.

Speaker 1 (01:09:45):
Dope man, that's fire man. So what's next for the
people to expect from my guys the movement?

Speaker 2 (01:09:53):
Can we what's next for me? I just did a deal.
Sometime I don't like saying it until it's done. But
the deal is done.

Speaker 3 (01:09:59):
But what's next is you know, vertical movies are the
next thing. They're worth eight point eight billion dollars. I
just did a deal me my man, Jimbo Alexander, Jim Alexander.
We go into pre production for a vertical movie that

(01:10:21):
we got called The Shaker Unit that is coming up.

Speaker 1 (01:10:24):
We probably go.

Speaker 3 (01:10:25):
Into production, probably in April, pre production in April, then
probably after the election, we go into principal photography, micro movies,
vertical movies.

Speaker 2 (01:10:36):
It's the big thing.

Speaker 1 (01:10:38):
With that being said, do a vertical micro cube, shake
rectang right movie of your life, bro, Because to come
from what you did accomplishments the motivation from some of
these guys like come on the story about two past,
his music is inspirational for you to sit there and
say he gave you inspiration, Like then Molly Marl looks

(01:11:02):
all for nest Or, Bro. Your story, that's box office man.
Then they'll be changing your neighborhood, your roots. That's box
office bro.

Speaker 3 (01:11:13):
If you look at TikTok video, if you go back
to a laws, that underground video called TikTok see we
had tiktokk world. If you see me jumping the gate
running from the police, that's me depicting me running from
a council person in my neighborhood who became one of
my mentors, Ron Rice, Me depicting running from him. And

(01:11:34):
now I am the councilman in that neighborhood. That's crazy
life for man.

Speaker 1 (01:11:40):
Life repeats itself and I always say that. Man, that's
the one thing about living it. We love it and
I appreciate it. Man, I thank you for coming following
my brother. You much love that everything. Like I said,
get out there and vote May twelfth, we're gonna re
elect my god. Do it all for city councilmen. And
when you got time with your kids, make sure you
download that book you can do it all. We go

(01:12:02):
from rapper author the Counselman. Don't stop there, man, You
kids better know you can do anything. Man, stay silid.

Speaker 3 (01:12:10):
And on May thirteenth, about that, dude, sir, let's go,
my gee love bro.

Speaker 1 (01:12:22):
For more podcasts from iHeart Radio, visit iHeartRadio app, Apple
Podcasts or wherever you listen to your favorite shows app
and you can follow me on any social media platform
under the name Memphis Bleak. You see anybody fraud in
flagg them