#510 - Richie Rich

Interview with Richie Rich on The Bootleg Kev Podcast.

Full video version of the episode is available on YouTube!

See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:00):
You got your man, Richie rich Man live on the
West Coast down here on the LA side of things,
and you could check me.

Speaker 2 (00:04):
Out with my man my Ace Boulet.

Speaker 3 (00:07):
Care all right, man, look it's the Boot black Cat Podcast.
We got a special guest in here, Oakland legend, Richie.

Speaker 2 (00:16):
Rich what's that? What you kid?

Speaker 4 (00:18):
Man?

Speaker 3 (00:18):
I'm good, brother, I ain't gonna lie you. You always
had one of my favorite voices when I was going up,
like rather be one of my favorite Upac songs ever. Okay,
and it was so dope to see, Like I was
like scrolling and I see you pop up on at
the pergola with the Russell Right. You have this legendary
unfortunate moment for you where you.

Speaker 2 (00:37):
You say me pop up and pop down?

Speaker 3 (00:39):
Yeah you I mean you heard like you broke up
while you were Toro lower Patello. Yeah, so you fall out,
but you don't stop rapping, come on, and it becomes
like this like viral legendary moment.

Speaker 2 (00:51):
Hey, I'm man, I'm be honest with you. That shit.
I mean, I didn't have no choice really, like.

Speaker 4 (00:59):
But the dread had to be running for you to
just keep going.

Speaker 2 (01:01):
I didn't even feel the leg To be honest with you,
I didn't feel the leg. I knew my verse was coming.

Speaker 1 (01:05):
Russ was trying to pick me up, and I got
people talking about, dude, watch that, Watch how you snatched
the mic from the Russell Like you just snatched. I
took the mic and just got to it and then
I started freestyling.

Speaker 2 (01:18):
What happened in the When I go back and look
at it, I'd be like, damn, I was on point.

Speaker 4 (01:23):
You was on your was Legendar say?

Speaker 2 (01:25):
Legendar?

Speaker 3 (01:26):
Yeah, you're one of like the very few people who
were like on the ground level of like the hip
hop scene in the Bay Area.

Speaker 2 (01:36):
You were in a group of four one five frour
one five.

Speaker 4 (01:39):
Back in the day. When when would I guess when
did you initially? When did that group start?

Speaker 3 (01:44):
Just to get people a timeline, because I think the
only guy we always reference like back to the eighties
is like too short the early nineties, you know, eighties
is like short, But like you were very much a
part of that early early Bay Area movement as well.

Speaker 1 (01:56):
We came right after Short four one five We popped
in eighty nine. That's when we dropped that record, and
uh it rolled into the summer of nineteen ninety. Uh
so it was nineteen eighty nine when we dropped a
full on five record and then uh it carried the
ninety's funny you say Short was the only one, and
he was. He was our target. That's who we was.
We was gunning for Short because he was the dude,

(02:18):
you know what I mean. So he was the that's
that was the and I remember Short used to be like, man, y'all.

Speaker 2 (02:25):
Got a lot of ways.

Speaker 1 (02:25):
Y'all got little ways to go before y'all can fuck
with me, you know. And then we ended up dropping
a fall on Fire record. We was at a car
wash one day. Short pulled up and.

Speaker 2 (02:33):
We was knocking the record. He was listening. He was listening.
He looked at me. He said, all right, man, he said,
y'all got to town right now.

Speaker 1 (02:40):
He went in there and cooked that goddamn ghetto up
and came back right back backing.

Speaker 4 (02:44):
You feel you guys inspired you He's like someone coming
from me.

Speaker 1 (02:48):
I got to keep going. Yeah, but you know, dog man,
that's one of my homeboys.

Speaker 2 (02:53):
Man.

Speaker 1 (02:53):
He he brother. Yeah, yeah, man, that was brother important. Fortunately, man,
that's crazy. I think it was well, yeah, early yesterday
morning and Wayne low Man, good dude, good dude. But yeah,
short he pioneered that that thing, and uh, we came
behind him. There was other artists that were still rocking,
but four one five and we had no clue bro

(03:14):
that that ship was gonna do what it did, you
know what I mean. We just was putting music out
and that's where it started from for me, and started
in eighty nine. And then I got myself wrapped up
in a little trouble on the street hustling, and then
when I came home, I think my next play was Tupac.

Speaker 2 (03:34):
Uh the the what's.

Speaker 1 (03:36):
The album he did against the World?

Speaker 2 (03:39):
Yeah, he put on me against the World.

Speaker 3 (03:41):
And so you had already had before you got incarcerated
and got in trouble, you had already had a great
relationship of pot because people don't I mean for people
who are Tupac fans, they know Oakland roots.

Speaker 1 (03:49):
No, I didn't know Pop when when I was four
one five, when I got in trouble, I didn't know Pop.
I met him after that. I met him when I
came home. I met Tupac over a sack of weed.

Speaker 4 (04:00):
Uh.

Speaker 1 (04:00):
Chick called me and said she had a dude, the
one to buy some pot. I went over there to
serve him and it was in and then we kind
of got cool, but not on the music shit right,
just on some hanging out shit and one thing led
to another, and then I think Pac put me on.

Speaker 2 (04:17):
Me Against the World, and then the Loonies put me on.

Speaker 1 (04:19):
That remix, yes, which is and that kicked it right
back off for me.

Speaker 2 (04:24):
Yeah where are you from? Ok? Yeah, and that kicked
it right back off.

Speaker 4 (04:28):
One of the greatest remixes ever.

Speaker 2 (04:29):
Come on.

Speaker 3 (04:30):
Yeah, that's dope too because if you think about from
your perspective, you're a part of this group, then you
go away, you come home. And like at that time
I got five on. It had to be running the Bay.

Speaker 2 (04:39):
Yeah, I mean it was.

Speaker 4 (04:40):
That was a national record, but I'm sure up there
it was.

Speaker 1 (04:43):
It was killing shit. The Loonies was killing it. Yeah,
that was a big record.

Speaker 3 (04:47):
And shout out to Yuckmouth too, who went on to
have an incredible like independent run and.

Speaker 1 (04:53):
Yeah, yuck co lyricists, bro, I mean both of them,
yuck and but I mean Yuck He's always was different man,
and JJ always been different with them bars. So yeah,
JJ and them put me on a they put me on.
That's what we knew him as JJ before he came
with you. But uh, they put me on that five
on it and that spawned the death Jam deal between

(05:14):
the five on It and to Me against the World,
and then the labels start popping out, and then I
ended up over there on Death on Death Jam.

Speaker 3 (05:22):
That's dope, man, that's crazy when you found out. First
of all, were you able to hear anybody else's verses
on the remix?

Speaker 4 (05:29):
I got five on it.

Speaker 1 (05:30):
I got to the studio Lake keV. I pulled up
late because I was always in the street hustling. I
remember when I got there, Uh, forty forty had a
garbage can bro a plastic garbage can full of hurricane,
So I was like, what's in the garbage can?

Speaker 2 (05:48):
It was like drink.

Speaker 1 (05:49):
So he came with all the mix, I guess, and
poured all this shit in his garbage can.

Speaker 2 (05:53):
So I'm scooping my cus.

Speaker 4 (05:55):
Like jungle juice.

Speaker 2 (05:56):
Yeah, yeah, same shit.

Speaker 1 (05:57):
Like he mixing all this shit, but this is in
a big ass garbage I get to the studio and
I think everybody's verses was down, and I remember Young
saying double how long is it? Don't take you to
write your verse. So I started writing, and we was
drinking and smoking and just talking shit. And to be
honest with you, I hate it the verse because really,
I'm gonna tell you, the two verses that people like

(06:19):
the most from me are the two verses that I
wasn't comfortable with, even the one on me against the world.

Speaker 2 (06:25):
The certain niggas want to stick to the game because
Park was.

Speaker 1 (06:28):
Rushing me, Like, so I'm writing fast, and I figured
the bars was cool, but I just I wasn't swinging
them the way you know what I mean. Sometimes it
take you a little time to when you write something
to run run through it three or four times.

Speaker 2 (06:42):
Man, they like, come on, let's get it down.

Speaker 1 (06:44):
So both of them verses, to me, I was like, man,
I could do it. Like with Park, when you lay
something that you better lay what you want because it's stuck,
like he ain't letting you go.

Speaker 2 (06:53):
Back, and and the same thing with the five on it.

Speaker 1 (06:56):
I laid it and do to me, I mean, shot
Gee's verse was cold, Yuck's verse was cold. I had
no clue that my verse would be the verse that
everybody went to with the song.

Speaker 4 (07:10):
Yeah cut this.

Speaker 3 (07:11):
To me, it's my favorite verse on the song also
because like you just brought like.

Speaker 1 (07:15):
Your like real player shit, like right, and the thing
it was like I was, like, I said, I was
being rushed, so I didn't really I was listening because
I think they played it a couple of times and
I heard what Yuck had said and I was like, damn,
here we go. Like he was hard to come behind.
And so when I came with that where are You From?
Oakland smoke, and I was just trying to cover up

(07:38):
as many bars as I could because I didn't have
my shit together. And when the song came out, we
shot the video and like, I remember being in New
York and Justine's puff had a party and we was
in that restaurant and they played that record and when
he dropped the they dropped the music and said where

(07:59):
are you from? And I'm like, I was like, what
the fuck?

Speaker 2 (08:02):
We in New York?

Speaker 4 (08:03):
What year was the party?

Speaker 1 (08:04):
The party had to be ninety five?

Speaker 3 (08:07):
Oh shit, So this is this is before Diddy got
super weird.

Speaker 4 (08:11):
This was when the parties were still We're still like
very player.

Speaker 1 (08:14):
Yeah, it was a restaurant, so it was his son's restaurant.
So this was my first time being in one of
them events, and I remember Puff was a.

Speaker 2 (08:23):
Puff was always to me like.

Speaker 1 (08:26):
The hardest working man in the game, like they had
all the records, dude, and and it just seemed like
for me, I always felt like once you hit a
certain spot, you'd be like, all right, I'm good, I
canna lay off. But I remember going to Justice with
my manager. He was like, hey, Puffing him having a
party up here. Big was was Big there. I don't

(08:47):
know if Big was there or not. I know Craig
macnum was in there. And we came from like when
we club, we go to the bar and we buy shots,
you know what I mean, or buy solo drinks. We
never bought no bottles, so I was never into that.
And I remember they was. Puff was like, whatever you
want to drink, and at the time we was drinking
kvasi a so he like you on a bottle.

Speaker 2 (09:07):
I was like, no, I'll go to the barn, just
grab a drink.

Speaker 1 (09:09):
So we was in there and they dropped that record, bro,
And when I heard the response, I was like, they
like that off the motherfucker in New York. Yeah, And
then from there everywhere we went. I mean that record
smashing right now.

Speaker 2 (09:22):
For sure.

Speaker 3 (09:23):
It's still it's still in gold rotation all over the country.
Like you know, you turn any new mix on any
radio station, you go hear it.

Speaker 2 (09:30):
You know that five on it is a crazy record?

Speaker 4 (09:33):
Yo. That's crazy? Yo? What for you?

Speaker 2 (09:35):
Man?

Speaker 4 (09:35):
Like? Was it about? You think? Were you and Parc meeting?

Speaker 3 (09:39):
Uh?

Speaker 4 (09:40):
Doing that?

Speaker 3 (09:40):
We deal that that you guys were able to kind
of catch a vibe and fuck with each other.

Speaker 2 (09:45):
Yeah.

Speaker 1 (09:45):
It was trippy because he was making music, but he
wasn't making a kind of music we was making.

Speaker 2 (09:50):
You know.

Speaker 1 (09:50):
Four and five was like gangster hip hop, and Park
was more on the black power than he had to
Bringdus got a Baby, more conscious shit. Yeah, but we
locked up because we liked fucking with brogs, you know
what I mean. And we started going to clubs and
hanging out and shit like that. So we became homies
way before we even thought about doing any music. And
I remember he was like, man, I want to do

(10:11):
some music with you too, And I was like, well, man,
you're on the black power shit, we on the gangster shit,
and he's like, no, I got some shit like so
we just kind of start fucking around it wasn't even
music wise, you know what I mean, just hanging out
the clubs, partying like that, getting these together. And then
one thing led to another and the first record we
did was that one produced by Warren g Llt to

(10:32):
kick It. And then from there we was like we
was just locked in, you know what I mean. So
I was taking him around the town money Bee, uh
was money being him, had him and they were showing
him some ship. But then I started showing him some
other ship, you know what I mean? And uh, I
remember money.

Speaker 2 (10:48):
Be just did he just did an interview.

Speaker 1 (10:50):
I seen Money was like, well, we was running with Park,
but then once he got with Rich and Gov, it
was some whole other ship because you know we.

Speaker 2 (10:56):
Was in the street. Yeah you know, and uh I
just had him under my wing. Dude. He was just
a young dude, smooth cool.

Speaker 1 (11:03):
I didn't know he was gonna end up like the
nigga he ended up being, you know what I mean.
I couldn't see it on him, to be honest with you, but.

Speaker 3 (11:10):
I mean you hear he was like obviously a complex guy,
like a kind of and and I think all greats
are like contradictory in.

Speaker 4 (11:18):
In nature, right, you know what I mean.

Speaker 3 (11:21):
You would hear PoCA love women. He loved the party.
You also heard he had hands. He was also very
much like a revolutionary, you know, fighting a good fight.
Like you know, I feel like that era of Tupac,
you know, I feel like it's not as talked about,
like him running around the Bay Area.

Speaker 1 (11:38):
Yeah, it was layers. It was layers to him. He
was he was a he was a different kind of individual.
And I remember following him down to l A and
he was shooting all the movies and ship, you know,
shooting the Poetic Justice, and I'm like this thing over
here with Janet Jackson.

Speaker 2 (11:55):
It's different, all shit, It's different. Like he just was.

Speaker 1 (11:58):
He was just moving, moving, move And I had never
really seen it like that because we was just on
an independent level, you feel, so I had never seen
it like that.

Speaker 3 (12:07):
And just what you guys ever get any squabbles together
like with like you know, maybe leaving a club.

Speaker 2 (12:12):
You know what.

Speaker 1 (12:13):
We had a little issue in San Francisco one night
at a club called The Stone, but we didn't actually
get into a squad. Some niggas was throwing some shit
on stage, some water bottles, and I remember Pop picked
up the mic stand and kind of jabbed it down
at the DO. But it wasn't no altercation. It was
a story that surfaced like something happened in that club,
but it never really jumped off like that. But no,

(12:34):
when I was with him, because like when I was
moving around in Oakland, we wasn't having no issues like that,
so everything was smooth. I just was kind of showing
him the ropes, you know, and not trying to show
him the dope game because that's what I was dealing with,
but just kind of showing him just the city, you
know what I mean. And he was giving me the

(12:54):
slang and the ship that he was speaking from where
he was coming from, and I was like, bro, it's
different up here.

Speaker 2 (13:00):
We really just was smoking and fucking with bitches.

Speaker 3 (13:02):
That was it tell me about. So rather b is like,
it's one of my favorite Chupac songs ever. I think
it's like one of the I mean, people love that song.
It's a classic. But your guys little interaction in the
beginning back and forth, like was that like a natural
one take or did you guys rehearse that?

Speaker 1 (13:19):
No, it was one take, and it's crazy if you
listen to that record. They beat a word out like
I said, this is for the Honeyes, the super Saucy,
but they beat Saucy out. I don't know what they
thought that meant or something, but no. So I came
in the studio and Park was like rich. He said, uh,
he had just finished up writing a song. He went

(13:39):
in and laid the verses and he came out. He said, man,
we need to do something for the bitches. I said,
what you want to do? He said, I don't know,
just some shit like you know, some player shit, like
how we fuck with it? Like you know, I don't
want to I don't want to be your man. I
just want to be your nigga type shit. I was like,
all right. So then I think Johnny Ja or somebody
produced that beat. They pulled the beat up and we
was fucking around and he just start writing. So we
sitting right next to each other, he writing, and he

(14:02):
looking over what you got? Come on, man, come on?
So I'm like, spit your shit. So he wrote one
verse hella fast. He went in there in space. He's
fitting for me, right in front of me.

Speaker 2 (14:12):
So I said, okay, well I can lead off of that.

Speaker 1 (14:14):
You know, you could ride I was because he was
talking about winding and dining with the bitch, you know.
So then I said, well, you could ride out with
spoke code to get your libst and crab because all
I got it, I'm just finna dick you down, you
feel me?

Speaker 2 (14:24):
So we went from there. He heard that, then he
spread off of what I said at the end.

Speaker 1 (14:28):
Of my verse, and that shit just came to Dude.
We did that song in probably ten minutes.

Speaker 2 (14:33):
Bro.

Speaker 4 (14:33):
That's crazy.

Speaker 2 (14:34):
We wrote that song in.

Speaker 1 (14:35):
Like ten minutes, bro, And it's crazy when we went
there and laid it and then he had EBB come
sing on the hook. Once the song was done and
we sat back, he was like, Nigga, this is that
shit right here. And I mean it turned out to
be a classic record that's still like a lot of
people's favorite.

Speaker 4 (14:50):
Yeah.

Speaker 3 (14:50):
No, for sure, women love that record, love it, especially
a certain like growing up as a kid in Phoenix
surrounded by latinas certain specific type of love. The Mexican
woman pops into my head when I think of that song.

Speaker 2 (15:02):
Right, I got the baddest one though, yo.

Speaker 3 (15:07):
So you obviously man coming from the what are your
thoughts because you know the weed game I'm sure when
you were growing up right in the Bay, because it's
always been like northern California's got the best weed. Everybody
from all over the country at a certain point in time.
Not to say that they still don't, but for the
most part, like you would hear like a lot of
people's plugs would be.

Speaker 4 (15:28):
Up north, right, right.

Speaker 3 (15:30):
Is it kind of crazy to just see like the
just the pack culture becomes so like I wouldn't necessarily
say it's mainstream, but it's just it's just kind of
crazy like that, Like you know, like shipping a pound
of weed in the mail is like not that crazy anymore,
even if it gets caught up in the mail, like
you probably gonna hear about it if it's if it's

(15:51):
like one or two packs.

Speaker 4 (15:52):
Fair.

Speaker 1 (15:52):
Yeah, we came up, We came up moving white. So
when we was always secondary to whit, it just it
didn't make money like that people always smoked it. Back then,
it was only two kind of weeds. It was indo
and tie indo and tie stick, which is crazy.

Speaker 2 (16:08):
So when the.

Speaker 1 (16:09):
Weed game got to where people was pitching out of
state and getting tons of money for the shit, I
couldn't believe that you could make more money with weed
than you can do with the white. I was like,
it don't make sense, but I saw people doing it.
But then, like you say, once the legalization came in,
I remember my first time walking in the cannabis club
in Oakland, and I just felt uncomfortable in there cause

(16:32):
it was like old ladies and shit in there buying weed,
like you see, like your auntie Grandma, because she come
in she kicking her shit out. Yeah, And I was tripping, bro.
I was like, this shit don't even seem real. And
like now I'm still I wanted to bring some weed
down there with me, but just the d boy in media,
I can't erase the fact that they're gonna run through

(16:52):
my bag and take me to jail. It still don't
seem real to me. But like you said, I know
motherfuckers who just put weed in they carry on, oh,
staying it and raw.

Speaker 3 (17:03):
I've been going through TSA and I've seen them move
my weed out of the way to pull a microphone
out and be like, oh, it's just the Michael, and
then put it back and just just it's obviously weed.

Speaker 1 (17:13):
Like man, I went, I went to New York, dude
and didn't take no weed, and you.

Speaker 4 (17:18):
Didn't need to if you went recently, you didn't need
to take It's everywhere. Hey.

Speaker 1 (17:21):
The hotel I stayed at right across the street, they
had like a it looked like it was a smoke shop, right, yeah.
So I walked in. I said, man, y'all see a weed.
He's like, no, we just cut the little pipes and
zags and all the ship. So I bought some some
raw papers, some vibes, I mean, yeah, shot to n
be mad at me.

Speaker 2 (17:40):
Sorry, sorry burn. Yeah, I bought some vibes.

Speaker 1 (17:43):
And then when I'm walking, I said, man, y'all, don't
know where I'm gett no weed from. And the dude
was looking at me, and then he was like you
where you live at? I said, California. He's like, all right,
I got some weed. I said, what you got? So
he whispered something to his man. This man went out
the front door. Took him about five six minutes. He
came back with a bag and had all type of apes.
I was like, damn, okay, because I remember having to
go to Branson to Bye the we you know, and

(18:05):
I remember he's not around. Yeah, and then we just
it wasn't all that good.

Speaker 4 (18:09):
You know, they're doing full sessions.

Speaker 3 (18:10):
Like if you go to Central Park there's dudes just
with fold up tables with just if you go to
like Bodega's.

Speaker 4 (18:16):
They got shrooms on display. Right, what the is going on?

Speaker 2 (18:20):
It's going down.

Speaker 3 (18:21):
I think we were there the week it got legalized,
and it was like a flip switched.

Speaker 2 (18:26):
It was crazy instantly it was just nothing to everything,
just like that.

Speaker 3 (18:29):
And it's like early like Cali legalization days where it's
kind of the wild wild West still right, you know.

Speaker 4 (18:34):
So yeah, New York's wild right now. Dude, it's it's
it's pretty crazy.

Speaker 3 (18:39):
Talk to me about uh, you know obviously, man, you
just dropped a new record called Richard, which is out.
You got Larry June on there, you got some of
the younger guys, you know. I mean, I feel like
the Bay Area is somehow there's so many wins in
the industry when we look at guys like Russell and
we look at you know, Larry Junior, even a guy
like like g Easy who redid the West Coast record.

(19:03):
But why is it you think that the Bays I
feel like always kind of the underdog and hip hop
and doesn't get the credit.

Speaker 2 (19:09):
I don't, man, you know what, I'm being honest with you, kid.

Speaker 1 (19:12):
It's rough because we started a lot of the trends,
you know what I mean. But the way I look
at it and the way I look at it is
different than the way a lot of the young artists
look at it because they always what the normal chatter is,
people steal are shit, we don't get no run with it.
But the way I look at it is you know,

(19:34):
le Or and Russell taught me how music works and
basically gave me an.

Speaker 2 (19:42):
Example of.

Speaker 1 (19:44):
Record companies are like helicopters, and they fly over markets
and they try to see how many people are in
the market. So when they flew over the Bay Area
at the time, it was probably about a sixty thousand
unit market between Oakland, San Francisco, San Jose. You could
move about sixty thousand units there. So they pick up
artist up from there, sign him to the label, put

(20:07):
him with other artists that are hot, so people in
his region see him and then they come support. So
that's how the labels suck that sixty thousand you know,
get those sales. But what's crazy is, guys, from where
I'm from can put a record out with a sound

(20:28):
and it'll only go so far, and then somebody else
will take that same sound and it'll just take off.
I don't know what causes that to me, and I
could be wrong. To me, if your shit is dope,
it usually breaks through and it don't take long. Usually

(20:49):
when it's something is hot, you see Mazi that you
put that first blooded out, pay out right the right
off the rip.

Speaker 4 (20:55):
I mean, shot, you got a gold record here?

Speaker 2 (20:57):
Yeah, come on, shout out Mazi. Uhh. To me, that's
how it works.

Speaker 1 (21:01):
But then I see, to me, I feel like some
of our artists it's not that they don't know what
to do, but they don't know what not to do
as much. And sometimes when you get to see too
much of a situation, then you'll be like, damn, well

(21:22):
if it was that, why would dude do this? You know,
it's just like social media. I'll see posts with some
of the guys and you'd be like, that's dope, and
then you'll keep scrolling, you be like, damn, why the
fuck would he post this? Like so, to me, less
is more you give them if you let them see
the right shit, I think you got action.

Speaker 2 (21:42):
But What happened with us is we never really had.

Speaker 1 (21:46):
Production like LA had production, like New York had production
in the early age. Like DJ Durrell he produced our
four one five record, he had some heat. But like
now we got the groups like the Mechanics, like Dudes
who got beats. But before I think the Bay Area
got slapped see.

Speaker 2 (22:06):
But pre Pilo, pre the Mechanics. I don't think our
production was.

Speaker 1 (22:11):
Accepted by the rest of the world because it was
basically just baselines, you know. I mean, we was just
rocking over baselines because we come up on the too
short defunct.

Speaker 2 (22:20):
That's like what we run with.

Speaker 1 (22:22):
But around the world they want more than that. They
need you to come with something that they can get with.
And I think LA produces a more national sound as
opposed to our shit is it's bay Area laden because
it's built for the streets of Oakland. Is built for

(22:42):
the trunk or the cougar, It's built for the trunk
of the Mustang. A lot of people come and be like, Hey,
this shit is dope, but people be wanting a little
bit more musical, not just baslines. I don't know, bru
It's like it's like the Bay Area. It seems like
people say we got a curse on because there's a
lot of talented dudes up there.

Speaker 3 (23:02):
Bro, and like a lot of like I mean, there
are records being sold out of the Bay. It's just
like the and you know, I got it. It's crazy
to think, like the most commercially successful rapper outside of
like forty and too short to ever come out of
the Bay.

Speaker 1 (23:17):
It's g easy, exactly. And it's a lot of talent
in there, a lot of talent in there.

Speaker 2 (23:21):
Yeah.

Speaker 3 (23:22):
G's like showed so much love, took everybody on the
road with and put everybody on all his albums, you know,
when he's going crazy.

Speaker 1 (23:28):
And G's doing real well for himself. It's weird, bro,
because because I think.

Speaker 3 (23:34):
Like I think about the Pack and I'm like, okay,
the Pack sonically before a little B went did his
little b shit the Pack? To me, when I think
of the jerk movement in LA and I think of
the Mustard shit h the League of Starshit, I think, well, damn,
like the Pack, we're kind of making it.

Speaker 2 (23:48):
They did that first.

Speaker 4 (23:49):
It was like their bag, you know what I mean,
Like sonically, you know.

Speaker 1 (23:52):
Yeah, it's weird. I don't know, if I don't know
if it's our business. You know, we don't do good business.
I don't know what it is. Because it's been a
lot of dope ass music that comes from the Bay.
I don't want to be one of them dudes who
sit there and be like, yeah, we put it out,
they take it and run with it.

Speaker 3 (24:10):
I mean sometimes two it's also like getting at it,
like I feel like I'm friends with a lot of
artists from the Bay and a lot of people who
are you know, big deals in the Bay, like behind
the scenes. I go out there a lot. I feel
like too a lot of times, like the getting popping
in the city is it's it's almost like it's not

(24:31):
necessarily enough. But if if that's what the main objective is,
and then and then you're changing your life right, cracking regionally,
I don't know if you have the incentive to be
like you're gonna go hate Atlanta for like a summer
when network and now in the studio.

Speaker 2 (24:46):
That's what I'm talking about.

Speaker 3 (24:48):
Istoven, right, Jaethoven's from the Bay. Right, It's like it's
not Zetoven who's from the Bay?

Speaker 4 (24:55):
Is it Aetoven? What's to do from the.

Speaker 2 (24:57):
Bay that did all the shit of Goujie from the Bay,
the dude.

Speaker 3 (25:02):
Who fucking produced the four fifteen album for Ghazi. He's
a fucking that everyone thinks he's from Atlanta.

Speaker 2 (25:08):
That must be saying. It might be I didn't know.

Speaker 4 (25:12):
They might be wrong. I'll tell you right now. Actually
what's the uh?

Speaker 1 (25:15):
But see like you, that's when I when I mentioned
the business. That's what I'm talking about. Like, you got
to move it around. You got to be able to
get on the plane, go sit in some other places network,
you know what I mean. And I think for the
longest Oakland has been like it's a world to us,
you know what I mean, it's like the Oakland world.
If you can hit here, if you feel like you

(25:37):
didn't hit everywhere, but you got to move it around.
And uh, a lot of the artists, like you said,
you we make it here and this is it.

Speaker 2 (25:47):
It's like we don't move out. I call it the
Chitlin circuit.

Speaker 4 (25:50):
Yeah, for sure, that's what I call it.

Speaker 2 (25:52):
I'd be like.

Speaker 1 (25:55):
Vegas Portland, you know, yeah my death so yeah, you
just be on that on that little ass track, you know,
but you got from uh.

Speaker 3 (26:06):
Jose No, No, is that the guy who did the
four fifteen I'm Gazi was fucking with him all broke.

Speaker 4 (26:12):
I don't think it's Aetoven. I think I'm tripping.

Speaker 2 (26:13):
You're talking about uh, you're not talking about what to
call him? What's that boy name? Not chopped? What is
that boy? Man? I know you're talking about tip of
my tongue Istoven.

Speaker 4 (26:25):
I don't know if he's from the Bay, but he
did spend up there. He's got Bay roots and he
did that.

Speaker 3 (26:30):
I know, you know, I know, I know. I was
surprised to hear that it is. I A'm thinking, is
Atoven Man?

Speaker 1 (26:34):
I was about to say, shit, I need some of
them to say the zay got knocks too.

Speaker 3 (26:37):
I know you had some Bayarrier roots for sure, because
he did. He did that whole album with Remember that
album Ghazi put together that it was four fifteen, right,
they were calling it, you know whatever. I'm curious, man,
what are your thoughts on? You know, Oakland as a
whole has gotten like a national It's kind of like
the punching bag for like the rest of America to

(26:58):
be like, this is what happens when they're shitty Democratic
policies in and out. Burger closes and your car is
getting bipped, and they gotta close Walgreens and all the
ship's locked up in the grocery stores.

Speaker 1 (27:10):
Hey, I come, I come from the old Oakland where
that ship was lovely. It's different now, bro, it's I mean,
it's just, man, it's different up there.

Speaker 2 (27:19):
It's different. It's just these these youngsters.

Speaker 1 (27:22):
Man, there's just a different breed of a young man
moving around there.

Speaker 2 (27:26):
Bro. It's wild, but it.

Speaker 1 (27:28):
Was always wild like, but it was wild with some
fear of your parenting.

Speaker 4 (27:35):
Wild with a with a dash of principle. Yeah right,
there's a line here.

Speaker 2 (27:39):
Yeah, right, right now.

Speaker 1 (27:40):
These youngsters they don't they don't respect nothing. The ain't
afraid of nothing.

Speaker 2 (27:43):
Man.

Speaker 1 (27:43):
And then you can feel it outside, like like you say, bipping,
they breaking windows and taking shit out of cars.

Speaker 4 (27:50):
You could be in the car.

Speaker 2 (27:51):
Yeah.

Speaker 1 (27:52):
I remember I pulled up in front of FAB store
and walked across the street. Fab say, w you got
anything in the car. I was like, Noah, I got
somebody sitting in there. He said, double, They'll go in
there with the motherfucker's sitting in there. And I'm like, huh,
I've never been billed, but everybody that I know been
hit at least four times.

Speaker 3 (28:11):
Yeah, it's crazy because All Star weekend's coming up right,
Oh my god, it's about to be great people. Oh what,
there's so many people coming in down that the fucking
idea where it's about the Cameron tried to tell them
they gonna get a fucking rental car.

Speaker 4 (28:26):
They're gonna have their shit, and they ain't gonna have
this shit.

Speaker 2 (28:28):
It's gonna be a lot of glass on the ground.
I'll tell you that.

Speaker 3 (28:30):
We're gonna fucking see Erdie Johnson on T and tving like, guys,
I know you see me in a sweatsuit, but my
suit was just stolen.

Speaker 2 (28:35):
Oh man. They didn't hit news cruise for cameras all
kind of shit. Oh yeah, yeah, I ain't doing fuck
around you.

Speaker 4 (28:41):
And then two weeks later hit the mission and get
stuff very cheap.

Speaker 2 (28:44):
And a lot of that started with.

Speaker 1 (28:47):
Little motherfucker's breaking in a car, catching a dude who
just came from the airport trying to come by two
three hundred pounds. Oh yeah, and they hit for four
hundred thousand, three hundred thousand, And when you tell your
buddies you just hit for three hundred, now they think
it's three hundred in every car they look in to hit.

Speaker 4 (29:06):
The numbers game. It's like scratching a lot of the ticket.

Speaker 2 (29:09):
And that ship series up there, Bro, you will get
your shit bipped.

Speaker 3 (29:13):
Yeah me, my boy, My boy John. You might know
John Coston. Shout out to John. He he just opens
his trunk and rolls all his windows down.

Speaker 2 (29:21):
That's what they say you need to do. I'm not
doing that.

Speaker 3 (29:24):
He's like, yeah, yeah, because he's like, I got a Tesla.
It's a bitch for me to get my window fixed.
He's like, so I'd rather them just go through the car,
see nothing's in here, and then like, don't break my
window so I don't have to like go through a
two week process of getting my window fixed.

Speaker 1 (29:37):
When that ship first started, it was a dude on Instagram.

Speaker 2 (29:41):
I don't know where he's from, but.

Speaker 1 (29:42):
He he pulled up, got out, rolled his windows down,
opened the trunk, the hood, all four of the doors.
Then he started walking towards the store. He came back,
opened the glove box and he was looking at the car.
He's like, I should be straight, and he walked. I'm like,
see for me. If I'm gonna leave my car open,

(30:03):
I feel like somebody can go steal it, you know
what I mean, even if it ain't shit in there.
But you can drive past places in Oakland and see
all the cars parked with the windows down, like, come on, yeah,
ain't nothing in here.

Speaker 4 (30:16):
I gotta take my charger with me.

Speaker 2 (30:18):
Hey, they done bipped moving cars. You don't seen it?

Speaker 3 (30:22):
Like that car that I think just left the airport
and they had all their luggage in the back, and
I think there was like a fork.

Speaker 4 (30:29):
On the freeway.

Speaker 2 (30:29):
Try to get onto the bridge right, yes.

Speaker 4 (30:31):
And then they hit them and then hit the other way.

Speaker 1 (30:33):
And then let me tell you something I saw my
first live bipping. I was at a a grow, a
place where they sell grow equipment.

Speaker 2 (30:44):
I was talking to one of my homeboys when the
parking lot and this truck pulls in and parks. I
ain't even paying attention to the truck.

Speaker 1 (30:53):
Only reason I know about the truck now is because
I saw the move in comes this little Toyota zooms up.
I mean, call the motherfucker stopped. Like equivalent to where
that computer is? We standing here talking, One dude jump
out by break the back window of this tie hall
jumps in there. I mean to where his waist all.

(31:13):
You see his feet in the air. His homie stealing
the car with the heat comes up out of there
with two big ass bags. Throw them on the ground,
jump in there, grab some more. Won't open his boy
popped the trunk.

Speaker 2 (31:25):
Dude.

Speaker 1 (31:25):
They was in and out in seconds. So the dude
I'm talking to, he owns this place to sell the
grow equipment. He said, damn, they just hit Dude. They
must have followed him coming from his grow. I said
he had weed there. He said, yeah, them bags was
full of weed. I was like, damn, that's crazy. They
zoom out the parking lot. Now the way the parking
lot is set up, you come in from here. This

(31:46):
car sparked here, so they zoom in. Bubb of them
hit him and go this way out and around. So
the parking lot it's a big square. keV were sitting
there talking. This motherfucker's come back, zoom right back up.

Speaker 2 (32:01):
There, stop again, get more.

Speaker 1 (32:03):
No, I think his gun when he went into the window,
fell out, fell out into the car, came back, dived
back in the window again, went opened the doors and
found the pistol, got up, got back in the car
and left. I said, boy, this shit crazy, but the
cold thing about it brave. It was in and out, dude,
it seemed like twelve to fifteen seconds.

Speaker 4 (32:23):
Well, the tools that they used to break the window,
I know sometimes.

Speaker 3 (32:26):
They'll use like spark plugs, right, but they sell these
little like uh yeah, they got a little button. Now
you just and it just it just it's it's it's
some Batman shit for real. Honestly, it's some real Batman shit.
It's like the Bippers are modern day Batman.

Speaker 1 (32:38):
Well now they're taking Now they're taking your cars like
hellcats and you can't you can't keep.

Speaker 4 (32:44):
A hell cat because it just gets stripped down.

Speaker 1 (32:46):
No, man, they coming to get that motherfucker. I don't
care where it's at. Oh no, they come with this
satellite dish looking thing. One dude that's holding the thing.

Speaker 4 (32:54):
Oh yeah, yeah, that's by your house.

Speaker 2 (32:56):
Yeah, because the door, and the other dude's on the door.
You hear he crawling there out that motherfuckers start up
and they go yeah no.

Speaker 3 (33:04):
So what they say is they that there's these metal containers.
If you're worried about that, there's like these metal containers
that you're supposed to keep your key in in your
house because if someone pulls up that little thing, it's
supposed to kind of magnify whatever signal your key gets off.
If your key's in the house. A lot of people
when they come in, they put them by the door, right,
So there's these that's the thing. There's now they sell

(33:26):
these metal boxes that you put your key in, put
your keys in, and but you know that sh it's crazy.

Speaker 2 (33:31):
They sell all these priuses too. You need to get
a fucking prius because.

Speaker 4 (33:34):
Nobody wants the prius and it's good on gas.

Speaker 1 (33:37):
But they'll take your Calidi converter off that motherfucker got
right now. Stealing is just it's at an all time high, bro,
Like you can't have shiit no more, Like they'll hunt
you down.

Speaker 3 (33:46):
I think what happened in LA was like during the pandemic,
the influction or the influx of money that came in
because of like all the PPP and the DD.

Speaker 4 (33:55):
Shit was crazy.

Speaker 1 (33:56):
That's what happened banks And when that ship, when once
it was gone, they went it's like, well, fuck, I'm
used to this shit.

Speaker 2 (34:02):
It was in Oakland too, everybody was rich.

Speaker 4 (34:05):
I like nineteen forty two there was.

Speaker 1 (34:06):
A segment and it's funny you say that there was
a segment and a time in Oakland where it was
so many nineteen forty two bottles. Okay, so you know
that how they do the memorials when somebody get killed
and you might see a couple of Hennessy bottles, and
it got to where it was all class a alzou
all forty two bottles. You just look down and you're like, Dan,

(34:27):
that's twenty thousand dollars worth of liquor right there.

Speaker 4 (34:30):
Like, yeah, the pandemic made tequila crack boy.

Speaker 1 (34:33):
Like and everybody was getting that money. Then it was gone.
And once it was gone, that's when it started happened.
Motherfuckers just starting licking shit.

Speaker 3 (34:41):
Yeah, I think I think find like me and a
men were talking because we're like, there was like a
little period of time where like the nightlife in the
Bay was a little fucking dried up, and he said
it's starting to come back. I mean, I feel like
it's always kind of been right in Oakland.

Speaker 1 (34:54):
Well, you know what our problem is, what our night
life is. We used to have Hello spots, No, it
used to be crazy. Now it's only a few spots.
But the violence and the windows being broken people just
like I don't want to go out, you know what
I mean?

Speaker 4 (35:10):
Yeah, when I go out, I mean when I go
to the Bay. Dude, I'm in a fucking uber there
you go. Yeah, that's it.

Speaker 2 (35:15):
Uber.

Speaker 1 (35:15):
You got an uber because shit, when when you leave
your car somewhere, nine times out of ten, you're gonna
come back when your window's gonna be gone. It's slowed
down a bit though, Like I was asking some of
my people who be really outside fucking with it, and
they's like, it's not as bad as it was. But
right and like you said, right when that pandemic money
dried up.

Speaker 2 (35:33):
The two right after that, this year was crazy.

Speaker 4 (35:39):
It was crazy. You are you are you paying Obviously.

Speaker 3 (35:42):
You've always had a relationship with guys from sack Shot
to see Boing those guys, But are you paid attention
to what's.

Speaker 4 (35:48):
Going on in Stockton?

Speaker 3 (35:49):
Like Stockton's got a lot of motion, but it's also
like seemingly the most violent place in California and everyone's
getting arrested or killed out there.

Speaker 1 (35:57):
Like so Stockton is an overdraft city, just like Antioch.
I got a place in Antioch. They built all these
new cities and these new homes and in effort to
get people to move out of the Oaklands. The San Francisco's, Yeah,
because they want those cities back, because they got ports,
they got all these nice.

Speaker 4 (36:17):
Houses, and all the tech money came, all the.

Speaker 2 (36:19):
Shit came in.

Speaker 1 (36:20):
So as far as the violence that's going on in Stockton,
I'm not up on that, but they do have a
bunch of little hot artists. This moving Stockton got some
motion right now. Yeah, I'm in a young kid named
Haiti Baby. Yes, Haiti is killing it. It's a couple
other Stockton. Stockton on fire right now. As far as

(36:40):
the young rapt just like they don't fire.

Speaker 3 (36:42):
Just stop beefing. Yeah, you know, like Haiti Baby, he's
a sharp dude.

Speaker 4 (36:46):
He got out, even made the run in La. You're
working with j Z now.

Speaker 3 (36:51):
He had a viral freestyle on our show that Rihanna reposted.

Speaker 4 (36:56):
Did you ever see his freestyle.

Speaker 3 (36:57):
He had or he was like hi, hi, Hi, No,
but oh my god, it was it was insane.

Speaker 1 (37:02):
It was like everywhere he's been moving, bro. I was
actually I'm doing some shows with Haiti. They say he
was in New York right now doing a great guy
went to do.

Speaker 4 (37:10):
Uh also makes me feel fat every time the radar.

Speaker 1 (37:13):
Yes, yeah, yeah, you know what, He's got a different
kind of energy and he kind of reminds me of.

Speaker 2 (37:17):
The pock Ship, you know, because he in shape.

Speaker 4 (37:19):
I see that.

Speaker 1 (37:20):
We get to pulling his shirt off type ship, you know.
And and and chicks love at his shows. Be loaded
with bitches, you know what I mean. But yeah, Stockton,
they got a movement going right now. For sure they
got they got a movement. It's like five or six
little artists coming up out of stock and that's kicking
up some dust right now.

Speaker 4 (37:38):
Talk to me about the Death Jam days, because at
that time it's really you. I don't know if Joe
Felon he was on Death.

Speaker 1 (37:44):
Jamp yet when from the West, when I got to Warren,
me and jail right, what was for you?

Speaker 4 (37:52):
Like? Obviously you also run some big soundtracks. Show on
the Naughty Professor soundtrack, I want to say soul food.

Speaker 1 (37:58):
Oh no, we did Nutty Professor. We did uh how
to be a Player?

Speaker 4 (38:03):
How to be a Player. I just saw Bill Bella,
he came a pizza shop shot.

Speaker 1 (38:07):
Yeah, me and Me and Quick and Rick James did
a song on I Believe how to.

Speaker 2 (38:12):
Be a Player. Rick James, Rick, the real Rick James.
Now let me tell you about that.

Speaker 4 (38:17):
Did you guys meet him?

Speaker 1 (38:18):
Yeah, we came to the studio Quick had him, had
him at the studio. Rick was there and the boy
Danny who play on the horn and them niggas was
in there barefoot. Now this is the second time I
seen this barefoot ship with these ogs. George Clinton stopped
by a studio that I recorded called the Grill in Emoryville,

(38:38):
which is in Oakland similar to Oakland's closer. We call
it em Oakland, but it's really Emoryville, and Clinton was
in there. They was in there singing barefoot, and we like,
what talk about this barefoot ship? So when I went
and did the ship with Quick, we a quick studio
and Rick is there. Now you you got to know
we in here with the super freak Rick James. This

(39:00):
shit is crazy, right because I grew up my parents
and them listening to this shit. So Rick and his
man on the horn, Danny, you know when he say
blow Danny and on the sacks, these dudes is barefoot.

Speaker 2 (39:13):
So I asked Rick, I said, man, what's the barfoot shit?
I said, because I seen.

Speaker 1 (39:18):
George do the bearfoot of shit, and he said, oh,
you didn't know the funk is in the floor. I said, well,
he said, the funk comes from the floor and comes up.
He said, but if you got on them shoes with
the rubber soles, it comes up and it goes right
back down. So the next time I saw George at
the grill, I just ran it by him. I said, Man,

(39:39):
what's the barefoot shit? He said, Well, that's the only
way you're gonna get the funk, he said, because the
funk comes up from the floor. He said, So when
you barefoot, as the funk comes up, it comes up
through you, he says. That's why we did all our
shows barefoot back in the day, he said. And you know,
you see it's wearing them platform boots and shit.

Speaker 2 (39:58):
He said. But when we was recording the records, we
was recording the shit barefoot.

Speaker 1 (40:02):
Damn, they said, because the funk is in the floor.
And then I learned not to cut you off. I
learned later on that's why they put rubber on the
bottom of shoes so we don't catch the herb's vibration,
because once it comes up electricity. Rubber is the only
thing that rebels it. So I think it's some truth
to that.

Speaker 4 (40:20):
Quite possibly was Rick like all that. You know, sometimes
sometimes you meet somebody who you grow up loving.

Speaker 2 (40:26):
And then he was cool as a motherfucker. The thing
was he.

Speaker 1 (40:31):
Quick, He was he was fucking with me, but he's
really fucking with Quick, you know what I mean, Quick Quick? Yeah,
And I was, you know, they featured me on the record,
you know, definitely kind of just put me in that space.
But once I laid the verse and ship and I
got to holler at him, it's just just a.

Speaker 2 (40:48):
Player, bro.

Speaker 1 (40:49):
He went in there and sung that it was a
remake of one of his old songs, hard to Get,
And I mean, dudes sound exactly like the old record.
Just went in there and just start cooking, bro. Like
that's one thing about all them old artists, Dude, the
motherfuckers was special with that ship. And I remember talking
to Quick me and Quick sitting back watching him cook.

(41:09):
We were like this nigga right here, the truth and
Quick on the beat and ricking.

Speaker 2 (41:13):
Hear it and his man on the horn.

Speaker 1 (41:15):
So that was that was the start of my When
I got to death Jam, like I said, it was
a ben war with with other labels, but I was
like I could go fuck with Russell Simmons, Like I
got to this is LLL cool J.

Speaker 4 (41:28):
This is that.

Speaker 1 (41:29):
So that's why I went to death Jam. Uh Tina,
shout out Tina Davis. She's the one who plugged me
with the deal.

Speaker 4 (41:34):
She's in the bay now shot.

Speaker 2 (41:36):
She out there working with Gazi. Yeah.

Speaker 1 (41:37):
Yeah, So Tina plugged me with the deal. And then
when I got to death Jam, I got to see
music on just on a bigger level, you know what
I mean.

Speaker 2 (41:45):
So I got plugged on some some soundtracks. Uh.

Speaker 1 (41:48):
My manager at the time, rest in Peace, Dominum Toome,
he was putting me, put me on New York undercover.

Speaker 2 (41:54):
It was just like a lot of ship that was
happening fast.

Speaker 4 (41:56):
For a guy Leoren, Like is he as advertised or shark.

Speaker 1 (42:02):
Leord the truth? You know a lot of people say
weird shit about Leor. I don't have nothing. I don't
have nothing bad I can say about nobody at Deaf Jam,
and I met them all, Julie Greenwall, Tina Davis, Leor Cohen,
Kevin Lyles, Michael Kaiser, all of them. Dude, just serious
about this music business. But Leor was the ring leader

(42:23):
of that shit and he just pushed a line. I
remember one time we went to I wanted to buy
some weed. I was in New York. They had an
apartment for me out there. I was living in Jersey City.
So Leo is like, let's let's go out and fuck
around a little bit.

Speaker 2 (42:38):
So we fuck around.

Speaker 1 (42:39):
We jump in the black truck and he takes me
down to one hundred and forty fifth down there in
Les and he's like, you can get your weed right there.
That's Brentson going there and get you some weed. I said,
all right, I said, you coming in. He said no,
I'm I'm gonna bounce. I'll just leave the car here
with you. And I said you're gonna bounce? He said, yeah,
I'm good wherever I go. And he just jumps out

(42:59):
of a car at fucking two in the morning, dude,
and just starts walking up the street. And I'm like,
the fuck Like, I mean, Leor was the first person
I saw. He asked me one day. I think we
were in la He said, rich, you need money? I
said yeah. He said, come on, let's go to the
to the bank machine. So we go to the tailor.
He said how much you need? I said, shit, I

(43:21):
don't know.

Speaker 2 (43:22):
Now.

Speaker 1 (43:22):
I thought tailors only give you three hundred dollars. I said,
this motherfucker pull about nine thousand dollars out of a
tailor machine at ATM, out of an ATM bro And
I had never seen no shit like that.

Speaker 4 (43:35):
Because you, I mean, I think you set your limit.

Speaker 1 (43:36):
But yeah, yeah, I was like, what the fuck is
going on? But Leor he is definitely a shark. But
the boy, I mean, he gets it done. He gets
it done. Don't the funniest thing that I've ever heard
him do. He put me on the spot.

Speaker 2 (43:51):
One time.

Speaker 1 (43:52):
They had a meeting and a PolyGram meeting in San
Francisco at some big hotel and he was like, Rich,
I'm in town, Come fuck with me. I said, all right,
So I pulled up on her. He said, I got
this board meeting to go to. Then we can hang out.
He said, just roll with me. So we get to
the board meeting and he goes up there and he
gets on stage and he's telling PolyGram, you know, about
what they did with last year's money and what's gonna

(44:13):
happen with the next budgets, and then he just breaks
out and he's like, you know, we've never signed anybody
from the Bay Area, you know, and it's a lot
of talent here.

Speaker 2 (44:20):
But I think we found our jewel. And he's here
in the building. Richie.

Speaker 1 (44:23):
Rich come up here and then walked me up on stage.
He said he can talk a lot better than I can,
and he.

Speaker 2 (44:29):
Walked off stage. Dude, I'm sitting on the stage with
these three hundred people, and I'll just start popping it,
you know, just start.

Speaker 4 (44:39):
You did that no idea that it was gonna happen.

Speaker 1 (44:40):
No, he don't give you no lead up. When he
was finished, he's like, you're my fucking man. That's why
I love you. Like a fucking chameleon, Richie. I can
just set you down anywhere and you adapt. But he
was he was a he was a dog when it
comes to the business. I used to see him on
two phones. Dude, he'd be on this phone. Look, he'd
be like, yeah, no, we're gonna get it done. Hold

(45:01):
on one second, No, no, no, tell him to get
it Okay, give me two seconds.

Speaker 2 (45:06):
I told her I need it done. I want to
fuck it done. Hold on, yes, no, we're gonna get
I mean, dude, I was like, this dude's a fucking
maniac now popping from wild to calm. And then he's like,
sorry about that, Richie, where were we? I'm like this,
do this?

Speaker 3 (45:26):
Yeah, you know he always gets a lot of help
for making the three sixty deal thing. But I saw
the way he explained it, and for a lot of
artists how he explained it made sense because he's like, look,
if you and I start a restaurant together and I
invest all the money. Let's say you're the chef, and
then the restaurant it goes crazy, and then you decide

(45:49):
to bottle up the sauce from the restaurant and sell
it at Walmart. It's the restaurant sauce. Put the money up.
You brought the food to the table, but I put
the money up. Shouldn't I get a cut of the
sauce is getting sold a Walmart?

Speaker 2 (46:01):
You better know?

Speaker 4 (46:02):
So it's like and.

Speaker 3 (46:02):
I think you know, But then you see people who
don't need that or aren't. That's where it's all about leverage,
right situations. It's like you're like, if you're the Russell,
you could tell label go fuck yourself exactly because you're like, yo,
I'm making more money than you can offer me. Fuck
your advance until and he's not you know, the Russell's
not against signing a major deal.

Speaker 4 (46:20):
He said that.

Speaker 3 (46:20):
He's like, Yo, the right deal comes along, sure, but
for now, like funk Off, I'm not getting taken it, you.

Speaker 2 (46:25):
Know what I mean.

Speaker 1 (46:25):
Like he told me, The Russell was like, it ain't
even so much about the money for me rich as
much as it is if I make a hot record
tonight and I want to put it out tonight, I
want to freedom, he said. I don't want to ever
lose that, he said. And that's kind of what fucks
it up for me with you.

Speaker 4 (46:42):
Know, you're fully independent right now. Yeah, what's your distro through?

Speaker 1 (46:47):
I'm through the Empire. I'm with Ghanzi since he was
in Grooves. Yes, I'm grandfathered in back before it was Empire, back.

Speaker 3 (46:55):
When well, I mean, were you Did you ever have
any interactions with the guy? Brian Sampson.

Speaker 2 (47:01):
Brian Sampson, He did distribution, He.

Speaker 3 (47:04):
Was the radio guy for Empire when it started, and
he used to work Gazis Records at in Grews.

Speaker 1 (47:08):
Real real Yeah, no, No, I ain't had no interest
with him. You know, we started off with Walter at
City Hall. That was our independent man. And that's back
when forty and then.

Speaker 4 (47:18):
Was moving that that would push the records and all that.

Speaker 2 (47:21):
No, no, city Hall would.

Speaker 1 (47:22):
So basically what we would do is we'd record the
records and Walter would do pre orders. He'd be like,
I need twenty thousand of that, and you bring him
the record and.

Speaker 2 (47:30):
He cast you. Oh that's fine.

Speaker 1 (47:32):
So that's how you we walk out of Walkers Walters
with a check for seventy bucks, you know, and it
was it was good. Now what he was making off
that was probably more than that, but shit, that's how
the independent game really came up. Before I got with Empire,
we used to fuck with City Hall.

Speaker 3 (47:49):
Like you're gonna cast you out for a project, this
is what you're gonna make off it?

Speaker 2 (47:52):
Well, yam, and then it's he wasn't He wasn't even
mind the project.

Speaker 1 (47:55):
He'll just tell you we're gonna press up to press
up twenty thousands, press up ten thousand units of it
and bring.

Speaker 2 (48:02):
It to me. And I'm a bum from you for
seven dollars apiece.

Speaker 4 (48:05):
Oh that's fire. Yeah, So you come.

Speaker 1 (48:07):
Up here with ten thousand of them at seven apiece,
that's seventy And he writes your check for seventy and
he distributed them and sell them and he called you
back and be like, I need twenty more.

Speaker 2 (48:17):
Yeah, And that's how it was rolling.

Speaker 4 (48:19):
What year did you end up believing Death Jam?

Speaker 1 (48:21):
I was only there for a year. I was in
and out like the Burger Joint. So I'm gonna tell
you what happened.

Speaker 4 (48:26):
Because your Season Veteran was on.

Speaker 2 (48:28):
Rush right, yeah? Yeah?

Speaker 4 (48:29):
So was that still like yeah.

Speaker 2 (48:30):
That was still now Season Veteran was on Death Jam, but.

Speaker 1 (48:33):
It was it was all Rush associated labels. That was
like the father the parent company. I got to Deaf
JM in ninety six, recorded my first record, Seasoned Veteran
dropped it, started recording the follow up.

Speaker 2 (48:47):
Which I named The Game.

Speaker 1 (48:50):
And then that's when the merger shit started popping off,
when poly Graham and all that. So Leo and Russell
came and sat me down and said, hey, which were
about to sell the company, and your sophomore record is
about to come out, you know, and it's up to
you if you want to stay here. But we don't
know who's gonna be running the company, they said. And

(49:12):
the fact that you know we met you and as
a hustler. You know, we got a this is the proposal,
the record that we just recorded for you. You can take
the record, do what you want with it, and we'll
give you X amount of dollars cash.

Speaker 2 (49:30):
And they said you can leave. They said, but if
you want to stay, you could stay too.

Speaker 1 (49:33):
They said, the only reason we're telling you this is
we don't know who's gonna be running and it gets
shelved or some shit like that. So my manager at
the time, do muhim too may He was like, shit,
let's take the money and the record. We didn't get
another deal, so that's what we did. Well, what ended
up happening is whoever was buying the thing, it was
a seagram in Sons deal Edgar Brofman's name was in

(49:56):
the mix somewhere, so they had something to do with Seagrams.
And apparently he proposition Leor and said, I want to
buy the label, but I want you to run it,
but you need to fire all the people. I'm gonna
bring my own people in, but you can run it.
And Leor was like, no, I'm not doing that. He
was like, these are the people that made me. We group,

(50:17):
we made this thing together. So if they go I go,
so they said he was like, all right, fuck it,
y'all can stay. So if I had known that, I
would have stayed, yeah.

Speaker 3 (50:26):
Because then I would have it was kind of like
the New Golden exactly, Yeah, jay Z exactly.

Speaker 1 (50:32):
And then I would have, you know, because my first
record did well, and then I was a West Coast
artist and they didn't really know how to market West
Coast music, but they were trying to figure it out.
So I think my record is like three hundred and
sixty thousand or some shit before a first before sophomore
album on the West Coast nigga that was decent numbers,
and they was like, well, the next one will definitely

(50:54):
go goal.

Speaker 2 (50:55):
So I would have stayed if I knew they were
going to be in control. But I didn't.

Speaker 1 (51:00):
But then when I look at it in hindsight now
and see all the fun toy that happened in the industry,
I think me leaving was the best thing that could
have happened because when you put.

Speaker 3 (51:12):
Out I remember, the game was all over every magazine,
Like I don't know what y'all's magazine budget was, but
I used to buy every source and every double XL right,
and I feel like there's like album covers. I remember
mentally in my head because I would just see the ad.

Speaker 1 (51:27):
Right, I was sitting by that bends with the brim wrong. Yeah, yeah,
And that was a dope record.

Speaker 4 (51:32):
H So was that was that you ended up putting
that out?

Speaker 2 (51:35):
Put it out independently, and so it was independently And.

Speaker 1 (51:38):
Back then I used to just drop the records, set
them on the ground and walk away.

Speaker 4 (51:42):
How much would y'all spend on magazine ads?

Speaker 3 (51:44):
I always wondered that as a kid, like when Double
XL source spread, you know, like.

Speaker 1 (51:48):
Yeah, we used to get them their ads for dirt
cheap bro bus stops. Back then it was bus benches
and source ads, and and that's how you were selling records.

Speaker 2 (51:56):
You know.

Speaker 1 (51:58):
I wasn't a I wasn't a win wizard at it,
like forty in them forty and them was wizards at
the independent game. Him and his uncle Saint Charles. They
knew how to market and move that shit. For me,
it was like after leaving Death Jam, it was almost
like my plane just was slowly glide because it was
was it like.

Speaker 4 (52:17):
A four year break, five year break before the album
came out.

Speaker 1 (52:20):
Yeah, it was a minute. It was a minute, and
then I just kind of dropped it. I didn't promote
it much, you know what I mean, because I was
used to what Walter was doing. He was just buying
our shit, cashing it out, so I didn't have to
promote the records. And it's crazy because I remember lee
Or he was letting me know, like this shit is payola,
like you gotta you have to breath, you gotta grease
the wheels to make it work. Like he showed me

(52:41):
how they had placement in stores, like you go into stores,
everything up front.

Speaker 2 (52:45):
We owned those two ships.

Speaker 4 (52:47):
Yeah, that was the old school game, right you had
to pay for store places.

Speaker 1 (52:50):
Yeah, those these top shelves, the ones by the register,
we got. That's us and you ain't gonna see nothing there.

Speaker 4 (52:55):
But are they used to take like money to rate
your album and the source?

Speaker 1 (53:00):
I believe so I'm never paid source, but I believe
all of that shit was like that, because I remember
I spoke on this in my last interview. They had
the music box where people used to call them Request
and less Ryan. When number one on the box and
I called Leors like I told you it was gonna
go number one, he was like yeah, I bought the
spot and You're like.

Speaker 2 (53:22):
I was deflated. Bro. I was deflated.

Speaker 1 (53:24):
Bro.

Speaker 2 (53:25):
I was like, you know what, I'm going back to
the street. I'll said, this shit right here is too much.

Speaker 3 (53:31):
What would you say because before this project, the last
thing you drop was the grow Room.

Speaker 2 (53:35):
Right, which five years ago, twenty twenty.

Speaker 3 (53:39):
Is there been anything that has just kind of letting
the fire under you again to dive back in and
put some new music out.

Speaker 1 (53:46):
What my biggest thing was, keV was I had always
been making music, right, and always making this kind of
music that I make, but the music that was out
and that was selling was different, you know, And I
didn't think throwing my project into the market while all

(54:07):
that other shit was moving was gonna be a good idea.
So I was kind of hesitant. I was like, ah,
Hele was like, man, put that shit out, put that
shit out. But I was like, uh, because even this record,
after the grow Room, I should I had a record
ready to follow right up.

Speaker 2 (54:23):
But back you know, little Baby was killing it. Uh.
You know, it was just a lot of shit out
that was still from that other kind of.

Speaker 4 (54:30):
Where you're like, yeah, this is where do I fit
in here?

Speaker 3 (54:32):
Here?

Speaker 1 (54:32):
Like I was like, don't know about the way the
shit I'm talking. It's cool, but where do I fit
in with what's happening? So I kind of was stand
office and then I said, fuck it. I put the
record out and now the record is getting so much
good feedback. But I did a call with the Nerve DJs,
a zoom call, and a lot of DJs was chiming
in from around the world, and it's one DJ said

(54:54):
some real shit. He said, Bro, you dropped on Death
d M in ninety six. He said, it's two five.
We're approaching the thirty year cycle. He said, music is
right back to where it was when you first came out.
He said, you never switched up. You stayed the same.
He said, a lot of people jumped and tried to

(55:15):
chase the trends and all the shit. He said, you
didn't participate in the high fee movement.

Speaker 2 (55:21):
He said. I remember the.

Speaker 1 (55:23):
Specifically, he said, because I follow you, And I was like, damn,
rich An, He's not putting out no music with this.
He said, So what has happened?

Speaker 2 (55:29):
Rinches?

Speaker 1 (55:30):
You stayed the same and the shit spent all the
way back around. He said, Now it's right back where
they ready for the kind of shit that you make.
And I didn't even really trip off that that it's
been that long, you know what I mean. But it
seems like right now you remember how much music was dropping,
or it's not a lot of people dropping.

Speaker 2 (55:52):
Nas was one of the first dudes to start fucking.

Speaker 1 (55:54):
With the hit boy and then he was like, hey,
if you old school and you got music, put that
shit out, put that shit out.

Speaker 2 (56:00):
Yeah.

Speaker 3 (56:01):
I had recently, I talked with ice Cube and Exhibit
on the pod recently and I thanked ice Cube because
I was like, hey, dude, thank you for putting out
like an ice Cube album and like ice Cube trying
to fit in right and Exhibit his new album comes
out next month. But I had the pleasure listening to
it and I was like, bro, thank you. This is

(56:21):
an Exhibit album. This is not like you don't sound washed,
try trying to hang with the kids. Like, at the
end of the day, this art form that we all
love it is old now. So there's people who are
you know, your age, my age, I'm thirty eight, you know,
who still want to listen like I know the shit
I like, it's like I don't.

Speaker 4 (56:41):
Want to hear fucking jay Z do little Baby.

Speaker 2 (56:44):
Shit like exactly. I mean like and it's and little
Baby shit is flying hard him and.

Speaker 4 (56:51):
Listen a little baby I'm gonna go go there for that.

Speaker 3 (56:53):
But if I want to listen to Richie Rich or
if I want to listen to you know, whoever it is,
It's like, I know what I want from cube album.

Speaker 1 (57:00):
That's what me and Glasses Malone talk about. A lot
of Glasses is a real student of this shit is amazing. Yeah,
he knows this shit and he's been pecking on me, like, dude,
put some fucking music out. Rich He said, you a
cool old nigga. Bro, He said, you an older nigga.
He said, but you got style, you got clean whips.
You still talk that shit. He said, that's the ship

(57:22):
that we want to hear. He said, I don't want
to hear Richie Rich from somebody else, or I don't
want to hear like you said, Richie Rich doing Little
Baby or Richie Rich doing you know.

Speaker 2 (57:36):
He said, I want to hear rich doing Rich.

Speaker 4 (57:38):
So I think there's this.

Speaker 3 (57:40):
I think there's I think at the end of the day, man,
there's a market for it, and there was always a
market for it. I feel like there's a artists who
have kind of been If you look at a guy
like Berner, Berner's had like a really successful independent hip
hop career, right, his shit is really like laid back
player shit, Like he's just talking some game and talking
about like and it's like, you know, the production is
he's never really chasing any like crazy like trendy production.

(58:02):
He's just you know, So I think that I think
it's dope that you're you're you're back in it man
and the l Russell record. I know he's doing well
with you, him and Pilow and the Young and from Mercede.
What's his name, Malachi. You know what's funny is Malachi
came on our show. I met him at the Pergola

(58:22):
when he was fifteen sixteen, right, and I saw him
just rap live and I was like, dude, come through.
So hitting his dad took him out of school one
day and they drove down here from from merced I
think it's where.

Speaker 1 (58:35):
Yeah, Malachi is cold talented dude bro.

Speaker 2 (58:38):
Definitely just fucking man talented little dude bro.

Speaker 1 (58:42):
That whole movement they got, they got a lot of
cool shit going on, but little Mally be talking that ship.

Speaker 3 (58:48):
No, he's hard bro, Like I mean, I'm whatever he
I man. I remember when when I heard him rap
for the first time game of Goosebumps and then he
came up here and just destroyed it. It's dope to
see him, like, you know, grow up like two or
three years ago when he came through.

Speaker 1 (59:01):
You know what I like about what Larrussell has brought
to the game is it's stripped down back to where
it's coming through the ear and not through the eyes.
Because for a minute they took it from the ear
to the eye. If you didn't have ten cubans on
and you wasn't the man, you feel me, and music

(59:21):
has always been a thing that should come through the
fucking ears, you feel me.

Speaker 4 (59:25):
That's how we had. We had to listen to you
that way.

Speaker 3 (59:27):
There YouTube, there was a discman or a walkman and
exactly or the radio and your and your imagination.

Speaker 1 (59:34):
So what l Russell is showing is that, Okay, you
don't have to have all that to put your project
into the space and you know, try to get yourself
some fans. And I think that's cool because there's a
lot of artists who feel like they might need to
go rob and steal and kill to get the piece,
the rap costume I gotta have. I need the rais,

(59:56):
I need the ghost, you know. I gotta have the
fuck and rorri, you know. And then you got a
nigga like Larry June who has all that shit, but
his style is just player.

Speaker 4 (01:00:07):
He's just like you might see him on a ten
speed taking a bike ride.

Speaker 1 (01:00:10):
You know, you'll see Larry in a fucking Ferrari with
the bike on mounted on top of that bitch shit.

Speaker 2 (01:00:17):
So it's coming back to.

Speaker 1 (01:00:21):
End up being individuals where people can like you for
what you do and you don't have to be doing
what everybody else is doing. That's what I like about
what's happening. I've always felt like my lane was game
just to just to chop some game.

Speaker 2 (01:00:37):
My uh, my strong suit is my voice. People's like
man Rich got that voice.

Speaker 1 (01:00:42):
But for a while, the music shit had got to
where like if you wasn't stupid balling, you just you
just you wasn't shit, you know what I mean?

Speaker 3 (01:00:52):
Sure, I think I think it's dope to see fans
like just like they just want to relate to people, Yeah, exactly.
And I think with Russell. You mentioned a thirty year cycle.
I feel like there's like this cycle of like he's
doing the new version of getting it out the trunk
back in the day when when when we think of
the bag or we think of Texas selling CD's out
the trunk, like lo Russell has, I feel like changed

(01:01:15):
the way a lot of independent artists think about what
could be possible.

Speaker 2 (01:01:19):
Right Well, he gave me that.

Speaker 1 (01:01:21):
I told him when I came back to the Pergola
after before I messed my leg up. I told him,
I said, bro, I got tons of music. I said,
I just don't know how to release it. I said,
because it was a different game. I said, show me
that you know how you're releasing the music. He's like,
I got you. And the cold thing about Larrussell is
people think that he just is in. He's just an
independent artist man, dude just booking his own shows.

Speaker 2 (01:01:42):
It's all you feel me.

Speaker 1 (01:01:43):
He's got his own infrastructure, like everything he does is all.

Speaker 3 (01:01:51):
It's like, Yeah, if you want to come to a
Larussell show, you're going to buy the ticket through me,
and you're going to pay what you want and then
will approve your bid.

Speaker 1 (01:01:58):
Exactly and which is at his merch there, and I mean,
what I really like about him is he's not selfish.

Speaker 2 (01:02:04):
Bro.

Speaker 1 (01:02:05):
Should you see the tiny desk? Yes, okay, so when
you see the tiny desk, you've seen the same cast
of him, t the musicians, the cameraman. I mean, yeah,
we all rolling, We all rolling. It ain't oh yes,
just me, y'all fall back. I got to go do tiny.

Speaker 2 (01:02:22):
Desks, you know what I mean.

Speaker 1 (01:02:24):
And and it's a certain amount of love inside of
his creativity that's making people realize like, oh, it's okay
to just be yourself.

Speaker 3 (01:02:34):
And I like, you know, such a rough place, you know,
I like that. Uh, you know, he's he's also showing
like Hell is an amazing place. Go to Vallejos right
by the water, and yeah, you know it's it's a
it's a shaky place, right, but it's and so is
everywhere else. Is everywhere else exactly exactly for sure. Well, look, man,
I appreciate you pulling up. The album is called Richard.

Speaker 2 (01:02:56):
Richard's out right now.

Speaker 3 (01:02:58):
I'm glad you got the wrap, Battery back in your back,
Come home, brother, anything else coming?

Speaker 1 (01:03:03):
H Yeah, I got a record. Me and Dj Fresh
just did a Tonight Show album. Okay, so that's gonna
be dope. It's supposed to be the first off of
his The Legends series that he's dropping. I got another
record following the Richard album. I haven't titled it yet,
but it's ready to go.

Speaker 2 (01:03:18):
We shoot.

Speaker 1 (01:03:18):
We're currently shooting videos for that. See, I'm ahead of
the game. Well, I'm ahead of the game, right. I
got three records. I got the Fresh, I got another
album behind that. See, for me, making songs is the
easy part, but it's just getting it out and now
that I've learned how to make some money off the music.
It ain't always the music that you're gonna get the

(01:03:40):
money off of. But if you package an album and
a vinyl and a hoodie, somebody will give you two hundred.

Speaker 4 (01:03:46):
For that, for sure.

Speaker 2 (01:03:47):
You feel me.

Speaker 3 (01:03:48):
Yeah, It's almost like when you just think about streaming income,
it could be disheartening exactly because there's not a lot
of money there.

Speaker 2 (01:03:55):
Right.

Speaker 3 (01:03:55):
It's like, if you use the album and the music
as a vessel to monetize people who fuck.

Speaker 2 (01:04:00):
With you, exactly, all you gotta do. You can get you.

Speaker 1 (01:04:02):
You can get you a fan base of two hundred people,
and if they'll spend twenty to fifty dollars with you
a month.

Speaker 2 (01:04:08):
You're chilling. You chilling.

Speaker 1 (01:04:09):
You know you're chilling because a lot of people don't
know you can get on these majors and do all
these shows and go to these awards ceremonies and your
mouth be white and dry.

Speaker 2 (01:04:17):
I mean, we all.

Speaker 1 (01:04:18):
Heard the TLC stories. We've all heard the stories. It
ain't always how it looks, you know what I mean.
So it's cool that you can get direct to the consumer.
And what else is cool is that people are still
supporting the artists they really fuck with they do.

Speaker 4 (01:04:31):
Man, well, I appreciate you. Go follow this guy with.

Speaker 1 (01:04:34):
Rg www dot. I'm trying to get you straight to
the website. So my what do you call him? Is
at the real Richie Rich. That's my Instagram. All of
my socials are at the real Richie Rich. And thus
spelled t h A R E A l R I
C h I E r I c ed rich. You
can get merch. I got a website ww dot double worldwide.

Speaker 2 (01:04:57):
Double is spelled like bubblegum d U B B L
E world Hi.

Speaker 1 (01:05:00):
Get these hoodies, bro, I didn't know I was coming
to see bro, I gotta assume something.

Speaker 2 (01:05:04):
Get tartets up, man.

Speaker 4 (01:05:06):
Uh any plans for the All Star weekend.

Speaker 2 (01:05:08):
You better know what.

Speaker 1 (01:05:09):
Yeah, me and Russ got something cooking for the All
Star weekend. It's back on, bro. It seemed like people
ready for the rescue man, and I got a whole
bunch of game for him.

Speaker 2 (01:05:19):
I love it so yeah, I had to make my rounds.
Come down here.

Speaker 4 (01:05:21):
Appreciate you get pulling up there. It is Richie, rich
my guy.

Speaker 2 (01:05:25):
Come on, let's get it.

Speaker 4 (01:05:25):
Boom fire