DJ EFN Breaks His Silence on Kanye, DMX, & the Wild Rise of Drink Champs!

Eiht and Steele sit down with the co-creator of Drink Champs to break down the show’s massive success, the behind-the-scenes chaos of the Kanye West interview, and the aftermath that shook the whole platform.

EFN drops gems on the DMX episode, early struggles, the business behind going viral, and what it really takes to build one of the biggest hip-hop interview shows in the world.

This one is raw, unfiltered, and full of stories you won’t hear anywhere else.

Tap in — this is Gangster Chronicles at its finest.

See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:00):
Gangs, the Chronic Goals.

Speaker 2 (00:01):
This is not your average shows. You're now tuned into
the rail.

Speaker 1 (00:17):
Welcome to the gangst The Chronicles podcast, the production of
iHeart Radio and Black Effect podcast Network. Make sure you
download the iHeart app and subscribe to Against the Chronicles.
For my Apple users, hit the Purple Michael your front screen.
Subscribed to Against the Chronicles, leave a five star rating
and comment all right, all right, all right, so you
already know what time, but this is your boy big
steal with my guy. Yeah, hey, you know I got

(00:40):
one of my favorite I got my boy from one
of my favorite podcasts on the show right now? Man, efn,
what's happening to dog?

Speaker 2 (00:47):
What's going on? Fellas man? Thank you for having me here.

Speaker 1 (00:50):
Yes, sir, you know it was something always wanted to
ask you. Man, I could squeaar it. Man. Was Dream
Champs ever? On serious?

Speaker 2 (00:58):
There was a version before or was ever Drink Champs.

Speaker 3 (01:02):
So years before a few years before Drink Champs, Norrie
had moved to Miami. Several years before Drinking Champs, Noory
had moved to Miami. He moved by my neighborhood where
I had my studio. He started working out of my studio.
This is after like he did that Hekatone stuff that
he did and even though even though I'm Latino, I

(01:23):
was never into Hekaton and he knew.

Speaker 2 (01:25):
That I was just a diehard hip hop head, right.

Speaker 3 (01:27):
And so he moved moved to Miami because you know,
the industry kind of turned their back on him, you know,
at least.

Speaker 2 (01:33):
The English side of the industry, you know.

Speaker 3 (01:36):
So he came to Miami to take a break from
New York and he's like, yo, bring me back to
hip hop basically, And so we started working out of
my studio and a homie named Leo G who was
at XM.

Speaker 2 (01:46):
This was before Serious Excent merged.

Speaker 3 (01:49):
He was like, I think he was like a program
director at XM at that point he had sixty six
Raw with his channel. So he offered to us to
do a radio show that we could submit. We could
record it in my studio here in Miami and send
it in which I don't think at the time they
were doing that. You either had to be at their studios,
which at the time XM was in DC. And so

(02:12):
we started a radio show which Noorri wanted to name.
He named it Militament Crazy Raw Radio. He wanted to
include everybody's name. Militatment is Nori Crazy Hoo production his mind.
Raw was the channel we were on, sixty six Raw Radio,
and if you look back, there's a couple of clips
on YouTube of that show. It was a weekly show

(02:34):
and we had we had DJ doing a mixed show
in it, and it looks and sound just like Drink Champs.
We introduced ourselves the same way, you know, we was drinking, drinking,
tiger bowing back then, and then we would have like
a couple guests because we were like in deep South Miami,
and not that many people made it out to us,
like Fat Joe I think came through Swiss Beats a
couple of people, but it was mainly like us and

(02:55):
the crew just talking reckless and talking about current events
and hip hop and stuff like that. And that was
that looked it sounded like Drink Champs, and that's kind
of like what inspired eventually to want to do Drink
Champs as a podcast.

Speaker 1 (03:07):
I remember that shit, dog. I heard that shit one
time when I swear I thought I was tripping and
I was actually arguing with the Homi the other day.
I said, man, I think Drink Champ has been around
for a long time, and y'all he here, Oh, one
of the I always say, man, one of the OG's
and podcasting man. I think because shoot, Gangster Chronicles, I
think we are three hundred and eighty something episodes. How
many episodes y'all in? Now? Maybe a thousand?

Speaker 3 (03:30):
Nah? Nah, Now we're we're at like the five hundred
marks something like that.

Speaker 1 (03:34):
Yeah, because y'all was around, y'all one of the OG's
man before this thing got over crowded. Now every rapper
got a podcast.

Speaker 3 (03:40):
We're about to celebrate in March of twenty twenty six,
ten years of Drink Champs.

Speaker 1 (03:44):
Okay, yeah, that's official.

Speaker 2 (03:46):
Yeah, ten years.

Speaker 3 (03:47):
And then before that, like you said, we had that
show which we were imagine we were on XM before
the merger. Then we were on Serious X and we
did that show for like three years, and we were
on sixty six Raw, on Hip Hop Nation, on back Spend,
like all the different channels that they had, the hip
hop channels.

Speaker 2 (04:03):
We were on all those stations, moving around.

Speaker 1 (04:06):
How long did it take before y'all start making money?
Because this is one thing I tell people, how long
started taking y'all start making real money.

Speaker 2 (04:12):
It took us about six months to make any money
from doing the podcast. We had hit.

Speaker 3 (04:19):
We were I mean, we hit from the gate. First
episode was a hit. But what happened was we were
on CBS Radio. It was just audio at the time.
I mean, we were filming from the beginning. I knew
video was the future of it, so we were filming
from the beginning, but we were just using that as
clips to promote the audio. We're on CBS Radio for distribution,
and it was such a big deal that they were

(04:41):
using the same advertising people that they used for all
their regular radio and they didn't really know what to
make of the podcast side of things, a little less
this show called Drink Champs, you know, just talking reckless,
you know.

Speaker 2 (04:52):
Talking about him like it was just they didn't know
what to make of it.

Speaker 3 (04:55):
And the numbers were so crazy that they couldn't even
sell it because they were like, you deserve this much money,
but we you're not.

Speaker 2 (05:01):
You haven't been around long enough so for us to
like sell it to the advertisers.

Speaker 3 (05:05):
So they just couldn't figure out how to sell us
to get ad revenue.

Speaker 2 (05:09):
It took six months before we saw our first check.

Speaker 1 (05:11):
Well, they wasn't messing with no podcasts back then. I
remember we had gangst the Chrome because we was also
in the CBS building. Man, the homies out here, we
wasn't because y'all was on play out of it. We
were on this journey called Intercom, something like the Intercom,
and we had came in like the number three show
when we first started us the number three show and
the whole thing. They gave all these people all this money. Man,

(05:33):
for I forget the name of all these different companies.
They started giving a big bread to right, and we
were number three, and I started talking to actually the
ad department about getting asked and everything, and they told us, man,
people aren't going to advertise on the show called the
Gangster Chronicles.

Speaker 2 (05:48):
Right, I imagine.

Speaker 3 (05:49):
Yeah, early days those were, and that was a corporate structure.

Speaker 2 (05:53):
They didn't know what to do with with podcasts.

Speaker 3 (05:57):
Little you know, hip hop podcast you know, our show
were drinking, So the advertisers were nervous and it was
all new to people, so they just they couldn't sell
that at all.

Speaker 1 (06:05):
Man.

Speaker 3 (06:06):
But it was funny because we'd go to the CBS
Radio building and it was all fans of it. But
They're like, Yo, we can't sell you guys, Like the
advertisers are just scared. And then, like I said, six
months later and we had to make that choice, knowing myself, like,
we're gonna invest in this push it.

Speaker 2 (06:22):
We know we got to hit here.

Speaker 3 (06:24):
We're not seeing a dime from it where we're putting
out money, but we saw the vision and the future.
And then once that first check came, you know, six
months later, from then on, it just grew.

Speaker 1 (06:35):
Man, y'all got y'all got one of the craziest shows
out there. Man. I know one of the episodes that
really tripped me out, man, DMX episode.

Speaker 2 (06:44):
That first DMX was crazy.

Speaker 1 (06:45):
Yeah, y'all had DMX. Man, what do you be thinking
when you be sitting there, like looking at this shit
in real time?

Speaker 3 (06:50):
Sometimes, bro, I mean, look, I try to maintain the
fan and me of the culture and hip hop, so
I'm enjoying every moment of it, but sometimes surreal, like
that episode was crazy because X didn't even know what
a podcast was when he sat with us.

Speaker 2 (07:07):
We could do a documentary.

Speaker 3 (07:08):
About that one episode because at that time one of
our managers of Drink Chance Management was this dude a LEI.

Speaker 2 (07:14):
I don't know if you guys knew, i'llleave.

Speaker 3 (07:15):
From the Death Jam days, he worked with DMX also,
he was part of dm DMX's management, so Ali was
working with us, so he was able to, you know,
talk X into sitting with us. But X was like, well,
I don't know what a podcast is. You know you're
telling me to do it. I'm cool with Nori. I'm
down to do whatever. I don't know what it is,
but I'm down to figure it out with you guys.

(07:37):
So he's like, come to my hotel room. He was
in Miami doing he was gonna do a show or something.
He's like, come to my hotel room. We'll do it
at the hotel. So we're like, all right, how are
we going. We hadn't really done it like that in
a hotel, but we were ready. We were running and gunning,
setting up wherever. And I was used to that in
my from my mixtape days. I would set up. I
would go to conventions and set up a whole little
studio on the hotel lobby and artists.

Speaker 2 (08:00):
And get drops.

Speaker 3 (08:01):
I probably got you eight at some point, like like
our drops, freestyles, everything. So I was used to that.
So we boom. We go to the lobby, we set
up shop. We tell the people the front like, now
I don't worry about it. We used to turn down
the lobby music. They're like, what's going now? You go,
you gotta let us, But they kind of nervous. They
see a bunch of dudes there, so they complyed, but
you know, we being polite and professional, but they don't

(08:22):
know what's going on. And then X takes forever. He
finally comes down, he sees the stuff, but he's like, yo,
I'm not ready yet. And then him and NORRII go
outside and they talked for a while and they start
drinking Henny. So a lot of people that watch that
episode they think that X, you know, like like he
might have like uh gone back on the drugs or

(08:42):
you know whatever, like relapse or something, because it looked
like he was. As far as I'm concerned, the only
thing that he did was drink some Henny. That I
mean a lot of Haney he drank, you know. So
we had an issue with the We were using straight
up pro tools to record these things, and I was
bringing a whole like a whole bunch of studio equipment
even to bring with us and.

Speaker 2 (09:03):
Our pro tools.

Speaker 3 (09:05):
It shut down us and we had to like reinstall
it and we're using the hotel WiFi.

Speaker 2 (09:12):
You already know that's fucked up.

Speaker 3 (09:13):
Yeah, yeah, So my engineer is like nervous, and it's
not even our regular engineer. Our other engineer was out
of town. So we had a dude filling in and
he was sweat and he's like, we're like, yo, come on,
what's going on? Instead, it was going to take forty
five minutes for that thing to get back up and going.
So we had to convince XK like yo, chill. Nori
had to sit there and just talk to him. They outside,

(09:34):
they drinking, So by the time he finally gets the
sits down with us, they don'et gone through a whole
bottle of Hennessy. And then he's sitting down. He don't
really know what this is. He's used to regular radio interviews.
He doesn't know what this intimate setting is all about.
But he just rolls with Nori and with us and
we sit down, and then you see what that becomes.
You know, he gets emotional, he prays, he gets angry.

(09:57):
Every emotion is in that episode. He does the prayer
and and that just that episode is the one that
really like like was out.

Speaker 2 (10:05):
Of here for us.

Speaker 1 (10:06):
That's what I was going to say to me, that
was the one man that really just because I was
a fan from day one, that we wanted to really
just put y'all on flight status.

Speaker 3 (10:14):
And it almost didn't come out what he didn't want
it to. He came back, he's like, Yo, let's do that.
Scrap that one, let's do it over. And we're like, nah, man, scrap,
what are we talking about here. He's like, come to
my crib and I don't know where he lived in,
somewhere in upstate New York or something. He said, y'all
fly out here and we'll redo the whole ship. And

(10:35):
you know, in podcasting, when you do a whole episode
with somebody to redo that, it's not gonna be the same.
We don't had a few of those, you know, it's
it's difficult to redo that that that same organic you know,
Ley is gone as ship completely completely. So it took
a lot of finessing to convince them to just let

(10:58):
us ride with it. I don't think he was ever
to really convinced, but he just you know, we ended
up putting it out and and that and then the
rest is history.

Speaker 1 (11:06):
How often has that happened with ya? Because y'all got
some crazy ass episodes, especially when people get the drinking.

Speaker 3 (11:11):
We've had a couple of people, you know, who signed
the paper and then later on wanted to like cancel
it or edit, you know, edit it crazy. And early
on we were real hardcore about not editing.

Speaker 2 (11:23):
Early on, we we've softened up to that, you know.

Speaker 3 (11:26):
And and also we were never gonna keep something in
there that was gonna incriminate somebody or talk about they
family life like they kids. They wise. We we we
never were going to keep anything like that. But anything
else was to us was like it's fair game. If
you talked about it, you were grown ass man or
woman and you know you knew what she was doing.

(11:46):
So but we've gotten a little bit softer on that
where we kind of like respect the guests a little
bit more to be like, all right, if it's if
you really feel strongly about editing something, you know, we'll consider.
Even on our end, we sometimes we're like, you know,
that's not going farewell for that person, and so we
might edit something out, like my from my point of view,
and I'm sure, nor it feels the same way. The
show is not built around gossip. It's not meant to like,

(12:10):
you know, got your moments or click bait, like, really,
we're here to celebrate the artist, the culture of the legacy.
So how are we gonna be celebrating you if it's
things are gonna come out, it's gonna make you look bad.

Speaker 1 (12:20):
You know, That's what I always got from it. Right now, man,
in the time we live in the day, it's all
about gossip. It's all about trying to slipping.

Speaker 4 (12:29):
It's all about putting somebody on front street or catching
somebody and some bullshit. And I think you get more
rapport with motherfuckers when you can just be up front
and original and you know that way, motherfuckers don't be
afraid to come on your show, and sure, well me
that way you can secure a lot of guests because

(12:49):
if they can look at other episodes and see, oh man,
these motherfuckers are straight, you know what I'm saying, and
they good as a motherfucker. So I don't feel threatened
by going on like y'all feeling like I'm gonna get
tricked into some shit.

Speaker 3 (13:03):
You yeah, I mean, people in the early days. People
were nervous about coming to drink chams.

Speaker 2 (13:08):
It was not that easy to get guests.

Speaker 3 (13:10):
If you look at a lot of the guests, it
was a lot of people who were cool with me
and Nori, you know so and he's still NOORI still
had to convince people that are like yeah, because we
come from that era where you just don't go out
there and talk a lot. No, you know, you don't
do the video, you don't take the picture, like unless
you're doing a press run and it's about the project.

(13:30):
We come from that era, but we knew what we
were doing was important. We knew that we wanted to
platform our peers at the very least, and the pioneers
before them that weren't getting platformed at the time, you know,
they weren't able to go on the radio anymore. So
we felt it was important. So eventually when people come
on the show, be like, all right, this ain't what
I thought it was. And you know, we always tell

(13:51):
people like you don't have to get drunk, like that's
on you, Like if you want to drinks, on you.

Speaker 2 (13:56):
If you don't want to drink, you don't even got
a drink.

Speaker 1 (13:58):
Well, most people do want to go didn get trucked though.
People won't just have fun.

Speaker 3 (14:02):
And that's the whole thing is we celebrate and like,
let's have fun, but you know, do it responsibly.

Speaker 1 (14:08):
You know the fact that y'all do have all that
liquor up there and all that if y'all ever had
any serious smoke up there.

Speaker 2 (14:16):
Like you're talking about what we smoke, No, I'm.

Speaker 1 (14:18):
Talking about somebody wanting to scrap.

Speaker 2 (14:20):
Like like something.

Speaker 1 (14:22):
Yeah.

Speaker 2 (14:22):
Yeah, we've had a i mean, look, very few.

Speaker 3 (14:24):
Like for the most part, you would think it'd be
a lot more beef and a lot more shit happening
on the show because of the liquor. But for the
ten years that we've been doing it, you know, about
to be ten years, it's.

Speaker 2 (14:35):
Been pretty smooth.

Speaker 3 (14:36):
But there's been a handful, maybe not even a handful,
like two or three guests that maybe got into their
feelings in the liquor and then in the moment wanted
to cancel the show and walk off the show and
shut the show down, and and it's like and try
to take over the show, and you know, it was
the liquor talking.

Speaker 2 (14:55):
It wasn't even.

Speaker 3 (14:56):
Them, right, And what happens is people will come on
the show, and it's like they want to out drink
me or Nori or Norri or they want to and
it's like, nah, we kind of our body's already used
to it. We used to sitting down for like three hours,
four hours and just drinking. We might get up at
some point at the end and we're out of here.
Like my wife is like, damn, you got fucked up,

(15:17):
and I'm on the show. I'm okay, But when I
get home it's a different story. But a lot of
people aren't used to that drinking that much. And and
then you see like in the second hour, they just
shift and there's been a couple of people that got
in their feelings that they got a little bit out
of line. But whatever, nothing ever, nothing real serious has

(15:37):
ever happened to the point where you.

Speaker 2 (15:38):
Know people put hands on anybody, So you ain't.

Speaker 1 (15:40):
Never heard that one guess that you was like, man,
I might have to put hands on this food.

Speaker 2 (15:44):
Yeah, no, I'm telling you, Yeah, it happened.

Speaker 3 (15:46):
Like like there's been times I think I've gotten more
mad than Norri, Like Noorri be the one telling me Jill,
because we've had an issue where there's someone who's like Yo,
they want to shut down the show, like they're going
to our camera people, shut it down, shut it down.
I'm like, Yo, that's not for you to do. You
gotta watch out, bro. You want to talk to me
and Noria. That's one thing. You don't start going to

(16:08):
our camera people and our staff and try them to
shut ship down. And this is over, Like nah, man,
take us to the side and we can tell it.
But well, it did happen with Rory one time. From
Rory and Mal he got upset. I forgot what the
reason was, and uh and and I forget who the
other people were. There was someone not that long ago,

(16:29):
like a year ago.

Speaker 2 (16:32):
I can't I can't remember.

Speaker 1 (16:33):
The whole showdown.

Speaker 4 (16:36):
Would they just get too intoxicated, feel like they said
something out of line and then they just like no
man or or or they get into their feelings about
a question that's asked.

Speaker 2 (16:49):
That or something. I think I'm trying. I want to remember.
I actually want to tell you who.

Speaker 3 (16:53):
It was not too long ago, but the most recent
one was someone that heard someone in the You've been
to the show, so you know you see we got
not only we got staff, but we got our homies
there too. And someone in the background made a comment,
but it wasn't nothing negative or anything. They were just
like chiming in and the guests took it, like I
guess in their in their mind of already being kind

(17:15):
of like, you know, a little tipsy, they thought someone
was saying something negative in the background, and then it
just they switched on us and they just got up
and they like.

Speaker 2 (17:24):
Who's saying that? What was going on?

Speaker 1 (17:26):
Now?

Speaker 3 (17:26):
This this is a setup and they just started like
wilding out and I'm trying to remember who it's an
artist that's a producer too. Man, if it comes to me,
I'll let y'all know. It wasn't no no, no, no,
no no.

Speaker 2 (17:38):
It wasn't quick. But uh but.

Speaker 3 (17:40):
Yeah, so that's happened just very few times, and nothing
ended up happening so serious where where it got to
that point, you know, where hands were thrown. It was
just we ended up talking it out. But those were
some couple ten times.

Speaker 1 (17:52):
Because it's a real fire. But I can't see nobody
coming up their tripping because they're all on Really, you know,
everything is cool up there right right, Yeah, everything is real,
real cool. You know. One of the things I thought,
I thought Norri and Lamar Oldham was going strap scrap
because they had a like he was looking at noorrdy
kind of crazy.

Speaker 2 (18:10):
That would have been a sloppy scrap happened.

Speaker 1 (18:14):
I think they was both faded, man, and like the
way Lamorrow was looking at me said, man, they're about
to get down.

Speaker 3 (18:20):
Yeah, that was that was. That was one of the
crazier ones. But not when we when we wrapped, nothing
happened at all.

Speaker 1 (18:26):
Because y'all for sure don't y'all really don't force y'all
don't force nobody to drink or smoke. And people go
up there to get faded because they want to. And
I think that's what people think when they come on
the show, that y'all up there just force the people
to drink Nona.

Speaker 2 (18:40):
And that's the thing, you know.

Speaker 3 (18:41):
I'm proud of the moments when we have guests that
they're like, yo, I'm not drinking anymore, or I don't drink,
and it's the same vibe, you know, like and I
always tell people, don't worry me and R will do
the drinking for you, Like we're gonna have fun, We're
gonna drink, and you're just vibe with us. And now
it's been we don't force nobody to drink, and it's
still still the same type of episode.

Speaker 1 (19:00):
Man, Nix. You ever think that you ever magine, man,
that y'all show would become like a part of the
lexicon of hip hop. Man, because y'all a shit dog,
y'all won the awards, man and everything else. I'll see
y'all out there killing it. Man. It been killing it
for a long time.

Speaker 3 (19:13):
Never man, And for me, just a DJ from Miami,
you a mixtape DJ out of Miami. To be a
part of this, it's been a dream coming true. To
be honest with you, man, Like I'm I still maintained
the fan in me. I wouldn't do it if I
didn't still maintain the fan in me. And I love
every moment of it, man. And it's dope because I've
been able to not only do something that's put on

(19:34):
for my city. I correct, my town, my city, my crew.
But now it's something even bigger than that. You know,
it's really taking a life of its own. It's cemented
in hip hop, which I would have never thought. You
would have told seventeen eighteen year old me that I
would be a part of.

Speaker 2 (19:49):
Something like that.

Speaker 3 (19:49):
I would have been like, Nah, you're crazy. I'm just
trying to make this one mixtape right now.

Speaker 1 (19:53):
Yeah, because your presence is crazy. This presence in Miami
is definitely filed. I remember I was in the freeway
with my wife, you know, when I was down in
my wife she wants to go sight seeing and all that,
and I look over it and I see the big
boom box the thing. I said, Oh, that's the homely
spot over there.

Speaker 3 (20:06):
Yeah, yeah, boy, Now that's that's so one of my
homies who I grew up with. He's a famous legendary
graffiti artist out here, and he's had that boom box
like locked like it's his. You know, graffiti writers when
they claim something it's deaz. You know, if somebody goes
over it is beef. So he's been recreating that boombox

(20:27):
in Wynwood for the past I think almost ten years now,
and then in the past year or two he did
one side of it where it's his crazy hood on it,
and yeah, that's the homie man. So that's that's been
there for a couple of years now. But but hit the
boombox been there for like ten years, and that's my
homes six and then the homies that he works with.

Speaker 1 (20:50):
You know, you mentioned something man that said, if you
didn't love this stuff, you wouldn't be doing it. Nothing.
I don't think people realize how horror podcast nails. I
think people think it's easy. I think that's why you
got so many people doing it now.

Speaker 3 (21:00):
It's not easy, and it's become just as slimy as
the music industry, like you know, just it's just it's like,
you know, it's the new record label bullshit, like dealing
with the same baby.

Speaker 2 (21:12):
Yeah, man, it's.

Speaker 4 (21:13):
Well people that's people watching motherfuckers don't feel like it's
a quick come up, you know, like just like you
work with hip hop. That's why the state of the
state of hip hop is so crazy, because you just
got you know, motherfuckers something just some motherfuckers who's in
it that.

Speaker 1 (21:30):
Shouldn't be in it. Right now.

Speaker 4 (21:32):
They look at at podcasts and it's the same thing
because they see people like you and Nori, they see
Gangster Chronicles, they see all these other different podcasts and
they start going with ship we can do we can
get into that game too, you know what I'm saying,
Just like you said, it's the new record deal, it's
the new it's the new rap game.

Speaker 2 (21:52):
Yep.

Speaker 3 (21:53):
And and you got to put in a lot of
work and right now it's oversaturated like a motherfucker. People
ask me all the time. You know, I want to
get in the podcast game. You better think about that.

Speaker 2 (22:03):
You know.

Speaker 3 (22:03):
I was having a convo, I mean, were down with
the same you know, Black Effect shout out to Black
Effect and iHeart and we was having a combo over
there and they were saying, the average podcast that you know,
knew that gets into the industry, it takes him about
two to three years to really really start to see
something from it.

Speaker 1 (22:23):
I think the average podcast is something I heard the
crazy statistic. I was talking to Charlotte Mayne one day
and he said, man, he was talking about how well
we're doing right and he was saying, still, the average
podcasts only get like a hundred downloads under down.

Speaker 2 (22:38):
It's like music, everybody's doing it.

Speaker 1 (22:41):
Everybody is doing it. I looked up, and you know what,
I'm not mad at certain people like I like it.
It's a few rapper podcasts I do like. I like
the new one What's Home that used to be on
a Rockefeller.

Speaker 2 (22:52):
Memphis Bleach that's that's under two Chances. He's under our network.

Speaker 1 (22:55):
Oh is that right?

Speaker 2 (22:56):
Yeah?

Speaker 1 (22:57):
Yeah, I did not know that. Yeah. I like Memphis
Blee Ship and it's a few of them. Man, that's
real good. But it's always like Trauma. It's always host
shake up, see you and you and Norris smart because
it's just the two of y'all. Right, right, That's why
I keep the show with just me and not whenever.
For some reason, whenever you get that third or fourth person,
it's gonna wind up being some bullshit nine times out

(23:17):
of teen all the time. I don't know why, but
almost every show then had their breakups. You and nor
he ain't never had no smoke have y'all?

Speaker 3 (23:26):
Nah, I mean we've not listen, We're like any other partners.
You're gonna have your ends in your house. And and
me and him, A lot of people don't realize our
relationship goes far back. People think that that mine and
his relationship started with Drink Chance. But we met as
an artist coming to the Miami market and I'm one
of the DJs you got to deal with and work with,

(23:47):
and we connected on that level right when he was
the first CNN album, like that's when we connected and
I did his first solo show in Miami when it
was the Nri album.

Speaker 2 (23:57):
I'm the one who booked that first show.

Speaker 3 (23:59):
And when Copone came out of prison, I'm the one
that they hired to help put together copone home show
in Miami. So our our history is vast. It goes back.

Speaker 1 (24:09):
But y'all go back, y'all go back a long ways
man before.

Speaker 5 (24:12):
All the Yeah.

Speaker 3 (24:15):
That's it wouldn't have worked if we didn't have that
that relationship going back. But once and you know, I toured,
I was a tour DJ. We've toured around the world together.
You know, I've done you know, I've even put on
the management hat where I was kind of like road
managing Norri and managing him for a minute.

Speaker 2 (24:31):
So we've we've done it all together.

Speaker 3 (24:33):
But when it came to Drink Chams, that was the
first time that it was like we were a partnership,
you know, and even partnership, and that changed the dynamic
a little bit, and we those first couple of years
it took you know, it was a learning curve that
we had to figure it out, you know, because you
got Norri the well known artist, and then you got
me like this DJ that that wasn't as well known
to the you know, widely known like that. So the

(24:55):
business side we had to figure certain things out, and
you know, it took a minute for everything for the
us to settle and uh, and we figured it out, man,
because ultimately we were friends already.

Speaker 1 (25:05):
I think it's going to always be that dynamic, especially
when you're dealing with rappers, right, you know, especially when
you're dealing with rappers. Dealing with eight, it' been pretty easy.
You know, it's eight. It's real laid back, you know
what I'm saying. But it's not always easy, man, And
it can't be easy, especially when the show started sending.
Like you know, when the show first started taking off, right,

(25:25):
I'm pretty sure y'all had every homeboy that thought y'all
can just put them on.

Speaker 2 (25:29):
Of course, still happening exactly that shit.

Speaker 1 (25:34):
Don't you. I'm pretty sure, man, because I got homeboys,
man that got good jobs. I'm talking about this, just
regular people like man. You know what I was thinking, man,
You know, I've got an idea to do this podcast,
me and my wife, and they get to talking as
soon as they do that. Now, I just kind of
hit them, man, I'll be right back. I tell them that,
you know, the Stiff Farm and quick Stiff Farm and
quick jab but it's definitely not easy. And I think, man,

(25:58):
right now, what we're going through where we go seeing
podcasts and just like music, I think it's go kind
of flattening a little bit. Then I think it's gonna
come up because I think once people see that, the
money ain't as easy as they think it is. Because
everybody thinks this quip bag like it's people that think
me and they just make millions of dollars off the podcast.
I don't heard it.

Speaker 3 (26:18):
And you have to think about it's kind of stressful
when you're doing a week. Do you guys do weekly?

Speaker 1 (26:23):
Oh?

Speaker 2 (26:23):
Hell yeah, it's weekly shit. Ain't no joke to keep
up with the weekly shit.

Speaker 3 (26:28):
When you really start to think about, especially when the
year starts and I'm like, and I look thinking about
like every week till the end of the day, I'm like,
it's like looking up for hell, You're.

Speaker 2 (26:36):
Like, God, damn, here we go again every year.

Speaker 1 (26:40):
And you know what, the one thing I got to
commit to home on man on y'all, it's y'all. Never
missed the episode bro, I don't ever remember y'all missed
the episode. We've never missed one. We've never had a
week where, gainst the chronicles didn't come out. But then
you have certain things like eight is still touring, so
sometimes eight might have to go do a show and
I have to hold it down. So I got like,

(27:01):
and I try not to do that as much, man,
But that's the one thing y'all like Nori has always
been there.

Speaker 2 (27:06):
Yeah, yeah, no, for sure.

Speaker 3 (27:07):
And we'll take a break though, we'll do on purpose,
like we'll be like, we're gonna take a break at
some point.

Speaker 2 (27:13):
We started doing that later on, you know, because we
have the.

Speaker 3 (27:16):
TV aspect with Revolved where it comes out on cable
network TV. So because of that, they'll take you know,
breaks around the holidays, so we'll follow that that schedule.

Speaker 2 (27:27):
We're like, all right, we're gonna.

Speaker 3 (27:27):
Take a TV break, so we'll the podcast will take
a break, and we'll just hold off releasing until the
break is over.

Speaker 1 (27:33):
There's me and ain't been told about doing that too, man,
the world. We just kind of just can some episodes
and just take a break, man, because it's a lot sometimes,
like sometimes I really don't feel like doing this shit. Man.

Speaker 3 (27:44):
You gotta take that break, man, because you got to
sit back for a minute and then like for us,
we'll take that break. We come back and we're excited again,
where we're all right, let's do it. You know, we're
happy to see the crew. Everybody's ready to rock. You
gotta take that moment to take a step back, because
it's you get jaded by it.

Speaker 2 (28:01):
You just it's just everything becomes work. That's what I
tell people.

Speaker 3 (28:04):
No matter how much you love something, no matter how
great it scenes from the outside, when you got to
do something repetitively, everything becomes work at that point.

Speaker 1 (28:13):
Oh yeah, one hundred percent all the time. I've had
times to where I think in the last few years
we started taking those breaks, Like I started like going
to a rub of you know, Miami is one of my spots.
That's how we linked up when I was down there.

Speaker 2 (28:27):
Real breaks. You're going on vacation.

Speaker 1 (28:29):
Yeah, you got to go on vacation, man. You know,
if it ain't ain't calling up my mama or like
one of my kids. Man, I don't ask the phone man,
because you have to take a break. And I'm gonna
tell you the one thing y'all got going on this, y'all.
Are y'all have guests on y'all show?

Speaker 5 (28:46):
Right?

Speaker 1 (28:46):
I think I saw a few times to where when
COVID was happening, you got the episodes where it was
just you and Norri, right right right. But for the
most part, y'all depending on guests. If y'all ever had
it to where y'all had the stuff scheduled and somebody
just didn't.

Speaker 2 (28:59):
Show up, oh that that's happened a lot.

Speaker 3 (29:01):
Yeah, yeah, I mean luckily, that's why you bank episodes,
so I have to rely on that being the next episode.

Speaker 2 (29:07):
Well, we've had issues where either the guests.

Speaker 3 (29:10):
Flaked on us for whatever reason, or even something happened
in our schedules where something happened.

Speaker 2 (29:15):
Because that's the thing too.

Speaker 3 (29:17):
Me and Nori have separate lives, separate businesses, you know,
NOI's a working artist as well, so sometimes shit, you know,
schedules just clash.

Speaker 2 (29:25):
Like it's hard enough to.

Speaker 3 (29:26):
I think even y'all when we were scheduled, you remember
how it took a minute to Yeah, that's imagine that's
a dance. Everybody's trying to figure out their busy schedules
to make it work. So so that's the art of
banking episode. That's why you have to bank episodes, so
you have the luxury of like you're not stressing it.
If something doesn't fall through, you know, just boom you
you Okay, put that episode. We already got a bunch

(29:48):
of episodes done.

Speaker 1 (29:49):
I think that's what we have to start doing. I
remember one time, man, it was a rapper and he
rest in peace now so Wingo makes his name. Man,
But dude, that hit me and told me man, because
I hit them up. You know, when it's like ten tier,
I started getting a little nervous, right because usually people
when they coming, they're usually come in, especially out here
in there La, because don't nobody trust nobody. They'd come
in like thirty forty minutes early just to pack the layout,

(30:12):
like oh what's going on? And early we're still setting
up right, And Homy told me, Man, he said, I'm
right around the corner. I'll be there in a minute,
ten minutes after come and I'm like this, dude ain't
gonna come. But when that happened, we just get the
show started, right, We do the show rain hell Steve
the snow. So finally, man, dude, calls me apround with

(30:32):
nine thirty. I'm on the way home already, Like, man,
I'm gonna be there in a minute. I'm like, bro,
we already gone half yeap y y'all ever had that,
somebody tell yall they was on their way and they
just not pop up at all.

Speaker 3 (30:44):
Yeah, that's happened a couple of times. There was a
one time that and it wasn't even their fault. Actually,
a couple of times. We're supposed to have Kendrick on
one time and I'm not even gonna put it on
Kendrick because I don't know how much him and his
immediate team knew because it was interscope it up.

Speaker 2 (31:01):
But he was coming to.

Speaker 3 (31:02):
Do uh he was headlining Rolling Loud, and that set
it up where he was gonna come do Drink Champs,
flying do Drink Champs, then from Drink Champs, go straight
to the stage and then his flight, you know, I
think his flight was late or something coming in and
we were.

Speaker 2 (31:17):
All set up and ready to go and it got canceled.
And that that's happen. That's happened a couple of times.

Speaker 1 (31:22):
Man. You always get that Kindrick that don't do too
many interviews either. Man.

Speaker 2 (31:26):
It's a while ago too. It was like two three years,
like three years ago. I think even further than that.

Speaker 1 (31:32):
I think she was impossible now because and that's the
hard man. Yeah, I don't even ask, man, I don't.
I don't even ask. I would love to have adopt
the show. But I don't even ask because I know
how busy he was and I ain't seen them do.
That's what I was thinking. I said, he didnk you know,
he sat down none of the big dogs.

Speaker 2 (31:47):
Yet he don't really he don't do podcasts.

Speaker 3 (31:49):
Has he done a podcast that you could think of
other than like Apple the Apple music joints.

Speaker 1 (31:54):
I don't you know what. I don't. I don't count that, man.
But I'm gonna tell you something that's interesting. Home with
DJ Bobcat Battle catsh Out to the Homies. They was
doing a podcast with Dray. They had the pharmacy right,
and I knew. I used to feel bad when people
cancel on me. I thought it was just sus I
was like, the motherfuckers don't respect this dog. They cancel.

Speaker 4 (32:15):
I look at you know our motherfuckers do. I used
to tell you all the time, it's just my look.
I don't know if I take it as disrespect. But
sometimes niggas just be like maybe they don't take themselves as.

Speaker 1 (32:29):
Serious as enough.

Speaker 4 (32:30):
You feel me like, yeah, you that that could be
the issue, Like I'm saying, because I don't want to
look at it as disrespect because then I'm gonna get
pissed off. You get me, So I try to take
it in a sense of shit, this is what a
motherfucker think of hisself and his motherfucking position.

Speaker 1 (32:49):
You feel me like, But man, I.

Speaker 2 (32:52):
Don't know, I don't, I don't, I don't.

Speaker 3 (32:54):
I don't ever take it disrespectfully, to be honest with you,
unless they themselves are saying something about like I'm not
going you know, for whatever reason, because this is what
I've learned, a lot of times, the team be fucking
up the team. A lot of times someone in the
team wants it more than the artist even wants it
and doesn't even really fully tell them this is what
we're doing until like the last moment like that will

(33:16):
set it all up. Like I love drinking. I want
to get someone, you know, I got some and so
ready for drink Champs so and so it wasn't ready
for drinks champs. And so when when they finally tell
that person it's all been booked, and then I feel
like they they probably was like, nah, you know, I'm
not I wasn't ready to do that, or I got
you know, or the schedule change. I don't ever unless
that person themselves shuts us down and or disrespects like

(33:39):
where you know it's coming from them, I'll never take
it disrespectful.

Speaker 2 (33:43):
You You just never know.

Speaker 1 (33:45):
And that was early on, I for sure, because when
I found out that people cancel on dre you know,
they same thing, you know, doctor Drake. That's why he
don't do the pharmacy no more, because he got tired
of He was like, man, fuck this, I don't have
time for it, you know, especially him, you know doctor
dray worth a billion dollars. He ain't got no podcast.

Speaker 2 (34:01):
He was just yep, yeah, I heard he say the
same thing.

Speaker 1 (34:05):
He said.

Speaker 2 (34:05):
He He's like, it didn't make sense for him. He
wasn't making no money.

Speaker 3 (34:09):
He did it out of love when he was doing
because he's a pioneer in the space himself.

Speaker 1 (34:13):
Radio day early on him and his manager, I think, ye,
I can't think of the homies name man, so forgive
me ice. I can't remember the homie's name, but him
and his manager had the podcast. It was Dope too.

Speaker 2 (34:24):
Yeah, No, it was Hello Dope.

Speaker 1 (34:25):
Yeah, he was for sure. I think he was on
loud Speaker. Y'all almost did a situation with loud.

Speaker 3 (34:31):
Speaker on That was the first company or production that
that stepped to us that actually remembered what we did
on Serious XM.

Speaker 2 (34:39):
And they stepped to me and No.

Speaker 3 (34:40):
He said that thing y'all was doing, you should do
it as a podcast, and NOORI put him in contact
with me. They sent they even sent in equipment and everything,
and then Norri just wasn't just he wasn't ready at
the time.

Speaker 2 (34:54):
And I ended up.

Speaker 3 (34:55):
They kept saying what's up, and I just I sent
back the equipment and then they came back right and again,
and I spoke Toni.

Speaker 2 (35:01):
He's like, yeah, I'm down to do it. And then
they sent the equipment again and the same shit happened.
It took like three to five years.

Speaker 3 (35:09):
I don't remember the exact amount of time, but it
took years to convince Nori and finally get him on
board with doing a podcast.

Speaker 1 (35:17):
You know what's crazy man, loud Speaker was the first.

Speaker 2 (35:20):
So rested piece of combat jack over.

Speaker 1 (35:23):
Yeah, for sure. They was like the first company to
get out of us. I'm gonna tell you a funny story.
It had been different people starting to holler at us
after a while, right, And I remember man TJ. Kirklan
that hit me up and said, hey, man lost speaker,
wanted to give you all the deal, but I need
to get fifty per I need to get half right.

(35:45):
And so I was like half my niggas like like
half half me half not even a relay yeah havel.
And so I finally ran across to Chris Morrow. I
finally talked to Chris Morrill, right, and it's like, yeah,
I want to do something with you guys, and you know,
he's the contract and I was like, well, what's going on.

(36:07):
I don't want to give TJ. Kirkle in half, you know,
I don't mind since he got looked up. He said,
man TJ. Ship up, I was talking about you guys,
hear and he got at you because he knew me, right,
So it was it was a little crazy, but we
almost did a deal with Chris Morrow. We'd almost signed
with Chris Morrow. Shout out at Homie Chris, he's the
pioneer him and comback Jack.

Speaker 2 (36:25):
Yeah, that.

Speaker 1 (36:27):
Was the first. That wasn't the first podcast I heard,
but it definitely was the first song Like Black and Latino.

Speaker 3 (36:34):
Yeah, when it comes to hip hop, they were organized
like distribution and production of they were the first.

Speaker 1 (36:41):
It was the first. Man Loudspeaker was a big deal.
I wish stated you know what, man, it seemed like
Black and Black effect kind of picked up that mantle
because it's all the same staff, a king and all
the same people that was running louds Pikers is over
here right now, you know. Speaking of which, how did
y'all hook up with Charlemagne?

Speaker 3 (36:59):
When we finished our deal with with CBS, which was
played doted, then we were on another Audio Boom Remember
Audio Boom?

Speaker 1 (37:08):
I remember Audio Boom?

Speaker 3 (37:09):
Yeah, I think Sway shout out to Sway. He put
us down with Audio Boom if I'm not wrong. We
did a deal with them and then oh man, I'm
trying to remember because we made a bunch.

Speaker 2 (37:21):
We had all kinds of deals throughout the years.

Speaker 3 (37:23):
But at some point, Charlot Magne, you know, just because
Charlamagne was that play dot it too.

Speaker 2 (37:27):
I think I think he was over there at one
point or maybe not.

Speaker 3 (37:31):
We had him on as one of our first guests
early on for sure, and him and Norri already you know,
had a relationship. And so once he started Black Effects,
he stepped to us and and you know, and and
we made that that deal happen. It was like a
no brainer.

Speaker 2 (37:46):
It was a good situation for us.

Speaker 3 (37:48):
Yeah, and it was for the audio only part. You know,
we already had the video locked in through Revolt.

Speaker 1 (37:54):
That's what we gotta do. We gotta step our video up, man.
We was going in the studio. We actually had a
spot for a long time. Man. But it's hard to
connect that, man, it's hard, just and we the only
thing we was doing the spot was the show. So
it made no sense to keep the building, you know, right, Yeah,
it was just sitting all week.

Speaker 3 (38:11):
We still don't have a regular set because we don't
want that overhead and we don't want that responsibility.

Speaker 1 (38:16):
That's smart, man, I tell everybody, don't get no building.
It's a lot of fucking work, man. And it's a
lot of overhead too. And I and you know what's crazy,
I put up. We had put a whole bunch of
money into that building, man, you know, getting it set
up and everything. Then it was just like after a while,
I was like, damn, man, we just don't put like
thirty thousand up into this building. I don't even want
to do it no more.

Speaker 3 (38:34):
Yeah, and you gotta have make sure the insurance is
on point because something goes down, like for us, I'm like, nah,
we don't need that.

Speaker 1 (38:41):
Well that's what it was, man. Once I start getting
to the point, because you know, people start coming through
and what it was. We had a live event one
time and it was like two hundred people out there
right and I was listening to this dude in a
wheelchair telling me how you hustle people. He was like, man,
I get y'all, but to get that shit fixed right there,
because I get ten to fifteen every time. That's my fixed.

(39:04):
Run the liquor and.

Speaker 2 (39:04):
Said handicap access shit.

Speaker 1 (39:06):
Insurance, I said, motherfucker's ou here running scams and shit.
So once I started talking to insurance and start thinking
about the live building, I was like, fuck this ship, man,
we used iHeart shit, you know, yep, we use ird shit.
And that's the thing. The way y'all do, y'all show.
I don't think it'll work in the iHeart building.

Speaker 3 (39:23):
Now they you know, they offer it even when with
CBS we could have done the CBS studios. We did
it one time the first run. We went to New
York to sign the deal and we recorded their studios
and they complained that they saw that they found weed
in there.

Speaker 5 (39:40):
They found the cups with liquor. They was like, what
the fuck is this? That's how it was because we
used it. Hey was you on the show when we
was using the CBS building. No, so we was using
the CBS building, right, and we had that motherfucker Maculate.
We would leave for macnt and because it just wasn't

(40:01):
our show. I had a whole network of shows, right,
so it was like three four shows. But every time
some bad shit happened, they were playing us.

Speaker 2 (40:08):
Oh shit.

Speaker 1 (40:09):
That that was the reason why I would never take
one of them key cards, because they were playing with
us on ship ship that happened on weekend or whatever.
And I was like, bro, we don't even have access
to the building during that time, so it wasn't us,
you know, uh, And they were still blaming us, So
I never wanted to keep When they get it to us,
I said, I just come up there. We come up
there a week doing business hours with somebody up there
to let us in. I was like, fuck that. It's
a big ass hittache man.

Speaker 2 (40:30):
Yeah, imagine everything you've seen drink chance.

Speaker 3 (40:33):
You're not just trying to bring all those people into
one of them corporate buildings.

Speaker 2 (40:36):
That wouldn't happen.

Speaker 4 (40:37):
You got to have your own set and ship out
to it, especially if they want the atmosphere right, you
feel me because you tell places you're gonna already feel like, man,
we can't do ship up in here.

Speaker 2 (40:50):
Yeah, No, we need we really need to be comfortable.

Speaker 5 (40:53):
No.

Speaker 3 (40:53):
He's really big on feeling like like he's you know,
in a in a in his own safe space where
it's like no one's gonna judge, gonna talk shit, and
we can do whatever we want. We've been lucky, man,
We've had great partners when it comes to like places
that we.

Speaker 2 (41:06):
Could film at.

Speaker 3 (41:07):
We were filming at this bar called Racket and Winwood
for like three four years. Those are the homies. They
legendary like owners of clubs and bars out here. So
they saw the value in having us there, you know,
and cross promoting their stuff. So we were there for
a minute. We've been at different spots and it just
always worked out for us. Man, It's always been great.

Speaker 1 (41:25):
Yeah, And that's the thing. You definitely got to be
comfortable because you know, Ate like the smoke, right, and
that's why it's like we going to place and he
can't smoke. You're like, man, we can't smoke in here.

Speaker 4 (41:35):
Man.

Speaker 2 (41:35):
You know it can't be yourself exactly. You want to
be yourself that you don't want to be comfortable.

Speaker 1 (41:44):
Let me ask you this, man. It's something that me
and Ate was talking about. With all the drinking that
y'all doing the show and smoking and everything else. YouTube
ain't never get y'all know drama.

Speaker 2 (41:56):
What do you mean like YouTube?

Speaker 1 (41:57):
Like it's yeah, like for ast YouTube, you know, man,
we don't been demonetized a whole bunch of times.

Speaker 2 (42:02):
Man, you know what they had. We haven't gotten issues
with that.

Speaker 3 (42:07):
But I could tell you that our content is suppressed
in some kind of way because of.

Speaker 2 (42:13):
That, and not just because of that.

Speaker 3 (42:16):
This is my I'm gonna say this is maybe my conspiracy,
but I don't think it's a conspiracy. Ever since the
Kanye episode, that second one that went crazy, we've been
like I feel like we've been shadow banded and suppressed
in the algorithm since then.

Speaker 1 (42:31):
Oh yeah, that's a real thing, bruh.

Speaker 3 (42:33):
Right, and so and then I think you couple that
with with the alcohol and the type of content. Especially
over the years, YouTube has gotten more and more strict,
so I think to a degree we've been kind of
like suppressed. But I mean we're still going until the
wheels fall off.

Speaker 1 (42:49):
You know what. Man, Our audio numbers do so well
to where really we have never been dependent on the
whole visual thing, right, Like we put video out now,
but it's real sporat you feel what I'm saying, It's
real spread it. That's why we're doing the show on
Zoom right now because eight live way out in the
Beat and Boondocks too, So him coming down in Hollywood
all the time just don't work. So we just start

(43:11):
doing it remotely, right Because it was like, man, you
know what, I ain't gonna ask you. And I used
to think he was just complaining at first until I
went over his house to take a Micael. I took
some equipment over there or something like that, and like
the first forty minutes I was like, Okay, I should
be almost there. Then the hour was up. Then it
was like an hour and a half and I was like,
a damn well. I called him. I was like, bruh,
I think I passed your crill. He's like, oh, you

(43:33):
had for a year, and I was like, man, I
never complain no more. After that, I said, man, homie
is dried for far. So it's definitely a commitment. The
biggest thing I tell everybody is this Man podcast that yeah,
it's some money to be made, but it takes a while,
takes a long time, and if you don't have no

(43:53):
audio numbers cracking, bruh, it's probably not gonna happen. I
don't care how many YouTube views you're doing, because YouTube
views a kind of arbitrary, right. You know, you could
see a dude picking you know, they got pimple popping
videos Man to do way and work, and me and
you both could combine could ever do? Right? So that
really mean that you got a fan based out there

(44:14):
just because you getting a lot of views on your
youee what I'm saying if me and eight just decided
to talk about Man, if I told everything that I
know about people, bruh, we would get a million fuse
every episode I'm pretty sure with you the same thing, right.
And I tell people, if your audio is not going down, man,
if you're not getting a certain amount of views of audio,
you're not gonna get it checked nobody because they have

(44:34):
to be able to cuse. I think people just think
you get money. Like I heard somebody tell me that
we got a five million dollar deal.

Speaker 2 (44:42):
That who that you got one?

Speaker 1 (44:44):
Yeah, that we got one on the street. That that
was the thing. You remember all the shit I was
going through eight For a minute, Yeah, I was still
over there sitting on five million dollars and it actually
cost some friction inside of our eternal chapter where people
just thought I got this bag of money. Right, Sure
don't know, I said, brouh, I still live in the
same crib, still pulling up here in the same whip.

(45:06):
I got all this money. Y'all got to really think
about what y'all saying. Bro, have you ever had how
have you ever went through this stuff? Man? Like what
family thinking next week has got more money than what
you really got?

Speaker 3 (45:18):
I mean, not with family, but you know what, man,
I've actually been been lucky.

Speaker 1 (45:23):
Man.

Speaker 3 (45:23):
My my crew is solid, you know, my whole, my whole,
crazy little crew from high school to now the same crew.
They no one's ever tested me like that. My family
doesn't doesn't test me like that. They're not in my
pockets and I don't and I'm just like I don't,
like I look at things in a way. It was
like nothing is last forever. So you know, you know,

(45:44):
I'm like, whatever I'm getting, I'm investing in it. I'm
putting it to the site for the kids for college,
like you know, and then you know.

Speaker 2 (45:51):
We can't be talking that rich talk. There's real. There's
rich for real, Like maure We're making a good living,
is what I told you.

Speaker 3 (45:58):
Look, I'm lucky. I'm making a good living off this.
But if this shit ends tomorrow, you know that's I
ain't rich. Ain't gonna you know, I ain't gonna be
like living off of interest off the ship. So that's rich. Well, motherfuckers,
you know, live off interest forever. So Noah, I haven't
been tested.

Speaker 2 (46:13):
By by people. Man, If anything, I've been.

Speaker 3 (46:16):
There's the people on the outside, like maybe like people
maybe like for you that people were assuming that you
made certain deals. And also you know how when they
put out these deals and they do these press releases
and it says you know this, you know, drink Champs
got you know, eight million dollars twenty minute, like some
crazy shit.

Speaker 2 (46:33):
It's like the record label shit. I tell people, man,
this is the same Oakie Dog as the record label shit.

Speaker 3 (46:37):
The totality of the deal is worth that much money.
But hypothetically that includes what they're paying their staff over
there at that company for promotion, what they what the
charges are for distributing, like all these different things, and
then you break that apart into production, and then you
break that even more into you know, then the management

(46:58):
gets some and then me and Noori get our talent fees,
you know, or whatever from that.

Speaker 2 (47:03):
It's not that that.

Speaker 3 (47:04):
Amount of money you've seen on that piece of paper
or online.

Speaker 2 (47:07):
That's not what we get in our pockets.

Speaker 1 (47:09):
You know.

Speaker 3 (47:09):
It's like the record they when they say, oh so
and so got signed to a five million dollar deal
with Sony or whatever, you know that artist and not
get five million dollars in that deal.

Speaker 2 (47:19):
That's what that deals worth.

Speaker 3 (47:21):
They put out all the albums, that's what they all
the chargebacks, all that you know they gotta. They got
an advance on on that maybe one hundred thousand dollars advance.

Speaker 2 (47:28):
They get five million dollars the same thing. But no
one's tried.

Speaker 3 (47:32):
Man.

Speaker 1 (47:33):
Thankfully, people be people be naive though most of the time.

Speaker 4 (47:39):
Anytime you think of anything that got to do with
entertainment or music or podcasts, and they automatically think or nigga,
you rich as a motherfucker, And you know, like you said,
it's like.

Speaker 1 (47:50):
I'm I'm, I'm I'm doing.

Speaker 4 (47:52):
Okay, You get right, But it's no different than a
motherfucker who got to go to a good job getting
a good haye check, but they still working at nine
to five. Nigga, we still working nine in the files.
It's a good nine the five.

Speaker 1 (48:07):
You get me.

Speaker 4 (48:07):
We might be the motherfucking ford men or motherfucking the superintendent,
but we don't own the motherfucking company. You getting the
motherfuckers who's rich rich, the motherfuckers who owned this motherfucker.
I'm just I'm just got a nice position inside the
company where like you said, I can maybe put a
little money away, maybe hopefully do some shit for the kids.

(48:31):
But like you said, if this motherfucker closed down tomorrow, shit,
I'm I can't sit up for the rest of my days.
I'm gonna have to go the motherfucking hustle.

Speaker 1 (48:42):
You feel well, you're a good thing about good thing
about this podcast and stuff, and man, the Black Effect
Dealer is a blessing, right, Black Effick is a blessing.

Speaker 4 (48:50):
Man.

Speaker 1 (48:51):
I love being over here. We've been over here, I
think the same amount of time we kind of came
in together, right. I say this though, if that aspect
of it was the end, the show will continue to
go on. It can sustain itself, right, and I'm pretty
sure we can sustain ourselves with drink shams. Good. Have
y'all ever thought about it? And don't get nervous? Do
this just me asked some hypothetical.

Speaker 2 (49:11):
Question, Dolly man, she's great, did so, I say again, sorry,
Have you.

Speaker 1 (49:17):
Guys ever thought about just going totally independent?

Speaker 2 (49:20):
Yeah?

Speaker 3 (49:20):
I mean we have, and and you know, part of
that is thinking even bigger than just the one show
doing the network that we launched, which we partnered with
Black Effect, and iHeart on our network on the audio side,
you know, I'm always thinking of the pivot, man, because
and shout out to the show the Pivot too. But this,
if we look, we've all been in this entertainment space.

(49:40):
We all know there's ebbs and flows this ship. One
minute you up, next minute you down. And if you
don't learn your lesson through a couple of those, then you,
you know, then you then you deserve getting sucked up.
Because I already know if if we got ten year run,
oh man, we're lucky in this industry to get a
ten year run. Now we better start looking at what

(50:02):
the pivot is, what the next evolution of what we're doing.
You know, we build a brand to a certain space,
what is you know, what is it going to do
beyond these regular deals that we've been doing. Because the
industry changes, brand, the you know, the way that people,
you know, consumer look at the brand changes, you know,
they maybe there's new people in the podcast space and

(50:22):
the audience gets divided.

Speaker 2 (50:23):
You got to look at everything.

Speaker 3 (50:25):
You can't just be sitting all, you know, comfortable being
like we're going to be this forever. So so yeah,
I mean, I think about independence, I think about a
different way of doing this podcast. I've always, since the beginning,
have looked at the podcast space and felt there's a
better way to do this, you know, I've always if you.

Speaker 1 (50:42):
Don't refine it, man, you'll be out the game because
we're going on our ah yet right, this is our
a year, right, And I think about it sometimes to
say damn time when fast? But I always think about
kind of like what's next? Right? When do we have
to do? Me and eight and a half conversations all
the time, especially like as the next year approaches and say, Okay,
what are we gonna do different this year? And I

(51:03):
think the biggest thing for us because I've had the
you've been fortunate to where your situation has been the same. Man,
I'm man. The original hosts that we have in the
show ain't even here no more right for whatever reason.
So everything kind of just got you feel what I'm saying.
It was always, you know, it was always some shit
to happen, and it was always like it was always

(51:25):
due to outside sources, never had nothing to do with
the actual show and stuff. It was always some outside
bullshit to happen. And I think that's the biggest thing.
Whenever you get a group of people together, man, whenever
you get more than to me, whenever you get more
than two people, always tell people when they especially people
I feel that may have action that doing this shit
for real, always say, man, whatever you do, make sure

(51:46):
your pick work straight. At the beginning, man gets some
kind of agreement, even if it's y'all write some shit
down on a piece of paper and sign it, you know,
each even clary, you know, get some shit, man together,
because when you ain't making no money, everything is cool.
But the minute five hundred dollars come in, it's gonna
be some bullshit because people gonna be thinking, man, was
really five hundred dollars or was it a thousand dollars?

(52:08):
Get some shit together and be kind of transparent with that.
And I think that's the biggest thing is you don't
see some podcasts man kind of I think all the
podcasts had groups of people on it. None never raised
the hosts on there. No more.

Speaker 2 (52:20):
Yeah, too many chefs in the kitchen.

Speaker 1 (52:23):
Oh yeah, for sure. Everybody wants to be the boss man,
and it's a whole lot. The one thing out, the
one thing I wanted to ask you was this, right
you said you're married, right, yep? I noticed you do
you like me in that sense? You do a good
job of kind of keeping your family, like your wife
and your kids and all that outside the line light

(52:43):
of this stuff has that effort has this stuff ever
like intersected into your home life.

Speaker 3 (52:48):
Nah, just just at the kids, you know, kind of
I have young kids that they're starting to grow up
to kind of be aware that their dad does something
in like entertainment space and music, like you know, like
they see my they see I still got my turntables,
my records, you know, whenever they see anything hip hop
that they associated with me. They're also is funny because

(53:09):
I'm sponsored by Monster Energy, so they also grew up
thinking that that Monster Energy was my company. They would
see them, You're like, daddy, look your company Monster. I'm like, no,
it's not that too. Most Energy. But no, nothing nothing negative,
you know of anything. They always when people would come
up to me who recognized me from the show out

(53:30):
and about with the family, my kids would like, you know,
they would.

Speaker 2 (53:34):
Just be like, who's that.

Speaker 3 (53:34):
I'd be like, oh, it's just you know, a friend
and they were like, you got a lot of friends
because that wasn't.

Speaker 2 (53:39):
There and explain everything to them.

Speaker 3 (53:41):
So now you know, they're they're getting a little older
and they're understanding it more. But but I I yeah,
I keep them kind of sheltered away from from a
lot of the stuff and you know, when it makes sense,
I bring them around, you know, to certain things.

Speaker 1 (53:54):
Yeah, because I don't even follow my wife on social media.
And that's crazy because she was like at first, he
was like, why accept that my friend request. I was like, man,
because I don't need nobody going to your inbox talking shit.

Speaker 3 (54:04):
You know, my wife is the worst man. She she
loves to defend me. And I said, stop your comment ship.
She early on when when people talk ship, she'd be
she'd be the comment warrior, like, you know, going in
there beefing my wife originally from La you know, she
moved out here for me, so she you know, she
she got that l a mentality going there. Oh, and

(54:25):
I'm like, you need to stop that. Last thing I
need is to have to go in there and get
mad at some random ass commenter going back and forth.

Speaker 2 (54:33):
You need to stop that ship because.

Speaker 1 (54:35):
I got refusing nieces like that man to where I
see them in the comments, going back and forth, threatning
motherfuckers in all came and shit, I'm like, man, knock
that off. You are never go see this person.

Speaker 2 (54:45):
Yeah.

Speaker 3 (54:46):
I don't deal with none of that ship. I don't
fuck with with the comments section. If it ain't positive,
you know, like me personally, I don't. I don't do
all the commenting shit like I'm coming positive or nothing
at all.

Speaker 1 (54:57):
You know, you can. You gotta learn.

Speaker 4 (54:59):
You gotta learn what wait that type of shit because
it's gonna happen, you feel most of the time. Yeah,
it's gonna get up with your skin. So you gotta
learn how to roll that shit off, man, because motherfuckers
are gonna try. It's always one every minit, it don't matter.
You don't have to interact with a motherfucking You could

(55:20):
just post some shit and a motherfucker's gonna come on
there negatively with something to say because it's just what
they have to.

Speaker 1 (55:25):
It's just what they do.

Speaker 4 (55:27):
So if you don't learn how to let that ship
rolled off, it would definitely get under your skin and
you be thinking with a motherfucker you ain't gonna never
see in your life.

Speaker 1 (55:36):
Yep. I remember, man, when eight first came on the show.
Because this podcast and shit is a little different than
the music is. When you're a rapper, it's a whole
bunch of people come you're not paying no attention to them,
you're kind of too busy. But when you're a podcast,
you know, you get to sitting down there, going down
that wrapping hole. Eight had motherfuckers coming out all of

(55:58):
a sudden with all these accusations about shit. Right. The
first thing I told him was, man, responding to that
shit one time if you want to, but then leave
it alone because it's because you see that to it,
it's just gonna make it bigger than what the need
to be. Right. So I've had people man to where
it'd be a million great comments, right, it be a

(56:19):
million good comments, and they just focused on the one motherfucker.
I'm like, if anything, go talk to all these Megi
and other people have got good ship to say, right,
And I think that just become a part of it.
And it's always weird to me man about people in
the comment section, because you have the same person coming
back to comment week in and week out to talk
some shit. But they're there every week. So I really

(56:40):
think haters is just your biggest fans.

Speaker 2 (56:42):
Let me tell you I learned.

Speaker 3 (56:44):
I learned the lesson that I'll never forget. Well too,
iced Tee definitely he he he. Taught us a lesson
in one of the first episodes with him, where he
was like, learn to use that block button. He's like,
fucking around, just block motherfuckers. And to hear that coming
from my t because I used to be like, I
don't blow, I ain't scared. But he's like, just block them,
just block them. And I'm like, damn, you're right, block

(57:05):
these motherfuckers. But and luckily, look again, I don't know.
I've been lucky thus far. It shit had been too
crazy to me, but I learned a lesson. One time,
I was an event during art basoall here in Miami,
random event and I'm at this show. It was it
was a hip hop show and some dude comes up
to me and he's like, I'm a huge drink Champs fan.
Oh man, I can't believe taking pictures with me.

Speaker 2 (57:27):
He's hype.

Speaker 1 (57:28):
He's like, man.

Speaker 2 (57:28):
He starts talking busy. He's like, yo, I run this.

Speaker 3 (57:30):
Week company, man, maybe y'all want to do some smoke
championship boom boom. And he's talking big, big business and
I'm like, yeah, whatever, you know, exchange numbers and then
and then he's like and then he hits me. He's like, hey, man,
I'm trying to add you on Instagram, but but I don't.

Speaker 2 (57:45):
Know I can't add you have you ever blocked me?
And I'm like, what, Like, why would I block you?

Speaker 1 (57:51):
You know?

Speaker 3 (57:51):
And and then I was like and then I go
and I go to one of my other accounts from
our company account, and I see the dude, and I'm like, yeah,
I guess I must have. I said, listen, man, I
haven't blocked many people, but if I blocked you, it's
because you must have set some reckless shit at.

Speaker 2 (58:05):
Some point, right. He's like, yeah, man, I got mad
that one time that you beefing on it.

Speaker 3 (58:11):
Something happened on the podcast and I ain't like it,
and yeah, yeah, I might have said something crazy. I
was like, this motherfucker, it just shows you, like he
didn't even remember properly that he did that.

Speaker 2 (58:22):
But when he first.

Speaker 3 (58:23):
Met me, he's all the biggest fan, he's taking pictures,
he talking business. But mind you, for me to block someone,
he must have said something outrageous.

Speaker 1 (58:32):
Oh yeah, for sure.

Speaker 3 (58:33):
So this motherfucker was saying some crazy So I learned
a valuable lesson that most of those motherfuckers that talk
all that crazy shit in real life, they not about
that shit exactly.

Speaker 1 (58:43):
They just won't.

Speaker 4 (58:44):
They just won't find minutes of fame because actually they
really don't think you're gonna respond back, is what it did,
and they just be wanting to comment and get their
shit off. And then when you respond back to a motherfucker,
they be really surprised. Oh my bad mother evenly like that. Man,
you know, I respect you and all of that ship.
So most of the time, motherfucker's just about five minutes

(59:07):
of fame. It's something about people like that. It kills
me like a nigga won nigga ain't never met you
in they life, ain't never and ain't mad about something
that was posted on the show or something from the show.
That's the most ridiculous ship ever, nigga. Exactly before we bounce,
I bet you didn't know this. I bet you didn't

(59:28):
know E was from l A.

Speaker 2 (59:29):
Originally you're talking, I'm talking eight.

Speaker 1 (59:35):
Did you know that? WHOA? No, not at all? Yeah,
from A. Were you Downey?

Speaker 3 (59:42):
Well, my family's in Downy now, but but I lived
in Southgate, That's where the original My family went to
Southgate from Well, long story short, my Cuban, my family Cuban.
When my parents came, they came separately. My dad came
through uh through this program that they were smuggling these
kids the Catholic Church, and I think the CIA smelling

(01:00:03):
them out of Cuba because they thought they were gonna
be assassinator killed or whatever, so they smuggled them out
and he ended up in the orphanage in Washington State.

Speaker 2 (01:00:11):
But then he joined the Marines and volunteered for Vietnam,
and then he was stationed out in San Diego.

Speaker 3 (01:00:18):
And then my mom ended up through another program getting
out of Cuba, and she like, people don't know Miami.

Speaker 2 (01:00:23):
How they know Miami to be Cubans.

Speaker 3 (01:00:26):
Originally they didn't want all these Cubans in Miami, like
the people here were like, nah, you need to So
they spread them out to they gave free bus tickets
to the Cubans, were like, yo, get out of here.

Speaker 2 (01:00:37):
We don't want you concentrated here. So they was.

Speaker 3 (01:00:39):
I had family in Jersey, in New York and in
LA and then yes, so my parents met in La
and uh and my family was in Southgate, you know,
be real, and them there Cuban there in south Gate, man,
you know.

Speaker 1 (01:00:51):
Because down he is maybe ten minutes from Southgate. Like actually,
if I'm going the five cross Firestone and go on
the other side, the preaking I'm in Southgate.

Speaker 3 (01:01:02):
Yeah, well Downy became like I think the Cubans when
they made it out of south Gate, they all moved
to Downey and Ship and then my family down.

Speaker 1 (01:01:10):
The Mexican Beverly Hills.

Speaker 3 (01:01:12):
Well, there's a ton of Cubans there, a ton of Cubans.

Speaker 1 (01:01:16):
I gotighors, yeah, and grandparents.

Speaker 3 (01:01:19):
When they finally came from Cuba, they ended up in Inglewood,
and so I was every other weekend with my grandparents.

Speaker 2 (01:01:25):
In ingle They were there during the riots. Like I
spoke to them in the middle of the riots. They
actually were the ones telling me like, you know, the
TV isn't showing all the all the Latinos.

Speaker 3 (01:01:34):
It's all Mexicans and Latinos out here trying to bring TVs.

Speaker 2 (01:01:37):
To us and sh you know, they because they was,
they was right there in the middle of it.

Speaker 1 (01:01:42):
Yeah, that's crazy, man. The l a ryots was crazy, man.
But I really appreciate you coming on man to fuck
with his man.

Speaker 2 (01:01:49):
Fore Nah, thank y'all man. I appreciate y'all.

Speaker 1 (01:01:52):
Man.

Speaker 3 (01:01:53):
Yeah, Actually, you know, I was like, look, I'm telling
you man, I maintained a fan of me. Look, I
still this is a newer vinyl. I got this the
old original version, but when they did the re release,
I caught this re release and I had the cassette
that I had you sign when you came I.

Speaker 1 (01:02:09):
Want my money, Eppy. Yeah you still and you still
got it wrapped up on the mane So you a
big vinyl hey you u?

Speaker 2 (01:02:16):
Yeah?

Speaker 3 (01:02:16):
I mean I stopped for a while, but then I
started buying vinyl again, man.

Speaker 2 (01:02:20):
And there was a.

Speaker 1 (01:02:21):
Point that was not man. I was talking to Honey
Rock Man, he getting like one hundred and fifty two
hundred dollars for his vinyl.

Speaker 2 (01:02:27):
Yeah, yeah, yeah, Vinyl's expensive.

Speaker 3 (01:02:29):
I even go and buy cassettes again, man, like I
have a I have my old cassette collection. And I
started buying cassettes again, man, because what's funny is that.

Speaker 2 (01:02:37):
In early drink champs.

Speaker 3 (01:02:38):
You know, I was like, nah, I'm not gonna get
nobody to sign anything. I ain't gonna be that dude.
But then, as I said, kept God, I say, man,
fuck this shit, man, this history.

Speaker 1 (01:02:45):
We're living athlete.

Speaker 3 (01:02:47):
Like I'm again, I'm a fan inside, so fuck it.
I'm gonna show my appreciation. I'm bringing shit that I
got when I was a kid. Now I'm here sitting
with this person. I'm gonna get them to sign it.
It's just incredible to me.

Speaker 4 (01:02:58):
Man.

Speaker 2 (01:02:58):
It happened on drink Champs, so it makes even more valuable.

Speaker 1 (01:03:01):
So definitely, Man, I'm gonna tell you, man, get all
you can because I've had like three people. Man where
I rescheduled interview. Man shout out to the rest of
piece of how many Big Sych I was supposed to
Big Cycle was gonna be one of our first interviews
for Gangster Chronicles. Good friend like that was like my brother, right,
So I have my son's football practice, right, and I

(01:03:24):
told him. I said, man, let's do it tomorrow better,
And he was already on his way down the freeware.
He said, Man, good look at me, said Man, sure
I can go back to the crib now, right and smoke. Man.
I hit him up the next day toy schedule. He
didn't pick up the phone. Next day I hear him.
He didn't pick up the phone, found out the homony
had died. That happened to two other people. Man, So
I always say, no, I never do that, man, whenever

(01:03:44):
I schedule something, man, unless something just crazey happen. I
always do it because you never know, man, if you
go see that person again.

Speaker 2 (01:03:50):
You never know.

Speaker 1 (01:03:51):
Man.

Speaker 2 (01:03:52):
I mean, look at something unfurtunately.

Speaker 3 (01:03:53):
Look at a lot of the people that have been
on drink champs that that passed on Like it's crazy
to me to think about that.

Speaker 1 (01:04:00):
Yeah, it's real crazy, man. We only here for a
finite time, man, so we gotta take advantage of the moment. Yep, man,
we appreciate you, big dog all day. And on that note,
show we out of here. Well. That concludes another episode
of The Gainst the Chronicles podcast. Be sure to download
the iHeart app and subscribe to the Gangst the Chronicles podcast.

(01:04:20):
But Apple users find a purple micae on the front
of your screen, subscribe to the show, leave a comment
and rating. Executive producers for The Gangst Chronicles podcasts Norman Steel,
Aaron M. C a. Tyler. Our visual media director is
Brian Wyatt, and the audio editors tell It Hayes. The
Gainst Chronicles is a production of iHeartMedia Network and The
Black Effect Podcast Network. For more podcasts from iHeart Radio,

(01:04:41):
visit the iHeart Radio app Apple podcasts wherever you're listening
to your podcasts,